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Firefox on the brink?

brycewray.com

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Re: Firefox on the brink?

#641

Post by JohnFen »

roywiggins wrote: post #506
JohnFen wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This is exactly why sites should be tested for their conformance with the standard rather than with specific browsers. Testing against specific browsers just encourages browser-makers to continue to avoid fixing their shit.

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?

So we can't have a well-functioning system because that would interfere with some people making money. We truly do live in sad times.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#642

Post by jampekka »

rdm_blackhole wrote: post #255
PaulHoule wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU could have a privacy-friendly browser if it funded Mozilla or a Mozilla fork.

That would be a no from me. Considering the recent headlines from the EU wanting to scan every private message on the phones of it's citizens in order to "protect the children".

Private corporations do the same without you knowing, without any pretence and without even illusion of accountability.

Non-profit is better than gov but private is way worse than even gov.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#644

Post by mtVessel »

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-…

Not sure how so many in the thread are using FF problem-free? In the past few years I've encountered more and more sites that don't work properly with FF. Most of the issues are around modals that won't dismiss or even display at all. Other issues I can't identify, but the site becomes unresponsive or some content won't load. I think the Ticketmaster ticket selection page was the last one I couldn't use at all with FF. My cable company's site became Chromium only sometime this year and it still is.

Sometimes the cause is uBlock Origin, so I always try turning it off and refreshing. Rarely it's due to enhanced tracking protection. A few times I restarted FF in safe mode to rule out add-ins. It's always just FF.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#645

Post by sunshowers »

ndriscoll wrote: post #582
sunshowers wrote: post #563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Not if you're targeting a standard. I worked on fibre channel networks at IBM. They were all about high touch customer service, and had great data gathering and would debug issues that ultimately were caused by some other vendor breaking the standard. After proving we were doing the right thing, our answer would always be to tell the customer to turn off the broken feature on their other vendor's device (other vendor…

To clarify, I think it would be very bad if the government merely "targeted a standard" and did not test its websites on various browsers. I would consider it irresponsible professional behavior.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#646

Post by sitzkrieg »

traviswt wrote: post #619
beanjuiceII wrote: post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in govt tech, we already internally do not care about FF support at all and only really look to chrome based browsers (chrome edge mostly) and safari. Many people don't even know what it is anymore, seems like time killed this browser too. Mozilla spending too much time/money and other crap over the years

> Mozilla spending too much time/money and other crap over the years It seems like a pretty bit conflict of interest when the #1 money source for Firefox comes from Firefox's only real competitor.

yea things have seriously gone downhill since chrome took off in 2010

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#647

Post by laurent123456 »

cwales95 wrote: post #606
laurent123456 wrote: post #586

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm always surprised to read claims that Firefox is the same or better than Chrome. I switched to Firefox recently and many sites don't quite work: for example the pull request popup menu on GitHub appears off screen so can't be clicked on; the "new post" panel in Discourse is obstructed by the keyboard; FastMail alert box buttons don't work, and many other such annoyances. It can be used as a main browser but it doe…

I use GitHub frequently and have never came across that issue; can't speak for the other sites though. If you're sure it's not the website's fault I'd encourage you to submit feedback: https://webcompat.com/issues/new

There's an open issue about it, so hopefully github should fix it eventually. It's on firefox mobile

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#648

Post by kiwijamo »

laurent123456 wrote: post #586
rumdz wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I'm not a Firefox fanboy. It has literally run better for me than Chrome for a few years now.

I'm always surprised to read claims that Firefox is the same or better than Chrome. I switched to Firefox recently and many sites don't quite work: for example the pull request popup menu on GitHub appears off screen so can't be clicked on; the "new post" panel in Discourse is obstructed by the keyboard; FastMail alert box buttons don't work, and many other such annoyances. It can be used as a main browser but it doe…

I am regular and long time user of Fastmail in Firefox and I'm surprised at your report of issues in Firefox. Can you describe the steps to reproduce the issues you found?

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#649

Post by zahllos »

denton-scratch wrote: post #605

> I surely hope I’m wrong about this, but I fear I’m not. I suspect that the remaining Firefox users are likely to be quite "sticky". If there are websites that don't work in Firefox (but work in Chrome and Safari), I haven't yet blundered into one. My guess is that those would be mainly corporate intranet sites/apps, which I don't have to deal with. No platform deploys Firefox by default; you have to deliberately ch…

Slight nitpick but you can get edge on both Mac and Linux. They package both a deb and an rpm here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/edge/business/download?form=... and it is also available on Mac.

The main reason for using this is to run edge on windows subsystem for Linux on windows and wonder if anyone would have predicted that in the year 2000.

(I actually have edge installed on some Linux machines as well, but it isn't my main browser except when I need to teams).

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#650

Post by daotoad »

anonymouskimmer wrote: post #542
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…

> Sure, but the government HAS to make that determination in a data-driven way. They really should be hiring a pollster to ask people which browser they use. It might be a bit difficult for those who use the default, but it wouldn't be that difficult to ask a couple of followup questions (e.g. which device) to determine which default browser that is.

I think most people would say "the internet" or "my phone" rather than something useful.
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