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Seriously don't know why anyone is surprised that a browser built by an ad-tech company pushes the user tracking tech of that company. Just use Firefox and hav

Seriously don't know why anyone is surprised that a browser built by an ad-tech company pushes the user tracking tech of that company. Just use Firefox and have done with it - there's been a series of these kinds of posts over the last couple of days with people suggesting insane workaround hacks instead of just changing their browser. P.S. if you keep chrome because some websites only work properly there, maybe y'all should follow standards at work instead of targeting a proprietary browser like its 2001/IE6 again.

jhasse 8y ago
It shows just how much better Chrome is on every other aspect.
- Sharlin 8y ago
  There are really very few things Chrome is better at than Firefox these days.
  - raxxorrax 8y ago
    There are a number of things were Chrome is worse, actually.
    - sbr464 8y ago
      I do wish Web USB would be more supported in Firefox/safari etc. not sure why Chrome is so far in front there.
      - vbernat 8y ago
        This is considered insecure. Firefox devs think that prompting the user for permission does not inform the user enough about the risk. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=674718 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=674718.
        Ajedi32 8y ago
        That bug is talking about a custom USB API for Firefox OS. > Closing as WONTFIX since FxOS is no more The Web USB API didn't even exist when that bug was first created.
        sbr464 8y ago
        I was thinking more in terms of replacing traditional desktop apps that work with USB like sensors, single-board comp dev, and hardware diagnostic tools (protocol analyzers etc) it’s nice to be able to quickly update a webapp and have native access to usb as needed.
  - vixen99 8y ago
    Isn't one of these debugging?
    - the_other 8y ago
      These days I prefer the Firefox network inspector to Chrome's. FF's debugger initialises rather slowly IMO, but is otherwise functionally similar.
  - adamwathan 8y ago
    Displaying colors properly on wide gamut displays is one. Can't use Firefox because of it — I can't design in the browser if it renders everything wrong on my iMac.
  - dlgtho 8y ago
    I tried to switch to Firefox lately after this new speedy version had been released. I really underestimated how good Chromium is. Basic stuff, like in page search(Ctrl+F) is awful after Chromium experience. Resistance to copying omni-bar is silly. Crashes every day. The UX is bad compared to Chromium. Spent month dealing with it and just abandoned this endeavor. Really sad, i want Firefox to be better.
    - fritzy 8y ago
      I haven't had Firefox crash in years, and I use nightly for all of my day-to-day browsing. Chrome crashes or locks whenever I iterate on a canvas based game after some amount of refreshes.
    - gjm11 8y ago
      "Resistance to copying omni-bar"? It seems to work OK for me. What are you trying to do and how does Firefox resist it? "Crashes every day"? I can't remember the last time I had a Firefox crash; maybe this is OS-dependent. (I use it on Windows and on FreeBSD; how about you?) "The UX is bad compared to Chromium" -- obviously if you're used to one program's UX then another's may seem obtuse. What about the Firefox UX is actually bad as opposed to different? (For what it's worth, to me FF and Chrome seem very similar to use.) (I think I agree about ctrl-F, which on some particular pages seems to misbehave on Firefox in ways I don't understand.)
      - gjm11 8y ago
        If whoever downvoted the above would care to tell me what they find unsatisfactory about it, I'm all ears. (For the avoidance of doubt, I mean that; I'm not just being snarky.)
      - no_carrier 8y ago
        I'm one of those people who can't use Firefox thanks to the frequent crashing. It happens for me at least once a day, particularly when I have the same site open in multiple tabs. I get a yellow bar saying a script is slowing down this website, and ALL the tabs lock up thanks to it. If you're lucky enough to kill all the impacted tabs (you're rarely that lucky, it's that unresponsive) your browsing experience from then on will be bad, and the whole browser will need restarting. I haven't seen a Chrome crash in years, yet the Firefox ones are very frequent. Not that I want to switch, I might be the only one here who is happy with Chromium on all my PCs!
  - prolikewh0a 8y ago
    Firefox doesn't even have default zoom (last I checked).
    - gjm11 8y ago
      Do you mean Firefox doesn't have a way to return the zoom level to its default? (It has two; you can do ctrl-0 or you can click on the zoom-level indicator in the URL bar.) Or do you mean you can't tell it to default to a zoom level that isn't 100%? (That seems to be true.) I confess that's never a thing it's occurred to me to want; it feels like if I wanted every website's text to look larger or smaller, I'd probably want everything to look larger or smaller and would adjust my OS's scaling level. But I know some OSes handle that better than others, and maybe there are good reasons for wanting different scalings for websites than for everything else. Still, it's not clear to me that this is so obviously important a thing that "doesn't even have" is fair.
      - Grimm665 8y ago
        This has been a sticking point for me too when trying to transition to FF from Chrome. My main monitor is a 4k 24-inch, and at that pixel density, the Windows HiDPI scaling isn't always enough to get the text the correct size for comfortable viewing. For text-heavy sites like HN, Reddit, and Wikipedia, being able to set a default 125% zoom in the browser is very nice, while still being able to keep the default zoom for sites like Youtube where video player size is more important than text size. Considering the cost to implement would probably be pretty low, I think it is a fair complaint against the browser. Still, privacy concerns may supersede convenience in this particular case, and I think I might try again to switch.
        lolc 8y ago
        Works for me. I have Hacker News permanently zoomed-in with Firefox (nightly).
        Zarel 8y ago
        I assume they're talking about setting a default zoom for unvisited websites, instead of having to set it manually for every visited website.
gardaani 8y ago
Yep. Google Chrome is not a web browser anymore. It is a portal to Google's services. If you want to use a web browser, then use Firefox.
- Sharlin 8y ago
  That’s pretty much the reason Google has a browser in the first place. Most normal users don’t really grok the difference between ”browser” and ”Google” anyway.
  - gsich 8y ago
    >Most normal users don’t really grok the difference between ”browser” and ”Google” anyway. I doubt that. With the marketshare on Windows it is very likely, that people deliberateley install Chrome. So they know what a browser is, now that they have at least 2 installed.
    - glandium 8y ago
      Don't forget a lot of people got Chrome side loaded from installing something else (most likely Flash).
    - minimaul 8y ago
      Google push Chrome crazy hard whenever you touch a Google service, and they have a crazy bundling game in play - they bundle with flash, acrobat reader, some free A/V products - wherever they can get marketshare. Plus some pre-built PCs come with Chrome preloaded.
      - josteink 8y ago
        To expand on that, every single person I know who has actively tried to avoid Chrome, have all been fairly technical, but still somehow been lured into installing Chrome, at least once if not more.
- enterx 8y ago
  if you want to use a web browser - use Brave browser.
ux-app 8y ago
Dropping chrome is not enough. Switch to bing (Just as good as G), or ddg if you really want. Then ditch android which is the spy in your pocket. If you're installing G analytics for clients then choose an alternative (I'm open to suggestions here). It's really time to disentangle ourselves from google. They've quietly and effectively insinuated themselves across the web. Enough is enough.
- heinrich5991 8y ago
  You should be good if you're using Android without Google services, I think.
  - CaptainZapp 8y ago
    You should be good if you're using Android without Google services, I think. That's exactly the rub. We don't really know. My Windows phone is going defunkt and the only alternative I really see is either an iPhone, or then back to a dumb phone (a 4G wifi hotspot function would be great, but I haven't found a reasonable dumb phone supporting that). I'll be damned before I carry any Android device on me.
    - teddyh 8y ago
      You could always use a cleaned Google-free Android derivative OS like Replicant. See also the Librem 5 phone, which does not run Android at all.
      - Brakenshire 8y ago
        Librem isn’t using an Android derivative OS, it’s going to effectively be a Gnome Linux distro on mobile.
        teddyh 8y ago
        I know that; that’s why I wrote “See also” instead of “like”. Post edited to clarify.
_jcwu 8y ago
The firefox that keeps doing experiements and jokes on their users by installing random extensions without asking? Until some weeks ago I was less unhappy with Google Chrome than with firefox, but now I am kind of almost equal unhappy with both...
- teddyh 8y ago
  IIRC, Firefox did that once, and then apologized. Unlike Google, who keeps doing the same thing all the time.
  - jimktrains2 8y ago
    They just did it again to gain a count of users who turned telemetry off. In general, I see firefox's point that using the system extensions to deliver autouodates and allow them to iterate more quickly. However, it also feels like whenever we see these extensions that they're something shady.
    - vezycash 8y ago
      With firefox, you can disable extension auto updates.
      - gergles 8y ago
        You can't disable it installing new extensions behind your back without telling you, though. These are "system extensions" and you can't opt out of them.
        sjwright 8y ago
        System extensions are not really extensions, they're just parts of built-in browser functionality that have been implemented by programmers with good code hygiene. It's unfair to describe these as "installing random extensions without asking" because you would then have to admit that it's equally true of every new feature of every software program that is ever updated.
rasjani 8y ago
On Post-GDPR world I find this very surprising. And then again, not.
Dirlewanger 8y ago
Shows how powerful Google's brand still is with the software industry. Company was built on it, and now for at least a decade it's been exploiting that brand power to subvert any/all expectations of control over our data. And frankly we're all to blame for having the wool pulled over us.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
cm2187 8y ago
I’d be curious to see the daily evolution of the user agent stats of hacker news over the last three weeks to the next three weeks.
swingline-747 8y ago
Firefox is a lot faster on startup and browsing than it used to be. It's now damn usable. I'll keep Chrome around, like Opera, for browser testing.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
snarfybarfy 8y ago
But they are NOT any old ad-tech company. They were built and grew out of their initial 'don't be evil' culture.

jhasse 8y ago

It shows just how much better Chrome is on every other aspect.

Sharlin 8y ago
There are really very few things Chrome is better at than Firefox these days.
- raxxorrax 8y ago
  There are a number of things were Chrome is worse, actually.
  - sbr464 8y ago
    I do wish Web USB would be more supported in Firefox/safari etc. not sure why Chrome is so far in front there.
    - vbernat 8y ago
      This is considered insecure. Firefox devs think that prompting the user for permission does not inform the user enough about the risk. See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=674718 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=674718.
      - Ajedi32 8y ago
        That bug is talking about a custom USB API for Firefox OS. > Closing as WONTFIX since FxOS is no more The Web USB API didn't even exist when that bug was first created.
      - sbr464 8y ago
        I was thinking more in terms of replacing traditional desktop apps that work with USB like sensors, single-board comp dev, and hardware diagnostic tools (protocol analyzers etc) it’s nice to be able to quickly update a webapp and have native access to usb as needed.
- vixen99 8y ago
  Isn't one of these debugging?
  - the_other 8y ago
    These days I prefer the Firefox network inspector to Chrome's. FF's debugger initialises rather slowly IMO, but is otherwise functionally similar.
- adamwathan 8y ago
  Displaying colors properly on wide gamut displays is one. Can't use Firefox because of it — I can't design in the browser if it renders everything wrong on my iMac.
- dlgtho 8y ago
  I tried to switch to Firefox lately after this new speedy version had been released. I really underestimated how good Chromium is. Basic stuff, like in page search(Ctrl+F) is awful after Chromium experience. Resistance to copying omni-bar is silly. Crashes every day. The UX is bad compared to Chromium. Spent month dealing with it and just abandoned this endeavor. Really sad, i want Firefox to be better.
  - fritzy 8y ago
    I haven't had Firefox crash in years, and I use nightly for all of my day-to-day browsing. Chrome crashes or locks whenever I iterate on a canvas based game after some amount of refreshes.
  - gjm11 8y ago
    "Resistance to copying omni-bar"? It seems to work OK for me. What are you trying to do and how does Firefox resist it? "Crashes every day"? I can't remember the last time I had a Firefox crash; maybe this is OS-dependent. (I use it on Windows and on FreeBSD; how about you?) "The UX is bad compared to Chromium" -- obviously if you're used to one program's UX then another's may seem obtuse. What about the Firefox UX is actually bad as opposed to different? (For what it's worth, to me FF and Chrome seem very similar to use.) (I think I agree about ctrl-F, which on some particular pages seems to misbehave on Firefox in ways I don't understand.)
    - gjm11 8y ago
      If whoever downvoted the above would care to tell me what they find unsatisfactory about it, I'm all ears. (For the avoidance of doubt, I mean that; I'm not just being snarky.)
    - no_carrier 8y ago
      I'm one of those people who can't use Firefox thanks to the frequent crashing. It happens for me at least once a day, particularly when I have the same site open in multiple tabs. I get a yellow bar saying a script is slowing down this website, and ALL the tabs lock up thanks to it. If you're lucky enough to kill all the impacted tabs (you're rarely that lucky, it's that unresponsive) your browsing experience from then on will be bad, and the whole browser will need restarting. I haven't seen a Chrome crash in years, yet the Firefox ones are very frequent. Not that I want to switch, I might be the only one here who is happy with Chromium on all my PCs!
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  Firefox doesn't even have default zoom (last I checked).
  - gjm11 8y ago
    Do you mean Firefox doesn't have a way to return the zoom level to its default? (It has two; you can do ctrl-0 or you can click on the zoom-level indicator in the URL bar.) Or do you mean you can't tell it to default to a zoom level that isn't 100%? (That seems to be true.) I confess that's never a thing it's occurred to me to want; it feels like if I wanted every website's text to look larger or smaller, I'd probably want everything to look larger or smaller and would adjust my OS's scaling level. But I know some OSes handle that better than others, and maybe there are good reasons for wanting different scalings for websites than for everything else. Still, it's not clear to me that this is so obviously important a thing that "doesn't even have" is fair.
    - Grimm665 8y ago
      This has been a sticking point for me too when trying to transition to FF from Chrome. My main monitor is a 4k 24-inch, and at that pixel density, the Windows HiDPI scaling isn't always enough to get the text the correct size for comfortable viewing. For text-heavy sites like HN, Reddit, and Wikipedia, being able to set a default 125% zoom in the browser is very nice, while still being able to keep the default zoom for sites like Youtube where video player size is more important than text size. Considering the cost to implement would probably be pretty low, I think it is a fair complaint against the browser. Still, privacy concerns may supersede convenience in this particular case, and I think I might try again to switch.
      - lolc 8y ago
        Works for me. I have Hacker News permanently zoomed-in with Firefox (nightly).
        Zarel 8y ago
        I assume they're talking about setting a default zoom for unvisited websites, instead of having to set it manually for every visited website.

gardaani 8y ago

Yep. Google Chrome is not a web browser anymore. It is a portal to Google's services. If you want to use a web browser, then use Firefox.

Sharlin 8y ago
That’s pretty much the reason Google has a browser in the first place. Most normal users don’t really grok the difference between ”browser” and ”Google” anyway.
- gsich 8y ago
  >Most normal users don’t really grok the difference between ”browser” and ”Google” anyway. I doubt that. With the marketshare on Windows it is very likely, that people deliberateley install Chrome. So they know what a browser is, now that they have at least 2 installed.
  - glandium 8y ago
    Don't forget a lot of people got Chrome side loaded from installing something else (most likely Flash).
  - minimaul 8y ago
    Google push Chrome crazy hard whenever you touch a Google service, and they have a crazy bundling game in play - they bundle with flash, acrobat reader, some free A/V products - wherever they can get marketshare. Plus some pre-built PCs come with Chrome preloaded.
    - josteink 8y ago
      To expand on that, every single person I know who has actively tried to avoid Chrome, have all been fairly technical, but still somehow been lured into installing Chrome, at least once if not more.
enterx 8y ago
if you want to use a web browser - use Brave browser.

ux-app 8y ago

Dropping chrome is not enough. Switch to bing (Just as good as G), or ddg if you really want. Then ditch android which is the spy in your pocket. If you're installing G analytics for clients then choose an alternative (I'm open to suggestions here). It's really time to disentangle ourselves from google. They've quietly and effectively insinuated themselves across the web. Enough is enough.

heinrich5991 8y ago
You should be good if you're using Android without Google services, I think.
- CaptainZapp 8y ago
  You should be good if you're using Android without Google services, I think. That's exactly the rub. We don't really know. My Windows phone is going defunkt and the only alternative I really see is either an iPhone, or then back to a dumb phone (a 4G wifi hotspot function would be great, but I haven't found a reasonable dumb phone supporting that). I'll be damned before I carry any Android device on me.
  - teddyh 8y ago
    You could always use a cleaned Google-free Android derivative OS like Replicant. See also the Librem 5 phone, which does not run Android at all.
    - Brakenshire 8y ago
      Librem isn’t using an Android derivative OS, it’s going to effectively be a Gnome Linux distro on mobile.
      - teddyh 8y ago
        I know that; that’s why I wrote “See also” instead of “like”. Post edited to clarify.

_jcwu 8y ago

The firefox that keeps doing experiements and jokes on their users by installing random extensions without asking? Until some weeks ago I was less unhappy with Google Chrome than with firefox, but now I am kind of almost equal unhappy with both...

teddyh 8y ago
IIRC, Firefox did that once, and then apologized. Unlike Google, who keeps doing the same thing all the time.
- jimktrains2 8y ago
  They just did it again to gain a count of users who turned telemetry off. In general, I see firefox's point that using the system extensions to deliver autouodates and allow them to iterate more quickly. However, it also feels like whenever we see these extensions that they're something shady.
  - vezycash 8y ago
    With firefox, you can disable extension auto updates.
    - gergles 8y ago
      You can't disable it installing new extensions behind your back without telling you, though. These are "system extensions" and you can't opt out of them.
      - sjwright 8y ago
        System extensions are not really extensions, they're just parts of built-in browser functionality that have been implemented by programmers with good code hygiene. It's unfair to describe these as "installing random extensions without asking" because you would then have to admit that it's equally true of every new feature of every software program that is ever updated.

rasjani 8y ago

On Post-GDPR world I find this very surprising. And then again, not.

Dirlewanger 8y ago

Shows how powerful Google's brand still is with the software industry. Company was built on it, and now for at least a decade it's been exploiting that brand power to subvert any/all expectations of control over our data. And frankly we're all to blame for having the wool pulled over us.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

cm2187 8y ago

I’d be curious to see the daily evolution of the user agent stats of hacker news over the last three weeks to the next three weeks.

swingline-747 8y ago

Firefox is a lot faster on startup and browsing than it used to be. It's now damn usable. I'll keep Chrome around, like Opera, for browser testing.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

snarfybarfy 8y ago

But they are NOT any old ad-tech company. They were built and grew out of their initial 'don't be evil' culture.