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Google tries to defend its Web Environment Integrity
(techreport.com)
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this post was submitted on 29 Jul 2023
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If you are not using Firefox now is a good time to start.
Just switched yesterday, was way easier than I thought it would be. I'm converted on all my devices, all my stuff has been synced from Chrome in a few clicks. Just do it people.
If you haven't already, check out Firefox Sync.
You can sync your stuff across Firefox instances (PC, mobile, different PC profiles etc.) You can choose to sync logins, open tabs, bookmarks, add-ons etc.
Each place you use Firefox can choose to sync different stuff, so for example you can sync logins everywhere but only sync open tabs on the PC.
In case you replace the phone or your PC HDD crashes etc. all you have to do is login back to Firefox Sync and you get all that stuff back.
I love Firefox so much. Specially the built in sync. I can browse something on my phone and open it on my computer later and continue where I left off.
I've been using Firefox mobile for a few years now too, and the one thing I'll point out is that the addon store is a lot more limited than on PC -- unless you're using Firefox nightly or beta, which lets you use any. But for the average user that only needs ublock or noscript, etc. it's a perfect choice:)
Tampermonkey expands the functionality you can use to take control, I use the twitter control panel to transform the mobile experience of X. No need for the app with all the forced Elmo bollocks.
It's kind of silly. I use nightly with custom add-ons and most of the add-ons work without issue. The UI might not be the best for the phone but they're functional. I'm not sure why the mobile add-ons are so restricted, even enabling them in nightly is bizarre. You need to go in and tap on the FF icon in the version info page or something like that...
I recently switched and all's good so far. Correct me if I'm wrong, wei would also be able to block certain browsers, including Firefox, right? I wish just switching browsers would be enough to avoid Wei though :/
If google gets their way websites will be able to block OS's and browsers. But if enough people switch to Firefox they won't be able to push this change as easily. Google Chrome has about an 80% marketshare in the browser market and most of the alternatives are forks of Chromium which google controls. If this doesn't change Google will be able to do anything they want.
I have too use Edge at work. Is Edge also implementing this shit?
Im so sorry u should use it...
Firefox in the meanwhile but long term we need to move away from the unfathomably bloated web ~~protocol~~ standard/browsers.
Web protocol? Which one?
I wouldn’t consider http or dns bloated, for instance. And tcp/ip isn’t web-specific enough for me to think that’s what you mean by “the web protocol”.
Are you just trying to say you don’t like websites in a way that sounds techy?
I'm referring to the totality of what is required to make a complete and secure web browser from scratch.
That’s a rant about the complexity of modern browser engines, not the protocols. The web worked just fine before CSS and JS. The protocols aren’t the problem. Lynx is still being maintained if you want the web without the bloat of features like js and inline images.
I believe the rant demonstrates there cannot be more competition for browsers and therefore justifies the idea that browsers will stagnate and come to an end. I think the solution will be to move away from one application doing many things to using separate software dedicated to narrow purposes.
Ah yes, I do the same in my kitchen. One machine that does one job and then sits around unused for the rest of the year.
No, obviously that is not the way. I don't want to deal with 20 separate programs to do the job Firefox does.
When you want to use the scanner but can't because the printer is broken.
What’s the “web protocol”? Are you talking about HTTP?
Seems from their response to me asking the same thing, they mean browser engines, not anything to do with any of the protocols involved.
I wish I'd said "web standards" instead.
You mean HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc?
Including those but also all specifications defined by the W3C. I would post other examples here but I'm out of my depth.
Ok well, the modern web technology ecosystem is incredibly featureful and flexible, it allows a huge array of options for building rich interactive applications, all delivered to your browser on-demand in a few seconds.
Sure some of the technologies involved aren’t perfect (and I challenge you to find any system that feature-rich that doesn’t have a few dark corners), but there really no alternative option that comes close in terms of flexibility and maturity.
Adding features endlessly, heedless of danger of the inate security issue from the complexity, makes for an uncompetative and ultimatly unsustainable ecosystem.
The alternative I believe in is to use seperare apps for each segmented feature (the dedicated video player plays the video, the browser merely fetches it).
Web standards are public, discussed openly, heavily scrutinised (including by security researchers) and available for any browser developer to implement.
You want to go back to the days of Realplayer, Acrobat Reader, Flash, etc, when individual companies made their own privately developed closed source apps?