Chrome for commies

It would be nice if all the best software was open source and free. It would be great if everything worked just the way we wanted it to right "out of the box", but sometimes we have to tinker to get things just right.

Of course, there are those of us who love to tinker. Trying out new things, playing with the settings and customizing what we use to get it just right is just as fun as the end result much of the time. The DIY method is very present in the socialist/communist/anarchist/activist community and this translates to software as well.

Once upon a time there was a browser called Rockmelt. RM did almost everything I wanted a browser to do; she came with all the features I love in Chrome (like autocomplete and Google account integration), had much of the same simple interface and worked with all the Chrome extensions. Additionally it had incorporated social media features built right in. You could post, send messages, etc. to Twitter and Facebook without even having to be on those pages.

 RockMelt (32 bit) in Windows 7 Pro (64bit)

For someone like me who is constantly engaged in political discussions as well as sharing articles and videos on Twitter and Facebook RM was a dream come true; the best thing to happen since Flock.

For a while, after the demise of RM I searched for alternatives. This piece is based on that experience. Though I currently use Pale Moon I have spent a lot of time in Chrome as well. 

Some of the concerns that lefties might have could include privacy. Chrome is a Google product and includes integration with their services as well as tracking of data. Another reason that progressives may not choose Chrome is that it isn't open source. Another concern may be security, if you're really paranoid then you might feel you need a browser that specifically address this.

This post isn't meant to be a solution for tracking, privacy issues or security but rather to point towards different choices which may offer solutions for those issues. There is more than just plain Chrome available.

Chromium (open source)

If you enjoy Chrome but want to use open source, this may be your only choice. It's the root of Chrome and based browsers. Though it is BSD, MIT, etc. licensed so this means whoever else modifies the source can make their browser proprietary and may not necessarily contribute any code back to the project. Chromium is available on many different operating systems such as BSD, Linux, Windows, OS X and Android.

SRWare Iron, Epic & Comodo Dragon (privacy/security)

SRWare Iron is basically just a finished product of Chromium without the Google stuff added, so you aren't tracked and collected stats on. However there are some criticisms of the browser, such as the fact that it doesn't offer much that you can't get simply by disabling certain features in Chrome. Also it is supposed to be an open source fork of Chromium but the source code has never been released (though to be fair they aren't obligated to under it's license).

Epic seems to have more favourable reviews and offers the same, if not more, than SRWare Iron. Of course, you will lose out on using extensions and plug-ins, which is a major deal breaker for me since I like to customize.

Comodo Dragon is the only of these three I have actually tried. It focuses on keeping you clear of malicious websites and changes your DNS to use Comodo's own encrypted servers for privacy. Personally I like using OpenDNS or even Google as I find the response time quickest and I've never had anything thrown at me that my anti-virus couldn't handle. They also have a browser called Chromodo which seems have the same focus just with a different UI.

It is also entirely possible to use TOR in Chrome though it is not recommended. You could also consider using a VPN.

Torch (internet suit)

This might be great if you just installed your OS fresh and want to get one package with many features. For example, Torch comes with a built in torrent client. It also comes with many other things pre-installed, such as adblock, it comes with a download accelerator, Hola as a VPN/unblocker, integrates with YouTube and has "share to" buttons to use with social media, among many other features. If you're lazy this can save you time from having to poke around for all the things you might need.

However all of this makes the browser into a resource hog. The torrent client is rather useless for anyone who is really a serious downloader and Hola almost never works the way it's supposed to with services like NetFlix.

Opera

It's a Chromium based browser now, which is a little sad because it was kind of kewl that Opera was it's own unique thing. Personally I never really caught on to using Opera, it's just not for me. If you to like to stay more current than the average end user try Opera Beta. There is also a new fork out that has received praise called Vivaldi started by a former Opera co-founder and CEO.

Others

There is actually a lot Chromium based browsers out there. When I started writing this I thought I had already heard of all of them and tried most of them-- I was wrong. 

Other interesting possibilities you may consider trying include: Maxthon, out of China, which can use either the Trident or Webkit engines and Yandex, a Russian browser... If you remember the internet in the early 2000s you may remember Flashpeak's  SlimBrowser (Trident), which despite it's name is like Internet Explorer on steroids. They now also have a Chromium based browser called SlimJet.

Some iffy choices include: Coowon and PlayFree, for people who like to play browser based games; Beamrise and Orbitium, which seem to want to take the place of Flock and RM as a social media browser; Superbird, another browser that omits sending data to Google and is supposedly faster than Chrome; Browzar, which is basically a portable Chromium based that runs in incognito mode; BlackHawk, another browser claiming to be faster and offering a different UI; Baidu and Project Maelstrom, other internet suites with torrent clients.

I probably have missed a few, so please let me know in the comments if that's the case. I also assume many of these fly-by-nights could be out of development before I even finish typing this. I trust that before you undertake installing any obscure browsers, especially on a Windows machine, you at least have a good anti-virus and firewall installed. I am not associated with any of the browsers I listed and take no responsibility for any malicious results!

Which to avoid

Dudu, which I can only assume lives up to it's name; Citrio, which appears to be a mal/ad/spyware scam and should be avoided at all costs (see also here and here) and Whitehat Aviator, which was found to have security holes (see also here, here, here and here).

What I recommend

There are various reasons why you might choose any of the browsers above, but if you're reading this than the chances are good you are a geek, a techie, or a tinkerer and you want to figure out what is optimal. I will say that the best thing is to go through the process of trying some until you figure out what's for you. But if you want to know what my opinion is I'll tell you: in the end I think Chrome Canary is the best choice if you are using Windows or OS X.

Chrome Canary (32bit) with LCARS theme, viewing American NetFlix with a VPN in Windows 7 (64bit) with LCARS theme

This way you are getting, as they say, "the bleeding edge". It is sort of to Chrome what Nightly is to Firefox. To me Canary is the perfect choice because you are getting something with the latest red-hot features but with the backing of the official Google Chrome development team so you don't have to worry about it disappearing overnight and it's trustworthy (at least as much as Google is). Also, it sets you apart a bit by using something a little more unique than the same old regular Chrome everyone else is using.  

If you are worried about privacy simply disable those features yourself.

If you are using Linux, FreeBSD or just an open source enthusiast using Windows then your best choice is Chromium. You can also find a program to keep it updated in Windows.

Once you have selected one of those two you can start adding the Chrome extensions that you want. If I want fucking Hola I'll add it, if I want drag and drop features I'll add it, If I want to browse anonymously I'll add TOR button and go to incognito mode, etc. An extension that adds the speed dial feature of Opera can be found as well. Search and ye may find.

Why would I want my browser to come with things I don't want? That's just bloat.

I would not recommend the torrent clients that come with any of the suites I mentioned. They are lacking in the features you will want; instead get a nice light and feature rich program like uTorrent. 

I find Hola to be useless and does not deliver on it's promises to either unblock content or speed up browsing. Instead they sell your bandwidth off to enterprise users and put you at risk (see also here). Get a VPN like Spotflux, ProXPN or Expat shield to unblock content instead.

Take the time to explore what options truly work best according to what sort of things you do the most when using a web browser. I'm sure some people reading this will not agree with my final assessment, so please post your opinion in the comments!

Dataclysm: sometimes numbers can give us new insight in sociology

Back in 1984 an organization called the Maoist Internationalist Movement was born. What was unique about MIM to communism was that their theory put forward the idea that people are no longer divided simply by three classes; traditionally the proletarian (workers), petty-bourgeois (middle class) and the bourgeoisie (capitalist ruling class). Instead they laid out a new great divide: the 1st world and the 3rd world. Now instead of looking at a narrow scope of how exploitation works, many communists were forced to expand their view and open their minds to the possbility that things had changed a lot since Marx and Engels' time.

It later came out that one of the main contributors to MIM theory was a man named Henry Park. Park was a sociologist but he also worked in statistics. One of the ways that MIM was able to put forward their hypothesis so successfully and in ways that frustrated those that tried to refute it was by using numbers. Statistics told many Marxists who held onto old ideas undeniable truths through cold hard facts. MIM was also able to use numbers to refute anti-communists as well, such as showing that The Black Book of Communism contains significant mathematical errors.

While MIM is now gone others have picked up where they left off and refined the theory further. There's no doubt that what they left behind was something ground breaking and game changing that could alter the course of history in the communist movement.

Sometimes we need to look outside of the typical political science and economic techniques we use to analyze sociological questions. It's worth taking a fresh look through a new lens every so often to see what we might have missed.

Christian Rudder's 2014 book Dataclysm: Who we are (when we think no one is looking) is interesting because it takes a look at how such means of studying sociological data has now become a mainstream phenomenon. For those of you not familiar, Rudder is founder of the dating site OKCupid (OKC) which uses algorithms based on questions answered by users to match them up making itself different from other dating services.

And of course his field of education is mathematics. 

Rudder was able to mine a treasure trove of data from OKC to find out a lot of things about people and how we can predict a lot of things about who they are based on preferences. He was able to use some data from Twitter and Facebook as well.

Unfortunately for socialists and communist there is not anything really "groundbreaking" in the data that Rudder uncovers. Mostly it just reaffirms much of the things we already know (or at least assume to).

People are closet racists. The fact is that while people would answer otherwise in public the stats tell us that by and large white people don't want to date outside of their "race". People on OKC might answer otherwise, but the way they use the site tells a different story. Whiteness is a poison that infects People of Colour (PoC) as well. While almost everyone on the site shows a preference for their own ethnicity, white people come in as a second choice across the board for all others. Rudder's stats are, however, limited to whites, Latinas/Latinos, Asians and Blacks.

While it turns out that "blind" dates end up turning out good for women 75% and men 85% of the time, racism runs so deep in our society that it even goes beyond site. Rudder cites a study in which visually impaired people were found to end dating relationships once they found out they were seeing a PoC. Rudder also cites an example of how voters will tell pollsters they are voting for a Black candidate out of guilt but will then go to the ballots and elect a white one. (p.127)

Rudder also found that politics matter less in matching a relationship than we might think. Accordingly, the questions "Would you travel alone?" and "Do you like Scary Movies?" matter more to most Americans in the long term than whether or not you are a Democrat or Republican. This, in my view, could largely be tied to the overall privilege that we all enjoy in first world countries. At the end of day our lives are not interrupted by struggle here, at least not significantly, so it is much easier to look passed mainstream political differences than say someone in the third world who's matter of opinion might be life or death.

One's perceived attractiveness by others, as it turns out, is not a huge issue for men. In general "attractive" women tend to have 3 friends for every 2 that attractive men have on Facebook over those deemed less attractive. But the number is much more staggering when it comes to job interview requests. Attractive women are far more likely than their counterparts to receive an interview on shiftgig and this holds true whether the person that selected them was a man or woman, while on the other hand for men looks didn't matter at all. (p.119-120)

How we act online is often different from our behaviour IRL. Rudder gives examples of people flying off the handle at misinterpreted tweets, such as when a 17 year old woman joked that the world is 2,014 years old on new years eve last year. Personally it never ceases to amaze me how much misogyny, sexism, racism and hatred come out of people on the internet whenever these things happen. Other more serious examples of internet based mob justice include misidentification of a Boston bomber suspect by 4Chan and Reddit "gumshoe" trolls.

Some other interesting tidbits:

• Twitter is not actually degrading language; instead of people using contractions they mostly work around the 140 char limitation by using richer words
• Autocomplete might be actually perpetuating stereotypes by suggesting them to people in searches
• Everything from sexuality, drug use and intelligence can be gleaned about people on Facebook by friends and likes with surprising accuracy using algorithm tools

There is a lot of valuable sociological data out there; and we the users of the internet are passively compiling it every single day. What's troubling is that it's mostly private entities like Google, Twitter, Facebook and OKC (at least Rudder admits this himself) that have access to it. By and large, we aren't getting anything other than free use of services in return unless these corporate entities decide to donate it to academics. But the reality is that this information holds a lot of commercial value; so it's likely they won't, at least not until they're ready to.

"... social scientists are very cagey with data sets; ... they treat them like big bags of weed-- possessive, slightly paranoid, always curious who else is holding and how dank that shit is." -- Rudder

Rudder reminds us of how this data can be used nefariously by talking briefly about the scope of PRISM, but also imagine if prospective employers start using algorithm tools to analyze your social media before hiring you; a similar practice is already used by some prisons in the United States to try to filter out guards with possible gang connections by demanding Facebook passwords.

Sometimes the damage is unintentional and removed from human action, like the case of the teenage girl who's pregnancy was outed to her father by Target by data-mining her purchases.

Rudder's book can give us some idea in what direction society is going with the way people are analyzed for both academic and commercial purposes. For socialists we have to figure out how we can use these tools to our advantage, what will be to our disadvantage, how to avoid those disadvantages (perhaps by opting out of certain services, hiding or giving false data) and how this will effect the prospect of socialism in the future.

The book is a fun read, with Rudder laying down some witty and funny remarks here and there to keep things from being dry. Oh, and it's full of pies, charts and graphs so if you are into that kind of thing you'll enjoy it!

--

See also:

• Listen to: Christian Rudder argues Big Data online is changing history - interview on CBC's The Current
• What Christian Rudder knows about me, you and everyone we know - Globe and Mail review
• Article about Rudder in The New Yorker

I would like to introduce you to Pale Moon; versus other browsers (Win32)

For socialists, it's always great to support open source software as much as possible. Not only that, but unique and independent projects. More choice and diversity is almost always better. True, sometimes independent projects are short lived niches that die out, but other times they end up being truly noteworthy.

Pale Moon is a fork of Firefox optimized for Windows operating systems and is now available for Linux, OS X and Android as well. It's been around now since 2009; this is no fly by night browser.

Basically it's Firefox trimmed of the fat and things not normally needed as features for most users. You can still pretty much use all of the Add-ons, Plugins and Extensions you would with normally want with Firefox.

I tested several browsers on my laptop and found PM to be the best choice for me. It may not be the same experience for everyone, so I would suggest going through the same process as I did and try out various browsers to see which one is the right one for you.

Pale Moon is available for Windows in both 32 and 64bit versions.

 Pale Moon with the White Moon theme and Omnibar plugin on Windows 7 (32bit)

One of the first things you will probably notice about PM is it's interface is a little bit different from the latest FF releases and it looks like an older version. That's because the PM developers chose not to go with Australis, a user interface (UI) first implemented to the Nightly version of FF in November of 2013 and later to the official release of v.29 around April, 2014; though many people did not like the changes.

I tested various browsers using each for two weeks (unless it became intolerable) looking for:

• Ad-blocking
• Speed
• Stability
• Memory and CPU usage
• Handling of YouTube / video streaming
• Social Media (Facebook and Twitter)
• Extensions

Browsers I tested: K-Meleon, Chrome Canary, SeaMonkey, Avant Browser, Maxthon, Lunascape, Midori, Sleipnir, Torch Browser, QupZilla and of course Pale Moon.

Machine: Acer Aspire 7720-6335
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate 32bit

 

Ad-blocking

Adblock has always seemed to work just perfect in FF and Pale Moon is no exception, with it's very own Adblock Latitude. While some of the browsers had no ad block available at all, I just couldn't seem to get it to work with K-Meleon. Many of the other browsers came with it pre-installed or built in. Ad-blocking works well in Chrome, but every now and then it seems to slip through in some YouTube videos or stop working on Facebook; a problem I never have gotten in any FF based browsers.

Speed and Stability

I find that Chrome Canary is a bit faster when searching / typing URLs because the autocomplete feature is built right in while with Pale Moon I use the Omnibar plugin for the same effect, which is noticeably slower. Overall browsing the web was not much different on any of the browsers though.

 

Memory and CPU

I found PM to use less memory than all of the browsers, even the so called "light" ones. SeaMonkey and K-Meleon came in second with CC (Chrome Canary) 3rd.

Many of the other browsers were lighter on the CPU usage, with CC and Torch being the heaviest. Though the light weight of the other browsers didn't make up for other shortcomings. 

Another downside to FF (and thus PM) is the old memory leak; this happens when you have several tabs open, but when you close tabs the memory usage is still present. This is usually solved by closing the browser and reopening it, but still this has been around for a very long time (a decade?) and it really should have been taken care of by now. I only ever experience it on rare occasions with PM, however.

Chrome, on the other hand, doesn't do this because each tab runs as a separate process. In theory it would also enable you to simply end that one process if one tab locks up, however in practice my experience is that one process will lock up your entire system anyways.

 

YT / FB / Twitter

I don't recall having any issues with any of the browsers doing my day to day shit, but Torch does come with stuff like "share to Facebook" and tweet buttons, which can be found as extensions for FF (and thus Pale Moon) anyways. Torch comes with too many things you just don't need; I prefer to add things as needed as opposed to installing bloat. I also found Torch's torrent client useless and would recommend μTorrent separately, it's lighter and more versatile.

 

Other Extensions

Aside from adblock, an extension I find extremely useful is MultiFox which allows you to have different accounts open in different tabs. So for example, you could be logged into different Facebook, Google, Yahoo, Twitter, etc. accounts on different tabs at the same time without having to log out. The downside is that it has reacted a bit buggy in my experience depending on what FF you use it in. Currently I'm not using it, but in the past have tested it in Nightly, Waterfox and Pale Moon with various degrees of success. As far as I know nothing like this plugin exists with any other browser. 

You can get Pale Moon Commander, PM's version of Midnight Commander as well as many other Add-ons at the Pale Moon website.

 

Multi engine browsers

Avant and Lunascape both come with the ability to use to use either the Gecko (FF), WebKit (Safari/Chrome) or Trident (Internet Explorer) rendering engines. You can also replicate this with Chrome using IE Tab and Mozilla Gecko Tab.

I personally don't find this useful anymore as I have not come across any websites that Gecko couldn't handle properly in well over a decade, but if you are a developer and want to test out your website it could be useful to have this ability in one browser rather than having to test it in three different browsers. There is versions of IE tab for FF (such as this one) but I have not tested them. You can get extensions such as Open in IE, Open in Chrome and Open in Opera; these require those browsers to be installed and simply will ad a button and/or menu option that will open the page your are viewing in one of those browsers.

 

Conclusion: try out PM!

If you are looking to try a nice optimized browser for Windows give it a shot. You get the advantage of having a Gecko based browser that's compatible with most FF Add-ons. If you prefer the Australis UI and are running a 64bit OS you may prefer Waterfox; if you are still in 32bit (like me) you can always go for Nightly. If you are someone who is used to Chrome and want to try FF you would probably prefer Australis. I personally don't have a huge preference over the UI, I can get used to using either. But there is something both nostalgic and practical I like about the older interface and I like using a browser that has been optimized for my OS.