
Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice (2014) - kumaranvpl
http://robert.ocallahan.org/2014/08/choose-firefox-now-or-later-you-wont.html?m=1
======
merricksb
Discussed previously:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579163](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579163)
(102 days ago, 484 points)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8185461](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8185461)
(874 days ago, 389 points)

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8151180](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8151180)
(882 days ago, 175 points)

------
rubyn00bie
Daily Firefox user here. Switched back from Chrome a couple years ago and
haven't looked back.

Just seeing the comments here exasperates me...

So for those who don't know, the Internet is heavily biased towards Chrome.
Simple pages that should render no differently in FF than Chrome are often
broken. This "Chrome is great, screw everything else" attitude is exactly how
we ended up with IE and stagnation in standards/development in the late
90s/early 2000s. The biggest feature of IE was faster rendering and better
performance versus Netscape.

It's seriously an issue that developers/engineers are only targeting Chrome
and I think a large part of that is also due to V8 powering Node.js. I'm not
trying to bash Node here... Developers are so hooked in its (chrome) ecosystem
they don't even realize the bias. I'm beyond excited to see things like Chakra
being able to replace V8 in node because I think it will be a huge boon to
making a more free and open web.

Anymore I've started to protest by refusing to use sites that are flagrantly
broken in FF. I block em in /etc/host and call it a day. What happened to
standards? Why can't I use a browser you don't like?

Also FF for those that haven't used it in a while:

•) it uses less ram than chrome especially with a lot of tabs open

•) is quite performant and getting better

•) has vastly improved its Dev tools... the folks responsible for them are
very receptive to ideas and happy to hear them.

•) multi-process Firefox is MUCH more responsive than its single process
alternative but must be enabled currently (I think). Also make sure your
extensions are compatible with it.

•) personally, I think, the developer edition Firefox I think is much more
attractive than Chrome

I really hope the web doesn't just work in one browser and that things start
to improve. Reading comments here gives me little assurance that will happen
:(

Edit 1: formatting and note about folks making the FF Dev tools.

Edit 2: clarity in final paragraph and added sad face.

~~~
amelius
My personal biggest problem with FF is that it uses too much screen real
estate compared to Chrome. For example, the tabs are really fat, and the
address bar is much thicker, leaving less space for actual content.

Perhaps FF should include a "look-like-chromium" option to win over users
(since chromium is open-source, I guess they will not run into copyright
issues there).

~~~
midgetjones
Personally - and this isn't for everyone - I use vimperator, which allows me
to just hide the url bar and do everything from the keyboard. I end up feeling
the opposite; that the viewport is small whenever I have to test in Chrome.

~~~
duerrp
This... :set gui=none

------
dvko
I recently switched back to Firefox after years of using Chrome. Previously,
the few times I had to fire up Firefox for development purposes it seemed
sluggish to me. Not anymore.

Firefox has been super responsive to me, using less memory than the same
browsing activity would on Chrome & Firefox-only (afaik) add-ons like Self
Destructing Cookies are A+. On Android, Firefox Mobile works just as good or
better than Chrome.

From a developer standpoint, Mozilla's recent work on the Web Extensions API
(which is an almost complete match with Chrome's) is outstanding.

~~~
kirkdouglas
Also Firefox for Android has ad blocking.

~~~
necessity
Probably better to block ads on your cellphone via hostfiles or a custom
nameserver that blocks ads. Try turning your phone on and sniffing its packets
with tcpdump on a notebook (use Wireshark to decrypt if WPA). You'll be
surprised by the amount of servers from ad companies that are contacted before
you even unlock your screen, if you let apps start at boot.

~~~
majewsky
I suppose that requires root access?

~~~
y4mi
hostfile yes, dns no

[pihole]([https://pi-hole.net/](https://pi-hole.net/)) is a project aimed only
at that niche.

~~~
majewsky
I know, I have something like that in my home network. But that doesn't help
when I'm in the office or somewhere else.

------
pyrale
At this point, it's not anymore about customer choice, the problem is
systemic.

Serving Google with the same kind of antitrust Microsoft got would be highly
deserved and beneficial, but unfurtunately google made the political
investments that Microsoft lacked.

Which means we get to hear officials say Google is indeed in a situation
deserving the antitrust, but it's fine "because their products bring value to
customers"...

~~~
Inconel
Genuine question from someone not well versed in this topic but interested in
learning more, can you give me some examples of what Google is doing that is
abusive of their monopoly power, particularly as it relates to Chrome?

I'm aware of some of the issues involving Android licensing/bundling of apps
but not well informed on other aspects.

~~~
kozhevnikov
Yesterday they banned a privacy extension that doesn't fit their business
model and forcefully removed it from users who already had it installed.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13327228](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13327228)

~~~
Inconel
Thanks, I completely missed that thread.

------
abhpan27
People choose firefox over IE because firefox was better. People choose chrome
over firefox and IE because chrome is better. Want to beat google? create
better. Not negativity.

~~~
jonchang
Not sure this is necessarily the case - Google cross-promoted Chrome extremely
heavily across all its web properties, ran massive ad campaigns, and
contractually obligated Android vendors to preinstall and use Chrome as the
default on their handsets. Mozilla, lacking the power or money to do any of
these things, wouldn't be able to compete on these fronts, regardless of who
built the better product.

~~~
Quarrelsome
Firefox was over reliant on plug-ins, gave plug-ins too much power and the
plug-in as well as firefox update mechanisms were messy. Chrome did more out
of the box than firefox reducing the need for plug-ins, sandboxed plug-ins
from destroying general browser performance and most importantly realised that
updating was not a user concern and performed updates silently. There were
also other innovations that Chrome did first that put them ahead of the field
(I particularly remember their genius tab closing behaviour).

_That's_ why they "won" not because of fucking adverts.

~~~
pherq
The flaw with this notion, is that neither Firefox nor Opera beat IE.

Chrome did.

Most of the people who argue things like this seem to agree that Firefox and
Opera were superior browsers to IE. If that was the case, why hadn't they
eaten IE's market share long before Chrome was ever produced?

Could it be that Chrome being widely advertised on the most visited site on
the internet helped?

~~~
pyrale
Stats give FF at 45% market share, before Chrome got heavily advertised and
took over.

Chrome didn't beat IE. Firefox fought an all-out war and was not going
anywhere either. What beat IE is an antitrust lawsuit actually.

~~~
pherq
I've never seen stats placing Firefox much above 30%, where are you getting
45% from?

~~~
pyrale
[http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/](http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/)

~~~
pherq
For reference, most of the surveys listed by Wikipedia[0] (not including that
one, for some reason), list Firefox at about 30% in that period. I assume that
the stats in your link comes from visitors to their own site, which given the
focus (web development) seems like it could easily be biased towards more
technical users (and thus over-represent Firefox compared to wider surveys).

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_web_browsers)

~~~
pyrale
Regardless of the peak value, your data tends to confirm that IE was on its
decline before the introduction of chrome.

It is true, however, that chrome came at about the right time to capture a
large share of its users (as well as a good share of FF users).

------
cyberjunkie
I notice Firefox does not feel as responsive as Chrome is. On my reasonably
powerful system, switching between tabs is slow, even slower when large photos
load. It's holding me back.

I'm typing this from Vivaldi, because I'm constantly looking for a replacement
that feels fast and I can have the few 4-5 extensions I typically use.

~~~
kevingadd
Yeah, this is an unavoidable consequence of their (current) 1-process model
for tabs. They have a system for running tabs in a process separate from the
browser, but they don't currently split tabs out into multiple processes, so
you can get lag on switching tabs.

IIRC they are working on expanding this so that tabs are split across multiple
processes, without using Chrome's resource-hungry Process Per Tab approach.

~~~
dest
More info on multiprocess firefox: Electrolysis
[http://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/22/multi-process-
firefox/](http://www.ghacks.net/2016/07/22/multi-process-firefox/)

------
PeterStuer
As a long term Firefox user, the number of times I have to fire up Chrome
because a site will not display correctly in Firefox grows month by month. :(

~~~
babayega2
I have been using Opera. It behave really like Chrome ( I guess it's based on
Blink). With less memory consumption. VPN included, add blocker included, and
most of all, the best stuff I'd really like to see ported to Chrome:
extensions opening at the left Sidebar of the page. So now I can access Google
Keep, Translation, 2048 ...on the same page while reading HN, or anything.

~~~
blub
Opera is now owned by an untrustworthy "group of investors", which males all
of the above features useless.

------
danso
I personally use Chrome and I teach a class that involves some lessons on
HTTP/web scraping/web app dev and I ask the class to use Chrome. For me, my
bias is towards how much I like Chrome's dev tools, though I haven't used
Firefox's in awhile. The ease of creating multiple browser profiles is great,
too, though I hear FF has the same thing.

I'm not much of a plugin user, but I'll be using Chrome's Secure Shell [0] for
the first time ever and will be advising Windows students to use it over PuTTY
(at first, anyway). It's kind of a lifesaver for me because PuTTY, from my
experience a couple years ago, is a much more stilted experience than OS X
Terminal. I see Firefox has FireSSH [1] and will give that a try, but the high
user base of Chrome's Secure Shell (600K+) gives me a little assurance about
the reliability of the plugin.

[0] [https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-
shell/pnhec...](https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/secure-
shell/pnhechapfaindjhompbnflcldabbghjo?hl=en)

[1] [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/firessh/](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-
US/firefox/addon/firessh/)

~~~
acqq
Can it be said that your bias is purely based on the familiarity?

Yes, Firefox has multiple profiles.

Putting "all your eggs in one basket" in security context is suspicious. For
SSH, Putty is a small program compared to the whole Chrome, security-wise much
easier to evaluate. I don't know how using Chrome for SSH can be rationalized.
Who is behind of that "Secure Shell" plugin ("offered by chrome-secure-shell-
publishers")?

~~~
danso
Definitely, the bias is familiarity, as it usually is. I started my webdev
days when Firebug was big, so FF was my main browser. Then Chrome came, and
besides being a nice browser, its dev tools had the same familiarity of
Firebug's. IIRC, FF's default tools, for some time, were different than
Firebug's and I think I just liked not having to fight with the FF defaults
over time (as I moved between machines frequently).

As for my class, yes, I'm not enthusiastic about shelling from the browser no
matter how many people like it. But the main mitigation is that the class work
we do is based off of my AWS setup: I spin up the EC2 instances and I
manage/distribute the keys. None of the assignments require using their own
personal info. And another reason for teaching them how to use browser
profiles (something I've never seen students have set up) is so that they if
they want to build something with Twitter's API, i can strongly advise for
them to make a fake account and operate it in a different profile, to prevent
accidental Twitter snafus (among other problems).

Why Chrome shell over PuTTY? I remember struggling with things like copy and
paste, to the point where I think it is easier to use the mouse...but I push
students pretty hard on using the mouse as little as possible. Chrome Shell
feels as close to the OSX Terminal with the exception of key handling and the
inability to access or transfer files from your own system.

------
wz1000
I've been using firefox exclusively for the last 5 years, and have been
extremely happy with it. Sadly, I think my time with it is about to come to an
end. With e10s, extensions that have been crucial to my daily needs, namely
vimperator and pentadactyl, won't be compatible any more. I know this isn't
entirely firefox's fault, as no one is willing to invest the significant
amount of effort required to port them. However, from what I hear,
WebExtenstions also simply doesn't offer the API to make these extensions
possible.

I don't know what I'm going to be using, but I'm very interested in
qutebrowser. The dev is active and has shown interest in adding support for
WebExtensions to the browser.

~~~
lcbiazon
It's a shame. What I did is installing VimFX, that is e10s ready, and stick
around using for some weeks, trying to reproduce the same workflow I have for
years with vimperator.

It's a pain at first, but I got used to it and now I don't have to care if
vimperator/pentadactyl will be ported or not.

~~~
wz1000
IIRC, even the architecture VimFX is built on is planned to be obsolete by the
end of the year.

~~~
hvis
Its main developer, however, is looking into implementing the necessary
WebExtensions API:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215061](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215061)

------
g00gler
Why should I use Firefox, or any other browser, from a standard consumer
prospective?

Let me preface this by saying I am open to a new browser, especially one that
is always in "incognito" and doesn't share sessions between tabs/windows. My
favorite is Lynx but that doesn't always work .

Facebook & Messenger for Android is pretty much spyware and they have over 1B
downloads each, so that takes spying out of the discussion.

The last time I checked Chrome performed best (even if it is only marginal) on
all benchmarks.

I know there are lots of serious reasons not to trust Google aside from user
tracking (changing search results for political reasons[1], Eric Schmidt being
a little too friendly w State Dept.[2]) but they make damn fine products.

[1] [http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-think-tank-
launch...](http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/google-think-tank-launches-new-
weapon-fight-against-isis-n682036)

[2] [https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-
seems/](https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/)

~~~
jonchang
> Why should I use Firefox, or any other browser, from a standard consumer
> prospective?

Because your techie friends tell you to. This moved people off of IE6 to
Firefox and this is what initially got people to move to Chrome from Firefox.
Google's muscle on its web properties did the rest. Even you admit that Chrome
is only marginally better on all benchmarks. For me, it's worth it to help
your non-technical friends keep the web a bit more open by making them wait
0.1s (or however much longer) to open Facebook.

~~~
blackoil
People listened to the real benefits in terms of speed, tabs and UX while
moving from IE, not to the rheotric about freedom, OSS etc. Do we have any
such reasons now?

~~~
g00gler
Exactly my point.

------
quiquex
I've recently forced myself to switch back to Firefox after 2 years of Chrome,
but honestly the performances even on high end machines aren't on par with
Chrome, it all feels a bit more sluggish and slower.

And I'm having a lot of issues with html5 video playback especially on prime
video.

I'm hoping that Electrolysis will improve the general performance at least.

------
Insanity
I'm running Chromium instead of Chrome. I like to think of it as Chrome
without the bad parts, even though google has influence in the Chromium
project.

The main reason I would not switch to Firefox is because, at least when I last
tried it, I did not like their dev tools as much.

~~~
autoreleasepool
Are you on a Mac? I used to do this to

~~~
Insanity
No, I'm on Ubuntu.

------
duncanawoods
The killer feature for me is that Google Docs only works offline in Chrome.
Before they congratulate themselves, they have not won a friend by eco-system
lock-in. It may not show in their metrics but discontent makes me open to
alternatives.

------
vegabook
Firefox is my default browser but I have Chrome handy too in case I have to
use Google Docs (things like Copy paste don't work properly in Firefox). I
find that Firefox is maybe 50% slower than Chrome on initial load, but
thereafter, I can't tell the difference. I really cannot see how an extra
second or so of load time for a software product that one uses all day every
day (ie you probably load it only once), represents a material performance
difference. I think Chrome at this point is much more about inertia, and it is
entirely reasonable to argue that we need competition and to request for
people to use Firefox. Moreover I find Mozilla to be quite credible on its
Firefox roadmap; after all, they invented a whole new, advanced, programming
language, just for Firefox, and there's a lot of noise coming out of Mozilla
on its various strategies IMO (including the logo, for example) which suggests
to me that the organization is dynamic and has a strong future. Therefore I'm
supporting Mozilla, and it's essentially costing me nothing, while hopefully
doing a small bit to prevent a dangerous hegemony from forming.

------
fattire
Wish this issue hadn't been closed. Signal for Firefox is a big missing
feature:

[https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-
Desktop/issues/415](https://github.com/WhisperSystems/Signal-
Desktop/issues/415)

~~~
hvidgaard
I don't use Signal for that exact reason. The value in having the unified chat
client on my desktop and phone outweight the potential privacy issues, so I'm
using Telegram.

~~~
fattire
Well there is Signal for Chrome... fwiw

------
sergiotapia
I would but for some reason the UI thread for Firefox stutters every couple of
minutes for a few seconds. No idea why, I'm not using any addons. I keep
trying every 4 months, always the same result on my macbook air and imac.

------
yuvalr1
What is the best way to prevent big companies (like Google, but not only),
that have a de facto monopoly on certain and important parts of the internet,
from applying vendor lock strategies to kill their competitors?

~~~
thr0waway1239
For one thing, when the tech giants act like dicks - which is getting more
frequent nowadays, be sure to complain loudly and gratingly and leave that
record for everyone to see. The big companies have much more organized PR than
the little folks, so best if you don't pull your punches. Companies don't have
feelings, but since software engineers are big suckers for mottos like "Don't
be evil", your complaints may give them pause. (Except FB, where everyone is
clearly already tuned out). That may not prevent the lock-in happening, but it
will improve the odds of recruiting folks who can help with the more positive
strategies.

And with that vent out of the way, here are some positive ideas:

1\. At some point, the giants tend to get too heavy handed for their own good.
Try your best to keep alternatives alive until that point.

2\. If possible, see if you can make the user on-boarding experience of your
favorite OSS software much better. Usually it is easy because the standards
around documentation/user on-boarding are generally pretty poor.

3\. The reason people usually don't do 2 is that there is no incentive. See if
you can figure out a sustainable way to incentivize it. Throwing out a wild
idea: Say a StackOverflow like gamification website for people who create OSS
documentation and fix OSS issues.

And if you are one of the committers, help users' with their problems when you
actually have time to do something about it. FireFox was asleep at the wheel
for quite a while not addressing its real defects. Chrome would have been
another Safari like browser (i.e. dominant, but only within its ecosystem) if
FireFox had actually improved at the rate you would expect from a heavily used
software product.

------
Yetanfou
I've been using Gecko-based browsers for... well, more or less since Gecko
became a viable alternative to its predecessor (whatever the rendering engine
in Netscape Communicator was called). I sometimes use Chromium for sites which
insist on using a webkit/blink-based browser but I never stick around them for
the simple reason that sites look better on Gecko than they do on
Webkit/Blink, mostly due to (in my opinion) better font rendering in Gecko.

Note that I say Gecko, not Firefox. While I currently use Firefox I keep on
switching between it and Seamonkey, what used to be the Mozilla suite. I run
nightly builds for both, when one of the misbehaves I switch to the other
until I get fed up with whatever bothers me in that build and switch back.

Chromium often is a bit quicker, especially in javascript-heavy sites, but it
it a memory hog. It also looks rough around the edges, the user interface is
not as configurable (overly large tabs and fonts in the UI are a constant
annoyance) and it's normal (Linux) builds are more unstable than Firefox and
Seamonkey nightly builds.

Firefox and Seamonkey used to have another advantage over Chromium in that it
was possible (and easy) to run your own sync server. Now that the 'old' sync
engine has been deprecated for good this advantage is gone due to the lack of
a self-hosted 'new' sync engine. This means I have to make-do without a sync
engine as don't see why I would give so much of my data to any company.

~~~
Wubdidu
Huh? I'm still running my own sync server and it was really easy to setup.

[https://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run-
sync-1.5.html](https://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run-sync-1.5.html)

Working fine with Firefox on macOS and Android. You can even setup the
authentication server, but I didn't see why I'd need that. Having the data on
my own server is enough for me.

~~~
Yetanfou
It is still possible to hack 'old' sync accounts into nightly builds but this
will soon disappear as well. The Android version does not support 'old' sync
accounts any more.

~~~
Wubdidu
I'm confused… I assume "'new' sync" means Sync-1.5 in your context, right?
Where is the issue with using Sync-1.5? It works completely fine for me.

------
bkolobara
My company uses Firefox LTS and all internal applications we develop must work
with it.

I use Chrome as my development browser, mostly because of some plugins that
help me with development. From time to time I run into inconsistencies between
them (latest was that Firefox closes desktop notifications after 4 seconds and
you can't change this duration). Googling for this kind of issues takes me
usually to the Firefox issues tracker where I find a bug that's open since 4-5
years and hundreds of comments. Most of the time I find a weird workaround
that someone else recommended in the comments and I go with it, because bug
reports like this are never fixed. I have the same experience with other big
open source projects, like Gnome. It looks to me like the maintainers take
every feature recommendation as an insult and claim that you are "using it
wrong".

So I get demotivated and give up arguing for positive changes as I know that
every comment I post on an issue tracker will be received with a lot of
negativity. I argue where I can make a change,in my company/to my supervisor
to switch to Chrome. And that's the reason Chrome is winning, it's just a
better product. I see this "we need to go to Firefox" posts all the time, but
it's just getting worse and worse (in case of market share). It can only work
if we sit down and make it a superior product. And this can only happen if the
maintainers start being more welcome to suggestions and new developers. I love
Firefox and want to see it take market share back.

------
Santosh83
As Facebook shows, most folks don't mind being locked in, even when they're
aware of it, to varying extents. The reasons are complex, but basically can be
boiled down to easy and seamless use for the "first world" and "cheap" or
"free" for the rest of the world.

So, if Mozilla can make FF as fast and "hip" to use as Chrome AND they can
make it as free (which in this sense means being bundled in everywhere), then
yes, they stand a chance of overtaking Chrome...

------
kmitz
Firefox has a serious performance issue. The difference with Chrome is really
noticeable after only a few minutes of browsing. Less responsive, huge memory
comsumption.

Try d3.js for instance, the rendering speed is horribly slow on Firefox.

I won't be switching to Firefox unless its performances get closer to
Chrome's.

As a developper I wish I could contribute to make a better Firefox, but I'm
pretty sure the technical level is too high for me.

~~~
majewsky
You can contribute to Servo, Mozilla's new rendering engine written in Rust
(which should also fix those performance problems that you mention):
[https://github.com/servo/servo](https://github.com/servo/servo)

Servo is a stand-alone project, but Mozilla will replace some big parts of
Firefox with Servo code:
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum) \- So
most contributions to Servo will end up in Firefox eventually.

------
mfincham
The only thing standing in the way of me returning to Firefox is them having a
comparable rendering process sandbox to Chromium. It's coming, but it's hard
to say how long it'll be before it's as good as Chromium.

More info:
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox)

------
9erdelta
I think every week I try to use something other than Chrome. This week I am
using Brave, and I am very committed to making Brave my daily driver. But
clicking on the "+" to open a new tab is not as responsive as Chrome, and
there are many more small details like that. They aren't that noticeable
immediately after starting to use the browser, but sensitivity to it builds up
over use to the point that it is very annoying. So annoying that Chrome is
working its way back into my work flow. Even more, in the last couple hours
I've had 3 instances where a website didn't work correctly and I had to switch
to Chrome. Extremely frustrating and if the alternative browers can't satisfy
someone actively looking to ditch Chrome, then there's no way it will be
adopted by more than a small fraction of users.

------
eggie
What about chromium browser? Google's tracking features are disabled there.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)#Differe...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_\(web_browser\)#Differences_from_Google_Chrome)

The author might argue that this is weak resistance because it's just adding
fuel to Google's fire. They have co-opted the open source community by
building their tools this way. I prefer this to the nearest alternative, which
is a company that pushes closed software on the world.

IMO, the best alternative is a fully open ecosystem in which the players are
very small relative to the overall size of the markets in which they operate.
Such things don't last long on their own. We need to decide to support them as
a community or they will be overwhelmed.

~~~
Freak_NL
Chromium is a better choice from a privacy standpoint, certainly. It
unfortunately doesn't help prevent the vendor lock-in situation.

The ideal equilibrium for the open web right now would be 33% each for
evergreen Chrome (or other Webkit/Blink browsers), Edge, and Firefox.

Bleeding edge prove-of-concepts aside; developing a website or web application
that works in all modern browsers has never been so developer-friendly with
all the wonderful tools and mature frameworks we have (e.g., Babel), and is
trivial with just HTML and CSS. It's a shame to see a class of developers
emerge that target Chrome exclusively.

~~~
bigbugbag
Wow! your ideal equilibrium is really scary. It leaves no room for a lot of
the existing browsers and features two that I do not want to use ever and one
that I use reluctantly because it lives on google advertisement money. So your
ideal open web is 66% google and 33% microsoft which seems pretty closed up
for something open.

~~~
Freak_NL
A third of the total market share for Chrome, Edge, and Firefox
_respectively_.

------
amq
I would love to use Firefox on Android, but scrolling is just so much worse
than with Chrome, even on flagships.

------
rch
I switched from Mozilla to Opera when the former dropped the 'suite' approach
to focus on Firefox. I was happy with Opera until Tetzchner left, and then
switched to Chrome when Opera moved onto Blink. Now I keep both Chrome and
Firefox open all the time so I can cmd-tab between views.

All it would take for me to prefer one browser over another would be for one
of them to figure out rss, email, and irc. That would put them on par with
browsers from a decade ago.

Maybe Slack could add a web browser?

Of course I wouldn't give up consistent rendering, performance, and modern dev
tools to get an integrated rss reader.

------
bmon
I understand that a lack of competition almost always leaves users/consumers
worse off, but I really find value in a lot of the integrations Chrome
seamlessly provides with other Google products, especially my chromebook.

Is this article asking me to sacrifice these benefits just to oppose the
imminent monopoly? If the only difference between chrome and firefox was the
market share then it might make more sense for me to switch. The problem is
that I don't want to give up the extra benefits of chrome just to be one
additional user for firefox.

------
bigbugbag
The funny thing is that the number one criticism of firefox is that it is
running almost entirely out of google money since its beginning.

There was fear that when chrome overtook firefox that google would not need
firefox anymore, and if it falls below use share of relevance google would
remove their advertising money and firefox would just disappear as mozilla
goes bankrupt. I'm not sure this situation has been fully addressed today but
mozilla has been working on it for some time.

------
tmaly
I have been donating to the Mozilla Foundation for the past 2 years so far.

I appreciate that Firefox is open source and that I feel a little more
comfortable with my privacy using it.

------
sssilver
Once every 6 months, I make an honest attempt to switch to Firefox. I want to
use it. However, at least on macOS, I don't buy the argument that it's
faster/uses less RAM. I usually have a TON of tabs open[1], and Firefox is
horrible at pulling that weight. It's just a slower browser, and I can't
tolerate that.

[1] [http://imgur.com/a/mt2OE](http://imgur.com/a/mt2OE)

~~~
temsa1
Haha, I can't call it ton of tabs.

My usage of tabs is pretty intensive, I guess. I use them like temporary
bookmarks I have to have a look at, and/or to find things very quickly (thanks
to the tab search).

The week before Christmas, before I decided to nuke all my tabs for the
holidays, my work computer's Firefox Nightly was handling more than 500 tabs
(despite regular cleaning). Just even try to get 100 random page tabs in
Chrome, if you can. If you are just able to, I'd say you have a pretty good
amount of RAM.

After a few days back to work, and still careful cleaning, I currently hold 61
tabs on this browser on macos, more than 400 on my own linux laptop, more than
50 on my mobile nightly (and a dozen of addons on it at least, where do I get
that on Chrome ?).

Oh and well Firefox containers are also pretty awesome, I currently use in
this browser 4 browsing context together in just this serie of 30 tabs (I use
a panorama-like addon to have it back to manage more tabs)

I generally avoid apps if I can (not only for some obvious reason, but
moreover because my current cheap motorola android phone only allows to
install new apps if I uninstall other ones, because you know I only have 200MB
free, even if this is a small app...) and I stay on the web version of the
mobile service, currently the "install my app" on every website (often on
every page of it, despite having addons to nuke those banners) is pretty
terrible, and it bothers me quite a lot, enough for me to drop visiting/using
some service apps

I have a weekly hangouts for my work, and google decides it needs a dedicated
plugin for FF, not for Chrome. If I go instead on talky.io for example for the
same call, I actually have a better video experience than hangouts on both
firefox+plugin (which can be sluggish, hello stupid plugin !) and Chrome.

When I do any search on Google ( rarely happens now, partly because of this,
I'm using most of the time duckduckgo ) Google tells me to install Chrome to
have a better experience...

When I open Gmail, it tells me in FF that it needs a plugin for running
hangouts text discussion ( but behaves ok without it). Did google have no
engineer in the last 10 years for needing a plugin for IM ? Seriously ?

When I click on the call button of Slack (the website, not the app, hello
Slack, you cost me 10 time less memory for my 5 Slacks if I'm using FF tabs
instead of your dedicated Chrome based app !!), it tells me "Please switch to
Chrome".

Yes this 2014 post is f _cking right, we 're back to IE6 stage, but know your
true OS (the web) is controlled (not totally, but still a lot) by Google,
whereas Microsoft could never make it with MSN ( I mean before MSN was an IM
service, at the start it was an alternative web owned by Microsoft), so at
some point IE6 was still better than current situation

Oh, BTW, My ZTE open C using latest version of FirefoxOS was f_cking awesome
(despite its bad screen and its worse camera), came from ok to good to awesome
when I decided to updated regularly to the latest version of FirefoxOS.
Performance was so great with this bad hardware I was just baffled(even webgl
games worked pretty well). Some little stalls apart, really understandable
given the hardware, it was almost as good as my 10 time more expensive Samsung
with 10 time more memory, lot better cpu and gpu. This little phone became
awesome only when Mozilla implemented the Webextensions standard in FFOS : you
could easily write OS-wide extensions ( like ad-blocking... yes OS wide
adblocking would have been really easy, but in general it was meaning total
user control over the phone thanks to third party developers).

When they announced they'll stop working on FirefoxOS (for phones at the time)
-- and they had reasons to do it -- I was having at least 40 tabs open to try
finding a better phone I could buy with FFOS, or at least on which I could
deploy FFOS on it with an actually good hardware ( notably a better camera,
better screen and bigger, and some more CPU/ram to see where it could compare
to my android with the same kind of hardware ). I never bought that first
power user phone I dreamt of, and I really think it would have become my main
phone, not a secondary one like my "toy" ZTE open C

------
somecallitblues
I use both browsers a lot. I use Chrome more but I do a lot of testing in FF,
especially when I need to log in as a different user. The only better thing in
FF is the address bar. Google is being an asshole because it doesn't want to
improve the history lookup and instead wants you to go to their site and
search there. That's probably the only reason I'd start using FF again as my
default browser.

------
tkubacki
OK Google is more powerful than ever before but eg. Google docs are not
"winning" \- docs are not forcing you to use blessed OSes (you can use docs
from Firefox) and I'm still more afraid of Windows domination since it's still
desktop where you create real content than Android which is basically dumb
multimedia player and browser.

------
bahularora
Also we should push for usage of
[https://duckduckgo.com](https://duckduckgo.com).

------
tschellenbach
The only effective monetization strategy I've seen for a browser is search. So
Google is in a very strong position to make money on Chrome. The problem that
Firefox has is that there is no real competition for search anymore. That
limits their ability to monetize and their ability to invest in the browser.

~~~
necessity
>Nov 01 2016

>Mozilla Foundation just reported a 28% leap in revenue for 2015, to $421
million, with cash flow more than tripling, to about $80 million.

[http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2016/12/01/mozilla-...](http://www.forbes.com/sites/georgeanders/2016/12/01/mozilla-
with-revenue-up-28-maps-an-ambitious-agenda/#71462f2e3811)

------
EJTH
I would really like to support Mozilla again, but they have had an
unreasonable amount of exploits recently, add to this the fact that support
for my most beloved tools are gone (Firebug & TamperData) I really see no
other point in sticking with FF than a political or ideological agenda.

~~~
nachtigall
In my experience the firefox devtools are much better (more features, better
UX) than Firebug nowadays. I've been using them for one and a half years now
(Firebug before).

Give it a try: [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Tools/Migrating_fro...](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Tools/Migrating_from_Firebug) and [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Tools](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools)

~~~
bigbugbag
In my experience from yesterday in the latest firefox: firebug still works and
firefox devtools are lacking from the start and I go back to firebug after 2
minutes trying to edit live code.

I still miss the old opera dev features that offered way better and advanced
features years ago.

~~~
nachtigall
> trying to edit live code

You mean JS code in the debugger? You may want to raise an issue for this in
the new debugger which seems much faster developement progress:
[https://github.com/devtools-html/debugger.html](https://github.com/devtools-
html/debugger.html)

Or html in Inspector or CSS in the rule view?

------
hlandau
I'd note that Firefox now implements restrictive code signing practices with
regard to extensions; in this regard, Firefox Developer Edition, which makes
this a setting, might be a better choice than normally-branded Firefox builds.

~~~
necessity
Yup. Some distros (e.g. Gentoo) already ship Developer Edition by default.

------
bwidlar
I just install firefox.

\- I can't block javascript/cookies per page. (I do not want to install a
stupid plugin just for that)

\- I can't zoom with my fingers (macos here). (basic gesture for trackpad
users)

Bye firefox, I will try again in 2018.

------
kozak
A viable Firefox-based Electron alternative would be very welcome.

~~~
kevingadd
The sad thing is Mozilla had a great Electron alternative way before Chrome
even existed (apps like Songbird used it, and I shipped a mass-market product
using it), but it was dropped due to complexity and lack of resources. Google
has the resources to support scenarios like this more easily, and the
community is happy to do the rest of the work for them. Market effects are
tough :/

------
Antwan
Chrome Dec 2015 : 32% mkt share

Chrome Dec 2016 : 56% mkt share

Switch. Now.

[https://netmarketshare.com/](https://netmarketshare.com/)

------
thro3212
Another nice alternative is Opera. It has better battery life and most
features from Chrome (dev tools, process viewer...).

~~~
bigbugbag
No, no it's not. it used to be until profit driven board evicted founder and
moved away from their rendering engine and dropped every innovation from opera
to become a clone.

vivaldi[1] is where the innovation happens.

otter[2] is the open source project to recreate the innovating opera.

Then again the alternative to chrome has been iron[3] from the start and more
recently epic[4]

[1]: [https://vivaldi.com/](https://vivaldi.com/) [2]: [https://otter-
browser.org/](https://otter-browser.org/) [3]:
[http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php](http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php)
[4]: [https://www.epicbrowser.com/](https://www.epicbrowser.com/)

------
panic
If you're on a Mac, Safari is another good alternative.

------
mattparlane
(2014)

~~~
nishs
And even more relevant today. Especially after yesterday's fiasco where Chrome
doesn't allow installing self-made extensions permanently—forcing you to
publish on the Chrome Web Store [0].

There were a few years (2010-2014) when Chrome was a clear industry leader: in
design, web standards, resource consumption, and championing openness on the
Internet. Not anymore, at least for me:

    
    
      * Firefox has built-in Reader mode and RSS, while Chrome still doesn't.
      * Firefox's ES-next compatibility is comparable to Chrome, and Safari Technology Preview is ahead [1].
      * Chrome hasn't embraced the WebExtensions specification (I'd love to be wrong on this).
      * Killing Chrome Apps [2].
      * Chrome displays an ambiguous/dissuasive popup when you attempt to enable Do Not Track [3].
    

I hope once Servo is production-ready, it performs far better than Chrome that
the browser performance enthusiasts are also willing to switch.

That said, Chrome's Web Inspector is top-notch, and it is the only thing I
miss from switching to Firefox.

[0]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13325507](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13325507)

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13133135](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13133135)

[2] [http://venturebeat.com/2016/08/19/google-will-kill-chrome-
ap...](http://venturebeat.com/2016/08/19/google-will-kill-chrome-apps-for-
windows-mac-and-linux-in-early-2018/)

[3] [http://imgur.com/a/fHAyx](http://imgur.com/a/fHAyx)

~~~
Tharre
> * Chrome hasn't embraced the WebExtensions specification (I'd love to be
> wrong on this).

I'm by no means an expert on this, but aren't WebExtensions based on the
chrome extension API? Says pretty much that on the developers page[0] of
Mozilla as well.

[0] [https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-
ons/WebExtensions](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/WebExtensions)

~~~
nishs
Yes. But according to wiki.mozilla.org on WebExtensions [0]:

 _We strive for compatibility to make developers lives easier and are
participating in a W3C community group to work on a standard._

Although Chrome is by no means obligated to, it would be nice to see a company
such as Google—that claims to support openness on the Internet—adopt this more
open standard. (That is, "browser.storage.local" instead of
"chrome.storage.local").

[0]
[https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/FAQ#Are_they_compatib...](https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions/FAQ#Are_they_compatible_with_Chrome_and_Opera.3F)

------
chridal
Firefox is going to need a large UI overhaul before I even consider laying my
eyes on it. It looks terrible compared to Chrome. Maybe if Mozilla would
employ me, I could fix that. It's very hard to stop Chrome's brand at this
point.

~~~
fivre
Chrome's UI remains an anathema to me--its strict requirements regarding how
one is supposed to organize tabs and so forth are bogwash, and I'll be
sticking with Firefox, which allows me to do whatever the fuck I want re UI
component placement and usage, with the help of some extensions, until death
do us part.

Chrome is the Apple of browsers and it should burn in a fire wrt how it
mandates and imposes specific UI patterns on users. Mozilla, for all their
"we're trying to make extensions more chromelike" seems to be holding onto
that.

~~~
romanovcode
Most people like opinionated UI design because it makes things easier and
intuitive e.g. iPhone.

------
dorianm
I just opened an Ubuntu VM where Firefox is the default and it feels like
going ~10 years back: random messages, random prompts to accept, bloated
interface etc.

[http://imgur.com/a/Wn7HL](http://imgur.com/a/Wn7HL)

~~~
necessity
Chrome does the same. This is mainly the VM's 800x600 and Unity.

------
jasonkester
Why not just say "Good Riddance?"

From a pragmatic perspective, the fewer browsers we as developers need to
support, the better. There has never been any meaningful standardization
between browsers. Even "modern" browsers are all different enough that you
need to test and code specific paths for each of them unless you stick to
trivial things.

Personally, I want the same thing I wanted back in 1996 when I started this
ride: One browser to win, and the others to drop to such a tiny share that we
don't need to support them anymore.

Firefox performed a service in convincing Microsoft to update IE6. But that
was fifteen years ago. Since then, Chrome has arrived and demonstrated that it
is far and away the best. In my opinion, Firefox would serve us best by simply
stepping aside. All it does today is force us to code yet another path into
everything we build.

~~~
colechristensen
I'm sorry, but most of the good things that have happened with the browser are
directly because there was competition. If one wins and the others disappear
it's simply going to be too tempting for the winner to abuse it's position
because nobody will have another choice.

~~~
jasonkester
Actually, most of the good things that have happened with the browser have a
reference implementation in IE6. Their current "modern" standards were all
written after that point.

The stagnant few years after Netscape screwed up Navigator 6 was actually a
little mini golden age for web developers. Essentially one target, with a ton
of features that are only now being recreated in modern browsers.

It's just a shame that Microsoft was so hated by everybody. Things like their
sane Box Model endured 15 years of people referring to it as a "bug" until
finally it got introduced as a CSS option and people were overjoyed to finally
be able to specify the width of a DIV and have it end up being that size after
borders and padding.

~~~
rimantas
You did not do much web development then, did you? It was not "reference
implementation", most of the nice things were not implemented at all and many
that were there were buggy. And even if the box model makes more sense it was
still a bug because it did not behave as the spec say. Or rather did not
behave under some conditions. Lucky are the people who forgot or never new the
joys of standards/quirks/whatever-in-between modes.

------
anexprogrammer
Mostly past caring about Firefox. Just about every choice they've made since
before Australis moves it further away from being what I'd like.

May as well just use Chrome at this point, rather than Chrome Lite.

------
Tharre
> Unlike Apple and Microsoft, Mozilla is totally committed to the standards-
> based Web platform as a long-term strategy against lock-in.

This may sound great in theory, but I have serious doubts that Mozilla can
deliver on that. At least from my perspective, their decisions in the more
recent past have been erratic at best. They even happily implemented DRM when
everyone else was doing it. At the moment it feels like Firefox is just
copying what everyone else is doing, slightly worse.

And even if Chrome "wins", it's still open source, for the most part. If
Google abuses their power, then the thing will be forked and their hole user
base will be split. I'm pretty sure Google doesn't want that.

If you want to worry about something, worry about Google controlling Android.
They already implemented lock-in there, it's a huge pain to fork in any
reasonable way (see CynogenMod) and they control > 85% of the market. But
sadly, Mozilla failed here quite spectacularly, because they simply didn't
have the resources for it.

~~~
jonchang
> They even happily implemented DRM when everyone else was doing it.

This is a totally disingenuous interpretation of EME. I think you mean when
Google, despite their ~open source bona fides~ with Chromium, collaborated
with Microsoft and Netflix to introduce DRM to the browser and used their
crushing market dominance to force Mozilla to comply or fall even further
behind?

~~~
Tharre
I'm perfectly aware that they didn't _want_ to. But if Mozilla can be bullied
into implementing it anyway, then how does using Firefox stop Google from
doing whatever they want?

~~~
jonchang
Don't backpedal, you literally said they were happy to implement DRM! To
address your point, if Firefox had a 90% market share on both desktop and
mobile the other vendors would have had a much more difficult time doing an
end around on the open web with EME. The only way for Firefox to gain market
share is for people to use it... hence the title of the blog post.

~~~
Tharre
Does the word sarcasm mean anything to you?

If Firefox had a 90% market share, we wouldn't have this discussion about how
we should use Firefox instead of Chrome. But the fact of the matter is that
the majority of users doesn't care, and won't change their opinion because of
a random blog post.

Now, Mozilla could have decided to make Firefox a privacy focused, truly open
browser for those who do care. They could've been the first major browser who
blocks privacy invading Ads by default, and that didn't implement DRM like all
the others.

But they didn't. And so my point stands.

