Firefox on the brink? • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#811

Post by int_19h » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 6:02 PM UTC

insanitybit wrote: post #797

flagrant_taco wrote: post #793

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The data should be accurate though. Any data-driven decisions can easily miss the original intentions if they're made with bogus information. Looking at browser usage data from GA when Firefox specifically blocks it quite often is useless.

What's your proposal? Because taking an approach that isn't data driven means it needs to be a replacement, and you need to convince people that it's worth the risk of nepotism and bias.

For starters, how about not using a proprietary service from one of the biggest tech oligopolies which has strong economic incentives to misuse any data that passes through it? If government needs accurate tracking numbers to base its decisions on, it should roll its own tracking for those numbers.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#812

Post by int_19h » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 6:13 PM UTC

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #568

jasonjayr wrote: post #521

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

But we can still have websites that work against existing browsers while also being strictly conforming to the standard, surely?

Basically, no proprietary features whatsoever. No draft features. No optionally-supported standard features without a fallback that fully covers the same underlying use case.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#813

Post by int_19h » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 6:16 PM UTC

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?

Then perhaps we should look at how we ended up in this state of affairs where testing against the standard doesn't actually ensure that your website works in the most popular web browsers out there, and do something about it? Like, say, mandatory standard conformance testing for browsers with >X% market share?

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#814

Post by int_19h » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 6:20 PM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #694

fabrice_d wrote: post #595

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FirefoxOS was not stopped by Mozilla leadership due to a lack of hardware partners. The distribution model - mostly through carriers - failed because a key app was not available (WhatsApp) which caused a chicken and egg situation: no sales because no app, no official app because not enough users.

Somehow this chicken-egg problem isn't stopping GNU/Linux phones. Sent from my Librem 5.

And what is the market share of those phones on the mobile device market?

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#815

Post by int_19h » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 6:22 PM UTC

isodev wrote: post #476

culi wrote: post #350

Earlier quoted context omitted.

on iOS all browsers are forced to use WebKit And how could Firefox possibly complete against default browsers? Is it even worth the investment?

The rendering engine doesn't really matter - nothing is stopping Mozilla from implementing a better browser app than Safari. Safari is _really_ good and a very high bar to catchup to, even if you don't have to implement the rendering engine and Mozilla is not exactly known for their friendly and refined UIs. Vivaldi on iOS is much younger by comparison and looks a lot better than Firefox.

It does, actually. For example, the reason why no other browser has the equivalent of Firefox containers is because they are the only ones with an architecture that allows for such isolation. Users of Vivaldi have been asking for containers for years now, and every time the dev team explains that they'd love to do it, but it can't be done without forking Blink and doing some massive surgery on it - at which point you again end up with your own thing, and have to play catch-up every time Google pushes yet another "standard" onto the web.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#816

Post by int_19h » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 6:30 PM UTC

cjpearson wrote: post #688

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-…

In my experience there are almost never issues. Standardization has gotten much better, and as a web developer I appreciate all the effort the various browser teams have put into ensuring common behavior. The effort of "supporting Firefox" as a developer is basically opening the app in Firefox and confirming that it works, which it basically always does because the app is built on standardized web features. (Other ty…

The concern is that the standardization process for the web stack these days consists mostly of the big guys (Google especially) throwing out a draft standard, which then slowly undergoes standardization process even as it is already getting used on the web because devs like new & shiny and/or because the added features genuinely do make something simpler. There aren't that many sites that actively break on Firefox because of this, and when they do, it's usually a temporary thing until they catch up, but as you rightly note, this is largely because devs are still forced to contend with users of other browsers. And the more popular Chrome is, the less of a forcing function that becomes, and the more whatever "draft standard" proposals are in Blink become the de facto standard.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#817

Post by int_19h » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 6:36 PM UTC

spacechild1 wrote: post #616

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-…

Same for me! I have been always using Firefox as my main browser for at least 15 years and never had any problems. Actually, I don't really understand why so many tech-savvy people continue to use Chrome... Just switch to Firefox, for foxs sake!

Part of it is that there are some genuine technical advantages to be had from Blink-based browsers. Most notably, tab process isolation: one tab crashing (and they do crash) generally doesn't bring the whole process down.

There's also UX. Right now I can have proper vertical tabs in Edge by changing a single prominent option in settings, but Firefox is still dragging their feet (yes, I know there are extensions for this, but they add a vertical tab bar in addition to the standard horizontal one, because you can't hide the latter without hacks).

OTOH Firefox has containers, which is arguably a lot more important if you care about online privacy in any serious way. But people don't like to trade away their convenience, especially once they already got used to it.

What we desperately need is a browser based around Firefox implementation of web standards and with all the privacy bells and whistles, but also UI that doesn't constantly tell users that they are "holding it wrong".

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#818

Post by int_19h » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 6:40 PM UTC

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…

I think there's a strong argument to be made here that governments should be actively subsidizing (if not directly managing) some implementation of the web standards that is guaranteed to actually be fully conforming to them, accessible etc. The web stack is such a fundamental part of our infrastructure these days that it feels irresponsible to leave it entirely to the whims of the private market - especially one that is dominated by large oligopolies which said governments are already actively investigating.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#819

Post by int_19h » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 7:08 PM UTC

Murfalo wrote: post #719

laurent123456 wrote: post #647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Firefox mobile is its own beast. I experience a whole host of issues on it, but have never had issues with Firefox on desktop. Only reason I use FF for Android is for uBlock, but it's so unreliable I'm dying for a better option...

These days desktop and mobile is kinda joined at the hip because users expect things like tabs and history to sync. So if Firefox has many problems on mobile to the point where users are actively deterred from using it, that hurts Firefox on the desktop as well.

Re: Firefox on the brink?

#820

Post by int_19h » Thu, Dec 07, 2023, 7:32 PM UTC

encom wrote: post #291

jdlyga wrote: post #90

Firefox needs to focus all their effort on making a good web browser first . If the browser is slow, has a clunky interface, or lags behind on features, then people won't use it. Mozilla focus way too much of their attention on privacy and non-browser related projects. Look at how much attention that The Browser Company has gotten for their Arc browser on Mac. Their primary focus is great UI and making an excellent b…

In my opinion, Firefox has been at war with its own users for years. I finally had enough a few years ago, and switched to Vivaldi. Every Firefox upgrade was a gamble on what feature or functionality they'd remove or change this time, or what bone-headed UI design change they'd make. And every time there'd be a Bugzilla bug with a of horde users who just had their favorite feature removed, and every time, without fai…

Feature-wise, Vivaldi is great indeed. But every time I actually try to switch to it as a primary for any prolonged amount of time, I inevitably run into major perf issues and/or deal-breaking bugs. In fact, my most recent attempt was just about a week ago, and vertical tabs w/grouping had numerous visual glitches for me, with tab buttons occasionally becoming taller than the screen, white rectangles that are supposed to go around tab groups having half the width that the tabs inside do etc. I "solved" this by using the Windows pane instead, and all was fine, until the browser just started randomly lagging to the point where everything slowed to the crawl.

And yes, I did report it to their bug tracker - which is private, by the way, so there's no way to know who else is having those problems, or how work on them is proceeding. I will say that the bugs I reported on the last attempt are fixed, but it's little consolation when new equally bad bugs show up in their place. And as for perf issues, there are numerous active threads on Vivaldi forums about them.

I'd love to use Vivaldi as my primary, esp. now that they also have an iOS offering, so tab & history sync across all of my devices is possible. But it really needs to be more stable.