Internet Browsers: What are YOU using? (And why?) (1 Viewer)

[jcroy]

Arrogant and pretentious.

In my experience, I have always found many computer programmers to be like this (both amateur and professional).



Name shaming and calling a spade "a spade", is a completely ineffective recourse in dealing with such individuals.

 

[jcroy]

The fact that a simple css file can easily modify the look to get the desired positioning tells me they're intentionally ignoring requests for an option switch. A first level programmer could write the necessary code in just a few minutes. Maintaining it would be trivial.

(At the risk of adding more fuel to the fire).

I'm sure you know by now that "facts" and "truth" do not matter at all, in projects where one does not have any veto power.

 

[jcroy]

At best all one can do in the absence of having any veto power, is to hope that the project crashes and burns and/or a fork is done.

For example if Google Chrome ends up fully implementing its anti-ad-blocking stuff, one can hope that a fork is done which the prominent developers end up defecting to. (Similar to what @theJman outlined in a previous post in this thread).

 

[theJman]

The last time I looked at Vivaldi you could not put the tabs *below* the URL bar - where they belong and work best. Has that been fixed?

I don't believe they've added that option, I was more referring to where the tabs were placed on the browser window. If there's not an extension for it that likely means the UI can't be configured to do it. Wouldn't surprise me.

 

[jcroy]

Adthrive.com google-analytics.com googletagmanager.com and skimresources.com are all trackers. I never allow them to run.

Most of those separate lines are code coming from a 3rd party server. Often those 3rd party code bits will call even more 3rd party code. HTF isn't very bad. I've seen some sites with *dozens* of 3rd party scripts running everything from ads to images to tracking. The more of this junk you block the better and faster your browsing experience will be. I don't run AdBlock Plus on HTF as those other things I block do a good enough job here but some sites are just eat up with 3rd party ads that do nothing but slow your browser down.

This most annoying part about using extensions like umatrix or noscript, is figuring out which scripts are the nasty crap.

My preference is to not run ANY scripts at all, with the page still readable to me. At minimum, nowadays the vast majority of websites require css to be allowed. Only really really old ancient webpages leftover from the 1990s, might still be viewable without css.

After y2k or so, I have noticed many non-nasty scripts are required for the screen to render/function properly at all on many webpages, which are frequently hosted on third party cdn sites. For example on this hometheaterforum forum, jQuery scripts are download from the third party ajax.googleapis.com cdn host. I don't always allow these particular jQuery scripts to be run whenever I'm reading stuff on hometheaterforum here, but some functionality will be missing.

This is what made extensions like decentraleyes ideal years ago, where Firefox didn't have to connect to a remote third party host to obtain a non-nasty script, such as jQuery. In principle third party cdn hosts can also do rudimentary tracking, which decentraleyes also blocks.

Since Firefox and Chrome have become more and more aggressive in stopping cross site scripting attracks over the years, it has made decentraleyes (and localcdn) type extensions less effective.


Nevertheless from my experiences with using decentraleyes over the years, I became more familiar with which third party cdn hosts can be allowed on certain websites, and which ones are hosting pure junk.

 

[jcroy]

There aren't more competitors simply because there's little to no money in it for most. Going up against Google's Chrome universe is like going up against IE several years back. "Everyone" used IE and now "Everyone" uses Chrome. It's hard to get casual users to go with something different simply because what they use works. There are also tons of "useless features" many people seem to like and just don't consider the security issues involved (syncing across devices so a session always appears the same everywhere for example).

In hindsight, it appears everybody largely gave up on advancing web browser technology shortly after Microsoft completely and utterly destroyed Netscape as a viable company. This is why for more than a decade, web browsers resembled an "8-track tape" with too many components tacked on with "duct tape" such as flash, java, etc ... for any functionality beyond reading simple text and static images.

Browser engine - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Successors largely resembled "settlers" and not "pioneers" (ie. webkit, presto, etc ....). In the case of Presto, I'm guessing Opera's developers came to the realization that maintaining their own version of an "8-track tape duct taped with too much junk" became too resource consuming and not worth the effort anymore. Easier to just start off with the Chromium engine and add in their own stuff, which eventually became the Opera Vivaldi browser.

 

[Dave Upton]

This most annoying part about using extensions like umatrix or noscript, is figuring out which scripts are the nasty crap.

My preference is to not run ANY scripts at all, with the page still readable to me. At minimum, nowadays the vast majority of websites require css to be allowed. Only really really old ancient webpages leftover from the 1990s, might still be viewable without css.

After y2k or so, I have noticed many non-nasty scripts are required for the screen to render/function properly at all on many webpages, which are frequently hosted on third party cdn sites. For example on this hometheaterforum forum, jQuery scripts are download from the third party ajax.googleapis.com cdn host. I don't always allow these particular jQuery scripts to be run whenever I'm reading stuff on hometheaterforum here, but some functionality will be missing.

This is what made extensions like decentraleyes ideal years ago, where Firefox didn't have to connect to a remote third party host to obtain a non-nasty script, such as jQuery. In principle third party cdn hosts can also do rudimentary tracking, which decentraleyes also blocks.

Since Firefox and Chrome have become more and more aggressive in stopping cross site scripting attracks over the years, it has made decentraleyes (and localcdn) type extensions less effective.


Nevertheless from my experiences with using decentraleyes over the years, I became more familiar with which third party cdn hosts can be allowed on certain websites, and which ones are hosting pure junk.

We do our best to be judicious with ads here at HTF, though it can be challenging to find that balance. While I understand that some folks will run ad/script blockers no matter what, it is my hope that regular members will chip in for a premium membership here to help support the site.

 

[jcroy]

Usually if I want to order something through an amazon link on here, I'll turn off the ad-blocking stuff and use the HTF specific links to amazon.

I don't know what other ads are blocked. The "forum sponsor" ads (such as "Blue Jeans Cable" at this moment). still show up. I haven't written any custom ad-blocking rules to block the "forum sponsor" ads nor the screen "whitening out" on the forum's home page.

 

[jcroy]

Being able to keep tabs where they belong - *below* the URL bar - is the primary reason I still use Firefox (followed closely that it's not a Google product). The inability to move the tab row to where I want it to be is what's kept me away from all alternative browsers.

Just wondering. (Since this appears to be one of your huge hang-ups on this issue).

Have you tried writing your own extension on Chrome and/or Firefox, which achieves a "proper UI" in your estimation?

 

[Johnny Angell]

I googled making chrome my default browser on my ipad, didn’t find much help. A couple of links said to do it, you had to be jail broken. Is their a simple way to make chrome my default browser on my ipad, iphone, and Mac?

 

[theJman]

Easier to just start off with the Chromium engine and add in their own stuff, which eventually became the Opera Vivaldi browser.

Did Opera and Vivaldi merge? The only thing I knew they had in common was both were started by the same man, Jon von Tetzchner.

 

[jcroy]

Did Opera and Vivaldi merge? The only thing I knew they had in common was both were started by the same man, Jon von Tetzchner.

It was more like slamming hard on the "reset button".

The current Microsoft Edge appears to also be slamming on the "reset button" too.

 

[jcroy]

Being able to keep tabs where they belong - *below* the URL bar - is the primary reason I still use Firefox (followed closely that it's not a Google product). The inability to move the tab row to where I want it to be is what's kept me away from all alternative browsers.

Just wondering. (Since this appears to be one of your huge hang-ups on this issue).

Have you tried writing your own extension on Chrome and/or Firefox, which achieves a "proper UI" in your estimation?

For amusement last night and this morning, I took a closer look at how such a hypothetical extension could be programmed.

As a starting point, I found a Firefox extension which opens up new windows without a url toolbar. Unfortunately it didn't work at all on my current hardened FF configuration.

New window without toolbar – Get this Extension for 🦊 Firefox (en-US)

Download New window without toolbar for Firefox. Open current page in new window without toolbar.

addons.mozilla.org

Nevertheless, I looked at the code in this extension's xpi file. (xpi files are just slightly modified *.zip archive files, which can be extracted by changing the file suffix from .xpi to .zip).

For amusement to see what might happen, I loaded this extension's code into the current version of Chromium in the settings->extensions tab in developer mode. Surprisingly, this extension code actually worked where it can invoke a new window of a current tab without any url toolbar .

 

[Clinton McClure]

I googled making chrome my default browser on my ipad, didn’t find much help. A couple of links said to do it, you had to be jail broken. Is their a simple way to make chrome my default browser on my ipad, iphone, and Mac?

I’m thinking that’s one of the rumored features of iOS and iPadOS 14.

 

[Johnny Angell]

I’m thinking that’s one of the rumored features of iOS and iPadOS 14.

So no way at the moment to make it the default browser?

 

[Dave Upton]

So no way at the moment to make it the default browser?

Not yet, unfortunately.

 

[jcroy]

The fact that a simple css file can easily modify the look to get the desired positioning tells me they're intentionally ignoring requests for an option switch. A first level programmer could write the necessary code in just a few minutes. Maintaining it would be trivial.

The question is whether the code for the old UI setup still exists in current versions of Firefox. Especially after the about:config options to revert back to the old UI setup, was removed entirely.

If the current FF programmers have no intention of ever formally going back to the old UI setup, then I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually removed most (or all) of the old UI code.

Judging by the size of the main tabs_below_navigation_toolbar css files in the Aris-t2 CustomCSSforFx suite, it is one of the bigger set of files. Reading through this code, this doesn't look like it would be "trivial" code to maintain legacy. In Firefox's constantly changing environment, I would dread trying to maintain "legacy" code which gets more and more complex non-trivial "band aid" fixes every few months.

 

[jcroy]

The question is whether the code for the old UI setup still exists in current versions of Firefox. Especially after the about:config options to revert back to the old UI setup, was removed entirely.

If the current FF programmers have no intention of ever formally going back to the old UI setup, then I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually removed most (or all) of the old UI code.

As a current example of this possibly happening in the near future, there are the recent changes to the url bar (ie. resizing, etc ...).

At this time, one can revert back to the old url bar via about:config by changing the browser.urlbar.update1* settings to false. Though it would not be surprising at all that these about:config settings will eventually be removed officially, and eventually also removed as a "hidden" about:config setting.

IIRC as a past precedent, the browser.tabs.onTop setting in about:config was eventually removed as a "hidden" about:config setting. (After it was already removed officially in about:config).

 

[jcroy]

Also I wouldn't be surprised at all, if eventually the old url bar setup ends up as an option in the Aris-t2 CustomCSSforFx suite,

 

[jcroy]

As a current example of this possibly happening in the near future, there are the recent changes to the url bar (ie. resizing, etc ...).

At this time, one can revert back to the old url bar via about:config by changing the browser.urlbar.update1* settings to false. Though it would not be surprising at all that these about:config settings will eventually be removed officially, and eventually also removed as a "hidden" about:config setting.

Heh. That was fast.

On the nightly version of Firefox (78), they already officially removed the browser.urlbar.update1 option from about:config