18 ms·

I'd rather my browser focused on being a browser. And I think that's better for the long term health of Mozilla, and Firefox, too.

by zbuf 10y ago

lucb1e 10y ago
Where would you draw the line? A PDF reader is very useful, but not a core browser component. Or Chrome tying in with all the Google services, that's not browser functionality but Google service promotion. Why does Firefox get shit for this every time?
- ultramancool 10y ago
  PDF viewer is over the line too, Evince and Sumatra are so much faster and render nicer.
- swiley 10y ago
  Because people who don't like that gave up on chrome.
- mrweasel 10y ago
  Because we hold Mozilla to a higher standard than Google.
  - felipeerias 10y ago
    If that "higher standard" means that a Free SW project is forbidden from implementing new functionality and experimenting in general (even if some of those experiments fail, as is the case here), that's not a very good standard at all. In fact, it sounds more like a recipe for letting others innovate and being perpetually stuck chasing taillights.
    - sethish 10y ago
      Disagree. They added a new feature requiring an external service and gave it to everyone by default. Now, Mozilla has opt-in experiments of new features that can be tested and seen by the community before they are integrated by default.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- gkya 10y ago
  A PDF viewer only renders content of a file, and it's okay and good. A browser is not merely an HTML viewer, it should also render other files like plain text, images, videos etc. Hello is a service for video-conferencing, has nothing to do with rendering content. Pocket is another wart that I hate in Firefox (though it's a useful service, I was a paid user for a while). Pocket is no content rendering and it's external service, so is Hello. Many use Chromium instead of Chrome because the Google Services.
  - lucb1e 10y ago
    Providing a simple front-end for WebRTC, which is a core browser component, makes enough sense from a conceptual standpoint. Of course we now all know how it turned out, but I think the non-constructive criticism that many give is a bit misplaced.
  - bad_user 10y ago
    Modern browsers are platforms for modern apps and especially for communication apps, because the Internet is primarily about communications and browsers haven't been about rendering content for a long time now. Consider: Slack, Gitter, Facebook Messenger, Gmail, Hangouts, Google Inbox, Fastmail, web.whatsapp.com and web.skype.com. You can make an argument that Firefox should stay neutral. But I don't believe that many use Chromium instead of Chrome. For one because you can't find decent builds, unless you're on Linux, but also because people that don't want Chrome because of Google's services probably use Firefox, because Chromium is still integrated with Google (Web Store, Sync), while providing a poor experience (no PDF viewer, no Flash, no DRM, or any other proprietary bits). Good thing that PDF.js, the PDF viewer from Firefox, ended up on Chrome's Web Store, so you can add it to Chromium. Which is the main difference between Mozilla and its competition: when Mozilla improves Firefox, it tends to benefit everybody.
    - magicalist 10y ago
      > Good thing that PDF.js, the PDF viewer from Firefox, ended up on Chrome's Web Store, so you can add it to Chromium. Which is the main difference between Mozilla and its competition: when Mozilla improves Firefox, it tends to benefit everybody. Humorously, this wasn't the best choice of examples for your point. Chromium displays PDFs just fine because they open sourced their PDF viewer over two years ago :) https://pdfium.googlesource.com/pdfium/ https://pdfium.googlesource.com/pdfium/
- jasonkostempski 10y ago
  I don't even want a bookmark manager built-in. Address bar, tabs, viewport, dev tools. Done. Make it fast.
  - fdgdasfadsf 10y ago
    Why not Address bar and viewport. Dev tools are only useful to devs. Tabs should be handled by the window manager.
    - yrro 10y ago
      Removing tabs would be awful for an overwhelming majority of users who use platforms that are incapable of managing dozens of windows. And, as an (occasional) i3 user, I would not want this, because two browser windows seem to use up far more resources than one window with two tabs. Browsers are almost unusable once a certain number of tabs are open; I can only imagine how badly my computer would operate were the 100+ tabs I have open each consuming the resources required by a separate window.
      - fdgdasfadsf 10y ago
        OK in that case may I keep my bookmarks, history, password management, download manager etc. One person's bloat is another person's feature.
    - jasonkostempski 10y ago
      Changed my mind, I agree with the window manager thing and that dev tools should be separate. However, ubiquitous dev tools are really nice when, as a developer, you're trying to figure out why a page doesn't work for that one user that has 20 extensions and 5 viruses and you don't have to ask them to install anything extra.
  - lucb1e 10y ago
    I agree, it would be nice if everything else (even the dev tools) was just an add-on, even if it was officially provided and supported by Mozilla and installed by default (or asked upon install when doing a custom install). That's not the way things are though, in no popular browser, and people complaining about Mozilla doing this bugs me a bit. As an aside, I'm looking for this on Android (address bar, tabs and viewport). Habit Browser comes close but is not open source. Basically just a WebView with an address bar and tabs. If anyone has ideas, let me know.
- red_admiral 10y ago
  I would prefer the PDF reader, like the flash player, to be a plug-in that I can disable or even uninstall if I wish. In fact, in my chrome setup I have disabled the PDF viewer because I prefer to download and open them in mupdf. For PDF viewing especially, it wouldn't be impossible to hav an offering of various competing plug-ins, some perhaps offering extra features like annotations and others offering just the bare minimum. I think firefox is held to a higher standard because "firefox user" is correlated positively with "aware of privacy issues". Those that just want something fast and easy to use might have used to use firefox instead of IE, but most of them have now moved to chrome.
  - RottenHuman 10y ago
    I'm certain that you can disable pdf.js in about:config
    - yaantc 10y ago
      Not even needed, just open the Preferences, select the Applications page and for PDF instead of using "Firefox preview" select any other application, or just "Ask each time". I use this to open PDF with an external PDF reader on Linux and Windows, works like a charm.
    - a3_nm 10y ago
      Indeed, set pdfjs.disabled to true. I always do it, because I don't use pdfjs, but there was a pdfjs vulnerability that exposed local files to third-party JS -- so you might as well disable complex stuff that you don't really use.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- pjmlp 10y ago
  Where things were before the Web 2.0 craziness.
- zbuf 10y ago
  Mozilla are in a unique position with control over the client-side software. I think they're best to focus on the things that can only exist within that client. Because any other party can start a 'Hello' like service online. Or write a PDF reader (or a program to open any other file format) I don't think we should be comparing to Chrome here; which doesn't purport to have the 'noble' aims of the Mozilla foundation. A browser should not be part of an 'ecosystem' of online services; for me, having a strong web means that the two are decoupled.
- majewsky 10y ago
  In the very specific case of pdfjs, it's justified by the greater good of avoiding the defect-ridden Adobe Reader.
  - epoch1970 10y ago
    Except that around 90% or more of the time I find myself having to open PDFs using a real native PDF reader because pdf.js is too slow, or it improperly renders the PDF, or it won't allow me to fill out forms the way I want, or some other issue like that. So even with pdf.js present, I end up using a proprietary reader most of the time. The added hassle or reopening PDFs in a separate reader most of the time exceeds the supposed convenience of the reader being built in.
    - signal11 10y ago
      I guess it's the type of PDFs one views. I find pdf.js quite adequate for my needs. It's even rendered brochure-type PDFs quite well -- e.g. this 32 page brochure that was a top hit for [filetype:pdf brochure]: https://www.mbusa.com/vcm/MB/DigitalAssets/pdfmb/brochures/MY16_S_Sedan.pdf https://www.mbusa.com/vcm/MB/DigitalAssets/pdfmb/brochures/M...
- bitJericho 10y ago
  Cuz there's a reason I don't use chrome...
- chris_7 10y ago
  Browsers used to just embed OS X's built-in PDF reader, which is excellent and incredibly fast and smooth. At some point, they decided to write their own (in JavaScript, I guess), which scroll and perform terribly.
- ajmurmann 10y ago
  What Google services dies Cringe tie on to that you find inappropriate? The search integration for autocompletion as well as the cross device syncing seen very fitting for a browser to me since they help me getting to the content that the browser should enable me to view. Does it integrate with anything else Google I'm unaware of?
- liveoneggs 10y ago
  Because firefox's daddy, Netscape, had tons of crap in it and got bogged down to the point of being inferior to IE. This, in turn, started the dark age of the web.
  - moron4hire 10y ago
    Netscape's demise was completely due to the mismanagement of the company, not the particular features they provided. In the middle of the browser war they decided to stop all maintenance and execute a complete rewrite. That would kill any company. They are one of the reasons why Joel Spolsky says "never rewrite from scratch".
    - wpietri 10y ago
      And I'd suggest that "don't stop and rewrite" is not the important lesson. It's "don't let your code base get to the point where you have to stop and rewrite". Netscape's rewrite was 1997-2000. In 1999, Martin Fowler published "Refactoring", which showed us how to continually improve the technical architecture of a system without trying to stop the world. JUnit, the first really popular testing framework came out about then as well; good unit testing makes it safe to refactor boldly. And the Internet itself gives us the ability to release early and often, encouraging us to do everything in smaller, more manageable chunks. Giant rewrites were just what you did in the bad old days. But we never have to do it again if we make a point of keeping our technical debt low and our releases frequent.
- KeyBoardG 10y ago
  I agree with PDF viewer being added. When browsers started adding full game rendering with 3d graphics libraries it crossed the line for me. They're using it as a delivery platform for anything and everything.
- xg15 10y ago
  > Where would you draw the line? For the back-end: Everything that's required for correctly rendering or executing modern web content (i.e., everything that's mandated by the current snapshot of the HTML living standard plus non-HTML formats which are "de-facto" part of the web, like Flash and PDF). For the UI: Stuff that can be expected to make the task of browsing web pages easier for the average user. Neither Hello nor Pocket fit any of the above descriptions.
- pessimizer 10y ago
  I'd certainly draw the line before it gets to a PDF reader and Google services. Chrome doesn't get shit for it because is expected to be part of the business strategy of Google first, and a browser second. Firefox has no other purpose, so the choices that they make simply seem bizarre.
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  The people to whom this is important have already dropped all the browsers from for-profit software and/or online services companies for (among others) Firefox because of these concerns. So they don't complain about Chrome as much -- because its already dead to them. They complain about Firefox more because it still matters to them.
bobajeff 10y ago
Let's be honest here. There's nothing Mozilla can do to prolong the life of Firefox. Once you lose marketshare it's more expensive to gain it back. Just look at what Microsoft spent at getting IE/Edge to where they are today. And Mozilla is in a worse position than Microsoft.
- Retric 10y ago
  Mozilla started from Netscape which had already lost a lot of market share before surging back. Browsers are free which makes it fairly easy to gain or lose marker share. All it takes is the current leader to stumble and people quickly jump ship. I suspect it's easer to catch up as you have some goal to target.
  - bobajeff 10y ago
    Mozilla isn't Netscape rather it's a spin-off. Also, Netscape at its highest was 100% marketshare. Netscape is gone. It never "surged" back.
    - IntelMiner 10y ago
      Mozilla was literally made from the original Netscape source code. I think you need to learn your history Also Netscape never had "100% marketshare". According to http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/survey-04-1996/graphs/use/intend_browser.html http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/survey-04-1996/gra... (sourced from Wikipedia) they had roughly 89%. Still significant, but not complete control
      - bobajeff 10y ago
        Mozilla was spun out from Netscape but it itself is not Netscape as Netscape was aquired by AOL. 89% is still a far cry from anything Firefox has managed. Either way you look at it Netscape did not bounce back.
- chme 10y ago
  Strange, from my perspective Firefox is very widely used. And for me Chrome/Chromium has just to many usability bugs, to be used productive. E.g. Tabbar doesn't scroll, not very good extensions available (e.g. regex search) and its more difficult to select head of tail of the url (in firefox just click in middle and drag down/up wards)
chme 10y ago
"What is and what isn't a part of an operating system?" is a similar difficult question as "What is and what isn't part of a browser?" Like the kernel is only one non-optional (?) part of an OS, HTML rendering is a part of a browser.

I'd rather my browser focused on being a browser. And I think that's better for the long term health of Mozilla, and Firefox, too.

by zbuf 10y ago

I'd rather my browser focused on being a browser. And I think that's better for the long term health of Mozilla, and Firefox, too.

lucb1e 10y ago

Where would you draw the line? A PDF reader is very useful, but not a core browser component. Or Chrome tying in with all the Google services, that's not browser functionality but Google service promotion. Why does Firefox get shit for this every time?

ultramancool 10y ago
PDF viewer is over the line too, Evince and Sumatra are so much faster and render nicer.
swiley 10y ago
Because people who don't like that gave up on chrome.
mrweasel 10y ago
Because we hold Mozilla to a higher standard than Google.
- felipeerias 10y ago
  If that "higher standard" means that a Free SW project is forbidden from implementing new functionality and experimenting in general (even if some of those experiments fail, as is the case here), that's not a very good standard at all. In fact, it sounds more like a recipe for letting others innovate and being perpetually stuck chasing taillights.
  - sethish 10y ago
    Disagree. They added a new feature requiring an external service and gave it to everyone by default. Now, Mozilla has opt-in experiments of new features that can be tested and seen by the community before they are integrated by default.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
gkya 10y ago
A PDF viewer only renders content of a file, and it's okay and good. A browser is not merely an HTML viewer, it should also render other files like plain text, images, videos etc. Hello is a service for video-conferencing, has nothing to do with rendering content. Pocket is another wart that I hate in Firefox (though it's a useful service, I was a paid user for a while). Pocket is no content rendering and it's external service, so is Hello. Many use Chromium instead of Chrome because the Google Services.
- lucb1e 10y ago
  Providing a simple front-end for WebRTC, which is a core browser component, makes enough sense from a conceptual standpoint. Of course we now all know how it turned out, but I think the non-constructive criticism that many give is a bit misplaced.
- bad_user 10y ago
  Modern browsers are platforms for modern apps and especially for communication apps, because the Internet is primarily about communications and browsers haven't been about rendering content for a long time now. Consider: Slack, Gitter, Facebook Messenger, Gmail, Hangouts, Google Inbox, Fastmail, web.whatsapp.com and web.skype.com. You can make an argument that Firefox should stay neutral. But I don't believe that many use Chromium instead of Chrome. For one because you can't find decent builds, unless you're on Linux, but also because people that don't want Chrome because of Google's services probably use Firefox, because Chromium is still integrated with Google (Web Store, Sync), while providing a poor experience (no PDF viewer, no Flash, no DRM, or any other proprietary bits). Good thing that PDF.js, the PDF viewer from Firefox, ended up on Chrome's Web Store, so you can add it to Chromium. Which is the main difference between Mozilla and its competition: when Mozilla improves Firefox, it tends to benefit everybody.
  - magicalist 10y ago
    > Good thing that PDF.js, the PDF viewer from Firefox, ended up on Chrome's Web Store, so you can add it to Chromium. Which is the main difference between Mozilla and its competition: when Mozilla improves Firefox, it tends to benefit everybody. Humorously, this wasn't the best choice of examples for your point. Chromium displays PDFs just fine because they open sourced their PDF viewer over two years ago :) https://pdfium.googlesource.com/pdfium/ https://pdfium.googlesource.com/pdfium/
jasonkostempski 10y ago
I don't even want a bookmark manager built-in. Address bar, tabs, viewport, dev tools. Done. Make it fast.
- fdgdasfadsf 10y ago
  Why not Address bar and viewport. Dev tools are only useful to devs. Tabs should be handled by the window manager.
  - yrro 10y ago
    Removing tabs would be awful for an overwhelming majority of users who use platforms that are incapable of managing dozens of windows. And, as an (occasional) i3 user, I would not want this, because two browser windows seem to use up far more resources than one window with two tabs. Browsers are almost unusable once a certain number of tabs are open; I can only imagine how badly my computer would operate were the 100+ tabs I have open each consuming the resources required by a separate window.
    - fdgdasfadsf 10y ago
      OK in that case may I keep my bookmarks, history, password management, download manager etc. One person's bloat is another person's feature.
  - jasonkostempski 10y ago
    Changed my mind, I agree with the window manager thing and that dev tools should be separate. However, ubiquitous dev tools are really nice when, as a developer, you're trying to figure out why a page doesn't work for that one user that has 20 extensions and 5 viruses and you don't have to ask them to install anything extra.
- lucb1e 10y ago
  I agree, it would be nice if everything else (even the dev tools) was just an add-on, even if it was officially provided and supported by Mozilla and installed by default (or asked upon install when doing a custom install). That's not the way things are though, in no popular browser, and people complaining about Mozilla doing this bugs me a bit. As an aside, I'm looking for this on Android (address bar, tabs and viewport). Habit Browser comes close but is not open source. Basically just a WebView with an address bar and tabs. If anyone has ideas, let me know.
red_admiral 10y ago
I would prefer the PDF reader, like the flash player, to be a plug-in that I can disable or even uninstall if I wish. In fact, in my chrome setup I have disabled the PDF viewer because I prefer to download and open them in mupdf. For PDF viewing especially, it wouldn't be impossible to hav an offering of various competing plug-ins, some perhaps offering extra features like annotations and others offering just the bare minimum. I think firefox is held to a higher standard because "firefox user" is correlated positively with "aware of privacy issues". Those that just want something fast and easy to use might have used to use firefox instead of IE, but most of them have now moved to chrome.
- RottenHuman 10y ago
  I'm certain that you can disable pdf.js in about:config
  - yaantc 10y ago
    Not even needed, just open the Preferences, select the Applications page and for PDF instead of using "Firefox preview" select any other application, or just "Ask each time". I use this to open PDF with an external PDF reader on Linux and Windows, works like a charm.
  - a3_nm 10y ago
    Indeed, set pdfjs.disabled to true. I always do it, because I don't use pdfjs, but there was a pdfjs vulnerability that exposed local files to third-party JS -- so you might as well disable complex stuff that you don't really use.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
pjmlp 10y ago
Where things were before the Web 2.0 craziness.
zbuf 10y ago
Mozilla are in a unique position with control over the client-side software. I think they're best to focus on the things that can only exist within that client. Because any other party can start a 'Hello' like service online. Or write a PDF reader (or a program to open any other file format) I don't think we should be comparing to Chrome here; which doesn't purport to have the 'noble' aims of the Mozilla foundation. A browser should not be part of an 'ecosystem' of online services; for me, having a strong web means that the two are decoupled.
majewsky 10y ago
In the very specific case of pdfjs, it's justified by the greater good of avoiding the defect-ridden Adobe Reader.
- epoch1970 10y ago
  Except that around 90% or more of the time I find myself having to open PDFs using a real native PDF reader because pdf.js is too slow, or it improperly renders the PDF, or it won't allow me to fill out forms the way I want, or some other issue like that. So even with pdf.js present, I end up using a proprietary reader most of the time. The added hassle or reopening PDFs in a separate reader most of the time exceeds the supposed convenience of the reader being built in.
  - signal11 10y ago
    I guess it's the type of PDFs one views. I find pdf.js quite adequate for my needs. It's even rendered brochure-type PDFs quite well -- e.g. this 32 page brochure that was a top hit for [filetype:pdf brochure]: https://www.mbusa.com/vcm/MB/DigitalAssets/pdfmb/brochures/MY16_S_Sedan.pdf https://www.mbusa.com/vcm/MB/DigitalAssets/pdfmb/brochures/M...
bitJericho 10y ago
Cuz there's a reason I don't use chrome...
chris_7 10y ago
Browsers used to just embed OS X's built-in PDF reader, which is excellent and incredibly fast and smooth. At some point, they decided to write their own (in JavaScript, I guess), which scroll and perform terribly.
ajmurmann 10y ago
What Google services dies Cringe tie on to that you find inappropriate? The search integration for autocompletion as well as the cross device syncing seen very fitting for a browser to me since they help me getting to the content that the browser should enable me to view. Does it integrate with anything else Google I'm unaware of?
liveoneggs 10y ago
Because firefox's daddy, Netscape, had tons of crap in it and got bogged down to the point of being inferior to IE. This, in turn, started the dark age of the web.
- moron4hire 10y ago
  Netscape's demise was completely due to the mismanagement of the company, not the particular features they provided. In the middle of the browser war they decided to stop all maintenance and execute a complete rewrite. That would kill any company. They are one of the reasons why Joel Spolsky says "never rewrite from scratch".
  - wpietri 10y ago
    And I'd suggest that "don't stop and rewrite" is not the important lesson. It's "don't let your code base get to the point where you have to stop and rewrite". Netscape's rewrite was 1997-2000. In 1999, Martin Fowler published "Refactoring", which showed us how to continually improve the technical architecture of a system without trying to stop the world. JUnit, the first really popular testing framework came out about then as well; good unit testing makes it safe to refactor boldly. And the Internet itself gives us the ability to release early and often, encouraging us to do everything in smaller, more manageable chunks. Giant rewrites were just what you did in the bad old days. But we never have to do it again if we make a point of keeping our technical debt low and our releases frequent.
KeyBoardG 10y ago
I agree with PDF viewer being added. When browsers started adding full game rendering with 3d graphics libraries it crossed the line for me. They're using it as a delivery platform for anything and everything.
xg15 10y ago
> Where would you draw the line? For the back-end: Everything that's required for correctly rendering or executing modern web content (i.e., everything that's mandated by the current snapshot of the HTML living standard plus non-HTML formats which are "de-facto" part of the web, like Flash and PDF). For the UI: Stuff that can be expected to make the task of browsing web pages easier for the average user. Neither Hello nor Pocket fit any of the above descriptions.
pessimizer 10y ago
I'd certainly draw the line before it gets to a PDF reader and Google services. Chrome doesn't get shit for it because is expected to be part of the business strategy of Google first, and a browser second. Firefox has no other purpose, so the choices that they make simply seem bizarre.
dragonwriter 10y ago
The people to whom this is important have already dropped all the browsers from for-profit software and/or online services companies for (among others) Firefox because of these concerns. So they don't complain about Chrome as much -- because its already dead to them. They complain about Firefox more because it still matters to them.

bobajeff 10y ago

Let's be honest here. There's nothing Mozilla can do to prolong the life of Firefox. Once you lose marketshare it's more expensive to gain it back. Just look at what Microsoft spent at getting IE/Edge to where they are today. And Mozilla is in a worse position than Microsoft.

Retric 10y ago
Mozilla started from Netscape which had already lost a lot of market share before surging back. Browsers are free which makes it fairly easy to gain or lose marker share. All it takes is the current leader to stumble and people quickly jump ship. I suspect it's easer to catch up as you have some goal to target.
- bobajeff 10y ago
  Mozilla isn't Netscape rather it's a spin-off. Also, Netscape at its highest was 100% marketshare. Netscape is gone. It never "surged" back.
  - IntelMiner 10y ago
    Mozilla was literally made from the original Netscape source code. I think you need to learn your history Also Netscape never had "100% marketshare". According to http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/survey-04-1996/graphs/use/intend_browser.html http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/survey-04-1996/gra... (sourced from Wikipedia) they had roughly 89%. Still significant, but not complete control
    - bobajeff 10y ago
      Mozilla was spun out from Netscape but it itself is not Netscape as Netscape was aquired by AOL. 89% is still a far cry from anything Firefox has managed. Either way you look at it Netscape did not bounce back.
chme 10y ago
Strange, from my perspective Firefox is very widely used. And for me Chrome/Chromium has just to many usability bugs, to be used productive. E.g. Tabbar doesn't scroll, not very good extensions available (e.g. regex search) and its more difficult to select head of tail of the url (in firefox just click in middle and drag down/up wards)

chme 10y ago

"What is and what isn't a part of an operating system?" is a similar difficult question as "What is and what isn't part of a browser?" Like the kernel is only one non-optional (?) part of an OS, HTML rendering is a part of a browser.