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Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

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Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#141

Post by idoubtit »

Tistron wrote: post #34

Two things has me almost dropping firefox and going over to chrome: - It still doesn't remember my credit card details, and is generally worse at filling out forms. - On mobile, I regularly experience that the cookie jar gets broken somehow and all my logins are broken which will work again by closing the browser down and starting it again. The only think keeping me on Fx is a sense of ethics, the same reason I don't…

> The only think keeping me on Fx is a sense of ethics

So do I. At least I still use Firefox as my secondary browser.

My own main recriminations:

- The download manager is awful. I sometimes download several times a file because I didn't see it started. And I could describe half a dozen bugs with it. For example, under some conditions, the size of a download is replaced by the sum of the previously downloaded files (4GB/4.1GB instead of 0/100MB + 4GB old files).

- about:config is broken. When I open the settings for power users in Chromium, each option has a short description. With Firefox, the documentation is not linked to the setting, it's in a wiki or blog posts.

- I need an extension to confirm on quit. I sometimes press Ctrl-q when I intended Ctrl-w. The config browser.showQuitWarning and browser.warnOnQuit have no effect. I had to read FF's source code to understand it was intentional: the code had evolved (IMHO, in a bad way), the doc had not.

- Local extensions are removed when FF stops. I heard that this is not the case with "developer FF", but I don't want to drop the OS packaging of ESR FF. And that feature is already in Chromium based browsers. I don't even know what devFF is, though I've heard it's based on a FF beta branch.

These are mostly not problems for the main target of FF. My parents main problem were that an update once replaced their custom starting page (tailor made) with the default one (recently visited sites + ads). They also had a few UI hard times, but these were either fixed by FF (adding a link to the starting page was impossible without reading a doc) or my parents got used to them.

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#142

Post by irq »

userbinator wrote: post #19

It’s the non-technical users, who are convinced by their technical relatives to install it, who need to be convinced. Ironically, whenever I've complained about those irritating first-run experiences (not necessarily for Firefox, but for other software), the response has always been "that's for the non-technical users". Remember that these users are accustomed to/desensitised to being bombarded with adverts and such,…

Your ideal browser did once exist. It was called Phoenix.exe. It was a little executable you could run from anywhere that launched quickly. Compared to its competitor at the time - the bloated, boat-themed Netscape Navigator suite - it was sleek and efficient.

The rest is history: Phoenix.exe literally became Firefox, and now the cycle repeats again.

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#144

Post by brianpgordon »

mcbits wrote: post #138
klingonopera wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just making a browser? It's the piece of software I'd least be willing to touch. Even Microsoft gave up and switched their core to Chromium. Considering that, it's quite amazing that Mozilla is capable of not just making a browser, but also an email client, with a budget of 500 million.

The most recent financial statement I could see is from 2017: https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2017/mozilla-fdn-201... They spent $253 million (45% of revenue) on software development, presumably the bulk going to Firefox. Other major expenses were $66 million for marketing (yay Moz://a!), $72 million for the dubious "general and administrative" category, a few million here and there for other things, and the…

> They spent $253 million (45% of revenue) on software development, presumably the bulk going to Firefox.

I'm curious if anyone can locate information on how much of that was spent specifically on Firefox, the browser. It seems like Mozilla was working on a bunch of peripheral stuff during that 2016-2017 period.

* Work on Firefox OS was still ongoing through 1H 2016. (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mozilla.dev.fxos/FoAwi...)

* They were building a free subscription service to check HIBP for your info. (https://monitor.firefox.com/)

* They were building a file-sharing service (https://github.com/mozilla/send/blob/master/CHANGELOG.md)

* They were building a new VR-first browser and content aggregator (https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2018/09/18/firefox-reality-now...)

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#145

Post by thibran »

ferzul wrote: post #21
giancarlostoro wrote: post #15

I still wish FirefoxOS had pivoted on to Netbooks. As much as I appreciate the tech behind a Chromebook I rather buy a Macbook air than be another Chrome browser footprint. I would love a Quantumbook (or whatever) to be a thing. It would make for a nice change especially if they build a Linux Distro that is very secure much like ChromeOS is (rogue Chrome plugins aside).

I've never seen a Chromebook, not from my friends not in a shop when I'm trying to buy something. I guess they're not in the market here - lots of things aren't since it's a physically very large, medium sized country a long way from the major markets. Who has them? are they somehow useful?

Low cost, 10 h battery live, Linux support.

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#146

Post by pbhjpbhj »

jsinai wrote: post #92
brianpgordon wrote: post #57

> While I understand that they have to make money somehow I don't. I don't understand how Mozilla has over a thousand employees and over 500 million dollars in annual revenue. With that kind of money, Firefox should be absolutely dominating the browser space. They shouldn't be making Firefox worse with advertising in order to subsidize their flailing around trying to find traction in mobile or VR. It actually reminds…

> The whole point of Mozilla is supposed to be Firefox and Thunderbird And the whole point of Google is search? I think it makes sense that Mozilla would expand into more than just Firefox and Thunderbird. They’re a software foundation so limit themselves to a browser or mail client? I like the fact that they’ve becomes champions of privacy and internet safety. Agreed though. What they’re doing is technically hard bu…

Yeah, when FF and TB are perfect they can move on to other stuff!

>they’ve becomes champions of privacy and internet safety //

Two years or so ago I'd have agreed.

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#147

Post by LeoNatan25 »

cageface wrote: post #61
userbinator wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If developers are genuinely concerned with browser diversity and not handing the Web over to Google and whatever they deem to be the next IE6, it starts with having a test plan for other browsers. I'd say it starts with dialing back the "new feature/change fetish" that a lot of web developers have. Yes, I know some things simply can't be done without a JS webapp, but not all and probably not even a majority, so if HT…

The problem with this is that the web is competing with native apps. A vanilla HTML site might be good enough in some cases but often you really need to push the envelope of what’s possible the web and that’s hard to do and also support niche browsers on a tight development budget.

> The problem with this is that the web is competing with native apps.

Only in the minds of web “devs”.

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#148

Post by AsyncAwait »

manojlds wrote: post #75
klingonopera wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those 500 million are easily eclipsed if you compare it to what Google's revenue is... EDIT: It was 136 billion in 2018: https://www.statista.com/statistics/266206/googles-annual-gl...

And Google builds only a browser? What's the budget of the Google Chrome team?

Mozilla doesn't build only a browser either and as a Rust user, am glad they don't.

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#149

Post by AsyncAwait »

brianpgordon wrote: post #132
klingonopera wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just making a browser? It's the piece of software I'd least be willing to touch. Even Microsoft gave up and switched their core to Chromium. Considering that, it's quite amazing that Mozilla is capable of not just making a browser, but also an email client, with a budget of 500 million.

Microsoft still makes a browser; they just don't make their own rendering engine anymore. Which makes sense because it's hard and Blink works just fine. I wouldn't mind if Mozilla did the same thing. The Vivaldi folks are using that strategy and managing to make the best web browser out there with what I assume must be a microscopic fraction of $500 million/yr. And I don't share your opinion of how far a $500 million…

> I wouldn't mind if Mozilla did the same thing.

Then there would literally be no point to Firefox existing as a counterbalance to Google deciding the web's future.

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#150

Post by luckylion »

Grue3 wrote: post #127
luckylion wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's an absolute killer for other browsers. I'm not so sure about that. First of all, most "normal" people I know don't actually know what a browser is ("open your browser" - "my what?" - "... open the internet" - "ohh, okay!") nor which one they are using. I've never had anyone ask for help in switching browsers - unless something is seriously wrong with the one they have, they don't see the alternatives, and mo…

Google Chrome is bundled with a lot of freeware apps and the user needs to uncheck a checkbox to avoid it being installed as a default browser. That's literally how it got current market share, along with being heavily advertised on google.com.

Makes sense, and works well with my experience that users don't really care or know what they are using. If the extent of customization is your bookmarks, being converted to a happy chrome user isn't hard. If it's more than that, a coerced install is probably not going to make you switch.

But for most people, they won't really notice a difference between Chrome and Firefox in their daily usage.

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