Avoiding Flash

[Kazrog]

Also, out of curiosity... what's wrong with Google/Chrome?

Jeff

The supported and pushed FireFox all this time, until they slowly realized that the browser business could be profitable for them, so then they quickly made their own browser, with the most hideous looking UI I've ever seen and little to offer that's unique from FireFox or Konqueror/Safari.

I just think it's a cheesy, cheap move, not really motivated by any desire to innovate.

 

[JBroll]

If I recall correctly, Google still contributes to Firefox - and I don't see how much more they're profiting by releasing Chrome when anything that they stand to gain is gone the minute their work is turned into things like Iron thanks to a BSD-type license. The biggest advantage seems to be speed (although at the expense of memory usage) and their rendering advantage is certainly nontrivial, nonunique, and far from 'not motivated by any desire to innovate' - it seems that IE has far more to fear than Firefox, and Chrome can really help to push out the IE6 bullshit that has been making the Internet more dangerous, icky, and vulnerable since it was released. I'm still partial to lynx, so I can't say much on Firefox looking better than Chrome, but I really don't see where the bulk of that complaint is based.

The setup I'm currently using is Firefox for anything that I want 'safe' - email and the like - and Chrome for the stuff that couldn't give any information about me that isn't already known. Anyone who claims to be concerned about privacy and isn't using GPG to encrypt and sign their email can have a nice, big bowl of "fuck right off, you clueless ass" regardless of ISP and email provider; anyone who can't see 'obsessive-compulsive graduate mathematics student' and guess 'checks comics like XKCD, SMBC, and Achewood regularly between 24-hour Wikipedia and Planetmath binges' needs all the help they can get in this economy.

Jeff

 

[Kazrog]

Google, with things like Chrome and Google DNS stands to profit by tracking every aspect of their users' lives online. They created a multi-billion dollar market with AdWords thanks to data collection, and if they collect more data, they can extract it into more profitable ventures. Usage data is Google's #1 asset.

I'm not here to be overly concerned for anyone's privacy, that's not my issue. However, I don't think Google makes it obvious enough to n00bs how much their usage is being tracked. It's up to people to learn for themselves, sure, but most people don't even begin to suspect how much all of their data is being mined. I think they should at least be given a quick dialog box privacy warning that they can zip past on their way through installation or signup.

Cool if they're still contributing to FireFox, and perhaps I should give Chrome another spin, last time I tried it was a much earlier version that felt like a Fisher Price web browser.

 

[JBroll]

Let's go ahead and count the people who haven't profited from that kind of... oh, wait, not even *we* are immune from that claim.

What's important to note is that all of their methods are easily bypassed and they give more than enough information away *willingly* (in plain view) to allow anyone who cares to circumvent their major revenue source. Bashing them, while ISPs go untouched for practically universal disregard for even more important privacy issues, is absurd.

As far as the 'average person', their competence will only come as the illusion so carefully set up by monsters like Microsoft falls. I completely agree that fixing that issue is important, but to attack Google as if they're a serious threat here makes no more sense than blaming pop musicians for traffic accidents involving radio dials or iPods.

Jeff