web What browser do you use?

[ZiggWheelsManning 10,020]

Ever since 2015, I've used Microsoft Edge  

[Dignity 56]

I used to use Internet Explorer, until I switched over to Chrome because of just how easier it was to navigate, and having google account integration was a major plus.

Nowadays I use a hardened version of Firefox (Betterfox) with Brave exclusively as a search engine. Something about Google Chrome taking up nearly 6GB (or sometimes even up to 8GB) of my RAM with a handful of tabs open and like 3 addons didn't sit well with me.

[Twitchy-Tremor 297]

I use chrome on my laptop but safari on my phone. Honestly I use safari mostly because it was already on my phone. It’s pretty good though on my phone I don’t really have any problems.

[Yakamaru 3,127]

Used Firefox for like, how many years? Since 2004 to 2019, so about 14-15 years or so? Changed over to Brave before the end of the decade and been using it ever since.

[Theautisticrebel 304]

I use Chrome on my Chromebook but Silk Browser on my Kindle.

[ZiggWheelsManning 10,020]

Still on Microsoft Edge, nothing else.  

[zerox 1,100]

I'm on Firefox. Been using FF since 2004

[SasQ 1,376]

Anyone who thinks Chrome is so cool, think again.

Wanna hear about the day I uninstalled Chrome forever? :q  Here it goes…

My parents called me one day, because their laptop with Windows 7 was constantly grinding the hard disk and everything was working horribly slow. They thought that it might be some sort of a virus. But they had an antivirus installed and it didn't detect anything. (I actually suspected that it might be the antivirus slowing everything down, so I uninstalled it to check that, but it didn't solve the problem the slightest.)

So I launched Filemon (a File Monitor, a program that monitors every access to the hard drive and logs it to a file) and, to my surprise, the log window has been immediately flooded with thousands of disk accesses, all from one single executable file: software_reporter_tool.exe :q  It seemed to be greedily going through every directory and every file on the disk, hence the grinding.

Delighted that I found the "virus", I did a web search to see what they write about this executable, what it is and where it comes from, an… that was even a bigger surprise, because it turned out to be an integral part of Google Chrome! And it's not a bug, it's a feature! According to them, this program is supposed to go through your every directory, scan all your files, and report them to Google for whatever reason (sic!)   Yeeeeeahhhh… isn't this what every malware does, by definition?

It was impossible to delete this file, because it was protected by the system.
Even if I deleted it "the hacker way" (with some low-level system tools), it soon reappeared again with the next regular update of Google Chrome! They detect that this file is missing, and forcefully reinstall it!

If you do a Google search, you will find threads about this malware on Google tech support forums that are being immediately locked by Google, or even removed (those ones you'll rather be unable to find, obviously :q  you can only know that they're deleting such threads by starting such a thread yourself and seeing it disappear, or asking other people who tried the same). Here's one example I could still find:

https://support.google.com/chrome/a/thread/99323901/the-software-reporter-tool-exe-is-malware-admins-need-control-back-over-this-unwanted-software

or another thread from Super User (which is not under Google's control, so they can't remove it there, but apparently there are still people there who claim that this piece of malware is "normal" and "innocuous" and you shouldn't bother your little mind with it ):

https://superuser.com/questions/957332/what-is-the-software-reporter-tool-downloaded-by-google-chrome

Anyway, once I deleted this file, all the disk grinding stopped and the machine became perfectly usable again. So this was indeed the cause.

And knowing that they will reinstall this file back with the next update and the problem will return, I decided to uninstall Google Chrome completely and replace it with Firefox. My parents don't have any problems with this machine anymore since then.

That was the day I stopped using Google Chrome altogether, forever, and I advise you to do the same and replace Google Chrome with another browser of your choice (Firefox, Brave, LibreWolf etc.) that doesn't grind your hard disk to go through your every file and rat to Google about it

[Sazama Ichida 2,367]

Firefox all the way. I've never seen any browser that could compare to it.

[ZiggWheelsManning 10,020]

Continuing to drive with Microsoft Edge.