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by coldtea 4730 days ago
Well, I for one don't use any extensions with Chrome. And not even from security concerns. Just from lack of any interest to do so. Why should I? For some marginal utility?

I'd take it more average people don't use extensions either -- if they know what they are in the first place.
3 comments
smsm42 4730 days ago
Well, Stallman browses the web by sending emails[1], so he still has you beat :)

But you must realize 99.999% of the population would never do that, and for most people extensions are vital and useful. So giving them such security advice is like saying "oh, personal security is simple - just never have any money and anything valuable and never leave home". Not very practical.

[1] http://www.stallman.org/stallman-computing.html

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coldtea 4730 days ago
>Well, Stallman browses the web by sending emails[1], so he still has you beat :)

Well, I browse with Chrome Canary (and when it's in it's weird days, Beta), so I'm not any kind of Luddite.

I just don't see any extensions that are that useful. After all, we managed to get by without extensions in the "not using Firefox" camp for ages, until Safari/Chrome introduced them and we could get a taste.

To me they are more like the BS browser toolbars of yore.

>But you must realize 99.999% of the population would never do that, and for most people extensions are vital and useful.

Most people? If anything I'd say most people don't use extensions. From those that use a browser that doesn't support them, to those that couldn't be bothered or don't even know what they are.

Do you have any numbers that "most people" use extensions?

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HelloMcFly 4730 days ago
While I'd agree that many plugins have marginal utility, some like Firebug or Lastpass I find to be invaluable.
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coldtea 4730 days ago
That's an exception. But I use Chrome, where the "Firebug" kind thing is already installed. If it wasn't, I'd install it as an extension too.
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paranoiacblack 4730 days ago
> For some marginal utility?

Yes, this is the point of extensions. Extensions are help you and others do things with the browser that the vendor shouldn't really spend time on. Approaching them with the idea that they're useless doesn't really help your argument.

For example, I once wrote a browser extension that extracts class calendar info from the school website and automatically syncs it to the calendar application of your choosing. It turned my class scheduling process from an error-prone 2 hour process to a 3-click 10 minute step. You can label that as a useless, marginal utility, but that's being facetious at best.

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