Privacy Guides @lemmy.one uthredii @programming.dev 1y ago

Google's trying to DRM the internet, and we have to make sure they fail

par1.iv.ggtyler.dev Google's trying to DRM the internet, and we have to make sure they fail

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36817305 https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity https://youtu.be/fAFlI4jZ4uc https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2022/12/chrome-delays-plan-to-limit-ad-blockers-new-timeline-coming-in-march/ 🔵 Cheesy mugs & t-shirts: https://bit.ly/rossmanns...

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In every comment thread about the importance of supporting Firefox, there's always at least one comment claiming Firefox is slow, even while I repeatedly see the data say otherwise.

Anecdotally, I've used Firefox, Waterfox, and Librewolf on PC, and none have been slow.

I've used Firefox, Firefox Beta, and Fennec on Android, and if anything they seem faster and easier to use than Chrome (and they actually tend to work like an actual internet browser).

I'm not saying these commenters are all Google sockpuppets, but maybe they're parroting misinformation, or maybe they're using ~~an Apple OS~~ iOS, where Firefox is basically Safari.

It's just really perplexing to me.
- I have suspected for a while it is astroturfing. Same as with GIMP and Libre Office where inevitably someone will trash the UI as it's "soooo bad". If you say a lie, and repeat it enough, people start to believe it.
  
  Every time I introduce someone to LibreOffice I half expect them to hate it, and that I'll have to go through the alternative interfaces and try to make them accept it and potentially install OnlyOffice instead if that doesn't help.
  
  Instead, I'm generally met with an "oh, this is nice", before they start typing away.
  
  I get that some of the bigger nerds would prefer something different (I would personally love the power of LibreOffice inside a modern minimalist GTK app), but LibreOffice is working great for most users. Those passionate enough to see an issue with it probably prefer markdown or latex anyway.
  
  I honestly prefer LibreOffice to what Microsoft Office has become.
  
  When I went to grad school, I was told MS Office was required, so I purchased it, but turned out we just used basic word processing and a handful of simple presentations, so I ended up using LibreOffice for everything instead.
  
  Same here. I found the Microsoft ribbon they introduced in 2007 to be a major anti pattern. It didn't make things easier, it made things way harder. Our IT department tried to bust me for not using the official Microsoft software (outlook, excel, word, etc) so I outright uninstalled windows and put fedora on there. Granted, I was trying to do partitions and fucked it up, but whatever. The point is I wanted to get away from their "antivirus" spyware so I could use what worked for me. I got the idea when I saw the Dean of academics was using i3 as her window manager
  
  I can just imagine your IT dept. running into the Dean's office to complain, only to be met with yet more Linux. Hilarious!
  
  "Oh God our eyes. The non proprietary software we didn't buy licenses for. It burns!"
  
  I’m a huge fan of open source but saying the only people saying Gimps UI is bad are astroturfing is insane.
  
  It’s famously controversial and uses UI paradigms that don’t exist in any modern desktop environments.
  
  I'm not, but it's not like it's an occasional thing. Every time it's brought up, it's trashed. Free software that does a better job than anything else free, and folk bash it. Either they like and are motivated by Adobe dominance, or they're useful idiots.
  
  It's balanced to say "great program, but could do with a UI improvement". It isn't to say it's unusable because of UI. I cannot imagine any free software advocate should be proud of taking that line.
  
  I love GIMP's UI. It's clean, it's to the point, and it's stayed basically the same for ages!
  
  Damn, this positivity isn't welcome in free software circles! How can I respect you? (Kidding, I think you and your positivity is awesome.)
  
  "Other people who have bad experience ces with something just be asteoturfing."
  
  Ivw consistently had an issue with Firefox that I described in a thread a few days ago that I can't seem to identify or fix. Am I just not allowed to mention it?
  
  Maybe their issue tracker is the best bet, or in a separate question thread about the issues. Raising it in every thread it comes up when people recommending it isn't going to solve the issue or help anything, is it?
  
  No, it won't. I bring it up in this particular thread for 2 reasons.
  
  I don't like the insinuation that anyone who claims to have problems with Firefox must be bots. I don't think that's at all true, since I've run into multiple problems with the browser myself that I haven't been able to solve.
  
  I brought it up in the previous thread because I think that if people are considering switching, knowing what problems exist is useful. It isn't meant to dissuade anyone, in fact I regularly recommend Firefox to my friends and family. But I don't personally use it because of a pretty major problem, and I don't think it's bad to mention it when the topic comes up.
  
  "I don’t like the insinuation that anyone who claims to have problems with Firefox must be bots."
  
  I did not say this, multiple people have interpreted it this way. It's a little defensive. I said there is a targetted campaign against it where every time it is brought up it is trashed. You may be be a genuine person who is also trashing it, but that doesn't mean there isn't also a targetted campaign at play. I just find it hard to believe that some folk hate FOSS projects so much they have to smash it every time it's brought up. Sounds exhausting.
  
  There is a difference between "it's great software, but i've notice a few issues" and "this project is trash". The second is posted purely with the intent of trying to dissuade people from using it, and all they do is keep people using Chrome, which I think we can all agree has bigger issues.
  
  Also talking about GIMP, plenty of people have said "there's heaps of Photoshop alternatives" yet legit everything on Ubuntu I've has been buggy AF and feature poor. Like I get that FOSS software is hit and miss but this has been really rough
- I think it depends on the website. There are some websites where chrome will work better either because chrome works better with certain libraries/technologies or because the developers put more time into optimizing for chrome.
  
  On the other hand Firefox might have less bloat around telemetry that gives it an advantage too.
  
  Oh absolutely true, and one would probably notice it more if one uses a lot of Google's services (though Microsoft is even worse in my experience, with nerfing its services if you don't use Edge), but this still doesn't explain why just a normal user would proclaim Firefox is "slow as fuck" without anything to support this, and that's what I'm seeing in nearly every thread that mentions Firefox.
  
  because being faster is what got chrome it's market share in the first place even though it hasn't been true for a very long time if it ever was.
  
  I never switched to chrome because my 50tb of ram wasn't enough to open 2 tabs.
  
  because that's google bot replying
  
  If you want to online shop or research something to buy, or spend money in some way, Chrome and Google search is superior. If you are looking for information, news, anything not requiring payment, Firehox and duck duck go are the best
  
  I'm going to have to strongly disagree here. Trying to research a potential purchase on Google or Bing will net you page after page of Amazaon Affiliate sites peddling junk. I'm into longboarding, and most of the results you'll find trying to Google a decent longboard would result in wasting your money at best, severe injury or death at worst.
  
  It's not just longboards, either. I've noticed these promoted results trying to search PC parts, appliances, dog food, tools, and anything else you might be looking to buy.
  
  There's a reason people started appending searches with "reddit," but honestly it's better just to use a search engine that doesn't net you these results, or ask somewhere else entirely like a community forum. Sadly, most people rely on results from search engines and will end up spending money on junk.
  
  I'm also not sure why using Chrome would make online shopping easier. I literally make all my online purchases through either Firefox proper or Fennec, and I've never had a problem.
- Firefox is not “basically Safari” on macOS, that is only true on mobile.
  
  People seem to be unaware that Firefox on Android (not IOS unfortunately) has support for several useful extensions. Ad blocking is the obvious benefit, but I use a Text-to-speech extension every day.
  
  Firefox for iOS might switch to their own engine if Apple relaxes the rules on web browsers. New EU laws will put full pressure on Big Tech.
  
  I think Apple will have to, since they're also going to have to allow sideloading. However, knowing Apple, they'll probably wait right up until the deadline the EU has set before actually giving us what we want.
  
  I did not know this, so thanks for the correction
- Yeah I’ve noticed the same thing. I’ve been deliberately trying to do a bit of Firefox advocacy for a while (cos I honestly believe increasing its userbase is our only chance to avoid google ruining the internet). But yes every time there’s a bunch of people confidently complaining about how bad/slow Firefox is and advocating for brave or chrome.
  
  Initially I thought it was just a bit of historical baggage but it happens very consistently and aggressively so I’ve had the same thought.
- On top of that, Firefox was recently found to be faster than Chrome.
  
  Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Google.
- I think some people also just haven't used Firefox in a while, and it's gotten better since the last time they used it. I've never had issues on Firefox, however I only became a Firefox user a few years ago. Meanwhile my girlfriend insists it's buggy and slow, but she hasn't used it in many years.
  
  I've noticed a lot of people not wanting to ever revisit older paradigms. Like when the Reddit protests started a lot of people were adament that going back to forum type software would be a disaster and I felt taken aback. I loved that shit. The only reason I saw to do that with Reddit instead of a dedicated forum was because Reddit already had users that could wander into your community and slowly onramp. Here on the fediverse we get the best of both worlds, but there are people who hate the idea that [email protected] and [email protected] don't aggregate together even though they might actually be about completely different subject matter because "we don't want to go back to the phpbb days"
  
  Well y know what? Maybe there are parts of the phpbb days that were worthwhile and good. Maybe hosting dedicated servers that are specifically about something is a positive thing as it makes there be more people excited to host a small part of the internet that people can make use of. Maybe what we needed was the easier on ramping, not the centralizes forums.
  
  Maybe that’s like, just your opinion man.
- By some metrics, Firefox surpasses Chrome now.
- Chrome is a memory hog compared to Firefox lol
- This was true when Chrome first came up, they even made those ridiculous ads, which Opera (before they stopped developing their own engine) was ridiculing: https://youtu.be/zaT7thTxyq8
  
  Firefox after they they rewrote their engine to be multithreaded (I think it was called project electron?) is faster than chrome that is currently very bloated.
  
  What saddens me the most that, while there are ignorant people who don't know better and use what are they familiar with, there are also self proclaimed techno geeks, who are equally ignorant and don't seem to remember the times of Internet Explorer.
  
  Edit: here are the chrome ads: https://youtu.be/nCgQDjiotG0
  
  Tbf we're in a new generation of techno geeks who weren't around for a lot of things and lack the full context. I think about that every time a young person chides me for "stealing" from YouTubers or even Google itself by blocking ads.
  
  I(31/m) have a buddy(25/m) who gives me shit for pirating stuff sometimes because he says I'm stealing from the creators. But I'm not because I wasn't gonna pay for it in the first place 😂 I'm more than happy to pay for things and do all the time. I just cancelled my audible sub a couple days ago because I got an email that my credits were going to expire and I needed to use them soon. Like what? I paid you for those. So I just used them on the series I'm currently listening to and spent the rest of the night figuring out how to host my own audible 😂
  
  Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/ZdirsXNaibo
  
  https://piped.video/ZdirsXNaibo
  
  Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
  
  I'm open-source, check me out at GitHub.
- Worth mentioning that, as much as it pains me to back Apple, Safari is also a good alternative for those it's available for (at least in this regard). It's one of the only browsers other than Firefox not using Chromium. And WebKit, it's renderer, is a pretty badass project.
  
  Chromium and its forks actually all use WebKit as well: https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/displaying-a-web-page-in-chrome/
  
  WebKit: Rendering engine shared between Safari, Chromium, and all other WebKit-based browsers.
  
  Blink and WebKit completely diverged in 2013 after the fork. That document is virtually identical to its 2012 version and is marked as outdated in several places.
  
  Oh huh, TIL. I had always assumed they were all webkit just due to the amount of compatibility code I've had to implement in CSS with -webkit styles. It makes sense that a fork like Blink would be backwards compatible with those though
  
  Is this up to date? I thought they forked from WebKit ten years ago.
- We just need to respond with "objectively wrong: <link to some data>" and copy paste it again if the same person replies.
- Also slow compared to what ? I mostly think its just the UI that makes people think it’s slow. Cause I think most browsers load sites at an equal space, or prioritize different kind of caches.
- Switch from chrome to Firefox about a year ago. Firefox certainly opens faster on my PC but I don't notice much difference on my android phone.
- I switched back and forth between Firefox and Chromium based browsers like Brave and Vivaldi. To be fair Firefox felt slow in comparison for a long time but that changed in the last few months. I think since about Firefox v114 I don't feel a difference anymore and that's why I'm using Firefox now. Best is to tell those people to try Firefox again because it recently became faster (in my experience).

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