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Why I’m done with Chrome

blog.cryptographyengineering.com

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Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#561

Post by randomsearch »

stephenhuey wrote: post #413
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…

I was excited by “Don’t be evil” back in the early days. But maybe they should’ve chosen “Don’t be stupid or evil” because their amnesia, arrogance and carelessness remind me of so many hilarious sad stories from the early days in the tech industry as recounted in this book which I own: In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters

“Don’t forget not to be evil”

I don’t believe the founders have had personality transplant, so why has google become evil?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#562

Post by robin_reala »

djsumdog wrote: post #427
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 recently moved back to Firefox from Vivaldi. It's been a good move. I feel like Firefox is back in the same boat it was in the 90s, but this time fighting Google Chrome instead of IE. But it's a bit different since you have to explicitly download Chrome. It's a bit different since you see an ad to download it right when you hit Google.

Not on Android, and not when you install some other piece of software that surreptitiously bundles Chrome and sets it to default: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1053973

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#563

Post by M_Bakhtiari »

> Google developers claim this will not actually start synchronizing your data to Google — yet. See further below

The Julius Malema of tech. "We are not calling for the syncing of user data to our servers. At least not yet".

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#564

Post by robin_reala »

colemickens wrote: post #517
bad_user wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pocket is now owned by Mozilla. I for one am glad that it exists, I love Pocket, the only annoyance I have is that the Firefox integration is not as complete as the Chrome add-on, probably because Firefox users keep bitching and moaning about it.

And maybe if that functionality were in an optional extension it would be easier to add features to it for the users that want it. It's not as if it being an add-on has, in any way, hampered your ability to use it in Chrome. It's great that you like Pocket. I think it's a bit rude to act like it's unreasonable to have qualms about how it was added (certainly pre-Mozilla owning them) or to be confused about it's inclu…

I’m a heavy RSS consumer, but I’m absolutely in a minority. RSS features according to Mozilla’s own telemetry are used by an extreme minority of users (I can’t find the exact figures but certainly less than 0.5% of people), and are a fairly large and unmaintained part of a codebase that’s undergoing extensive modification. I’d far rather Mozilla expose some APIs and let people make RSS-based extensions than have it built in and getting in the way of performance work.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#565

Post by joering2 »

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…

My good buddy was within circles of “Team L” back then and nagment always laughted when someone mention “dont do evil” mantra. Google never said they wont do evil, they just stated a fact in general. Similar like Subway says “eat fresh” and you think “oh i guess they have fresh subs” meanwhile just recently there was a case when someone sued Subway for chemicals used in their bread, and reasoned their lawsuit on fact they assumed Subway has fresh sandwitches, but actually Subway lawyers explained the slogan is for others and “in general”, not that they as a company produce or serve “fresh” subs themselves.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#566

Post by mike22223333 »

mschuetz wrote: post #550
jwr wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Safari doesn't support WebGL2 and probably never will because of Apple's stance on OpenGL. Disqualifies it for me and I've had to tell customers that I can't support it, even if they'd pay for it.

We're moving to WebGPU now, there will be no more WebGL in the future. WebGPU is coming out in late 2019.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#567

Post by jiggunjer »

md_ wrote: post #555
jiggunjer wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Yes I was thinking about chrome profiles. My mistake. But from what I remember, when you choose to log out, Chrome prompts you if you want to wipe your local data. So logging out locally allows you to protect some data. I think there was a way to log out remotely (tricky/weird way), though again without the local-wipe prompt.

I also just tried signing in to chrome (69.0.3497.100), and it tried to sync immediately again, so I'm not sure where the "sync is optional" idea comes from?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#568

Post by calcifer »

Klonoar wrote: post #202
calcifer wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Plus working in chrome dev tools all day long, you really miss it when you want to pop something open and look under the hood real quick, and I don't think Firefox is quite up to par there Based on what? What did you try to do and couldn't? Or is your complaint - like the rest of your comment says - that you weren't immediately familiar with the UI, you didn't bother learning, and then decided it was the browser's…

Protip: when you want to sell someone on something, a response of "you're doing it wrong, you're the problem" generally doesn't work. It's a pretty widely held thing that FF's dev tools don't feel as smooth or well thought out as Chrome's, which is frustrating because FF (really, FireBug, unless you count the weird IE stuff) pretty much _made_ the concept of browser tools great. I'd love to use FF again too, but for…

> Protip: when you want to sell someone on something, a response of "you're doing it wrong, you're the problem" generally doesn't work.

I agree, but how is this relevant to my comment? I didn't say the GP did anything wrong - I asked them what they did. Not nearly the same thing.

> It's a pretty widely held thing that FF's dev tools don't feel as smooth or well thought out as Chrome's

There are a large number of groups with widely held beliefs where said beliefs don't stand up to scrutiny. "It doesn't feel like Chrome" is not a belief that doubles as valid criticism because it's not actionable. Its sole purpose is to complain about things while making sure nobody can ever act on them because it's so vague.

> for me the blocker is the UI and battery drain

While "the UI" fits in to the category above, battery drain is an actual, specific, measurable and actionable complaint. So please, more of the latter, less of the former.

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#569

Post by earenndil »

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…

> the video that leaked out [...] of the Google town hall also baffled me

Which video?

Re: Why I’m done with Chrome

#570

Post by zavi »

tananaev wrote: post #398
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…

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…

You should appeal if what you're saying is indeed true. You're supposed to use advertising ID for any ad-related tracking - if you use something more sensitive instead (like IMEI) then you'll get taken down.
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