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Hi, I wrote the text. > Yeah, I didn't understand what the author was trying to get at. Every point made against Firefox, Chrome itself offends to an exponenti

by daptaq 6y ago

Hi, I wrote the text. > Yeah, I didn't understand what the author was trying to get at. Every point made against Firefox, Chrome itself offends to an exponential degree. My decision to use ungoogled-chromium itsn't a recommendation, but just my way of avoiding the UI issues I have been having with Firefox. > Legislation to break up the browser monopoly is likely our only hope. Interesting idea, but I don't see how you can solve a technical issue by legal means.

danShumway 6y ago
> Interesting idea, but I don't see how you can solve a technical issue by legal means. Why do you think that Chrome's dominance is a technical issue rather than an issue of default bundling on Google devices, advertising on Google properties, and other anti-competitive practices? From a technical perspective, Firefox already keeps up pretty well with Chrome. It's better in some areas, and worse in others, but it's definitely competitive. Even if you want to throw Firefox out the window and start a new browser from scratch, the existence of Web DRM is one of the biggest issues that's keeping you from building a new browser on top of V8 or Servo. If you want to license Widevine from Google, they're not going to approve it for a highly experimental browser. There isn't a technical solution to that problem at all -- it's entirely a legal problem.
- daptaq 6y ago
  Let's put it this way: A technical issue is at the core of the problem (the practical inability to "just create" a new browser), that is then exploited by companies such as Google for their own interest. I wasn't familiar with the legal issue of Web DRM, but that just represents an additonal problem. > From a technical perspective, Firefox already keeps up pretty well with Chrome. Yes, but Firefox has to follow Chrome at whatever they decide, because the "regular consumer" just wants a working browser. So Google ends up making all the decisions, either way.
  - danShumway 6y ago
    > A technical issue is at the core of the problem (the practical inability to "just create" a new browser) What I'm saying is that the technical difficulty in creating a new browser is less of a concern than the legal and monopolistic barriers to creating a new browser. See your next point: > Yes, but Firefox has to follow Chrome at whatever they decide, because the "regular consumer" just wants a working browser. Which is a legal/monopoly problem, not a technical problem. Firefox has passed the technical hurdles it needs to pass to be competitive with Chrome. The monopolistic barriers (default bundling in Android, hobbling Google properties like Youtube on Firefox, etc) are some of the biggest things holding Mozilla back. You can make it as easy to build a new browser as you want. But if Chrome is bundled in Android by default, and if Youtube works better on Chrome than your browser, and if your browser can't play Netflix videos because Google won't license Widevine, than all of the technical solutions you've come up with stop mattering. The practical inability to "just create" a new browser exists, but you're not going to be able to solve that problem purely with technology. Microsoft made a competing browser engine, from scratch, and in terms of pure performance and support for web standards it was doing really well in matchups against V8. They gave that engine up not because they didn't have the engineering chops to compete with Chrome, but because they couldn't break into the market. That's not a technical problem.

by daptaq 6y ago

danShumway 6y ago

> Interesting idea, but I don't see how you can solve a technical issue by legal means. Why do you think that Chrome's dominance is a technical issue rather than an issue of default bundling on Google devices, advertising on Google properties, and other anti-competitive practices? From a technical perspective, Firefox already keeps up pretty well with Chrome. It's better in some areas, and worse in others, but it's definitely competitive. Even if you want to throw Firefox out the window and start a new browser from scratch, the existence of Web DRM is one of the biggest issues that's keeping you from building a new browser on top of V8 or Servo. If you want to license Widevine from Google, they're not going to approve it for a highly experimental browser. There isn't a technical solution to that problem at all -- it's entirely a legal problem.

daptaq 6y ago
Let's put it this way: A technical issue is at the core of the problem (the practical inability to "just create" a new browser), that is then exploited by companies such as Google for their own interest. I wasn't familiar with the legal issue of Web DRM, but that just represents an additonal problem. > From a technical perspective, Firefox already keeps up pretty well with Chrome. Yes, but Firefox has to follow Chrome at whatever they decide, because the "regular consumer" just wants a working browser. So Google ends up making all the decisions, either way.
- danShumway 6y ago
  > A technical issue is at the core of the problem (the practical inability to "just create" a new browser) What I'm saying is that the technical difficulty in creating a new browser is less of a concern than the legal and monopolistic barriers to creating a new browser. See your next point: > Yes, but Firefox has to follow Chrome at whatever they decide, because the "regular consumer" just wants a working browser. Which is a legal/monopoly problem, not a technical problem. Firefox has passed the technical hurdles it needs to pass to be competitive with Chrome. The monopolistic barriers (default bundling in Android, hobbling Google properties like Youtube on Firefox, etc) are some of the biggest things holding Mozilla back. You can make it as easy to build a new browser as you want. But if Chrome is bundled in Android by default, and if Youtube works better on Chrome than your browser, and if your browser can't play Netflix videos because Google won't license Widevine, than all of the technical solutions you've come up with stop mattering. The practical inability to "just create" a new browser exists, but you're not going to be able to solve that problem purely with technology. Microsoft made a competing browser engine, from scratch, and in terms of pure performance and support for web standards it was doing really well in matchups against V8. They gave that engine up not because they didn't have the engineering chops to compete with Chrome, but because they couldn't break into the market. That's not a technical problem.