3 ms·

I use Firefox exclusively and am not happy with how the browser market is shaping up. For all of you that have a "last 10%" problem with Firefox (i.e. "I'd use

I use Firefox exclusively and am not happy with how the browser market is shaping up. For all of you that have a "last 10%" problem with Firefox (i.e. "I'd use Firefox if only it had X or Y feature"), please consider if that's worth contributing to the monoculture of rendering engines, and worth extending Google's monopoly on Internet standards.

Klonoar 8y ago
I mean, it kind of is? You have to understand that there's making a stand on what's right, and then choosing to focus on the rest of your life... which, in this case, means not being annoyed by a browser that isn't keeping up. Firefox is great, many of us have loved it since Firefox 2 (or even before!) but you don't get significant increases in users by being the "more greater good" option. You get them by keeping up in the race. A browser is a tool and I want it to feel like it belongs, let me move, and then get the hell out of my way. Every single time I use FF on Mac there is something weird or buggy about it, and this holds true even if I install it on a freshly bought unpolluted MacBook Pro. The UI stands out like a sore thumb, and it doesn't feel like it belongs. I'll continue using Safari.
- function_seven 8y ago
  I think Safari is another good choice. It's not Chromium or Blink-based, and so represents more diversity. I get what you're saying, and I don't mean to be sanctimonious. But there are lots of aspects in life where I trade annoyance for doing what I think is right in the larger scheme of things. I recycle aluminum cans even when it would be easier to chuck them in the nearest bin. I used to toss cigarette butts out the window instead of having them stink up the car's ashtray. Yeah, my examples might seem a bit dramatic compared to one's choice of browser. Look at them as analogies and not comparable badness. For me, it's worth whatever edge cases annoy me to know that I'm not working for Google for free. Their incentives don't align with mine. For the most part, Mozilla's do. If Mozilla falls, then we're right back to where we were in 2001. A single company dictating the standards of the web. That horrifies me.
  - Klonoar 8y ago
    Thanks for the response. :) Only thing I wanna nitpick... it's not _quite_ back to 2001. In 2001, we had IE6 that plagued the web and held it back. It was a different situation for two specific reasons, one of which is commonly discussed and one of which isn't. 1) Chromium is open source, Trident (IE6) was not. It's much more difficult to be stagnant for this reason alone. Anyone not liking the direction Google steers the project in can fork it and do their own version (e.g, the de-Googled Chromium builds out there). Trident (IE6) never had this, it was the definition of vendor lock-in. 2) It's easy to forget how different the environment was back then. The desktop still reigned king, and mobile devices weren't even really close to what we think of them as now. Companies were different as a result; Microsoft outright didn't give a shit about the web, and thus you saw IE6 languish. It was good enough for them so they didn't have to care. Google, on the other hand... literally wants to own the web, for better or for worse. It's in their best interests to keep Chromium healthy. I really should just do this as a blog post...
    - pythonaut_16 8y ago
      I agree. Two other points: 1) While more sites might be targeting Chrome now, the browsers and standards are generally more inter-operable now than they were in IE6 days. jQuery came from a time where each browser supported drastically different APIs. These days Chrome and Firefox generally support 80-90% of the same APIs, with generally only a few cutting edge features and edge cases differeing. 2) Microsoft adopting Chromium as its core is in direct contrast to IE6 days. There are now two big players building on Chromium instead of one. That could have never happened with proprietary IE6. Now there are two hands on the wheel of Chromium, so to speak. And if Google won't play ball with Microsoft, like you said, Microsoft can fork Chromium, but I imagine both Google and Microsoft want to avoid that if possible.

Klonoar 8y ago

I mean, it kind of is? You have to understand that there's making a stand on what's right, and then choosing to focus on the rest of your life... which, in this case, means not being annoyed by a browser that isn't keeping up. Firefox is great, many of us have loved it since Firefox 2 (or even before!) but you don't get significant increases in users by being the "more greater good" option. You get them by keeping up in the race. A browser is a tool and I want it to feel like it belongs, let me move, and then get the hell out of my way. Every single time I use FF on Mac there is something weird or buggy about it, and this holds true even if I install it on a freshly bought unpolluted MacBook Pro. The UI stands out like a sore thumb, and it doesn't feel like it belongs. I'll continue using Safari.

function_seven 8y ago
I think Safari is another good choice. It's not Chromium or Blink-based, and so represents more diversity. I get what you're saying, and I don't mean to be sanctimonious. But there are lots of aspects in life where I trade annoyance for doing what I think is right in the larger scheme of things. I recycle aluminum cans even when it would be easier to chuck them in the nearest bin. I used to toss cigarette butts out the window instead of having them stink up the car's ashtray. Yeah, my examples might seem a bit dramatic compared to one's choice of browser. Look at them as analogies and not comparable badness. For me, it's worth whatever edge cases annoy me to know that I'm not working for Google for free. Their incentives don't align with mine. For the most part, Mozilla's do. If Mozilla falls, then we're right back to where we were in 2001. A single company dictating the standards of the web. That horrifies me.
- Klonoar 8y ago
  Thanks for the response. :) Only thing I wanna nitpick... it's not _quite_ back to 2001. In 2001, we had IE6 that plagued the web and held it back. It was a different situation for two specific reasons, one of which is commonly discussed and one of which isn't. 1) Chromium is open source, Trident (IE6) was not. It's much more difficult to be stagnant for this reason alone. Anyone not liking the direction Google steers the project in can fork it and do their own version (e.g, the de-Googled Chromium builds out there). Trident (IE6) never had this, it was the definition of vendor lock-in. 2) It's easy to forget how different the environment was back then. The desktop still reigned king, and mobile devices weren't even really close to what we think of them as now. Companies were different as a result; Microsoft outright didn't give a shit about the web, and thus you saw IE6 languish. It was good enough for them so they didn't have to care. Google, on the other hand... literally wants to own the web, for better or for worse. It's in their best interests to keep Chromium healthy. I really should just do this as a blog post...
  - pythonaut_16 8y ago
    I agree. Two other points: 1) While more sites might be targeting Chrome now, the browsers and standards are generally more inter-operable now than they were in IE6 days. jQuery came from a time where each browser supported drastically different APIs. These days Chrome and Firefox generally support 80-90% of the same APIs, with generally only a few cutting edge features and edge cases differeing. 2) Microsoft adopting Chromium as its core is in direct contrast to IE6 days. There are now two big players building on Chromium instead of one. That could have never happened with proprietary IE6. Now there are two hands on the wheel of Chromium, so to speak. And if Google won't play ball with Microsoft, like you said, Microsoft can fork Chromium, but I imagine both Google and Microsoft want to avoid that if possible.