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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

#131

Post by bluedays »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #103

It's a depressing situation, particularly knowing that Firefox is pretty much kept alive at Google's whim. It makes one seriously wonder whether it is feasible at all to maintain an independent open-source web browser in 2021. People tend to blame Mozilla's management and I'm sure there have been management failures but I'm not sure what they could do to make Firefox a thriving, independent, sustainable browser. It s…

Has Mozilla explained whether or not they are not handing your data over to Google?

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#132

Post by hansel_der »

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 know very few people that miss the old Firefox with all of its jank.

one vote for the old FF because tabKitv2 is unsurpassed

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#134

Post by jasode »

zesterer wrote: post #87
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.

>Yes. Contributing code to something doesn't mean that you suddenly control the direction of that thing.

I think the idea of gp's point about others forking code means the forkers can also influence the code because they control the fork.

Otherwise, if we take your comment at face value, we'd conclude that Google's contributions to Webkit means it can't "suddenly control the direction" of Apple's Webkit. That's true, but also becomes irrelevant because Google controls its fork of "Blink".

In other words, does Apple's Webkit control us that much? No, because it seems like Google's Blink/Chromium is sufficiently independent. If we go back farther in the timeline, are we concerned that KHTML controls us? No, because it seems like Apple's fork of Webkit is independent and not beholden to KHTML decisions.

If Microsoft really wanted to, it seems like they have the resources to do what Apple did to KHTML and what Chrome did to Webkit.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#135

Post by DeathArrow »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #103

It's a depressing situation, particularly knowing that Firefox is pretty much kept alive at Google's whim. It makes one seriously wonder whether it is feasible at all to maintain an independent open-source web browser in 2021. People tend to blame Mozilla's management and I'm sure there have been management failures but I'm not sure what they could do to make Firefox a thriving, independent, sustainable browser. It s…

>It seems that the market niche of tech-capable people who value privacy and customisation over a simplified UX is not capable of sustaining Firefox on its own.

>So Mozilla tries to move in Chrome's direction, removing configuration options and "dumbing down" the UI, which frustrates its existing user base (including me) while apparently also failing to eat into Chrome's market share.

You can have sensible defaults for people who value simplicity and want it to just work and have customisation accessible from the settings page for the people who want customization.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#136

Post by mepian »

akagusu wrote: post #130

The real problem of Firefox is one that nobody cares about: distribution. Let's say Firefox is the most advanced browser of the universe. How can you get people to install Firefox? Chrome has the advantage here because it is preinstalled in every Android phone and Android has more than 90% market share. The second advantage Chrome has is that it cannot be uninstalled from Android. The fact that Android phones have a…

Nobody cares about? Mozilla tried to solve this exact problem with Boot2Gecko/FirefoxOS phones and failed.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#137

Post by 72deluxe »

jefftk wrote: post #58
Y_Y wrote: post #41

Can I pay for Firefox? Even better I'd love to pay to have someone finish off Servo.

Not really. You can donate to the Mozilla Foundation, but they will use your money for outreach and advocacy, not Firefox.

This seems to be a repeat of the GNOME issues years and years and years ago where people would complain that donations were used to try and encourage women to program instead of spending it on infrastructure etc. I seem to remember people who complained about it were shouted down as mysogenist.

It seems the organisations forget why they're here - to write software, not to try and solve all of mankind's issues and injustices. The scope becomes too broad and unfocused.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#138

Post by DeathArrow »

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…

>I used to hold the same opinion: Google controls the world because everything is Blink/Chromium based! Must use Firefox to protest!

The end users don't care about who controls what. They care about having a simple, fast browser who just works.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#139

Post by ahartmetz »

kkjjkgjjgg wrote: post #110

Maybe I am a minority, but I and some others I know of have turned their backs on Firefox because Mozilla got woke and spoke out in favor of censorship and promoting fake news. Since they are no longer proponents of freedom on the internet, any reason to still give them the time of the day has been gone away. In fact I now celebrate their shrinking market share.

Partisan politics is one hell of a drug

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#140

Post by ldng »

NoboruWataya wrote: post #103

It's a depressing situation, particularly knowing that Firefox is pretty much kept alive at Google's whim. It makes one seriously wonder whether it is feasible at all to maintain an independent open-source web browser in 2021. People tend to blame Mozilla's management and I'm sure there have been management failures but I'm not sure what they could do to make Firefox a thriving, independent, sustainable browser. It s…

> It's a depressing situation, particularly knowing that Firefox is pretty much kept alive at Google's whim.

Firefox or the (quite lost) Mozilla Corp ? They're not the same.

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