I’m thinking of doing a thing, and was hoping for some feedback (and maybe it’ll change my mind):
- How do you define bloat in a browser?
- What are some examples of it, and what browsers have it?
So far I’m thinking bloat includes…
- Extra software that typically is standalone, like an email client or RSS reader
- Things that are not widely wanted in a browser, and could be extensions, like an AI toolbar or a cryptocurrency wallet
- Advertisements built directly into the browser
Are PDF readers bloat?
How about LibreWolf’s uBlock Origin?
And why/why not?
I’ve got some of my own reasoning in the list above, but I’m interested in others’ thoughts.
I think any sensible adblocker to be already an absolutely vital part of any browser. I’ve also found the integrated pdf-viewer on Firefox to be a welcome addition, given how pdf-files mostly seem and feel like relatively simple web-pages (though pdfs can definitely be overcomplicated) to begin with. I’m thinking the recent Firefox VPN addition to be mostly bloat along with most of the current AI-features (maybe the translation-tooling being worthwhile as a core offering).
I agree with you about PDF viewers. I believe these days, some websites even integrate them as frames within themselves.
Translation tooling is technically a branch of artificial intelligence, but it’s a cousin of other AI tools (especially chatbots and all their relatives). But even presuming they aren’t, I think there’s a good case to be made that you would not want the contents of an entire web page to be sent to an unvetted third party whenever possible. That’s true for ad blockers and that’s true for translation. Not a week goes by that you don’t hear about a dozen browser extensions getting caught with security holes…