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A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

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Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#61

Post by adrian_b »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #17

Firefox is unusable on Linux. Way too slow. But Brave browser is very snappy. It's the fastest chrome fork, and has great features, like vertical tabs, which have become essential to me.

There was a time, some years ago, when Firefox on Linux had become very slow, so I had to switch to Chrome as my main browser.

Regardless which is my main browser, I have to keep both around, because they have different bugs, so there are rare cases with some sites that work well only with one of them.

A few months ago something happened with Chrome, which abruptly (after a version upgrade) has begun to start only after a very long and annoying delay. Perhaps it attempts to connect to some Internet address blocked by the firewall and it gives up only after a timeout.

In any case, this sudden slowdown of Chrome made me switch back to Firefox as my main browser, which is OK now, because Firefox on Linux has become fast again and it no longer has any noticeable speed difference vs. Chrome. Also some problems that Firefox had when playing YouTube videos have been solved.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#63

Post by realusername »

worrycue wrote: post #5
dbish wrote: post #3

The problem is there are almost 0 alternatives beyond Firefox so if you don’t like their UX you’re stuck. All the “new” browsers are just chromium skins (edge, arc, etc.) Are there any real competitors building a new browser?

Frankly Firefox is barely a hedge against Chrome. When it comes to things like JPEG-XL they are in lock step with Chrome. Safari ended up being JPEG-XL’s unlikely champion. I kind of wished Apple would release Safari for other platforms again.

> I kind of wished Apple would release Safari for other platforms again.

It's barely maintained even on their own platforms. If they could stabilize and not break localStorage, indexdb or forms every other week, that would already be a great start before thinking of other platforms.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#64

Post by tommiegannert »

mrtksn wrote: post #57

Remember the "Safari is the new IE" narrative? Just because Safari doesn't support some API doesn't make it IE, IE wasn't an inferior browser at the beginning either. What made IE the IE everyone hates was its departure from standards(?) and enforcing its own vision of the web thanks to its enormous market share. On IE's case, MS probably stagnated it to prevent competition against its desktop Apps business and on Go…

IE was absolutely hated for not evolving. I'm curious what "its own vision" was, other than "do as little as possible, while Mozilla and Opera keeps pushing forward."

Now, this is from the perspective of the web developer. I don't think IE was ever hated the same way from the end-user perspective.

Chrome is still innovating, but now end-users hate it, because it's trying to be too much. The "new IE" hat still belongs to Safari.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#65

Post by kramerger »

tgv wrote: post #55
dbish wrote: post #3

The problem is there are almost 0 alternatives beyond Firefox so if you don’t like their UX you’re stuck. All the “new” browsers are just chromium skins (edge, arc, etc.) Are there any real competitors building a new browser?

What would you think the problem with Firefox' UX that keeps so many people from switching is? I think it's not UX, but pure marketing.

People have all kinds of weird excuses for not using Firefox.

Sometimes it feels like "Sure, Chrome sold my kids data to human traffickers. But I can't switch to Firefox because I really _need_ MIDI-2 over websocket support"

Sure, FF is not perfect but a lot of issues is due to sites being optimised for webkit and that will not change as long as Chrome has 80% marketshare. You need to sacrifice a little for freedom.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#66

Post by camillomiller »

lodovic wrote: post #27
amelius wrote: post #16

Webmasters should really fight back and show annoying popups when the user agent equals Chrome. These popups could nudge the user towards e g. Firefox. Perhaps EFF.org could provide a reference implementation of such popups.

Serious question: does the concept of a webmaster still exist in 2023? Sites are developed and built in dtap, deployed by gated processes, and in many instances nobody but the deployment agents have access to the actual production servers.

Maybe not, but you could be in a bit of a bubble regarding the average website deployment method. In my experience as a webdev most website are still very much deployed in a way that’s controllable by those who would put up such an alert. The problem is rather political. Any organization with a website relevant enough to make such a popup worthwhile would never agree to have such a popup alienating its largest share of visitors. Small independent sites would, but they would be pretty much preaching to the choir.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#67

Post by hutzlibu »

viscousviolin wrote: post #48
hutzlibu wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Give Firefox's Gecko engine a chance, it has all the features you need." No, sadly it does not. And then I would be just dependant on mozillas leadership and sadly I do not trust them either. Ladybird and Kling I would trust, but it is not advanced enough yet. But they are making progress!

What makes you not trust firefox? I don't remember hearing about them acting in bad faith, but I'd love to hear if they did. What features do you need that only Chromium can give you?

Ads and tracking(called studies) enabled by default from the browser - and marketing itself as privacy orientated.

"What features do you need that only Chromium can give you?"

WebGPU and sone features with webworkers.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#68

Post by Propelloni »

irthomasthomas wrote: post #17

Firefox is unusable on Linux. Way too slow. But Brave browser is very snappy. It's the fastest chrome fork, and has great features, like vertical tabs, which have become essential to me.

I respect your individual experience, Firefox may be slow for you on Linux. It's not for me.

That being said, I don't believe this kind of performance is the deciding factor in choosing your web browser any more. All of them are doing at least "Okay" in browsing the web. Other things seem to be more important, at least to me. For example, Firefox (and Mozilla) are not without faults, but they surely are one of the few obstacles remaining to prevent a Chromium monoculture and a fall-back into IE4 times.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#69

Post by maxbond »

amelius wrote: post #54
maxbond wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to do something in protest, people have to know that you're protesting and that you want them to take an action in support of it. And if you degrade their service, they won't blame Chrome, they'll blame you.

Well, you could do both :) "You are using a slow browser, please upgrade to Firefox for a fast experience" Okay, perhaps that is a bit underhanded, but you get the idea.

I think the "Stop SOPA" banners are a good model. I think people are already suspicious of Google, I don't think they'd need all that much convincing to try switching to Firefox. After a week, at least half will have switched back, but that's just how it goes.

Re: A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team

#70

Post by matsemann »

lodovic wrote: post #27
amelius wrote: post #16

Webmasters should really fight back and show annoying popups when the user agent equals Chrome. These popups could nudge the user towards e g. Firefox. Perhaps EFF.org could provide a reference implementation of such popups.

Serious question: does the concept of a webmaster still exist in 2023? Sites are developed and built in dtap, deployed by gated processes, and in many instances nobody but the deployment agents have access to the actual production servers.

My aunt was one of the first "webmasters" in Denmark, getting their municipality information online. In Danish, aunt is "moster", so when she helped me and my mom make a website for my mom's business, the footer said "Webmoster" instead. She also helped me set up an e-mail. I called myself mats_pc, because having PC in my name like she did felt cool and techy. Only later did I realize she had _pc as that was her initials after getting married. So I basically changed my name to hers, hehe. Good memories.
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