5 ms·

I've seen people frequently say that they don't use Firefox because Chrome is faster, and despite being a Firefox user myself, it's close to what I've noticed.

by ue_ 9y ago

I've seen people frequently say that they don't use Firefox because Chrome is faster, and despite being a Firefox user myself, it's close to what I've noticed. In Chrome (on GNU/Linux and mobile at least), pages seem to load instantly. I don't know why that is, but apparently it's not just me who has noticed this. Meanwhile, the most frequent complaint about Chrome is RAM usage, and only when using many tabs. Most people don't use many tabs. It's a shame that Chrome which appears to be on track to become the most popular browser by a considerable margin is proprietary software. And before I get a reply telling me that Chromium exists, I know that - but I also know that it's not Chromium that's popular. I think it is also a shame for two more reasons: Mozilla wants to make Firefox look like Chrome, probably to replicate features which seem to draw users in, by changing the extensions API to make it less powerful, by supporting standardised DRM in the browser (though this is a different issue) etc. Secondly, we may see a world in which only Webkit matters, and standards no longer rule, similar to the situation with Internet Explorer years ago. This will also put pressure on Mozilla and other "third party" browser authors to support features just because Webkit supports them, or even to break standard features so that they render like they do in Webkit. I'd probably get shouted at for thinking it would become a "monopoly", but that's exactly what it is, just not in the legal sense.

jorvi 9y ago
There's also a far bigger difference: Chrome looks native (with elements of Material Design mixed in) on every platform. Meanwhile, Firefox aims to have the same Firefoxy look on every platform. Users definitely notice this and choose accordingly.
smacktoward 9y ago
Using your dominant position in one sector to push your products in others is the exact kind of behavior that gets you tagged as a monopoly in the legal sense of the term.
sp332 9y ago
Firefox isn't simply aping Chrome, even visually. The next UI refresh is going to look more different, not more similar. https://www.primeinspiration.com/mozilla-firefox-getting-new-ui-part-project-photon.html https://www.primeinspiration.com/mozilla-firefox-getting-new... The extensions API is being changed to disengage addons from the guts of the browser, which will let the team make bigger changes to CPU- and RAM-hungry areas of the codebase. The new extensions API has had a huge amount of work put into it to expand it before the old-API cutoff around November. The point is to make the browser perform better, not to make it less capable.
- Karunamon 9y ago
  Whether it's the point or not, making the browser less capable is exactly what is happening. There was a point about 7 or 8 years ago where Firefox was my favorite browser. It was the scrappy upstart that was better than IE in every single way - and look, plugins! I had a decent plugin load, including a bunch of stuff not in the store, could skin the UI (anyone remember "Classic Compact"?) to shrink down the more annoying UI elements, use vim key bindings, and a bunch of other stuff I can't even remember anymore. I had to scroll two or three pages to list them all. Slowly, they started taking that power away from me. Slowly, the UI started becoming more obnoxious. Slowly, the performance got worse and worse. The moment Chrome got a decent ad blocker, I left and never looked back. Firefox is basically turning itself into a Chrome clone, with a side of user hostility and ancient bugs. And they have only themselves to blame.
  - sp332 9y ago
    Yeah, I have 15 extensions running right now. You can still get full themes (called "complete themes", not the skins they call "themes"), and there's even a "compact" category. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/complete-themes/compact https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/complete-themes/com... Not having abilities like vimperator is a bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1320332 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1320332 I can't deny that the new API doesn't have enough power, but that's temporary. Being Chrome-like and having weak extensions are not goals. There's even a meta-bug that tracks new proposed functions that Chrome doesn't have. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215059 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215059
    - Karunamon 9y ago
      Thanks for the link to the themes page (I must have overlooked that and thought they blew up the theme system outright), and there are a couple of promising ones I'm looking at now. That said, given the treatment of how some other bugs are handled, especially one particularly noxious one regarding dupe SSL certs that's been kicking around for nearly a decade now that renders Firefox unusable for technical enterprise users, the fact that it's filed in their tracker doesn't mean much, and their classification of that bug as "(REOPENED bug which will not be worked on by staff, but a patch will be accepted)" tells me that compatibility isn't that much of a priority internally. Why not let it bake a little longer and then release it? Surely Firefox won't turn into a pumpkin if they fail to push it out the door by November?
tetromino_ 9y ago
> changing the extensions API to make it less powerful Changing the extensions API to decouple it from the browser's internals, allowing long-needed refactoring, a move to multiple processes, sandboxing, etc. And because the old extensions API must be completely scrapped (and ought to have been scrapped years ago), it makes more sense to replace it with a new thing that's compatible with other browsers rather than a new thing that only works with Firefox.
Manishearth 9y ago
[Disclaimer: I work for Mozilla, but I'm not involved in Firefox decision making] > Mozilla wants to make Firefox look like Chrome, probably to replicate features which seem to draw users in This is false IMO > by changing the extensions API to make it less powerful This is not about copying Chrome. This is about moving off of an API which was effectively "our entire codebase is your public API, here, have fun", which is horrible for making it easy to evolve the codebase. We had this problem with electrolysis (multiprocess firefox) already, lots of addons broke because of it. Additionally, the base of this API is XUL, which is a technology many want to phase out. Firefox is using the same base extension API as Chrome. It's a sensible choice -- if you're going to design an extensions API from scratch, why not standardize the base so that many extensions become interoperable. The base manifest format and most of the normal APIs from Chrome are the same, however the new system has many other APIs which chrome doesn't have, and the intent is to continue adding these so that most of the former very powerful extensions are still possible. But I'm already using extensions that won't work in Chrome because Chrome doesn't expose that functionality. > by supporting standardised DRM in the browser If Netflix didn't work in the browser Firefox would not have any users left. Mozilla fought this battle, and lost.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  Then what is the real story? I have the same impression as OP: FF seems to spend most of it's time playing "me too" with Chrome, while blatantly ignoring what the users are requesting. It's frustrating because I really want FF to succeed, but they keep shooting themselves in the foot. If they aren't following with Chrome, they why do so many of their decisions end up mirroring Chrome after Chrome has made their decision?
  - Manishearth 9y ago
    Which decisions? The only one I can think of is Web Extensions, and like I said, the reason behind that is not to copy Chrome, but because the old system was _terrible_ and hindered progress, and since they needed something new anyway, basing it off of Chrome was a way to get a large set of new addons working on it off the bat.
pessimizer 9y ago
> Mozilla wants to make Firefox look like Chrome, probably to replicate features which seem to draw users in, by changing the extensions API to make it less powerful The current Firefox marketshare is a predictable outcome of that strategy; by eliminating everything that made Firefox distinct from Chrome, they've made made going with the biggest, most well-funded version of Chrome the most reasonable choice. It has resulted in a Chrome monopoly, but there's really no way to prevent it: even when given a explicit choice between Chrome and mostly-Chrome, people will usually choose Chrome. edit: After the elimination of the old-style extensions, I've run out of distinct features that justify sticking with Firefox, and am left with pure ideology. An ideology that I don't even think that Mozilla places any importance in anymore, so I might as well be using Chromium.
acdha 9y ago
> by supporting standardised DRM in the browser Firefox is trying to avoid losing marketshare and you're complaining about a big usability win. In what way could causing every video service on the planet to start steering users towards Chrome/Edge/Safari help that? (Yes, I realize we don't like DRM but normal people are far more concerned about not having to do anything other than click play on Netflix/Amazon/Hulu/etc.)
- snakeanus 9y ago
  "normal people" should learn not to use shitty services like Netflix and friends. Maybe by putting a big red warning when someone visits their page or something.
  - acdha 9y ago
    Do you think going all comic book guy is going to anything? Netflix has 100M subscribers so you might start by thinking about what so many people find worth paying for. Learning the answer to that question will also show you why this attitude is completely ineffectual in the fight against DRM.
digi_owl 9y ago
Indeed. The one thing that got a relative of mine to go Chrome was that the flash games on Facebook performed "better".

by ue_ 9y ago

jorvi 9y ago

There's also a far bigger difference: Chrome looks native (with elements of Material Design mixed in) on every platform. Meanwhile, Firefox aims to have the same Firefoxy look on every platform. Users definitely notice this and choose accordingly.

smacktoward 9y ago

Using your dominant position in one sector to push your products in others is the exact kind of behavior that gets you tagged as a monopoly in the legal sense of the term.

sp332 9y ago

Firefox isn't simply aping Chrome, even visually. The next UI refresh is going to look more different, not more similar. https://www.primeinspiration.com/mozilla-firefox-getting-new-ui-part-project-photon.html https://www.primeinspiration.com/mozilla-firefox-getting-new... The extensions API is being changed to disengage addons from the guts of the browser, which will let the team make bigger changes to CPU- and RAM-hungry areas of the codebase. The new extensions API has had a huge amount of work put into it to expand it before the old-API cutoff around November. The point is to make the browser perform better, not to make it less capable.

Karunamon 9y ago
Whether it's the point or not, making the browser less capable is exactly what is happening. There was a point about 7 or 8 years ago where Firefox was my favorite browser. It was the scrappy upstart that was better than IE in every single way - and look, plugins! I had a decent plugin load, including a bunch of stuff not in the store, could skin the UI (anyone remember "Classic Compact"?) to shrink down the more annoying UI elements, use vim key bindings, and a bunch of other stuff I can't even remember anymore. I had to scroll two or three pages to list them all. Slowly, they started taking that power away from me. Slowly, the UI started becoming more obnoxious. Slowly, the performance got worse and worse. The moment Chrome got a decent ad blocker, I left and never looked back. Firefox is basically turning itself into a Chrome clone, with a side of user hostility and ancient bugs. And they have only themselves to blame.
- sp332 9y ago
  Yeah, I have 15 extensions running right now. You can still get full themes (called "complete themes", not the skins they call "themes"), and there's even a "compact" category. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/complete-themes/compact https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/complete-themes/com... Not having abilities like vimperator is a bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1320332 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1320332 I can't deny that the new API doesn't have enough power, but that's temporary. Being Chrome-like and having weak extensions are not goals. There's even a meta-bug that tracks new proposed functions that Chrome doesn't have. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215059 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1215059
  - Karunamon 9y ago
    Thanks for the link to the themes page (I must have overlooked that and thought they blew up the theme system outright), and there are a couple of promising ones I'm looking at now. That said, given the treatment of how some other bugs are handled, especially one particularly noxious one regarding dupe SSL certs that's been kicking around for nearly a decade now that renders Firefox unusable for technical enterprise users, the fact that it's filed in their tracker doesn't mean much, and their classification of that bug as "(REOPENED bug which will not be worked on by staff, but a patch will be accepted)" tells me that compatibility isn't that much of a priority internally. Why not let it bake a little longer and then release it? Surely Firefox won't turn into a pumpkin if they fail to push it out the door by November?

tetromino_ 9y ago

> changing the extensions API to make it less powerful Changing the extensions API to decouple it from the browser's internals, allowing long-needed refactoring, a move to multiple processes, sandboxing, etc. And because the old extensions API must be completely scrapped (and ought to have been scrapped years ago), it makes more sense to replace it with a new thing that's compatible with other browsers rather than a new thing that only works with Firefox.

Manishearth 9y ago

[Disclaimer: I work for Mozilla, but I'm not involved in Firefox decision making] > Mozilla wants to make Firefox look like Chrome, probably to replicate features which seem to draw users in This is false IMO > by changing the extensions API to make it less powerful This is not about copying Chrome. This is about moving off of an API which was effectively "our entire codebase is your public API, here, have fun", which is horrible for making it easy to evolve the codebase. We had this problem with electrolysis (multiprocess firefox) already, lots of addons broke because of it. Additionally, the base of this API is XUL, which is a technology many want to phase out. Firefox is using the same base extension API as Chrome. It's a sensible choice -- if you're going to design an extensions API from scratch, why not standardize the base so that many extensions become interoperable. The base manifest format and most of the normal APIs from Chrome are the same, however the new system has many other APIs which chrome doesn't have, and the intent is to continue adding these so that most of the former very powerful extensions are still possible. But I'm already using extensions that won't work in Chrome because Chrome doesn't expose that functionality. > by supporting standardised DRM in the browser If Netflix didn't work in the browser Firefox would not have any users left. Mozilla fought this battle, and lost.

CaptSpify 9y ago
Then what is the real story? I have the same impression as OP: FF seems to spend most of it's time playing "me too" with Chrome, while blatantly ignoring what the users are requesting. It's frustrating because I really want FF to succeed, but they keep shooting themselves in the foot. If they aren't following with Chrome, they why do so many of their decisions end up mirroring Chrome after Chrome has made their decision?
- Manishearth 9y ago
  Which decisions? The only one I can think of is Web Extensions, and like I said, the reason behind that is not to copy Chrome, but because the old system was _terrible_ and hindered progress, and since they needed something new anyway, basing it off of Chrome was a way to get a large set of new addons working on it off the bat.

pessimizer 9y ago

> Mozilla wants to make Firefox look like Chrome, probably to replicate features which seem to draw users in, by changing the extensions API to make it less powerful The current Firefox marketshare is a predictable outcome of that strategy; by eliminating everything that made Firefox distinct from Chrome, they've made made going with the biggest, most well-funded version of Chrome the most reasonable choice. It has resulted in a Chrome monopoly, but there's really no way to prevent it: even when given a explicit choice between Chrome and mostly-Chrome, people will usually choose Chrome. edit: After the elimination of the old-style extensions, I've run out of distinct features that justify sticking with Firefox, and am left with pure ideology. An ideology that I don't even think that Mozilla places any importance in anymore, so I might as well be using Chromium.

acdha 9y ago

> by supporting standardised DRM in the browser Firefox is trying to avoid losing marketshare and you're complaining about a big usability win. In what way could causing every video service on the planet to start steering users towards Chrome/Edge/Safari help that? (Yes, I realize we don't like DRM but normal people are far more concerned about not having to do anything other than click play on Netflix/Amazon/Hulu/etc.)

snakeanus 9y ago
"normal people" should learn not to use shitty services like Netflix and friends. Maybe by putting a big red warning when someone visits their page or something.
- acdha 9y ago
  Do you think going all comic book guy is going to anything? Netflix has 100M subscribers so you might start by thinking about what so many people find worth paying for. Learning the answer to that question will also show you why this attitude is completely ineffectual in the fight against DRM.

digi_owl 9y ago

Indeed. The one thing that got a relative of mine to go Chrome was that the flash games on Facebook performed "better".