I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back • Hacker News Board

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#351

Post by greggyb » Tue, Jan 14, 2025, 5:26 PM UTC

KaiserPro wrote: post #44

I have been using mozilla for _years_ it got shit, then better, then shit, and now its close enough. The thing I _Love_ is container tabs. I can isolate empires by using container tabs to sandbox cookies and other web state. This means that ebay doesn't change my adverts to the last thing I searched on every site, and autoplay embedded youtube doesn't fuck up my video recommendations. It means I can hide my work gmai…

I have 4 Microsoft accounts I use regularly for work. I also do some consulting and often end up with credentials provisioned at a client (don't get me started on this).

It is so convenient to have container tabs. All my extensions are available in new containers, unlike multiple Chromium profiles (or Firefox profiles).

Container tabs also pair very well with Simple Tab Groups, which allow you to pin a container to a group, so that everything for one account ends up in one place.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#352

Post by wruza » Tue, Jan 14, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

bee_rider wrote: post #165

tapoxi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s crazy to think that some software engineers might actually intentionally degrade user experience on non-Google browsers or for people using adblockers. Why would I, as a developer whose income stream is based on advertising, intentionally cater to users who are costing me money? There is a web based on hobbyist platforms like PeerTube and Mastodon, and you can clearly see why they haven't captured the masses.

This is basically true. The ad supported web sucks, but the solution is to not use it.

The solution is how we solve it. There’s a technical end to every demand, and at the end of the day regulation only can do so much for both sides. The reality sorts everything else.

The solution you mentioned is valid too.

But you cannot ignore the fact that internet is for everyone and not for google. Google minus all the shit it does to the internet can definitely exist in some form. Claiming it’s either this or nothing is just defeatist.

If google and youtube disappeared tomorrow, I’d be the first among those guys who buy hdds and torrent videos from these. For no money, like I did with all torrents in my life. There would be less professional videos obviously, but almost everyone agrees it’s a good thing (quit SM, anxiety, kids social issues, etc talks).

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#353

Post by xvilka » Tue, Jan 14, 2025, 5:28 PM UTC

squarefoot wrote: post #104

ustad wrote: post #23

Currently the main attack facing Firefox is coming from advertising companies such as YouTube. It’s crazy to think that some software engineers might actually intentionally degrade user experience on non-Google browsers or for people using adblockers. The mentality here is pretty disturbing: it’s almost like punishing users for making the choice to browse the web without ads, or without the surveillance mechanisms th…

> Currently the main attack facing Firefox is coming from advertising companies such as YouTube. I would add to the list the Linux Foundation too. https://www.linuxfoundation.org/press/linux-foundation-annou...

They should go all in for Servo as the only future-proof browser engine.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#354

Post by bigstrat2003 » Tue, Jan 14, 2025, 5:30 PM UTC

Apocryphon wrote: post #339

wruza wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that was fast because google pushed on megabytes of javascript and tight loops in it. Regular ajax (now known as htmx) webpages worked absolutely fine in other browsers. I regularly scrolled through a whole freebsd single-html handbook and it never lagged in e.g. presto. Websites aren't expensive to run even on a slow interpreter. Even medium-complexity apps don't do much and could be written in python or ruby ba…

Nah, I remember Firefox in 2008 being a miserably bloated and slow experience. Guess it was because of no Electrolysis and any other refinements in the last two decades.

Yep, same. Firefox now is decent, but back in the day it was awful. I remember trying it out early on and immediately going back to IE because Firefox was significantly slower. Chrome was a marked improvement over both IE and Firefox, so it won.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#355

Post by jshen » Tue, Jan 14, 2025, 5:32 PM UTC

ustad wrote: post #23

Currently the main attack facing Firefox is coming from advertising companies such as YouTube. It’s crazy to think that some software engineers might actually intentionally degrade user experience on non-Google browsers or for people using adblockers. The mentality here is pretty disturbing: it’s almost like punishing users for making the choice to browse the web without ads, or without the surveillance mechanisms th…

Don't like YouTube's ads, great don't use it. You aren't entitled to get it for free though.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#356

Post by observationist » Tue, Jan 14, 2025, 5:39 PM UTC

jshen wrote: post #355

ustad wrote: post #23

Currently the main attack facing Firefox is coming from advertising companies such as YouTube. It’s crazy to think that some software engineers might actually intentionally degrade user experience on non-Google browsers or for people using adblockers. The mentality here is pretty disturbing: it’s almost like punishing users for making the choice to browse the web without ads, or without the surveillance mechanisms th…

Don't like YouTube's ads, great don't use it. You aren't entitled to get it for free though.

[flagged]

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#357

Post by wruza » Tue, Jan 14, 2025, 5:43 PM UTC

p3rls wrote: post #207

tapoxi wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It’s crazy to think that some software engineers might actually intentionally degrade user experience on non-Google browsers or for people using adblockers. Why would I, as a developer whose income stream is based on advertising, intentionally cater to users who are costing me money? There is a web based on hobbyist platforms like PeerTube and Mastodon, and you can clearly see why they haven't captured the masses.

You can tell who has never been in control of a budget and had to fire people because more than half their audience is using adblockers.

Why you even start a business so risky and bad mannered?

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#358

Post by czottmann » Tue, Jan 14, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

macOS user here. I know Firefox is great, and I'd love to use it (again), but Mozilla's decision to remove all user-facing, OS-level scripting capabilities from it (i.e., AppleScript) made me drop it a few years ago. Getting anything out of FF on macOS, locally, is a major pain in the ass, actually. Try to grab the current URL from the active tab…

Add to that the non-macOS text handling, macOS-unlike font rendering, its insistence to not use the system-wide spell checker provided by the OS etc. It feels a bit rude at times.

I think it's a super-solid browser that unfortunately doesn't give a shit about the platform it's running on. Irritatingly, it's fine with being a black box, so much more than the Chromiums are (for all their various faults).

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#359

Post by bee_rider » Tue, Jan 14, 2025, 5:46 PM UTC

wruza wrote: post #352

bee_rider wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is basically true. The ad supported web sucks, but the solution is to not use it.

The solution is how we solve it. There’s a technical end to every demand, and at the end of the day regulation only can do so much for both sides. The reality sorts everything else. The solution you mentioned is valid too. But you cannot ignore the fact that internet is for everyone and not for google. Google minus all the shit it does to the internet can definitely exist in some form. Claiming it’s either this or no…

Sorry, I was ambiguous. I just meant not to use the ad-supported part of the web. Yes, the rest of it is fine.

Even a large chunk of the ad supported internet is happy to continue sending you bits if you don’t render their ads. This is fine, the convention has always been I’ll send whatever (non-malicious) bits I want, you send whatever you want, and we’ll render it however we want. YouTube specifically doesn’t send bits to people who don’t render their ads, on purpose, which is also fine, they just don’t want those of us who don’t render ads around.

Entitled ad guys don’t get to change the social convention to add some obligation to render their ads. If they don’t want to serve bits to users that block their ads, that’s fine, but if they send bits I’ll render them however I want on my system.

Re: I Switched to Firefox and Never Looked Back

#360

Post by habosa » Tue, Jan 14, 2025, 5:49 PM UTC

I've been a Chrome user since literally the day it came out. On my iPhone 13 though I just noticed Chrome was getting slower and slower. At first I thought it was the phone, since I spend most of my time on the phone in the browser it was hard to tell the difference.

Then I switched to Firefox for iOS. It is SO MUCH FASTER. It's like getting a new phone. Idk what the Chrome team is doing but it's slow.