Live data from Hacker News

We Need Chrome No More

redalemeden.com

451–460 of 536 posts

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#451
> "developers are increasingly shunning other browsers in their testing and bug-fixing routines..."

Not me. I use Chrome to briefly test my builds, then close it and get the hell out of there.

I don't know why developers didn't or don't see the conflict of interest with a Google branded browser. I was unsettled by this from the moment they released the browser. Google uses manipulative design patterns as much as any of the big guns. Chrome is not immune to those efforts to manipulate user behavior for business agenda reasons at every tick.

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#452

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I beg to disagree. Chrome was also extremely lean, but very well thought out. - a bit unrelated but installer was a shim, ~downloading it took 3 seconds and 500kB - Few buttons - Transient status bar - Transient download widget - Good ergonomics (easy to close tabs in rapid successions without moving your mouse, the next one would fall in place) - Clear preference panel - Maybe later: pdf support and print dialog

I'm not pretending it was not well thought; I'm merely saying its technical advantages were not the main drive behind its huge adoption rate. With all due respect, none of the pluses you mentioned would be a reason for a random, tech-illiterate, using-a-computer-for-FB person to install Chrome.

You're right, there's also a bootstrap thing, they couldn't know before installing. The only thing they'd know would be "it's by Google". But all the point listed above were strong factors for newbs too. They could easily discard it if it was an annoyance I believe.

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#453
post #4

> developers are increasingly shunning other browsers in their testing and bug-fixing routines. If it works as intended on Chrome, it’s ready to ship. That's me. Sorry, but I just can't be bothered to support every browser's quirks. I check Firefox every once in a while, but really, I don't mind losing a few users if it means significantly less maintenance and testing for me. It's like complaining that developers are…

You make it seem like the differences between firefox and chrome are HUGE. What quirks are these you've encountered that can be compared to the hardships of shipping a game that runs equally well in windows and linux?

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#454
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…

> Firefox, arguably among the most "free from corporate greed" of the browsers, has now finally caught up to Chrome on stability and speed (in my experience) I’m sad to say that I hope that was my experience, but I’ve being trying Firefox (again) for the last 6 months and I still manage to make it irresponsive while developing, and very slow when using plugins like dark reader. So I had to revert to Chrome but I’ll t…

The dark theme in Firefox isn't great, it's why I can't get people to switch, I've tried a half dozen add-ons, and while some of them are acceptable, FF flashes white between every page load, producing a blinding beam that immediately sends people back to Chrome.

I know enough to try to change it in the config files, but I couldn't figure it out in the time I spent attepting = /

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#457
The same could have been said about Microsoft when Internet Explorer had a large portion of the market and Firefox came along and showed everybody what a real browser was. The fact is, there are a myriad of web browsers and chrome happens to be the best and that is reflected in their marketshare. Mozilla needs to figure out how and why they have fallen below 10% marketshare. Mozilla dropped the ball just like Microsoft. They focused on features users don't care about. Chrome's developer tools are a pleasure to work with. Even with Chrome having a bad reputation with privacy Google is still winning the battle. Now that Chrome is entrenched, it would need some large missteps(ie breaking adblockers) for users to dump it. I still have Firefox installed and periodically open it; it's still really bad, fails to open file, source code does not show in developer. But I'm sure Mozilla is already working on some other usless feature.

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#458
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 appeal was primarily technical. Each tab got its own process and could crash without taking down the entire browser. Curious, I remember speed being the primary reason. Google invented V8 (the javascript engine), with some pretty decent optimizations and a well-working JIT on i386/amd64 platforms. At the time when chromium came out, it handled some JS-heavy applications very nicely that Firefox struggled w…

Yeah speed is the reason I used (and sometimes still) use it. Also the dev tools are better than Firefox's.

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#459
post #261
post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even to this day Firefox doesn't have websocket frame inspection. Its very frustrating to me that dev tools aren't a higher priority for Firefox. As they are now, they are only slightly worse than Chromes which is unacceptable considering more and more websites are being developed with only Chrome in mind.

That is frustrating, but the good news is that this is being picked up as part of (somewhat ironically) Google Summer of Code: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=885508#c49

Wow, maybe it'll be available in 2020. Too little too late don't you think?

Re: We Need Chrome No More

#460

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…

I only recommend Brave nowadays and tbh it's an easy sell because it's: familiar as it uses Chromium and so compatible with Chrome plugins, much faster than Chrome, and uses a lot less battery compared to other browsers (particularly on mobile).

The speed and energy usage points instantly resonate with less technical folk who aren't so invested in browser wars.

For those who care a little more the increased security, ad / tracking blocking, tor integration etc are just the icing on the cake.

Post reply on HN