Patroncast - S04E31 - Cosmic first thoughts & Chromium experiment
Added 2024-08-05 12:26:16 +0000 UTCHey everyone!
In this one, I talk about:
01:06 My first thoughts about the Cosmic desktop and a few other details from System76
22:05 Trying out Ungoogle Chromium, and still being undecided on which browser I prefer
It's a long one!
Have a great week :)
Comments
The next one worked perfectly fine! Thank you for your efforts!
Ryan Richards
2024-08-12 18:45:58 +0000 UTCI'll admit I use Firefox without much hardening, just a tracker blocker / ad blocker. I probably should look at ways to make it a bit more robust. I moved to using Patreon and Youtube studio as chromium webapps, it works well for now!
The Linux Experiment
2024-08-09 09:15:26 +0000 UTCWeird, I'll check what Patreon lets me configure. Let me know if the next one also is, I'll log a support ticket with them!
The Linux Experiment
2024-08-09 09:14:26 +0000 UTCThis weeks podcast is broken on RSS btw. At least on Feedbin.
Ryan Richards
2024-08-09 00:24:07 +0000 UTCre browsers: I assume like all of us you're using some sort of hardened Firefox? I recently came to realise my custom hardening was breaking quite a few things, but I didn't want to opt for the default version of Firefox. my saviour turned out to be Mull Browser - since they are all hardened essentially the same way (and they also look like Tor), it makes even the lowest safety setting quite less easy to fingerprint, and I find that it brakes way fewer sites. I'd also like to add that dual-driving browsers is something quite a few people do, so don't feel bad if that what ends up happening.
Talya
2024-08-07 11:54:53 +0000 UTCHaven't tried it yet, but I definitely will, at some point!
The Linux Experiment
2024-08-07 08:42:42 +0000 UTCHave you tried Floorp? I've been testing it and mostly like it so far. Also, you can bookmark sync across browsers with Floccus.
SailorChaz
2024-08-06 09:47:33 +0000 UTCYeah, definitely, the manifest v3 change is going to suck, I hope Chromium based browsers decide to keep support for manifest v2 extensions... A set of benchmarks with and without adblock could definitely be nice!
The Linux Experiment
2024-08-06 09:38:46 +0000 UTCYeah, their main advantage here is that they don't carry 10 or 20 years of legacy and compatibility. It will give them a slight edge in terms of performance, and smoothness. The fact they don't support X11 at all is also a big thing, it lets them focus on the new stuff without worrying about breaking something.
The Linux Experiment
2024-08-06 09:37:57 +0000 UTCYeah, I've heard good things, but it's not open source, which is a deal breker for me, for my web browser :)
The Linux Experiment
2024-08-06 09:36:43 +0000 UTCUblock is enabled on both browsers, so it's probably not the issue, but I'll check :) Prefetching was disabled, though, It re-enabled it, we'll see how things go!
The Linux Experiment
2024-08-06 09:36:07 +0000 UTCIt could be, yeah.
The Linux Experiment
2024-08-06 09:33:14 +0000 UTCHm, 3s wait time in FF after clicking a button... that sounds more like an issue of the website. Have you considerer opening a bug ticket with Patreon and the other websites? Or maybe those websites use specific (possibly non-standard) features in Chrome and fall back to slower javascript "emulations" of such features on FF. Maybe Chrome offers some specific optimized media-processing related APIs. That would explain why you mostly seem to experience performance issues on creator websites and less so on ordinary sites.
Sebastian
2024-08-05 23:22:23 +0000 UTCPossible reasons for the loading speed difference between Chromium and Firefox that came to my mind: Prefetching Perhaps prefetching is disabled in Firefox? See https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-making-automatic-connections#w_prefetching for more details. Add-ons like uBlock Origin disable prefetching as far as I know. Prerendering Chrome also does have a feature that prerenders web page(s) if the web page supports it. There is a video on the following page which shows the load time difference: https://developer.chrome.com/docs/web-platform/prerender-pages Firefox does not support this.
Pommes
2024-08-05 18:09:13 +0000 UTCI've been trying Vivaldi, it's pretty good
Thomas Corbin
2024-08-05 16:08:17 +0000 UTCCargo is like npm for node, pip for python. Cosmic is gorgeous and fast. I love what they've done so far, and will track it closely. I love kde and dislike gnome, so I'm eager to see how it works out. I think being based on rust will give it an advantage.
Thomas Corbin
2024-08-05 16:02:02 +0000 UTCWhile it is still in its infancy and I won't use Cosmic as my main, I sincerely appreciate them working to create a truly new and fresh DE. While Cinnamon is nice and all, it is still held back by its reliance on GTK / older Gnome. Sometimes a truly fresh start is best, and I think that is the case here. If they can get buy in from the community and distros to help with features and growth, it could truly rise to the level of Gnome and KDE. Patience will be required as it does not happen overnight.
Clint Eschberger
2024-08-05 14:37:35 +0000 UTCHey Nick, even though I'm not particularly interested in Cosmic, I must say that I'm impressed by System76 for delivering an okayish alpha release in such a short amount of time, they really worked hard to deliver. Maybe the Gnome team could take some notes from System76 and up their cadence when it comes to feature updates 👀. About your browser experiment, one thing I was wondering is how both browsers compared in terms of speed when used with or without a proper ad blocker. With manifest v3 coming on chromium based browsers, ublock origin won't work anymore and you'll have to use ublock lite when Google enforces manifest V3, maybe do speed comparisons by using Firefox with ublock origin installed and a chromium browser with and without using ublock origin and/or ublock lite. Another thing to check is how efficient ublock lite is when it comes to adblocking. To be honest, I'd be pretty interested in such a benchmark video that compares the speed of browsers using adblockers and others that don't.
UsernamesAreHard
2024-08-05 14:05:47 +0000 UTC
