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Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

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Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#91

Post by danShumway »

mav3rick wrote: post #84
Nicksil wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting this information? Plenty of "tech" people influence their friends and family with respect to what software/hardware to consider. My entire immediate family uses DuckDuckGo as their search. All of their (Mozilla) browsers have DDG set as the default. Not a complaint from anybody; DDG does a damn fine job.

One data point doesn't change the fact that HN hasn't mass converted the world to use DDG. They may also be telling you they use DDG while they use !g or Google.

But similarly, one data point that DDG hasn't overtaken Google doesn't mean that tech people's preferences don't influence ordinary people.

I thought it was generally well-accepted that developers mass-moving friends and family off of IE 11 was part of the reason why other browsers ended up beating it.

Similarly, I thought it was mostly accepted that part of the reason so much of the web was optimized for Chrome was because Chrome had genuinely better developer tools, and developers preferred to optimize first in Chrome and second in other browsers.

Maybe there's more disagreement on those points than I realized.

Even on the subject of DuckDuckGo, which is probably not going to be mass-adopted any time soon (if at all), actual usage numbers are increasing faster than any other major search provider, including Google[0]. Whether or not those numbers are coming from ordinary people or tech people, clearly somebody is being convinced to use DDG. Is it going to be a revolution? Probably not. But it's not nothing.

I really wish people would stop defining success as a monopoly. Even in the browser space, the goal isn't to make Chrome vanish. We just want Firefox to have a big enough user-base across enough markets that it can't be ignored. Even 20-30% would probably do it. Mozilla doesn't have to kill Chrome.

Similarly, if every non-tech user keeps searching on Google, and DuckDuckGo just becomes a great search engine that every programmer prefers, that's a pretty big win. I would not call that a loss.

[0]: https://duckduckgo.com/traffic (of course saturation does play a role here)

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#92

Post by tomComb »

Endy wrote: post #89
danShumway wrote: post #2

> In the absence of a true standard for browser extensions, maintaining compatibility with Chrome is important for Firefox developers and users. About as close as Mozilla can come to outright saying, "Chrome is big enough and we're small enough that what they do _is_ the standard." Still, it's encouraging to see that they're not removing the blocking API for now. I kind of hope this does push a few adblocker extensio…

What they should be saying is, "No, what Google is doing is Wrong with a capital WRONG and we're not going to accept their wishes in closing off what's left of the open Web." But then they'd have to give up all their Google funding. And they're way too cowardly and corporate to do that.

> "closing off what's left of the open Web."

Seems a little over the top to me!

Also, Mozilla is very good at standing up to Google. They beat them on webasm, rust is arguably supplanting go, and most of all, it was Mozilla that effectively killed web components which were very dear to Google.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#93

Post by chrisseaton »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #3

This points to the disturbing truth of how incredibly complete Google's monopoly is: Even browsers not based on Chrome are strongly pushed to implement Chrome's platform changes anyways.

Safari doesn't feel the pressure to implement this API - why does Firefox?

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#94

Post by tomComb »

echelon wrote: post #88
SirensOfTitan wrote: post #85

Mozilla really needs to get that if they compete with Google on Google’s terms, they’re rapidly heading toward extinction. Mozilla ought to be the browser for a private and usable web, but it seems they have occasional sneezes where you question what they’re doing (this, pocket in recent memory).

I'm extremely worried that once Google disables ad blockers in Chrome, websites will wholesale block any and all non-Chrome browsers. Be it through user agent sniffing, feature detection, or fingerprinting, Firefox simply won't work anymore. The future of the web where Google is in complete control is straight up nightmare fuel. Microsoft in the early 2000s never scared me as much as the future we're headed into does…

> This won't be IE versus Netscape since...

Well, also since Chrome if open source, cross platform, and standards compliant, and IE was none of those.

And Google (unlike Apple) allows competing browsers, based on modified Chrome code, or entirely different engines.

Soon we will have a good, cross platform Edge browser, thanks to Google, and a menu of browser options in Europe thanks to the EU. (Maybe other countries should push for the same.)

But Chrome if no IE.

And I believe that in Europe they will soon be

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#95

Post by hu3 »

tomComb wrote: post #92
Endy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they should be saying is, "No, what Google is doing is Wrong with a capital WRONG and we're not going to accept their wishes in closing off what's left of the open Web." But then they'd have to give up all their Google funding. And they're way too cowardly and corporate to do that.

> "closing off what's left of the open Web." Seems a little over the top to me! Also, Mozilla is very good at standing up to Google. They beat them on webasm, rust is arguably supplanting go, and most of all, it was Mozilla that effectively killed web components which were very dear to Google.

> rust is arguably supplanting go

Two very different languages with very different goals. Neither want nor ever will suplant the other.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#96

Post by chucksmash »

feanaro wrote: post #60

In the absence of a true standard for browser extensions, perhaps Mozilla should consider trying to form one by leading with a strong example instead of weakly implying that they will eventually probably cave to the monopolist. It's also quite disappointing how there is seemingly no one from Mozilla here, engaging with us on this topic. Instead, the only communication we get is one-sided corporate speak, with no real…

> In the absence of a true standard for browser extensions, perhaps Mozilla should consider trying to form one by leading with a strong example instead of weakly implying that they will eventually probably cave to the monopolist.

That's exactly what they've tried to do. Firefox exposes a `chrome` namespace object to extensions which is intended to be more or less API compatible with what Chrome provides and added the `browser` namespace object where improvements to the base compatibility are added (e.g. switching from callback based APIs to Promise based APIs). See the bit from the wiki below and the link to the browserext spec:

> Mozilla has worked with Microsoft and Opera to implement browser extensions so that developers can write extensions that work across multiple browsers. The preliminary specification[1] matches what Google has implemented in Chrome so that extensions will work on Chrome, Edge, Opera and Firefox.[2]

[1]: https://browserext.github.io/browserext/

[2]: https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/Spec

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#97

Post by Nicksil »

mav3rick wrote: post #84
Nicksil wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where are you getting this information? Plenty of "tech" people influence their friends and family with respect to what software/hardware to consider. My entire immediate family uses DuckDuckGo as their search. All of their (Mozilla) browsers have DDG set as the default. Not a complaint from anybody; DDG does a damn fine job.

One data point doesn't change the fact that HN hasn't mass converted the world to use DDG. They may also be telling you they use DDG while they use !g or Google.

I supplied one data point. You supplied...?

But now you're saying "mass converted the world" whereas before your goalposts were set at "friends and family."

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#98

Post by masklinn »

WhatIsDukkha wrote: post #18

The tone of this post concerns me. What comes across is that Google is not collaborating with Mozilla over the Manifest v3 changes. Instead of using and appreciating the engaged Firefox developer ecosystem we have PM conference rooms in Google mandating huge changes based on... well they've been shady so far about their choices on Manifest v3. The other thing that keeps bugging me about this is - We need a tiered App…

> What comes across is that Google is not collaborating with Mozilla over the Manifest v3 changes.

Well… duh? Google will do whatever it wants with no regards to anyone else unless they're forced to do otherwise, and "the market" will not force them to do otherwise unless their very large browser majority falls. From the moment mozilla decided (/ was forced) to adopt chrome extensions they were bound to follow google's whims.

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#99

Post by atroche »

tomComb wrote: post #92
Endy wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What they should be saying is, "No, what Google is doing is Wrong with a capital WRONG and we're not going to accept their wishes in closing off what's left of the open Web." But then they'd have to give up all their Google funding. And they're way too cowardly and corporate to do that.

> "closing off what's left of the open Web." Seems a little over the top to me! Also, Mozilla is very good at standing up to Google. They beat them on webasm, rust is arguably supplanting go, and most of all, it was Mozilla that effectively killed web components which were very dear to Google.

How did Mozilla kill web components?

Re: Mozilla’s Manifest v3 FAQ

#100

Post by sjwright »

hu3 wrote: post #95
tomComb wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "closing off what's left of the open Web." Seems a little over the top to me! Also, Mozilla is very good at standing up to Google. They beat them on webasm, rust is arguably supplanting go, and most of all, it was Mozilla that effectively killed web components which were very dear to Google.

> rust is arguably supplanting go Two very different languages with very different goals. Neither want nor ever will suplant the other.

Rust is challenging C++ fairly head-on.

Golang is challenging Java, C#, Python, nodejs etc. It was also supposed to challenge C++ but based on how the language turned out, if that is ever true then C++ probably wasn't the right language for that project in the first place...

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