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Orbit by Mozilla

orbitbymozilla.com

281–290 of 417 posts

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#281

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure but you specifically said “funded by” and Gecko dev is funded almost entirely by Google

How many daily-driveable browser engines we have today? - Blink: Chromium and their friends. - Webkit: Safari specific, on iOS and macOS only. - Gecko: Firefox and its a few forks. First two are forks of KHTML, which is dead by the end of KDE5 era. So? You have a cross platform evil and lesser evil (by judging the development financing). What you do? On the other hand, I don't finance Google by using the browser itse…

if you use Linux you can run Gnome web which also uses Webkit as it's engine. You can also build webkit yourself if you want to run it on Windows.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#282
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the product differentiation of Firefox is a bunch of small convenience features which Chrome in its monolithism refuses to provide, such as: Allowing Backspace to go back a page. The built-in screenshot tool. Being able to turn off smooth scrolling. Support for a menubar, so that I can navigate the features I want quickly. Being able to choose page encodings (I use a non-Latin charset language). A usable/usef…

Out of curiosity, what "obvious reasons" issues have you had with Docs and YouTube. I use Firefox for everything, including those, without problems. (Though not in any kind of advanced way.)

I wouldn't call them "obvious" reasons but I recently discovered that in Google Sheets under FF I couldn't duplicate a tab or copy a tab to a new sheet. I had to fire up Chrome to do that.

Oddly enough, Chrome had somehow lost my settings since the previous time I started it a few months earlier, as if it were a new install. :-?

I've not noticed any problems under YT Premium so far.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#283
I use Librewolf (based on Firefox), but about once a year I open Chrome for some shitty website that only works on Chrome. And I use Chrome for a few minutes.

It shocks me every time just how fast Chrome is. It is legitimately a superb piece of software. Going to Librewolf after feels like going back ten years in hardware.

Can we please start spending some money to make Firefox better? Instead of whatever Mozilla is currently doing?

Firefox Quantum was great. But why stop? Just keep doing that! It's the only thing you should be doing!

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#284

I use Librewolf (based on Firefox), but about once a year I open Chrome for some shitty website that only works on Chrome. And I use Chrome for a few minutes. It shocks me every time just how fast Chrome is. It is legitimately a superb piece of software. Going to Librewolf after feels like going back ten years in hardware. Can we please start spending some money to make Firefox better? Instead of whatever Mozilla is…

Same number of tabs open and add-ons installed on each?

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their browser is fine. But so is Chrome, and Chrome wins by default because it's installed by default on Android and Android really pushes you to it. Once you're using Chrome on Android and have all your passwords saved there, Firefox is a difficult sell. I can't think of a single Firefox feature that's better than "I don't have to faff around with passwords". Maybe if they allowed adblock on mobile, but last I check…

I agree with your logic but I think the facts lead to the opposite conclusion, because uBlock Origin is now both easy and painless to use with Firefox on Android. That's why every Android user should now have Firefox installed. And if you're using Firefox on Android, why not use it on desktop too with Firefox Sync? I don't actually know how good the Firefox password manager is (I use 1Password) but it's on both deskt…

IIRC Firefox still doesn't have their Site Isolation (Fission, currently marked as P3 aka Backlog on Bugzilla) ready, which is the reason I don't use it on Android.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their browser is fine. But so is Chrome, and Chrome wins by default because it's installed by default on Android and Android really pushes you to it. Once you're using Chrome on Android and have all your passwords saved there, Firefox is a difficult sell. I can't think of a single Firefox feature that's better than "I don't have to faff around with passwords". Maybe if they allowed adblock on mobile, but last I check…

Their android browser is kind of terrible. It's significantly more sluggish than chrome, bordering on unusable on some websites. Maybe there's a state of the art flagship phone out there somewhere that can run firefox android and see it perform well, but I've sure never seen it run well.

I have used ff on android with ublock for 5 years on an s20. It has been superb for me. The only complaint from me is that the bookmark page as "tile" doesnt work.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#287
post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is overly generous to describe this as "privacy first." This looks like it's one ToS change away from being a privacy violating service. In Apple's case, they are putting some amount of work into making their privacy claims verifiable. Good will is no longer good enough. Verifiability should be the bar for trust in 3P privacy claims.

This might be true for any run-of-the-mill service, but I do give Mozilla upfront credit as an entity and Firefox's privacy-leading track record. I haven't read the fine print, but I would be very surprised if there wasn't a robust layer of privacy/anonymisation involved. (Side note: I think the future is in-browser LLM (a la Gemini Nano), so I suspect they will eventually move there.) Also consider that Apple has th…

Mozilla's privacy-leading track record includes making Google the default search engine, running opt-in-by-default privacy-violating experiments, such as the Mr Robot fiasco[1], and opt-in-by-default collaboration with advertisers[2].

I still use Firefox, but I try to stay aware of changes, precisely because of Mozilla's privacy-leading gaffe record.

1. https://itsfoss.com/firefox-looking-glass-controversy/

2. https://www.pcmag.com/news/firefox-mozilla-data-collection-f...

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#288
When running Orbit on the comments in this page:

> The Orbit add-on by Mozilla is a new AI-powered tool that summarizes and answers queries about web content, including articles and videos. It uses a Mistral LLM (Mistral 7B) hosted on Mozilla's GCP instance. The add-on is free to use and works on various websites, including Gmail, Wikipedia, NY Times, YouTube, and more. However, some users have raised concerns about the size of the model and its privacy implications, as well as the fact that it requires an internet connection to function. Additionally, some users have suggested that Mozilla should focus on improving the browser itself rather than developing new add-ons.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#289
In the same area of privacy-aware AI there is Jolla Mind2. It's your own computer, so probably even more trustworthy than Orbit by Mozilla?

I have not studied either product in depth, so I am unable to comment on commonalities or differences.

Jolla has a mixed track record: They supported some phones over 10 years with decently working software (typing on one of those). They also failed at least once to deliver a crowd-sourced tablet to most of the backers. Not a risk-free choice, but at least someone trying to do the right thing.

Re: Orbit by Mozilla

#290
post #192

I'm reading a lot of criticism here, some I understand, but honestly, this sounds pretty good for a free LLM service: "Orbit doesn't require account creation or save your session data." Maybe we shouldn't be too critical of Mozilla for providing a privacy-first LLM service - for free. The other big privacy-first LLM provider is Apple, which requires users to have their devices/subscriptions to use, and definitely use…

[flagged]

>HN is fine with tracking, smartphones, and every surveillance capitalist trick in the book,

You must be reading a very different HN to mine. Every single submission that reach front page has comment against all the thing you stated. With little to no support for it.

Ads are all evil and there shouldn't be any has been the theme in just a very recent thread.

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