Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#31

Post by Y_Y » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 11:43 AM UTC

GekkePrutser wrote: post #21

I really love Firefox still.. Though they are starting to annoy me. Especially with GUI changes and the lack of customisation thereof. Like Compact mode disappearing. For the most used app on most desktops, customisation is super important. I think they're jumping on the 'opinionated software' bandwagon too much. It still has some powerful features though, like E2E encrypted sync, multi-account containers etc. I'll k…

You can still re-enable compact mode through about:config (at time of writing). It will nag you not to, but that's all.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#32

Post by traveler01 » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 11:43 AM UTC

vvoyer wrote: post #24

DeathArrow wrote: post #12

> Clearly, that market share was lost solely to Chrome & co.3 I can attribute this decline to various factors: >Google’s massive development resources and marketing machine. >Most people not thinking about the long-term ramifications of ending up in a market with a single vendor in it. >Firefox losing its status of a shiny new thing over the years. >Mozilla’s inability to capitalize on the popularity of Firefox in th…

> The true reasons Firefox lost market share I would say: The true reasons Firefox lost market share is because we, developer & tech people started to install Chrome on family computers instead of Firefox because it was safer & faster (way way faster). And we never came back from it. Performance is a feature.

Why would I even want to install Firefox on my families computer? The thing is, I want them to have a long term, good working solution that doesn't become a pain in my ass. Firefox isn't very stable for non-tech people, that's the sad truth. Mozilla is badly missmanaged, they are killing Mozilla and specially Firefox. Things need to change, badly.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#33

Post by traveler01 » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 11:44 AM UTC

teekert wrote: post #13

yutijke wrote: post #10

I feel the article misses how Firefox's inability to get a foothold on the mobile platform contributed to its decline. There are more people today using web browsers via mobile then desktop. In many poorer countries the first and only access to the open internet for the people is through chrome on Android. I don't blame Mozilla for this though since they did not have a monopoly on a platform to capitalize on unlike t…

I'd use FireFox in iOS if I had my extensions and containers available. Sadly FireFox isn't even able to make proper use of the system wide ad blocking method iOS offers (probably due to iOS). I found DDG browser to block stuff a lot better (and I like the UI more). But FireFox on Android was perfect, at least it was until the latest UI update when suddenly they lost the notion of favorites (or, they were now hidden…

I paid Adguard and enable the DNS option, so basically I can pretty much use any browser that it will block my ads.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#34

Post by samhw » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 11:45 AM UTC

rvz wrote: post #7

Firefox is not a (serious) alternative and it is quite frankly irrelevant. It is either Chrome (Blink) or Safari (WebKit) and I would much prefer WebKit-based browsers over Chromium-based ones and the market-share tells the full story on where to target the most users and it is not Firefox. Why do you think that these web developers stick banners everywhere to force you to run their apps in several Chromium-based bro…

This kind of response is just mystifying to me. You can see for yourself that Firefox has a sizeable share of the market, so clearly it is "a serious alternative" and is not "irrelevant". What's the point in making these statements? Is it just a way of saying "boo Firefox, I don't like Firefox"?

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#35

Post by fsflover » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 11:46 AM UTC

traveler01 wrote: post #32

vvoyer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The true reasons Firefox lost market share I would say: The true reasons Firefox lost market share is because we, developer & tech people started to install Chrome on family computers instead of Firefox because it was safer & faster (way way faster). And we never came back from it. Performance is a feature.

Why would I even want to install Firefox on my families computer? The thing is, I want them to have a long term, good working solution that doesn't become a pain in my ass. Firefox isn't very stable for non-tech people, that's the sad truth. Mozilla is badly missmanaged, they are killing Mozilla and specially Firefox. Things need to change, badly.

> Firefox isn't very stable for non-tech people, that's the sad truth.

What are you talking about? It's been working flawlessly for many years, without any maintenance for me and my non-technical relatives.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#36

Post by _moof » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 11:46 AM UTC

dazag wrote: post #15

There is one thing I don't understand from the article. What is that he is so afraid of?that the website becomes more standarized and developers don't need to make a website for 5 different browsers? Or that because of that users will have less problems? Is that such a big deal to make most of the browsers dependent on chromium? Isn't chromium open source and tomorrow anyone could create a better browser? I use Vival…

As someone who lived through the previous browser monopoly (MSIE), let me assure you that giving control over the entire web to one company is bad for everyone. Google didn't make Chrome out of the goodness of their hearts.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#37

Post by parhamn » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 11:46 AM UTC

I think part of this discussion needs to be that Firefox, while open source, doesn't provide footing for the community to build browser forks the way Chromium does. This sort of open usage, ironically, feels very fitting to the spirit of Firefox, but they're not even close to Chrom(e|ium).

I've been building a browser full time the past year+ (synth.app) and FF core wasn't really even an option. They've done very little to make the engine usable outside of Firefox.

Now I'm sure there are a variety of savory and unsavory things that led here, but building that stuff out seems like a good way to grow the ecosystem. At least they would've had a chance at capturing the Brave/Opera/Edge/etc market and those seats at the committees.

This isn't to say that I'm not worried about these standards merging like this. I've spent many hours working out weird chromium only behaviors that websites rely on these days to do things (and egregiously so if they detect an agent remotely resembling chrome).

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#38

Post by samhw » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 11:47 AM UTC

traveler01 wrote: post #32

vvoyer wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The true reasons Firefox lost market share I would say: The true reasons Firefox lost market share is because we, developer & tech people started to install Chrome on family computers instead of Firefox because it was safer & faster (way way faster). And we never came back from it. Performance is a feature.

Why would I even want to install Firefox on my families computer? The thing is, I want them to have a long term, good working solution that doesn't become a pain in my ass. Firefox isn't very stable for non-tech people, that's the sad truth. Mozilla is badly missmanaged, they are killing Mozilla and specially Firefox. Things need to change, badly.

> Firefox isn't very stable for non-tech people

What does this mean?

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#39

Post by kroltan » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 11:49 AM UTC

rvz wrote: post #7

Firefox is not a (serious) alternative and it is quite frankly irrelevant. It is either Chrome (Blink) or Safari (WebKit) and I would much prefer WebKit-based browsers over Chromium-based ones and the market-share tells the full story on where to target the most users and it is not Firefox. Why do you think that these web developers stick banners everywhere to force you to run their apps in several Chromium-based bro…

I have no idea how someone can get so stuck up their assumptions as to say something like that.

I have been using Firefox since circa 2010, and can count on my fingers how many websites do not work properly in it.

Most of the time it's just some CYA "I am a lazy/underpaid-subcontractor dev and didn't bother opening my website on a non-majority browser to check if it is broken" banner asking me to switch (which nowadays I mostly don't see thanks to uBlock's Annoyances list); the website was an actual tech demo of something that only Chrome had at the time; or it was an incredibly convoluted government website best browsed with Mosaic or some shit like that.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#40

Post by alex_smart » Mon, Nov 29, 2021, 11:49 AM UTC

fsflover wrote: post #35

traveler01 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would I even want to install Firefox on my families computer? The thing is, I want them to have a long term, good working solution that doesn't become a pain in my ass. Firefox isn't very stable for non-tech people, that's the sad truth. Mozilla is badly missmanaged, they are killing Mozilla and specially Firefox. Things need to change, badly.

> Firefox isn't very stable for non-tech people, that's the sad truth. What are you talking about? It's been working flawlessly for many years, without any maintenance for me and my non-technical relatives.

Firefox just pushed yet another pointless UI change six months ago. People using their software just to go about with their lives don't like pointless UI changes.