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

#251

Post by j1elo » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:13 PM UTC

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.

Yeah, they usually do their own thing. Not only in following specs, though. Like how if you use self-signed cert for HTTPS (e.g. for local development and tests while playing with WebRTC), all browsers will show a Warning page with an escape hatch that can be clicked to ignore the problem. You can grab your personal phone, or ask anyone to lend you their phone in a pinch, and check your marvelous web creation.

Did I say "all browsers"? Sorry, not quite. iOS Safari outright refuses connecting. And it won't say why. I had to connect the damn iPhone with a cable to an Xcode machine, to open up browser console and see the error there. Turns out Safari is a special snowflake that requires doing some preparation ahead of time (no less than 3 steps!) 1) getting the Root CA into the phone, 2) install it in the cert storage, by the way you won't be able to do it if used a non-Apple app for step 1; and 3) enable full trust in the new CA. All that for a phone that I quickly borrowed from my flatmate. Thanks but no thanks! Not all developments are enterprise projects with proper laboratory devices.

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

#252

Post by cs702 » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:13 PM UTC

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…

> Chrome is the new IE.

That sounds exactly right to me, at this moment.

I would add that Firefox -- which has been improving noticeably in recent years, -- is "the new Chrome."

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

#253

Post by AndroidKitKat » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:14 PM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #237

hliyan wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)

Not on your list: Orion Browser by Kagi. Very fast. Zero telemetry. Lightweight, natively built with WebKit, made for you and your Mac. Industry-leading battery life, privacy respecting by design and native support for web extensions. https://browser.kagi.com/ Note that Edge is more or less Chrome except account / telemetry going to Microsoft not Google.

+1 for Orion. Been using it on my work laptop pretty much exclusively (still need to do testing for my work in Chrome/Firefox), and it is hands down my favorite browser.

Now that 1Password natively supports Orion (they had a browser whitelist), I can probably switch back to it on my personal machines / iPhone, but Safari is still pretty sticky for my non-work life.

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

#254

Post by fsflover » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:16 PM UTC

Kiro wrote: post #211

JulianWasTaken wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

My games, which are not using any special Chrome features, work horribly on Firefox and not at all on Safari. Until that is fixed no amount of bullying will make me switch. Not that it's a successful tactic to begin with.

Did you try to fill bugs in Firefox's bug tracker?

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

#255

Post by 0x008 » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:16 PM 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…

my excuse is that my company VPN is tied to chrome.

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

#256

Post by 0x008 » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:17 PM UTC

reilnin wrote: post #155

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...

WebUSB is pretty useful though, I know people who've used it to control all sorts of devices in an easily accessible way. Google themselves use it for updating Android devices, via making an ADB connection from their update webpage. I don't see how it could be classified as hostile, as it's adding a feature rather than taking features away.

yeah it's an easy way to update firmware on microcontrollers

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

#257

Post by joshstrange » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:17 PM UTC

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…

I’ve been saying this for years (on HN and elsewhere).

In my mind, there are two types of “IEs”. There is the IE that didn’t follow standards and did whatever they wanted and there is the IE that was slow to adopt new standards. Chrome is the former and Safari is the latter. Also, Safari is no where near as slow as IE was to adopt standards so I don’t find it great comparison.

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

#258

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:17 PM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#259

Post by anyonecancode » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:18 PM UTC

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…

I mainly remember 1) IE being quite idiosyncratic in how it followed html/css standards and 2) being able to use things like firebug to debug FF, but having an alert window pop up with a cryptic, unhelpful message when trying to debug IE. It seemed "make it work in IE6" was like 30% of time spent in my work back then. Also, it stuck around for a _long_ time, so that was especially annoying as long after other browsers, including IE, had moved on, a lot of effort still went into supporting IE6.

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

#260

Post by insanitybit » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:22 PM 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…

Manifest v3 has been delayed and was/is pretty legitimate, I don't think most people really know wtf they're talking about when it comes to v3. JPEGXL doesn't exactly seem like that big of a deal and is now being developed again - sounds fine, Chrome went "seems like no one wants this" and then people said "we want this" and now it's being worked on. WEI isn't even properly proposed yet, it's so early.

So these 3 things aren't really that insane, WEI is easily the worst of them.

In the meantime,

a) Chrome does everything I need while providing the highest security value.

b) Mozilla won't earn me as a user until their CEO is removed

It's not laziness, I make the conscious choice to use Chrome because I think it's the best browser right now. I use Brave on Mobile and I haven't switched on my laptop yet because I haven't evaluated it.