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Why I’m done with Chrome

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Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#711

Post by oedmarap »

chupasaurus wrote: post #701
oedmarap wrote: post #689

I switched to Firefox some years ago but still dabbled with Chrome, up until FF introduced multi-account containers that is. Performance results always seem to be subjective, but in my opinion Quantum made FF an absolute beast, even when running the usual lot of security add-ons like NoScript, uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, etc. However, Firefox Containers I would argue is the number one feature from a usability stan…

FF Focus is based on Chromium.

Yes that's true. I referenced Focus more as a nod to their development of a lightweight privacy-focused mobile browser without bells and whistles, and marketing it next to their regular mobile browser with equal attention.

Notably though, Focus is on track to move away from it's Chromium roots:

"The switch from Chrome WebView to Gecko doesn’t seem to be performance related. Instead, the reason has to do with the core goal of FireFox Focus in the first place: privacy. Mozilla has found a reason to believe that the Chrome WebView engine can leak someone’s data. So in the spirit of maintaining data privacy, the team behind Firefox Focus has decided to switch to the Gecko engine." [0,1]

[0] https://www.xda-developers.com/firefox-focus-switching-chrom...

[1] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android/wiki/Release...

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#712

Post by auto »

sjwright wrote: post #627

Oh come on, that's just an absurd example. Gun rights and an article about gun control are literally the same thing. The article surfaced by Google's algorithm is the more relevant and comprehensive one when it comes to gun rights. I suspect anyone who disagrees is taking a provincial, American view on the subject, and is being triggered by the phrase "gun control".

But there is a wikipedia article for gun rights, or at least a separately titled one that is redirected from gun rights:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_keep_and_bear_arms

Why wouldn't that get autofilled on the front page of the search results instead?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#713

Post by Const-me »

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…

Also, google shows the "Right to keep and bear arms" wikipedia article on the second place, however it adds "Jump to Gun violence and the politics of the right to bear arms" link.

When asked "gun rights", google added the link to the only section of the article discussing gun violence. They obviously manipulate their search results pushing political BS :-(

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#714

Post by dhimes »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #704
jsega wrote: post #663

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I suspect anyone who disagrees is taking a provincial, American view on the subject, and is being triggered by the phrase "gun control". How open-minded of you. There is no better way to partake in a discussion in good faith then to use the old: If you disagree with me [insert negative suggestion here].

I'm an owner of firearms and in favor of the second amendment and I still agree with parent, Gun Control being highlighted as a relevant article makes complete sense, since Gun Control is fundamentally about rights related to firearm ownership.

It's not absurd, but there is a page that fits the search term better in the same domain. That's what makes it "suspicious."

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#715

Post by JohnBooty »

Kpourdeilami wrote: post #44
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).

I gave up on Firefox on OS X for performance reasons and switched to Safari a while ago and it’s a decent browser. It has support for extensions that I use (ublock origin and 1Password), uses less battery than any other browser, and is fast

I hear about "FF performance issues on Mac" and I just don't get it.

I believe all of the people who report this, but it's not something I experience. Here's my usage pattern:

- 50+ hours in a browser each week

- Regular use of both FF and Chrome with very occasional use of Safari (I'm a developer of web apps)

- FF has been my primary browser for 15 years or so

- Used on a variety of Macs (2006, 2008, 2011, 2013, and 2015 MBPs with 8-16GB RAM)

- Running uBlock Origin in all browsers FWIW

...so, anecdotal, but pretty extensive.

I never had major problems with FF in the pre-Quantum days. Chrome always felt snappier than FF, and Safari felt snappier than both, but the differences were not huge and FF was "fine." And now since Quantum, FF is on par with Chrome for me in general.

The one time FF feels like a pig for me is on Google-owned web apps like Gmail.

For many years, Gmail and Gsuite apps were lightning fast on FF. But in the last few years it has gotten slower and slower on everything but Chrome. Hmmm, wonder why.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#716

Post by groovecoder »

marichards wrote: post #645
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.

Except, by default their primary product was the interface by which may of their users got targeted. They've sat on their hands on privacy for years, offering features for the informed minority, not protecting the majority of their users. It's been Safari and Brave that have started to show proper leadership in protecting users. Recent attempts I've been making to help teach web developers about the dangers of refere…

I'm a Mozillian who worked on MDN for 5 years, and now work on Firefox Privacy & Security. Most relevantly, I wrote the patch that implements strict-origin-when-cross-origin Referrer policy in Private Browsing Mode.

I certainly trust the MDN team to understand how to arrange their content to match their audience.

I also believe web developers should be more informed about the privacy & security issues of their work. The content you tried to add was verbose without any technical detail or links, and the MDN revision history isn't a great space for content discussion.

Have you tried filing a content bug? It's much easier to converse on bugzilla than thru edit battles.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/form.doc?bug_file_loc=https%3A/...

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#717

Post by tumetab1 »

Covzire wrote: post #481
acct1771 wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or, it's a well-trained algo. Either way.

"Well" "trained", indeed.

I think you, and others, seem to ignore that deep learning bots produce what the data contains. The data maybe be skewed in one direction or another, as in, it may be the case that most content is for gun control and most users seek gun control content.

The philosophical question is if a search engine return what people want or should return return what is most biased for truth and informative.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#718

Post by Manishearth »

atombender wrote: post #247
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 Firefox was as sleek, fast and no-nonsense as Safari on the Mac, which is my everyday browser. I vastly prefer the idea of an open browser that is not tightly coupled to a particular industry giant. And I wish Firefox actually had a viable Safari competitor on iOS, so that I can sync my state around. Unfortunately, while Firefox has made significant leaps the last couple of years, it's still not a viable alter…

You probably have search suggestions in firefox turned off (they may be off by default?).

Works for me when I flip it on https://i.stack.imgur.com/0ZfvX.png . I keep it off because I don't like having my every keystroke in the address bar sent to Google.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#719

Post by yakshaving_jgt »

namdnay wrote: post #686
yakshaving_jgt wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't agree that the content of the leaked video[0] was reasonable. Google essentially controls information, so they have tremendous power. Their staff have openly called to subvert democracy, which I think most reasonable people find incredibly dangerous. And no, I don't like Trump. [0]: https://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/09/12/leaked-video-googl...

Where did Google leadership call to subvert democracy? At no point in the video do they instruct or encourage employees to do that. They're discussing what Trump means for their employees, not for their customers

I said Google staff had, and I didn't say they did that in this video. But then to be fair, I don't have any hard evidence for this.

EDIT: As it turns out, sources for this are pretty easy to come across online: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-google-travelban/google-s...

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#720

Post by Kpourdeilami »

JohnBooty wrote: post #715
Kpourdeilami wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I gave up on Firefox on OS X for performance reasons and switched to Safari a while ago and it’s a decent browser. It has support for extensions that I use (ublock origin and 1Password), uses less battery than any other browser, and is fast

I hear about "FF performance issues on Mac" and I just don't get it. I believe all of the people who report this, but it's not something I experience. Here's my usage pattern: - 50+ hours in a browser each week - Regular use of both FF and Chrome with very occasional use of Safari (I'm a developer of web apps) - FF has been my primary browser for 15 years or so - Used on a variety of Macs (2006, 2008, 2011, 2013, and…

Firefox on OS X (Macbook Pro 2017 and 2015):

- uses 100% CPU even when idle

- frame rate drops to 2-3 per second for 5-10 seconds when switching tabs

- causes other programs to not work properly because it is using too much CPU

I have tried uninstalling the browser and re-installing OS X but it didn't solve those issues. I read somewhere it is a bug that pops up when you have display resolution scaling on and I think it applies to me because I have two 4k monitors set at 2x scaling.

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