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State of web browsers in 2018

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Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#101

Post by azangru »

vanadium wrote: post #79
azangru wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm a developer and a Firefox user. By developer, do you mean web developer? I tried to use Chrome dev tools, and they were incredibly easy to pick up; however whenever I try to use Firefox dev tools, they feel embarrassingly awkward. Perhaps it's just the familiarity with the tools (and if so, I am very curious to hear whether you prefer Firefox dev tools over Chrome's), but have a nagging feeling that it's just a…

Both have their pluses and minuses. It was delightful when auditing the experiences from a potential new client in Firefox Dev Tools the other day, and realizing that I could see, inline to the target DOM element, JS events tied to them while looking through the source. Saved me a good amount of time. When I'm looking for pure-play performance auditing, Lighthouse integrated into Chrome's Dev Tools are an obvious win…

Also, finally they made the whole web console into an editable area, like in Chrome dev tools. I used to be so frustrated that you had only one line where to write code.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#102

Post by tokyodude »

superkuh wrote: post #4

We're getting to the point where browsers are worthy of the decades old criticism Emacs has received. They have eventually become an OS with many fine features - simply lacking a good web browser. It's a large, sprawling project to make a good OS. Especially when the language of choice to run on it changes with such haste. Hopefully this nth re-imagining of dumb terminals dies off over the next few years and applicat…

Browsers to me are amazing. I can run untrusted code in my computer from all over the world and at least with Chrome the odds of my machine getting pwned are pretty low. The Chromium team fixes security issues quickly. For that I get this amazing environment where I can see things as incredible as Google Maps 3D, games, music apps, etc all sandboxed incredibly well.

The whole thing is far far more secure than running native apps on Windows, MacOS, or Linux, they're arguably far more secure than Android and maybe more secure than iOS.

In other words, they aren't just an OS, they're a secure OS. Something most OSes don't give me.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#103

Post by wvenable »

snaky wrote: post #6
singularity2001 wrote: post #3

There is a different way to interpret this: Firefox is irrelevant on mobile, but not on Desktop. Will mobile kill desktop? No, these are two different markets/use-cases/applications. Just like video didn't kill the radio*. Firefox will stay relevant on desktop a.k.a. in work environments.

> Firefox is irrelevant on mobile That's pretty sad, considering the fact it's the only mobile browser not only with the support of extensions, but the same extensions as the desktop version. Future might not be that grim for mobile Firefox actually, with more and more modern Android smartphones and tablets support more and more RAM, and 4GB is pretty much standard.

What's cool is if you have Firefox sync, your extensions come over automatically. I use Firefox on my tablet because it has all the extensions I use on my desktop.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#104

Post by kitsunesoba »

miles_matthias wrote: post #88

Great article. Discussion question - what incentives need to change to make Apple invest more in Safari? They've always been invested in native apps first and foremost, because that's where they make their money - the app stores. The other place they make their money is hardware. And it's hard to say you buy a MacBook or iPhone because of safari. You don't. So I just don't know what it will take for Apple to make sig…

I’m not sure that Apple specifically avoids investing in Safari… I think it’s more that their vision of the web differs significantly from Google’s. They still see Safari as a web browser while Google sees Chrome as a platform akin to an operating system.

Apple also just prioritizes different things in WebKit than Google does with Blink. Where Apple implements energy saver and privacy protection features, Google implements whizz-bang bells and whistles to keep the attention of front end web developers.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#105

Post by mrweasel »

azangru wrote: post #70
jacobherrington wrote: post #27

I'm a developer and a Firefox user. I'm always a little sad when I pair with another developer, and they ask why I'm not using Chrome. Mozilla is one of the few tech companies that care about the well-being of its users. In my opinion that is very special.

> I'm a developer and a Firefox user. By developer, do you mean web developer? I tried to use Chrome dev tools, and they were incredibly easy to pick up; however whenever I try to use Firefox dev tools, they feel embarrassingly awkward. Perhaps it's just the familiarity with the tools (and if so, I am very curious to hear whether you prefer Firefox dev tools over Chrome's), but have a nagging feeling that it's just a…

The quality of the developer tools is subjective. Chrome dev tools are pretty much unusable to me, the are as you say awkward and weird, but then again I always used the Firefox tools, so I think they wonderful.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#106

Post by Sylos »

jacobherrington wrote: post #27

I'm a developer and a Firefox user. I'm always a little sad when I pair with another developer, and they ask why I'm not using Chrome. Mozilla is one of the few tech companies that care about the well-being of its users. In my opinion that is very special.

The Mozilla Corporation is a 100% subsidiary of the legally non-profit Mozilla Foundation. They can't pay out their profit to their stake holders. So, the only profit motive comes from Mozilla employees wanting to keep their jobs.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#107

Post by laumars »

organsnyder wrote: post #48
SamWhited wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Eventually, Google will do something that is an abuse of their monopoly power. This is one of Mozilla's problems: they constantly advertise privacy, etc. and while I agree their views in general, most users don't care. If you position yourself as the privacy respecting web browser, you will only ever get the tiny niche of people who care and everyone else who sees your marketing will just roll their eyes and makes…

During the IE-6 dark ages of the early 2000s, Mozilla's browser (the Mozilla suite, then standalone Firebird, finally renamed to Firefox) was positioned in a similar way: it was the niche browser for people who cared about an open web. It stayed that way for quite a few years, slowly gaining traction by implementing features—tabbed browsing, popup blocking—not found in the dominant IE browser. I could see a similar a…

> the Mozilla suite, then standalone Firebird, finally renamed to Firefox

I believe it was originally called Phoenix. Though you're right it was then called Firebird and renamed again to Firefox afterwards.

I think each time was due to trademark disputes?

Going to your point though, I hope you're right but I'm a bit more sceptical. Chromium, being open source, means anyone who doesn't like the stagnation of Chrome would just fork Blink and create their own modern browser while still enforcing the Chrome mono-culture.

I'd love to see Gecko take off in the same way kHTML, webkit and blink have done. In fact I'm surprised it hasn't. I don't suppose anyone more familiarity with the code base of these rendering engines are able to offer possible reasons why?

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#108

Post by bunderbunder »

jolmg wrote: post #75
BostonEnginerd wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. They have presented an alternative to the current system of surveillance capitalism without forcing anyone into their platform. I don’t really love the browser and wish the Brave protocol was available for Firefox, but hopefully we can get there sometime in the future.

I really don't know what's better. While it's bad that having a free web has lead to multiple entities doing everything they can to track as much as they can, it's also a great benefit to society to have free access to so much knowledge. In the end though, I don't think we'll see a shift to people paying for their content. Societal problems arising from lack of privacy is one of those high-impact-low-probability-or-s…

> While it's bad that having a free web has lead to multiple entities doing everything they can to track as much as they can, it's also a great benefit to society to have free access to so much knowledge.

This feels like a false dilemma to me. Many, if not most, of the corners of the web that are devoted to disseminating knowledge are funded by means that don't involve tracking ads.

It's the entertainment corner of the web - social media, yes, but I include listicle-oriented versions of journalism here, too - that seems to be the primary engine of all this surveillance capitalism.

It's no coincidence that they also have a tendency to actively exploit the parts of human psychology that make us susceptible to addiction. Which means that, while it's true that they don't charge an up-front fee, their products do still come at a price.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#109

Post by pxtail »

Reinmar wrote: post #30
bergie wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm afraid that it will look like a Cold War's arms race – one of the parties will invest so much that the other will just lose economically (not being able to afford that many developers). Given all the "Safari is the new IE6" posts that have been here over the past few years, that seems to be already happening. Apple is lagging behind quite a bit with implementing newer web standards, especially in areas where th…

I'm not sure how long they can keep doing so. At what point it may affect iOS's reception in general? From my own experience, making the app I'm working on (CKEditor 5 - a web based rich-text editor) compatible with mobile Safari is right now impossible. None of the RTEs work well in mobile Safari because of its quirks and bugs. If Apple will overdo this (just like Microsoft did with IE6), that may affect iOS's usefu…

Probably they are doing it on purpose, cripling web-based apps/PWA experience forces user to install app from AppStore.

Re: State of web browsers in 2018

#110

Post by nmeofthestate »

adimitrov wrote: post #20

Firefox for mobile is an excellent browser, and the only one I use. It supports extensions, such as uBlock without rooting the phone. The user interface is good, the browser is responsive and reasonably fast. Honestly, I don't know why people aren't using it. I think most people just don't care, and just use what the system provides. As Google gets more invasive and evil, I hope that people will start to care, and Fi…

I have tried using Firefox mobile on Android, but didn't enjoy it - it suffered from sluggish UI interaction. If it was technically on a par with Chrome I would consider going to make the effort to migrate.

Firefox has never been bundled with a mainstream OS, mobile or desktop, as far as I know, it's always been something that people sought out. I think since you can install it on Android, if it's any good it has a chance of success.

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