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Firefox Browser: best for a free web

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Re: Firefox Browser: best for a free web

#121

Post by rd07 »

errantmind wrote: post #46

I've used Firefox since release but I'm curious what other less popular browsers people are using these days? For example, I have tried Bromite on my phone but the adblocking is limited. I've tried ungoogled-chromium on desktop and the speed is impressive. The main things I want: 1. Speed 2. Speed 3. Native plugins that can preempt network requests 4. Configurable for privacy (referrer, first party isolation, etc) Al…

I am using Waterfox, a relatively well-known fork of Firefox, after Firefox lagged while opening some of my company's websites without known reason.

Re: Firefox Browser: best for a free web

#122

Post by techrat »

skinkestek wrote: post #86
techrat wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A company putting an ad for its own product on its own website is not an example of a shady tactic. "Allowed?" Next you'll tell me that Microsoft should be forced to exclusively advertise other browsers other than their own on Bing before search... > so if this isn't abuse of market power then I don't know what. Abuse of market power would be preventing the mention of any other browser when using search and Google ha…

Thanks for explaining your position. I'll try to explain in some more detail why this is a problem and how governments has stepped in before: > Abuse of market power would be preventing the mention of any other browser when using search and Google has never done that. Another way to abuse market power is to use ones dominance in one maket to crush competition in another market. Microsoft was punished for this after t…

The point with my reply is that you have enough to point out about the Chrome situation without having to resort to tenuous claims or outright falsehoods.

Google had to have had the better product otherwise you wouldn't have been introduced to Chrome by using their search engine.

Re: Firefox Browser: best for a free web

#123

Post by jtsuken »

Firefox has a number of security issues:

From here: https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing

Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they're currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn't have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps.

Worst of all, Firefox runs as a single process on mobile and has no sandbox beyond the OS sandbox. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS isolatedProcess feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox's sandbox is still substantially weaker (especially on Linux, where it can hardly be considered a sandbox at all) and lacks support for isolating sites from each other rather than only containing content as a whole.

Re: Firefox Browser: best for a free web

#124

Post by cinquemb »

diskzero wrote: post #114
cinquemb wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think we're eventually going to see more DAO's focused on purely FOSS where their members can pool some resources and autocompound their treasury in a decentralized overcollateralized lending protocol to fund core operations and free ourselves from some of these centralized foundations desires.

That sounds pretty darn cool. Are there any per-cursors or early examples of this today?

Of DAO's funding/incubating projects? shinedao does (though mostly revenue generating focus for now, although those projects can have r&d components, haven't seen pure foss dao's but i dont know everything going on in the space), probably others.

Of decentralized lending protocols? aave, compound, benqi, etc.

Re: Firefox Browser: best for a free web

#125

Post by lmm »

asimovfan wrote: post #5
betwixthewires wrote: post #3

When the "free web" is no longer just lip service from Mozilla I'll consider it.

So what do you use instead?

Not the person you replied to, but I still prefer Konqueror, which was built from the ground up as free software and it shows in the quality IMO.

Re: Firefox Browser: best for a free web

#126

Post by freediver »

cjoh wrote: post #81
diskzero wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox seems to be the only hope to avoid a duopoly dominated by forces that are anti-privacy and anti-user. I recently made the move from Safari to Firefox and I am very pleased. This being said, I agree with you about the optics of Firefox management. There is a lot going on that isn't good and the personal enrichment of the executives feels all sorts of wrong. If FF management can not be good stewards of a vital…

Is there a way to simplify moving password management out of Keychain and into Firefox?

Yes, Safari 15 offers Password export.

Re: Firefox Browser: best for a free web

#127

Post by freediver »

rossy wrote: post #83
yaman12 wrote: post #37

Mozilla charge money for Firefox. I’m tired of “free” software that sell my data and attention.

I can't think of a more effective way to kill Firefox. You'd give the fence-sitters a reason to switch, you'd get rid of all the volunteer contributors, and you'd get rid of everyone who uses and advocates for Firefox because it's free* software, which would probably be a significant portion of the remaining userbase. (I know it's technically possible to charge money for free* software, but it's impractical.) * as-in…

Fence-sitters already switch in droves, Firefox lost 250M users in the last ten years. So keeping the status quo already clearly leads to demise.

And how can you claim you are free* when 90% of your revenue comes from your main competitor?

Maybe making a paid browser is what they need to become truly free* and reset to a user-centric product development culture, which could then actually make it an exciting product again (even if they initially lost 90% of users as a consequence, those would be lost with time anyhow).

Re: Firefox Browser: best for a free web

#128

Post by freediver »

reginold wrote: post #49
yaman12 wrote: post #37

Mozilla charge money for Firefox. I’m tired of “free” software that sell my data and attention.

Here here! Are there any paid browsers out there? Or does Mozilla have any paid membership beyond "donate whatever you want"?

Orion will be paid https://browser.kagi.com (Mac only though)

Re: Firefox Browser: best for a free web

#129

Post by raven108 »

trts wrote: post #2

It makes me sad that FF browser share has continued to decline steadily. The past couple years of releases have been some its the best in terms of my own UX, since perhaps the Phoenix era. It's pretty fast these days, the UI is good, has a lot of great extensions and privacy features. I use Brave at work to have a better chrome-based experience with gsuite. It's also a fast, excellent browser with good privacy featur…

The problem is not the browser, but a lazy mgmt. Selling user privacy to Google for easy money instead of asking users to either pay for ensuring their privacy. But that will take real work instead of easy “royalty” payments from Google.

Between telemetry, safe browsing, sqlite database with all sites you visited & gvfs they siphon off some serious data. So bad for privacy but snappy otherwise, particularly the new versions. MDN is pretty good too, but they chopped off their tech team to “save money” for a top heavy mgmt team.

Re: Firefox Browser: best for a free web

#130

Post by lucasyvas »

shp0ngle wrote: post #95
lucasyvas wrote: post #84

It's beyond me why they haven't thrown it up on GitHub yet. Let the community have a way bigger involvement and drive the future of the browser. Yes, I can go find the source for Firefox, but I sincerely doubt the engagement is anywhere near as high as it could be.

I’m not sure accessibility of source code is the biggest problem. You can get the code very easily. Also github is another kind of Microsoft lock-in, ironically.

I don't necessarily disagree with your Microsoft comment. I'm merely trying to say that I think Firefox needs more than features to reclaim some of its popularity.

Where we're at, is that most people are happy running a Chromium variant. It's open source and there are enough downstream consumers that you can pick your poison.

If Mozilla is going to push the "private browser, for you" angle, they are going to need to push harder on the "for you" angle.

I'm still a loyal Firefox user. It seems to me that its users would rather have more say in its direction - give the people what they want.

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