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Firefox turning itself into a pale imitation of Chrome helped Google do this. It's not fair to put all the blame on Chrome users. I don't want to use Chrome, b

by byuu 10y ago

Firefox turning itself into a pale imitation of Chrome helped Google do this. It's not fair to put all the blame on Chrome users. I don't want to use Chrome, but I really don't want to use Chrome's ugly sister Firefox. I held out on Firefox 28, faking a later version in the user agent, as long as possible. Eventually too much of the web no longer worked, so I had to abandon ship. All major browser vendors are in a race to the bottom to remove as much flexibility and configurability as possible from their users. We can't win no matter which browser we use, so it's only going to keep getting worse.

chii 10y ago
when was the last time you used Firefox? it's pretty good these days.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- vetinari 10y ago
  The policies of ramming stuff down the throat in order to please a mythical user (and failing) are still at full swing at Mozilla. Now they are removing their strong advantage (extensions) in order to improve their weakness (perceived speed) at full speed. I fully expect them to succeed at first and fail at the second, bleeding users in the process.
- byuu 10y ago
  Version 41. List of misfeatures off the top of my head, in rough order of annoyance: * Australis GUI (Chrome clone) [1] * Loss of tabs on bottom (Chrome has this issue too) [1] * Ads on home screen [2] * Forced integration of extensions I don't want (Hello, Pocket) [3] * Plans to kill XUL extensions and instead use awful Chrome extensions * Forced code signing to install extensions (Chrome has problems here too) * Support of EME, or DRM (Chrome has this issue, too) [4] * Bloated dropdown list of matched sites when typing in URL bar [5] * Removal of option to not keep download history [6] * Burying of countless options (like Javascript permissions) into about:config [1] I won't even be able to use Classic Theme Restorer once XUL extension support is removed. [2] I hear these may be gone now, but that it was ever implemented concerns me. I do not want adware in any software I use. [3] I hear Hello is gone, but Pocket is still there. [4] I don't care about Netflix. Mozilla betrayed their promise of an open web by caving on this front. [5] It used to take one line per match. Now it has this multi-line mess that takes up far more screen space to display the exact same amount of information. Oldbar extension restores this, but will break like Classic Theme Restorer soon. [6] unless I also turn off no browsing history. But I want browsing history. There used to even be an about:config option you could add (browser.download.retention) to restore this behavior, but they removed it. Overall, it's just the complete and utter disregard by the Firefox dev team for their user base. Every single issue I've mentioned has had lots of bug/feature requests, begging the developers for options to do things the old way. All of them shot down completely. If Firefox wants to keep turning itself into Chrome, then I might as well use Chrome. At least Chrome is faster and doesn't ship with Pocket.
  - Karunamon 10y ago
    Most of these problems can be worked around for now - see http://fixfirefox.com http://fixfirefox.com However, given that Mozilla is hellbent on breaking all addons (really the only thing they have going for them) because newer is better or something, I can't really blame anyone for deciding their time is too valuable for staying with a demonstrably insecure browser with questionable development direction.
- driverdan 10y ago
  I've been using Firefox as my main browser for a while but will most likely switch to Chrome soon. It's laggy and loads some common sites very slowly (eg Amazon). That's with e10s enabled and only a few common extensions that, in theory, should make it faster (uBlock, NoScript). I really want to stick with FF but when text fields lag and Amazon pages take 10 sec to load it's just not a good choice.
pmontra 10y ago
I've been using Firefox all these years and I didn't realize there were parts of the web that I couldn't use. Which sites don't work with Firefox?
- byuu 10y ago
  Many sites broke with Firefox 28 due to missing features. Most sites added version checks and would bounce you to an "update your browser" screen, but most worked just fine by faking the user agent version. Sites like Dropbox, Patreon, etc would fail to render though. The version hack had the sites trying to use features it didn't really support. Version 29 was the first to turn the UI into a Chrome imitator, and "Classic Theme Restorer" never got close to matching the actual look and feel of version 28. Especially not on Linux/BSD. I also resented having to use a bulky extension (that will stop working when Firefox drops XUL extensions) just to change really basic UI options like "don't put refresh on the right-hand side of the address bar."
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    What specifically bothers you about Australis? I hate what it did to tab layout, but that's the only part that's chrome-like and can be fixed with a bit of CSS, no extensions at all. It set up a new weird one-button menu, but firefox already had a weird one-button menu, and they never removed the ability to use the normal menu bar and ignore the button. And that menu is less chrome-like than the one it replaced.
    - byuu 10y ago
      Let's see ... I want a regular title bar in my application with the full title of the current tab. I don't want rounded curves on my tabs. I'd rather they just look like normal tabs. I want the tab bar beneath my address bar. Australis removed tabsOnTop=false. I want back and forward to be separate buttons, and not integrated into the address bar. I don't want the refresh button on the right-hand side of my address bar. I want it after the back/next buttons. Firefox 28 with tabsOnTop=false is what I want. Classic Theme Restorer gets me there, but with rendering issues, especially on Linux/BSD. And Mozilla already has plans to kill it when they remove XUL extensions. None of the Australis changes increased usability. They just changed things for the sake of it, and took away a lot of flexibility in customizing the UI layout. I have a lot of difficulty changing up the way I use programs. I've had the same browser layout for 15 years. Nothing wrong with it. I don't want to retrain muscle memory all the time because some designer at Mozilla was bored.

by byuu 10y ago

chii 10y ago

when was the last time you used Firefox? it's pretty good these days.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
vetinari 10y ago
The policies of ramming stuff down the throat in order to please a mythical user (and failing) are still at full swing at Mozilla. Now they are removing their strong advantage (extensions) in order to improve their weakness (perceived speed) at full speed. I fully expect them to succeed at first and fail at the second, bleeding users in the process.
byuu 10y ago
Version 41. List of misfeatures off the top of my head, in rough order of annoyance: * Australis GUI (Chrome clone) [1] * Loss of tabs on bottom (Chrome has this issue too) [1] * Ads on home screen [2] * Forced integration of extensions I don't want (Hello, Pocket) [3] * Plans to kill XUL extensions and instead use awful Chrome extensions * Forced code signing to install extensions (Chrome has problems here too) * Support of EME, or DRM (Chrome has this issue, too) [4] * Bloated dropdown list of matched sites when typing in URL bar [5] * Removal of option to not keep download history [6] * Burying of countless options (like Javascript permissions) into about:config [1] I won't even be able to use Classic Theme Restorer once XUL extension support is removed. [2] I hear these may be gone now, but that it was ever implemented concerns me. I do not want adware in any software I use. [3] I hear Hello is gone, but Pocket is still there. [4] I don't care about Netflix. Mozilla betrayed their promise of an open web by caving on this front. [5] It used to take one line per match. Now it has this multi-line mess that takes up far more screen space to display the exact same amount of information. Oldbar extension restores this, but will break like Classic Theme Restorer soon. [6] unless I also turn off no browsing history. But I want browsing history. There used to even be an about:config option you could add (browser.download.retention) to restore this behavior, but they removed it. Overall, it's just the complete and utter disregard by the Firefox dev team for their user base. Every single issue I've mentioned has had lots of bug/feature requests, begging the developers for options to do things the old way. All of them shot down completely. If Firefox wants to keep turning itself into Chrome, then I might as well use Chrome. At least Chrome is faster and doesn't ship with Pocket.
- Karunamon 10y ago
  Most of these problems can be worked around for now - see http://fixfirefox.com http://fixfirefox.com However, given that Mozilla is hellbent on breaking all addons (really the only thing they have going for them) because newer is better or something, I can't really blame anyone for deciding their time is too valuable for staying with a demonstrably insecure browser with questionable development direction.
driverdan 10y ago
I've been using Firefox as my main browser for a while but will most likely switch to Chrome soon. It's laggy and loads some common sites very slowly (eg Amazon). That's with e10s enabled and only a few common extensions that, in theory, should make it faster (uBlock, NoScript). I really want to stick with FF but when text fields lag and Amazon pages take 10 sec to load it's just not a good choice.

pmontra 10y ago

I've been using Firefox all these years and I didn't realize there were parts of the web that I couldn't use. Which sites don't work with Firefox?

byuu 10y ago
Many sites broke with Firefox 28 due to missing features. Most sites added version checks and would bounce you to an "update your browser" screen, but most worked just fine by faking the user agent version. Sites like Dropbox, Patreon, etc would fail to render though. The version hack had the sites trying to use features it didn't really support. Version 29 was the first to turn the UI into a Chrome imitator, and "Classic Theme Restorer" never got close to matching the actual look and feel of version 28. Especially not on Linux/BSD. I also resented having to use a bulky extension (that will stop working when Firefox drops XUL extensions) just to change really basic UI options like "don't put refresh on the right-hand side of the address bar."
- Dylan16807 10y ago
  What specifically bothers you about Australis? I hate what it did to tab layout, but that's the only part that's chrome-like and can be fixed with a bit of CSS, no extensions at all. It set up a new weird one-button menu, but firefox already had a weird one-button menu, and they never removed the ability to use the normal menu bar and ignore the button. And that menu is less chrome-like than the one it replaced.
  - byuu 10y ago
    Let's see ... I want a regular title bar in my application with the full title of the current tab. I don't want rounded curves on my tabs. I'd rather they just look like normal tabs. I want the tab bar beneath my address bar. Australis removed tabsOnTop=false. I want back and forward to be separate buttons, and not integrated into the address bar. I don't want the refresh button on the right-hand side of my address bar. I want it after the back/next buttons. Firefox 28 with tabsOnTop=false is what I want. Classic Theme Restorer gets me there, but with rendering issues, especially on Linux/BSD. And Mozilla already has plans to kill it when they remove XUL extensions. None of the Australis changes increased usability. They just changed things for the sake of it, and took away a lot of flexibility in customizing the UI layout. I have a lot of difficulty changing up the way I use programs. I've had the same browser layout for 15 years. Nothing wrong with it. I don't want to retrain muscle memory all the time because some designer at Mozilla was bored.