231–240 of 675 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's not "just like Chrome". It's not great, but it's not in the same ballpark as what Google does.
Silently uploading your browsing activity off the device without your consent is absolutely in the same ballpark as what Google does.
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…
That's actually being done in the Serenity OS project! HTML renderer, JS interpreter, and Web Browser, from scratch:
https://github.com/SerenityOS/serenity
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMOpZvQB55beChggmvk-s...
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMOpZvQB55be0Nfytz9q2...
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…
> it seems that most of them have never worked on an user-facing product
If you have worked on user-facing products, then I think you do understand. I think you just don't like the answer.
Here it is in a nutshell: In the general case, how do you distinguish 'telemetry' from 'surveillance'?
And the answer is you can't, because the difference between 'telemetry' and 'surveillance' lies in the intent of the consumer of that data. Technically useful information collected in good faith today can become intrusive surveillance tomorrow with a court order, or business pivot, or just a bored insider & lack controls.
Now consider the fact that the author of every stupid new piece of code out there now seems to think it is so special it deserves to be allowed to send... who knows what back to some opaque collection endpoint as the cost of executing.
The only reactions in response to this mess that don't cost a huge amount of overhead are "block everything" and "have your way with me". Guess which a technically inclined user picks.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Android user (and dev) and I exclusively use Firefox. That also goes for my Linux and Mac desk-/laptops. I actually do not enjoy using Chrome on my Android compared to the feel of the new Firefo client.
Personally I didn't really like the latest changes in the Firefox mobile UI, especially with how it's managing tabs, but I'm sticking with it. I have also to recognize that with recent updates, it has stopped crashing (or at least the frequency is way reduced).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
it's not "just like Chrome". It's not great, but it's not in the same ballpark as what Google does.
Silently uploading your browsing activity off the device without your consent is absolutely in the same ballpark as what Google does.
I've been meaning to write almost exactly this blog post for a while now, glad that someone else did it. Two things that I think are worth calling out: 1. In many ways Apple's anti-competitive behaviour on iOS/iPadOS is a blessing. It's one of the few things that keep Chromium's dominance in check. Of course, it's not great that Apple are stifling innovation like this, but consider the alternative: Chromium dominance…
This list of standards also shows how Google attempts to make it even more impossible for anyone but them to maintain a browser. Shape detection API ? Seriously ? Picture-in-picture as a standard when it should be up to the OS/browser ? having the perform resizing and compression ?
"But you can't actually do it unless you're a $1T company" crowd forgets (or wasn't around to see) how dominant IE was, and how huge a project Mozilla was even back in the day.
I've been meaning to write almost exactly this blog post for a while now, glad that someone else did it. Two things that I think are worth calling out: 1. In many ways Apple's anti-competitive behaviour on iOS/iPadOS is a blessing. It's one of the few things that keep Chromium's dominance in check. Of course, it's not great that Apple are stifling innovation like this, but consider the alternative: Chromium dominance…
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…
Perhaps they could care for the automation niche. There are thriving communities on macOS who are deeply into automation, and virtually no one uses Firefox. The ones who do stop because Firefox’s AppleScript support is non-existent, while Chromium’s (and thus every browser based on it) is top notch, even better than Safari’s.
I’m not talking developers, either. Non-coders frequently cobble up short AppleScript snippets do to what they want. When they visit the forums asking for help and how to do what they want in Firefox, they are directed to the open bug report which is old enough to drink.
I have seen plenty of users abandon Firefox on account of that gap. I tried to convey that to Firefox developers multiple times—both in person and online—and their response was to not care.