Why I’m done with Chrome • Hacker News Board

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#551

Post by sweetp » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 6:38 AM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #479

metafunctor wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really just a suggestion to turn off some extensions. Haven’t bothered to figure out what triggers Safari to do that, but you can still run uBlock Origin on Safari 12 and it seems to work fine.

> Haven’t bothered to figure out what triggers Safari to do that Safari has a new extensions model and will be deprecating the legacy one in a year. Hence the push to migrate to newer extensions.

the new extensions model is ridiculously useless... You need to build your extension in Xcode now, and for anything other than content blocking, the APIs are non existent... for instance, you can't even close tabs!

I made an extremely simple extension using the new model around 2months - before I try migrating an older "actually useful" extension. But theres just no way its possible to migrate.

Apple doesn't care about browser extensions now, it seems they want everyone to move to the new model, so they can collect revenue on sales on ad blockers.

:(

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#552

Post by konschubert » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 6:41 AM UTC

I understand why people are angry here, but

the argument of consistency between logged-in account and browser account makes total sense from a UX point of view. Even for power users it's sometimes confusing why you have to log in twice.

And yes, of course if you're not logged in this chrome then this problem doesn't apply but most people are actually logged in and the article just skims over that.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#553

Post by egfx » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 6:41 AM UTC

brian-armstrong wrote: post #10

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 started using Firefox because I literally coudn't use Chrome anymore on my PC. Every time I opened Chrome it would hard lock and I needed to ctrl-alt-del, end-task. Even re-installing and clearing out cache and folders didn't help. I haven't been able to open Chrome for months. Using Firefox for 1 week was a bit of usability shock. But it's so awesome once you get used to it. Everything is indeed so much more thoughtful. Every feature.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#554

Post by ehnto » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 6:42 AM UTC

clarkmoody wrote: post #408

partiallypro wrote: post #248

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…

Search for "gun rights" in Google, and the Wikipedia feature box on the top-right of the results page is the Gun Control article. I've noticed the straight search results making a marked decline in quality over the past few months. If one of the keywords within your search is anything remotely profitable, it will drown out all other terms. Then the search results ended after ~4 pages. Definitely changed from the Goog…

I'm not sure I could define it as intentional and nefarious but I definitely find Google search results to be markedly worse over the last few years. It used to be really competent at finding specialist/technical results but lately it's gotten more generic and less useful. It's possible that's actually the nature of content creation these days, with everyone hyper optimising to please the Google search algorithm. But it's resulting in a less useful web for me. Certainly a less interesting one.

Same thing with Youtube, the algorithms seem to optimize for the lowest common denominator and all the interesting niche stuff is lost in thr noise.

Some of the solution is to do a better job of actively searching for good content instead of waiting for the algorithms to recommend it. But that itself has gotten harder too. Finding good content curators is hard.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#555

Post by md_ » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 6:43 AM UTC

jiggunjer wrote: post #503

plttn wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this pauses sync when you sign out of Gmail.

No. Pauses sync but doesn't sign out Chrome. So a person could still see your history/bookmarks/passwords in the logged-in browser. They just can't wipe your cloud data (which I think was the same before this update).

You mean they can see local history? Sure, but that’s true in most browsers. That’s nothing to do with your signed in state, right?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#556

Post by jondubois » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 6:47 AM UTC

There is a huge problem with the way our economy and legal system views technology.

Software is made up of code, it's bits of information; in its simplest forms, code can be like math formulae; an elegant algorithm or architecture is more like something you know than something you have. Many algorithms are in the public domain but the majority of the world's most important code is not in the public domain.

Unfortunately the law doesn't regard computer code as knowledge, it regards it as an asset that can be protected as private property - That's why today we have insane monopolies that are seemingly impossible to take down. The world's most important code should be in the public domain and belong to anyone who cares to learn it.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#557

Post by code_duck » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 6:50 AM UTC

jondubois wrote: post #556

There is a huge problem with the way our economy and legal system views technology. Software is made up of code, it's bits of information; in its simplest forms, code can be like math formulae; an elegant algorithm or architecture is more like something you know than something you have. Many algorithms are in the public domain but the majority of the world's most important code is not in the public domain. Unfortunat…

The ‘code’ to Facebook and google, if one can say there is such a thing, is not particularly important. Their control of their networks and IP is important. Reading various code to Facebook would not enable me to create a competitor to Facebook in any way.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#558

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 6:52 AM UTC

thrower123 wrote: post #387

slededit wrote: post #386

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

[deleted]

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#559

Post by tananaev » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 6:54 AM UTC

bad_user wrote: post #502

tananaev wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll add my very recent negative experience with Google. I have a couple of apps on the Google Play that use Firebase analytics and crash reporting. This weekend both apps were removed by Google without any warnings. The issue was that apps were in "Violation of Usage of Android Advertising ID" because by default Firebase collects Advertising ID. I don't really need Advertising ID in my app or my analytics and there…

> Collecting information that most people probably don't care about I care about that information and I’m glad they removed your apps, maybe now you’ll start taking privacy more seriously.

I think you misunderstood my comment. I don't want to collect that information. All I need is anonymous crash stacks and possibly some general statistics (number of users on various app versions and Android versions). Google was collecting extra information without me even being aware of it, until they removed my apps for the store. I want to collect as minimum information as possible for me to effectively maintain the apps. I have no use for personal information or any identifiers. But Google probably wants it and that's why Firebase collects it by default.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#560

Post by code_duck » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 6:54 AM UTC

atombender wrote: post #247

brian-armstrong wrote: post #10

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 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…

I have terrible results with mobile safari suggesting items from my bookmarks. I constantly try to go to reddit and get auto completion of a different website that starts with ‘re’, repeatedly. I’ve tried to combat this to no avail.