
Celebrating 10 Years of Firefox - openjck
https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/11/10/celebrating-10-years-of-firefox-2/
======
bad_user
My love for Chrome ended and I switched back to Firefox about 3 months ago.
The switch went well and I'm happy with my choice. Reasons:

1\. First version of Chrome for the desktop supported extensions, because it
was competing with a popular Firefox, and now on Android they don't give a
shit about enabling users to customize the behavior of their browser, which
pisses me off.

So I switched to Firefox on my Android because it allows me to use these
plugins ... AdBlock Plus, HTTPS Everywhere + LastPass. Plus it has a handy
Reader Mode, that's like Readability built into my Firefox. And I find the UI
nicer on my 7-inch tablet. This naturally led to a decision to switch to
Firefox on the desktop too, because Sync.

2\. In Firefox on my desktop I like having Tab Groups + the Awesome Bar (which
does a good job of doing full text searches in my history, much better than
what other browsers are capable of) + a really cool tweak to the Australis
theme called "The Fox, Only Better" which is awesome and will make it much
harder for me to switch browsers again.

I also love it when Mozilla develops something, then everybody benefits, like
Asm.js or PDF.js. Try using Chromium instead of Chrome, it's not the same
experience.

3\. I've been all hooked into Google's stuff, I even pay for a Google Apps
account and everything, but I noticed that Google hasn't been aligned with my
interests.

For example they killed Google Reader to promote Google+, they showed no
interest in fixing Gmail's broken IMAP support, they showed no interest in
fixing Google Calendar's broken CalDAV support, they discontinued the Exchange
support from Gmail, they discontinued the XMPP support from Google Hangouts,
they announced no interest in providing alternatives that I know of, certain
features in their online products only work in Chrome. It seems to me that
Google is only interested in standards as long as they are the underdog.

I also moved to Dropbox as my cloud storage, because Google Drive still does
not have a Linux client. I mean, Google out of all companies should think that
Linux support also means headless servers (like home servers or other
appliances), so providing Linux support should be obvious. But no, 2 years
later, the OS X client is still shitty and still no Linux support. I have to
trust my data to a third-party if I want that, or suffer one of the shitty
open-source alternatives and risk my data.

So there you have it - Firefox is a great browser and it also tries to make me
happy. And yes, I would also like the one-process per tab model, but they are
actively working on it.

Happy Birthday Firefox.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Your memory of desktop Chrome doesn't match mine. Chrome added extensions more
than a year after launch. [http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/12/google-chrome-
for-holiday...](http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/12/google-chrome-for-holidays-
mac-linux.html?m=1)

Its extension model remains superior to Firefox's, and I hope Mozilla fixes
this. I shouldn't need Python and an SDK installed to develop a JavaScript
browser extension. [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-
ons/SDK/Tutorials/In...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-
ons/SDK/Tutorials/Installation)

~~~
mnarayan01
> I shouldn't need Python and an SDK installed to develop a JavaScript browser
> extension.

You don't. The only things you need are a text editor and a zip utility (and
I'm not sure about the last; it's certainly not needed if you're not
distributing the extension). You only need the SDK if you want to use the Add-
on SDK.

~~~
lern_too_spel
Then it's a problem with the documentation
([https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2014/06/05/how-to-develop-
fi...](https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2014/06/05/how-to-develop-firefox-
extension/)), which is a little easier to fix.

------
bstar77
It seems the standards-based browser du jour is moving back in Mozilla's favor
lately. I can say, for the first time in ages, that FF is very fast, very
stable and very secure. Chrome, on the other hand, has been less stable, less
fast and less secure.

~~~
lern_too_spel
I have the same feeling on everything except security, but electrolysis should
help with that.
[http://m.slashdot.org/story/199459](http://m.slashdot.org/story/199459)

~~~
bad_user
Firefox needs a better security model for add-ons. The thing that bothers me
in Firefox is the Private Mode (Incognito in Chrome), as it doesn't disable
add-ons. And I use private mode quite often.

Mozilla has been relying on a more strict review process for whatever gets
published on addons.mozilla.org (when compared to Google), with Firefox users
experiencing less instances of add-ons turning to mallware/spyware, but I'd
like both this review process and a better security model for these add-ons.

~~~
Excavator
You could set up a separate profile for that¹. You can also use the Profilist²
extension in your main profile for easy switching and creation.

1: [https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profile-manager-create-and-
re...](https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profile-manager-create-and-remove-
firefox-profiles)

2:
[https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/profilist/](https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/profilist/)

~~~
bad_user
Hey, thanks for the tip on Profilist. Neat stuff, wonder why it isn't included
by default.

~~~
rhelmer
Profile manager UI is still around and used to be easier to get to (there's a
command-line option for it now), but it was too easy to accidentally remove
profiles and also confusing for people who got into it accidentally.

Profilist is relatively new and doesn't allow profile deletion, but to me
still seems like the kind of feature that's great as an add-on but not used by
so many people and confusing to less power-users.

------
jordigh
This anniversary makes me feel like I should do something nice for Firefox.
Then I realised that I've been working on their DVCS of choice, Mercurial.
Well, Firefox, you've served me very well over the years. I hope I can make
Mercurial better for you in return. Thanks!

~~~
nnethercote
I know git gets all the love and attention, but I think Mercurial is great.
Thank you for your contributions.

------
jvehent
I was a Mozilla Suite user 12 years ago. Then became a passionate Firefox user
and supporter of the Open Web. Happy Birthday Firefox! Looking forward to 10
more years!

------
dbarlett
Did anyone else donate to appear in the New York Times ad?

[https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2004/12/mozilla-foundation-
pl...](https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2004/12/mozilla-foundation-places-two-
page-advocacy-ad-in-the-new-york-times/)

~~~
netrus
I still have my copy of the German FAZ ad.
[http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/7/7c/Firefox_faz_an...](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/de/7/7c/Firefox_faz_anzeige.pdf)

------
AdmiralAsshat
I've been a Firefox user since it launched. It's still my browser of choice on
my personal Windows laptop and on all of my Android devices--I admire
Mozilla's willingness to not let the OS vendor hold a monopoly on the browser
software, now as much as they did a decade ago with Microsoft.

Then again, my primary music player on my laptop is still Winamp, so make of
that what you will.

~~~
StuffMaster
Switch to Foobar so you can be whole.

------
nagarjun
I can't believe it's so old! I still remember using the first version of
Firefox. Wrote a small story about my first encounter with it here:
[http://nagarjun.co/post/102328175145/firefox-is-10-years-
old](http://nagarjun.co/post/102328175145/firefox-is-10-years-old).

------
themoonbus
Congrats. Although I no longer use it as my everyday browser, it made a big
difference for me in the early days of OS X.

------
eyeareque
I just got back from visiting a friend the Mozilla office. Thanks for creating
an amazing web browser that opened a new dawn away from the shackles we were
once stuck with.

Also, thanks for the cake today:)

------
KyleSanderson
DuckDuckGo is not a pre-installed search engine in at-least Nightly.

~~~
JohnTHaller
It just rolled out in the stable 33.1 release today. It will hit the other
channels (Beta, Aurora/Developer, Nightly) shortly.

~~~
dragonwriter
I get that this isn't a code change and so this probably isn't _critical_ ,
but, still, isn't that exactly backwards?

~~~
mbrubeck
Yup. To time the release with the tenth anniversary, it had to go around some
of the normal release engineering and localization processes.

------
blutgens
FF is awesome, if i wasn't an android guy, I'd be using it exclusively. But
chrome <-> android Just Works™

~~~
jvehent
In my opinion, Firefox for android is vastly superior to chrome.

~~~
wldcordeiro
I really love it, the only think that bothers me is the annoying UA sniffing
so many sites do that only check for Chrome/Webkit to display mobile.

~~~
pwnna
you can fake your UA with an addon on mobile. Works for me most of the time.

~~~
wldcordeiro
I use that addon as well but I don't think that I should need to. It'd be
better if sites used feature detection rather than UA sniffing.

~~~
staktrace
You can help fix that! Report websites at
[https://webcompat.com/](https://webcompat.com/)

------
Eric_WVGG
“10 years ago we built Firefox ----to-give-you-a-choice--- because we realized
how horribly we had botched Netscape Navigator.” _fixed_

~~~
Eric_WVGG
Why was this comment downvoted? This is exactly why Phoenix — I mean Firebird
— I mean Firefox — was started, because the Netscape Suite was a fiasco, but
the underlying Gecko rendering engine was worth salvaging.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox#History](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firefox#History)

