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Comment by PaulCarrack | Hacker News Reader

> We need to start the long process of hard forking now or turn to alternatives like Firefox as a new foundation.

oh yes sure. just like we can shift the population into installing Debian into their machines so we also deter M$ and Apple abuse /s

It's so much easier to switch browsers than platform/OS. Unless you have an iPhone or iPad.

We did it before. Thanks to Firefox we broke the IE6 monopoly even on Windows.

How did that happen, anyway? Tabs? What's the next killer feature after tabs? Maybe sync?

Haven't all the major browsers had sync for ages? I've been using Firefox's built-in sync for so long I don't even remember what it was like without it.

Adblock, I would have thought. And Google can't compete in this space, by their very nature.

This is the message that Firefox needs to push: Hate ads? Use Firefox.

Considering that Firefox by itself doesn't block anything without extensions, that seemingly less than 10% of users use extensions and that tgere5are already quite a few snappier browsers that block ads by default...

Ooh, I think you're right. Even better if it can bypass more annoyances, cookie popups, captchas and (if legal) paywalls. Maybe it should have Libredirect built in. It could be a user agent, instead of a site owner agent.

You act like it hasn't been done before.

Also, switching browsers is trivial. I do it on my parents' machines and they don't notice

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