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Browse Against the Machine

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Re: Browse Against the Machine

#111

Post by adam77 »

pandatigox wrote: post #28

I'm going add a controversial opinion. I've been using Firefox my whole life but recently I'm finding Safari to be a more appealing option than both Firefox or Chrome. Firefox, and Chrome to an extent, are powerhouses. They have a great community with awesome and really creative extensions. Safari only just started adding extensions and it shows: apart from the usual ad blocker stuff, there's not much out there. But…

It's interesting that these recent posts from the FF top ranks don't address this bundling issue.

It seems as though the world is moving to an 'appliance' plus app-store model. In that world the browser is part of the appliance and considered part of the purchase by the consumer. In that world, the only way for FF to have a presence is via hardware partnerships.

Yet another FF alumni alludes to the threat in a comment on the 'Chrome won' post [1] (my emphasis)...

"...for historical reasons Web sites targeting large-screen non-touch devices tend to configure themselves in a more standards-friendly way. ChromeOS is changing that; it has the form factor of a desktop platform, but not the third-party browser viability. If Android expands into that space, or Windows and MacOS get locked down a lot more, then that also closes up the window for Firefox."

[1] https://andreasgal.com/2017/05/25/chrome-won/

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#112

Post by mirimir »

I've been using Firefox since forever. IE was mostly hopeless. Opera was cool for a while. But once I'd left Windows for good, Firefox was clearly the best option.

I love that Chrome sandboxes itself. However, there's just too much Google in it. Sure there's Chromium. But even that contains Google blobs.

So yes, Firefox it is.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#113

Post by [deleted] »

roblabla wrote: post #32
pandatigox wrote: post #28

I'm going add a controversial opinion. I've been using Firefox my whole life but recently I'm finding Safari to be a more appealing option than both Firefox or Chrome. Firefox, and Chrome to an extent, are powerhouses. They have a great community with awesome and really creative extensions. Safari only just started adding extensions and it shows: apart from the usual ad blocker stuff, there's not much out there. But…

Safari being MacOS-only doesn't help its cause very much. It's also so far behind on web standards that some started to call it "the new IE"[0]. Since this, apple started to show some new love to safari in the form of the safari tech preview, but it's still far from where it should be... [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12051267

[deleted]

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#114

Post by 5ilv3r »

lucb1e wrote: post #95
intopieces wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If this turned out to be true, is there an antitrust case there?

There might be, but I doubt it's on purpose. At best it'd be gross negligence or something, but I'm not sure holding a monopoly by not actively supporting the opposition (i.e. negligence) is punishable. I experience the same issue and it's frustrating. Not that I use a lot of Google services, but when I do... yeah the effect is noticeable. So much as I like to point a finger, I expect it's just due to them not puttin…

Have you read google's website code guidelines? They actively encourage breaking the standards to save characters as long as it renders ok. It's kinda wrong, and I'm sure they have a little list of tricks they can pull to break one browser but not another.

Example: Google search with firefox mobile has unclickable links if I change my user agent to IE8. Literally nothing happens when I tap a link. They are in too deep and starting to break things.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#115

Post by alecco »

yeukhon wrote: post #14

I use Firefox as my main browser at work and at home, but Firefox performance degrades as soon as I have 10 tabs opened. Not FF's entire fault though, a lot of my tabs are JIRA board so there are some stupid Javascript from plugins making the performance more worse. With Chrome, however, I was able to load over 100 tabs easily and I rarely get a crash... So when I need to load lots of tabs, I use Chrome. I still don'…

Try a higher dom.ipc.processCount as others pointed out in this thread.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#116

Post by yeukhon »

alecco wrote: post #115
yeukhon wrote: post #14

I use Firefox as my main browser at work and at home, but Firefox performance degrades as soon as I have 10 tabs opened. Not FF's entire fault though, a lot of my tabs are JIRA board so there are some stupid Javascript from plugins making the performance more worse. With Chrome, however, I was able to load over 100 tabs easily and I rarely get a crash... So when I need to load lots of tabs, I use Chrome. I still don'…

Try a higher dom.ipc.processCount as others pointed out in this thread.

I will, but https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/4t33v2/if_you_are_...

I will see if that helps for a few days. Thanks.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#117

Post by masswerk »

eriknstr wrote: post #109
roblabla wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari being MacOS-only doesn't help its cause very much. It's also so far behind on web standards that some started to call it "the new IE"[0]. Since this, apple started to show some new love to safari in the form of the safari tech preview, but it's still far from where it should be... [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12051267

Furthermore, Safari is proprietary. Firefox is not and most of Chrome is not (Chromium).

Ahem, Webkit ...

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#118

Post by bocz »

I've been a long term Firefox user, but recently I have switched to Opera. It needed some tweaking to make the experience better for a power user, but it works like a charm now. The built in VPN is a plus. Haven't had any compatibility issues.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#119

Post by cpeterso »

yeukhon wrote: post #116
alecco wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try a higher dom.ipc.processCount as others pointed out in this thread.

I will, but https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/4t33v2/if_you_are_... I will see if that helps for a few days. Thanks.

dom.ipc.processCount = 4 will be the default value for Firefox 54 (now in the Firefox Beta channel), but I've used 999 without much problem. :)

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#120

Post by bzbarsky »

xg15 wrote: post #25

> Firefox for work, Chrome for play If the Marketing head for Firefox opens like this, I'm honestly not optimistic. So even he states that for some reason, using Firefox alone is not sufficient for him. I think unless they find out the reasons for that, they have little chance to become meaningful competition again - even though we really need it. Slightly OT, that being said, my feeling is that Chrome played on an u…

There were several things going on. The ad below the search field helped. The agreements with various companies (e.g. Adobe) to stealth-install Chrome when their products were being installed helped. The fact that a lot of the hard work of getting web sites to be created to standards not just to "works in IE" had been done by Firefox helped. The ads on TV all over the place helped. The ads on posters in subways all over the place helped.

Better technology and features are nice, but huge marketing spend and sleazy stealth-install agreements are nice too, if your goal is just market share.

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