4 ms·

100% honest and non-hostile question - why would you want to use Firefox?

orthecreedence 9y ago
That question could be easily turned around: why would you want to use Chrome? Personally, if I were to set up automated testing, I'd like to do it with both Chrome and FF, especially given that FF seems to be making a comeback lately. Another reason might be that I've never had anything but problems building Chromium from source, but have successfully built Firefox. So in situations where you want to know with certainty that your binary is derived from the published source code, Firefox wins IMO.
- folkhack 9y ago
  > why would you want to use Chrome? Chrome as a platform has the majority of browser market share and is continuing to be the top contender, I don't think anyone's going to knock them off their high horse anytime soon. Targeting the most common platform for applications deployment is common sense. > especially given that FF seems to be making a comeback lately FF is stagnant as far as market share, and has been trending down for at least 2-3 years. Currently it's around 5-6% and has been for awhile. Saying FF is making a comeback is disingenuous to the actual stats. > Another reason might be that I've never had anything but problems building Chromium from source Totally understand this one - I've found my roommate's Gentoo laptop in the fridge doing a full Chromium build more than a few times. All-in-all I totally get where you're coming from, Chrome and FF are my preferred automation/testing platforms for sure =)
  - zaarn 9y ago
    >Targeting the most common platform for applications deployment is common sense. If I recall, people used to say something very similar about Internet Explorer. Of course Chrome isn't as awful as IE back then but still... IMO it makes the most sense to support two independent implementations, especially for browsers. >Currently it's around 5-6% and has been for awhile. Saying FF is making a comeback is disingenuous to the actual stats. For desktop FF has about 10% marketshare. 5-6% includes iOS and Android, the later comes with a preinstalled chrome with little incentive to switch... With the upcoming ESR 60 release, I also expect (and heard) a lot of companies will switch to Firefox, atleast in the german region (where marketshare increased from Dec to Jan). Some Linux distros might switch over from the previous ESR release and a lot of users could potentially reevaluate. >I've found my roommate's Gentoo laptop in the fridge doing a full Chromium build more than a few times. Chromium is not Chrome, it's Chrome with all the Google Binaries ripped out. Chrome itself is, to my knowledge, not open source, only Chromium is.
    - earenndil 9y ago
      Linux has ~1% market share, though, and probably alreay has a pretty large proportion of firefox users. I doubt linux will affect anything much.
      - zaarn 9y ago
        Linux has 2.3% marketshare (counting ChromeOS and not accounting for users blocking scripts, which is also disproportionally large on linux)
        earenndil 9y ago
        It may be disproportionately large, but it's still small enough to not have useful effect on such statistics.
        zaarn 9y ago
        Do you know this wouldn't have an effect or do you guess it wouldn't? In the end, support chrome is simply supporting another Internet-Explorer-era. Maybe not as IE but it would be very similar. If you or your company only develop for chrome you're not better than any of the websites that proudly state they will only work under IE6. End of story.
        folkhack 9y ago
        > In the end, support chrome is simply supporting another Internet-Explorer-era. Maybe not as IE but it would be very similar. IMO - it is foolish to put Chrome and IE in the same box. > If you or your company only develop for chrome you're not better than any of the websites that proudly state they will only work under IE6. End of story. I don't think anyone is going to make an argument to only support Chrome, there's clearly other browser tech out there that we as devs must support. I will however say that you should prioritize supporting the most popular browsing platforms (browser, screen, device, OS, etc) when building applications and/or during testing. Since you're touting Linux utilization - I will say that I better have a helluva testing budget (time and money) if I'm going to even touch on the long-tail platform combos (anything < 5%). The only reason my apps are heavily tested in Linux is because they're developed on a Debian Jessie box =D

That question could be easily turned around: why would you want to use Chrome? Personally, if I were to set up automated testing, I'd like to do it with both Chrome and FF, especially given that FF seems to be making a comeback lately. Another reason might be that I've never had anything but problems building Chromium from source, but have successfully built Firefox. So in situations where you want to know with certainty that your binary is derived from the published source code, Firefox wins IMO.

folkhack 9y ago
> why would you want to use Chrome? Chrome as a platform has the majority of browser market share and is continuing to be the top contender, I don't think anyone's going to knock them off their high horse anytime soon. Targeting the most common platform for applications deployment is common sense. > especially given that FF seems to be making a comeback lately FF is stagnant as far as market share, and has been trending down for at least 2-3 years. Currently it's around 5-6% and has been for awhile. Saying FF is making a comeback is disingenuous to the actual stats. > Another reason might be that I've never had anything but problems building Chromium from source Totally understand this one - I've found my roommate's Gentoo laptop in the fridge doing a full Chromium build more than a few times. All-in-all I totally get where you're coming from, Chrome and FF are my preferred automation/testing platforms for sure =)
- zaarn 9y ago
  >Targeting the most common platform for applications deployment is common sense. If I recall, people used to say something very similar about Internet Explorer. Of course Chrome isn't as awful as IE back then but still... IMO it makes the most sense to support two independent implementations, especially for browsers. >Currently it's around 5-6% and has been for awhile. Saying FF is making a comeback is disingenuous to the actual stats. For desktop FF has about 10% marketshare. 5-6% includes iOS and Android, the later comes with a preinstalled chrome with little incentive to switch... With the upcoming ESR 60 release, I also expect (and heard) a lot of companies will switch to Firefox, atleast in the german region (where marketshare increased from Dec to Jan). Some Linux distros might switch over from the previous ESR release and a lot of users could potentially reevaluate. >I've found my roommate's Gentoo laptop in the fridge doing a full Chromium build more than a few times. Chromium is not Chrome, it's Chrome with all the Google Binaries ripped out. Chrome itself is, to my knowledge, not open source, only Chromium is.
  - earenndil 9y ago
    Linux has ~1% market share, though, and probably alreay has a pretty large proportion of firefox users. I doubt linux will affect anything much.
    - zaarn 9y ago
      Linux has 2.3% marketshare (counting ChromeOS and not accounting for users blocking scripts, which is also disproportionally large on linux)
      - earenndil 9y ago
        It may be disproportionately large, but it's still small enough to not have useful effect on such statistics.
        zaarn 9y ago
        Do you know this wouldn't have an effect or do you guess it wouldn't? In the end, support chrome is simply supporting another Internet-Explorer-era. Maybe not as IE but it would be very similar. If you or your company only develop for chrome you're not better than any of the websites that proudly state they will only work under IE6. End of story.
        folkhack 9y ago
        > In the end, support chrome is simply supporting another Internet-Explorer-era. Maybe not as IE but it would be very similar. IMO - it is foolish to put Chrome and IE in the same box. > If you or your company only develop for chrome you're not better than any of the websites that proudly state they will only work under IE6. End of story. I don't think anyone is going to make an argument to only support Chrome, there's clearly other browser tech out there that we as devs must support. I will however say that you should prioritize supporting the most popular browsing platforms (browser, screen, device, OS, etc) when building applications and/or during testing. Since you're touting Linux utilization - I will say that I better have a helluva testing budget (time and money) if I'm going to even touch on the long-tail platform combos (anything < 5%). The only reason my apps are heavily tested in Linux is because they're developed on a Debian Jessie box =D