Comment by kmlx | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kmlx | Hacker News Reader

my situation: i would like to move on from google but can't.

1. google maps is my number 1 maps app. i post reviews, i search for restaurants, i book hotels. basically gmaps is my gateway to the real world.

2. gmail is my number 1 email app. i've got over 10 accounts in there, both corporate and personal. custom labels, filters and haven't gotten spam in a decade.

2. google search still produces the best results. this is because of them knowing everything about me. DDG on the other hand produces horrible results for me; they don't do tracking so it doesn't know anything about me. and i need them to have context.

3. Firefox on macos is... not good to say the least. especially compared to chrome on macos.

any ideas on this? are there any proper blows-your-mind kind of alternatives or am I stuck?

I understand google maps and search.

Email you can replace but it wont be free - both setting up and paying for the service.

Firefox on mac is just fine. I wonder what is so big difference. I work daily with all Firefox, Chrome and Safari - safari is by far worst (except battery drain), chrome / firefox are mostly identical to me. FF has some things i use like containers. Chrome has devtools i am more used too but FF devtools are different and good for some things. I am not sure if chrome is faster maybe its not noticeable to me. What i have noticed if i have many tabs open FF is less memory hungry and more consistent but then again 40 tabs are probably bad habit.

For search, perhaps you just need to spend a little while with DuckDuckGo to learn what you need to type in to get the results you are looking for. If you stay logged into Google, then when you can't find what you're looking for on DDG, add !g to your query and it'll take you to Google. The point is you can switch gradually.

that's a very good suggestion. thank you!

3. I use Firefox all day every day on my mac(s) and have absolutely no problem with it. What problems do you have?

page rendering, js performance, ram usage.

Is your machine very old by any chance? Although, that said, I have no problems on a 2013 MBP.

I still use a 2012 MB Air as my home laptop. I've used Firefox on it forever and have never had a problem.

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