>Current estimates suggest that 60-70% of web users are running on Chrome.
Aren't those mostly Windows users?
The endless browser wars
121–130 of 242 posts
Re: The endless browser wars
#122> The larger problem, though, is that it's not at all clear that Firefox will remain a viable alternative to Chrome. Its market share has been falling for years, and not everybody is pleased with the directions that the Mozilla Foundation has taken. I'm disappointed by how many people cling to Chrome/Chromium under the justification that they don't like where Mozilla is going. If you can't tolerate Firefox because of…
Also, just changing to a Chromium based browser is not sufficient. Google still takes most of the decisions in where Chromium is going, and downstreams either accept them or workaround them (but for every workaround they do it is more things to keep maintaining in the long run).
So yeah, using a non Chromium browser is the only way to ensure that the Web is still healthy (i.e.: not controlled by only Google) in the long run.
Re: The endless browser wars
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, many. Every WebKitGTK based browser [1] will use JSC, so that includes the "GNOME Web" web browser, Midori, and a host of smaller niche browsers. [1] https://webkitgtk.org/
Neat. Konqueror uses a different engine, right?
It can. Historically Konqueror used KHTML, however, the default has been changed to QTWebEngine, which is based on Blink i.e. Chromium.
It also supports (supported?) rendering using WebKit, or, you can manually change back to KHTML. However, all recent versions of Konqueror default to WebEngine. https://wiki.debian.org/Konqueror
Re: The endless browser wars
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
How do you sacrifice an open-source project that people can just fork?
Technically, Chromium is not being sacrificed, it will just lose access to some powerful APIs. In practice it means Chromium as we know it is done. Most people who want or need these features will be unaware of some community fork and will simply switch to Chrome or Firefox.
I can't imagine all that many people are using just Chromium itself though. Most beneficiaries of Chromium are by virtue of browsers built on top of it such as Brave, Vivaldi, and Edge, all of which have already built their own synchronization services. And if someone was using Chromium, I would think there's a decent chance they would switch to one of those three.
Re: The endless browser wars
#125Until someone creates a new browser with a new render/scripting engine. Which everyone always jumps on saying "it's impossible", the war is over. Chrome has won. Chrome is currently giving life support to Mozilla and when they decide to axe that, well it's game over for Mozilla. The depressing part is the freedom, the new that the internet once provided is over. It's been turned in to a commercial breeding ground and…
The issue is that Firefox HAS created a new rendering engine, but people don't switch. It has nothing to do with technology, people wont even try to switch. Some for fanboyism, some because they would have to adapt, some don't even know what browser is. What I do consider staggering is how many technically capable people are not prepared to make a switch. Google is slowly closing down the lock-down trap they have nur…
Until recently, I used Firefox on my Mac, and had been for a couple of years. I got tired of the browser being a bit slow and consistently consuming 20-30% CPU even when not doing anything. My MacBook Pro's fan was running 100% of the time. I don't have many tabs open and never found an explanation.
Last week, I decided I had enough, and switched over to Chrome. Now the fan doesn't run anymore, and Chrome consumes much less CPU. I was also quite astounded by just how much faster Chrome is. Firefox feels fine when using it, but even with all the Rust stuff they've integrated, it still can't measure up to Chrome. It feels like I've upgraded my machine.
I don't miss anything from Firefox. I wouldn't mind having something like container tabs, but I can do without them. On the contrary, I discover things I prefer in Chrome. Like the really superior 1Password integration that fully enables form fields, or the way keyword searches work from the address bar.
I say this with some regret — I'd rather have Mozilla dominate the web than Google. But if they had thousands of people working on Firefox and still couldn't make it as good, I'm not holding out hope.
Re: The endless browser wars
#126Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm afraid Firefox has gotten to a point where it is too niche to recover. The last time I checked, 80+% of https://webcompat.com's reports were sites that were broken in FF, not because it is less standards compliant than the competition, but just because there was no testing. Mozilla had been courting devs with MDN, ever improving dev tools and sexy tech (Servo) for years, with some success, although they weren't t…
> Degooglified Chromium was already the way to go IMO, it's great that Google makes it easier to get that experience. For now. Android has shown us exactly how Google treats their "open source" products once they have rid themselves entirely of viable competition. Google really has become the late-90s, early-2000s Microsoft. First they "embrace" by releasing a product as open source. Then they "extend" by packaging t…
Yes, it sucks. They've also pulled some form of EEE with the whole Web platform by allocating so much manpower to Chrome and related techs.
According to https://www.w3.org/community/wicg/participants Google has 168 employees working on incubating Web specs, vs 47 for Microsoft, 10 for Apple and 9 for Mozilla (maybe they require their employees to disclose their status in that page and others don't though, there are quite a few unaffiliated folks on that page).
Re: The endless browser wars
#127> The larger problem, though, is that it's not at all clear that Firefox will remain a viable alternative to Chrome. Its market share has been falling for years, and not everybody is pleased with the directions that the Mozilla Foundation has taken. I'm disappointed by how many people cling to Chrome/Chromium under the justification that they don't like where Mozilla is going. If you can't tolerate Firefox because of…
> If you can't tolerate Firefox because of Mozilla's problems, how can you possibly stomach Chrome/Chromium with Google at the wheel?
OT, but I think this is an interesting psychological phenomenon that occurs in a lot of settings, in particular politics: People, services, products etc are not judged by objective (or even just common) standards but by the standards they announce for themselves.
So someone who claims strict moral integrity and then falls short of that is seen as less trustworthy than someone who is upfront about being shady and then surprisingly acts less shady than expected.
If anyone knows a name for this effect, I'd like to know.
Re: The endless browser wars
#128> The larger problem, though, is that it's not at all clear that Firefox will remain a viable alternative to Chrome. Its market share has been falling for years, and not everybody is pleased with the directions that the Mozilla Foundation has taken. I'm disappointed by how many people cling to Chrome/Chromium under the justification that they don't like where Mozilla is going. If you can't tolerate Firefox because of…
Also, just changing to a Chromium based browser is not sufficient. Google still takes most of the decisions in where Chromium is going, and downstreams either accept them or workaround them (but for every workaround they do it is more things to keep maintaining in the long run). So yeah, using a non Chromium browser is the only way to ensure that the Web is still healthy (i.e.: not controlled by only Google) in the l…
I think natural entropy will solve that problem over time. Give Microsoft another year or two, and I think we’ll see a hard fork.
Looking back at WebKit, Google forked that into Blink. I don’t know why Firefox couldn’t do the same.
I suppose in a couple years we’ll be able to check this post to see if Microsoft has done a hard fork or not. Will be interesting to see.
Re: The endless browser wars
#129> The larger problem, though, is that it's not at all clear that Firefox will remain a viable alternative to Chrome. Its market share has been falling for years, and not everybody is pleased with the directions that the Mozilla Foundation has taken. I'm disappointed by how many people cling to Chrome/Chromium under the justification that they don't like where Mozilla is going. If you can't tolerate Firefox because of…
I’m not sure anyone claims their reason for not using Firefox is that they think Google is a better organisation than the Mozilla Foundation.
I agree that browser diversity is a good thing for the web, and I’d love it if Firefox was more popular. But I’m not going to let that motivate my reasoning about whether it’s a good web browser.
Re: The endless browser wars
#130> The larger problem, though, is that it's not at all clear that Firefox will remain a viable alternative to Chrome. Its market share has been falling for years, and not everybody is pleased with the directions that the Mozilla Foundation has taken. I'm disappointed by how many people cling to Chrome/Chromium under the justification that they don't like where Mozilla is going. If you can't tolerate Firefox because of…
Yeah I've had some disappointments with Mozilla over the years, but as this point I use it as my main browser in part because I don't want there to be a monopoly with Blink (and Webkit) rendering engines.
And Firefox is honestly still quite good. I have to open up another browser once in a while, but I use Firefox for 99% of my browsing on macOS, Linux, and Windows (mainly Linux these days), including a lot of web apps.