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Comment by rapnie | Hacker News Reader

There are all kinds of such dark patterns. If you switch from Chrome to Firefox on Android you find all kinds of features missing, like in image search.

It's some time ago I checked, but I want to do a comparison and report to some naming & shaming site. Anyone knows a good one?

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> If you switch from Chrome to Firefox on Android you find all kinds of features missing, like in image search.

I've been on Firefox nightly Android for eight months now. While generally the browsing is better than chrome thanks to ad blocking, the Google services are pared down versions for no reason. Search, finance, news, so many. This is a clear case of abusing market dominance - and not due to Firefox missing any feature. If not for the revenue from Google, Mozilla would have sued I think.

I found that FF on Android just isn't up to par yet. Even on a OnePlus 3T, HN stutters when scrolling.

It's a shame because I'd love to ditch chrome.

It's weird cause I'm using FF on an far inferior phone, Huawei p10 lite, and it works out great for HN .

Same experience here. On average 40 tabs open, Privacy Badger installed. No problems anywhere (except for the dark patterns). Runs like a Swiss clock :)

Also try turning location off on your android phone so it only gets it when requested. The nagging, whining, breaking and pleading various google services do is confusing and annoying.

If you revoke location permissions, Google still guesses it accurately, for me at least, "from your search history", as it says at the bottom of the search results page - even when you're not signed in (screenshot: https://imgur.com/a/wU8EZUA). I wouldn't mind if they just used the IP address to locate me, but why use the search history? If I wanted Google to know my exact location, I wouldn't have revoked the permissions for it.

Also, try to visit google.com by Edge/Safari/Firefox. It keeps nagging why you're not using Chrome and shows the banner constantly.

I have been using FF Nightly on Android for quite some time. In addition, I have uninstalled or disabled every Google app I can find on my device. Last year, I switched to unlimited mobile data and (almost) never use WiFi, even when easily available. I use DDG instead of Google.

  Consequently, I am never nagged by Google apps or social media apps. I just don't have any problems like what I hear other people experience. Particularly amusing is seeing that my inferred location is way off.

Yeah, I've switched to DDG on my mobile too as a result.

Write a blog post and share it here?

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