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Browsers

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111–120 of 316 posts

Re: Browsers

#111

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…

To be honest, I think it's pretty bad that the company with the largest influence on the web is also the company that controls the largest web browser. Chrome should be moved to a different Alphabet company and Google forbidden from promoting it.

Re: Browsers

#112
I'm not going to use Firefox for development and I'm not going to install Firefox for my family members, simply because Chrome is better for both scenarios. Firefox is pretty good, but Chrome is just better.

Instead, I send Mozilla some money every month (a small amount), because I still care that Firefox continues to be developed.

Re: Browsers

#113

I'm not going to use Firefox for development and I'm not going to install Firefox for my family members, simply because Chrome is better for both scenarios. Firefox is pretty good, but Chrome is just better. Instead, I send Mozilla some money every month (a small amount), because I still care that Firefox continues to be developed.

What would Mozilla have to do to make their browser better than Chrome?

Re: Browsers

#114

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…

> Currently, all of Google's services work on non-Chrome browsers.

Last time I checked, Google Authenticator only works on Chrome.

Re: Browsers

#115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is this: HTML (+CSS) is supposed to be a standardized and recommendable format for publishing rich text with the expectation that it can be rendered for a long time to come. But if only a single browser will be able to display it, this not only questions the longevity claim, but also questions the whole web stack. New CSS specs can't be reviewed and proven with independent implementations, and web specs w…

> But if only a single browser will be able to display it, this not only questions the longevity claim, but also questions the whole web stack. New CSS specs can't be reviewed and proven with independent implementations, and web specs will, even more so than they already do, become "whatever Chrome does". Safari and Konqueror still use WebKit, Firefox still uses Gecko, so not "only a single browser will be able to di…

Making some WebKit derivative the de-facto engine would be very short-sighted. There will come a time, maybe in a distant future, when we need to get rid of C and our whole approach to mobile O/Ss, CMOS, and everything else. In any case, the situation we have now -- that of the web getting out-of-hand -- is what WHATWG, W3C, and co. should have avoided. They totally fubar'd it instead, so the world has to move to something else. HTML is a means to an end, not an end in itself. HTML hasn't changed much since the beginning, although it has been supplanted with the disgrace that is CSS and JavaScript. Can you seriously recommend to write a dissertation, a school book, a law text, a contract, or anything that matters in HTML at this point?

Re: Browsers

#116
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft has hardly offered much as far as competition and diversity goes since IE6, basically the only web "innovations" they're responsible for is a bunch of IE-specific APIs that didn't work in any other browser. I don't have much love for MS, but this is just wrong. XMLHttpRequest, the precursor to fetch, pretty much allowed "web 2.0" to exist. Now we use fetch, but they introduced it first. box-sizing: border…

You seem to have missed the part of my comment that said "since IE6" AFAIK the box-sizing box model you mentioned was implemented since the beginning of Trident, well before IE6 came about. XHR was available from IE5 onwards (only accessible via ActiveX object, it didn't become available as a native window property in JS until IE7 but the feature was still available), so again isn't "since IE6". If you think whether…

I see you have never had to implement Promises in userland. :)

setImmediate is one of the more popular polyfills in fact, all the workarounds you mentioned either have downsides or are ugly hacks. It's useful to anything that has a scheduler. Like Vue for example. Maybe someone should tell Evan You that it doesn't make sense to need setImmediate?

https://github.com/vuejs/vue/blob/b111de486b1bdc747fe0f5795f...

Check the download counts:

https://www.npmjs.com/package/setimmediate

https://www.npmjs.com/package/next-tick

https://www.npmjs.com/package/set-immediate-shim

https://www.npmjs.com/package/core-js#setimmediate

Re: Browsers

#117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Currently, all of Google's services work on non-Chrome browsers. Last time I checked, Google Authenticator only works on Chrome.

> Last time I checked, Google Authenticator only works on Chrome.

Google Authenticator is available for Android, iPhone, and Blackberry, and not for any browser; there are a number of third-party implementations, however, including a Chrome/ChromeOS one.

Re: Browsers

#118
post #74

This move by Microsoft may probably help Microsoft have Windows users using its browser, but I seriously doubt if it's good for the web. There are people claiming that Microsoft could easily fork from Chromium, but honestly, do you see that happening in the next few years? Having read that Microsoft's Edge team was a very small one, I don't believe Microsoft will fork Chromium anytime in the next two or three years (…

Instead of funding Mozilla, perhaps funding the many non-Blink, non-Gecko browser authors out there would be more impactful? Even if it's indirectly through spreading responsible ownership of standards discussions and components like Skia/ANGLE/etc. Disclaimer: independent browser author, unpaid.

I’d personally favor both — funding Mozilla as well as non-Blink/non-Mozilla browsers. We need stronger contenders for the present (like Mozilla) and stronger contenders for the future (others, assuming they’re still nascent and aren’t on the radar for most people). Though I support Mozilla for various reasons, I see value in supporting smaller competition that could ultimately help everyone (including Mozilla).

Please share your project and other independent browsers/engines. It’s been some time I’ve checked this space out (and I do know that I could also go to Wikipedia to get some information on this).

Re: Browsers

#119

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.

do not mix diversity with fragmentation

Re: Browsers

#120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Currently, all of Google's services work on non-Chrome browsers. Last time I checked, Google Authenticator only works on Chrome.

> Last time I checked, Google Authenticator only works on Chrome. Google Authenticator is available for Android, iPhone, and Blackberry, and not for any browser; there are a number of third-party implementations, however, including a Chrome/ChromeOS one.

I don't use any of those things. I just know that I had to install Chrome to get Telegram's desktop app working.
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