Mozilla is deeply concerned about Microsoft killing EdgeHTML | Hacker News Reader

Mozilla is deeply concerned about Microsoft killing EdgeHTML

thenextweb.com

70 points_hztt53 comments

I really hope Firefox takes a bigger share of the market now that google has its reputation dinged a bit. The internet needs it and the world deserves a browser that can be configured to honor user privacy. Google got the market share purely based on its good reputation and sure also with a good product but mainly because of its reputation it was given a chance. Now it’s time for that share to go down.

> Google got the market share purely based on its good reputation

But also based on everyone using google.com for searching and google prompts you to download Chrome when you go there.

I don’t see a way back for Firefox now. To gain market share they’d have to be better than chrome and at best they’re as good - and the more sites build specifically for Chrome, the worse the position Firefox is in.

I really want this to happen but I keep hitting sites that just don’t work in Firefox. I’m willing to maintain two browsers and switch for Mailchimp, craveTV and a few other places but most people are not.

As small company, I can target Chrome and Safari and cover the vast majority of my potential users. Adding QA and Dev for Firefox just gets harder and harder.

>but I keep hitting sites that just don’t work in Firefox.

Sites that literally do not load in Firefox? Which ones? I'm genuinely curious here, since I've never hit such a site.

Seriously, besides the occasional webgl demo I haven't experienced this either.

The only site I had issues with is AWS DMS (Data Migration Service). I can't confirm it's still half-broken with Firefox as I don't use this service anymore.

But, to be fair, I also had the opposite issue with some other AWS services where it was working in Firefox but not on Chrome

This bug [1] in recent versions of Firefox broke websockets for some sites (I don't know how many, but it included [2]). It was a major bug in their implementation of TLS 1.3 in Firefox, but its symptoms were subtle. You could connect the first time, but reconnecting would then be completely broken until you restarted Firefox (due to some sort of caching). For years, the Firefox flex css layout implementation was unbelievably slow [3], which basically broke usability of some sites. For the web application I work on, we've had to contend with over 10 Firefox-specific bugs [4]. I think everything works fine today though.

[1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1453204

[2] https://cocalc.com

[3] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1209697

[4] https://github.com/sagemathinc/cocalc/issues?utf8=%E2%9C%93&...

I literally said don’t work, so I’m not sure why you’ve changed this to “literally do not load”. I also listed two that don’t work properly and I need to switch to chrome to use.

I use Firefox for almost every site and am I Firefox fan, but you can’t pretend it works flawlessly for ever one.

Two that come to mind: Microsoft's "Seller dashboard" for managing Office 365 extensions, and Google's "Cloud Platform" console for managing their services. Also, Apple's "iTunesConnect" is pretty glitchy unless you use Safari (and probably Chrome too). I guess you can see a clear reason why each of those pages behaves like so :).

Edit to add that I prefer Firefox in general for philosophical and practical reasons: I'm used to the dev tools and have a hard time navigating the Chrome/Safari alternatives, not to mention Edge/Explorer.

Which sites? I use Firefox as my primary browser and I've never had this happen.

I literally listed two sites in comment you are replying to.

> Google got the market share purely based on its good reputation and sure also with a good product but mainly because of its reputation it was given a chance.

The exact opposite is true.

Google's market share came, first and foremost, from having the best product in each space it dominates: search, browser, email.

The people primarily concerned about "reputation" are a vocal minority. That doesn't mean they're wrong -- but when we're talking about the browser choice of millions of people it's definitely wrong to suppose that reputation is the key factor.

I use Firefox as my primary browser. I've tried to get my wife and children to use it, but they always default to using Chrome. Why? Because it is Google's browser and they use Google for so many other things. They can't see anything that Firefox does better than Chrome, so why should they use it?

Interface is simple but powerful enough and we got used to it and don't bother when you get nothing better by using another browser and for some reason font rendering (especially with Asian characters), Chrome looks tiny bit better, even than Safari. The only concern is privacy but I'm using Chromium.

One can use Google products on Firefox without any issue afaik, so I'm a bit surprised that someone would switch back to Chrome for this.

Oh, I know. Firefox is about all I use. But they didn't switch back to Chrome, they just were never really willing to try Firefox.

Google pushed Chrome a lot on its pages though, it wasn't just something that spread by word of mouth because it was so good.

Intriguing. Which browser and email would that be?

If Microsoft can get people to stop downloading Chrome on Windows then the new Edge may soon have higher market share than Chrome. At that point Microsoft can wrest control of Chromium from Google just like Google wrested control of Webkit from Apple, by forking it.

How do you even do that without getting sued?

Make Edge good enough so that people don't bother downloading Chrome/Firefox

People are saying "how will this happen" BUT what this is really about is battery life. Microsoft is admitting it cant ship a stripped down copy of windows without Blink/V8 embedded as a library. Too many things (node, electron, browsers, etc) require Blink/V8, and if Microsoft wants to ship a Skinny Windows that is Battery Friendly, they need ONE copy of Blink.

So eventually, what will happen is Microsoft moves towards the Apple route. "Windows Lite comes with OUR Blink/V8 and you can write a browser shell (also called a Chrome :) ) around it.

Embrace > extend.

this article reports that Mozilla published a blog post. Please submit the blog post instead in such cases. Also, that blog post already has a 1000+ point, 600+ comments discussion on HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18622516

And has been flagged off the front page, rendering it effectively invisible.

That an article from yesterday is on page two isn't exactly surprising, and far from "effectively invisible".

Edge was doomed from the start because it didn't do enough to distinguish itself from the much maligned IE. Microsoft should have at least changed the logo.

As for the future, Firefox is at a huge disadvantage here. Performance... reputation... stability... those are important metrics, but Google has a big advantage when it comes to mindshare.

When people buy an Android phone, it ships with Chrome. When people go to google.com, they are prompted to install Chrome. When people go to work, their IT department often supports Chrome as the primary browser - especially if their company uses the Google suite.

When the average person thinks of a browser, they think of Chrome.

For better or worse, I think Microsoft is the only organization who can reasonably compete with Google on that playing field.

Apple!

Side note: it strikes me just how different these organizations are at communications.

There was a rumor about Edge, and a couple days later Microsoft posted a statement saying what they were doing, and why. Mozilla posted a statement saying why they were concerned about this. You may not like or agree with them, but it's not hard to see where they stand.

There were rumors about Google's chat systems, and a few days later they posted a 600-word statement addressing it, and still nobody seems to have a clear idea what the heck is going on there.

> If it becomes less attractive for web developers to write code that works across browsers, consumers could ultimately be persuaded to leave Firefox.

Developers already hate supporting multiple browsers. I can understand adopting new ECMAScript and CSS features at different paces, but having fundamentally different default DOM styling is just annoying. CSS rules interacting different between browsers is maddening. I would be perfectly fine with an open source core that all browsers used. Python provides a reference implementation for its spec, and still has a healthy (I think) ecosystem of alternate implementations.

Literally the only two reasons I don't use Firefox on mobile is the lack of home button and no pull down to refresh.

It's not that Firefox is wrong to not include these UI features, it's that I've spent years and years browsing a certain way and now it feels really weird to suddenly have to do it differently.

Maybe Firefox needs to shamelessly clone Chrome's UI. Maybe when launching for the first time it asks if you want to default to Chrome Style or Firefox Style.

What I think Mozilla cannot do is hope people kind of just tolerate how weird it feels for a few weeks.

I use Firefox but agree with you there are some features it really bothers me that it doesn't have. For example, Chrome is actually easier to develop with because you can Shift+Right-click the refresh button to bring up a context menu for "Clear Cache + Hard Reload." In Firefox if you want to clear the cache to a certain page, you have to navigate through several windows and make like 10+ clicks. It's little things like this that put me off of Firefox, but times like that I just grit my teeth and still use it anyway just because at least I'm not selling my web browsing to a big business.

Huh? You press Ctrl-Shift-E to open the dev tools to network monitor, if you don't already have it set click the checkbox for "Disable cache" (maybe there's a shortcut for that too) and press F5 to reload the page.

So the deal is that you're not wrong. It's only sliiightly less convenient. But I think there's real, meaningful cost in things just being different. Shamelessly clone everything about the chrome UI and I'd gladly switch.

I should still try to switch again... But why does it have to be so uncomfortable? Every modern car has all the same controls in the same places. Why not browsers?

And I always find Chrome dev tools annoying because they don't have that easy-to-reach cache checkbox... It's difficult if there's no clear "right answer".

Thank you for that! My searches only yielded the following articles:

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-clear-firefox-cache

https://superuser.com/questions/173210/how-can-i-clear-a-sin...

Both of which make clearing the cache very annoying.

> Literally the only two reasons I don't use Firefox on mobile is the lack of home button and no pull down to refresh

Hmm...I have a similar complaint about desktop (MacOS).

The lack of a good "home" keyboard shortcut greatly irks me. The "home" keyboard shortcut, option + home, only actually works if the focus is not in something that takes text input. If the focus is in a text input field on the page, or in the "Find in This Page..." input field, or in the address bar, the "home" shortcut is ignored.

Chrome's and Safari's "home" keyboard shortcuts work as expected.

That, and Firefox having the worst spell checking by far of the major browsers (Firefox, Chrome, Edge, Safari) on both Mac and Windows, has had me close to switching to Chrome.

So, if Google does "evil" and tries to dry up Mozilla by cutting the funding, that just pretty much means Chrome all over and the rest Safari?

I agree with the general concern that lack of competition could hurt innovation in this space. But I think we should all pause to soak in the irony here. Anybody with memory of the Great Browser Wars between FF and IE has to be wondering what timeline we're in where FireFox is _opposed_ to Microsoft shutting down IE...

I may have missed the boat here but is there any word on the possibility of Microsoft open-sourcing EdgeHTML?

Why do you want that? What would MS get other than small amount of people feeling better just because?

I would class a number of Microsoft's releases of source under that category.

I'd also be fascinated to see legacy IE browser sources released. Might make it easier to work on polyfills and such. Plus there's historical interest. I want to see the comments around the <blink> code.

Sometimes I wish there were only one browser. At lease we don't have to write as much CSS and code to support different rendering mechanisms.

Whenever someone complains about having to support different browsers, or a page says "this feature is best viewed / only available in browser X", I don't blame them! Would it be really bad if all browsers adopted the same engine and built their features on top of it? I also believe collectively we can make that engine even better.

(off topic) This made me think of logs.. there are so many different standards/formats out there, making log collection and parsing a nightmare. I think logging is something that's truly been cursed by its diversity, and something, if we worked together to standardize, would make this world a better place.

I think we could all benefit from more things being standardized, such as a social network protocol, a standard for self-driving cars so they are able to communicate and coordinate among each other, a browser engine like Chromium etc. Wishful thinking?

Microsoft should make Firefox the default browser and open source Edge - that would be awesome.

What if the narrative behind Microsoft's decision is not to build a better browser but to hurt Google from a regulatory view? I mean they maneuvered Google into an obvious and significant monopoly position, similar to the one Microsoft found itself before the uprise of Google.

Chrome was already in this position; an extra 4% market share (or whatever Edge was at, it doesn't really matter) is negligible.

Mozilla's Firefox should Integrate the Basic Attention Token (BAT) and/or even Ripple's Coil for user incentive and compete directly with the Brave browser.

They also should ditch Google on everything (which is not the case right now).

Firefox relies on Google (and others), that's bad on its own.

They should:

- Disable google safebrowsing

Google safebrowsing can detect pishing and malware but it also sends informations to google together with an unique id called wrkey.

- Disable malware scan

The malware scan sends an unique identifier for each downloaded file to Google.

- Disable DNS over HTTPS

DNS over HTTP (DoH), aka. Trusted Recursive Resolver (TRR), uses a server run by Cloudfare to resolve hostnames, even when the system uses another (normal) DNS server.

- Disable about:addons' Get Add-ons panel

The start page with recommended addons uses google analytics.

- Disable check for captive portal.

By default, Firefox checks for the presence of a captive portal on every startup. This involves traffic to Akamai.

- Disable Block Referer Always

Send referer only on the same domain Spoof referer (send the same url) Trim referer to the domain name Allow real referer when clicking a link Always allow real referer Firefox tells a website, from which site you're coming (the so called referer). You can find more detailed settings in this ghacks article or install the RefControl extension for per domain settings.

- Disable WebGL

Disable the WebGL function, to prevent fingerprinting with WebGL. Another issue is, that websites can (ab)use the full power of the graphics card. WebGL is part of some fingerprinting scripts used in the wild. Some interactive websites will not work, which are mostly games.

- Disable WebRTC

Disable the WebRTC function, which gives away your local ips. Some addons like uBlock origin provide settings to prevent WebRTC from exposing local ips without disabling WebRTC.

- Disable the clipboardevents.

Disable that websites can get notifications if you copy, paste, or cut something from a web page, and it lets them know which part of the page had been selected.

- Disable Search Suggestions

Firefox suggests search terms in the search field. This will send everything typed or pasted in the search field to the chosen search engine, even when you did not press enter.

- Disable Search Keyword

When you mistype some url, Firefox starts a search even from urlbar. This feature is useful for quick searching, but may harm your privacy, when it's unintended.

- Explicitly disable Greasemonkey user tracking

Greasemonkey has a (currently opt-in) function to submit user stats. This explicitely disables it, in case that it will get opt-out in the future.

- Enable Do-not-Track

With the do not track feature, you tell websites, that you do not want to be tracked. Most websites ignore this, so you need other privacy options as well.

- Enable Mozilla Trackingprotection

Firefox has a builtin tracking protection, which blocks a list of known tracking sites.

- Disable Browser Pings

Firefox sends "ping" requests, when a website requests to be informed when a user clicks on a link.

- Disable Beacons

The Beacon feature allows websites to send tracking data after you left the website.

- Disable the Battery API

Firefox allows websites to read the charge level of the battery. This may be used for fingerprinting.

- Disable media device queries

Prevent websites from accessing information about webcam and microphone (possible fingerprinting).

- Disable form autofill

Automatically filled form fields are used for fingerprinting. This setting disables automatic form filling until you click on the field.

- Disable webaudio API

Disable webaudio API to prevent browser fingerprinting. See Mozilla Bug #1288359

- Disable video statistics

Prevent websites from measuring video performance (possible fingerprinting). See Mozilla Bug 654550.

- Show Punycode.

This helps to protect against possible character spoofing.

- Install CanvasBlocker extension.

Blocks the JS-API for the <canvas> element to prevent Canvas-Fingerprinting.

- Install Google Redirects Fixer & Tracking Remover extension.

Rewrites URLs from the google result pages to from redirect urls with tracking to direct links.

- Install the HTTPS Everywhere extension.

HTTPS Everywhere is a Firefox extension that enables HTTPS encryption automatically on sites that support it.

- Install the Privacy Badger extension.

The Privacy Badger addon automatically detects trackers and blocks them. You can manually block and unblock urls as well.

- Install the Cookie Autodelete extension.

The extension allows you to automatically delete the cookies of a site when you close the tab.

- Install uMatrix extension.

A content blocker for advanced users, which blocks requests to thirdparty domains. Big privacy gain, but you will need to configure exception rules for many sites.

Source: https://ffprofile.com/#

I just looked at the Mozilla “About” page and noticed they have a huge executive team will little to no programming experience, and instead seemed to be more suited for HR roles. Why?

Is Firefox a significantly more complex project than the Linux kernel that this sort of overhead is necessary?

Where can Firefox generate money to fund it's development?

That's a big question for Mozilla. Because they rely on click revenue for having Google as a default search engine

Enterprises put millions of dollars into Linux because it has utility for them.

Almost nobody is doing the same for Mozilla.

Also just because someone isn't a programmer doesn't mean they are useless.

Many non-profits and NGOs have huge budgets for executive compensation and perks, while they expect the people at the bottom to work for peanuts (e.g. university admins vs. lecturers).

Not saying Mozilla does this, but if your observation about their executive overhead is correct, they would not be unique among non-profits.

Mozilla is not just Firefox.

Also, the comparison to the Linux kernel is not a good one because there isn't a single organization that makes the kernel. These roles exist, they just are in spread out among the companies contributing to and selling Linux, and organizations like the Linux Foundation (which also doesn't just do kernel things).

Why should executives have programming experience?

Mozilla just has too much money and they just can't be conservative. If all they do is build a browser and get a few docs up, which should be their core activity, they don't need $500m a year.

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