You know why I don't use Firefox? There is only one reason, and its lack of integrated translation. Chrome has it, Firefox does not, and if you travel, or live in a place where you don't fully understand the language, then this tool is a lifesaver. The thing is, I don't see how Moz could even start to build this feature. It's an example of synergy with Google's other products, especially search and communication service, that would be impossible to reproduce without exploding Mozilla's portfolio far beyond it's budget. Maybe Google will open-source it's translation software and data corpus, LOL?
Goodbye, EdgeHTML
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Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML
#12Well, I'm kind of saddened that even more control is going to Google, but realistically Edge was never really competitive in terms of support for standards[1].
EDIT: typo: Microsoft -> Google. Not sure what happened there :).
[1] Yes, this is a very vague concept these days. Google has, what 80%+ market share? They have a lot of people who can influence standards, and the cognitive biases of those people could mean that we end up in a new MSIE6 situation[2]. Anyway, I can certainly understand their fast growth when the browser came out, but these days I don't see much difference between Chromium and Firefox and it seems likely that Firefox is on my side when it comes to privacy. (I realize that I'm a very atypical user, perhaps not in this venue, but certainly in terms of general browser markets.)
[2] Through no fault of their own! It's just a combination of institutional/organizational pressure, market forces, etc. This is why I think it's also unfair to foist "securing the freedom of the web" upon Firefox. Firefox is an important piece of the puzzle, but ultimately they are in the market and that's not an objective place to evaluate strategy from.
Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML
#13I still see zero benefit to me, today, to use Firefox.
Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML
#14You know why I don't use Firefox? There is only one reason, and its lack of integrated translation. Chrome has it, Firefox does not, and if you travel, or live in a place where you don't fully understand the language, then this tool is a lifesaver. The thing is, I don't see how Moz could even start to build this feature. It's an example of synergy with Google's other products, especially search and communication serv…
Microsoft also has world-class translation services. Mozilla could partner with them just for this. That would be a good idea, I think. Surprised they haven't come up with something.
There's also various open source projects tackling this problem, which aren't as advanced, but are always improving.
Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML
#15IE deserves to die. It was responsible by the Middle Ages of Internet in the 2000s. Many corp systems still work solely on IE8 or IE6.
Edge is a completely different product based on a new rendering engine which is as spec compliant as Firefox.
i don't believe that for a second - edge being as spec compliant as firefox, that is.
Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML
#16I still think this is a bit melodramatic. I'm biased but all the same, Microsoft having major foothold in Chromium seems like a good thing. EdgeHTML didn't really do any good for us because barely anyone used it anyways. It would've been a bigger loss had there been substantial market share, but from my understanding Edge barely took off even with very aggressive behavior to push it on us. (My default browser has been reset to edge nearly every major Windows update. Windows also resets "corrupt" file associations - magically, those "corrupt" file associations work without issue if I just forcibly uninstall the app it wants to reset them to.)
Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML
#17I still see zero benefit to me, today , to use Firefox.
This is the exact attitude that is going to doom the open web.
Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML
#18I still see zero benefit to me, today , to use Firefox.
It's all about tree tabs ;)
Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML
#19Seriously, switch to Firefox. It's good again, and prioritizes privacy.[0] After Chrome's forced-sign-in debacle [1] I switched away from Chrome on all my platforms (Windows, Linux, Android) and haven't missed a thing.
[0]: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/11/firefox-sync-privacy/ [1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18055161
Re: Goodbye, EdgeHTML
#20It makes me wonder if at any point in the process Microsoft approached Firefox over integrating their rendering engine vs. Chromium and if so, what the factors were in making their final decision. I also wonder if instead of "ceding" control to Google, Microsoft intends to start being a major contributor to Chromium, so much so that it almost becomes a joint effort vs. Google dominance.
As I understand things, the Mozilla codebase is a much older, vastly more complex and significantly less embedding-friendly environment than WebKit and derivatives. At least from here, it is easy to see why the choice may have in part been technically driven.
(I'm a diehard Firefox user but not gonna lie, side-by-side, I'd prefer surfing through WebKit's repos by a long shot!)