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Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

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Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#261

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

userbinator wrote: post #19

It’s the non-technical users, who are convinced by their technical relatives to install it, who need to be convinced. Ironically, whenever I've complained about those irritating first-run experiences (not necessarily for Firefox, but for other software), the response has always been "that's for the non-technical users". Remember that these users are accustomed to/desensitised to being bombarded with adverts and such,…

> Remember that these users are accustomed to/desensitised to being bombarded with adverts and such, so perhaps it's not as irritating to them as it is for us.

Many of us also reflexively avoid most "cloud" features, because we like control over our data. However, these features are quite convenient. Many people want them, and they would switch to other browsers that offer them aggressively if they weren't sufficiently discoverable.

Sync would be a prime example for this.

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#263

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

tyingq wrote: post #7

I feel there's an opening for mobile experience on Android. Chrome is pretty terrible in that space. No extensions, no reader mode, no eacape from AMP, etc.

I use Firefox on mobile, but... it's pretty terrible. Feels much slower than Chrome, and I constantly discover small things that are simply not as polished. The only reason why I keep using it is because the ad-filled web is also a terrible experience, so the overall experience with Firefox + uBlock is roughly on par with Chrome (without ad blocking).

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#264

Post by luckylion »

pfraze wrote: post #253
luckylion wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would he generally install software if he sees an ad for it, or was that special because it wasn't obvious that it was an ad and therefore had more trust (like some security product company saying "your door is unsafe, buy our product" vs your friend telling you that your door is unsafe)? It's strange that Chrome doesn't take the bookmark, bookmark-bar status and new-tab-page from firefox - if they did, he likely wou…

I'd wager it was the "Browse Faster" ad - which coming from Google is a tempting click. Just a small aside on the grandparents topic: my grandfather lost every dime to email scams in the late 90s. The man was a Westpoint grad who served in the Pacific theater as an officer, and in his last years he clicked away his retirement. Installing Chrome is a pretty benign mistake but boy, we need guard rails for our older fol…

I most definitely agree regarding older folks. Unless you have a very good feel for the digital environment, consider everything harmful, and all emails you don't expect, know the sender for (or where the sender behaves atypically) to be malicious. It's a touch lesson to teach, much like stranger danger for kids, and it's going to become more and more important the more stuff moves online. When you're required to file your taxes via a website, you're much easier to attack than when you took a bunch of forms, completed them and then mailed them to the government (or, if you're late, go and put them in their mailbox). Plus the general inconvenience of good security ("why can't I use the same password?"), fun times lie ahead.

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#265

Post by apostacy »

I don't want Firefox to "beat" Chrome, that is a terrible idea that is killing Firefox.

Even if Firefox was superior in every way, Google has more leverage, and will always be able to shift the goalposts to stay ahead of their competition. And they will also be able to get the vast majority of users who don't know what Chrome is and just want to go on Facebook.

But what exactly does beating Google at their own game even accomplish? An ego boost for Mozilla? Focus on making a better browser!

Imagine if it were 2005, and Mozilla was like: Firebird needs to beat IE6! Only by out Microsofting Microsoft can we "win".

We need to abandon the features that make us unique and attractive to the smartest people, and focus on Windows support. We need to have better support for Microsoft's proprietary plugin architecture!

Better Windows Media Player DRM integration!

Javascript should be able to eject the cd tray!

Has anyone considered that Chrome actually has a lot of problems, and maybe Firefox should be the antidote to those problems? Containers are actually the first innovative anti-Chrome thing Firefox has done in a long time.

Firefox initially had success because of their integrated popup blocker and empowering the user to actually control what plugins were added to their browser. Awhile later, rogue plugins and browser bars were becoming an epidemic, and Firefox was there, diligently refined, and ready for IE users.

And Firefox will probably still continue to lose users, but so what?? I think if they seriously focus on being anti-chrome, they will in the long term win users back. (not that number of users should be a goal itself)

So, Mozilla should shut off the damn analytics, fire the UX and marketing people, and then roll up their sleeves and make something cool. Success will follow if they do a good job.

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#266

Post by GordonS »

feanaro wrote: post #105
NullInvictus wrote: post #32

I haven't really met anyone who is particularly bothered by these issues. They certainly should be addressed to some degree, but the issues I find people are bothered about in Firefox are something that Mozilla has very little control over: Bugs in sites. As a full-time firefox user, I commonly find that sites have bugs, and when I boot it up in Chrome just to check my hunch, they don't manifest. It's pretty easy to…

> As a full-time firefox user, I commonly find that sites have bugs, and when I boot it up in Chrome just to check my hunch, they don't manifest. Also a full-time Firefox user. This is fascinating because I quite literally cannot remember a website for which I had to switch browser so it would start working. What kind of websites are these? Have you noticed any pattern about them? Perhaps it's a certain type of site…

Was going to say much the same thing. I've been a full-time Firefox user for 10+ years. I've also worked on web apps and tested against Firefox, Chrome, IE (and later Edge), for 10+ years.

In all that time, I don't think I've ever seen a Firefox-specific bug or layout issue.

I saw them on IE all the time (obviously), sometimes in Edge, rarely in Chrome, and never in Firefox.

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#267

Post by privethedge »

hutzlibu wrote: post #226
privethedge wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally prefer firefox's dev tools to chrome's ones.

To write and debug code?

I mostly use Console, Network and Inspector tabs and I rarely debug (in general.) Especially Network tab in Firefox's dev tools is much superior to Chrome's one, IMHO.

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#268

Post by yawaramin »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #260
NullInvictus wrote: post #32

I haven't really met anyone who is particularly bothered by these issues. They certainly should be addressed to some degree, but the issues I find people are bothered about in Firefox are something that Mozilla has very little control over: Bugs in sites. As a full-time firefox user, I commonly find that sites have bugs, and when I boot it up in Chrome just to check my hunch, they don't manifest. It's pretty easy to…

I don't remember many times that I encountered Firefox-specific web bugs. I've had bugs where the site doesn't work in Firefox but works in Chrome, but as far as I can tell, those were always caused by the aggressive privacy settings I use in Firefox (whereas the Chrome profile is mostly default). I'm not particularly concerned with the article's complaint about onboarding. The problem is that Firefox is simply sligh…

Well here is the well-documented YouTube slowness with Firefox: https://fortune.com/2018/07/25/youtube-slow-mozilla-firefox-...

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#269

Post by mastazi »

NullInvictus wrote: post #32

I haven't really met anyone who is particularly bothered by these issues. They certainly should be addressed to some degree, but the issues I find people are bothered about in Firefox are something that Mozilla has very little control over: Bugs in sites. As a full-time firefox user, I commonly find that sites have bugs, and when I boot it up in Chrome just to check my hunch, they don't manifest. It's pretty easy to…

> I haven't really met anyone who is particularly bothered by these issues.

I don't know if meeting online counts: I'm bothered by Mozilla having a partnership with Google. I'm bothered by the fact that Mozilla maintains an official Facebook container but the Google equivalent is left to the community, I can't help but think that the reason why there isn't an official Google container by Mozilla is that Mozilla and Google have a commercial partnership which apparently provides most of Mozilla's income (as per link provided in the article).

Re: Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome

#270

Post by quantummkv »

luckylion wrote: post #213
quantummkv wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me tell you about a fascinating anecdote that happened to me a few years ago. My grandfather bought a new laptop. I set it up with firefox and saved his common sites (gmail, facebook, etc) to the new tab page so that he dosen't have to do anything else to open them. A month later I get a call from him asking about why he is unable to find gmail and facebook. What happened is that my grandpa ended up with google c…

Would he generally install software if he sees an ad for it, or was that special because it wasn't obvious that it was an ad and therefore had more trust (like some security product company saying "your door is unsafe, buy our product" vs your friend telling you that your door is unsafe)? It's strange that Chrome doesn't take the bookmark, bookmark-bar status and new-tab-page from firefox - if they did, he likely wou…

>Would he generally install software if he sees an ad for it, or was that special because it wasn't obvious that it was an ad and therefore had more trust

That's the trick in here. He doesn't install anything else off the internet. It only happened with chrome. And I am positively sure it was due to the very sneaky and underhanded chrome ad on the front page of google itself (a place where it is impossible for anyone else to get a single ad).

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