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The Browser Monopoly

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Re: The Browser Monopoly

#71

Post by cameronbrown »

The_rationalist wrote: post #37

The number of features that gecko (Firefox) lack vs blink (chromiums) is growing everyday... In a factual sense, mozilla slow down the evolution of the web and what it allow web masters to create. But it is nothing in comparison of safari which is pathetically behind blink and gecko feature wise. It's a shame that the most popular websites don't team up to block safari and ask to install a browser that supports web s…

> But it is nothing in comparison of safari which is pathetically behind blink and gecko feature wise. It's a shame that the most popular websites don't team up to block safari and ask to install a browser that supports web standards. YouTube did this with a version of IE and weeks after they were followed by thousands of websites not supporting this antic version.

What about iOS? There's no alternative.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#72

Post by naravara »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #34
aluren wrote: post #23

I don't get why people (I mean technically minded people who are aware of privacy issues and so on) don't just use firefox. They are pretty much at feature parity (Firefox may even get the edge due to the fantastic extensions ecosystem), except one spies on you and the other doesn't. Why do people find the switch so hard? In addition, Firefox + ublokc origin is pretty much the only option on mobile if you want to blo…

The biggest problem is the subtle frustrations if you use Google websites or services at all, since Google builds the Internet explicitly for Chrome, and sometimes works on other browsers okay-ish. reCAPTCHA harassment is particularly egregious too. I'm a Firefox user, but I've also already excised most of the rest of Google from my life. If you're still using Gmail, you're likely to stick with Chrome.

It's not just Google. I've had helpdesk tickets with multiple services automatically assume I'm on mobile if I mention something doesn't work in Safari. I will even say "Safari on Mac OS 10.xx" and they will still assume mobile. The idea of desktop browsers that aren't Chrome seems to be fading away among even the marginally technically aware people.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#73

Post by jcranmer »

guardian5x wrote: post #15
basch wrote: post #3

>Chrome introduced a lot of neat new features (Porn “Incognito Mode,” multithreaded memory changes, tabs and more). Now chrome is getting credit for in private browsing and tabs? (Safari and Opera respectively. Phoenix/Firefox popularized them long before Chrome was a twinkle.) >It is mind-boggling that basic tools like these are not yet standard features in browsers. How long have browsers offered to save passwords?…

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_browsing Safari came first, but Chrome was before Opera or Firefox.

The Firefox 3-4 era is the era of the interminably long betas for Firefox. The private browsing feature was committed to Firefox trunk on 2008-11-04, long before the 2009-06-30 release date given on that Wikipedia page. The bug for Firefox was filed 2004-06-28, long before Chrome was a thing.

(Bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=248970).

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#74

Post by cameronbrown »

gibspaulding wrote: post #70
cameronbrown wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to like Firefox, and I use it regularly, but I just veer back to Chrome. I still prefer the UI and extensions (which Chrome still has the 'edge' in).

Out of curiosity, what extensions do you miss? I've never really used anything beyond the usual privacy extensions (uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, and HTTPS everywhere). All of which seem to be as well or better supported in FireFox.

Mainly Google extensions (yeah, not coming anytime soon): Keep and Chrome Remote Desktop are two of my favourite services.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#75

Post by supuun »

linza wrote: post #57
cameronbrown wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to like Firefox, and I use it regularly, but I just veer back to Chrome. I still prefer the UI and extensions (which Chrome still has the 'edge' in).

Same here. I use Firefox+adblocker on mobile for some sites. I don't know why it is, but i just dislike the UI of Firefox. I want to like it more, but it just doesn't work out...

Yeah, Firefox on mobile sucks, but they are fortunately working on a major update. Firefox on the desktop rocks tho.

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#76

Post by [deleted] »

aluren wrote: post #23

I don't get why people (I mean technically minded people who are aware of privacy issues and so on) don't just use firefox. They are pretty much at feature parity (Firefox may even get the edge due to the fantastic extensions ecosystem), except one spies on you and the other doesn't. Why do people find the switch so hard? In addition, Firefox + ublokc origin is pretty much the only option on mobile if you want to blo…

[deleted]

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#77

Post by ihuman »

abtinf wrote: post #5

I was shocked to see the browser market share graph. Chrome appears to be collapsing on itself, dropping from from an all-time high of 65.4% to 55.4% in just 16 months, effectively losing all share gains since 2016. But then I looked closer at the data, noticing that only net 120 basis points of the change can be explained by share changes in the other browsers. The rest of the data seems to be missing, as the number…

I think w3counter's graph only shows the major browsers, and doesn't include data from the rest. Wikipedia has a breakdown of browser usage with more browsers (and an "other" section)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers#Su...

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#78

Post by __dawid__ »

tzs wrote: post #60
aluren wrote: post #23

I don't get why people (I mean technically minded people who are aware of privacy issues and so on) don't just use firefox. They are pretty much at feature parity (Firefox may even get the edge due to the fantastic extensions ecosystem), except one spies on you and the other doesn't. Why do people find the switch so hard? In addition, Firefox + ublokc origin is pretty much the only option on mobile if you want to blo…

I mostly use Firefox, except I use Chrome for certain tasks at work [1]. There is one thing about Firefox that occasionally has me on the verge of ditching it for Chrome. It has a terrible spell checker. I find about as many errors in its spelling as it finds in mine. There used to be one other thing that really irked me, but it looks like they recently fixed that (I'm on the beta channel, so not sure if everyone has…

>and it handles multiple profiles better.

I think that Containers available on Firefox are much better than profiles

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#79

Post by __dawid__ »

darklion wrote: post #29
mcv wrote: post #20

I recently ditched Chrome and switched back to Firefox, at home and on my mobile, only to discover that a surprising number of sites don't work in Firefox. In particular: Twitter doesn't work on Firefox Mobile. Most work fine, but still, I ended up switching to Safari, to discover that it's just not quite as good an experience as Firefox or Chrome.

> I ended up switching to Safari, to discover that it's just not quite as good an experience as Firefox or Chrome. IMO, I find it to be just the opposite--neither Firefox nor Chrome are as good an experience as Safari. Maybe the difference is that when a particular site does not work in a given browser, I don't blame the browser, I blame the website.

Safari seems to lag a lot in features. In compatibility it's a modern IE

Re: The Browser Monopoly

#80

Post by ro0ster »

aluren wrote: post #23

I don't get why people (I mean technically minded people who are aware of privacy issues and so on) don't just use firefox. They are pretty much at feature parity (Firefox may even get the edge due to the fantastic extensions ecosystem), except one spies on you and the other doesn't. Why do people find the switch so hard? In addition, Firefox + ublokc origin is pretty much the only option on mobile if you want to blo…

How would you compare your Firefox experience to Brave? I'm not technically minded but Brave seemed to be easiest mobile ad blocking browser.
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