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I work at Google, but use Firefox for all my private things... Except when I run into a page that's broken in Firefox. And except when I need developer tools. A

by lrem 7y ago

I work at Google, but use Firefox for all my private things... Except when I run into a page that's broken in Firefox. And except when I need developer tools. And except when I need the browser to translate sites for me. And except when I'm shopping, as Google does a good enough job with payment details. And except Google properties, because who knows what weird HTTP 3.7 will Chrome use to save some ocean boiling?

jdc 7y ago
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/to-google-translate https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/to-google-tra...
stiray 7y ago
I have developed another strategy. If the site doesnt work in firefox I will just leave. Most of the content is available elsewhere and it is internet way of "voting with my wallet".
- newscracker 7y ago
  That's what I do too. I believe that the more the people who don't tolerate this nonsense (and tell others to do likewise when possible), the quicker we can achieve positive change for everyone. And by "positive change" I mean challengers to Chrome and Google's attitude of bulldozing things (including invading privacy).
  - nightfly 7y ago
    That doesn't convey to site owners /why/ you left. You need to tell them. From their perspective they'll just see an even lower percentage of Firefox users and maybe make even less effort to support it.
    - Joakal 7y ago
      Might be mean but tying up their support costs with browser compatibility complaints would make it obvious to them.
    - iamnotacrook 7y ago
      As an ex-customer why would I care? Do you know how many sites there are on the internet? I'm sure browser support will come up in a meeting at some point if they ever consider increasing sales. I left an online bank because it was too slow on Firefox, and some of the pages didn't render properly. It's trivial moving between banks (you get a cash reward in some cases). I don't want the bad sites fixed; our interests aren't aligned in any way. It would be like trying to tell the manager of a pizza restaurant that you're not going to eat there any more because the service was terrible. I'd leave a bad review on google maps but I don't care if they go bust or whatever. These things all work themselves out in the end, and if they don't, they don't.
      - wutbrodo 7y ago
        The GP comment in this thread specifically calls out doing something as the only way to effect "positive change". It's a little bizarre to respond to someone pointing out that that action won't have the intended effect with "what do I care about changing anything?" It's a valid opinion, but not the conversation anyone on this subthread is having.
        iamnotacrook 7y ago
        Like most internet conversation, I was responding to the person I was responding to, not the person they were responding to. Different people have different opinions, surprisingly.
        wutbrodo 7y ago
        It's cute that you're pretending like you understood the conversation all along, but you started your comment with "why would I care?", in response to a conversation where two goal-aligned people were discussing tactics for reaching that goal.
        iamnotacrook 7y ago
        Thank you for your help in how to have a conversation online. It's been very useful.
    - falcolas 7y ago
      They should be able to tell from logs and analytics. "Users with a user agent of firefox hit our page but bounce out immediately".
  - annadane 7y ago
    Unrelated but this is why Facebook sucks, you can't meaningfully vote with your wallet if your friends are on Facebook because then you have to stay on Facebook because that's where everything is (Yes, cue the comments saying "just delete it" or "I deleted mine" but for a lot of people it's not practical and FB knows this and continues to act like complete fucking cunts)
- michaelanckaert 7y ago
  This is a habit that I also picked up over the past couple of years. It has lead to me clicking away a lot of websites, but I'm still equally happy. Clicking away happens even more so if the site I'm trying to view is "user hostile". Bad readability, banners, popups, those cookie preferences that really don't work, just clicking Yes to hide them works.
- elcomet 7y ago
  But you can't always do this if you need to use the site for your company (like hangouts for meetings, or other services used like managing expenses).
  - 0xfffff 7y ago
    Exactly, welcome back the good old Internet Explorer days!
    - llampx 7y ago
      Microsoft bad, Google good.
whalabi 7y ago
I think Google has all these things because they have access to vastly more money and top tier developers than Mozilla. When you think about it, it's incredible that Firefox is as good as it is (same re Linux.) But obviously if Google wants to stay better than Firefox, whether it takes a year or a decade, they'll always be able to because they have an absurd amount of resources. So I wonder, what are Firefox's competitive advantages? 1. Privacy: They can do things like this, blocking trackers, things that benefit the user over the platforms. Because Google can pay lip service to this but at the end of the day their customers are advertisers. 2. What else? Also, Google has advantages, in that they have synergetic (is that the right way to put it?) products. Like Android and Chrome OS that promote Chrome over the competition. Can Mozilla compete by adopting a similar approach? Linux kind of fulfills the role of the OS with Firefox by default, usually. It certainly should, at least. Of course, Linux suffers from the same lack of resources compared to the competition.
- hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
  Firefox's killer feature remains what it always has been. It is a user agent that works for you the user not a third party.
- lrem 7y ago
  Ideology: as a tech person, I don't want the protocols to be defined by a single entity. Many Googlers agree, even if we also know this could result in faster progress. Less constraints: Firefox does not need to block release of a new feature because an Android API it depends on got blocked by legal due to regulations in Namibia. Organisational stability: Firefox has a good revenue stream and stable leadership, with pretty constant direction. Main competency: Firefox is the thing for Mozilla. For Google, Chrome is an insurance policy against Apple.
  - whalabi 7y ago
    But how do these things see it succeeding against Chrome, or even regaining significant market share? I can't see how it could ever happen. No matter what they do they can't beat the developer and monetary resources of Google.
tannhaeuser 7y ago
That's great that you come out and openly say you're using FF for privacy! > page that's broken in FF I don't know any, and have used FF for as long as it exists. Could you give an example (or better yet, tell Mozilla via FF's built-in feedback)? > developer tools FF's devtools are far superior to Chrome's IMO for core web tech such as CSS debugging (Chrome is better for JavaScript debugging and profiling, that I'll give you) > shopping Y'know, not everybody is ok with Google knowing everything about us, including card details and purchases > Google properties That Google pushes GMail and YouTube users to use Chrome and boycots other browsers is hardly an argument (except for an antitrust case).
- Springtime 7y ago
  Similarly I rarely found sites that didn't work in Firefox, Google sites included (given they're tested more than the vast majority of sites I should hope so). That said I moved to Vivaldi since most of the useful addons I had became incompatible with FF post-Quantum (nor, last I checked, is there any longer a way to save webpages as MHTML which I use frequently and exclusively to save web page content). Though I sorely miss the ability to disable DirectWrite in Blink browsers, which allowed MacType to affect the font rendering for far better text legibility.
- lrem 7y ago
  Where have I said it's for privacy? Google is actually pretty good for privacy, as seen from the inside. I'm using it for private things at work to not entangle between corp and private and at home for consistency. I also have been using Firefox way longer than Chrome.
ohthehugemanate 7y ago
What pages are people running into that are broken in FF? I _never_ encounter this.
- iamnotacrook 7y ago
  I literally just found one without looking. Short gifs don't animate on Android Firefox but work fine on Chrome on the same phone. Actually, I'm having the same problem on desktop Firefox too, again fine in Chrome on the same pc: https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/czle25/holy_crap_none_of_these_cogs_is_actually_turning/ https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/czle25/holy_crap_...
sp332 7y ago
For translation, you can set DuckDuckGo as your default search engine and then type !translate at the beginning (or end) of the URL bar. If you don't want to change your search engine, make a bookmark with the URL "https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=auto&tl=en&text=%s" https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=auto... and the keyword "translate". Then you can just type "translate" before the URL and it will send you there.
parliament32 7y ago
>a page that's broken in Firefox I honestly don't think I've seen this in years, and I load thousands of pages weekly. My adblockers break sites sometimes, but not FF. What kind of weird-ass sites are you visiting?

by lrem 7y ago

jdc 7y ago

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/to-google-translate https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/to-google-tra...

stiray 7y ago

I have developed another strategy. If the site doesnt work in firefox I will just leave. Most of the content is available elsewhere and it is internet way of "voting with my wallet".

newscracker 7y ago
That's what I do too. I believe that the more the people who don't tolerate this nonsense (and tell others to do likewise when possible), the quicker we can achieve positive change for everyone. And by "positive change" I mean challengers to Chrome and Google's attitude of bulldozing things (including invading privacy).
- nightfly 7y ago
  That doesn't convey to site owners /why/ you left. You need to tell them. From their perspective they'll just see an even lower percentage of Firefox users and maybe make even less effort to support it.
  - Joakal 7y ago
    Might be mean but tying up their support costs with browser compatibility complaints would make it obvious to them.
  - iamnotacrook 7y ago
    As an ex-customer why would I care? Do you know how many sites there are on the internet? I'm sure browser support will come up in a meeting at some point if they ever consider increasing sales. I left an online bank because it was too slow on Firefox, and some of the pages didn't render properly. It's trivial moving between banks (you get a cash reward in some cases). I don't want the bad sites fixed; our interests aren't aligned in any way. It would be like trying to tell the manager of a pizza restaurant that you're not going to eat there any more because the service was terrible. I'd leave a bad review on google maps but I don't care if they go bust or whatever. These things all work themselves out in the end, and if they don't, they don't.
    - wutbrodo 7y ago
      The GP comment in this thread specifically calls out doing something as the only way to effect "positive change". It's a little bizarre to respond to someone pointing out that that action won't have the intended effect with "what do I care about changing anything?" It's a valid opinion, but not the conversation anyone on this subthread is having.
      - iamnotacrook 7y ago
        Like most internet conversation, I was responding to the person I was responding to, not the person they were responding to. Different people have different opinions, surprisingly.
        wutbrodo 7y ago
        It's cute that you're pretending like you understood the conversation all along, but you started your comment with "why would I care?", in response to a conversation where two goal-aligned people were discussing tactics for reaching that goal.
        iamnotacrook 7y ago
        Thank you for your help in how to have a conversation online. It's been very useful.
  - falcolas 7y ago
    They should be able to tell from logs and analytics. "Users with a user agent of firefox hit our page but bounce out immediately".
- annadane 7y ago
  Unrelated but this is why Facebook sucks, you can't meaningfully vote with your wallet if your friends are on Facebook because then you have to stay on Facebook because that's where everything is (Yes, cue the comments saying "just delete it" or "I deleted mine" but for a lot of people it's not practical and FB knows this and continues to act like complete fucking cunts)
michaelanckaert 7y ago
This is a habit that I also picked up over the past couple of years. It has lead to me clicking away a lot of websites, but I'm still equally happy. Clicking away happens even more so if the site I'm trying to view is "user hostile". Bad readability, banners, popups, those cookie preferences that really don't work, just clicking Yes to hide them works.
elcomet 7y ago
But you can't always do this if you need to use the site for your company (like hangouts for meetings, or other services used like managing expenses).
- 0xfffff 7y ago
  Exactly, welcome back the good old Internet Explorer days!
  - llampx 7y ago
    Microsoft bad, Google good.

whalabi 7y ago

I think Google has all these things because they have access to vastly more money and top tier developers than Mozilla. When you think about it, it's incredible that Firefox is as good as it is (same re Linux.) But obviously if Google wants to stay better than Firefox, whether it takes a year or a decade, they'll always be able to because they have an absurd amount of resources. So I wonder, what are Firefox's competitive advantages? 1. Privacy: They can do things like this, blocking trackers, things that benefit the user over the platforms. Because Google can pay lip service to this but at the end of the day their customers are advertisers. 2. What else? Also, Google has advantages, in that they have synergetic (is that the right way to put it?) products. Like Android and Chrome OS that promote Chrome over the competition. Can Mozilla compete by adopting a similar approach? Linux kind of fulfills the role of the OS with Firefox by default, usually. It certainly should, at least. Of course, Linux suffers from the same lack of resources compared to the competition.

hdfbdtbcdg 7y ago
Firefox's killer feature remains what it always has been. It is a user agent that works for you the user not a third party.
lrem 7y ago
Ideology: as a tech person, I don't want the protocols to be defined by a single entity. Many Googlers agree, even if we also know this could result in faster progress. Less constraints: Firefox does not need to block release of a new feature because an Android API it depends on got blocked by legal due to regulations in Namibia. Organisational stability: Firefox has a good revenue stream and stable leadership, with pretty constant direction. Main competency: Firefox is the thing for Mozilla. For Google, Chrome is an insurance policy against Apple.
- whalabi 7y ago
  But how do these things see it succeeding against Chrome, or even regaining significant market share? I can't see how it could ever happen. No matter what they do they can't beat the developer and monetary resources of Google.

tannhaeuser 7y ago

That's great that you come out and openly say you're using FF for privacy! > page that's broken in FF I don't know any, and have used FF for as long as it exists. Could you give an example (or better yet, tell Mozilla via FF's built-in feedback)? > developer tools FF's devtools are far superior to Chrome's IMO for core web tech such as CSS debugging (Chrome is better for JavaScript debugging and profiling, that I'll give you) > shopping Y'know, not everybody is ok with Google knowing everything about us, including card details and purchases > Google properties That Google pushes GMail and YouTube users to use Chrome and boycots other browsers is hardly an argument (except for an antitrust case).

Springtime 7y ago
Similarly I rarely found sites that didn't work in Firefox, Google sites included (given they're tested more than the vast majority of sites I should hope so). That said I moved to Vivaldi since most of the useful addons I had became incompatible with FF post-Quantum (nor, last I checked, is there any longer a way to save webpages as MHTML which I use frequently and exclusively to save web page content). Though I sorely miss the ability to disable DirectWrite in Blink browsers, which allowed MacType to affect the font rendering for far better text legibility.
lrem 7y ago
Where have I said it's for privacy? Google is actually pretty good for privacy, as seen from the inside. I'm using it for private things at work to not entangle between corp and private and at home for consistency. I also have been using Firefox way longer than Chrome.

ohthehugemanate 7y ago

What pages are people running into that are broken in FF? I _never_ encounter this.

iamnotacrook 7y ago
I literally just found one without looking. Short gifs don't animate on Android Firefox but work fine on Chrome on the same phone. Actually, I'm having the same problem on desktop Firefox too, again fine in Chrome on the same pc: https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/czle25/holy_crap_none_of_these_cogs_is_actually_turning/ https://www.reddit.com/r/woahdude/comments/czle25/holy_crap_...

sp332 7y ago

For translation, you can set DuckDuckGo as your default search engine and then type !translate at the beginning (or end) of the URL bar. If you don't want to change your search engine, make a bookmark with the URL "https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=auto&tl=en&text=%s" https://translate.google.com/#view=home&op=translate&sl=auto... and the keyword "translate". Then you can just type "translate" before the URL and it will send you there.

parliament32 7y ago

>a page that's broken in Firefox I honestly don't think I've seen this in years, and I load thousands of pages weekly. My adblockers break sites sometimes, but not FF. What kind of weird-ass sites are you visiting?