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Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

marko.fyi

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Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#361

Post by microcolonel »

toastal wrote: post #358
microcolonel wrote: post #161

No, you make it function properly before I consider “[giving] it a chance”. Firefox is ridden with decade-old compliance bugs, and is generally a pain to write applications and documents for. That's just part of why web applications and documents work worse in Firefox than they do in Chromium. Mozilla should derive from Chromium, if they want to actually deliver a web browser worth choosing. They can even fight their…

I still have issues with Blink's CSS columns 7 years later, so this isn't a one-sided deal.

Sure, though the balance of issues actually affecting the viability of documents and web applications greatly favours Chromium.

Like I said, I think Mozilla could put themselves in a great position to differentiate themselves on quality or any other important axis if they would just give up on maintaining Netscape. At this point they don't even support any of the old plugin or extension interfaces, so even if they wanted to rebuild all of their current UI gimmicks, it wouldn't be a crazy amount of work.

As it stands, the least you could say between the two, regarding implementation quality, is that Firefox is almost not noticeably worse most of the time. That's not a terribly high standard.

The an example of the sort of differentiation users appreciate, unbreaking content blockers like uBlock Origin with a patchset that forces Google to either merge it, or acknowledge that they had ulterior motives for deprecating the content blocking APIs in favour of ones with serious limitations. For example, a performance improvement to declarativeNetRequest with an increase of the rule limit from 30,000 to something more useful, with no loss in performance.

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#362

Post by boomlinde »

dan-robertson wrote: post #324
robbrown451 wrote: post #262

My biggest gripe with Firefox is that it doesn't support MIDIAccess. So any web app that works with an electronic piano, doesn't work. They've been saying they are working on it for years. Works in Chrome, Brave, Opera, Edge, etc. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/MIDIAccess https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=836897 It's actually pretty bizarre since the basic functionality (hit a note on the…

I guess the reason is probably that it probably requires a developer with a midi device, and it affects too few users for Mozilla to want to prioritise it. The bug currently has priority P3. There are about 8300 existing P1 and P2 bugs, and over 10000 P3 bugs. Saying that it works in chrome, brave, opera, edge etc sounds like “look at all these other vendors who put the effort in” but really they are all running the…

> I guess the reason is probably that it probably requires a developer with a midi device

That is not true at this point. AFAIK Windows, OS X and ALSA all support virtual MIDI devices. Windows and OS X (last time I used it) ship with virtual General MIDI outputs and there is a lot of free third party software for virtual input.

I'd rather say that the reason is probably that you need a developer with domain knowledge and interest, and a consensus on what the standard should include.

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#363

Post by boomlinde »

robbrown451 wrote: post #292
robin_reala wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The source you linked to has the spec created by a Google engineer and in working draft. All the browsers you mention are based on Chromium so will automatically inherit this functionality. I’m not saying it’s not something useful to implement, but it usually takes some time and a stable specification before other browse manufacturers want to implement non-mainstream functionality.

Yes well it's been in working draft for about 7 years, and I'm pretty sure the holdup on finalizing the draft is on the Mozilla side. https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/58

Reminds me of the audio API mess. If you want to stream arbitrary sample data to an output you can either use ScriptProcessorNode (simple API, well supported but deprecated) or AudioWorkletNode (over-engineered API, largely unsupported and experimental).

The stall in that case seems caused by the overly ambitious design of the Web Audio API altogether. It's utterly useless for audio processing or synthesis except when using the aforementioned APIs because it mandates a bunch of underspecified high level concepts. Just let me fill a buffer with floats for the speakers and read a buffer of floats for the mic. That's literally all I need, and literally the only way you can build, say, a compressor and have full control of its characteristics.

When researching the best option I found this, so I'm not alone in thinking this: https://blog.mecheye.net/2017/09/i-dont-know-who-the-web-aud...

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#364

Post by nathias »

ubercow13 wrote: post #162
dguo wrote: post #82

The post briefly mentions multi-account containers[1]. I have loved using them and regard them as a killer feature for Firefox. Very few websites support account switching. Google is probably the best example, and even then, I don't really want to log in to both my personal and work Gmail within the same session. But containers effectively and cleanly enable multiple sessions for all websites. Like tabs so many years…

Containers still have quite a bad UX though. It’s OK to open a tab in the desired container and load Facebook, but whenever you leave Facebook via a link, it will stay in the same container. If you eventually end up on a website you want to be logged in to, you’ll have to manually switch to the right container again. It seems like containers are a powerful concept with multiple different uses, but the UX for each of…

you make it so it always opens a specific page in a specific container, its like giving them types

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#365

Post by jedberg »

bondolo wrote: post #340
jedberg wrote: post #232

I switched to FireFox about a year ago. Containers is a killer feature. But the container UX is still not perfect. Only recently did they fix it so you can log into a site via Facebook or Google. But my biggest issue is power management. On my Mac, when I run Firefox, the fans spin at around 3K at all times and the load is moderate at all times. When I turn off Firefox and switch to Chrome or Safari, the fans spin at…

Did it not get better with FF 70 for you? They switched the rendering to use a better API on MacOS: https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-red...

It did actually get a bit better with 70 so I'm still giving it a chance.

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#366

Post by bzbarsky »

csdreamer7 wrote: post #96

I have always been a heavy user of Firefox, even in the pre-Quantum days. My main reason was that Chrome would sync my bookmarks out of order and I am a heavy bookmarks sync user. I gave Chrome multiple tries for bookmark syncing and yet they would sync them out of order (can't believe I am the only heavy bookmark user on Chrome who cares) so I just stuck with FF. Then the privacy concerns happened and I stopped tryi…

Loading "about:profiles" lets you use profiles without the prelaunch dialog. It's not amazing UI; it's there basically to support debugging scenarios, but it does work.

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#367

Post by bzbarsky »

algorithm_dk wrote: post #240

I want to use Firefox, and I would if it provided a faster internet experience, which it doesn't on Linux (compared to Brave/Chromium/Chrome). The devtools in Firefox lack basic features that have been requested for years. Too bad that these are the only viable options.

Which basic devtools features are you missing, if I might ask?

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#368

Post by x3haloed »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #347
x3haloed wrote: post #85

I tried for a while. The experience was just too sloppy for me. I got fed up and switched to Chromium Edge. I hate the Pocket integration and other crap they try to shove down your throat. And at work, the lack of integrated Windows authentication was a deal breaker. Plus, Chromium's UI is a lot tamer, cleaner, and focused.

I disabled pocket a single time and haven't had to see it since

Yeah, but they keep trying to shove other monetization schemes down our throats.

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#369

Post by algorithm_dk »

bzbarsky wrote: post #367
algorithm_dk wrote: post #240

I want to use Firefox, and I would if it provided a faster internet experience, which it doesn't on Linux (compared to Brave/Chromium/Chrome). The devtools in Firefox lack basic features that have been requested for years. Too bad that these are the only viable options.

Which basic devtools features are you missing, if I might ask?

simple things, like being able change the order of the columns in the network tab

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#370

Post by bzbarsky »

algorithm_dk wrote: post #369
bzbarsky wrote: post #367

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which basic devtools features are you missing, if I might ask?

simple things, like being able change the order of the columns in the network tab

I just checked the bug database, and this has never been filed as an issue, for what it's worth. The closest to it was the offhand mention in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1509560 which otherwise focused on column resizing.

I filed https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1595961 just now to track this, but I have a hard time reconciling this specific example with the "requested for years" characterization in the original comment...

If you are able to file issues you run into, that would be much appreciated; people can't fix problems they're not aware of.

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