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Why I’m done with Chrome

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#511

Post by chinhodado »

ktta wrote: post #147
nAwYz wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate in this?

My opinion is that the UX is no where near as polished. The history and bookmark features still look like they're from 10 years ago, and subtler things that are just given thought to because there seem to be dedicated UI/UX designer on the chrome team.

> The history and bookmark features still look like they're from 10 years ago

It's actually a selling point for me, I just can't stomach all the material design craps that Chrome forces on me where a page lost like 70% of usable space to useless whitespace.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#512

Post by bad_user »

colemickens wrote: post #114
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'm a huge fan too but it seems like Mozilla keeps dropping the ball on specific odd, "easy" things. The built-in screenshot tool makes it really easy to accidentally upload private information to a public inage sharing site and the Issue tracking a simple button relabeling has been open for months. They refuse to back down on Pocket integration that still leaves an awful taste in my mouth. The Library/Downloads wind…

Pocket is now owned by Mozilla.

I for one am glad that it exists, I love Pocket, the only annoyance I have is that the Firefox integration is not as complete as the Chrome add-on, probably because Firefox users keep bitching and moaning about it.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#513

Post by snaky »

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.

Wouldn't it make Google people to think when opened HN they found top 3 as it is for now - "1. Modifications to Google Chromium for removing Google integration", "2. Why I’m done with Chrome", "3. News Site to Investigate Big Tech, Helped by Craigslist Founder"?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#514

Post by lucio »

kwijibob wrote: post #349

A minority view: I do care about privacy but this behaviour is what I expect from Chrome. We have a number of profiles on our shared family PC and people expect logging into chrome or gmail will also log into the other. For me it's the price of entry for using the google ecosystem. I was already using gmail/gdocs/chrome sync daily, so it just makes life easier. If I really need privacy I go to incognito or another br…

shouldn't you use different OS users?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#515

Post by atombender »

djur wrote: post #506
atombender wrote: post #419

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, people's experience of performance may to some extent be subjective or dependent on hardware. But the two problems I mentioned (very poor search box suggestions, and lack of native form controls) are objectively true. Maybe you just don't care about them. For me, going back to Firefox from Safari (or Chrome for that matter) is a step down in UX.

The facts might be objectively true, but not that they're a problem. I do not want domain names suggested by the browser. If I'm intending to go directly to a domain, I'll type it in.

I think you misunderstood my example. It doesn't autocomplete domain names, it shows search results. For example, type "Hacker" and the top match might be Hacker News. Type Newton and the top hit might be the Wikipedia page for Isaac Newton. And so on. Safari searches in a bunch of sources, not just Google.

Firefox, on the other hand, only shows you searches. It might offer "Isaac Newton" as a search suggestion, but that just triggers a search. It has no knowledge of other sources of information (beyond bookmarks and history).

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#516

Post by wild_preference »

jwr wrote: post #389
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).

If you are on MacOS, why don't you use Safari? I'm puzzled as to why people seem to dismiss the "built-in" browser. It's the fastest, smoothest, best integrated, and least power-hungry browser on the platform. I regularly use all three major browsers (for testing, I write web applications) and I consistently switch back to Safari for all my non-special browsing.

It has the worst UX. It doesn't show favicons on tabs. It has the worst selection of extensions: https://redditenhancementsuite.com/safari/. Everything just seems to be worse than Firefox/Chrome from the developer tools to extension development (you need Xcode).

To use Safari, you pretty much need to decide that performance / battery life are more important than anything else which only describes my needs when I need to milk my battery when it hits 10% with no electric outlet in sight.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#517

Post by colemickens »

bad_user wrote: post #512
colemickens wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a huge fan too but it seems like Mozilla keeps dropping the ball on specific odd, "easy" things. The built-in screenshot tool makes it really easy to accidentally upload private information to a public inage sharing site and the Issue tracking a simple button relabeling has been open for months. They refuse to back down on Pocket integration that still leaves an awful taste in my mouth. The Library/Downloads wind…

Pocket is now owned by Mozilla. I for one am glad that it exists, I love Pocket, the only annoyance I have is that the Firefox integration is not as complete as the Chrome add-on, probably because Firefox users keep bitching and moaning about it.

And maybe if that functionality were in an optional extension it would be easier to add features to it for the users that want it. It's not as if it being an add-on has, in any way, hampered your ability to use it in Chrome.

It's great that you like Pocket. I think it's a bit rude to act like it's unreasonable to have qualms about how it was added (certainly pre-Mozilla owning them) or to be confused about it's inclusion while things like RSS reading/folders, (a not-uncommon browser feature) are removed.

This entire conversation wouldn't need to happen. There wouldn't be unhappy users. There wouldn't be "another side" calling criticism "bitching". They'd get active, enthusiastic user feedback, etc, etc.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#518

Post by vezycash »

mgkimsal wrote: post #440
vezycash wrote: post #429

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>i too would love to see ms take 'phone' seriously Nadella won't because of MS hate. Lots of naive developers are drunk on the false open source android story and won't apps for their OS - e.g. snapchat founder refused to build an app for WP. And kept sending take down notices for community built clients. This is why MS keeps pursing web apps and "universal apps." Ms spent at billions in payment (bribes) to developer…

AFAIR, they weren't doing WP on their own hardware. The end user experience on various WP was (as with many android devices) a mixed bag. Coupled with being perceived as 'late to the game', and people wanting to jump on the app-bandwagon but not having enough resources... WP never got mindshare. PERSONALLY... I think MS could mount another shot at the phone market - but they'd have to be serious, commit long term, an…

>MS could address privacy and fee issues

I don't think privacy is a mass market appeal. Here's an experiment you could do. Stop a few random persons on the road or on the train and ask their opinion about equivax, Cambridge Analytica, and Chrome's recent privacy violations and I'm sure you'll get blank stares on 90 out of 100 people.

As for developer fees - the jumping CEO reduced the app registration fee. No one noticed. He gave the OS for free - OEMs didn't bite.

Nadella recently reduced the their store fee from 30% to 15%. And you didn't know about it.

I feel that focusing completely on consumers would get MS 95% of the push it needs. The wishes of external parties is what gave us the DRM, Youtube's content ID and much more - all anti-consumer.

Developers complained about losing revenue to piracy - voila. Microsoft built WP so that it was impossible to get apps outside the store.

Apple has "arguably" been about consumers and we can see where that led them. IMO, fuck everyone else, design consumer friendly stuff. At least that's how Google search, android, and gmail began.

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/campaigns/micr...

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#519

Post by gaius »

clarkmoody wrote: post #408
partiallypro wrote: post #248

Google started going down the path I would describe as an "evil" path years ago. I'm glad people are starting to notice. I used to be a huge Google advocate, up until about 2008. So many things have changed since then. Adsense was the first breach in trust for me, when they banned my account for no reason and ruined any chance of every monetizing my content...since they are basically a monopoly in that area. Getting…

Search for "gun rights" in Google, and the Wikipedia feature box on the top-right of the results page is the Gun Control article. I've noticed the straight search results making a marked decline in quality over the past few months. If one of the keywords within your search is anything remotely profitable, it will drown out all other terms. Then the search results ended after ~4 pages. Definitely changed from the Goog…

Search for "gun rights" in Google, and the Wikipedia feature box on the top-right of the results page is the Gun Control article.

It is known that Google employees have the capability to skew search results politically, just not whether they do it in specific circumstances (of course it would be robustly denied)

https://uk.mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUKKCN1M1041

(For those that say “good” remember that tomorrow this could be used against you. I am certain it was used against Bernie for example)

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#520

Post by Too »

hcs wrote: post #424
atombender wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still think that "container tabs" shouldn't need to exist. They fail the "grandma test", for one.

Sure. Might be nice to have an adblocker-style filter that says what domains should be considered a single origin, plug that into containers.

Container tabs has that feature built in, you can say that google.com and youtube.com always automatically should open in the same container.

It's still too difficult and cumbersome to use. I might want to have one tab with gmail signed in but another to make anonymous searches on Google, both are on google domains so i have to manually fiddle with the containers again. Then you click a link in an email or search result and you don't really know if this tab should be in the mail-container, in the default container or in the domain-matched container.

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