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“Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

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Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#41

Post by saagarjha »

amirmasoudabdol wrote: post #30

YouTube website does everything to be unusable on the iPad. They don't use the default player. They won't save your settings if you use Safari. They do not allow full screen video. Even when you request the desktop site, they resist to load the video properly in first few trials. They are being as annoying as they can!

That's because they want you using their app, which they have more control over and where they can disable features like background playback and Picture in Picture which they can then charge you for.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#42

Post by klondike_ »

Jonnax wrote: post #12

Google are really shitty with their web browser especially on mobile. If you run Firefox you get a stripped down version of Google Search also with no infinite scrolling for images and low resolution. Use a user agent spoofer like this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/chrome-ua-on-... And it seems to work fine on Firefox. I'm sure their official excuse is that they only support WebKit based browsers on…

As a Firefox mobile user, I actually appreciate the stripped down Google. It loads a lot faster than the bloated regular search page on slow connections, and infinite scrolling is irritating anyways.

That doesn't really excuse Google's anticompetitive behavior, though.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#43

Post by cromwellian »

>The idea of the Internet turning into a battlefield of propaganda is very far away from the ideal.

Too late, it already happened, and had nothing to do with data collection. When television was invented, people had much the same visions of utopia: it'll be used to educate people. The internet is now flooded with propaganda from think tanks banked by billionaire wingnuts to the Putin Troll Army.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#44

Post by forapurpose »

nostrademons wrote: post #35
Jonnax wrote: post #12

Google are really shitty with their web browser especially on mobile. If you run Firefox you get a stripped down version of Google Search also with no infinite scrolling for images and low resolution. Use a user agent spoofer like this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/chrome-ua-on-... And it seems to work fine on Firefox. I'm sure their official excuse is that they only support WebKit based browsers on…

(I used to work on the webserver for Google Search. Left Google several years ago, have no more vested interest in them.) The reason for the browser-sniffing in search is a combination of ease of testing + latency reduction. By supporting a known set of browsers, you can write a test plan for each and shard it out among contractors (or ideally, automate it with a Selenium config). Manual tests run on every release (2…

> you can see how adding additional browsers to the testing matrix can consume significant resources

Google has the resources to test all the browsers it wants to. Perhaps part of the reason that companies with their market power tend to act this way is that serving other browsers becomes a low priority, and why should we help the competition anyway?

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#45

Post by kuschku »

nostrademons wrote: post #35
Jonnax wrote: post #12

Google are really shitty with their web browser especially on mobile. If you run Firefox you get a stripped down version of Google Search also with no infinite scrolling for images and low resolution. Use a user agent spoofer like this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/chrome-ua-on-... And it seems to work fine on Firefox. I'm sure their official excuse is that they only support WebKit based browsers on…

(I used to work on the webserver for Google Search. Left Google several years ago, have no more vested interest in them.) The reason for the browser-sniffing in search is a combination of ease of testing + latency reduction. By supporting a known set of browsers, you can write a test plan for each and shard it out among contractors (or ideally, automate it with a Selenium config). Manual tests run on every release (2…

> If you're manually spoofing your user agent, then Google figures that you know what you're doing and it's "use at your own risk anyway", and that if you get a broken experience, your first thought will be to disable the user-agent spoofing.

Actually, some browsers, including Firefox Mobile, now spoof the user-agent by default on some sites, because of Google's broken systems.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#46

Post by shmerl »

fyrstenberg wrote: post #22
Jonnax wrote: post #12

Google are really shitty with their web browser especially on mobile. If you run Firefox you get a stripped down version of Google Search also with no infinite scrolling for images and low resolution. Use a user agent spoofer like this: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/chrome-ua-on-... And it seems to work fine on Firefox. I'm sure their official excuse is that they only support WebKit based browsers on…

I discovered this as well. Not only, they're faking it with the new YouTube design as well. I had to set my user agent to Chrome to get the new dark theme (it may have changed later). I did try different user-agents using AgentX[1] and with Edge UA they said the new look wouldn't work (or in effect something along those lines), so there is not much actual feature check going on. Only setting Chrome would give me all…

I'm using Youtube dark theme with Firefox just fine. But I had to jump through some hoops in their site settings, though without spoofing the user agent.

What doesn't work at all is their Hangounts, because Google are doing something fishy with WebRTC there:

Hangouts video and voice calls don’t work in Firefox for now. Google is working to fix this as soon as possible. Until then, use a different supported browser.

Not to mention the complete mess they caused to XMPP federation by killing Google Talk.

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#47

Post by HillaryBriss »

degenerate wrote: post #26
MikeGale wrote: post #7

There's a pattern here: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/30/us/politics/eric-schmidt-...

Assuming you've seen this too: https://qz.com/823922/eric-schmidt-played-a-crucial-role-in-... Schmidt has been wading neck-deep in pulling political strings for years now... Google is evil, evil, evil.

> Google is evil, evil, evil

well, at least they don't have anyone's personal info

Re: “Google: it is time to return to not being evil”

#50

Post by roblabla »

klondike_ wrote: post #39

I wish I could use Vivaldi, it seems like a nice browser for power users. Unfortunately it's closed source (besides the Webkit parts). Considering how much sensitive information goes through a browser nowadays, I would never consider something closed source. I'm sure Vivaldi has no intentions of becoming "evil" like Google, but because of its closed source nature it wouldn't be hard to slip a tracker or two in the br…

I don't know what browser you're using, but assuming chrome : it's not open source either. Chromium is open source, but Google Chrome is proprietary, much in the same way vivaldi is.

If you want a truly open source modern browser, the only options are chromium or firefox these days, AFAIK ? (If you know an alternative I'm interested !)

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