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Why I’m done with Chrome

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#601

Post by speg »

wingworks wrote: post #590
tbassetto wrote: post #534

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari 12 can show favicons on tabs now :o) This is how to enable it: https://lifehacker.com/how-to-enable-safari-favicons-on-mac-...

Sadly not for the favourites bar yet, which is the biggest thing holding me back so far. :( (+ the UI just seems so clunky and old compared to Chrome)

As a counterpoint; I think the Safari UI is the lightest and gets out of my way. I am I the only one who actually likes the lack of favicons? Very minimalist and gets out of the way to let me do my surfing.

I do use Chrome during development though.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#603

Post by fetbaffe »

ehnto wrote: post #554
clarkmoody wrote: post #408

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm not sure I could define it as intentional and nefarious but I definitely find Google search results to be markedly worse over the last few years. It used to be really competent at finding specialist/technical results but lately it's gotten more generic and less useful. It's possible that's actually the nature of content creation these days, with everyone hyper optimising to please the Google search algorithm. But…

It has become harder & harder to find videos on YouTube you know exist. Feels like the algorithm i geared to find new content rather to find what I'm looking for.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#604

Post by rahoulb »

vezycash wrote: post #518
mgkimsal wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 not…

> 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.

But repeat the same experiment asking them about Facebook listening to their conversations (whether true or not, it's now believed) and about adverts tracking them around the web and those same people will start complaining vociferously and tell you how creepy it is.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#605

Post by Angostura »

tananaev wrote: post #398
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…

I'll add my very recent negative experience with Google. I have a couple of apps on the Google Play that use Firebase analytics and crash reporting. This weekend both apps were removed by Google without any warnings. The issue was that apps were in "Violation of Usage of Android Advertising ID" because by default Firebase collects Advertising ID. I don't really need Advertising ID in my app or my analytics and there…

GDPR issue?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#606

Post by whyagaindavid »

Remember all of GAFA is building tools for the next billion. (i.e) China/India/Indonesia/{Africa}. There you have this very issue - people sharing one computer with one another. Same with AMP. HN is prominently Europe/US is missing this.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#607

Post by palant »

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…

Yes, the intention behind Chrome was very obvious pretty much from the start: it has to benefit Google by giving its web services an advantage over competition. I wrote about that seven years ago: https://adblockplus.org/blog/google-chrome-and-pre-installed...

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#608

Post by mfukar »

fetbaffe wrote: post #603
ehnto wrote: post #554

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I could define it as intentional and nefarious but I definitely find Google search results to be markedly worse over the last few years. It used to be really competent at finding specialist/technical results but lately it's gotten more generic and less useful. It's possible that's actually the nature of content creation these days, with everyone hyper optimising to please the Google search algorithm. But…

It has become harder & harder to find videos on YouTube you know exist. Feels like the algorithm i geared to find new content rather to find what I'm looking for.

Interesting. I have the opposite experience. Searching to try and find _new_ content just presents me with videos/playlists I usually have already clicked/watched.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#609

Post by palant »

r2dof wrote: post #549

Some of you here might be thinking, "well you can always use a passphrase while using chrome sync" to mitigate all privacy issues. I generally advocate use of a passphrase to people I know. BUT digging a bit into it I found that chrome's encryption is NOT STRONG AT ALL. Here[1] the author describes that brute force is possible within 4 days if the sync passphrase has 40 bits of entropy, with $1000 hardware. So with m…

Yes, Firefox could do better, but at least Sync there was designed with privacy in mind - Chrome Sync wasn't, and even if you set a passphrase it will only encrypt passwords and none of the other data such as your browsing history.

Either way, Chrome exists to give Google's web services an advantage, that's the only reason. I wrote about that seven years ago: https://adblockplus.org/blog/google-chrome-and-pre-installed...

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#610

Post by mfukar »

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'd use firefox despite its schizophrenic features, if it were at least as responsive as chrome, on my mostly-idle home desktop.

Maybe one day, mozilla. Maybe one day.

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