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Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

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Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#291

Post by rendaw »

midoridensha wrote: post #2

Just reading the beginning, it looks like they're mainly complaining about proprietary OS vendors restricting users' choice in browsers through various shenanigans. Linux users (for desktop systems) don't have this problem, and for mobile, Android users can easily install Firefox (or better yet, Firefox Nightly) through the Google Play store and set it to be the default browser. Basically, if you want to have choice…

I think the user choice doesn't really matter here. Web devs want 99% of people to be able to use their stuff, so they develop for the least shared functionality and companies/apps/services that _need_ functionality just don't exist or else the companies that want to do it give up after creating mobile apps (linux users, and sometimes even desktop users are out of luck).

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#292

Post by krono »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #179
krono wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revenue is about the only thing that might have improved. The meat and potatoes certainly haven't. Edit: was not my intention to make this sound so unfair to the moz employees and contributors - it's all on management

Revenue's pretty damn important, without the increase Firefox likely would have been dead years ago. The management has hardly been flawless, but I don't know how to compete with opponents that have practically unlimited budgets with no expectation of being independently profitable, first IE then Chrome. Any move that isn't a grand slam will be viewed as a failure.

Nicely worded. I suppose it's not as much that I believe she's doing a particularly bad job, but more that she's been moving Mozilla too far into the direction opposite from where I would have liked it to go, and where I believe it belongs.

I find her salary increases and their timing both unconscionable and excessive regardless.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#293

Post by em-bee »

hardware2win wrote: post #272
em-bee wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that's what the standards are for. any feature that is not implemented in all major browsers should be considered experimental. it might go away. it's fine to use such features for experiments, but they should not be put into production and relied upon. any differences in the implementation of the standard should be considered a bug. warning users about bugs is fine, but automatically redirecting me to some other bro…

Uh what? If one browser laggs behind then the rest shouldnt deploy? This is crazy

depends how much your users matter to you. if a browser[1] lags behind on a feature, you should avoid using that feature on a production website, or provide a gracefull fallback. but by no means should you redirect the users to a browser that supports that feature.

[1] i am only counting major modern browsers here: chrome, edge, firefox, safari. you are welcome to support more, but these at a minimum.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#295

Post by philistine »

tacotime wrote: post #290
philistine wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposing opinion would be that changes of vital OS features has happened to all the operating systems. Users expect a new version of software to run on newer operating systems. The web has never deprecated anything close to vital. We're stuck, seemingly, with everything ever conceived.

Firefox has deprecated support for FTP, RSS feeds. Web extensions using manifest version 2 are being deprecated in Chrome, removing substantial capabilities. Whether these features are "close to vital" is debatable but certainly some functionality that used to be ubiquitous are being removed.

That’s not what I was thinking. I was thinking more of deprecating some elements of JavaScript that prevent speed gains.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#296

Post by anoncow »

mkurz wrote: post #39
anoncow wrote: post #31

Linux has a problem too. arm64 Linux has very limited browser support. Even Chromium works poorly.

I use chromium on arm64 Linux. Can't complain. Which issues are you talking about?

In my experience, fonts render poorly via VM on apple silicon.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#297

Post by pffft8888 »

zamadatix wrote: post #264
pffft8888 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browsers are using what the OS provides. I am not aware of any browser reimplementing Vulcan, DirectX or Metal, nor am I familiar with any browser reimplementing any feature of the underlying OS. It's just an application where you can build other applications and it provides access to some OS features via a scripting (higher level) language that's highly imperfect but thoroughly documented and used by millions. Speak…

They pretty much all re-implement OpenGL since they needed WebGL/WebGL2 to work reliably across platforms, some of which don't even ship OpenGL at all. SPDY/QUIC/HTTP3 re-implement a lot of the OS level socket stuff in the browser. Hardware interfaces for USB, Bluetooth, and Serial are exposed to avoid needing device specific drivers for many things. It has the ability to be the compositor, window manager, and displa…

But OpenGL is not part of the OS, or is it? (asking sincerely, no idea) I thought Vulcan is for Linux, Metal for Mac and Direct3D is for Windows.

Quic still relies on UDP, just like many other non-TCP protocols that are built by vendors for all sorts of applications.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#298

Post by pffft8888 »

doctor_eval wrote: post #226
pffft8888 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Browsers are using what the OS provides. I am not aware of any browser reimplementing Vulcan, DirectX or Metal, nor am I familiar with any browser reimplementing any feature of the underlying OS. It's just an application where you can build other applications and it provides access to some OS features via a scripting (higher level) language that's highly imperfect but thoroughly documented and used by millions. Speak…

> nor am I familiar with any browser reimplementing any feature of the underlying OS. Well QUIC is replacing TCP for many HTTP connections now, and that’s implemented entirely in the browser. The OS provides the datagram layer but at this point it’s semantics. The bulk of the protocol is in the browser.

Yes, Quic still relies on UDP. So that's like many other non-TCP protocols that are built by vendors on top of UDP for all sorts of applications. It still uses the OS layer for UDP, which is what many other applications do.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#299

Post by smolder »

yamtaddle wrote: post #274
brozaman wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think this is some of the disconnect between users on this site who don't understand why people would possibly actively choose iOS even with the lockin. Most people do not want to use a product that is constantly updating and adding features Precisely the reason why I have an iPhone and an iPad is because they give me 5 years of updates and even more of security fixes.

Firefox feels the need to scream at me every time it updates, which is all the time—far more often than iOS, and far more often than Safari. I think that's what the GP meant. FF does the equivalent of a major iOS update several times per year, as far as the user experience of the update is concerned—iOS doesn't fill my screen with on-launch "hi! We updated!" notices unless the release is a big one and there's actuall…

I don't remember the specifics of how to do it, but you can disable the Firefox upgrade welcome tab...

My Firefox install hasn't bothered me by opening any unwanted tabs in a couple years, at least? But it still updates on a system restart or when I tell it to -- it just reloads all the previously opened tabs without any UX burden.

Re: Browsers are essential and how operating systems are holding them back (2022) [pdf] (2022)

#300

Post by yjftsjthsd-h »

LtWorf wrote: post #192
em-bee wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

such apps should not exist. it's a throwback to the old internet explorer days. you will receive support calls from people who don't run windows and thus don't have edge

Well it's how the mailto:blabla@blabla works.

What? No, it's the exact opposite! If I set my system to open mailto links in Thunderbird, the link won't randomly override and open in Outlook. That's the whole point: The link specifies what should get opened, and then the application of the user's choice handles it.
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