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Google Just Gave 2B Chrome Users a Reason to Switch to Firefox

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131–140 of 231 posts

Re: Google Just Gave 2B Chrome Users a Reason to Switch to Firefox

#131
post #21
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari is a terrible, Apple-like version of WebKit. The last viable windows version of Safari was abandoned 8 years ago, so please nobody use this browser.

Safari is the fastest browser I've ever used on mobile. It also supports ad blocking. Calling it "terrible" simply does not resonate with me. Chrome is slower and Firefox on mobile is a joke.

You clearly don't have much experience as a developer with Safari on iOS. It's a terrible browser full of bugs and inconsistent behavior.

Re: Google Just Gave 2B Chrome Users a Reason to Switch to Firefox

#132
post #34

Tried out Firefox again a few days ago. Still prefer chrome. If add blocking becomes an issue with chrome, I'll definitely make the switch because of that and just hate it or go back to safari and hate it just as much

What don’t you like about Firefox? Speaking as a FF user I have a hard time using Chrome too. In other words you get used to what you use and FF is a decent option.

biggest issue for me is firefox's lack of audio pitch correction on sped up videos. at 3x the audio is unclear; chrome handles it perfectly.

Re: Google Just Gave 2B Chrome Users a Reason to Switch to Firefox

#133
post #73
post #3

Great to see mainstream media picking this up and giving Firefox some exposure. With Microsoft switching to Chromium, Firefox is now the only viable (cross platform) alternative. FF gaining back a solid amount of market share is critical for the browser ecosystem in the future. (Personally I switched back to FF after the first Quantum release, which brought performance back on par with Chrome. On mobile, the ad block…

> With Microsoft switching to Chromium, Firefox is now the only viable I'm not sure I understand your point. Is there a public statement from Microsoft that they are following Google on this? I don't know what Microsoft is going to do, but nothing stops them from keeping the API fully working. And if Firefox was based on Chromium too, nothing would stop Mozilla from keeping the API working either. Although I expect s…

Agreed. And so far in the dev releases, they are stripping out all the Google services.

Re: Google Just Gave 2B Chrome Users a Reason to Switch to Firefox

#134
post #21
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Safari is a terrible, Apple-like version of WebKit. The last viable windows version of Safari was abandoned 8 years ago, so please nobody use this browser.

Safari is the fastest browser I've ever used on mobile. It also supports ad blocking. Calling it "terrible" simply does not resonate with me. Chrome is slower and Firefox on mobile is a joke.

Since I have the new Macbook Air I also switched to Safari because it also extends battery lifetime. Still need to get used to the different keyboard shortcuts and plugin system though.

(But yes, if I do Frontend development, I use Chrome)

Re: Google Just Gave 2B Chrome Users a Reason to Switch to Firefox

#135
post #52
post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it doesn't. For example to tap a link you have to tap it directly, links don't have a halo around them to make them easier to tap. Tapping things like the [-] buttons here in HN is very hard. It's stupid shit like that that makes it unusable for me. I don't believe for a second the developers of Firefox for Android use it every day and haven't fixed that. And if they don't dogfood what hope is there for that softw…

> I don't believe for a second the developers of Firefox for Android use it every day and haven't fixed that. Why is that so unbelievable? I use Firefox every day and haven't even considered that this might be a problem. I don't have difficulty hitting the [-] on HN, but if I did, I would simply zoom in until it becomes large enough.

Same, used Firefox on Android (currently on a 5.5" phone (Nokia 6.1)) for over a year without a single issue.

Chrome still had a slightly better UI the last time I tried it but the gap wasn't remotely wide enough to give up ublock origin.

Adverts are even more annoying on phones than they are on desktop so been able to run ublock origin directly on device is a major win.

Re: Google Just Gave 2B Chrome Users a Reason to Switch to Firefox

#136

All of this "debate" is pretty absurd. Yes the webrequest v3 proposal seems problematic for scripts /malware / crypto / ad / etc blockers. This is consensual. Chromium is open source and has those two main actors: opera and Microsoft. Almost everybody seems to consider chromium in the debate as a proprietary software owned by Google. And thus argue to switch to Firefox. Let's be clear, when you look at the technical,…

I really think that's an oversimplification.

There are always the pro and con arguments about software mono culture and there are good points on both sides, and in this case there is indeed a gigantic cost to maintaining more than one implementation -- no one is debating that. Also, an across-the-board evaluation would probably find Firefox technically inferior at the moment, although I think that's more of an interesting debate and also a measurement where I feel the gap has lessened these last few years. My disclaimer would be that I'm a long-time user of both browsers, but ethically on Mozilla's side.

However, I think the following

> and to an implementation which satisfy every interests (the ones of Googles and the one of Microsoft/mozilla)

doesn't put nearly enough emphasis on exactly how different those interests are. Google's main source of income depends on user surveillance and privacy intrusions (to use some loaded wording), and while Mozilla's indirectly does too through their sources of funding the two entities have very different goals and core beliefs.

That in itself doesn't preclude sharing an implementation, but thinking that those differences won't (and don't) cause conflicts of interest that affect both the evolving of the standards and how the actual implementations work would be, I believe, a big mistake.

Just saying "ensure the respect of privacy in the chromium source code" and that they should maintain a set of patches or a "micro fork" I think ignores the level of control they will be (or rather won't be) able to exert over the Chromium code base. I don't think Opera, Brave, Microsoft, Mozilla or anyone else that decides to either be a downstream user of or active participant in Chromium will be able to keep Google from doing whatever is in their best interest with the code base. Additionally, I think keeping patch sets (that won't end up being very complicated and will slow down or put to a grinding halt independent development) won't be able to make up for the implementation differences caused by the differences in goals. Keeping patch sets can be extremely painful.

> Chromium is open source and has those two main actors: opera and Microsoft.

I really apologize for my tone, but... Please. In what regard are they main actors? Certainly not to the extent that they have any significant control over the main direction of the Chromium code base or any power to stop Google from completely controlling it.

The core beliefs and goals of the entity exerting the main control over the code base matters a lot more than your post makes it sound like. And if Chromium really were the only code base able to browse the modern web, then that would also put the standardization of the World Wide Web more or less in Googles hands.

Also, for someone asking for better "intellectual riguour", you do a pretty so-so job at showing your understanding of the arguments of the people you don't agree with.

Re: Google Just Gave 2B Chrome Users a Reason to Switch to Firefox

#137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look up Firefox Pocket and Firefox Gab/Dissenter.

>Pocket I don't follow. How does a built in extension to save pages to a cloud account equate with the systematic and pervasive abuses of privacy that are Google's business model? >Gab I was not aware of this platform. Here are some lovely snippets from Wikipedia: >Gab stated that conservative, libertarian, nationalist and populist internet users were its target markets. What a lovely "free speech" platform. Can't im…

Personally, I think that Gab is a dumpster fire that it's best to avoid, yet I am very sensitive to browsers making content/editorial decisions for their users. From a security perspective teaching users to jump around browser protections is never a good idea. It's going to bite us in the butt at some point.

Re: Google Just Gave 2B Chrome Users a Reason to Switch to Firefox

#138
> Another option is using something like Pi-Hole, says Wright. “This works on the DNS level and has blacklists of adverts as well as malicious URLs.”

I think nextdns is fantastic for this purpose and has a barrier of entry that makes it usable for non-tech folks as well.

I created an account recently and linked my WireGuard server's IP (when connected) to a saved nextdns configuration.

Ads/trackers are now blocked on all my devices that use the WG egress when the provided DNS server is set in each peer's conf.

This is obvious given the scale of their blocklists, but let me just say the browsing experience and speed boost is utterly phenomenal. Does a better job at blocking than both my old Pi-Hole server and my localhost AdGuard Home daemon.

[0] https://nextdns.io

Re: Google Just Gave 2B Chrome Users a Reason to Switch to Firefox

#139
post #17

The state of the debate is unsatisfactory. Google employees such as Justin Schuh are aggressively defending the move on tech/security principles and denying commercial motivations, while uBlock Origin dev (Raymond Hill) says the change will cripple or kill uBO on Chrome and evil motives are its raison d'être . It's good that mainstream media articles raise the awareness of the issue, but a good technical discussion b…

> Is it possible to fix the security issues of the existing webRequest API without deprecating it? The WebRequest API is not being deprecated though, only the ability to block through it is. And I don't think blocking a request has very negative security implications. It's hard to not attribute malice to this move when the status quo was absolutely fine, and google is raising a strawman to try and justify their chang…

They have to raise a strawman though, their cash cow is advertising and often advertising to people who don't want advertising, ublock origin and others allows those people (including me) to block the advertising.

To put it in a simple form, I will not use a browser that can't run ublock origin, full stop, I don't care what other features it has, ublock origin is the single killer feature for me.

Re: Google Just Gave 2B Chrome Users a Reason to Switch to Firefox

#140
post #3

Great to see mainstream media picking this up and giving Firefox some exposure. With Microsoft switching to Chromium, Firefox is now the only viable (cross platform) alternative. FF gaining back a solid amount of market share is critical for the browser ecosystem in the future. (Personally I switched back to FF after the first Quantum release, which brought performance back on par with Chrome. On mobile, the ad block…

I just wish they finally fixed the bug that makes it unusable for me and thousands of other users using macbooks with resolution set to "more space"... I can't count how many people in my office I've had to help after their macbook randomly starts heating and turning fans to max power, it's always that they started using firefox.

I've been checking the tickets associated with the issue (mainly [this one](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042) ) and there doesn't seem to be any significant advance, nor it seems the people in charge are aware of how prevalent and deal breaking this bug is :(

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