It’s getting hard to use and recommend Firefox
ntietz.com
ntietz.com
(PS: it's she, not he).
Doesn't that mean bleeding edge Fedora, not Firefox?
Edit: I haven't tried for a couple months at least so maybe it's improved lately, but certainly it's failed often enough in the past to make me reluctant to try it. I'll give it another go.
(I also get that this is probably not a Firefox problem at least some of the time, but devs not testing properly or using Chrome-only features. Maybe it's improving now but it certainly feels like Mozilla could do more advocacy here?)
And that’s about to change - thanks EU. Safari is losing its protection, and soon enough the equivalent of “Have you tried turning it off and on again ?” is going to be “Have you tried installing Chrome ?”
I actually think this is going to be one of the keystones in the dam holding back utter domination of the Web by a company that makes its money exploiting your privacy. Hope I’m wrong.
It's IE6 all over again.. so gross, right? but that's real life for you.
Just because Chrome is a bit less terrible than IE6 in terms of user/dev experience (which, to me, is entirely a matter of more sophistication in software development and Internet stuff, and a keen and burning desire to sell ads) doesn't mean we're in a good position. A browser monoculture is good for nobody but Google.
This feels like the exact same bad old days to me, where if you're not using the modern-day IE6, the web is a pain in the ass. That was my takeaway from the article and (as a Firefox user that also reaches for Chrome far too often) one I sympathise with.
Maybe this much ballyhooed trust in mobile Safari as the last bulwark against Chrome ubiquity is just an affectation of the HN set and not even something Apple cares about very much at all. Maybe you’ve all been placing your trust in a champion who’s uninterested in your fight.
As for me, I’m glad that Orion is an alternative if I ever was to switch away from Safari.
Just as Apple and their iPhone/Safari/App Store monopoly are being regulated by governments worldwide.
These giants get to push every society and their citizens and businesses into funnels while wrapped in straight jackets. Once regulation starts to catch up, we'll see open computing, proper competition, untaxed airwaves, mobile and device rights, and healthy market shares again.
Unclear how much damage Google will do before getting slapped, WEI might have made it if Mozilla wasn't in the picture.
That's not to say that there's nothing to be concerned about; engine diversity is valuable all on its own, and Google won't stop attempting to capture the web for as long as it exists and hasn't yet succeeded. This is one of those "patient monster vs eternally vigilant guards" deals where the monster is guaranteed eventual victory unless it is destroyed or victory is rendered impossible.
They are limited in what they can do today because every iPhone uses uses WebKit. e.g. Google _could_ do whatever they want today, but they'd miss out on iPhone uses.
Even assuming that Google is benevolent, it makes less sense for developers to target alternative web browsers if they don't have sufficient market share. Today most businesses support Chrome and WebKit (because they want those iPhone uses). If Chrome is dominant then it becomes self-reinforcing.
The market share for other browsers is minimal, so nobody is going to develop/test for other browsers, so the experience on other browsers becomes worse, so users are forced to use Chrome, so the market share for other browsers drops further.
It would be stupid to keep "protecting" Safari when it's clear to anyone the reason why so many web features were kept back from it were precisely to keep web apps from competing with the sweet sweet 30% store tax.
I'm a Firefox daily user and will continue that until the browser becomes truly unusable, at which point I'll give Ungoogled Chromium another go.
https://appleinsider.com/articles/12/06/28/first_look_google...
Lol, the EU law is there to protect you from a monopoly, not to force one. The mental gymnastics are in the circus territory for this one.
I'm not sure it will backfire, but it's absolutely not mental gymnastics to think it could.
I worked on Linux Chrome and over the course of doing so became pretty disillusioned about this problem in particular. In a very real sense, all a distribution does for software like this is apply patches that are not tested/supported by upstream. In other words, either the distro can ship upstream or it chooses to ship some less-tested variant.
In an ideal world upstream would be able to support all these configurations, but supporting Linux at all is already a tiny fraction of the total userbase and different Linux variants are fractions of that fraction; it's simply not realistic to expect the disproportionate effort required.
still, those incidences are infrequent, especially given Chrome's manifest v3 changes loom large for the future of adblock.
Other than that, I have had no issues at all. In fact, Firefox has Multi-Account Containers which I use to login to isolated instances of AWS, which is a boon. I don't know if Chrome has something similar.
That sounds like a recipe for constant pain. Treat yourself and not do this!
FYI: I have no problems with popos with Firefox (w/ video calls)
I think in the future we will need to fragment again, into applications that do nothing but WebRTC/AV, and applications optimised for forms and js, and still others that strong on aesthetics for people who want CSS to make thing beautiful. The great circle of design more or less demands it because the centre cannot hold.
[0] https://blog.inkyfool.com/2013/11/eierlegende-wollmilchsau-p...
Diversity is key to the resilient web.
I have a different opinion: use Firefox for basically everything. Additionally, have something like Chrome installed for those few crappy websites that don't work in Firefox, and use it only for these (and be very willing to switch away from using such websites as soon as an alternative to them appear). Additionally, be insanely vocal about how much you despise the fact that website X does not work in Firefox.
This is the behaviour of most of the nerds in my echo chamber.
It's crazy, but the web did recover from that horrible corner even though it didn't seem possible. There's no guarantee it will come back again, but it's possible if people keep pushing for it.
I use firefox every day without issue. The article is beyond ridiculous. The motivation here is beyond ridiculous. The author should be afraid for their credibility with this clickbait nonsense, not the free web.
What a pile of utter horseshit.
Using FF on a Mac/Windows with the current release works great and highly recommended to anyone.
The old CEO spent years taking millions of dollars from Google that they pocketed personally with an outrageous pay package. Then Google called them up to testify in the anti-trust suit - which all smart Mozillans knew was the plan all along - keep Mozilla on a leash until needed to fight antitrust.
Once the CEO did their job for Google they quit, it was insane.
Such blatant greed and self interest ruined not only Firefox but the web with it. Baker is a true villain.
The DoJ referenced Mozilla directly multiple times throughout the suit they filed, of course Mozilla was going to end up testifying in the lawsuit. They were not "called up by Google".
And the decline of Firefox was well underway before Baker even became CEO. It was basically inevitable once they were up against the 3 richest tech companies on the planet (Apple Google Microsoft), each with their own platforms under their control and marketing budgets that Mozilla could never hope to match.
It blows my mind that people can look at how Chrome shoved their way into tens of millions of systems by paying off Adobe, Oracle, AVG, Avast and so forth to have their installers dump Chrome on people's systems and make it their default browser using pre-checked checkboxes - or how Google gave themselves free advertising on google.com by targeting Firefox users with exclusive ads - and still conclude that it must have been some kind of conspiracy that involves one of the founders of Mozilla destroying it intentionally from within.
I don't like her pay package either but you have to be delusional to think that had anything to do with Firefox losing marketshare, a trend which started a full decade earlier.