I didn't understand the parallel to Sidewalk Labs, can someone please share more context?
A tale of how Google tried to win against Mozilla
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Re: A tale of how Google tried to win against Mozilla
#22All I got out of that link of tweets was a series of "Look at all the ways big evil Google steered us off the internet". I'm not doubting any if those claims are true. At the same time, I don't think any of those malicious motives were strong enough. That post came off as more of a whistle blowing speech from an oppressed developer. Nothing written was solid enough to make me think "Ohhh that's how Google killed Mozi…
> Chrome generally outperforms Firefox.
I don't agree. Chrome is pretty fast at executing JavaScript, but it is hundreds of times slower at executing DOM instructions compared to Firefox. It is also the slowest modern browser, by very far, at executing CSS animation.
Re: A tale of how Google tried to win against Mozilla
#23One way Mozilla could still differentiate is by doing privacy&security all-out.
It currently seems that Firefox is only a little more privacy-respecting than the browser of one of the most invasive surveillance dotcoms.
It's been that way for years, and every year is lost ground.
I suspect that Mozilla's need for funding, and the sources of funding for so long, are what have them looking so similar to a dotcom.
When users won't pay money, Mozilla has seemed to focus on ways to sell its users to big companies.
Maybe there's a viable combination of expense reductions, refined focus, and switching to solely charitable (hands-off) donations? (Maybe we'd see little sponsor logos for most of the FAANGs, for various motivations. And for some other Fortune 500s, for good PR. And for public-interest organizations and government units/programs.)
Re: A tale of how Google tried to win against Mozilla
#24I didn't understand the parallel to Sidewalk Labs, can someone please share more context?
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Re: A tale of how Google tried to win against Mozilla
#25All I got out of that link of tweets was a series of "Look at all the ways big evil Google steered us off the internet". I'm not doubting any if those claims are true. At the same time, I don't think any of those malicious motives were strong enough. That post came off as more of a whistle blowing speech from an oppressed developer. Nothing written was solid enough to make me think "Ohhh that's how Google killed Mozi…
> Chrome generally outperforms Firefox. I don't agree. Chrome is pretty fast at executing JavaScript, but it is hundreds of times slower at executing DOM instructions compared to Firefox. It is also the slowest modern browser, by very far, at executing CSS animation.
It is ridiculous that JS benchmarks are accepted as "browser benchmarks". They are probably so popular with tech journalists because they are easy to run. How do you properly measure page load time (of real pages over the internet) anyway?
Re: A tale of how Google tried to win against Mozilla
#26Related reading (2008) https://thetruthaboutmozilla.wordpress.com/2008/02/25/the-go... (That’s a year an a half before Chrome launched with a leaked comic book)
It's also worth mentioning that the Firefox team did the same kind of "oopses" to browsers embedding Gecko. See this interview with Mike Pinkerton, who later went to Google to work on the Chrome Mac team: "People will make changes to do something good for Firefox and because Firefox is the only really blessed project by the Mozilla Corporation and the Foundation, that’s their only focus. So they’ll make changes that…
I don't see the two situations as comparable. Websites are supposed to work on all browsers. But while Gecko is open-source, it only really cared about being Firefox's engine. And it's perfectly fine for a project like that to only care about the browser that pays its development team. If you care about non-Firefox usage, you can roll up your sleeves and pitch in, implement your desired changes, and try to get them merged upstream. But it's not fine for a company like Google, building products for "the open web", to intentionally build sites that don't work in non-Chrome browsers (let alone explicitly manufacturing fake "incompatibilities"). Leveraging their dominance in web apps to force adoption of their browser is the exact sort of monopolistic tactic that's supposed to be illegal.
Re: A tale of how Google tried to win against Mozilla
#27All I got out of that link of tweets was a series of "Look at all the ways big evil Google steered us off the internet". I'm not doubting any if those claims are true. At the same time, I don't think any of those malicious motives were strong enough. That post came off as more of a whistle blowing speech from an oppressed developer. Nothing written was solid enough to make me think "Ohhh that's how Google killed Mozi…
> address bars with integrated search engines,
That is the worst thing to happen to Web browsers that I can remember. When I type an address into that bar, I expect the browser to attempt to contact the server I specify. I do not expect it to decide that what I typed was a search term and send me off to Google.
Firefox had actual quick searches in the address bar years before. That is where you prefix what you type with something that unambiguously says where you want to search (e.g. I've had Wikipedia set up for many years now, I type "wp "). Having a separate search box, as Firefox always had as far as I can remember, has its virtues too as the box stays around between page loads.
Searching in the address bar does nothing but serve Google by making people forget about urls and having all Web access routed through them.
Re: A tale of how Google tried to win against Mozilla
#28All I got out of that link of tweets was a series of "Look at all the ways big evil Google steered us off the internet". I'm not doubting any if those claims are true. At the same time, I don't think any of those malicious motives were strong enough. That post came off as more of a whistle blowing speech from an oppressed developer. Nothing written was solid enough to make me think "Ohhh that's how Google killed Mozi…
> The GUI features Google introduced were very important. Draggable, swappable tabs that can be pulled out into separate windows
Meanwhile all the extensions for better tabs are still broken because the tab bar still exists across the top. They had a more capable browser then they killed it. I doubt these issue are visible in their telemetry.
> address bars with integrated search engines
The original mozilla suite had this, no idea why it was separated in Firefox.
Re: A tale of how Google tried to win against Mozilla
#29All I got out of that link of tweets was a series of "Look at all the ways big evil Google steered us off the internet". I'm not doubting any if those claims are true. At the same time, I don't think any of those malicious motives were strong enough. That post came off as more of a whistle blowing speech from an oppressed developer. Nothing written was solid enough to make me think "Ohhh that's how Google killed Mozi…
> address bars with integrated search engines, That is the worst thing to happen to Web browsers that I can remember. When I type an address into that bar, I expect the browser to attempt to contact the server I specify. I do not expect it to decide that what I typed was a search term and send me off to Google. Firefox had actual quick searches in the address bar years before. That is where you prefix what you type w…
Back when IE was king and there were separate search/address bars, everyone I knew either went to search engine websites or used the search bar. Only those in my tech-literate circle occasionally typed in full domain names when they knew exactly what website they want to go to. The web was marketed as a place to "find anything", and the address bar didn't do that for the regular user.
Re: A tale of how Google tried to win against Mozilla
#30I thought the thread would have more substance to it. His claim is that Google products would have performance bugs or would explicitly block any non-Chrome browser. As a long time Firefox user, I’m with him so far. But he loses me on the next bit where he rules out incompetence and then jumps to org-level malice. I don’t think it’s either. A simpler explanation is that Google simply stopped caring about non-Chrome browsers. People building say, Inbox were told it was acceptable to launch a product that is only accessible to one browser at launch. I hated that decision because it affected me directly but that’s not malice, simply prioritisation.
Of course standard disclaimers apply. I don’t work for Google, never held Google stock etc.