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The Browser Monopoly

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Re: The Browser Monopoly

#31

Post by basch »

aluren wrote: post #23

I don't get why people (I mean technically minded people who are aware of privacy issues and so on) don't just use firefox. They are pretty much at feature parity (Firefox may even get the edge due to the fantastic extensions ecosystem), except one spies on you and the other doesn't. Why do people find the switch so hard? In addition, Firefox + ublokc origin is pretty much the only option on mobile if you want to blo…

I use both. The firefox interface still freezes when the page freezes. Hung anything should never stop me from closing tabs. Quantum/Electrolysis was supposed to be a savior, but the problem remains for now.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#32

Post by dekhn »

albits wrote: post #14
basch wrote: post #3

>Chrome introduced a lot of neat new features (Porn “Incognito Mode,” multithreaded memory changes, tabs and more). Now chrome is getting credit for in private browsing and tabs? (Safari and Opera respectively. Phoenix/Firefox popularized them long before Chrome was a twinkle.) >It is mind-boggling that basic tools like these are not yet standard features in browsers. How long have browsers offered to save passwords?…

Regarding saving password in browser, the author probably means an encrypted password manager such as KeePass or 1Password, and not the current implementation which does not have a master password

chrome on linux and mac both request that I provide a master password before I can access my passwords. IIUC.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#33

Post by sebazzz »

abtinf wrote: post #5

I was shocked to see the browser market share graph. Chrome appears to be collapsing on itself, dropping from from an all-time high of 65.4% to 55.4% in just 16 months, effectively losing all share gains since 2016. But then I looked closer at the data, noticing that only net 120 basis points of the change can be explained by share changes in the other browsers. The rest of the data seems to be missing, as the number…

I am also wondering why Opera (=Presto) is in that graph. Since the latest Opera is Chromium-based I would expect it to be counted as Chromium.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#34

Post by ocdtrekkie »

aluren wrote: post #23

I don't get why people (I mean technically minded people who are aware of privacy issues and so on) don't just use firefox. They are pretty much at feature parity (Firefox may even get the edge due to the fantastic extensions ecosystem), except one spies on you and the other doesn't. Why do people find the switch so hard? In addition, Firefox + ublokc origin is pretty much the only option on mobile if you want to blo…

The biggest problem is the subtle frustrations if you use Google websites or services at all, since Google builds the Internet explicitly for Chrome, and sometimes works on other browsers okay-ish. reCAPTCHA harassment is particularly egregious too.

I'm a Firefox user, but I've also already excised most of the rest of Google from my life. If you're still using Gmail, you're likely to stick with Chrome.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#35

Post by dec0dedab0de »

Am I the only one that doesn't like chrome? There has always been a "weird feel" to it that I don't like. I used to really like Konqueror, so I guess its mostly the interface that gets to me.

...As I type this I look the sandwich menu, and lack of search bar in firefox and I die a little inside.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#36

Post by IggleSniggle »

mcv wrote: post #20

I recently ditched Chrome and switched back to Firefox, at home and on my mobile, only to discover that a surprising number of sites don't work in Firefox. In particular: Twitter doesn't work on Firefox Mobile. Most work fine, but still, I ended up switching to Safari, to discover that it's just not quite as good an experience as Firefox or Chrome.

I just tried Twitter on iOS in Firefox where I have the strict privacy settings enabled including with Safari Firefox Focus content blocking turned on, and Twitter worked fine. In what way does it not work for you?

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#37

Post by The_rationalist »

The number of features that gecko (Firefox) lack vs blink (chromiums) is growing everyday... In a factual sense, mozilla slow down the evolution of the web and what it allow web masters to create.

But it is nothing in comparison of safari which is pathetically behind blink and gecko feature wise. It's a shame that the most popular websites don't team up to block safari and ask to install a browser that supports web standards. YouTube did this with a version of IE and weeks after they were followed by thousands of websites not supporting this antic version.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#38

Post by majewsky »

HNcantBtrustd wrote: post #7
tannhaeuser wrote: post #2

> Firefox is a fine browser by itself [...] I have the comfort of knowing that my personal information is protected (to the extent possible) – and also that my portal to the web is not custom-built to track me and serve me ads FF is fantastic, but the uncomfortable question is, will it always be, given Mozilla has to found further development and is financed by Google's money as well? Apple's Safari actually has bett…

>Apple's Safari actually has better standing in terms of alignment of user and developer incentives. Apple gets credit for being aligned with users and developers? Out of any of the tech companies, I see Apple the most detached from their users and developers. Forcing proprietary software, hardware, and accessories is not "for users and developers". That's Apple's way of generating additional sales and data for Apple…

At least with Apple, the users are actually customers. Google's customers are advertisers.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#39

Post by abtinf »

basch wrote: post #9
abtinf wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding tabbed browers: they are ancient. I remember the first time I used tabs with a wrapper for IE 4 or 5 back in the mid-90s. I think it was called NetCaptor or NetRaptor or something. It was magical. Of course, back then, no one knew anything about the privacy implications of something like that.

Apparently InternetWorks and Netcaptor came before Opera. I shouldnt be so cocky. https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-history-of-tabbed-browsing

> I shouldnt be so cocky.

Off-topic, but I don't think its about being cocky. For me, the most difficult thing to keep in mind about information technology is that it is entirely a construct of the human mind and we haven't yet devised methods to validate it against reality.

We see things as they are now and think "well, of course it has to be that way." That kind of view is true in a lot of fields--a rocket ship has a certain design because it must have a certain design. You can't put the engines on perpendicular to the ship or the fuel storage under the rocket exhaust.

But you can do that kind of thing with computers and might not even know it. I started to get a sense of this a couple years ago, when I first learned about the works of Ted Nelson and his contemporaries. Ted is critical of things like the modern hyperlink which, at first, seemed to me like criticizing the ocean. He even disapproves of the word "computer".

The idea that computing can and should be fundamentally reinvented has been the most exciting discovery of my life.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#40

Post by realshowbiz »

aluren wrote: post #23

I don't get why people (I mean technically minded people who are aware of privacy issues and so on) don't just use firefox. They are pretty much at feature parity (Firefox may even get the edge due to the fantastic extensions ecosystem), except one spies on you and the other doesn't. Why do people find the switch so hard? In addition, Firefox + ublokc origin is pretty much the only option on mobile if you want to blo…

I’ve been having a good experience with safari + ublock origin.

Firefox tends to consume a lot of system resources on my pretty modest machine.

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