Browsers - <AUTHOR> https://adactio.com/journal/14608 <comment><USER4> I feel like I'm missing something, because I keep seeing blog posts that tell me a browser monoculture is bad (and the irony of Microsoft saying this is nearly too much), but none of them tell me why. I understand that it was bad in the IE6 days, but IE6 was also closed source and could only be run on Windows (see also the irony of Microsoft discontinuing IE on Mac, not wanting to compete with Safari, a browser made by the OS manufacturer). Chromium is open source - the only lock in is the decision to use it. Sure, Google may be at the reigns of where the project goes, but then differentiate on features, or fork it and make it different. Differentiate on the user interface, or integrations with other services, or go hard on privacy. Maybe the rendering engine should be more akin to the Linux kernel and less akin to Windows? One operating system would be bad, but one kernel has spawned many, many Linuxes. I guess I'm doing my part by using Firefox, but that's more because I am worried about just how much Google knows about me, and not because I think Gecko is remarkably better than Chromium.

<comment><USER5> The concern is not 'now' it's 'later'.

Google is a business like any other - and when they have the power to lever a monopolized situation - they will.

For example, they may start integrating technologies for which they have exclusive, or at least 'special' access. Can you imagine if all of a sudden Google apps start performing better than anyone else's?

Or what if they integrate technology that de-facto collects usage and behaviour - even from other domains - and then lever that competitively?

The power that Google already has, relatively unregulated is crazy. Remember that Google is the company that could change the outcome of elections ... possibly without us even knowing. They could drive markets up or down at will.

This would probably happen as a 'slow drip' \- not one step being close enough to consumer awareness to create problems, and what with 'business friendly' politicians, nary a worry of legislation getting in the way.

They could introduce these technologies under the guise of 'improving user experience' (and maybe legitimately so to start), but other PM's, new CEO's etc. just take the opportunity before them. Why wouldn't they?

We worry a lot about 'Net Neutrality' at the network level, like it's a religion ... but that we don't worry about 'information neutrality' as well I find quite bizarre.

I suggest that having '1 major provider' may be a problem, doubly so if it's an entity like Google, and that frankly we don't really gain much from this fact at all. If Mozilla were the provider, great. Even Apple might be a better choice simply because they are not in the business of managing our information - at least right now, for them, it's a headache, not a revenue source.

So the concern is real.

<comment><USER6> "For example, they may start integrating technologies for which they have exclusive, or at least 'special' access. Can you imagine if all of a sudden Google apps start performing better than anyone else's?"

This is already happening. I very recently worked on the Edge team, and one of the reasons we decided to end EdgeHTML was because Google kept making changes to its sites that broke other browsers, and we couldn't keep up. For example, they recently added a hidden empty div over YouTube videos that causes our hardware acceleration fast-path to bail (should now be fixed in Win10 Oct update). Prior to that, our fairly state-of-the-art video acceleration put us well ahead of Chrome on video playback time on battery, but almost the instant they broke things on YouTube, they started advertising Chrome's dominance over Edge on video-watching battery life. What makes it so sad, is that their claimed dominance was not due to ingenious optimization work by Chrome, but due to a failure of YouTube. On the whole, they only made the web slower.

Now while I'm not sure I'm convinced that YouTube was changed intentionally to slow Edge, many of my co-workers are quite convinced - and they're the ones who looked into it personally. To add to this all, when we asked, YouTube turned down our request to remove the hidden empty div and did not elaborate further.

And this is only one case.

<comment><USER7> The behaviour that your co-workers claim Google engaged in sounds pretty exactly like the AMD-Intel antitrust case where AMD alleged that Intel's C compiler was deliberately crippling performance on AMD processors to help Intel's processors compete. If true, Microsoft _should_ sue Google over it - not just out of raw corporate self-interest, but because this sort of conduct is evil and should be stamped out.

If this case hasn't already been run up to Microsoft's lawyers, start running it up to them. You'll be doing the world a service.

<comment><USER8> What will Microsoft gain if they Win? Nothing. Google has the upper hand in public image. Microsoft is still evil outside of Dev Circles. And IE did some ass moves as well in IE6 era, think about the PR mess this would lead.

It is not the best time to strike now, once the timing is right, I am sure they will.

<comment><USER7> > _" What will Microsoft gain if they Win?"_

Uh, money? It might not exactly be a noble incentive for a lawsuit, but it's sure as hell an incentive, isn't it?

<comment><USER9> I wonder what sort of information Google might dredge up during discovery that Microsoft wouldn't want to see the light of day. I'm no lawyer/accountant, so I don't know what amount of money would be worth that risk.

With a lot of legal issues, sometimes the only winning move is not to play.

<comment><USER10> hiybbprqag for one - [https://www.wired.com/2011/02/bing-copies- google/](https://www.wired.com/2011/02/bing-copies-google/)

<comment><USER11> I mean google was recently caught doing the same thing with baidu... [https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/google-china-censored- se...](https://theintercept.com/2018/12/17/google-china-censored-search- engine-2/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> People don't download Chrome because EdgeHTML-Edge sucks; they download Chrome because it's familiar, and ironically doesn't nag the person to enable half a dozen Microsoft's services one by one. There's two greater truths here: that some people are more comfortable using Google's services over those of Microsoft, and that the power of defaults matter, even when they feel skeevy to a part of the population. Google proved that defaulting to all the services enabled by default is reasonable not just with a discretionary application (like Chrome) but also when the user barely has any other choice on the device (like Android), and years of these defaults have resulted in a userbase that relies on them and seeks out the product for this reason.

It also shows that past precedent can lead you down a gauntlet of bad PR: Microsoft has tried to be pushy with many features of Windows 10 (telemetry, inking, online login, Cortana, always-online search) in the same vein that we've long seen from Google, but their strategy contrasts unfavorably against long legacy of a less invasive Windows. Google has pursued a policy of opt-out from the beginning, and by doing so they escape a fair bit a bad press.

Firefox has the worst of it: their users are the most discriminating, the hardest to please -- even if some of Mozilla's controversies were poor choices, the level of uproar was immense. Posts like this just encourage the migration of users driven by causes. This would be less of an issue if it were entirely community-supported, but Mozilla has paid developers and evangelists, and deriving revenues from a discriminating userbase is a challenge.

<comment><USER13> As a counter-point, I've had to set up Chrome with ad blockers even for computer illiterate family members and friends because they eventually have it installed anyway. Why? Not because they knew they were installing it, but because every time you visit "google.com" in Edge, you get an intrusive message that says:

"Switch to Chrome Hide annoying ads and protect against malware on the web [No Thanks] [Yes]"

And that then appears on every single search. And if you click no thanks, it reappears.

And then when they go to youtube, they see this:

"Watch YouTube videos with Chrome Google recommends using Chrome, a fast and secure browser. Try it? [Yes] [No Thanks]"

Again, every page load. It's a dark pattern. What about Gmail?

"Google recommends using Chrome Try a fast, secure browser with updates built in [No Thanks] [Yes]"

EVERY PAGE LOAD.

<comment><USER14> You'd think there'd be a super-slim version of uBlock that only blocked Google's nag messages to install chrome

<comment><USER15> Doesn't it already? I've never noticed the nags when using Firefox

<comment><USER16> I use Firefox with the vanilla uBlockOrigin. I don't notice any google nagging except on the google translate page.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> This move by Microsoft may probably help Microsoft have Windows users using its browser, but I seriously doubt if it's good for the web.

There are people claiming that Microsoft could easily fork from Chromium, but honestly, do you see that happening in the next few years? Having read that Microsoft's Edge team was a very small one, I don't believe Microsoft will fork Chromium anytime in the next two or three years (no financial incentive, which could be a big motive, to do so)...and that's a long time to keep pushing the Chrome/Chromium way ("what Google wants for the web").

As an aside, I very much liked this article linked within, titled "The ecological impact of browser diversity" by Rachel Nabors. [1]

To all those who evangelize Firefox, please also see if you can donate money to Mozilla. It may seem like Mozilla has a lot of money (more than 90% coming from Google for being the default search engine added in the browser), but this is not enough, and could turn to be nothing if Firefox's market share becomes next to nothing and Google decides to pull the plug when the current contract expires. Partnerships with Bing (or other search engines that not many people use) may not bring in as much money to Mozilla.

Read about all the work that Mozilla does (aka "not just Firefox") in its "State of Mozilla 2017" annual report. [2] The audited financial report is here. [3]

[1]: [https://css-tricks.com/the-ecological-impact-of-browser- dive...](https://css-tricks.com/the-ecological-impact-of-browser-diversity/)

[2]: [https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/foundation/annualreport/2017/](https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/foundation/annualreport/2017/)

[3]: [https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla- fdn-201...](https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-fdn-2017-fs- short-form-final-0927.pdf)

<comment><USER18> Instead of funding Mozilla, perhaps funding the many non-Blink, non-Gecko browser authors out there would be more impactful? Even if it's indirectly through spreading responsible ownership of standards discussions and components like Skia/ANGLE/etc.

Disclaimer: independent browser author, unpaid.

<comment><USER17> I'd personally favor both — funding Mozilla as well as non-Blink/non-Mozilla browsers. We need stronger contenders for the present (like Mozilla) and stronger contenders for the future (others, assuming they're still nascent and aren't on the radar for most people). Though I support Mozilla for various reasons, I see value in supporting smaller competition that could ultimately help everyone (including Mozilla).

Please share your project and other independent browsers/engines. It's been some time I've checked this space out (and I do know that I could also go to Wikipedia to get some information on this).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> There are several comments on this post wondering why a browser monoculture is bad or speculating that a browser engine monopoly is inevitable and ought to be accepted.

Let's just replace 'browser' with OS (ironically the similarities are becoming more with each passing day) above... would we still say the same? Is an OS monoculture good, regardless of whether it is inevitable? Have we forgotten the power that MS had with Windows during the 90s and early 2000s before Linux, MacOS and Android became viable alternatives?

Given that browsers are becoming the new OS and VM, we need competition in this space more than ever, going forward. Let's not accept Chrome/Google as the One Ring.

<comment><USER20> Unfortunately that's not really a valid comparison at all. Browsers all try to stay compatible with each other. OSes do not in any way try to stay compatible with each other. Programming apps for Linux, Mac, and Windows requires entirely different code. Programming for Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Safari do not (or at least not supposed to unless you're used new APIs or edge cases)

You can't currently make an alternative browser in the same sense that you can make an alternative OS. An alternative browser would not use HTML, CSS, JavaScript. It would use something else in the same way that MacOS/iOS push ObjectiveC and Swift where as Android pushes Java/Kotlin and other OSes other languages and each OS as it's own UI API

<comment><USER21> I disagree. MS has recently pushed the "linux on top op windows" solution. Making windows programs run on linux has attracted plenty of ressources (commercial and unpaid): open framework clones, wine, steam play vm's. The same can be said for osx. iOS and Android not so much though.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> The last time I enjoyed using the Firefox rendering engine on a Mac was back in the Camino days. I'd almost say that that browser is a better Mac experience than Firefox is today.

I've started using Safari and it's actually pretty OK and the resource utilization is a lot better than Chrome (no fans blowing!). I empathize with Firefox making a big deal out of avoiding a monoculture but i really hope they're figuring out how to do a better job on things like the Mac internally, because I don't think that people are really going to use an inferior product as some moral statement.

<comment><USER23> Correct me if I'm wrong, by all means, but I recently read somewhere that Firefox is genuinely trying to improve it's MacOS performance in one of the new releases.

No sources, it was just in passing somewhere, but I distinctly remember it.

<comment><USER24> This has been said about a litany of releases, and they don't really ever make a dent.

<comment><USER25> I cannot remember the number at this point, but there was one specific release recently that did seem to make a significant improvement for me on MacOS.

I used to have heavy pages hang here and there and really burn some CPU (Facebook, etc) and sometimes even freeze without loading completely. Now on the same machine, the latest Firefox works just fine and avoids those states completely.

It's still a long way from perfect, but I once thought Firefox unusable on MacOS and went back to Chrome, but now that I've tried the latest FF releases, I'm happy enough with the performance that I'm staying with FF this time around

The only remaining sites with poor performance are Google products, and I blame Google for that and am trying to slowly remove myself from all of their products.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> The web browser vendors have too much money. They have no incentive to keep the platform small. Google in particular, the cost to implement Blink is essentially meaningless to them, but it is beyond affordability for almost anyone else.

<comment><USER27> What's the total money passing through the web? Billions, trillions?

The amount of money that is spent on browsers is such a tiny fraction of web- derived profit it is, in my opinion, surprising that browser vendors don't have _more_ money.

<comment><USER28> Well they do give away browsers for free.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER29> Well, Microsoft opting for Chromium will be a big win for Google. As Google has a strong hold on Android mobile user base, for many non-technical users what comes by default is the first browser (may be best browser). Google taps that privilege/monopoly/advantage to their use. Those who comfortably use Chrome in mobile device will obviously opt for Chrome in desktop as well. Because it simplifies their mental model of browser comfort. Microsoft might have done the same thing for decades, but it has been trying to come out of that image for the past of couple of years. IMHO Microsoft is no more an evil. I won't blame Google if it plays fair with respect to its Chrome browser in Android. In many Android phones we can't uninstall Chrome. If we use Chrome actively in Android, it pushes lot of notifications (they will say serving the user with relevant content, but to me its a ad/handle which intend to make me see pages where ads are again controlled by Google). Even in Desktop when i open Google's any of the services using browser other than Chrome, at least in the third world where i live, it suggests me to "Switch to Chrome". Nobody is forcing anyone. But it is very essential to tell the world that there is something better available.

The recent better one from Firefox: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.ro...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.rocket&hl=en_US)

<comment><USER30> _Those who comfortably use Chrome in mobile device will obviously opt for Chrome in desktop as well._

You make it sound like users know, or care, which browser they're using. Most of them don't. Most don't actually know there's more than one browser. They use the stock browser that's installed on their device, and they don't switch unless there's a reason to - eg their favourite websites and apps don't work.

In the case of Edge with EdgeHTML there _are_ popular sites that don't work properly, and that means users seek out Chrome instead. Microsoft switching to Chromium will mean those users continue to use Edge because "it works properly" for the user regardless of the _actual_ problem being the developers of those sites failing to write cross-browser compatible code.

I'm a bit sad that the choice and market for browsers is shrinking, and I think it's going to slow progress in web tech, but let's be honest here - <USER2> blame for Microsoft's very sensible business decision lies with web developers who fail to test their code in more browsers than just Chrome. If web developers did a better job there'd still be business value in developing a competing browser engine.

</comment></comment><comment><USER31> If there's anyone at MS reading this, I'll once again implore you to push for Edge to be open sourced, as it should have been before the initial announcement was made.

</comment><comment><USER32> Yeah. This stuff matters. Firefox is more important than it's ever been.

</comment><comment><USER33> I still remembered when i first time used Firefox in 2004, and it's like a life-saver to me to get out of the terrible Internet Explorer. What i want now, maybe from 2020, i could use Firefox, but as a replacement for Mobile App container.

<comment><USER34> I still remember when my Dad marched me over to his laptop, to boldly proclaim the new Internet Explorer 7 had TABS

He legitimately looked as though he'd unlocked some kind of arcane technology that mortal man should never have wielded

I still feel a little bad when I casually shrugged it off with "Firefox has had that for years". He looked legitimately shattered

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> Sometimes I still browse Digg (it's different now). Since the last Firefox update from a week ago which disabled Symantec certificates the site doesn't work anymore. I bet the day Chrome disables Symantec certificates they will immediately notice and fix it.

It's sad that in one week not even one of their people opened it in Firefox, and not many of their users either (there was just a couple of mentions on Twitter about this issue)

<comment><USER36> > Since the last Firefox update from a week ago which disabled Symantec > certificates the site doesn't work anymore.

Is this the fault of Firefox or Digg though?

<comment><USER37> It's pointing out the mindshare and impact that Chrome has.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> This move is actually genius by Microsoft. They will negate the need to install Chrome on Windows. Microsoft will gain control of the browser market.

<comment><USER39> How so? I don't believe the layperson really cares all too much about the underlying engine, it's more a marketing thing. And the IE brand is forever tainted.

<comment><USER38> Word of mouth. Ads. The media. Plenty of avenues will quickly frame why Installing Chrome is so yesterday.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER40> Firefox has one feature the other browsers will never have - privacy.

<comment><USER41> Brave seems to go for the same, but with a Chromium base (currently in beta). They seem to de-claw whatever's left by Google.

<comment><USER42> Firefox has still some clear advantages over Brave, thanks to owning their engine.

A trivial example is the battery API. It's nowadays mainly used for tracking, but is an official webstandard. Mozilla decided to fuzzy it, so it lost its usefulness for tracking. Google didn't.

And I imagine, there's hundreds of similar examples at this scale, which as an average user you'll just never hear of.

One bigger feature is Firefox's Containers. It's based on work from the Tor Browser. Which also just illustrates what this partnership sometimes brings forth. Tor Browser is going to always be there, checking the Firefox code for privacy problems, and will suggest better ways of doing things, which Mozilla can just adopt.

For Chromium, there exist in principle similar efforts, like Brave, Iridium Browser, ungoogled-chromium, but these will always fight an uphill battle against Google and obviously Google isn't going to adopt and maintain their fixes.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER43> How many billionaires have made their fortunes through the web? Surely some of them care enough about preventing a monoculture to foot the bill for an independent browser development team - if not for profit, for the greater good. Consider it philanthropy.

<comment><USER44> >an independent browser development team

So Mozilla?

<comment><USER43> Well maybe another Mozilla? The point is the ecosystem needs variety and there are people who could afford to create that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> Firefox and Gecko are going to die because the vast majority of people do not care about layout engine monopolies. Corporations rely on the vast majority of people. What will probably happen is as Mozilla goes bankrupt, they will spin off Firefox's development structure to a more community driven approach. Then, Firefox and all of its derivatives will continue to live in Linux/Unix Open Source world. Let's face it, political software issues are developer centric. From there, Firefox will end up like Galeon and Gnome Web, slowly losing relevance, lacking modern browser features, and lose development support over the years because a layout engine is very complex and MUST have a corporate backing. Microsoft proved this themselves with their decision.

All of these articles love to fear their listeners by warning them of another IE monopoly situation. None of them seem to mention why monopolistic browsers are an issue, or even how history will repeat in this crazy modern internet world. The only point anyone's made is that security vulnerabilities will span across all browsers. With that logic we might as well write all programs in different languages, and use 20 different operating systems. Obviously that isn't efficient and neither is wasting development money on yet another layout engine. But hey, it's fun to worry about petty issues, so I'll keep reading these blogs.

</comment><comment><USER46> The biggest danger to the web in terms of control right now is _browser monopoly_ , not _engine monopoly_. And this move is probably the most effective way at combatting that. I think this is the right move at this time not just for Microsoft, but for the web.

Borrowing from a previous comment I made, think of it this way: do you think it helps or hurts Google to have every version of Windows come pre-installed with what is essentially already Chrome, except, of course, it will probably have Bing as its default search engine. Do you think the odds of people just using Edge to download Chrome and nothing else go up or down with this move? Do you think it helps or hurts Google to have most tech people not bother telling their parents to download Chrome anymore? There is significantly less control from "owning" an engine than owning an actual browser. I don't think I would have had much of an issue with the dominance of IE 20 years ago if I knew I could compile and modify (and release!) IE myself.

If you care about the state of search monopoly, out of control ads, and identity on the web, then you should be _happy_ with this move. This is more akin to most browsers now having a common starting point. The problem with browsers is that if you truly want to make a new one you need to somehow replicate the decades of work put into the existing ones. What that means is that before you can exercise any of your noble privacy/security/UI/whatever goals, you must first make sure you pass Acid 1 and replicate quirks mode float behavior and etc. etc. etc. This is a non-starter. But now, Microsoft can launch from Chromium's current position and have a browser that can actually compete with Chrome. It's as if they've taken "engine correctness" off the table, and can compete on cool features or "we won't track you" or anything else. Websites will work in Edge by default, so if you like that one new feature in Edge, you can feel OK switching to it without compromising devtools/rendering/speed/etc.

Now I know that the initial response to this is "but Google will call the shots!". Not if the way this has gone down every other time has anything to do with it. Google's Chromium started as KHTML. When Apple based WebKit off of KHTML, the KHTML team had very little say in anything and they eventually forked of course. Then Google based Chromium off of Apple's WebKit, and once again, there was very little "control" Apple could exercise here. Sure, they remained one monolithic project for a while (despite having different JS engines which just goes to show that even without forking you can still have differentiation), but inevitably, Chromium was also forked from WebKit into Blink.

And there should be no reason to think the same won't happen here, and it's a good thing! Microsoft in the past couple of years has demonstrated amazing OS culture. I can't wait to see what the same company that gave us VSCode is able to build on top of Blink, and eventually separate from Blink. Ironically enough, the worst thing that could have happened to Google's search dominance is have Blink win the "browser engine wars": we all agree Blink is the way to go now, so we can all start shipping browsers that at minimum are just as good, and won't auto-log you in, or have their engine set to default, or etc. etc. etc.

<comment><USER47> > I can't wait to see what the same company that gave us VSCode is able to > build on top of Blink, and eventually separate from Blink.

The situation here is very different from WebKit and Blink. Google was already the plurality contributor to WebKit at the time of the fork. By contrast, Microsoft has contributed virtually nothing to Blink, and they intend to be identical to upstream Chromium. Microsoft is not going to fork Blink.

Blink is completely controlled by Google. (98% of Blink patches are reviewed by a Google employee.) This means that Google has complete control over the direction of the Web platform. While Google may not be able to set the default search engine in Edge, it has and will exert more subtle influence on the Web as a _platform_ in ways that benefit Google. (Just to name one example, Chromium has deployed whitelists of Google properties for NaCl support.)

<comment><USER46> "Subtle control of the web platform" is strictly better than the explicit control of the web platform and the web browser space the currently enjoy. Microsoft's IE and Edge _together_ currently have just 10% market share, compared to Chrome's ~70%. Step 1 to winning back a meaningful amount of control over the web platform is making a browser people actually use. And if in the meanwhile you can win other important battles? Amazing!

I feel people don't analyze this move realistically in the current context, but instead compare it to some imagined magical alternative where we snap our fingers and have a fresh new viable competitor or people just decide to switch away from a browser most people _like_.

Regarding the specific example you gave, I'm fairly certain Microdift's wrapped Chromium can exclude participation to those lists. And frankly I'd be surprised if they didn't. Microsoft didn't sign on Google as an OEM provider of a browser for their OS, they are building their own browser on top of Google's engine. Im not super worried about Microsoft being bullied, they're probably the best suited to do something like this in a defensible way.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> Why? Because the W3C is a factory the never stops churning out specs.

It's quite telling that even Microsoft was not able to keep-up with the complexity and decided to piggy-back on the biggest investor.

If we want less mono-culture, the first thing to do is to bring the complexity down to something manageable.

</comment><comment><USER49> I'm not sure this changes as much as people keep saying. Microsoft isn't completely abandoning browser development, and it will still have (sometimes strong) opinions on the development of the web.

The conversation though will shift from conversations in external organizations between stakeholders, to conversations in a shared codebase between stakeholders.

In some cases this could be better, as it means we will have fewer occurrences where there's agreement on a feature, but implementation lags in 1 browser. Instead, adoption of many features should now be quicker, while debate about larger or more controversial features will still exist.

</comment><comment><USER50> Meh. I don't buy it.

First of all, individual boycotts will never, ever overcome a collective action problem, so a fundamentally futile solution is being proposed here.

Plus, this is only bad if Google act destructively evil and no one steps in to change it. If the endgame is control of Chromium being passed from Google to a neutral foundation -- which I suspect it will be -- then everyone wins.

It's always seemed inevitable to me that one browser engine will win out. This is the way of all web technologies. Should we go back to competing variants of (proto-)JavaScript to prevent web monoculture, too?

<comment><USER47> > If the endgame is control of Chromium being passed from Google to a neutral > foundation -- which I suspect it will be -- then everyone wins.

There is _zero_ chance of that happening. Like all public companies, Google acts in its own self-interest. Google controls Chromium, and there is absolutely no benefit to Google to hand control of Chromium over to an outside entity. 98% of all patches to Blink are reviewed by a Google employee.

If establishing a foundation were going to happen, then it would have happened when Apple and Google were still collaborating on WebKit.

<comment><USER51> I wouldn't say the chance is _exactly_ zero - if Google's monopolistic behaviour surrounding Chrome (the "install our browser!" nags on their web properties come to mind) get too egregious, they may be forced to divest via antitrust law.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I know there is a lot of hate for Safari on HN ( Still don't understand why )

But I wish Microsoft worked with Apple and bring Safari / WebKit to Windows, and invest in Webkit instead.

( Blink and Webkit are now pretty much different Engine )

<comment><USER52> In the distant past, Safari was officially available for Windows.

</comment></comment><comment><USER53> Can I question the orthodoxy on this one?

Suppose WebKit or Blink are the one engine that everyone uses. Do you know how much uncertainty and effort that will save around the world that goes into browser compatibility and quirks? Look at the x86 architecture or POSIX as well.

Here is my serious practical question: this is open source, so if you want to make some extension, you should be able to distribute it. And if it becomes so popular as to be merged into the core, or included with the main distribution, then it will be.

It seems on balance, this would be a good thing.

<comment> ben-schaaf x86 and POSIX are actually great comparisons to the current state of browsers. They all have well defined standards that everyone should follow in theory. In practice CPUs have bugs[0] that kernels and applications make a lot of effort to work around. There are also enough implementation/non-compliance quirks in POSIX[1][2] implementations to matter when porting. Just like all of the web standards, x86 and POSIX don't solve the compatibility problems that come from innovation.

[0] [https://wiki.osdev.org/CPU_Bugs](https://wiki.osdev.org/CPU_Bugs)

[1] [https://personal.opengroup.org/~ajosey/tr28-07-2003.txt](https://personal.opengroup.org/~ajosey/tr28-07-2003.txt)

[2] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Standard_Base](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Standard_Base)

</comment></comment><comment><USER54> I think Microsoft just wants to give up on the browser market/share/innovation (for business reasons ofcourse </snark>). They just needed to have a default browser installed on their system and hence just wants to rebrand chromium and drop it in their default installation.

If they really cared, they could have adopted Gecko/Spidermonkey atleast.

</comment><comment><USER55> Author starts by saying NDAs are useless, and he keeps secrets better without them... Then in the right next sentence, he shares how he learnt about a big secret from a friend at Microsoft without any NDA!

</comment><comment><USER56> The biggest mistake we've ever made is not realising that Google used to be called.. SkyNet.

Just my two cents

</comment><comment><USER57> People keep telling me that Firefox is super fast!

But it's slower than Chrome and my laptop runs hotter.

Sorry.

</comment><comment><USER58> I find it kind of hilarious that people seem to think the solution to the Chrome monoculture is them personally switching to Firefox and then writing a blog post / comment / tweet about it. It's like saying we need to get serious about climate change, so you're going to start cycling to work, and encourage your friends to do the same. If that salves your conscience, then great, but your individual actions are statistically irrelevant.

There are systemic trends and market forces at play here involving _billions_ of people. And nowhere amongst the significant forces and trends will you find "there are insufficient nerds evangelising Firefox". Hacker News can upvote as many as these kinds of articles as it likes, but Chrome's market share will continue to grow until there is something far more substantial to stop it than philosophical objections by tech insiders.

<comment><USER59> So when MS controller the browsers we threw our arms in the air. But when google controls it we just sit here and go meh?

<comment><USER60> How does the next default Windows browser being forked from Chromium mean Google controls it?

You know what open-source is, right?

People threw their arms in the air because IE was substantially behind other browsers in stability and capabilities, and all their new features were IE- specific APIs that didn't work anywhere else.

Chromium is an open-source project that largely follows IETF/W3C/ECMA standards.

The two are not even remotely comparable.

<comment><USER61> It's great that it follows all these standards, but the browser (due to recent changes) and the company behind it doesn't seem to follow some necessary ethical standards.

<comment><USER60> It's open source, the recent changes you mention (which I'm not aware of, a reference to these changes would be nice) can be reverted and the ethics of the company behind it aren't really relevant because it's an open-source project, the only way Google really benefits from it's use is if they receive contributions back to the Chromium project, which also benefits everyone else.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> I'm not going to use Firefox for development and I'm not going to install Firefox for my family members, simply because Chrome is better for both scenarios. Firefox is pretty good, but Chrome is just better.

Instead, I send Mozilla some money every month (a small amount), because I still care that Firefox continues to be developed.

<comment><USER31> What would Mozilla have to do to make their browser better than Chrome?

<comment><USER62> For me, as a developer, it boils down to the Web Dev Tools (Elements, Console, Network panels), which keep getting better and better.

For my family, Chrome is on desktop and their phones, everything synchronized. Chrome autoupdates without bothering them. Chrome is simple and it just works for them, and everything works in Chrome.

Please don't downvote me, I've been supporting Mozilla with monthly donations for years, and after Edge switches to Chromium, I'll probably increase the amount ;-) And I invite more of us to do the same. :-)

<comment><USER31> All of those things are available on Firefox, which is why I asked. There are a diminishing number of features not available to Firefox users at this point.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER63> What I would like to see is some kind of "white-list" browser - I think it's our best chance to keep an ad-free environment. Maybe it is a bad idea in general to allow a remote page write pixels to your screen: images, videos, text and now applications

It is nice that the web is open (at least reasonably), but maybe raw JS, HTML and CSS is too general? The most valuable webpages have simple designs and are liked because of their content, like

      - wikipedia.org
      - <USER3>
      - stackoverflow.com
      - maps.google.com
      - ...

These pages could implement

      - Knowledge-Base
      - Topic-Comment-Community
      - Answer-Response-Community
      - Interactive-GIS

specifications, that obviously do not exist. E.g. if a newspaper implements a hypothetical "Newspaper-Specification" it would have to provide original, sourced content containing text, images, audio and video via some API (which is often already the case when single page apps fetch content client-side via e.g. JSON). There would be no _visual_ difference between reading "The Guardian" vs. "USA Today" or browsing "OpenStreetMap" vs "Google Maps" as content would be _rendered_ on the client.

<comment><USER64> >Maybe it is a bad idea in general to allow a remote page write pixels to your screen: images, videos, text and now applications

Computers have been doing this since the 60s, at least, in some form or another. I don't think you want to live in a world where the very idea of networks is considered harmful. Where all of the software you consume has to be loaded from physical media and the internet and any network connected device just doesn't exist. You couldn't even have _cellphones._

We don't need a "whitelist" browser - you simply choosing not to visit sites you don't want to visit is already a sufficient whitelist. Having "specifications" that websites and authors would have to enforce based on content would make the web less free.

Websites are software. Software authors have the right and the freedom to write whatever they like, any way they choose, up to and including the UI. The Guardian being able to make their own decisions about how to implement the web versions of a "newspaper" \- including design choices which might differentiate them from USA Today, is part and parcel the same sort of freedom that any author of any work, software, literary, music, what have you, enjoys. That HTML, CSS and JS don't step over the line from describing content to making editorial decisions about content is a feature, not a bug.

<comment><USER63> Maybe I have expressed myself unclear, but I don't want to advocate against networked software and loading resources over a network in general. I would like to have a more "typed" API to networking services (including web-pages) that provides sufficient information to render the application on my client - the term "whitelist" may indeed be a sub-optimal term.

> Having "specifications" that websites and authors would have to enforce > based on content would make the web less free.

We already have enforced specifications (HTML, HTTP, TCP, ...) and they _did_ make the web free, as you could and can participate, when you implement these specifications (at least to a sufficient degree). However we could go further and provide specifications for more high-level tasks.

Consider the problem of going from A to B via public transport. Cities with a working public transport infrastructure normally provide a webpage that allows you to search for routes and reporting journey time, cost and additional information. However these webpages are more or less convenient to use and every transportation provider has to implement its own shitty webpage. Hypothetically it could implement an API that provides this information and the "Browser" has its builtin GUI (configurable by the user) to access this information.

> Software authors have the right and the freedom to write whatever they like, > any way they choose, up to and including the UI.

I am more talking about users who should have the possibility to access the information they seek in an uncluttered way. And we can keep stuff like <canvas>, so you are still able to draw your pixels.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER60> Honestly I just see all this, even despite the author claiming taking time to "mull it over", as a knee-jerk reaction. There is little evidence that MS changing to Blink/V8 will have any tangible impact on the web.

Microsoft has hardly offered much as far as competition and diversity goes since IE6, basically the only web "innovations" they're responsible for is a bunch of IE-specific APIs that didn't work in any other browser.

The garbage rhetoric that Mozilla and their supporters have been spreading is pure FUD:

> By adopting Chromium, Microsoft hands over control of even more of online > life to Google.

MS' new default browser being based on Chromium does not give any additional control of online life to Google. They're open-source projects that, while Google manages, does not have absolute control over the consumption of. If Google did ever try to muscle control on Chromium like they've been doing with Android, Microsoft could simply fork it without the hostile Google changes.

If anything I see this whole thing being beneficial for the web in the long run - now instead of MS engineers pissing their time and effort down the drain on a dead browser and needlessly fragmenting the market with engine differences, even if people don't use the default Windows browser Microsoft's engineers can contribute to and benefit the web by contributing their improvements upstream to the Chromium/Blink/V8 projects.

<comment><USER65> The problem is this: HTML (+CSS) is supposed to be a standardized and recommendable format for publishing rich text with the expectation that it can be rendered for a long time to come. But if only a single browser will be able to display it, this not only questions the longevity claim, but also questions the whole web stack. New CSS specs can't be reviewed and proven with independent implementations, and web specs will, even more so than they already do, become "whatever Chrome does".

This is a terrible and fatal result for the web as we know it. Because why would we continue the practice of creating baroque, power-inefficient web frontends with JavaScript and the browser stack monstrosity when we're essentially targetting a single browser? We could as well use a much leaner and lighter GUI framework designed for the purpose, and a saner language.

What did we really expect from the way so-called web standards are created? WHATWG (who write the HTML5 specs and call this a "standard") pride themselves in creating a "living standard" where nothing ever is locked down, and ECMA has put itself up to creating yearly JavaScript updates (after the language has stagnated for 15 years). W3C creates an enormous amount of CSS specs and has said goodbye to versions/levels and profiles a long time ago. The result is that there is no reasonable spec as an implementation target for browser development. Those in the game have closed the door behind them.

Firefox has, unfortunately, a shrinking user base, is financially dependent on Google, and might suffer from problematic incentives in the future.

The web is in tatters.

<comment><USER60> > But if only a single browser will be able to display it, this not only > questions the longevity claim, but also questions the whole web stack. New > CSS specs can't be reviewed and proven with independent implementations, and > web specs will, even more so than they already do, become "whatever Chrome > does".

Safari and Konqueror still use WebKit, Firefox still uses Gecko, so not "only a single browser will be able to display it", but multiple maintained browsers using 3 different implementations will still be able to display it. Additionally, even in that worst-case scenario of Chromium/Blink/V8 becoming the de-facto implementation and making standards irrelevant, it wouldn't be "whatever Chrome does", but "whatever Chromium does". Being in that situation Chromium would be in use by everyone, so if anything that only places more power in the hands of the community because Chromium is an open-source project. Why should every browser have their own competing (and often incompatible) implementations of each standard to the detriment of the web? How is that more beneficial than browser developers all collaborating on a common, shared implementation? Very rarely have implementation-specific differences between browsers benefited the web, generally such differences will either remain implementation-specific and become redundant (e.g. all the IE-only APIs) or are experimental implementations of a standard that's only in draft state and will be updated to be consistent once the relevant standard is finalised, in both cases they're just neat toys for developers to play with that aren't practical to employ in production (because they'll only work for a fraction of viewers).

> This is a terrible and fatal result for the web as we know it. Because why > would we continue the practice of creating baroque, power-inefficient web > frontends with JavaScript and the browser stack monstrosity when we're > essentially targetting a single browser? We could as well use a much leaner > and lighter GUI framework designed for the purpose, and a saner language.

This is a fantastic and wonderful result for the web as we know it. With less implementations to support, the web would be substantially faster and more efficient. Because why would we want to load our asset bundles with megabytes of polyfills and shims just so things don't explode on the odd chance someone tries to view your website in the default browser of their OS that's either outdated or poorly implements specs?

If every major browser ran Blink/Webkit + V8, the web could be written once in native ES2018 javascript and consistently execute anywhere. This is not the case today because implementations behave differently, you can't write a webapp purely following the established specs because the specs are inconsistently implemented. For example `navigator.mediaDevices` API works differently across browsers, some browsers support-sub features that others don't etc. This ends up requiring checks and work-arounds that waste processing power to execute and human resources to implement.

<comment><USER65> Making some WebKit derivative the de-facto engine would be very short-sighted. There will come a time, maybe in a distant future, when we need to get rid of C and our whole approach to mobile O/Ss, CMOS, and everything else. In any case, the situation we have now -- that of the web getting out-of-hand -- is what WHATWG, W3C, and co. should have avoided. They totally fubar'd it instead, so the world has to move to something else. HTML is a means to an end, not an end in itself. HTML hasn't changed much since the beginning, although it has been supplanted with the disgrace that is CSS and JavaScript. Can you seriously recommend to write a dissertation, a school book, a law text, a contract, or anything that matters in HTML at this point?

<comment><USER66> WebKit isn't written in C, but in C++.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER67> Why is this such big news? No-one I know uses Edge as their daily browser. Based on the Google Analytics data of the various apps I work on, the usage for Edge is so small that it is basically irrelevant. If we are concerned about a lack of browser diversity, why weren't more people using Edge to being with? Or is it all the people who are now chanting "Use Firefox" are the ones who used Edge and feel cheated somehow?

<comment><USER68> It's not about the browser, it's about browser engines. Edge will still exist, but EdgeHTML will not. We're down from four major browser engines to three, with one clearly dominating the market.

</comment></comment><comment><USER69> OT, but I was and am still pretty steamed that Mozilla spearheaded the effort to deprecate WebSQL back in 2010 [1], while providing a replacement that left many disappointed [2] (see comments in both threads universally deriding the decision).

The idea was that javascript libraries would be created that would replicate SQLite in the browser (albeit horribly inefficiently with terrible APIs compared to shipped-with-the-browser native C implementation that is SQLite).

Anyway, now that Firefox has become less relevant than ever with Microsoft's adoption of Chrome, I wonder if there's any chance that WebSQL will live on despite its deprecation? After all, it's still available in Chrome and Safari, which dominate the browser market.

IndexedDB is fine if NoSQL is how you store your data, but an absolute PoS if you want to work _efficiently_ in a relational model with joins, grouping, etc.

Such a shame, every server-side language under the sun compiles to javascript now; imagine being able to share SQL statements between client and server; being able to aggregate data, count & sum with reckless abandon. Instead we have to do it all by hand in javascript, such a step backward [3]

/rant

[3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9978540](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9978540)

[1] [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/06/beyond-html5-database- apis...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/06/beyond-html5-database-apis-and-the- road-to-indexeddb/)

[2] [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/06/comparing-indexeddb-and- we...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2010/06/comparing-indexeddb-and-webdatabase/)

<comment><USER70> You couldn't share SQL statements between the backend and the frontend. It's for the same reason it was shot down: SQL implementations are incredibly varied.

<comment><USER69> Limited to a certain subset you most definitely could use the same statements (obviously not CTEs and the like).

Ideally you'd have a translation layer, so instead of writing error prone string-y SQL, you'd have a type safe DSL in the vein of LINQ to SQL, Esqueleto, Slick, Quill, etc. that generates approriate SQL based on the target driver. That way you write the same query once, with the same model, and dispense with the inefficient square wheel that is IndexedDB + javascript.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER71> Did we really need the stupid viewpoint on non-disclosure agreements? Like cmon, don't take it too personally that a company might want to try and cover its own arse when giving you access to sensitive information.

It still shouldn't change your character with regards keeping secrets so why does it matter?</comment>


Learning Rust with Entirely Too Many Linked Lists - <AUTHOR> http://cglab.ca/~abeinges/blah/too-many-lists/book/

<comment><USER2> Alexis isn't exaggerating about the frequency with which this question is asked in the context of Rust (I blame C), so I'm super psyched to have such a definitive and comprehensive resource to answer this question once and for all!</comment>


Ask HN: How to get first 1,000 users? - <AUTHOR>

We recently build a small platform for coupons and deals, so that every user can create a coupon or a deal and can share it on their or someone else's website.
We are now in a process of getting users, so we want to know:
What was your strategy for getting first 1,000 users?
BTW you can find our platform at www.smart-ad.com <comment><USER2> I think strategy/tactics for getting initial users depends on what you're selling and who you're selling to.

Best advice I can give would be to figure out who needs this the most, find someone like that in your area, and start a dialogue with them. 1-on-1 selling definitely isn't scalable, but you can ask them things like 'how do you find out about new services you can use for your business', 'what blogs/news sources do you read', 'who's an influential person in your line of business' etc... Once you have this info it will be obvious (hopefully) where you should be focusing your attention.

Reading up on lean startup methodology (if you haven't already) would help get you up to speed on this sort of process. Good luck!

</comment><comment><USER3> Make it easy to sign up, post on reddit, whore it out on facebook, drop it on pinterest.

If what you have is good, bam, 10k users.

If what you have is not appealing, you still get 500 users and plenty of good feedback.

</comment><comment><USER4> Look through these: [http://www.ideaoverload.com/Find-ideas/Finished- ideas/Media-...](http://www.ideaoverload.com/Find-ideas/Finished-ideas/Media- about-sales-marketing/)

</comment><comment><USER5> One suggestion - I'd have a native English speaker polish up the content for you to make it seem a little less halting.

<comment><AUTHOR> Are there any volunteers out here?

<comment><USER6> OK. I took a stab at this. Happy Friday.

I'm not an expert at English grammar or at ad copy (and I don't know anything about your product beyond the copy on the homepage) but sticking more or less to your original positioning, I'd re-write the copy on the homepage as below. I've added some additional thoughts that are in curly braces {like this}. In case it isn't obvious, those aren't intended to be part of the actual copy, but are comments for you.

Also, for what it is worth, I'd brand this product as "Smart Ad" rather than "Smart AD". In my head, I hear "Smart AD" as three "words": "Smart A D" (i.e., pronouncing the letter A and the letter D) and "Smart Ad" as two words "smart" "ad[vertisement]". I assume that's the connotation you are going for.

\</comment></comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

{ THE BANNER HEADLINE: }

GROW YOUR CUSTOMER LIST BY ADDING COUPONS TO YOUR WEBSITE. Create your own coupons for your website and start building your customer database.

{ Words like "database" and maybe "email" may not seem relevant to your customers. I used "customer list" but I bet you could test or tweak the headline and find some wordings are dramatically more effective than others. When you talk to your customers, try to pick up on the words they use to talk about this. Is it "mailing list"? "customer list"? "email list"? just "customers"? I'd guess that "customer database" isn't something they'd say, but I don't really know that for sure.}

{ Also, I'm not terribly happy with the second line of that banner, but I couldn't come up with anything better off the top of my head. Grammatically, it reads fine to this native English speaker. Maybe "Create coupons for your website and..." would be snappier than using the word "your" twice in quick succession. }

{ THE LEFT COLUMN: }

FEATURED COUPONS { note the "d" at the end of "featured" }

{ THE CENTER COLUMN: }

EASY TO USE

Create your own coupons in just a few clicks using a custom template or one of our professional designs.

{I'll bet so few of your customers will care about the "custom design" option that you could strike that part entirely, or add it as an afterthought. Maybe something like: "Create your own coupons in just a few clicks using one of our professionally designed templates. Prefer to use your own design? You can do that too."}

MOBILE FRIENDLY

Reach your customers anywhere and everywhere. Smart AD coupons work on-line and with the latest tablets, smart-phones and mobile devices.

MEASURABLE RESULTS

Watch your mailing list grow as customers sign up for coupons. Measure the effectiveness of campaigns and perfect your pitch using our on-line marketing toolkit.

{I wrote "our marketing toolkit" because I'd guess the thought of a "statistical tool" would either intimidate or bore many of your customers. I haven't looked at your product itself, so I'm not sure what features the "tool" provides, but if I were you I'd focus the positioning on (a) what it does to help your customers do things they want to do, not _how_, but _what_ and (b) making it look easy/fun/engaging, but still powerful. You want this to feel like an iPad/iPhone: technically impressive, even slightly magical, but easy and intuitive to use. You want your customers to think "I don't know how they do this--all that technical mumbo jumbo confuses me--but they really know what they are doing. It's easy to use, and it works."}

\</comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment></comment><comment>----

So there you go. Maybe someone else on the thread can improve this, or explain to me the parts I'm doing wrong. Above all you're going to want to refine this copy and more broadly, your positioning, based on the language your customers use and the problems they identify. "Best practice" copy might be a good start, but you really can't do this well without talking to your customers or potential customers. (And then probably A/B testing once you have enough traffic to do that.)

PS: One more thing I just noticed while closing the tab I'd opened to your homepage. I'd highly recommend dropping the version number "bullet" from logo area. It doesn't help you reach or communicate with your customers at all, and it probably hurts your attempt to communicate with them. If you must have a version number visible on the page, I'd put it on the footer (or better still, in an HTML comment so users don't see it at all).

<comment><AUTHOR> Hey, thx for writing this down! We are going to do a A/B test and will see the efect.

Thx again. :)

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Your site is too wide. Fix that before you show it to any users.

</comment><comment><USER8> I have no idea if it will help, but there ar some links on chicken and egg problems and community building here: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2126209>

</comment><comment><USER9> content. original content.</comment>


How contributing to open source can help you land your first job - <AUTHOR> https://about.gitlab.com/2018/04/06/contribute-to-open-source-land-jobs/ <comment><AUTHOR> While I definitely see the advantages of contributing to open source, I get the feeling the article overstates the importance in landing you first job. In my case at least, nobody seemed to care about my open source contributions or at least they didn't tell me. Is it really the case that my GitHub / GitLab profile acts as a resume these days? Wouldn't that create kind of a filter bubble for recruiters? Not everyone has time to contribute to open source additionally to their regular work.</comment>


PCID is now a critical performance/security feature on x86 - <AUTHOR> https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mechanical-sympathy/L9mHTbeQLNU <comment><USER2> duplicate of [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16094349](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16094349)</comment>


Frank Talk About Site Outages - <AUTHOR> http://codeascraft.etsy.com/2010/09/17/frank-talk-about-site-outages/

<comment><USER2> Great overview. If I sold on Etsy, I would be more confident that they are proactively striving to reach 100% uptime and quickly addressing actual downtime.

I love the structure of their problem solving references: root cause analysis, time line of event post mortem, single point of failure. And, of course, the fact that they actively measure the real customer experience from multiple places around the world. Customers may not realize it's a local infrastructure problem when they go to Etsy so being able to proactively find and address these issues makes for fewer customer support calls and more satisfied customers.

Kudos to Etsy for the post.

</comment><comment><USER3> Their CTO, Chad Dickerson, seems a standup guy from everything I've read. Used to love his stuff at InfoWorld. (Note, the post does not appear to be from Chad).

</comment><comment><USER4> I'm surprised they've made it this far with multiple single points of failure. It sounds as if they only have one database!

<comment><USER5> We are in the midst of migrating from some vertically partitioned postgres databases (each with a warm standby) into master/master mysql shards.

The PG databases weren't SPOF's in the worst sense of the word. They could fail over, but this isn't as outage-resistant as the new setup. And we did have more than one, but each was still pretty monolithic. So are most databases for most sites before they've grown up completely.

Also, keep in mind that it's pretty easy to code yourself a single point of failure even if your hardware doesn't force it upon you. Working things like that out of a big codebase takes time.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> now imagine having a job where you deal with outages all the time and putting out fires and having to listen to stressed out people all the time...welcome to my world :)</comment>


Ask HN: How is it determined whether or not you can downvote a comment? - <AUTHOR> Take this example
https://postimg.org/image/kxdt7vpbr/
Why can I upvote the more recent comment, but not the parent? <comment><USER2> I guess they are the two oneliners in [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13122834](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13122834)

You can't downvote the top level comments in your submissions. Also, you can't downvote the replies to your comments. (You can't downvote comments after 12 hours.)(Perhaps there are also other cases, I'm not sure.)

<comment><AUTHOR> Thanks! Where did you find that information? It's not in the Guidelines or the FAQs.

<comment><USER2> Mmm... Two much time in HN to recognize patterns and see if they are real or I'm just imagining them.

Sometimes dang makes an announcement of big changes.

<comment><USER3> The Unofficial Hacker News FAQ is useful as well (though I think some of the links to external services such as search and notifications are a bit outdated):

[http://jacquesmattheij.com/the-unofficial-hn- faq](http://jacquesmattheij.com/the-unofficial-hn-faq)</comment></comment></comment></comment>


Mr. Money Mustache's retirement (sort of) plan - <AUTHOR> http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/02/29/mr-money-mustache-the-frugal-guru <comment><USER2> I think many people focus too much on the money and frugality side what Mr Money Mustache says, and not enough on the happiness part. The preconditions for human happiness are fairly constant, but the way we achieve those conditions can be more or less expensive.

For example, we know that people greatly enjoy being in flow. There are many ways to achieve a state of flow. You could do a DHH and get into car racing--- a rich boys sport if ever there was one. Or you could take up bike racing, and drop a few $K a year on a bike (with ancillary health benefits as well). Or you could drop the racing part and ride for pleasure (maybe $2K over ten years; my last bike lasted 18 years). All will achieve the same result, but with vastly different impacts on your wallet. Of course racing is not the only way to get into flow. Dance, programming, other sports, etc. are all options and there are cheaper and more expensive choices within each category.

Similarly, it has been shown we get more long term happiness from experiences than from things. This is a great reason to stop buying stuff and spend money instead on activities. Of course different activities have different costs. You could book an expensive "adventure holiday" or you could just grab your backpack and head out the door. Anyone who has done backpacking on a shoestring budget knows it's great fun.

In my experience all these choices are quite easily substitutable. You can make a conscious decision to choose low cost options and have just as fulfilling and enjoyable a life as someone who spends all their money on the latest gaming rig / sculpted carbon fibre bike / hottest restaurants etc.

<comment> david-given > For example, we know that people greatly enjoy being in flow.

I have no idea what this phrase means. Could you expand?

<comment><USER3> The wikipedia article [1] describes it pretty well. It's a fascinating concept and if you find it interesting I can highly recommend the book Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, by the guy who introduced the concept.

Personally I'd say when it comes to happiness 'flow' is a bit too narrow a concept. Or rather, it's a specific form of 'wu-wei' ("natural action, or in other words, action that does not involve struggle or excessive effort").

A great book on wu-wei which also references the concept of flow is 'Trying Not To Try'. I can _strongly_ recommend this book as well. Especially it's final chapter(s) provided a lot of food for thought.

[1]: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_\(psychology\))

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> I am living frugally in Zurich, moved here for the super-high net-salaries and I am saving 80% of my income ([https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons- why-i-moved-t...](https://medium.com/@iwaninzurich/eight-reasons-why-i-moved- to-switzerland-to-work-in-it-c7ac18af4f90)). I could theoretically retire in 5 years. So that is doable (see advice on how to rent, how to cook etc. on [http://www.earlyretirementextreme.com](http://www.earlyretirementextreme.com)).

If you want to do the same and / or if you are interested in working in Switzerland in IT, just shoot me a mail (see HN profile).

<comment><USER5> Where/how do you invest in CH? Vanguard is much more expensive than in the US.

<comment><USER4> I don't invest anything, I just have a regular coding job.

<comment><USER6> If you don't invest, then you're not going to retire any time soon.

In fact, all your frugal living and saving is critically offset by the potential revenues lost due to a failure to invest.

<comment><USER7> If he claims he can retire in 5 years, then I assume he's done the math for it.

Even a very rosy scenario of 8% compound interest pretax over said 5 years wouldn't change the 5 years to something dramatically smaller.

Besides, not everyone is psychologically equipped to handle market swings -- particularly what we've seen in 2016 so far.

<comment><USER6> Regarding your first point:

According to the graphic in the article, he has a net income of 6200 CHF/mo. He says he saves 80%, that's 5000 CHF/mo, or 60k CHF annually. The graphic says he's 27. I assume he started work at 22. At a constant salary, he will have saved 300k thus far, and will save another 300k in the next five years.

So in five years, he will have accumulated 600k savings in cash. That's not sufficient for early retirement -- not even for MMM, who retired on 600k cash + 200k house. I suppose he could make it happen if he bought an extremely cheap apartment and lived more frugally than MMM, but that does not strike me as having a satisfactory quality of life.

Regarding your second point:

While it is true that investing over the span of 5 years does not significantly change his cash stack, investing matters looking forward: he _definitely_ needs to invest if he plans to retire early on mid six-figure sum.

<comment><USER7> Whether he can retire on 600k would depend on where he chooses to live. Certainly it would be financial suicide to try to do so in the SF Bay Area. You'd likely be able to live quite well in many parts of SE Asia. He may very well be able to afford a decent life in various parts of the world.

Regarding looking forward, one could theoretically just buy an annuity (I don't actually recommend this), or live in a country with a deflationary economy. "Investing" in the most commonly cited way, isn't the only way to provide cash flow from a nest egg and protect against inflation.

I myself run a very conventional asset allocation for my own portfolio. Generally speaking, what you say is prudent advice and is good wisdom. But that doesn't mean that there are other, particular, ways to go about designing one's financial life (sort of like edge cases), and his choices shouldn't automatically be considered nonstarters.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> I thought about MMM earlier today at the grocery store (wondering if we were spending too much), so I was surprised to see him profiled on this week's issue.

In a way, his methods make me feel relieved that a particular income benchmark or the wild growth of a business is not needed to lead a happy/sufficient life, yet I feel anxious because 1) I didn't have the best start (law school debt), 2) I haven't cut down my spending/saved as much as I should.

Just curious, are there any anti-mustachians who 1) bust ass to maximize earnings, 2) have unabated spending habits, 3) believe they are happier to live such a lifestyle?

<comment><USER6> Regarding the last point: one of the most common deathbed regrets is to have worked too hard. An extension can be made for being overly frugal: leading your life hamstering cash is not much fun, and ultimately, pointless.

A common pitfall of frugality is to save money at the expense of your personal happiness. Example: In many companies, people head out to lunch together, grab a sandwich or whatever, eat together, and try to have a social time. That costs about $3300 a year, assuming 220 working days with the price of lunch at $15. That's a pretty large expense, and if you frame it solely in terms of food, probably not worth it for most. MMM would say that you should bring a packed lunch to work. However, I would argue that it is absolutely worth it for most office workers: chances are their jobs are in some way unpleasant, and if they bring a lunch from home, it's only a small step to eating that embarrassing, soggy PB&J in front of the screen, working and missing out on that small break. That can be very demotivating.

Beyond that, I think that some contrarian cases can be built for high-income, high-expense lifestyles. For one, an expensive lifestyle can be a great way to meet other successful people, which may open doors to opportunities. (There's a caveat on this: some kinds of expensive goodies, like vacations to Zermatt or living in a great area, are probably much better investments than buying a $15k handbag.)

Spending money on great experiences while young is also probably worth it. Having had "boring" 20s and 30s is another common regret, and it's quite feasible to prevent that, if you're confident in your earnings potential later on.

<comment><USER4> I disagree. It all boils down to social skills.

I am living frugally in Zurich and I am saving 80% of my income (see post above).

What I do when I want to participate in social meals is this: I just eat my own food before so I am not hungry, and then I just order a drink at the restaurant. My colleagues at work know my lifestyle and accept me the way I am.

If I am eating out with people who don't know me, I just say I am not hungry.

<comment><USER8> How does your girlfriend/wife like this situation of just saving money?

<comment><USER4> She likes that I don't waste money on useless shit like everyone else but rather save such that I can finance studies at Stanford or some other good school for our future kids, if they desire to do so.

Having kids will mean I can't retire in 5 years but maybe in 15 years. In any case I have a heads up compared to everyone else. Having tons of cash on hand and little expenses gives you sort of super-freedoms other people don't have.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> MMM tells you not to drop big bucks on fancy restaurants, SUVs, liquor.

Like I need to be told _that_?

I don't spend on any such thing, track all my expenses, make a good high-tech income, and still spend most of my earnings.

There is something fishy behind this story.

<comment><USER10> I take slight issue with the fact that he made the lion's share of his savings riding the tech bubble of the late 90's.

 _> He got a computer-engineering degree in 1997, and skipped the graduation ceremony to begin working at a company near Ottawa called Newbridge Networks. This was the early upslope of the dot-com boom. He started at forty-one thousand dollars a year, with no savings or possessions except "a bike, a backpack, and a diploma." He made the rookie mistake ("what a clueless young man!!!") of buying a sports car with a loan from his sister. He got his first raise soon afterward, to fifty-seven thousand and six hundred dollars. By the end of year one, he'd saved five thousand dollars. A year later, he had twenty-three thousand. By year five, a quarter of a million._

It's quite apparent that yes, Adeney has done a ton of work to be rigorous enough to have built and to maintain the endowment.

However... it feels like he built this retirement nest egg on a rare period in the markets' history. I'd question how repeatable it is.

<comment><USER11> Is it repeatable, who knows?

But it's a mindset thing too. Do you "give up" and take out the biggest mortgage and car loan you can, or do you act against it and take your destiny into your own hands a bit more.

<comment><USER10> This guy makes most of his money from a dot-com nest egg and the community of people he's built around him that subscribe to his brand of asceticism.

If it brings a person a person emotional comfort to live as the willful anti- consumer, then that's the value in it. But I think it's unkind or deceptive to suggest most people can ride a bike instead of drive a car and suddenly save most of a semi-retirement nest egg in 6-7 years.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> I refuse to be directed by money to such a degree as Mr. Money Moustache seems to be. By putting so much effort into not spending any money you make yourself highly dependent on money, albeit in a negative sense. " _Distinction is perfect continence._ "

</comment><comment><USER9> How does he rely on regular returns on investment of 7% or 4%?

You don't get that on bank accounts; and the stock market too has not given such returns over long-term timespans in the last 15 years.

<comment><USER13> A very simple allocation of 70% stocks and 30% long term treasury bonds has a 6.23% CAGR over the past 15 years.

[https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-asset-class- all...](https://www.portfoliovisualizer.com/backtest-asset-class- allocation?s=y&portfolio3=Custom&portfolio2=Custom&portfolio1=Custom&annualOperation=0&TotalStockMarket1=70&initialAmount=10000&endYear=2015&mode=2&inflationAdjusted=true&annualAdjustment=0&startYear=2000&rebalanceType=1&annualPercentage=0.0&LongTermBond1=30)

<comment><USER9> Thank you. 6.23% before taxes and inflation, less after these.

Is this reliable enough over the long run to retire on?

<comment><USER14> Keep in mind that the period 2000-2015 includes two major recessions. Almost any other fifteen year period will work even better (you can test it on that website). Move the timeframe to 30 years (which is the bare minimum that the early retirement crowd looks at) and it's difficult to find a period with less than 7% returns. Even adjusting for inflation, it's rare to have a 30-year period with less than 4% returns, which is the basis for the 4% Rule mentioned in the article.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER15> Great coverage and love what the guy does but I understand people are annoyed with him. The guy makes around half a million from his online work each year. That excludes ROI of earlier escapades. Yet he is living on some 30K a year. So what is he doing with all that money? Accumulating wealth for the sake of accumulating? Proving you can be rich whilst spending little? As long it makes him happy, but it has always stroke me as odd.

<comment><USER16> The article vaguely mentions a plan of giving it away to charity, which seems reasonable enough to me. If he's just as happy with his current life, why should he feel obligated to spend it?</comment></comment>


EasyOCR for Paperless Office - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@Extrawurst/easy-ocr-for-paperless-office-8c0a3c4962f4 <comment><USER2> I am working on something similar which I will probably open source in the future. It watches a directory for OCR'd PDF files. It has a set of rules files (yaml config) which look for keywords to determine where to put the document, and which dates to use in the name(IE documents from my car dealership have the original date of purchase, I want those documents to use the latest/newest service date, however say documents containing future dates that investments come up, I want to use the oldest or middle date). Has a bunch of regular expressions to capture and parse a vast amount of date formats used in documents. Combined with scanbot for iOS, and a Scansnap document scanner, it works amazingly well and lets my paper shredder get lots of use. I also found that tesseract based OCR gave significantly poorer OCR quality than ABBYY FineReader.

<comment><AUTHOR> Cool, let us know when you open source it. Regarding ABBYY: It seems to be not free so it did not work for my requirements of all tools being free/open. I also found a comparison of both: [http://lib.psnc.pl/Content/358/PSNC_Tesseract-FineReader- rep...](http://lib.psnc.pl/Content/358/PSNC_Tesseract-FineReader-report.pdf) obviously its hard to compare and both have their strengths.

<comment><USER3> I appreciate your focus on open-source here since this feels like a really sensitive security scenario.

I mean, personally, I _love_ the idea of just scanning all of my paper documents into a massive electronic database, but I'd really need to be able to trust the software. If something's closed-source, I'd be worried about everything from spyware to malicious bugs that might intentionally introduce errors (e.g., social-engineering attacks, or simple trolling) to unintentional bugs.

Not that open-source is a magical fix to everything, but it's a vast improvement over closed-source solutions.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> As an aside, I've recently been playing with a CZUR ([https://www.czur.com/](https://www.czur.com/)) ET16 book scanner and I'm reasonably impressed. It is not as nice as a high quality book scanner, but it has the advantage of being cheap and actually obtainable. And it produces decent scans.

The OCR is not too bad, but one of the things I'm going to do once I pop a few other projects off the stack is to see about using tesseract (and possibly custom training for it) on the generated raw TIFF files.

</comment><comment><USER5> I can recommend openpaper[1] for desktop usage. Combines (multi page) scanning, ocr, automatic labeling and search into a nice gui.

If you have a network enabled scanner than can scan straight to an ftp folder, these two server based projects [2][3] offer even more convenience.

[1] [https://openpaper.work/en-us/](https://openpaper.work/en-us/) [2] [https://github.com/the-paperless-project/paperless](https://github.com/the- paperless-project/paperless) [3] [https://www.mayan- edms.com/](https://www.mayan-edms.com/)

</comment><comment><USER6> Any recommendations on scanners? Is the Fujitsu ScanSnap still the best?</comment>


Ask YC: what if I have more than 2 ideas? - <AUTHOR>

Is it good to apply separately or just include in one application?<p>What are the pros and cons of having multiple ideas? <comment><USER2> I enjoyed the process of the application, so I submitted another idea.

Keep them separate if you'd like to elaborate. There is a section in the application about this: "If you had any other ideas you considered applying with, feel free to list them. One may be something we've been waiting for."

I listed a half dozen.

</comment><comment><USER3> There's a textbox on the application where you can list additional ideas. :)</comment>