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I switched several months ago from Chrome to Firefox (don't remember exactly when, think it was when the articles about logging into gmail would turn on sync ca

I switched several months ago from Chrome to Firefox (don't remember exactly when, think it was when the articles about logging into gmail would turn on sync came out). Unlike many here I'm not a browser power user--few to no plugins, no sync, and no customization. I'm not a web developer, so I rarely use the dev tools. It's fine. The only annoying thing is that there are a few webpages here and there that just don't work. Reminds me of when IE was dominant and sometimes you had to use it to got to a bank's website.

derefr 7y ago
I wonder if Firefox (or a living fork thereof) could be built with a “Chromium compatibility mode” where it boots up a Chromium-based renderer for a known blacklist of pages. Sort of like Edge with its IE compatibility mode. There’s no technical problem with the idea; but I would worry that smoothing over the problems some pages have when rendered with anything other than the Chromium renderer, would just cement Chrome’s hegemony, since nobody would have any incentive to fix Chromium-renderer-only pages any more. Perhaps it would still make sense specifically for enterprise use-cases: if the whitelisting (blacklisting?) of sites to trigger the compatibility mode on was only ever manual, or due to GPOs/MDM profiles, but never by predefined compatibility lists or extensions or auto-detected, then it would only get used in practice by enterprises who needed it for their legacy Intranet sites. Corporate Intranets are certainly where most IE-only websites reside these days—but is the same true of Chromium-renderer-only websites?
- bradleyjg 7y ago
  At least for me, I'd rather the other way around. When I'm on my work machine and using one of my company's assets I want to know if it breaks on firefox so I can go file a bug report. If my bank's website breaks on firefox I both have less interest in filing a bug report and less confidence it will do any good. I suppose it would be different if my employer officially disavowed compatibility.

derefr 7y ago

I wonder if Firefox (or a living fork thereof) could be built with a “Chromium compatibility mode” where it boots up a Chromium-based renderer for a known blacklist of pages. Sort of like Edge with its IE compatibility mode. There’s no technical problem with the idea; but I would worry that smoothing over the problems some pages have when rendered with anything other than the Chromium renderer, would just cement Chrome’s hegemony, since nobody would have any incentive to fix Chromium-renderer-only pages any more. Perhaps it would still make sense specifically for enterprise use-cases: if the whitelisting (blacklisting?) of sites to trigger the compatibility mode on was only ever manual, or due to GPOs/MDM profiles, but never by predefined compatibility lists or extensions or auto-detected, then it would only get used in practice by enterprises who needed it for their legacy Intranet sites. Corporate Intranets are certainly where most IE-only websites reside these days—but is the same true of Chromium-renderer-only websites?

bradleyjg 7y ago
At least for me, I'd rather the other way around. When I'm on my work machine and using one of my company's assets I want to know if it breaks on firefox so I can go file a bug report. If my bank's website breaks on firefox I both have less interest in filing a bug report and less confidence it will do any good. I suppose it would be different if my employer officially disavowed compatibility.