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UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

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Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#331

Post by bad_user »

technion wrote: post #9
nathancahill wrote: post #5

Great start. Although I think we need to reverse the trend of Chrome becoming the single browser web developers use. The amount of sites that unnecessarily[0] work only in Chrome is growing daily. And that's not even counting browser extensions. I think this, more than anything else, will determine if Chrome becomes the "Internet Explorer"[1] of this decade or not. Skipping testing in IE is one thing. Skipping testin…

The thing about "Internet Explorer", is that using IE Edge, I often run into websites that demand I "Upgrade" to Chrome and won't let me use them. Fudging the user agent however, allows that website to work perfectly fine. Not testing in IE is one thing. Presenting an nonintrusive message warning you don't test in IE is another. Paying money to advertise your website, then, when I click your link, greeting me with a…

It shouldn't matter what browser you're using, that's the point of having web standards. I can understand not wanting to support certain users that use whatever browser you don't want to support, but a visible, non-intrusive and dismissible warning at the top should be enough. Otherwise, making radical decisions based on the User-Agent defeats the whole point of having web standards.

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#333

Post by bad_user »

amyjess wrote: post #23
technion wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing about "Internet Explorer", is that using IE Edge, I often run into websites that demand I "Upgrade" to Chrome and won't let me use them. Fudging the user agent however, allows that website to work perfectly fine. Not testing in IE is one thing. Presenting an nonintrusive message warning you don't test in IE is another. Paying money to advertise your website, then, when I click your link, greeting me with a…

Add this to the fact that Edge is still the only browser on Windows that's suitable for use on a device with a touchscreen, and it's downright insulting. I have Chrome on my Surface. I choose to use Edge instead because Chrome is unusable without my Type Cover plugged in, and I'm not doing that while laying on the couch. Hey Google, want me to use Chrome on my Surface? Then give me the Android version of Chrome runni…

If you ask me, insulting is having a desktop OS pretending to also work on tablets and releasing that to consumers. You can't blame companies for not releasing apps that can work in tablet mode. It takes time, because that's basically like developing for a whole new OS. And Microsoft could do it because they are the ones developing the freaking OS.

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#334

Post by eriknstr »

majewsky wrote: post #301
AgentME wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For a few months now, Bank of America's site has been including a giant alert at the top suggesting that I use a supported browser, such as Firefox, Chrome, or IE. ... Except I'm already using Firefox. I'm not customizing the user agent or anything.

Maybe their regex checks for Firefox on Windows and you're on some other OS?

The dumbest user agent based browser detection mechanism I ever encountered was one that a major grocery store chain had in place on their website. At the time, I was running Linux on a desktop computer which had an ARMv7 processor.

I visited their website and was, like in a lot of cases where they assume ARMv7 means I must be using a mobile device, redirected to the mobile site.

That's not the stupid part, though (just annoying). These guys took it one step further and had their mobile website decide that I was in fact not on mobile, and then they proceeded to throw me into a redirect loop between the desktop and mobile site. Talk about messing up with browser detection.

I wrote an e-mail to report the issue to the people in charge of the site, and you know what they tell me? Oh, "we forwarded your message to our web developers but they said that this doesn't happen". Wow, ok, "this doesn't happen". Guess I must be hallucinating, then? Well, jokes on them 'cause if they hire people who break their website so that I can't check the opening hours, guess where I'll be shopping? Not at their store, that's for sure.

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#335

Post by estefan »

rer wrote: post #332

There's a huge discussion in this thread on tabs being slow, which made me wonder: is it necessary for browsers to have tabs? Windows desktop apps work great without tabs. Could life be better without tabs?

You must be in your 20s or younger :-D

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#336

Post by Skunkleton »

eriknstr wrote: post #328
erikpukinskis wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a lighter browser (without canvas, webgl, webrtc etc.) Please do not do this. Webgl and Webrtc are fundamental technologies needed to efficiently do basic activities like process an image or send sound data to another user. I am all for a "lighter" browser, by removing UI, removing dev tools, etc. Get rid of the stuff that's not required to make a web page work well. But WebGL and WebRTC are cornerstone technologie…

>removing dev tools Hold your horses! The introduction of dev tools was one of the best things to happen to browsers. Removing them would take away opportunity from a lot of people in learning web development, and would also lead to websites having more bugs.

My mom doesn't need dev tools preinstalled in her browser. Though I doubt removing them would make the browser faster/leaner.

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#337

Post by Frondo »

sangnoir wrote: post #263
Frondo wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I for one commend Eich, for putting on his big boy pants and owning the consequences of his actions. He held an unpopular view, acted on it, and people weren't happy with him. Far better to step down and let the organization right itself, than to try and hold onto his position and his retrograde views simultaneously. Shows real class.

> He held an unpopular view, acted on it, and people weren't happy with him. Isn't this the plot to every dystopian story ever told ("conform, or else")? As a lefty, I understand the motivation, but disagree with it- it will never work; you will never change a persons values (positive or negative) via public shaming, all you will do is force the 'undesirable attitudes' underground. As a member of a 'disadvantaged min…

Not all dystopian stories are about non-comformity, and many, many non-dystopian stories involve social pressure or censure.

Social pressure (conform or face consequences) is one of the basic parts of the human experience, so this is unsurprising.

I too like how Trump is pulling a lot of hidden bigotry back out into the open; it gives me a chance to talk with my well-meaning but ignorant lefty friends about how racism really is still prevalent, and a problem.

But it isn't enough just to show it's there, the point is to top up our sense that those attitudes are unacceptable and don't belong in civil society, and that we all still need to keep working on getting those ideas out of the discourse, and so on.

But getting bigoted ideas out of civil society? Well, we're back to social pressure ("conform to my vision of the world where bigotry is no longer a thing").

If, by the way, you think bigoted ideas do belong in civil society, then we probably won't get any further than that.

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#338

Post by kevhito »

Skunkleton wrote: post #336
eriknstr wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>removing dev tools Hold your horses! The introduction of dev tools was one of the best things to happen to browsers. Removing them would take away opportunity from a lot of people in learning web development, and would also lead to websites having more bugs.

My mom doesn't need dev tools preinstalled in her browser. Though I doubt removing them would make the browser faster/leaner.

Is there something particular about your mom I should take away here? Or moms in general? Or women? Or older people?

My mom, like yours, would have no use for dev tools -- because she's just not interested. And neither would my brother, but my grandma would have loved learning about this stuff if she had lived long enough, and my kids have discovered this "secret hacker mode" all on their own and are delighted.

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#339

Post by gnicholas »

stephenr wrote: post #239
gnicholas wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could reliably run a newer OS on an 8-year-old iMac, I would. But since I can't—and because the only thing I use the machine for is web browsing—the relevant question is which browser will be the safest.

El Capitan runs on mid 2007 and newer iMacs, no?

Compatible ≠ runs well. My iMac was not top-of-the-line, and I could see from how newer OSes ran on my other machines that it would be sluggish on the iMac.

Re: UnGoogled Chromium: Chromium with enhanced privacy, control and transparency

#340

Post by gnicholas »

4ad wrote: post #210
gnicholas wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I could reliably run a newer OS on an 8-year-old iMac, I would. But since I can't—and because the only thing I use the machine for is web browsing—the relevant question is which browser will be the safest.

Thanks for not throwing working hardware away. I imagine you would not be happy with Linux on your iMac?

I haven't used Linux since college, and I don't have enough time to get back up to speed. Good point though, and politely phrased.
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