We Need Chrome No More • Hacker News Board

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#151

Post by no_wizard » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

snek wrote: post #119

no_wizard wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish someone from Mozilla or MS would comment on this, to be honest. Were they even considered? Historically, I've heard from various sources that Mozilla may not work at the same pace as some of the large corporations do in upstreaming patches and releases to the code base. This has (according to what I have heard, which may simply rest on rumor/speculation/heresey, mind you) kept a lot of large entities from gett…

microsoft switched to chromium because they want better control/integration with electron apps and the windows store. firefox wasn't on the table for them.

I really don't think this is it, if I'm being completely frank, because they already have an enormous amount of up front work done with making Windows PWA friend:

https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/pwa

I also am willing to surmise that they are going to put in alot of work re-working all their APIs that are exposed as Edge based interfaces into whatever engine they and up with here (namely chromium), so I don't think it would have been beyond them to put in the work to do something like they did with node and chakra core:

https://github.com/nodejs/node-chakracore

(which, btw, for now isn't dead: https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore/issues/5865 likely for the reasoning I mentioned above)

I just don't buy it. I don't think easy electron compatibility is the main drive here.

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#152

Post by toastal » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

rrggrr wrote: post #26

Extensions. I am now locked into Chrome because several services I use require Chrome extensions that aren't available elsewhere. The idea that Chrome can be unseated, or isn't needed, is unrealistic for the many users who rely on Chrome-exclusive extensions.

This is so sad really. I have to keep Chrome around to run one extension, but Chrome's WebExtensions are now the 'standard' in the main browsers and many companies have been shunning support to the other browsers by not bothering to package outside the Chrome Store.

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#153

Post by JohnTHaller » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

mapgrep wrote: post #7

I enjoyed this post, but I take issue with the idea that Chrome was initially adopted, or served, "to break the Web free from corporate greed." Chrome's appeal was primarily technical. Each tab got its own process and could crash without taking down the entire browser. No one else had this at the time, and it was a big deal because Flash was still widespread so sites were even less stable than they are today. Luckily…

Chrome's growth was due to speed initially, but at least a decent chunk of it later was due to trickery. I've had to uninstall Chrome from my Mom's computer multiple times. It's one of the most popular bundleware apps out there. Free antivirus, games, system 'utilities', Adobe Flash updates, etc all got paid to employ dark patterns to sneak Chrome onto PCs and have it automatically set as the default and pinned to your task bar.

Examples: https://imgur.com/gallery/WWZxj

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#154

Post by misterman0 » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #88

misterman0 wrote: post #62

More like we need Google no more. You always find the smartest bunch in these threads. Proof: not a single downvoted comment so far. But with all your smarts why aren't you building search engines? Is it because you think that with superior tech we can't beat Google? I think it will come down to precisely that. Don't you see how easy it would be for someone who specializes in search to beat an opponent who specialize…

> with all your smarts why aren't you building search engines It's a hard problem, especially if you factor in keeping your servers running.

But there are people though who love when you give them that problem. There are businesses out there that specialize in keeping those servers running. Do you all of a sudden have loads of traffic? Wow, you must really be popular.

If you are not popular, some will host your servers for free until you are.

You know. Because there is money in traffic. So if you generate it, they'll sell it. On the market.

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#155

Post by ionised » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

ng12 wrote: post #68

TremendousJudge wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not as if people switched just because it had Google branding. Everyone switched because it was quantifiably better. The knowledgeable minority, maybe. _Most_ people switched because Google pushed it like a piece of adware. Bundling it with other software installers, prompting you to use it whenever you use Google search or other products, and bundling it with an OS.

If that was the deciding factor we'd still be using IE.

No we wouldn't.

Microsoft was legally prevented from doing that, remember?

Why Google has been allowed to get away with it I have no idea.

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#156

Post by obtaniumstool » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

TheRealPomax wrote: post #106

The problem with these articles is that the recommendation always ends up just preaching to the choir: people who already switched away from Chrome nod in appreciation, but people who haven't switched literally get nothing out of these posts to convince them to switch to what is basically the same application made by a different company, with completely different conventions on where everything is, without any concre…

Agreed. Aside from some vague intimations that Google is using Chrome as a business tool, it really didn't present much of an argument to switch to something else.

Furthermore I'd argue that if the author hasn't used Chrome since 2014, he's not well positioned to comment on its usability today.

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#157

Post by samirm » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

TheRealPomax wrote: post #106

The problem with these articles is that the recommendation always ends up just preaching to the choir: people who already switched away from Chrome nod in appreciation, but people who haven't switched literally get nothing out of these posts to convince them to switch to what is basically the same application made by a different company, with completely different conventions on where everything is, without any concre…

>"with completely different conventions on where everything is"

...what?

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#158

Post by ionised » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #75

TremendousJudge wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's not as if people switched just because it had Google branding. Everyone switched because it was quantifiably better. The knowledgeable minority, maybe. _Most_ people switched because Google pushed it like a piece of adware. Bundling it with other software installers, prompting you to use it whenever you use Google search or other products, and bundling it with an OS.

This probably does explain why a lot of people tried it, but it doesn't explain why they kept on using it. Often, ad campaigns cause churn as people try a product but bounce off of it.

I don't think most average web users do a comparison of browsers. They pick one (or get told to use one) and stick with it because for their use cases, there isn't much differences between the browser anyway.

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#159

Post by AsyncAwait » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 5:51 PM UTC

chmln wrote: post #81

mapgrep wrote: post #7

I enjoyed this post, but I take issue with the idea that Chrome was initially adopted, or served, "to break the Web free from corporate greed." Chrome's appeal was primarily technical. Each tab got its own process and could crash without taking down the entire browser. No one else had this at the time, and it was a big deal because Flash was still widespread so sites were even less stable than they are today. Luckily…

> has now finally caught up to Chrome on stability and speed Arguably, with its market share dwindling fast, it's not enough to just be technically on par. Further, it is absolutely not up to par on Linux and from what I know, MacOS as well.

> Further, it is absolutely not up to par on Linux

I am sitting on Arch here, Firefox Wayland and it's absolutely up to par, in fact Chromium seems less responsive these days. Granted, I have a very tuned, minimalist install, maybe on the likes of Ubuntu it's a different story.

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#160

Post by xattt » Wed, Feb 27, 2019, 5:52 PM UTC

tzakrajs wrote: post #114

chmln wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> has now finally caught up to Chrome on stability and speed Arguably, with its market share dwindling fast, it's not enough to just be technically on par. Further, it is absolutely not up to par on Linux and from what I know, MacOS as well.

It’s got great performance on macOS, and I suggest that people try it again.

Firefox still feels non-native on OS X as a result of its reliance on XUL. My main issues are around UI. The menu bar only fully populates once the browser is almost loaded, not when the browser is first opened. The other thing is that UI elements exist in an uncanny valley, where they are not quite native, but not quite foreign.

Camino meant to fix that, but it has moved onto greener pastures.