It's probably a threat to your mind & sanity more than security. This is very obviously aimed at streaming more ads into your head. I don't doubt google's security/engineering chops but if google could prop up your eyelids with toothpicks to ensure continuous ad watching they would...
Yeah but that's another topic (maybe more important, but less immediate and actionnable). yesterday my relative just downloaded a malware. That's something we can do something about!
Some people would just be better off with an iPad where you can't download malware.
I've been using Firefox for nearly 15 years and there's technical reasons, too. Mainly memory leaks (which I haven't noticed for a few years anymore) and loading just "feels" slower. Webrender with GPU acceleration helped but it was much more complicated poking at about:config than it "just working" Recently, I've noticed a "this SaaS only works in Chrome" trend again. Usually that means "only works in Blink" but it…
The reason Firefox feels slower is because it uses a subpar caching strategy that's minimizing RAM usage. Otherwise, they could no longer claim Chromium is "wasting memory" which is Firefox-speak for "we refuse to implement comprehensive caching"
iirc more about:config tweaks from FasterFox project helped a bit. Anecdotally, I've never seen Chromium be any more or less memory efficient (well maybe 10 years ago but not recently). For the longest time, if you left Firefox sitting open > than 1-2 weeks it'd start leaking memory to the tune of 10s of GB
Chromium is pretty good about suspending pages when it's left sitting for long periods of time
Not a big deal on the desktop and a small deal on the laptop, ad blocking gives a noticeable performance gain on Android. Years ago when I had one of those Intel Atom netbooks you could tell a pretty big difference since it was pretty RAM constrained.
This is unpopular every time I say it, but by in large people just shouldn't be browsing the web on mobile. Every single aspect of the experience is worse, and is likely to continue to get worse over time: - tiny phone screen - objectively worse mobile-site - far worse touch-screen-based UI - the entire iOS side of things has far fewer choices for any sort of effective ad blocking Is it possible for a savvy technolog…
> people just shouldn't be browsing the web on mobile
While you might be right, it's a pointless advice given most internet users since the last decade or more only owns a single internet capable device, which is their mobile.
I've been using Firefox for nearly 15 years and there's technical reasons, too. Mainly memory leaks (which I haven't noticed for a few years anymore) and loading just "feels" slower. Webrender with GPU acceleration helped but it was much more complicated poking at about:config than it "just working" Recently, I've noticed a "this SaaS only works in Chrome" trend again. Usually that means "only works in Blink" but it…
You'll be happy to know that recently I shipped a bug that only crashes (in) Chrome, but not Firefox, because I only really develop in Firefox.
Wow, crashes all of Chrome and not only the tab process?
"There are a few alternatives available. Unfortunately, moving to Firefox may not be a viable option for her, especially given Mozilla’s recent behavior." The world has gone crazy. So this relative has casually used the most bloated spyware disguised as a browser for literally a decade, but she can't switch to firefox because 'Mozilla’s recent behavior'.
She can't switch to firefox because she's used to Chrome and she's 80. TBH I added the sentence about recent Mozilla behaviour because it pisses me off but it shouldn't be an argument, you're right.
What special feature does she use that is absolutely untransferable to FF?
I have both browsers icons next to each other and sometimes I launch the other by mistake. For normal browsing I only spot the difference due to various pages having different logins ie from my wife or not being logged in.
If somebody is able to use internet (god forbid even do some payments on it) then I am pretty sure they could understand the concept of another, very similar app with same behavior. Sometimes new releases change UI at least as much as those browsers differ between each other.
Sad realization: blocking ad blockers is copy protection from a decade or two ago and blocking ads is nowadays basically cracking websites and browsers.
HTML is a human readable source editable interactive document format, which can be optimised for reading. When I peel an apple to optimise it for eating I’m not cracking an apple.
I never advocated for that. There's nothing saying a fork has to be 100% in sync with upstream and can cherry-pick what parts it wants to keep. Besides that, there's other Blink-based browsers which are very similar but another level removed from Google Using a fork to work around Google marking addons are malicious seems like a middle ground between "living with ads" and "using a whole new browser the author has pol…
Suggesting we all stay on Chrome forks is indeed advocating for Chrome when options exist.
I see I said "Chrome" in the original post but the other poster replied with "Chromium". I intended "Chromium forks and derivatives"
Not a big deal on the desktop and a small deal on the laptop, ad blocking gives a noticeable performance gain on Android. Years ago when I had one of those Intel Atom netbooks you could tell a pretty big difference since it was pretty RAM constrained.
This is unpopular every time I say it, but by in large people just shouldn't be browsing the web on mobile. Every single aspect of the experience is worse, and is likely to continue to get worse over time: - tiny phone screen - objectively worse mobile-site - far worse touch-screen-based UI - the entire iOS side of things has far fewer choices for any sort of effective ad blocking Is it possible for a savvy technolog…
90% mobile here, block everything but HTML most of the time, works for reading, music, banking, and online buying/selling
self employed, juggling many things, on the road a lot, dont watch more than 2 short videos a week,
and actualy cant say that there is anything media wise that compels me to use a larger screen....which is reserved for actual media creation, not consumption
100% agree that touch screen UI is not very good, horrible, but the missing components of instant
connection to a lap top or desk top, or just keyboard and bigger screen are not quite a set up and forget thing, yet.
For those who can, i'd say migrate to firefox-based privacy respecting browsers (librewolf, zen, waterfox, ironfox, ...) And help those who can't find alternatives to uBlock Origin and keep some of their privacy
Security fixes to Firefox may take days or weeks to reach downstream forks. That tradeoff may be worse than just setting them up with some privacy settings in Firefox itself.
She can't switch to firefox because she's used to Chrome and she's 80. TBH I added the sentence about recent Mozilla behaviour because it pisses me off but it shouldn't be an argument, you're right.
What special feature does she use that is absolutely untransferable to FF? I have both browsers icons next to each other and sometimes I launch the other by mistake. For normal browsing I only spot the difference due to various pages having different logins ie from my wife or not being logged in. If somebody is able to use internet (god forbid even do some payments on it) then I am pretty sure they could understand t…
The UI is not exactly the same. Maybe it can be OK if I transfer all the favorites, homepage, install a Chrome-looking theme, and more importantly if I change the icon lol. Not even kidding. She only uses it because she needs to, but she would be happier without it.