I'm sad FF share is declining. I wonder what I can do to counter this trend.
The pitch for Firefox should be easy nowadays. Talk about how it’s privacy-focussed while still being competitive with Chrome in performance and ease of use. A lot of people know that Fa$ebook is evil and gobbling up all their data, but they don’t feel like there’s that much they can practically do. Switching to Firefox and using Containers is something anyone can do easily.
Of course there’s probably bigger things that you could do. But thinking locally (if you’re not already) is absolutely required before you then think globally, IMO.
Firefox 65 keeps crashing on my Linux box. I've tried downgrading to 64 and below. But whatever updates were installed when I installed FF65 also crash FF64 and under.
It was either change OS or let FF go. I've since moved to brave browser, but would happily go back to FF if/when I figure out and troubleshoot the issue.
FWIW I'm on 65.0.1 (64-bit) on Ubuntu 18.04.2 and have had no major issues. I use Firefox exclusively and use my browser heavily all day long.
The ~/.Mozilla/firefox folder contains all your FF profiles, there should just be one profile named something.default. Delete that folder and start FF and it should work.
That folder does contain all your settings so those will be lost (and you can also copy this folder to other computers to copy your entire FF configuration :).
I had serious stability problems on Fedora a few months ago which sounded just like yours - I've since switched to debian for other reasons (with same exact profile data) and things are fine, which made me suspect something in the runtime or build toolchain is different and triggered some subtle bug.
not to blame fedora specifically (and who knows if this was a 'me' problem); but distros do differ slightly esp. w/r/t kernel params/threading/builds etc.
Might be worth trying FF ESR or running in a different distro container to see if this helps (yes, not convenient, but..)
also possibly rebuild your profile (pretty sure I tried this.. but anyhow)
As an example the reload button in the extensions screen does not work (it doesn't seem to open in the context of the current page). As well I needed ages to find out that after opening the uMatrix screen I had to tap the phones back button to get back to the originating page.
A site breaks due to missing Javascript. I open uMatrix in via the Firefox menu. The matrix page is displayed in a new tab. After changing settings I press the refresh button on top of the uMatrix page (that's my workflow on desktop). Only the tooltip is shown (it says "Press shift to bypass browser cache", but the originating site is not reloaded.
If you think it's worth opening a bug report for uMatrix, I'll gladly do so.
It’s possible Chrome is large enough they could be objectively worse and sites just optimize to Chrome or people just end up not caring about alternatives.
Pages should strive to be compatible with all browsers, and self-dealing in the space of compatibility is something that would go against the ethos and mission (IMHO, and I would expect many others).
That said, I expect that we would support a similar campaign, just advocating for Firefox using other points instead of "best viewed" style compatibility.
If Mozilla's mission is a more open and standard compliant web instead of walled gardens that message needs to be conveyed to ordinary users and explained as to why it is better. I am not a copywriter so I do not what that messages should be but I think it should be done.
I personally don't have a read on how much support there would be among well known independent/commnity-aligned services for such a campaign. If there did exist a widespread sentiment of that sort, it'd be great.
1. Tab handling is horrible compared to chrome. Vertical tab plugins are theoretically better, but are broken by the new extension system. If you install the plugins you still get tabs across the top.
2. Handling of native themes. Mozilla started attempting this and failed miserably with obviously no QA. They will match my themes dark background but not match the lighter colored text, making the inputs black on black.
3. Non-native UI's. They can support a cross platform UI framework but not a cross platform browser?
4. Whatever the hell is going on with that hamburger menu, they seem to change it all the time and I can never find my bookmarks.
The spend so much on experiments, rewriting things in rust, switching UI frameworks and barely used experiments like webasm and webgl but won't invest in making their core browser experience better. They're stuck doing things that are fun for developers to work on.
In my old version of Linux I've been using straight Firefox primarily for one-off financial transactions. On the scratch installation of the new version I'm now reminded again of all the intrusive third party screwups. I'm moving my primary browser, with shields like a very paranoid uMatrix, to Chromium to party address the privacy issues, and have about decided to also install Chrome, starting it up just for my financial transactions and then exiting. I think there's a lot lower chance Google will siphon off my account information than one of Mozilla's current or future 3rd party partners, especially as Firefox's declining market share makes it ever more desperate.
But you're right, it does include support for Google search, by default, which is a third party. Not that that'd leak your financial details.
Does this really matter from the user perspective? It's still bullshit.
The Firefox security story has sailed compared to Chrome's, Pocket was independent but bundled in from June 2015 to February 2017, the Mr. Robot stunt, and Cliqz. Through the lens of corporate governance, three strikes and you're out till a long period passes with good governance.
Support for X search doesn't matter in the start up a browser with a single tab to do a financial transaction and then close the browser, which is how I've been using a single installation of Firefox, and will now be using Chrome. That scenario doesn't demand a good session manager, something that Firefox's transition to Quantum has ruined as I say in another comment in this topic.
It still means its goals aligns with Mozilla's, so you have to trust them as much as you have Mozilla. (Though of course, it should have been open sourced by now.)
But really, if three strikes and you're out is your policy, you really shouldn't use Chrome - it has an order of magnitude more strikes, and they are far worse, at that. But to each their own.
Well, you were referring to Cliqz, Pocket and Mr. Robot, which where trust issues, not security issues. Google has at least as many of those.
> I distrust Pocket at least as much as I distrust Mozilla.
That makes sense, because they're the same. You should distrust Google even more.
And when it comes to security, not hazarding my bank accounts and credit cards beyond what's unavoidable in doing business on the net, Google is massively more trustworthy than Mozilla. If for no other reason than Mozilla having entered its corporate endgame.
Firefox is not fit for purpose for any of my use cases, although I've still have a copy of Waterfox that I can move to my new Linux installation with a abandoned but adequate session manager for one use case. Maybe Mozilla will fix those two dozen plus bugs and feature requirements for a good session manager before no one cares anymore and I'll continue using that line of browsers if/when Waterfox becomes unsustainable.
There is absolutely nothing you can say that will make me use a program that doesn't work for me, and Firefox does not work for me except for the most casual of browsing.
So are you saying that Cliqz, Pocket and Mr. Robot led to emptying even one person's bank account?
I don't know why you keep bring up the session manager. If you don't like Firefox's features, fine, go ahead and use another browser and ignore Mozilla's role in protecting the open web. But it has nothing to do with security or whatever.
Yes, but here's the thing: these issues have shown that Firefox is not at all more trustworthy, they just don't have as easy a time getting away with it because they aren't in the lead. I have no reason to trust that they won't be just as bad if they think they can get away with it.
Furthermore, trustworthiness is a spectrum, and Mozilla's issues are still peanuts compared to Google's. It's a valid stance to criticise those issues, but it's flawed reasoning to use those as a reason to jump to Chrome.
The reason I care is because it's not about supporting a piece of software, but about protecting the open web, and therefore civil rights.
> I'm making an argument that Mozilla has violated its users trust in the past and no one should reasonably expect they won't do so again.
And I'm making the argument that you can expect Mozilla to not violate its users' trust anywhere near the extent that Google does, and that you can expect its community to keep it in line to ensure that.
Civil rights? Really?