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Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

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Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#471

Post by sfink »

Beached wrote: post #325

Too bad Firefox doesn't fully support hangouts. in a work from home world, I cannot operate without the ability to blur background in video meetings. it's the only feature that is holding me back from using ff full time now

Whether it's more accurate to say that Firefox doesn't support Hangouts, or Hangouts doesn't support Firefox, is tough to say. Hangouts disables the blur feature because it performs poorly the way they've implemented it. Firefox is working to optimize that implementation (it's a valid way to go about it), but I believe it would be possible to have a different implementation that worked fine on existing Firefox.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#472

Post by nobody9999 »

freediver wrote: post #436
sfink wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are arguing that people "should" pay based on value. This is a competitive market. There are reasonable alternatives. Cost to switch is low. Economics 101 (literally that class!) says that the price in that situation is going to be based on competition (for the companies/producers that survive), and the price of the competition is $0. (It's actually not, you're paying with slightly less personal data for Firefox…

> You are arguing that people "should" pay based on value. I believe I am arguing that we underestimate the willingness of people to part with their money when there is a right product. > Cost to switch is low. Economics 101 (literally that class!) says that the price in that situation is going to be based on competition (for the companies/producers that survive), and the price of the competition is $0. Not sure whet…

>Not sure whether we live in different times, but isn't the same with YouTube? The cost to watch is $0, and you can even watch it ad-free for $0 with a free ad-blocker, yet 50 million people still choose to pay $12/mo for YouTube Premium.

Isn't that more about information asymmetry than value proposition?

Blocking YouTube ads with the appropriate add-ons for free isn't necessarily that well known, except among the tech savvy.

While some tech savvy folks may choose to pay rather than use such add-ons is one thing, but the "great unwashed masses" don't have information about such add-ons, perhaps encouraging them to purchase something they wouldn't purchase if there was more perfect information availability in the market.

I'm not claiming that's the case, but it seems a reasonable supposition.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#473

Post by pseudalopex »

KennyBlanken wrote: post #351
dralley wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do people keep saying this when Mozilla is and has already been vocally fighting against Google's overreaching proposals? There's new headlines about this every few months. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/privacy-security/privacy-analysi ... https://www.howtogeek.com/756338/mozilla-says-chromes-latest ... There's also this: https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2020/08/04/latest-firefox-roll ... https://twitter.com/__jakub_g…

Maybe because Mozilla collects a massive amount of "telemetry" on users, in a way that is personally identifiable, despite zero need for it to be so? https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.org/toolkit/components/t... Or maybe it's because you can toss some money at Mozilla and they'll silently install a browser extension on behalf of an advertising company for a shitty TV show about a l33t haxx0r d00d? By the way, the b…

resistFingerprinting is a hidden setting. Mostly it's for Tor Browser. Supporting Tor Browser's threat model and not supporting yours might be disappointing. That doesn't make it a poison pill.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#474

Post by sfink »

Y_Y wrote: post #41

Can I pay for Firefox? Even better I'd love to pay to have someone finish off Servo.

The only direct way currently is to pay for associated products like Firefox VPN, assuming it's available in your region. That money will go directly to Mozilla Corporation, which develops Firefox. Donations go to Mozilla Foundation, which does advocacy and various world-improving things (IMO). Mozilla Corporation cannot legally accept direct donations IIUC. I think it'd be a money laundering loophole or something?

Servo was never going to grow into a complete browser, and much of it was absorbed into Gecko (the Firefox codebase). But I agree, it would be great to have the Servo idea pushed further forward.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#475

Post by pseudalopex »

kevingadd wrote: post #424
nilslindemann wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always wondered why the engine is not separated from the GUI in browsers. In chess world this is totally normal, you have a chess GUI and a chess engine (and a crude communication protocol).

All the major browser engines can be embedded, the GUI is a separate layer. It's been that way for ages, even IE was this way.

Gecko isn't really embeddable. Except on Android.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#476

Post by finchisko »

samwillis wrote: post #289
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ironic part of this is that if Apple allowed alternative browser engines, I guarantee you it is only a matter of time before you see Electron apps bringing their own browser engines with them to iOS. And not long after before Hacker News is screaming and moaning about it (like they do for Electron on desktop) and begging for Apple to stop it.

HN already screams and moans about mobile apps built with PhoneGap/Cordova/Capacitor/Ionic ect. for not being "native" at the same time as promoting PWAs and complaining that apple doesn't support them, ignoring that PhoneGap, Cordova and especially Capacitor give you that functionality (mostly). I think that says more about HN than Apple...

the difference is the distribution channel. For cordova you still need to use Apple store and pay yearly and share your income with Apple. With PWA, the distribution channel is web, so no commissions for Apple.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#477

Post by jhasse »

raxxorrax wrote: post #29
technobabbler wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be easier for companies (who aren't anti Google) to administer Chrome policy via their existing Google/Gmail accounts and Google Workspace. Profiles, sync, extensions, etc. can all be centrally administered. And also deployed to Chromebooks for certain users. All without having to manage the overhead of a minority browser with Especially for any web shop... Firefox is even less relevant than Microsoft now an…

I couldn't name you a single webapp that requires Chrome and it wouldn't fit our quality p expectations and would get booted. Apps that require a certain browser will cause problems in the future or force Chrome to become IE. Can you centrally administrate Google accounts? Because employees certainly aren't allowed to use their privat ones.

WhatsApp Web was Chrome only for quite some time.

From personal experience I know that Teams definitely has some Firefox-only bugs.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#478

Post by Andrex »

akagusu wrote: post #130

The real problem of Firefox is one that nobody cares about: distribution. Let's say Firefox is the most advanced browser of the universe. How can you get people to install Firefox? Chrome has the advantage here because it is preinstalled in every Android phone and Android has more than 90% market share. The second advantage Chrome has is that it cannot be uninstalled from Android. The fact that Android phones have a…

I don't disagree with this comment, but it's worth noting Chrome was already rising to dominance as a desktop browser before Android/mobile internet usage became a significant factor.

Somehow even with Microsoft promoting IE on their platform, people still chose to install an alternative.

Re: Firefox is the alternative to a Chrome hegemony

#480

Post by throwaway2048 »

samwillis wrote: post #289
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #276

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The ironic part of this is that if Apple allowed alternative browser engines, I guarantee you it is only a matter of time before you see Electron apps bringing their own browser engines with them to iOS. And not long after before Hacker News is screaming and moaning about it (like they do for Electron on desktop) and begging for Apple to stop it.

HN already screams and moans about mobile apps built with PhoneGap/Cordova/Capacitor/Ionic ect. for not being "native" at the same time as promoting PWAs and complaining that apple doesn't support them, ignoring that PhoneGap, Cordova and especially Capacitor give you that functionality (mostly). I think that says more about HN than Apple...

Its almost like different people have different opinions or something.
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