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Why our website looks like an operating system

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Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#81

Post by MobiusHorizons »

boredtofears wrote: post #19
Twey wrote: post #3

I've always thought ‘multi-document interfaces’ as we used to call them are an anti-pattern. I have a perfectly good window manager; why does every app need its own incompatible, usually inferior window manager built in? (Mind you on mobile I very much don't have a perfectly good window manager, and indeed can't even open multiple instances of most apps…)

To throw gasoline on the fire: this how I’ve always felt about tmux. Why use an incomplete in terminal windowing system when I can just have multiple terminal windows open managed by the superior OS window system. (That said I know tmux is sometimes the only option and then it makes sense to me)

I would typically not bother with tmux unless ssh is involved.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#82

Post by RadiozRadioz »

This must have taken them a really long time. That worries me, don't they have other things to do? If engineers have so much free time that they can work on nice & fun things like this that aren't totally necessary, they must have overhired (which is wasteful and a sign of impending layoffs) or they don't have enough actual work to do (which is a sign the company is stagnating).

Or the time and money required to do this is coming out of a very large advertising bucket. In which case my gut is still not cool with it, but I don't know enough about advertising to make a judgment on if this is a waste of money.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#83

Post by rglynn »

xp84 wrote: post #71
nine_k wrote: post #34

So, in short, this is because window management under macOS sucks big time (and under Windows, still leaves much to be desired), and because tabs in Chrome become indistinguishable if you open a couple dozen, since they are on top, instead of on the side (Firefox only recently gained an option to put tabs on the side). Watch legacy UI concepts that are so ingrained that people often don't notice how counterproductive…

Edge has had side tabs (aka Vertical Tabs) for years now. I don't personally see a single reason to use Chrome over Edge. And I spend most of my time in MacOS.

I doubt many on HN actually use Chrome. Instead preferring Firefox or one of the many Chromium browsers (Brave, Arc etc).

I agree that there isn't a reason to use Chrome when Chromium exists, although which Chromium flavour and whether to use a different engine entirely, is the question.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#84

Post by WD-42 »

RadiozRadioz wrote: post #82

This must have taken them a really long time. That worries me, don't they have other things to do? If engineers have so much free time that they can work on nice & fun things like this that aren't totally necessary, they must have overhired (which is wasteful and a sign of impending layoffs) or they don't have enough actual work to do (which is a sign the company is stagnating). Or the time and money required to do t…

Can we just appreciate cool things please.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#85

Post by koliber »

fmbb wrote: post #76
xp84 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EU law is just meritless pestering of people It is that. It has done literally nothing to improve anything whatsoever, in any country. And most of the "cookie management" scripts that people use, barely even work. Both the law and the way it's complied with in practice are a dumb solution to a problem that the EU should have forced browser vendors to solve. Only the user's browser can choose not to send back cookie…

If you like things the way they were before the law, just answer yes to all cookie banners you see. It does not take time if you don’t care to read it. Yours click yes, and they will remember you want to be tracked.

That’s in theory.

In practice these banners regularly break. They are hard to click on certain devices where the button is off screen. If they use JavaScript and there is an error elsewhere, you can’t hide them. And I regularly see them over and over again on the same sites because for some reason they can’t track me effectively for this purpose.

In short they are a regular minor annoyance that does take time and effort.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#86

Post by digitalPhonix »

xp84 wrote: post #67
ttiurani wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. If they indeed only use the cookie for essential functionality, this kind of joke banner only makes their choice to respect visitors' privacy equally annoying. Even worse: because it makes it seem like the EU law is just meritless pestering of people, they are actually fighting for the right for worse sites to spy on their visitors. It's baffling.

> EU law is just meritless pestering of people It is that. It has done literally nothing to improve anything whatsoever, in any country. And most of the "cookie management" scripts that people use, barely even work. Both the law and the way it's complied with in practice are a dumb solution to a problem that the EU should have forced browser vendors to solve. Only the user's browser can choose not to send back cookie…

> It has done literally nothing to improve anything whatsoever, in any country

That’s because of malicious compliance from all the websites/advertisers. I guess that is partly the lawmakers’ fault for not pre-empting that; but much larger blame lies on the industry that refuses to grant user privacy.

As an example for a site that followed the intent of the law instead: https://github.blog/news-insights/company-news/updates-to-ou...

Github removed excess tracking so they didn’t need to show a cookie banner and that’s what GDPR’s intent was.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#87

Post by Klonoar »

copypaper wrote: post #37

I'm curious how well this will do. Marketing websites are extremely important for first impressions (unless you're Berkshire Hathaway [1]). Although this is impressive and unique, it took me a minute to get over the "learning curve". Reminds me of Jakob's Law, "Users spend most of their time on other sites. This means that users prefer your site to work the same way as all the other sites they already know" [2]. But…

I wonder how much, if anything, Geico pays to advertise on that page.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#89

Post by vouwfietsman »

ttiurani wrote: post #73
xp84 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> EU law is just meritless pestering of people It is that. It has done literally nothing to improve anything whatsoever, in any country. And most of the "cookie management" scripts that people use, barely even work. Both the law and the way it's complied with in practice are a dumb solution to a problem that the EU should have forced browser vendors to solve. Only the user's browser can choose not to send back cookie…

How would that prevent sites from selling their users' data to third parties without consent server-side? GDPR is not about third party cookies, but about requiring informed consent.

Though I agree with your point, the idea that cookie banners in any sense contribute to "informed consent" is very debatable.
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