Switch from Chrome to Firefox • Hacker News Board

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#561

Post by lousken » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

aquova wrote: post #542

wishinghand wrote: post #474

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I looked up Vivaldi Speed Dial. It looks like the same sort of thing Firefox, Chrome, and Safari have where a new tab has a pinned list of favorite or most visited sites. What does Vivaldi do that I'm not seeing?

Having switched from Vivaldi back to Firefox about a year ago, the Vivaldi speed dial is similar to the pinned lists of favorites, but it's much more user friendly. You can customize how many sites you see, how many are in each column, number of columns, etc. You can also change the icon to be anything you like. It certainly wasn't a dealbreaker for me personally, and as you said, pinned favorites serve the same purp…

You can set custom icon in FF. But yea, only rows not columns are customizable.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#562

Post by hodder » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

codedokode wrote: post #547

kumarharsh wrote: post #527

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You know what's horrifying about the idea of "just fork Chrome"? Google can still hurt you by blocking your browser's access to their prime properties (YouTube, Gmail, Maps, etc). Just look at YouTube denying Chromium-based Edge the new redesigned experience for absolutely zero reason.

This is already happening. Web version of Skype refuses to work in Firefox, but if you change user-agent to Edge, it works.

This is risky behaviour though when dealing with other megacorps. Legal ramifications and antitrust suits come out of actions like that.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#563

Post by bovermyer » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

I like Chrome. I also like Firefox. I choose, now, to use Chrome. I respect the decision of others to use something else.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#564

Post by mark_l_watson » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:42 PM UTC

I happily use Google services inside a separate Firefox container. I do have Chrome installed on one of my laptops but haven't used it for a long while.

Anyway, I am not a hater on Google, I appreciate their open contribution to deep learning tools and I happily pay for GCP, Play books and movies, and I use gmail as a backup email.

But for me, Firefox is just such a better experience than Chrome.

It is also a good idea to have a diverse ecology for Internet infrastructure, tools, and platforms. More choices are better.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#565

Post by zamadatix » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:43 PM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #87

djsumdog wrote: post #43

Firefox is back where it was back in like 2005, but instead of fighting IE/Microsoft, it's fighting Chrome/Google. Although now it has a bit more of a checkered record than it once did. Everything old is new again. I really wish Microsoft would open source the Edge/Titan engine. There can't possibly be any NSCA code in there they don't own the rights too anymore.

At least Microsoft managed to open source the guts of Chakra before they shutdown Edge. V8 hegemony might be worse for the internet given Node and Electron than Chrome alone.

Is there an Electron backing that doesn't use Chromium?

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#566

Post by codedokode » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

_underfl0w_ wrote: post #509

alias_neo wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you're just using Chrome... Isn't Electron basically just a Chrome tab as an app (to over simplify it? I presume it would afford Google the same level of tracking that Chrome does.

Electron apps' Chrome stores its cookies separately from the user's installation of it, correct? That, plus the lack of a logged-in account within Electron's Chrome might help to mitigate user cookie correlation and the like, right? Not sure about in-browser IP tracking, though...

But Electron app has full access to your system unlike normal web page. So it makes sense to run Electron apps from separate user account so that they cannot read your browser history, cookies, install you an extension etc.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#567

Post by ar_lan » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

jwr wrote: post #161

I don't understand why Mac users use Chrome. Safari seems to be out of fashion: people just assume that it should not be used for some reason, even though it is actually a great browser. I use Safari for both my own browsing and for development (a fairly large ClojureScript application), and it is by far the best browser on the platform by all measures (speed first and foremost). The only place where Safari falls sho…

> The only place where Safari falls short is 3D CAD programs (like OnShape), where Chrome is faster and better.

You completely disregard one of the biggest appeals to Chrome, which is its massive extension support (which Safari is miles behind on).

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#568

Post by ryanolsonx » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:44 PM UTC

Do you guys use Firefox's password manager? Or something else?

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#569

Post by JadeNB » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

RussianCow wrote: post #478

vbezhenar wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most internet videos" probably is overstatement. I'm watching youtube, pornhub and twitch and I don't think that it requires any DRM. The only service with DRM I'm aware of is Netflix and it's terrible anyway.

> The only service with DRM I'm aware of is Netflix and it's terrible anyway. Ha! Tell that to their 150 million subscribers. :) More seriously, using a browser without DRM would be a deal-breaker to many users like myself solely because of Netflix, unfortunately. That said, if you're serious about using a DRM-free browser, there are other ways to watch Netflix (iOS/Android, smart TVs, etc).

> > The only service with DRM I'm aware of is Netflix and it's terrible anyway.

> Ha! Tell that to their 150 million subscribers. :)

I'm not sure that a large number of subscribers is a convincing argument of the non-terribleness of a service. A quick Google search suggests that Comcast, excuse me, Xfinity, has somewhere in the neighbourhood of 30 million subscribers. I don't think that you will find any argument telling them how terrible Xfinity is.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#570

Post by 0xffff2 » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:45 PM UTC

tlb wrote: post #258

javagram wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I upvoted you (because your suggestion is a good solution) but let’s be real, most people don’t have backups, even developers. In my experience as a developer companies don’t even issue me a USB backup drive to run time machine on my work issued MacBook Pro unless I specifically request it.

Please don't normalize that behavior. Not having regular backups is dumb, like not wearing seatbelts. On a Mac it's so easy -- just plug a drive in once a week or so and Time Machine does its thing. A 1 TB hard drive is cheap, far less than the value of a lost day.

Why? The comment that sparked this conversation is such a niche and unlikely problem that I really don't see backups as a good cost/benefit decision just to defend against things like that. All of the data I care about is backed up. I really don't see the point of full OS backups.