Why is there no good internet browser?

[noisyturtle]

It seems like every single browser is bad at something important. In an age where people spend sometimes every waking hour online and not to have a good working browser seems crazy to me.
Chrome works great for me, but uses 50%+ of my memory even when idling and has huge privacy concerns
Firefox works mostly, but cannot play or even have multiple video windows open without ****ting the bed
MS Edge uses MORE RAM than Chrome! How? What are you doing Edge? Why do you require 84% memory usage Edge?

other browsers? idk - but these 3 are all deeply flawed. How in 2021 is there not one single solid browser choice? It's crazy.

[suicidal_orange]

I've never had a problem with Firefox and while I'm not sure why you would want to watch two videos at once I just tested and it works fine.

Perhaps it's windows you need to get rid of...

[noisyturtle]

ahhh meant to put in 'Other Geeky Stuff' but this is fine :/

Perhaps it's windows you need to get rid of...

I am actively looking for a Win10 replacement that runs games well too

[tp4tissue]

Apple M1, make the leap,   it will support League of Legend Wild Rift, which is a clone of Arena of Valor,  the last game you'll ever need.

[fohat.digs]

I've never had a problem with Firefox

For at least 15 years every time I try something else, I quickly come back to Firefox. Maybe I am just used to it, but it seems fast, clean, simple, and complete.

[noisyturtle]

I guess the multiple running video tab issue with FF is 85% of the time related to porn, so probably not an issue everyone encounters. It does the same thing with multiple Flash instances as well, I've had FF just straight up shutdown due to not being able to handle it.

[Coreda]

Try Vivaldi. I haven't experienced memory issues even on older systems and it runs on the same Blink engine as Chrome.

[Findecanor]

MS Edge uses MORE RAM than Chrome! How? What are you doing Edge?

Isn't Edge based on the same engine as Chrome now too?

One reason why Chrome uses so much RAM is because it is supposed to be running a different process in each tab, for security reasons.

[Leslieann]

Chrome is not using THAT much ram because each tab is a different process, it adds to it, but it's not the amount of overhead you think (I measured about 150megs of ram for an entire new Window).

Why are things so bad? Because Chrome is by far the most popular, we had this same problem when IE6 was dominant, everything catered to it and no one tested other browsers and barely tested IE, they just assumed everything worked. They ignored the fact that MS and Google both added new features that break standards without telling people in order to test new features that they hope will eventually become standards (Youtube is notorious for this as well). Edge is just Chrome with much of Google tracking removed, but replaced with MS tracking, you aren't gaining or losing anything much.


If you want to see some interesting results at what the browsers are doing...
Install Chrome, Brave and Firefox, disable all protection in each and monitor memory use, reboot between each for a clean start.
Now go back and install/turn on all tracking protection and repeat.
You will be amazed at the results.
You can also cheat by looking at what happened when I did it.

My advice, use Firefox, if you want to stick with Chrome switch to Brave and in all cases install Ublock Origin and Privacy Badger. I use Firefox as my primary and Brave when that has a problem or I want to keep the data separate.

[tp4tissue]

Just buy m0ar ram.

[Findecanor]

My advice, use Firefox, if you want to stick with Chrome switch to Brave and in all cases install Ublock Origin and Privacy Badger. I use Firefox as my primary and Brave when that has a problem or I want to keep the data separate.

Brave? While it includes an ad-blocker, it spies on you for a cryptocurrency-based rewards program and is from the guy who wrote Javascript ... Hell No!

[Leslieann]

Just buy m0ar ram.

That doesn't work, I tried.

Brave? While it includes an ad-blocker, it spies on you for a cryptocurrency-based rewards program and is from the guy who wrote Javascript ... Hell No!

That is an opt-in(?) program to pay creators without seeing ads.
You can easily disable it in settings.

[ddrfraser1]

My realization this week, why are there no good banks?

[fohat.digs]

why are there no good banks?

Because there are few effective consumer financial protections.

Elizabeth Warren had a plan for that.

[ddrfraser1]

why are there no good banks?

Because there are few effective consumer financial protections.

Elizabeth Warren had a plan for that.

While I do not disagree, I'm talking about simple s*** like electronic transfers. Venmo and Paypal figured it out, why can't the major banks? It's 2020. Anyway, this is off topic now and I should probably close some tabs because chrome.

[tp4tissue]

While I do not disagree, I'm talking about simple s*** like electronic transfers. Venmo and Paypal figured it out, why can't the major banks? It's 2020. Anyway, this is off topic now and I should probably close some tabs because chrome.

The opaque nature of banking and law is designed deliberately so things can be conveniently lost and found.

This is the natural and correct design,  if you had absolutely accounting,  just imagine not lying about how phat your wife is (has become),  do you want cooked dinners ever again ?

[Coreda]

Brave? While it includes an ad-blocker, it spies on you for a cryptocurrency-based rewards program

That is an opt-in(?) program to pay creators without seeing ads.
You can easily disable it in settings.

I've never liked Brave's model/ethics in that regard and has been the reason I've never felt like trying it, despite them having some decent views/upcoming tech on privacy aspects like anti-fingerprinting.

They remove site-native ads by default then if this feature is enabled serve their own ads to the user who over time receives rewards in the form of 'attention tokens' (behind the scenes a cryptocurrency) which they suggest a user can give to sites they like---but only if those sites have signed up for Brave's scheme. Wasn't until late last year that users could even exchange the tokens for any other currency and even then only with various caveats and regional restrictions.

[Leslieann]

I've never liked Brave's model/ethics in that regard and has been the reason I've never felt like trying it, despite them having some decent views/upcoming tech on privacy aspects like anti-fingerprinting.

They remove site-native ads by default then if this feature is enabled serve their own ads to the user who over time receives rewards in the form of 'attention tokens' (behind the scenes a cryptocurrency) which they suggest a user can give to sites they like---but only if those sites have signed up for Brave's scheme.

I agree, I'm even surprised they haven't been sued over it yet but it is one of the best Chromium based browsers.

I'm not sure if that's saying something good about Brave or bad about Chromium based browsers

[yui]

the only issues i got with firefox is its windows 10 like updates on linux (forced update, will not load any webpage until updated, even when the option is turned off still does it...), it has better performance than chromium pretty much everywhere except youtube (because google) and the option to not have the omnibar but to have proper address and search bars, pretty much my main gripe with chromium is the omnibar, and the very high ram usage.

[Darthbaggins]

My advice, use Firefox, if you want to stick with Chrome switch to Brave and in all cases install Ublock Origin and Privacy Badger. I use Firefox as my primary and Brave when that has a problem or I want to keep the data separate.

Brave? While it includes an ad-blocker, it spies on you for a cryptocurrency-based rewards program and is from the guy who wrote Javascript ... Hell No!

Brave is a Chromium browser, just use Chrome or Chromium Edge at that point.  Also there is definitely a risk w/ Brave since it's leeching off your data.

[Coreda]

Brave is a Chromium browser, just use Chrome or Chromium Edge at that point.  Also there is definitely a risk w/ Brave since it's leeching off your data.

Again, I'd recommend trying Vivaldi if one wants a Chromium (Blink engine) based browser that isn't Chrome/Edge/Brave.

the option to not have the omnibar but to have proper address and search bars, pretty much my main gripe with chromium is the omnibar, and the very high ram usage.

Vivaldi has the option to use separate address and search bars, among a plethora of features known from the classic Opera browser before the company went in an entirely different direction. Has native ad blocking with customizable block lists (which Opera classic also had before any browser or even addon), spacial navigation (easily move around links visually up/down/left/right instead of by element order), customizable hotkeys (including single keys which are super useful for tab navigation), saving as MHTML (something that Firefox removed entirely even for addons which is a key reason I can never switch back for my main browser), tab stacking (though not as intuitive as Opera's was it's still decent), etc.

Their new mail/feed reader/calendar features are finally also coming soon which is something I've been looking forward to for ages (specifically the feed reader since Opera's was great and native feed integrations from all other browsers has disappeared in the last few years).

[Leslieann]

the only issues i got with firefox is its windows 10 like updates on linux (forced update, will not load any webpage until updated, even when the option is turned off still does it...)

What setting is this, I've seen this behavior but wasn't often enough to pin it down.

Again, I'd recommend trying Vivaldi if one wants a Chromium (Blink engine) based browser that isn't Chrome/Edge/Brave.

I don't know why but Vivaldi annoyed me.

[Xonuss]

I don't understand the issue with browsers using a lot of RAM. If you're not at 100%, it would be a waste not to use that RAM. Also, one have to understand that in software there are generally two things a developer has to consider: Memory Efficiency and Speed. You can't have both. You can make thing very memory efficient by not storing anything and have to reload everything every time it being switched to. Or you could load everything into memory, making things really fast, but as a result, your memory is being used up. I presume chromium is approaching the ladder as one can switch between tabs with large amounts of content.

Anyways, that's my two cents. Haven't read source code for chromium, so it honestly could just be a **** browser, but I have an idea that Google knows what they're doing. Either way, both Chrome and MS Edge is working pretty fly for me, as well as Firefox.

[yui]

the only issues i got with firefox is its windows 10 like updates on linux (forced update, will not load any webpage until updated, even when the option is turned off still does it...)

What setting is this, I've seen this behavior but wasn't often enough to pin it down.

well i have disabled all automatic updates in the about:config trying to make it stop and let me update it when it is convenient to me but it still auto updates when i use it...

Again, I'd recommend trying Vivaldi if one wants a Chromium (Blink engine) based browser that isn't Chrome/Edge/Brave.

I don't know why but Vivaldi annoyed me.

and with a name like this one of course it will even more pretentious looking than Opera

I don't understand the issue with browsers using a lot of RAM. If you're not at 100%, it would be a waste not to use that RAM.

well no OS will let you use all the ram and will start thrashing (use disk as memory, slowing the system to a crawl and destroying your ssd) much prior to that (Unixes will use the swap, windows the pagefile)

Also, one have to understand that in software there are generally two things a developer has to consider: Memory Efficiency and Speed. You can't have both.

as a dev i can tell you that yes you can, memory access are slow, the less of them you do the faster

You can make thing very memory efficient by not storing anything and have to reload everything every time it being switched to. Or you could load everything into memory, making things really fast, but as a result, your memory is being used up. I presume chromium is approaching the latter as one can switch between tabs with large amounts of content.

the main issue with chrome is that even other chromium based browsers do not use as much ram for the same pages, it is rather inefficient, and google as been trying since the start to reach Firefox's and IE level of memory efficiency with little success. and with web you do not have choice, to display a page you have to load it to memory, else you will have to fetch things as the user scrolls, and while some sites do it, some would rather you do not spam them with requests.
true when you have more than 16GB of ram those are non issues, and although firefox is using less ram it seems to use more cpu power to do the same things as chrome do, so there may lie the trade-off

[Xonuss]

Long quote...

You can do all sorts of optimizations, but generally speaking, memory and speed contradicts each other. Actually, I forgot about the third pillar, which is cost, so yes, while you can have both, it is quickly getting very expensive. Storage is really slow, memory is pretty fast and of course CPU cache is really really fast.

[tp4tissue]

You may not be using the internet properly

This is what Proper internet usage looks like..  Tp4-Vision .


Anandtech


Amazon


Gekha

[Sintpinty]

You may not be using the internet properly

This is what Proper internet usage looks like..  Tp4-Vision .


Anandtech
(Attachment Link)

Amazon
(Attachment Link)

Gekha
(Attachment Link)

When people say that light theme is too much i can argue the same about dark theme . that text is so small how can you see anything

[tp4tissue]

When people say that light theme is too much i can argue the same about dark theme . that text is so small how can you see anything

The screenshots are from my 720p setup, if you full screen it, that's how it would look from my side. The text is actually pretty big

[Shapey Fiend]

I try keep as few Chrome tabs open as humanly possible to avoid being distracted when working from home. It's the same reason I deleted by RSS feeds, or my Youtube subscriptions and turned off non-work notifications on my phone. I grew up spending 14 hours on my computer a day as a teenager (if I wasn't supervised that day) and it's such a comfortable habit I'm always trying to battle falling into old habits.

I've got a bit of a Discord problem ATM (too much time available in lockdown) and I'm hard wired to not only read every channel I'm subbed to but I try read back through everything anybody said since the last time I checked. It's an illness.

[AKmalamute]

Chrome works great for me

I can't stand chrome, because it misrenders pages, misbehaves, everything else just so often.
I used to like firefox but they started making too many decisions for the users, instead of leaving well enough alone.

 Actually, watching the discussions about Pale Moon browser, it seems someone got hired to destroy FF, as the roadmap can easily be interpreted as "become chrome, slowly"

Palemoon still accepts old-style extensions, still honors all the about:config settings about the UI, tab location, all sorts of stuff that I don't need to mess with but routinely see someone pipe up with "SO GLAD THATS THERE I COULDN'T DO MY JOB WITHOUT IT"

 I've also got chromium and waterfox and TOR installed so I can look at videos without adding them to google's history of 'oh, it's him again'; I like to keep my data segregated and I don't trust 'private browsing' alone to get me fully separated from vendor's cheesy data-swiping javascript.

Oh! install noscript once you switch to palemoon. and uBlock. Come to think of it, I don't so much miss "a good browser" as "a successfully written web page" instead of the hot mess we're so often forced to look at today.

[Leslieann]

it seems someone got hired to destroy FF, as the roadmap can easily be interpreted as "become chrome, slowly"

The current CEO is/was a Chrome user and sent them off in that direction.