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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

#141

Post by lvncelot »

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…

What's worse, I think it's extremely difficult, if not impossible, for another project to start from either a fork or from nothing and provide an alternative, as developing a browser (with its own rendering engine) is extremely complicated, comparable to an operating system.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#142

Post by Decabytes »

I work for a company whose product runs on the web and it’s super frustrating that when we have a browser error our response is “are you using chrome”? One of the big draws of browser based apps is that they can run unchanged on Linux/Mac/Windows. But now you are telling me that most apps only work on chrome???

Also so many of the tutorials on JavaScript are done with chrome. People are learning how to use the chrome dev tools, and then not able to transition to using other browsers for web dev. It’s a mess.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#143

Post by DeathArrow »

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…

To me some of the things you mention sound like anticompetitive practices from behalf of Google.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#144

Post by hutzlibu »

chrisseaton wrote: post #91
zesterer wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> This is precisely what Servo is Great example - because Mozilla binned Servo! https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/1295771633320448001

Yes, that was when they seemed to give up, it seems.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#145

Post by pdenton »

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…

    > Mozilla need to [...] build a new browser
See The Book of Mozilla, chapter 11.

    >and a “browser toolkit” to let other people build their own
XULRunner was essentially this.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#146

Post by ocdtrekkie »

bool3max wrote: post #124
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…

I have to strongly agree with your last point - I also never understood the massive hard-on that the technical user-base has against useful telemetry. Perhaps it's just the loud minority, but to me it seems that most of them have never worked on an user-facing product (for-profit or not). Yes, users can themselves explicitly communicate feedback regarding the product or its features, and no, most of them don't do tha…

Believe me, I understand the appeal. Yesterday we were discussing something dropping support for some platforms from an open source project and the issue is... we have no way of determining how many installs are on such platforms.

Telemetry would fix this, but it's not our right to collect data from other people's machines. So our best bet would be to detect the condition we expect to cause problems, notify them in advance, and allow time for feedback before implementing a change.

Is it less pretty and a worse user experience than telemetry? Absolutely. But when you realize you have no right to data collection on someone else's machine, telemetry isn't a viable option, and we would betray people's trust by doing it.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#147

Post by smt88 »

CapitalistCartr wrote: post #81
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.

I have been using FF on Android exclusively for 3+ years and never need to switch to Chrome.

In fact, switching to Chrome is agonizing because I lose my adblocker.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#148

Post by Qem »

Nextgrid wrote: post #51
technobabbler wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be easier for companies (who aren't anti Google) to administer Chrome policy via their existing Google/Gmail accounts and Google Workspace. Profiles, sync, extensions, etc. can all be centrally administered. And also deployed to Chromebooks for certain users. All without having to manage the overhead of a minority browser with Especially for any web shop... Firefox is even less relevant than Microsoft now an…

Could you name any major websites/apps that break in Firefox but not in Chrome?

M$ teams web doesn't work in Firefox. I was forced to install Chromium under Kubuntu just to use teams at work, as I avoid to install the crappy full teams application like the plague, given it is proprietary, resource heavy and tries to auto-launch whenever it can.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#149

Post by thriftwy »

I remember using Konqueror in the middle of 00s. It was much better UI-wise, but a lot of web sites were broken in it so I had to default to Firefox often.

Guess what, today using Firefox is the same, even if it's better than Chromium derivatives for you, too often will you need to switch to Chromium when faced with Google Hangouts / Google Meet / Zoom / the fad of the day, or some random websites.

And this time it does not worth it since it's the same US corporate product, so I jumped this ship more eagerly. I'm on Yandex (the web browser) now.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#150

Post by DoingIsLearning »

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 (more or less) stay the same and not move forward and make changes to compete with Chrome.

Most of the negative feedback from users comes from two paths, changes that break add-ons, changes that remove customization. Either of those two effectively reduce the value proposition, so I think negative feedback is granted.

The problem most 'core' users have is this UX ethos that some how we are not having more MAUs because we fail to "make changes to compete with Chrome". This has penetrated the Firefox team and has lead to a copy cat of UX features from Chrome and a 'dummyfication' of UX.

The reason Firefox is unable to compete with Chrome or Edge is not because of missing features or performance. Both Firefox and Edge have million dollar advertisement and OEM agreements. Talk to anybody on the street and everyone and their dog will know Chrome, Firefox not so much. The average users will use whatever is pre-installed. They will not go out of their way because of Chrome-like features.

This causality that somehow Firefox is missing market share because of features or UX is flawed. Firefox is playing a Goliath and David game, with billion dollar revenue companies. Accepting and embracing it's niche nature is a necessary first step.

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