13 ms·

Here's one great takeaway: > Treat the cause: Third-party requests slow down the web > ... > - Google owns 7 of the top 10 most popular third-party calls >

Here's one great takeaway: > Treat the cause: Third-party requests slow down the web > ... > - Google owns 7 of the top 10 most popular third-party calls > ... > So you can see why there must be some kind of internal struggle at Google. They understand the value of a faster web but they also cannot go after the main cause of the slow web. And this is how technology such as AMP gets invented and makes things worse. It blows my mind how many devs around here are devoted to their browser and search. Stop using chrome. Honestly, wtf?! Firefox is awesome. FF dev tools are awesome. FF, like Wu Tang, is for the kids. STOP USING google SEARCH! USE DUCKDUCKGO! Use the `!gm` google maps bang when you need it. Use the `!g` google bang in a pinch, but for all of our sake, please wean yourself off of google search. These two steps are immensely easy to do, and yet a MAJOR investment in all of our future.

nailer 7y ago
> Stop using chrome. FF is great, but it's also worth pointing out that Edge has all the Google adware removed and better privacy. There was a post from Eric Lawrence detailing all the Google stuff they removed a little while back, it was about 25 separate components. There's telemetry though so make your own mind if you're cool with that.
- ilikehurdles 7y ago
  Call me when Edge is on OS X or Linux (and ideally open-source, like Firefox). I imagine a lot of the hn userbase, myself included, doesn't rely on Windows for their day-to-day work.
  - jaredmosley 7y ago
    Edge is available at least on OS X, I'm currently running it on both of my Macs. Not sure about Linux though and I agree it'd be great if they open-sourced it.
    - exergy 7y ago
      ?! I'm genuinely curious why you chose this route.
      - jaredmosley 7y ago
        The chromium base is very well supported, I like and am familiar with the dev tools, and the battery life has also been much better than Firefox on OS X. I would prefer to use Firefox for everything but I run into enough small issues that I prefer to use Edge. I'd run Chrome if it didn't have so much of Google hidden in all the nooks and crannies.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ok_coo 7y ago
    It's already in the works. This is a post from May of this year. https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-releases-first-chromium-based-edge-preview-for-macos/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-releases-first-chrom...
  - nailer 7y ago
    > Call me when Edge is on OS X Sure, when's convenient? https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/download/ https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/download/ > or Linux We'll chat again in a few weeks when that's released.
  - gm 7y ago
    LOL
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- goda90 7y ago
  An argument to choose FF over Edge, or other chromium based browsers is to try to maintain diversity in the browser market share. Right now Chrome dominates, but if the domination switches a split between Chrome, Brave, and Edge, there is no new diversity in the rendering and Javascript engines. Google can still push things that aren't friendly to an open and standardized web.
- mda 7y ago
  Did you bother to check what exactly were the components? I actually looked at the list, not related to "adware", basically stuff that Microsoft probably replace with their own stuff. (spell checking, form fill, translate etc etc.)
  - nailer 7y ago
    I didn't say they all were!
riku_iki 7y ago
It's more about stop earning money, because large userbase still use Chrome and Google Search regardless of individual dev preferences.
- arkanciscan 7y ago
  How about; stop putting profit over your customer's privacy?
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - ryanmercer 7y ago
    You aren't the customer, you're the product... Google is an advertising company.
- buboard 7y ago
  it matters a lot though, because devs are an infulential bunch. when developers start using firefox, they optimize for firefox and promote firefox (has happened repeatedly in the past). They're less effective with DDG , because it isnt a great product
merpnderp 7y ago
I switched to DDG many years ago and stopped needing to use Google search for anything maybe 2 years ago. The every day experience of using DDG is so much more enjoyable than Google - made clear every blue moon when I do run a Google search and see all the ads, poorly placed results, and feel the heavy weight of Google's invisible hand.
Mirioron 7y ago
>Stop using chrome. Honestly, wtf?! Firefox is awesome. I think plenty of people have found Mozilla to have made some poor decisions over the years. It feels as though you have to choose between two options that aren't great, so is there a point in switching? Take the add ons situation. At least on Chrome I can run my own add ons.
- brianzelip 7y ago
  Yes there is a point to switching. Mozilla is 10000000x more on our side.
  - nobleach 7y ago
    From a purely philosophical standpoint, Mozilla has always been the browser of "choice". Its humble beginnings never included "world domination"... and Firefox was an extraordinarily bold attempt to unseat IE. Chrome did a lot of good things in the beginning. It brought web standards to the forefront. The past few years though, the same old tired story has played out. Company gets too much market share, and subsequently believes they should own/police/decide the future of the web. In the case of Google, naturally, their motives for web "ownership/domination" are fiscally motivated. (I'm not saying this is wrong in regard to making money for their shareholders. I am saying that this often is not what's good for their average user) But that's the issue, they never promised they were doing this for "freedom" or any other reason.
    - 40four 7y ago
      >Chrome did a lot of good things in the beginning. It brought web standards to the forefront. To be fair to Google, I think it is important to acknowledge the good things Chrome did in the beginning. I remember when it came out, and most (non - Mac users) were still using IE, it was fantastic! I remember jumping on board immediately. But for me at this point, it has become too much to bear. At this point they are making so much money from tracking users and selling to advertisers.. who could blame them for continuing to do so? I sure can't, haha. But after a while, I started realizing all the intrusive & creepy advertisements I was seeing were simply a result of the browser software I chose, and the website I chose do do my searches on, so I started looking for alternatives.
40four 7y ago
Preach brother preach! I made this move myself many months ago & never looked back. There is basically nothing I miss about dropping chrome/ google search. My web experience is indiscernible using Firefox & DDG. One of the only minor things I've had to adjust to is prefixing searches with my local city & state when I'm searching for things in my hometown (Imagine that! My search engine website isn't tracking my physical location!). A small price to pay for a HUGE gain in privacy & peace of mind, knowing I'm no longer being exploited and rolled up into a package, sold to advertisers. I got so sick of seeing targeted ads in EVERY website I visit. Something I searched the day before. Maybe a website I visited a few days ago. Then I have to look at ads for those things for the next week straight!? No thanks. After making two super easy changes, Chrome -> Firefox & Google search -> DDG, I almost NEVER see creepy, annoying targeted ads anymore. It's amazing!
- eyeundersand 7y ago
  It might be just me but I don't get why people on here tend to be critical about DDG's usability. I made the switch a year and a half back and I seriously don't miss anything. There are some niche cases where it doesn't work, you can just use the bangs in those cases. The trade-off, like you said, is well worth it. (Upon typing this, I realize I'm just echoing your comment. Either way, leaving this up to provide one more voice in support.)
  - bluGill 7y ago
    When I first tried DDG - more than 5 years ago - it was worse. I was unable to find the answers I needed and ended up back at google. I tried off and on a few times over the years, and about a year ago I found it good enough to switch. The few times DDG doesn't find what I need I tried google: it too failed to find what I needed. In short, if you last tried DDG a long time ago try again, it is much better.
    - reaperducer 7y ago
      The few times DDG doesn't find what I need I tried google: it too failed to find what I needed. I used to be one of those people who when I couldn't find something on the duck would repeat the search with Google. But more and more, especially in the last six months, if I can't find it on Duck, it's not on Google, either. Duck gives me irrelevant results to those queries. Google gives me irrelevant pop-culture results to those queries.
LoSboccacc 7y ago
> Firefox is awesome. it is doing great now, but lost a great deal of marketshare precisely because it was a slow, bloated mess > FF dev tools are awesome. debatable. chrome hot code replace in debug is a great asset. mounting a local workspace to synchronize changes is situational, but when you can leverage it it's great. firefox code view's "find in files" only search linked javascript, chrome search everywhere so it can catches references in inlined javascript I work with both regularly, for personal usage I prefer firefox, for the obvious implications, but I find a lot less friction in developing using chrome.
- cdubzzz 7y ago
  Firefox has “hot code replace”. At least in Nightly as of a few months ago when I first used it.
  - LoSboccacc 7y ago
    if I put a breakpoint in firefox as of now (71.0) code can't be edited, how do you access hot swapping in debug?
- prophesi 7y ago
  Do you actually use firefox for your personal usage? FF Quantum hit the stage two years ago. Performance is now a moot point; they've had plenty of time to recoup on any market share losses from that with the new Quantum branding. And they've been releasing dope features for the dev tools with almost every release. Check out this especially feature-rich release: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/12/firefox-71-a-year-end-arrival/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/12/firefox-71-a-year-end-arri...
  - LoSboccacc 7y ago
    > Performance is now a moot point yeah, I even said it >> it is doing great now > they've had plenty of time to recoup on any market share losses from that with the new Quantum branding. don't let fact get in the way of a feel good opinion, I guess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/media/File:StatCounter-browser-ww-monthly-200901-201905.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/m...
neillyons 7y ago
I've been using Safari and Duck Duck Go for the past six months. I've also moved my email to Fastmail. Happy to become less reliant on Google.
nift 7y ago
Do you know if you use !g whether or not the request routes through DDG (not removing tracking, but hopefully reduce ir(?)) or it's like going on Google.com? I use DDG and "bang" myself to better results if DDG fails me. Love the amount of features. My only complaint is it sucks at helping me spell words, especially in other languages than English. Sadly we use Google mail at my work so probably can't avoid it completely.
- drewnick 7y ago
  It just 301's you to Google so they'll still be tracking.
mda 7y ago
Do you have any data that Google's services were the actual cause of the slowdown of websites?
- martin_a 7y ago
  Ever ran a website through Google Lighthouse/Page Speed Insights and saw that Google recommends to set proper cache timing for Google Analytics etc.? If that's not proof enough...
  - mda 7y ago
    That is not a proof or data at all.
    - martin_a 7y ago
      It's as good as any proof. Not even Google knows how to set up their pages so they are running well and are considered to be best-practice by those checking tools. But, to be fair: At least they don't exclude their resources from Lighthouse.
atomi 7y ago
This is just a sliver of the perversion created when you rely on advertising for profits. Everyone thinks free stuff is great but it means you're the product and an entire global economic ecosystem is being built on that.
- heinrichhartman 7y ago
  I think DDG hit a sweet spot here by relying on Advertizing, BUT not personalizing ads and search results: * ADs are acceptable to me. I just don't want creepy ads that follow me around. And data about my browsing behavior being traded in Ad networks. * Personalize Search Results drive society appart, and lead to radicalization. Not a fan.
  - Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
    > ADs are acceptable to me I would modify this to unobtrusive ads. Ads with audio (video without audio doesn't bother me that much unless I'm on mobile, in which case it's eating up my mobile data), ads that pop into the middle of the screen, ads that run any JavaScript, etc., are unacceptable. But a simple banner on the side, even if it's an animated GIF? I'm alright with. Unfortunately, ad networks decided that their ads are more important than the content I'm trying to view and have brought ad blockers upon themselves. And don't get me started on malvertising...
entelechy0 7y ago
Thoughts on Brave?
jypepin 7y ago
I switch to FF a few weeks ago and (this time!) haven't looked back. It's as good if not better. I had tried to switch multiple times a year for a few years, and I think now is a good time, finally. I was going to switch to duckduckgo as you say, to realize that OH! I had switched to duckduckgo when switching to FF but had forgotten... that's... how easy and seamless it is now, I even just forgot I was not searching on google anymore.
larusso 7y ago
I never used chrome because I saw no reason to switch away from Firefox. I use Firefox since 2004ish. My move to DuckDuckGo came together with my decision to delete my FAcebook profile. I use Firefox containers to keep amazon and my work google apps in check. I’m very happy with this setup.
DCKing 7y ago
> STOP USING google SEARCH! USE DUCKDUCKGO! I want to stop using Google, but please realize that DuckDuckGo is only competitive with Google if English is your only language (maybe even only if you're American?). There are loads and loads of people on HN for whom DDG is a poor experience. In my experience DDG is extremely poor for localized results, especially those in other languages than English. Previously I recommended StartPage.com for my fellow Europeans, but StartPage has been bought by a shady company [1] and should not be used anymore either. I have no recommendation anymore. [1]: https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/ https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/
- nvrspyx 7y ago
  ____ I have no recommendation anymore ____ Maybe searx.me is an option. Although, you’re out of luck for Safari on iOS.
  - Kaiyou 7y ago
    Searx.me doesn't output any search more than half the time and gives you "google (unexpected crash: CAPTCHA required)" instead.
- ljcn 7y ago
  > maybe even only if you're American? Works fine in UK English too, although the "r:uk" modifier is often needed.
  - robin_reala 7y ago
    I never realised that existed. Does the r stand for region?
- middus 7y ago
  Maybe ecosia?
- markosaric 7y ago
  How's Qwant for you? I've been using them more frequently recently. It's made in the EU (France) but as I don't search much in other languages than English I'm not sure how good they are for that.
stiray 7y ago
After 6-7 years of not using google, I can vouch for this. There is just no reason to use it (I am writting this on HN, you are not the case of "just another user" by just beeing here). Their search has become mediocre due to all adwords and there was never as simple to put together a nextcloud/dovecot/postfix/searx powered server. Once I have tryed to block facebook, google, amazon ip ranges using scraped data from ASNs. It is increadible what a large piece of internet those companies have took over for their own profit. Even duckduckgo wont run (probably hosted on microsoft/amazon/google cloud), yahoo redirected me to GDPR "consent" page, which was again on microsoft/amazon/google cloud. We really dont want to live in a world ruled by their advertising engines. Fight back, block ads, on premise everything, remove google/fb/... spyware from your roms and stop pretending you have friends by number of likes on facebook. Just go away from this or we will end in corporation driven distopia you really dont want to live in. And read this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism It is just too late for fashion, no time for fanboyism, we blew it. We are on limit of destroying freedom of internet (I will post facebook, google and amazon ASN based ip ranges later when I come home, so you can try it on your own, it is really hilarious, from all search engines I know, only yandex was still operational. And those are RIPE records.).
idoubtit 7y ago
> Stop using chrome. Honestly, wtf?! Firefox is awesome. I do not use Chrome, but I don't think Firefox is awesome. While I use FF, partly for moral reasons, my experience is average and I saw many flaws and bugs. I prefer the features of Vivaldi, which is based on Chromium, but does not phone home to Google. > STOP USING google SEARCH! While my default search engine is Duck Duck Go, I don't recommend it to friends and relatives. My experience is that searching in any language but English gives very poor results. Other patterns also need to be redirected to another search engine, so it's not a a smooth migration. My estimates are that 50% of my searches are for DDG, 25% for Google, and 25% for others (Bing, Qwant), not counting specialized searches like Wikipedia. That is enough to prevent being profiled.
- elbrian 7y ago
  > I saw many flaws and bugs. Can you tell us about (or link us to) some of the many bugs you found in Firefox?
  - nkw 7y ago
    So I'm not the above poster, but for me the one that killed my workflow was this still-open, 17-year-old bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=195361 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=195361
    - darkwater 7y ago
      And how on Earth is that a deal breaker? Selecting text from disabled fields?
      - kuschku 7y ago
        a lot of websites assume that you’re using chrome and show content you have to copy in disabled text fields (with some styling applied)
        darkwater 7y ago
pduan 7y ago
I tried DDG for a day on my phone. I follow stocks and will often enter "[ticker] stock" and Google search shows me that nice chart at the top. DDG doesn't have anything like that and forces you to click into a financial website. I had to switch back. If it added that widget, I'd probably make the switch full time.
- vanadium 7y ago
  I put in "AAPL stock" and got Apple's ticker. I put in "CGC stock" and got Canopy Growth's. "GOOG stock", got Google's ticker. The actual queries I entered were not wrapped in quotes. So for some stocks, it's actually there. But no charts.
  - knolax 7y ago
    I got the ticker too but still no history chart.
  - dbtx 7y ago
    I also got nothing with [0], so I unblocked JavaScript and removed /html from the URL and there's the ticker at [1]. I suppose ia= is for 'inline applet' or something. [0] https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=aapl+stock https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=aapl+stock [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=aapl+stock&ia=stock https://duckduckgo.com/?q=aapl+stock&ia=stock
- dbtx 7y ago
  Funny, you're justifying Google's strategy that e.g. Genius.com complained about: scrape and present the raw data that people want, and they'll be able to avoid another pageload, while the site doesn't get a visitor-- but wasn't that the point of SEO? It's like search engine means something else now. Along the same lines, the first time I heard a TV commercial for Bing (~10y ago) I had very little idea what it even was but they happily promoted it as a 'decision engine', IIRC.
Kaiyou 7y ago
What's the point of switching to DDG, though? Under the hood it's just a combination of Google and Bing, isn't it?
- JohnFen 7y ago
  DDG aggregates from a large list of search engines, but primarily Bing. I don't think it uses Google at all.
  - Kaiyou 7y ago
    "Large list". There are only Google and Bing. There are no other usable search engines that do the search themselves. (Though, I guess a few days ago there was news about a third search engine trying and kinf of working.)
Avamander 7y ago
DDG is worse than Google for me and totally useless for any searches in my native language. Firefox has 50% worse performance for me in WebGL applications. Media isn't also accelerated still on Linux. Where is the "awesomeness" in that? I really wish those caveats didn't exist for what I use daily.
- iforgotpassword 7y ago
  Agree on ddg, for me it's fine since most of my searches are technical stuff, rest is !g For Firefox, I don't see how these things matter in my use case. Admittedly I have no clue if any of the sites I use make use of webgl, but the overall speed and snappiness doesn't feel any different between the two browsers, and I use both on Linux.
wannabag 7y ago
Sometimes, I don't agree with n-gate and just feel home in the comment section of HN... Thanks The rest of the time I stay away...
syshum 7y ago
While I agree we need to stop using chrome, I don't know that FF is the path forward. Mozilla's continued trend away from Openness and the foundation's original goals and more towards business objectives and corporate "morals" similar to those seen in google seems like we are just replacing one Corporate master for another with Modern Mozilla, inc Long gone are the days of the Mozilla Foundation standing up for the users against the Corporate goliath Microsoft, today they simply adopt what ever Google wants them to provided Google calls them "standard" .
- undoware 7y ago
  [citation needed]
mbesto 7y ago
> Firefox is awesome. FF dev tools are awesome. FF, like Wu Tang, is for the kids. FF is awesome, but have they fixed the battery issues on Macs yet? It's a non-starter for me to switch.
- hinkley 7y ago
  Supposedly, a couple of versions back.
- sorryitstrue 7y ago
  FF is significantly better on OSX battery than it was in the past (since v70 I believe).. however Safari is still king. I never fire up Chrome anymore on my Macbook
- sicco 7y ago
  Yea they fixed it: - https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-reduced-power-usage-in-firefox-70-on-macos-with-core-animation/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-red... - https://www.zdnet.com/article/upcoming-firefox-update-will-decrease-power-usage-on-macos-by-up-to-three-times/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/upcoming-firefox-update-will-d... Give it a go again!
- ravenstine 7y ago
  Having used Nightly for a month now, I can say the battery usage on macOS has vastly improved.
yread 7y ago
I would say also STOP using Google Analytics, Google CDNs, Google fonts, Youtube for hosting your content and all the spying 3rd party services. It's perfectly doable to have a commercial website without them.
- chadlavi 7y ago
  And if you _do_ want to use a google font, just download it from google and serve it yourself.
cletus 7y ago
> It blows my mind how many devs around here are devoted to their browser and search. Are they though? Or is AMP just a storm-in-a-teacup? There a handful of people on Earth that will stop using Google search (in particular) and Chrome as a protest against AMP. > ... and yet a MAJOR investment in all of our future. [citation needed] Personalized search is not inherently bad. Use Google search without being logged in if you really care. Harder to do with Chrome but Chrome is actually a great user experience. It still blows my mind that FF prompts me to restart to install an update when I start it up. No I don't want to install an update. I want to use the browser. That's why I opened it. How many years has it been since Chrome added auto-update on restart with silent updates? Beyond Search, GMail, Maps and Chrome though I just won't use another Google service and take the risk that some automated system will decide my account is in violation of some ToS no one has ever read and shut down access to every single Google service I use. Whoever signed off on doing this through the Google Plus boondoggle needs to be fired (although, to be fair, I think ad accounts getting suspended arbitrarily and in some cases incorrectly was already a thing by then).
- criddell 7y ago
  > Use Google search without being logged in if you really care. AFAIK, the search is still tailored to some degree. Log out and search for "plumber" and I bet you get local results.
  - cletus 7y ago
    Is that bad? It seems obvious to me that some contextual information will lead to better search results. Chances are if someone searches for "plumber" they're more likely to want one in their local area and not, say, in Armenia. So the only issue is how much contextual information you want to give Google when you search for something.
    - criddell 7y ago
      I don't think it's bad. I was just pointing out that there may not be any such thing as a raw / non-personalized google search.
pbreit 7y ago
Firefox's lousy "profile" handling is still a show-stopper for me.
rising-sky 7y ago
For those concerned about switching from Google to DuckDuckGo, maybe this article might aid in convincing you I ditched Google for DuckDuckGo. Here's why you should too https://www.wired.co.uk/article/duckduckgo-google-alternative-search-privacy https://www.wired.co.uk/article/duckduckgo-google-alternativ...
KirinDave 7y ago
The real challenge here is that for the most part, AMP gives a better experience to users than publishers are willing to provide. As such, Users click on AMP links and expect good things to happen. Your pitch is, "stop using Chrome so that publishers have more options for making the web slower and instrumented because it's morally right." That is a tough sell. Users do not really care (nor should they) what publishers want to do to make sites profitable. That space is so fraught with abuse that it's not going to get any sympathy from the user side, anyways.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
MadWombat 7y ago
> Use the `!gm` google maps bang when you need it That is not how it works for me. One of common things I might do is look up a place, like a bar or a restaurant or theater or whatever. When I do this in Google, I immediately get a link to the website, a link to the reviews, pictures of inside and outside and a link to the map. Right at the top of the page. With DDG, all I get is a link to the website if the place has one and possibly a link to a yelp page. I have to do multiple additional searches and then cut and paste the address into a separate tab to open the map to get the same result.
reificator 7y ago
> FF dev tools are awesome. I switched back about a year or so ago. There are some nice things in the FF dev tools compared to Chrome, but on the whole, even a year later I still find myself opening Chrome to do something specific here and there in dev tools.
latexr 7y ago
> Firefox is awesome. Not if you’re a macOS user, in particular one that cares for automation. The lack of AppleScript (the bug report that tracks it is old enough to vote) prevents people from considering it as a daily browser. And I’m not just talking about developers. I regularly steer non-technical people away from Firefox because when they ask why my tools—which they want to use—don’t work on Firefox, I have to tell them the truth: I’d like to support Firefox, but I can’t.
deusofnull 7y ago
one of the most trivial annoying problems with switching between the two is the difference in how bookmarking works in FF vs chrome. I have to use chrome for work cuz of a security rule of questionable legitimacy (to me). in FF, you bookmark a page by dragging the tab into a folder. in chrome afaik, you have to star it and then select what folder it goes into. Ok. Another thing, In chrome, if you context click inside of a bookmarks folder and create a new folder, it creates a nested new folder within the folder you clicked. In firefox, thats not the case, wherever you click, i believe it creates the new folder at the top level, and then you can drag it to a sub folder. Its a small problem but if you're like me with lots of bookmarks[1], it is a pain in the ass. [1] for example, i have a folder for every year, with a subfolder for each month, and whenever i find non-specific cool stuff, i toss the bookmark in this month/year folder. at this point i have these going back to 2016, and its become a cool sort of journal or scrapbook type thing. highly recommend this practice to ppl, and its basically the use-case of many 3rd party browser adons for bookmark management, but built into the browser by default. anyway, long like firefox!
golergka 7y ago
I have switched to DuckDuckGo as mt main search engine a couple of months ago, but for complicated queries I just have to go back to Google. It's that bad.

nailer 7y ago

> Stop using chrome. FF is great, but it's also worth pointing out that Edge has all the Google adware removed and better privacy. There was a post from Eric Lawrence detailing all the Google stuff they removed a little while back, it was about 25 separate components. There's telemetry though so make your own mind if you're cool with that.

ilikehurdles 7y ago
Call me when Edge is on OS X or Linux (and ideally open-source, like Firefox). I imagine a lot of the hn userbase, myself included, doesn't rely on Windows for their day-to-day work.
- jaredmosley 7y ago
  Edge is available at least on OS X, I'm currently running it on both of my Macs. Not sure about Linux though and I agree it'd be great if they open-sourced it.
  - exergy 7y ago
    ?! I'm genuinely curious why you chose this route.
    - jaredmosley 7y ago
      The chromium base is very well supported, I like and am familiar with the dev tools, and the battery life has also been much better than Firefox on OS X. I would prefer to use Firefox for everything but I run into enough small issues that I prefer to use Edge. I'd run Chrome if it didn't have so much of Google hidden in all the nooks and crannies.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ok_coo 7y ago
  It's already in the works. This is a post from May of this year. https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-releases-first-chromium-based-edge-preview-for-macos/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/microsoft-releases-first-chrom...
- nailer 7y ago
  > Call me when Edge is on OS X Sure, when's convenient? https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/download/ https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/download/ > or Linux We'll chat again in a few weeks when that's released.
- gm 7y ago
  LOL
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
goda90 7y ago
An argument to choose FF over Edge, or other chromium based browsers is to try to maintain diversity in the browser market share. Right now Chrome dominates, but if the domination switches a split between Chrome, Brave, and Edge, there is no new diversity in the rendering and Javascript engines. Google can still push things that aren't friendly to an open and standardized web.
mda 7y ago
Did you bother to check what exactly were the components? I actually looked at the list, not related to "adware", basically stuff that Microsoft probably replace with their own stuff. (spell checking, form fill, translate etc etc.)
- nailer 7y ago
  I didn't say they all were!

riku_iki 7y ago

It's more about stop earning money, because large userbase still use Chrome and Google Search regardless of individual dev preferences.

arkanciscan 7y ago
How about; stop putting profit over your customer's privacy?
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- ryanmercer 7y ago
  You aren't the customer, you're the product... Google is an advertising company.
buboard 7y ago
it matters a lot though, because devs are an infulential bunch. when developers start using firefox, they optimize for firefox and promote firefox (has happened repeatedly in the past). They're less effective with DDG , because it isnt a great product

merpnderp 7y ago

I switched to DDG many years ago and stopped needing to use Google search for anything maybe 2 years ago. The every day experience of using DDG is so much more enjoyable than Google - made clear every blue moon when I do run a Google search and see all the ads, poorly placed results, and feel the heavy weight of Google's invisible hand.

Mirioron 7y ago

>Stop using chrome. Honestly, wtf?! Firefox is awesome. I think plenty of people have found Mozilla to have made some poor decisions over the years. It feels as though you have to choose between two options that aren't great, so is there a point in switching? Take the add ons situation. At least on Chrome I can run my own add ons.

brianzelip 7y ago
Yes there is a point to switching. Mozilla is 10000000x more on our side.
- nobleach 7y ago
  From a purely philosophical standpoint, Mozilla has always been the browser of "choice". Its humble beginnings never included "world domination"... and Firefox was an extraordinarily bold attempt to unseat IE. Chrome did a lot of good things in the beginning. It brought web standards to the forefront. The past few years though, the same old tired story has played out. Company gets too much market share, and subsequently believes they should own/police/decide the future of the web. In the case of Google, naturally, their motives for web "ownership/domination" are fiscally motivated. (I'm not saying this is wrong in regard to making money for their shareholders. I am saying that this often is not what's good for their average user) But that's the issue, they never promised they were doing this for "freedom" or any other reason.
  - 40four 7y ago
    >Chrome did a lot of good things in the beginning. It brought web standards to the forefront. To be fair to Google, I think it is important to acknowledge the good things Chrome did in the beginning. I remember when it came out, and most (non - Mac users) were still using IE, it was fantastic! I remember jumping on board immediately. But for me at this point, it has become too much to bear. At this point they are making so much money from tracking users and selling to advertisers.. who could blame them for continuing to do so? I sure can't, haha. But after a while, I started realizing all the intrusive & creepy advertisements I was seeing were simply a result of the browser software I chose, and the website I chose do do my searches on, so I started looking for alternatives.

40four 7y ago

Preach brother preach! I made this move myself many months ago & never looked back. There is basically nothing I miss about dropping chrome/ google search. My web experience is indiscernible using Firefox & DDG. One of the only minor things I've had to adjust to is prefixing searches with my local city & state when I'm searching for things in my hometown (Imagine that! My search engine website isn't tracking my physical location!). A small price to pay for a HUGE gain in privacy & peace of mind, knowing I'm no longer being exploited and rolled up into a package, sold to advertisers. I got so sick of seeing targeted ads in EVERY website I visit. Something I searched the day before. Maybe a website I visited a few days ago. Then I have to look at ads for those things for the next week straight!? No thanks. After making two super easy changes, Chrome -> Firefox & Google search -> DDG, I almost NEVER see creepy, annoying targeted ads anymore. It's amazing!

eyeundersand 7y ago
It might be just me but I don't get why people on here tend to be critical about DDG's usability. I made the switch a year and a half back and I seriously don't miss anything. There are some niche cases where it doesn't work, you can just use the bangs in those cases. The trade-off, like you said, is well worth it. (Upon typing this, I realize I'm just echoing your comment. Either way, leaving this up to provide one more voice in support.)
- bluGill 7y ago
  When I first tried DDG - more than 5 years ago - it was worse. I was unable to find the answers I needed and ended up back at google. I tried off and on a few times over the years, and about a year ago I found it good enough to switch. The few times DDG doesn't find what I need I tried google: it too failed to find what I needed. In short, if you last tried DDG a long time ago try again, it is much better.
  - reaperducer 7y ago
    The few times DDG doesn't find what I need I tried google: it too failed to find what I needed. I used to be one of those people who when I couldn't find something on the duck would repeat the search with Google. But more and more, especially in the last six months, if I can't find it on Duck, it's not on Google, either. Duck gives me irrelevant results to those queries. Google gives me irrelevant pop-culture results to those queries.

LoSboccacc 7y ago

> Firefox is awesome. it is doing great now, but lost a great deal of marketshare precisely because it was a slow, bloated mess > FF dev tools are awesome. debatable. chrome hot code replace in debug is a great asset. mounting a local workspace to synchronize changes is situational, but when you can leverage it it's great. firefox code view's "find in files" only search linked javascript, chrome search everywhere so it can catches references in inlined javascript I work with both regularly, for personal usage I prefer firefox, for the obvious implications, but I find a lot less friction in developing using chrome.

cdubzzz 7y ago
Firefox has “hot code replace”. At least in Nightly as of a few months ago when I first used it.
- LoSboccacc 7y ago
  if I put a breakpoint in firefox as of now (71.0) code can't be edited, how do you access hot swapping in debug?
prophesi 7y ago
Do you actually use firefox for your personal usage? FF Quantum hit the stage two years ago. Performance is now a moot point; they've had plenty of time to recoup on any market share losses from that with the new Quantum branding. And they've been releasing dope features for the dev tools with almost every release. Check out this especially feature-rich release: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/12/firefox-71-a-year-end-arrival/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/12/firefox-71-a-year-end-arri...
- LoSboccacc 7y ago
  > Performance is now a moot point yeah, I even said it >> it is doing great now > they've had plenty of time to recoup on any market share losses from that with the new Quantum branding. don't let fact get in the way of a feel good opinion, I guess https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/media/File:StatCounter-browser-ww-monthly-200901-201905.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#/m...

neillyons 7y ago

I've been using Safari and Duck Duck Go for the past six months. I've also moved my email to Fastmail. Happy to become less reliant on Google.

nift 7y ago

Do you know if you use !g whether or not the request routes through DDG (not removing tracking, but hopefully reduce ir(?)) or it's like going on Google.com? I use DDG and "bang" myself to better results if DDG fails me. Love the amount of features. My only complaint is it sucks at helping me spell words, especially in other languages than English. Sadly we use Google mail at my work so probably can't avoid it completely.

drewnick 7y ago
It just 301's you to Google so they'll still be tracking.

mda 7y ago

Do you have any data that Google's services were the actual cause of the slowdown of websites?

martin_a 7y ago
Ever ran a website through Google Lighthouse/Page Speed Insights and saw that Google recommends to set proper cache timing for Google Analytics etc.? If that's not proof enough...
- mda 7y ago
  That is not a proof or data at all.
  - martin_a 7y ago
    It's as good as any proof. Not even Google knows how to set up their pages so they are running well and are considered to be best-practice by those checking tools. But, to be fair: At least they don't exclude their resources from Lighthouse.

atomi 7y ago

This is just a sliver of the perversion created when you rely on advertising for profits. Everyone thinks free stuff is great but it means you're the product and an entire global economic ecosystem is being built on that.

heinrichhartman 7y ago
I think DDG hit a sweet spot here by relying on Advertizing, BUT not personalizing ads and search results: * ADs are acceptable to me. I just don't want creepy ads that follow me around. And data about my browsing behavior being traded in Ad networks. * Personalize Search Results drive society appart, and lead to radicalization. Not a fan.
- Sohcahtoa82 7y ago
  > ADs are acceptable to me I would modify this to unobtrusive ads. Ads with audio (video without audio doesn't bother me that much unless I'm on mobile, in which case it's eating up my mobile data), ads that pop into the middle of the screen, ads that run any JavaScript, etc., are unacceptable. But a simple banner on the side, even if it's an animated GIF? I'm alright with. Unfortunately, ad networks decided that their ads are more important than the content I'm trying to view and have brought ad blockers upon themselves. And don't get me started on malvertising...

entelechy0 7y ago

Thoughts on Brave?

jypepin 7y ago

I switch to FF a few weeks ago and (this time!) haven't looked back. It's as good if not better. I had tried to switch multiple times a year for a few years, and I think now is a good time, finally. I was going to switch to duckduckgo as you say, to realize that OH! I had switched to duckduckgo when switching to FF but had forgotten... that's... how easy and seamless it is now, I even just forgot I was not searching on google anymore.

larusso 7y ago

I never used chrome because I saw no reason to switch away from Firefox. I use Firefox since 2004ish. My move to DuckDuckGo came together with my decision to delete my FAcebook profile. I use Firefox containers to keep amazon and my work google apps in check. I’m very happy with this setup.

DCKing 7y ago

> STOP USING google SEARCH! USE DUCKDUCKGO! I want to stop using Google, but please realize that DuckDuckGo is only competitive with Google if English is your only language (maybe even only if you're American?). There are loads and loads of people on HN for whom DDG is a poor experience. In my experience DDG is extremely poor for localized results, especially those in other languages than English. Previously I recommended StartPage.com for my fellow Europeans, but StartPage has been bought by a shady company [1] and should not be used anymore either. I have no recommendation anymore. [1]: https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/ https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/

nvrspyx 7y ago
____ I have no recommendation anymore ____ Maybe searx.me is an option. Although, you’re out of luck for Safari on iOS.
- Kaiyou 7y ago
  Searx.me doesn't output any search more than half the time and gives you "google (unexpected crash: CAPTCHA required)" instead.
ljcn 7y ago
> maybe even only if you're American? Works fine in UK English too, although the "r:uk" modifier is often needed.
- robin_reala 7y ago
  I never realised that existed. Does the r stand for region?
middus 7y ago
Maybe ecosia?
markosaric 7y ago
How's Qwant for you? I've been using them more frequently recently. It's made in the EU (France) but as I don't search much in other languages than English I'm not sure how good they are for that.

stiray 7y ago

After 6-7 years of not using google, I can vouch for this. There is just no reason to use it (I am writting this on HN, you are not the case of "just another user" by just beeing here). Their search has become mediocre due to all adwords and there was never as simple to put together a nextcloud/dovecot/postfix/searx powered server. Once I have tryed to block facebook, google, amazon ip ranges using scraped data from ASNs. It is increadible what a large piece of internet those companies have took over for their own profit. Even duckduckgo wont run (probably hosted on microsoft/amazon/google cloud), yahoo redirected me to GDPR "consent" page, which was again on microsoft/amazon/google cloud. We really dont want to live in a world ruled by their advertising engines. Fight back, block ads, on premise everything, remove google/fb/... spyware from your roms and stop pretending you have friends by number of likes on facebook. Just go away from this or we will end in corporation driven distopia you really dont want to live in. And read this book: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveillance_capitalism It is just too late for fashion, no time for fanboyism, we blew it. We are on limit of destroying freedom of internet (I will post facebook, google and amazon ASN based ip ranges later when I come home, so you can try it on your own, it is really hilarious, from all search engines I know, only yandex was still operational. And those are RIPE records.).

idoubtit 7y ago

> Stop using chrome. Honestly, wtf?! Firefox is awesome. I do not use Chrome, but I don't think Firefox is awesome. While I use FF, partly for moral reasons, my experience is average and I saw many flaws and bugs. I prefer the features of Vivaldi, which is based on Chromium, but does not phone home to Google. > STOP USING google SEARCH! While my default search engine is Duck Duck Go, I don't recommend it to friends and relatives. My experience is that searching in any language but English gives very poor results. Other patterns also need to be redirected to another search engine, so it's not a a smooth migration. My estimates are that 50% of my searches are for DDG, 25% for Google, and 25% for others (Bing, Qwant), not counting specialized searches like Wikipedia. That is enough to prevent being profiled.

elbrian 7y ago
> I saw many flaws and bugs. Can you tell us about (or link us to) some of the many bugs you found in Firefox?
- nkw 7y ago
  So I'm not the above poster, but for me the one that killed my workflow was this still-open, 17-year-old bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=195361 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=195361
  - darkwater 7y ago
    And how on Earth is that a deal breaker? Selecting text from disabled fields?
    - kuschku 7y ago
      a lot of websites assume that you’re using chrome and show content you have to copy in disabled text fields (with some styling applied)
      - darkwater 7y ago

pduan 7y ago

I tried DDG for a day on my phone. I follow stocks and will often enter "[ticker] stock" and Google search shows me that nice chart at the top. DDG doesn't have anything like that and forces you to click into a financial website. I had to switch back. If it added that widget, I'd probably make the switch full time.

vanadium 7y ago
I put in "AAPL stock" and got Apple's ticker. I put in "CGC stock" and got Canopy Growth's. "GOOG stock", got Google's ticker. The actual queries I entered were not wrapped in quotes. So for some stocks, it's actually there. But no charts.
- knolax 7y ago
  I got the ticker too but still no history chart.
- dbtx 7y ago
  I also got nothing with [0], so I unblocked JavaScript and removed /html from the URL and there's the ticker at [1]. I suppose ia= is for 'inline applet' or something. [0] https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=aapl+stock https://duckduckgo.com/html/?q=aapl+stock [1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=aapl+stock&ia=stock https://duckduckgo.com/?q=aapl+stock&ia=stock
dbtx 7y ago
Funny, you're justifying Google's strategy that e.g. Genius.com complained about: scrape and present the raw data that people want, and they'll be able to avoid another pageload, while the site doesn't get a visitor-- but wasn't that the point of SEO? It's like search engine means something else now. Along the same lines, the first time I heard a TV commercial for Bing (~10y ago) I had very little idea what it even was but they happily promoted it as a 'decision engine', IIRC.

Kaiyou 7y ago

What's the point of switching to DDG, though? Under the hood it's just a combination of Google and Bing, isn't it?

JohnFen 7y ago
DDG aggregates from a large list of search engines, but primarily Bing. I don't think it uses Google at all.
- Kaiyou 7y ago
  "Large list". There are only Google and Bing. There are no other usable search engines that do the search themselves. (Though, I guess a few days ago there was news about a third search engine trying and kinf of working.)

Avamander 7y ago

DDG is worse than Google for me and totally useless for any searches in my native language. Firefox has 50% worse performance for me in WebGL applications. Media isn't also accelerated still on Linux. Where is the "awesomeness" in that? I really wish those caveats didn't exist for what I use daily.

iforgotpassword 7y ago
Agree on ddg, for me it's fine since most of my searches are technical stuff, rest is !g For Firefox, I don't see how these things matter in my use case. Admittedly I have no clue if any of the sites I use make use of webgl, but the overall speed and snappiness doesn't feel any different between the two browsers, and I use both on Linux.

wannabag 7y ago

Sometimes, I don't agree with n-gate and just feel home in the comment section of HN... Thanks The rest of the time I stay away...

syshum 7y ago

While I agree we need to stop using chrome, I don't know that FF is the path forward. Mozilla's continued trend away from Openness and the foundation's original goals and more towards business objectives and corporate "morals" similar to those seen in google seems like we are just replacing one Corporate master for another with Modern Mozilla, inc Long gone are the days of the Mozilla Foundation standing up for the users against the Corporate goliath Microsoft, today they simply adopt what ever Google wants them to provided Google calls them "standard" .

undoware 7y ago
[citation needed]

mbesto 7y ago

> Firefox is awesome. FF dev tools are awesome. FF, like Wu Tang, is for the kids. FF is awesome, but have they fixed the battery issues on Macs yet? It's a non-starter for me to switch.

hinkley 7y ago
Supposedly, a couple of versions back.
sorryitstrue 7y ago
FF is significantly better on OSX battery than it was in the past (since v70 I believe).. however Safari is still king. I never fire up Chrome anymore on my Macbook
sicco 7y ago
Yea they fixed it: - https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-reduced-power-usage-in-firefox-70-on-macos-with-core-animation/ https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-red... - https://www.zdnet.com/article/upcoming-firefox-update-will-decrease-power-usage-on-macos-by-up-to-three-times/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/upcoming-firefox-update-will-d... Give it a go again!
ravenstine 7y ago
Having used Nightly for a month now, I can say the battery usage on macOS has vastly improved.

yread 7y ago

I would say also STOP using Google Analytics, Google CDNs, Google fonts, Youtube for hosting your content and all the spying 3rd party services. It's perfectly doable to have a commercial website without them.

chadlavi 7y ago
And if you _do_ want to use a google font, just download it from google and serve it yourself.

cletus 7y ago

> It blows my mind how many devs around here are devoted to their browser and search. Are they though? Or is AMP just a storm-in-a-teacup? There a handful of people on Earth that will stop using Google search (in particular) and Chrome as a protest against AMP. > ... and yet a MAJOR investment in all of our future. [citation needed] Personalized search is not inherently bad. Use Google search without being logged in if you really care. Harder to do with Chrome but Chrome is actually a great user experience. It still blows my mind that FF prompts me to restart to install an update when I start it up. No I don't want to install an update. I want to use the browser. That's why I opened it. How many years has it been since Chrome added auto-update on restart with silent updates? Beyond Search, GMail, Maps and Chrome though I just won't use another Google service and take the risk that some automated system will decide my account is in violation of some ToS no one has ever read and shut down access to every single Google service I use. Whoever signed off on doing this through the Google Plus boondoggle needs to be fired (although, to be fair, I think ad accounts getting suspended arbitrarily and in some cases incorrectly was already a thing by then).

criddell 7y ago
> Use Google search without being logged in if you really care. AFAIK, the search is still tailored to some degree. Log out and search for "plumber" and I bet you get local results.
- cletus 7y ago
  Is that bad? It seems obvious to me that some contextual information will lead to better search results. Chances are if someone searches for "plumber" they're more likely to want one in their local area and not, say, in Armenia. So the only issue is how much contextual information you want to give Google when you search for something.
  - criddell 7y ago
    I don't think it's bad. I was just pointing out that there may not be any such thing as a raw / non-personalized google search.

pbreit 7y ago

Firefox's lousy "profile" handling is still a show-stopper for me.

rising-sky 7y ago

For those concerned about switching from Google to DuckDuckGo, maybe this article might aid in convincing you I ditched Google for DuckDuckGo. Here's why you should too https://www.wired.co.uk/article/duckduckgo-google-alternative-search-privacy https://www.wired.co.uk/article/duckduckgo-google-alternativ...

KirinDave 7y ago

The real challenge here is that for the most part, AMP gives a better experience to users than publishers are willing to provide. As such, Users click on AMP links and expect good things to happen. Your pitch is, "stop using Chrome so that publishers have more options for making the web slower and instrumented because it's morally right." That is a tough sell. Users do not really care (nor should they) what publishers want to do to make sites profitable. That space is so fraught with abuse that it's not going to get any sympathy from the user side, anyways.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

MadWombat 7y ago

> Use the `!gm` google maps bang when you need it That is not how it works for me. One of common things I might do is look up a place, like a bar or a restaurant or theater or whatever. When I do this in Google, I immediately get a link to the website, a link to the reviews, pictures of inside and outside and a link to the map. Right at the top of the page. With DDG, all I get is a link to the website if the place has one and possibly a link to a yelp page. I have to do multiple additional searches and then cut and paste the address into a separate tab to open the map to get the same result.

reificator 7y ago

> FF dev tools are awesome. I switched back about a year or so ago. There are some nice things in the FF dev tools compared to Chrome, but on the whole, even a year later I still find myself opening Chrome to do something specific here and there in dev tools.

latexr 7y ago

> Firefox is awesome. Not if you’re a macOS user, in particular one that cares for automation. The lack of AppleScript (the bug report that tracks it is old enough to vote) prevents people from considering it as a daily browser. And I’m not just talking about developers. I regularly steer non-technical people away from Firefox because when they ask why my tools—which they want to use—don’t work on Firefox, I have to tell them the truth: I’d like to support Firefox, but I can’t.

deusofnull 7y ago

one of the most trivial annoying problems with switching between the two is the difference in how bookmarking works in FF vs chrome. I have to use chrome for work cuz of a security rule of questionable legitimacy (to me). in FF, you bookmark a page by dragging the tab into a folder. in chrome afaik, you have to star it and then select what folder it goes into. Ok. Another thing, In chrome, if you context click inside of a bookmarks folder and create a new folder, it creates a nested new folder within the folder you clicked. In firefox, thats not the case, wherever you click, i believe it creates the new folder at the top level, and then you can drag it to a sub folder. Its a small problem but if you're like me with lots of bookmarks[1], it is a pain in the ass. [1] for example, i have a folder for every year, with a subfolder for each month, and whenever i find non-specific cool stuff, i toss the bookmark in this month/year folder. at this point i have these going back to 2016, and its become a cool sort of journal or scrapbook type thing. highly recommend this practice to ppl, and its basically the use-case of many 3rd party browser adons for bookmark management, but built into the browser by default. anyway, long like firefox!

golergka 7y ago

I have switched to DuckDuckGo as mt main search engine a couple of months ago, but for complicated queries I just have to go back to Google. It's that bad.