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Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

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Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#81

Post by CapitalistCartr »

samwillis wrote: post #65

Firefox is compromised by the fact it’s core active users are also its largest liability. It’s the innovators dilemma. They want it to (more or less) stay the same and not move forward and make changes to compete with Chrome. Whereas for them to achieve a larger market share it needs a radical overhaul. Really what Mozilla need to do is build a “new browser” called something different and put their weight behind that…

I use Firefox for the obvious reasons, but I desperately want it to be as polished as Chrome, which it is a far cry from, especially on Android.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#82

Post by unnouinceput »

I switched to Firefox over 2 years ago, after using Chrome for more than 10 years. And while as a user I have my entire household converted to Firefox, as a developer I go with Chromium whenever I need to plug a shameless browser component in my projects. Why? Because Firefox does NOT have the equivalent!!! Why they won't do the same? I'll switch in a second to them instead of using Chromium. My 2 cents.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#83

Post by topspin »

samhw wrote: post #30
dazag wrote: post #15

There is one thing I don't understand from the article. What is that he is so afraid of?that the website becomes more standarized and developers don't need to make a website for 5 different browsers? Or that because of that users will have less problems? Is that such a big deal to make most of the browsers dependent on chromium? Isn't chromium open source and tomorrow anyone could create a better browser? I use Vival…

It's not viable to maintain an open source browser without a large team of engineers. Chromium would likely die if Google abandoned it.

"Chromium would likely die if Google abandoned it."

I believe that is highly unlikely. At root the Blink engine is actively supported by several big tech heavyweights. Microsoft Edge is based on it. A rarely mentioned but important derivative browser is Silk (Fire tablets etc.) that Amazon develops. Then there are a bunch of smaller fish with Brave leading that pack.

I think the engine would survive just fine without Google. There was a time when you're view held, but that time has past.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#84

Post by occamrazor »

Santosh83 wrote: post #63
parhamn wrote: post #37

I think part of this discussion needs to be that Firefox, while open source, doesn't provide footing for the community to build browser forks the way Chromium does. This sort of open usage, ironically, feels very fitting to the spirit of Firefox, but they're not even close to Chrom(e|ium). I've been building a browser full time the past year+ (synth.app) and FF core wasn't really even an option. They've done very lit…

I wonder how difficult would be an open source community project whose explicit aim would be to take the Firefox code base and make it more modular and embeddable, like Chromium? Would it be too much work for a community effort?

Even if possible, such an initiative could only be successful if Mozilla supports it otherwise the “new” code will quickly go out of sync with the Firefox codebase.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#85

Post by madc »

sime2009 wrote: post #76
resonious wrote: post #53

I used to hold the same opinion: Google controls the world because everything is Blink/Chromium based! Must use Firefox to protest! Then I looked closer look at the history of Chromium and Blink. The reality is that a lot of the other "Chromium-based" browsers actually only use the Blink renderer. They don't use many (if any) other Chromium components other than probably V8. In ancient times, Blink itself was a fork…

True. People forgot that Microsoft had been developing its own browser for years before they moved to Chromium. That team and expertise didn't just disappear. They've been doing significant work in that code base. See https://twitter.com/ericlaw/status/1329200077517295618 from a year ago. Having that technical power does give them quite a lot of control over the code base which can help balance the political power he…

No web developer old enough will ever forget, I promise you that.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#86

Post by SturgeonsLaw »

parhamn wrote: post #37

I think part of this discussion needs to be that Firefox, while open source, doesn't provide footing for the community to build browser forks the way Chromium does. This sort of open usage, ironically, feels very fitting to the spirit of Firefox, but they're not even close to Chrom(e|ium). I've been building a browser full time the past year+ (synth.app) and FF core wasn't really even an option. They've done very lit…

That's a real missed opportunity. Firefox would have made a fantastic embedded webview, and could have plausibly become the core of Electron. Back when webviews were IE, with atrocious Javascript support and all the usual IE quirks, Firefox was a superior product and interconnecting with other software is very in line with the open source ethos.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#87

Post by zesterer »

resonious wrote: post #53

I used to hold the same opinion: Google controls the world because everything is Blink/Chromium based! Must use Firefox to protest! Then I looked closer look at the history of Chromium and Blink. The reality is that a lot of the other "Chromium-based" browsers actually only use the Blink renderer. They don't use many (if any) other Chromium components other than probably V8. In ancient times, Blink itself was a fork…

> So does Google really control us that much?

Yes. Contributing code to something doesn't mean that you suddenly control the direction of that thing. Google still makes the big decisions about what gets to enter the codebase: which web features to support, which ones to deprecate, how to interpret standards, and how to slowly align the web with their own financial incentives.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#88

Post by samwillis »

zesterer wrote: post #74
samwillis wrote: post #65

Firefox is compromised by the fact it’s core active users are also its largest liability. It’s the innovators dilemma. They want it to (more or less) stay the same and not move forward and make changes to compete with Chrome. Whereas for them to achieve a larger market share it needs a radical overhaul. Really what Mozilla need to do is build a “new browser” called something different and put their weight behind that…

> They want it to (not or less) stay the same and not move forward I don't think this is true at all. Anecdotally, a lot of Firefox users have been very receptive towards recent changes. Quantum was a huge success and I know very few people that miss the old Firefox with all of its jank. > Mozilla need to follow suit in order to survive, rip that rendering engine out, build a new browser and a “browser toolkit” to le…

I believe they laid off the Servo development team?

Also they moved way to slowly with Servo, starting it as a research project was correct. But they should have gone all in on it years ago.

I know they have taken parts of it and folded them into Firefox, but it should have been the the other way round. Take the bits of Firefox they could and combine them into something new with Servo.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#89

Post by _wolfie_ »

zesterer wrote: post #74
samwillis wrote: post #65

Firefox is compromised by the fact it’s core active users are also its largest liability. It’s the innovators dilemma. They want it to (more or less) stay the same and not move forward and make changes to compete with Chrome. Whereas for them to achieve a larger market share it needs a radical overhaul. Really what Mozilla need to do is build a “new browser” called something different and put their weight behind that…

> They want it to (not or less) stay the same and not move forward I don't think this is true at all. Anecdotally, a lot of Firefox users have been very receptive towards recent changes. Quantum was a huge success and I know very few people that miss the old Firefox with all of its jank. > Mozilla need to follow suit in order to survive, rip that rendering engine out, build a new browser and a “browser toolkit” to le…

Wasn't lot of servo team fired? Or was that some other team? I remember reading about lot of rust people being let go.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#90

Post by [deleted] »

samhw wrote: post #38
traveler01 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I even want to install Firefox on my families computer? The thing is, I want them to have a long term, good working solution that doesn't become a pain in my ass. Firefox isn't very stable for non-tech people, that's the sad truth. Mozilla is badly missmanaged, they are killing Mozilla and specially Firefox. Things need to change, badly.

> Firefox isn't very stable for non-tech people What does this mean?

[deleted]
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