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i just don't see the point, from a consumer perspective, in all the major players fighting over who's version of Chromium is the most preferred. I get why the
by loudtieblahblah 5y ago
i just don't see the point, from a consumer perspective, in all the major players fighting over who's version of Chromium is the most preferred. I get why the company's care - i just don't get why anyone else does.
Firefox, for all it's modern faults, is the only browser that's actually different in any substantial way.
- archontes 5y agoThe substantial difference that I experience is that it is incapable of utilizing hardware acceleration for youtube videos using an nvidia graphics card in a linux environment, and that I don't get tab-to-complete search in the bar.
- ubercow13 5y agoSeems more useful than Chromes search bar which has tab-to-go-to-google-search-and-generate-ad-revenue. At least Firefox has down-to-find-what-I-actually-want-from-my-bookmarks-and-history.
- archontes 5y ago"You shouldn't want that thing that you want." No. If I type eba{Tab}query, firefox should search ebay for query. If I have to go to settings once and tick a box to enable this functionality, I will. I won't stop wanting what I want.
- ubercow13 5y agoI don't understand, Firefox has this functionality. For example I have it set up so if I type 'y cats' it will search Youtube directly for cats. You can do the same with ebay. Similarly if I type 'yout<tab>cats' it will do the same search. Also, if you like it so much, you can configure Firefox to not put things like bookmarks and history before search results in tab-complete search suggestions. Firefox's address bar is strictly superior as far as I can see. The only thing it's missing vs Chrome is dark patterns.
- FranklinMaillot 5y agoFirefox search bar is so much superior to other browsers, I don't understand why almost no one points this out. Chrome is so frustrating when it keeps prioritizing search suggestions over history.
- tialaramex 5y ago1. In Firefox settings, tick "When using the address bar, suggest: Search engines". 2. Find an eBay search engine you like, install it in Firefox. Now, when you type eba{Tab} Firefox will suggest the search engine you installed, and your continued typing will be as a search in that engine. I don't use this for eBay, but I do use it for Rust, typing e.g. rust{tab}iterator takes me to the documentation for std::iterator and related entries.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y agoWhat faults to you find in Firefox, when compared to Chrome? I switched a year ago and I was emotionally prepared to fight a rough battle with problematic websites, incompatible apps and so on. I was very positively surprised. The only major PITA was the fact that I had to define MIME types for downloadable documents that I wanted to save by default - the usual box "remember this option" was missing for .mkv and the like. So far, this was the only major complaint on my part. Everything else was very positive, especially the containers, no forced Google logins everywhere, the availability of extensions that Google doesn't like (like Ad Nauseam) and so on. I wouldn't go back even if someone paid me (OK let's be honest: I'd do it if I was paid more than €1000 a year).
- loudtieblahblah 5y agoBreaking Addons to be more compliant with a standard between other browsers - making things like TabTreeStyles not work. Putting ads in the address bar: https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/7/22715179/firefox-suggest-search-ads-browser https://www.theverge.com/2021/10/7/22715179/firefox-suggest-... Recording what you type in the address bar: https://today.in-24.com/technology/450296.html https://today.in-24.com/technology/450296.html Putting ads on the New Tab Page: https://www.ghacks.net/2018/12/31/firefox-with-ads-on-new-tab-page/ https://www.ghacks.net/2018/12/31/firefox-with-ads-on-new-ta... Randomly installing Addons for people: https://itsfoss.com/firefox-looking-glass-controversy/ https://itsfoss.com/firefox-looking-glass-controversy/ Some times installing addons without permission to promote TV Shows: https://gizmodo.com/mozilla-slipped-a-mr-robot-promo-plugin-into-firefox-1821332254 https://gizmodo.com/mozilla-slipped-a-mr-robot-promo-plugin-... They last 5-6 years, Mozilla has made a number of baffling decisions. And most of their advancements just seem to be very 'me too, me too!' as they chase design decisions made by Google.
- handrous 5y agoFF's behavior over the last decade or so makes it seem like about three different and totally unrelated factions/departments/people that should never have been given any power have been given lots of power.
- danaris 5y ago> Firefox, for all it's modern faults, is the only browser that's actually different in any substantial way. ...Because apparently Safari no longer exists...?
- ChuckNorris89 5y agoAnd where can I download the current build of Safari for Windows?
- danaris 5y agoThey didn't say anything about "...for Windows." They said the only browser.
- ChuckNorris89 5y agoThe topic is about windows 11 and Edge and the discussion continued on alternative that are not chromium based ... for Windows, since this is the topic. Where does Safari fit in here?
- swasheck 5y agothat safari isnt available necessarily puts it into the group of "not different" browsers because of how it's restricted by apple. not knocking it because i really enjoy mobile safari, but it's not different, at least not in ethos.
- s_dev 5y agohttps://support.apple.com/downloads/safari https://support.apple.com/downloads/safari
- ChuckNorris89 5y agoWhat use are releases from 2015 today? Or are you just trolling?
- 5y ago
- prepend 5y ago> i just don't see the point, from a consumer perspective, in all the major players fighting over who's version of Chromium is the most preferred I imagine the telemetry is extremely important. Knowing every activity done by every user is valuable to Google, or Microsoft, or whoever gets the chrome feed. Of course this is why I like brave, FireFox, safari and others as there is no similar telemetry.
- throwaway946513 5y agoNice thing about Firefox: about:telemetry Full details on what is sent to Mozilla, how it's used, and easy to understand. Additionally, if you don't like what's being sent, you're still able to disable telemetry.
- kgeist 5y agoMicrosoft controls the OS, they already can track activity of any userland program, can't they?
- prepend 5y agoI suppose they can, but that would be a new low to inspect the memory of their competitors processes to monitor traffic. With most chrome traffic SSL, I don’t think they could tell much from the network traffic. If Microsoft started doing this, it would be a lot of negative attention. Whereas Chrome users haven’t cared about logging stuff for years now.
- kgeist 5y ago>With most chrome traffic SSL, I don’t think they could tell much from the network traffic. It's encrypted in transit, but it has to be decrypted to be meaningful to the end user and that's where they can eavesdrop, the kernel has full access to user memory and all syscalls, no? >If Microsoft started doing this, it would be a lot of negative attention They have a proprietary closed source kernel which can be reverse engineered by very few people outside Microsoft, I think putting a little backdoor there would be less noticeable than showing a message box to every user.
- mistrial9 5y ago> Firefox, for all it's modern faults, is the only browser that's actually different in any substantial way. as a casual reader, I know this is false.. several HUGE efforts, have failed to gain the eyeballs of readers . repeating that there is only one choice, is not useful or constructive right?
- fsflover 5y agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29378307 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29378307
- dralley 5y agoHow many alternative browsers can you name that are not mere forks of Blink or Webkit?
- the_duke 5y agoWhich efforts would that be? Pretty much every other browser is based on Chromium. Some very niche ones on webkit.
- technobabbler 5y ago> Firefox, for all it's modern faults, is the only browser that's actually different in any substantial way. That's the thing. I don't WANT a browser that's actually different. The web is a duopoly between Apple and Google, and everything else is a second-class citizen. The era of an "open" web came and went, passing us by as capitalism took over. Firefox offers no meaningful freedom when all the content it's supposed to consume was designed by and for big companies targeting other big companies' products and customers. Using Firefox introduces a lot of headaches and subjects you to frequent, meaningless UI updates that add partner extensions against your will and show you recommendations that I don't want to see... Mozilla is desperately trying to stay relevant and has introduced a lot more dark patterns than Chrome has, all while adding no value beyond some vague, lackluster appeal to a libre web... too little, too late. Google, for all its faults, makes a darn good browser. The only downside is that they track my habits. So what? I'm not particularly exciting, and the only real cost I've noticed, beyond needing an ad blocker, is that my Google News feed gets cluttered with shit I don't care about derived from my browsing history. But other than that Chrome is just wonderfully simple and clean compared to the bloated Firefox (and its lookalike clones, Opera and Edge).
- mmastrac 5y agoThis comment reads like you've never lived through a browser monopoly. Sure it's great now, but do you think Google will work as hard and dedicate as much budget if there are two or even worse - just one - viable browser?
- technobabbler 5y agoFrankly I do miss the IE6 days, when everything just mostly worked. NetCaptor, an IE-based browser using Trident to render pages, had its own ad blocker, tabbed browsing, quicksearch, etc. -- most of the best features of Chrome -- without all the compatibility issues of the browser wars. Disabling ActiveX and Java (not Javascript) and having Just One Browser made for a remarkably clean and simple experience, the likes of which we haven't seen since. For all the modern innovations, I don't think the fundamental premise of the web has changed all that much -- hyperlinks, text, and media -- but the user and developer experience has gotten a lot, lot worse over time as more and more money competed for eyeballs. Edit: As for "work as hard and dedicate as much budget"... I hope they don't! A circa-2000s feature freeze on web browsers would be wonderful. Stop "innovating", i.e., creating trash features that only help huge enterprises selling trash advertising. The web doesn't need to be this complex; we're feature-rich and content-poor as it is. What started as a network for academics and info sharing ended up being a marketer's wet dream and a nightmare for everyone else.