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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

#121
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…

google is the new microsoft. has been for a few years now.

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

#122
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…

Microsoft actually laid off most of their IE developers after IE6 if I recall correctly, they had no vision for the future, it was finished, they'd won (for a while)

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

#123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh interesting! Seems like a pretty specific requirement to have. Do you mind if I ask what you use those for? As for the tracking - I'm pretty sure Firefox blocks a lot of those by default, last time I checked it was plastered all across their homepage. It's not 100% effective, but if them making an effort to do the right thing pushes you away, you might be asking too much unfortunately. Building an entire browser t…

"Do you mind if I ask what you use those for?" Game engine. "As for the tracking - I'm pretty sure Firefox blocks a lot of those by default, last time I checked it was plastered all across their homepage" And the thing is, that firefox itself is tracking you and sends that data home. Maybe look up what "studies" mean. But so far at least you can opt out of it, unlike with chrome.

Ah, I see what you mean. I'm personally not against this at all, since the Firefox devs need feedback on what's working and what isn't. But I completely understand that some people won't accept this. Only thing I can't figure out is if this is opt-out or opt-in, because I might have mindlessly clicked yes on opting in during installation.

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

#124
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Chrome is a lot more robust and secure against exploitation than Firefox is. This is a very unpopular fact, and every time I point it out the rabid Mozilla people get upset, despite it being the truth.

I use Ungoogled Chromium.

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

#125

Expected a huge list and there's only 3 items there, and one of them, JPEG XL, is kinda moot because it didn't seem viable until recently after Safari started supporting it... Feel that the list could have had much more substance with the addition of webUSB, webSerial and such features which Chrome just strong armed. In the current form the list and toot don't really drive the point home...

I mean it was always viable. Chrome did an opt-in experiment that no one heard of and than used it as a justification for ceasing its development. As a format it is just a win-win situation. Most of the companies that deals with images spoke for JXL. I think Google tried to push its own format in favour of JXL. So I really don't think it is moot.

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

#126

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 agree that chromium based browsers are significantly snappier on Linux than Firefox. I also switched to Brave from Firefox and I benchmarked them every once in a while to see if Firefox was improving. On a Mac Firefox seems to perform better, although still slower than Brave.

Firefox isn't unusable on Linux but it should have first class performance and it's a shame it does not.

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

#127
post #34
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

HN is weirdly obsessed with jpeg-xl. The logic for removing it totally made sense.

I personally don't agree. They did a test with limited users and than complained the audience was limited.

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

#128
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's not a problem. For now. There are so many software projects that depend on chromium for their basic functionality, and so many users that indirectly rely on chromium. It's hard to switch to an alternative if the need arises. So when Google inevitably turns chromium into a problem, you don't have enough time to switch, no matter how badly you want to. It's time to preventatively switch to a project that's mo…

Most Chromium-forks are not interested at all (or do not have the resources, considering the tons of costs it has) into doing any core changes to fight against Google, only Vivaldi… all the others are either doing nothing or just PR bullshit. If a feature is rolled out to 95% of users, then websites have to adapt. If you have a browser and are part of these remaining 5% you will be the one blamed by the users and by…

I get that, which is exactly why you don't want any one browser having just under 70% marketshare like Chrome. If there are multiple options for people to switch between, then they can switch to another one if their current browser does something they don't agree with.

If there isn't another option, you're stuck. We open ourselves up to horrific effects of browser monopolies like all the security issues that Microsoft didn't give a damn about back when internet explorer had a monopoly. It takes effort to switch to a different browser stack, like moving away from Chromium for example, but in the long term you do not want everyone stuck with only one option, because that will be even more costly.

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

#129
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 wasn't an inferior browser at the beginning either. It ended up a turd browser with it's own unique quirks bundled everywhere by a company with a vested interest of hindering the web.

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

#130
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…

When I learned html as a kid in 1998 IE was better than Netscape in my mind.

Netscape had lame while IE had the very cool instead.

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