I think folks are drastically missing the forest for the trees here. This is just one minor example of the INSANE process that is now the Chrome Approval Process. I've seen extensions go for many months getting random rejections with no reason given. This forces developers to GUESS as to what is wrong. Want to try and develop according to a roadmap or timeline- forget about it. There is no "app store" approval proces…
I appreciate the correct use of travesty.
(and I agree with all of your points.)
> That's the thing I'm sympathetic to - having fixed the bug, it's frustrating that it's not clear what the next steps are. That may not have been the bug, your guess is as good as literally anyone's right now. That's the issue at hand.
By "the bug" I mean the fact that they're asking for permissions on any site when they don't need them - which is a bug (and a serious one) whether or not Chrome notices.
I'm not sure I get your point, yes that permission was overreaching but they fixed that and were still rejected and left in limbo without Google's system giving them enough specific information to reliably mitigate whatever it is the system did not like.
We spend a quite a bit on Google Ads yet they seem to refuse devoting even a few minutes of a knowledgable support staff’s time to our account—even when we’re trying to figure out how to give them more money. For 1-2 years our product shopping ads never displayed and we couldn’t get anyone to tell us why. One day, it just started working by itself (perhaps some engineer pushed a fix). Contrast this with their sales s…
Chrome is a trivially easy product to switch off of compared to other Google properties like Gmail and YouTube. Have you tried Firefox recently?
Firefox’s security is a lot less than that of Chrome.
Hard to quantify, but neither Firefox nor Chrome were compromised at Pwn2Own this year. The sandbox architectures are very similar now. Chrome's still ahead in having a slightly tighter sandbox and already shipping process-per-site, while Mozilla is working hard to catch up on those. Firefox gets a slight advantage from using Rust in some places instead of C++. I'd say Firefox security is still behind Chrome but in practice not by "a lot".
Those rejection emails are most likely sent by an AI. If you reply back and ask them to specify exactly what is wrong, you'll get the same generic email back. Ask again, and they'll send the same generic response without any details or comments written by a human. They simply can't specify the problem at all. That's how you know you are talking with an AI, not a human. The correct way to respond to those rejection em…
That's like when I keep saying "pharmacist" when I call Walgreens to get a prescription filled.
Quantum wasn't even about Chrome compatibility. The XUL extension mechanism was permanent technical debt loaded onto the browser because of how it exposed features, basically welding things directly onto the browser's guts, which on the one hand is super-convenient for making radical changes in an extension and on the other hand is a nightmare to maintain. The analogy I've used is the Amiga operating system design ve…
> The XUL extension mechanism was permanent technical debt loaded onto the browser because of how it exposed features, basically welding things directly onto the browser's guts, which is a nightmare to maintain. There is no evidence for this at all. Extensions can't modify the rendering engine.
"guts" meant the XUL implementing the Firefox UI. tialaramex is absolutely right about that, extensions had total access to that XUL/JS state, which is why changes to the Firefox UI inevitably broke extensions.
The rule still applies: if you build your business on someone else's property, don't act surprised when they they casually destroy you. It has happened again and again and again. Building for FB or Google is you making yourself their serf, and you will be allowed to exist at their whim.
This isn't very actionable advice, though, since there is basically no such thing as a software product that isn't built on somebody else's property. You might think, "Ah-ha, web apps!" But no, Google can still casually destroy you there. Or you might think, "Ah-ha, desktop apps!" But the OS vendor can casually destroy you there.
Invest in more open platforms. Not a great short term solution, but not many alternatives.
Can you give a few examples of how Mozilla/Firefox have changed? We all know about FF Quantum. Yeah it sucks what happened. Maybe there was an alternative, but any one saying Firefox should’ve just stuck to not being compatible with Chromium extensions is kidding themselves on how badly that would’ve continued hurting Firefox’s market share. The XUL powered extension I’m sure were powerful so the outcry in certain pl…
Being in a country that was the last holdout for Firefox (majority usage) before it was also taken over by Chrome, I know that several others as well as I have issues with Mozilla. Personally, I've always used Firefox, without exception, and stayed with XUL, rather than switch to their new browser, as add-ons are the most important part of a browser for me. I don't care if one is half a second faster or not. Not to m…
Mozilla has to target the mass market or they won't survive. They certainly have to target people who, unlike you, care about performance more than anything else, since that's most of the market. You can argue it's hopeless but you can't expect them just to give up, nor should they.
> If locking down on the extension ecosystem were only temporary they could just defer the nearing downgrade of their main line browser until their replacement is fully functional. The update is going ahead because the new Firefox for Android is such a dramatic improvement along all other axes, and because, from a development perspective, the incarnation it's replacing is saddled with legacy and technical debt. It ne…
> The update is going ahead because Firefox Preview is such a dramatic improvement along all other axes. ...and even the extension axis, from a power-aware Mozilla position. That's what makes it suspicious in the first place. A few years ago they had a bug that added seconds to every page load that they didn't fix for half a year, but once an update coincidentally consolidates power at Mozilla it needs to be pushed f…
> A few years ago they had a bug that added seconds to every page load that they didn't fix for half a year,
Mozilla doesn't have the conflict of interest google does with ads... That alone makes me use Firefox over Chrome.
Doesn't Mozilla get nearly all its money from Google; I've assumed that actions by Mozilla have been coloured by not wanting to ditch its multi-hundred-million dollar benefactor. Google has apparently paid Mitchell Baker personally multiple millions of dollars too. Seems Google know how to manage their risks. Mozilla seem perhaps even more beholden to ad revenue than Google.
> Google has apparently paid Mitchell Baker personally multiple millions of dollars too.