Firefox 71: A year-end arrival

See: https://forums.lastpass.com/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=356405

If you use the Mac trackpad, use BetterTouchTool to assign a gesture (I use tiptap left and tiptap right) to the switch tabs left and switch tabs right keyboard shortcuts. You can assign them per-app so it can send a different combo for Firefox than anything else.

People in HN comments frequently talk about "switching" to a different browser, as if it were true that you could only have one browser installed at a time, which is laughably false.

Is there an OS setting for a default? Sure, but that setting is inconsequential, since many shallow shortcuts to both browsers are readily created, and equally accessible. Furthermore, many HN users profess a deep mastery of command line expertise, explaining how effortless it is to use the console in a terminal window and pour shell commands from their finger tips. Surely, it would be just as easy to enter the name of one browser or the other, or both, alternative arbitrarily, as needed.

The false narrative of loyalty to a browser is beyond silly, when you can just use all of them, and most people frequently do exactly that.

So, what does it mean when we see, over and over again, nameless, faceless users boiling to the surface to broadcast a deep emotional investment in a browser?

I think it means there are a lot of liars. People presenting themselves in a disingenuous manner.

Sometimes I do get asked by regular less technical people, what my general tendency is, and I tell them it doesn't matter, this all bullshit, and the cards are stacked against you. The default settings are designed to reveal your identity as unique, JavaScript is forced when it need not be, and an emphasis on the perfection of CSS graphical representation is overburdened and counterproductive.

Differences among browsers are superficial, and we haven't seen anything truly new since 2004. That last new thing was tabs, and since then, the mass migration has been to mobile deviced where options and real estate are limited, forcing the adoption of apps, locked into the OS of the device vendor's choosing (apple or google).

Sure, we use laptops, but browsers don't really matter anymore. Gaming rigs and work stations? Who cares?

Our future has been stolen from us, and we are lie to about it every day.

Stop arguing about browsers. It's absurd and untrue to claim that the browser is what will save us.

All important things happen on the server side, and that is where we are ruined.

That's truly saying something that if Firefox can screw up every now and then but still feel worlds ahead of other browsers in terms of their approach to web browser building, and that's how it feels to me.

Chrome auto-login was the thing that made me leave Chrome for good. That was the turning point, and it's been a long time since. Manifest v3 is just another nail in the coffin for me personally.