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I dislike tech monopolies but Chrome leaving Google would be most terrible thing ever, security wise. Google has become the benevolent dictator of the web, if

I dislike tech monopolies but Chrome leaving Google would be most terrible thing ever, security wise. Google has become the benevolent dictator of the web, if you like it or not. We get secure browsers, performance improvements, stable implementations at the cost of one bad feature being shipped a year (like Manifest V3). Mozilla/FOSS community has fucked up Firefox, big time, which is not even their fault as they cannot hire thousands of six-figure developers.

callamdelaney 1y ago
Firefox seems to work pretty okay
- verandaguy 1y ago
  Yeah, if anything the governance model is questionable. The browser itself is technically competitive with anything else out there.
MangoToupe 1y ago
> We get secure browsers Sure, if your definition of "security" doesn't include "giving users control over who the browsers are talking to".
- tomwheeler 1y ago
  Not much of a user-agent...
forgotoldacc 1y ago
I personally don't think having the world's most popular web browser being in the hands of an advertising and surveillance company is all that great. One big reason being that they control captchas and lock content behind them, and they grant leniency to people using their browser, which is more permissive with dangerous ads and allow the company to make more money and further their dominance.
- kcplate 1y ago
  Ummm. You think that Google isn’t an advertising and surveillance company?
Timshel 1y ago
> the benevolent dictator of the web Lol it's more like a death grip since nobody can compete with their ad business model. There is almost no innovation in the browser space outside of more and more tracking ...
- hackrmn 1y ago
  I'd argue that depends on what you mean by "innovation" -- Google has been pretty busy, meaning specifically developers on their payroll, churning out more or less useful Web API implementations, certainly at a far more frantic pace than people traditionally _blamed_ browsers of yester-decade for. Nevermind that some of these APIs are more haphazardly designed than others, truth be told most of them are okay and are aptly designed so it's not a critical issue (for Web developers or Chrome's market share). Google co-authors most Web standards and implement them often _before_ the "standard" is published (for better and for worse; anti-trust allegations, I am looking at you). But they're not idle, one thing's for sure. Markedly different than how I remember Microsoft resting for months if not years on their IE laurels, like a CO2 blanket in a room that evacuated all the air. So yeah, how would you describe this lack of innovation you're referring to? There can always be more innovation that isn't of the sort I described above, but Web _is_ made of Web APIs -- if a website cannot "do" it, you as a user of the site, won't be able to experience it, is my crude opinion. But I'd love to hear examples to the contrary, illustrating innovation that isn't Web APIs. Removing tab-based browsing (an anti-pattern if you ask me)? Optimizations (speed, size, etc)?
  - Timshel 1y ago
    I mean in term of user facing change. Vertical tabs is still presented as an innovation ... Tabs groups are barely explored, and let's not dream too much of isolation Firefox containers are probably over ten years old and still almost unused :(. More recently Arc and Zen are trying to innovate (I’m not using either), but they probably have almost no chance as long Chrome stay as dominant and financed by ad tracking. Using Firefox on linux I’m facing more and more capchas and broken or innacessible websites. Ladybird is making great progress but unless they start posing as chrome they’ll face the same challenges :(. Edit: > churning out more or less useful Web API implementations Probably part of the problem since it makes maintaining a browser engine absurdly expensive and out of reach for almost everyone ...
jmkni 1y ago
What's wrong with Firefox? I've used it as my main browser for the best part of 20 years now and have no issues. The last time I used Chrome there were ads all over the place because the ad blockers don't work properly anymore (I'm guessing because of manifest v3)
- zac23or 1y ago
  > What's wrong with Firefox Speed and bugs. My Firefox crashes on some sites, like 9gag. And it's very slow to load websites. The latest version of Chrome loads websites instantly! Firefox takes a few seconds!
  - Insanity 1y ago
    I use chrome on my work machine and Firefox on my personal machine. Haven’t ran into breaking bugs with FF (that I can remember), and I don’t notice a meaningful performance difference. Have been using FF for probably 10-15 years now.
    - damnesian 1y ago
      No bugs to report here, and I use it all the time, and heavily. No undue burden on the system either, unlike Chrome which gets sluggish and will crash before ff. I see no reason to abandon ff at this point.
    - itake 1y ago
      Do you have FF's higher levels of privacy protection enabled? With fingerprinting protection enabled, image uploading breaks. oAuth doesn't seem to work properly on some sites. Enabling encrypted DNS breaks captive portals or private VPNs. its really easy to configure FF to break the internet.
      - Insanity 1y ago
        Ah, I can't recall the last time I uploaded an image to the web, so I guess I wouldn't run into this. Interesting if reproducible.
komali2 1y ago
> Mozilla/FOSS community has fucked up Firefox, big time, which is not even their fault as they cannot hire thousands of six-figure developers. I don't see how - it's a more than serviceable browser. The only issues I've ever had were because a webapp detected I wasn't using a browser of choice and blocked me specifically, which isn't really firefox's fault. I guess I prefer chromium dev tools over firefox's but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if I only was able to use the firefox ones.
- chii 1y ago
  > as they cannot hire thousands of six-figure developers. but they can hire about 12 engineers for 10 years, instead of the same cost to have a single [CEO during that time period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker). And i think 12 good engineers (at $150k/yr) for 10 years will have produced an excellent product (such as making firefox competitive with chrome...) Of course, google, who pays mozilla the vast majority of their revemue, will have something to say about that.
tgv 1y ago
Firefox: address bar is 2px too high? Garbage. Chrome: eavesdrops on everything? This is fine.
- binary132 1y ago
  User priorities are what’s really broken.
  - tgv 1y ago
    What's so bad about firefox? I think it should be fine for 99% of the population.
    - binary132 1y ago
      Maybe you misunderstood me. I was trying to say users should prioritize more important things instead of trivialities. I am a long-time Firefox user and almost never have I had any issue with it.
TechRemarker 1y ago
"benevolent" is an interesting word choice. I wouldn't consider them having positive intentions for users, but rather focused on financial gain and market power at any cost. Though if Apple owned would be anti non Apple customers, if most other companies owned would end up monetizing it as well but without the resources of Google. Or if government owned would remain stagnant. So not sure what the right path is.
dethos 1y ago
I couldn't disagree more. The problems of Google effectively controlling the “open web” take time to become evident but are starting to show. I have no issues with them continuing to participate, but not with the level of control they have at the moment.
duped 1y ago
Google is not benevolent
irthomasthomas 1y ago
Everyone in my house uses NYXT, the keyboard-driven, renderer-agnostic browser written in LISP.
wpm 1y ago
I'm not sure I've read a comment I disagree with more on this site than this one.

callamdelaney 1y ago

Firefox seems to work pretty okay

verandaguy 1y ago
Yeah, if anything the governance model is questionable. The browser itself is technically competitive with anything else out there.

MangoToupe 1y ago

> We get secure browsers Sure, if your definition of "security" doesn't include "giving users control over who the browsers are talking to".

tomwheeler 1y ago
Not much of a user-agent...

forgotoldacc 1y ago

I personally don't think having the world's most popular web browser being in the hands of an advertising and surveillance company is all that great. One big reason being that they control captchas and lock content behind them, and they grant leniency to people using their browser, which is more permissive with dangerous ads and allow the company to make more money and further their dominance.

kcplate 1y ago
Ummm. You think that Google isn’t an advertising and surveillance company?

Timshel 1y ago

> the benevolent dictator of the web Lol it's more like a death grip since nobody can compete with their ad business model. There is almost no innovation in the browser space outside of more and more tracking ...

hackrmn 1y ago
I'd argue that depends on what you mean by "innovation" -- Google has been pretty busy, meaning specifically developers on their payroll, churning out more or less useful Web API implementations, certainly at a far more frantic pace than people traditionally _blamed_ browsers of yester-decade for. Nevermind that some of these APIs are more haphazardly designed than others, truth be told most of them are okay and are aptly designed so it's not a critical issue (for Web developers or Chrome's market share). Google co-authors most Web standards and implement them often _before_ the "standard" is published (for better and for worse; anti-trust allegations, I am looking at you). But they're not idle, one thing's for sure. Markedly different than how I remember Microsoft resting for months if not years on their IE laurels, like a CO2 blanket in a room that evacuated all the air. So yeah, how would you describe this lack of innovation you're referring to? There can always be more innovation that isn't of the sort I described above, but Web _is_ made of Web APIs -- if a website cannot "do" it, you as a user of the site, won't be able to experience it, is my crude opinion. But I'd love to hear examples to the contrary, illustrating innovation that isn't Web APIs. Removing tab-based browsing (an anti-pattern if you ask me)? Optimizations (speed, size, etc)?
- Timshel 1y ago
  I mean in term of user facing change. Vertical tabs is still presented as an innovation ... Tabs groups are barely explored, and let's not dream too much of isolation Firefox containers are probably over ten years old and still almost unused :(. More recently Arc and Zen are trying to innovate (I’m not using either), but they probably have almost no chance as long Chrome stay as dominant and financed by ad tracking. Using Firefox on linux I’m facing more and more capchas and broken or innacessible websites. Ladybird is making great progress but unless they start posing as chrome they’ll face the same challenges :(. Edit: > churning out more or less useful Web API implementations Probably part of the problem since it makes maintaining a browser engine absurdly expensive and out of reach for almost everyone ...

jmkni 1y ago

What's wrong with Firefox? I've used it as my main browser for the best part of 20 years now and have no issues. The last time I used Chrome there were ads all over the place because the ad blockers don't work properly anymore (I'm guessing because of manifest v3)

zac23or 1y ago
> What's wrong with Firefox Speed and bugs. My Firefox crashes on some sites, like 9gag. And it's very slow to load websites. The latest version of Chrome loads websites instantly! Firefox takes a few seconds!
- Insanity 1y ago
  I use chrome on my work machine and Firefox on my personal machine. Haven’t ran into breaking bugs with FF (that I can remember), and I don’t notice a meaningful performance difference. Have been using FF for probably 10-15 years now.
  - damnesian 1y ago
    No bugs to report here, and I use it all the time, and heavily. No undue burden on the system either, unlike Chrome which gets sluggish and will crash before ff. I see no reason to abandon ff at this point.
  - itake 1y ago
    Do you have FF's higher levels of privacy protection enabled? With fingerprinting protection enabled, image uploading breaks. oAuth doesn't seem to work properly on some sites. Enabling encrypted DNS breaks captive portals or private VPNs. its really easy to configure FF to break the internet.
    - Insanity 1y ago
      Ah, I can't recall the last time I uploaded an image to the web, so I guess I wouldn't run into this. Interesting if reproducible.

komali2 1y ago

> Mozilla/FOSS community has fucked up Firefox, big time, which is not even their fault as they cannot hire thousands of six-figure developers. I don't see how - it's a more than serviceable browser. The only issues I've ever had were because a webapp detected I wasn't using a browser of choice and blocked me specifically, which isn't really firefox's fault. I guess I prefer chromium dev tools over firefox's but it wouldn't be the worst thing in the world if I only was able to use the firefox ones.

chii 1y ago
> as they cannot hire thousands of six-figure developers. but they can hire about 12 engineers for 10 years, instead of the same cost to have a single [CEO during that time period](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitchell_Baker). And i think 12 good engineers (at $150k/yr) for 10 years will have produced an excellent product (such as making firefox competitive with chrome...) Of course, google, who pays mozilla the vast majority of their revemue, will have something to say about that.

tgv 1y ago

Firefox: address bar is 2px too high? Garbage. Chrome: eavesdrops on everything? This is fine.

binary132 1y ago
User priorities are what’s really broken.
- tgv 1y ago
  What's so bad about firefox? I think it should be fine for 99% of the population.
  - binary132 1y ago
    Maybe you misunderstood me. I was trying to say users should prioritize more important things instead of trivialities. I am a long-time Firefox user and almost never have I had any issue with it.

TechRemarker 1y ago

"benevolent" is an interesting word choice. I wouldn't consider them having positive intentions for users, but rather focused on financial gain and market power at any cost. Though if Apple owned would be anti non Apple customers, if most other companies owned would end up monetizing it as well but without the resources of Google. Or if government owned would remain stagnant. So not sure what the right path is.

dethos 1y ago

I couldn't disagree more. The problems of Google effectively controlling the “open web” take time to become evident but are starting to show. I have no issues with them continuing to participate, but not with the level of control they have at the moment.

duped 1y ago

Google is not benevolent

irthomasthomas 1y ago

Everyone in my house uses NYXT, the keyboard-driven, renderer-agnostic browser written in LISP.

wpm 1y ago

I'm not sure I've read a comment I disagree with more on this site than this one.