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I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

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Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#301

Post by segasaturn »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #287
immibis wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me copy the actually important information from the sibling comment that's about to be deleted, because this is actually important: Linus has hated GPLv3 since at least 2006. Linux development has been over 80% corporate funded for over a decade. FOSS contributors do not have enough talent or interest to maintain the kernel for even a few weeks. If corporate interests weren't in the kernel, the kernel would not r…

The original comment I was replying to has an inaccurate mindset: Linux supporters generally still envision this as a community project, with community contributors, and they are so successful, that companies knock at the door politely and are lucky to get code into the kernel. It's actually the other way around: This is a collaborative corporate project, with corporate employees contributing, but there are some rand…

I actually agree with you that Linux development has been captured by corporations. Except that I believe it's not sustainable. Eventually the Shareholders are going to come knocking and ask why so much engineering time and money is being wasted on some hippie-dippy Open Source junk and not returning value to them. It needs AI in it, or maybe a Linux Pro subscription with ads for the freeloaders. This is why I'm glad the kernel is tied to the GPL, so we can fork when their interests stop aligning with ours.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#302

Post by gjsman-1000 »

segasaturn wrote: post #301
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The original comment I was replying to has an inaccurate mindset: Linux supporters generally still envision this as a community project, with community contributors, and they are so successful, that companies knock at the door politely and are lucky to get code into the kernel. It's actually the other way around: This is a collaborative corporate project, with corporate employees contributing, but there are some rand…

I actually agree with you that Linux development has been captured by corporations. Except that I believe it's not sustainable. Eventually the Shareholders are going to come knocking and ask why so much engineering time and money is being wasted on some hippie-dippy Open Source junk and not returning value to them. It needs AI in it, or maybe a Linux Pro subscription with ads for the freeloaders. This is why I'm glad…

You're assuming that community driven FOSS development is sustainable, or can make a good long term project the size of a kernel, or a multimedia package, or anything larger than a tool or library.

In practice, I'm going to be honest and blunt, it's never worked.

3 decades of trying to replace Photoshop with GIMP (founded 1995)? Barely a dent.

3 decades of trying to unsettle Windows with the Linux desktop (KDE, 1998)? Barely a dent.

3 decades of trying to beat 3D packages with Blender (founded 1994)? Finally working now, ironically only because corporations started getting involved. Before then, Blender 2.7 was never going to do it.

2 decades of Apache trying to kill Skype with OpenMeetings (founded 2007)? Not even a dent.

2 decades of trying to kill proprietary CAD packages with FreeCAD (founded 2002)? Not even a dent.

4 decades of trying to beat Microsoft Office with what is now LibreOffice (roots in StarOffice, 1985, which was ironically a proprietary corporate project for the first decade and a half)? Barely a dent.

The Linux community, and FOSS communities, overestimate their strength without corporate interests. They have none.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#303

Post by eipi10_hn »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #241
eipi10_hn wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you cannot even control your ads to users? No one of you devs gets punishment for tracking users' personal information, pushing scam, phishing and malware to users, and now users are not even allowed to protect themselves? Users don't drop trackers and malwares to your servers, why do you drop trackers and malwares to users' machines? Because you are working for a corporation that joins in World Wide Web Cons…

Let me remind you that Ad-Block Plus collapsed when it's users revolted over their plan to whitelist simple vetted advertisements in a truce with advertisers. ABP was foolish and actually believed it's users were trying to make a statement about invasive ads. Really their users just didn't want to see any ads at all, ever, regardless of the circumstances.

ABP didn't even address any trackings with their program. It's just pure cosmetics.

> Really their users just didn't want to see any ads at all

Because the internet was filled with malicious ads before any content blockers having more people? The hazardours time of Windows XP/7 with malwares-affected from the ads appear like meals in every day's news? Sorry, internet ads are doomed from those times. They are migrained to everyone's minds that users are walking in a landmines with those ads. If a business is entirely dependent on those ads, that business should not exist. Doing business is hard, right? I mean, like, most of other ethical jobs on the world.

Users are just doing what World Wide Web Consortium says.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#304

Post by sylware »

psychoslave wrote: post #12
sylware wrote: post #6

I did switch to links/lynx (could be netsurf), and I did never look back.

Well, I do try to grab pages using it here and there when reader mode fails. But now most of the time the amount of garbage around the text is so high that command line browser just can’t display anything.

links and netsurf are graphical (links has both a ncurses and x11 interface).

I use links to browse maps from openstreetmap servers.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#305

Post by debugnik »

Workaccount2 wrote: post #241
eipi10_hn wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you cannot even control your ads to users? No one of you devs gets punishment for tracking users' personal information, pushing scam, phishing and malware to users, and now users are not even allowed to protect themselves? Users don't drop trackers and malwares to your servers, why do you drop trackers and malwares to users' machines? Because you are working for a corporation that joins in World Wide Web Cons…

Let me remind you that Ad-Block Plus collapsed when it's users revolted over their plan to whitelist simple vetted advertisements in a truce with advertisers. ABP was foolish and actually believed it's users were trying to make a statement about invasive ads. Really their users just didn't want to see any ads at all, ever, regardless of the circumstances.

You forgot to mention it involved paid whitelisting, and the requirements for compliance were so weak that even major malvertising vectors, like Google, were considered acceptable.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#306

Post by Idesmi »

anthk wrote: post #88
internet_points wrote: post #3

It's the closest we have to a browser not controlled by the corporate giants. Sometimes Mozilla makes unpopular choices and people raise a stink about it, but we do that because we hold them to a higher standard. With Microsoft and Google, we just expect them to Do More Evil, with Mozilla we expect Good and will complain loudly when they fail to uphold our principles, and we recommend Firefox because we feel like it…

Icecat it's far more free than Firefox.

Icecat is Firefox.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#307

Post by chaara-dev »

mvdtnz wrote: post #299
Sanctor wrote: post #110

I really want to switch to Firefox but cannot because it doesn't sync bookmark favicons. My bookmarks bar is filled with bookmarks without names that I can recognize by the icons. I refuse to re-visit every bookmark when I login from a new PC, which is often. This has been requested for 17 years: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=428378 Every other browser sync solution has this feature. Firefox insists on…

The thing is that Firefox has SO MANY papercuts in this category. They all seem minor but they all represent a deal breaker for one user or another. For me it's the address bar on the bottom on mobile (ludicrous decision, whoever came up with that should leave the industry and I mean that) and their refusal to auto fill credit cards on mobile even though I know it works on desktop and I know it works in other regions…

In the settings on Firefox mobile, under Customize, you can choose between address bar on the top or on the bottom of the screen.

Personally I keep it at the bottom, as it's much closer to my thumbs and also the keyboard, so I don't have to adjust my hands to type in a url or search query.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#308

Post by ethbr1 »

segasaturn wrote: post #222
ethbr1 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I heard someone recently describe Apple as a great hardware company with a few software people. Rings true! Most of the iOS / MacOS software issues are things that more bodies could fix.

Indeed, although most of the real work on the hardware side is done by TSMC on the processors, and Apple just does a good job wrapping that piece of silicon into a shiny glass and metal body. Apple's real superpower is getting people to spend money inside their ecosystem. They've essentially turned into a finance corporation pretending to be a tech company.

I'd strongly disagree.

Apple designs their own processors (now), specs/sources their components (e.g. screens), and then does all the integration engineering.

That's the bulk of device work.

Which isn't to say that semi manufacturing isn't hard, but is to say there's a lot of effort between a chip and a device.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#309

Post by segasaturn »

gjsman-1000 wrote: post #302
segasaturn wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually agree with you that Linux development has been captured by corporations. Except that I believe it's not sustainable. Eventually the Shareholders are going to come knocking and ask why so much engineering time and money is being wasted on some hippie-dippy Open Source junk and not returning value to them. It needs AI in it, or maybe a Linux Pro subscription with ads for the freeloaders. This is why I'm glad…

You're assuming that community driven FOSS development is sustainable, or can make a good long term project the size of a kernel, or a multimedia package, or anything larger than a tool or library. In practice, I'm going to be honest and blunt, it's never worked. 3 decades of trying to replace Photoshop with GIMP (founded 1995)? Barely a dent. 3 decades of trying to unsettle Windows with the Linux desktop (KDE, 1998)…

Why should I care that Microsoft Office has more users than LibreOffice? I care which is the better product and has my interests as the user, and not the product, in mind. For example, and relevant to the article, I can use an ad blocker on Firefox without Big Brother Google stepping in and taking it away. Photoshop takes 30 seconds to open and illegally scrapes its users' private data for AI training. Windows has mass surveillance built in with Recall and shoves tabloid garbage and ads into the Start Menu. It means nothing to me that the worse products have more users, they are still worse products.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#310

Post by ethbr1 »

20after4 wrote: post #251
ethbr1 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What doesn't work with YouTube on Firefox? Asked as on mobile I run as few apps as possible, so use the web version. Haven't seen any issues.

Are you on Android? AFAIK Mobile Firefox on iOS is just safari with a different skin and on Android it's still not really the same as desktop Firefox. I think what's actually happening is that they are targeting uBlock + Firefox on desktop for punishment.

Mobile Firefox on Android.
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