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Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

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Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#311

Post by albrewer »

wrldos wrote: post #106

I can't honestly even consider reading this from the vendor in question. I appreciate Firefox and use it on a regular basis but no browser, OS vendor or standard agency out there has an ounce of respect left from me. Nothing any OS vendor or browser vendor has done in the last decade has been a user-focused positive experience. They have become delivery tools for revenue only rather than information access. Even Fire…

> Nothing any OS vendor or browser vendor has done in the last decade has been a user-focused positive experience.

I mean, we got Rust out of the deal.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#312

Post by wrldos »

albrewer wrote: post #311
wrldos wrote: post #106

I can't honestly even consider reading this from the vendor in question. I appreciate Firefox and use it on a regular basis but no browser, OS vendor or standard agency out there has an ounce of respect left from me. Nothing any OS vendor or browser vendor has done in the last decade has been a user-focused positive experience. They have become delivery tools for revenue only rather than information access. Even Fire…

> Nothing any OS vendor or browser vendor has done in the last decade has been a user-focused positive experience. I mean, we got Rust out of the deal.

Ah Rust. I've written a few thousand lines. Nothing major. It feels like it's got the same personality as C++. You know a shit hot weapon that fires the world's most powerful missiles but at the same time makes embarrassing fart noises. I mean it's really good but I spend a lot of time defending the fart noises rather than firing the missiles.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#313

Post by A4ET8a8uTh0 »

elzbardico wrote: post #225
A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is hard for me to disagree, because I understand that use case. The issue, however, appears to be that there is no 'version' that allows for it for users that accept the risks involved. It is not completely unlikely the conversation with cops. In their perfect world, everyone would sit quietly at home with hands on the table. Life is more messy than that though for obvious reasons. In other words, I understand the…

For those cases, there is Android. My youngest one has an android phone, and everyone else in our family has an iPhone. It is not like you are forced to buy an iPhone. Those restrictions are actually part of its market differentiator.

No. All that happy talk about differentiation and market forces only makes sense when there is an actual competition. We have an effective oligopoly with no real choices between them. If there is no real choice, as consumers we have to force companies to adopt more consumer-friendly posture ( and yes, that means sideloading and all the dangers that entails ).

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#314

Post by boomboomsubban »

krono wrote: post #292
boomboomsubban wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revenue's pretty damn important, without the increase Firefox likely would have been dead years ago. The management has hardly been flawless, but I don't know how to compete with opponents that have practically unlimited budgets with no expectation of being independently profitable, first IE then Chrome. Any move that isn't a grand slam will be viewed as a failure.

Nicely worded. I suppose it's not as much that I believe she's doing a particularly bad job, but more that she's been moving Mozilla too far into the direction opposite from where I would have liked it to go, and where I believe it belongs. I find her salary increases and their timing both unconscionable and excessive regardless.

If someone asked you "hey we want to promote you to permanent CEO. It'll be more work, you'll be forced to make unpopular decisions that will lead to rampant criticism, and we'll cut your salary" would you accept?

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#315

Post by asadotzler »

Devasta wrote: post #191
bombolo wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think suddenly iphones will come out of the box with competing app stores? What made this strange thought pop into your head?

I think they'll visit sites and instead of being recommended to install an app, they'll be recommended to install an app with a redirection to a different app store. Apple takes a huge cut of the money spent on the app store, and everyone will have a huge incentive to move users to different stores if they can. This isn't difficult to understand if you thought about it for more than a minute.

That would be apple's problem then for making their store so unattractive to developers. What you're saying here is that if developers had a choice they'd tell apple go fuck themselves and you're probably right. "We'll engage in anti-competitive practices so our customers can't escape our shitty offering" is not the flex you think it is.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#316

Post by midoridensha »

giraffe_lady wrote: post #289
kajecounterhack wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm even my non tech classmates in college knew the difference between chrome and safari. They care about speed and features they get used to (e.g. chrome password manager follows you to your phone, syncs history across devices). To be an absolute non user of such features to the point of not caring is not what I’d consider typical. Could it be an age cohort thing?

Where did you get the idea that I don't use the features? I'm not interested in evaluating or comparing the features, but I'll use them if they suit my needs.

You can't use them if they're not on the default application installed on your system.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#317

Post by midoridensha »

Toutouxc wrote: post #215
midoridensha wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have two otherwise-equal choices, but one has great default settings, but allows you to change things if you really really want, and the other has the same great defaults, but is locked down and doesn't allow you any choice, then if you pick the locked-down choice, I think you're frankly quite stupid. What I think is really stupid is how many people seem to think that having the ability to change things means…

> think that having the ability to change things means that they absolutely MUST go through all the settings menus and change things. That sure does sound like a straw man argument to me. Are you sure you've really heard "pls don't make me change all the things, I don't like changing things" instead of the much more plausible "pls don't make me use a system where someone had to implement (and has to support) function…

It's not a straw man. People really do say these things. They complain that the existence of lots of configuration menus and options means that they MUST go through all these menus and configure everything themselves. Believe it or not. I've seen it time and time again, for over a decade, every time there's an argument of Gnome vs. KDE.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#318

Post by Fire-Dragon-DoL »

lovich wrote: post #38
midoridensha wrote: post #2

Just reading the beginning, it looks like they're mainly complaining about proprietary OS vendors restricting users' choice in browsers through various shenanigans. Linux users (for desktop systems) don't have this problem, and for mobile, Android users can easily install Firefox (or better yet, Firefox Nightly) through the Google Play store and set it to be the default browser. Basically, if you want to have choice…

>...(or better yet, Firefox Nightly) ... I think this is some of the disconnect between users on this site who don't understand why people would possibly actively choose iOS even with the lockin. Most people do not want to use a product that is constantly updating and adding features in that are going to be taken out shortly, for something as basic nowadays as web browsing. If you're on the cool new technology people…

I despise most of the things that Apple does and yet, I am evaluating switching to apple for phone more than 10 years on android. The reason?

I cannot backup my phone data, I have to rely on the single app implementation and many of them have nothing about backing up data.

Add that I roughly get 2 years of security updates at most (I don't buy phones as soon as they come out), the consequence is having an expensive piece of outdated hardware.

I was going to suggest that Google stops implementing and releasing any new major Android feature, only release security updates. At least this way we would start getting security patches for longer...

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#319

Post by mike_hearn »

GeekyBear wrote: post #273
mike_hearn wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing stops you executing arbitrary code on iOS, you just have to use an interpreter to do so, and Joker is in fact running interpreted code (a dex file). Bear in mind one reason you may hear less about malware on iOS is simply that security researchers aren't allowed to sell products for it and they are blocked by the infrastructure from examining apps like anyone else is anyway, so they have no incentive or abili…

> Nothing stops you executing arbitrary code on iOS Nothing except the App Store review process? We already have tech sites warning Android users to beware of apps inside the Play Store, because Google has been unable to block Android apps from downloading malicious code and executing it on a regular basis. If you're happy with that state of affairs, by all means, buy an Android device.

The point being made by the cited article is that a tiny interpreter that activates days or weeks after an app goes live can't be detected by any app store review process. You have no idea how many such droppers are active in the iOS App Store because only Apple can look for them, and nobody knows if they do or to what extent they do.

That's why both platforms also use a sandbox. The dropper still needs to work within whatever permissions the app has been granted. App Review doesn't involve a full blown security audit of your app's source code and then a deterministic build process on top.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#320

Post by mike_hearn »

pas wrote: post #236
mike_hearn wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're making statements about how people think in general, but most of the world isn't iPhone land.

Most of it perfectly applies to the Android universe too. And the US device market is still the trendsetter, which is basically Appleistan.

Apple is only about half the US mobile market, and the rest of the world the trend is clearly Android. So calling the US market the trend setter seems odd because if that were the case then the rest of the world would be trending strongly iOS but this pattern has been stable for years.
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