So it’s been awhile since I’ve used or installed Chrome on a Mac. Primarily because it’s both bloated and slow, but also because I like Safari a lot and am very familiar with it as well as the perks of continuity between phone, iPad and computer.
So having to install it for a work task, i discovered the latest dumb feature which is that just typing command-q doesn’t actually quit Chrome unlike every other Mac App on the planet
You actually have to go in to preferences and uncheck a box to allow standard command-q to function like it always has.
Not to mention that on every site including this one, it uses up 2-3 times the RAM that Safari does and it’s still noticeably slower.
OK, end of rant
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Hifihedgehog
(Hifihedgehog - Waiting for Surface Pro 10!)
2
It is times like these that I wish Microsoft stuck to their own version of Edge. I cannot stand how much of a memory hog that Chrome is. It just goes to show that Google should stick to their own niche of web searches and leave the real programming to proper software houses.
Then again, so is the new version of Edge, with its never-ending list of new handy additions that look a lot like they invade users’ privacy. While I still used it it felt like I needed to disable a new feature every two weeks. I finally gave up and went to Firefox, which does some of that, but not as much. Note to self: check Firefox privacy settings again.
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Hifihedgehog
(Hifihedgehog - Waiting for Surface Pro 10!)
4
I have turned off most of the bloatware. I use Edge since it syncs all of my passwords between it, iOS Edge, and Microsoft Authenticator.
I use Chrome because it has the developer tools I use. Edge apparently is catching up, but I’m used to Chrome now. Safari was awful to develop with when I tried it. Chrome’s a resource hog, but it gives me a lot of tools to work with. I also like testing in it because if my app runs smoothly in it, it’ll run smoothly in just about anything else.
That’s what I did. It’s not without its own issue though, but for now it beats Chrome and Edge in terms of privacy, or so it seems. You still need to be careful with settings though.
Case in point, I had all these options active on my work machine. d’Oh!
IDK if they’ve changed since I last used it, but all of those options were asked of me when I first set up Firefox a few years ago. I usually allow technical and interaction data so they can improve, and leave everything else unchecked.
I miss old Opera. Sure, sometimes some sites were broken for weeks at a time, but it had so many nice features yet ran well enough on even absolute potatoes.
Vivaldi is a great and all, but a pale shadow of old Opera.
I get that the web has become bloated itself, with (too) many websites trying to be apps, but it’s still very annoying.
Honestly, in terms of just getting information, mostly text and images, it has become worse with all the bloat. Perhaps it’s a bit of some rose-tinted glasses, but everything felt so much snappier back then and you just got to what you wanted.
And I think Chrome and Chromium has been a net detriment to the web surfing experience.
Well according to Mozilla.org chrome versus firefox is essentially a wash, just different.
That being said, IMHO I agree that some of the settings are more obvious and/or accessible in Firefox.
The broader advice that we give our customers is that it it’s much more beneficial to really lean in to whatever browser you go with and learn it’s features and settings.
Uh, I don’t think that is what that article says. For instance, take the text below (from the article):
“While Chrome proves to be a safe web browser, its privacy record is questionable. Google actually collects a disturbingly large amount of data from its users including location, search history and site visits. Google makes its case for data collection saying it’s doing it to improve its services – like helping you find a sweater or a coffee shop like the one you previously bought or visited. However, others might disagree, making the point that Google is actually gathering an unprecedented amount of data for its own marketing purposes. They tout that they’re keeping your information private from hackers, but that’s beside the point. Google itself runs the world’s largest advertising network, thanks in large part to data they harvest from their users.”
See that’s the thing, it depends a lot on what you prioritize and what data you are willing or unconcerned about sharing, versus those you are ok with. For instance in my case. my pet peeve is the efforts to get what I would lump into the demographic category such as age, income hobbies etc. And I really don’t care about location data, where as I have an engineer on my team that goes to great lengths to block.
We’ve had a couple of our larger customers investigate this with similar conclusions, which is essentially pick your poison.
And the biggest black hole it seems to me is the search engine behind the browser. Our experts think that Google mines the data perhaps more extensively, but OTOH they are not as readily sharing with third parties as Bing does.
IMHO you could easily drive yourself nuts on this topic. I try to find a reasonable middle ground which is to try not to explicitly give information I would not otherwise, I also accept that some possibly a lot gets out there anyway.
In other words, I don’t love that Google seems to know that my wife likes to shop at Target and Bed Bath and Beyond, but I also struggle to see any great harm incurred by her or me either.
Well, there is the value such information has for social engineering. For gaining account access with passwords this is less of an issue with 2FA being quite common now and a fair few places/services forcing it. Though I imagine it could still be used to reset passwords.
More concerning, but far less likely, is information like that would be great for, say, a stalker.
I think the biggest issue is that any one person becoming a victim because of personal data being shared without explicit consent, or more importantly, informed consent is very remote. But if you do…
Though…, as seems to be common with my computing adventures, I stopped FF from updating a number of versions back.
The browser started doing funny things with my stylus input. I can’t remember the specifics, but I was using Niftyink and they have a simple in-browser paint program which in newer FF versions was broken in some ways annoying enough that I re-installed a previous version of FF to keep functionality.
Every day or so, FF reminds me that there’s an update available. One time I accidentally hit, ‘Install’ instead of ‘Now Now’ and there went my next half hour…
But in terms of Android devices…, I just hate everything about them. They’re so limited and dumb and full of over-simplified icons and other general nonsense. When I see some of the immensely stupid posts by people on social media, I have to remind myself, “There’s a good chance that it’s not that they can’t type or think, it’s just they just have devices which tunnel vision their reality down to what can pass through a screen the size of half a napkin.”
FF on Android is frustrating. No mouse, no keyboard, no space to spare…? No thanks.
That’s a good point. FF seems to have mobile issues on iOS as well. I have pretty much had to switch back to Safari except on Windows. At least with Advanced Data Protection, and extra blocking extensions, it isn’t too bad.
I just wish Windows and Android cared for privacy as much as Apple now does. But I don’t think that will ever happen.
