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Comment by EspressoGPT | Hacker News Reader

I develop, test, and debug on browsers that my users are using, and that ain't Firefox.

Browsers are so similar these days, web standards are so well defined, I see little reason to code Chrome-only sites.

Having been through the IEs of the 90s/00s, I feel proud that we managed to scape what seemed an irreversible fate and a sense of responsibility to do whatever I can to help prevent it from happening again.

Try to use WebUSB or WebGPU on Firefox.

I’m not sure about WebGPU, but WebUSB was pushed through by Google without any regard at all for Mozilla’s and Apple’s concerns, so it’s not too surprising it’s a Chrome exclusive.

So it isn't as well defined as the parent was making it.

Thanks to Chrome worshipping, there is no Web anymore, Apple is the only wall preventing Web developers to replace Web with ChromeOS on their CV.

That is not true, two harmful environments does not make either one a saviour, they are simply making web development worse.

Sorry to break it to you, without Apple, Google would have won already.

Doesn't matter how good or evil they happen to be.

No one cares about Firefox, apparently not even the large majority of HN folks.

Even if the enemy of my enemy is my friend, it doesn't need to be my best friend.

Apple is as bad for the web as Google. They refuse to allow other engines on their mobile, money-making OS.

You have completely missed the point they’re making to you: that refusal, however bad, is the only reason Chrome is not overwhelmingly dominant.

I know that, but this is often spun as a positive for Apple and it's not: it's an accidental side-effect of their own anti-competitive stance. If anything, it works as a fig leaf to Google's monopoly. Apple should stop their stupid policy, open their platform, and instead make it plain to antitrust authorities that Google needs reigning in.

WebGPU is fairly recent and WebUSB is in the category of “why would I ever want my browser to access USB”, for me.

Both aren't supported by FF, and I can remember of other examples, that for all practical purposes make Chrome the new IE.

IE had 95% market share at some point and was closed source.

Chrome is open source and on mobile in the US is close to 50%.

There are similarities, but it’s far from the same situation.

Foolish dreamers anyone that thinks Chrome being open source makes a difference in Google's Web domination masterplan.

US is one country among 195, and the other 50%, which are mostly from Safari, are one of the reasons why the Web isn't yet fully assimilated as ChromeOS.

It’s foolish to think it doesn’t. Blink was a fork of WebKit. There’s nothing stopping someone from forking it either. Certainly a lot easier than reverse engineering IE bug for bug.

The US is the largest economy in the planet and home to most tech companies and all browser engine makers. Calling it “one country among 195” is dodging the issue.

That’s not to say that Google isn’t on a quest to conquer the Web and that Chrome isn’t incredibly popular. It’s just that comparing it to IE is a bridge too far.

Sure, keep thinking that way, we all know how Brave is going to take over.

Lovely contribution to the conversation. Thanks.

> why would I ever want my browser to access USB

With ESPHome[1] I could edit, compile and up upload firmware to my ESP device directly in my browser without installing any tools.

I had planned on using VSCode, but I got some extension conflicts due to some other extension (Platform.io IIRC).

I had the similar reaction when first reading about WebUSB as you, but after seeing how smooth it was, I admit I thought it was pretty darn neat. It drastically lowers the barrier of entry for those who aren't that technical.

[1]: https://esphome.io/

Are you comfortable handing Google the power to dictate the future of the Internet?

It's the customers handing power to google, not the devs.

It’s both, however, developers have a disproportional amount of power to tip the balance.

Yep. The only reason why Firefox, Safari, and eventually Chrome were able topple IE is because devs started writing predominantly for those browsers. Without that push IE would’ve lived on, because users don’t switch that kind of thing unless they really have to.

Devs often also have disproportionate sway over the technical choices of friends and family, which is where Firefox got much of its footing earlier on.

That’s because Firefox was better then IE. It felt better to use. It was faster.

Firefox has no compelling reason to exist for the average user unless privacy is a really high priority for you.

That's not really how I remember it. I remember everyone switching to Mozilla and Firefox because they had great features around bookmarks, themes, and extensions. Then I remember everyone switching to Chrome because it was so fast to launch.

Meanwhile, devs were still targeting IE because it was where the users were. It was totally preferable to develop for Chrome or Firefox, but I recall spending countless hours still getting that stuff to IE, because that's what customers were using.

Sure, developers helped speed along adoption, but I think the new browsers ultimately succeeded because they're better products for the customer.

Firefox was a better product because it was faster, had tabs, etc and it generally rendered pages as expected.

That, in a large part, was on web developers, making sure the user who took the leap had a good time on arrival.

We can see a common sentiment by developers on this thread that they mostly test on Chrome, because that's where users are. I don't think it's likely many developers put in the effort for making the experience of using Firefox better when Firefox had such few users.

It's both, as in a vicious circle.

Sometimes "customers" don't really hold that much power. For example, I have to use my YubiKey with AzureAD at work. This is broken on Firefox on Linux, but works on Chrome. I can't just not log on to my work email and such. I would have chosen something else than AzureAD, but here we are.

I hate having to use multiple browsers, but I still want to support Firefox and only use chrome whenever I depend on AzureAD and make it a point to complain about it. What good did that do? MS sure doesn't care about it. "Just use windows". Right.

I'd argue many "customers" could possibly be convinced to drop Chrome in favor of Firefox, I don't think they care as much as HN posters do about this subject. They just want a thing that works. But if half the sites don't work, for whatever reason, they won't be wrangling two browsers like me. They'll just use Chrome and call it a day.

So whose fault is it that sites don't support Firefox? 90% of my colleagues couldn't code to save their lives (it's not their job, granted). And the other 10% will just go for what's quicker / easiest to implement. "Everyone uses chrome? Testing on chrome, it is.".

Depends, many devs are too keen in using only Chrome and shipping desktop applications packaged in a Chrome shell, because "writing portable code is soooo hard.".

Many of whom only care about Safari, because contrary to Firefox, Apple gets to say Chrome doesn't own their platforms.

The Firefox foundation is the one who ceded power through poor decisions. Devs don't get to decide what users browse on. All users use chrome today and that's it.

Firefox had no choice in the matter of Chrome's dominance. Google controls the biggest web properties and has the most money to spend advertising and bundling it. Anti-trust has had no teeth in decades. The web was theirs for the taking.

Of course, Firefox users may just skip your sites because they don't work in FF...

All none of them? All none users?

Developing in Chrome doesn’t mean the end result doesn’t work in Firefox. Web standards are there for a reason. I develop in Chrome (by develop I mean the full interactive development cycle) but also check in Firefox and Safari once in a while. This post is explicitly about why people use Chrome’s devtools, so you’re just attacking a strawman.

Perhaps you should read the comment I'm replying to?

Editing to not extend the thread: the comment says they do NOT test on anything than Chrome. You maybe do that, the top comment author doesn't.

I read it, and it’s exactly what I do — develop, test and debug in Chrome. Then I check the site isn’t broken in Firefox and Safari once in a while. It basically never is.

Would you mind spelling the difference a bit more clearly? The comment chain has another comment that the browsers developers actually develop for a specific browser (usually Chrome because larger userbase), and this choice developers make influences which browsers users like to use because websites supposedly work better on that browser. So there seems to be variation in implementing the standards you refer to.

I don't know much about browser diversity (Chrome and Firefox give near-identical experiences to me as a user), so I personally don't feel that the argument developers significantly influence users holds much water (of course facts don't care about my feelings which may be wrong). I think the only time I noticed a significant difference as a user was when Firefox didn't implement a certain download API allowing for large downloads like Chrome, and I only encountered that difference in using Mega (the upload service).

caniuse and MDN compat data is really good these days, so you usually don't even need to crack open Firefox to be able to decide whether a JS API or a CSS feature is portable. For instance, in the Mega case, I assume they use the FileSystem API (since they have to download a large encrypted blob to a staging area first), and it's very easy to check availability of that API on all major browsers. As long as you don't chase the latest standards or WICG proposals, your code is likely going to work across all major browsers.[1] As I said in another comment, I occasionally check whether my sites work in Firefox and Safari, and they're just fine almost all of the time.

It seems to me that some diehard Firefox fans assume that just because some sites don't work on Firefox, all developers have to dedicate special attention to Firefox or their sites will be broken. That's very far from truth.

[1] More care is needed for mobile Safari, which often imposes additional non-obvious constraints, but that's a separate topic.

Thank you for the thorough answer! Learned something new today.

Even if they didn't work, which they do, that would be a neglectible amount of users.

This is the correct answer. You look at your stats and put your time where it is needed.

I like Firefox but it just not popular. And getting a few more devs to use it will not help.

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