19 ms·

Microsoft proves the critics right: We’re heading toward a Chrome-only Web

354 points by Vinnl 8y ago

mrgriffin 8y ago
I downloaded an extension to spoof my user agent this morning, haven't tried doing much yet, but messages certainly seem to work and that's 99% of what I do anyway. I don't know why I couldn't have be treated to a "this might not work 100% warning" instead of being completely locked out.
- emilfihlman 8y ago
  It's a top down decision, probably, and probably related to internal quality requirements of software and support. Also possible (but unlikely) is that Firefox doesn't support some certain thing, the absence of which might corrupt some state or data (error handling ain't exactly a thing javascript land, unfortunately.
  - jakub_g 8y ago
    This is like a highway operator saying "You can only enter our highway with a ford or a fiat. We didn't take time to test if an opel can properly ride our highway, so opels are not allowed". (Yeah I get it that they don't want to have people complaining that a niche corner case that was never tested in Firefox doesn't work. But this is a ridiculous way to do it.)
    - akvadrako 8y ago
      Not really - it's about the surface area of the interface. It's pretty easy to know if a car will work on a road - it needs tires and the ability to control it's own movement. But if the road had thousands of different connections to the car, there certainly would need to be testing for each manufacturer.
  - gnomewascool 8y ago
    > Also possible (but unlikely) is that Firefox doesn't support some certain thing, the absence of which might corrupt some state or data (error handling ain't exactly a thing javascript land, unfortunately. Considering that it works with current Edge (which hasn't switched to Blink, yet), it's unlikely, as you say.
  - asdff 8y ago
    It's probably my plugin settings, but I regularly run into issues logging into random websites like for bank or credit cards on firefox. You input your credentials into the log in window, and absolutely nothing happens when you hit login. For these websites, I'm still shackled to chrome.
- jarfil 8y ago
  Because anything less than "100% working" is considered a failure, and it might be a preventive measure to avoid bug reports or clueless user outrage.
  - oblio 8y ago
    And because, "accidentally", it cements the Chrome monopoly, at least in regard to Google web properties. That can't be just a coincidence. "It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It" and all that.
    - Vinnl 8y ago
      I don't think Microsoft is particularly happy about Chrome's dominance. It's more that they figured they're unable to make a dent there.
      - geezerjay 8y ago
        > It's more that they figured they're unable to make a dent there. Considering how Microsoft has been shifting to support open platforms (I mean, .net now officially runs on linux and Microsoft even integrates Docker) my guess is that they decided to focus on core businesses and don't waste resources implementing redundant support infrastructure.
        pritambaral 8y ago
        .NET runs on Linux because the developers are here. I wonder why Skype for Web doesn't run in a browser on Linux, given how much 'Microsoft ️:heart: Linux'.
        oblio 8y ago
        I haven't tried, doesn't this work on Linux? https://preview.web.skype.com/ https://preview.web.skype.com/ Worst case, after changing the user agent.
- Asooka 8y ago
  I get a crash when I try to paste text in the chat, but it otherwise works. As an aside, it's wild seeing an "App has crashed and needs to reload" on a damn javascript application. You would think it would be able to recover and continue serving content.
- rdsubhas 8y ago
  Great, but let's understand it's not going to tilt the scales. It's still going to count Chrome as the final winner since popularity is measured more by User Agent in visits, and less by download stats (atleast that's what I have seen so far, would be very happy to know otherwise).
jacquesm 8y ago
Over my dead body.
- ktjfi 8y ago
  You better arrange for your suicide, because it seems inevitable. The terrible mismanagement of the Mozilla Corporation is to blame.
  - bsaul 8y ago
    Mismanagement : could you give some details ? I was under the impression that mozilla was doing quite amazing things on the contrary : keeping firefox the only really usable alternative to chrome (when even microsoft didn't manage to do it), and even innovating in PL space with Rust. What do you think they should have done differently ?
    - stingraycharles 8y ago
      They have made some weird decisions to include some marketing campaigns into Firefox once, and I believe the whole Pocket thing didn’t land well with many of their users.
    - ktjfi 8y ago
      They made the same mistake IE made: around Firefox 3, they allowed their browser to become terribly slow, and so Chrome ate their lunch. Because let's be honest, Chrome was and still is so much faster than Firefox, and that's why they won. You could argue that Chrome has infinite ad budget, and that obviously helps, but I'm a Google hater and I'd gladly use Firefox if it was better or at least on par with Chrome, but it's not. I understand fixing something like that takes a lot of effort, but they lost a lot of time and money in projects that had no chance of working out, such as FirefoxOS (really? making an entire OS using the slowest browser engine that there is on the cheapest ARM hardware they could find?), Hello, Persona, etc. They also abandoned Thunderbird, which I will never forgive, the same way I will never forgive Google for abandoning Reader. Servo is a nice project but the chances it will be abandoned after years in development are over the roof. So now they are focused on their privacy improvements, but they can't stop shooting themselves in the foot (sending your browsing history to the advertisement company Cliqz, remotely installing an addon to advertise the Mr. Robot show, installing Pocket by default...) Then, if it is slower, and they don't seem to be able to take my privacy seriously despite their claims to the contrary, why in hell should I use Firefox?
hd4 8y ago
All the more reason for any Linux distro maintainers to include Firefox as the default browser.
- ktjfi 8y ago
  Isn't that what they already do?
  - solarkraft 8y ago
    Not all. Many include WebKit based browsers (pretty much all except Firefox are, and Firefox is too heavy for many).
    - ktjfi 8y ago
      I also blame the Mozilla Corporation for that: including WebKit in your software is a piece of cake. So that's what the default browsers of GNOME/KDE/etc do. Gecko not so much (in fact, has there been any effort in this arena, after XULRunner was discontinued?)
      - Vinnl 8y ago
        For Android at least they're working on https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components/ https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components/
      - alex_duf 8y ago
        Gnome is literally running using Firefox's technology
        solarkraft 8y ago
        Please elaborate. I don't know any project embedding Gecko.
  - hd4 8y ago
    Not all, I'm noticing a trend of including Chromium on the more niche distros like the Fedora spins (I noticed this about 1-2 years ago, the situation may have changed).
snaky 8y ago
How many users do know what their Chrome browser phones home?
- j16sdiz 8y ago
  Depends on what "phones home" meant. Instant search on "omnibar" is useful. Spellcheck is great too. But not everybody aware data are sent to google server for those functions...
alexandernst 8y ago
A +15 year web-dev guy here. > One of the greatest fears (...) is that Web developers would increasingly take the easy way out and limit their support and testing to Chrome Now, I must ask, why should we (web developers) be the responsible for making everything work with every browser? It's literally the same thing as asking application-oriented developers to code and test their apps for every major compiler out there. We can't be the responsible for making every webpage compatible with every browser. Period. There are standards, and it's not really our problem that Chrome implements them in a week, while Firefox takes 6 months, Edge 2 years, Konqueror 10 years, and so on. It takes a lot of time and energy to build and test websites for 3 or 4 different browsers. And it takes even more time to implement workarounds for every browser that doesn't support that thing that your boss asked you to implement. And "shit must be done by the end of the day". Don't take me wrong. Go go browser diversity! But not if that means that I should take the burden.
- llukas 8y ago
  +15 year? Where have you been when everybody standardized on IE6 and this was a bad thing? I thought it is new generation that reinvents the wheel but it seems I'm mistaken.
  - alexandernst 8y ago
    Sure. But you're missing a point here. IE6 was bad because it didn't follow any standards. You had to, literally, "code the IE6 way". Chrome on the other hand is starting to be a problem because it's too damn fast at implementing new stuff (which are accepted as standard). Web-developers then start using those new features and the code they write suddenly doesn't work on other browsers, because those browser just don't support those new features yet. That's why we got webpack. That's why we got babel and polyfills. And that's why frontend development sucks a lot lately. Because you have the choice of doing X the easy and fast way, that currently works only with Chrome, because no other browser implemented that yet. Or, you can do it the hard and slow way, that works with all browsers. And this is not something that I'm pulling out of thin air. This has been discussed several times here, in HN.
Tsubasachan 8y ago
Hilariously while all those idiots were fighting the last war against evil Microsoft a new and much more powerful enemy was quietly taking over.
bwb 8y ago
So irony :). Microsoft complaining about a browser monopoly!
- amelius 8y ago
  I'd say their complaint is fully justified, because others did the same to them back in the old days.
- StavrosK 8y ago
  Microsoft aren't complaining, they're supporting it.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    I rather think they're embracing it, actually.
    - ld00d 8y ago
      Will they be extending it now?
      - maxxxxx 8y ago
        I wouldn't be too surprised if they did after a while.
jfk13 8y ago
It's been discussed in the past, but I'll just leave this here as a reminder: https://robert.ocallahan.org/2014/08/choose-firefox-now-or-later-you-wont.html https://robert.ocallahan.org/2014/08/choose-firefox-now-or-l...
- userbinator 8y ago
  I think Firefox/Mozilla is still a bit on the "too big" side, and they've done some mollycoddling/anti-user-freedom stuff in the past too. IMHO if you want to "protest" the browser monopoly, use something more like Dillo or NetSurf. They have no JS, so web apps are out of the question, but work well for the document-centric sites.
  - benj111 8y ago
    I would love Dillo and Netsurf to be usable web browsers on the modern web, unfortunately they aren't. We should be able to do better than 2 rendering engines though.
    - jfk13 8y ago
      Arguably there are 3, depending how you view webkit vs blink; yes, they come from a common ancestor, but there's been quite a bit of divergence by now. But yes, the loss of EdgeHTML (following a few years after the loss of Presto) is a sad thing for the health of the web.
    - classichasclass 8y ago
      NetSurf has the most hope for becoming a new capable engine, but a lot of work still remains to get it to feature parity. I love how it performs on very constrained systems, though.
  - O1111OOO 8y ago
    > I think Firefox/Mozilla is still a bit on the "too big" side One of the machines I use is an old Dell Latitude D620 (2006, Intel Core2 CPU T7200 2.00GHz[0]) on a debian base. I can tell you from personal experience, on this machine, that Mozilla's latest Quantum Browser is heads above Chrome and their "clones". It is so quick to load (even loaded with extensions), it replaced Pale Moon as the default browser for this laptop. I was stunned at the performance improvements in Quantum. I remain surprised, every single day, that the modern web has been made available on a laptop that's 13 years old. All other Chrome-like browsers (Chromium, Opera, Vivaldi, etc) take much longer to load, cause the cpu to throttle (fans kick in) which can lead to overheating and shutdown issues. They are essentially unusable on that machine. Firefox Quantum, otoh, is snappy on this machine. I say this because I'm genuinely curious by the "too big" comment. I honestly find it puzzling (unless you're comparing a modern, full-featured browser to Dillo or Links2/GUI: both of which are favs of mine for their use cases). I had turned my back on Firefox for a few years because of performance issues, caching problems. They didn't just correct these issues, they've done so in a way few software upgrades have ever managed to do in my experience (dating back three decades) and have blown past their competitors from a purely performance standpoint. [0] https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Duo+T7200+%40+2.00GHz&id=927 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Duo+T72...
SUr3na 8y ago
You need around 70mb of sheer complexity to render a page fully correct and you need millions of dollars to build a competitor that would lose because level of complexity is increasing daily .By the time you cover what you thought the web was ,the most used browser chrome had already came up with more complexity to add to the web.Web sucks and this helps the monopoly.
- snaky 8y ago
  What if some browser would exist that could render only 90% of pages fully correct, but would be twice as fast as Chrome and use 30% of memory?
  - eveningsteps 8y ago
    You mean, Internet Explorer?
    - snaky 8y ago
      > twice as fast I doubt it.
  - SUr3na 8y ago
    I would use it and recommend it to people I know, as I already do. But how about no browser at all? How about I use my own video player to watch a file I received over network? We have essentially operating systems(web browsers) with pipelines, processes and sandboxing just to be completely ignored by websites which instead shove a message "install our app" down our throat.
  - wmeredith 8y ago
    You just described my user experience with Brave.
    - dest 8y ago
      Huh, is'nt Brave built on libChromium?
guilhas 8y ago
Thanks Microsoft for all those great times downloading other browsers.
panic 8y ago
One thing the article doesn't mention is the effect of Apple's browser engine policy on iOS. Forcing everyone to use WebKit may be anticompetitive, but it's also the main thing keeping the Chrome/Blink monoculture at bay.
- ttoinou 8y ago
  anticompetitive It's not. Apple enforces whatever rule they want on their OS
  - anth_anm 8y ago
    Microsoft nearly got broken up for a much weaker version of this sort of rule.
    - morsch 8y ago
      The only market Apple has a dominant market position in is Apple phones. In the US and many of the other richest countries, Apple is like Pepsi in terms of market share; in the rest of the world it's more like Dr. Pepper. (Yes, I know this is the Jolt Cola of analogies, I will stick to cars in the future.) https://www.statista.com/statistics/225464/market-share-of-leading-soft-drink-companies-in-the-us-since-2004/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/225464/market-share-of-l...
    - ttoinou 8y ago
      Well, it's a shame then. They were doing nothing wrong
- Vinnl 8y ago
  Yeah, I've started to grow conflicted on that too. I used to hate it because Safari was lagging behind so far and users couldn't switch, but it also forces web developers to test for interoperability with at least one other browser engine, making it more likely to work in others as well. Safari has caught up a bit, luckily, but it'd be great if it would actually compete with other browsers on features. Unfortunately, I guess if Apple opened up iOS to other browser engines, it'd also compete against Google's marketing machine and reach.
TheLuddite 8y ago
Microsoft should push a Windows Update that won't allow you to install/run Chrome on WindowsOS
cies 8y ago
I use FF as my daily driver on all devices. It is a very, very, competitive browser compared to Chrome and it's offshoots. In some area's, or with some plugins, it wins, and in other's it looses. I also really like the that Mozilla is actively involved in activism and thereby does a huge service to our safety/privacy online (refer to the recent DarkMatter story). I'm sad FF share is declining. I wonder what I can do to counter this trend.
- samcday 8y ago
  Keep using Firefox! Encourage everyone you know (without being too obnoxious of course) to switch. Help them switch if they’re receptive to the idea. Support them in staying with Firefox if they have extension requirements, workflow concerns, whatever. The pitch for Firefox should be easy nowadays. Talk about how it’s privacy-focussed while still being competitive with Chrome in performance and ease of use. A lot of people know that Fa$ebook is evil and gobbling up all their data, but they don’t feel like there’s that much they can practically do. Switching to Firefox and using Containers is something anyone can do easily. Of course there’s probably bigger things that you could do. But thinking locally (if you’re not already) is absolutely required before you then think globally, IMO.
  - eykanspelgud 8y ago
    I wish I could agree, and if I were experiencing a different situation, I would be in the same camp. Firefox 65 keeps crashing on my Linux box. I've tried downgrading to 64 and below. But whatever updates were installed when I installed FF65 also crash FF64 and under. It was either change OS or let FF go. I've since moved to brave browser, but would happily go back to FF if/when I figure out and troubleshoot the issue.
    - samcday 8y ago
      That's a shame :( FWIW I'm on 65.0.1 (64-bit) on Ubuntu 18.04.2 and have had no major issues. I use Firefox exclusively and use my browser heavily all day long.
    - 8y ago
guilhas 8y ago
It just proves they keep breaking Skype updates, nothing new. Kind of ironic coming from the people who gave us IE/EDGE, the browser with the most incompatibility issues. One thing they got right, Linux/Firefox people are probably not their target audience so why bother. Especially after year of broken Skype updates in Linux. There are better alternatives now.
- pbhjpbhj 8y ago
  What's your best Skype alternative for non-techy people?
  - timlyo 8y ago
    Discord is pretty good, although it's gaming focused so not ideal if you're looking for something professional.
  - guilhas 8y ago
    https://jitsi.org/ https://jitsi.org/ https://jami.net/ https://jami.net/ https://signal.org/ https://signal.org/ https://tox.chat/ https://tox.chat/ https://linphone.org/ https://linphone.org/
    - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
      I can come up with a list too, and many more sites have lists alternativeto.net and slant.co are my go-tos. The point of asking here is to get a thoughtful response with a genuine user preference from someone technically inclined; your comment really doesn't help.
guilhas 8y ago
In 2017 Firefox 52 stopped supporting 'Skype for business' for their reliance on legacy NPAPI plugins interface.
- tlynchpin 8y ago
  Have you heard the Good News?!? Waterfox is FF before it dropped support for well loved extensions like Tab Mix Plus. It is actively maintained with security patches. https://www.waterfoxproject.org/ https://www.waterfoxproject.org/
rwc 8y ago
"IE's hegemony presented an enormous challenge for the upstart Firefox browser, which was built to support Web standards rather than Microsoft's particular spin on those standards." A bit of revisionist history here. Firefox, nee Phoenix, was a branch of Mozilla because its authors felt (correctly) Mozilla was too bloated. I remember 1-2 minute load times when trying to open Mozilla back in the day.
- benj111 8y ago
  Which bit of the quote is revisionist? What you're saying doesn't seem to contradict it?!?
  - Vinnl 8y ago
    I think GP interprets the quote as meaning that supporting standards was the primary goal of Firefox, rather than just something they did instead of supporting Microsoft's implementation.
    - benj111 8y ago
      That could make sense. Thanks.
- Yoric 8y ago
  It's a slight simplification. The Mozilla Suite was "built to support Web standards rather than Microsoft's particular spin on these standards". Firefox/Phoenix/Firebird is the second generation Mozilla browser.
spystath 8y ago
I would still like to know what kind of features are unavailable in Firefox to warrant a complete block on the browser. This would also help Firefox developers to implement them or fix the bugs. I mean I always see "Firefox does not implement all the features we need for our cutting edge web app" but I've yet to see anything more specific. Do any of you with more frontend experience care to comment?
- dfrage 8y ago
  A competent session manager. The old "Session Manager" died in the transition to Quantum, and several developers of quasi-replacements, who acknowledge they don't come very close to it, maintain a list of two dozen or more bugs and missing features compared to Chrome they need to do better, like Chrome's Session Buddy. If I couldn't simply copy my entire configuration as I upgrade versions of Linux I'd be making a painful one time change completely to Chrome and Chromium, which I'd really rather avoid. The bottom line is that Mozilla let Firefox's market share decline so much that the only two reasons people kept using it were it's not Chrome, and the extension ecosystem. Which is reported to have included a superior debugger, which indirectly made sure a lot of sites implicitly supported Firefox because they were developed using it. Users don't give the slightest damn that keeping the old XPI ecosystem was hard, and had serious security issues. A huge number of extensions that they depended on have become roadkill on the information superhighway, even if some made the transition with significant changes. Making Firefox into an inferior version of Chrome means for most that the only reason to use it is that it's not Chrome.
  - dTal 8y ago
    While possibly valid criticisms, these all seem rather irrelevant to the comment you are replying to, which was asking about server-facing features, of the type whose absence would justify discriminating on the basis of user agent and not even attempting to run $FANCY_WEB_APP.
fxfan 8y ago
Are all chrome extensions available by default on firefox?
- TheRealDunkirk 8y ago
  Of course the answer is no, or "it depends," but it goes both ways. Because of my company's goofy proxy situation, I'm using FoxyProxy on Firefox. There's a Chrome version, but it doesn't work. I like that Chrome bundles Flash, but I need FoxyProxy more.
Semaphor 8y ago
At least in Germany, Firefox still has nearly 25% according to statcounter [0]. It has fallen (used to be at 30% last year), but it's still big. [0]: http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/germany/#monthly-201802-201902 http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/germa...
- pjmlp 8y ago
  I still test on Firefox because it has been my main browser since the Netscape days (pre-Firefox), but for most customers Chrome, Safari (on iOS) and IE 11 make the bulk of our RFPs browser acceptance matrix (in Germany).
  - Semaphor 8y ago
    According to GA, on our site, FF is the most used browser, followed by Chrome desktop. 3rd is Chrome mobile and then Safari mobile, tablet, desktop. Only after those, it's IE11 and then Edge. Uniting mobile, tablet and desktop still makes FF 3rd with a 6% lead on IE+Edge.
ginko 8y ago
Why is it even legal to exclude a standards compliant browser?
rezeroed 8y ago
I only use firefox. That isn't going to change. I'm done with google.
alexeiz 8y ago
I used Firefox before, but I stopped because 1) it was and continues to be dog slow on Linux, 2) stupidly restrictive policies for extensions. It's obvious to me that Firefox developers don't care about its users. And also at some point they expelled somebody for political views. That was plain stupid on their part.
- hsbaut76 8y ago
  I disagree completely. People who choose chrome because of a view UX enhancements, or choose Google because Gmail syncs better than iCal/idav, or decide to use Google search over duckduckgo because of blah, is the reason why Giant Corporations rule the planet. Why not support the underdog that actually cares about your privacy and liberties, rather than choosing an option that feeds the beast and sends us down a path to a dystopian future complete with global surveillance?
  - dfrage 8y ago
    There are easier ways to fight the "path to a dystopian future complete with global surveillance" than sticking with an organization that's not making software fit for purpose, and is so political and privacy disdaining it will without question enthusiastically join that dystopia in due course, if it hasn't already.
  - wsgeorge 8y ago
    > Why not support the underdog that actually cares about your privacy and liberties, ... I don't think many people use products because of their politics. They use what works for them. Chrome seems to be doing so extremely well, despite its flaws and questionable competitive practices. I have three browsers on my laptop. I hate Chrome because it is a battery/memory/data hog. But I can't comfortably switch profiles (work/various orgs/non-profits/personal) on FF like I do with Chrome. The feature is actually in FF, but it isn't available in the interface for whatever reason. This feature is nonexistent on Safari. Despite the alternatives on FF, this one feature is what keeps me on Chrome. Had FF had that, I probably would've switched by now. Nothing political (unless the politics suddenly begins to matter)
  - 8y ago
wtmt 8y ago
> Further, users who have tried changing their user-agent—the identification string, sent by browsers, that tells Web servers what version of which browser they are—have reported that much of the app works in both Safari and Firefox, with reports that even voice and video calls work in Firefox. It's not clear that everything works, and WebRTC is arguably persnickety enough that Microsoft would have to explicitly test and perhaps tweak its code to work in Firefox or Safari. But ultimately, none of this appears to be a fundamental tech issue. Goes to show that companies will cut corners in silly ways whenever possible. Unless MS is called out on this repeatedly, it won't change. The noise needs to be louder on supporting Firefox (and other non-Chrome browsers). Otherwise everybody could lose.
jammygit 8y ago
I recently switched to brave because I'm tired of having to trust 5-10 extension authors who may or may not sell their extension one day (adblock had to fork to ublock iirc because of something like that). Most of what my extensions do is baked into brave, so its both idiot proof and requires less trust. If Firefox sold a privacy version of Firefox, I'd buy (edit: ie, with my privacy features/extensions built in)
- effie 8y ago
  Indeed! The current practice where one has to install obscure software plugin from unknown author to make browser relatively complete is absurd. (download video? change default css? tweaking headers? this should be in the browser, period.) The paranoid would say this lack of basic power-user features is because it makes users compromise their security.
- kgwxd 8y ago
  Then you have to trust Mozilla won't sell your data one day, and once they do, all your privacy tools need to be replaced at once. Except, there won't be any to switch to because there was no competion. Multiple competing, single-purpose, composable modules is best. It keeps the developers honest as long as the users call them out on any bad move they make, the second they make it. Too many users let Google slide on ever shitty move they've made and now here we are, again.
jdlyga 8y ago
The entire reason why I switched to Firefox in 2003 was because of its superior user interface (tabbed browsing) and performance. Likewise, the reason I switched to Chrome in 2011 was because of performance, syncing, and auto-updating. For me, it was never about privacy, breaking monopolies on rendering engines, or open source. It was always a pragmatic decision based on what browser gave me the best experience.
- anoncake 8y ago
  Theres nothing pragmatic about not caring about privacy, monopolies and freedom.
_bxg1 8y ago
I've made multiple attempts recently to switch to Firefox as my primary browser, but I never could stick with it. 1) It's simply not as responsive. They've worked really hard to keep up with Chrome, and I respect that, and the recent overhaul did make a big difference. But Chrome just feels like a piece of physical machinery, where Firefox still feels like a piece of software. 2) The dev tools are just not quite as good. As with general performance, they've always been very close, but there's just something about them that's off. Enough to disrupt my work. 3) Firefox mobile, at least on Android, has weird high-friction scrolling behavior that doesn't match the rest of the OS and feels terrible, and there's no way to turn it off. I use Firefox for casual browsing on my gaming desktop, but that's about it. I'm rooting for them, but there are just improvements that still need to be made. On the bright side, Chromium is 99% OSS (as opposed to Android, which is like 70% OSS). I think a fork could become a competitor if Google took the project in a direction that was just really egregiously bad. Let us not forget that Chrome's rendering engine, Blink, was itself a fork of Safari's WebKit.
- ams6110 8y ago
  I use Firefox exclusively. If a site only works in Chrome, I won't use it. Stability and performance are about the same, in my experience. Neither are perfect. Though it's been at least a year since I really used Chrome so I can't say for sure.
  - Spearchucker 8y ago
    Exactly the same for me. Except that I've never used Chrome in my life. I had to install Chromium once because a German government site I needed to use insisted on Chrome.
  - bachmeier 8y ago
    I just came across a cool video sharing service called Loom this afternoon. Then I saw that it requires Chrome. Guess I'll never use Loom. Edit: And coda.io too.
    - jonny_eh 8y ago
robbrown451 8y ago
I wish the open source world would wrap Blink into a usable browser product that doesn't have all the things we might not like about Chrome (or at least that allows a lot of settings for removing them and customizing it in ways that Google may not want to do with Chrome, because they don't think it is in their corporate interest). It's a lot easier than building a whole browser from scratch. I salute what Mozilla is doing but I still don't want to use their browser because it just isn't as good, in my opinion. (Firefox also does't support the MIDIAccess API yet, which I need) Obviously a lot of people agree that Chrome is better. I'm a lot more likely to use Microsoft's Blink browser than I was to use Microsoft's fully proprietary browser, but even better would be a fully open source, community steered "UnGoogled Chrome".
- sfotm 8y ago
  It exists: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium The general concern about projects along these lines, e.g. IceWeasel, is that they won't keep up with security patches as quickly as the project it's forking. Maybe that's less of a concern here since they aren't trying to recreate an older version but are just tearing out some "phone home" calls and changing some defaults.
  - duskwuff 8y ago
    > they won't keep up with security patches as quickly as the project it's forking And they often take a baby-with-the-bathwater approach to removing Google from the picture. For instance, that project completely disables Safe Browsing, requires a convoluted process to install extensions, and breaks automatic extension updates -- in each case, because the functionality depends on a Google-hosted service.
    - effie 8y ago
      What is the purpose of removing Google from the browser, if you do not remove it from all parts of the browser? There only needs to be one automatic communication channel to Google to make such effort worthless.
partiallypro 8y ago
I use Firefox almost exclusively, but it freezes up a lot on me. The new engine they use cuts back on RAM usage but it seems CPU usage has increased. I will probably give the new Edge a chance when it comes out, because it gives the best of two worlds. One that isn't tightly wound to the Google ecosystem, and yet still is highly compatible.
KorematsuFred 8y ago
I use both chrome and firefox. On my surface pro I mostly use edge. Honestly I think all the three browsers are pretty good and unless you are trying to use hangouts they all seem to perform nearly equally.
everybodyknows 8y ago
Assuming this was a strategic, long-term policy decision from on high, what are the chances that Microsoft's next addition to their "unsupported on Firefox" list turns out to be ... Github?
- Flip-per 8y ago
  Pretty much zero. Except if they want to shut down github and need a bandwagon full of bad press and furious developers.
marricks 8y ago
I wonder if people could get momentum behind big sites doing a day of “only works on Firefox” black out to bring notice to this. Going back to ie6 days would be awful...
samfisher83 8y ago
If the government didn't step in microsoft might still have 90% of the browser market. I think its time they came in and forced google to not push chrome in android.
- anth_anm 8y ago
  Google pays their bribes. Microsoft didn't.
  - s3r3nity 8y ago
    I was going to down-vote this, but then did some research into how much Alphabet and Microsoft spend on lobbying. In 2018: Google spent $21.7M, all in the "Internet" industry. Microsoft spent ~$9.5M, and only $70k of that in "Internet." The rest went to "Electronics Mfg and Equipment." Sources: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000067823 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00006782... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000115 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00000011...
    - anth_anm 8y ago
      Compare it to what microsoft spent before their anti-trust lawsuits.
- 10-6 8y ago
  Not true: https://stratechery.com/2019/where-warrens-wrong/ https://stratechery.com/2019/where-warrens-wrong/
  - reallydude 8y ago
    Yes true. The strongarming tactics of MS aren't referenced. While it brings up some interesting points, the entirety paints the common revisionist view that MS was crushed by Google on search alone, with no other mitigating factors. A fairy tale of sorts. Google would not have risen to anything if MS continued with it's anti-competitive and anti-trust practices that was the goto MS strategy for competition into the early 2000. It was baked into the MS culture. and common knowledge, maligned on message boards long after it had ceased. Under enacted US justice dept scrutiny, MS was forced to compete more fairly with superior talent and lower margins (aww no more predatory acquisitions). With a giant, inflexible infrastructure and rigid payscales, it was a slow imminent decline.
ksajadi 8y ago
I think Apple should step in and really help Mozilla with funding and more.
la_fayette 8y ago
I use FF and duckduckgo. I spend a lot of time on the web and i cannot complain about anything... I only use chrome for web development and google for SEO optimization...
edgarvaldes 8y ago
I never left Firefox. Not even in the first bright days of Chrome. I have both installed, but my daily use is in FF.
cutler 8y ago
Oh the irony to hear Microsoft complaining about browser monopolies. Somewhat akin to their "embracing Linux" posturing whilst perpetuating their Linux patent racket. Remember this - Microsoft only embraces open standards as a last resort.
- tracker1 8y ago
  Microsoft isn't complaining... Edge is moving to Blink/Chromium even.
mr_toad 8y ago
Microsoft only cares about enterprise. Enterprise IT only installs Chrome because IE and Edge have problems with many sites. Once Enterprise IT is finally forced to move to Windows 10 and blink based Edge I can see them not bothering to install Chrome. Enterprise will be happy, MS will be happy, and the only people using Skype will be wage slaves working for corporations too cheap to install actual phones.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
ComputerGuru 8y ago
Since everyone is using this thread to talk all things Firefox - does anyone else have an issue with Netflix videos randomly hanging or stuttering with Firefox? It happens to me once or twice an episode and I have to un-fullscreen the player to get it to stop, then I can full screen it again.
- pcurve 8y ago
  I remember watching 1080p youtube videos on really old machine. It wasn't even that slow to come to think of it. Q6600 core 2 duo. Youtube always performed better in Chrome in full screen. FF would drop frames consistenty
metta2uall 8y ago
I've been quite happy using Firefox for all personal and most web development work. Unfortunately though we've had to recommend Chrome to users of our web application since Firefox doesn't support speech recognition.. To catch up I think Firefox needs - More funding - I think large tech companies should donate heavily to avoid a chrome monopoly.. - Perhaps more focus on core browser features like speech instead of various side projects? (like Firefox Color and Price Wise.. though I must admit I really like Screenshots).
- jonas21 8y ago
  > More funding - I think large tech companies should donate heavily to avoid a chrome monopoly.. Mozilla has $560M in annual revenue, and Firefox is their only widely-used product. How much more do they need?
mung 8y ago
It pisses me off that MS would detect a browser and block it when they have done as much as they can do to prevent web developers from detecting IE/Edge for much the same reasons: that it's not up to the job and will cause a bunch of support calls.
intellix 8y ago
I've noticed that a lot of authors complaining that the lack of diversity in web browsers will lead to developers only testing in one browser aren't actually web developers themselves. As a web developer: I don't want to have to check my work in 3 different interpretations of the spec. If you don't like Google Chrome then you're welcome to use many of the other usages of the open source Chromium
nr0mx 8y ago
I would prefer not to contribute to Chrome's increasing dominance, but I feel like I don't get much of a choice. I want to choose a browser on its merits. For me that is currently Vivaldi. Where is the Firefox-based Vivaldi equivalent? Mozilla does not really seem to be addressing the fact that they provide one browser - Firefox - that is competing against an increasing array of Chrome-based browsers, all providing different user experiences. Why has no one built an interesting browser on top of Firefox? It stands to reason that Chrome cannot be all things to all people. Neither can Firefox. The difference is that alternative browsers are increasingly Chrome-based, with the single exception of Firefox. Unless Mozilla (or someone else) can reverse this trend, I think this battle is lost.
kgwxd 8y ago
Microsoft only further proved that Skype and the team building it suck and everyone should continue not using it.
crb002 8y ago
This seems really short sighted, but also remember that Firefox has huge Google financial backing.
astrostl 8y ago
MS Teams doesn't support OPEN IN APP REDIRECTS in Safari :-|

354 points by Vinnl 8y ago

I downloaded an extension to spoof my user agent this morning, haven't tried doing much yet, but messages certainly seem to work and that's 99% of what I do anyway. I don't know why I couldn't have be treated to a "this might not work 100% warning" instead of being completely locked out.

emilfihlman 8y ago
It's a top down decision, probably, and probably related to internal quality requirements of software and support. Also possible (but unlikely) is that Firefox doesn't support some certain thing, the absence of which might corrupt some state or data (error handling ain't exactly a thing javascript land, unfortunately.
- jakub_g 8y ago
  This is like a highway operator saying "You can only enter our highway with a ford or a fiat. We didn't take time to test if an opel can properly ride our highway, so opels are not allowed". (Yeah I get it that they don't want to have people complaining that a niche corner case that was never tested in Firefox doesn't work. But this is a ridiculous way to do it.)
  - akvadrako 8y ago
    Not really - it's about the surface area of the interface. It's pretty easy to know if a car will work on a road - it needs tires and the ability to control it's own movement. But if the road had thousands of different connections to the car, there certainly would need to be testing for each manufacturer.
- gnomewascool 8y ago
  > Also possible (but unlikely) is that Firefox doesn't support some certain thing, the absence of which might corrupt some state or data (error handling ain't exactly a thing javascript land, unfortunately. Considering that it works with current Edge (which hasn't switched to Blink, yet), it's unlikely, as you say.
- asdff 8y ago
  It's probably my plugin settings, but I regularly run into issues logging into random websites like for bank or credit cards on firefox. You input your credentials into the log in window, and absolutely nothing happens when you hit login. For these websites, I'm still shackled to chrome.
jarfil 8y ago
Because anything less than "100% working" is considered a failure, and it might be a preventive measure to avoid bug reports or clueless user outrage.
- oblio 8y ago
  And because, "accidentally", it cements the Chrome monopoly, at least in regard to Google web properties. That can't be just a coincidence. "It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It" and all that.
  - Vinnl 8y ago
    I don't think Microsoft is particularly happy about Chrome's dominance. It's more that they figured they're unable to make a dent there.
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      > It's more that they figured they're unable to make a dent there. Considering how Microsoft has been shifting to support open platforms (I mean, .net now officially runs on linux and Microsoft even integrates Docker) my guess is that they decided to focus on core businesses and don't waste resources implementing redundant support infrastructure.
      - pritambaral 8y ago
        .NET runs on Linux because the developers are here. I wonder why Skype for Web doesn't run in a browser on Linux, given how much 'Microsoft ️:heart: Linux'.
        oblio 8y ago
        I haven't tried, doesn't this work on Linux? https://preview.web.skype.com/ https://preview.web.skype.com/ Worst case, after changing the user agent.
Asooka 8y ago
I get a crash when I try to paste text in the chat, but it otherwise works. As an aside, it's wild seeing an "App has crashed and needs to reload" on a damn javascript application. You would think it would be able to recover and continue serving content.
rdsubhas 8y ago
Great, but let's understand it's not going to tilt the scales. It's still going to count Chrome as the final winner since popularity is measured more by User Agent in visits, and less by download stats (atleast that's what I have seen so far, would be very happy to know otherwise).

jacquesm 8y ago

Over my dead body.

ktjfi 8y ago
You better arrange for your suicide, because it seems inevitable. The terrible mismanagement of the Mozilla Corporation is to blame.
- bsaul 8y ago
  Mismanagement : could you give some details ? I was under the impression that mozilla was doing quite amazing things on the contrary : keeping firefox the only really usable alternative to chrome (when even microsoft didn't manage to do it), and even innovating in PL space with Rust. What do you think they should have done differently ?
  - stingraycharles 8y ago
    They have made some weird decisions to include some marketing campaigns into Firefox once, and I believe the whole Pocket thing didn’t land well with many of their users.
  - ktjfi 8y ago
    They made the same mistake IE made: around Firefox 3, they allowed their browser to become terribly slow, and so Chrome ate their lunch. Because let's be honest, Chrome was and still is so much faster than Firefox, and that's why they won. You could argue that Chrome has infinite ad budget, and that obviously helps, but I'm a Google hater and I'd gladly use Firefox if it was better or at least on par with Chrome, but it's not. I understand fixing something like that takes a lot of effort, but they lost a lot of time and money in projects that had no chance of working out, such as FirefoxOS (really? making an entire OS using the slowest browser engine that there is on the cheapest ARM hardware they could find?), Hello, Persona, etc. They also abandoned Thunderbird, which I will never forgive, the same way I will never forgive Google for abandoning Reader. Servo is a nice project but the chances it will be abandoned after years in development are over the roof. So now they are focused on their privacy improvements, but they can't stop shooting themselves in the foot (sending your browsing history to the advertisement company Cliqz, remotely installing an addon to advertise the Mr. Robot show, installing Pocket by default...) Then, if it is slower, and they don't seem to be able to take my privacy seriously despite their claims to the contrary, why in hell should I use Firefox?

hd4 8y ago

All the more reason for any Linux distro maintainers to include Firefox as the default browser.

ktjfi 8y ago
Isn't that what they already do?
- solarkraft 8y ago
  Not all. Many include WebKit based browsers (pretty much all except Firefox are, and Firefox is too heavy for many).
  - ktjfi 8y ago
    I also blame the Mozilla Corporation for that: including WebKit in your software is a piece of cake. So that's what the default browsers of GNOME/KDE/etc do. Gecko not so much (in fact, has there been any effort in this arena, after XULRunner was discontinued?)
    - Vinnl 8y ago
      For Android at least they're working on https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components/ https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/android-components/
    - alex_duf 8y ago
      Gnome is literally running using Firefox's technology
      - solarkraft 8y ago
        Please elaborate. I don't know any project embedding Gecko.
- hd4 8y ago
  Not all, I'm noticing a trend of including Chromium on the more niche distros like the Fedora spins (I noticed this about 1-2 years ago, the situation may have changed).

snaky 8y ago

How many users do know what their Chrome browser phones home?

j16sdiz 8y ago
Depends on what "phones home" meant. Instant search on "omnibar" is useful. Spellcheck is great too. But not everybody aware data are sent to google server for those functions...

alexandernst 8y ago

A +15 year web-dev guy here. > One of the greatest fears (...) is that Web developers would increasingly take the easy way out and limit their support and testing to Chrome Now, I must ask, why should we (web developers) be the responsible for making everything work with every browser? It's literally the same thing as asking application-oriented developers to code and test their apps for every major compiler out there. We can't be the responsible for making every webpage compatible with every browser. Period. There are standards, and it's not really our problem that Chrome implements them in a week, while Firefox takes 6 months, Edge 2 years, Konqueror 10 years, and so on. It takes a lot of time and energy to build and test websites for 3 or 4 different browsers. And it takes even more time to implement workarounds for every browser that doesn't support that thing that your boss asked you to implement. And "shit must be done by the end of the day". Don't take me wrong. Go go browser diversity! But not if that means that I should take the burden.

llukas 8y ago
+15 year? Where have you been when everybody standardized on IE6 and this was a bad thing? I thought it is new generation that reinvents the wheel but it seems I'm mistaken.
- alexandernst 8y ago
  Sure. But you're missing a point here. IE6 was bad because it didn't follow any standards. You had to, literally, "code the IE6 way". Chrome on the other hand is starting to be a problem because it's too damn fast at implementing new stuff (which are accepted as standard). Web-developers then start using those new features and the code they write suddenly doesn't work on other browsers, because those browser just don't support those new features yet. That's why we got webpack. That's why we got babel and polyfills. And that's why frontend development sucks a lot lately. Because you have the choice of doing X the easy and fast way, that currently works only with Chrome, because no other browser implemented that yet. Or, you can do it the hard and slow way, that works with all browsers. And this is not something that I'm pulling out of thin air. This has been discussed several times here, in HN.

Tsubasachan 8y ago

Hilariously while all those idiots were fighting the last war against evil Microsoft a new and much more powerful enemy was quietly taking over.

bwb 8y ago

So irony :). Microsoft complaining about a browser monopoly!

amelius 8y ago
I'd say their complaint is fully justified, because others did the same to them back in the old days.
StavrosK 8y ago
Microsoft aren't complaining, they're supporting it.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  I rather think they're embracing it, actually.
  - ld00d 8y ago
    Will they be extending it now?
    - maxxxxx 8y ago
      I wouldn't be too surprised if they did after a while.

jfk13 8y ago

It's been discussed in the past, but I'll just leave this here as a reminder: https://robert.ocallahan.org/2014/08/choose-firefox-now-or-later-you-wont.html https://robert.ocallahan.org/2014/08/choose-firefox-now-or-l...

userbinator 8y ago
I think Firefox/Mozilla is still a bit on the "too big" side, and they've done some mollycoddling/anti-user-freedom stuff in the past too. IMHO if you want to "protest" the browser monopoly, use something more like Dillo or NetSurf. They have no JS, so web apps are out of the question, but work well for the document-centric sites.
- benj111 8y ago
  I would love Dillo and Netsurf to be usable web browsers on the modern web, unfortunately they aren't. We should be able to do better than 2 rendering engines though.
  - jfk13 8y ago
    Arguably there are 3, depending how you view webkit vs blink; yes, they come from a common ancestor, but there's been quite a bit of divergence by now. But yes, the loss of EdgeHTML (following a few years after the loss of Presto) is a sad thing for the health of the web.
  - classichasclass 8y ago
    NetSurf has the most hope for becoming a new capable engine, but a lot of work still remains to get it to feature parity. I love how it performs on very constrained systems, though.
- O1111OOO 8y ago
  > I think Firefox/Mozilla is still a bit on the "too big" side One of the machines I use is an old Dell Latitude D620 (2006, Intel Core2 CPU T7200 2.00GHz[0]) on a debian base. I can tell you from personal experience, on this machine, that Mozilla's latest Quantum Browser is heads above Chrome and their "clones". It is so quick to load (even loaded with extensions), it replaced Pale Moon as the default browser for this laptop. I was stunned at the performance improvements in Quantum. I remain surprised, every single day, that the modern web has been made available on a laptop that's 13 years old. All other Chrome-like browsers (Chromium, Opera, Vivaldi, etc) take much longer to load, cause the cpu to throttle (fans kick in) which can lead to overheating and shutdown issues. They are essentially unusable on that machine. Firefox Quantum, otoh, is snappy on this machine. I say this because I'm genuinely curious by the "too big" comment. I honestly find it puzzling (unless you're comparing a modern, full-featured browser to Dillo or Links2/GUI: both of which are favs of mine for their use cases). I had turned my back on Firefox for a few years because of performance issues, caching problems. They didn't just correct these issues, they've done so in a way few software upgrades have ever managed to do in my experience (dating back three decades) and have blown past their competitors from a purely performance standpoint. [0] https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Duo+T7200+%40+2.00GHz&id=927 https://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core2+Duo+T72...

SUr3na 8y ago

You need around 70mb of sheer complexity to render a page fully correct and you need millions of dollars to build a competitor that would lose because level of complexity is increasing daily .By the time you cover what you thought the web was ,the most used browser chrome had already came up with more complexity to add to the web.Web sucks and this helps the monopoly.

snaky 8y ago
What if some browser would exist that could render only 90% of pages fully correct, but would be twice as fast as Chrome and use 30% of memory?
- eveningsteps 8y ago
  You mean, Internet Explorer?
  - snaky 8y ago
    > twice as fast I doubt it.
- SUr3na 8y ago
  I would use it and recommend it to people I know, as I already do. But how about no browser at all? How about I use my own video player to watch a file I received over network? We have essentially operating systems(web browsers) with pipelines, processes and sandboxing just to be completely ignored by websites which instead shove a message "install our app" down our throat.
- wmeredith 8y ago
  You just described my user experience with Brave.
  - dest 8y ago
    Huh, is'nt Brave built on libChromium?

guilhas 8y ago

Thanks Microsoft for all those great times downloading other browsers.

panic 8y ago

One thing the article doesn't mention is the effect of Apple's browser engine policy on iOS. Forcing everyone to use WebKit may be anticompetitive, but it's also the main thing keeping the Chrome/Blink monoculture at bay.

ttoinou 8y ago
anticompetitive It's not. Apple enforces whatever rule they want on their OS
- anth_anm 8y ago
  Microsoft nearly got broken up for a much weaker version of this sort of rule.
  - morsch 8y ago
    The only market Apple has a dominant market position in is Apple phones. In the US and many of the other richest countries, Apple is like Pepsi in terms of market share; in the rest of the world it's more like Dr. Pepper. (Yes, I know this is the Jolt Cola of analogies, I will stick to cars in the future.) https://www.statista.com/statistics/225464/market-share-of-leading-soft-drink-companies-in-the-us-since-2004/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/225464/market-share-of-l...
  - ttoinou 8y ago
    Well, it's a shame then. They were doing nothing wrong
Vinnl 8y ago
Yeah, I've started to grow conflicted on that too. I used to hate it because Safari was lagging behind so far and users couldn't switch, but it also forces web developers to test for interoperability with at least one other browser engine, making it more likely to work in others as well. Safari has caught up a bit, luckily, but it'd be great if it would actually compete with other browsers on features. Unfortunately, I guess if Apple opened up iOS to other browser engines, it'd also compete against Google's marketing machine and reach.

TheLuddite 8y ago

Microsoft should push a Windows Update that won't allow you to install/run Chrome on WindowsOS

cies 8y ago

I use FF as my daily driver on all devices. It is a very, very, competitive browser compared to Chrome and it's offshoots. In some area's, or with some plugins, it wins, and in other's it looses. I also really like the that Mozilla is actively involved in activism and thereby does a huge service to our safety/privacy online (refer to the recent DarkMatter story). I'm sad FF share is declining. I wonder what I can do to counter this trend.

samcday 8y ago
Keep using Firefox! Encourage everyone you know (without being too obnoxious of course) to switch. Help them switch if they’re receptive to the idea. Support them in staying with Firefox if they have extension requirements, workflow concerns, whatever. The pitch for Firefox should be easy nowadays. Talk about how it’s privacy-focussed while still being competitive with Chrome in performance and ease of use. A lot of people know that Fa$ebook is evil and gobbling up all their data, but they don’t feel like there’s that much they can practically do. Switching to Firefox and using Containers is something anyone can do easily. Of course there’s probably bigger things that you could do. But thinking locally (if you’re not already) is absolutely required before you then think globally, IMO.
- eykanspelgud 8y ago
  I wish I could agree, and if I were experiencing a different situation, I would be in the same camp. Firefox 65 keeps crashing on my Linux box. I've tried downgrading to 64 and below. But whatever updates were installed when I installed FF65 also crash FF64 and under. It was either change OS or let FF go. I've since moved to brave browser, but would happily go back to FF if/when I figure out and troubleshoot the issue.
  - samcday 8y ago
    That's a shame :( FWIW I'm on 65.0.1 (64-bit) on Ubuntu 18.04.2 and have had no major issues. I use Firefox exclusively and use my browser heavily all day long.
  - 8y ago

guilhas 8y ago

It just proves they keep breaking Skype updates, nothing new. Kind of ironic coming from the people who gave us IE/EDGE, the browser with the most incompatibility issues. One thing they got right, Linux/Firefox people are probably not their target audience so why bother. Especially after year of broken Skype updates in Linux. There are better alternatives now.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago
What's your best Skype alternative for non-techy people?
- timlyo 8y ago
  Discord is pretty good, although it's gaming focused so not ideal if you're looking for something professional.
- guilhas 8y ago
  https://jitsi.org/ https://jitsi.org/ https://jami.net/ https://jami.net/ https://signal.org/ https://signal.org/ https://tox.chat/ https://tox.chat/ https://linphone.org/ https://linphone.org/
  - pbhjpbhj 8y ago
    I can come up with a list too, and many more sites have lists alternativeto.net and slant.co are my go-tos. The point of asking here is to get a thoughtful response with a genuine user preference from someone technically inclined; your comment really doesn't help.

guilhas 8y ago

In 2017 Firefox 52 stopped supporting 'Skype for business' for their reliance on legacy NPAPI plugins interface.

tlynchpin 8y ago
Have you heard the Good News?!? Waterfox is FF before it dropped support for well loved extensions like Tab Mix Plus. It is actively maintained with security patches. https://www.waterfoxproject.org/ https://www.waterfoxproject.org/

rwc 8y ago

"IE's hegemony presented an enormous challenge for the upstart Firefox browser, which was built to support Web standards rather than Microsoft's particular spin on those standards." A bit of revisionist history here. Firefox, nee Phoenix, was a branch of Mozilla because its authors felt (correctly) Mozilla was too bloated. I remember 1-2 minute load times when trying to open Mozilla back in the day.

benj111 8y ago
Which bit of the quote is revisionist? What you're saying doesn't seem to contradict it?!?
- Vinnl 8y ago
  I think GP interprets the quote as meaning that supporting standards was the primary goal of Firefox, rather than just something they did instead of supporting Microsoft's implementation.
  - benj111 8y ago
    That could make sense. Thanks.
Yoric 8y ago
It's a slight simplification. The Mozilla Suite was "built to support Web standards rather than Microsoft's particular spin on these standards". Firefox/Phoenix/Firebird is the second generation Mozilla browser.

spystath 8y ago

I would still like to know what kind of features are unavailable in Firefox to warrant a complete block on the browser. This would also help Firefox developers to implement them or fix the bugs. I mean I always see "Firefox does not implement all the features we need for our cutting edge web app" but I've yet to see anything more specific. Do any of you with more frontend experience care to comment?

dfrage 8y ago
A competent session manager. The old "Session Manager" died in the transition to Quantum, and several developers of quasi-replacements, who acknowledge they don't come very close to it, maintain a list of two dozen or more bugs and missing features compared to Chrome they need to do better, like Chrome's Session Buddy. If I couldn't simply copy my entire configuration as I upgrade versions of Linux I'd be making a painful one time change completely to Chrome and Chromium, which I'd really rather avoid. The bottom line is that Mozilla let Firefox's market share decline so much that the only two reasons people kept using it were it's not Chrome, and the extension ecosystem. Which is reported to have included a superior debugger, which indirectly made sure a lot of sites implicitly supported Firefox because they were developed using it. Users don't give the slightest damn that keeping the old XPI ecosystem was hard, and had serious security issues. A huge number of extensions that they depended on have become roadkill on the information superhighway, even if some made the transition with significant changes. Making Firefox into an inferior version of Chrome means for most that the only reason to use it is that it's not Chrome.
- dTal 8y ago
  While possibly valid criticisms, these all seem rather irrelevant to the comment you are replying to, which was asking about server-facing features, of the type whose absence would justify discriminating on the basis of user agent and not even attempting to run $FANCY_WEB_APP.

fxfan 8y ago

Are all chrome extensions available by default on firefox?

TheRealDunkirk 8y ago
Of course the answer is no, or "it depends," but it goes both ways. Because of my company's goofy proxy situation, I'm using FoxyProxy on Firefox. There's a Chrome version, but it doesn't work. I like that Chrome bundles Flash, but I need FoxyProxy more.

Semaphor 8y ago

At least in Germany, Firefox still has nearly 25% according to statcounter [0]. It has fallen (used to be at 30% last year), but it's still big. [0]: http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/germany/#monthly-201802-201902 http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/germa...

pjmlp 8y ago
I still test on Firefox because it has been my main browser since the Netscape days (pre-Firefox), but for most customers Chrome, Safari (on iOS) and IE 11 make the bulk of our RFPs browser acceptance matrix (in Germany).
- Semaphor 8y ago
  According to GA, on our site, FF is the most used browser, followed by Chrome desktop. 3rd is Chrome mobile and then Safari mobile, tablet, desktop. Only after those, it's IE11 and then Edge. Uniting mobile, tablet and desktop still makes FF 3rd with a 6% lead on IE+Edge.

ginko 8y ago

Why is it even legal to exclude a standards compliant browser?

rezeroed 8y ago

I only use firefox. That isn't going to change. I'm done with google.

alexeiz 8y ago

I used Firefox before, but I stopped because 1) it was and continues to be dog slow on Linux, 2) stupidly restrictive policies for extensions. It's obvious to me that Firefox developers don't care about its users. And also at some point they expelled somebody for political views. That was plain stupid on their part.

hsbaut76 8y ago
I disagree completely. People who choose chrome because of a view UX enhancements, or choose Google because Gmail syncs better than iCal/idav, or decide to use Google search over duckduckgo because of blah, is the reason why Giant Corporations rule the planet. Why not support the underdog that actually cares about your privacy and liberties, rather than choosing an option that feeds the beast and sends us down a path to a dystopian future complete with global surveillance?
- dfrage 8y ago
  There are easier ways to fight the "path to a dystopian future complete with global surveillance" than sticking with an organization that's not making software fit for purpose, and is so political and privacy disdaining it will without question enthusiastically join that dystopia in due course, if it hasn't already.
- wsgeorge 8y ago
  > Why not support the underdog that actually cares about your privacy and liberties, ... I don't think many people use products because of their politics. They use what works for them. Chrome seems to be doing so extremely well, despite its flaws and questionable competitive practices. I have three browsers on my laptop. I hate Chrome because it is a battery/memory/data hog. But I can't comfortably switch profiles (work/various orgs/non-profits/personal) on FF like I do with Chrome. The feature is actually in FF, but it isn't available in the interface for whatever reason. This feature is nonexistent on Safari. Despite the alternatives on FF, this one feature is what keeps me on Chrome. Had FF had that, I probably would've switched by now. Nothing political (unless the politics suddenly begins to matter)
- 8y ago

wtmt 8y ago

> Further, users who have tried changing their user-agent—the identification string, sent by browsers, that tells Web servers what version of which browser they are—have reported that much of the app works in both Safari and Firefox, with reports that even voice and video calls work in Firefox. It's not clear that everything works, and WebRTC is arguably persnickety enough that Microsoft would have to explicitly test and perhaps tweak its code to work in Firefox or Safari. But ultimately, none of this appears to be a fundamental tech issue. Goes to show that companies will cut corners in silly ways whenever possible. Unless MS is called out on this repeatedly, it won't change. The noise needs to be louder on supporting Firefox (and other non-Chrome browsers). Otherwise everybody could lose.

jammygit 8y ago

I recently switched to brave because I'm tired of having to trust 5-10 extension authors who may or may not sell their extension one day (adblock had to fork to ublock iirc because of something like that). Most of what my extensions do is baked into brave, so its both idiot proof and requires less trust. If Firefox sold a privacy version of Firefox, I'd buy (edit: ie, with my privacy features/extensions built in)

effie 8y ago
Indeed! The current practice where one has to install obscure software plugin from unknown author to make browser relatively complete is absurd. (download video? change default css? tweaking headers? this should be in the browser, period.) The paranoid would say this lack of basic power-user features is because it makes users compromise their security.
kgwxd 8y ago
Then you have to trust Mozilla won't sell your data one day, and once they do, all your privacy tools need to be replaced at once. Except, there won't be any to switch to because there was no competion. Multiple competing, single-purpose, composable modules is best. It keeps the developers honest as long as the users call them out on any bad move they make, the second they make it. Too many users let Google slide on ever shitty move they've made and now here we are, again.

jdlyga 8y ago

The entire reason why I switched to Firefox in 2003 was because of its superior user interface (tabbed browsing) and performance. Likewise, the reason I switched to Chrome in 2011 was because of performance, syncing, and auto-updating. For me, it was never about privacy, breaking monopolies on rendering engines, or open source. It was always a pragmatic decision based on what browser gave me the best experience.

anoncake 8y ago
Theres nothing pragmatic about not caring about privacy, monopolies and freedom.

_bxg1 8y ago

I've made multiple attempts recently to switch to Firefox as my primary browser, but I never could stick with it. 1) It's simply not as responsive. They've worked really hard to keep up with Chrome, and I respect that, and the recent overhaul did make a big difference. But Chrome just feels like a piece of physical machinery, where Firefox still feels like a piece of software. 2) The dev tools are just not quite as good. As with general performance, they've always been very close, but there's just something about them that's off. Enough to disrupt my work. 3) Firefox mobile, at least on Android, has weird high-friction scrolling behavior that doesn't match the rest of the OS and feels terrible, and there's no way to turn it off. I use Firefox for casual browsing on my gaming desktop, but that's about it. I'm rooting for them, but there are just improvements that still need to be made. On the bright side, Chromium is 99% OSS (as opposed to Android, which is like 70% OSS). I think a fork could become a competitor if Google took the project in a direction that was just really egregiously bad. Let us not forget that Chrome's rendering engine, Blink, was itself a fork of Safari's WebKit.

ams6110 8y ago
I use Firefox exclusively. If a site only works in Chrome, I won't use it. Stability and performance are about the same, in my experience. Neither are perfect. Though it's been at least a year since I really used Chrome so I can't say for sure.
- Spearchucker 8y ago
  Exactly the same for me. Except that I've never used Chrome in my life. I had to install Chromium once because a German government site I needed to use insisted on Chrome.
- bachmeier 8y ago
  I just came across a cool video sharing service called Loom this afternoon. Then I saw that it requires Chrome. Guess I'll never use Loom. Edit: And coda.io too.
  - jonny_eh 8y ago

robbrown451 8y ago

I wish the open source world would wrap Blink into a usable browser product that doesn't have all the things we might not like about Chrome (or at least that allows a lot of settings for removing them and customizing it in ways that Google may not want to do with Chrome, because they don't think it is in their corporate interest). It's a lot easier than building a whole browser from scratch. I salute what Mozilla is doing but I still don't want to use their browser because it just isn't as good, in my opinion. (Firefox also does't support the MIDIAccess API yet, which I need) Obviously a lot of people agree that Chrome is better. I'm a lot more likely to use Microsoft's Blink browser than I was to use Microsoft's fully proprietary browser, but even better would be a fully open source, community steered "UnGoogled Chrome".

sfotm 8y ago
It exists: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium The general concern about projects along these lines, e.g. IceWeasel, is that they won't keep up with security patches as quickly as the project it's forking. Maybe that's less of a concern here since they aren't trying to recreate an older version but are just tearing out some "phone home" calls and changing some defaults.
- duskwuff 8y ago
  > they won't keep up with security patches as quickly as the project it's forking And they often take a baby-with-the-bathwater approach to removing Google from the picture. For instance, that project completely disables Safe Browsing, requires a convoluted process to install extensions, and breaks automatic extension updates -- in each case, because the functionality depends on a Google-hosted service.
  - effie 8y ago
    What is the purpose of removing Google from the browser, if you do not remove it from all parts of the browser? There only needs to be one automatic communication channel to Google to make such effort worthless.

partiallypro 8y ago

I use Firefox almost exclusively, but it freezes up a lot on me. The new engine they use cuts back on RAM usage but it seems CPU usage has increased. I will probably give the new Edge a chance when it comes out, because it gives the best of two worlds. One that isn't tightly wound to the Google ecosystem, and yet still is highly compatible.

KorematsuFred 8y ago

I use both chrome and firefox. On my surface pro I mostly use edge. Honestly I think all the three browsers are pretty good and unless you are trying to use hangouts they all seem to perform nearly equally.

everybodyknows 8y ago

Assuming this was a strategic, long-term policy decision from on high, what are the chances that Microsoft's next addition to their "unsupported on Firefox" list turns out to be ... Github?

Flip-per 8y ago
Pretty much zero. Except if they want to shut down github and need a bandwagon full of bad press and furious developers.

marricks 8y ago

I wonder if people could get momentum behind big sites doing a day of “only works on Firefox” black out to bring notice to this. Going back to ie6 days would be awful...

samfisher83 8y ago

If the government didn't step in microsoft might still have 90% of the browser market. I think its time they came in and forced google to not push chrome in android.

anth_anm 8y ago
Google pays their bribes. Microsoft didn't.
- s3r3nity 8y ago
  I was going to down-vote this, but then did some research into how much Alphabet and Microsoft spend on lobbying. In 2018: Google spent $21.7M, all in the "Internet" industry. Microsoft spent ~$9.5M, and only $70k of that in "Internet." The rest went to "Electronics Mfg and Equipment." Sources: https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000067823 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00006782... https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D000000115 https://www.opensecrets.org/lobby/clientsum.php?id=D00000011...
  - anth_anm 8y ago
    Compare it to what microsoft spent before their anti-trust lawsuits.
10-6 8y ago
Not true: https://stratechery.com/2019/where-warrens-wrong/ https://stratechery.com/2019/where-warrens-wrong/
- reallydude 8y ago
  Yes true. The strongarming tactics of MS aren't referenced. While it brings up some interesting points, the entirety paints the common revisionist view that MS was crushed by Google on search alone, with no other mitigating factors. A fairy tale of sorts. Google would not have risen to anything if MS continued with it's anti-competitive and anti-trust practices that was the goto MS strategy for competition into the early 2000. It was baked into the MS culture. and common knowledge, maligned on message boards long after it had ceased. Under enacted US justice dept scrutiny, MS was forced to compete more fairly with superior talent and lower margins (aww no more predatory acquisitions). With a giant, inflexible infrastructure and rigid payscales, it was a slow imminent decline.

ksajadi 8y ago

I think Apple should step in and really help Mozilla with funding and more.

la_fayette 8y ago

I use FF and duckduckgo. I spend a lot of time on the web and i cannot complain about anything... I only use chrome for web development and google for SEO optimization...

edgarvaldes 8y ago

I never left Firefox. Not even in the first bright days of Chrome. I have both installed, but my daily use is in FF.

cutler 8y ago

Oh the irony to hear Microsoft complaining about browser monopolies. Somewhat akin to their "embracing Linux" posturing whilst perpetuating their Linux patent racket. Remember this - Microsoft only embraces open standards as a last resort.

tracker1 8y ago
Microsoft isn't complaining... Edge is moving to Blink/Chromium even.

mr_toad 8y ago

Microsoft only cares about enterprise. Enterprise IT only installs Chrome because IE and Edge have problems with many sites. Once Enterprise IT is finally forced to move to Windows 10 and blink based Edge I can see them not bothering to install Chrome. Enterprise will be happy, MS will be happy, and the only people using Skype will be wage slaves working for corporations too cheap to install actual phones.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

ComputerGuru 8y ago

Since everyone is using this thread to talk all things Firefox - does anyone else have an issue with Netflix videos randomly hanging or stuttering with Firefox? It happens to me once or twice an episode and I have to un-fullscreen the player to get it to stop, then I can full screen it again.

pcurve 8y ago
I remember watching 1080p youtube videos on really old machine. It wasn't even that slow to come to think of it. Q6600 core 2 duo. Youtube always performed better in Chrome in full screen. FF would drop frames consistenty

metta2uall 8y ago

I've been quite happy using Firefox for all personal and most web development work. Unfortunately though we've had to recommend Chrome to users of our web application since Firefox doesn't support speech recognition.. To catch up I think Firefox needs - More funding - I think large tech companies should donate heavily to avoid a chrome monopoly.. - Perhaps more focus on core browser features like speech instead of various side projects? (like Firefox Color and Price Wise.. though I must admit I really like Screenshots).

jonas21 8y ago
> More funding - I think large tech companies should donate heavily to avoid a chrome monopoly.. Mozilla has $560M in annual revenue, and Firefox is their only widely-used product. How much more do they need?

mung 8y ago

It pisses me off that MS would detect a browser and block it when they have done as much as they can do to prevent web developers from detecting IE/Edge for much the same reasons: that it's not up to the job and will cause a bunch of support calls.

intellix 8y ago

I've noticed that a lot of authors complaining that the lack of diversity in web browsers will lead to developers only testing in one browser aren't actually web developers themselves. As a web developer: I don't want to have to check my work in 3 different interpretations of the spec. If you don't like Google Chrome then you're welcome to use many of the other usages of the open source Chromium

nr0mx 8y ago

I would prefer not to contribute to Chrome's increasing dominance, but I feel like I don't get much of a choice. I want to choose a browser on its merits. For me that is currently Vivaldi. Where is the Firefox-based Vivaldi equivalent? Mozilla does not really seem to be addressing the fact that they provide one browser - Firefox - that is competing against an increasing array of Chrome-based browsers, all providing different user experiences. Why has no one built an interesting browser on top of Firefox? It stands to reason that Chrome cannot be all things to all people. Neither can Firefox. The difference is that alternative browsers are increasingly Chrome-based, with the single exception of Firefox. Unless Mozilla (or someone else) can reverse this trend, I think this battle is lost.

kgwxd 8y ago

Microsoft only further proved that Skype and the team building it suck and everyone should continue not using it.

crb002 8y ago

This seems really short sighted, but also remember that Firefox has huge Google financial backing.

astrostl 8y ago

MS Teams doesn't support OPEN IN APP REDIRECTS in Safari :-|