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if you haven't already use Firefox and recognize that this is a fundamental question of freedom and whether you want the internet to be controlled by dystopian
by Barrin92 5y ago
if you haven't already use Firefox and recognize that this is a fundamental question of freedom and whether you want the internet to be controlled by dystopian corporate advertisement monoliths or institutions that care about your rights.
Every time this comes up and 80% of discussions is about whether the tab bar in firefox is flat or three pixels wide instead of five makes me more depressed
- jacquesm 5y agoFair criticism of Firefox is that it is dependent on Mozilla 'the org' which is a pretty shaky foundation to base such a critical component on. Witness the exodus of even die hard supporters over the last couple of years. That has nothing to do with minor UI details.
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y agoI’d prefer Firefox, but some functionality works inarguably better in chrome. One example is YouTube, which slams my processor due to the lack of hardware decoding.
- maccard 5y agoSo swap to chrome for those 1-2 websites that require it and use Firefox for everything else?
- jacquesm 5y agoThis is exactly how I work and it works quite well.
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y agoYeah the user is DEFINITELY wrong here and it’s not the browsers fault for being mediocre.
- Gareth321 5y ago"Don't use the product" is ALWAYS a poor rebuttal. Few people like having to utilise multiple browsers.
- maccard 5y agoIn practice I've found that people claiming site X works in chrome but not in Firefox is usually incorrect, and unless you actually try it you won't know. I use Firefox and have done for 15+ years, and I genuinely can't remember the last time I had to switch browser to use a page or webapp.
- jacquesm 5y agoYes, but some of us are forced to. As long as Mozilla claims that implementing WebMIDI is impossible that's how it will remain. It's technically in there somewhere but it just doesn't work or requires all kinds of unstable trickery, not good enough for a normal user.
- commoner 5y agoThe h264ify add-on will let your computer load YouTube videos more efficiently on Firefox, if it supports hardware acceleration for H.264 but not VP8/VP9. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/h264ify/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/h264ify/
- op00to 5y agoRight, I have no interest in installing an add on to make one of the most popular websites work correctly on Firefox.
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y agoUse a plug-in from an AppStore where plugins are regularly bought and replaced with malware? No thanks.
- commoner 5y agoh264ify is free and open source. You can inspect the source code and also compile/package it yourself, if you do not want to trust addons.mozilla.org: https://github.com/erkserkserks/h264ify https://github.com/erkserkserks/h264ify
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y agoYes, so we’re a number of other products which have been purchased by another party where updates have since been pushed that contain malware.
- commoner 5y agoYou can compile/package the h264ify source code with only FOSS products, which can themselves be inspected and compiled from source. Your reasoning could be used to distrust any software, open source or not.
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y ago
- rejectfinite 5y agoWhat platform? No problem with Youtube and Twitch with Firefox on Windows 10.
- hsbauauvhabzb 5y agoLinux
- hnlmorg 5y agoFirefox open source. If the Mozilla foundation is as questionable as some like to claim then why isn't there any effort to fork Gecko. We have more than enough Blink/Chromium based browsers already.
- vadfa 5y agoBlink is better than Gecko. Why would someone who intends to create a new browser do so using Gecko?
- hnlmorg 5y agoFor literally the reasons we're already discussing: to offer an alternative to Chrome. If every browser is based on Chromium then you're not really offering an alternative to Google Chrome because Google still own the supply chain. Not only in terms of your new browser's rendering engine but also in terms of website owners being vindicated in targeting Chrome. The only way to offer a legitimate counterargument to Chrome is not to use Blink.
- zarzavat 5y agoI think that's backwards. Gecko requires constant and expensive work to keep up with Blink. And it has been falling behind. Whereas Blink gets that work for free from Google. If you want to offer a legitimate counter argument to Chrome by using Gecko then you have to find some way to bring in the hundreds of millions of dollars of necessary funding to bring Gecko up to Blink's quality. If you want to create a counter argument to Chrome using Blink, then you have everything you need already.
- eitland 5y ago> Whereas Blink gets that work for free from Google. For now. My bet is they are already planning how to boil the frog.
- hnlmorg 5y agoI do appreciate the difficulty of maintaining a rendering engine (I wrote my own browser in the late 90s) but let's not over dramatise Gecko's position, I've been using Firefox as my primary browser for years and almost never find a website that couldn't work in it (the only instances when it doesn't work is when someone throws up a demo of some unstandardised and bleeding edge Chrome API). Plus lets not forget that Mozilla are still actively working on Gecko so it's not like all responsibility falls on us tomorrow. The bigger issue for me isn't the maintenance of Gecko; I just can't see how extending Blinks market share really hurts Google in any way. Ultimately Blink-based browsers are still tied into Google's supply chain so even if you did displace Chrome with a Blink-based competitor, Google still win.
- joelthelion 5y agoMozilla for all its flaws is far, far preferable to Google as a steward of the web. Switching to Firefox should be a no-brainer for people who care about the future of the web.
- captaincaveman 5y agoI was put off by Firefox by some questionable opinionated decisions they made. I don't want a browser with a political agenda, just want one that that follows the specs and performs well.
- Symbiote 5y agoIsn't Chrome making opinionated decisions (like this one), pushing a political agenda (anti-privacy, pro-corporatism, pro-monopoly etc) and abusing the standardisation process?
- captaincaveman 5y agoWhy jump to the assumption I would want Chrome?
- Symbiote 5y agoIt's the subject of the article.
- sp332 5y agoWhy would anyone make a browser if they didn't have a political agenda? You're looking for a massive software project with no motivation?
- captaincaveman 5y agoDunno, maybe I'm out of touch and people only build for $ and agenda ... sad times!
- moonchrome 5y agoDidn't Mozilla fire their devtools team ? FF devtools weren't up to Chrome as-is, and doesn't sound like they ever will be. FF seems like a sinking ship, not worth investing time in. TBH I'm perfectly happy with Chrome and using Google accounts. The benefits of my data following me around seamlessly far outweighs the downsides of Google having access to it.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- 0-_-0 5y agoFWIW, you can adjust the tab bar by editing UserChrome.css, I use this: .tab-content { background: #ffffff20 !important; border-radius: 4px 4px 4px 4px !important; margin-bottom: 4px !important; margin-top: 4px !important; }
- tim333 5y agoI don't really find Google to be that dystopian. Chrome, gmail and google photos and search are all quite nice. Sure I can change if they get annoying.
- rejectfinite 5y agoI sort of agree. I use Firefox because ublock origin works best on it. I still use gmail and youtube. Search I switched to duckduckgo, no profiled results and the ! bangs is great. The google search popup when using incognito gets real annoying fast too.
- soundnote 5y agoFirefox is very actively of the opinion that politically motivated people should decide what I see on the web. When that is their stance, I kindly nope the fuck out. They are a browser maker, and I don't remember the last time they came out with anything really exciting. Vivaldi and Brave both have, and even Brave's stock Chrome UI has good stuff like a solid tab groups implementation that Firefox just doesn't have. There are extensions, but they just don't work the same.