> My answer may not be of great help, but if you are struggling with this I would really encourage you to move to a completely different environment (i.e. Latin America) where the norms are different. In my opinion this is not something an individual can easily solve. It's a cultural issue. Culture can take a lifetime / generation to change and that's if the people collectively decide it's worth changing.
i am not really struggling with it, i am fortunate enough to already have a lot of good friends. but i do see where you are coming from. it might partly be a cultural thing on my end as well. i went to latin america last year, and the way people approach social interaction there felt much closer to what i am looking for. the more introverted scandinavian vibe can also be really nice at times. i think what i am actually trying to figure out is how not to be a “typical swede” socially, rather than simply trying to make more friends. the main reason i posted this was out of curiosity, how other people approach this, and maybe the discussion can help others (and myself) along the way.
> If we get real, the loneliness epidemic is something we foisted on ourselves. Striving to avoid any awkwardness or discomfort is precisely why social life is so sterile these days. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
you might have a point there. maybe we should challenge ourselves more socially and be more open to awkwardness and discomfort. :o)
> You might receive a lot of well-intended advice that does not take into account the social context of Scandinavia, which is a particularly hard nut to crack when it comes to casual conversations with people you don't know.
preach -- agreed!
> One I have found is sports, this winter I've had casual chats with about 80% of the people I come across at my local ski trails. But it's mostly at the starting point or at the car park, not while you're training. Another one is regular organised activities, e.g. check out your local friluftsfrämjandet, or activities around specific interests and hobbies, and show up somewhat consistently. Every kommun will typically have a registry of local clubs on their website, it's called a föreningsregister, read through it and see if something strikes your fancy.
thanks, this is great advice! i will make sure to check it out. i actually tried something similar recently. the thing is, i often end up doing these kinds of activities with my current friends, which naturally reduces my incentive to approach new people. that is not a bad thing, of course, but it does mean i am not really meeting anyone new. maybe i should try going to some activities on my own and see what happens.
> Luckily, as foreigners, we typically get a bit of a pass for not being entirely up to snuff with the social rules, but knowing some Swedish will help you.
i actually speak Swedish fluently, it is my first language, so it is not really the issue. it is more about figuring out how to approach people without feeling like i am bothering them or coming across as annoying, and finding new ways to start those interactions.
Haha, my first thought was why didn't OP just read the comments on the article? Didn't occur to me that someone on HN was finding articles through a source other than HN :3
opera includes several built-in native features that chrome does not offer by default, doesn't that make it a valid choice to use it instead of chrome?
Personally, I'm diametrically opposed to the idea of letting Google dictate how web browsers must function, which is what happens if everyone uses Chrome (or a fork) and web developers start targeting features that are only supported by Chrome (and its forks).
The question is not "Is Opera a valid choice instead of Chrome?"
The question is actually "Is Chrome, or anything that's based on it, a valid choice?" and the answer is "no."
> The question is actually "Is Chrome, or anything that's based on it, a valid choice?" and the answer is "no."
yes! and this is what i am interested in. why is the answer "no.", please try to convince me in more detail. i am not interested in "no.", but why is your answer "no"? :-)
e.g. I still have to use Chrome for testing and to use the occasional site that is Chrome-dependent, and I even use the Chrome-based Polypane because it has some really useful features for testing, but when it comes to ordinary browsing non-Chrome is table stakes for me. I'm willing to put up with the completely dysfunctional organization behind Firefox to do that but I'd love to have an alternative.
Tab islands just encourages people to have too many tabs open.
Who wants to chat with Opera AI when you can chat with so many other AI? I think in 2026 the only way to communicate that your product is different is to reject AI.
> Tab islands just encourages people to have too many tabs open.
i think they exist because people already open tons of tabs. instead of encouraging overload this helps manage it by grouping related pages into clusters. that is actually useful in my opinion. you can see this feature making it into other browsers as well, like firefox, for example.
> who wants to chat with Opera AI when you can chat with so many other AI? I think in 2026 the only way to communicate that your product is different is to reject AI.
i do not like this aspect myself, but all browsers make use of AI to some extent. don't you think this might be a way to survive the competitive browser market?
> Free VPN? Aren't those all scams?
some definitely are, yes, i agree. but i would argue opera's VPN is a browser level privacy tool, it is not meant to replace a full security VPN. i would guess it is mainly used to hide your IP address for websites. does it not do that? you should not view it as a hardcore anonymity solution, i do not think.
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these are not the technically accurate arguments i was looking for, your arguments are true for many browsers.
It’s a reason why I have very little interest in alternative browsers, mostly they subtract value instead of adding it, I mean if you are just a skin around Chrome what can you do?
Firefox. It’s a competitive browser that isn’t Chrome. By developing software for it I keep the web free.
Safari. What I got on iOS.
Edge. Chrome-based but works better with Microsoft Narrator for screen reader testing.
Chrome. I do slum, I wrote a heart rate monitor web app that needs the Chrome-only BTLE API. What am I going to do? Learn how to write a native app for Windows and MacOS and Android and iOS or use Chrome?
BluFy. Alternative web browser for iOS probably a Chrome fork, it supports BTLE so I can do biofeedback on my iPad.
you probably say this jokingly, but this is not a bad take. or rather, "assume every system on earth can/will be breached". that is a good motivation to improve the security for your system, if you have the resources to.
> "assume every system on earth can/will be breached"
This.
I've spent years working in network security and one of the core principles is "if a thing can be accessed legitimately, it can be accessed illegitimately". Perfect security is an unachievable ideal. What you can affect, though, is how much time and effort it will take to breach you. What you're practically shooting for is to make the cost higher than the value an attacker would get from breaching you.
> or rather, "assume every system on earth can/will be breached"
NOOOO! NO NO NO!! It's ALREADY BREACHED! You are using ADVERSARIAL CHANNELS! If we're talking about objectives and proofs for the purposes of operational security, the only way of going about this is to act as though every system you are using has chips in it the NSA put there. Please understand.
i see and hear your point. it just makes me sad to think about security in this way, even though i think it would be good for someone that operates in the cyber security sphere. i think a more healthy way of approaching this for the general person, is what the person above said: "[...] what you're practically shooting for is to make the cost higher than the value an attacker would get from breaching you.", or for you not to lose more money/resources/value/whatever by securing your system, than you would do by getting breached or attacked. but that is just my opinion, and i am not an expert, so!
> I avoid software that I know to be problematic. Also, I firewall off all outgoing network traffic by default, and whitelist very sparingly.
how do you stay informed about what software is problematic? what are examples of addresses you whitelist? if you feel comfortable sharing.
> For my smartphone, I run a bare minimum of apps and refuse to install new ones without an extremely good reason. I also pipe all smartphone data through a VPN I run at home, specifically so that I can run it through my firewall and make the block-by-default policy I mentioned above cover the phone as well.
what would be an example of "an extremely good reason"? what VPN solution do you have?
> how do you stay informed about what software is problematic?
It's a loose heuristic. Primarily, I base it on word-of-mouth, whether or not the publisher/dev is known to have used tracking/telemetry in their other products, whether it contains ads, whether it in some way requires an external server, that sort of thing.
> what would be an example of "an extremely good reason"?
The last time, it was to install an authenticator app that I needed in order to authenticate for my work accounts.
i am not really struggling with it, i am fortunate enough to already have a lot of good friends. but i do see where you are coming from. it might partly be a cultural thing on my end as well. i went to latin america last year, and the way people approach social interaction there felt much closer to what i am looking for. the more introverted scandinavian vibe can also be really nice at times. i think what i am actually trying to figure out is how not to be a “typical swede” socially, rather than simply trying to make more friends. the main reason i posted this was out of curiosity, how other people approach this, and maybe the discussion can help others (and myself) along the way.
> If we get real, the loneliness epidemic is something we foisted on ourselves. Striving to avoid any awkwardness or discomfort is precisely why social life is so sterile these days. You can't have your cake and eat it too.
you might have a point there. maybe we should challenge ourselves more socially and be more open to awkwardness and discomfort. :o)