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Comment by encody | Hacker News Reader

It's small, but here's a real actionable item that you can do to help:

Put a gentle "Use Firefox" (or any other non-Chromium-based browser) message on your website. It doesn't have to be in-your-face, just something small.

I've taken my own advice and added it to my own website: https://geeklaunch.io/

(It only appears on Chromium-based browsers.)

We can slowly turn the tide, little by little.

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For people who want to put something like this, here is the code snippet:

  <span id='browser' class='hidden'>
    This website is designed for <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer" href="https://firefox.com/">Firefox</a>, a web browser that respects your privacy.
  </span>

  <script>
    if (window.chrome) {
      document.getElementById('browser').className = '';
    }
  </script>

Class .hidden must hide the element somehow, in this case I do:

  .hidden { display: none; }

Thanks for the code! I would slightly change the phrasing. "This website is designed for X" is traditionally, in my opinion, a user-hostile statement which indicates the user has to do something to accommodate the website. "We recommend you use Firefox, a web browser that respects your privacy" or something doesn't have this vibe IMO.

I would make a few changes:

1. Instead of using CSS to hide it by default, make the script to only add it (perhaps by document.write, or alternatively by adding text to an empty <div> or <span>) if Chrome is detected. (This way it will be compatible even if CSS is disabled (or not implemented).)

2. Instead of Firefox, mention something else such as Line Mode Browser (it has some features I had not seen in other web browsers, but which I think are good and would like to have), or some other uncommon one which doesn't have Google and Mozilla etc, or more than one.

I like this idea, but has Mozilla said anything about their position in all of this? I'm a Firefox user, but I haven't felt great about Mozilla in quite a while. I'd love to know they are on the right side of this issue before I start promoting them like this.

Mozilla posted its position on Google’s Web Environment Integrity API here:

Mozilla opposes this proposal because it contradicts our principles and vision for the Web. Any browser, server, or publisher that implements common standards is automatically part of the Web. ... Mechanisms that attempt to restrict these choices are harmful to the openness of the Web ecosystem and are not good for users.

The full response is here:

https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/852#is...

Thank you!

This advice has strong 1998 vibes.

to be fair, WEI has strong 1984 vibes

I don't think seeing something like "Works best on Chrome" is rare. Also blocking websites at all for other browsers than Chrome.

Yes, put it right near the "Under Construction" gif.

That's high praise.

It makes up for all of the "your browser is outdated" banners I see when using Firefox.

I don't think most people know the difference between Chrome or Firefox and if they can still use websites they use with that change, they just won't bother.

Even if you explain what is the difference, 99% they'll forget the next day.

It's just pointless. With this kind of overreach, only government intervention and regulation can help. Google is not something you can go against with your proverbial wallet - they are too big.

As Gandhi said, "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it."

Historically, many people making "insignificant" actions over time is the primary way that things have been improved.

Microsoft was the same, and still they were humbled into opening the space for others (with the browser-choosing screen at first boot). If people are noisy enough, lawmakers can be distracted from their payola.

That was in 2001. It wouldn't happen today - see Apple and their walled garden.

Antitrust authorities in both US and EU are literally fighting these monopolies right now, with huge fines and increasingly vicious inquiries. Don't be defeatist.

These "fines" are just cost of doing business. It makes no difference.

We need deep changes in the regulation and breaking up of those companies that are "too big to fail" and have too much power.

> It only appears on Chromium-based browsers.

Small anecdote: I am not sure how you're detecting the browser, but this note still appears in Orion (webkit-based browser) while it does not in Safari. Persists even when I change user agent explicitly to Firefox or Safari.

I check for the existence of `window.chrome`. I've never heard of Orion browser before, but based on a brief glance at their website, my guess is that because they allow running of Chrome extensions, they are also replicating at least some functionality provided by Chromium-based browsers, including `window.chrome`.

Thanks for pointing this out, but I won't fix this.

Why not?

Good suggestion, did that, thank you.

i find this comment a bit funny given that you use googletagmanager on your website :)

Sorry, comes default with Hugo (sort of). Set it up when I was playing around with the website configuration and never bothered to remove it. I don't use the analytics, so I will delete. Thanks for pointing out.

note to self: hn is a great place to debug & review your site

The issue with that is that most people here will only have their own website or product, which is already aimed at more tech-savvy people, who will already have made a conscious decision to use Firefox, Chrome, or whichever browser they prefer.

But we / this site only represents a small percentage. 85% market share means there are hundreds of millions, if not billions of users that would have to switch to make any kind of impact.

And you can't do that without being a very large company with an operating system or the most popular search engine or other ways to constantly tell people to use your browser, no matter how good or privacy conscious or whatever your own is.

"We" already waged a grassroot browser-war campaign in the late '90s-early '00s, when Mozilla was born and eventually birthed Firefox. It was successful enough to seriously dent the Microsoft monopoly, creating the political conditions for antitrust authorities to deliver significant hits to their power.

It can be done again. Just drop the fucking Chromium bullshit now.

While I don’t want to be defeatist the web was smaller then, we had a common enemy in Microsoft that actively made the web worse.

Google makes it better for ordinary people. Or at least gives them that impression due to sites targeting chrome.

Firefox was an easy sell because it was just better for the user and importantly the dev tools were a quantum leap ahead.

The web was largely still made up of enthusiasts, very few people doom scrolled all day via apps like they do now.

Any fight back that isn’t mobile first is doomed.

And mobile first takes resources and taking on Apple and Google at once.

> While I don’t want to be defeatist the web was smaller then

Yeah, but that also means that fines can be much bigger now, and make bigger headlines - which is what politics is about.

> Any fight back that isn’t mobile first is doomed.

This is actually a prime chance to highlight that mobile needs serious antitrust work.

Firefox on mobile exists, btw. Are you using it?

Most web developers don't use Firefox. Changing that would be a huge step. Many things are developed for Chrome first by inertia at this point.

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