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Switch from Chrome to Firefox

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Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#821

Post by teh_klev »

juststeve wrote: post #586
teh_klev wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll bite, tell me (I already know they were acquired by Microsoft)....?

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/05/24/github_is_independe...

Not one thing in that article, is terrible. El Reg is a tabloid and they love to stir up the muck with evocative language, I don't treat them as a serious new source these days (and I've been reading The Register since 1998 when there was some semblance of respectability - such as upsetting Apple :) ).

Right...so they dropped in Nat Friedman....a Mr Opensource... as CEO. I don't think you can get a bigger statement of their commitment to F/OSS than that.

And um ok MS need to make some cash from their acquisition maybe by pushing Azure as a platform for open source projects - hell what did you expect? If Google or Amazon Acquired Github I'd expect the same, and they'd do the same.

And you know, you as a project maintainer still have a choice. You can still deploy anywhere you like.

Microsoft aren't stupid, they've for the past ten years and more promoted the open sourcing of some of their key web dev tech (initiated by Scott Guthrie, Hanselman, Rob [thingy], and another few folks I can't remember off of the top of my head). And it's a different company now.

I hate to do the "appeal to authority" thing, but I'm 52 and lived through the "knife the baby" times. Microsoft for developers and open source are a hugely different company under Satya Nadella compared to the days of Ballmer and Gates.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#822

Post by alias_neo »

epicide wrote: post #696
alias_neo wrote: post #451

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then you're just using Chrome... Isn't Electron basically just a Chrome tab as an app (to over simplify it? I presume it would afford Google the same level of tracking that Chrome does.

> Then you're just using Chrome... Well, yeah, that was the whole point. If we're saying fire up Chrome just to watch Netflix, I'm suggesting saving some effort and/or isolate the rest of your browser by wrapping it in a very basic Electron app. At the very least, you wouldn't get auto-logged into your "browser" or anything like that.

Ah, my bad, I missed that point.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#824

Post by TheKarateKid »

dgellow wrote: post #599
TheKarateKid wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer and power user, it's difficult for me to switch to Firefox. However for most average Joe's it's fine and won't make a difference, so I always install and recommend Firefox when I play IT guy for family/friends. Time to start doing this again like we did in 2005!! It worked then and it can now!

I’m a developer and power user, I switched to Firefox months ago. What is making difficult to switch? I found equivalent for all my plugins so far.

What many others have already said - it's slower and many popular sites don't work properly on it. I don't feel like randomly having websites break when I am trying to get things done.

Even on a newer computer Firefox feels jagged and hangs. Memory leaks still happening years later. It is so frustrating to see Firefox using 1.5GB of RAM when only 2 tabs remain.

Quantum helped a lot, but it's still not enough for me and many others.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#825

Post by bscphil »

RussianCow wrote: post #478
vbezhenar wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Most internet videos" probably is overstatement. I'm watching youtube, pornhub and twitch and I don't think that it requires any DRM. The only service with DRM I'm aware of is Netflix and it's terrible anyway.

> The only service with DRM I'm aware of is Netflix and it's terrible anyway. Ha! Tell that to their 150 million subscribers. :) More seriously, using a browser without DRM would be a deal-breaker to many users like myself solely because of Netflix, unfortunately. That said, if you're serious about using a DRM-free browser, there are other ways to watch Netflix (iOS/Android, smart TVs, etc).

Don't they have a desktop client that works just fine? Also, Chrome's "advantage" may be having built-in DRM, but it's not much of one: Netflix limits Chrome users to 720p video. So for all practical purposes you need a different browser or client for Netflix anyway if your main browser is Chromium based.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#826

Post by burlesona »

jrochkind1 wrote: post #250
jwr wrote: post #161

I don't understand why Mac users use Chrome. Safari seems to be out of fashion: people just assume that it should not be used for some reason, even though it is actually a great browser. I use Safari for both my own browsing and for development (a fairly large ClojureScript application), and it is by far the best browser on the platform by all measures (speed first and foremost). The only place where Safari falls sho…

How's the dev tools (aka whatever the equivalent of Chrome "dev tools" is)? As a web dev, the main reason I don't switch is I know how to use Chrome dev tools, and hate spending time I could be producing code instead learning new tools for something like this. But eventually I'll get myself to (prob to FF rather than safari, as long as I'm switching).

The dev tools are pretty good, just laid out slightly differently than the other browsers, and not quite as deep in some areas. But FWIW I use Safari as my primary browser and FF Developer Edition for the dev tools, and that arrangement works well for me. I do use Safari dev tools when I’m running on battery though - I get about 2 more hours of life, which is more than worth it.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#827

Post by TheKarateKid »

jaredklewis wrote: post #601
TheKarateKid wrote: post #596

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a developer and power user, it's difficult for me to switch to Firefox. However for most average Joe's it's fine and won't make a difference, so I always install and recommend Firefox when I play IT guy for family/friends. Time to start doing this again like we did in 2005!! It worked then and it can now!

As a developer and—I think—power user, I use Firefox without issue. What developer tools available in chrome but not firefox?

PHPStorm IDE Support, Netbeans Connector are both only available for Chrome. Not a game changer but it certainly makes using Firefox less convenient.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#828

Post by jackewiehose »

the_jeremy wrote: post #791
jackewiehose wrote: post #591

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it looks like they didn't "ban" it, they just don't want to host it on their store [1]. As long as they don't refuse to sign these "problematic" add-ons, this is fine (although it's worrying that they are able to do so because of this signing-required-crap). [1]: https://reclaimthenet.org/firefox-rejects-free-speech-bans-f...

At least one extension maintainer (yappy, a pushbullet alternative) says that they are unable to sign their extension because of the 3rd party library they use, so while they have both firefox and chrome extensions, only the chrome one works.

That would be very disappointing from mozilla! I only found a support-thread from yappy in 2016 but if this is still up-to-date there should be an outrage on HN's frontpage.

I also made a simple, private(!) extension before I learned about the signing-requirement and that it won't work without uploading it. So I canceled my career as an extension-writer and just went to bed angry.

They really fucked this up (without even mentioning the "armag-addon").

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#829

Post by depressedpanda »

reilly3000 wrote: post #264

That page is just missing one critical thing: 4. Migrate my extensions. It would be great if they developed a graph mapping Chrome extensions to Mozilla equivalents. Then the user could confirm installation of the ones with 1:1 parity, like LastPass, allow users to select similar extensions, or skip installing an equivalent. There are some Chrome-Exclusive extensions that keep me hooked. That and Firefox’s Storage in…

> That and Firefox’s Storage inspector is terrible, there isn’t a native way to clear localstorage during development.

While I agree that the inspector could be improved, this is false. Dev tools > Storage tab > Expand local storage > Select domain > Right click a key/value > Select "Delete all". Done.

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