HACKER Q&A
📣 gargsms

Do you still recommend Chrome to non-tech friends and family?


As a forever Firefox person myself, I have always advised people seeking browser advice to give Firefox a try. For very close ones, I might have gone ahead and migrated their data. Pretty much none ever seemed to notice the differences because the UX is about the same at this point.

But with Google handing out death to the open web with a thousand cuts - latest being the WEI proposal, Manifest v3, FLoC, dreaded and forced AMP; I feel curious if you still use Chrome and recommend it to non techies?

If yes, please elaborate on the love - it would be a good exercise in building patience for me :) If not, what was the tipping point?


  👤 MilnerRoute Accepted Answer ✓
I've always used Firefox, and I tell friends to use it.

Mostly because Firefox has killer features like keyword bookmarks and search keywords, and once you've set up a few it's really hard to live without them. (Even if you could recreate them all in another browser.) Plus: it's not owned by Google. It's from the open source community. It traces its lineage back to Netscape.

Someone on HN once suggested using multiple browsers - so for sites you log into, there's one dedicated browser, but general web surfing happens in a separate browser (which makes it harder to track).