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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

#131

Post by burai »

lol768 wrote: post #74
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…

Safari caused me by far the most issues, back when I was doing frontend in ~2017/2018, in terms of how it complied with web standards (I wasn't as fussed at the standards it didn't support - at least I knew!) and rendered the web application I was working on across desktop, iPad and iPhone. I spent more time chasing Safari bugs and rendering idiosyncrasies than I did dealing with IE11, frankly.

Most of the problems I faced in the projects I work are caused by developers working only and exclusively with Chrome and not bothering to check their work on Safari and Firefox. The issues that were found with Safari were easy to fix or work around. Nothing compares to the painful process during ~2005-2010 when it came to support IE6.

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

#132

Post by Am4TIfIsER0ppos »

Kwpolska wrote: post #101
worrycue wrote: 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.

JPEG-XL is a feature the web can live without. But unlike Chrome, Firefox won't kill ad blockers or introduce DRM.

What? Firefox absolutely gave us DRM, encrypted media extensions, solely because they thought people would stop using it without support. They'll follow chrome on extensions, again, and the new DRM, attestation.

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

#133

Post by [deleted] »

DeathArrow wrote: post #35
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.

"We detected you are using an insecure browser. Please upgrade to a secure browser such as Mozilla Firefox." would do it. :)

[deleted]

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

#134

Post by progbits »

dvtkrlbs wrote: post #125
nathan_phoenix wrote: post #47

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.

JPEGXL was (co)authored by Googlers so it's also their "own" format.

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

#135

Post by hutzlibu »

viscousviolin wrote: post #123
hutzlibu wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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.

What you mean is telemetry, that is something seperately. And it is also enabled by default( and also annoys me, but less so).

But firefox studies means, (or can mean), that firefox will track you and sell that data to ad companies, if you "allow" it. Which everyone does, by default. This behavior from a "privacy orientated" company is close to a scam by me. Because a normal user who believes the privacy promise, won't know of, nor find these settings.

And apparently now there is a third setting(on Firefox mobile, but not on desktop), that at least openly tells you they share tracking data with a ad companies.

edit: ok, that is weirdly funny. "Adjust" the ad company firefox is apparently working together with, has a website, that does not really load in firefox at all, but only in chrome

https://www.adjust.com/

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

#136

Post by robin_reala »

sneak wrote: post #124
kramerger wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There’s no such thing. You use a Chromium that doesn’t report data back to Google, but the entire project is a Google project that pushes Google’s aims on the web.

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

#137

Post by mattgperry »

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…

Yes and no - IE was hated in part for deviating from standard/showing weird behaviour. But more than that it was dragging its feet on implementing new CSS and JS standards so they couldn't be used for years after introduction. It was nightmare.

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

#138

Post by robin_reala »

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.

We can see exactly Mozilla’s position on JPEG-XL: https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/#jpegxl

JPEG-XL includes features and performance that might differentiate it from other formats, but the benefits it provides are not significant enough on their own to justify the cost of adding another raster image format to the Web.

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

#139

Post by fsflover »

sneak wrote: post #124
kramerger wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I solved the security problem by using Firefox in VMs on Qubes OS. Works great.

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

#140

Post by fsflover »

ksey3 wrote: post #7
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?

I have been using Brave for about a year. Dont miss Firefox or Chrome.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36983812
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