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Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014)

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014)

#161

Post by robin_reala »

j-pb wrote: post #137

Firefox lost me when they conspired to kill WebSQL. They were the ones used the vast marked share they had to push the trendy thing of the day, namely nosql and IndexeDB, a technology which is bemoaned by web developers today. I think the fact that there is another post about SQLite on the front page right now, attests that it would have been better to just standardise that. But then all those greenfield "spec hacker…

WebSQL was never a spec. It was literally implemented as ‘be bug compatible with this specific version of SQLite’. There was no way that that was going to be accepted by Mozilla and Microsoft.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014)

#162

Post by justinlardinois »

mpol wrote: post #155
wallace_f wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>(MS) was actively trying to make their own browser bad Is this conspiracy or fact?

The fact is, after releasing IE6 around the year 2000, MS dissolved the IE team. Only around 2006 a new team was formed to create IE7 (which wasn't much better). Conspiracy mixed with facts is... At the end of the nineties, Netscape was pushing to make the browser the platform, instead of the desktop. MS was quite worried about that, they had a monopoly on the desktop and used that to create a monopoly with their bro…

So it's conjecture. Going by Occam's razor, Microsoft just had no need to innovate because it had no competition.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014)

#163

Post by Freak_NL »

formula1 wrote: post #99
ffggvv wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the problem. You value your convenience more than your freedom, and the future of privacy.

Do you honestly believe that switching to firefox will be the change? Its purely symbolic considering firefox has been heavilly funded by google in the past [0] and likely still influences their decisions. A few developers doesnt account for the millions of people that use chrome, widescale change requires influencers and those willing to stand up, not a bunch of upset introverts with a distaste for authority. Honest…

I used to think like that when I was a CS student back in 2000; “You can't beat Microsoft; their stuff is the best and you would be mad not to join their camp.”, all the while scoffing at those who used alternative OSes and browsers. At some point though I started to grasp the bigger context of software and the social impact it has, and started doubting my youthful sycophantic zeal. Then I switched to Phoenix (Firefox's forefather) and started delving into that Linux thing people were talking about soon after. Now as an adult software developer I do take the ethical side of the equation into account, and I can't imagine ever relinquishing what little control I have over my data and my computers to mega-corporations without a fight.

I don't know what the best way forward is, but as long as Firefox is a decent browser (and it is) I'm doing my part by simply using it, recommending it to those who would benefit from it, and helping out here and there by submitting bugs and helping people fix their websites. I do know that giving in is not constructive.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014)

#166

Post by vamur »

Gnome Web works great on Linux+Wayland now, apart from lack of 1080p on youtube. Meanwhile Firefox still does not work on Wayland and is generally slow on Linux and one has to enable multi-process flags to speed it up. And even then its speed barely compares to speed of Chromium or Gnome Web.

Given that this performance disadvantage is not new it is clearly caused by lack of focus and manpower. As a result Firefox usage continues to decline and they cannot compete with fast moving competitors like Chrome or Webkit. Mozilla should discontinue 32 bit, Windows XP+Vista, ESR releases, Flash/GTK2 support, other side projects like the HTML editor. That should free up enough focus/developer time for Mozilla to improve their core product.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014)

#168

Post by pitay »

moxie wrote: post #87
glogla wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not quality of Firefox. On desktop it's google having (almost) monopoly on search and abusing it market its other products. On mobile, it's Google abusing its power over the platform to make OEMs use Chrome in the same way MS pushes OEMs to ship Windows and Secure Boot and various other shit. Firefox could be perfect (and it isn't, because what do you know, developing good software takes insane amount of money)…

Yes, Google has market leverage. However, when IE was Firefox's competitor, MS was in just as powerful of a position, and Firefox was a success. They were a success because they clearly had the better browser. These days, that's no longer the case. I know that I certainly did not switch from Firefox because of Google's marketing efforts or underhanded tactics. But what if you're right? In a world where, I agree, it t…

What did cause you to switch?

What follows here are my observations on what are the advantages/disadvantages of the two browsers:

The biggest advantage to Chrome that I can think of is it has its own implementation of Flash in it, rather than using the Flash plugin. This allows Chrome to not have another container process, unlike in Firefox which does spawn a container process for Flash, which uses a ton more CPU cycles for the inter-process communication. This makes some sites crawl because of all the junk that is added to them, probably for advertisement networks.

Other than that, Firefox seems to give you more freedom with what extensions can be installed on it and allows a larger variety of addons that is available at the main addons site, third party sites can be used, although that is going to get more difficult in the future. But it is better than Chrome with from what I understand is going to disallow extensions from anywhere other than the Chrome store. An example of what will not be on the Chrome store is 'Cleaner for Facebook', which I remember because the story was so recent. Here is the story 'How Google obliterated my 4 year old Chrome extension featuring 24k+ users' at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12442048 .

Re: Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014)

#169

Post by anotheryou »

I love the Firefox extensions! (I hope they will stay for a while, using tons of quite old extensions)

Extensions that have no even chrome extension:

- tree style tab: nested tabs on the side of the screen

- Imagus: elaborate image preview on mouse-over

- FF Rocker: click right+left for history back and the other way around for forward (there is a chrome extension, but it's no fun)

- grab and drag: I hold right click to scroll as if I was dragging the scroll bar handle (only works for single-core FF :/) (there is a chrome extension, but it's no fun)

- All-in-Sidebar: bookmarks, downloads etc in a sidebar

- tab grenade: store all open tabs in a link list and close them (might have a chrome equivalent)

- Link Alert: hover to see if you are going to an external page or pdf or image (might have a chrome equivalent)

- Vimperator/Pentadactyl: vim style shortcuts for everything, no more clicking. Currently both projects struggle to stay compatible with recent FF versions, can't recommend to switch to it now :/

Re: Choose Firefox Now, or Later You Won't Get a Choice (2014)

#170

Post by clappski »

anotheryou wrote: post #169

I love the Firefox extensions! (I hope they will stay for a while, using tons of quite old extensions) Extensions that have no even chrome extension: - tree style tab: nested tabs on the side of the screen - Imagus: elaborate image preview on mouse-over - FF Rocker: click right+left for history back and the other way around for forward (there is a chrome extension, but it's no fun) - grab and drag: I hold right click…

What vi-mode extension would you recommend? Vimperator always seemed worse than Vimium (on Chrome), mainly because the scrolling is jittery.
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