Better than IE, there was no chrome and safari was a joke.
Entreaties and ‘trying to make Fetch (firefox) happen’ won’t work, evidently.
How do we make Firefox obviously better?
I’m core market for Firefox and just use Safari. Better battery life. And it’s just as good for privacy.
At least that’s my impression. Is it wrong?
If I don’t use it there’s very little chance people will change the defaults.
Defaults are powerful.
I don't mean this as a dig or anything but it's literally what they described.
Yes, which is not Firefox with default settings
For the average user there's not really a particularly good reason to jump for a downstream browser unless you are specifically using their main features (tor or VPN). It's easy enough to get 95% of the way there with 30 seconds of config tweaks off stock upstream.
The extreme bent towards privacy and not retaining any identifiable or fingerprint-able behaviors is exactly what its target audience wants, of course. But it leads to a markedly more inconvenient experience than Chrome or default Firefox or Safari.
So, perhaps the real difference isn't so much the browser as it is UBO?
(I Know that BB is basically Chromium with some changes, just like Chrome. And, that Chromium is not Chrome)
Why not make it easer for developers to embed Firefox and let a thousand small, weird browsers bloom? Some will be terrible, but a few might be brilliant.
If they don't do this, I'm holding out hope for Servo.
This is true, though the current dominance of Chrome is evidence that a lot of people will switch. Chrome isn't the default browser on any desktop, after all, and yet a majority of non-technical users have deliberately switched to it...
Hard to complain about a browser that still cares about privacy, but with tighter OS integration.
I use UBO on Chrome and find the above experience comparable.
Worth noting they continue to have a lifetime plan.
Adguard [1] is a decent free option.
I also use a Pi-hole [2] on my network. That blocks ads in apps (not in the browser) like Letterboxd for example.
[0] https://kaylees.site/wipr.html
However, I guess you are talking about MacOS.
Pop culture references aside, `fetch` was also a browser! Sort of. `fetch` was a CLI predecessor to `wget` and `curl`.
> Hmm.
> Using Firefox because it has a particular technological feature is a political choice. That political stance would lead users to turn to other browsers as fast as tech is added or removed.
> I use Firefox for political reasons and for what it stands.
> Which means that when Firefox gets worse I still use it and support what it stands for.
> It's very Stallmanesque and let it be clear I am not saying the choice to favour superior tech over ethic concerns is wrong. It's just a different choice.
> That's what I tell people when talking about Signal and messenger, Chrome and Firefox.
> Also, I don't think Mozilla is a white knight and in my opinion they fucked up some good things over the years (tech or ethic). But the good still largely surpasses the bad.
Let's say Firefox was the open platform it is today but with the exception of, hmmm, tabs ? No tabs. Well, using Chrome because FF has not tabs if fine of course but you are trading convenience for a Google controlled Internet viewer. At some point Microsoft tried the EEE tactics with web browsers (jscript and box models and the whole DHTML hell, etc.) and the argument was the same: "do we want a web that is controlled by MS, a web where MS is the only gateway to how content should be displayed/accessed and where MS totally control the evolution of the tech ?"
do you have metrics for that or it's just a feeling?
> it’s just as good for privacy.
ublock origin isn't available for safari, which greatly increases the probability of safari not being just as good for privacy
[1]: https://help.kagi.com/orion/why-orion/orion-vs-safari.html
[2]: https://help.kagi.com/orion/browser-extensions/ublock-origin...
If Firefox decides to not implement blocking restrictions they will then have the chance to be the only browser people will still be able to normally use the internet with. That's the only chance they have for any kind of resurgence from their currently laughable 3% market share.
Small gimmicks like privacy, battery life, customizability, stability, etc. are frankly what 99.9% of people don't give a half a shit about. They will only make the switch from default once they're genuinely annoyed to the point where they can no longer use Chrome/ium. For Firefox users that moment unfortunately happens every time a government website doesn't work.