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Why I’m done with Chrome

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#231

Post by tomxor »

SiVal wrote: post #150
stefano wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you're looking for escape hatches, you know the software is working against you. At that point, it's better to move to an alternative browser, it's not worth it to fight it with hacks. If too many people use the escape hatch, they'll remove it.

It seems as though the needed escape hatch is a browser that simply CAN'T send info about you back to home base. Firefox might qualify, but I don't know for sure, and I don't want that to be our only option. There's a lot of great engineering that goes into Chrome. So I'm wondering: Is enough code open sourced to make it possible for an organization such as Apache, GNU, or whatever, to create a sanitized fork of each…

> Is enough code open sourced to make it possible for an organization such as Apache, GNU, or whatever, to create a sanitized fork of each new version of Chrome?

Yes: https://wiki.qt.io/QtWebEngine

> Qt WebEngine uses code from the Chromium project. However, it is not containing all of Chrome/Chromium: Binary files are stripped out. Auxiliary services that talk to Google platforms are stripped out. The codebase is modularized to allow use of system libraries like OpenSSL. We do update to the latest Chromium version in use before a Qt release.

Here's a browser: https://www.qutebrowser.org/ I haven't tried it yet.

[edit]

oh, it's already in the apt repos on debian testing :)

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#232

Post by i_am_nomad »

hellofunk wrote: post #22
brian-armstrong wrote: post #10

Firefox is a truly fantastic browser now. I've been using it again for about 2 years and haven't regretted it at all. There have been a couple of weird feature hiccups but generally Mozilla seems to get things right.

I wish I could use it but it has serious performance problems on macOS. I tried and it was just terrible. (thought not all Mac users have problems, quite a number do, and Mozilla has an open issue asking for debugging logs from Macs to find the reasons).

Sorry to sound naive, but is there a good reason (or a few) not to use Safari?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#233

Post by mehrdadn »

ctnb wrote: post #227
mehrdadn wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Question: How do I sign extensions I wrote for myself so I can actually use them, without uploading a copy of the extension somewhere? That's my roadblocker right now. I don't know how to migrate make my own extensions work on my own system without uploading them to other people's servers. (Yes, I want Firefox stable. I don't want to run a buggy browser.)

You have to use Firefox Developer Edition and change 'xpinstall.signatures.required' to True in about:config

What about the part where I wrote

> Yes, I want Firefox stable. I don't want to run a buggy browser.

? Is the developer edition running the same code as stable?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#234

Post by mbostleman »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #14
zbrozek wrote: post #9

I engaged with the folks pushing this feature internally when my own browser started enforcing omnidirectional login. One of my specific complaints was that it was an end-run around the user-provided sync passphrase, which nominally prevents Google from hoovering up my logged-out history. They didn't grok my privacy issue. Maybe they were deliberately misunderstanding me. Doesn't matter either way. Now I use Firefox.

Google's culture breeds internal arrogance and blindness to outside concerns. Arguing with Google people about issues with their products is approximately as effective as arguing with a brick wall.

This is the culture of monopoly. The same can be said of that other monopoly, government.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#235

Post by torstenvl »

brian-armstrong wrote: post #34
hellofunk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could use it but it has serious performance problems on macOS. I tried and it was just terrible. (thought not all Mac users have problems, quite a number do, and Mozilla has an open issue asking for debugging logs from Macs to find the reasons).

Strange. I almost exclusively use OSX (El Cap) and haven't had performance issues asides from needing to restart the browser once a month or so. Hopefully they get those problems resolved soon, the browser is super quick when it's working right.

There is a significant (maybe 0.4-0.5 seconds?) lag between the cursor hovering over something and it's hover action (highlight, whatever) taking place.

Running my mouse down the list in about:config feels like I'm drunk.

This is on a brand new maxed out i7 MacBook Pro.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#236

Post by MarkMc »

aphextron wrote: post #23
kris-s wrote: post #12

Google is incentivized to do this, they make good money off of it. It’s boring and true. They’ll keep doing stuff like this until it reaches some publicly unacceptable limit. Until then use browsers like Firefox or Safari where the incentive to be creepy is far smaller.

> They’ll keep doing stuff like this until it reaches some publicly unacceptable limit Which as we know from things like Facebook, that limit will never be reached. These things are far too opaque for the general public to understand or care about. Even we software engineers barely understand the scope of what Google is capable of. It's going to take a principled stance from within the industry to push back against t…

> These things are far too opaque for the general public to understand or care about.

Or perhaps your preference is a minority opinion, and most people will trade privacy for convenience even when fully informed and aware of Google's behavior

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#237

Post by amanzi »

Google today is like the Microsoft of 10-15 years ago. Grossly dominant, arrogant, user-hostile, and thinking they're above the law. Microsoft got knocked off their perch and are a much better company today than they were 15 years ago. Google's turn to fall is rapidly approaching.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#238

Post by jen729w »

i_am_nomad wrote: post #232
hellofunk wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could use it but it has serious performance problems on macOS. I tried and it was just terrible. (thought not all Mac users have problems, quite a number do, and Mozilla has an open issue asking for debugging logs from Macs to find the reasons).

Sorry to sound naive, but is there a good reason (or a few) not to use Safari?

It's my daily browser of choice, FWIW, but is no good for development. The React dev tool plugin, for instance, is only available on Chrome & Firefox.

I'm trying to switch to Firefox but it certainly doesn't feel as snappy as Chrome when doing dev work. I do like some of the tools though. Still undecided.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#239

Post by fma »

ChicagoDave wrote: post #173

Firefox here I come. Google’s update, to automatically take an action on my computer that I specifically don’t want, is an egregious misuse of technology. This is what Microsoft might have done in the early 2000’s for which they were rightfully vilified. What happened to “do no evil”?

Money is the root of all evil. That's why they got rid of the mantra, as it meant 'Do no money'... And they need to please share holders.

I got rid of chrome when I noticed it hoggged my memory and CPU, and decided to try Firefox. Firefox is much more processor friendly for me at least.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#240

Post by zamadatix »

nostrademons wrote: post #106
lucb1e wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're really set on a Chrome-like browser, there's ungoogled chromium. Otherwise, I guess Firefox is the only truly free choice at this point, and even that includes DRM to be able to cope with sites like Netflix. Edit: actually, there should be more browsers that I don't know about because I haven't really looked around anymore since choosing Firefox a decade ago. Is anything as well-supported (in terms of prope…

Brave and Vivaldi are both based on Chromium and have packaged, non-Google distributions. I'm posting this comment on Brave, having switched over last week for most of my personal browsing. Generally like it a lot; there are a couple warts (it won't open S3 URLs from the AWS web interface, for example), but it does most of what I need in a browser.

Vivaldi still has Google features like search and safebrowsing which report everything you type into the URL bar and every site you visit to Google by default. Simply "not packaged by Google" doesn't guarantee non-Google.
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