Practically nobody uses a browser, or any other product, only to "fight monoculture". It may be an honorable goal, but a product needs compelling advantages beyond that.
TreeStyle Tabs is basically my #1 reason why I'm sticking with Firefox.
Tree Style Tabs is, of course, one of the greatest things ever to happen to Firefox. It's on the list immediately after FireBug.
These days, I have been switching over to xmonad (and other simple window managers). Instead of using tabs inside of a browser, I use windows for each page. Next, I have a global key binding (C-o) that brings up windows as I type out tags which I can set with C-j. This way, I don't need tabs anymore, and I don't need impossibly long lists. I can just type the thing I want. C-o mdn, done. C-o google, done. C-o gmail, done. C-o irssi, yep.
I am still trying to figure out if this is better than constantly seeing a list of open tabs.
For browsers, I would need some kind of hierarchy support, though. A bit harder to do in a window manager, but then you'd have it for all kinds of applications. Maybe even combine it with some additional exposed information -- so without support you manager your hierarchy yourself, but if there's an easy way to get a buffer list, the top-level would be from the wm, and the second level from that list.
I would need some kind of display for a browser, though. I'm fine with on-demand buffer lists in editors (and actually turn off sidebars when I use Sublime), but for my browsing habits I'm better off with a list that's always visible.
Firefox's memory usage is a bit less predictable (and can get crazy, especially when you leave badly coded js websites open for days in a row) and there are more situations when you say to yourself "I'm leaking memory, I'd better restart", but Chrome memory usage grows faster when you open more tabs.
Plus, Chrome UI is less suited to many tabs: favicons stop appearing beyond around 30 tabs (for me, it's probably machine-dependent), and the omnibar doesn't give you a way to switch to already open tabs by default.
Plus, Chrome autoupdates aren't exactly optimized for low-end configs.
But even from Chrome's birth, Firefox was already using less memory with lots of tabs.
Firefox uses far less memory per tab, but still chugs down more memory with time. Chrome uses metric shit-tons of memory, but its multi-threading allows individually killing tabs (or just massacring them in bulk if necessary, which it is).
When memory's tight, Firefox seems to bog down as a whole, while Chrome gets boggy on individual pages (and you can kill/reload these as needed).
I find myself using both though I'll fairly routinely go through and kill off Chrome tabs, and periodically restart Firefox, to keep memory management reasonable.
Firefox's tab and state management is far superior to Chrome. Chrome plays better with some advanced sites (notably Google's own webpages, surprise, surprise).
Now I have a 32GB system so it's less of an issue, but Chrome is still seriously a memory hog.
In comparison, I know several people who regularly have more than 500 tabs open in Firefox -- 1200 is the highest number I've heard, though not all of these were loaded at once thanks to Firefox's "Don't load tabs until selected" option.
I'm really curious, why would one do that?
Personally, I find I never need more than ~10 for the task at hand. Also, if I ever DO have more than that open, the titles get too small to read and I start forgetting what I have. I either go flipping through all of them to find one, or I just give up and open a duplicate tab, making the problem worse.
Instead, if I want to look at something later, I usually tag it in Pinboard. Later, I can scroll down through a readable list of things I've recently bookmarked, or if I vaguely remember it, I can search by tags or text to find it.
Given this, I can't see a reason to have so many tabs open. Can you explain why you like to work that way?
Because I can do it without any slowness.
I'm one of the two Opera users.
I've tried using all manner of sites like Pinboard, but none of them work as I like. I want a one-click bookmark button where I don't have to tag anything. Maybe I should finally get around to building the bookmarking app I really want.
Pinboard has several different bookmarklets you can use. One of them is a single-click one that tags the page as "read later".
With some one-click extension.
Reading up on one alternative often leads to multiple links which I can either read one an one, return from, figure out what is the next link, follow that, maybe recurse another level then step back etc. To me this is cumbersome.
Instead of keeping this tree in my head I can just ctrl-click any interesting link, ctrl-tab to the next tab when I'm finished with the current one and continue ctrl-clicking.
Finishing up I can even use the save tab set feature of pinboard to stash it all away under a nice label.
But reading the entry, it is actually rather good reasoning for why Mozilla won't switch to WebKit. I am not sure WebKit-dev really needs more companies telling them what to do. Or fight over what to be done.
While others may disagree, I consider XUL a compelling advantage over the alternatives, because I can modify my browser to my liking, without writing my own browser from scratch.
I am not trying to be conservative, but I like the way Firefox does things. Yes, there are issues, it is hardly perfect (I use Chromium to watch Flash and use Java at home, because I fear Firefox's heavy memory footprint[1]).
And Firefox's desktop share has remained rather stable the past year, along with Chrome's share.[2]
[1] Although, in fairness, I do usually have over 100 tabs open. [2] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/intern...
OP is not arguing people should be using Firefox or other Mozilla products to "fight monoculture". OP is arguing that in order to deliver browsers (and other products) with compelling advantages in a way that advances Mozilla's mission, Mozilla needs to maintain their own rendering engine(s).
I'm talking about stuff like getting rid of the traditional menu bar and status bar, hiding the protocol in the URL input field, support for SPDY, the new tab page, silent updates, the built-in PDF viewer of the upcoming Firefox 19, and forth.
Meanwhile, we've also seen them spinning their wheels with failed me-too initiatives like Firefox for Mobile and Firefox OS, rather than producing any true innovation.
Ever since Firefox 4, all that Mozilla has managed to deliver is the Chrome experience, but in a less-effective manner. It makes perfect sense why people are leaving Firefox for Chrome; they'll get a nearly identical UI in Chrome, but they'll get new features sooner, and with better performance.
What you seem to be completely ignoring is the proposal of a WebAPI standard that allows web applications to access hardware and OS features and how this enables a vendor-neutral app ecosystem that doesn't have to answer to Apple or Google. This is way more important than hiding the protocol in the URL.
Firefox for Desktop, Firefox for Android and Firefox OS are a combination that will soon allow you to have the freedom of the web (aka cross-platform apps that doesn't require permission from your vendor to exist) on all your devices.
This is not only innovation but this is fighting for a web that belongs to the users and not an ecosystem where the user is the product being sold.
Have you ever considered why Firefox for Desktop appears to evolve in a slower pace than Chrome or Safari? Its because of standards. Mozilla works in the open, heck, you can have access to all the steps of production of a Firefox feature and Mozilla strives to make things standard in the W3C or whatever standard organization deals with that feature while Safari and Chrome will often implement things and not care about interoperability. They can do this because they are the spear point of two companies, named Apple and Google that have their own objectives. As companies, they need to differentiate from the competition and thus need to evolve fast. The choice of evolving fast and differentiating alone or working together in cooperation between companies and committees is this gap you see in browser evolution. I'd rather have standard W3C backed WebAPI and Firefox than WebKit features that do not work on Gecko and Trident and whatever engine launches in the future.
Different from you, I see Mozilla as really innovative because fighting for users and a free standard web is an innovation in these days of vendor lock-in and "I have this feature, you don't".
and here's me thinking it was because Firefox and Gecko consist of 20M lines completely unmaintainable, crufty C++!
How many lines is WebKit? And how crufty or maintainable? ;)
How is a me-too ChromevOS clone innovative?
The reason so many non-techies are using Chrome is that Google has a much stronger brand presence than Mozilla and has, at least in the UK, spent a fortune on advertising.
I love both of these browsers for different reasons. Please don't claim they're the same just for the sake of making a point.
could you explain what these changes are and how they're noticeable to the general public?
I'm a developer who's written a Comet webapp you've likely used or at least seen, and I have yet to notice...
Observing the activity on interesting support tickets, I believe that Firefox designers/developers have generally been far more responsive to user requests than have the Chrome designers/developers.
I think those are the two reasons why Firefox is so important: It is a true community project, and it is a browser suitable for power users.
[1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_%28web_browser%29#Lice...
So its not just monoculture. It's also Mozilla's wast ecosystem of customization and the good will it's projects generate.
Look at it this way - Did Chrome made/sponsor PDF reader in JS? Did it sponsor a Flash VM in JS? Did Google Chrome team made tools other than would help all vendors equally? Dart and NaCl are valiant efforts but they help Chrome first and other browsers second.
he didn't imply it was bad, just that no one in this environment is going to switch to or stick with Firefox just to fight monoculture.
Mozilla can only survive if a sizable percentage of end users perceive Firefox as the best browser for them, and this usually means that Firefox needs to provide the best user experience. Personally I think that other browsers currently provide a better user experience, and I see a lot of people around me switching from FF to Chrome. The reason for that is not Webkit , but Firefox's user interface.
In the end only the product matters.