Chrome moves download indicator

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So my 95 year old Dad calls me up this morning and says “I need help”.  He was on his computer and working on a tax return (yes he still works on retu
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Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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abbodi86, Sueska, KB6OJS

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Change both of these to “disabled”

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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Since I haven’t used Chrome in years, this is of no use to me.

I don’t use Edge either, in Windows 11.  Everything goes to Firefox.

I sometimes use Opera for special purposes.

Mark

 

 

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There’s a lot of folks that use Chrome and a LOT of web sites that recommend that Chrome is used.

In Firefox you can change the behavior by going into About:config, clicking on the button indicating you understand the risk and searching for browser.download.autohideButton and change that to false to always showcase the download button.

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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oldfry

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Hi, Susan:

Susan Bradley wrote:

There’s a lot of folks that use Chrome and a LOT of web sites that recommend that Chrome is used.

If a site compels me to use Chrome, I don’t go there.  I have been known to change software so I don’t have to use Chrome.

Some people don’t use Chrome and some will not use chromium-based browsers.   I know a majority of users run Chrome and I pity them.

Mark

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It’s not necessary to use about:config. There is a menu option – though admittedly it’s not obvious.

• When the downloads button is visible (due to a download), right-click it and deactivate Hide Button When Empty.
• When it isn’t visible, right-click a button on the toolbar and choose Customize Toolbar, or go to the Menu (hamburger) button > More tools > Customize toolbar.
  • The downloads button will be visible on the toolbar of the Customize Firefox tab, so you can now right-click it and toggle its “hide” option.

This changes browser.download.autohideButton.

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Microfix

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Susan Bradley wrote:

So my 95 year old Dad calls me up this morning and says “I need help”.  He was on his computer and working on a tax return (yes he still works on retu
[See the full post at: Chrome moves download indicator]

THANK YOU!!!

I’m using Chrome Beta, and they took that download-bar at the bottom away quite some time ago.  I missed it, and thanks to you I have it back again!  Maybe they should take this reversion setting out of the experimental section and put it somewhere easier to find.  It’s not like it’s a big deal, gonna break the browser or something if you put it back….

//Steve//

 

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That particular question was asked and solved eleven days ago 🙂

Win8.1/R2 Hybrid lives on..

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Yes but with demonstrative swearing? 🙂

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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bowled845

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Mark wrote:

Since I haven’t used Chrome in years, this is of no use to me.

I don’t use Edge either, in Windows 11.  Everything goes to Firefox.

I sometimes use Opera for special purposes.

Mark

 

 

I use Chrome exclusively.  Just for discussion purposes, why did you settle on Firefox instead?

//Steve//

 

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I think that Mozilla is more honest than Google and doesn’t track me as much.

I also am more at home with it.

Mark

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A couple of my favorite Firefox features:

• Screen shot tool that recognizes the structure of the web page, so I can get exactly what I need and no more. Or still lets me drag a box around stuff if I actually want to do it the pedestrian way.
• Ctrl+drag to select the exact group of cells in a table that I want, perfectly.

I find these handy at work, but occasionally they get some use at home, too.

(Table example from w3schools.com)

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For me, it’s not a question of why I would settle on Firefox. I’ve always used Firefox (or its derivatives), ever since it was called Phoenix. Before that, I used Mozilla Suite, and before that, Netscape. The real question (for each year since Chrome arrived) would be why I would quit using Firefox and move to Chrome, and I have never had a reason to do that.

I have never used Chrome proper, nor would I use anything Google branded if I can help it at all, but I have tried Chromium, which is very similar (it just lacks the proprietary bits Google sprinkles on top of the open-source base that Google develops for Chrome). I found the UI to be terrible, and the lack of configurability doesn’t let you fix it, or most anything else that is lacking. Google has a minimalist philosophy when it comes to the Chrome UI, and that means you have to tolerate it if you use Chrome. Google says they want Chrome to feel fast and light, so their vision of what that means is what everyone gets, whether they want it or not.

Chrome, like all other Chromium browsers I have tried, also stutters and judders horribly when using a touchpad in Linux. I saw this in Windows 7 too, way back when I was still using that OS. I don’t see it in 11 in my limited experience, but the touchpad scrolling is so bad in 11 (across the board) on my Acer Swift that it hardly makes a difference. In that case, I reject the entire OS because of its touchpad scrolling (though that is far from the only reason).

Google’s effort to cripple adblockers also does not endear it  Chrome to me. A browser should be protecting me, the end user, from bad actors on the web like Google. Obviously, Google Chrome is not going to do that. It’s not there to protect me from the likes of Google, but to protect Google’s cash flow from me. That is a conflict of interest I cannot overlook. Google has a pattern of hostile behavior towards users, and having a browser that facilitates that rather than blocking it is a non-starter.

By the time the Chromium code makes it to a derivative browser other than Chrome, the developers will have hopefully stripped out any of that stuff. The Manifest V3 scuffle is still ongoing, but all of the major Chromium-derived browser devs have noted that they will undo Google’s limitations on adblockers. Whether that will be enough remains to be seen. The non-crippled adblocker would have to be built for the non-Chrome implementations of Chromium, and the addon devs may not be willing to do that. Chrome is the 800 lb gorilla of browsers, so developing a non-Chrome Chromium addon may not be on their to-do lists.

Many of these Chromium-based browsers also include an adblocker, though these lack a lot of features compared to the add-on variety. I would not want to go without the ability to selectively block or temporarily ‘zap’ various page elements that get in the way. I use this quite often. Things get in the way a lot, especially while zooming the page to use more than just a tiny thin vertical strip in the center of my screen (because the sites are all about phones now).

While non-Google Chromium browsers typically have the Google-serving bits removed, only one has the configurability for me to be able to wrangle the UI into something I consider to be decent, and that is Vivaldi. But even that suffers from the aforementioned scrolling issues. As long as that is the case, I will use Firefox (or one of its derivatives, like Waterfox).

Firefox, for its part, has been getting worse and worse. Mozilla has repeatedly chopped off features that are not present in Chrome and tried to copy Chrome in any way it could, and you already know how much I love Chrome. A Firefox that shares all of the flaws of my least favorite browser would also be right near the bottom of the list. There may come a point that Firefox is no longer tolerable, and if the devs of derivatives of Firefox can’t undo these changes, I would have to move to Vivaldi, stuttering and all.

For now, I don’t have to make that decision. I can keep *fox and my smooth panning and scrolling.

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zat_so

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I generally use Chrome for things that I deem unimportant/not-security sensitive (browsing, reading blogs, whatever) — which amounts to quite a bit during an average day.

For anything that requires me to login with an account that I care about (financial institutions, email, domain registrars, …) I use Firefox.

Firefox feels like it has been going downhill recently *sigh* so we’ll see how long I stick with them in the future;

For anyone who supports others who aren’t comfortable with unexpected changes (parents, neighbors, random acquaintances who have your phone number…) changes to browsers and websites are an unnecessary headache.  It seems like companies like Verizon & Comcast are changing their websites on a monthly basis these days. (A game of hide the “Pay Now” button from the customer) *eye rolls*

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Don’t get too attached to the flag to change the download indicator back to its old configuration. That’s what Google does with experiments that will end in time or features they intend to remove at some point.

 

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Mark

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I’m a little surprised no one had mentioned using Brave Browser. Obviously a Chromium based browser. Have I missed something terrible about Brave?

I use Brave, Firefox and Chrome with Google sheets and google docs for some collaboration work I do. G sheets and G docs seem to work best in Chrome, not Brave.

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All humans like uniformity and conformity. At least I do, just like in vehicles. Remember when any make or model had pretty much all the switches and functions basically the same? If you do you’re old enough to experience that commonality in design. Today it seems everyone wants to be different and unique. I actually never minded Windows menu’s looking exactly the same in layout from 95 to now. It worked and yet today we have developers who want to pave their own way rejecting the past. Like it has not worked for decades.

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Uniformity and conformity, sounds too much like a dictatorship regime!
Humanity by nature, is not all the same some adapt, some can’t, some improvise, some won’t, some move on, some are simply unaware and some just don’t care..
C’est la vie

Win8.1/R2 Hybrid lives on..

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Alex5723

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