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Firefox on the brink?

brycewray.com

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Re: Firefox on the brink?

#561

Post by asdff »

aboodman wrote: post #557
hs86 wrote: post #117

I switched over after the Manifest v3 debacle, and after a couple of months, I wonder if the implications of using a browser with a lower market share are overblown. I haven't encountered any site that misbehaves, and the only missing feature so far is within the Google Drive web app because it uses a Chrome-only extension [1]. Maybe the ongoing standardization of the web shows its effects here, and using a standard-…

Speaking as a library developer, Firefox is expensive for us to support in https://replicache.dev and https://reflect.net due to lots of long-open bugs, particularly in the storage system. Firefox also generally has the slowest performance which affects us. I'm not bagging on the team, it's frankly amazing they've been able to mostly keep up, it's just a fact that maintaining a competitive web browser is a gargantuan…

When people say firefox is more performant than other browsers, they mean to say you can use actual powerful adblockers like ublock origin that then make it a totally rigged race against other browsers in terms of real world performance.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#562

Post by Certhas »

RyanHamilton wrote: post #292
Certhas wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Am I reading the documents you link right? Mozilla is wildly profitable. They made a profit of roughly 150 Million dollars last year. They have 1.2 Billion dollars in assets. They have increased revenue from non-search deals significantly (56M -> 75M, up one third). Despite all the gnashing of teeth in this comment section about woke Mozilla, they spent only 5 Million on grants last year. The vast majority goes towar…

If this was a for profit company I could agree with your focus on profit. Their mission statement is: "Mozilla is a global nonprofit dedicated to keeping the Internet a global public resource that is open and accessible to all.". You could argue the importance of market share at some percentages but below ~5% has to be considered a priority one emergency, if your goal is to keep the internet accessible for all. If th…

The question is, can you change the market share? Specifically as long as you depend on Google for your income.

If not, then the goal should be to build up assets and alternative revenue streams.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#563

Post by sunshowers »

ndriscoll wrote: post #318
pavon wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of that negates the need to test on various browsers to ensure compatibility.

What compatibility? If Firefox breaks forms, then Firefox broke forms and needs to fix it. Not your bug. If Chrome renders differently from edge because they decided the default color on .gov sites will be pink on white and all padding will be multiplied by 1.5, then that's fine. Not a bug. Chrome just decided to present a different look. If it's even possible for basic functionality to break in a way where you would…

Testing on target platforms is an inherent part of shipping production software.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#564

Post by quietpain »

I recently installed the STM32 Cube IDE from ST [1] and discovered that it contains a stealth binary of Google's Chrome in my home directory. The fans started spinning and I found the culprit pretty fast, but if you delete the Chrome executable in the double-hidden directory it just gets installed again at the next run of the IDE.

I wonder what percentage of market share can be attributed to this kind of clients that are used not for browsing but for lazily loading some web interface or product page.

[1] https://www.st.com/en/development-tools/stm32cubeide.html

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#565

Post by crabmusket »

amanzi wrote: post #495
preinheimer wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specific problems I've had as a firefox user: - I can't pay municipal license fees (Site says "Use Chrome") - I can't use the Vendor management portal for $largePopularTechCompany type company for my small business ("We support Chrome") - Xero my small business accounting software just doesn't work properly ("Use Chrome")

I've used Xero for years with Firefox without issues.

Same here, though I only use a small subset of Xero features.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#566

Post by ndriscoll »

crazygringo wrote: post #520
ndriscoll wrote: post #498

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like I said, the US government should just adopt the existing W3C standard. It's crazy to me that 10 years ago people were against the standard for government documents being essentially "whatever Microsoft office does", but in 2023, we've decided it makes sense for the standard for government web sites to be "whatever Chrome and Safari do". And as I've pointed out, for historical reasons, we already have an adequate…

But you're saying that the government should create websites according to those standards, and if it breaks in Chrome or Safari, the government shouldn't test and fix it. Rather, the browsers should fix it. That's a position I just can't get behind. These are all just tools. The point isn't to follow some ideology, the point is to function . And no, the government shouldn't formally "adopt" any specific W3C standard…

If a browser breaks forms somehow, then yeah I don't think it's reasonable for anyone to try to fix their website to somehow work (if it's even possible). Same as if they break links, or TLS, or HTTP. The government should just say "chrome 287 doesn't work".

The "evolving" standards of browsers mostly add a bunch of useless toys that create security vulnerabilities. There's no reason for serious sites to target them. The old standards do everything you need to quickly and easily make a functional tool that will require no maintenance for years or decades, which is exactly what you want from tools.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#567

Post by sreejithr »

Firefox is the only browser that has reliable ad-blocking. Chrome allows ads by default because you know, it's from Google. Edge is no better the last I used it. Websites are simply faster on Firefox. But I guess people like me are fast becoming a minority.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#568

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jasonjayr wrote: post #521
roywiggins wrote: post #506

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to make money or reach constituents, this isn't actually a viable option for anyone. When people complain that they can't submit their DMV forms (or whatever) and you say, "well we followed all the standards, go find another browser" and they say "which one" and you say "I don't know, we didn't test with any browsers, we just test against the standard" who do you think they'll blame?

Is it really a standard if no one implements it in a way that everyone agrees on? Is it really a standard if the dominant vendor just ignores the standard and does what it wants because then it becomes the "actual standard" ? As a (terrible) example, look at FIPS. The government has the power to mandate a standard that everyone needs to implement. If instead of "supporting specific browser vendors" they "support a sp…

> Is it really a standard if no one implements it in a way that everyone agrees on?

Plenty of standards are guidelines. The point is the website’s purpose trumps dogmatic adherence to a standard. If the site works against standards but not in the browser, it’s a failure.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#569

Post by rewmie »

quietpain wrote: post #564

I recently installed the STM32 Cube IDE from ST [1] and discovered that it contains a stealth binary of Google's Chrome in my home directory. The fans started spinning and I found the culprit pretty fast, but if you delete the Chrome executable in the double-hidden directory it just gets installed again at the next run of the IDE. I wonder what percentage of market share can be attributed to this kind of clients that…

That's a great point. Both Chrome and Edge are widely used as WebView drivers by some applications, and whether the user likes it or not they end up using one of the browsers that's dubbed market leader. Does Firefox even provide any webview-capable deployment option? If they managed to put together one that didn't weight around 100MB or phoned home, I'm sure it would be widely adopted once it's out.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#570

Post by beojan »

amadeuspagel wrote: post #297
Chabsff wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, but the government HAS to make that determination in a data-driven way. It cannot be based on anything subjective, for what should be obvious reasons. On top of that, said lack of knowledge is a stated goal of all privacy-focused browsers. GA-blindness is an implementation detail of these policies. Any method the government could use to accurately track that information is effectively a bug in need of fixing fr…

There is no standard that you can use instead of a set of browsers. There is no way of making sure that a website works with a browser other then testing it with that browser. The reason people test with different browsers is not that they want to use non-standard features, it's that even standard features often do not work in certain browsers.

There was until Google and Mozilla decided W3C wasn't moving fast enough and introduced WHATWG.
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