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Why I’m done with Chrome

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI I'm also using Brave on my mobile device. It's fantastic there as well.

Does Brave support quality dev tools?

Literally the same as Chrome re: dev tools.

Example: https://i.imgur.com/ZfHnNmX.png

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#382

Google started going down the path I would describe as an "evil" path years ago. I'm glad people are starting to notice. I used to be a huge Google advocate, up until about 2008. So many things have changed since then. Adsense was the first breach in trust for me, when they banned my account for no reason and ruined any chance of every monetizing my content...since they are basically a monopoly in that area. Getting…

I used to think that google today is like microsoft back in the late 90s and early 00s but your comment makes me think it might be even worse.

Google already bullies hardware vendors that don't package Google services with Android devices...which is what Microsoft did in the 90s. They also bundle all their services...which is essentially the very thing that Microsoft ended up getting slapped for. Google gets a way with a lot. Apple does too, but Apple's reach is limited to when you leave their hardware, Google's is always with you. You can't escape unless you are just a very very savvy user, and even then they can still get your data at the most basic level using GCS.

I really really wish Microsoft or someone outside of the duopoly, were more powerful in the mobile and search space so people had a choice. I do have an Android phone, but only because Apple is so locked down that I essentially have to use their services, and I don't use Google services outside of their store...but I know just by having an Android phone Google is tracking me.

As for advertisers, I know for a fact that some SMBs/agencies don't serve on Bing, not because the traffic isn't there...but because it's hard to manage so many bids and pacing in so many different platforms. Google makes it so simple, even if the ROI is slightly lower by not using Bing, etc. It's maddening, it is certainly a very monopolistic company.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#383

Google started going down the path I would describe as an "evil" path years ago. I'm glad people are starting to notice. I used to be a huge Google advocate, up until about 2008. So many things have changed since then. Adsense was the first breach in trust for me, when they banned my account for no reason and ruined any chance of every monetizing my content...since they are basically a monopoly in that area. Getting…

> Luckily agencies act as a middle man, if not for that, the abuse would be so much more widespread

I ran such an agency. As someone who is proficient in PPC, the AdSense sales team was inexcusably poor at their jobs. They'd offer to setup campaigns for free with thousands of barely relevant keywords and would push upping the budget past what was reasonable.

Their tactics were so bad for my clients that I stopped accepting their "free" help and did the campaigns in house. I hate to think how many agencies simply went along with their advice to the detriment of their clients.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#384

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 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).

What performance issues have you experienced? Chrome and Firefox run the same on my machine. The only time I switch to Chrome is when some Javascript developer has for some reason disabled click functionality in browsers besides Chrome. Most recently Bank of America has prevented click functionality on their cash back merchants.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#385
post #211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may be true, but it's definitely not unique to Google. I know some well-meaning leftists who work for the leading Social Network and don't see any contradiction in that. I could imagine a high-flying company having entitled employees, I just don't see the qualitative difference between this or that company. Please enlighten me if I'm missing the point. And lest I sound arrogant myself: I once worked in Pharma an…

Ummm, leftism has a long history of invasive mass surveillance and questionable social engineering practices, so I don’t really see the contradiction here...

You are conflating leftism with authorarisam

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Microsoft got knocked off their perch and are a much better company today than they were 15 years ago. Microsoft didn't get knocked off their perch. They won the antitrust fight. Do you remember microsoft being broken apart? I don't. And they aren't a much better company today. They are arguably an even bigger privacy threat since they are leveraging their ubiquitous OS to gather data and to sell ads. > Google's tu…

Google is much less adept at avoiding the ire of antitrust agencies, particularly under the current administration. Google is considerably more evil in the popular imagination at this point.

Were you around back then? It’s realy hard to describe how much MS was hated. There’s nowhere near that animosity towards Google today.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google is much less adept at avoiding the ire of antitrust agencies, particularly under the current administration. Google is considerably more evil in the popular imagination at this point.

Were you around back then? It’s realy hard to describe how much MS was hated. There’s nowhere near that animosity towards Google today.

I was, and it seemed absurd at the time. Bundling IE with windows is no different than the current status quo, where Apple defaults to Safari, or Android defaults to a Chrome version.

Google's incredible monopoly in search looks like a large target.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#388

Google started going down the path I would describe as an "evil" path years ago. I'm glad people are starting to notice. I used to be a huge Google advocate, up until about 2008. So many things have changed since then. Adsense was the first breach in trust for me, when they banned my account for no reason and ruined any chance of every monetizing my content...since they are basically a monopoly in that area. Getting…

> Luckily agencies act as a middle man, if not for that, the abuse would be so much more widespread I ran such an agency. As someone who is proficient in PPC, the AdSense sales team was inexcusably poor at their jobs. They'd offer to setup campaigns for free with thousands of barely relevant keywords and would push upping the budget past what was reasonable. Their tactics were so bad for my clients that I stopped acc…

If what I've been told by people that used to work on those very Google Adwords teams, it's not that they are "bad" at their job, it's that they are meant to meet a certain quota of spend and nothing like ROI etc matters. What's the solution to campaign doing badly? Up the budget! They know it's not optimal, their managers know it's not optimal, but the goal is for Google's bottom line. This stops once you reach a certain spend tier and they know the burn out rates for those companies improve and they want the longer term revenues. (This is also good for larger agencies, since they will also get the good treatment from being a premier partner.) The lower tier spends are basically "boiler rooms" peddling fake penny stocks. People trust them because "It's Google!" but that is so so far from the truth. Sometimes it's not even Google, it's a company they've outsourced to, and sometimes they even work in the same building as Google.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#389

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 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).

If you are on MacOS, why don't you use Safari?

I'm puzzled as to why people seem to dismiss the "built-in" browser. It's the fastest, smoothest, best integrated, and least power-hungry browser on the platform. I regularly use all three major browsers (for testing, I write web applications) and I consistently switch back to Safari for all my non-special browsing.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#390
post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wish Firefox was as sleek, fast and no-nonsense as Safari on the Mac, which is my everyday browser. I vastly prefer the idea of an open browser that is not tightly coupled to a particular industry giant. And I wish Firefox actually had a viable Safari competitor on iOS, so that I can sync my state around. Unfortunately, while Firefox has made significant leaps the last couple of years, it's still not a viable alter…

> Container tabs are a similarly interesting idea with a weird implementation that requires you to micromanage your tabs, which I certainly don't want to You might want to take a look at the Firefox Multi-Account Containers Add-on, it lets you set domains to always open in a given container, which cuts down on the micromanagement a lot once you get it "trained". [edit: This is not well-advertised, it's accessed throu…

My biggest issue with containers is how to properly containerize Google itself. There are so many Google properties that are major parts of the web (many under the Google.com subdomain) that its the only major site I have left to no container by default.
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