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Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice

#131

Post by pm90 »

Kenji wrote: post #123

Why should we choose a product that is qualitatively worse (in my opinion, this is up to debate, but just compare the JavaScript engine, V8 owns) just to keep having a choice? A free market works exactly because people choose what they like the most and let the things that can't compete die. Through this darwinian selection, products gradually converge towards a better quality. What you are proposing is completely ir…

Not really. People chose windows because there was simply no other choice (they still do).

Simple Darwinian selection is rarely that simple. Free markets are rarely really free.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice

#132

Post by JoeAltmaier »

boot13 wrote: post #128

I'm having trouble understanding why this FUD is the top story on the otherwise excellent HN. Having choice is good, but assuming Google's domination would be a bad thing just because it was bad with Microsoft doesn't give Google enough credit. I currently use Firefox because it is the least crappy browser out there, but I'd love to switch, because it still has stability issues, particularly with animated GIFs and vi…

This highlights the irrationality of browser wars. Can FireFox be both 'least crappy' and 'stability issues'? Selection is made on emotional grounds, and rationalizations created after the fact.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice

#133

Post by hokkos »

For me Firefox is just superior to Chrome with the Tree Tab Style extension and the absence of multi-process.

The multi process in Chrome is implemented in a very bad way that multiply without a reason the RAM usage, it is better implemented in Safari but still heavy, I eventually have crash in Firefox once a month, but the session manager addon can remedy. As for addons they use way less memory in Firefox, you can see it with the about:addons-memory addon (yes another one), "add block edge" uses around 25MB, whereas in Chrome it is 10x more. I still use Chrome for webdev, but the firefox dev tools are progressing.

Tree Tab Style is a better way to navigate the web, you can see more tabs because screens are wide and the web is vertical, so it makes a better use of the screen. Also the tree structure is better for the way to browse the web with hyper-links, it is like a multi stack trace of page you saw.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice

#134

Post by cauterized »

acdha wrote: post #91
rwmj wrote: post #13

I do use Firefox, through inertia, but honestly it's not a good browser. It consumes 50%+ CPU constantly. It uses huge amounts of RAM. It crashes from time to time. Every few months I end up losing all my open tabs permanently. There's no isolation (process per tab). And they keep making gratuitous changes to the UI that don't improve the real UI problems but do require searching through about:config to revert them.…

That CPU and RAM consumption is likely due to extensions (AdBlock Plus being the most common hog). Unless you're running a really old version, Firefox is usually smaller than Chrome these days.

Yup ABP is killer. I'm also unwilling to upgrade to Australis at the moment, as I can't find a Mac-compatible theme that isn't painful to use with it. (Hate, hate, hate monochrome themes -- color coding the buttons may not be trendy but it improves usability, and has for the 20 years I've been using web browsers.) And Firebug has some major performance improvements with FF31 and newer.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice

#135

Post by DCKing »

"Google is bent on establishing platform domination unlike anything we've ever seen, even from late-1990s Microsoft." [citation needed]. I think this is an assumption, and it needs to have some basis. Can somebody explain to me why it would be in Google's interest to obtain platform dominance?

I find their own reasoning for making Android and Chrome in the first place quite compelling. They're making platforms from which it is easy to use their services and distributing them freely. With that in mind how is creating lock-in in their interests? What motives would they have for creating a lock-in with their platforms? Why would Google want to risk less use of their products from other browsers and platforms? Google makes money from the use of their services, but not from Chrome directly. The only way they're making money on Android "directly" is the Play Store.

The examples mentioned in the blog post are not very strong examples of Google creating lock-in. Of course offline Docs is coming to Chrome (and Chromebooks) first. Google has long announced that Chrome would become Android's default browser (and was criticized when it was not). I don't think they are particularly laudable actions on their own, but I don't think they are evidence of a bigger Google plan to create lock-in.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice

#136

Post by jfuhrman »

For those saying Google is a benevolent company, here are a few signs that the bean counters are taking over:

Tracking Google Apps for Education and even paid Google Apps for Business emails to build ad profiles, making misleading statement to the public that they're not doing so, and then when it finally came to statements to federal court, lacking the dare to continue lying and finally confessing the truth and then claiming the consumer Gmail policy applied to Apps for Education data.

http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/03/13/26google.h33.ht...

Conspiring to kill SkyHook(and succeeding) with its 500lb outsized influence like Microsoft used to.

http://www.theverge.com/2011/05/12/google-android-skyhook-la...

Tracking the physical location of Android phones for ad purposes without properly informing users and disabling things like Google Now if you disable the tracking.

http://digiday.com/platforms/google-tracking/

Google employee access personal information of others. Google says it has fixed the issue, but how do we even know? Is there any legal safeguard against someone at Google reading your email?

http://gawker.com/5637234/gcreep-google-engineer-stalked-tee...

Paid inclusion for shopping search results

http://marketingland.com/once-deemed-evil-google-now-embrace...

Ranking Google+ reviews over Yelp results even if the user explicitly searches for Yelp

http://www.searchenginejournal.com/yelp-complains-outranked-...

Decreasing contrast in the background of ads, this especially hurts older people as ability to see contrast decreases with age, and the FTC found that almost half the people fail to notice that there are ads on the page, thus forcing products that are first in the organic results to pay Google for ads.

http://ppcblog.com/fbf0fa-now-you-see-itor-maybe-not/

http://blumenthals.com/blog/2012/01/31/is-google-intentional...

http://wallstcheatsheet.com/stocks/ftc-googles-ad-practice-i...

Making people literally cry with the forced Google+ integration into Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ccxiwu4MaJs (warning, NSFW language)

Extracting petty revenge on CNET for googling(!) information on its CEO

http://money.cnn.com/2005/08/05/technology/google_cnet/

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice

#137

Post by dkns »

corobo wrote: post #7
Squarex wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It does have it in nightly versions but not enabled by default. https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis

Ah, going by many software burns in the past I'll wait until it's a stable feature before making the journey back

IIRC it's going to be released in stable branch around february 2014.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice

#138

Post by VikingCoder »

DCKing wrote: post #135

"Google is bent on establishing platform domination unlike anything we've ever seen, even from late-1990s Microsoft." [citation needed]. I think this is an assumption, and it needs to have some basis. Can somebody explain to me why it would be in Google's interest to obtain platform dominance? I find their own reasoning for making Android and Chrome in the first place quite compelling. They're making platforms from w…

Also, if it's lock-in, they're handing out the keys. Android and Chrome are open source, and you can easily download all of your data out of most of their services.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice

#139

Post by Kenji »

xyzzyz wrote: post #130
Kenji wrote: post #123

Why should we choose a product that is qualitatively worse (in my opinion, this is up to debate, but just compare the JavaScript engine, V8 owns) just to keep having a choice? A free market works exactly because people choose what they like the most and let the things that can't compete die. Through this darwinian selection, products gradually converge towards a better quality. What you are proposing is completely ir…

Fast website loading and JavaScript engine speed are not the only qualities people care about. Adherence to open standards and transparent procedure, lack of vendor lock-in, or diversity in the market are qualities themselves too. Just remember the dark years of web, when IE was dominating and web was stagnating.

About Firefox vs Chrome. Yes I said it's up to debate, I'm not going into this.

"Just remember the dark years of web, when IE was dominating and web was stagnating."

I do. And we are well into the process of getting out of it and wonderful, good, new browsers have emerged. That is in favour of what I was saying. The products converge towards a better quality because that's what people gravitate towards.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice

#140

Post by pm90 »

mythz wrote: post #39

If the premise here is that Google is the evil empire, why is Google still on the Home Page when running Firefox?? Apparently large sums of money can have an effect on ethics. Obviously the underlying goal here is a plea for more FF marketshare, but it's a tad hypocritical if the message is to not use services from a company you're promoting yourself. That's do as I say, not as I do type stuff.

What effect on ethics? There's no duality at play here. Many great developers are complete assholes. Will you stop using their work?

Google is keeping Mozilla alive. Do as they do. Keep Mozilla alive.

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