6 ms·

Why ungoogled-chromium over Firefox?

by RandomBacon 6y ago

niftylettuce 6y ago
Faster + less bloat
- accelbred 6y ago
  Ad blockers' functionality has been limited on chromium due to changes in the extension API, though
  - what_ever 6y ago
    I don't think that has taken place yet? Disc: Googler
- whycombagator 6y ago
  Mostly agree, one nice thing about FF is containers.
  - FalconSensei 6y ago
    That's something I really miss on chrome-based browsers
- verandaguy 6y ago
  Disagree on most points, actually: >Faster, less bloat Stock Firefox doesn't actually have that much bloat, and it's not noticeably slower than Chrome on reasonably modern hardware (i.e.: most page loads are near-instant, same as in Chrome on a good connection). >Extension support for Chromium is way better too Until Google decides that your extension is unworthy of being in their store. This notably happened with Pushbullet quite recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23168874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23168874 ... Until Google inexplicably restored it a few days later, but not before lots of accusations were thrown around. --- IMO it's also worth noting that ungoogled-chromium is (obviously) an unofficial fork of Chromium. Google may at any time change Chromium so substantially as to either require Google integration at some fundamental level for even the most basic functionality, causing too much work for such a low-profile effort to continue, or just make Chromium closed-source. With Firefox, that risk doesn't exist because of the business motivations of the company that develops it.
  - niftylettuce 6y ago
    As I said in other another comment, I'm a power user. And by power user I mean probably 10x the normal standard of what a 10x power user means. Tooling is everything to me; which is why I prefer this over anything else. I'm very biased.
    - jnkl 6y ago
      What does that even mean? Ten times? Tooling is everything?
      - johntash 6y ago
        When it comes to a browser, I'm curious as well. I often end up with 100+ tabs in firefox before I close them all. I don't think think I'd consider that being a power user, but would a 10x power user simply mean someone with over 1,000 tabs open? I haven't used Chrome regularly in the last year or so, but it would get noticeably slow by the time I had 3-4 windows with 10-20 tabs each. Firefox hasn't really had that issue yet. Years ago though, Chrome was noticeably faster than Firefox. That changed (IMO at least) at some point in the last few years.
        McAtNite 6y ago
        I use Firefox day to day, but if I was a “power user” and picking apart web traffic everyday I’d probably use Chromium. The dev tools in it are way better than the ones built in Firefox.
        bad_user 6y ago
        In what way are Chrome's dev tools better? I got used to Firefox's dev tools and can't find my way around in Chrome's.
        imtringued 6y ago
        That's just pure muscle memory. I personally dislike the chrome tools.
- moonchild 6y ago
  Firefox can run chrome extensions.
fastball 6y ago
Why ungoogled-chromium or Firefox over Brave? Brave is the only browser that includes strong ad and tracker blocking by default, which is the best way to ensure your privacy on the internet. In fact, every decision I've seen from them makes me think they care the most about user privacy, period.
- niftylettuce 6y ago
  I cannot recommend Brave due to the autosuggestions-for-profit feature. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23474842 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23474842 You can install uBlock Origin in 10 seconds from the GitHub release page (see previous link shared). This is vastly better than anything I've seen for ad-blocking.
  - fastball 6y ago
    An auto-suggestion is not a redirect. Also that just makes me trust them more – they are the only browser vendor that are trying to find business models that don't involve selling my data or selling out to someone who does.
    - niftylettuce 6y ago
      The issue is that nothing is as pure as ungoogled-chromium is right now. I've also felt that Brave was slow, and not best for developers. As a power user I'm very biased, so Brave may work better for folks that are not as technically skilled and have no idea how to install from GitHub/brew/etc. Edit: I feel it is slow because it has extra bloat added. Like I said, take my comments here with a grain of salt because I'm a very biased power user. I respect the efforts of these developers regardless of what project it is, the focus on privacy and building something different is truly awesome.
      - fastball 6y ago
        Brave is chromium under the hood. Not really sure why you think it would be slower than ungoogled-chromium. Ditto for developer / power-user experience – it's still chromium. Just with an ad-blocker written in Rust built-in and some other features.

Why ungoogled-chromium over Firefox?

niftylettuce 6y ago

Faster + less bloat

accelbred 6y ago
Ad blockers' functionality has been limited on chromium due to changes in the extension API, though
- what_ever 6y ago
  I don't think that has taken place yet? Disc: Googler
whycombagator 6y ago
Mostly agree, one nice thing about FF is containers.
- FalconSensei 6y ago
  That's something I really miss on chrome-based browsers
verandaguy 6y ago
Disagree on most points, actually: >Faster, less bloat Stock Firefox doesn't actually have that much bloat, and it's not noticeably slower than Chrome on reasonably modern hardware (i.e.: most page loads are near-instant, same as in Chrome on a good connection). >Extension support for Chromium is way better too Until Google decides that your extension is unworthy of being in their store. This notably happened with Pushbullet quite recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23168874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23168874 ... Until Google inexplicably restored it a few days later, but not before lots of accusations were thrown around. --- IMO it's also worth noting that ungoogled-chromium is (obviously) an unofficial fork of Chromium. Google may at any time change Chromium so substantially as to either require Google integration at some fundamental level for even the most basic functionality, causing too much work for such a low-profile effort to continue, or just make Chromium closed-source. With Firefox, that risk doesn't exist because of the business motivations of the company that develops it.
- niftylettuce 6y ago
  As I said in other another comment, I'm a power user. And by power user I mean probably 10x the normal standard of what a 10x power user means. Tooling is everything to me; which is why I prefer this over anything else. I'm very biased.
  - jnkl 6y ago
    What does that even mean? Ten times? Tooling is everything?
    - johntash 6y ago
      When it comes to a browser, I'm curious as well. I often end up with 100+ tabs in firefox before I close them all. I don't think think I'd consider that being a power user, but would a 10x power user simply mean someone with over 1,000 tabs open? I haven't used Chrome regularly in the last year or so, but it would get noticeably slow by the time I had 3-4 windows with 10-20 tabs each. Firefox hasn't really had that issue yet. Years ago though, Chrome was noticeably faster than Firefox. That changed (IMO at least) at some point in the last few years.
      - McAtNite 6y ago
        I use Firefox day to day, but if I was a “power user” and picking apart web traffic everyday I’d probably use Chromium. The dev tools in it are way better than the ones built in Firefox.
        bad_user 6y ago
        In what way are Chrome's dev tools better? I got used to Firefox's dev tools and can't find my way around in Chrome's.
        imtringued 6y ago
        That's just pure muscle memory. I personally dislike the chrome tools.
moonchild 6y ago
Firefox can run chrome extensions.

fastball 6y ago

Why ungoogled-chromium or Firefox over Brave? Brave is the only browser that includes strong ad and tracker blocking by default, which is the best way to ensure your privacy on the internet. In fact, every decision I've seen from them makes me think they care the most about user privacy, period.

niftylettuce 6y ago
I cannot recommend Brave due to the autosuggestions-for-profit feature. Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23474842 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23474842 You can install uBlock Origin in 10 seconds from the GitHub release page (see previous link shared). This is vastly better than anything I've seen for ad-blocking.
- fastball 6y ago
  An auto-suggestion is not a redirect. Also that just makes me trust them more – they are the only browser vendor that are trying to find business models that don't involve selling my data or selling out to someone who does.
  - niftylettuce 6y ago
    The issue is that nothing is as pure as ungoogled-chromium is right now. I've also felt that Brave was slow, and not best for developers. As a power user I'm very biased, so Brave may work better for folks that are not as technically skilled and have no idea how to install from GitHub/brew/etc. Edit: I feel it is slow because it has extra bloat added. Like I said, take my comments here with a grain of salt because I'm a very biased power user. I respect the efforts of these developers regardless of what project it is, the focus on privacy and building something different is truly awesome.
    - fastball 6y ago
      Brave is chromium under the hood. Not really sure why you think it would be slower than ungoogled-chromium. Ditto for developer / power-user experience – it's still chromium. Just with an ad-blocker written in Rust built-in and some other features.