Experiments with browsers etc

[bunn]

Since I got the new laptop, I've been experimenting with using Microsoft Edge, because it's been a long time since I used a Microsoft browser, and it seemed like an idea to spread the distribution of all my personal data across two evil empires rather than just handing over the lot to Google.  (I do have Firefox and Waterfox, but I use them for work, I'd been using Chrome for blogging, social media and random searches.)

Edge actually seems to be OK, although there are a couple of annoying niggles about it which keep surprising me.  Bing, however, the MS searchengine, is really pants compared to Google. I'd forgotten how annoying it was to run searches and find that the engine had misunderstood you and provided results that yes, are technically about The Thing, but not in the way I wanted. 

There is merit to the whole 'sell your soul to Google' thing. OK, it Knows Too Much, but on the other hand, that means that Google can work out that when I want to know when hares were considered inedible in Britain, the academia.edu paper is probably going to trump the hare recipe page. 

Comments

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

I inherited the Spouse's old Windows 10 laptop when he upgraded a couple of years back, my work laptop got upgraded this summer from the ancient Lenovo running Windows 7 to a spiffy new Lenovo with SSD running Windows 10, and I still haven't ever used Edge. Some of this is that Google already owns my soul, and some of it is that I have to live in Chrome and IE for work so I haven't had the inclination to figure out a new browser.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

Having to live in IE is a sad and regrettable state of affairs. I must say at the moment, Edge seems very like Chrome. Except that I keep getting flung out of it because the default search is Bing, and Bing is just discernably crapper enough than Google for that to feel like the weakest link.

[bunn.livejournal.com]

… sounds like Lenovo builds a solid laptop though. Perhaps I should have considered them. Though I am not kind to my laptops, I am lucky if I get 5 years out of them.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

Sadly, both software packages that I support (which are hosted, yay) only work in IE. Bah. And we use SalesForce for incident tracking and that only works in Chrome.

As for laptops, the work laptops have been durable enough but I'm very gentle with them because they don't belong to me. The personal one is ALSO a Lenovo, though, and it's reasonable except that the trackpad has recently decided that there's a very wide margin where it doesn't register taps anymore. But it's years old now, so...

I also have a homebuilt tower that I recently upgraded to Windows 10 from Windows 7 but it doesn't have a dedicated connection to the home network right now -- it has a wireless network card, which is still shrinkwrapped in the box I bought it in, because I haven't installed it yet -- nor does it have a dedicated monitor because my work laptop is hogging the computer desk and the two monitors that live on it, so poor Herman Munster is kind of superfluous at this point.