[dwringer]

I wonder if everyone has a different optimum here based on different eyesight, screen size, and usage patterns. I always have a slightly different zoom on every website I visit.

With this one I tend to agree, I can't see enough text at once and the margins seem a bit wide.

[jcynix]

Yeah, the zoom, that almost needs to be customized per website, sigh. But one of the worst misfeatures for old (and maybe not so old) eyes, is the gray text on some "pastel" background. Contrast helps readability (as does a carefully chosen font), but "modern" designers seem to think contrast is bad or outdated or whatever.

[wolpoli]

Well modern designers deliver mockup filled with Lorem Ipsum so no one notices that the text is hard to read.

[bhaak]

> but "modern" designers seem to think contrast is bad or outdated or whatever.

I think much more reasonable is the assumption that many designers have Macs with good monitors and there you can still read it well.

Whereas most people have old or poorly color calibrated monitors where you only get a grey goo.

[jcynix]

I have a state of the art Macbook too, and a good monitor, but I still find light grey text hard to read. Because I have old eyes with suboptimal eyesight.

Anyway, it would be reasonable if designers tested their designs with other people on other hardware, instead of thinking "looks fine for me" … at least that's what I learned about design, user interfaces, etc ;-0

[FrontAid]

> I wonder if everyone has a different optimum here based on different eyesight, screen size, and usage patterns. I always have a slightly different zoom on every website I visit.

I would think so. And because of that, accessibility is an essential topic. Luckily, this snippet will automatically follow your zoom level and/or font size settings.

[mwcampbell]

But it would be better still if browsers offered an opt-in modern default style, to relieve us developers of having to make assumptions about the user's visual needs, which should be the domain of the user agent.

[WorldMaker]

Firefox had that for a long time, hidden in a menu, but discoverable eventually. It also used to have a menu for Alternate Styles when a webpage included named LINKs to alternate styles (allowing pages to have a heavy, preferred default but offer the user other options, without needing to add a "theme picker" in the HTML somewhere).

Outside of dedicated "Reader Views" it seems like we've given up on the idea that might be something the browser should do. (Which, I appreciate the "Reader View" as an easier to discover way to do this, even if I think moving it into a "modal" with its own liminal space continues the narrative of the browser moving away from being a "user agent" to being an "application runtime".)

[rch]

Content on the web used to flow pretty well irrespective of those factors. The 'liquid' layout in Adobe's pdf reader works as it should, as does the simplified view in Chrome (which is suspiciously only offered on sites without ads). So, I'm optimistic that simplified layouts are worth pursuing.

[b112]

If Google would stop the absurd block on text reflow and resize, on Chrome Android, we'd really be good.

Seeing how slick and smooth and beautiful and handy it is on Opera, puts any ridiculous dev team rejections to waste.

Text reflow missing from Chrome -- valid proof end user convenience is not a primary concern.

I bet text reflow moves ads into the wrong position, thus the decade long block.

[rch]

Designers want the latitude to place ads where they're likely to be effective. How does an ads company which incidentally also provides a browser balance that interest?

[b112]

How does an ads company which incidentally also provides a browser balance that interest?

Another argument for forced Alphabet breakup. Browser in one corp, on its lonesome.

Amusingly, Alphabet has given us the number of new companies. 26. Maybe Chrome can be called C, Google search G of course, M for gmail, etc.

[zx8080]

>forced Alphabet breakup

Who will pay C for browser? A for ads. They will pay only for things they need.

Will people (and you?) pay for Chromium browser to compensate its development? It's _expensive_, by the way, to develop that complex project.

So I don't really see how G brakeup helps get better browser for free.

[lelanthran]

> Will people (and you?) pay for Chromium browser to compensate its development? It's _expensive_, by the way, to develop that complex project.

This sounds like an argument for breaking up Alphabet, not an argument against it.

You're effectively saying that Google is using their resources to give away something really expensive, which means that no competition will ever arise.

[b112]

The Linux kernel is OSS, yet magically gets build collaboratively. And many large OSS projects exist, often more complex than a browser, without a sole source, single corporate backer.

Or, gasp!, even a corporate backers at all.

The modern stack is built upon, and relies upon OSS. Even chromium draws code taken from other projects, and also, relies upon a myriad of OSS libraries and toolsets.

And beyond all of that, Firefox exists is an immensely cash flush environment.

There are endless business models, and OSS development models, without business involvement to make a browser.

The world was doing just fine before chromium came onto the scene. Chrome was pushed by Google's search engine, bundled with Chrome books, Android, on TVs, and more.

Chrome is market dominant partially due to Google's aggressive push for market share.

All this said, your fears are unfounded, and currently one of largest threats to our way of life, to freedom, to democracy, is the entire ad ecosystem.

This ecosystem, in its curent form, simply must die. There are no patches, no fixes which involve any data collection on the user, that allow for co-existance with personal freedom and democratic principles.

Ads need to be served with zero knowledge stored and collected about users, and anonomization is meaningless and proven useless.

Whether Google is broken up or not, Chrome will die soon enough, as a personal spy, and a collection device.

Google's best move right now, is to discover profitability, research how to enable it, without data collection.

Because what has happened to Meta is only the start, what is happening to Google and others in the EU, is coming to the rest of the West, and this business model is over. It's done. Finished.

Execs who are not planning for a corporate future without data collection, are poorly managing, and living in the past.

Google's best move is to see where the market will be without data collection, and use its immense power to move there now.

Before it is too late.