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101–110 of 316 posts

Re: Browsers

#101

Post by ludston »

koonsolo wrote: post #94
eddieroger wrote: post #45

I feel like I’m missing something, because I keep seeing blog posts that tell me a browser monoculture is bad (and the irony of Microsoft saying this is nearly too much), but none of them tell me why. I understand that it was bad in the IE6 days, but IE6 was also closed source and could only be run on Windows (see also the irony of Microsoft discontinuing IE on Mac, not wanting to compete with Safari, a browser made…

Exactly. A week ago I read on hackernews how desktop linux failed because of diversity. Now I read the web will fail because of monoculture.

What do you mean by "fail"?

Re: Browsers

#102

Post by Klonoar »

vSanjo wrote: post #7
awinder wrote: post #3

The last time I enjoyed using the Firefox rendering engine on a Mac was back in the Camino days. I’d almost say that that browser is a better Mac experience than Firefox is today. I’ve started using Safari and it’s actually pretty OK and the resource utilization is a lot better than Chrome (no fans blowing!). I empathize with Firefox making a big deal out of avoiding a monoculture but i really hope they’re figuring o…

Correct me if I'm wrong, by all means, but I recently read somewhere that Firefox is genuinely trying to improve it's MacOS performance in one of the new releases. No sources, it was just in passing somewhere, but I distinctly remember it.

This has been said about a litany of releases, and they don't really ever make a dent.

Re: Browsers

#103

Post by _emacsomancer_ »

koonsolo wrote: post #94
eddieroger wrote: post #45

I feel like I’m missing something, because I keep seeing blog posts that tell me a browser monoculture is bad (and the irony of Microsoft saying this is nearly too much), but none of them tell me why. I understand that it was bad in the IE6 days, but IE6 was also closed source and could only be run on Windows (see also the irony of Microsoft discontinuing IE on Mac, not wanting to compete with Safari, a browser made…

Exactly. A week ago I read on hackernews how desktop linux failed because of diversity. Now I read the web will fail because of monoculture.

> how desktop linux failed because of diversit

Yes, but that was based on a comment that was twisted out of context, and is, moreover, demonstrably false.

> web will fail because of monoculture

Go ask a banana.

Re: Browsers

#104

Post by AaronFriel »

sarcasmic wrote: post #46

People don't download Chrome because EdgeHTML-Edge sucks; they download Chrome because it's familiar, and ironically doesn't nag the person to enable half a dozen Microsoft's services one by one. There's two greater truths here: that some people are more comfortable using Google's services over those of Microsoft, and that the power of defaults matter, even when they feel skeevy to a part of the population. Google pr…

As a counter-point, I've had to set up Chrome with ad blockers even for computer illiterate family members and friends because they eventually have it installed anyway. Why? Not because they knew they were installing it, but because every time you visit "google.com" in Edge, you get an intrusive message that says:

"Switch to Chrome Hide annoying ads and protect against malware on the web [No Thanks] [Yes]"

And that then appears on every single search. And if you click no thanks, it reappears.

And then when they go to youtube, they see this:

"Watch YouTube videos with Chrome Google recommends using Chrome, a fast and secure browser. Try it? [Yes] [No Thanks]"

Again, every page load. It's a dark pattern. What about Gmail?

"Google recommends using Chrome Try a fast, secure browser with updates built in [No Thanks] [Yes]"

EVERY PAGE LOAD.

Re: Browsers

#105

Post by jeromebaek »

43920 wrote: post #97
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if only a single browser will be able to display it Chromium has no intrinsic power. If Chromium and Google disagree, the latter can easily break off. The browser political landscape is fragmented as ever.

> the latter can easily break off How? Developing a browser takes hundreds of millions of dollars, and Google is currently providing all the funding for that (meaning they decide what changes get made). Who has the necessary resources to fork Chromium, and would actually be willing to do it?

Microsoft, of course.

Re: Browsers

#106

Post by Annatar »

I grew up using NetScape under CDE on Solaris and IRIX. I ran a LiveWire (NetScape) web server professionally when the webmaster job was something root did and was an honorable thing to do.

Even with all of that, I boycott Firefox because they no longer support Solaris or his descendent, illumos, and because the Firefox 48 ESR I do run on there crashes all the time, and because Mozilla is extremely aggressively pushing Rust, which is an overcomplicated piece of crap. So long as all these conditions are true, Firefox can go to hell for all I care, and I sure won't be recommending it to anyone. May Chrome and Safari keep winning. Thanks Mozilla for being sellouts and good luck.

Re: Browsers

#107

Post by otterley »

snarfy wrote: post #10

Firefox has one feature the other browsers will never have - privacy.

If their primary funder, Google, threatens to pull their funding if they don’t ship them the information they desire, Firefox may end up no better than Chrome in this regard.

Re: Browsers

#108

Post by otterley »

Mikeb85 wrote: post #37
tomjakubowski wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't Safari have the same feature? I'm not a huge fan of Apple's generally closed ecosystem, but acknowledge that they have unusual respect for user privacy.

> respect for user privacy No US based entity can offer user privacy, as the government can force any of them to cooperate while requiring non-disclosure. The fact they don't use anonymous user data to offer internet services doesn't negate the fact that where most of us actually care about privacy, they don't have the power to actually offer it.

First of all, we’re talking about business practices and culture, not government coercion.

In any event, being a non-U.S. entity has less significance with each passing day with respect to the ability to insulate information from government. Consider that in the past decade, the U.S. managed to get the Swiss government to change its once-formidable bank secrecy laws.

Re: Browsers

#109

Post by eridius »

quanticle wrote: post #92
sonnyblarney wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The concern is not 'now' it's 'later'. Google is a business like any other - and when they have the power to lever a monopolized situation - they will. For example, they may start integrating technologies for which they have exclusive, or at least 'special' access. Can you imagine if all of a sudden Google apps start performing better than anyone else's? Or what if they integrate technology that de-facto collects usa…

For example, they may start integrating technologies for which they have exclusive, or at least 'special' access. Can you imagine if all of a sudden Google apps start performing better than anyone else's? They've already started. Google Meet (their version of Hangouts for enterprise) didn't work on non-Chrome browsers for a very long time. If you tried to do a video call with a non-Chrome browser, you were told to in…

Google Meet still doesn't work with Safari, with no explanation. Safari supports the latest WebRTC, and AIUI Google Meet uses the current WebRTC standard, so why does Google refuse to let it work on Safari? This has to be deliberate.

Re: Browsers

#110

Post by berbec »

AaronFriel wrote: post #104
sarcasmic wrote: post #46

People don't download Chrome because EdgeHTML-Edge sucks; they download Chrome because it's familiar, and ironically doesn't nag the person to enable half a dozen Microsoft's services one by one. There's two greater truths here: that some people are more comfortable using Google's services over those of Microsoft, and that the power of defaults matter, even when they feel skeevy to a part of the population. Google pr…

As a counter-point, I've had to set up Chrome with ad blockers even for computer illiterate family members and friends because they eventually have it installed anyway. Why? Not because they knew they were installing it, but because every time you visit "google.com" in Edge, you get an intrusive message that says: "Switch to Chrome Hide annoying ads and protect against malware on the web [No Thanks] [Yes]" And that t…

You'd think there'd be a super-slim version of uBlock that only blocked Google's nag messages to install chrome
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