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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 t

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.
- CaptSpify 9y ago
  In addition to web-extensions (which could have been handled waaaaay better IMO if that was their goal): The general UI and their overall design philosophy shelling out data to places that I don't approve of (pocket/ga) rapid releases toggle-able options
  - Manishearth 9y ago
    > The general UI and their overall design philosophy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805761 > shelling out data to places that I don't approve of (pocket/ga) Pocket was not shelling out data, Pocket was an addition of an add on by default, one which did nothing unless you tried to use it (and if you did you'd have to sign in to a 3rd party site -- it's all pretty obvious) Mozilla has a deal with GA that restricts the data collected. https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785#issuecomment-314769510 https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785#issue... The data collected is IIRC only aggregate numbers. Neither of these are "copying Chrome", they're just "things you don't like" > rapid releases The web is evolving pretty fast too. This has become necessary over time. > toggle-able options no idea what you mean here
    - CaptSpify 9y ago
      Just because they are making one change that isn't exactly like Chrome doesn't mean that they aren't generally copying Chrome . That very much looks like the general design philosophy that they are borrowing from Chrome. I know you had to "turn on" pocket. That doesn't counter my argument. I also don't care what agreement FF with Chrome. It's still shitty to do, especially if your selling point is privacy. Having a special agreement doesn't make doing shady things with your user's data OK. But I don't see how they aren't "copying Chrome". One of them is using another product that is made by the same creator as Chrome, the other copying the "here's a feature that nobody wants that sends your data elsewhere" which, AFAIK, they didn't do before Chrome started doing it. I strongly disagree that rapid releases are necessary. What issue came up that needed to be implemented within one FF release cycle? toggle-able options were way back when FF used to have different settings in the options page where you could make changes to the UI, functionality, etc. Almost all of those are gone now for a "simplified" set of options.
      - Manishearth 9y ago
        >I know you had to "turn on" pocket. That doesn't counter my argument. Kinda does, especially since Google never used pocket? > they didn't do before Chrome started doing it. Chrome uses GA for general telemetry IIRC, a feature which Firefox has basically always had. Firefox's telemetry is much more privacy conscious (it collects very basic numbers and nothing personally identifiable). I'm not sure why about:addons decided to use GA instead of Firefox, but this isn't "copying something Google did first". These are decisions which you may not agree with, but you're reaching when you describe them as "copying Chrome". > toggle-able options were way back when FF used to have different settings in the options page where you could make changes to the UI, functionality, etc. Almost all of those are gone now for a "simplified" set of options. about:config still exists. Most options are still there under advanced in settings. The UI is even more configurable, because themes exist and you can drag-drop UI elements to other parts of the browser.
        GrayShade 9y ago
        >> I know you had to "turn on" pocket. That doesn't counter my argument. > Kinda does, especially since Google never used pocket? Pocket also gave way to a new type of add-on that's impossible to remove and installs silently. They do show up in about:support, at least, but only as names [1]. I feel like that whole episode was treated very poorly by Mozilla, with a lot of misinformation [2] and reasonable documentation requests being ignored [3]. [1] what's even "presentation@mozilla.org"? [2] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.governance/2PYq2w8tejs/xBaHm8f1CgAJ https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.governance/2PYq2w8te... [3] e.g. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1179699 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1179699

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.

CaptSpify 9y ago
In addition to web-extensions (which could have been handled waaaaay better IMO if that was their goal): The general UI and their overall design philosophy shelling out data to places that I don't approve of (pocket/ga) rapid releases toggle-able options
- Manishearth 9y ago
  > The general UI and their overall design philosophy https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805761 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14805761 > shelling out data to places that I don't approve of (pocket/ga) Pocket was not shelling out data, Pocket was an addition of an add on by default, one which did nothing unless you tried to use it (and if you did you'd have to sign in to a 3rd party site -- it's all pretty obvious) Mozilla has a deal with GA that restricts the data collected. https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785#issuecomment-314769510 https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785#issue... The data collected is IIRC only aggregate numbers. Neither of these are "copying Chrome", they're just "things you don't like" > rapid releases The web is evolving pretty fast too. This has become necessary over time. > toggle-able options no idea what you mean here
  - CaptSpify 9y ago
    Just because they are making one change that isn't exactly like Chrome doesn't mean that they aren't generally copying Chrome . That very much looks like the general design philosophy that they are borrowing from Chrome. I know you had to "turn on" pocket. That doesn't counter my argument. I also don't care what agreement FF with Chrome. It's still shitty to do, especially if your selling point is privacy. Having a special agreement doesn't make doing shady things with your user's data OK. But I don't see how they aren't "copying Chrome". One of them is using another product that is made by the same creator as Chrome, the other copying the "here's a feature that nobody wants that sends your data elsewhere" which, AFAIK, they didn't do before Chrome started doing it. I strongly disagree that rapid releases are necessary. What issue came up that needed to be implemented within one FF release cycle? toggle-able options were way back when FF used to have different settings in the options page where you could make changes to the UI, functionality, etc. Almost all of those are gone now for a "simplified" set of options.
    - Manishearth 9y ago
      >I know you had to "turn on" pocket. That doesn't counter my argument. Kinda does, especially since Google never used pocket? > they didn't do before Chrome started doing it. Chrome uses GA for general telemetry IIRC, a feature which Firefox has basically always had. Firefox's telemetry is much more privacy conscious (it collects very basic numbers and nothing personally identifiable). I'm not sure why about:addons decided to use GA instead of Firefox, but this isn't "copying something Google did first". These are decisions which you may not agree with, but you're reaching when you describe them as "copying Chrome". > toggle-able options were way back when FF used to have different settings in the options page where you could make changes to the UI, functionality, etc. Almost all of those are gone now for a "simplified" set of options. about:config still exists. Most options are still there under advanced in settings. The UI is even more configurable, because themes exist and you can drag-drop UI elements to other parts of the browser.
      - GrayShade 9y ago
        >> I know you had to "turn on" pocket. That doesn't counter my argument. > Kinda does, especially since Google never used pocket? Pocket also gave way to a new type of add-on that's impossible to remove and installs silently. They do show up in about:support, at least, but only as names [1]. I feel like that whole episode was treated very poorly by Mozilla, with a lot of misinformation [2] and reasonable documentation requests being ignored [3]. [1] what's even "presentation@mozilla.org"? [2] https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.governance/2PYq2w8tejs/xBaHm8f1CgAJ https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.governance/2PYq2w8te... [3] e.g. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1179699 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1179699