24 ms·

Same here. Especially as Google becomes more and more evil, Chrome looks less attractive. Even on mobile, I use FF, despite it needing a lot of work and having

Same here. Especially as Google becomes more and more evil, Chrome looks less attractive. Even on mobile, I use FF, despite it needing a lot of work and having a lot of rendering and input issues. And Chrome on Android looks very sexy. On desktop, FF is fine, once more. Rust is also one of the most promising languages with a potentially massive impact on the world. Not only safer software, but exposing more programmers to better ways of coding. (Imagine how different the world would be if a popular OS had adopted a Rust-like two decades ago.) Mozilla is really an important thing these days.

wlesieutre 12y ago
I've been using FF for a while, but partly switched off when I got a Surface (on account of IE's better touchscreen support). But soon I'll be moving from iOS to Android, the wonderful land of being able to change your default browser. And I'll be using FF there for the bookmark syncing. Firefox on 2/3 devices ain't bad. There was a lot of hate over the australis redesign, but I like it better than Chrome.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Android is also the land where almost every single app can see who you call, who calls you, and get a unique serial number for your phone hardware. All because Google smuggled "check to see if the user's on the phone" permission, which many apps rightfully need, into that whole bundle. As this is technically a very stupid move, it feels like the only way to interpret this is that Google wants more people giving up privacy, for it to be normal. Also see: Chrome flips around OK/Cancel in the DNT enable dialog, purely to confuse and prevent users from enabling DNT.
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    For those curious, go look up Phone State and Identity. If an app wants to behave while your in the phone, it also needs to be able to read your IMEI and the number calling or called. So a flashlight app that wants to disable in call can now see that you're calling a cancer doc. This hardly seems accidental, given that knowing if the user is oh the phone isn't s sensitive operation. As far as Chrome: go compare. Enable things like spell check, which put up a normal little explanation. Then try DNT, which elicits a scary disclaimer and swaps the OK and Cancel buttons.
- Encosia 12y ago
  +1 for IE's touchscreen support. I keep holding out and using Chrome on my laptop for a few extensions and all of the bookmarks/passwords I have synced over the years, but IE makes Chrome look absolutely kludgy and clunky when it comes to performance and UI these days. It's a shame IE doesn't have a more approachable extensibility model...
  - eru 12y ago
    Does IE run on anything but Windows these days? (Edit: Doesn't look like it. Alas.)
    - pjmlp 12y ago
      So what? Safari is also stuck in Apple land.
      - SixSigma 12y ago
        Perhaps he means "I don't run windows, can I run I.E. on anything else, like it used to run on Solaris or under Wine" Some people do exist that have Linux desktop / Android smart device as the only computers we can change.
      - mdellabitta 12y ago
        Safari is available for OS X and Windows.
        robin_reala 12y ago
        Safari on Windows has been abandoned; it’s now 3 versions behind.
        wlesieutre 12y ago
        And since that includes security patches, probably best to avoid it.
        12y ago
- zobzu 12y ago
  I actually think that while its very debatable on desktop, firefox for android may be the best all around android browser. Now for surface I hear you - i was sad they discontinued the work for that. Even on touchscreen latpops.
  - wlesieutre 12y ago
    Even with no Metro version of Firefox, the desktop version could be better. Touch scrolling in IE for desktop feels like it does on a smartphone. Firefox is jerkier and doesn't get momentum quite right.
miket 12y ago
Don't forget that a large chunk of Mozilla's revenue comes from Google: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/21/mozillas-reliance-google-increasing-90-2012-revenue-came-one-source/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/21/mozillas-reliance-g...
- nnethercote 12y ago
  It makes me happy that a chunk of Google's money is being used for Mozilla's purposes. (Disclaimer: as a Mozilla employee, that includes my salary :)
- jfoutz 12y ago
  Isn't it actually whoever will pay the most to be the default search? I mean, I <3 google search, but i'd bet microsoft could pony up quite a bit of cash as well.
  - jasonkostempski 12y ago
    Users that settle for defaults are IE or Safari users :)
  - carussell 12y ago
    Once upon a time, you could come across a post like this and confidently respond to it by pointing out that, no, Google's position as the default search engine in Firefox is not for sale to the highest bidder. So that even if, e.g.: a) the "deal" with Google had never happened, and b) Microsoft came out of nowhere and began offering to pay what Google is actually presently paying (or, let's say, just for fun, even double or triple that), all while c) Google were making no offer to start paying ... then Google would still be the default search engine in Firefox, regardless. The same almost definitely cannot be said today.
    - nsajko 12y ago
      What's changed?
swartkrans 12y ago
I'm using Opera instead of Chrome. I use Chrome Canary for web dev, but Opera is basically Chrome sans-Google. It's got all the same features as Chrome as it's based on Chromium. Just none of the Google account features. I've also dumped gmail for fastmail and am trying out duckduckgo, but if that doesn't work out I'll just use Google in an incognito window.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- m_mueller 12y ago
  I find duckduckgo quite usable for commonplace CS things such as programming in popular languages. For more obscure things I usually just enter g! [query] into my URL bar, so it will revert to an anonymous google. I find this better even just for the fact that I don't get the filtered down view of the world anymore - if there are things named similarly than the ones I use in the world, I want to know, so I can adjust my own naming.
  - thathonkey 12y ago
    What are you talking about? Totally lost after the first sentence here.
    - ripdog 12y ago
      DuckDuckGo has a 'bang' feature, where you add a bang like '!g' to search a different site directly. For example, '!g hacker news' becomes 'https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hacker%20news' https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hacker%20news'.
      - pessimizer 12y ago
        https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html
      - thathonkey 12y ago
jbkkd 12y ago
> safer software What makes Rust-written software safer?
- shadowmint 12y ago
  This has been covered repeatedly in the past. Rust inherently helps to prevent many types of memory related and concurrency errors. Rust programs are not 'safe' in the sense that they cannot crash or have security bugs, but they are 'safer' in that the compiler automatically performs a series of safety checks to prevent common errors.
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    And note that the most serious security bugs in widespread software[1] are typically exactly these common errors. Eliminating them would have prevented nearly all of the remote execution bugs in history. 1: Widespread meaning OSes and popular platforms, not custom LOB apps where SQL injection exists on the login page.
- dscrd 12y ago
  Option types and safe pointers, and modern abstractions. Some other programming languages offer these too, but Rust attempts to do them while incurring no run-time costs.
- wyager 12y ago
  It is effectively impossible to have an unsafe memory access error in Rust. The compiler eliminates a huge variety of bug types, including null pointer dereferences, use-after-free bugs, memory leaks, etc. All arrays are bounds-checked and rust encourages good programming practice like using abstracted list-processing mechanisms (like mapping instead of loops) and algebraic types instead of e.g. null pointers.
  - shadowmint 12y ago
    It is effectively impossible to have an unsafe memory access error in Rust Please, don't say that. Lets be reasonable. Rust is great, but Rust code crashes and segfaults too, just like any language, programs have bugs, and those bugs can cause program failure. Rust just has less of them, because it has a smart compiler. ...but it's not right to suggest that it has none. Remember: There is no way of ensuring that a rust program does not result in a segmentation fault or other memory or race condition as a result of unsafe code. There is no way of ensuring a rust program does not contain any unsafe code.
fulafel 12y ago
Firefox Beta just got Opera-level responsive for me on Android and no rendering issues so far.
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  I haven't tried Firefox in a coupled of months, but to me Firefox rendering was the worst out of all the top browsers. I think Firefox does something on purpose that makes rendering worse, such as delaying it somehow in order to increase performance or whatever. So for example you won't get the whole page rendered immediately, and if you switch to a different part of the page, you have to wait for it to get rendered, too. I don't like that much.
omeid2 12y ago
I am actually still going back and forth between chrome and firefox and it's design was something that was holding me back, specially in a stacking window. Now looking at this I looked through themes and found Simple White[1] something that way out dones chrome and et all in sexy factor. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simplewhite/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simplewhite/
- jasonkostempski 12y ago
  I would like it if something like that was the default and never changed. They seem to keep trying to jump on whatever style is popular when they start a redesign but by the time it appears in a release version it's way out of date. The developer tools are even worse in this regard, they're not even consistent with the rest of the browser. Themes are much better suited to keeping up with trends, the default should be simple.
  - alex_duf 12y ago
    well styling is always a matter of personal opinion. I don't think Mozilla should spend time on theming it's developer tools as long as it's readable and usable. For the main theme, as long as it's customizable to satisfy the 5% of grumpy people I'm fine with that. The other 95% just doesn't care.
- mseri 12y ago
  Thanks!!! This theme is incredible
- davidrusu 12y ago
  That is a beautiful theme, thanks
- JetSpiegel 12y ago
  I just can't stand white themes anymore. DeepDark is the bee's knees, as far as dark themes are considered. It even works on Thunderbird.
- alex_duf 12y ago
lucian1900 12y ago
What's so evil about Google?
- skj 12y ago
  It doesn't matter. (disclaimer: googler) I see it as a hubris against the idea that Google claimed to not be evil, and the fact that evil is such a poorly defined concept, and whether or not Google meets the bar depends entirely on the values of the perceiver. Many perceivers, for instance, miss the distinction between "Don't be evil." and "Don't do evil.". The former is a mindset, strategy, and intention, while the latter is impossible for a corporation with 50k employees. Then, the only logical conclusion for someone who hasn't grasped all of the above is that Google is becoming more and more evil every day.
  - coldtea 12y ago
    >Many perceivers, for instance, miss the distinction between "Don't be evil." and "Don't do evil.". The former is a mindset, strategy, and intention, while the latter is impossible for a corporation with 50k employees. No, we perceive the disctinction just fine. Some of us just believe Google does "evil" with mindset, strategy, and intention...
    - lucian1900 12y ago
      I would suggest that those of you that believe that are deluded. What possible motivation could they have for being "evil", comic book style?
      - WorldWideWayne 12y ago
        You don't think they're a front company for the NSA? What possible motivation does anyone have for doing evil?
        lucian1900 12y ago
        > You don't think they're a front company for the NSA? No, I don't. the NSA isn't magic or the Illuminati.
amaks 12y ago
As a side question, I'm curious why you think that Google is becoming "more and more" evil? There are products like Cultural Institute, google.org, and many others which prove just the opposite.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Across Google products, the UIs seem intent on getting users to reveal and allow themselves to be tracked. Google appears to want to downplay this and get people in the mindset of giving out personal details. See my other comments, but things like swapping OK/Cancel when a Chrome user attempts to enable DNT fit right into "evil". Really, how does one excuse adding a dark pattern like that? Even though DNT is bad, Google shouldn't resort to trickery to juke the stats. Edit: A Chrome dev in this thread says this was fixed and just an artifact of how the UI code is in Chrome. Well that makes me look foolish. I'm not a huge fan of the evil terminology, as it sounds melodramatic and it's easy to dismiss anyone saying "evil" in such contexts. I use it because Google chose that word. On a less objective point, everytime I use a Google service, I feel icky. It's bad enough that I'm working on the one missing app I want so I can switch to Windows Phone. (MS has problems, but between their internal legal oversight and inability to execute, I don't feel icky with them. Apple is also a choice, but I just really hate the UI and poor development tools.)
fastball 12y ago
Do you really think Google is evil? One of the co-founders is still the CEO. He is one of the world's wealthiest men. He doesn't need the money and I doubt he feels the need to put shareholders first. Why would he let Google stray from an ideal he ascribed to previously? Has he been corrupted by having more money than he could possibly spend?
- copperx 12y ago
  Being such a large corporation attracts unwanted attention: many interests at play, peer pressure, etc.
- newscracker 12y ago
  Beyond a certain point, power, influence and fame become bigger motivating factors than money. Additionally, competition from the likes of Facebook in diminishing the "value" of what Google (his "baby") provides could also motivate certain people to do all sorts of things. And on the topic of Google, one cannot forget the time when Eric Schmidt was the CEO.

wlesieutre 12y ago

I've been using FF for a while, but partly switched off when I got a Surface (on account of IE's better touchscreen support). But soon I'll be moving from iOS to Android, the wonderful land of being able to change your default browser. And I'll be using FF there for the bookmark syncing. Firefox on 2/3 devices ain't bad. There was a lot of hate over the australis redesign, but I like it better than Chrome.

MichaelGG 12y ago
Android is also the land where almost every single app can see who you call, who calls you, and get a unique serial number for your phone hardware. All because Google smuggled "check to see if the user's on the phone" permission, which many apps rightfully need, into that whole bundle. As this is technically a very stupid move, it feels like the only way to interpret this is that Google wants more people giving up privacy, for it to be normal. Also see: Chrome flips around OK/Cancel in the DNT enable dialog, purely to confuse and prevent users from enabling DNT.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  For those curious, go look up Phone State and Identity. If an app wants to behave while your in the phone, it also needs to be able to read your IMEI and the number calling or called. So a flashlight app that wants to disable in call can now see that you're calling a cancer doc. This hardly seems accidental, given that knowing if the user is oh the phone isn't s sensitive operation. As far as Chrome: go compare. Enable things like spell check, which put up a normal little explanation. Then try DNT, which elicits a scary disclaimer and swaps the OK and Cancel buttons.
Encosia 12y ago
+1 for IE's touchscreen support. I keep holding out and using Chrome on my laptop for a few extensions and all of the bookmarks/passwords I have synced over the years, but IE makes Chrome look absolutely kludgy and clunky when it comes to performance and UI these days. It's a shame IE doesn't have a more approachable extensibility model...
- eru 12y ago
  Does IE run on anything but Windows these days? (Edit: Doesn't look like it. Alas.)
  - pjmlp 12y ago
    So what? Safari is also stuck in Apple land.
    - SixSigma 12y ago
      Perhaps he means "I don't run windows, can I run I.E. on anything else, like it used to run on Solaris or under Wine" Some people do exist that have Linux desktop / Android smart device as the only computers we can change.
    - mdellabitta 12y ago
      Safari is available for OS X and Windows.
      - robin_reala 12y ago
        Safari on Windows has been abandoned; it’s now 3 versions behind.
        wlesieutre 12y ago
        And since that includes security patches, probably best to avoid it.
      - 12y ago
zobzu 12y ago
I actually think that while its very debatable on desktop, firefox for android may be the best all around android browser. Now for surface I hear you - i was sad they discontinued the work for that. Even on touchscreen latpops.
- wlesieutre 12y ago
  Even with no Metro version of Firefox, the desktop version could be better. Touch scrolling in IE for desktop feels like it does on a smartphone. Firefox is jerkier and doesn't get momentum quite right.

miket 12y ago

Don't forget that a large chunk of Mozilla's revenue comes from Google: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/21/mozillas-reliance-google-increasing-90-2012-revenue-came-one-source/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/11/21/mozillas-reliance-g...

nnethercote 12y ago
It makes me happy that a chunk of Google's money is being used for Mozilla's purposes. (Disclaimer: as a Mozilla employee, that includes my salary :)
jfoutz 12y ago
Isn't it actually whoever will pay the most to be the default search? I mean, I <3 google search, but i'd bet microsoft could pony up quite a bit of cash as well.
- jasonkostempski 12y ago
  Users that settle for defaults are IE or Safari users :)
- carussell 12y ago
  Once upon a time, you could come across a post like this and confidently respond to it by pointing out that, no, Google's position as the default search engine in Firefox is not for sale to the highest bidder. So that even if, e.g.: a) the "deal" with Google had never happened, and b) Microsoft came out of nowhere and began offering to pay what Google is actually presently paying (or, let's say, just for fun, even double or triple that), all while c) Google were making no offer to start paying ... then Google would still be the default search engine in Firefox, regardless. The same almost definitely cannot be said today.
  - nsajko 12y ago
    What's changed?

swartkrans 12y ago

I'm using Opera instead of Chrome. I use Chrome Canary for web dev, but Opera is basically Chrome sans-Google. It's got all the same features as Chrome as it's based on Chromium. Just none of the Google account features. I've also dumped gmail for fastmail and am trying out duckduckgo, but if that doesn't work out I'll just use Google in an incognito window.

deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
m_mueller 12y ago
I find duckduckgo quite usable for commonplace CS things such as programming in popular languages. For more obscure things I usually just enter g! [query] into my URL bar, so it will revert to an anonymous google. I find this better even just for the fact that I don't get the filtered down view of the world anymore - if there are things named similarly than the ones I use in the world, I want to know, so I can adjust my own naming.
- thathonkey 12y ago
  What are you talking about? Totally lost after the first sentence here.
  - ripdog 12y ago
    DuckDuckGo has a 'bang' feature, where you add a bang like '!g' to search a different site directly. For example, '!g hacker news' becomes 'https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hacker%20news' https://encrypted.google.com/search?hl=en&q=hacker%20news'.
    - pessimizer 12y ago
      https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html https://duckduckgo.com/bang.html
    - thathonkey 12y ago

jbkkd 12y ago

> safer software What makes Rust-written software safer?

shadowmint 12y ago
This has been covered repeatedly in the past. Rust inherently helps to prevent many types of memory related and concurrency errors. Rust programs are not 'safe' in the sense that they cannot crash or have security bugs, but they are 'safer' in that the compiler automatically performs a series of safety checks to prevent common errors.
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  And note that the most serious security bugs in widespread software[1] are typically exactly these common errors. Eliminating them would have prevented nearly all of the remote execution bugs in history. 1: Widespread meaning OSes and popular platforms, not custom LOB apps where SQL injection exists on the login page.
dscrd 12y ago
Option types and safe pointers, and modern abstractions. Some other programming languages offer these too, but Rust attempts to do them while incurring no run-time costs.
wyager 12y ago
It is effectively impossible to have an unsafe memory access error in Rust. The compiler eliminates a huge variety of bug types, including null pointer dereferences, use-after-free bugs, memory leaks, etc. All arrays are bounds-checked and rust encourages good programming practice like using abstracted list-processing mechanisms (like mapping instead of loops) and algebraic types instead of e.g. null pointers.
- shadowmint 12y ago
  It is effectively impossible to have an unsafe memory access error in Rust Please, don't say that. Lets be reasonable. Rust is great, but Rust code crashes and segfaults too, just like any language, programs have bugs, and those bugs can cause program failure. Rust just has less of them, because it has a smart compiler. ...but it's not right to suggest that it has none. Remember: There is no way of ensuring that a rust program does not result in a segmentation fault or other memory or race condition as a result of unsafe code. There is no way of ensuring a rust program does not contain any unsafe code.

fulafel 12y ago

Firefox Beta just got Opera-level responsive for me on Android and no rendering issues so far.

higherpurpose 12y ago
I haven't tried Firefox in a coupled of months, but to me Firefox rendering was the worst out of all the top browsers. I think Firefox does something on purpose that makes rendering worse, such as delaying it somehow in order to increase performance or whatever. So for example you won't get the whole page rendered immediately, and if you switch to a different part of the page, you have to wait for it to get rendered, too. I don't like that much.

omeid2 12y ago

I am actually still going back and forth between chrome and firefox and it's design was something that was holding me back, specially in a stacking window. Now looking at this I looked through themes and found Simple White[1] something that way out dones chrome and et all in sexy factor. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simplewhite/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/simplewhite/

jasonkostempski 12y ago
I would like it if something like that was the default and never changed. They seem to keep trying to jump on whatever style is popular when they start a redesign but by the time it appears in a release version it's way out of date. The developer tools are even worse in this regard, they're not even consistent with the rest of the browser. Themes are much better suited to keeping up with trends, the default should be simple.
- alex_duf 12y ago
  well styling is always a matter of personal opinion. I don't think Mozilla should spend time on theming it's developer tools as long as it's readable and usable. For the main theme, as long as it's customizable to satisfy the 5% of grumpy people I'm fine with that. The other 95% just doesn't care.
mseri 12y ago
Thanks!!! This theme is incredible
davidrusu 12y ago
That is a beautiful theme, thanks
JetSpiegel 12y ago
I just can't stand white themes anymore. DeepDark is the bee's knees, as far as dark themes are considered. It even works on Thunderbird.
alex_duf 12y ago

lucian1900 12y ago

What's so evil about Google?

skj 12y ago
It doesn't matter. (disclaimer: googler) I see it as a hubris against the idea that Google claimed to not be evil, and the fact that evil is such a poorly defined concept, and whether or not Google meets the bar depends entirely on the values of the perceiver. Many perceivers, for instance, miss the distinction between "Don't be evil." and "Don't do evil.". The former is a mindset, strategy, and intention, while the latter is impossible for a corporation with 50k employees. Then, the only logical conclusion for someone who hasn't grasped all of the above is that Google is becoming more and more evil every day.
- coldtea 12y ago
  >Many perceivers, for instance, miss the distinction between "Don't be evil." and "Don't do evil.". The former is a mindset, strategy, and intention, while the latter is impossible for a corporation with 50k employees. No, we perceive the disctinction just fine. Some of us just believe Google does "evil" with mindset, strategy, and intention...
  - lucian1900 12y ago
    I would suggest that those of you that believe that are deluded. What possible motivation could they have for being "evil", comic book style?
    - WorldWideWayne 12y ago
      You don't think they're a front company for the NSA? What possible motivation does anyone have for doing evil?
      - lucian1900 12y ago
        > You don't think they're a front company for the NSA? No, I don't. the NSA isn't magic or the Illuminati.

amaks 12y ago

As a side question, I'm curious why you think that Google is becoming "more and more" evil? There are products like Cultural Institute, google.org, and many others which prove just the opposite.

MichaelGG 12y ago
Across Google products, the UIs seem intent on getting users to reveal and allow themselves to be tracked. Google appears to want to downplay this and get people in the mindset of giving out personal details. See my other comments, but things like swapping OK/Cancel when a Chrome user attempts to enable DNT fit right into "evil". Really, how does one excuse adding a dark pattern like that? Even though DNT is bad, Google shouldn't resort to trickery to juke the stats. Edit: A Chrome dev in this thread says this was fixed and just an artifact of how the UI code is in Chrome. Well that makes me look foolish. I'm not a huge fan of the evil terminology, as it sounds melodramatic and it's easy to dismiss anyone saying "evil" in such contexts. I use it because Google chose that word. On a less objective point, everytime I use a Google service, I feel icky. It's bad enough that I'm working on the one missing app I want so I can switch to Windows Phone. (MS has problems, but between their internal legal oversight and inability to execute, I don't feel icky with them. Apple is also a choice, but I just really hate the UI and poor development tools.)

fastball 12y ago

Do you really think Google is evil? One of the co-founders is still the CEO. He is one of the world's wealthiest men. He doesn't need the money and I doubt he feels the need to put shareholders first. Why would he let Google stray from an ideal he ascribed to previously? Has he been corrupted by having more money than he could possibly spend?

copperx 12y ago
Being such a large corporation attracts unwanted attention: many interests at play, peer pressure, etc.
newscracker 12y ago
Beyond a certain point, power, influence and fame become bigger motivating factors than money. Additionally, competition from the likes of Facebook in diminishing the "value" of what Google (his "baby") provides could also motivate certain people to do all sorts of things. And on the topic of Google, one cannot forget the time when Eric Schmidt was the CEO.