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It's interesting that Google and Apple seem to be converging on this issue (ad-blocking extensions) even though they're probably coming from two different direc

by simias 7y ago

It's interesting that Google and Apple seem to be converging on this issue (ad-blocking extensions) even though they're probably coming from two different directions. Google probably wants to discourage ad-blocking because it's a threat to their business model. Apple just dislikes not having full control on what the users run (and sometimes for good reasons, they probably want to avoid malware extensions). Still, in the end they both end up with subpar ad blocking facilities as a result. Firefox really needs to become a worthy competitor once again. And no I don't consider forks of Chromium to be reasonable alternatives in the long term, at least until those teams prove that they can maintain a deep fork of the browser on their own which will be necessary if they need to maintain functionality that Google removes from upstream.

bduerst 7y ago
Isn't Firefox a fork of chromium? Same as Brave?
- earenndil 7y ago
  No. Firefox has always been separate; it has its roots in netscape navigator, while chromium dates to KHTML.
- loeg 7y ago
  Firefox preexists Chrome by like, six years (2002, 2008). Firefox stems from Mozilla (1998) stems from Netscape Navigator (1994, originally). Chrome stems from Blink stems from Webkit (Apple's thing, 2001ish) stems from KHTML (KDE, 1998). Amusingly, all the historical parts of the Chrome stack are basically still around. You can install recent versions of Safari and use Webkit, or install recent versions of Konqueror and browse the web with KHTML (although development has lagged since 2016).
_frkl 7y ago
You don't think Firefox is a worthy competitor at the moment? I've used it quite happily in the last few years, but would be interested in what you think its shortcomings are. I know there is supposed to be a power drain issue, but I haven't noticed that personally. Apart from that, I'm not aware of any major issues.
- Vinnl 7y ago
  The power drain issue was only on OS X, and about to be fixed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20857892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20857892
- iaml 7y ago
  Firefox on mac doesn't support touchpad zoom, which is very annoying.
  - _frkl 7y ago
    Right, seems like most problems are related to the Mac version. Wouldn't know about that, never had any noticable issues on Linux.
  - lh7777 7y ago
    There's an 8 year old issue in Bugzilla for this.[1] The Firefox team has finally put some resources into fixing it, but progress has been slow. I'm not holding out much hope -- Chrome has had this feature for a long time and it's never worked quite as well as Safari's. A Firefox multi-touch zoom extension also exists[2], but it's not smooth enough to be useful to me (admittedly, this is on my old and slow 12" Macbook). [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 [2] https://github.com/haxiomic/firefox-multi-touch-zoom https://github.com/haxiomic/firefox-multi-touch-zoom
distances 7y ago
> Firefox really needs to become a worthy competitor once again. For me it's always been, I've used Firefox without pause since it was called Phoenix. I know there was a small exodus to Chrome when it had better parallelization, but as far as I know Firefox is leading on that front again. So what do you mean by "worthy"? Higher market share or some missing features? I'm obviously biased as I never left for competition but I don't have any complaints, neither on desktop nor with the Android version.
- organsnyder 7y ago
  I was one of those users that switched to Chrome for a while (5-6 years, probably). I've now switched back to Firefox. My only frustration is that some sites don't work as well (or, occasionally, at all) on Firefox as they do on Chrome. Not surprisingly, Google's own sites are often the worse culprits. I've used alternative sites when necessary, though. Bing Maps is actually fairly decent.
  - BuckRogers 7y ago
    While not as full featured and it still forces you to GMaps or Bing for directions, DDG uses Apple Maps. I like this for a quick lookup and then full on GMaps for directions if necessary.
- zcid 7y ago
  Same here. Crazy to think that I've been using it for over 15 years and never had a reason to change. I've tried other browsers, but none of them gave me a compelling reason to continue with them. I think the most probable reason for that has been the complete support for addons that no other browser ever did. For instance, why doesn't Chrome have support for vertical/tree-style tabs without using a separate window? That one feature alone keeps me on firefox. By removing the tab bar at the top of the screen, you regain a significant amount of vertical space on a laptop.
  - laurent123456 7y ago
    > That one feature alone keeps me on firefox. By removing the tab bar at the top of the screen, you regain a significant amount of vertical space on a laptop. Last time I tried tree tab, it wasn't possible to remove the tab bar. Has this changed? And if so, would you mind sharing how to do it?
ljm 7y ago
I think Apple may still be acting with privacy in mind, as opposed to being controlling. Extensions do pose a risk to users when they become popular enough, and there have been examples in Chrome where an ad company buys an extension and embeds tracking into it, or otherwise encourages the author to embed ads. It doesn't invalidate the other motivation for wanting extensions to be published in the app store, of course, but I think the privacy use-case is sound.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Content blockers are also more performant.

by simias 7y ago

bduerst 7y ago

Isn't Firefox a fork of chromium? Same as Brave?

earenndil 7y ago
No. Firefox has always been separate; it has its roots in netscape navigator, while chromium dates to KHTML.
loeg 7y ago
Firefox preexists Chrome by like, six years (2002, 2008). Firefox stems from Mozilla (1998) stems from Netscape Navigator (1994, originally). Chrome stems from Blink stems from Webkit (Apple's thing, 2001ish) stems from KHTML (KDE, 1998). Amusingly, all the historical parts of the Chrome stack are basically still around. You can install recent versions of Safari and use Webkit, or install recent versions of Konqueror and browse the web with KHTML (although development has lagged since 2016).

_frkl 7y ago

You don't think Firefox is a worthy competitor at the moment? I've used it quite happily in the last few years, but would be interested in what you think its shortcomings are. I know there is supposed to be a power drain issue, but I haven't noticed that personally. Apart from that, I'm not aware of any major issues.

Vinnl 7y ago
The power drain issue was only on OS X, and about to be fixed: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20857892 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20857892
iaml 7y ago
Firefox on mac doesn't support touchpad zoom, which is very annoying.
- _frkl 7y ago
  Right, seems like most problems are related to the Mac version. Wouldn't know about that, never had any noticable issues on Linux.
- lh7777 7y ago
  There's an 8 year old issue in Bugzilla for this.[1] The Firefox team has finally put some resources into fixing it, but progress has been slow. I'm not holding out much hope -- Chrome has had this feature for a long time and it's never worked quite as well as Safari's. A Firefox multi-touch zoom extension also exists[2], but it's not smooth enough to be useful to me (admittedly, this is on my old and slow 12" Macbook). [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 [2] https://github.com/haxiomic/firefox-multi-touch-zoom https://github.com/haxiomic/firefox-multi-touch-zoom

distances 7y ago

> Firefox really needs to become a worthy competitor once again. For me it's always been, I've used Firefox without pause since it was called Phoenix. I know there was a small exodus to Chrome when it had better parallelization, but as far as I know Firefox is leading on that front again. So what do you mean by "worthy"? Higher market share or some missing features? I'm obviously biased as I never left for competition but I don't have any complaints, neither on desktop nor with the Android version.

organsnyder 7y ago
I was one of those users that switched to Chrome for a while (5-6 years, probably). I've now switched back to Firefox. My only frustration is that some sites don't work as well (or, occasionally, at all) on Firefox as they do on Chrome. Not surprisingly, Google's own sites are often the worse culprits. I've used alternative sites when necessary, though. Bing Maps is actually fairly decent.
- BuckRogers 7y ago
  While not as full featured and it still forces you to GMaps or Bing for directions, DDG uses Apple Maps. I like this for a quick lookup and then full on GMaps for directions if necessary.
zcid 7y ago
Same here. Crazy to think that I've been using it for over 15 years and never had a reason to change. I've tried other browsers, but none of them gave me a compelling reason to continue with them. I think the most probable reason for that has been the complete support for addons that no other browser ever did. For instance, why doesn't Chrome have support for vertical/tree-style tabs without using a separate window? That one feature alone keeps me on firefox. By removing the tab bar at the top of the screen, you regain a significant amount of vertical space on a laptop.
- laurent123456 7y ago
  > That one feature alone keeps me on firefox. By removing the tab bar at the top of the screen, you regain a significant amount of vertical space on a laptop. Last time I tried tree tab, it wasn't possible to remove the tab bar. Has this changed? And if so, would you mind sharing how to do it?

ljm 7y ago

I think Apple may still be acting with privacy in mind, as opposed to being controlling. Extensions do pose a risk to users when they become popular enough, and there have been examples in Chrome where an ad company buys an extension and embeds tracking into it, or otherwise encourages the author to embed ads. It doesn't invalidate the other motivation for wanting extensions to be published in the app store, of course, but I think the privacy use-case is sound.

saagarjha 7y ago
Content blockers are also more performant.