Ask HN: For those who use Chrome, why do you? It seems every other day there's news on the front page here about some major privacy or performance feat by Firefox or some other minor browser. It makes me wonder, for those of you who use Chrome and browse this site (implying you're above average in tech knowledge, privacy worries, etc), why do you use Chrome? |
1. Scrolling works really badly. 2. Save as PDF usually doesn’t work well.
I have noticed that quite a few posts mention the bad scrolling. Firefox devs just copy how Chrome works and you will make more people switch.
That’s makes chrome more power user friendly. Sadly
Usually that means I open a ton of windows and can still see all the tabs in each window
The feature was there, then was removed, readded, may be US-only now? I don't know WTF they're doing, but for shopping/donations I need to launch a non-Firefox browser.
Alternatively, if this is your _only_ reason for using Chrome, then just type them in? It's a minor inconvenience at the most.
I'm really hoping Apple introduces a comparable feature soon for iOS and macOS.
If privacy above all is your goal, then Firefox is your best bet.
I seperate stuff using profiles (little avatar next to menu button on top-right corner)
Especially important if you want to split your clients' stuff and with your own things. (History, bookmarks, sync)
And sync is the second reason. Of course firefox would work too but they were just late to the game. I already had lots of stuff (bookmarks, history, passwords) to migrate to...
I would prefer Safari for longer battery life, less resource consumption and overall smooth experience (plus privacy features) than Chrome.
You probably know this but if you install Firefox now it will prompt you to import all your settings from Chrome. You can also set up sync between all your Firefox instances (including mobile).
Also sync matters mostly with mobile. I guess whoever downvoting me just thinks syncing is for desktop...
Compared to chrome (which kept very stable line of features or bugs) ff was mess.
- Most of our web-app users are on Chrome anyway.
- The dev-tools are excellent.
- I'm lazy and it already has all my passwords.
[1]: https://github.com/brave/brave-browser
[2]: https://github.com/chromium/chromium/releases/tag/90.0.4430....
ETA: Don't take my word for it:
https://gizmodo.com/brave-blows-up-its-whole-reason-for-exis...
https://www.androidpolice.com/2020/06/07/brave-browser-caugh...
Supposedly people said Edge is Chromium based, and is better, less memory usage, etc. I tried it, it just feels more clunky, takes longer to open, pages take longer to load. I also dislike the interface, chrome's interface seems more natural to me. And of course doesn't have the same extensions.
Firefox feels faster than chrome for certain sites, but I find it has issues with other sites. Might be because sites design for Chrome these days. Also Firefox like the original Netscape has random freezes and bugs. A lot less, but I find chrome just works most of the time with less problems.
An example site I can think of, off the top of my head, youtube works way smoother in chrome than firefox. I'm not a huge youtube fan but lately I've been trying to view content that happens to be only available on youtube. Opera has even worse youtube support.
I can't remember why I stopped using Chromium but I think it was a lack of extension support. I recalled it lacked something Chrome had that was important to me. If it's important to you, I can use it again so I can remind myself what it was.
For the record I do use Firefox as my backup browser, and I would say it's better than Chrome at some things (it loads certain sites faster, and has better extension support), and better privacy options, but overall Chrome works better for every site.
Cookie Auto-Delete removes all persistent traces of my browsing (Cache, IndexedDB, LocalStorage, Plugin Data, Service Workers, Cookies) unless I have whitelisted a site. And you can whitelist sites on a per-container basis - the integration with Multi-Account Containers is solid.
Container Proxy lets me set up different SOCKS proxies per container. For example, if you have a system-wide VPN with a killswitch running, but want to stream from Netflix or HBO, you can attach a SOCKS proxy to a new "Streaming" container that connects to a SOCKS server running on your local network, effectively bypassing your VPN. Alternatively, if you want to make sure a container is unable to connect to anything without going through a VPN connection, you can bind the container to the SOCKS server on localhost created by your VPN client. You can then use this to set up multiple geographically separate "identities" that don't mix with each other.
All three extensions are reviewed by Mozilla - and Multi-Account Containers is actually written by Mozilla!
After using this setup, I feel that context separation is the future to privacy (and perhaps even security, as Qubes OS demonstrates.)
[1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
[2]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/container-pro...
[3]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autode...
* GPU acceleration doesn't work properly with Firefox/Linux (Dell G5 SE, Ryzen 4800H). Some sites I use daily, such as Google Maps, are painfully slow/laggy on Firefox.
* There's something about the Firefox's scrolling behaviour that I find really annoying.
* It works well across all platforms (Firefox on Android wasn't great last time I checked).
* It's the most tested browser. Many websites don't bother to test with Firefox.
* Chrome has the richest extension ecosystem.
* Some of the alternatives, such as Brave are not as trustworthy. Security is a bigger concern than privacy for me. Google has one of the best security track records.
* I'm heavily invested in the Google ecosystem, and I use dozens of their products. There's always a switching cost involved. Just changing the browser has a negligable effect on privacy if I'm constantly using the other Google services.
* Personally had overall an overwhelmingly positive experience over the last 15+ years I've been in the Google ecosystem. Google hasn't done anything to betray my trust so far.
Chrome also just by far has the best compatibility throughout the web. Whenever I try going to another browser, I always keep a copy of Chrome just so that I can pay utilities (because, of course, their site is broken on Safari, for example).
Also, I use all three major desktop OSes, and Chrome has been the most consistent throughout all 3. Firefox use to have serious rendering issues on macOS; I believe they may have been fixed but I can't be arsed to keep track of that.
It’s much like deciding which nutritional studies to trust when most people aren’t scientists and are just reposting memes.
And although I don’t know what’s going on anymore, I have residual trust in the Chrome team since I used to work for Google.
But I don't think my co-workers were evil, and though I didn't work personally with them much, I think the folks on the privacy and security teams know their business.
Public blog posts can be extremely difficult to understand though, I'm guessing because it's gotten so political. You can get a bit more from "intent to ship" emails on the public mailing lists.
Firefox looks bad. For example:
- the spacing between the home button and the search bar
- why there's a line at the top of the current tab? The way Chrome distinguishes the current tab looks "better""
- the "back", "forward" and "refresh" buttons look big
For me it is still OK, my point is that it used to be possible to make it smashing.
I open a lot of tabs and keep my browser open for days. After a while, Firefox becomes slow, while Chromium always feels fast. It's hard to measure, but it's real. In addition, sometimes I encounter sites that do not work or are slower in Firefox (I don't have an example in my mind right now).
Also, more than once, I see that something is not supported/slower in Firefox just because of some unresolved bugs. They get fixed after a while, but that makes Chrome always ahead and ready when you need a specific feature right away. See for example:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26189604 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25916574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24801058 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23690908 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22943131 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24896489
Most developers develop for Chrome and don't even consider Firefox.
I'm not particularly fond of Google (and growing less fond by-the-week) but the best I can do for now is use Firefox for 95% of things and keep Chrome around for the rest.
- Best devtools, particularity regarding how the tools feel to browse around in.
- Feels slightly better to browse with. Only small differences, like how scroll is just a bit "smooth".
- Looks better ui-wise. (arguably a personal take, but also arguably not)
- (as others will note) Because it's essentially standard at this point, and I work with webdev.
I use chromium though, at least it makes things less google-y. And I thoroughly dislike the Alphabet-monopoly situation and all the bad things it brings. I really wish browsers were far less centralized than they are right now, and that some kind of web-standards consortium worked better than it does. But I don't pretend to be able to fix things like that right now. Besides, at this point, the whole Alphabet-monopoly situation is arguably a political issue rather than a technical one. (Political issues require political solutions)
been using firefox for about 5 years now, whenever i have to debug in chromium based browser I think the exact same thing about firefox. I feel like this could be a case of whatever you are used to. Like how android feels vs ios
Why don't I switch? I haven't seen anything about Chrome re. privacy that has really bothered me personally, but I'm also the guy who clicks accept on cookie prompts. More immediately, I'm kept on Chrome by the Google ecosystem and not wanting to configure+migrate with something new.
Sources: https://www.zerodium.com/program.html
https://www.zerodayinitiative.com/blog/2021/1/25/announcing-...
Given which, I might have switched to Firefox for some uses after a recent OpenBSD release where I think it got the pledlge/unveil support (preventing it from accessing the computer beyond config-specified limits), except for the JS/cookies/images config stuff (and that I got the impression the pledge/unveil stuff might be less useful in a less-well-organized code base...?).
One thing I wish I knew about firefox is a way, without extensions/add-ons, to limit which sites can use javascript/images/etc., and/or to open multiple config tabs at once to quickly turn those on by exception for occasional specific sites, as I do with chrome. Exception lists, even better. This was discussed a little bit at those above links.
[When I said those things before, someone replied helpfully, here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21724710 ].
EDIT: I used to use Webex with Chrome also, but it mostly works fine now on Firefox, even for screen sharing. The only bug I've encountered is that the mute button occasionally doesn't work (audio not muted, but button says "unmute" and has no effect) and I have to rejoin the meeting. When the button works, it stays working for the duration of the meeting.
I believe I saw (2,8) cases where the error (was not, was) also present in Chrome.
I don't want to think about browsers - I use a browser to visit websites. Chrome works for virtually all websites I visit, and doesn't cause too many issues. Maybe Firefox does as well, but I'm too lazy to try out, unless it has something seriously better to offer.
In Chrome you have pretty little button you click on that lists all your profiles in a nice looking way; with two actions you're done.
In Firefox, you have to type about:profiles, you get a horrendously looking list with all sorts of useless information, it's just a pain to access and look at.
Implement the same UX Chrome has for profiles in Firefox and you'll get more people on board.
* Netflix - I think I started doing this back when it wasn't fully supported in Firefox and now it's more of a reflex than for any major reason.
* Google Meet/Slack video calls. Every so often I try to run a Meet in Firefox. The audio works flawlessly but video seems to regularly freeze.
* For the few sites that the devs didn't test in Firefox and something weird happens :)
On my iPad and iPhone I use Safari.
I mainly do web development. Anecdotally I hear about more problems from Firefox users than from Chrome, Safari, or Edge users. Sometimes that's not a problem with Firefox but it does seem to exist as the outlier.
I've made Firefox my default browser on Android a couple of months ago and I'd say it's basically completely usable at this point.
I am running it with NoScript on, which is probably more of an exercise in masochism than anything else - more or less every site loads broken, of course, without JS these days, and a recent change to the Firefox addon interface means selectively enabling scripts to get it working is a multi-tap pain in the ass. I am probably going to switch to uBlock Origin (which someone here mentioned works now in FF mobile).
Performance wise I'd say it's probably a bit slower but still perfectly usable (running it on a Pixel 3 and a Motorola OneVision).
I enabled sync on it as well, with an account created just to sync between my two mobile devices, and it works fine.
Fractional scrolling is what lets you move just a pixel at a time with your trackpoint or trackpad scrolling. Maybe it has been patched since then, but at the time firefox needed a tweak. Afterwards trackpoint scrolling felt more precise than my W10 thinkpads.
* Brave adds custom code that generally has less eyes on it.
* The business model is potentially problematic. Which can lead to incidents such as this one: [1]
* I don't know how good are Brave's security development and operational practices.
* Trust is something that is built over time. Brave hasn't been around so long, so doesn't have an established security track record.
1. https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-aff...
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/aug/13/google-lo...
Since I use Google as my main search engine, Google already knows what I've clicked on, so in that case AMP is just an annoyance, not a privacy concern.
Google spent enormous efforts to make the internet fast (Chrome, V8, QUIC, SPDY & HTTP/2, BBR, TLS 1.3, etc.) I will give them the benefit of the doubt that they developed AMP for performance reasons and not for tracking reasons.
I'm personally less concerned about the recording of the data, than the security of the data. Leaks due to security incomptence (e.g. the Facebook leak) seem like a much bigger imminent threat to me.
This reminds me of an old joke: it's not the fall that kills you; it's the sudden stop at the end.
You wouldn't have to worry about leaks if they didn't collect the data in the first place.
You don't have to be evil to do things that result in terrible outcomes.
I genuinely don't think anyone at Facebook wanted to create a propaganda tool, but that was the aggregate outcome.
I don't think anyone at Google set out to build an invasive surveillance platform. But in aggregate that's what's happened.
There's real danger in assuming you will only get bad outcomes because of bad people. Unintended consequences are a thing and I personally think most of the negatives of big tech come from precisely that.
If we can't acknowledge that because we insist on labelling everything and everyone good or evil, we'll never actually solve these issues.
Links about things like that do get posted here and that keeps me coming back. But it seems like for certain topics, good-faith critiques are often intermingled with large amounts of contempt. Often the contempt gets upvoted too, just because a lot of people agree with the sentiment.
I wonder if it would be possible to discuss such things without the contempt? Even the Chrome team’s attempts to improve security and privacy get discussed with contempt.
That person does not want something new, they just want to use their existing workflow, which is possible, but inconvenient due to bad UX and ugly UI. These are their words, not mine.
As a user of both containers and profiles in Firefox I have to agree with them. The UX needs to improve and the UI needs to be prettyfied.
the add-ons are basically just the interfaces for you to access that core functionality.
If you don't want to trust the add-on developer just use the official one made by Mozila. It is the one i use.
https://addons.mozilla.org/pt-BR/firefox/addon/multi-account...
Additionally Firefix also have profiles as a core funtionality, it already had it before chrome even existed so it had it much longer then chrome had.. But again is mostly hidden away..
You can access it with the command below:
firefox -ProfileManager
But as with containers there are add-ons to make as easy as chrome to switch between profiles.. Although i don't think there is an official one by Mozilla..