71–80 of 208 posts
An incredibly interesting alternate reality would have been one where Microsoft used Quantum/Servo to power Edge instead of Chromium.
2. Reader mode
3. Addons on mobile (pretty much just for blocking unwanted requests to make things way faster on slow connection and to protect my privacy)
4. Facebook container (same for Google would be nice)
5. Taking screenshots
6. Always enable zoom on mobile
[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/send-tab-firefox-ios-yo...
[2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clu...
[4] https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/facebook-container-extensio...
[5] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-screenshots
Earlier quoted context omitted.
bookmark tags are probably going to be the next to go when Firefox decides "too few people are using it".
No, that’s bookmark keywords, which are not widely used and difficult to discover, and for which there’s a rough alternative in search engines. I believe it’s on the chopping block, or at least it looked to be a few months ago, as I discovered when looking through Bugzilla to see about exposing bookmark keywords to WebExtensions so that I could make an extension that would implement DuckDuckGo’s !bangs in the browser…
>I think about Chrome’s usurping of Internet Explorer (IE), and I wonder (antitrust and all aside) would Chrome have usurped IE if it wasn’t for IE stagnating? I remember when I was younger and jumped ship to Chrome - personally, it wasn’t about using Chrome because it wasn’t IE, it was about Chrome beating IE in a foot race and offering me a clean user experience. Chrome ate Firefox's lunch, not IE's. Firefox was th…
FF was not without responsibilities (they got bogged down in backend work on gecko that never really delivered, then got distracted by side bets like FFOS and friends), but without Google's other properties and market share, this would never have happened.
I fully agree with this article. I respect people choosing products based on ideality, but I personally will just use what suits my demand/preference best. When I first switched from IE to Firefox 1.5, it's because it has tabs. And I loved it more and more once I figured out how well-built it is and how powerful addons can be. When Chrome firstly came, it was pretty bad in term of functionality. The extension system…
I think there's another factor at play that isn't often mentioned: Google uses the dominant position of its services, as well as the strength of their brands, to promote Chrome as the better browser, in not-so-subtle ways. One is often repeatedly prompted to install Chrome when visiting Google on other browsers[1][2]. Most normal users would just give up and install just to get rid of the pop up. Microsoft has been d…
Also Firefox for Android gets a shit version of Google search. But if you spoof your user agent it works perfectly. That definitely is using their dominance in search to make people.use their web browser.
However you're right in general Google are using the position to enforce Chrome
A big problem is that the web standard is too complicated. Browsers are pretty much a virtual os that can do almost everything. For anyone to make a browser from scratch today is not feasible. We will move towards a monoculture, because there is no alternative unless we make a drastic shift in rethinking how the web should work.
Think about what Chrome's dominance means: Chrome can push users and developers around as it wants. There is no long-term viability, and anything is at stake. Chrome already has QUIC support, will soon gain Grid Layout Level 2 support, etc. At the end of this decade, we'll be left with a generation of developers lost in the cloud.
For too long, the situation on the web has been that the inmates run the asylum, including so-called standard bodies financially dependent on Google. As they say, the road to a dystopian future is littered with good intentions.
I think there's another factor at play that isn't often mentioned: Google uses the dominant position of its services, as well as the strength of their brands, to promote Chrome as the better browser, in not-so-subtle ways. One is often repeatedly prompted to install Chrome when visiting Google on other browsers[1][2]. Most normal users would just give up and install just to get rid of the pop up. Microsoft has been d…
Also Firefox for Android gets a shit version of Google search. But if you spoof your user agent it works perfectly. That definitely is using their dominance in search to make people.use their web browser.
I haven't used chrome for years, so actually don't know. Maybe I'd prefer it but I make a policy of not using google software and services (where the choice still exists).