A list of recent hostile moves by Google's Chrome team • Hacker News Board

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

#201

Post by bob1029 » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:31 AM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #85

detuur wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was/is a very well thought-out format that had a lot of industry signalling they were willing or even enthusiastic about supporting it, which happens virtually never for new image formats. All the major browsers were working on support, many image processing pipelines were being updated. Everyone agreed that it was not just a major improvement, but actually the best option out of all the contenders out there. Even…

A possible reason might be some patents owned by Microsoft: https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/17/microsoft_ans_patent/ That's also a good reason for others to drop support until licensing of these patents is clarified.

This is also why the original jpeg was forced to use a less-than-ideal encoding scheme (Huffman vs arithmetic). Most libraries have flags that enable the alternative mode.

Maybe we should stop issuing patents for math problems?

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

#202

Post by Timber-6539 » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:32 AM UTC

Browser wars tend to get preachy at times and border on religious fanaticism. Chromium is free to fork. That's the only thing that matters.

I'm not going to give up sweet convenience so that I can make a claim that am sticking it to the man. That's ridiculous.

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

#203

Post by Kiro » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:32 AM UTC

sph wrote: post #142

What is the excuse of all people reading this thread in agreement and still using Chrome? As I mentioned elsewhere, this is preaching to the choir. A choir of Chrome users. Google wouldn't be so dominant if tech people like us would stop making lazy excuses to continue its hegemony. In Dante's Divina Commedia , there is a circle of hell for those too lazy to take a stance [1]. If it were written today, it would inclu…

Why would I need an excuse? I'm free to use whatever I want.

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

#204

Post by danskeren » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:34 AM UTC

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #163

sph wrote: post #142

What is the excuse of all people reading this thread in agreement and still using Chrome? As I mentioned elsewhere, this is preaching to the choir. A choir of Chrome users. Google wouldn't be so dominant if tech people like us would stop making lazy excuses to continue its hegemony. In Dante's Divina Commedia , there is a circle of hell for those too lazy to take a stance [1]. If it were written today, it would inclu…

Many of my work tools require a browser extension that's only compatible with Chrome. The publishers don't plan to support Firefox or any other browser. I can do without these tools (not an easy task) but not my coworkers.

If you use Mac then you can consider Orion by Kagi (natively built with WebKit) which supports both Chrome and Firefox extensions (experimental).

(I personally use Firefox since I feel it's a much better browser (especially thanks to Firefox Multi-Account Containers), so can't comment on quality since I just tested it briefly.. but I do use Orion as my main browser on iOS where it's amazing.)

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

#205

Post by JulianWasTaken » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:34 AM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #203

sph wrote: post #142

What is the excuse of all people reading this thread in agreement and still using Chrome? As I mentioned elsewhere, this is preaching to the choir. A choir of Chrome users. Google wouldn't be so dominant if tech people like us would stop making lazy excuses to continue its hegemony. In Dante's Divina Commedia , there is a circle of hell for those too lazy to take a stance [1]. If it were written today, it would inclu…

Why would I need an excuse? I'm free to use whatever I want.

No one is taking away your freedom. They're pointing out you're not helping by making the choice you've made. You're free to choose not to help.

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

#206

Post by arp242 » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:34 AM UTC

mrtksn wrote: post #73

tommiegannert wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> I'm curious what "its own vision" was The JS and CSS and HTML box model worked differently, the websites were displayed correctly only on IE or only on other browsers. People put text that says "best viewed in Internet Explorer 6" at the bottom of the page or straight out blocked users from displaying the page in other browsers and encouraged them to download IE - just the same thing we have with Chrome today when…

The IE block model was better though, and everyone is using it today with box-sizing: border-box. I still maintain that the pragmatic and sensible thing to do was to just modify the standard – "best viewed in IE" was a self-inflicted wound.

Also remember the context: Netscape was just as gung-ho with standards as IE and everyone was kind of figuring out what did and didn't work on the fly. To just ossify a standard at some point just made no sense, and to keep bashing on IE for their better box model "because Micro$hit bad" made even less sense. Good standards respond to what's going on in reality.

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

#207

Post by hliyan » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:34 AM UTC

sph wrote: post #142

What is the excuse of all people reading this thread in agreement and still using Chrome? As I mentioned elsewhere, this is preaching to the choir. A choir of Chrome users. Google wouldn't be so dominant if tech people like us would stop making lazy excuses to continue its hegemony. In Dante's Divina Commedia , there is a circle of hell for those too lazy to take a stance [1]. If it were written today, it would inclu…

For a Mac M1 user who wants a lightweight browser, what would you recommend:

1. Safari (with this, I have trouble with some websites, particularly Google ones)

2. Firefox (good, but has been a memory hog in the past)

3. Brave (like that it's Chromium, but I worry about the odd features like crypto)

4. Edge (I just downloaded it. leaning toward this choice)

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

#208

Post by pilif » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:35 AM UTC

jillesvangurp wrote: post #85

detuur wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was/is a very well thought-out format that had a lot of industry signalling they were willing or even enthusiastic about supporting it, which happens virtually never for new image formats. All the major browsers were working on support, many image processing pipelines were being updated. Everyone agreed that it was not just a major improvement, but actually the best option out of all the contenders out there. Even…

A possible reason might be some patents owned by Microsoft: https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/17/microsoft_ans_patent/ That's also a good reason for others to drop support until licensing of these patents is clarified.

> That's also a good reason for others to drop support until licensing of these patents is clarified.

If that were true, then browsers should drop support for VP8, VP9 and indeed AV1 because the MPEG-LA is claiming ownership of patents covering those codecs.

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

#209

Post by omgmajk » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:36 AM UTC

* The "Manifest v3" sabotage of content blocking extensions: https://archive.is/i2vGD

* The attempted sabotage of #JPEGXL: https://archive.is/2ihEV

* #WebEnvironmentIntegrity a.k.a. #DRM for whole websites would hurt the web, #opensource browsers and OSes: https://archive.is/S912x

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

#210

Post by TheRoque » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 11:37 AM UTC

ksey3 wrote: post #179

progbits wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"there is crypto but I don't use it" Fair enough, but some of us consider the mere presence of crypto features to be a problem. It entirely erodes my trust in the teams judgment and if Firefox ever added something like that would have to switch away as well.

Just dismissing it as a "crypto feature" is pure robotic mindlessness. We are past the point where crypto scammers ruled the day. The scammers/hype herd have moved on to AI. Who is left behind holding the crypto bag, are different kind of people. Even central banks are using "crypto features" to implement CBDCs. The BAT tokens Brave has proposed is not a bad thing, even if it doesn't work out, to the problem of Atten…

I think you are naive to think that crypto has no role to play in Brave browser. 66% of the tokens are given to the investors, and Brave is a for-profit, which obviously mean that investors will want a return in their investment someday. I'm curious to see how they'll do it, not saying it'll be toxic, but with all their crypto stuff they are starting off the wrong foot And if they can't make it profitable, well the project will be dead anyways.