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Hang on to Your Firefox

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Re: Hang on to Your Firefox

#81

Post by sumanep »

happytoexplain wrote: post #46
senfiaj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and when you think about the insane complexity of Web standards, and the fact that even Microsoft failed to create a browser with an independent engine, we are very unlikely to see a new browser engine: https://waspdev.com/articles/2025-04-07/will-there-be-a-new-... . This means that not only we are unlikely to see browsers with new engines but also that the existing browser engine diversity might even shrink i…

"even Microsoft" is an oxymoron. Microsoft is exactly the entity I would expect to fail at implementing complex standards.

You didn´t understand

Re: Hang on to Your Firefox

#82

Post by sumanep »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #8
hx8 wrote: post #6

I am under the impression that Firefox is the only web browser which has access to quality ad blocker. Am I incorrect in this? How is this not enough of a selling point for everyone to switch to it?

uBlock Origin (non-lite) only works on Firefox as far as I know. Brave purportedly has a built-in ad blocker that uses the same lists, but I can't vouch for it personally.

I use it in Opera without issues

Re: Hang on to Your Firefox

#83

Post by dendark »

theamk wrote: post #3

I am using firefox, but it is pretty hard to keep using it. I don't want the whole world to converge on one browser engine, but I also want things to work, and Firefox does not make it easy. Firefox on my laptop has a propensity for eating lots of RAM, and constant CPU usage, even if nothing is going on. Task manager is useless. Profiler just shows "GC collecting". Mobile firefox is OK, it simply feels like it's desi…

This ^^^

Re: Hang on to Your Firefox

#84

Post by bigyabai »

cromka wrote: post #16
hx8 wrote: post #6

I am under the impression that Firefox is the only web browser which has access to quality ad blocker. Am I incorrect in this? How is this not enough of a selling point for everyone to switch to it?

Brave is even better since the ad engine is actually built in (lower level) and written in Rust if memory serves me well. And before anyone says anything about crypto: pay a small fee for Brave Origin or use it for free on Linux.

> pay a small fee for Brave Origin

"Hey, we recognize that normal Brave is exploitative and user-hostile by default. We'll fix it if you pay us $59.99 in mutual acknowledgement that you're a chump who can't install UBO."

I'm glad (and unsurprised) that Brave's vision for the web never hit the big leagues.

Re: Hang on to Your Firefox

#85

Post by autoexec »

nubinetwork wrote: post #76
autoexec wrote: post #53

> Meanwhile, the over thinkers on Hacker News come up with convoluted reasons to hate on Firefox every time the subject arises...Firefox is our last best hope for browser engine diversity and competition. It's exactly because Firefox is so important that you'll see people here complaining when Firefox does things to push away users like Mozilla buying up an ad-tech company, collecting data on users, and using firefox…

> I hope people here never stop bitching about Firefox. Its getting harder and harder, at some point they'll deprecate their last sane ESR, and we'll all get stuck with all their junk.

There are forks which will keep the sanity alive, but I worry about how long Firefox will survive if everyone moves to them, and I have doubts about how well those forks will be maintained after Firefox is gone.

Re: Hang on to Your Firefox

#86

Post by notafox »

cm2187 wrote: post #22
hx8 wrote: post #6

I am under the impression that Firefox is the only web browser which has access to quality ad blocker. Am I incorrect in this? How is this not enough of a selling point for everyone to switch to it?

Agree, and not just that, it allows to escape the hijack of your right click (something google does not tolerate), but they also degraded a lot the experience the last year or two. Number of modal dialog boxes every time it updates (and of course repeat for how many machines you use), also every time there is a pending update, the performance seems to degrade until you close and update, and those updates are very fre…

You may restrict updates in policies.json[1][2]:

  {
    "policies": {
      "AppUpdateURL": "http://127.0.0.1/",
      "DisableAppUpdate": true,
      "DisableFirefoxStudies": true,
      "DisableSystemAddonUpdate": true,
      "DontCheckDefaultBrowser": true,
      "ExtensionUpdate": false,
    }
  }
Syntax should be slightly different for Windows.

File should be located in $FIREFOX_DISTRIBUTION_DIR/distribution/

$FIREFOX_DISTRIBUTION_DIR is the installation directory for firefox, which (for default setup) probably will be printed by this:

  sed -nE 's/^\s*exec (.*\/)firefox .*/\1/p' $(which firefox) # and it's probably /usr/lib/firefox
When you decide to update you may temporarily replace policy for permissive one, or you may just install new version in a separate $FIREFOX_DISTRIBUTION_DIR.

[1] https://firefox-admin-docs.mozilla.org/guides/policies-confi...

[2] https://firefox-admin-docs.mozilla.org/reference/policies/

Re: Hang on to Your Firefox

#87

Post by xgulfie »

TimTheTinker wrote: post #14
senfiaj wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, and when you think about the insane complexity of Web standards, and the fact that even Microsoft failed to create a browser with an independent engine, we are very unlikely to see a new browser engine: https://waspdev.com/articles/2025-04-07/will-there-be-a-new-... . This means that not only we are unlikely to see browsers with new engines but also that the existing browser engine diversity might even shrink i…

Ladybird is steadily progressing: https://ladybird.org/

[flagged]

Re: Hang on to Your Firefox

#88

Post by PKop »

bigyabai wrote: post #84
cromka wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave is even better since the ad engine is actually built in (lower level) and written in Rust if memory serves me well. And before anyone says anything about crypto: pay a small fee for Brave Origin or use it for free on Linux.

> pay a small fee for Brave Origin "Hey, we recognize that normal Brave is exploitative and user-hostile by default. We'll fix it if you pay us $59.99 in mutual acknowledgement that you're a chump who can't install UBO." I'm glad (and unsurprised) that Brave's vision for the web never hit the big leagues.

It's not their "vision for the web" it's just an attempt at funding development of the browser given they aren't an ad-network behemoth like Google. Like Kagi charging for their search engine, a company charging money directly for the product is a good idea all things considered. How do you expect them to pay their developers?

Re: Hang on to Your Firefox

#89

Post by [deleted] »

hx8 wrote: post #6

I am under the impression that Firefox is the only web browser which has access to quality ad blocker. Am I incorrect in this? How is this not enough of a selling point for everyone to switch to it?

[deleted]

Re: Hang on to Your Firefox

#90

Post by olejorgenb »

roughly wrote: post #65

There’s an old mantra from organizing: “no permanent enemies, no permanent allies.” You will never align with another group or person 100% on all things; the secret to making change is to build a coalition of those with whom you agree on an issue without holding it against them that you disagree on a different one. I disagree with Mozilla about many things, but I agree with this article - I use Firefox because it’s t…

It's also better that the other browser in many ways. The "Awesome Bar" among them.
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