6 ms·

Firefox.

by orf 8y ago

Firefox.

demxzy 8y ago
Firefox is looking more like a very good insurance policy going forward privacy-wise. I would like to see more open source browsers though. It feels like we are getting nearer and nearer to browser mono cultures with all the chromium clones. Maybe Ms can release edge as an opensource app with it being far behind in adoption.
- Klathmon 8y ago
  I believe the Edge team is actively working on open sourcing the whole browser. They have already open-sourced the JS engine behind it [0], and they worked on some integrations with other things (IIRC there was an experiment with node using the chakra engine instead of V8). I'm with you though, I really hope this opens back up into an all out competition between 3 or more big players. And I think firefox is in a great position to take up the "top" spot in terms of security, performance, and resource usage. They have been "paying their dues" for a while now working on that stuff, and it's starting to pay off. And if they gambled right, they might just have an architecture that is overall better than Chrome's, who will be stuck with the cruft they've slowly built up over the years. [0] https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore
- stochastic_monk 8y ago
  I’m seeing more webpages entirely break on Firefox recently. I tend to reach for Vivaldi when I need to try a different browser, as it’s Chromium without all the tracking.
  - mattnumbers 8y ago
    Yes, on newer versions, this can happen when Tracking Protection is enabled. This feature causes things like CAPTCHA and other third-party scripts to break. When this occurs, look for a shield icon in the URL bar to the left of the green TLS padlock. Click it and disable Tracking Protection. This has fixed every site issue I've seen so far.
- GnwbZHiU 8y ago
  There's also Brave browser by Brendan Eich. It's still very young and have issues, but it's getting better over time.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - rolandog 8y ago
    I've enjoyed using the Brave browser so far (less than a week). I'm excited to try out the BAT payments feature! For those out of the loop, like I was a week ago, it's a way to pay what you want per month, divided proportionally by the time spent per site between the sites you visited, as a way of trying to compensate the publishers and creators for your ad blocking. You use a crypto currency called Basic Attention Token (BAT). If anyone has any questions about the setup process, I'd be happy to help. As a side note: I live in Mexico, but I was happy to be able to fund a wallet and not be region-blocked for once.
  - tannhaeuser 8y ago
    Before using Brave, you should consider if you value their business model as ethical (I don't). What they do is filter-out ads and replace them with ads of their customers.
    - user812 8y ago
      No they filter out ads. Then they give everyone the opportunity to use a Patreon-Style support or view Ads, optionally. Why isn't it ethical to target big Ad-Tech middle men like Google and Facebook and increase efficiency and privacy at the same time?
      - lern_too_spel 8y ago
        The publishers didn't agree to it. Brave is not allowed to unilaterally dictate terms. If I'm going to steal from publishers, nobody should benefit, especially not some smarmy browser vendor. Similarly, if I'm going to pirate, I'm not going to pay some piracy middleman who makes up some cryptocurrency to send to the content creators. Of Firefox, Chrome, and Brave; Brave is by far the worst browser of the bunch. It's not even pretending not to be evil, let alone trying and failing like the others.
sinaz 8y ago
Which has a few privacy scandals of its own. Marginally better than Chrome, not a silver bullet.
- matthewmacleod 8y ago
  Marginally better than Chrome That's a gross misrepresentation.
  - sinaz 8y ago
    Well... regarding what Mozilla did with Cliqz, I'm sure Google won't be sending my user data to third parties, which Mozilla did. So maybe Chrome is better than Firefox in that regard.
    - icebraining 8y ago
      Google does send your user data to third-parties, for "external processing" (it's in their privacy policy).
    - lallysingh 8y ago
      Do you mean this https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-tests-cliqz-engine-which-slurps-user-browsing-data/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-tests-cliqz-engine-whi... ? Mozilla was an investor in Cliqz, so it's not precisely a full-on third party. And the data was (at least, according to the article) well anonymized. I can see why Moz would want to try and keep up with the user advantages of collecting this information -- catching malicious URLs, etc -- but even if it's just appearance-wise, they've lost a bit of trust here. Frankly I think they should have two distributions of Firefox, one that's bells-and-whistles for the best user experience, and another that takes a more aggressive pro-privacy stance. This can be little more than the set of preinstalled extensions + default config.
      - sciurus 8y ago
        To an extent Mozilla has that now on mobile with Firefox vs Firefox Focus. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/mobile/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/mobile/
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
navidfarhadi 8y ago
I’m a fan of Firefox and I use it when I am docked at home or near a power outlet but the battery life hit is enormous on Mac OS compared to Chrome and Safari. The performance is fine, I just wish I had better battery life when using Firefox on the go.
- ealhad 8y ago
  Yeah, last time I tried Firefox on Mac OS it was terrible. On my laptop, running GNU/Linux (with lower specs), it's way faster.
  - minitech 8y ago
    Exactly! I was confused for a long time about the slowness people kept talking about with Firefox, and then work switched to MacBooks. Firefox is faster and more capable on my cheap Linux device than any browser on the Mac, but on the Mac, Firefox is slowest. So strange.
  - driverdan 8y ago
    When was the last time you tried it? It's still not as fast as on Windows or Linux but it's much better than it used to be.
    - ealhad 8y ago
      The point is, performance-wise, it's not the best choice on Mac OS. Not that I care much, I rarely dwell on Apple computers.
FerretFred 8y ago
I used to run Lynx, but now I've upgraded to xlinks2 and can see images on pages too! ;-) edit: except when they're in a sprite :/

Firefox.

by orf 8y ago

Firefox.

Firefox is looking more like a very good insurance policy going forward privacy-wise. I would like to see more open source browsers though. It feels like we are getting nearer and nearer to browser mono cultures with all the chromium clones. Maybe Ms can release edge as an opensource app with it being far behind in adoption.

Klathmon 8y ago
I believe the Edge team is actively working on open sourcing the whole browser. They have already open-sourced the JS engine behind it [0], and they worked on some integrations with other things (IIRC there was an experiment with node using the chakra engine instead of V8). I'm with you though, I really hope this opens back up into an all out competition between 3 or more big players. And I think firefox is in a great position to take up the "top" spot in terms of security, performance, and resource usage. They have been "paying their dues" for a while now working on that stuff, and it's starting to pay off. And if they gambled right, they might just have an architecture that is overall better than Chrome's, who will be stuck with the cruft they've slowly built up over the years. [0] https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore https://github.com/Microsoft/ChakraCore
stochastic_monk 8y ago
I’m seeing more webpages entirely break on Firefox recently. I tend to reach for Vivaldi when I need to try a different browser, as it’s Chromium without all the tracking.
- mattnumbers 8y ago
  Yes, on newer versions, this can happen when Tracking Protection is enabled. This feature causes things like CAPTCHA and other third-party scripts to break. When this occurs, look for a shield icon in the URL bar to the left of the green TLS padlock. Click it and disable Tracking Protection. This has fixed every site issue I've seen so far.
GnwbZHiU 8y ago
There's also Brave browser by Brendan Eich. It's still very young and have issues, but it's getting better over time.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- rolandog 8y ago
  I've enjoyed using the Brave browser so far (less than a week). I'm excited to try out the BAT payments feature! For those out of the loop, like I was a week ago, it's a way to pay what you want per month, divided proportionally by the time spent per site between the sites you visited, as a way of trying to compensate the publishers and creators for your ad blocking. You use a crypto currency called Basic Attention Token (BAT). If anyone has any questions about the setup process, I'd be happy to help. As a side note: I live in Mexico, but I was happy to be able to fund a wallet and not be region-blocked for once.
- tannhaeuser 8y ago
  Before using Brave, you should consider if you value their business model as ethical (I don't). What they do is filter-out ads and replace them with ads of their customers.
  - user812 8y ago
    No they filter out ads. Then they give everyone the opportunity to use a Patreon-Style support or view Ads, optionally. Why isn't it ethical to target big Ad-Tech middle men like Google and Facebook and increase efficiency and privacy at the same time?
    - lern_too_spel 8y ago
      The publishers didn't agree to it. Brave is not allowed to unilaterally dictate terms. If I'm going to steal from publishers, nobody should benefit, especially not some smarmy browser vendor. Similarly, if I'm going to pirate, I'm not going to pay some piracy middleman who makes up some cryptocurrency to send to the content creators. Of Firefox, Chrome, and Brave; Brave is by far the worst browser of the bunch. It's not even pretending not to be evil, let alone trying and failing like the others.

sinaz 8y ago

Which has a few privacy scandals of its own. Marginally better than Chrome, not a silver bullet.

matthewmacleod 8y ago
Marginally better than Chrome That's a gross misrepresentation.
- sinaz 8y ago
  Well... regarding what Mozilla did with Cliqz, I'm sure Google won't be sending my user data to third parties, which Mozilla did. So maybe Chrome is better than Firefox in that regard.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Google does send your user data to third-parties, for "external processing" (it's in their privacy policy).
  - lallysingh 8y ago
    Do you mean this https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-tests-cliqz-engine-which-slurps-user-browsing-data/ https://www.zdnet.com/article/firefox-tests-cliqz-engine-whi... ? Mozilla was an investor in Cliqz, so it's not precisely a full-on third party. And the data was (at least, according to the article) well anonymized. I can see why Moz would want to try and keep up with the user advantages of collecting this information -- catching malicious URLs, etc -- but even if it's just appearance-wise, they've lost a bit of trust here. Frankly I think they should have two distributions of Firefox, one that's bells-and-whistles for the best user experience, and another that takes a more aggressive pro-privacy stance. This can be little more than the set of preinstalled extensions + default config.
    - sciurus 8y ago
      To an extent Mozilla has that now on mobile with Firefox vs Firefox Focus. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/mobile/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/mobile/

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

navidfarhadi 8y ago

I’m a fan of Firefox and I use it when I am docked at home or near a power outlet but the battery life hit is enormous on Mac OS compared to Chrome and Safari. The performance is fine, I just wish I had better battery life when using Firefox on the go.

ealhad 8y ago
Yeah, last time I tried Firefox on Mac OS it was terrible. On my laptop, running GNU/Linux (with lower specs), it's way faster.
- minitech 8y ago
  Exactly! I was confused for a long time about the slowness people kept talking about with Firefox, and then work switched to MacBooks. Firefox is faster and more capable on my cheap Linux device than any browser on the Mac, but on the Mac, Firefox is slowest. So strange.
- driverdan 8y ago
  When was the last time you tried it? It's still not as fast as on Windows or Linux but it's much better than it used to be.
  - ealhad 8y ago
    The point is, performance-wise, it's not the best choice on Mac OS. Not that I care much, I rarely dwell on Apple computers.

FerretFred 8y ago

I used to run Lynx, but now I've upgraded to xlinks2 and can see images on pages too! ;-) edit: except when they're in a sprite :/