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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

#461

Post by thewebcount »

gizdan wrote: post #433
samwillis wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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)…

Even if battery usage was the reason behind it, it's not good enough. Let the user decide whether or not they're willing to sacrifice battery life if they want to.

A user has no way to know that's the tradeoff. They don't know what tech any given app was built with and they don't understand what the tradeoffs are for different tech.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#462

Post by noisem4ker »

baud147258 wrote: post #22
MrDresden wrote: post #16

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).

The "jump back in" feature and the "new tab" button not actually opening a new tab until you tell it where to go are what annoys me the most right now. I wish I could go back to the old, saner behavior, which was in Fenix (the "redesign") for a while.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#463

Post by gigel82 »

Barrin92 wrote: post #455
gigel82 wrote: post #441

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How aware can you be though? Windows has dozens of different endpoints [1] that collect thousands of data points [2], and I presume that can change at any time with an update. Who has the time to read (let alone "become aware") of the full scope of that? [1] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/windows-11-... [2] https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/privacy/required-wi...

Here in the EU at least Windows walks you through privacy and telemetry settings on the first start and you get a very direct overview of what's being collected and knobs to turn it off, courtesy of the GDPR I think. I don't think changing data collection automatically is legal either. I'm all for informed consent, create laws to give users transparency and control over their data. But if users have that and they sti…

I presume you mean the OOBE (at Windows install) where you get to choose between "Required" and "Optional" telemetry; we have that in the US as well. BTW, the [2] link includes only the data set for "Required" telemetry which you have no way of disabling (unless you do DNS / IP blocking or manually disable / delete services and scheduled tasks).

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#464

Post by Foomf »

jasode wrote: post #134
zesterer wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Who is "gp"?

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#465

Post by Narishma »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #312
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 work on a user-facing product and our users don't hesitate to provide feedback on stuff like long click sequences or bad keyboard navigation. In case of mozilla specifically telemetry didn't help them to not destroy firefox's UI.

In fact they often do the opposite and use telemetry data as justification for removing useful features.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#466

Post by pseudalopex »

kwertyoowiyop wrote: post #237
ohgodplsno wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

They’re copying the old Microsoft playbook. Add so many APIs - the more complex the better - that nobody will be able to copy them all.

Joel Spolsky called it fire and motion.[1]

[1] https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2002/01/06/fire-and-motion/

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#467

Post by sfink »

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…

> Last I checked, it's owned by a foundation that's very okay with advocating that others tell me what I should see on the 'net. "We need more than deplatforming" are not words I ever want to hear from a privacy organization's mouth.

Ugh, I dislike the title of that post. I still claim that you're misinterpreting it, though. It should have been something like "We need better answers than deplatforming." Deplatforming is not the answer, and we need better ones.

Sometimes deplatforming is the right answer. Not when it's about a political agenda, but there are many many actually harmful uses out there, many of them illegal, and ignoring those on your platform is the same as facilitating them. But deplatforming is about as effective as sticking your finger in a dike for truly improving things.

In my opinion, Mozilla has done a decent job of being apolitical when possible. Yes, it does think you shouldn't see some things on the 'net, but those things are things like scams and malicious disinformation. It does not say that you should not see the latest blatherings of Trump or whoever, except perhaps when they're directly encouraging violence or sedition.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#468

Post by zaptheimpaler »

Anyone who has ever actually worked on OSS or just hangs out in ANY support channel/forum for open source will see that users are endlessly demanding, need lots of support, but will never, ever pay for anything if a free alternative exists.

Linus and the “gamers” will compare and try distros, point out tiny flaws, judge developer team strength but the one thing they will almost never, ever do is _pay money_. Even the nicest folks try their best, ask for support politely but they typically will not or cannot pay, and cannot contribute to a project beyond a solid bug report in most cases.

Linux OSS fanboys also are allergic to paying for software. God forbid someone charges a dollar for a useful application on a linux distro. Elementary OS is trying to inch towards payment with a “pay what you want” model because developers and teams actually charging for their labor would piss off 99% of the users. They may talk about the virtues of open source but what 95% of (non-technical) users love about open source is the fact that its FREE.

Kovid Goyal, creator of Calibre & Kitty gets ~$3000/month on Patreon for software used by millions that he’s built and supported for a decade now. How much does Amazon make on the Kindle instead? Tens or hundreds of millions? This isn’t a case of an evil corporate company not paying for OSS either, its just people who like to read.

We could end the Chrome hegemony tomorrow if Firefox was realistically able to charge for a browser, hire folks and not get completely dropped by their userbase. I hang out in the Firefox chats and fixed a bug once. Like most OSS, “community driven” basically means ~1000 people are actually willing and able to contribute to the project in some capacity. The rest is freeloaders, even if they happen to have good intentions. Google figured out an indirect way to get compensated for what they build because they too know users will not pay for a browser, or a search engine, or maps, or cloud storage, or photos, or news or everything else Google just gives us for free. As developers we could help solve this problem too - simply work for Mozilla negotiate a lower salary if you feel so strongly.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#469

Post by sfink »

jude- wrote: post #364

Firefox needs to go with a one locked-down process per tab model. There is no excuse these days for a single tab crash to kill off substantial portions of the browser. Moreover, there is no excuse for a tab compromise to allow access to other tabs' memory. I use Chromium because it has both a safer and more reliable design and implementation. If web browsers were OS's, Firefox would be Mac OS 9. If Mozilla wants to u…

That's in the latest version.

It's an inefficient use of computing resources, but necessary for security, mostly because of Spectre.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#470

Post by starik36 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #412
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…

> putsch supporters are a direct threat towards society

What is your feeling towards the summer 2021 rioters? Are they a threat towards society?

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