+ Really good idea to make use of the electricity in other ways than just driving. (generators, lamps, etc.)
+ 10 hours covers up a good day in field.
- a lot of farms are away from electricity sources to charge and sometimes internet connection is non-existent. It is risky to leave a 50k machine on its own to do its job. And what to do if battery runs out on the field?
- how long does it take to recharge? A lot of farmers will not have fast charges on their farm.
> a lot of farms are away from electricity sources to charge
In the US? Not true. The vast majority of US farms have power for one simple reason, they irrigate. It'd be far too expensive to irrigate using a gas pump.
The exception MIGHT be dry farms, but those aren't as common as you might think. Further, most farms have shops for repairs which almost always have power for lights (and heat sometimes).
> And what to do if battery runs out on the field?
Simple, grab a gas generator, run to the tractor, and charge it up enough to hobble it to the shop and to a full charge. You might waste an hour running your generator, but that's really not that big of a deal. Many farmers already have those generators (welding is a big reason why).
A particularly ecologically focused farmer might buy some solar panels to do the same thing :).
> how long does it take to recharge? A lot of farmers will not have fast charges on their farm.
Doesn't really matter, it can charge overnight slowly. So long as the farm has access to 240V they likely can get it charge up in the 14 hours of downtime.
At $50k, this is a particularly cheap tractor as well. I'd suspect that farmers would buy 2 and completely sidestep the charging problem if they wanted to run for more than 10 hours.
Around Saskatchewan at least, a lot of farms only have a single phase provided by a single wire (!). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-wire_earth_return That gets converted by a pole transformer into the normal split-phase residential setup.
I just looked on Google Earth and measured it out; we're only about 1.1 miles from a 3-phase line, so it would be feasible, but likely pretty expensive, to get that run to us.
> - a lot of farms are away from electricity sources to charge
It's actually quite common for farms to have 3 phase power at the least. Modern farming is heavily industrialized. There's all sorts of dryers or blowers or other processing equipment to be run depending on the crop or livestock. Renewables, either self owned or leased land access are a big growth thing too. This means you can be in the boonies of western Kansas and yet be proximate to truly staggering amounts of intermittent generation.
> and sometimes internet connection is non-existent.
It's not great service, but sat internet is pervasive (and yes before the mob shows up starlink is likely to vastly improve this). The main thing this needs is connectivity between the unit and farmer, which is just local wireless.
> It is risky to leave a 50k machine on its own to do its job.
The price isn't a factor in any way I can think of. Any farm bigger than trivial will have several 100 thousand dollars if not millions worth of machinery parked out in the open, and tractor automation has been a big deal for a while now including examples of self driving for simple tasks.
> And what to do if battery runs out on the field?
Probably use the farm truck to haul the portable generator up to it to charge enough to get er back to the barn. Or call the neighbor and ask for a tow. Traditional tractors get stuck all the time. On the scale of problems farmers solve routinely this is very easy.
I think it's probably easy for the audience here to misunderstand what modern farming is like due to unfamiliarity. Farming is high tech now, and farmers are amazing problem solvers. But even historically that was true. Your idealized turn of the century farmer in the US knew how to operate and fix steam engines, pumps, do basic metalwork among many other things. Modern farmers are often skilled builders and fabricators as well.
I grew up on a farm so it was kind of funny reading "A lot of farms don't have access to electricity"
It's weird to read something like that. Every farm in my farming hometown had power nearby. Heck, you'll see power lines all across Idaho primarily for farmers running pumps. You simply don't get more rural than Idaho.
To put things into perspective, this house has power.
Also, farms tend to have three phase HV close by just because that is what is used by the transmission system. And 150v is not suitable for connecting remote properties due to voltage drp from resistance. So there is probably a transformer on a pole close by.
Not covered in the article, but in another demo the company says that they’re going to have a cart for bringing out new batteries and that you can change them out in the field. So if you need more than 10 hours, you can get 2 batteries and have it working 24/7 with minimal downtime.
Hi whizzkid - great questions! Our tractor provides real time alerts and can notify farm operators when the battery is low, if human or obstacle halts operation. Like jmtulloss mentioned, we do have a battery swap cart so you can swap out a battery with one person in under 10 minutes. Standard charge time at 220v is 4-5 hr.
You can find all the specs at monarchtractor.com
>and sometimes internet connection is non-existent.
Starlink might offer a bit of disruption there, particularly once its approved for mobile usage. They might ultimately have an opportunity to offer plans/terminals specifically for situations like this too, dedicated application devices that need small amounts of bandwidth in isolated areas.
I could see farm equipment as a great use case for swappable battery packs. There are loaders readily available for lifting them into place and they could be made easy to access as the equipment does not need to be compact.
Charging overnight + installing solar panels near the fields will solve problem. Of course it’s easier said than done, but changing processes will lead to the solution.
I’ve seen lawn mowers that do that. No solar charging, but it does cut grass in the dark. It’s actually pretty creepy to see the head light pop out from behind a corner.
That sounds awful from a noise perspective. I live across the street from a shopping center, and they tend to do all of their cleaning late at night, to avoid disturbing customers. No care at all for the sleep of neighbors when running leaf blowers at 11 PM.
Wow, and that is really impressive. I'm guessing that means the noise I typically associate with lawnmowers is more the engine than the blades/vacuum. Maybe that means it's time to find my finest nimby-hat and try to get a ban on two-stroke engines implemented here.
I have a 60-volt electric mower, and it's much quieter than the small engine powered mowers I grew up with. Most of the noise is definitely the engine.
It won't. This isn't a problem with autonomy technology, humidity goes up over night. Crops don't harvest as well, ttires lleave bbigger tracks, and other such things mean that farmers check moisture levels before doing any work.
I hope you didn't forget that electric tractors have batteries. You can do amazing things like charge the tractors during the day and then let them run until midnight because they are autonomous. However, it would be far more sensible to just install some wind turbines nearby.
I just checked the link on their website where this screenshot was taken, and it made me smile. They replaced the honest description of the features with politically correct versions. Sad to see that some people still think these shady tactics would increase team productivity in 2020.
One of the few things that are left for end-users to not to switch to Linux is the Office product. I am almost sure that Microsoft is not releasing it on purpose because they are afraid of losing a big chunk of their customers to Linux.
That's a long term losing strategy and I think they're smart enough to know it.
I'm guessing their current response would be "we have Microsoft 365 for the web" which is becoming less and less adequate.
They'll eventually need to decouple the two and sell them independently. At the end of the day, they're a commercial software company - platform wars aren't in their interest.
I think they will hold on as long as they can to release it for Linux.
You are right that they are a commercial software company but they are trying to keep the Windows as "the platform" for enterprise companies otherwise it will be too hard for them to sell everything as a package.
office 365 for web is unfortunately not the same experience.
My father (70) and his cohort will basically only use outlook while my nieces and nephews (~18) when they get into the business world, they're not only unlikely to have any loyalty to outlook and office but they're unlikely to use email as a first tier communication and may not even use traditional word processing packages as a primary method of long form expression.
Nor will they have any of the branding impressions my father's generation had. A chromebook, macbook, or really anything else will be accepted as "alright, I guess I'm using this".
The desktop metaphor is quite stable as is the software. They will be, and arguably have been for ten years, broadly interchangeable.
Microsoft's current positioning is like 1980s IBM. The mainframe strategy worked so long as the people running the business thought they needed mainframes. As they retired out, IBM had to go elsewhere for profits.
And I'd bet the farm Microsoft knows this. They've diversified into video games, source code management, cloud computing, etc seeing this future ahead.
Also this isn't new for them. They're replaying their strategy from 1975-~1990. They never had the better products, they won because they had the better strategy.
Office was a good cash cow, but it's increasingly becoming a harder fit
I worry about the blind-spot the youngest workers may have in this regard.
When I was young and starting out in a corporate job, I also didn't have much loyalty to anything. This wasn't a function of a new age of tech Aquarius, it was simply because I was young and didn't have experience - no basis to form loyalties.
Youngest workers may not realize the value prop of Outlook and Excel fat clients simply because they haven't been hit with requirements that promote or even compel their use, but in the meantime those young workers are never getting highly proficient with the basics of using them. There's a reason more seasoned knowledge workers (not 70yo, but 30-60 for sure) rely on them beyond inertia - broader requirements, favored features, road experience and ubiquity.
Similar angle on your comment about platform loyalty - a young person won't be invested in a platform until they have the experience to recognize the penalties of swapping. Since I mentioned Excel already, keyboard shortcuts in Excel change across platforms. If Excel is considered a given part of your toolbox, this is one of the most aggravating things about swapping OS's periodically: your muscle memory doesn't apply. That's a real hit to productivity. Young people don't recognize this until they develop a skill level that will be impacted by these kinds of changes and are busy enough to not have time to deal with them.
So I wonder sometimes when I hear about that attitude - are they shooting themselves in the foot by not training early on or even having awareness of the potentially more advanced tooling options?
When I start getting into new hobbies I look at the tools the more advanced people use and learn what may (or may not) make them favored - as well as consider new ways of doing things. I also try to start on the better tools even if the learning curve is higher just so I can start racking up XP with them more quickly - so anticipating that a time will come when I too will leverage and appreciate the features, I'll not be starting from scratch. That's worked well.
No, this stuff is irrelevant. There isn't a natural progression.
Pittman shorthand, for instance, was a pretty useful system that only enthusiasts use these days. The most trivial change that axed this was purely social: men learned how to type.
Similarly, business is being done in different ways that will make other old useful tools less applicable.
The march to the grave starts at the crib, sorry about that.
Really interesting perspective. Thanks for sharing. You might be right about new generation’s focus shift. If that is true, an interesting future is waiting for us when it comes to business/work software.
This whole setup doesnt make sense for me.
Flying as a whole is not that comfy even if you are flying first class. Pack + taxi + controls + wait in lounge + wait boarding and etc.
I believe not needing to fly is more luxurious life than flying. If your job requires you to fly, than business class is there just for that purpose :) (company pays)
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ I just finished a mileage run. It made sense for me because I already had the status this year (not from a prior mileage run), which meant I ended up being upgraded on every flight and e.g. flying overnight and showering in airport lounges rather than burning time in hotels. I used it as an opportunity to catch up with old friends in far away places.
Ha I have United Platinum status and I rarely get upgraded to business. My typical flights are international or fully booked coast-to-coast, where being in business would actually be nice to lie down. I almost always end up having to purchase the upgrades outright if prices aren't jacked up.
Really the only value I care about from the status is premier check in desks across star alliance, which isn't that enviable.
More than signifying anything enviable, top airline status basically just means you get a crap ton of extra radiation exposure every year (e.g. SFO to Tokyo is a chest x-ray per hour, 20 microSv, if you didn't know). Really not worth going out of your way to get.
About the radiation - pretty anecdotal, but Arthur “Art” Astrin (rip http://ewh.ieee.org/r6/scv/its/MtgSum/Astrin.html) was responsible for Wireless part of Apple revival product range ~1999 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tj5NNxVwNwQ He spend couple of years flying weekly SF-Shenezhen. Ended up with severe metastatic melanoma. "Incidence of cancer among licenced commercial pilots flying North Atlantic routes" put 10% higher rick of malignant melanoma on frequent flyers.
I'll shill caniupgrade.flights which has info on which flights can be upgraded using various instruments. I need to update it for PlusPoints, but otherwise it's accurate.
Your comment is warranted, but I think I know at least one contributing factor (normally fly around 200K / yr on United)
I'm making up an extreme case to make the point, but let's say the plane's business / first cabin is 100% empty / unbooked, and the economy cabin is full (even overbooked) and the standby list is 30 deep.
Even though UA is reluctant to give out free INT upgrades, if it means they can put 30 more people on that plane and collect the revenue, they'll do it. There's more to it than that, I'm sure there's a heuristic, in fact one day I hope there will be an AMA "I code the conditional logic for airline XYZ's algorithm <for Global Services> <for INT upgrades> <for domestic upgrades>" but until that time, we can only discuss what we've observed and speculate on the rationale.
Me, I'm still wondering why when I'm first on the ugprade list and there are 8 unsold first class seats, why do I have to board (in my economy seat), settle in, unpack and decompress before some gate agent comes waddling down the aisle 30 seconds before the door closes to tell me I've been upgraded. It was clear 30 minutes ago that was the case. First world problems, I know.
No idea then - but it's happened at bag-drop at least twice. Just after I achieved status each time I think so I thought it was a thing they did to make you think it was really worth having achieved it.
I've gotten it once (HND to SFO), so it's not unheard of, it's just not official policy. 24 hours before the flight departs, the upgrade list gets transferred from the online waitlist to the airport, and check-in staff and gate agents have full control at that point (this is why UA doesn't let you use upgrades within a 24 hour window). Occasionally, you can get someone at the airport to put the upgrade through (though I've found it burns goodwill, so don't do it too often).
You won't get upgraded if it's a full flight and most biz seats are paid for, even with GPU. With gold especially unlikely, that will put you in the middle of a usually 50 person waitlist for 3 or 4 available seats.
When I fly from SFO to Canada I get upgraded pretty regularly on gold status. Of course these are domestic first, so while better they still aren’t great.
Most sources seem to put it at 0.1 mSv for a chest x-ray.
The FAA link for a Tokyo to LA 9 hour flight would be about 0.0206 mSv, or approximately 2 chest x-rays for the total flight.
However the FAA research you linked would put a New York to Seattle flight at a total of 0.112 mSv, whereas this CDC link says a trans-continental flight is only at the order of mangnitude of 0.035 mSv...
I think it's one of those things that you have to be "in the know" to understand and experience the benefits, and why a mileage run or other status qualifying event is worth the time and effort. Same reason some folks have no value getting Global Entry, but for a frequent traveler, being saved from one missed flight due to border control time deltas (looking at your YYZ!) makes the $100 fee and the interview worth it.
I don't live on the border so I had to stick with Global Entry, but I totally agree that Nexus is the way to go if you can swing it. I also got the APEC Business Travel Card ($70 addon to Global Entry) that gets you the diplomatic line in ~20 countries while on business travel. Has literally saved me hours in line in Tokyo, Taipei, and Hong Kong.
Agreed. Nexus also bundles access to Global Entry and TSA precheck at no extra cost -- a good investment for $50 over 5 years (works out to $10/yr!).
It's the best deal ever, not only for travel between U.S. and Canada, but also from any other destination to/from U.S. and Canada and within the U.S. and Canada domestically.
I travel regularly from U.S. to Europe and I get full GE and Precheck privileges through Nexus. I usually clear customs in less than 5 minutes as opposed to 1.5 hr line at larger airports like ATL.
I think you're largely right. I derive pretty good value from the programs I'm enrolled in, so a mileage run makes sense to keep doing the things I'd like to do next year at a relative discount.
To each their own. A lay-flat seat is like a mini-vacation strapped onto work trips. I’ve never done a mileage run, but I’ve certainly increased spend on a route (e.g. buy buying a nicer ticket upfront) to hit thresholds because those thresholds are meaningful to me.
Flying up front is vastly different from being in the back, especially on a premium fist product (Lufthansa or ANA in *A, or Cathay, Emirates, Qatar, etc.). I used to fly to India for business and I could always score a first upgrade BLR -> FRA, which meant I could use the LH first class terminal (separate building) during the layover back to the states. 200+ bottles of whisky, a cigar room, an entire leg of jamon iberico, bathtubs where you could grab a bottle of champagne off the wall and drink while you lounged, dedicated customs, and a Porsche to drive you directly to your departing aircraft. I wouldn't pay O(10k) for a ticket, but it's a pretty good time when you can upgrade it.
It seems like there are two divergent characteristics that lead to the differences of opinions on this.
1) Has someone ever flown in a premium class on a non-US carrier?
2) Has someone taken advantage of the end-to-end amenities? E.g. premium lounges, etc.
Personally, first class on American is an order of magnitude worse service than business on ANA or Cathay. So I could see someone saying "What's the point?" if they primarily fly domestics.
Big difference between domestic and international too. United international business class is pretty good (not Cathay, Ana etc first class good but on par with day Cathay business class) lounge and all are pretty up to par I think.
Definitely. Domestic is generally meh. UA Polaris has stepped up their game for sure. Bedding is A+, lie flats in 1-2-1 are better than LH (which is still 2-2-2 or 2-3-2, though if you're stuck on a 2-4-2 772, I'd take the LH flight), and the Polaris lounges offer premium alcohol and decent food. Inflight food and beverages (same liquor as the rest of the plane) aren't as good, and service is still a joke compared to any non-US carrier though.
A lay-flat seat tops out at being slightly less comfortable than sitting in your couch at home. I wouldn’t consider it a vacation-tier experience (unless you count it as a mini-vacation every time you plop yourself down in front of the tv after work).
To each its own, but I will take going surfing or hiking outdoor (what I would call a mini vacation) over being in a unhealthy metallic cage with recycled sick air. It is amazing to me that Airlines marketing is that good that they convinced some people that it's enjoyable to be in a plane. I fly business transpacific all the time for work and I hate it.
I have to fly to go do some of those activities (or for work), and I'd sure as hell be up front with amenities than hugging my knees in the back.
I assume the marketing is really just to convince you they're less terrible than the (at most one) other competitor for the direct route, and aspirational for a bunch of leisure travelers who aren't going to spring for it anyways.
Elsewhere the ride to the airport is a quick cheap train. Electronic boarding so no need to checkin. But even if you do you’ve got a dedicated counter with someone waiting for you. Controls are under 2 minutes. Less than that if you have status you essentially walk through. (Fuck the American tsa those incompetent fools). And lounges overseas at a decent airline are like high end spas or better.
Checkout cathays first class lounge in hk. Or Singapore’s lounge for pps.
Then again, status at airlines that are not American come with some pretty excellent perks that are not found in America.
I’d take a long haul to retain status. The routes I fly and the frequency makes it a necessity. Taking a hot shower the minute you step off a plane before you meet a client is worth every dollar.
While not exactly a mileage run I did pick United over an alternative cheaper flight just to get to the next status tier. I agree flying sucks even in business / first, but if I’m gonna fly (which for sure I’ll have to next year), might as well make it a bit more comfortable.
Learn how to pack and its not a chore. A woman taught me some techniques to optimize packing and space, and ironically other women say its only possible because I am a man.
When you have preauthorization from the government for security the controls are not time consuming, and means less variance in how long you need to get to your plane
So that means much less waiting, but if you wish to wait then you typically have several lounge options to choose from if you desire
And with status you board earlier which also means less drama regarding getting on or whats going to happen to your carryon bag
It requires some finesse but its a much more parallel experience to casual travelers subject to the full stress of air travel
Also with the points you are more frequently booking convenient flights that would otherwise be economically irrational
With Pre-Check, I'm usually through security in the US pretty quickly. But I hate feeling rushed or worrying about being late so I still normally leave plenty of time and, as you say, can usually hang out in a lounge and/or get a meal so it's pretty comfortable.
I worked for a guy once and when we traveled together (pre-9/11) he'd get a cab from our downtown location to the airport planning to arrive 30 minutes or whatever before the flight. Drove me crazy.
> And with status you board earlier which also means less drama regarding getting on or whats going to happen to your carryon bag
But then you have to deal with once-yearly flyers in Zone 72 bashing their rollon over your feet and into your chair.
Personally, I fear the day airlines force me to board first. I'll enjoy the gate while everyone else boards a plane that will depart at the same time for everyone.
Packing can be easy. For example, I roll everything, makes it much easier to tetris them into the bag and they don't come out as wrinkled on the other end, they also compress a little better.
Similarly TSA PreCheck is a must, yes, I hate effectively paying a bribe to bypass the security theatre, but I also hate dealing with getting undressed at the checkpoint - the fact is, the security theatre exists to keep the infrequently flying public feeling safe - and if that results in more relaxed travelers, that also makes my life better.
I mostly focus on Hotel Status over airlines, thats gonna change, I'll likely try for status this year or next at American.
I don't find hotel status buys me a huge amount. I prioritize Marriott all other things being equal and I probably get upgraded more than the average joe as a result. But I don't find perks like lounges that big a deal and often stay in suite hotels anyway where they don't even exist.
I'd rather stay in a convenient location than do unnatural acts to stay with a specific chain. There also tend to be much bigger cost differences among hotels than airlines.
Hotel status doesn't do much, in isolation. Late checkouts and more reliable room upgrades aren't much incentive. They also let you accumulate points faster for... drumroll... more hotel stays and status chasing!
The thing I do like about Hotel rewards programs are that:
They are more likely to let you transfer your points to other services such as airlines
The points themselves can get your rooms at the tier exchange rates that are totally decoupled from dollars
And you still get progress towards your next status even while using the points. Something that airlines do not do.
Sometimes the status can be matched between other services. I like the MGM Resorts status match with Hyatt.
One thing I found out recently is that at some airports, pre-check has hours, and it can be somewhat hard to figure out when your leaving, and annoying that you have to. Found that out recently when I had a evening flight leaving from las vegas :/
Does anyone know how accurate their warning about swap space on an SSD is? I know SSDs have limited reads and writes and swapping to them obviously uses those limited reads/writes, but how much of a concern actually is it? Especially if you're only using swap during the compile/deploy step?
As soon as you hit some kind of limit it will abort the process and output the error. So you will be notified about it and it wont go unnoticed. And if you only use it during compile and deploy then you are at no risk :)
Interesting article but title is pretty bad. Amount of users have risen for these kind of phones not because they are the new iPhones, but because pay-gap between countries have stood same while technology reached all over the world. Everyone wants to chat and send pictures of loved ones to each other, but while someone is earning 4-5 thousand dollars a month, another one is earning 80 dollars a month. Companies know this and try to make the best possible device possible for the situation.
There is only one justified reason for phone companies to check if you are using your phone as a router, and that is when they provide unlimited data to your contract. Unlimited data is provided given that you are going to use it on your personal devices and not to act as an ISP to everyone around you. Other than that you generally pay for X GB of data and it is none of their business how you spend it.
I would not disagree :) and i think they came up with unlimited data plans just to label bytes in the future. And they are already doing that. You can already buy a plan with 10gb Facebook + 10gb whatever you want. Makes me sad.
A byte you will certainly use is much more expensive than a byte you are unlikely to use. If we mandated a single price it would get more expensive for non-tetherers.
A byte for your use is not the same as a byte for someone else's use. Setting up a hot spot for other people could be viewed as reselling the service (even if you don't charge for it).
It's still creating restrictions that go against the "natural" behavior of the medium. That's why they need sophisticated tech solutions to enforce it - it's not natural to label bytes, it's not natural to even talk about using the connection yourself vs. reselling the service.
Copyright laws are restrictions that go against the "natural" behavior of any digital medium. Yet we still imple,ent and enforce them. That's what restrictions are, a way to turn ugly reality into a situation that's more felicitous for everyone.
Yup. That's why copyright laws ended up being a total dumpster fire. They're a desperate attempt at making digital data behave as if it were Gutenberg-era books. Not only they fight uphill against the medium, but by refusing to be grounded in reality, they opened themselves to abuse - and thus became captured by the rent-seekers from various industries.
If they're going to offer "unlimited data", then they should give exactly that. If you want to share it with the whole neighborhood, that's your business. If that's a technical problem for them, then they shouldn't be offering "unlimited data" in the first place.
But this is cartel behavior. Apple and Google are acting against their customer's interest to appease a 3rd party. The DoJ should get on this ASAP. Let's hope enough people get on board with EW's plans to break these guys up and regulate them.
If someone advertises "unlimited data" I expect unlimited data. The way they usually avoid abuse is by capping high-speed (3G or more) transfer to only some amount (e.g. 10GB/month), after that you get a "slow" connection... but even that should be clearly stated in the advertisement.
Here in the UK Ofcom (governing body over communications) are pretty strict with what you can adversise. For home broadband, providers have to give realisic numbers to prospective customers - not just an "up-to". For mobile, they have to be transparent in what they provide. So unlimited data, is just that, unlimited. End of last year there was an investigation opened against two providers due to throttling and limiting tethering data (domestically, still have roaming restricitions) when under an unlimited plan. They both agreed to remove the limits as they would both likely have to change their advertised plans if they didnt.
I used to do consulting for an international telecom....
One telco customer did not have tethering limitations in their customer contract agreements, so this one end users customer bought a number of devices, and then would resell internet service in local rural areas using his devices as backhaul. This one customer and his dozens of "ISP" devices were doing gigabytes and gigabytes of data per month, using approximately 80% of this whole carrier's data capacity.
Touch screen is almost essential for navigation functionality. It makes life easier in car while not driving as well. I think what manufacturers should focus on is to implement touch screen functions on the driver side as physical controls. This way driver does not need to reach for the screen.
It is funny how my browser preferences has changed over last 5 years.
2014 me as a developer had Chrome as number 1 browser for both development and all rest. Firefox once a month just to check cross browser compatibility. And Safari was just installed without me using it.
2019 me uses Safari for everything except development. Excellent power consumption and UX. Firefox for development. And lastly Chrome for all web apps that only work on Chrome. ( Google Meet etc. )
I feel much much better that I am not dependent on chrome.
It’s nice to see a bit of Safari love around here. Some sites occasionally break, but I really like the macOS/iOS integrations. SMS code autofill on desktop Safari (via Mac <-> iPhone communication) is pretty awesome.
It’s nice to see a bit of Safari love around here.
The one thing I cannot stand is that fucking URL/search bar (I detest these things in general, but Safari has the worst implementation). Most implementations (e.g. Firefox and Chrome) will encode the space and go on their way, meanwhile Safari translates a space into a search unconditionally — because clearly I want my wikipedia viewing history to end up in my search history FFS. I'm also not a fan of view source opening in a dev tools frame versus a new tab/window like Chrome and Firefox.
Speaking of the dev tools, I was just poking around and saw this in the console:
Interesting as I'm running uBlock Origin (which is, admittedly, more neutered on Safari). I know I've disabled that prefetching before, but I no longer see any options to turn it off. Speaking of UBO, Safari loves to claim UBO will increase energy consumption and slow down my browsing (HA). I wonder if the "disable plugins to save energy" option means that Safari will kill uBlock whenever it feels like. :/
>If they already have your phone, you're already pwned.
No, that's not what GP means. If the attacker manages to get malware on the Mac, for example by exploiting a browser 0day, then the attacker can simply circumvent the 2FA by making the Mac fetch the 2FA code. The user won't notice it.
Or just remote drive your session. Token exfiltration isn't required if you can do XSS or say script injection via browser extensions (and exfiltration is more likely to hit anomaly/fraud detection)
I noticed this the other day and was very pleased.
Also, if you have touchID then you can use it on safari to autofill login credentials. I just wish safari had an active plugin ecosystem like firefox (or chrome) does.
When my bank sends a login token via SMS, Safari can also copy the token out from iMessage and autofill the value - which is quite convenient, but also a little too much for my preference.
I have mostly switched over to Firefox from Chrome for all work related stuff except for anything Google Drive related (esp. Google "new" Sites - that has resulted in lost data and a failed demo).
So yes Google, Chrome will always likely be running on my system, but in almost exactly the same place IE did 10-15 years ago. Is that something to be proud of?
My preferences haven't changed since 2007 when Chrome didn't even exist. Firefox for everything; Safari once in a while to check browser compatibility; ditto for IE & Chrome; and The Back Button for apps that only work in one browser. It's been a while since I stopped caring about performance and power consumption because I have more performance and battery life than I know what to do with anyway.
I don't regret having stayed with Firefox through the years when Chrome was all the rage. IE6 was the most popular browser in the world when I first tried Firefox, so I know how it feels. Other browsers come and go, but Firefox keeps burning bright.
Personal use aside, I've been meaning to try out firefox for development after seeing some of their release announcements here. Any tips for people like me who are accustomed to chrome devtools? Are there some things you can do in firefox that you can't in chrome, and vice versa?
I do look forward to the chrome devtools release videos, always learn something new.
Firefox in general has much better CSS debugging, and somewhat less good JS debugging. If you’re going to try it out then I’d suggest looking into its grid / flexbox visualisation.
It depends on what you do on a daily basis. There are definitely things you can't do in Firefox - chrome://inspect, for example, which is how a JS dev can debug their Jest tests (though for these workflows you can just pop Chrome or Chromium open for a moment).
Otherwise, Firefox has the better API for add-ons and a more 'open' approach in general, so there are a lot more things you can't do on Chrome that you can in Firefox than vice versa. I have yet to see a decent tree tabs extension for Chrome, for example. (They exist, but none compare to the one available for Firefox).
I work with both and generally they overlap quite a lot for the basic stuff - for general ones, you probably just have to get used to the colours.
I use firefox for dev and browsing but my job requires me to check out chrome more because it's used the most. One thing I find myself using firefox for is the feature of visualising a flexbox which chrome doesn't have.
I only use Chrome on Google. Safari for everything else. Best power usage and better protects privacy. No reason to not let Chrome see me use Google...
I've stayed with Safari for all web browsing mainly due to it's fantastic power consumption. Still use Chrome for development, but I find Safari's UX so compelling I'll still have it open for reference.
I love Vivaldi due to vertical tab bar
But I use Palemoon (Firefox fork with XUL) with Tab Kit for vertical tabs too
I think Vivaldi (based on Chromium) is great for one time browsing (open -> close)
But I got a bunch of sites I visit daily so I got them opened in Palemoon and open them when I need
With another extension you can also unload tabs (manaual or auto, config it as you like) in Palemoon like Vivaldi (called hibernate in V)
I also completely switched to Safari a few years ago mainly for power consumption (how can you all run chrome on battery??), but there isn’t really anything I miss in it these days.
It also integrates very well with my other Apple devices, and works with AppleScripts and keyboard maestro to quickly do complex macros and talk to other apps.
Tell that to the banking and medical sector, in the UK NHS would still be using IE6 and WinXP if not they were hacked a year ago with that ransomware from NSA.
This looks perfect way to solve the current dilemma of choosing a "daily driver", but isn't it convenient to have stored all of passwords or details in profile in one browser or is there a way to keep everything in sync. I definitely would like to give a try to Safari.
Better is a subjective thing, especially when it comes to FOSS. Better when you want to see the source? Sure, if that is your primary need, but for most people that isn't the case.
Most Google apps only just about "work" on Firefox. They're clearly optimised for Chromium and it shows.
I use Firefox for all my browsing needs except for Google apps, for which I keep an install of Vivaldi around. I only really fire up Chrome if some stupid internal workplace app refuses to work on anything else. It truly is the new IE.
Funny, and true at least in the company I'm working for (officially supported browsers are primarily IE11 and optionally Chrome).
A colleague told me a few months ago that Firefox was not supported because it did not support some Windows "policies" (Windows or Active Directory? Not sure, no clue about that stuff) but that Firefox was going to support them soon... .
Firefox 60 was the first release with official Group Policy support [1]. Starting from version 64 you could also configure Firefox for macOS using configuration profiles [2].
Both the ADMX templates for Windows and preference .plist for macOS are available from GitHub [3]. The full list of configurable preferences can be found on SearchFox.org [4].
As of Firefox 67 there are quite a lot of settings that can be managed now. Certainly enough for Firefox to be deployed in enterprise environments.
There was also a really interesting talk at MacADUK 2019 by Mike Kapley on the work Mozilla has done so far to support enterprise deployment [5].
Not quite the same thing and I know it’s not fully rolled out yet, but I enable u2f support in Firefox and haven’t had any issues with my Yubikey... except when I try to add a new Yubikey To my gmail account in Firefox it makes me switch to Chrome because “u2f isn’t supported”.
At least let me try and if it fails I’ll file an issue with FF so they can fix it and improve instead of locking me out with half-truths.
Most of them probably will work on other browsers with user-agent switching. But i do not want to hack it and risk having a problem in middle of my work. They can easily inject something that is only available in chrome and there goes my video conference :)
It seems like it's won't be working on Safari for much longer. Info from 2 days ago "I can confirm that on macOS Catalina Developer Beta 1, uBlock Origin is completely removed as it is not using the MAS distribution method."
Src: https://github.com/el1t/uBlock-Safari/issues/151
This hasn't been updated in over a year (last commit Apr 2018). Personally, I use Wipr from the App Store because it's very cheap. AdGuard is also an option.
It would be nice if right-clicking on links gave an option of opening it in another browser. That would make it easy to stick to a multi-browser setup.
Google should know that they have very little credit left on my side. When I read the this article, I immediately think about the ways on how they can still keep tracking me.
- Check the latest user status after 3 months before deleting user history.
- Compare it with the previous 3 months and update the difference ona separate table that are not facing the end user.
- Scrub location and web history from user facing database.
It saddens me now that all google apps on my mobile phone are no longer allowed to access nothing. I try to only grant access if i really need to. This is how it became unfortunately.
+ 10 hours covers up a good day in field.
- a lot of farms are away from electricity sources to charge and sometimes internet connection is non-existent. It is risky to leave a 50k machine on its own to do its job. And what to do if battery runs out on the field?
- how long does it take to recharge? A lot of farmers will not have fast charges on their farm.