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Comment by lrem | Hacker News Reader

I work at Google, but use Firefox for all my private things... Except when I run into a page that's broken in Firefox. And except when I need developer tools. And except when I need the browser to translate sites for me. And except when I'm shopping, as Google does a good enough job with payment details. And except Google properties, because who knows what weird HTTP 3.7 will Chrome use to save some ocean boiling?

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I have developed another strategy. If the site doesnt work in firefox I will just leave. Most of the content is available elsewhere and it is internet way of "voting with my wallet".

That's what I do too. I believe that the more the people who don't tolerate this nonsense (and tell others to do likewise when possible), the quicker we can achieve positive change for everyone. And by "positive change" I mean challengers to Chrome and Google's attitude of bulldozing things (including invading privacy).

That doesn't convey to site owners /why/ you left. You need to tell them. From their perspective they'll just see an even lower percentage of Firefox users and maybe make even less effort to support it.

Might be mean but tying up their support costs with browser compatibility complaints would make it obvious to them.

As an ex-customer why would I care? Do you know how many sites there are on the internet? I'm sure browser support will come up in a meeting at some point if they ever consider increasing sales. I left an online bank because it was too slow on Firefox, and some of the pages didn't render properly. It's trivial moving between banks (you get a cash reward in some cases). I don't want the bad sites fixed; our interests aren't aligned in any way. It would be like trying to tell the manager of a pizza restaurant that you're not going to eat there any more because the service was terrible. I'd leave a bad review on google maps but I don't care if they go bust or whatever. These things all work themselves out in the end, and if they don't, they don't.

The GP comment in this thread specifically calls out doing something as the only way to effect "positive change". It's a little bizarre to respond to someone pointing out that that action won't have the intended effect with "what do I care about changing anything?" It's a valid opinion, but not the conversation anyone on this subthread is having.

Like most internet conversation, I was responding to the person I was responding to, not the person they were responding to. Different people have different opinions, surprisingly.

It's cute that you're pretending like you understood the conversation all along, but you started your comment with "why would I care?", in response to a conversation where two goal-aligned people were discussing tactics for reaching that goal.

Thank you for your help in how to have a conversation online. It's been very useful.

Delighted to have been of service

They should be able to tell from logs and analytics. "Users with a user agent of firefox hit our page but bounce out immediately".

Unrelated but this is why Facebook sucks, you can't meaningfully vote with your wallet if your friends are on Facebook because then you have to stay on Facebook because that's where everything is

(Yes, cue the comments saying "just delete it" or "I deleted mine" but for a lot of people it's not practical and FB knows this and continues to act like complete fucking cunts)

But you can't always do this if you need to use the site for your company (like hangouts for meetings, or other services used like managing expenses).

Exactly, welcome back the good old Internet Explorer days!

Microsoft bad, Google good.

This is a habit that I also picked up over the past couple of years. It has lead to me clicking away a lot of websites, but I'm still equally happy.

Clicking away happens even more so if the site I'm trying to view is "user hostile". Bad readability, banners, popups, those cookie preferences that really don't work, just clicking Yes to hide them works.

That's great that you come out and openly say you're using FF for privacy!

> page that's broken in FF

I don't know any, and have used FF for as long as it exists. Could you give an example (or better yet, tell Mozilla via FF's built-in feedback)?

> developer tools

FF's devtools are far superior to Chrome's IMO for core web tech such as CSS debugging (Chrome is better for JavaScript debugging and profiling, that I'll give you)

> shopping

Y'know, not everybody is ok with Google knowing everything about us, including card details and purchases

> Google properties

That Google pushes GMail and YouTube users to use Chrome and boycots other browsers is hardly an argument (except for an antitrust case).

Similarly I rarely found sites that didn't work in Firefox, Google sites included (given they're tested more than the vast majority of sites I should hope so).

That said I moved to Vivaldi since most of the useful addons I had became incompatible with FF post-Quantum (nor, last I checked, is there any longer a way to save webpages as MHTML which I use frequently and exclusively to save web page content). Though I sorely miss the ability to disable DirectWrite in Blink browsers, which allowed MacType to affect the font rendering for far better text legibility.

Where have I said it's for privacy? Google is actually pretty good for privacy, as seen from the inside. I'm using it for private things at work to not entangle between corp and private and at home for consistency. I also have been using Firefox way longer than Chrome.

I think Google has all these things because they have access to vastly more money and top tier developers than Mozilla.

When you think about it, it's incredible that Firefox is as good as it is (same re Linux.)

But obviously if Google wants to stay better than Firefox, whether it takes a year or a decade, they'll always be able to because they have an absurd amount of resources.

So I wonder, what are Firefox's competitive advantages?

1. Privacy: They can do things like this, blocking trackers, things that benefit the user over the platforms. Because Google can pay lip service to this but at the end of the day their customers are advertisers.

2. What else?

Also, Google has advantages, in that they have synergetic (is that the right way to put it?) products. Like Android and Chrome OS that promote Chrome over the competition.

Can Mozilla compete by adopting a similar approach?

Linux kind of fulfills the role of the OS with Firefox by default, usually. It certainly should, at least.

Of course, Linux suffers from the same lack of resources compared to the competition.

Firefox's killer feature remains what it always has been. It is a user agent that works for you the user not a third party.

Ideology: as a tech person, I don't want the protocols to be defined by a single entity. Many Googlers agree, even if we also know this could result in faster progress.

Less constraints: Firefox does not need to block release of a new feature because an Android API it depends on got blocked by legal due to regulations in Namibia.

Organisational stability: Firefox has a good revenue stream and stable leadership, with pretty constant direction.

Main competency: Firefox is the thing for Mozilla. For Google, Chrome is an insurance policy against Apple.

But how do these things see it succeeding against Chrome, or even regaining significant market share?

I can't see how it could ever happen. No matter what they do they can't beat the developer and monetary resources of Google.

If Google was rich, they would fix their mistakes, but they don't have money for that.

> So I wonder, what are Firefox's competitive advantages?

Acting in the interest of the user.

Chrome has a history of adding or removing features, to align more to Google's business strategy, than to what really matters to the users.

I think the main benefit is that they are closely aligned with user desire and value. Another is that they aren’t trying to run an App Store that makes revenue and profit.

While Chrome is open source, there’s not a true community making decisions. It’s just google doing stuff and releasing code. That is really nice, but not as nice as a community and foundation developing and making decisions based on community desires rather than what fits into Google’s corporate plan.

Google does a lot of stuff that I like and I use many of their services and software. But Google’s direct interests are not my own. Google wants to sell ads. I don’t care about selling ads so everything with them is a trade off between what I want and what I’m willing to pay.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/to-google-tra...

For translation, you can set DuckDuckGo as your default search engine and then type !translate at the beginning (or end) of the URL bar. If you don't want to change your search engine, make a bookmark with the URL "https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=auto... and the keyword "translate". Then you can just type "translate" before the URL and it will send you there.

>a page that's broken in Firefox

I honestly don't think I've seen this in years, and I load thousands of pages weekly. My adblockers break sites sometimes, but not FF. What kind of weird-ass sites are you visiting?

What pages are people running into that are broken in FF? I _never_ encounter this.

I literally just found one without looking. Short gifs don't animate on Android Firefox but work fine on Chrome on the same phone. Actually, I'm having the same problem on desktop Firefox too, again fine in Chrome on the same pc:

https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/czle25/holy_crap_...

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