Should we start pushing harder for people to use Firefox?
Mozilla is also to blame for this. They seem to have turned into a corrupt company, promoting censorship [1], laying off development staff [2] while the CEO receiving millions in salary [3].
[1] https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
[2] https://www.theverge.com/2020/8/11/21363424/mozilla-layoffs-...
What is usually done by many elites is now being tried by one against Twitter board of directors.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope....
Firefox can barely keep up. Without some Herculean effort, no one will be able to write a new web browser from scratch.
I've recently found out that Firefox/Chrome treats viewport sizes differently when zooming in/out. Which one is correct behavior? I have no idea nor am I interested in digging through pages of RFCs so I just ended up doing a user-agent check and use logic per browser.
Unfortunately the differences between Firefox and Chrome are nowhere near as great as the differences between Firefox and IE were. At the same time there isn't another non-Chromium based browser that fits the bill either, especially with MS throwing in the towel and Apple not caring about other OS's.
Edit: the reason I use Brave over firefox is largely because firefox drained my battery and always turned on the fans on my macbook last time I tried it. Things might be better now but I've settled in on Brave and am happy with it.
Mozilla doesn't care about your privacy or security.
Referral link controversy is easy to find and relevant to the conversation:
“Brave browser CEO apologizes for automatically adding affiliate links to cryptocurrency URLs”
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/8/21283769/brave-browser-aff...
at least google improves chrome year after year
Google chrome itself does not
Chrome is made by whom I consider a privacy rapist, so I refuse to use that. As for any Chromium derivatives - well, given its origins, I consider them tainted, so no-go as well on those.
That leaves only Firefox, which to me is quite capable and fast, and I really have no issues using it.
I do think governments should look closely at Chrome's monopoly, since it's Google's (or Alphabet, or whatever name-du-jour) power play in vertical integration/takeover for its own advantage, and way to crush competition.
A nearly perfect browser for me with only a few downsides.
- Not available on windows or Linux yet
- No open tabs sync across apple devices (yet, planned)
- Doesn’t support all extensions (yet, also planned)
They (Microsoft and Google) both got to this point fair and square by providing ease of use and quality of life to the consumer.
Monopolies happening due to competence, great execution or even luck are not a problem.
People should be not alarmed by corporate monopolies as long as Federal govt. retains monopoly of B2 bombers (and violence in general) the latter always retains the capability to disrupt a corporate monopoly.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor....
Netscape wanted to make money selling the browser, time has proved they were way wrong in their calculus as consumers are not willing to pay for a browser.
Hence it comes with the OS to give to the consumer the capability to go on the internet as soon as they turn on their computer for the first time.
Time also proved that browsers are not where the money is, search and social media is. Netscape missed search and made Microsoft miss search too due to he DOJ lawsuit, but it's a poor consolation given where Microsoft is today and where Netscape is today.
So Netscape was completely delusional, they went to cry to the feds, Microsoft got distracted defending themselves from the aforementioned feds and Google and Facebook benefited the dispute.
For example, it is not legal to use dominance in one thing as leverage to achieve dominance in another thing.
Microsoft used their monopoly (> 70% market share) in OS to go for a monopoly in many other things, includind web browser.
We are still living with the aftremath of this today, as the software ecosystem is much more constrained than it aught to be.
Back then, the FTC actually did things about monopolists breaking the law, so they set MS back on their heels.
And MS employed many anti-competitive practices to beat the competition. Things like buying their way onto the boards of banks, which happened to hold loans for their competitors. And then calling the notes or cancelling lines of credit.
A monopoly in a market where the price of the product is zero /s .
It's incredible to me that people still think Netscape was wronged even though the market has shown for decades now that consumers are not willing to pay for browsers.
Consumers want to be able to get on the internet as soon as they start their brand new computer.
Microsoft saw that and provided a solution, whereas Netscape went to cry to the feds as opposed to recognize that their business model was flawed and pivot.
If you are stubborn not even the feds can save you, and in fact fast forward Microsoft is a company which makes 50B dollar profit/yr and where is Netscape?
Also we are back to square one with a monopoly in the browser , only now it's Google and not Microsoft. The consumer thinks Chrome is a better browser so it doesn't matter that Edge is pre-installed, they all download Chrome within the first week of buying a new PC.
Google managed to win marketshare on WIndows even though evil Microsoft pre-installed Edge because unlike Netscape they were smart enough to realize what the customer wants (a free and fast browser) instead of going to the feds to cry out of laziness or inability to pivot:
However. There are a lot of people though who are tired of their browser freezing up when they are just trying to read an article. Or tired of ads on pages that are supposed to simply be information. And they associate a lot of that with JavaScript since it drives it.
That is one of the primary groups who might be interested in alternative types of browsers.
Maybe consider reading over the idea.
Apple isn't Google's friend and Mozilla depends on Google, so didn't look like split browser engine camp.