If you care about privacy, it’s time to try a new web browser • Hacker News Board

Re: If you care about privacy, it’s time to try a new web browser

#101

Post by HWR_14 » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 12:10 AM UTC

true_religion wrote: post #33

coldtea wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> As such, Safari is basically the new IE6 — it lags all other modern browsers and prevents websites from taking advantage of nice new features This tired trope must die. No, Safari is not "the new IE6". The problem with IE6 was not that it lagged a few years before adopting some features, it was moving fast and implementing things on its own, forcing standards, etc, and forcing a monoculture due to his large adoptio…

I thought the problem was that for 8+ years it had no feature updates, and he team behind it was disbanded. So everyone hated supporting it since it was buggy, and you knew the bugs would never be fixed.

Are you talking about IE on Mac? Because that was different from IE 6 (which was on Windows)

Re: If you care about privacy, it’s time to try a new web browser

#102

Post by BlueTemplar » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 12:27 AM UTC

city41 wrote: post #79

xoa wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The web is the only open platform we have ever had and probably will ever have. Are you trying to make some sort of joke here? How is the Web more open than Linux or the BSDs running FOSS applications? And in fact how is the web under Chrome any more open than macOS or Windows? Seriously. In all cases, you can't just freely modify everything about the platform you're running on top of or most of the "applications"…

You're conflating two issues. Chromium's dominance is a problem for sure, but that is separate from the web being an open platform. The web is more open than Linux (which I use btw) because a web app can run on Linux, MacOS, Windows, FreeBSD, Android, iOS and more without recompiling, redistributing or re-anything. Would it be nice if it wasn't HTML/JS/CSS based? Absolutely. But we gotta take what we can get. I could…

Works for simple web apps, but for anything complex you are going to run into performance and especially UI issues. (Maybe also being limited to HTTP(S) can be an issue?)

Re: If you care about privacy, it’s time to try a new web browser

#103

Post by BlueTemplar » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 12:31 AM UTC

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #84

dtx1 wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't surprise me at all. The reality is that journalists are just that, journalists. They rarely have any relevant expertise about what they write. Coupled with strict limits on content size enforced by publishers and an audience that often understands even less about the topics discussed you get major errors like these. The amount of text necessary to explain to the average NYT reader what a rendering engine is p…

> This is why podcasts and longform youtube content form actual experts is thriving while traditional media is dying. It is kind of sad that the "longform content" that you mention as the new thriving alternative to traditional media, is rather time-infefficient audio and video. I regret the dearth of longform reliable text.

I don't know why he would think that, you can see good longform text examples on HN every day.

Re: If you care about privacy, it’s time to try a new web browser

#104

Post by hajimemash » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 12:46 AM UTC

franklyt wrote: post #5

Vinnl wrote: post #3

For Firefox Focus, IIRC the best strategy now is to install regular Firefox on your phone, and set it to private browsing by default. That will also include all the latest tracking protection additions that have been added to Firefox over the last couple of releases, and otherwise should be functionally practically equivalent. (Though I suppose with the addition that regular Firefox supports a number of extensions, s…

My complaint about FF is the inclusion of pocket, a closed-source default with a political bias doesn’t seem appropriate for an open source privacy-focused browser.

This is a valid concern, it's kind of icky to open Firefox and see them pushing some company Pocket's services.

Inspired to research further, I looked and found that Mozilla acquired Pocket in 2017, and it supposedly works on your local-only data for recommendations. Pocket has a subscription plan, and Mozilla as a free software co doesn't have many revenue streams. Them needing to present their product to users doesn't seem that bad viewed in the context of needing a way to support the product. I do think it could be better presented ie explained clearly what pocket is and why they show it to us.

Re: If you care about privacy, it’s time to try a new web browser

#105

Post by cmeacham98 » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 12:51 AM UTC

HWR_14 wrote: post #99

cmeacham98 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ghostery, at least in the past, has sold user data. ABP allows companies to pay to whitelist their ads[1], and is somewhat bloated in my experience. I highly recommend uBlock Origin. Their manifesto[2] most closely aligns with my beliefs on how my browser should behave: "The user decides what web content is acceptable or not in their browser." 1: https://adblockplus.org/en/about#monetization 2: https://github.com/gor…

Does uBlock Origin have, like NoScript, an easy way to toggle whether scripts (and other resources) from various domains are loaded straight in the browser? Or is it "modify a config text file and reload". I figured out how to block specific elements, but I do miss the ease of just turning off sources from a GUI of "everything that loaded".

Yes, here's an image of the uBlock Origin UI: https://files.catbox.moe/upzo0c.png

You can see you can block by domain, host, and some pre-determined groups like "3rd-party".

Re: If you care about privacy, it’s time to try a new web browser

#106

Post by nwienert » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 3:00 AM UTC

fragile_frogs wrote: post #89

nwienert wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which is actually a good thing for the diversity of browser engines and preventing Google from commandeering web standards and “embrace, extend, extinguish”ing them. If Chrome was allowed on iOS be sure Google would dump unlimited money to get people to use it. Websites would further go down the path of only testing on Chrome, and Google would continue stuffing their browser full of oftentimes needless features. And…

> Which is actually a good thing for the diversity of browser engines How is only allowing ONE browser engine good for diversity? If anything it hinders diversity and progress on iOS. > Websites would further go down the path of only testing on Chrome If only it would be possible to test Safari on a non Apple device, Apple is partial it fault here > And answer this: how would allowing other engines increase privacy?…

If you define diversity as market share, explain how v8 won’t gain market share if allowed on iOS. And v8 already has way too much.

Anyone paying attention can see there is a massive battle over web standards right now between Apple and Google, King Kong vs Godzilla (the other players aren’t in the same league), with the former being the one consistently fighting for privacy, and the latter for ever more invasive ads.

To me arguing for letting v8 on iOS is like saying why don’t we weaken King Kong so we can add a few more firefighters. It just doesn’t make sense. You don’t weaken the fighter thats lower in share (and stands against invasive advertising) because you feel bad for the local police not getting a chance.

It’s actually exactly why I’m happy to pay 700 - and if they opened it to other engines I’d value it less.

You can’t have a black and white view of freedom. Sometimes freedom is having an imperfect yet big and tough player that stands for what you want, against a worse option. The implementation is less free technically, but the outcome is more free dramatically (balance of power over the direction and control of the web and privacy).

I’d prefer a world where Chrome had a lot less market share, and then I’d not mind if it was more open. But we don’t live in that world. I’ll take the trade off.

Re: If you care about privacy, it’s time to try a new web browser

#107

Post by ikerdanzel » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 3:01 AM UTC

oneplane wrote: post #75

xnx wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me the primary characteristic of IE6 was not that it had a large market share like Chrome, but that it didn't update for over 5 years. Chrome is nothing like IE6 in that regard. The web would be better off if iOS users could benefit from the full Chrome codebase.

That might be, as you point out, the primary thing for _you_. At the same time, Safari updates plenty of times, just because they don't shout about it doesn't mean it's not happening. Same goes for the backing engines (including Blink and V8 in Chromium and derivatives like CEF and node; but also WebKit and the likes). The web would be better if it wasn't dominated by a very small set of platforms. Adding 'a few more…

Also primary for me, and probably a couple hundreds if counting my colleagues and their families and my close friends and their families and of course my families. Huge proportions of them using iOS. So I concur with previous reply. Don't get too fixated with market share. Apple isn't that niche if you include tablets and phones.

Re: If you care about privacy, it’s time to try a new web browser

#108

Post by Mediterraneo10 » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 3:14 AM UTC

BlueTemplar wrote: post #103

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why podcasts and longform youtube content form actual experts is thriving while traditional media is dying. It is kind of sad that the "longform content" that you mention as the new thriving alternative to traditional media, is rather time-infefficient audio and video. I regret the dearth of longform reliable text.

I don't know why he would think that, you can see good longform text examples on HN every day.

Yes, for the subjects that Hacker News is concerned with, but there is a lot more out there than just what appeals to this techie crowd. As someone who has been involved in travel blogging, for example, I have witnessed long-form text becoming less and less popular, and instead images or video are taking over. Obviously it is all well and good to show people things, but there was a lot of useful detail expressed in longform text that you don’t get from the low-information-density formats popular today.

Re: If you care about privacy, it’s time to try a new web browser

#109

Post by paddim8 » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 9:12 AM UTC

freebuju wrote: post #52

prophesi wrote: post #21

Firefox is good enough. Just remember to change your search provider, since they're still tied to a contract with Google. Their multi-account containers have been awesome, and I hope other browsers adopt similar functionality. For further privacy, there's a pretty radical version of Firefox called Tor.

Tor browser is not a version of Firefox. It is a browser project on its own. Couldn't let this coy remark just fly.

No need to be pedantic. It clearly is based on firefox, no?

Re: If you care about privacy, it’s time to try a new web browser

#110

Post by freebuju » Sun, Apr 04, 2021, 11:24 AM UTC

paddim8 wrote: post #109

freebuju wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tor browser is not a version of Firefox. It is a browser project on its own. Couldn't let this coy remark just fly.

No need to be pedantic. It clearly is based on firefox, no?

Reading the poster's comment in its entirety, one could almost conclude with certainity that above poster was being sly in their attempt to liken Firefox to Tor browser's capabilities. This juxtaposition forms the basis of my criticism.