Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

What, if anything, should I do about using Mozilla's Firefox

neilzone.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

51–60 of 149 posts

Re: What, if anything, should I do about using Mozilla's Firefox

#51

Post by saghm »

BaudouinVH wrote: post #5

I've switched to Waterfox (yet another Firefox fork) and so far I'm happy with that choice https://www.waterfox.net/

I spent some time yesterday getting it set up in the light of the recent debaucle, and overall I'm mostly positive on it. The vast majority of things worked pretty much exactly as I'm used to with Firefox (with most of the settings being the same, and even about:config working pretty much identically other than having some things I used to set manually as default, like allowing custom userChrome.css and turning off a lot of telemetry). I was intrigued with the built-in tree style tab support (which from what I can tell in this release notes seems like it's being developed in collaboration with the developer of the popular addon), and although right now it doesn't seem to easily support all of the customization from within the settings that the addon itself does, I still really like the idea of it being a first-class browser feature rather than an addon. Unfortunately I seem to be running into a bug that's already been filed as an issue where toggling it on or off causes my browser window to disappear briefly and then relaunch, which also seems to happen automatically if I last closed the browser with it toggled on, making it a bit too jarring for me to use yet, but given how recently it seems to have been added into the browser itself, I wouldn't be surprised if it ends up getting fixed in a reasonable amount of time (and if not, I can always just use the extension itself, which still seems like it would work).

In a lot of ways, it seems like Waterfox is actually doing a better job of being the type of browser I want than Firefox is anymore; there are a lot more built-in UI customization settings that I'm much more interested in seeing development effort go towards (including some simpler but nice quality of life things like choosing whether to place the tab bar on the top or bottom, or aligning the contents of the URL bar and the tabs either either to the left or to the center, or even whether certain elements should have rounded or square corners) than whatever Mozilla seems to be interested in experimenting with nowadays. Obviously I'm pretty early in my usage, but compared to my expectation that switching over would be either a huge hassle or not really have any immediately obvious differences, I've noticed a number of small but nice changes from my experience with Firefox but not much hassle overall; the only sticking point I currently have is that so far I haven't been able to log into either Gitlab or the webmail site for my custom domain on Namecheap, but I think the former might just be my own error after hitting a limit on two-factor attempts after misunderstanding whether it was asking for my U2F key (which from further research doesn't seem to be supported yet) or an authenticator OTP code, and the latter seems to be getting an error from the server terminating the connection, which is frustrating but feels like it's mostly the fault of the server for apparently not trusting a browser it doesn't recognize (and even seeming to ignoring the user agent when I try to set it to something more "normal"). Given that my Gitlab usage is entirely personal (and mostly just consists of using it as a git server with repos I create using the CLI tool and then don't log into to look at much) and my email also forwards to Gmail (although admittedly with a sometimes annoying delay for stuff like confirmation emails for logins), using a different browser just to access those maybe a couple times a month isn't really going to bother me that much.

Re: What, if anything, should I do about using Mozilla's Firefox

#52

Post by bluGill »

vincvinc wrote: post #46
soulofmischief wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's my issue with all of these solo-maintained forks. It's a security nightmare, and browsers are a prime target for supply chain attacks or other forms of subterfuge. The security model just simply isn't acceptable.

So what's stopping anyone from forming a group or foundation based on donations from like-minded people? And maintain a secure, free fork? I see this topic often enough on HN, this might a big enough group.

You need several million dollars per year to be useful. Anyone can form a foundation but if you don't have that much or more it was a waste of time.

it need not be money a dozen developers donating code full time would work but that is harder to get.

Re: What, if anything, should I do about using Mozilla's Firefox

#53

Post by mitchell209 »

crossroadsguy wrote: post #21

My needs are: - I like Safari as a browser and can live with it - at least on Mac and Safari. But goodness, its sync and almost anything it does with iCloud is atrocious. Now, Apple being Apple they definitely wouldn’t let anyone else fix that. - I also need to use Android where I use Safari. I would happily ditch Safari and Firefox if I can use a browser (without crypto shenanigans, edgy UI) all I need are: - robust…

The only thing that saves Safari syncing for me is the tab groups. iCloud automatic syncing is terrible. I'm pretty sure it's not even syncing my iPad's open tabs for some reason and I have no idea how to start troubleshooting it except for removing my iCloud account and then signing back in.

Re: What, if anything, should I do about using Mozilla's Firefox

#55

Post by HackerThemAll »

It's the only browser that supports Manifest V2. If you want true ad-blocking capabilities, use and support Firefox. If you're up to Chrome tyranny or Brave lies then go ahead and switch. I consider changing the privacy notice meaningless when I block everything and disable telemetry etc. But at the same time I know y'all are prone to internet drama to get more ad traffic and attention.

Re: What, if anything, should I do about using Mozilla's Firefox

#56

Post by HackerThemAll »

huhtenberg wrote: post #2

** To clarify - looking for any Firefox alternative, not restricted to the Gecko engine Is Brave at all a viable alternative? Or do their own ads and all the crypto-shmypto make the switch moot? Tangentially - has anyone tried building Firefox from the source? [1] I wonder how feasible this would be as an alternative if coupled with disabling all unwanted parts of the browser. [1] https://firefox-source-docs.mozilla.…

Brave is just bag of privacy lies. They have to make money somehow. If the browser is free, who's the product? Ask your AI or just Google it.

Re: What, if anything, should I do about using Mozilla's Firefox

#57

Post by nileshtrivedi »

roenxi wrote: post #41
mr_sturd wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with Chromium is that it's controlled by Google. Given they control the engine in the majority of browsers, they get to call the shots on the direction of the web as a whole.

They're not in any position to control the web as a whole; Safari is too strong a competitor. But even if Chromium was at 100% market share they couldn't control the web. If they start throwing their weight around then the other web companies will start organising around a Chromium fork. The important thing here is OSS/not-OSS rather than market share. Market share can change quickly enough in response to problems. I…

What "other web companies"? Everyone has an app or an app store.

Re: What, if anything, should I do about using Mozilla's Firefox

#58

Post by saghm »

Valodim wrote: post #30
BaudouinVH wrote: post #5

I've switched to Waterfox (yet another Firefox fork) and so far I'm happy with that choice https://www.waterfox.net/

While these forks are nice and all, I'm not sure how meaningful it is in the bigger picture if 99% of the work done on it is still done (and paid) by the same people. Similarly, I don't get those "I use brave instead of Firefox", as if that wasn't 99% chromium. Don't get me wrong, I know there's not much choice. But that whole direction of "action" that people take just seems like a working marketing tarpit to me.

At this point, "marketing tarpit" seems like a pretty accurate description of Mozilla's stewardship of Firefox as well, so if I'm going to get sucked one, I'd rather it be the one that's taking a maybe untenable stand for something that I agree than the one that's trying to gaslight me about whether "disseminating user data to a third party for valuable consideration" is what most people would consider "selling user data".

Re: What, if anything, should I do about using Mozilla's Firefox

#59

Post by roenxi »

nileshtrivedi wrote: post #57
roenxi wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They're not in any position to control the web as a whole; Safari is too strong a competitor. But even if Chromium was at 100% market share they couldn't control the web. If they start throwing their weight around then the other web companies will start organising around a Chromium fork. The important thing here is OSS/not-OSS rather than market share. Market share can change quickly enough in response to problems. I…

What "other web companies"? Everyone has an app or an app store.

Whoever. Whatever. OSS is a system for finding the most capable entity in the world at developing a software capability and letting them get on with it. It'll find someone to pick up the slack if Google starts doing a terrible job. In this world of 8 billion humans and however many thousands of companies, there'll be one who knows how to put a web browser together.

If I were going to guess today it'd be brave.com, but the world is large and competitive.

Re: What, if anything, should I do about using Mozilla's Firefox

#60

Post by daneel_w »

I'm testing Zen (https://zen-browser.app/) on macOS since a while back. Updates seem to lag behind the upstream by everything from 2 to 10 days. Every now and then a Zen-specific update shows up. So far the experience has been good. I don't know how true to their word of protecting privacy the authors really are, as my web proxy shows that the browser connects with Google infrastructure at sporadic intervals through the day even when the browser is sitting idle with no loaded tabs or active extensions. My feeling is that it is too frequent to be the auto-update check. I really hope I'm wrong or goofed up with keeping an eye on its network chatter.
Post reply on HN