Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync • Hacker News Board

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#51

Post by kannanvijayan » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:39 PM UTC

cptskippy wrote: post #31

kannanvijayan wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just a heads up, but we are actively working on improving the situation here, and should have releases coming out that steadily and progressively improves the experience on this front. It is an area of major focus after the initial Quantum Flow effort, and we have technical fixes in many places in the pipeline to address this. (I work on the Javascript engine in Firefox, and improving our story here is one of my pers…

Are you saying that performance issues on Google properties are a bug in Firefox? The other posters were implying the issue was Google doing things to intentionally slow down performance in Firefox.

I'm not about to speak to the intent of programmers I haven't interacted with heavily. In these sorts of charged conversations there is often an impulse to make issues about "this" or "that" exclusively. I find it useful to avoid that impulse entirely and instead focus on what I can do to make things better.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#52

Post by emodendroket » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

What's the point of inconveniencing yourself in all these ways when there are fifty other ways people can track all your browsing activity anyway? It just doesn't seem worth the trouble.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#53

Post by the_duke » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

lostmyoldone wrote: post #22

c16 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've noticed this also. Gmail or anything by Google within Firefox is painful. Very very painful.

Read in another HN comment just the other day that the slowness was because they used some obsolete only-in-chrome shadow DOM API which "polyfilled" on all other browser, which if true sounds exactly like pulling a Microsoft. I haven't verified it myself and I couldn't find a reference with a quick search, so while it sounds plausible, it would be great to havd a credible source to refer to.

This is not necessarily malicious though.

Probably some in-house framework they use that happens to use this old browser API. And they haven't gotten around to fixing it.

Of course it's also reasonable that nobody is pushing a fix up because it works fine on Chrome and that's what Google wants us to use.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#54

Post by sixothree » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:40 PM UTC

School-Cotton wrote: post #28

inetknght wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why is Chrome "needed"? I would imagine merely having a standards-compliant browser is the only thing you need? In which case, why not Firefox?

In practice it’s not unusual for behavior to differ between chrome and Firefox.

Especially when google has been known to program their sites in a way that favors their browser..

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#55

Post by g8oz » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

For Windows and Mac Chromium builds without Google Sync I recommend: https://chromium.woolyss.com/ From the site: "Welcome on this auto-updated website to easily download latest stable version or good build of Chromium web browser. All is free and open-source."

Don't download the default installer. Instead scroll to the build that says "No Sync".

Chromium of course is the Google sponsored open source project that Chrome is based on. It has the dev tools of Chrome which I prefer to those of Firefox.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#56

Post by jasonkester » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:41 PM UTC

Keep in mind that while everybody here is all outraged about this, nobody else is. Because the experience is so nice.

It's the reason why I can search for "prefecture Melun" on my laptop, then jump in the car, open up maps on my phone, Start typing "1" and watch it suggest "12 rue de Gambas, Melun 77320", which happens to be the address of the Melun prefecture.

That sort of thing happens for me every day, and i think it's kinda cool. Google knows this stuff about my life and will suggest it at useful times. If I open maps on the day I have a flight, ferry, or hotel reservation, it'll just assume I want to navigate there (because it read one of my emails) and suggest it for me.

So yeah, I guess I should be outraged and worry that they'll start targeting me for ads or ratting me out to the NSA or something. But thus far they haven't.

It's just that they can offer all this cool stuff if they connect your devices. And in 2018 that involves using a database. Personally, that does not concern me all that much.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#57

Post by talkingtab » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:42 PM UTC

I tried to install Chromium but don't know how to install my extensions. So the this seems like the best solution for now although I am working to rehabilitate Firefox.

Thank you for doing this.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#58

Post by sjs382 » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:45 PM UTC

squarefoot wrote: post #36

sha666sum wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've ran into various comments around the internet/reddit that Google sites like Youtube are slower on Firefox, and that changing the user agent to Chrome fixes it.

No problems here: Waterfox plus usual privacy oriented addons then Hooktube replacing Youtube. Might seem excessive but works like charm. https://www.waterfoxproject.org/en-US/ https://hooktube.com/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin... https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/umatrix/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-…

Just a heads up—HookTube's homepage (at least for the moment?) is very NSFW.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#59

Post by izzydata » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:48 PM UTC

sha666sum wrote: post #30

endymi0n wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While you're completely on the mark with this, I noticed that Google pulls the new Microsoft now that it has almost a quasi monopoly on the desktop: Most of the new, complex UIs by Google services (read: GCP Cloud Console, all of Google Marketing Platform) are slowing my Firefox to a grinding halt, often times even crashing the tab. No problems in Chrome whatsoever. It's the only thing I'm using Chrome for these days…

I've ran into various comments around the internet/reddit that Google sites like Youtube are slower on Firefox, and that changing the user agent to Chrome fixes it.

That seems hard to believe as it would imply that they have code specifically to cripple the Firefox experience. It's probably at worst that they intentionally don't optimize their sites for Firefox and not actively making it worse.

Re: Disable Google Chrome Sign In and Sync

#60

Post by techntoke » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:49 PM UTC

newscracker wrote: post #26

Thanks, but no thanks. Ditch Chrome and don’t worry about ugly hacks to remember or bookmark or ask about in the future when they no longer work. Life is too short to put up with such nonsense. There are better alternatives [1] available. P.S.: When you uninstall Chrome on certain platforms, it’ll open your default browser and direct you to a feedback page. Be honest and tell them why, and that you wouldn’t recommend…

I've got Firefox in my Pocket, and it is just as bad as Chrome. I try to watch videos, but hardware acceleration has too high of an ohm. My CEO donated to Prop 8 and thinks JavaScript is great. I think I will just go paste about Firefox being the best, when really I am just a Mozilla fanboy that pretends to know better than the rest.