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Why I’m done with Chrome

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This flag is not really working. Just checked it (chrome 69.0.3497.100)

Aw man. It's working on 68! Guess I have to avoid upgrading for now. Thanks.

So you're choosing a less-secure version of Chrome over just switching to Firefox? What makes you so loyal to Chrome?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#182
post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep. And Google Voice runs horribly on iOS.. 20 second lag time to check messages, no joke. Earlier versions would freeze at the beginning of each character you type. Makes me wonder if companies aren't just slowing down their competitors..

On iOS they can't use their own engine, everything is just a wrapper around webkit.

WebKit isn't slow though.

Also the parent comment is about Google Voice, which is not a browser and therefore is not constrained by Apple's restrictions on 3rd-party browser engines.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#183
post #161

I left Chrome years ago, now my main browser is Safari. Firefox is the most unsafe browser in my opinion.

Care to explain why Firefox is the most unsafe? I've been using it for a while now and the built-in privacy protections are great (would be better if they were on by default, but hey, we have this at least).

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#185
post #110
post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't for _now_. Which is no small part of his point. The next step is to automatically turn on sync etc, which is an easier step now people will start to be used to the idea they're automatically signed in to stuff in Chrome. The main thrust though, is that this doesn't actually solve anything for end users that the Google Chrome team says it does. There appears to be absolutely no benefit in turning this on.

> The main thrust though, is that this doesn't actually solve anything for end users that the Google Chrome team says it does. Yes it does, it solves the exact problem described right in the article. Before this change, there would be a seperate log-in process for Chrome versus every other google service (which normally all share your current login status). Now, your login status is shared between every google servic…

> there would be a seperate log-in process for Chrome versus every other google service (which normally all share your current login status).

Sorry, not much of a Chrome user here. Why would I want to “sign in” to a web browser? I’ve been browsing the web successfully for decades without doing so. I don’t sign in to my text editor either.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#186
post #50

For now at least, there's this escape hatch: chrome://flags/#account-consistency Edit: Some are saying this doesn't work on Chrome 69. :(

When you're looking for escape hatches, you know the software is working against you. At that point, it's better to move to an alternative browser, it's not worth it to fight it with hacks. If too many people use the escape hatch, they'll remove it.

That is how I feel about my use of youtube-dl.

But youtube is so damn entrenched nowadays...

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#188
post #162

Firefox is a truly fantastic browser now. I've been using it again for about 2 years and haven't regretted it at all. There have been a couple of weird feature hiccups but generally Mozilla seems to get things right.

I really want to like Firefox (or any of the alternative browsers mentioned here for that matter), but I frequently use my Surface in tablet mode and the only browsers with acceptable touch screen support on Windows are Edge and Chrome. Last I checked, this still didn't seem to be a priority for Firefox.

What exactly do you mean? (Honest question) Firefox works great on my tablet.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish I could use it but it has serious performance problems on macOS. I tried and it was just terrible. (thought not all Mac users have problems, quite a number do, and Mozilla has an open issue asking for debugging logs from Macs to find the reasons).

I gave up on Firefox on OS X for performance reasons and switched to Safari a while ago and it’s a decent browser. It has support for extensions that I use (ublock origin and 1Password), uses less battery than any other browser, and is fast

I switched back to Chrome recently because the ublock origin port on Safari has been pretty broken recently. Setting third party domain blocking options in advanced mode doesn't seem to work any more (can't save the settings) and the extension doesn't seem to be maintained any more, judging by the github repo.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#190
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better escape hatch is https://mozilla.org Granted, Mozilla's had their own issues and some apps / sites may have become as dependent on Chrome as sites were on IE way back when. But given Google's flexing their control muscles over the last few years, a clean break is probably the better long term solution.

Question: How do I sign extensions I wrote for myself so I can actually use them, without uploading a copy of the extension somewhere? That's my roadblocker right now. I don't know how to migrate make my own extensions work on my own system without uploading them to other people's servers. (Yes, I want Firefox stable. I don't want to run a buggy browser.)

You can run either Firefox ESR or the unbranded builds [1] if you want unsigned extensions, but I'm curious what your concerns are with the unlisted extensions option from Mozilla?

1 - https://wiki.mozilla.org/Add-ons/Extension_Signing#Unbranded...

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