5 ms·

People flocked from Netscape to IE because it was better. People flocked from IE to Phoenix/early Firefox because it was better. People flocked from Firefox to

People flocked from Netscape to IE because it was better. People flocked from IE to Phoenix/early Firefox because it was better. People flocked from Firefox to Chrome because it was better. People aren't flocking from Chrome back to Firefox because Firefox has gotten worse while Chrome has gotten better. Why would I use something that most of the web doesn't support, is full of crapvertising, doesn't work seamlessly with my other Google services and Android, and on top of that, gets worse every year? I opened it just now, just for kicks, and it's begging me to pin itself to my taskbar (even though I'm on a Mac). And the tab right behind the modal popup is a bigass advertising for some Mozilla VPN product. The New Tab below that is a grid of six more ads from something called Pocket. How the hell did it get so bad? At this point I'd rather just see Firefox die entirely, or be made into another Chromium reskin. It's just malware these days.

newscracker 5y ago
> People flocked from Firefox to Chrome because it was better. This part isn’t entirely true. One large and influential reason why people switched to Chrome was because every Google search result page and many other pages on Google properties heavily and prominently advertised Chrome. Chrome was also bundled with some other third party software. Chrome may have been better in its initial years than Firefox, but that wasn’t the main trigger for people to switch. For most people, the default browser installed with their OS is what they’d use unless they’re sold another browser or they know that another browser is what works for them.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
The ads is just Firefox trying to become independent from the Google money flow. I don't like it either but at least they're not tracking. They should just charge a fiver a month for Firefox Sync IMO. It's a valuable feature. I have no need for pocket and VPN. But the web works just fine on FF. I have no issues with it save for the odd site that just blocks it. If I ever have problems it's always due to my extensive adblocking.
bovermyer 5y ago
You call Firefox malware, but use Google services?
- technobabbler 5y ago
  Google services are deeply invasive, but also tremendously useful. It's a tradeoff. Firefox ads are just pure spam.
  - dangus 5y ago
    All Firefox ads can be turned off. You can very quickly remove Pocket from new tab pages. Meanwhile, Firefox is providing useful features like tab containers and Facebook container that are not replicable in Chrome even with extensions. When you use Chrome you're using a browser made by an advertisement COMPANY. Every time you Google search you are looking at Google ads, and Chrome itself integrates with Google search and other services so that users feel like they are missing out if they decide to choose an alternative. The entire purpose of Chrome is to lock you into Google services, Android, and make it just that much more convenient to use Google products for everything you do. But somehow, the independent alternative run by an actual non-profit is worse because they dared to try and monetize their product, in a unintrusive and fully optional way. No, it'd be better if we all subscribe to Google's information dragnet, because that's "free" and has "no ads."
    - technobabbler 5y ago
      You know, kudos to Mozilla for trying so hard... but Google is just better at it. shrug. By all means, they can keep fighting that losing battle if they want, but the world has already moved on and forgotten them. Nobody cares anymore except a tiny niche on here and what's left on slashdot. Maybe the ideology of it is really important to you. To me it's just a browser, and not worth fiddling with. Chrome does one thing really well, and that's getting out of my way. Firefox constantly interrupts, whatever the reason. I don't really care if they're struggling, sorry. Maybe that's an indication of their plummeting value to society. It's just not a useful product for most of the world anymore. If they can't afford to keep the lights on, maybe they could go the Brave or Opera route and make it a Chromium reskin without the Googly bits, and deprecate Gecko altogether. Maybe Firefox has some value as a nonprofit browser, but Gecko, as far as I can tell, does not -- to me and to most of the world. Besides, it's not like the internet is any more open with Firefox... 90% of the content is just served from like 5 huge tech companies anyway. Third party tracking is less significant when all the first parties track everything directly and they host most of the content to begin with. And at the end of the day, the internet is just a time-waster full of crap, not some beautiful ideological hill for humanity to die on. We already lost that battle in the 2000s, and capitalism won. As for Google, I already don't see any Google ads anywhere. The only effect I notice from their dragnet is that my Google News feed is annoyingly based on my browsing habits, which is unfortunate indeed. Other than that, Chrome is wonderfully unnoticeable... YMMV may vary, of course. And if they deploy those changes to the extension model and break uBlock, sure, I'll consider another browser. Probably Safari or Brave. Still not worth the hassle of Firefox.

newscracker 5y ago

> People flocked from Firefox to Chrome because it was better. This part isn’t entirely true. One large and influential reason why people switched to Chrome was because every Google search result page and many other pages on Google properties heavily and prominently advertised Chrome. Chrome was also bundled with some other third party software. Chrome may have been better in its initial years than Firefox, but that wasn’t the main trigger for people to switch. For most people, the default browser installed with their OS is what they’d use unless they’re sold another browser or they know that another browser is what works for them.

GekkePrutser 5y ago

The ads is just Firefox trying to become independent from the Google money flow. I don't like it either but at least they're not tracking. They should just charge a fiver a month for Firefox Sync IMO. It's a valuable feature. I have no need for pocket and VPN. But the web works just fine on FF. I have no issues with it save for the odd site that just blocks it. If I ever have problems it's always due to my extensive adblocking.

bovermyer 5y ago

You call Firefox malware, but use Google services?

technobabbler 5y ago
Google services are deeply invasive, but also tremendously useful. It's a tradeoff. Firefox ads are just pure spam.
- dangus 5y ago
  All Firefox ads can be turned off. You can very quickly remove Pocket from new tab pages. Meanwhile, Firefox is providing useful features like tab containers and Facebook container that are not replicable in Chrome even with extensions. When you use Chrome you're using a browser made by an advertisement COMPANY. Every time you Google search you are looking at Google ads, and Chrome itself integrates with Google search and other services so that users feel like they are missing out if they decide to choose an alternative. The entire purpose of Chrome is to lock you into Google services, Android, and make it just that much more convenient to use Google products for everything you do. But somehow, the independent alternative run by an actual non-profit is worse because they dared to try and monetize their product, in a unintrusive and fully optional way. No, it'd be better if we all subscribe to Google's information dragnet, because that's "free" and has "no ads."
  - technobabbler 5y ago
    You know, kudos to Mozilla for trying so hard... but Google is just better at it. shrug. By all means, they can keep fighting that losing battle if they want, but the world has already moved on and forgotten them. Nobody cares anymore except a tiny niche on here and what's left on slashdot. Maybe the ideology of it is really important to you. To me it's just a browser, and not worth fiddling with. Chrome does one thing really well, and that's getting out of my way. Firefox constantly interrupts, whatever the reason. I don't really care if they're struggling, sorry. Maybe that's an indication of their plummeting value to society. It's just not a useful product for most of the world anymore. If they can't afford to keep the lights on, maybe they could go the Brave or Opera route and make it a Chromium reskin without the Googly bits, and deprecate Gecko altogether. Maybe Firefox has some value as a nonprofit browser, but Gecko, as far as I can tell, does not -- to me and to most of the world. Besides, it's not like the internet is any more open with Firefox... 90% of the content is just served from like 5 huge tech companies anyway. Third party tracking is less significant when all the first parties track everything directly and they host most of the content to begin with. And at the end of the day, the internet is just a time-waster full of crap, not some beautiful ideological hill for humanity to die on. We already lost that battle in the 2000s, and capitalism won. As for Google, I already don't see any Google ads anywhere. The only effect I notice from their dragnet is that my Google News feed is annoyingly based on my browsing habits, which is unfortunate indeed. Other than that, Chrome is wonderfully unnoticeable... YMMV may vary, of course. And if they deploy those changes to the extension model and break uBlock, sure, I'll consider another browser. Probably Safari or Brave. Still not worth the hassle of Firefox.