5 ms·

And what people don't know can't hurt them, right? More seriously, there is a battlefield on the web. Since the demise of Opera, Firefox is the only mainstream

by Yoric 10y ago

And what people don't know can't hurt them, right? More seriously, there is a battlefield on the web. Since the demise of Opera, Firefox is the only mainstream browser left standing that actively attempts to not violate your privacy. This doesn't mean that Firefox developers don't need to work on ways to make Firefox the best browser – incidentally, Firefox in January 2017 is orders of magnitude better than Firefox in January 2016. But it also means that some of the most important of Firefox are invisible, because they're all about what Firefox refuses to do. Caveat: I'm a contributor to Firefox.

_hao 10y ago
Opera was and still is the best and most innovative browser.
- bigbugbag 10y ago
  It used to be but the current opera has 0 innovation in it, it even dropped the innovating par the previous opera had to make the switch to being a google chrome clone. vivaldi is the browser from opera founder which strive to recreate this innovation and more. As the company refused to open source the old opera, there is an open source project to recreate it: otter[2]. [1]: https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/ [2]: https://otter-browser.org/ https://otter-browser.org/
  - Jyaif 10y ago
    note: vivaldi is also a google chrome clone.
gtirloni 10y ago
Firefox was always my default browser since ever but 2-3 years ago I switched to Chrome full time. Every month or so, I try Firefox again with all the websites I care about, check how fast it feels, the JS performance, etc and, while it's pretty good, Chrome still is/feels faster. My tests are pretty subjective at times but I never find a huge reason to switch from Chrome (privacy issues aside). Each time I think I've spend too much time doing this dance and I take longer to do it again. So I don't know about the 2016/2017 comparison you made and it being orders of magnitude better today. Maybe in some other area that is not performance? To be clear, Firefox is not bad. It's actually pretty good... maybe browsers have matured enough that the low hanging fruits have all being addressed and it's hard to make Earth shaking progress (that would justify a switch).
- bigbugbag 10y ago
  It's been a while since there's no significant performance difference between the biggest web browsers. I'm curious about the websites you care about, would they be tied to google in any way ?
- nishs 10y ago
  Thanks for admitting that your tests were subjective. My only suggestion is that people do not use phrases such as "felt faster" with friends and relatives who might take the (admittedly subjective) test results at face value and choose Chrome over Firefox.
4minute 10y ago
Yeah, and that thinking isn't going to make Firefox popular. People don't care about privacy. Do you not realize that Facebook has over a billion users, most of them sharing location, posts, pictures, videos, likes, friends, family, and so much more. People want you to know about them. They want you to feel envy over their vaction pictures. People want people to see their photos. People love to share data.
bigbugbag 10y ago
I don't understand when you say firefox is not actvely attempting to violate privacy, Mozilla is almost entirely financed by google through advertising money a.k.a a very notorious privacy violations. They deliberately and knowingly made this choice to give away their not knowing better user privacy to google in exchange for money. This one of the main reason why google search engine has been and is still so popular in Europe. Not such a good record for someone who pretends to champion users right and privacy. Interesting that you say firefox gets better, I have been using firefox since it was called firebird and to me firefox gets worse with time by adding features I do not want (persona, sync, pocket, hello, botched speed dial, drm), removing features I use (status bar, ui redesign to look more like chrome, disabling script, panorama) and lacking useful features (a working history, a full text search of history, usable bookmarks over time, integrated adblock, live edit of source, an editable speed dial, side bar, disabling author css, ...).

by Yoric 10y ago

_hao 10y ago

Opera was and still is the best and most innovative browser.

bigbugbag 10y ago
It used to be but the current opera has 0 innovation in it, it even dropped the innovating par the previous opera had to make the switch to being a google chrome clone. vivaldi is the browser from opera founder which strive to recreate this innovation and more. As the company refused to open source the old opera, there is an open source project to recreate it: otter[2]. [1]: https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/ [2]: https://otter-browser.org/ https://otter-browser.org/
- Jyaif 10y ago
  note: vivaldi is also a google chrome clone.

gtirloni 10y ago

Firefox was always my default browser since ever but 2-3 years ago I switched to Chrome full time. Every month or so, I try Firefox again with all the websites I care about, check how fast it feels, the JS performance, etc and, while it's pretty good, Chrome still is/feels faster. My tests are pretty subjective at times but I never find a huge reason to switch from Chrome (privacy issues aside). Each time I think I've spend too much time doing this dance and I take longer to do it again. So I don't know about the 2016/2017 comparison you made and it being orders of magnitude better today. Maybe in some other area that is not performance? To be clear, Firefox is not bad. It's actually pretty good... maybe browsers have matured enough that the low hanging fruits have all being addressed and it's hard to make Earth shaking progress (that would justify a switch).

bigbugbag 10y ago
It's been a while since there's no significant performance difference between the biggest web browsers. I'm curious about the websites you care about, would they be tied to google in any way ?
nishs 10y ago
Thanks for admitting that your tests were subjective. My only suggestion is that people do not use phrases such as "felt faster" with friends and relatives who might take the (admittedly subjective) test results at face value and choose Chrome over Firefox.

4minute 10y ago

Yeah, and that thinking isn't going to make Firefox popular. People don't care about privacy. Do you not realize that Facebook has over a billion users, most of them sharing location, posts, pictures, videos, likes, friends, family, and so much more. People want you to know about them. They want you to feel envy over their vaction pictures. People want people to see their photos. People love to share data.

bigbugbag 10y ago

I don't understand when you say firefox is not actvely attempting to violate privacy, Mozilla is almost entirely financed by google through advertising money a.k.a a very notorious privacy violations. They deliberately and knowingly made this choice to give away their not knowing better user privacy to google in exchange for money. This one of the main reason why google search engine has been and is still so popular in Europe. Not such a good record for someone who pretends to champion users right and privacy. Interesting that you say firefox gets better, I have been using firefox since it was called firebird and to me firefox gets worse with time by adding features I do not want (persona, sync, pocket, hello, botched speed dial, drm), removing features I use (status bar, ui redesign to look more like chrome, disabling script, panorama) and lacking useful features (a working history, a full text search of history, usable bookmarks over time, integrated adblock, live edit of source, an editable speed dial, side bar, disabling author css, ...).