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

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

#151

Post by AsyncAwait » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:11 PM UTC

peteretep wrote: post #115

AsyncAwait wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, Mozilla now owns Pocket. It's not just some random extension. Chrome comes preinstalled with YouTube, Gmail etc. too. It's a bit of cross-property promotion and to be fair, Pocket is indeed quite useful.

> To be fair, Mozilla now owns Pocket. It's not just some random extension. My understanding is that at the time it was foist in users it was very much just some random extension, tho

They did not own it from the start, but they did have a special privacy agreement with Pocket regarding user data. Also, the acquisition was a result of user feedback, something Google would likely ignore.

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

#152

Post by Springtime » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:12 PM UTC

Unfortunately the choice isn't as easy now, personally. I'm stuck having to use an older, non-Quantum version for my daily browsing following Mozilla's decision to obsolete their previous addons as of v57 (and having since deleted them from their servers).

Previously Firefox was a no-brainer choice for its deep customizibility and functionality it afforded addons, which primarily distinguished it from Chromium, however since the move to Quantum I have too many addons without an equivalent to switch, with a couple favorites that did migrate to WebExtensions offering an inferior experience.

Vivaldi would be my second choice should I be forced to switch since its integrated features more closely match Opera's original features, albeit less extensive.

Mozilla felt the need to do what they did in that regard and I understand the various reasoning for the decision however the way it panned out didn't make for a browser I'm currently interested in upgrading to, sadly.

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

#153

Post by magduf » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:13 PM UTC

Santosh83 wrote: post #10

sametmax wrote: post #2

And it didn't work. Some people were aware of this. A few took the time to read/discuss/think about it. A minuscule fraction of passionate people acted on it. And the rest of the world took the path of least resistance, as usual. People don't shape society willingly. They mostly let life happen to them. Even when you see them protesting, it's the consequence of an emotional reaction and a group effect, not the reflec…

Be the change you want and keep talking about it. I've stuck to Firefox through ups and downs ever since I found out about it back during version 1 point something. Internet Explorer proved that behemoths can and will fall, given enough time to shoot themselves in the foot. Firefox just needs to retain its 10% somehow.

>Be the change you want and keep talking about it.

The OP already talked about the problem with this approach to things: >"...it's very unfair for the minority trying hard to make things better. They pay a high price, with no thanks, and little benefits except the hope the others won't screw up things more."

The people who stick their necks out trying to make a change usually end up sacrificing a lot and not getting anything in return, even if their efforts are successful. Basically, they're "taking one for the team".

Luckily, with browser choices, it isn't nearly that bad; it's not that hard to switch browsers on a whim, after all, but for bigger issues (like political change, as the OP was referring to to a point, with his mention of protesting), "being the change you want" is usually not a winning strategy at a personal level, and a much more successful strategy is to simply go where the grass is greener.

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

#154

Post by holtalanm » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:14 PM UTC

What if I chose Opera? Personally, I've never liked Firefox; it has always felt clunky.

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

#155

Post by superkuh » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

Mozilla made their choice to become Chrome in spirit if not engine. I don't see how picking Firefox is going to help. Maybe pick a browser that doesn't target tech ignorants that need to be protected from themselves by violating software freedoms. No browser that has a walled garden should be used.

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

#156

Post by akerro » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

aceshades wrote: post #78

nindalf wrote: post #9

Just so we can avoid rehashing the discussion whenever a post encouraging the use of Firefox is posted. - Yes, Mozilla is still the better browser when it comes to privacy. - Yes, Mozilla has made missteps with Pocket and Mr. Robot. - Yes, it is slow/resource heavy on certain Macs with non-default resolutions. Yes, Mozilla is working on a fix. - Yes, it has become really fast for most users after Quantum improvements…

What was the misstep with Pocket? I've been loving it since I discovered it thru Firefox.

Pocket used to be 3rd party for a moment, later Mozilla integrated it in Firefox and enabled integration for everyone by default. Some people didn't like it, but others love it. Pocket now belongs to Mozilla and is covered with the same privacy policy as other products and services from Mozilla (GDPR compliant before GDPR was a thing). There are plans to open-source Pocket the same way Firefox-sync is open-source and can be self-hosted. Some people just still think that browser is a stand-alone app that works without 3rd party code or integrations, they just never inspected network traffic of Firefox or any other browser.

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

#157

Post by magduf » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:15 PM UTC

shaki-dora wrote: post #19

sametmax wrote: post #2

And it didn't work. Some people were aware of this. A few took the time to read/discuss/think about it. A minuscule fraction of passionate people acted on it. And the rest of the world took the path of least resistance, as usual. People don't shape society willingly. They mostly let life happen to them. Even when you see them protesting, it's the consequence of an emotional reaction and a group effect, not the reflec…

That’s hard to prove or disprove without having an alternate universe ready for A/B testing. Although, frankly, I can’t shake the feeling I’ve been living in the B-branch for, say, the last two years. If so, let me just say: if your results are not yet conclusive, please ask your statisticians for what “multi-armed bandit” means to them, then shoot them if the quizzically look at you. You may even skip the question.…

I have to say, one reason I've stuck with Firefox for so long is because of memory usage: Chrome/Chromium is a memory hog.

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

#158

Post by Wowfunhappy » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

astura wrote: post #138

neilsimp1 wrote: post #122

I've seen the comment here on HN and a few other sites in the past few days - are there sites out there that don't work in Firefox, but do work in Chrome? Like, I'm aware of a few CSS properties that work in Chrome but not FF, but I don't think I've ever come across a site that doesn't look or work completely fine in FF. The only exception to this that I can think of is Google Earth, which I'm pretty sure you can ope…

I was looking at this page yesterday in Firefox: https://www.digitalarchives.wa.gov/Collections/TitleInfo/512 When I enter a name and click "search" I get a page with some JSON ({"Result":true,"Status":"success","Redirect":1}) rather than the results page. Worked in chrome, however.

^^ The fact that this is a government website makes it particularly egregious.

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

#159

Post by jillesvangurp » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

bzbarsky wrote: post #125

jillesvangurp wrote: post #90

Easy path to success for Firefox is to continue to beef up security and privacy tooling for their users and have sane defaults. They've been winning a lot of users who feel abandoned by the big companies in this space. A problem and conflict of interest for them regarding this is that they are funded mainly by Google. Firefox has a conflict of interest here because they are not doing all they can here because that wo…

Just FYI, audio autoplay is being actively worked on in the current Firefox development version, precisely to solve the problem you describe. There are some issues with coming up with a UX that doesn't privilege a small set of sites out of the box over everyone else [1] and also doesn't prompt the user on every single site that tries to play video (the current Firefox Nightly behavior; it's rather annoying). So for t…

I have an extension that blocks audio per site already (mute sites by default). Awesome stuff, but blocks only the sound. It shows a little mute icon on the tab if it mutes. I simply unmute when I actually want sound and the setting seems sticky.

I was talking about video auto playing (with the sound off) by default. I don't want that ever, unless I allowed it before. I want to block html5 content from activating at all unless specifically allowed. I'm on the beta channel. As far as I know there are no plans to address this and extensions that have tried to implement this are running into some limitations that make this hard apparently. Hence a lot of variations of flashblock extensions that simply set the about:config setting instead of having per site policies with whitelists and blacklists.

Private browser containers would be nice to have even if they are not yet default out of the box. I'd simply make this an option on all containers (including the default one and default it to off). I agree the ux for this would need a bit work to be discoverable/intuitive.

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

#160

Post by zerkten » Fri, Dec 07, 2018, 2:16 PM UTC

nindalf wrote: post #93

glogla wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - Yes, it is slow/resource heavy on certain Macs with non-default resolutions. Yes, Mozilla is working on a fix. On some of them. I use Mac with non-default resolution and I have no issues.

Which is why I said "on certain Macs". From my anecdotal experience, I've never had a problem with Firefox on macOS with any resolution.

I have a problem in this area and it has prevented me from moving back to Firefox. If I run Firefox on my 13" MBPr with the panel resolution (Scaled->More Space) then the battery usage goes through the roof. I'm following https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042 and hope this issue gets fixed soon. It seems that Apple changes may have made this issue more apparent to users in general.

I can obviously follow Bugzilla, but does Mozilla have anyone working this from more of a support angle and provide high-level updates on the top issues like this?