Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice • Hacker News Board

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

#181

Post by stephenr » Sat, Aug 16, 2014, 2:15 PM UTC

myrryr wrote: post #158

stephenr wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can't reply lower. The idea that Google will somehow abandon it's current advertising/data mining business model is ridiculous. In 2013 Google's non-advertising revenue was less than 9% of their total revenue. For average people, the $0 price tag is one of the big appeals about Google's various services - of course those things are really just ways to acquire product (i.e. people) data/eyeballs. If you look at a lot…

I didn't say they were going to abandon it, I said I believed that the other parts of their business would grow bigger then the advertising part. Yes, it is only around 9% now, but it used to be 0% and it is growing fast.

But how much of that growth is true growth and how much is about sudden new income streams because of purchases.

e.g. they buy a company like Nest, which has a commercial product. Suddenly they have a lot of extra non-ad based revenue, giving the appearance of growth.

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

#182

Post by stonogo » Sat, Aug 16, 2014, 2:16 PM UTC

icantthinkofone wrote: post #112

srean wrote: post #43

Almost every other comment that have been posted so far are complaining that FF tabs are not independent processes. Let me express my contrarian opinion. For my use case FF is just excellent and has served me well, I have absolutely no complains now. There was a time when FF leaked, and held a lot of memory, that time has since passed, at least seams so. I regularly keep several hundreds of tabs open for months on en…

In fact, the infamous memory leak Firefox was 'famous' for was fixed in version 2.5 which tells me that anyone who still complains of memory leaks in Firefox is one who you do not want to listen to for advice. EDIT: I may have the version number wrong, it's been a long time, and, yes, the "leak" was a combination of things and not just one thing but my point is the same.

No memory leak was fixed in 2.5, because there was no 2.5 release[1]. What firefox then became famous for was a team of developers who adamantly insisted there were no memory leaks in firefox... right up until some of them admitted there was a problem, and the healing process began[2]. Any software product of this size is going to have SOME memory management problems, and that's fine. Firefox's history of even admitting these exist is spotty at best.

[1] Go ahead and check. I'll wait: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/ [2] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/MemShrink

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

#183

Post by CrystalCuckoo » Sat, Aug 16, 2014, 2:20 PM UTC

srean wrote: post #43

Almost every other comment that have been posted so far are complaining that FF tabs are not independent processes. Let me express my contrarian opinion. For my use case FF is just excellent and has served me well, I have absolutely no complains now. There was a time when FF leaked, and held a lot of memory, that time has since passed, at least seams so. I regularly keep several hundreds of tabs open for months on en…

I had a similar experience with Chrome (or rather, Chromium) on my netbook. It consumed so much memory with normal usage that I had to switch to Midori[1] so I could do other things while browsing.

[1] http://midori-browser.org/

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

#184

Post by raverbashing » Sat, Aug 16, 2014, 2:20 PM UTC

Oh, I stopped using Chrome some time ago.

They're actively making it worse. It's slower and more bloated than ever.

Not to mention it caused a small periodic interruption in MacOS (you were typing and then it would stop the whole system). Shut down Chrome and voila, no more interruptions.

I'm using Chrome exclusively for GMail, and I keep logged out of Google on FF which is used for everything else.

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

#185

Post by stephenr » Sat, Aug 16, 2014, 2:21 PM UTC

_random_ wrote: post #179

stephenr wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't need to "think about it", I've experienced the idea before, twice. Do you remember Java Applets? Do you remember ActiveX controls? Do you remember Flash and/or Shockwave?

"Native Client avoids these issues by using sandboxing." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Native_Client

I never mentioned security. Their whole approach with both this and Dart are perfect examples of how they are following the old Microsoft playbook.

"Your browser does not support Flash/Java/ActiveX/Bert and Ernie's latest bullshit, please upgrade to X to continue"

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

#186

Post by lucb1e » Sat, Aug 16, 2014, 2:21 PM UTC

darklajid wrote: post #147

Ff fan here. Running Aurora on desktop, laptop and mobile. Love the project, have nothing but minor complains. Currently leading the list: For quite a while FF on Android has a 'broken' long press menu on links. Someone thought that it should be Share Link -> Open Link in New Tab Open Link in Private Tab Copy Link Bookmark Link I.. guess I don't understand how others use their browser. The last action doesn't make se…

> (bookmarking a link I haven't visited/open?),

Yes, to read it later. I don't, but I know many people use it this way.

> The first item annoys the hell out of me.

It's not that huge to get around. I have yet to use any share button in any OS or application or website (I copy the link to chats or forums or where I need them if I want to share anything), but I don't really mind it either. Would love to see stats on how often the UI options are used, though. I don't know anyone using those share options. But then again, I don't have many "mainstream" (non-techies) friends :p

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

#187

Post by Hurricane2K5 » Sat, Aug 16, 2014, 2:21 PM UTC

forgotpasswd3x wrote: post #174

Hurricane2K5 wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

PRODUCTIVITY of 100 TABS? Why not show us how productive you are with hundreds of tabs open in FF? Or for that matter any other browser?

It's really easy with an extension like [Tree Style Tab]( https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta... ), or by using Tab Groups.

Now why would I need to use this tree style tab versus just setting bookmarks?

Plus, show me how productive you are with hundreds of tabs EVEN with the tree style tab versus say just using bookmarks?

With bookmarks I can save it, export it, move to another computer.

But lets go back, how productive can one be with hundreds of tabs open even with a tree style versus bookmarks?

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

#188

Post by coldtea » Sat, Aug 16, 2014, 2:21 PM UTC

matthewmacleod wrote: post #51

recalibrator wrote: post #25

Developers, please stop making add-ons and extensions for Google products. You accelerate Google's domination and vendor lock-in when you do.

You could say that about building an app or add-on for literally any product.

So? It's a matter of degree.

Creating an add-on for a product with a smaller market share is not that bad. But for a product with 60%+ that also belongs to a company that "owns" Search, Maps and Email and is known to play dirty it's a different story.

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

#189

Post by ensignavenger » Sat, Aug 16, 2014, 2:23 PM UTC

I would love to switch to Firefox as my primary browser, however, I cannot get my tabs to properly line up with the top of the screen in Linux Mint Cinnamon. There is the ever present title bar that just doesn't go away, not matter what hackery I have tried. (Without breaking something else, that is). I use Chromium, because the tabs are where they should be. Any suggestions on how to fix this would certainly be tried.

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

#190

Post by gorhill » Sat, Aug 16, 2014, 2:23 PM UTC

higherpurpose wrote: post #99

specialp wrote: post #54

This is actually very true. Having Chrome/V8 out there has definitely improved the state of browsers as far as performance; especially in regards to JavaScript. But now we face a situation where Google is getting such a market share with Chrome and their other web properties where lock in is a very real possibility, and the only way to keep an open, standardized web is to make sure there are still other browsers with…

Lock-in has already begun on Chrome. Now you can't install Chrome extensions from anywhere else but the Chrome store (which means only stuff Google agrees with). Chrome is as closed-down as iOS and WP8 right now (For shame, Google!). It's actually the main reasons I'm waiting to switch from it soon. But not until Firefox gets a security sandbox.

It's possible to install extensions manually without having to go to the Chrome store. That's what I do. The only "inconvenience" (which is actually a convenience to some) is that you have to update the extension manually.