Browser Wars
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- sem
With the gifs in the video games thread highlighting faults in Chrome I was tempted to switch over to Firefox again...then I saw the layout.
It really bugs me when browsers have the address and search bar in separate bars. For this reason (which may be silly) I can't bring myself to use it.
What browser do you use and why?
- i_monk0
Seriously?
- sem0
- bainbridge0
First world problems.
- nb0
We might as well get used to the idea that we'll need to switch browsers once every couple years or so. It's the nature of the browser wars. No big deal.
Gave up on Chrome a year or two ago because it had been awful on OSX. Slow, huge drain on the battery, plugins didn't work right.
Using Safari now, it's great, again. Firefox for developing/testing.
- ukit20
I prefer Safari but find it's hard to switch from Chrome because the web inspector is better. First world problems.
- iCanHazQBN0
All browsers currently suck, and I don't know why they can't fix these obvious issues.
I hate how Chrome tabs get smaller and smaller the more you have open, until you can't see what tabs they are and you're forced to click through each one just so you can see what it is.
Safari is worse. Loooong stretched out tabs, and if you have a lot of them open it created a dropdown menu to the right.
Dammit, just have tabs all the same size and allow people to flick left and right. Works nicely with a Magic Mouse. Not sure about other mice. You'd think Safari would do this.
- Ctrl-tab goes to next tab. Ctrl-shift-tab goes to previous tab.nb
- I don't understand. Do you mean Command? All this does is open previous tabs... like a History function.iCanHazQBN
- LOL. i just upgraded to new Safari. They added a left-right scroll function. Someone was listening! :)iCanHazQBN
- iCanHazQBN1
What's with the 1st world bullshit comments. We can't talk about anything except war and poverty? This is a design forum. It's ok, don't be afraid... you can start a thread on web browsers.
- nb0
Safari on Mac, I use Ctrl-Tab key to toggle to the next tab within that window. It doesn't go through different windows. Ctrl-Shift-Tab goes to previous tab. Safari 7, OSX 10.9.
Used along with Cmd T, Cmd W and Cmd L, it makes for very fast browsing with lots of tabs.
- These are the same controls as Firefox.i_monk
- I would hope it is standard across browsers, it works so well.nb
- If I'm in the left most tab and I want to get to the 20th tab I have to hit Ctrl-Tab 20 times???iCanHazQBN
- Not very intuitive. The tabs should be exposed and a left-right scroll should be implemented. Like how Tor functions.iCanHazQBN
- Well, you could go back a tab. If you have 40 tabs and want to go to the 20th you could use your mouse. Geez.nb
- You can also use Ctrl+(the number of the tab you want to jump to) if your in hurry.voiceof
- Clarification: you can go to Ctrl+8 after that Ctrl+9 takes you to the last tab.voiceof
- voiceof0
Not sure how they work in other browsers but I imagine many are standard. https://support.google.com/chrom…
- CygnusZero40
What year is it where we need to post 15 GIFs on a page? I mean really the 90s are over guys. Post youtube videos. We shouldnt need to even worry about the fact that chrome has a problem with a ton of gifs on a page because a ton of gifs on a page shouldnt be happening anyway.
- I dont even view that thread anymore because its out of control with those clowns in there.CygnusZero4
- Im not switching browsers for one thread. I like Chrome.CygnusZero4
- You seem angry. We have an entire thread of animated gifs, you should expect them here.i_monk
- your damn right im mad!CygnusZero4
- I like gifsmonospaced
- don't get angry at the world because your browser is not capable of handling a moving image.Miguex
- nb0
Youtube (or any video) will never replace the animated gif.
The animated gif stays around because it offers an experience that can't seem to be matched by video.
What year is it that we need to accept that a browser can't display a few images?
- lol experience? like what?CygnusZero4
- The nature of the animated gif (silent, looping, can't skip to different time, reduced frame rate & bit depth) often ends up funnier, cuter, or more clever than a video.nb
- ... funnier, cuter, or more clever than a video. If video could imitate the gif perfectly, the gif would naturally fade away. It hasn't.nb
- hasn't.nb
- youtube has ads, and that is an experience I hatemonospaced
- you can block adds with an extension. problem solved. what's the next question?Miguex
- oh yeah, theres a place for both, gufs and video because clearly they are not the same thing.Miguex
- I can stop ads from playing before the video starts? I did not know that.monospaced
- Yes, but even the best adblockers occasionally let some ads through. Ads aside, videos are not gifs!nb
- npduggins0
I tried Safari again after a while with Chrome but found it really annoying as when you hit CMD + T in Chrome you can start your search straight off in the URL / search window. In Safari you have to manually click in which is no where near as easy!
- weird, it doesn't do that heremonospaced
- Yeah, mine goes straight into the Address/Search Bar. Maybe because I have my "new tab" pref set to "Blank Page"?nb
- oh nice! working now :)
npduggins
- transmission0
i've often why all these companies put so much effort into get us to use their browser. Why is there even a war on browsers?
Is the for the Data they collect? What monetary benefits is there for the guys to develop this stuff and give it way for free?- ...wonder why...
shit a lot of errors up in this bitchtransmission - Prestige. Nobody will pay for a browser, but everyone wants to be known for having the most popular browser.i_monk
- Lulz. It's not prestige. Google, Apple, Microsoft do not want to rely a competitor's product to access the web.nb
- If you hold web market share, you can shape the web towards your own technologies.nb
- Just look at Flash. Apple got the mobile market, then used that market share to remove Adobe from dictating tech trends.nb
- they only removed Flash from their own platform, nobody else had to do the samemonospaced
- Yes, of course. The point I'm making is that when you have the market share, you can shift technologies in your direction.nb
- Are you unaware of internet protocol standards? MS tried deviated from HTML and lost their browser majority for it.i_monk
- Yes, MS is super bad it. Google is much better. They're not shifting away from HTML standards. Far more subtle.nb
- Google knows how to stay popular and mainstream while at the same time maximizing profits through advertising and data ownership.nb
- When Apple launched iOS they didn't even have a small piece of the market share.monospaced
- ...wonder why...
- ernexbcn0
@npduggins CMD + L is your friend
- ernexbcn0
Apple didn't remove Flash, Adobe couldn't provide a proper plugin for it. If they could we would have a decent Flash plugin for Android, guess what, it doesn't exists.
- Apple didn't allow it, pretty much the same thing as banning itformed
- Apple allows Flash.monospaced
- nb0
The point I'd like to make is that if you control market share, you can shift technology towards what benefits your own company.
Maybe Flash is a bad example.
How about this one... Let's assume that Google thinks Gmail/Inbox is a valuable asset. In order to keep people using it, gmail needs to be a decent user experience. Having your own browser means that you aren't relying as much on other companies' technologies to deliver a good user experience.
It's the same reason Apple makes Maps for iPhone. Google Maps works fine, but Apple doesn't want to rely on Google's technology. If Google Maps starts to lag behind as the best map (or Google decides to limit it or drop support for iOS or any other unlikely but possible scenario) Apple could lose lots of sales of iPhones while people complain about the map service. So, they make their own Maps app so that they aren't depending on the technology of others.
Also, don't forget that data is valuable, and the more data you can scrape, the more valuable your company looks. Notice how in recent versions of Chrome you can Log In to Chrome? This is great for tracking your usage patterns (especially across devices) and that data is super valuable to lots of different organizations. Google couldn't offer that without offering their own browser. So, the better they make their browser, the more people use it, and they get more logins and better data to sell. Of course, not everyone needs to log in. They get a lot more data from people just using Chrome than the data they can get when people use other browsers.
- inteliboy0
Chrome - its ram hogging, slowness and freezing on animated gifs got the better of me --- so I jumped back to Safari.
Safari - It's fast. But now after a few months am hating it even more, it crashes my system every few days, crashes itself everyday, and really struggles with flash. It also feels buggy. The tab system is shit. Sometimes it will freeze, can't scroll, wait a few seconds, then it suddenly unlocks and I can scroll again.
thinking of going back to Chrome...
- it crashes?
the only thing that takes down my Safari is linking to a site via Facebook, without failmonospaced
- it crashes?