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I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok

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Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok

#251

Post by SunshineTheCat »

sumtechguy wrote: post #243
sdfjkhdfjkdhs wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Honest question do you really use all of those tabs? As a small handful of tabs user I use the bookmark feature to hold things I want to keep for later. ctrl-d and it is in the list. Even then 99% of the time I open it again and go 'why did I keep this'. I get it that it is your workflow. Just sort of curious why you would consider that a 'power user' thing? Would not saving them to the bookmark list be more of 'powe…

I don't know why, but equating how many tabs a person has open to how much of a power user they are sounds like something right out of a south park episode.

Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok

#252

Post by sdfjkhdfjkdhs »

sumtechguy wrote: post #243
sdfjkhdfjkdhs wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Honest question do you really use all of those tabs? As a small handful of tabs user I use the bookmark feature to hold things I want to keep for later. ctrl-d and it is in the list. Even then 99% of the time I open it again and go 'why did I keep this'. I get it that it is your workflow. Just sort of curious why you would consider that a 'power user' thing? Would not saving them to the bookmark list be more of 'powe…

The whole bookmark/tab system really needs to be completely revised. I have a new system I'm thinking about for my Chromium fork which will be radically different. More like a full-page "new tab" screen where everything can be visualized and sorted into different projects etc.

Just look at how most people do a search, for instance. These days for me it often involves 20-30 tabs, or even more, due to the horrific state of internet search. Many results have to be explored, many links from those results also explored, more searches done to narrow in on the precise keyword needed to bring up some hopefully good results, etc. And I can't close all that until the answer is found, as I may need to backtrack, so they just pile up. It's really quite ridiculous how much work it takes to find a good answer these days.

Compare with the typical person who just does one search with some suboptimal keywords then clicks on the first link, or starts dutifully absorbing the AI-generated garbage. Orders of magnitude difference.

I have dozens of projects I'm actively working on just for my Linux distro. Dozens of tabs open for things like X11 window management, for instance, or some info on C++ modules for another project. Lots of tabs open for a hardware project. All kinds of balls are up in the air here. Why put any of this stuff in bookmarks which is a waste of time and energy to manage, when I can just leave it in the tab list, organized in multiple windows spread across different desktops? (I have 64 desktops on my 55" plasma display.)

(lol @ the other guy's reply. That didn't age well.)

Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok

#253

Post by graemep »

scorpionfeet wrote: post #155
KellyCriterion wrote: post #49

What most people dont get: Most of folks on HN here are much older than todays "first customers" of 16y/17/18 For them: The "Smartphone is the internet", while for most of us the "Smartphone is an extension of the internet from our desktops" that we were used to (remember the years before dot com bubble, saying: "I will be down in the basement at the computer to surf on the net little bit" ? :-) But today, the very f…

My company corporate card requires an app because it has an Authenticator to access the website. I tried the ole “but I only have a flip phone” and they said there was no other option. The bastards forced my hand.

There are authenticator extensions for web browsers.

Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok

#254

Post by cjkaminski »

chrash wrote: post #240
8cvor6j844qw_d6 wrote: post #13

Web browser is a sandbox by default. Worst a sketchy site does is eat a tab, less if you run an adblocker. Native app? Background processes, hardware ID shenanigans, your contacts, location. The whole buffet.

bias disclosure: i used to do Android dev and kinda hate the browser personally. i don’t get this take. “Web browser is sandbox by default”. sure, it has to do the rail grind with a rake to access system calls, but in a modern system apps are also sandboxed, especially on a smartphone or when downloaded with a managed app service. the OS gives you the ability to specify permissions, although to what degree depends on…

Good night, sweet reputation and flights of angels sing thee to thy rest.

Seriously though, I appreciate this perspective. While I prefer using a browser whenever possible, I'm well aware of modern fingerprinting techniques. But I didn't know about permission "sharing" between apps in the same browser. Thanks!

Privacy and security have always been a game of cat and mouse. Doesn't seem like that's going to change anytime soon.

Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok

#255

Post by Zopieux »

Vachyas wrote: post #91
happytoexplain wrote: post #64

My experience might be the minority, but I have found that 95% of the time, when an app is available on both web and native mobile, the native mobile version is significantly better - usually not because it's a fantastic app or has more features, but rather because the web version is more buggy/slow/confusing. Whether I prefer an app to be web or native is purely based on the use case (I probably would choose native…

Yea, webapps (even PWAs) still can't compete with native apps when it comes to responsiveness, but I still don't know why. I've yet to see even a demo PWA that passes the "native turing test" where I can't tell whether it's a native app or not. Even native apps that were built with cross-platform frameworks feel a bit "off" sometimes.

Can't relate. Except for Google Maps and Docs, I can't think of a native app that couldn't be a WebView. Hell, most of them are anyway!

The worst kind is French banking apps or IBKR app: many features are native, but then because of some weird tech debt or incompetent tech leadership, they'll sometimes show you web pages in a shitty, slow, completely different UI-wise built-in WebView for mundane tasks like downloading a PDF statement.

Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok

#256

Post by dariosalvi78 »

technojamin wrote: post #147
btilly wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not new. I read a UI book in the early 2000s that cited research showing that most users didn't understand filesystems. They would seem to, but then the idea that the same filename in two places was two unrelated files would just lead to a mental block. Those who got it, didn't find it hard. It's just that some people can't get it. The disconnect is not between some developers, and the younger folks. It is bet…

I think that's perfectly understandable. File systems require the user to remember a hierarchy in their head (even if there are tools like breadcrumbs to help you out), and many people aren't willing or aren't able to hold an arbitrarily complex structure like that in their head. A name is a flat piece of information, no extra structure to imagine.

it's not complicated at all, it's how operating systems present them to the users.

Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok

#257

Post by dariosalvi78 »

KellyCriterion wrote: post #185
neutronicus wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My parents save files on the Whatsapp chat That's becoming dangerously true of my wife and I as well, to be honest. The friction is just so much lower than Google Drive or whatever. As long as I handle it right away. It's just finding something from more than an hour ago that's intolerable.

I met a business partner who is doing some work for SME retail investors last week for lunch: He showed me his WhatsApp: People are sending _ALL_ type of critical documents by WhatsApp to him. Everything. (and bank statements are among the class of "less critical" documents in his case) My theory here is: "If you have any function in your product, people will use it for anything appropriate to them in a given minute"

maybe China is right: one app to rule them all

Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok

#258

Post by saltcured »

Sophira wrote: post #183
nkrisc wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot more people than most HN readers realize simply struggle significantly with abstract thinking and reasoning. It's natural that people who enjoy programming and hacking and related fields are very comfortable with such abstract types of thought. But I really think that isn't all that common amongst most people. I think the average person has to learn such thinking abilities with difficulty (though they c…

> Which is actually why the "files and folders" metaphor is apt. It's a starting point, but I certainly wouldn't say it's the best metaphor that there could be. The idea of subfolders just doesn't make sense in a filing cabinet analogy, because you have to consider paper size - any folder which could fit into another folder is not going to be able to contain your regularly sized documents. That said, I can't think of…

People understand hierarchy. That named file is in a folder in a particular drawer of a particular cabinet in a particular room of a particular building in a particular neighborhood in a...

What some people struggle with is recursive hierarchy where each step doesn't change the kind of container. I guess they never saw a Matryoshka doll when they were little.

Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok

#259

Post by carlosjobim »

Sophira wrote: post #183
nkrisc wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think a lot more people than most HN readers realize simply struggle significantly with abstract thinking and reasoning. It's natural that people who enjoy programming and hacking and related fields are very comfortable with such abstract types of thought. But I really think that isn't all that common amongst most people. I think the average person has to learn such thinking abilities with difficulty (though they c…

> Which is actually why the "files and folders" metaphor is apt. It's a starting point, but I certainly wouldn't say it's the best metaphor that there could be. The idea of subfolders just doesn't make sense in a filing cabinet analogy, because you have to consider paper size - any folder which could fit into another folder is not going to be able to contain your regularly sized documents. That said, I can't think of…

A better metaphor would be trees and branches. Which is already somewhat used for computing.

Re: I won't download your app. The web version is a-ok

#260

Post by SoftTalker »

sdfjkhdfjkdhs wrote: post #252
sumtechguy wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question do you really use all of those tabs? As a small handful of tabs user I use the bookmark feature to hold things I want to keep for later. ctrl-d and it is in the list. Even then 99% of the time I open it again and go 'why did I keep this'. I get it that it is your workflow. Just sort of curious why you would consider that a 'power user' thing? Would not saving them to the bookmark list be more of 'powe…

The whole bookmark/tab system really needs to be completely revised. I have a new system I'm thinking about for my Chromium fork which will be radically different. More like a full-page "new tab" screen where everything can be visualized and sorted into different projects etc. Just look at how most people do a search, for instance. These days for me it often involves 20-30 tabs, or even more, due to the horrific stat…

I've never explored 20-30 search results. Not since Google anyway. If I don't find what I want in the first few I rephrase the search or try a different search engine. The world beyond the first page of results basically doesn't exist.
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