When I wrote about App-pocalypse Now [https://blog.codinghorror.com/app-pocalypse-now/] in 2014, I implied the future still belonged to the web. And it does. But it's also true that the web has changed a lot in the last 10 years, much less the last 20 or 30. Websites have

This is a screenshot from an NPR article discussing the rising use of ad blockers. The page is 12 megabytes in size in a stock web browser. The same article with basic ad blocking turned on is 1 megabyte.

  • Obinice@lemmy.worldEnglish
    1·
    9 months ago

    Any qualms you might have about switching to firefox are either false (firefox is now faster than chrome in lighthouse tests) or Google brainwashing you into thinking your workflows are completely static when you could easily adapt to not having the exact extension you so desperately “need” to work

    Honestly, why are people so uppity, angry even, about other people’s browser choices around here? Heaven forbid someone dare use something other than Firefox. We must be brainwashed!

    The most important aspect of a browser for me currently, besides of course all the stuff both browsers do great already (I love Firefox and would love to swap back to it, I used it for years before Chrome came out), is integrating my Google account at the application level.

    I want all my Google integrations to carry across, and all my search history, maps history, location history and so on to be seamless and detailed across all my devices, and there’s just no other browser that does that right now.

    I wish I could do that in Firefox. Does it mean Google gets to look at what websites I go on? Sure. But their knowing that I browse amateur radio forums and GitHub doesn’t bother me - it probably helps refine my search results, even. Handy!

    Google is evil and capitalist and they don’t have my best interests at heart, but I use android, I’m in their ecosystem and I mostly like it, I like all the Google apps, I like how they work and how much easier it makes my life vs not using them, or using lots of random disparate apps made by many different people that don’t have a shared design ethos, or the same level of quality across the board, and now my data is spread across many places instead of just one, etc.

    Sure, I could get an off grid Tomtom GPS for example, but Google maps works so much better, is so much more accurate and less fiddly and time consuming, and does so much more.

    I do love firefox though, it rocks. I just wish people would dial back the soapboxing about how everyone should be using it and if you’re not then you’re making some sort of grave awful stupid mistake because you’re a brainwashed idiot… it’s getting tiring :-(