Re: Major browser differences

Robert Baer <[email protected]> wrote:

> Now that i have some time to fiddle this, Google Chrome works
> DIFFERENTLY than before; i see exactly the same screen that Firefox
> shows.  In this pass, i did something differently - namely i cleared
> the cache in Google Chrome first. 

So, the site changed, but the web browser didn't notice the change, and
instead offered its cached version.  Clients trying to detect when a web
site changes its content is still rather iffy, and why I don't rely on
the guessing algorithm.  In each web browser session, I have the web
browser get a fresh copy of a web page.  During a web session, and
because I do /not/ leave the web browser running continuously, I
configure the web browser (or an add-on if the feature is missing in the
web browser) to purge all its locally cached data: cookies, DOM storage,
site preferences, etc.  With Firefox, it's easy to configure it to purge
on its exit.  With Chrome, you have to use an add-on (e.g., Click &
Clean); else, you have to remember to manually purge its local data.
C-Edge (Chromium version of MS Edge) does have settings on what to purge
on its exit hence another reason why C-Edge is more secure than Chrome.

https://www.technipages.com/google-chrome-how-to-completely-disable-cache

That mentions how to disable caching in Chrome; however, like most
blogs, it has no datestamp, so how to now disable caching in Chrome
might've changed.  I'm not sure the Dev tools method works, as I've read
that the effect is applied only while Dev tools are open.  There are
command-line switches for Chrome to disable its cache, but those only
apply when using the command-line to start Chrome, not when you click on
a hyperlink to load Chrome as the associated handler for the link.  With
Chrome, and because Google doesn't listen to user requests for a more
secure client, you have to use an add-on to do the cache purge.  Because
Chrome doesn't allow an add-on to run after unloading Chrome, the add-on
actually queues up the cleanup on the next load of Chrome.  Chrome is
not as user-friendly or user-configurable as are other web browsers,
even those that are variants of or implement the Blink and V8 Javascript
engines from Chromium.

As mentioned, Firefox incorporates its own integral blacklist (which it
gets from the rather small Disconnect.me blacklist).  Chrome has no such
internal blacklist.  As such, it's possible Firefox will block some
content that Chrome does not unless you disable Firefox's blacklist (by
going into its security settings to use a custom filtering scheme which
does not block tracking methods).  

Both use Google's SafeBrowsing feature which can be disabled in Firefox,
and so does Chrome, but you could have them differently configured
resulting in differently rendered web pages.

Although you may have multiple web browsers installed, you really should
pick one as your primary web client and use that all the time except
when you encounter a problem using that one.  The others should be
configured with their default settings and no add-ons to give you backup
clients that are setup with their install-time configuration.  I used to
have Firefox as my primary web client tweaked how I wanted, and Chrome
as my rare-time backup web client with no add-ons and default setup.
When Microsoft moved from EdgeHTML and its Javascript engine to using
Chrome's Blink and V8 engines in their C-Edge version, and because there
are better behaviorial and security settings in C-Edge, I discarged
Chrome and moved to C-Edge as my backup web client -- but NOT used
unless I needed to resolve a problem with Firefox.  If Firefox is your
primary web client, doesn't look like it caused you problems to use the
Humana web site.