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The discussion in this thread makes me wonder if Brave is a good browser to recommend to friends & family. The widespread usage of Chrome was probably largely

by fouc 7y ago

The discussion in this thread makes me wonder if Brave is a good browser to recommend to friends & family. The widespread usage of Chrome was probably largely in part due to folks like us recommending it to friends & family.

kn0where 7y ago
I think that was a large factor, but I think constantly showing ads for Chrome to anyone who views google.com in a different browser and telling them their browser is bad was a bigger factor.
- cbdumas 7y ago
  I mean also the fact that the browser most people used at that time was bad may have been a factor. Chrome was a noticeable step up from IE.
  - jefftk 7y ago
    For me, Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox was a noticeable step up from IE, and Chrome was a noticeable step up from Firefox. Chrome did especially well relative to Firefox when I had a lot of tabs, and for JS-heavy sites. I bounced back and forth several times: * I tried it for a month in January 2010, and went back to Firefox because Chrome was slower and less stable: https://www.jefftk.com/p/google-chrome https://www.jefftk.com/p/google-chrome * I tried it for ~6m in 2011, and switched back to Firefox because I missed side tabs: https://www.jefftk.com/p/side-tabs https://www.jefftk.com/p/side-tabs * In early 2012 I switched back to Chrome, despite the lack of side tabs (which I still miss dearly) because it was enough more performant. (Disclosure: I work for Google)
    - tomaskafka 7y ago
      Try switching once more, and turn on Webrender this time - it's still beta, but I had no issues and it made my FF Chrome-fast.
      - jefftk 7y ago
        Several reasons for not switching back, some idiosyncratic: * I trust Chrome more than Firefox on security * I'm used to Chrome's debugging tools, and would need to learn Firefox's * I use the Chrome password manager, and it would be annoying to switch If Firefox were enough better I would still switch, but at this point my understanding is it's more like "Firefox is no longer slower than Chrome" not "Firefox is a step up from Chrome in the way Chrome once was from Firefox".
        potlato 7y ago
        That's understandable though I imagine it's unlikely we'll see something like that ever again, right? To me it seems kinda like how race car engineers used to be able to discover some major advancement in their engines that would give them wins for a few years but nowadays it's much more homogenous and worked upon for much less significant gain. I don't know much about the deeper webdev stuff though so who knows, but it seems like that could only ever really possible with a shift in a browser trying some novel shift in architecture.
brandnewlow 7y ago
My dad was the first person in my family to start using it, loved it, told all the rest of us to use it and I liked it so much I spent the last year working there.
asdff 7y ago
That and everyone having a gmail.
wtmt 7y ago
In Brave, Undo Closed Tab doesn't work for me. It should supposedly work with Ctrl+Shift+T, as per an online search. Like Chrome, the built-in session save and restore (after a crash or close) is mostly miss, with few occasions of hits. It's good at blocking ads, but these other factors are enough to keep me on Firefox.
- rjf72 7y ago
  You must be talking about private browsing or the native TOR windows. No history at all is retained for those windows and so restoring closed windows/tabs is not possible. For regular browsing sessions tab restore and session restore work 100%. I have plenty of sloppy tab clicking experience to prove it!
Yizahi 7y ago
Ask yourself a question - why would you do that? For privacy reasons and to avoid future Googlenet monopoly? Then using Chrome mod instead of Chrome solves nothing.
- potlato 7y ago
  Because even if we're being not generous, the difference between natively blocking even some ads/trackers and disentangling from Google services in any way is clearly better than not. Would you flip a coin every time if an unmodifiable computer offered only Chrome and Brave?
tomaskafka 7y ago
A simple guide: Does it make money by showing you ads? Chrome: Yes Brave: Yes Firefox: No If yes, then they need to track your behavior in detail. I'm sure your family deserves more. Give them Firefox, turn on Webrender (it's awesome even today - biggest speedup you can get in FF).

by fouc 7y ago

kn0where 7y ago

I think that was a large factor, but I think constantly showing ads for Chrome to anyone who views google.com in a different browser and telling them their browser is bad was a bigger factor.

cbdumas 7y ago
I mean also the fact that the browser most people used at that time was bad may have been a factor. Chrome was a noticeable step up from IE.
- jefftk 7y ago
  For me, Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox was a noticeable step up from IE, and Chrome was a noticeable step up from Firefox. Chrome did especially well relative to Firefox when I had a lot of tabs, and for JS-heavy sites. I bounced back and forth several times: * I tried it for a month in January 2010, and went back to Firefox because Chrome was slower and less stable: https://www.jefftk.com/p/google-chrome https://www.jefftk.com/p/google-chrome * I tried it for ~6m in 2011, and switched back to Firefox because I missed side tabs: https://www.jefftk.com/p/side-tabs https://www.jefftk.com/p/side-tabs * In early 2012 I switched back to Chrome, despite the lack of side tabs (which I still miss dearly) because it was enough more performant. (Disclosure: I work for Google)
  - tomaskafka 7y ago
    Try switching once more, and turn on Webrender this time - it's still beta, but I had no issues and it made my FF Chrome-fast.
    - jefftk 7y ago
      Several reasons for not switching back, some idiosyncratic: * I trust Chrome more than Firefox on security * I'm used to Chrome's debugging tools, and would need to learn Firefox's * I use the Chrome password manager, and it would be annoying to switch If Firefox were enough better I would still switch, but at this point my understanding is it's more like "Firefox is no longer slower than Chrome" not "Firefox is a step up from Chrome in the way Chrome once was from Firefox".
      - potlato 7y ago
        That's understandable though I imagine it's unlikely we'll see something like that ever again, right? To me it seems kinda like how race car engineers used to be able to discover some major advancement in their engines that would give them wins for a few years but nowadays it's much more homogenous and worked upon for much less significant gain. I don't know much about the deeper webdev stuff though so who knows, but it seems like that could only ever really possible with a shift in a browser trying some novel shift in architecture.

brandnewlow 7y ago

My dad was the first person in my family to start using it, loved it, told all the rest of us to use it and I liked it so much I spent the last year working there.

asdff 7y ago

That and everyone having a gmail.

wtmt 7y ago

In Brave, Undo Closed Tab doesn't work for me. It should supposedly work with Ctrl+Shift+T, as per an online search. Like Chrome, the built-in session save and restore (after a crash or close) is mostly miss, with few occasions of hits. It's good at blocking ads, but these other factors are enough to keep me on Firefox.

rjf72 7y ago
You must be talking about private browsing or the native TOR windows. No history at all is retained for those windows and so restoring closed windows/tabs is not possible. For regular browsing sessions tab restore and session restore work 100%. I have plenty of sloppy tab clicking experience to prove it!

Yizahi 7y ago

Ask yourself a question - why would you do that? For privacy reasons and to avoid future Googlenet monopoly? Then using Chrome mod instead of Chrome solves nothing.

potlato 7y ago
Because even if we're being not generous, the difference between natively blocking even some ads/trackers and disentangling from Google services in any way is clearly better than not. Would you flip a coin every time if an unmodifiable computer offered only Chrome and Brave?

tomaskafka 7y ago

A simple guide: Does it make money by showing you ads? Chrome: Yes Brave: Yes Firefox: No If yes, then they need to track your behavior in detail. I'm sure your family deserves more. Give them Firefox, turn on Webrender (it's awesome even today - biggest speedup you can get in FF).