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The Firefox Dilemma

blog.tawhidhannan.co.uk

11–20 of 208 posts

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#11
A strange differences between OSes and Browsers, is that Browsers need/want to conform to standards.

No-one expects Windows programs to work on macOS or Linux. But with the web that's different.

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#12

Out of curiosity, before Chrome came along, why didn't Firefox eat IE's lunch? The Microsoft anti-trust case was 1999-2001 but Chrome came out in 2008.

In the right circles, Mozilla Browser/Phoenix (and then Firefox) did eat IE's lunch until Chrome launched and Firefox started becoming slower and more bloaty. The only time I used IE from IE 5.5/6 onwards was to download Mozilla Browser and/or Opera after a fresh install. It was common knowledge to disable ActiveX and download Mozilla.

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#13

Out of curiosity, before Chrome came along, why didn't Firefox eat IE's lunch? The Microsoft anti-trust case was 1999-2001 but Chrome came out in 2008.

Firefox was always slow - the GUI felt slower than IE to me - and while it theoretically had better standards support, there were no websites that didn't work in IE.

(Personally I was using Konqueror in that era - even then it felt like a much better browser - and wish the open-source community had rallied behind it. But the US open-source folks never seemed to pay much attention to anything that had been implemented in Europe)

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#15
post #6

Mozilla directors are wholly responsible for turning Firefox into what it became now. They have no moral right whatsoever to plead for mercy now.

So we should just let the Google hegemony control the web and suck up all our data along with doing the same to our phones?

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#16

Out of curiosity, before Chrome came along, why didn't Firefox eat IE's lunch? The Microsoft anti-trust case was 1999-2001 but Chrome came out in 2008.

It kinda did, see 2010 https://www.w3schools.com/browsers/default.asp

Google pushed Chrome a lot. We need another antitrust for Google honestly. They are promoting Chrome everywhere they can.

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#17
post #9

Firefox would do well to remove Pocket integration and stop placing ads.

People need to be paid at some point, unless everyone magically starts to donate that's a reality.

I don't like it either, that's why I give to Mozilla once in a while.

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#18

Out of curiosity, before Chrome came along, why didn't Firefox eat IE's lunch? The Microsoft anti-trust case was 1999-2001 but Chrome came out in 2008.

Web standards weren’t a thing. You had to be bug compatible with IE or websites wouldn’t work. Firefox was slowly catching up. It was up to some 30 something percent after the big operations at the grassroots to popularize It. Mozilla was making web standards a thing.

When Chrome arrived, though, the paradigm shifted. Chrome was blazing fast. You double clicked it and it opened instantly. You closed it and it was gone. When you typed somrthing into the bar, it searched it or it went to the url. When you opened a new tab it opened instantly. It was amazing. And everyone knew who Google were - they’d made real search, they’d given us Gmail (upending all of webmail).

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#19
post #15
post #6

Mozilla directors are wholly responsible for turning Firefox into what it became now. They have no moral right whatsoever to plead for mercy now.

So we should just let the Google hegemony control the web and suck up all our data along with doing the same to our phones?

No, but you can't move Mozilla forward without firing incompetent directors flying chartered jets and getting $1M USD remuneration for nothing.

All success Mozilla ever had was due to hard work of volunteer developers who pulled out Firefox, and all the money Mozilla directors scored was due to them slicing off the project piece by piece for last 10 years.

P.S. There is a whisper going around that Google's only reason to keep paying Mozilla so generously is just to keep them down, and quiet — a kind of unwritten non-aggression pact

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