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Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

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Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#431

Post by NiLSPACE »

spockz wrote: post #331
maxyme wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FYI, firefox is working on switching to rendering the entire page in opengl which should bring it's motion mark score up substantially. Details on that (and how to enable it in nightly at the bottom of each post) at https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com

They’d better switch to using metal because Apple deprecated OpenGL for MacOS.

Webrender (the new renderer maxyme was talking about) will move to gfx-rs later on [1]. That allows the renderer to run on Vulkan, DirectX 11 and 12, Metal and OpenGL.

[1] https://github.com/servo/webrender/issues/407

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#432

Post by PurpleRamen »

wumpus wrote: post #46
jszymborski wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With all due respect, less than 0.1% of browser users likely feel that way. Don't mean to discredit or invalidate your feelings, I just feel the need to disclaim that it's impossible to meet people's need with that granularity. The alternative is that they keep XUL, make 0.1% of the install base happy, and ditch the performance increases that Quantum/WebExtension have given us... at which point there wouldn't be a NY…

The one thing I wanted from XUL was tree style tabs, and Firefox managed to add enough APIs to make tree style tabs work in the post-XUL era.

Work is relative. It's so bugged in filled with failures, that it's not really the same.

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#434

Post by nneonneo »

manveru wrote: post #408
bad_user wrote: post #374

Just dropping a note in support of Firefox ... It's a great browser and I've came back to it even before the changes in Quantum, because the UI is better and it's also a browser I can trust to protect my interests. Just one thing to consider ... recently in Chrome 66 they introduced the means for cosmetic ads blocking via stylesheets that can no longer be overridden, as Google finally succumbed to demands for it. Fir…

Pretty much the only time I use chromium now is when I need to debug Websockets, since the traffic is impossible to see in Firefox. Really hope they fix https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1373639 some day.

On the other hand, Chrome refuses to show binary WebSocket traffic, so I just use SSLKEYLOGFILE + Firefox + Wireshark/tshark to debug secured WS traffic. tshark can even be configured to dump out the packets basically as they come in.

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#435

Post by PurpleRamen »

bovine3dom wrote: post #389
molteanu wrote: post #257

I've been using Firefox for 10+ years. The latest Quantum release broke some addons, specifically keysnail. I just couldn't replace it. The last one I've tried was surfingkeys but it was buggy and lacked the good features of keysnail. Eventually I've switched to CVim + Chromium. I couldn't be happier. I mean, how is this not a bug? You wouldn't expect the latest Emacs release to not support user config files (I'm str…

I think a better analogy is expecting a Counter-Strike: Source modification to work with Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. I was also upset by the death of most of my favourite add-ons, particularly Vimperator, so I bullied a friend into writing Tridactyl with me [1]. If you tried it around the death of keysnail it might be worth giving it another go now, as I think it is a lot less bad than it used to be (although I…

Tridactyl (and all similar addons) will only be a bad replacement as long as they are limited to inject code in loaded sites to fetch keys. The problems emerging from this are really bad.

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#436

Post by alex_duf »

susam wrote: post #76

Firefox was never away, at least for me. Therefore the expression "Firefox is back" sounds a little odd to me. I have been using it since 2006 (Firefox 2.0). Back then, the presence of the Firebug extension for Firefox made me switch to Firefox as my primary browser. Two years later, Chrome arrived but Firefox remained as my primary browser because I wanted to continue using the Vimperator extension for Firefox that…

Same here, but I think we're in a bubble.

Looking at the past market share we're clearly the minority

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#437

Post by NiLSPACE »

babbit999 wrote: post #261

The best thing about FF is the “about:config”. It really gives you the control like it should be. I don’t care if it’s slower than other browsers. Sadly, this is not possible yet on iOS. Like others, I use chrome if my locked down FF don’t work on a specific site.

Firefox, like any other browser on iOS, is based on webkit because Apple doesn't allow other engines. That's why you don't have 'about:config' there.

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#438

Post by WhitneyLand »

Ff has portable plugins across systems even Android if I recall correctly.

Is the lack of plugin suppport for iOS 100% legal/policy issues? Is there even a shread of any techicnal issue preventing it?

I wonder if there is any poisbble way to reimagine the way plugins work, such that powerful extensibility could exist within an iOS browser and pass the appstore appproval gauntlet.

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#439

Post by vntok »

ar0 wrote: post #368
vntok wrote: post #320

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have a look at the trends[0] and tell me it does not show a descent to darkness. 1. Firefox was at ~30% market share at its apex (it's now half that) 2. It got surpassed by a newcomer with no previous experience in browser making in less than 3 years 3. And the newcomer was so much better at technical stuff and marketing that it not only kept superseding Firefox but it kept growing uninterrupted ever since 3. Meanwhi…

While the trend is correct, I would argue that the original authors statement that this is due to Chrome having been "a faster, more secure and versatile browser" is omitting the elephant in the room: The main reason for Firefox's (and IE's) decline IMHO is the pink line "Mobile vs Desktop" in the chart you linked to. People won't bother installing a different browser if the one that comes with the device they use is…

I agree with you on everything.

> Unfortunately, this is quite a depressing finding for Firefox, because it means that all technical enhancements will not be able to move the needle much

Precisely, and this is exactly what becoming irrelevant is. It does not matter anymore.

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#440

Post by manfredo »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #328
manfredo wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So to support policies that are later determined to be unconstitutional become fireable offenses? That means anyone that supports public school racial integration policies (as in, deliberately balancing out student populations to counteract de-facto segregation) should be fired. This was determined unconstitutional in 2007 [1]. Anyone that supports racial quotas in higher education also needs to be fired, because tha…

In most jobs, there are plenty of ways to get fired even if you haven't broken any laws. This was just one of those ways, for one of those employees, at one of those jobs. At-will employment goes both ways.

Sure, it's legal. What we're discussing is what justification there is to make it socially acceptable to fire or tell people to resign based on political views.
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