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Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice (2014)

robert.ocallahan.org

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Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice (2014)

#181

Post by Tharre »

amelius wrote: post #167
rubyn00bie wrote: post #97

Daily Firefox user here. Switched back from Chrome a couple years ago and haven't looked back. Just seeing the comments here exasperates me... So for those who don't know, the Internet is heavily biased towards Chrome. Simple pages that should render no differently in FF than Chrome are often broken. This "Chrome is great, screw everything else" attitude is exactly how we ended up with IE and stagnation in standards/…

My personal biggest problem with FF is that it uses too much screen real estate compared to Chrome. For example, the tabs are really fat, and the address bar is much thicker, leaving less space for actual content. Perhaps FF should include a "look-like-chromium" option to win over users (since chromium is open-source, I guess they will not run into copyright issues there).

There is an addon that does just that[0]. That being said, it unfortunately breaks from time to time, and it's not e10 compatible.

[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/fxchrome/

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice (2014)

#182

Post by 4minute »

kevingadd wrote: post #15
4minute wrote: post #6

Maybe these other browsers should stop being complete shit and maybe I will. You want to know why people pick Google products? Because they work and they work well with each other. The only people that don't like Google are tech people that write stupid blogs like this. Sorry, but the general population doesn't give a fuck if Google does any of this. They just want products that work. They don't even give a fuck abou…

(shill alert: former Google and Mozilla employee) "They just want products that work" sounds like an explanation of why people buy iPhones, because I don't know anyone who's had that experience with Google products (other than Chrome, I suppose). It's so bad that I've stopped even considering giving a Google product to family. They quickly get fed up with the Android phone or Chromebook and replace it with something…

"because I don't know anyone who's had that experience with Google products (other than Chrome, I suppose)."

You don't know anyone who has used Gmail, Youtube, or Google search before?

"It's so bad that I've stopped even considering giving a Google product to family. They quickly get fed up with the Android phone or Chromebook and replace it with something else, like an iPhone or a macbook or a windows laptop."

Those aren't Google products. Those are Samsung, Acer, or whoever decides to use Android/Chrome OS. How do you not understand this? You worked for Google. You should know that they don't actually build physical products, except for the Pixel. I think the Pixel is the first phone they built. They don't even control the Android on the Galaxy S. Samsung does. They decide what goes on and in the phone. Google doesn't.

I'm not going to argue Safari is a good browser lol. Firefox and Chrome are the only browser I will ever use, but right now I'm using Chrome because it has the best browsing experience out of all of them.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice (2014)

#183

Post by thr0waway1239 »

yuvalr1 wrote: post #31

What is the best way to prevent big companies (like Google, but not only), that have a de facto monopoly on certain and important parts of the internet, from applying vendor lock strategies to kill their competitors?

For one thing, when the tech giants act like dicks - which is getting more frequent nowadays, be sure to complain loudly and gratingly and leave that record for everyone to see. The big companies have much more organized PR than the little folks, so best if you don't pull your punches. Companies don't have feelings, but since software engineers are big suckers for mottos like "Don't be evil", your complaints may give them pause. (Except FB, where everyone is clearly already tuned out). That may not prevent the lock-in happening, but it will improve the odds of recruiting folks who can help with the more positive strategies.

And with that vent out of the way, here are some positive ideas:

1. At some point, the giants tend to get too heavy handed for their own good. Try your best to keep alternatives alive until that point.

2. If possible, see if you can make the user on-boarding experience of your favorite OSS software much better. Usually it is easy because the standards around documentation/user on-boarding are generally pretty poor.

3. The reason people usually don't do 2 is that there is no incentive. See if you can figure out a sustainable way to incentivize it. Throwing out a wild idea: Say a StackOverflow like gamification website for people who create OSS documentation and fix OSS issues.

And if you are one of the committers, help users' with their problems when you actually have time to do something about it. FireFox was asleep at the wheel for quite a while not addressing its real defects. Chrome would have been another Safari like browser (i.e. dominant, but only within its ecosystem) if FireFox had actually improved at the rate you would expect from a heavily used software product.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice (2014)

#184

Post by Eupolemos »

pyrale wrote: post #8

At this point, it's not anymore about customer choice, the problem is systemic. Serving Google with the same kind of antitrust Microsoft got would be highly deserved and beneficial, but unfurtunately google made the political investments that Microsoft lacked. Which means we get to hear officials say Google is indeed in a situation deserving the antitrust, but it's fine "because their products bring value to customer…

Well, the EU is seriously trying win the fight that'll bring both Google and Apple to the negotiations table.

Margrethe Vestager is a tough customer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/04/technology/google-eu-antit...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/francescoppola/2016/09/18/apples...

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice (2014)

#185

Post by Sylos »

screwt wrote: post #64
abhpan27 wrote: post #13

People choose firefox over IE because firefox was better. People choose chrome over firefox and IE because chrome is better. Want to beat google? create better. Not negativity.

True. But also the pendulum of which is better (Firefox vs Chrome) has swung back and forth a couple of times since Chrome first came out and overtook FF. At this point though most people are just using whichever was best N years ago, and haven't thought to compare recently.

Yeah, you still regularly see people claiming that Chrome's JavaScript engine is so much better than the competition, when in reality things have been neck-on-neck for years already. I think last time Chrome really had a major advantage was in 2012.

Similarly, Opera. People will still tell you with absolute confidence that Opera is terrible compared to Chrome. It's been a Chrome-clone since 2013. You'd think people would fact-check their opinions somewhen within almost 4 years, but unfortunately they don't.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice (2014)

#186

Post by midgetjones »

amelius wrote: post #167
rubyn00bie wrote: post #97

Daily Firefox user here. Switched back from Chrome a couple years ago and haven't looked back. Just seeing the comments here exasperates me... So for those who don't know, the Internet is heavily biased towards Chrome. Simple pages that should render no differently in FF than Chrome are often broken. This "Chrome is great, screw everything else" attitude is exactly how we ended up with IE and stagnation in standards/…

My personal biggest problem with FF is that it uses too much screen real estate compared to Chrome. For example, the tabs are really fat, and the address bar is much thicker, leaving less space for actual content. Perhaps FF should include a "look-like-chromium" option to win over users (since chromium is open-source, I guess they will not run into copyright issues there).

Personally - and this isn't for everyone - I use vimperator, which allows me to just hide the url bar and do everything from the keyboard. I end up feeling the opposite; that the viewport is small whenever I have to test in Chrome.

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice (2014)

#187

Post by amelius »

cornedor wrote: post #179
amelius wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My personal biggest problem with FF is that it uses too much screen real estate compared to Chrome. For example, the tabs are really fat, and the address bar is much thicker, leaving less space for actual content. Perhaps FF should include a "look-like-chromium" option to win over users (since chromium is open-source, I guess they will not run into copyright issues there).

The difference is 5px [1] on my system (osx, 1080p), it also does look a lot like Chrome. [1] http://i.imgur.com/h4acDaK.png

On Linux the difference is 10px (FF versus Chromium), [1].

[1] http://imgur.com/a/TX7Qm

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice (2014)

#189

Post by nachtigall »

agumonkey wrote: post #164
rubyn00bie wrote: post #97

Daily Firefox user here. Switched back from Chrome a couple years ago and haven't looked back. Just seeing the comments here exasperates me... So for those who don't know, the Internet is heavily biased towards Chrome. Simple pages that should render no differently in FF than Chrome are often broken. This "Chrome is great, screw everything else" attitude is exactly how we ended up with IE and stagnation in standards/…

I know Firefox has made immense progress in a lot of hard components. But the UI lag is ... ridiculous. And I mean it lovingly, I have nothing against "slow", I still love my HP48 calc which is sluggish in a way, but it's not jitter-lag. I love Firefox extensions, I love the bookmark editor, I love the non-big-corp centric coupling. But I can only use it for long periods of time if chrome has a bug (I use canary). Or…

You might want to "refresh" your Firefox, see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227658

Re: Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice (2014)

#190

Post by Eupolemos »

PeterStuer wrote: post #12

As a long term Firefox user, the number of times I have to fire up Chrome because a site will not display correctly in Firefox grows month by month. :(

But is this because FF is faulty or because the site is faulty?

I don't think I've experienced it, except when I watch HBO (Netflix and C-More works fine, so it's on HBO to get their stuff together in that instance).

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