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The Firefox Dilemma

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Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#111

Post by morsch »

politelemon wrote: post #64
olejorgenb wrote: post #45

1. I like firefox's omnibar/awesomebar more than chrome's. It seems to read my mind better [1]. It also have some features [2] I think most people are unaware of. 2. Firefox have bookmark tags. 3. Firefox scroll the tabs instead of compressing the width until they're unusable. (It's also possible to set the minimum tab-width) 4. It's much simpler to get ctrl-tab MRU behavior [3] in Firefox last time I checked. 5. Fir…

I like that Firefox Test Pilots often produce interesting, visible experiments. I'm a fan of Firefox Color: https://color.firefox.com - which allows you to express the UI color scheme in a shareable/saveable URL. There's also Side View: https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/side-view - which allows a persistent column to the side regardless of which tab you're in. Useful on widescreens.

I was about to try Side View yesterday -- I usually run two Firefox windows side by side anyway -- but I couldn't be bothered to find out what data exactly they would extract from it[1], and I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt. I fully expected to find it as a standalone extension, but if it exists, I couldn't find it.

[1] By proceeding, you agree to the terms and privacy policies of Test Pilot and the Side View privacy policy.

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#112

Post by kiriakasis »

toyg wrote: post #74
dTal wrote: post #7

>I think about Chrome’s usurping of Internet Explorer (IE), and I wonder (antitrust and all aside) would Chrome have usurped IE if it wasn’t for IE stagnating? I remember when I was younger and jumped ship to Chrome - personally, it wasn’t about using Chrome because it wasn’t IE, it was about Chrome beating IE in a foot race and offering me a clean user experience. Chrome ate Firefox's lunch, not IE's. Firefox was th…

I agree, and Chrome did that in one simple way: marketing and monopoly power. They leveraged their position in search and webmail to push people to switch, and hammered the message in mainstream advertising (on buses and newspapers, even in Europe). If they had pushed FF instead of building their own browser, now FF would be in that position - regardless of technical merits (which were minor, and basically boiled dow…

> which meant the browser never crashed if a single website misbehaved

I might have faulty memory, but this is not some minor detail. It is world changing.

For young teenager me, Chrome had a vastly better UX than both IE and Firefox when it debuted.

(now I prefer Firefox though)

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#113

Post by jcbrand »

toyg wrote: post #74
dTal wrote: post #7

>I think about Chrome’s usurping of Internet Explorer (IE), and I wonder (antitrust and all aside) would Chrome have usurped IE if it wasn’t for IE stagnating? I remember when I was younger and jumped ship to Chrome - personally, it wasn’t about using Chrome because it wasn’t IE, it was about Chrome beating IE in a foot race and offering me a clean user experience. Chrome ate Firefox's lunch, not IE's. Firefox was th…

I agree, and Chrome did that in one simple way: marketing and monopoly power. They leveraged their position in search and webmail to push people to switch, and hammered the message in mainstream advertising (on buses and newspapers, even in Europe). If they had pushed FF instead of building their own browser, now FF would be in that position - regardless of technical merits (which were minor, and basically boiled dow…

> I agree, and Chrome did that in one simple way: marketing and monopoly power.

When Chrome came out, it was much faster than Firefox.

IIRC, it was also an evergreen browser from the start and you could install plugins without restarting.

It was in many ways a superior product.

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#114

Post by Kovah »

hpaavola wrote: post #72

1. Send tab to device 2. Reader mode 3. Addons on mobile (pretty much just for blocking unwanted requests to make things way faster on slow connection and to protect my privacy) 4. Facebook container (same for Google would be nice) 5. Taking screenshots 6. Always enable zoom on mobile [1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/send-tab-firefox-ios-yo... [2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clu..…

4. Container for Google?

Here you go bud: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai...

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#115

Post by Vinnl »

morsch wrote: post #111
politelemon wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like that Firefox Test Pilots often produce interesting, visible experiments. I'm a fan of Firefox Color: https://color.firefox.com - which allows you to express the UI color scheme in a shareable/saveable URL. There's also Side View: https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/side-view - which allows a persistent column to the side regardless of which tab you're in. Useful on widescreens.

I was about to try Side View yesterday -- I usually run two Firefox windows side by side anyway -- but I couldn't be bothered to find out what data exactly they would extract from it[1], and I'm not giving them the benefit of the doubt. I fully expected to find it as a standalone extension, but if it exists, I couldn't find it. [1] By proceeding, you agree to the terms and privacy policies of Test Pilot and the Side…

> I fully expected to find it as a standalone extension, but if it exists, I couldn't find it.

It can be installed from here: https://testpilot.firefox.com/files/side-view@mozilla.org/la...

(From their GitHub page.[1])

Also note that the Test Pilot page [2] contains a summary of the data they collect. Most notably:

> Side View does not collect any information about sites you visit.

The data is does collect seems related to whether and how you use it - it is an experiment, after all.

[1] https://github.com/mozilla/side-view

[2] https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/side-view

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#116

Post by Eridrus »

toyg wrote: post #74
dTal wrote: post #7

>I think about Chrome’s usurping of Internet Explorer (IE), and I wonder (antitrust and all aside) would Chrome have usurped IE if it wasn’t for IE stagnating? I remember when I was younger and jumped ship to Chrome - personally, it wasn’t about using Chrome because it wasn’t IE, it was about Chrome beating IE in a foot race and offering me a clean user experience. Chrome ate Firefox's lunch, not IE's. Firefox was th…

I agree, and Chrome did that in one simple way: marketing and monopoly power. They leveraged their position in search and webmail to push people to switch, and hammered the message in mainstream advertising (on buses and newspapers, even in Europe). If they had pushed FF instead of building their own browser, now FF would be in that position - regardless of technical merits (which were minor, and basically boiled dow…

This seems like an attempt to rewrite history. I was an avowed Firefox user, but Firefox was slow. I bought a EEE PC and Firefox was just too heavy to run, whereas Chrome ran fine.

Eventually all my computers ran Chrome because Firefox wasn't the best option anywhere any more.

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#117

Post by Vinnl »

chrismorgan wrote: post #108
waterhouse wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they get rid of bookmark keywords, without some other equivalent mechanism (i.e. one that lets me set up URL bar commands so that "wp X" -> roughly "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X", "g" -> "mail.google.com/u/0/h", and so on), then I will be really annoyed.

It’s possible to use search engines instead, but creating your own basically requires you to find or craft a search box that is equivalent to the desired action. It’s in no way easy to work with (not like making a bookmark with the %s placeholder), and isn’t quite as pleasant to use in the awesome bar either. I’m with you that removing bookmark keywords would be very annoying at present.

To alleviate the pain somewhat, I switched a while ago to setting DuckDuckGo as my default browser, and simply using their bangs. Saves a lot of configuration when setting up a new browser, and all the expected ones (!w, !yt, !g, etc.) work.

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#118

Post by baybal2 »

metildaa wrote: post #92
baybal2 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I've seen coming out of Mozilla over tthe past few years, from DeepSpeech to Rust and Servo appears to be foundational technology written by Mozilla engineers. This tech has the potential to do a lot of good, having it be a public resource is important IMO. Many things been coming out of their house, but not a usable browser — a raison d'etre stated in their charter.

I asked you for citations for your claims, yet instead I get diversion... Wrt having a usable browser, I'm literally using Firefox for Android to talk to you right now. Firefox has been a usable browser for years, seems your salty tho. Please provide citations for: - Incompetent directors flying chartered jets and getting $1M USD remuneration for nothing. - All success Mozilla ever had was due to hard work of volunte…

> https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2016/2016_Mozilla_Fo...

Page 7.

Mitchel Baker 1,054,536.

Jim Cook 985,899

And a list of 8 people with six digit salaries, out of whom 4 have their roles not even tangentially related to Mozilla's charter activities. And this is for Mozilla Foundation only. Mozilla corporation (M. F. Technologies) is keeping really below the water in terms of publicity.

> All success Mozilla ever had was due to hard work of volunteer developers

All popularity Firefox had gained was in time of it being a community project, when Mozilla did nothing but provide a CVS server and a bugzilla. You should've seen how they bled user share the more they turned into a commercial business for the past 17 years.

> All the money Mozilla directors scored was due to them slicing off the project piece by piece for last 10 years.

First take their revenue from getting generous payouts from Google, then from all others affiliate programs, including the ill famed pocket. $300m is a not a joke sum, very generous, more than they pay to any other affiliate http://allthingsd.com/20111222/google-will-pay-mozilla-almos...

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#119

Post by Vinnl »

hpaavola wrote: post #72

1. Send tab to device 2. Reader mode 3. Addons on mobile (pretty much just for blocking unwanted requests to make things way faster on slow connection and to protect my privacy) 4. Facebook container (same for Google would be nice) 5. Taking screenshots 6. Always enable zoom on mobile [1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/send-tab-firefox-ios-yo... [2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clu..…

> (same for Google would be nice)

There's a third-party one: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/google-contai...

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#120

Post by mftrhu »

politelemon wrote: post #64
olejorgenb wrote: post #45

1. I like firefox's omnibar/awesomebar more than chrome's. It seems to read my mind better [1]. It also have some features [2] I think most people are unaware of. 2. Firefox have bookmark tags. 3. Firefox scroll the tabs instead of compressing the width until they're unusable. (It's also possible to set the minimum tab-width) 4. It's much simpler to get ctrl-tab MRU behavior [3] in Firefox last time I checked. 5. Fir…

I like that Firefox Test Pilots often produce interesting, visible experiments. I'm a fan of Firefox Color: https://color.firefox.com - which allows you to express the UI color scheme in a shareable/saveable URL. There's also Side View: https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/side-view - which allows a persistent column to the side regardless of which tab you're in. Useful on widescreens.

Weird, why is Side View in Test Pilot now? They had something like this[1] for a long, long time - I can find references to it dating back to 2007 - in the form of the "load this bookmark in the sidebar" toggle.

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Archive/Add-ons/Cod...

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