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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

#411

Post by mschuster91 »

sime2009 wrote: post #165
madc wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have not forgotten, but Gates and Ballmer are gone and the market situation for MS is totally different. People don't have to take their Evil Empire monopolist crap of the past.

> People don't have to take their Evil Empire monopolist crap of the past.

Advertising in the Start Menu enters the room

Often enough, it feels as if there are two brains inside Microsoft - shiny new MS with Azure, WSL, VSCode on the one side, and old, schoolyard bully MS with advertising, telemetry, forcing cloud everywhere on the other side.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#412

Post by mschuster91 »

soundnote wrote: post #298

Parts of this are comedy. > For me Firefox is the only alternative to a complete Chrome hegemony in the sense that: > it’s open-source in the real sense (a project that’s truly community-driven) I missed when the community wanted to do away with tab groups, compact mode, or keyword searches synced via bookmarks. The project is handled by a corporation with a multimillion dollar advertising deal with one of the EvilCo…

> "We need more than deplatforming" are not words I ever want to hear from a privacy organization's mouth.

Any entity participating in a democratic society should be allowed to voice their support for keeping said society healthy. Antivaxxers and "the vote was stolen!!!" putsch supporters are a direct threat towards society itself.

There are things in a society where standing "impartially" aside is taking a stand in itself - a stand on the side of those who want to destroy society.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#413

Post by whywhywhywhy »

isaiahg wrote: post #300
whywhywhywhy wrote: post #260

Firefox isn't an acceptable alternative, over the past few years it's completely obvious the priorities of the organization in control of it are not to build a great browser and to de-homogenize the web tech stack. Best thing that could ever happen for the browser problem is for Mozilla to go under and FF be taken over by the community who actually care about the problem that FF is the solution for, not just some ove…

I use Firefox as my daily driver and I couldn't disagree more. But it's hard to reply adequately because you don't actually tell us what your problems with it is. In what ways is Firefox not an acceptable alternative?

My problem is with the organization, their mismanagement has already cost it a huge amount of usage % and it's only going to get worse because it isn't their priority.

An alternative isn't an alternative if no one uses it therefore no one tests or supports it.

I want Firefox, without Mozilla.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#414

Post by pmontra »

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)…

Battery usage, yes, but if developers could create theirs apps as websites with no loss of functionality and pay zero money to Apple a non empty set of users would use them and Apple would lose some money. I think that Apple ultimately cares about money. Battery, PWAs, etc are all factors they ponder upon to optimize the bottom line.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#415

Post by robertoandred »

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…

Let me know when Firefox finally supports backdrop-filter. And it already took Chrome forever.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#416

Post by progbits »

dijit wrote: post #217
K0nserv wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't disagree that is their publicly stated reason for the limitation. Them having the ulterior motive of stifling PWAs on iOS and competition for mobile Safari is a common theory. Whether they do have ulterior motives or not, the effect is that innovation is stifled.

And yet: Steve Jobs wanted PWA's (or something similar) in the beginning and begrudgingly made an App Store. Yes, I know the circumstances are different, but I do think it's ironic.

I guess the grudge went away as the billions started pouring in.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#417

Post by revendell_elf »

A very happy Firefox user since 6 years. I never even bother to install Chrome on my computers. Chrome on my Android phone is completely hidden and I open it only thru built-in web views in apps.

Everything in FF works great for me- Sync, containers, performance etc

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#418

Post by Barrin92 »

_jal wrote: post #234
bool3max wrote: post #124

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. 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…

> I also never understood the massive hard-on that the technical user-base has against useful telemetry. > 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 c…

>how do you distinguish 'telemetry' from 'surveillance'?

For starters, consent. Telemetry generally supposes that the user opts into, either directly or by accepting the terms of using a service, and is free to walk away.

I find the increasing usage of the word surveillance completely silly and ideological. If the NSA vacuums data from some underwater cable that's surveillance, when I exchange information, aware of what's being handed over in exchange for some service, that's a trade.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#419

Post by Karunamon »

BenoitEssiambre wrote: post #263

To me the problem is almost information theoretic. Browsers need to have a standard specification for interoperability and one that includes an open source reference implementation of the core parts. It seems chromium has become that standard. I often argue against pure natural language specifications in favor code based specs. I just don't think human language is nearly precise enough to write an adequate specificat…

In principle, I agree with this. Gecko/Quantum seems like a dead end.

The problem here is twofold. The "reference implementation" is already beholden to Google's interests, and only getting more intertwined as time goes on. The other problem is Mozilla, who I wouldn't trust to manage taking a dump, let alone a web browser.

Chromium is a fine platform. I'd love to see a community implementation of that which isn't directed by corporate interests or utter incompetents.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#420

Post by sfink »

freediver wrote: post #401
dralley wrote: post #373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

You are arguing that people "should" pay based on value.

This is a competitive market. There are reasonable alternatives. Cost to switch is low. Economics 101 (literally that class!) says that the price in that situation is going to be based on competition (for the companies/producers that survive), and the price of the competition is $0.

(It's actually not, you're paying with slightly less personal data for Firefox than the alternatives, and there are substantial externalities like the effects of monoculture, but none of that is going to change the big picture.)

Not only are you not going to get a critical mass of people willing to pay, but also those who are willing to pay will feel massively entitled, and will abandon your product when it changes in any way they don't like.

The only way to make it work would be to provide some value that cannot be replicated by competitors, in order to add switching costs and reduce the fidelity of alternatives. And for that to be relevant to Mozilla, it must also be compatible with the mission of an open web.

Good luck with that.

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