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Comment by WizzleKake | Hacker News Reader

The incessant rearrangement of the UI is why I switched to Chrome. Each time they change the interface, it is unclear to me what the benefit is to the user.

I was fine with Firefox when it looked like this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mozilla_Firefox_3.5.png

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Speaking of things that don't benefit the user, Chrome is proprietary software (dare I say spyware) that sends your keystrokes to Google. I think Firefox's frequent UI changes pale in comparison.

Turn off search suggestions.

I don't use Chrome, but from what I recall it's not that simple. Better to use Chromium instead of Chrome.

I believe it is that simple. If you can find them sending your keystrokes through any other means, then please download Fiddler and write a blog article with the results of your testing :-)

Fiddler is proprietary software. Just like I won't use Chrome, I won't use Fiddler either.

Are you from /g ? :)

and what phone do you use?

Then use Wireshark then. Sheesh.

Your comment makes it sound like everything I type in Google Chrome is sent to Google. Is this what you meant? If so, do you have a source for this or are you just spreading FUD?

If you have search suggestions enabled, when you type things into the address bar it has to send what you are typing to Google in order to get suggestions. I don't recall if that's on by default.

https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/95656?hl=en

Search suggestions are on by default in Chrome.

When you say "sends your keystrokes to Google", are you referring to the URL bar being also a search bar?

Even when you type "facebook.com" and hit enter (without using search), it still sends "facebook.com" to Google so they know what you typed every time.

That argument doesn't really help the discussion. Except for very sensitive data, usability is generally a bigger factor. And anyway, its not like you have a lot of options to choose from.

Search suggestions do in fact benefit the user, though of course there is a privacy tradeoff.

Yes, I agree. Sometimes it feels like Mozilla recruited a bunch of UI/UX designers and told them "The Firefox UI is all wrong - change it until it's fixed. For inspiration look at Chrome and mobile apps". As though "Actually it works well and users understand it" wasn't an option. It's trend-chasing nonsense.

My Firefox still looks pretty much identical to that (except I use tree-style tabs, I hide the bookmarks toolbar, and I have more extensions installed that add more buttons to toolbar and status bar).

I did like it when firefox shrank the space used at the top of the screen. That was my main reason for switching to chrome (I had a netbook and vertical screen space was valuable), and by the time I became frustrated with chrome and google, Mozilla had improved Firefox in a similar manner and I was able to switch back. I agree with you now though... These UI changes seem like a step back. At best, they are simply arbitrary.

frequent being every 4 years

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