Random Access Nagging Thread: basic browser/web usability and security

Max Optional · 2015-07-31T17:01:58

A fair warning - while occasionally serious, this thread is a rant, so unless you want to join in, stop reading now! I've been a Chrome user ever since Firefox took a nosedive and Google swiftly filled its shoes, so anything I write might well seem like juvenile anti-Google sentiment. While that is not the immediate intention, I would like to take the opportunity to congratulate Google on systematically stuffing Chrome to the point where it's become a piece of semi-dysfunctional bloatware. Well done there. However, that is not the topic of this thread. Over the past year or two I've, occasionally considered migrating back to FF or switching to Opera (which used to be teh caek two thousand years ago in lolcat time), but I have to admit that there is the odd Chrome extension, which I simply cannot be bothered to look an alternative for. But again - that is not the topic of this thread. What I really wanted to discuss is a nigh-imperceptible stagnation in browser functionality on the most basic of levels. Allow me to elaborate, since some of this stuff is quite unintuitive: - about 4-5 years ago copy-pasting text used to be as simple as pressing Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to first copy the text into the clipboard and then to paste it into a text box (I'm assuming Apple PCs still have buttons so there's probably an equivalent way to accomplish this*). Somewhere along the line, however things like GMail started to behave differently. You copied your text as usual, but when you pasted it, the browser spat it at the caret and for some inane reason would select all the text in the textbox body from the caret to the very end. After typing in another two words (because you're computer literate and can watch a lolcat video while typing and browsing Reddit using voice commands) you would find yourself stomping the undo command to get your email back. Why that started happening and under what circumstances it would happen has, frankly, eluded me. A similar behavior crops up occasionally while pressing Ctrl+A to select text in the browser, which seems to select up to the caret only. This happened to me once more only just now while going over this very post. - have you ever tried to select text, or worse - links -, in a browser without extensions? Good luck *thumbupwink*. Just prior to writing this post I spent two or more minutes trying to copy half a line of text from GMail's one-line body text that contained two links. The browser's behavior was nothing short of those how-to-keep-an-idiot-busy games where you have use the mouse to chase Nyancat on your desktop, which keeps moving away from the cursor (Nyancat, not the desktop, that is). Being mildly computer literate I have the copy link extension installed so I can hover over a link and press Ctrl+C to copy it. So it's all cool. But it isn't. Because I had to spend several minutes trying to accomplish something that should take me three seconds and require no voodoo. And I keep stepping on the same damn rake. I KNOW I can't select text in the browser any better than I can in Adobe Reader, yet I keep doing it. Why? Because it's 2015 and I'm naive computer literate enough to know that sometimes software changes for the better. You know - like Doom 2 was to Doom 1, to bring a timely example. - the third item is related to security and happens to be the one thing I really can't fathom. Ever migrated to a new PC or reinstalled the OS to find that it's no longer 1995 and you don't need to install any drivers or perform any set up beyond choosing your locale and possibly a password? Neat, isn't it! Well - if you're a Google user (and I'm guessing there are a few), then one other thing you don't need to do anymore is remember any passwords. Okay, you need to remember one - your Google account password, which silently stores and migrates ALL of your passwords that you've chosen to remember on another device. You can likely turn that off somewhere, though, so I should probably digress. And I do, because I'm mildly computer literate. But that's kind of like being the tallest midget in the bunch, because most people are morons not computer literate and most computer literate people are simply lazy****. About 60% of my friends use a pattern lock on their phones, which I've been able to unlock on at least four different occasions - all while very generously inebriated - simply by tracing the lines of grease on the screen. The cold hard truth is these people have no idea which sites Google provides automatically filled in passwords for that are directly usable on their phones' browser by simply navigating to the site and clicking "Yes" at the pre-completed "Would you like to log in?" prompt. Not because they want to, but because they're computer illiterate (which they have a perfect right to be) and are consequently completely at the mercy of their own technology illiteracy. I might be mistaken, but as far as I can remember no browser at any stage has ever prompted me for anything like two tier verification the way Steam does or warned me adequately clearly that the passwords I remember on a device will essentially keep me logged in on any other devices I might already own or will at any later point own. God forbid, I happen to sit down at a poorly sessioned net cafe and forget to go full haidouken on the computer before I leave. The only thing related to this that I've seen is Google opting me for a second layer of security (AFAIR phone-based) against password loss or theft. Yeah, that'll be useful once I unlock Retrospect Level 1. - as a bonus point I'd like to address the issue of load times, particularly on mobile. I'm not a web developer, but my guess is this one probably has more to do with page design than the browser itself, or even the network. Nevertheless, this whole category of issues is one of the biggest gripes I have with evolving technology and, being a bit more particular, if I had to surmise a more specific reason, then this little bar: [attachment=28319:waitingfor.jpg] The screenshot was taken while loading letterboxd.com, which doesn't include any of the big offenders - copious load-time use of the Facebook Graph API or a massive amount of other multi social media buttons. In fact, I'm guessing most pages in their raw form, unless the server is under considerable stress, would indeed load instantly (comparatively speaking, that is, if only to appease Einstein). Nevertheless, seeing load times of 5 seconds plus on mobile for fairly basic pages while having full 4G coverage (I have a Nexus 5, which is not the worst thing around even now) is a disgrace. It's the same thing with IDEs - I can still remember VS2005 being a very responsive system (if more than unnecessarily unstable) on a far lesser setup while 2008 and 2010 became progressively worse. In a very similar manner both the web and the browsers are abusing the technology they have access to, which means we're pandering away all the advances we're making in the underlying hardware. Finally, to connect this with the anti-Google sentiment implied at the top of the post, Chrome is one piece of software that has forgotten this. And that makes me sad, because Chrome really used to be the standard for me. There are several other quirks I've come across, but despite the seriousness of #3 what baffles me the most is actually #2. People have needed to select text in browsers for four lolcat millennia and at this point it's no longer a valid argument to blame things like poor page design or user incompetence. Instead of becoming more bloated, memory-hungry and occasionally bafflingly unstable (ironically I can't check this right now with a random URL since I'm typing this in Chrome, but the last time I wanted to browse to an FTP address the entire browser crashed kind of like the alien mothership in Independence Day), anyone who needs the smallest shred of additional productivity from a browser apart from being able to play lolcat videos, feels like they're stuck in a groundhog day set in 1999. Well, at least I often do. But probably with even less security. Do you have any gripes related to the web or the browsers that be? Unleash the kraken - that's what this thread is for! * just kidding - all you need to do is rub its round corners and hope if won't throw up something icky like iTunes on you** ** I'm really sorry - I simply have no sympathy for Apple. I know you guys have the Command key and it's just as good as the Control key, but designed for people who have three fingers, blablabla. So I promise I won't pick on Apple any more*** *** seriously, though - I'm kidding. I have no sympathy for Apple. **** source: looking in the mirror

conq

736

July 29, 2015 03:50 PM

I know it may seem like everything's horribly broken right now, but from an insider's perspective on an extremely high volume website and application, I swear it's not us.

All the javacript stuff we do is to maintain compatability back to IE5 Everything seems redundant because we're forced to re-impliment html5 components because that's what we promised in our SLA. In fact, our google analytics for today shows several hundred IE5 users on our application.

I mean, it works. It's not the most effective/perfect, but it doesn't need to be. This isn't like back when we had to make sure everything worked with 512 mb of ram.

wintertime

4,154

July 29, 2015 04:51 PM

I wonder how many and how much of the current websites would display with a non-bloated browser (maybe Links 2).

I mean from a normal users perspective it only needs a little HTML formatting, clickable, copyable links, 3 or 4 builtin fonts, show png, jpg, video tag, typing some text into a form with a submit button. Anything else is superfluous fancy gimmicks causing compatibility and security problems (half of the addons exist to disable annoying "features").

Waterlimon

4,401

July 29, 2015 05:24 PM

If I try copying text (meaning click 10 times until the caret lands in the right spot, assuming the browser doesnt keep moving the view away from the text field whenever Im focused on it...) on my android phone theres a 50% chance itll freeze and force me to restart the phone because of course its incapable of just crashing the browser after I spam all them buttons for a minute...

Its not the newest one tho

And thats with the default browser, If I tried to use mobile chrome or something it would probably do the same thing at 10% the speed.

o3o

ronan.thibaudau

1,038

July 29, 2015 06:04 PM

I know it may seem like everything's horribly broken right now, but from an insider's perspective on an extremely high volume website and application, I swear it's not us.

All the javacript stuff we do is to maintain compatability back to IE5 Everything seems redundant because we're forced to re-impliment html5 components because that's what we promised in our SLA. In fact, our google analytics for today shows several hundred IE5 users on our application.

I mean, it works. It's not the most effective/perfect, but it doesn't need to be. This isn't like back when we had to make sure everything worked with 512 mb of ram.

I don't think anyone is targeting IE5 compatibility, IE6 was already the old fossil people hesitated to support for LoB applications 5 years ago.

Hell IE6's market share is 0.52% in june, and IE5 was already dead back when IE6 was 50+%

conq

736

July 29, 2015 07:18 PM

I know it may seem like everything's horribly broken right now, but from an insider's perspective on an extremely high volume website and application, I swear it's not us.

All the javacript stuff we do is to maintain compatability back to IE5 Everything seems redundant because we're forced to re-impliment html5 components because that's what we promised in our SLA. In fact, our google analytics for today shows several hundred IE5 users on our application.

I mean, it works. It's not the most effective/perfect, but it doesn't need to be. This isn't like back when we had to make sure everything worked with 512 mb of ram.

I don't think anyone is targeting IE5 compatibility, IE6 was already the old fossil people hesitated to support for LoB applications 5 years ago.

Hell IE6's market share is 0.52% in june, and IE5 was already dead back when IE6 was 50+%

We service medical providers using ancient hardware in third world countries. Our IE5 users are around 2%. Even if it was .52% in our market, that still represents many people who we need to service.

Seriously, the pushback to any software requirements change is massive, and huge engineering/structural design issues were resolved in less than optimal ways to support that.

jpetrie

13,223

July 29, 2015 07:24 PM

We service medical providers using ancient hardware in third world countries. Our IE5 users are around 2%. Even if it was .52% in our market, that still represents many people who we need to service.

I don't doubt there are companies in the position you describe, but I do think that's a very different space from the "consumer web," that is the thing most people are accessing for recreation or to get news or stay connected, et cetera. That's the bit that I, at least, think is rather shit these days.

You made that quip about "fitting in to 512MB of RAM" before, but that's still a valid issue for things like mobile devices which are a nontrivial percentage of the consumer web...consuming... devices.

ronan.thibaudau

1,038

July 29, 2015 09:44 PM

I know it may seem like everything's horribly broken right now, but from an insider's perspective on an extremely high volume website and application, I swear it's not us.

All the javacript stuff we do is to maintain compatability back to IE5 Everything seems redundant because we're forced to re-impliment html5 components because that's what we promised in our SLA. In fact, our google analytics for today shows several hundred IE5 users on our application.

I mean, it works. It's not the most effective/perfect, but it doesn't need to be. This isn't like back when we had to make sure everything worked with 512 mb of ram.

I don't think anyone is targeting IE5 compatibility, IE6 was already the old fossil people hesitated to support for LoB applications 5 years ago.

Hell IE6's market share is 0.52% in june, and IE5 was already dead back when IE6 was 50+%

We service medical providers using ancient hardware in third world countries. Our IE5 users are around 2%. Even if it was .52% in our market, that still represents many people who we need to service.

Seriously, the pushback to any software requirements change is massive, and huge engineering/structural design issues were resolved in less than optimal ways to support that.

But that's very specific to your target audience and kinda off topic here.

Also are you sure your IE5 users wouldn't upgrade? I don't really see what hardware has to do with this as a newer IE wouldn't be any slower and IE 6 is available even on Windows 98 / Windows NT4, so unless your users are on 3.1 or 95 there's really no reason to support IE5 instead of a big popup telling them to upgrade to 6 and maybe taking the time to mention that they're 2 OSes bellow what Microsoft has droped support for (i hope those PCs are not connected to the net!).

Also if you're targeting that you're definately targetting computers with much less than 512MB of ram, in the Windows 98 era 512Mb was pretty high end

Deflinek

1,619

July 30, 2015 07:55 PM

Also are you sure your IE5 users wouldn't upgrade? I don't really see what hardware has to do with this as a newer IE wouldn't be any slower and IE 6 is available even on Windows 98 / Windows NT4, so unless your users are on 3.1 or 95 there's really no reason to support IE5 instead of a big popup telling them to upgrade to 6 and maybe taking the time to mention that they're 2 OSes bellow what Microsoft has droped support for (i hope those PCs are not connected to the net!).

It actually doesn't matter what users want or can. I was working on web applications for modern hotel groups and insurance companies. Especially for the hotels you can bet that most of their clients use ipad for booking either by themselves or by their secretary as the hotels were in range of $1000+ per night. In both cases IE7 and FF 3.0 had to be supported and looking EXACTLY as other browsers + special even more fancy version for ipad. What's more their analytics included that ancient browsers were actually used.

Well... hardly a niche target

ronan.thibaudau

1,038

July 31, 2015 05:04 AM

Also are you sure your IE5 users wouldn't upgrade? I don't really see what hardware has to do with this as a newer IE wouldn't be any slower and IE 6 is available even on Windows 98 / Windows NT4, so unless your users are on 3.1 or 95 there's really no reason to support IE5 instead of a big popup telling them to upgrade to 6 and maybe taking the time to mention that they're 2 OSes bellow what Microsoft has droped support for (i hope those PCs are not connected to the net!).

It actually doesn't matter what users want or can. I was working on web applications for modern hotel groups and insurance companies. Especially for the hotels you can bet that most of their clients use ipad for booking either by themselves or by their secretary as the hotels were in range of $1000+ per night. In both cases IE7 and FF 3.0 had to be supported and looking EXACTLY as other browsers + special even more fancy version for ipad. What's more their analytics included that ancient browsers were actually used.

Well... hardly a niche target

Yes but IE7 is still in the "modern" range, IE6 and bellow is massive additional work. Supporting IE7+ can make some financial sense but IE5, eww.

Sik_the_hedgehog

3,003

July 31, 2015 04:50 PM

Just reading this thread but... oh dear the Gmail selection bug is back? I recall just permanently switching to the simple interface because I got upset of how often the Gmail client would bug up badly every so often (by that I mean like every week or two). I had forgotten about it by now because of how long ago I had switched (the simple interface is much less buggy, even if it lacks some features). Ugh.

Don't pay much attention to "the hedgehog" in my nick, it's just because "Sik" was already taken =/ By the way, Sik is pronounced like seek, not like sick.

Random Access Nagging Thread: basic browser/web usability and security

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