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It's a little hard to believe a Firefox power user over any real length of time would be totally satisfied with it; they've been ripping out much-loved features

by tomc1985 8y ago

It's a little hard to believe a Firefox power user over any real length of time would be totally satisfied with it; they've been ripping out much-loved features right and left and stuffing it with mandatory sponsored add-ons. Still, it doesn't force report megabytes worth of data per day to the mothership, unlike Chrome...

qbrass 8y ago
As much as I don't like Firefox with each new release, the alternatives are worse. So I've settled for FF until it falls far enough to lose the title of "least worst browser". But I've quit suggesting it to others. They can use Chrome all they want.
- snaky 8y ago
  > suggesting it to others When majority of power users stop suggesting it to users around them, Firefox has no future anymore.
  - eitland 8y ago
    Ironically enough it might be a good recommendation for everyone else even if it annoys us.
phakding 8y ago
May be it's because I come from a different culture, I am not so entitled. Firefox is free, as in speech and beer. It also doesn't phone home with your private data as a payload. That Is good enough for me to be happy. If something doesn't work for me, I find a workaround or a plug-in and am happy again. If there's something needs to be fixed, I write bug reports. So it might seem to you that no power user could possibly be totally happy, I am happy to prove you wrong.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  So in your culture one is supposed to be grateful for free things unquestioningly? Why does culture need to be brought into this? If, one day, churches started handing out rat poison to the hungry instead of food; are the hungry entitled to happily eat that rat poison because it is free? The problem is that Firefox makes these promises and builds a platform (in this case, old-school XUL-powered extensions), builds a profitable user-base from said platform, and then yanks features at a whim. It is almost like a classic bait-and-switch but played in slow motion. In the case of Firefox there simply aren't suitable replacements available for many add-ons because the APIs and underlying features they relied on are being pulled. And they are being pulled because of managerial decisions, made to metrics that only highlight majority use-cases, in the name of "saving programmer bandwidth". As a result, a popular, powerful, useful program more and becomes more like a disposable appliance and less like an extension of the mind. "Who cares about nice ideals like mind extensions blah blah blah" you think? Well, a lot of users do (especially us old nerds), many of us who have stuck by Mozilla and will willingly dance to their beat in exchange for the company's historical sense of economy in its asks and respect for its userbase. If Mozilla were making Firefox out of the kindness of their hearts, maybe you would have an argument. But Mozilla is a million-dollar business and much of what has become of their flagship browser lately is a result of business decisions to bring in more money, so I have a hard time understanding how legitimate user complaints could be considered "entitled".
  - sjellis 8y ago
    Mozilla Foundation is actually a non-profit organization, not a profit-making business. Due to US laws, the work is done by "Mozilla Corporation", which is totally owned by the Foundation, but this is a non-profit that promotes the open Web. Increasingly, that means having a Web browser that is secure and fast, even at the expense of taking out features that some users really wanted. I've been using Firefox since the start (you can find my name on the famous NYT advert), and they have not removed a single feature that I care about. On the contrary, I am now happier with Firefox that I have been for many years.
    - tomc1985 8y ago
      Some is never enough in software any more to keep anything. Development always has to cater to the majority case and lowest-common-demoninator. Users don't want sophisticated tools and platforms, they just want stupid appliances! Optional features? Forget it. Things that might take some study to learn? Axed. Who would ever want that?! It really makes me sick. Tyranny of the majority writ large. (And while I write this from within Firefox, I am definitely not a very happy user of it any more.) You're right about Mozilla's nonprofit status -- but it is easy to forget about with all the various business partnerships they seem to enter. It makes me wonder just how much of this nonprofit is really spent funding development/advocacy...
BuckRogers 8y ago
I wasn't aware that Chrome did that, but I'm generally wary of Google anything and always have been. I'm a longtime Firefox(/DDG) power user, since it was Phoenix. I never left even when Chrome was hot, of course I've done testing on and off over the years but was never impressed with Chrome. I'm one that if just accepting anything, would use a platform's native browser (Edge, in my case) before Chrome, as native browsers have performance/power advantages due to their non-crossplatform nature. I'm not happy with the changes they've been making but it's still the best browser by a longshot. If you're just taking defaults, Chrome is acceptable but it's not flexible enough for me. Even with the bad decisions (removing native RSS support was a huge blow for me), Firefox is still better than it's ever been. They need to be careful though as paradoxically as it is, they're also on a knife's edge of ruining it with the face of that being this Pocket thing.
- tomc1985 8y ago
  Don't run desktop Chrome on any kind of embedded environment with a metered connection ;) We had to blacklist google in the devices' firewalls to make all the transmissions stop
  - BuckRogers 8y ago
    That's crazy. I've often simplistically categorized the interests of each browser as such. Edge/Safari- designed for the best interests of the machine. Chrome- designed to operate in the best interests of Google. Firefox- designed for the best interests of the user. I can see an argument for Firefox, and Edge/Safari until we have better battery technology. I can't explain why anyone informed would willingly choose a browser designed to further the interests of a publicly traded, vulture capitalist corporation. Marketing is powerful on mediocre minds.

qbrass 8y ago

As much as I don't like Firefox with each new release, the alternatives are worse. So I've settled for FF until it falls far enough to lose the title of "least worst browser". But I've quit suggesting it to others. They can use Chrome all they want.

snaky 8y ago
> suggesting it to others When majority of power users stop suggesting it to users around them, Firefox has no future anymore.
- eitland 8y ago
  Ironically enough it might be a good recommendation for everyone else even if it annoys us.

phakding 8y ago

May be it's because I come from a different culture, I am not so entitled. Firefox is free, as in speech and beer. It also doesn't phone home with your private data as a payload. That Is good enough for me to be happy. If something doesn't work for me, I find a workaround or a plug-in and am happy again. If there's something needs to be fixed, I write bug reports. So it might seem to you that no power user could possibly be totally happy, I am happy to prove you wrong.

tomc1985 8y ago
So in your culture one is supposed to be grateful for free things unquestioningly? Why does culture need to be brought into this? If, one day, churches started handing out rat poison to the hungry instead of food; are the hungry entitled to happily eat that rat poison because it is free? The problem is that Firefox makes these promises and builds a platform (in this case, old-school XUL-powered extensions), builds a profitable user-base from said platform, and then yanks features at a whim. It is almost like a classic bait-and-switch but played in slow motion. In the case of Firefox there simply aren't suitable replacements available for many add-ons because the APIs and underlying features they relied on are being pulled. And they are being pulled because of managerial decisions, made to metrics that only highlight majority use-cases, in the name of "saving programmer bandwidth". As a result, a popular, powerful, useful program more and becomes more like a disposable appliance and less like an extension of the mind. "Who cares about nice ideals like mind extensions blah blah blah" you think? Well, a lot of users do (especially us old nerds), many of us who have stuck by Mozilla and will willingly dance to their beat in exchange for the company's historical sense of economy in its asks and respect for its userbase. If Mozilla were making Firefox out of the kindness of their hearts, maybe you would have an argument. But Mozilla is a million-dollar business and much of what has become of their flagship browser lately is a result of business decisions to bring in more money, so I have a hard time understanding how legitimate user complaints could be considered "entitled".
- sjellis 8y ago
  Mozilla Foundation is actually a non-profit organization, not a profit-making business. Due to US laws, the work is done by "Mozilla Corporation", which is totally owned by the Foundation, but this is a non-profit that promotes the open Web. Increasingly, that means having a Web browser that is secure and fast, even at the expense of taking out features that some users really wanted. I've been using Firefox since the start (you can find my name on the famous NYT advert), and they have not removed a single feature that I care about. On the contrary, I am now happier with Firefox that I have been for many years.
  - tomc1985 8y ago
    Some is never enough in software any more to keep anything. Development always has to cater to the majority case and lowest-common-demoninator. Users don't want sophisticated tools and platforms, they just want stupid appliances! Optional features? Forget it. Things that might take some study to learn? Axed. Who would ever want that?! It really makes me sick. Tyranny of the majority writ large. (And while I write this from within Firefox, I am definitely not a very happy user of it any more.) You're right about Mozilla's nonprofit status -- but it is easy to forget about with all the various business partnerships they seem to enter. It makes me wonder just how much of this nonprofit is really spent funding development/advocacy...

BuckRogers 8y ago

I wasn't aware that Chrome did that, but I'm generally wary of Google anything and always have been. I'm a longtime Firefox(/DDG) power user, since it was Phoenix. I never left even when Chrome was hot, of course I've done testing on and off over the years but was never impressed with Chrome. I'm one that if just accepting anything, would use a platform's native browser (Edge, in my case) before Chrome, as native browsers have performance/power advantages due to their non-crossplatform nature. I'm not happy with the changes they've been making but it's still the best browser by a longshot. If you're just taking defaults, Chrome is acceptable but it's not flexible enough for me. Even with the bad decisions (removing native RSS support was a huge blow for me), Firefox is still better than it's ever been. They need to be careful though as paradoxically as it is, they're also on a knife's edge of ruining it with the face of that being this Pocket thing.

tomc1985 8y ago
Don't run desktop Chrome on any kind of embedded environment with a metered connection ;) We had to blacklist google in the devices' firewalls to make all the transmissions stop
- BuckRogers 8y ago
  That's crazy. I've often simplistically categorized the interests of each browser as such. Edge/Safari- designed for the best interests of the machine. Chrome- designed to operate in the best interests of Google. Firefox- designed for the best interests of the user. I can see an argument for Firefox, and Edge/Safari until we have better battery technology. I can't explain why anyone informed would willingly choose a browser designed to further the interests of a publicly traded, vulture capitalist corporation. Marketing is powerful on mediocre minds.