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Why I’m done with Chrome

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#811

Post by gaius »

forapurpose wrote: post #804
gaius wrote: post #519

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. 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…

> I am certain it was used against Bernie for example That would be important if it were true. Can you back it up?

Just a suspicion based on Eric Schmidt being so involved with Hillary’s campaign. But the link I posted shows that there are no technical barriers to doing it, and that doing it is openly discussed within Google

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#812

Post by partiallypro »

jasonlotito wrote: post #745
ekianjo wrote: post #504

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are wrong: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right_to_keep_and_bear_arms This is coming right up when you look for "gun rights" on DuckDuckGo.

That's the top Wikipedia link in the search results when searching for "gun rights" I don't see the issue.

He's not saying it's an issue that "right to keep and bear arms" is the top result on Bing/DuckDuckGo...it's that on Google it's not, it's "Gun Control" which is not the top result on Wikipedia nor is it necessarily a related term. The top organic result on Google is a tag page from NPR. How is that even possible for such a popular topic? That's something you'd expect from a rare term.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#813

Post by JohnBooty »

Kpourdeilami wrote: post #720
JohnBooty wrote: post #715

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

    uses 100% CPU even when idle
That sucks.

Anecdotally, I've never seen this, even when I had 1 external 4K and 1 external 2K connected. The whole OS was kind of sluggish at that point, but that was definitely asking a lot out of a puny integrated 3-year old laptop GPU so eh.

Just did a quick informal test with my current setup:

- MacOS High Sierra.

- 2015" MBP with no discrete GPU.

- Single 4K external monitor, 3008x1692 scaled resolution.

- uBlock is off.

With only a single blank tab open FF uses 0% CPU as expected. I opened three tabs: Facebook, Espn.com, and MSNBC.com. There was a brief flurry of CPU activity as the sites loaded, and FF's processes are now idling comfortably at 0-1%.

I repeated the process with Chrome and results were similar. One difference is that Chrome spawns 10x as many processes, but they seem to consume less memory each.

In both FF and Chrome, there's a palpable (500 or 750ms?) delay when switching tabs. In my experience a lot of Mac apps behave that way at scaled 4K resolutions.

I repeated this informal test in Safari and it "feels faster"; less CPU spike on initial site load and switching browser tabs feels close to instant.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#814

Post by partiallypro »

lolc wrote: post #786
llampx wrote: post #739

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't seriously believe that, do you? Google has an agenda. They don't hire lobbyists on K street to fight for more neutral search results.

Having the word "gun" in the title explains why the "gun control" page is listed first. Positing Google does it because they have an agenda besides showing relevant results fails the law of parsimony here. Please explain how Google implements its agenda into the search results people see before mocking other people's statements.

It may not be "on purpose," but it is happening. Creators of algorithms inherently assign their own biases.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/future_tense/2015/1...

http://www.pnas.org/content/112/33/E4512

Also note that the top "organic" result on Google's search for "Gun Rights" is just a tag page from NPR. There is no way that's a relevant result. So even if it's not on purpose, it's a very poor result...and given it stands out more so than other keyword searches it seems a bit odd.

Edit: down voted for citing study from the National Academy of Sciences, bubbles certainly are thick.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#815

Post by dagenix »

llampx wrote: post #739
sct202 wrote: post #725

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And right under that there is a suggested link for "Right to keep and bear arms." What is most likely happening is that the Gun Control page is more popular than the Right to keep and bear arms page, so the algo picked that one for the single card that they load. IDK what they use for ranking, but I would imagine that the fact that 'gun' appears in the title of one and not the other is impacting the matching and also…

You don't seriously believe that, do you? Google has an agenda. They don't hire lobbyists on K street to fight for more neutral search results.

Google's agenda is to make money. Hinting that they have a secret agenda to take away people's guns is just unsubstantiated conspiracy theory nonsense.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#816

Post by dagenix »

potta_coffee wrote: post #793
jMyles wrote: post #738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right - of course. So the question is: are the other "things that matter" designed to: 1) Inform the user and help the user quickly find facts, narratives, and meaningful content related to the search phrase? 2) Sell things? 3) Promote modes of political control by narrowing the scope of acceptable thought and connection between search phrase and content? We all hope for #1. We all accept #2. But I think that most of…

Try Googling the term "white couple" as an image search - you will be provided with a page of interracial couples, not white couples. Not that I have a problem with interracial couples, my own family is interracial. But it's obvious how Google is attempting to influence the perspectives of it's users.

Unsubstantiated conspiracy theory ^

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#817

Post by dagenix »

dhimes wrote: post #714
AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #704

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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."

According to you. There are a few other comments here with people expressing views that tue gun control article is actually the more useful result.

Interpreting Google's ranking algorithm as a conspiracy to infrinage on gun rights is unsubstantiated by fact.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#818

Post by dagenix »

gaius wrote: post #811
forapurpose wrote: post #804

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I am certain it was used against Bernie for example That would be important if it were true. Can you back it up?

Just a suspicion based on Eric Schmidt being so involved with Hillary’s campaign. But the link I posted shows that there are no technical barriers to doing it, and that doing it is openly discussed within Google

You are certain? Or, are you suspicious? Those are pretty different statements. And it seems you lack evidence to back either one.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#819

Post by JCC1 »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #578

>The extreme version holds that I ought to be using lynx+Tor and DJB’s custom search engine, and if I’m not I pretty much deserve what’s coming to me. What is this "DJB’s custom search engine" ? I fail to find it with both DuckDuckGo or google..

Man, a "DJB custom search engine" would probably be amazeballs. You would submit queries via an environment variable with additional data on FD6 and get data back 1024 chars at a time, prefixed in TAI64N, and IPv6 sites would be completely banned.

I'd use the F- out of that.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#820

Post by potta_coffee »

dagenix wrote: post #816
potta_coffee wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try Googling the term "white couple" as an image search - you will be provided with a page of interracial couples, not white couples. Not that I have a problem with interracial couples, my own family is interracial. But it's obvious how Google is attempting to influence the perspectives of it's users.

Unsubstantiated conspiracy theory ^

It's easily substantiated by searching different terms and observing the difference between what you're searching for and what results are provided.
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