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

#311

Post by profmonocle » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:58 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…

For me it's the ecosystem. I like my desktop browser syncing with my Android browser, and I really like built in chromecast support in my browser.

I know that Firefox has a mobile version with sync, but last time I tried it, I didn't care for it. I know there have been some attempts to bring chromecast support to Firefox via extensions, but last I tried it it was very buggy. But it's been many years since I tried either of those, maybe I'll give it another shot.

I also just realized neither of these conveniences are relevant on my work laptop. Firefox is approved by my company IT and a lot of my coworkers use it. I'm going to switch today.

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

#312

Post by cubefox » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:58 PM UTC

j1elo wrote: post #251

lol768 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

The dramatic (RED ALERT DANGER !!!) certificate error messages are completely over the top. Safari is worse than others, but all are bad. The browser vendors are acting as if HTTPS with certificate issues is a hundred times worse than plain unencrypted HTTP, which it is not.

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

#313

Post by bartread » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:58 PM UTC

matwood wrote: post #261

bartread wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm curious what "its own vision" was Well, back in the late 90s it was all about ActiveX and integration with other Windows components and applications in order to shove all other browsers out of the marketplace, gain dominance over the web, and further bolster the Windows hegemony by doing so. So, as one trivial example, you could export a Word document as a web page, open it up in IE and it would look great. But…

In the 90s many things were only possible with ActiveX or Java Applets. ActiveX just had the nice side effect of only running on Windows and IE. But, it's important to remember browsers were much much less capable than they are today. I was writing 'webapps' and manipulating the dom and javascript was sloooow (on both IE or FF). One hack I did was have the server dynamically writing js code (instead of doing somethin…

This is very true: if you wanted to do anything interactive you really had to dive into Java, Flash, or ActiveX. But, as you say, ActiveX was Windows and IE only, and that wasn't an accident.

And it wasn't just that JavaScript and DOM manipulation were slow: it was incredibly lacking in capabilities. Any kind of basic drawing? Nope. Multimedia support? Nope. Local storage? Nope. Decent networking capability and access to remote APIs? Nope. Good, standardised browser APIs? Nope, and hence the arrival of JQuery, Dojo, et al.

I completely agree with you but Microsoft's approach was deliberately and calculatedly shady.

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

#314

Post by ahartmetz » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:58 PM UTC

irthomasthomas wrote: post #116

ahartmetz wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox on Linux is just fine, no idea what you are talking about. It is fine on Android, too (uBlock Origin!).

Have you compared it to other browsers? What distro do you use? I've benchmarked performance on Arch, Fedora, Debian and Ubuntu and found that Firefox was 2-3x slower than most chrome forks.

I use Brave on Android for websites that don't work in Firefox. It's probably faster but I don't care. I care more about the difference between 10 and 100 ms (all browsers are not great at general responsiveness) than between 1300 and 1800 ms.

I also use Microsoft Edge on Linux for Teams video calls and can't say that I notice an appreciable difference in performance.

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

#315

Post by j1elo » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 12:59 PM UTC

Firefox had been underperforming during part of its life, but deep internal improvements meant those days are over. There is a huge difference in memory and CPU usage between older Firefox and the one we have today. Sadly, lots of people still think that Firefox never changed.

I did a quick memory usage test, just for having my personal anecdote and some numbers to show. The result was that Firefox uses an average of 10 MiB for each open (and active) tab. Not bad at all!

First, what I'm testing:

* Firefox 115, on Linux Mint 20.3 (which essentially is Ubuntu 20.04).

* 13 extensions installed. Some are uBlock Origin, Amazon Unsponsor, Bookmark Search Plus, DeArrow, Multi-Account Containers, Keepa, One-Click Wayback, Tree Style Tab (guys try this one out for a great vertical tab tree!).

* 90 tabs open. Tree Style Tab makes me open lots of tabs, because it is then so convenient to open/close subtrees for different topics... but I digress.

* Tabs include: 4 videogame stores, which are heavy on graphics and dynamic content. 10 shopping tabs in various shops, including Amazon. 10 YouTube videos (buffering preloaded). 14 Google Drive / Google Docs tabs (heavy on JS usage). Various documentation pages, and too many HN threads to admit.

* Firefox configured to remember all tabs when closed, and restore them when opening. Upon firstly starting, Firefox doesn't actually load the tabs. They are in suspended, inactive state, until opened for the first time.

RAM usage results:

* Cleanly started, only HN frontpage loaded: 372 MiB.

* HN frontpage and this entry opened in tabs: 386 MiB.

* Third HN tab opened: 394 MiB.

* Went through ALL 90 tabs to force them loading: 954 MiB.

Conclusion: Firefox uses around 10 MiB per loaded tab.

Screenshots of Btop++:

* In the middle of loading all 90 tabs. CPU is busy! https://pasteboard.co/Bxf2TI9P8YT2.png

* After all tabs have been successfully loaded. Resource usage is back to being stationary. https://pasteboard.co/m3tVzYNMtDmD.png

(The reason for this post is all those comments here and in other entries, claiming that Firefox was a resource hog for them a while ago, and that's why they nowadays are committed Chrome users. In light of recent events, we really need to collectively reduce Chrome usage numbers!)

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

#316

Post by mixedCase » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 1:01 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.

Do they work in Brave? Still Blink, but removes Google's direct control of your browser and many of its misfeatures/malware.

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

#317

Post by AwaAwa » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 1:04 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…

It's also what you get, when you know history and allow it to repeat.

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

#318

Post by registeredcorn » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 1:06 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'm not sure how pronounced it was for others, but one of my personal dislikes with IE was that there was no feasible way to uninstall IE, on top of the dreadful choices it made regarding web standards, documentation, and the overall "feel" of it - not to say that Netscape, etc. were much better at the time, but there was that very real sensation of being forced to have a piece of software I did not want installed on an Operating System that I used solely for compatibility reasons.

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

#319

Post by dvtkrlbs » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 1:08 PM UTC

toastal wrote: post #171

progbits wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Google is big enough to have its own bureaucracy & infighting for this to easily & plausibly happen.

I think AVIF format had a play in this whole ordeal.

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

#320

Post by smcleod » Thu, Aug 03, 2023, 1:08 PM UTC

Semaphor wrote: post #72

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…

Later, IE was also hated for being tied to the OS (which was related but different to the "not evolving"). Another thing Safari has. So yeah, I also fully agree. Safari is still the new IE.

IE was hated for being unreliable, lax on security and lacking in modern features. Safari / WebKit is incredibly performant and reliable with a modern feature set. Personally I’m not a fan of the UI but I guess it gets the job done.