Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

State of web browsers in 2018

ferdychristant.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

191–200 of 217 posts

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#191

Post by lazzlazzlazz »

jaredcwhite wrote: post #181

This article's assessment of Safari is way off. It's an excellent browser, and my default browser as a web designer and application developer. The interface is night and day superior to Chrome, it's very very fast on macOS and iOS, and it's often been at the forefront of design-related improvements to the web. The one area it's historically been behind on (progressive web apps) is the reason it gets knocked by people…

I haven't seen a single sober argument in favor of Safari. Even now, before writing this comment, I did a small side-by-side comparison and I can't find a single place Safari really stands out as better.

I'm not saying you're wrong - opinions about usability have some subjectivity - but the opinion that Safari is an `excellent` browser are a small minority.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#192

Post by thirdsun »

lazzlazzlazz wrote: post #191
jaredcwhite wrote: post #181

This article's assessment of Safari is way off. It's an excellent browser, and my default browser as a web designer and application developer. The interface is night and day superior to Chrome, it's very very fast on macOS and iOS, and it's often been at the forefront of design-related improvements to the web. The one area it's historically been behind on (progressive web apps) is the reason it gets knocked by people…

I haven't seen a single sober argument in favor of Safari. Even now, before writing this comment, I did a small side-by-side comparison and I can't find a single place Safari really stands out as better. I'm not saying you're wrong - opinions about usability have some subjectivity - but the opinion that Safari is an `excellent` browser are a small minority.

> I haven't seen a single sober argument in favor of Safari. Even now, before writing this comment, I did a small side-by-side comparison and I can't find a single place Safari really stands out as better.

I'm not a Safari user, but for owners of Apple laptops battery life should be a big one. It's my impression that Safari is significantly more efficient when it comes to energy consumption.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#193

Post by zeveb »

Steltek wrote: post #84
zeveb wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, the sync functionality is gated behind an insecure authentication system, so one really shouldn't use it. This is a pity, because Chrome's sync is even less secure. Compounding the pity, Firefox used to have a more secure auth system, which they threw away. I'm still appalled by that.

While I really liked the old sync system, it was never going to be user-friendly because it entrusted key management/safety to users. People just aren't ready for that and Mozilla maintaining two systems would compound the user issues. I would accept running my own server for Sync as a solution and I believe this was even possible with the old system? Then power users could have that extra layer of security if they d…

If they would simply get rid of all HTML submissions pages where users may enter their passwords, then the system would probably acceptable. If the Firefox Account UI were entirely browser-managed, it'd be okay. I'd still prefer a system in which it's impossible for users to accidentally leak their secure data through use of a poor password, but that's life.

As an aside, I don't see that user key management was really an issue. The UI of the old system was perfectly fine, and one could have added a QR code or similar if one really wanted to. The number of folks doing TOTP auth these days prove that it works.

There's only one reason to use dynamically-downloaded JavaScript to ensure user privacy: because one wishes to silently and undetectably undermine user privacy at some point in the future.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#194

Post by SandwichTeeth »

pjmlp wrote: post #29
SandwichTeeth wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has some catches that make it not as easy to use in a work environment though and I honestly think will hurt their market share over time, mainly the fact that it doesn't use the OS cert store. This causes issues with most corporate web proxies that do SSL inspection since IT departments will push the proxy CA cert into OS cert stores through whatever endpoint management solution they have. People can disagre…

Interestingly enough, a previous customer only allowed for FF ESR and IE, while considering a security breach having anyone to try to install Chrome.

Interesting, is that just because of the privacy implications of using chrome?

My experience has been that most desktop IT teams don't have the resources to fine-tune browser configs on endpoints around things like corporate web filtering proxies so they just jam the cert in the OS store and call it a day. You can use Chrome, IE, or Firefox if you know how to get and import the cert (which most users do not). Sometimes users would submit tickets saying they wanted to use Firefox but couldn't get to any web pages, to which the IT team would reply "We don't support Firefox, use Chrome or IE" and that was that.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#195

Post by SamWhited »

skykooler wrote: post #168
Izkata wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they already have (at least) one they could use as a starting point: Containers

Which is an excellent feature. Another one is WebVR.

I love containers, and I'm sure webvr is great, but I can't see the majority of people caring at all about either one. Their existing niche of privacy aware people who don't like Chrome and are tech people who like to play with trendy new technology will be happy about both of those, but random people off the street probably won't.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#196

Post by Izkata »

SamWhited wrote: post #195
skykooler wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is an excellent feature. Another one is WebVR.

I love containers, and I'm sure webvr is great, but I can't see the majority of people caring at all about either one. Their existing niche of privacy aware people who don't like Chrome and are tech people who like to play with trendy new technology will be happy about both of those, but random people off the street probably won't.

Then don't talk about it from a privacy angle; I use containers so I can be logged in to my home and work accounts at the same time.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#197

Post by Izkata »

johnny22 wrote: post #189
Izkata wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Of course everyone likes a responsible browser, but I actually didn't see that much difference. Same here. The only difference I noticed was startup speed when restoring 200+ tabs; that was indeed far faster in Quantum, but I never noticed any other speed improvements. And it was something I only encountered once every couple of weeks anyway.

what OS though? It seems like only Windows users really saw speed improvements

Ah, I didn't really catch that, but it would make sense. I use Ubuntu.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#199

Post by lousken »

ksec wrote: post #173
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said this up-thread, but Firefox Quantum made me switch back to Firefox, after years away. I noticed a marked speed improvement.

For Single Tab instances, Chrome and Safari still wins. For multiple Tabs, Firefox wins hands down. But the majority of users rarely open more than a few. Firefox will need to continue iterate, until it is as fast or even faster in every corner.

exactly what i saw - i regularly use over 200 tabs and in Chrome the performance goes to hell above that number (even on i7 6700k - also managing tabs is PITA), while Firefox just keeps chugging without any problems

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#200

Post by tokyodude »

superkuh wrote: post #190
tokyodude wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well to each there own. For me I'd prefer everything in the browser. I hate having to trust native software. Native software can read/upload my entire home folder, all files, .ssh keys, browser history, password database, photos, videos, etc... Websites can't. Native apps have access to every open exploit on my machine. Webapps don't. Native apps can scan my network for other exploitable devices. Webapps can't. So, m…

Web apps that use electron (for example, Discord's desktop client) have full filesystem access and can do just what you say. Many people think it's safe because it's 'web'. It isn't. It's worse because of the misperception. They can just add something like require('fs').readFileSync(process.env.HOME + '/.ssh/id_rsa').toString() and send this to their servers, and you won't even notice that (since it doesn't require a…

Electron is a native app. so agree, don't like it, prefer web app
Post reply on HN