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

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

#181

Post by walterbell »

jekrb wrote: post #165
walterbell wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For instance, Safari doesn't allow localstorage while in incognito. Isn't that good for privacy? Localstorage can store unique IDs and other data about the client's past behavior, it's much more dangerous than cookies.

It would be nice if localstorage worked in a new instance in incognito. This way webapps that require it can still function without affecting non-incognito tabs. What other privacy concerns would there be I'm wondering?

If incognito mode discards localstorage, there is risk of silent data loss. E.g. imagine a web-based editor that saved drafts.

Websites can detect the absence of localstorage and change their behavior, e.g. notify the user that information will be lost after the session ends.

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

#182

Post by tiles »

treis wrote: post #178
SCHiM wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think so. Google is abusing their power with Chrome to force their standards on others. I hope they lose their grip on the browser market like MS did, and standards become open.

The standards are open. The problem is that browsers don't implement them 100% the same and they add in their own features. Settling on a single implementation fixes that issue. Different browsers can compete based on ancillary features like Linux distros do.

> Settling on a single implementation fixes that issue.

When Microsoft was in a monopoly position, they ignored the standards and pushed ActiveX plugins. Chrome this year wanted to push other browsers to adopt obsolete U2F specifications because they used them in Google products. If there's a single implementation, and the gatekeepers are majority from one company, standards and interoperability become irrelevant.

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

#183

Post by nsomaru »

keymone wrote: post #100

just switched two days ago. it's been nice ten years, see you google. my main hurdle was absence of decent support for multiple isolated profiles in firefox and it's still not great but multi-account containers are good enough for now.

What limitations have you found with containers? I use them all the time and they work great especially when you set domains to open in a container by default.

Did chrome have better support for that?

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

#184

Post by tolle »

rcthompson wrote: post #148
torben-friis wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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://bug…

I wonder if this bug also applies to using the "Looks like 1280x800" option on a MBP with a 2560x1600 screen (this is what I use). The default is "Looks like 1440x900".

It doesn't, or it's at least better.

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

#185

Post by Syzygies »

Being shown ads is a requirement for many web sites. Responding to them is not. The focus of ad blockers is all wrong; the priority should be to appear to see ads without actually seeing them, and to protect privacy.

A browser of the future will fail to display ads, while giving no hint of this to the ad source; ads need to be downloaded as usual.

A browser of the future will cloak its identity by sandboxing each website, manipulating browser signature and apparent IP address (some variation of VPN services) to destroy tracking.

The issue isn't saving resources, it's winning the privacy wars.

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

#186

Post by noir_lord »

exergy wrote: post #177
noir_lord wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think Google may be about to find that a non trivial number of people share that last sentiment.

I'm sure they did the calculation of users lost vs advertising increase from users who still use them after they break adblockers.

Honestly though it makes me glad that I never stopped using FF as my primary browser, Chrome is used for dev/testing so this doesn't really affect me directly, I'll just make sure that Chrome can only access sites under dev/testing and carry on.

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

#187

Post by majewsky »

Justsignedup wrote: post #123

Glad to see people caring. 99% of people don't even know that adblockers exist. Those same people are generally scared of computers. Trust me, this isn't gonna matter. I saw these same arguments during the IE/Firefox war. Didn't matter that much.

> 99% of people don't even know that adblockers exist.

How can that be when mainstream publishers complain about 20% and more of users using adblockers?

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

#188

Post by josefx »

treis wrote: post #159
the_duke wrote: 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 (cross platform) alternative. FF gaining back a solid amount of market share is critical for the browser ecosystem in the future Why are multiple rendering and JS engines critical for the browser ecosystem? Everyone would be much better off if we standardized on one.

The next Chrome standard manifest says that ad blockers are a deprecated feature since they hurt Googles business.

Looking a bit further (into possible future business needs of Alphabet) you might see that chrome will refuse to serve anything not based on Googles AMP standard and globally remove anything that hurts their partnership with the Chinese government.

This is the single standard JS engine we are looking forward to.

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

#189

Post by patrick5415 »

yorwba wrote: post #52
ycgeu wrote: 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.

I’m amazed at the tiny inconveniences that lead people to something is totally broken and completely unusable.

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

#190

Post by 713233eb »

agentofuser wrote: post #79

I really want to use Firefox because of Quantum and other Rust goodness, but until they catch up on usability I'm happy to stay with Brave. Tab-to-search is sorely missing in Firefox, and the tab creation and switching experience on Android is awful.

Tab management is what keeping me from switching to FF on Android. The option to use extensions and to customize the browser to the desktop level is amazing though. I hope they will look into tabs' UX later when more people are going to use it.
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