Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

tuta.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

571–580 of 728 posts

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#571

Post by pcthrowaway »

ranguna wrote: post #82
rrreese wrote: post #64

I tried moving to Firefox a year ago but found that the lack of Tab Groups really killed me. There are several extensions that try to emulate this behaviour, but I didn't find that they worked particularly well. And then there are the security concerns. I guess when Chrome break uBlock Origin next year I'll give Edge a go, or one of the various chromium builds

Give it another go. Mozilla's own extension called multi account containers is pretty good and it has more features than just grouping tabs together. And there's also the panorama view extension, which looks really nice and I've seen people use it extensively.

Does it allow "saving" tab groups and having them sync with what you've actually put in them? Last I checked this was still an experimental feature in Chrome (it might be auto-available now), but it's a killer feature for me (it auto-syncs with whatever you add to or remove to the tab group also).

Mozilla providing the same would be required for me to make the switch altogether (though I happily use it for some things already)

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#572

Post by mrweasel »

RunSet wrote: post #564
williamdclt wrote: post #486

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It continues to surprise me that people don't make their "new tab page" useful, it's probably the page you see the most everyday. Make it your own, put your bookmarks in there or whatever is useful (I use https://start.me/ )

Firefox has made it unnecessarily difficult to customize the new tab. You can have it blank or you can have Firefox recommendations. Those are your options. https://i.imgur.com/U13r7pG.png This resembles a dark pattern to push users toward Firefox recommendations, a moneymaker.

That explains the ton of extensions to manage that page. That does seem like a pretty dark pattern move, I recall it having three options, the last being a custom URL.

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#573

Post by browningstreet »

Dah00n wrote: post #380
_cenw wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who don't see the problem with Edge must all be domain joined or on Pro for Workstations / Enterprise. Supposedly the browser doesn't annoy "confirmed" business customers as much. I recently switched to the RC Insider ring just to get the EU digital markets update, which lets you uninstall Edge. Because it started doing incredibly creepy stuff. * Keeps asking me every day if I want to keep my new tab extension…

>to get the EU digital markets update, which lets you uninstall Edge. Again — as a former anti-EU person — I am reminded why I am now pro-EU. While nowhere perfect it is much better than not having an EU and way, way better than the US.

The EU wants to use this trust relationship to break all encryption.

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#574

Post by drtgh »

When I open the firefox I see the following [0]interface rows :

1. previows/next | history | Menubar-bookmarks button | --URL BAR-- | reload | home | some addons | Decentral eyes | CookieAutoDelete | uMatrix | uBlockOrigin | Multi-Acount containers | Addons icon | Menu bar icon |.

2. Toolbar-bookmarks row | Button for unfolding the bookmarks that don't fit in such row.

3. Pinned tabs (they are only icons) | | + | unfold vertical list of the opened tabs |.

4. The page for the selected Tab.

This allows us to use two bookmarks visual groups, the ones that are unfolded through the Menubar-bookmarks, and the ones always visible when Toolbar-bookmarks are enabled (what in reality is a subfolder from menubar's bookmarks) and are shown as 2nd row in my interface. Also the easy access to Containers and the CookieAutoDelete, uMatrix, uBlockOrigin current page options are essential.

In the Toolbar-bookmarks, for being able to visually have more folders as "quick access" row line, I use acronyms as folder names (just for the first ones until fill that space). This between separators, and also mere url icons bookmarks (by removing the bookmark title name its just showed the page icon).

When one push one those folders are unfold all the related sub-folders and sub-bookmarks.

Also, equally important, the folders and bookmarks that don't fit in such row are easily accessible by pushing an icon at the right corner, what unfolds a vertical list with the rest the bookmarks. This is important because in such toolbar one usually have several hundreds of independent bookmarks and folders by topics, with infinite sub-folders and their respective bookmarks, etc.

This let us in Firefox with:

Pinned tabs, the current session opened tabs, the usability of to have the Toolbar-bookmarks with folders as topics by clicking the folder or icon, and a second different visual group of bookmarks through Menubar-bookmarks. By other side, if one want to add to those folders/topics the page that is being visited it's just needed to drag and drop the url there. Also all those bookmarks' folders have their option for to open their content in tabs.

I cannot think of browsing comfortably without such an interface and tools as a starting point.

[0] Thankfully and fortunately, with Firefox it is possible to have a browser focused in usability by enabling its options, and also to do adjustments in the interface under our needs with custom stylesheets. By default in FF the tabs are shown over the url bar, but in my case I use as base [1]customcssforfx for to put the tabs under toolbar-bookmarks, and from there I add a couple of lines with custom padding, sizes and icons. [1] https://github.com/aris-t2/customcssforfx

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#575

Post by jacquesm »

lock-the-spock wrote: post #565
jacquesm wrote: post #455

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've come across many anti EU persons and there are some broad categories: - the uninformed, they have no idea about how the EU came about or what it does, but they're against it anyway - the people on the receiving end of the regulations (anti-trust, advertisers, marketeers, bankers, data sellers etc). They have a very good idea about what it does, but it interferes with their preferred way of getting to more cash.…

Thanks, very nice summary and categorisation. Two nitpicks: * In my view Switzerland is not doing fine because it is wealthy, it is doing well as it was historically difficult terrain to conquer (thus no one bothered to invade it in most wars) and because today it is surrounded by wealthy democracies, all of which are part of the EU and economically closely integrated with Switzerland through the EU-Switzerland agree…

Fair point on .ch, yes, the geography really helped. Some questionable banking probably also deserves a mention.

Yes, true, there are plenty of local politicians that 'go to Brussels' and end up exporting their own corruption. The Bureaucrats are for the most part clean, though there have been some cases. One problem is that - just like everywhere else - the oversight body is understaffed.

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#576

Post by jacquesm »

michaelt wrote: post #562
jacquesm wrote: post #510

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about them? Do they see the federal government of the United States also as an anti-democratic bureaucracy? Do they see their own government as anti-democratic? And if not why do they see the existing EU as different? Do they understand how EU representatives are chosen? Do they follow EU parliamentary proceedings and do they understand how EU law interacts with local law? All of those are important questions an…

> Do they follow EU parliamentary proceedings and do they understand how EU law interacts with local law? Although I didn't vote for Brexit myself, I've spoken to a number of Brexit supporters. While they might not know the precise details, they know that a "Constitution for Europe" was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, it was changed into a "Reform Treaty" in 2007 which meant most countries' voters didn't…

> While they might not know the precise details, they know that a "Constitution for Europe" was rejected by French and Dutch voters in 2005, it was changed into a "Reform Treaty" in 2007 which meant most countries' voters didn't get a vote on it, and after Irish voters rejected that, they had to have a second referendum on the same treaty the year after.

But that's fine isn't it? After all, if we didn't get a 'Constitution for Europe' (which I'm ambivalent about) the treaty got us most of the benefits and as far as I can see today none of the drawbacks. Those drawbacks that were mentioned did not materialize, which seems to be the case with most EU law: there is an enormous amount of racket about how it will cause problems down the line but that almost never happens.

> They feel they have seen how EU law interacts with local law, and they don't like it.

Given how EU law has kept dutch politicians in line during the last decade or two I'm pretty happy with it. Without EU law NL would arguably in much worse shape re. international trade, privacy, anti-trust, agriculture, climate commitments and a whole bunch of other subjects.

Of course if you're a climate denier or you want to return back to the guilder none of those arguments matter but in general I see far more positives then negatives. Those local politicians that are clamoring the hardest for splitting from the EU bear the most scrutiny: likely their agenda requires a lack of oversight to succeed.

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#577

Post by jacquesm »

medo-bear wrote: post #558
jacquesm wrote: post #518

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Namely that understanding the EU governing structure is very impenetrable to a great number of people, much more so than their national government. You can say a lot about the EU that needs fixing but their documentation is excellent . What it needs is for the national governments to get better at communicating how and when they interact with the EU and what the practical effects are. The bigger problem is that ant…

> they somehow believe that as smaller countries in a much larger world that they would be able to do better than as a bloc Yeah colonies too would have been economically much better off today had they not experimented with national liberation, but thats not how people think. They dont want to be paying taxes to a place they see as foreign. Nor do they want foreigners telling them how to do things. You are aware we a…

I'd rather be dominated in a political arena than in a military one, which is pretty much the alternative. At least as it is the small countries can throw their weight behind the larger one that has their interests most at heart.

As far as colonies are concerned, that's a very thorny issue and also even further off-topic, and for NL (where I'm from) it is a very much embarrassing issue.

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#578

Post by FirmwareBurner »

michaelt wrote: post #544
jacquesm wrote: post #502

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm. It actually was. One of the major reasons the UK left the EU is because it would turn the UK into the financial center that it once was not having to deal with all these pesky EU regulations on financial markets. Small detail: it was the EU acting on behalf of the US that was the foundation for a lot of these regulations (mostly the fall out of a couple of really bad episodes) and Switzerland, one of the few hold…

> One of the major reasons the UK left the EU is because it would turn the UK into the financial center that it once was not having to deal with all these pesky EU regulations on financial markets. Eh, yes and no. A lot of the financial backing given to pro-Brexit politicians was from rich City types hoping to be deregulated, it's true. But London, the financial centre, had some of the lowest support for Brexit (outs…

> Areas like the West Midlands and Yorkshire had the highest levels of support

Areas with higher unemployment and lower economic development and opportunities often tend to vote on the extremes of the spectrum out of desperation. It's easy to think the EU or foreigners too your jobs away and that leaving the EU will somehow make it better.

Re: Choose the browser that best suits your privacy needs

#579

Post by zxt_tzx »

volsa wrote: post #478
bad_user wrote: post #100

I keep seeing Edge mentioned as a worthy alternative, and I just don't get it. First, all Chromium-based browsers will eventually block uBlock Origin for the sole reason that they can't maintain Manifest v2 on their own, and they all rely on Chrome's Web Store anyway. This won't happen immediately because Manifest v2 will probably stick around for longer because of enterprise users, but the writing is on the wall. Th…

> Or if you're on macOS, give Arc a try. Tried it and immediately deleted the app again. Seriously, asking users to create an account which isn't skippable is just plain dumb?

I understand why you feel this way, but this seems to be the trend for all the latest generation of "polished" software and I think they do this so they can retain users. (Another example that comes to mind is Warp, the terminal written in Rust.)

To be fair, as an Arc user, by logging in, I can keep my tabs synced perfectly across my personal and work laptops, which is worth it for me.

Post reply on HN