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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

#401

Post by freediver »

dralley wrote: post #373
freediver wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A better funding model is right in front of our eyes and is used by almost every other company - sell the product to the users. There is no rule saying that a browser needs to be directly or indirectly monetized by ads. On the contrary, in this day and age, not helping sell more ads would surely be seen as a good thing? So if the browser is that good as a product, it surely will be paid by a percentage of its current…

>10M Firefox users paying $50/year would yield same amount of revenue The only way that works is if they abandoned the entire Firefox codebase and made another Chrome clone. Even in their diminished state they still have 220 million monthly-active-users. With only 10 million, they'd have no leverage in the web standards groups, and no leverage with web developers. The Blink monoculture would be well and truly complet…

> Plus I'd bet hard cash that even most HN readers wouldn't pay $50 a year for a web browser. Good luck finding 10 million.

I disagree. 50M people (including myself) already pay $12/mo ($144/year) for YouTube Premium [1], basically so they do not see the ads even though a completely free alternative is available. (this also tells us you need just one 'killer' feature)

And a browser, executed right, is arguably a much more valuable product. It is where we spend most of our day in. It is what we use to work and create value for companies we work at. So 10M people at $5/mo should not require such a stretch of imagination. The only question is is Firefox that good as a browser right now, and what would need to change?

Besides what is the alternative for Firefox? What good does its leverage in web standards group bring it? Even at the price of free, it is losing tens of millions of users every year and the death spiral of user attrition will drive its market share to the ground eventually. It clearly signals a need for a radical turn.

[1] https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/2/22654318/youtube-50-millio...

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#402

Post by the_solenoid »

samwillis wrote: post #181
K0nserv wrote: post #153

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…

> 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 on all platforms. I think it’s worth noting that (at least I believe) the reason apple limit the usage of other browser engines in iOS isn’t (mostly)…

#1 reason, and, think back to when iOS came out, was security. The knock off effect was it ensured that ios/webkit gained defacto marketshare for each device since there was no other option - as the thread starter mentions. I disagree with the contention about innovation - keeping IOS from being a minefield for 99.9999% of users I think was the right course. And killing off flash.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#403

Post by mtomweb »

defaultname wrote: post #353
mtomweb wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You wouldn’t be calling Safari awe inspiring if you had to develop for it. It is hands down the worst browser, filled with application breaking bugs and supports the smallest number of features out of any browser. Arguably it’s a result of having no competition on iOS. From idb, webrtc, to scroll to viewheight, to performance issues Safari is the worst to deal with and this is reflected in all the developer surveys.

"supports the smallest number of features out of any browser." This is a bit like saying India has the smallest number of people in countries named China or India. It's still an enormous number of features, and it is simply extraordinary what is capable in the browser. "this is reflected in all the developer surveys" Remember "Made for IE"? IE was dogshit , yet there were loads of devs who thought ActiveX was the bee…

So you obviously don’t build apps for iOS Safari and I can understand as a user why you might be under the misguided impression that it’s a good browser. As our primary target environment it is an uphill battle to get things to work in a way that it’s not on either Firefox or blink based browsers.

It breaks in every major version that’s been released. Simply talk to any developer who has to do a significant amount of work building apps in Safari and they will tell you the same thing.

The webkit team is talented and do great work but this is simply a result of a decade of underfunding and it’s just not possible for them to maintain a modern browser with their current resources.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#404

Post by dblohm7 »

shakna wrote: post #220
sce wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. I think it would be far less hostility if we as users got access to the information ourselves. E.g. I would think it would be very useful to see stats on which features I'm using in firefox, how often, which features I'm not using, how many tabs I have (compared to t…

> I think it would be far less hostility if we as users got access to the information ourselves. Go to about:telemetry There are several pages detailing all of that information, and you can also get all of that data as the JSON payload if you want to munge and display it yourself.

Also https://telemetry.mozilla.org

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#405

Post by lillecarl »

klyrs wrote: post #393
Liquid_Fire wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you using Firefox on Linux, installed via a package manager? What you describe is the behaviour when your package manager updates Firefox in the background from under its feet - not the fault of Firefox. Firefox's own updater will not automatically update without warning.

Only, I don't experience anything like this behavior on any other application. This is a Firefox problem, even if Ubuntu is to blame for overriding my setting. And, no, I just checked. I don't have any auto-updates in Ubuntu either.

It's really a you problem. The market share of Linux desktops is low enough that in reality it doesn't matter, and you're pulling the rug(binaries) from underneath a web browser (one of the most complex software projects known to man) and expect it to keep running flawlessly.

I'm using NixOS where every version of every dependency of every program I install will be saved until I cleanup the garbage (1 command) so I don't have your issue.

If this was Windows you wouldn't be able to update Firefox while it was running because Windows doesn't support overwriting open files (technically you can rename them and insert new ones with the same name, but that's not the point).

You're holding it wrong and blaming the project, close the software you update before you update and you might have more success.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#406

Post by Spivak »

mysterydip wrote: post #162
DeathArrow wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A browser installed by default that can't be removed... where have I heard that one before? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_C... .

People always cite this case but the software landscape has massively changed since the ruling and there's no way the courts would go this way again. Every single device you buy has a bundled web browser that is for all practical purposes unremovable.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#407

Post by Spivak »

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #249
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…

Google: ‘We don’t force people to use Chrome! We just ask them again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again…’

I mean that's why people used to call certain software nagware.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#408

Post by klyrs »

lillecarl wrote: post #405
klyrs wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only, I don't experience anything like this behavior on any other application. This is a Firefox problem, even if Ubuntu is to blame for overriding my setting. And, no, I just checked. I don't have any auto-updates in Ubuntu either.

It's really a you problem. The market share of Linux desktops is low enough that in reality it doesn't matter, and you're pulling the rug(binaries) from underneath a web browser (one of the most complex software projects known to man) and expect it to keep running flawlessly. I'm using NixOS where every version of every dependency of every program I install will be saved until I cleanup the garbage (1 command) so I d…

Yes. The market share of Firefox is low enough that in reality it doesn't matter. So very insightful. Thank you for showing me the light.

Also, I like that you think that Firefox's default settings is "holding it wrong." That's rather the point, isn't it?

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#409

Post by defaultname »

mtomweb wrote: post #403
defaultname wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"supports the smallest number of features out of any browser." This is a bit like saying India has the smallest number of people in countries named China or India. It's still an enormous number of features, and it is simply extraordinary what is capable in the browser. "this is reflected in all the developer surveys" Remember "Made for IE"? IE was dogshit , yet there were loads of devs who thought ActiveX was the bee…

So you obviously don’t build apps for iOS Safari and I can understand as a user why you might be under the misguided impression that it’s a good browser. As our primary target environment it is an uphill battle to get things to work in a way that it’s not on either Firefox or blink based browsers. It breaks in every major version that’s been released. Simply talk to any developer who has to do a significant amount of…

Ignoring that I've been a professional software developer for 26 years, a large part of that building large scale web applications (every one for the past decade+ targeting Safari as well, and before that I always ensured my teams supported alternative browsers even when various team members were moaning and whining about how much a nuisance it is), let me just focus on this-

"misguided impression that it’s a good browser"..."Simply talk to any developer"

Your experience as a developer, and you dealing with utterly trivial regressions or handicaps, has shockingly little bearing on whether it is a "good browser" or not.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#410

Post by gadrev »

Y_Y wrote: post #31
GekkePrutser wrote: post #21

I really love Firefox still.. Though they are starting to annoy me. Especially with GUI changes and the lack of customisation thereof. Like Compact mode disappearing. For the most used app on most desktops, customisation is super important. I think they're jumping on the 'opinionated software' bandwagon too much. It still has some powerful features though, like E2E encrypted sync, multi-account containers etc. I'll k…

You can still re-enable compact mode through about:config (at time of writing). It will nag you not to, but that's all.

I didn't know/remember about this, just enabled it, great to know!

Instructions: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/compact-mode-workaround...

Now I have some extra vertical pixels :)

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