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

No to Chrome

notochrome.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 319 posts

Re: No to Chrome

#301

Post by nine_k »

monkeynotes wrote: post #251
nine_k wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The logic is simpler. The makers of Firefox (and apparently Safari) do have an incentive to keep your privacy. The makers of Chrome have an incentive to keep you tracked. So it's not the technology, it's business models. (Basically it's the rude awakening to TANSTAAFL.)

What I am hearing is it's not right/fair/moral for businesses to compete with personal data as their primary asset. The proposed solution is for a small subsect of the technical elite to walk away. That really, really does not solve anything except an individual's problem. The solution is to put pressure on legislators to prevent companies like Google and Facebook trading your data to fund their business. This could…

If you give your data to them, it's legitimate for them to use the data. You literally signed away your rights when accepted their ToS.

I would go for clearer definitions of what personal data are, several most important kinds of it. Maybe a regulation should require that ToS clearly state how these data are going to be collected, accessed, and stored. Much like with medical or financial records.

Then most users would just make more informed decisions, and that might also inform their online behavior and expectations.

People are mostly not dumb, they just need clear information.

Re: No to Chrome

#302

Post by throwaway234957 »

I've been a Google engineer for ~ 10 years. Reading things like their reasoning are always so painful to me as an employee:

> Google will do everything it can to ensure its ability to extract information about you [...] even without your consent and sometimes in direct opposition to existing national and international laws.

... and...

> Google is an information colonialist who want to seize all information both online and in real life – irrespective of who should have the right to access it"

Then I have to turn around and try to justify that I need obfuscated aggregated data about how our users use my product to determine what feature to work on.

Or I have to spend half a day going through user data sensitivity training about fictional consumer footwear. Again. Because I have to do it quarterly, even though the content doesn't change.

Or I write up a design doc where more than half of it is explaining how collecting what users could actually see on a page isn't PII, and it's being aggregated anyway, and we don't capture, target, or in any way interact with users under 13, and that the content team really does need this data because they use it to decide what to serve to the user next time so that the user feels like the experience is new and fresh and more interesting, and that if we see fewer then {x} unique users over a given period of time we'll literally delete the data to make sure that nobody can combine it to build any sort of PII profile, despite the fact that the entire table's data retention is {y} months anyway.

I get that it feels like Google sucks all this data in. And this data could be put together in various ways. And it's big and scary and opaque. And nobody outside knows what is really happening with this data, regardless of what the TOS says. But I can't imagine any level of transparency that would satisfy people. Either it's too detailed and we get accused of burying the data in legalese, or it's too thin and we get accused of being purposefully vague.

Rant over. I have a design doc to write.

Re: No to Chrome

#303

Post by dredmorbius »

metalchianti wrote: post #187
dredmorbius wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's getting harder (though not fully impossible) to find maps. Where you used to find a stand with local maps in most fueling stations, you don't. I'm looking at AAA's Map Gallery page trying to figure out if they offer paper maps any more. What's on offer are PDFs for online viewing or printing. I'm someone who's got several atlases, globes, and piles of paper maps, as well as highway atlases and other paper-based…

Interesting perspective. This could relate to other nuances on centralization of navigation services. If Google Maps is the sole provider , this means they have authority on what streets are most viable, which shops get prioritized, and even where borders get drawn.

Well, yes. If you succeed in achieving the goal of Organising the World's Information, then you get to organise it as you wish, and as benefits you.

Re: No to Chrome

#304

Post by tekknik »

oefrha wrote: post #276
reikonomusha wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is mind-boggling that people find their browser experience “crippling” without a feature like scroll bar highlighting. Is it hyperbole, or are you unable to cope in e.g., PDF readers as well? Is your line of work in visually investigating the appearance of words in 1000 page HTML documents?

Where did you get the idea that my PDF readers don’t have this feature? You might want to look into a better PDF reader... (Having a dedicated bar with results grouped by page is basically equivalent.) Btw, I can code in TextEdit too, but I don’t because I have programmer’s text editors. Same goes for a web browser and its convenience features.

this is not the same. textedit isn’t a window into your personal life, chrome is. and because of some simple feature you’ve decided to throw away privacy. i agree with the parent here, this is ridiculous

Re: No to Chrome

#305

Post by tekknik »

zzo38computer wrote: post #292
oefrha wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t solve highlighting search results in the scroll bar, and apparently I search a surprising amount and am absolutely crippled without scroll bar highlighting, so I’ll stick to Chrome until I can’t (e.g. when content blocking is crippled).

There are such feature different people like. A feature I cannot do without is the web developer console; much of the modern web pages are bad without it. The older XPCOM-based extensions also are more powerful than the WebExtensions and can do many more things (I don't like the design of XPCOM, but nevertheless WebExtensions isn't very good either). Such as, I can alter the behaviour of the location bar; I don't lik…

there’s a difference between a dev console, which is required for web developers and something that draws a line in the scroll bar. You can easily live without the later and there are absolutely no workflows requiring it. grandparent is giving up privacy for a line in the scroll bar.

Re: No to Chrome

#306

Post by FussyZeus »

asdfman123 wrote: post #230
FussyZeus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't say Chrome itself is bad, and therefore do not seek to explain it. The page is less a technical break down and more a call to action ala activism. Chrome itself isn't an issue, it's one of many tentacles, and one of the bigger ones, leading back to Google.

If you're arguing for something you need the full argument. Not everyone is starting with the assumption that Google is bad. I know Google isn't a completely benign force in the universe but I haven't been properly convinced I should boycott them.

> If you're arguing for something you need the full argument.

No you don't. In fact, for many rhetorically primed things, such as opposition to Google, and especially in the realm of activism, explaining over and over why you're doing a thing is often not done because it's not necessary.

Every environmental protest doesn't need to include explanations of the Exxon Valdez and BP's Deepwater Horizon. Once things reach a certain level of cultural "it is known" explaining over and over is not required. If you're attending a protest, you know about these things. If you don't, others at the protest will tell you. If you do and aren't convinced, they aren't interested in reaching you.

Re: No to Chrome

#307

Post by zzo38computer »

tekknik wrote: post #305
zzo38computer wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are such feature different people like. A feature I cannot do without is the web developer console; much of the modern web pages are bad without it. The older XPCOM-based extensions also are more powerful than the WebExtensions and can do many more things (I don't like the design of XPCOM, but nevertheless WebExtensions isn't very good either). Such as, I can alter the behaviour of the location bar; I don't lik…

there’s a difference between a dev console, which is required for web developers and something that draws a line in the scroll bar. You can easily live without the later and there are absolutely no workflows requiring it. grandparent is giving up privacy for a line in the scroll bar.

OK, although note that I am not a web developer. The dev console is not only useful for web developers, but for other users too.

Re: No to Chrome

#308

Post by Anthony-G »

atomi wrote: post #284
azdv wrote: post #76

Interesting, I just moved back to Firefox after many years of using Chrome. I have to admit, it has gotten a lot faster recently, Firefox sync is working very well, and the Firefox Android app is a pleasure to use (being able to install uBlock origin is a huge plus). Anything else I missed on Chrome was easily solved by an addon, or a small tweak on userChrome.css (customizing the browser interface by overriding its…

On Firefox, one thing that really bothers me still is that it's impossible to remove a root domain entry from the omnibox. Like if I type "re" it completes to reddit.com even though I've deleted that entry. Chrome will respect the deletion and complete to reddit.com/r/all.

Yes. That's one of the few annoyances I have with Firefox. I have to use a local app where the root domain URL results in an IIS error page. Annoying, this always appears in the "Awesome bar" auto-completion list before the URLs I want to go to.

On the other hand, I like the meta-characters that can be used to modify the search results: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplet... (though I wish they were easier to remember).

Re: No to Chrome

#309

Post by stjohnswarts »

observr9 wrote: post #160
oefrha wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can’t solve highlighting search results in the scroll bar, and apparently I search a surprising amount and am absolutely crippled without scroll bar highlighting, so I’ll stick to Chrome until I can’t (e.g. when content blocking is crippled).

>> ... highlighting search results in the scroll bar... This. I find any browser that doesn't do that to be unusable. The alternative, in long documents or source code, is to blindly hit NEXT and visit all locations where a search term is found rather than scrolling quickly to see the different context regions. I tried a plug-in or two but they were not nearly as functional as the native Chrome experience.

Strangely I've never had a single use for this, next and back have been fine. What use case do you have where this is critical?

Re: No to Chrome

#310

Post by Grue3 »

yyyk wrote: post #281
Grue3 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, Google Maps is surprisingly good when you are on a foreign trip and need to find which bus you need to take to get somewhere. There are probably better country-specific apps to do the same, but GM works in all sorts of countries like Hungary or Japan.

Moovit (for example) has coverage of public transit in both of these countries. So even in that area there are alternatives for Google.

It does have some cities from these countries, but the coverage is not total enough. I have used Google maps to catch buses in obscure places like Iwaki and Balatonfüred.
Post reply on HN