As a long-time Linux user with habit of throwing everything into the mix, I got quite used to number of inconsistencies that I have, so I don't think that MS deserves criticism for having them too (although article is not very critical, it just counts the inconsisitencies). I have GTK2/3/4 apps, KDE apps, Qt apps, Electron apps, AND Windows apps running under wine. So the only consistency on my desktop is an inconsistency. Also Windows has good track record for backwards compatibility, no surprise that an OS has some "ancient" parts.
Linux user here as well. The thing that upsets me with windows in the inconsistency in the OS not the applications.
Take Fedora, Manjaro or Ubuntu with any major flavour like Gnome or KDE and you get a very consistent way of how your OS works and responds to common tasks. It's kinda easy for non experienced user to find the right settings with no UI change on a modern Linux Desktop.
I think with Linux, the amount of OS-level GUI screens is much more smaller compared to Windows. The main OS level GUI screen I interact with is the Settings screen and that basically has been a left-side tree showing the content on the right side or a grid that points to the individual sections. That is comparatively a much easier change in terms of UI level changes. Other OS-level screens are usually separate applications e.g. gparted which looks different from the Settings screen in KDE plasma (and totally understandably so, not complaining).
This MS inconsistency is entirely the fault of MS.
You could build thousands of KDE environments with the amount of money MS spends on Windows, yet KDE has managed to update everything across 5 versions of their desktop environment. In fact, EVERY common operating system GUI with the exception of Windows manages to update all the things.
If MS had spent some of those billions on updating those legacy apps each generation, they wouldn't be stuck with so much legacy garbage today. It's also telling that MS has never bothered to stick with a framework that would allow them to upgrade UI themes in-place. I'd also note that "complexity" isn't a good reason because MS could have gone with other solutions that were both more simple and more usable, but chose a convoluted design instead.
Part of the complexity is that there are Win32 APIs that allow applications to add UI to the Windows 95/2000-style control panels. In order to keep compatibility with those applications/code the control panels need to be kept around.
It may be possible to provide an updated UI while still allowing the existing APIs and applications to work and integrate with the control panel, but it is not straightforward.
Linux does this by breaking things wholesale. Any Gnome extensions etc. need constant maintenance or they break in between versions, while Windows provides binary compatibility and doesn't even require recompiling.
Windows breaks "extensions" to the desktop environment so often it's ridiculous. Sometimes they even override your settings over an update which is so maddening.
That's fair when it comes to apps from random sources.
But KDE apps all look consistent. I don't really use it, but it seems to me that Gnome apps also are consistent. Ditto for XFCE.
Whereas Windows, even among out-of-the-box and "system" applications, there's a variety in the look & feel. Until 7 it was more or less the same. But starting with 10, it all went downhill, and 11 didn't really fix anything in that department.
While I don't blame you for purging it from your memory, you seem to have forgotten about Windows 8. It introduced the Settings concept and who can forget that start menu!
It was never in my memory to begin with – since I've never used it. I don't use Windows a lot, just for games and occasionally at work. I went from 7 to 10.
Linux distros are a mix of mostly independent projects, there is no central authority telling them how it should be done and therefore inconsistency is inevitable. It applies to the command line too (looking at you "ps"). And yet, the parts that the distro vendor controls, usually the default desktop environment and settings screens are usually rather consistent.
For Windows, I don't think anyone complains about the fact that if you run an ancient Windows app, it looks like an ancient Windows app. In fact, backward compatibility has always been one of Microsoft strongest selling points. What people complain about is that Windows itself is inconsistent. Windows branded components, made and owned by Microsoft, included in the main OS with no alternative offered are inconsistent. The worst part is the control panel, it is a mess and they have no excuse, it is an unfinished job that shouldn't have been out of beta.
Many distros adds their own layers of complexity, which inevitably breaks during upgrades or adding packages from third-party repos.
Arch packages do very little extra usually, and often works more like if you install from source. So it's not always the fault of devs, and is why installing from source was/is a thing.
Bonus with Arch is Aur, one big repo with most open source software available from git.
Sure, but that doesn't improve microsofts case. The fact that hundreds of companies allow their employees to contribute to open source software, not just the kernel, also Gnome and surrounding software.
So dozens of huge companies, hundreds of smaller companies, they can all contribute code to an OS that is on-par with Windows, but missing things like patents and gaming hardware support that Microsoft pays for.
While Microsoft with all their advantages, all their insights and cooperations with hardware vendors still can't deliver.
It's really pathetic, and I put it down to their company culture not having any common goal.
>While Microsoft with all their advantages, all their insights and cooperations with hardware vendors still can't deliver
What didn't they deliver? Last time I check Windoze desktop/laptop market share is still way higher than Linux despite Windoze costing $100 bucks and Linux being free.
And it's not difficult to see why. It's not even about the gaming anymore. The bugginess and jank of the modern Linux desktop can drive you up the walls.
For example, whenever I plug in my 4k monitor in my Ubuntu ThinkPad it rarely detects the 60Hz refresh rate, most of the time defaulting to 30Hz with no way of switching to 60Hz unless I go through a ritual of repeatedly unplugging and plugging the display-port cable again and again until the stars align and at the fifth or sixth time it finally detects the 60Hz option. Absolute madness that's a huge productivity killer. The Ubuntu 10.00 I used in university in 2010 - 2011 gave me less headaches than this.
Yes, I tried different display-port cables. Meanwhile on Windows 10 and 11, both have always defaulted to 60Hz on this monitor and several laptops in the 3 years I had it, 100% of the time, every single time.
Now, since I need to get work/leisure done, and I don't have time to dig through Linux forums and tinker with the driver config files on Linux to find out why Ubuntu sucks so bad at detecting the right refresh rate, so windows has saved my sanity since the candy crush icon in the start menu is a lot quicker and easier to remove than having an OS that plays Russians roulette with your display refresh rate every time I start my day.
It blew mine. It seems plausible to me, and also explains why modern (or written) history of humankind is so short (like 2-4K years) while humankind itself is much much older.
Do no evil has been replaced by abide by both the letter and the spirit of the law: "We rely on one another’s good judgment to uphold a high standard of integrity for ourselves and our company. Each of us should be guided by both the letter and the spirit of this Code."
I use Firefox since 2005 as my main browser (I had a brief affair with Chrome between 2009 and 2012), and never experienced broken sites and poor support. Firefox works just fine.
But with all of these, you constantly ran into IE-only websites. Which got away with it because most people were running IE.
And that's why people are saying that Chrome is the new IE - because we're seeing that history repeating, with websites written only for and tested only on Chrome and Safari (and I doubt Safari would be anywhere if it weren't effectively forced onto iOS users).
The excess and non-obvious battery drain that can come from plugins is probably a large part of their reasoning. Fortunately, because of the openness of Chromium, you can install browsers like Kiwi browser that support extensions. Even Firefox only barely supports extensions right now on mobile.
Firefox has support for a lot of extensions but they removed most of the support now which is a shame. It allowed me to play YouTube on the background, a feature that make people actually pay YouTube premium music.
I wonder if there's a similar extension for kiwi? Basically it just nerds to disable the page visibility and full-screen API + some tweaks
just install "New pipe" from f-droid, it really rocks. Allows you to play videos in background, download video or audio - practically everything. The only issue is that it sometimes breaks when youtube changes its protocol
That's after Fenix release... before that' there was plenty of supported plugins. It's only a matter of time when other plugins will support new UI. As for Chromium, I'm more than sure the battery issue is just a nice excuse to toss ad blockers out of the window.
Kiwi browser has backported them and brave browser is currently merging the kiwi browser changes. Only a matter of time before this get on the radar of Edge too
The article is just an opinion and some claims, supported by zero evidence. Yes, Google is interested that Web continues to live. But article omits that Google only wants the Web that exists on Google's terms. That's why they practically rebuilt the web themselves, on all levels, from protocol to the client (spdy, webp, amp, dart, chromeos & android, chromium).
But that is also progress. If it wasn't for Google's investment we would still maybe running Flash. People have had a lot of time to advance the web before Google came along.
The standard is open, the code is open - I don't understand how "is Chrome the new IE?" even a question. It's not like they're bundling it only on ChromeOS and Android , it's not like they have the equivalent of VbScript /ActiveX and plenty of people are making browsers based on Chromium.
I do think google innovated a lot but I think htlm5 killed flash not google. Html5 is a web standard. Chrome is very much the new IE, it use to be I was forced to run IE for some b.s. legacy corporate webapp now I am forced to run Chrome. Why? Because devs have to prioritize a browser and the amount of non standard supposed engineering by google means they can't support other browsers.
Google is playing a winner takes all game of dominance. Imagine if Ford became so popular that mechanics can't be bothered to fix other cars because Ford does everything differently.
People are being forced to base browsers on Chromium because no one will use anything else due to sites depending on Chromium only features! This is very anti-innovation.
You came up with a cool new feature in firefox (like containers) and you want to standardize it? Well if uncle google says no you're out of luck. Standards exist for a reason and engineers(even at google) use to have enough professionalism to respect the concept and process of having an internet where everyone participates democratically.
I hate to keep on coming to similar conclusions but Browsers need to be regulated if the browser industry is always being overrun by some monopoly.
HTML5 just provided a suitable replacement for Flash, but suddenly having a large browser (Mobile Safari) that just couldn't play Flash content at all provided the incentive for web devs to actually invest the effort to switch to HTML5.
This is the correct answer. To add historical perspective, I had friends who would go into Apple stores and point all the demo machines at newgrounds.com to show people that they shouldn’t waste their money on devices that couldn’t even play flash animations as well as a low end laptop.
Most browsing still happens on desktop and without the equivalent HTML5 standards there would be no replacing Flash. Last I checked Apple really isn’t a big web standards pusher or implementer. I guess people just have to romanticize everything Apple. Sure it was a factor but Apple hardly was the only factor.
It’s very revisionist history to say that Apple has never been a big standards pusher or implementer. Basically every modern browser engine other than Gecko is descended from Apple’s Webkit.
Porting KHTML to macOS and honoring its license to keep it open is very different than contributing to the HTML5 standard and implementing cutting edge features quickly. The latter helps with killing Flash more than declaring we are not going to support it.
Apple made Flash a no-go on mobile. At the time, people had no distinction between mobile web and desktop web, so if your web site didn't work on an iPhone, it was forgotten and left in the dust.
Today, you can be on one or the other. But that wasn't the case back then.
Last I checked Apple really isn’t a big web standards pusher or implementer
I'm sorry you wasted your time checking on something that I didn't state.
people just have to romanticize everything Apple
No romanticizing needed. I was there, and lived through it.
> I'm sorry you wasted your time checking on something that I didn't state.
Just saying no Flash use our app store apps without contributing to open xp alternatives does not amount to killing Flash. Making the alternative better, accessible to all in an open way does.
"standard" means nothing when Google is churning it every day. It coined the completely idiotic term "living standard" and has basically used its propagandic powers to drag everyone else along.
Its idea of "progress" is the exact opposite of what the web needs.
Google has a reputation for getting bored of projects and shutting them down, if they controlled the web it’d be gone in six months and everything would have to be AMP
It cuts both ways. Shutting down projects that aren't core can also be seen as focusing on what matters. Google shutting down products also gives room for other companies to fill that need. The Google Reader shutdown was the besting thing ever to happen to Feedly. I wish Firefox was a little more aggressive in shutting down some of its side-projects to focus on the things where they can provide value that other strictly-commercial companies will not.
Looking at Pocket. Hey, FF I want to love you but I feel you lack focus. Also, fix the autocompleter on the URL bar on mobile - it should not aggressively autocomplete when I'm pressing bksp !
I'm on Android, using Firefox 79.0.5 (Build #2015758619) - which is like freshest bits for GP - it's where they moved the address bar to the bottom.
So, go to a long URL, like paging through a forum. Then edit the URL. Place cursor at end and hit bksp. As you continue to delete chars the purple-phantom highlight where it tries to autocomplete goes crazy and flickers the heck out of the UI. It's definitely a regression.
I don't know the best way to capture screen on this device tho, and I don't have time to spin up any emulators and go through those steps
> it's where they moved the address bar to the bottom
Yup, that's Fenix. By the way, you can switch it back to the top, but the (+) button (new tab) still remains at the bottom, which irks me.
I actually just tried and I'm not seeing your issue - but I have different issues (mainly that when I open the browser, the topmost tab can never seem to figure out whether it has a page loaded or it's on the new tab page).
By the way, I'm just a fellow user, so don't spend too much effort describing your bug to me, haha. It might be worth reporting it to their bug tracker, though: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues
If your device happens to be a Samsung phone, it should come with a screen recorder (at least on the newest major version of Android)
> Google has a reputation for getting bored of projects and shutting them down, if they controlled the web it’d be gone in six months and everything would have to be AMP
They haven't shut down Search yet, even though it's pretty boring as a service.
I'm sure you can understand there are "core" projects, and non-core ones.
I wonder when they will drop Google Search, about the time they should get bored soon!
Oh unless such belief doesn't make any sense for product that are necessary to Google lucrativity?
Yes, Google devs on non necessarily lucrative projects such as flutter or dart might get bored to some extent.
I hear this argument come up a lot and frankly it's just misleading to even bring it up. When a company controls an open source project, the project follows their vision–regardless of whether there are a couple other groups with slightly-more-than-nominal contributions. Ask yourself whether any one group could prevent a commit from going in that Google corporate had decided they wanted in Chromium–the answer is of course no. It'd be like saying Apple doesn't have essentially full control over WebKit's direction, even though this page lists a bunch of people who aren't from Apple: https://webkit.org/team/
Free and Open-Source projects, unlike IE, can be forked anytime by just anyone or any other organization. There is nothing preventing anyone to go ahead and rework Chromium for their own needs - and that's what happening in practice already with Brave, Edge, etc...
The day that people/organizations are upset with the direction Google takes with Chromium is the day where a real fork will start existing and being actively developed by a larger community.
For this I would propose a litmus test for forkability of a project. If the original parent company disappeared would the fork be able to sustain its development and maintenance alone?
For current chromium forks (and also for firefox forks) the answer is no.
The only fork that would have the resources would be from microsoft, but it would be a huge, expensive, and non-trivial task.
> If the original parent company disappeared would the fork be able to sustain its development and maintenance alone?
The counterexample is the Linux kernel. No single company can actually sustain its development, so in practice many companies work on it together with an agreed governance to direct where things go.
Indeed Linux is not forkable in practice, most current forks rely on the cooperation and coordination of the linux foundation at least partially.
For chrome as long as google exist I don't really see an industry consortium to invest in marginal improvements (considering also how the interested industry partners are likely heavy google customers)
spdy become HTTP2, quic become HTTP3 it is expensive in time and money to develop and test new ideas in protocols. I think it is a bit unfair to to bundle android, chromium and AMP into same bag. AMP is clearly driven by money but there is a lot of open source that benefit everyone.
Google is big company. I think trying to paint whole google as evil is not effective.
It's like this beast that does these benevolent things, but at some point it catches up to them and they shut something down after getting people kinda hooked. For example Picasa - massively popular - free and pretty amazing desktop photo management tool. It slowly morphed such that all of the users of it were just folded into a cloud offering: Drive.
Chrome and all of it's open source awesomeness, again, mostly used to fold people into the bigger profitable picture. So even though there are developers that work at Google creating protocols that help everyone, including non-Chrome browsers - that benevolence has a product manager paying that developer's time. At some stage it's not all free beer.
