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Great to see mainstream media picking this up and giving Firefox some exposure. With Microsoft switching to Chromium, Firefox is now the only viable (cross pla

Great to see mainstream media picking this up and giving Firefox some exposure. With Microsoft switching to Chromium, Firefox is now the only viable (cross platform) alternative. FF gaining back a solid amount of market share is critical for the browser ecosystem in the future. (Personally I switched back to FF after the first Quantum release, which brought performance back on par with Chrome. On mobile, the ad blocker is even more essential to get somewhat acceptable load times...)

dijit 7y ago
I think safari is more cross platform than IE, since you can run safari on macOS and Windows. But IE only runs on Windows. EDIT: I have been informed that it's not cross-platform since 2012. My bad.
- riamu 7y ago
  Safari is a terrible, Apple-like version of WebKit. The last viable windows version of Safari was abandoned 8 years ago, so please nobody use this browser.
  - jnwkw 7y ago
    Safari is the fastest browser I've ever used on mobile. It also supports ad blocking. Calling it "terrible" simply does not resonate with me. Chrome is slower and Firefox on mobile is a joke.
    - kekebo 7y ago
      If you're on iOS it would make sense since Apple is only allowing it's own webkit as browser engine, forcing chromium and firefox to be disfigured versions of what they are on other systems. When I was working more frontend (~1,5 years ago) no browser would cause more work and trouble for us than Safari on iOS (we didn't have to support IE9 and lower).
      - jnwkw 7y ago
        Nah I'm talking about Chrome and Firefox on Android. They are both worse than Safari on iOS. Also I understand that Safari might've created some pain for you as a frontend developer, but frankly I don't care. I'm an end user and I only care about how fast and secure the browser is. And Safari wins there, it's not terrible by any measure for the end user.
        kekebo 7y ago
        That might be your personal impression but I don't share it. Development wise it's not so much about our pain as about certain known bugs that went unfixed for up to 2+ years, similar goes for a range of CVEs (re:being secure).
        jnwkw 7y ago
        Do you believe Chrome or Firefox on Android to be faster or more secure than Safari on iOS?
        ethelward 7y ago
        Performances issues will be hard to estimate, as you can not compare safari to the others on the same phone, which means that you will not be able to correct for hardware and software stacks influences.
        AsyncAwait 7y ago
        > Chrome and Firefox on Android. They are both worse than Safari on iOS I realize that this is subjective, but Firefox Focus has been my preferred mobile browser, regardless of if I have Safari available, (iPad), or not, (Android). In fact having desktop addons on Android has been great.
        seabrookmx 7y ago
        Safari being faster on iOS might be more indicative of your iDevice's performance rather than Safari's (the A-series chips are quite fast). Without being able to run both browsers on the same hardware you can't really make an apples to apples comparison.
    - jekrb 7y ago
      Have you tried Brave browser on mobile? It's quite fast and blocks ads. A couple issues with Safari I've seen since it's slower to adopt web standards: - buggier websites from devs who don't have iPhones. Since there are some quirky inconsistencies with how webkit handles css vs other browser rendering engines it's easy not to catch those quirks if you don't have an iPhone to check them with. And once users point them out, it's a pain to fix without a physical device. - a smaller web feature set than chrome/Firefox. For instance, Safari doesn't allow localstorage while in incognito. I think it supports serviceworkers and webrtc now but it took years to get them.
      - walterbell 7y ago
        > For instance, Safari doesn't allow localstorage while in incognito. Isn't that good for privacy? Localstorage can store unique IDs and other data about the client's past behavior, it's much more dangerous than cookies.
        jekrb 7y ago
        It would be nice if localstorage worked in a new instance in incognito. This way webapps that require it can still function without affecting non-incognito tabs. What other privacy concerns would there be I'm wondering?
        walterbell 7y ago
        If incognito mode discards localstorage, there is risk of silent data loss. E.g. imagine a web-based editor that saved drafts. Websites can detect the absence of localstorage and change their behavior, e.g. notify the user that information will be lost after the session ends.
      - revvx 7y ago
        > For instance, Safari doesn't allow localstorage while in incognito It does allow (at least in the version I'm using), but doesn't persist the data between sessions. Which is the whole point of Icognito mode.
    - willtim 7y ago
      Firefox on mobile has improved enormously since Quantum. It works well enough to ditch Chrome.
      - ycgeu 7y ago
        No it doesn't. For example to tap a link you have to tap it directly, links don't have a halo around them to make them easier to tap. Tapping things like the [-] buttons here in HN is very hard. It's stupid shit like that that makes it unusable for me. I don't believe for a second the developers of Firefox for Android use it every day and haven't fixed that. And if they don't dogfood what hope is there for that software?
        yorwba 7y ago
        > I don't believe for a second the developers of Firefox for Android use it every day and haven't fixed that. Why is that so unbelievable? I use Firefox every day and haven't even considered that this might be a problem. I don't have difficulty hitting the [-] on HN, but if I did, I would simply zoom in until it becomes large enough.
        ycgeu 7y ago
        Yes I suppose that's what the Firefox developers think to themselves. Let's ignore basic usability issues. That's why Firefox is a failure.
        noir_lord 7y ago
        Same, used Firefox on Android (currently on a 5.5" phone (Nokia 6.1)) for over a year without a single issue. Chrome still had a slightly better UI the last time I tried it but the gap wasn't remotely wide enough to give up ublock origin. Adverts are even more annoying on phones than they are on desktop so been able to run ublock origin directly on device is a major win.
        patrick5415 7y ago
        I’m amazed at the tiny inconveniences that lead people to something is totally broken and completely unusable.
    - Zardoz84 7y ago
      I'm using Firefox for mobile since Quantum, and works better that Chrome (except for a few pages that don't bother on supporting Firefox on any platform)
      - iforgotpassword 7y ago
        For me it's faster on mobile mostly since I can just install ublock origin so most pages load and execute much less crap.
    - riamu 7y ago
      Ok that's fair. From a developer's PoV, Safari is a terrible browser. It's old and buggy and stifles innovation on iOS in the same way ie did on windows.
      - madeofpalk 7y ago
        As a web developer, I find this to be anything be true. Safari supports loads of cool features that clients ask for, like native css carousels (css snap points), and blur effects (backdrop-filter). Chrome, does not.
        seabrookmx 7y ago
        As a web developer, I like my browser to implement internet standards correctly so websites actually work. People aren't trashing Safari because it's cool.. generally Apple provides a great software experience. But Safari is a bug ridden mess. Here's an example that broke many many sites that use OAuth2 Auth Code Flow for login (including the main UI portal my company provides clients): https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=194906 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=194906 There's also been issues with the handling of 3rd party cookies that create issues for login systems, js stdlib functions being incorrectly implemented, etc.
        dmitriid 7y ago
        Safari generally implements standards as they mature. Chrome generally implements everything new and shiny, no matter how underspecified it is, and with blatant disregard to whether or not it breaks the web.
        seabrookmx 7y ago
        I don't disagree with regards to new standards, but that doesn't change the fact that existing, well established standards are often broken in Safari (see the bug I linked in the parent comment). These bugs are much more likely to break the web than Chrome's half baked bleeding edge features because there's already a huge body of web software that relies on them.
    - NightlyDev 7y ago
      You clearly don't have much experience as a developer with Safari on iOS. It's a terrible browser full of bugs and inconsistent behavior.
    - blablabla123 7y ago
      Since I have the new Macbook Air I also switched to Safari because it also extends battery lifetime. Still need to get used to the different keyboard shortcuts and plugin system though. (But yes, if I do Frontend development, I use Chrome)
    - xenator 7y ago
      In last version of Safari uBlock shows warning that it is not supported anymore and slow down your browsing experience. Adblockers from App Store are limited by number of allowed rules the same way as in promised Chrome API changes. If we should start to worry about browser shift then Safari should be first in the list.
    - lern_too_spel 7y ago
      > It also supports ad blocking. It supports the same crippled ad blocking that this article complains about. It is also years behind the competitors in standards support, and the standards it claims to support are implemented buggily. Finally, it crashes more often than its competitors, but I suppose making a browser unusable is one way to save battery.
- thestephen 7y ago
  Safari hasn't been supported for Windows since 2012.
  - dijit 7y ago
    Ah. I apologise. I don’t use Windows, and haven’t for years but have vivid memories of using safari on Windows.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- jekrb 7y ago
  The canary version of Microsoft Edge now works on macOS (but that's because Edge switched to running chromium)
ljm 7y ago
I hope to see Firefox eventually providing an embeddable framework, considering that Chromium isn't just monopolising the web browser space... it's spreading into desktop applications through Electron. Left unchecked, Google will manage to poke its fingers into every pie within reach. It seems like the ideal solution of using the OS's native web toolkit hasn't been successful so far. So the next best offering (aside from building on Qt), is to have an Electron competitor too.
- dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
  I regret XUL was abandoned - it was a great idea, but much ahead of its time.
  - teknopaul 7y ago
    Plus one. This was the beggining of the rot in Mozila. This marked the moment the went from making general purpose web/http based platforms based on OpenSource principals to builing a single a www specific advertising platform. I still use Firefox and support them financially. Its the best we have. But they stopped caring about anything other that being the frontpage to the Internet a long time ago. They gave up on supporting developers.
  - mongol 7y ago
    That was before Firefox was born, right? Or was the success of Firefox the demise of XUL?
    - simias 7y ago
      I'm not sure what you're asking exactly but XUL existed a long time after Firefox was born and became popular. I remember using a XUL app at work around 2010.
    - cptskippy 7y ago
      XUL was the markup language used by the Mozilla Communicator Suite for designing user interfaces. It was what Add-on development used. Mozilla deprecated it not that long ago in favor of HTML but stalwarts have clung to it and complained. I use to maintain a couple Add-ons and developed some simple UIs for it. I was never impressed by it and it was easy enough to use so I had no objections either.
threatofrain 7y ago
Which site has the most reliable browser metrics?
- yorwba 7y ago
  https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity probably has the most reliable metrics on Firefox users. Not enough to compare to other browsers, but if there's a large switch from Chrome to Firefox, it should eventually show up on the graph.
zzzcpan 7y ago
> With Microsoft switching to Chromium, Firefox is now the only viable I'm not sure I understand your point. Is there a public statement from Microsoft that they are following Google on this? I don't know what Microsoft is going to do, but nothing stops them from keeping the API fully working. And if Firefox was based on Chromium too, nothing would stop Mozilla from keeping the API working either. Although I expect some forks to follow Google on this, namely other ad-tech companies with web browsers, like Yandex.
- aiscapehumanity 7y ago
  MS new edge successor browser is built on chromium?
  - cptskippy 7y ago
    Yes, it's called Edge.
  - fibers 7y ago
    In 2019 the team basically switched to webkit/chromium
    - mda 7y ago
      Blink/Chromium
- wayneftw 7y ago
  I'd rather use (and build for) any WebKit browser over Firefox, so I'm hoping Microsoft Edge does not implement the "Chrome extension manifest v3" and that they release Edge for Linux ASAP. Aside from my feelings about the technical qualities of their products - Mozilla is clearly not more trustworthy than Google or Microsoft either since they put non-removable ads and tracking extensions directly into Firefox and lock developers out of their extension store for purely political reasons.
  - ravenstine 7y ago
ufo 7y ago
This is not mainstream media. It is just a blog hosted on Forbes' platform.
- netman21 7y ago
  Right on. Forbes.com hosts my blog. They provide minimal editorial oversight, usually limited to making sure you capitalize every word in the title per their style guide.
jm4 7y ago
It’s not mainstream media. It’s a contributor site. You can pay some money and get one of your own. You can post whatever you want on there. They offer to do a little bit of editing and proofreading to make it look professional before it goes online. There is no fact checking. These contributor sites are essentially blogs that carry the credibility of Forbes even though they don’t deserve it. I see contributor sites being linked all over the place - social media, news aggregators, even Apple news. I wish there was more awareness that these articles are written by some regular person with no qualifications as a journalist and that there is no standard for accuracy. I’ve been asked to be a contributor before. I don’t know what the criteria is. I got a cold call about it one day. I’ve been a panelist at a couple local events, got a mention in a niche news outlet and was nominated for an award once. My guess is that’s why I was targeted as a lead. The pitch was mostly about having a bigger platform for my personal brand if I remember correctly.
- kwhitefoot 7y ago
  > carry the credibility of Forbes What credibility is that? My impression is that they have lost quite a lot of what they once had for exactly this reason.
- classicsnoot 7y ago
  What are the "qualifications of a journalist?" They are people with opinions that write stuff. If you think journalism and writing departments are teaching rigor and factual veracity, you are mistaken. I've only come to it recently, but Gell-Mann Amnesia Affect is something to be aware of and avoid. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect?wprov=sfla1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect?wpr...
  - hnhg 7y ago
    Try to get a job at a major news outlet without recognised journalism qualifications.
  - jm4 7y ago
    Quality and opinion of mainstream media aside, I think we can all appreciate the difference between someone paid for their work by a professional news outlet and someone off the street who is paying Forbes to host their blog.
kace91 7y ago
I just wish they finally fixed the bug that makes it unusable for me and thousands of other users using macbooks with resolution set to "more space"... I can't count how many people in my office I've had to help after their macbook randomly starts heating and turning fans to max power, it's always that they started using firefox. I've been checking the tickets associated with the issue (mainly [this one](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042) ) and there doesn't seem to be any significant advance, nor it seems the people in charge are aware of how prevalent and deal breaking this bug is :(
- mimsee 7y ago
  yeah, I also noticed this and this is the one reason I wont be switching to Firefox on my macbook. On other PCs I’ve been using firefox for a long time now.
- rcthompson 7y ago
  I wonder if this bug also applies to using the "Looks like 1280x800" option on a MBP with a 2560x1600 screen (this is what I use). The default is "Looks like 1440x900".
  - tolle 7y ago
    It doesn't, or it's at least better.
- behnamoh 7y ago
  It's not just that. Exporting Passwords from Chrome to FF is impossible in macOS. Not a day goes by that I don't have to enter my password for a website. Thus, switching to FF actually means re-entering tens of passwords manually (given that you do remember the passwords, otherwise you'll have to go to Passwords Manager in Chrome and see the saved passwords).
  - defined 7y ago
    Might it be worth using a password manager instead, like 1Password, or KeePass and its variants?
velox_io 7y ago
Wow, I never knew/ expected MS to switch to Chromium. Given how much MS boasts about Edge's battery life over Chrome. Hopefully Google leaves a workaround to enable ad-blocking. Otherwise, I will switch, it will be a bit of hassle, but I'll drop them none the less. No ads & lower power usage would be nice though. https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300077/microsoft-edge-chromium-canary-development-release-download https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300077/microsoft-edge-ch...
- Riverheart 7y ago
  They have Github developers already deep in Chromium for Electron which is powering VSCode so rather than maintain two separate teams, better to focus everybody on Chromium.
treis 7y ago
>With Microsoft switching to Chromium, Firefox is now the only viable (cross platform) alternative. FF gaining back a solid amount of market share is critical for the browser ecosystem in the future Why are multiple rendering and JS engines critical for the browser ecosystem? Everyone would be much better off if we standardized on one.
- SCHiM 7y ago
  I don't think so. Google is abusing their power with Chrome to force their standards on others. I hope they lose their grip on the browser market like MS did, and standards become open.
  - treis 7y ago
    The standards are open. The problem is that browsers don't implement them 100% the same and they add in their own features. Settling on a single implementation fixes that issue. Different browsers can compete based on ancillary features like Linux distros do.
    - tiles 7y ago
      > Settling on a single implementation fixes that issue. When Microsoft was in a monopoly position, they ignored the standards and pushed ActiveX plugins. Chrome this year wanted to push other browsers to adopt obsolete U2F specifications because they used them in Google products. If there's a single implementation, and the gatekeepers are majority from one company, standards and interoperability become irrelevant.
      - treis 7y ago
        >If there's a single implementation, and the gatekeepers are majority from one company, standards and interoperability become irrelevant. That's a good thing. What's the point of maintaining four separate software projects who's ideal purpose is to literally do the exact same thing. It's much better to settle on one open source project. If we think Google is the boogeyman then settling on a Chromium fork is still light years better than what we have now.
pessimizer 7y ago
> FF gaining back a solid amount of market share is critical for the browser ecosystem in the future. But firefox has shown no indication of gaining marketshare. I'd reckon that a large amount of firefox's current marketshare are people who had pre-Quantum extentions that were critical to their workflow, and who are now using an outdated browser version. One big vulnerability or generally adopted new feature would probably knock a third off even the 5-10% share they currently have. Firefox's share is so small that the other two-thirds is probably evenly split between google-haters, a constant turnover of people just trying it out for a month or two before going back to Chrome, and people who use Chrome for most of their browsing and switch to Firefox for porn because they are afraid google is watching them. When firefox was at 40% of the market and shrinking, they somehow decided that their problem was that they didn't look like a cheap knockoff, drop-in replacement for their competitor. They succeeded in making themselves totally disposable. IMO, their only hope is and has always been to strip their browser down to a virtually featureless embeddable UI component, implement the rest of the current features as a core curated package of plugins against an API that all developers have equal access to, adopt all community-developed plugins that reach a certain usage level, and add a rating system for plugins that communicates the level of mozilla's involvement, e.g. gold for in-house, green for having employees intimately involved with the code, yellow for periodically reviewed by mozilla, red for never reviewed by mozilla, and flashing red for never reviewed by mozilla, has had complaints, and has not responded or been contacted by mozilla. Other vendors will end up putting together different core suites, and will offer their own ratings, ultimately spawning 5-10 major concurrent firefox versions and swamping chrome out of existence. Through being able to lay off much of the reviewing work to outside vendors, firefox developers can concentrate all of their efforts on streamlining the core, educational outreach about the internet and the web, and lawsuits against the monopolists for adding anti-features to their sites targeted to ruin the user experience on specific browsers. Instead, firefox has settled into being the token opposition party in a dictatorship that just exists to make sure that there's another name on the ballot come election time, and the dictator only gets 96% of the vote instead of 100%.

dijit 7y ago

I think safari is more cross platform than IE, since you can run safari on macOS and Windows. But IE only runs on Windows. EDIT: I have been informed that it's not cross-platform since 2012. My bad.

riamu 7y ago
Safari is a terrible, Apple-like version of WebKit. The last viable windows version of Safari was abandoned 8 years ago, so please nobody use this browser.
- jnwkw 7y ago
  Safari is the fastest browser I've ever used on mobile. It also supports ad blocking. Calling it "terrible" simply does not resonate with me. Chrome is slower and Firefox on mobile is a joke.
  - kekebo 7y ago
    If you're on iOS it would make sense since Apple is only allowing it's own webkit as browser engine, forcing chromium and firefox to be disfigured versions of what they are on other systems. When I was working more frontend (~1,5 years ago) no browser would cause more work and trouble for us than Safari on iOS (we didn't have to support IE9 and lower).
    - jnwkw 7y ago
      Nah I'm talking about Chrome and Firefox on Android. They are both worse than Safari on iOS. Also I understand that Safari might've created some pain for you as a frontend developer, but frankly I don't care. I'm an end user and I only care about how fast and secure the browser is. And Safari wins there, it's not terrible by any measure for the end user.
      - kekebo 7y ago
        That might be your personal impression but I don't share it. Development wise it's not so much about our pain as about certain known bugs that went unfixed for up to 2+ years, similar goes for a range of CVEs (re:being secure).
        jnwkw 7y ago
        Do you believe Chrome or Firefox on Android to be faster or more secure than Safari on iOS?
        ethelward 7y ago
        Performances issues will be hard to estimate, as you can not compare safari to the others on the same phone, which means that you will not be able to correct for hardware and software stacks influences.
      - AsyncAwait 7y ago
        > Chrome and Firefox on Android. They are both worse than Safari on iOS I realize that this is subjective, but Firefox Focus has been my preferred mobile browser, regardless of if I have Safari available, (iPad), or not, (Android). In fact having desktop addons on Android has been great.
      - seabrookmx 7y ago
        Safari being faster on iOS might be more indicative of your iDevice's performance rather than Safari's (the A-series chips are quite fast). Without being able to run both browsers on the same hardware you can't really make an apples to apples comparison.
  - jekrb 7y ago
    Have you tried Brave browser on mobile? It's quite fast and blocks ads. A couple issues with Safari I've seen since it's slower to adopt web standards: - buggier websites from devs who don't have iPhones. Since there are some quirky inconsistencies with how webkit handles css vs other browser rendering engines it's easy not to catch those quirks if you don't have an iPhone to check them with. And once users point them out, it's a pain to fix without a physical device. - a smaller web feature set than chrome/Firefox. For instance, Safari doesn't allow localstorage while in incognito. I think it supports serviceworkers and webrtc now but it took years to get them.
    - walterbell 7y ago
      > For instance, Safari doesn't allow localstorage while in incognito. Isn't that good for privacy? Localstorage can store unique IDs and other data about the client's past behavior, it's much more dangerous than cookies.
      - jekrb 7y ago
        It would be nice if localstorage worked in a new instance in incognito. This way webapps that require it can still function without affecting non-incognito tabs. What other privacy concerns would there be I'm wondering?
        walterbell 7y ago
        If incognito mode discards localstorage, there is risk of silent data loss. E.g. imagine a web-based editor that saved drafts. Websites can detect the absence of localstorage and change their behavior, e.g. notify the user that information will be lost after the session ends.
    - revvx 7y ago
      > For instance, Safari doesn't allow localstorage while in incognito It does allow (at least in the version I'm using), but doesn't persist the data between sessions. Which is the whole point of Icognito mode.
  - willtim 7y ago
    Firefox on mobile has improved enormously since Quantum. It works well enough to ditch Chrome.
    - ycgeu 7y ago
      No it doesn't. For example to tap a link you have to tap it directly, links don't have a halo around them to make them easier to tap. Tapping things like the [-] buttons here in HN is very hard. It's stupid shit like that that makes it unusable for me. I don't believe for a second the developers of Firefox for Android use it every day and haven't fixed that. And if they don't dogfood what hope is there for that software?
      - yorwba 7y ago
        > I don't believe for a second the developers of Firefox for Android use it every day and haven't fixed that. Why is that so unbelievable? I use Firefox every day and haven't even considered that this might be a problem. I don't have difficulty hitting the [-] on HN, but if I did, I would simply zoom in until it becomes large enough.
        ycgeu 7y ago
        Yes I suppose that's what the Firefox developers think to themselves. Let's ignore basic usability issues. That's why Firefox is a failure.
        noir_lord 7y ago
        Same, used Firefox on Android (currently on a 5.5" phone (Nokia 6.1)) for over a year without a single issue. Chrome still had a slightly better UI the last time I tried it but the gap wasn't remotely wide enough to give up ublock origin. Adverts are even more annoying on phones than they are on desktop so been able to run ublock origin directly on device is a major win.
        patrick5415 7y ago
        I’m amazed at the tiny inconveniences that lead people to something is totally broken and completely unusable.
  - Zardoz84 7y ago
    I'm using Firefox for mobile since Quantum, and works better that Chrome (except for a few pages that don't bother on supporting Firefox on any platform)
    - iforgotpassword 7y ago
      For me it's faster on mobile mostly since I can just install ublock origin so most pages load and execute much less crap.
  - riamu 7y ago
    Ok that's fair. From a developer's PoV, Safari is a terrible browser. It's old and buggy and stifles innovation on iOS in the same way ie did on windows.
    - madeofpalk 7y ago
      As a web developer, I find this to be anything be true. Safari supports loads of cool features that clients ask for, like native css carousels (css snap points), and blur effects (backdrop-filter). Chrome, does not.
      - seabrookmx 7y ago
        As a web developer, I like my browser to implement internet standards correctly so websites actually work. People aren't trashing Safari because it's cool.. generally Apple provides a great software experience. But Safari is a bug ridden mess. Here's an example that broke many many sites that use OAuth2 Auth Code Flow for login (including the main UI portal my company provides clients): https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=194906 https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=194906 There's also been issues with the handling of 3rd party cookies that create issues for login systems, js stdlib functions being incorrectly implemented, etc.
        dmitriid 7y ago
        Safari generally implements standards as they mature. Chrome generally implements everything new and shiny, no matter how underspecified it is, and with blatant disregard to whether or not it breaks the web.
        seabrookmx 7y ago
        I don't disagree with regards to new standards, but that doesn't change the fact that existing, well established standards are often broken in Safari (see the bug I linked in the parent comment). These bugs are much more likely to break the web than Chrome's half baked bleeding edge features because there's already a huge body of web software that relies on them.
  - NightlyDev 7y ago
    You clearly don't have much experience as a developer with Safari on iOS. It's a terrible browser full of bugs and inconsistent behavior.
  - blablabla123 7y ago
    Since I have the new Macbook Air I also switched to Safari because it also extends battery lifetime. Still need to get used to the different keyboard shortcuts and plugin system though. (But yes, if I do Frontend development, I use Chrome)
  - xenator 7y ago
    In last version of Safari uBlock shows warning that it is not supported anymore and slow down your browsing experience. Adblockers from App Store are limited by number of allowed rules the same way as in promised Chrome API changes. If we should start to worry about browser shift then Safari should be first in the list.
  - lern_too_spel 7y ago
    > It also supports ad blocking. It supports the same crippled ad blocking that this article complains about. It is also years behind the competitors in standards support, and the standards it claims to support are implemented buggily. Finally, it crashes more often than its competitors, but I suppose making a browser unusable is one way to save battery.
thestephen 7y ago
Safari hasn't been supported for Windows since 2012.
- dijit 7y ago
  Ah. I apologise. I don’t use Windows, and haven’t for years but have vivid memories of using safari on Windows.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
jekrb 7y ago
The canary version of Microsoft Edge now works on macOS (but that's because Edge switched to running chromium)

ljm 7y ago

I hope to see Firefox eventually providing an embeddable framework, considering that Chromium isn't just monopolising the web browser space... it's spreading into desktop applications through Electron. Left unchecked, Google will manage to poke its fingers into every pie within reach. It seems like the ideal solution of using the OS's native web toolkit hasn't been successful so far. So the next best offering (aside from building on Qt), is to have an Electron competitor too.

dvfjsdhgfv 7y ago
I regret XUL was abandoned - it was a great idea, but much ahead of its time.
- teknopaul 7y ago
  Plus one. This was the beggining of the rot in Mozila. This marked the moment the went from making general purpose web/http based platforms based on OpenSource principals to builing a single a www specific advertising platform. I still use Firefox and support them financially. Its the best we have. But they stopped caring about anything other that being the frontpage to the Internet a long time ago. They gave up on supporting developers.
- mongol 7y ago
  That was before Firefox was born, right? Or was the success of Firefox the demise of XUL?
  - simias 7y ago
    I'm not sure what you're asking exactly but XUL existed a long time after Firefox was born and became popular. I remember using a XUL app at work around 2010.
  - cptskippy 7y ago
    XUL was the markup language used by the Mozilla Communicator Suite for designing user interfaces. It was what Add-on development used. Mozilla deprecated it not that long ago in favor of HTML but stalwarts have clung to it and complained. I use to maintain a couple Add-ons and developed some simple UIs for it. I was never impressed by it and it was easy enough to use so I had no objections either.

threatofrain 7y ago

Which site has the most reliable browser metrics?

yorwba 7y ago
https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity probably has the most reliable metrics on Firefox users. Not enough to compare to other browsers, but if there's a large switch from Chrome to Firefox, it should eventually show up on the graph.

zzzcpan 7y ago

> With Microsoft switching to Chromium, Firefox is now the only viable I'm not sure I understand your point. Is there a public statement from Microsoft that they are following Google on this? I don't know what Microsoft is going to do, but nothing stops them from keeping the API fully working. And if Firefox was based on Chromium too, nothing would stop Mozilla from keeping the API working either. Although I expect some forks to follow Google on this, namely other ad-tech companies with web browsers, like Yandex.

aiscapehumanity 7y ago
MS new edge successor browser is built on chromium?
- cptskippy 7y ago
  Yes, it's called Edge.
- fibers 7y ago
  In 2019 the team basically switched to webkit/chromium
  - mda 7y ago
    Blink/Chromium
wayneftw 7y ago
I'd rather use (and build for) any WebKit browser over Firefox, so I'm hoping Microsoft Edge does not implement the "Chrome extension manifest v3" and that they release Edge for Linux ASAP. Aside from my feelings about the technical qualities of their products - Mozilla is clearly not more trustworthy than Google or Microsoft either since they put non-removable ads and tracking extensions directly into Firefox and lock developers out of their extension store for purely political reasons.
- ravenstine 7y ago

ufo 7y ago

This is not mainstream media. It is just a blog hosted on Forbes' platform.

netman21 7y ago
Right on. Forbes.com hosts my blog. They provide minimal editorial oversight, usually limited to making sure you capitalize every word in the title per their style guide.

jm4 7y ago

It’s not mainstream media. It’s a contributor site. You can pay some money and get one of your own. You can post whatever you want on there. They offer to do a little bit of editing and proofreading to make it look professional before it goes online. There is no fact checking. These contributor sites are essentially blogs that carry the credibility of Forbes even though they don’t deserve it. I see contributor sites being linked all over the place - social media, news aggregators, even Apple news. I wish there was more awareness that these articles are written by some regular person with no qualifications as a journalist and that there is no standard for accuracy. I’ve been asked to be a contributor before. I don’t know what the criteria is. I got a cold call about it one day. I’ve been a panelist at a couple local events, got a mention in a niche news outlet and was nominated for an award once. My guess is that’s why I was targeted as a lead. The pitch was mostly about having a bigger platform for my personal brand if I remember correctly.

kwhitefoot 7y ago
> carry the credibility of Forbes What credibility is that? My impression is that they have lost quite a lot of what they once had for exactly this reason.
classicsnoot 7y ago
What are the "qualifications of a journalist?" They are people with opinions that write stuff. If you think journalism and writing departments are teaching rigor and factual veracity, you are mistaken. I've only come to it recently, but Gell-Mann Amnesia Affect is something to be aware of and avoid. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect?wprov=sfla1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect?wpr...
- hnhg 7y ago
  Try to get a job at a major news outlet without recognised journalism qualifications.
- jm4 7y ago
  Quality and opinion of mainstream media aside, I think we can all appreciate the difference between someone paid for their work by a professional news outlet and someone off the street who is paying Forbes to host their blog.

kace91 7y ago

I just wish they finally fixed the bug that makes it unusable for me and thousands of other users using macbooks with resolution set to "more space"... I can't count how many people in my office I've had to help after their macbook randomly starts heating and turning fans to max power, it's always that they started using firefox. I've been checking the tickets associated with the issue (mainly [this one](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042) ) and there doesn't seem to be any significant advance, nor it seems the people in charge are aware of how prevalent and deal breaking this bug is :(

mimsee 7y ago
yeah, I also noticed this and this is the one reason I wont be switching to Firefox on my macbook. On other PCs I’ve been using firefox for a long time now.
rcthompson 7y ago
I wonder if this bug also applies to using the "Looks like 1280x800" option on a MBP with a 2560x1600 screen (this is what I use). The default is "Looks like 1440x900".
- tolle 7y ago
  It doesn't, or it's at least better.
behnamoh 7y ago
It's not just that. Exporting Passwords from Chrome to FF is impossible in macOS. Not a day goes by that I don't have to enter my password for a website. Thus, switching to FF actually means re-entering tens of passwords manually (given that you do remember the passwords, otherwise you'll have to go to Passwords Manager in Chrome and see the saved passwords).
- defined 7y ago
  Might it be worth using a password manager instead, like 1Password, or KeePass and its variants?

velox_io 7y ago

Wow, I never knew/ expected MS to switch to Chromium. Given how much MS boasts about Edge's battery life over Chrome. Hopefully Google leaves a workaround to enable ad-blocking. Otherwise, I will switch, it will be a bit of hassle, but I'll drop them none the less. No ads & lower power usage would be nice though. https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300077/microsoft-edge-chromium-canary-development-release-download https://www.theverge.com/2019/4/8/18300077/microsoft-edge-ch...

Riverheart 7y ago
They have Github developers already deep in Chromium for Electron which is powering VSCode so rather than maintain two separate teams, better to focus everybody on Chromium.

treis 7y ago

>With Microsoft switching to Chromium, Firefox is now the only viable (cross platform) alternative. FF gaining back a solid amount of market share is critical for the browser ecosystem in the future Why are multiple rendering and JS engines critical for the browser ecosystem? Everyone would be much better off if we standardized on one.

SCHiM 7y ago
I don't think so. Google is abusing their power with Chrome to force their standards on others. I hope they lose their grip on the browser market like MS did, and standards become open.
- treis 7y ago
  The standards are open. The problem is that browsers don't implement them 100% the same and they add in their own features. Settling on a single implementation fixes that issue. Different browsers can compete based on ancillary features like Linux distros do.
  - tiles 7y ago
    > Settling on a single implementation fixes that issue. When Microsoft was in a monopoly position, they ignored the standards and pushed ActiveX plugins. Chrome this year wanted to push other browsers to adopt obsolete U2F specifications because they used them in Google products. If there's a single implementation, and the gatekeepers are majority from one company, standards and interoperability become irrelevant.
    - treis 7y ago
      >If there's a single implementation, and the gatekeepers are majority from one company, standards and interoperability become irrelevant. That's a good thing. What's the point of maintaining four separate software projects who's ideal purpose is to literally do the exact same thing. It's much better to settle on one open source project. If we think Google is the boogeyman then settling on a Chromium fork is still light years better than what we have now.

pessimizer 7y ago

> FF gaining back a solid amount of market share is critical for the browser ecosystem in the future. But firefox has shown no indication of gaining marketshare. I'd reckon that a large amount of firefox's current marketshare are people who had pre-Quantum extentions that were critical to their workflow, and who are now using an outdated browser version. One big vulnerability or generally adopted new feature would probably knock a third off even the 5-10% share they currently have. Firefox's share is so small that the other two-thirds is probably evenly split between google-haters, a constant turnover of people just trying it out for a month or two before going back to Chrome, and people who use Chrome for most of their browsing and switch to Firefox for porn because they are afraid google is watching them. When firefox was at 40% of the market and shrinking, they somehow decided that their problem was that they didn't look like a cheap knockoff, drop-in replacement for their competitor. They succeeded in making themselves totally disposable. IMO, their only hope is and has always been to strip their browser down to a virtually featureless embeddable UI component, implement the rest of the current features as a core curated package of plugins against an API that all developers have equal access to, adopt all community-developed plugins that reach a certain usage level, and add a rating system for plugins that communicates the level of mozilla's involvement, e.g. gold for in-house, green for having employees intimately involved with the code, yellow for periodically reviewed by mozilla, red for never reviewed by mozilla, and flashing red for never reviewed by mozilla, has had complaints, and has not responded or been contacted by mozilla. Other vendors will end up putting together different core suites, and will offer their own ratings, ultimately spawning 5-10 major concurrent firefox versions and swamping chrome out of existence. Through being able to lay off much of the reviewing work to outside vendors, firefox developers can concentrate all of their efforts on streamlining the core, educational outreach about the internet and the web, and lawsuits against the monopolists for adding anti-features to their sites targeted to ruin the user experience on specific browsers. Instead, firefox has settled into being the token opposition party in a dictatorship that just exists to make sure that there's another name on the ballot come election time, and the dictator only gets 96% of the vote instead of 100%.