Goodbye Firefox, Hello Chrome? (or Opera?)

[HotCupOfJava]

Don't have a problem with Chromium or Firefox per se, but I did have to switch the default browser from Chromium to Firefox on my son's Lubuntu installation.

I run a proxy on his machine so I can filter web content through Dansguardian, and it was next to impossible to make Chromium connect to the proxy port like I wanted it to.

[jldoll]

Love Chromium!

[drawkcab]

You can bring back the navigation bar by right clicking on the right of the menus and selecting Navigation bar.

I wish this were true but it's not. Navigation bar lost on two of my windows partitions as well as a friend's this week. That's unacceptable

You can customize everything. As for flash it's always buggy on linux, idk if chrome handles it any better. Never crashed so badly with me though. I'd recommend flashblock...

Flash was working relatively well until recently and avoiding flash is not an option. In order to be fair to FF, I should probably see if this happens in other desktops. Perhaps its the combination of FF and Gnome 3 that's the problem.

[drawkcab]

What has autocomplete got to do with privacy ?

Quite a bit if Google is saving the things I search for in other browsers tethered to my account and then sending them back to me by default at another location on a totally different machine.

Did you import data from another browser, do you have autofill turned on, do you store session cookies etc etc

No and no. This happened yesterday on a newly installed OS which is why it caught my attention. How could chrome which had just been installed this brand new box know my search history from other boxes? Obviously that data is now tied to my profile.

And privacy really relates to your identity, if you tie things to your google acct and choose to give them your real information then the onus of privacy is on you ?

I don't have a problem with my tethered browsers sharing my account information...but when Google is sharing search information remotely among my browsers (i.e. through Google) by default, I get a bit paranoid. Maybe I'm just naive and/or maybe I just need to read up on privacy and adjust my settings accordingly. Just surprised me is all.

[drawkcab]

^This.

If you don't want to use the features you think are an invasion of your privacy, don't use them. But don't use them then complain about it.

You're missing the point. This has nothing to do with information that I've voluntarily shared on my google account. This has to do with logging the things I search for on one computer and then sharing those things with another computer at a later date by default.

[Copper Bezel]

Yeah, but you have Google Sync turned on, and that's what it's meant to do. I mean, it's an opt-in feature, and that's what it's for. You didn't know what the feature did, clearly, so maybe that could have been clearer. It logs that information for local use, turning on Sync uploads it, and it's shared with any machine you connect to that account, which is the same result as, say, using U1 to sync .config/google-chrome.

I too just discovered the small joys of Chromium. Fast, direct. Devs could be more flexible with theming, but I've learned to like the tab-bar-at-the-top thing. No more Firefox for me.

It's still the only browser that does tear-off tabs right. Add that to Chrome's .pdf viewer and the extension selection, and it's quite handy. I wouldn't want to use anything else. But I don't have any real problems with Firefox, either. (I updated last night, and Firefox still loaded and played Flash video just fine on the one web site I use it for, which is one of those lovely non-standard works-in-Firefox-and-IE sites.) Really odd.

Oh, re: theming, do you mean like skins? You can get Chrom(e/ium) skins, create your own through a web service, etc., but I really appreciate that the default one follows the GTK theme settings now. It's nice that Chrome finally looks at home on my desktop.

[linfidel]

As a web developer, I've always had both Firefox and Chrome installed, and I've used Chrome as a default browser for a while, but I always end up switching back to Firefox. I personally find Firefox to actually be more stable, and I don't see much difference in performance. Chrome may be faster, but I don't really notice - and I have a fairly old, low-powered system.

I installed the Flash-aid plugin, and have no problems with flash now. I don't have any other problems. I find Chrome to be a bit annoying, especially the fact that it has no menu bar - if you need to use the keyboard, it's extra work to access menus. But I also don't like it because I use Lastpass a lot, which doesn't work nearly as well as in Firefox, so that probably has a big effect.

I don't really like that chrome doesn't have a separate search field. I don't really like the fact that it monitors my every keystroke even when I'm typing URLs directly. Yeah, the Google fanboys can say it's opt in, but with Firefox, I have more choice; I can use the "opt-in" for searches if I want, but not for everything else. I don't have to worry about Google monitoring my every move.

[Paqman]

You're missing the point. This has nothing to do with information that I've voluntarily shared on my google account. This has to do with logging the things I search for on one computer and then sharing those things with another computer at a later date by default.

So you weren't aware that by default, Google logs all your searches and clickthroughs? Go to https://www.google.com/history/ to see it all and adjust your settings. I'm surprised you weren't aware of this. Google are a search company that sell advertising based on what people search for, this is what built Google.

If you voluntarily sync your new browser to your Google account, it shouldn't be a big surprise when that browser starts using the information contained therein.

[tekkidd]

Firefox has been junk lately. On my windows partitions, the last FF update means that I have no navigation bar. On my Linux partitions FF crashes when I open anything requiring flash, sometimes taking the desktop with it if I don't force quit.

I generally favor FF because of the extensions that are available but I wonder if the pressure to keep pace with Chrome is counter productive in the sense that they are pushing out updates and new versions that are incredibly unstable.

So it's on to Chrome for the moment. Though not as customizable, Chrome is snappier and functions better than FF in a number of ways. Its extensions are coming along I suppose.

But really, what worries me about Chrome is privacy.

At the coffee shop this morning I installed Chrome on my new netbook and then synced it with my Google acct. Chrome's autocomplete was already somehow drawing on information collected about my searches made long ago on other boxes in a galaxy far, far away. That is terrifying.

Opera is looking more and more enticing every day.

Really? Im running Firefox 10 ESR on both my Mac and my Linux desktop and both run like a dream. As far as the navigation bar disappearing, a little tinkering with the settings should solve the issue.

[hotwax]

you could try SRWare Iron, which is a spin off of chrome and better privacy