Hacker News Reader

Comment by veb | Hacker News Reader

This is probably off-topic, but I've started using Safari religiously now. When Chrome first came out, it was barebones, fast and did the job. This is what Safari currently feels like, so I'm using it. Fast, stable, and does the job.

Now Chrome feels like it's just another bloated browser. Which is slow, and hogs my computer. </opinion>

View on HN

What in Chrome feels like bloat? If you don't install any extensions but adblock plus, Chrome feels kind of minimalistic.

The only problem I have with Chrome is that I need to clear cache and history quite often but my computer sucks...

They've gone overboard with their value-adds, and there's a non-trivial amount of features that are not required for simple web surfing: sync, apps (& background apps), cloud print, themes, phishing/malware detection, omnibox stuff, etc.

All of that stuff can be turned off though (or in the case of apps & themes, not installed)

When you're browsing, you don't see most of the stuff you mentioned. Chrome may present different options to you but these are opt-in and possible to hide permanent.

I'd just like to emphasize: when you're browsing, you don't see that stuff.

I do not see any of the additional stuff that the above poster mentioned. I use exactly one feature in chrome other than just it's web browsing at that is sync. Even then, I haven't interacted with sync since the first time I installed Chrome on my computer.

> I'd just like to emphasize: when you're browsing, you don't see that stuff.

This is strange since many people say Firefox is bloated but im my opinion it looks about identical to how Chrome looks like, so they seem to define bloat in some other way.

What you would consider bload, I'd call clutter. I de-cluttered my Firefox to this way that I only see the tab-bar, a command-bar and the web page.

To me, it was the UI and magnitudes of toolbars that would come with every addon (even the useful ones) that would then need manual disabling, and the need to restart browser over and over again (at times due to new addons being installed, disabled/enabled or browser updates) that pushed me to Chrome.

This isn't a problem anymore, however, and hasn't been for a long time - at least, not unless you really try.

Both chrome and firefox have excellent session restore, so even if you need to update (which you usually don't), you won't really notice. Even session cookies are properly restored, as are partially filled forms, though some pages' scripts cause the form restoration to fail.

Toolbars have always been rare, and they certainly are now; it's probably possible to still install a toolbar extension, but I can't remember the last time I did. That may be more a change in typical extension style than in the actual browser, however.

(I use both browsers daily).

Yeah, I am not saying it is. I am just saying that it was the reason I began using chrome extensively and slowly, exclusively.

So you concede there's lots of stuff that many of us won't use? That's pretty much the definition of bloat. Hiding it doesn't make it go away.

I'm sort of just playing devil's advocate here though, since Chrome's "bloat" isn't an issue for me _yet_, though I am weary of it becoming the next Firefox (whose snowballing of features led to an amount of bloat which incidentally caused me to start using Chrome in the first place).

One, two, three... sure, you won't notice a new feature here and there. But, hundreds of features later and the app takes just a little longer to startup, a little longer to update, is slightly less stable than it used to be, has a few more attack vectors for malware, etc. It's more-or-less the principal of the matter, using the right tool for the right job and whatnot; when a web browser starts resembling some mismash conglomeration of functionality which just so happens to touch on web browsing, and all you really need and want is web browsing, then yeah, it's bloated.

> So you concede there's lots of stuff that many of us won't use? That's pretty much the definition of bloat. Hiding it doesn't make it go away.

I define bloat differently. It needs to a) unnecessarily add complexity to the core functions I personally use, and b) degrades performance. wget has tons of features that I've never used, but I don't consider it bloated. To me, hiding it well does in fact make for a bloat-free application.

Agree with your other points.

just don't sync your account and don't use apps, and don't install themes (though I can't see how that could slow it down)

None of that stuff appears on the default screen layout though. I mean, I agree some of it is useless cruft (but seriously: you put malware detection on that list?!?!). And that's true for pretty much all mature software.

But as far as "just give me what I want" I continue to think Chrome does it better.

I think the only strong argument on that side is one you don't make: on first run, Chrome stops and asks you to sign in to your Google account. I do that willingly, because I really like bookmark synchronization. But it's definitely not a "minimal browser" thing and if you're not a Google user it's probably pretty annoying.

Sync, apps (in particular background and offline ones) and the omnibox are excellent features that I use all the time. Nothing wrong with having them.

IMHO, cloud print, the webui reimplementation of gui system toolkits (like the print preview dialog). There are some new features that make me a bit worried with the direction chrome is taking: the new NTP with a search box duplicating functionality already in the omnibar; the chrome app launcher (I want a browser, not a whole OS).

Adblock plus seems to slow it down quite a bit in some situations (loading a lot of tabs at once).

Sounds like profile problems to me.

You could try Firefox again, but reset your profile first: https://blog.mozilla.org/nnethercote/2013/02/22/reset-firefo....

Perhaps Chromium proper would be a good fit for you; it's got the polish of Chrome UI but lacks all of that crap that Google has started bundling with Chrome (sync, etc.).

The hardest part is finding the downloads, since they go to great lengths to prevent anyone from easily obtaining a compiled binary.

> since they go to great lengths to prevent anyone from easily obtaining a compiled binary.

1. Googled "Download Chromium"

2. Clicked on http://download-chromium.appspot.com/

3. Unzip and Install.

EDIT: Apparently it is official / sanctioned, thanks for the correction.

PREVIOUS: Yeah I saw that, but that's not an official or sanctioned site or binary, and thus didn't feel comfortable openly suggesting it. There's no way to guarantee that the contents haven't been modified or that they're even kept updated.

http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium

Ah, missed that! Thanks.

As sibling says, it is mentioned on official site (hence sanctioned?), and it was binary for me (tested on Linux and Mac).

> There's no way to guarantee that the contents haven't been modified or that they're even kept updated.

There is no solution to that but to compile things ourselves anyway.

Chromium includes sync. Basically the biggest parts you'll be missing are a pdf reader and flash. pdf.js has a chromium extension to make it easy to use there (though depending on the document, it won't necessarily feel faster and more minimal), but if you need flash for something, Chrome is one of the better ways to keep it updated these days. You can always run Chromium and open up Chrome for Flash, though.

Oh wow, it has sync? I thought all of the proprietary Google features were kept in Chrome; I'm not sure how sync could've been implemented in an agnostic browser...

Thanks for the further info though, it's been awhile since I've updated my Chromium.

Chromium and Chrome are identical, but Chrome includes non-Google proprietary plugins (Flash and a PDF renderer).

There's a barebones sync server implementation written in Python included in the Chromium source repository. You could run your own, if you wanted.

You can copy the libpdf library from a Chrome install to a Chromium install, since they are the same.

The Chromium build from http://www.freesmug.org/chromium seems to have the PDF viewer as well as the Flash plugin.

http://www.chromium.org/getting-involved/download-chromium

The stuff that is included with Chrome shouldn't have any impact on performance, the webkit and v8 engines are the same as that of Chromium. For Google, they do all their development on Chromium (which is an open source project), then apply a few patches and a new logo on top to get Chrome. It isn't some great conspiracy that they don't distribute Chromium binaries, it simply isn't their end product.

Pretty easy:

    apt-get install chromium

Perhaps you were being tongue-in-cheeck, but I do feel the need to point out that the grandparent said they were using Safari, implying that they're on OS X.

>all of that crap that Google has started bundling with Chrome (sync, etc.).

Why do people keep bagging on sync? Personally, I'm a fan of not having to reïmport my bookmarks and reënter all of my autosaved passwords every time I reformat or change computers.

Because I've never used it and yet I'm hounded to "give it a try" on what seems like a weekly basis.

OK, yeah I see how that would be annoying.

It's kind of an extension of the annoyance from not using G+ and yet having it crammed down my throat; it's the same tactic just with a little less gusto.

Privacy is one reason, but not a very good one. For the "Open Tabs" sync, privacy is a very good reason.

You can set it to encrypt everything, including open tabs. Since it's encrypted locally, the sync server can't see anything.

I actually did try it out when they first introduced it, but when I installed Chrome on a different machine and tried to get my settings there, the sync server got totally confused and re-enabled all sorts of settings that I'd disabled (like syncing my entire history and removing my cookie-blocking exceptions.)

Agreed, this was a long time back, so I actually decided to give it another try today, but now it seems to have a problem with 2FA... I gave it both my master and app-specific password, but it consistently comes back saying the app-specific password is wrong. Has anyone else noticed this problem?

2fa with chrome sync is a PITA. I've found the best way to enable sync is to login to gmail which usually triggers a dialog that asks you whether you want to use those credentials for chrome sync.

Yet another example how horrible this "ecosystem" craze everyone seems to be enamored by these days quickly becomes. Why the fuck do I need to sign up with Gmail to use something in chrome? (How would it even work? I moved from google apps to fastmail, so my MX records are all different now.)

It's the same with most RSS readers nowadays... every single app I've tried assumes I have a Google Reader account, and flat out refuses to work without it. Same with Google Talk. All these apps implement rss/xmpp backends anyway, why do they hardcode google into it?

Sorry for the rant, it's just frustrating how (needlessly) difficult it is once you go outside the sanctioned path. Death by a thousand cuts.

I admit to liking Safari, and enjoy the seamless experience (on a mac), but I am a bit hesitant to switch completely given some of the things Safari apparently lacks in the realm of security.

As an example, I don't believe Safari currently supports HSTS or cert pinning. Both Chrome and Firefox do.

The pinch and zoom feels much smoother on Safari, it's especially helpful on my laptop when viewing from a distance.

Tha being said I'm really tired of being in the "walled garden" I have a Windows desktop and Andriod Tablet that would love to share iCloud tabs and bookmarks. Chrome can do all of that.

But then you're just in Google's garden...

As I recall, they stopped updating the browser for Windows after certain version. So comparing Safari to Chrome seems misplaced in this context.

If he uses Safari, I'd assume he has a Mac....

Well, I used Safari before Chrome, came out... Firefox was dreadfully slow on my old computer. :(

Well, I said "uses" not "used" ;-)

That's exactly where I am. Chrome got to the point where it was using 2GB+ of memory. Safari uses a lot too, but consistently less than 1/2 of what Chrome would use and seems not to leak as much over time. It also boots MUCH, MUCH faster.

Uninstall any extensions you have running in Chrome to get it feeling fresh again. In my personal experience (strictly subjective, not benchmarked), a clean chrome install runs faster than a clean Safari install.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com