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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)

#261

Post by midgetjones »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #249
midgetjones wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. It just seems like everyone repeats the "Chrome is better and Firefox is slow" mantra without spending a couple of days trying Firefox. It's a browser owned by an advertising company. An advertising company that knows a lot about you, and constantly strives to learn more by whatever nefarious means they can think of. I can't see how anyone is okay with that.

Because it's faster .* The day I can open Firefox and it feels as snappy as Chrome I'll switch back to Firefox. * Opinion of one blue-collar worker.

I don't feel like the bottleneck nowadays is the browser. It's several mb of advertising flotsam that Google is actively endorsing.

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

#262

Post by smsm42 »

WayneBro wrote: post #258
smsm42 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple and Google are far, far worse Worse in which regard? > You can't do shit these days without having to deal with Apple's ridiculously selfish and tyrannical business model Actually I do shit every day these days without coming into contact with Apple's selfish and tyrannical business model. So do millions of other people. iOS developer is a choice, not a sentence. If you don't like it, don't do it. There are t…

> Worse in which regard? Their respective business models? > Actually I do shit every day... OK, but we're on HN and we're talking about building software and/or webpages... So let me rephrase - you can't make software and/or a webpage without having to deal with Apple and Google in some way. You're either going to have to put it in the app store and do some advertising with Google or you're going to have to make tha…

> Their respective business models?

I was expecting some details about why these business models are far, far worse.

> So let me rephrase - you can't make software and/or a webpage without having to deal with Apple and Google in some way.

If you exclude extra-vague words "is some way", yes you can. Of corse, you'd come into contact with software made by these companies from time to time, but that software would be just like any other you use, regardless of their business model.

> You're either going to have to put it in the app store

No I don't. I've been gainfully employed as a software developer for more than 2 decades now and never put anything in any app store.

> you're going to have to make that webpage work with crappy Safari

I've not have to deal with browser compat issues for many years now, but if they exist I'm pretty sure that a) there are toolkits to deal with them, and b) that has nothing to do with business model, every browser has its quirks, including Firefox (in fact, last 2 times I had to deal with browser compat issues the Firefox was the problem and it worked fine in Chrome and Safari - of course, nobody cared about IE).

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

#263

Post by reitanqild »

Inconel wrote: post #66
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…

Genuine question from someone not well versed in this topic but interested in learning more, can you give me some examples of what Google is doing that is abusive of their monopoly power, particularly as it relates to Chrome? I'm aware of some of the issues involving Android licensing/bundling of apps but not well informed on other aspects.

Disclaimer: late answer, my personal opinions, I do not have perfect memory etc.

Advertising Chrome as "a better browser" in (IIRC) search results, gmail, possibly other places as well counts as abuse of monopoly IMO.

Microsoft was punished for similar tactics back when the default desktop was equally important as top of Google search results and top of Gmail inbox.

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

#264

Post by annnnd »

TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #249
midgetjones wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So much this. It just seems like everyone repeats the "Chrome is better and Firefox is slow" mantra without spending a couple of days trying Firefox. It's a browser owned by an advertising company. An advertising company that knows a lot about you, and constantly strives to learn more by whatever nefarious means they can think of. I can't see how anyone is okay with that.

Because it's faster .* The day I can open Firefox and it feels as snappy as Chrome I'll switch back to Firefox. * Opinion of one blue-collar worker.

No it is not. Whenever I use Chromium to see if some page renders well, I am surprised how slower it is. That said, it probably depends on the type of pages you are visiting, but startup time in FF is much lower in my experience.

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

#265

Post by WayneBro »

smsm42 wrote: post #262
WayneBro wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Worse in which regard? Their respective business models? > Actually I do shit every day... OK, but we're on HN and we're talking about building software and/or webpages... So let me rephrase - you can't make software and/or a webpage without having to deal with Apple and Google in some way. You're either going to have to put it in the app store and do some advertising with Google or you're going to have to make tha…

> Their respective business models? I was expecting some details about why these business models are far, far worse. > So let me rephrase - you can't make software and/or a webpage without having to deal with Apple and Google in some way. If you exclude extra-vague words "is some way", yes you can. Of corse, you'd come into contact with software made by these companies from time to time, but that software would be ju…

> I was expecting some details...

Pretty sure I mentioned those in my initial complaint.

> If you exclude extra-vague words...

OK, is "the only search engine that matters" too vague? How about "the only app store that makes money"?

If you just want to build some software, then fine: you don't have to deal with Apple or Google if you don't want to. If you want to be successful and make money though? You're going to have to deal with one of them whether you like it or not.

At the very least, you need Google to search and you need Google to help people find your product. Good luck getting customers if Google removes your pages from their results.

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

#266

Post by bzbarsky »

Eupolemos wrote: post #190
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).

In most cases, the latter. See https://compat.spec.whatwg.org/ for some of the resulting fallout, for example: the entirety of that spec is due to sites being faulty, not browsers....
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