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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

#481

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aa long as chromium is open source and various entities are able to build and remove/modify anti-user features, i don't see a problem with alternatives being a "skin". If Google makes moves to make it difficult to modify chromium then browser maintainers will quickly migrate to other engines.

WEI will make chromium effectively unusable yes you'll have the source, but it won't remotely attest unless you're Google/MS so it is effectively closed source

Brave uses chromium and they cut WEI out of their build already.

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

#482
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" is laughable. Apparently you know nothing about history. Chrome has its sins but it is no where near comparing the evil of MS shoveling their OS and Office to peoples throats.

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

#483
post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> However, Apple did not attempt to divide the web then use its dominant position to make all the content only compatible with their stuff. Of course they didn't, because they outright want to kill the web so all your content is locked into Apple reviewed and taxed apps. Why would they divide the web when their goal is to make sure it's not a viable platform for their newest devices?

> their goal is to make sure it's not a viable platform for their newest devices? If that is the case, why does Apple continue to add functionality and features for web apps on Mac OS and iOS? https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10120/

To me it seems like hollow virtue signaling to the FTC. It’s so bad. I’ve been pollyfilling and bug hunting a web app to fix and work around bugs / limitations / missing APIs in Safari for weeks and the result is an inferior experience.

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

#484
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)

Use Safari for 99% and Chrome for the odd website that has issues. Safari is faster, better privacy and requires far less resources e.g. battery life, memory.

This exactly. I don't know why people are treating it as a binary choice - use Chrome when you have to, use something else everywhere else. People did the same with IE back in the day.

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

#485

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

I recently switched to Orion in my company Macbook (from firefox, which I use everywhere). It's good enough... but it's not great. I've had at least one site broken even in compatibility mode. I am very frustrated by poor mouse support: unable to drag-and-drop URLs to your bookmark bar, or bookmarks within your bookmark bar (and when I imported my bookmarks, for some reason they were scrambled inside their folders). Other than that, though - it's a browser.

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

#486
post #446

I don't understand the JPEG XL frackus, but that's partly because I think the Web platform should not continue being an enormous ball of mud, with everything built into the browser with no layering. Make a Wasm module (use SIMD and threads if you want) that can decode the format and render to an immutable canvas and then let the browser engine manage the pixels after that. Wasm is close enough to native speed now tha…

That sounds like a lot more work than just allowing . Are you proposing that every website comes with their own set of WASM libraries to allow its content to be rendered (each with their own bugs)? Why stop there? Just have the browser manage the canvas and deliver your own HTML rendering engine via WASM?

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

#488

Earlier quoted context omitted.

WEI will make chromium effectively unusable yes you'll have the source, but it won't remotely attest unless you're Google/MS so it is effectively closed source

Brave uses chromium and they cut WEI out of their build already.

so shortly after WEI goes live in Chrome, Brave users won't be able to:

  - use youtube
  - watch "premium" video content (disney/netflix/...)
  - use online banking
  - visit sites with adwords
and will be presented with endless captchas on e.g. cloudflare sites

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

#489
post #476
post #473

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the big issue with MV3 is the limit of like 30k content blocking rules per extension, whereas Safari's is unlimited(?)

> Safari's is unlimited(?) Safari content blocker rules are limited. Formerly 50k, increased to 150k: https://adguard.com/en/blog/adguard-for-safari-1-11.html

Right, but that article mentions the workaround. Wipr gets you to enable a few "extensions" (Wipr Extra, and Wipr Parts 1-3) when you set it up. Each one grants an additional 150k rules

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

#490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the point of that. I like Chrome, it solves all of my problems well and it has top notch security too. I like the integrations it has with gsuite, etc. If I'm going to switch for ideological purposes I'm going to need to see a browser that can actually follow through on its ideology.

So, in reality, it had nothing to do with the CEO and all to do with the fact that you don't care?

I feel like people are responding to my posts based on reading half a sentence or something. I don't really understand what's so hard to get about this. As I said elsewhere:

1. I use Chrome because Chrome works best for me

2. People are proposing I use Firefox because Firefox has a mission that people want to align with

3. Firefox has terrible leadership and can not execute on their mission, I am not switching browsers to one that's run by an utter failure unless they either build a much better browser or they fire the fool who has put them in this position

This is not complicated. If you're asking me to use a worse product (from my perspective) for ideological reasons, which I actually align with, then using that product had better actually advance that ideology - something I do not believe Mozilla is capable of doing while their current CEO is sitting. I have then expressed why I believe the CEO is incapable and a failure. Saying "But Google's CEO is bad" doesn't change that - I'm not using Chrome because of ideological reasons.

This seems insane to have to spell out repeatedly.

edit: I think Dang consolidated the posts - thanks, I realized that it was getting egregiously repetitive.

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