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The Firefox Dilemma

blog.tawhidhannan.co.uk

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Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#41

Post by Konryan »

I think there's another factor at play that isn't often mentioned: Google uses the dominant position of its services, as well as the strength of their brands, to promote Chrome as the better browser, in not-so-subtle ways.

One is often repeatedly prompted to install Chrome when visiting Google on other browsers[1][2]. Most normal users would just give up and install just to get rid of the pop up.

Microsoft has been doing the same (e.g. trying to trick you into keeping Edge when trying to select another browser as default on Windows 10), but their product wasn't good enough for it to work, it seems.

[1] https://superuser.com/questions/1192441/is-it-possible-to-te... [2] https://support.mozilla.org/it/questions/922025

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#42

Post by PurpleRamen »

zecg wrote: post #9

Firefox would do well to remove Pocket integration and stop placing ads.

They need that to make money in the dark future when they are not getting enough money anymore from Google because of their low marketshare. They call it "becoming independant".

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#44

Post by chupasaurus »

onion2k wrote: post #21
AndrewDucker wrote: post #5

My main reasons for using Firefox are side tabs and being able to prevent tab reuse when searching or using the address bar. Chrome simply isn't configurable enough to make it nice to use for me.

I suspect this is partly why Firefox is losing the battle. By concentrating resources on nice-to-have user functionality rather than implementing core technologies that web developers actually build sites with, we end up with more and more websites that only work in Chrome. Far fewer users care about browser config than "does my internet banking site work?". Firefox probably needs to work on that, even if it means ma…

> rather than implementing core technologies that web developers actually build sites with

Like a Shadowdom API v0 (v1 is standartized by W3C) used by Google in Polyfill so Youtube is way slower?

> even if it means making the browser work with Chrome's non-standard implementations of things

How good the compatibility between Internet Exploder's features and FF/Chrome was?

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#45

Post by olejorgenb »

1. I like firefox's omnibar/awesomebar more than chrome's. It seems to read my mind better [1]. It also have some features [2] I think most people are unaware of.

2. Firefox have bookmark tags.

3. Firefox scroll the tabs instead of compressing the width until they're unusable. (It's also possible to set the minimum tab-width)

4. It's much simpler to get ctrl-tab MRU behavior [3] in Firefox last time I checked.

5. Firefox have a built-in reader-mode. I don't use it much on desktop, but on on mobile it's very useful for pages that doesn't reflow.

6. There's an ad-block extension for firefox-mobile.

[1] Could of course be because I'm more used to it and have more history in firefox :)

[2] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/awesome-bar-search-fire...

[3] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1193670

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#47

Post by sametmax »

fireattack wrote: post #31

I fully agree with this article. I respect people choosing products based on ideality, but I personally will just use what suits my demand/preference best. When I first switched from IE to Firefox 1.5, it's because it has tabs. And I loved it more and more once I figured out how well-built it is and how powerful addons can be. When Chrome firstly came, it was pretty bad in term of functionality. The extension system…

People always say "we can't do anything about it" when some bad situation happen.

Except it happens because it emerges from the collective behavior.

Now, one can't fight a all the fights, and I don't think somebody that decides to avoid this one is a bad person. But one should definitly pick up some fights. Choose some things to pay for, decide some things to consume or be part of, not just by the nature of it, but by the consequences of doing so. Although I do think like in the article that it's better to fight _for_ something than _against_ something.

Anyway, if one doesn't makes, on daily basis, regular, endless, conscious choices, one is not taking part of the world but is just passively living in it.

And that's how we fail to build a society.

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#48

Post by Semaphor »

oAlbe wrote: post #27
fimdomeio wrote: post #23

Crazy idea. what would happen if firefox would also become chromium based? You would now have a browser as fast as chrome but with better privacy features that chrome will never compete against. If chromium is open source other companies could share the control over code right? I suspect this is a terrible idea but still trying to find out why.

Firefox as it is now is much faster than Chrome already.

Not even close. I wrote a comment [0] with my examples recently. I like FF (though besides Containers, most reasons boil down to "it's not Chrome"), but fast is a word I'd only use in comparison to IE/Edge.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18620671

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#49

Post by Jonnax »

Konryan wrote: post #41

I think there's another factor at play that isn't often mentioned: Google uses the dominant position of its services, as well as the strength of their brands, to promote Chrome as the better browser, in not-so-subtle ways. One is often repeatedly prompted to install Chrome when visiting Google on other browsers[1][2]. Most normal users would just give up and install just to get rid of the pop up. Microsoft has been d…

Also Firefox for Android gets a shit version of Google search. But if you spoof your user agent it works perfectly.

That definitely is using their dominance in search to make people.use their web browser.

Re: The Firefox Dilemma

#50

Post by sametmax »

olejorgenb wrote: post #45

1. I like firefox's omnibar/awesomebar more than chrome's. It seems to read my mind better [1]. It also have some features [2] I think most people are unaware of. 2. Firefox have bookmark tags. 3. Firefox scroll the tabs instead of compressing the width until they're unusable. (It's also possible to set the minimum tab-width) 4. It's much simpler to get ctrl-tab MRU behavior [3] in Firefox last time I checked. 5. Fir…

Also tab containers are fantastic.
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