6 ms·

After the discussion yesterday I was thinking, and the passion that went into this full two page marketing campaign in the NY Times is what is needed to save Fi

After the discussion yesterday I was thinking, and the passion that went into this full two page marketing campaign in the NY Times is what is needed to save Firefox. They need to get themselves back to this place mentally, get the community rooting for them again. And spend some money on a passion based marketing campaign. Edit: Just to add, back then Firefox had an army of advocates installing Firefox on their family’s and friends computers, basically making them use it. Google co-opted the same army just four years later with similar marketing to get everyone installing Chrome on their family’s and friends computers. They need to find a way to get that to happen again. I don’t have the answers but suspect privacy and security may be the angle to take. I suspect the thing holding them back is the danger that attacking Google on privacy grounds in order to push themselves as better could damage the lucrative revenue that they receive from Google.

shadowgovt 5y ago
Make it fast. I still try Firefox every few years, and then go right back to Chrome because the FF renderer doesn't feel as fast as Chrome's. Goosing performance would go a hell of a way towards piquing my interest again.
skinkestek 5y ago
> I don’t have the answers but suspect privacy and security may be the angle to take. They are close to being best here. Fix extensions is on top of my personal list. But so far you get moderated (edit: for advocacy even, what an irony given the title of this post!) if you try to remind them about the parts they broke a few years ago, see all the hidden comments at the bottom of this bug for an example: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332447 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332447 Personally I am moving to LibreWolf these days (Firefox with minor fixes). LibreWolf can halfway expect to see donations this spring. If they also fix the extension API it will become a "must have" product for me.
murderfs 5y ago
> Just to add, back then Firefox had an army of advocates installing Firefox on their family’s and friends computers, basically making them use it. Google co-opted the same arm just four years later with similar marketing to get everyone installing Chrome on their family’s and friends computers. > They need to find a way to get that to happen again. I don’t have the answers but suspect privacy and security may be the angle to take. This worked because, at the time, Firefox was genuinely, and more importantly, visibly better. You can't honestly say that about Firefox nowadays, and after Mozilla's management laid off tons of their engineering talent, there's been no plausible path for them to get there.
- alex_duf 5y ago
  Although I agree it's not better, it's also not worse. So there's a case to use the web browser that will improve your safety and privacy.
  - feanaro 5y ago
    It's better in terms of configurability. It's going to become even better when Manifest V3 comes around because ad blockers on Chrome will no longer be as effective.
  - murderfs 5y ago
    It performs significantly worse than Chrome for me on both desktop Linux and Android (although Chrome mobile not supporting extensions means I use Firefox anyway). On privacy, I tentatively agree (but Mozilla's actions with Pocket etc. casts doubt), but Firefox is significantly behind Chrome when it comes to safety. Firefox's sandbox is substantially weaker (e.g. it's basically worthless on linux, because you can reach the X server from inside the "sandbox").
    - Semaphor 5y ago
      > It performs significantly worse than Chrome for me on both desktop Linux and Android Not sure about Android, as I can’t remember how Chrome performs, but I regularly test things in Chrome on Desktop (or when sites are so third-party heavy, I can’t figure out a sensible way to enable sites), and on Windows the performance for both is indistinguishable, and that’s despite tons of extensions for FF and none for Chrome.
    - boudin 5y ago
      I find Firefox less resource hungry and don't see much performance difference on Linux. Any resources on the sandbox weaknesses? I know it was the case a while back but I thought those issues had been addressed since. Firefox works really well on Wayland though, which addresses X's problems (and a few other regarding input and clipboard). Edit: found out the issue you mentioned: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1129492 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1129492 That's not great indeed. I guess that the only workaround for now is Wayland
tored 5y ago
I was a Firefox advocate back then but today there is zero reason for me to do that again.
ksec 5y ago
> back then Firefox had an army of advocates installing Firefox on their family’s and friends computers..... Yeah. I did that. Probably closing to a thousand, from pushing inside Enterprise to libraries and Uni Campus. And I watched first hand how they all slowly migrate themselves to Chrome. Because it was faster. I still have vivid memory of it happening. >I don’t have the answers but suspect privacy and security may be the angle to take. I did that too. Against Google. Heck That was before anyone on the internet even suspect Google was a privacy nightmare. Every single one believed their Do No Evil BS. ( Even Mozilla ). I was the contrarian then. And that didn't work either. I was there in 2004 NY Times Ad. Or even pre Firefox era. Firefox was a better browser than IE6. And even then fighting against IE6 was hard. Very hard. The lesson I learned was that most people dont care much about ideology. ( As long as it doesn't hurt their interest ) They just want a browser that worked. And would only switch if it was better. I dont think Firefox is a bad browser in 2022, but I also dont think it is faster or better than Chrome either. At the end of the day people can only do so much to help push Firefox. It ultimately falls back on Mozilla. It is Mozilla that needs to change or up the game. Unfortunately history dictate the only way to solve this problem is Mozilla think of it as a problem. Otherwise its current status at ~10% marketshare is enough to sustain its operation. Nothing bad enough is happening, no interest or incentive for changes. Inertia. Let's keep thing this way. The exec keeps getting paid. So yes, it is counter intuitive. The only way to save Mozilla ( or change Mozilla's direction, I guess the word "save" is a hyperbole, at least from Mozilla's perspective. ) isn't trying to get more user to use it. It is actually to push people to abandon it. Unless they are threatened, they wont compete.
- unyttigfjelltol 5y ago
  >its current status at ~10% marketshare is enough to sustain its operation. Nothing bad enough is happening, no interest or incentive for changes. Inertia. To take the role of devil's advocate, what should Mozilla's goal be here? They're a self-sustaining nonprofit competing against titans of the modern business landscape. Should they aim for 100% market share? 2%? Why? Maybe, counter-intuitively, instead their focus should be on fair, reasonable standard-setting that allows 50 2% market share flavors, rather than themselves achieving 100%? The scuttlebutt on these boards is Chrome achieves it's advantage by unfairly or aggressively pushing standards or proprietary features that become a de-facto standard, so maybe Mozilla's derivative mission should be lobbying for sector-specific binding rules on common standards and interoperability for dominant technologies? That's a public policy problem not unique to browsers or a single dominant vendor, and one Mozilla is well positioned to address, maybe even politely enough not to disrupt its primary income stream
grey_earthling 5y ago
IMO the angle back then was the mission to free the web from a corporate stranglehold — “Take Back the Web”. I believed this mission was Mozilla's primary focus. That mission is even more relevant now than it was 18 (!) years ago, and yet Firefox is trying to be just another pushy lifestyle brand. They're friendly like a used car salesman. Firefox should show people (show, not “tell loudly”) that software can be a useful tool that isn't trying to trick them. A lot of people expect computers and phones to be hostile, because that's all they've ever known. Spin up a virtual machine and compare Firefox's first-run experience with GNOME Web's first-run experience. Which feels more like a tool you're in control of?
JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
I’d love to use Firefox again but every time I download it it seems like a bloated slow mess. Get it back to why we installed it back then. Make it lighter and faster than Chrome and with more privacy. That’s all that matters.
- cassianoleal 5y ago
  I find your 3 criteria to be met on macOS. Not sure about other platforms.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    If you want light, fast, secure on macOS why not use Safari?
    - cassianoleal 5y ago
      Better privacy, better control over how my browser behaves, tab isolation, tab containers, uBlock Origin, ... I do use Safari, but as a secondary browser, mostly as temporary private windows.
- pjerem 5y ago
  I use Firefox and Chrome on a daily basis (Firefox for browsing, Chrome because it's well integrated with a lot of IDEs) and I'd argue it's false to say, in 2022, that Firefox is a bloated slow mess. I would not say either that it's faster than Chrome but I honestly doesn't feel any difference. If I had to choose between the two without the ideological side, I honestly don't know which one I would choose. Probably Firefox for tabs containerization.
  - lariati 5y ago
    Totally agree. At least on KDE I really don't notice any difference in performance and always have both installed. I use Firefox 99% of the time though. I think it is something about the tabs that I like better but it is a minor difference and purely based on personal taste.
jhoechtl 5y ago
The pure browser business doesn't bring in any money. Browsers are a commodity, you sell them as a vehicle for the real thing. Much like razor handles for the razor blades. Firefox is a great handle but nobody wants or needs their blades.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  > The pure browser business doesn't bring in any money. Firefox brings in hundreds of millions of dollars.
  - kortilla 5y ago
    By feeding search traffic to google. That’s one of the most unstable income streams there is.
    - chrisseaton 5y ago
      It's stable within a few tens of millions over the last years.
    - samwillis 5y ago
      No it’s pretty consistently $400-450M per year. Up from the brief period when Yahoo was default. https://www.androidheadlines.com/2020/08/mozilla-firefox-google-search?amp https://www.androidheadlines.com/2020/08/mozilla-firefox-goo...
      - kortilla 5y ago
        Bringing a lot of money doesn’t mean it’s stable. Search traffic to google is putting all of your eggs in one basket and putting you at odds with your users interest.
    - rvz 5y ago
      There you go. What the rest of the comments in your reply don't tell you is that Mozilla's expenses outweigh their income for years, which means they are constantly losing money. [0] Given that Google is their only source of income, (excluding one-time payments) it is indeed very unstable and they are ultimately at the mercy of Google, despite 14 years ago promising [1] to move away from being completely dependent on their income. At this point, Mozilla is on life support. Privacy (which is their main selling point) to Mozilla is also a joke to them. If Google wasn't bad enough, why not work with Meta on 'ads' too? Not exactly 'privacy first' - they might as well drop that claim. [0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/3600206/mozilla-reports-338m-revenue-spike-from-settlement-over-yahoo-contract.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3600206/mozilla-report... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9044160/Mozilla_can_live_without_Google_s_money_Baker_says_ https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.compu...
strong_as_oak 5y ago
I have no idea how representative my views are, but despite liking the browser, I find Mozilla's current marketing creepy, and it puts me off donating to the company. For one example, they send the same weird Valentine's day marketing email every year (that Cupid and the Grinch thing), which I wouldn't mind too much, except that the way it's written comes across like it's trying to trick the reader into thinking it's relating a recent conversation. I also find the tone of the email offputting; the first time I saw it, it made me feel like I was eavesdropping on someone's in-joke with their friend, while I didn't know anyone involved. This may be too much attention to give to one marketing email, but then they do send the same exchange every year! Also, personally I would prefer them to focus on privacy and security and avoid anything more partisan; I haven't counted up but it feels like the majority of their campaign emails are about battling 'unsafe' content online, and I have no reason to trust them to be the judges of what qualifies as unsafe. So it puts me off donating any money for the things I do care about, because I can't trust they won't use it for something I completely oppose. I also would expect that a company that starts getting into the business of content moderation is going to find it conflicts with any privacy and security work they're doing, sooner or later.
_Algernon_ 5y ago
Not removing every feature used by the power users who you want to advocate for you would probably be the place to start.
samwillis 5y ago
So, as the OP, just want to add my current advocacy thoughts. I have advocated for my family to use three different browsers of the last 20 years. First Firefox, then Chrome, now I push them all to just use Safari. They have all slowly migrated to Apple completely, fist with iPhones then to Macs. Over the last 5 years I have pushed them to all use Safari, as it has better battery usage on all Apple devices, a “just works” sync across devices, and better default privacy situation than Chrome. For me to advocate for Firefox (and move to it myself) it would need to be better at at least two of those three things than Safari.
whywhywhywhy 5y ago
>After the discussion yesterday I was thinking, and the passion that went into this full two page marketing campaign in the NY Times is what is needed to save Firefox. I've been thinking too and really I feel the only way to save Firefox at this point is to destroy it. Mozilla is too bloated and the executives have zero interest in working on a browser and extremely wasteful spending, firing engineering teams. The best thing that could ever happen to Firefox at this point is Mozilla running out of funds and disbanding and something new made from the ashes and the codebase. If you think I'm wrong, remember Firefox was originally called Phoenix for a reason.
shp0ngle 5y ago
What discussion? Did I miss some Firefox news?
- fsflover 5y ago
  https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30335455 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30335455
hulitu 5y ago
It is too late. Firefox is just a reskinned chrome. The only reason i still have firefox on my computers is because there are websites who only work in chrome or firefox.
- skyeto 5y ago
  Isn't that way too extreme? Firefox and Chrome don't share a lot of similarities, except arguably both implementing manifest v3 after Google's push, but even those are fairly different.
- jefftk 5y ago
  Firefox is one of the few browsers left that isn't a reskinned Chrome: its a completely independent implementation. Perhaps you're thinking of Edge, Brave, or Vivaldi?
nimajneb 5y ago
Was it Ubuntu or Firefox that would mail you a free sticker pack if you asked? sometime between 2002-2005. I think that era is my favorite internet era that I experienced. Mid 90s was cool too.

shadowgovt 5y ago

Make it fast. I still try Firefox every few years, and then go right back to Chrome because the FF renderer doesn't feel as fast as Chrome's. Goosing performance would go a hell of a way towards piquing my interest again.

skinkestek 5y ago

> I don’t have the answers but suspect privacy and security may be the angle to take. They are close to being best here. Fix extensions is on top of my personal list. But so far you get moderated (edit: for advocacy even, what an irony given the title of this post!) if you try to remind them about the parts they broke a few years ago, see all the hidden comments at the bottom of this bug for an example: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332447 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1332447 Personally I am moving to LibreWolf these days (Firefox with minor fixes). LibreWolf can halfway expect to see donations this spring. If they also fix the extension API it will become a "must have" product for me.

murderfs 5y ago

> Just to add, back then Firefox had an army of advocates installing Firefox on their family’s and friends computers, basically making them use it. Google co-opted the same arm just four years later with similar marketing to get everyone installing Chrome on their family’s and friends computers. > They need to find a way to get that to happen again. I don’t have the answers but suspect privacy and security may be the angle to take. This worked because, at the time, Firefox was genuinely, and more importantly, visibly better. You can't honestly say that about Firefox nowadays, and after Mozilla's management laid off tons of their engineering talent, there's been no plausible path for them to get there.

alex_duf 5y ago
Although I agree it's not better, it's also not worse. So there's a case to use the web browser that will improve your safety and privacy.
- feanaro 5y ago
  It's better in terms of configurability. It's going to become even better when Manifest V3 comes around because ad blockers on Chrome will no longer be as effective.
- murderfs 5y ago
  It performs significantly worse than Chrome for me on both desktop Linux and Android (although Chrome mobile not supporting extensions means I use Firefox anyway). On privacy, I tentatively agree (but Mozilla's actions with Pocket etc. casts doubt), but Firefox is significantly behind Chrome when it comes to safety. Firefox's sandbox is substantially weaker (e.g. it's basically worthless on linux, because you can reach the X server from inside the "sandbox").
  - Semaphor 5y ago
    > It performs significantly worse than Chrome for me on both desktop Linux and Android Not sure about Android, as I can’t remember how Chrome performs, but I regularly test things in Chrome on Desktop (or when sites are so third-party heavy, I can’t figure out a sensible way to enable sites), and on Windows the performance for both is indistinguishable, and that’s despite tons of extensions for FF and none for Chrome.
  - boudin 5y ago
    I find Firefox less resource hungry and don't see much performance difference on Linux. Any resources on the sandbox weaknesses? I know it was the case a while back but I thought those issues had been addressed since. Firefox works really well on Wayland though, which addresses X's problems (and a few other regarding input and clipboard). Edit: found out the issue you mentioned: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1129492 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1129492 That's not great indeed. I guess that the only workaround for now is Wayland

tored 5y ago

I was a Firefox advocate back then but today there is zero reason for me to do that again.

ksec 5y ago

> back then Firefox had an army of advocates installing Firefox on their family’s and friends computers..... Yeah. I did that. Probably closing to a thousand, from pushing inside Enterprise to libraries and Uni Campus. And I watched first hand how they all slowly migrate themselves to Chrome. Because it was faster. I still have vivid memory of it happening. >I don’t have the answers but suspect privacy and security may be the angle to take. I did that too. Against Google. Heck That was before anyone on the internet even suspect Google was a privacy nightmare. Every single one believed their Do No Evil BS. ( Even Mozilla ). I was the contrarian then. And that didn't work either. I was there in 2004 NY Times Ad. Or even pre Firefox era. Firefox was a better browser than IE6. And even then fighting against IE6 was hard. Very hard. The lesson I learned was that most people dont care much about ideology. ( As long as it doesn't hurt their interest ) They just want a browser that worked. And would only switch if it was better. I dont think Firefox is a bad browser in 2022, but I also dont think it is faster or better than Chrome either. At the end of the day people can only do so much to help push Firefox. It ultimately falls back on Mozilla. It is Mozilla that needs to change or up the game. Unfortunately history dictate the only way to solve this problem is Mozilla think of it as a problem. Otherwise its current status at ~10% marketshare is enough to sustain its operation. Nothing bad enough is happening, no interest or incentive for changes. Inertia. Let's keep thing this way. The exec keeps getting paid. So yes, it is counter intuitive. The only way to save Mozilla ( or change Mozilla's direction, I guess the word "save" is a hyperbole, at least from Mozilla's perspective. ) isn't trying to get more user to use it. It is actually to push people to abandon it. Unless they are threatened, they wont compete.

unyttigfjelltol 5y ago
>its current status at ~10% marketshare is enough to sustain its operation. Nothing bad enough is happening, no interest or incentive for changes. Inertia. To take the role of devil's advocate, what should Mozilla's goal be here? They're a self-sustaining nonprofit competing against titans of the modern business landscape. Should they aim for 100% market share? 2%? Why? Maybe, counter-intuitively, instead their focus should be on fair, reasonable standard-setting that allows 50 2% market share flavors, rather than themselves achieving 100%? The scuttlebutt on these boards is Chrome achieves it's advantage by unfairly or aggressively pushing standards or proprietary features that become a de-facto standard, so maybe Mozilla's derivative mission should be lobbying for sector-specific binding rules on common standards and interoperability for dominant technologies? That's a public policy problem not unique to browsers or a single dominant vendor, and one Mozilla is well positioned to address, maybe even politely enough not to disrupt its primary income stream

grey_earthling 5y ago

IMO the angle back then was the mission to free the web from a corporate stranglehold — “Take Back the Web”. I believed this mission was Mozilla's primary focus. That mission is even more relevant now than it was 18 (!) years ago, and yet Firefox is trying to be just another pushy lifestyle brand. They're friendly like a used car salesman. Firefox should show people (show, not “tell loudly”) that software can be a useful tool that isn't trying to trick them. A lot of people expect computers and phones to be hostile, because that's all they've ever known. Spin up a virtual machine and compare Firefox's first-run experience with GNOME Web's first-run experience. Which feels more like a tool you're in control of?

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago

I’d love to use Firefox again but every time I download it it seems like a bloated slow mess. Get it back to why we installed it back then. Make it lighter and faster than Chrome and with more privacy. That’s all that matters.

cassianoleal 5y ago
I find your 3 criteria to be met on macOS. Not sure about other platforms.
- chrisseaton 5y ago
  If you want light, fast, secure on macOS why not use Safari?
  - cassianoleal 5y ago
    Better privacy, better control over how my browser behaves, tab isolation, tab containers, uBlock Origin, ... I do use Safari, but as a secondary browser, mostly as temporary private windows.
pjerem 5y ago
I use Firefox and Chrome on a daily basis (Firefox for browsing, Chrome because it's well integrated with a lot of IDEs) and I'd argue it's false to say, in 2022, that Firefox is a bloated slow mess. I would not say either that it's faster than Chrome but I honestly doesn't feel any difference. If I had to choose between the two without the ideological side, I honestly don't know which one I would choose. Probably Firefox for tabs containerization.
- lariati 5y ago
  Totally agree. At least on KDE I really don't notice any difference in performance and always have both installed. I use Firefox 99% of the time though. I think it is something about the tabs that I like better but it is a minor difference and purely based on personal taste.

jhoechtl 5y ago

The pure browser business doesn't bring in any money. Browsers are a commodity, you sell them as a vehicle for the real thing. Much like razor handles for the razor blades. Firefox is a great handle but nobody wants or needs their blades.

chrisseaton 5y ago
> The pure browser business doesn't bring in any money. Firefox brings in hundreds of millions of dollars.
- kortilla 5y ago
  By feeding search traffic to google. That’s one of the most unstable income streams there is.
  - chrisseaton 5y ago
    It's stable within a few tens of millions over the last years.
  - samwillis 5y ago
    No it’s pretty consistently $400-450M per year. Up from the brief period when Yahoo was default. https://www.androidheadlines.com/2020/08/mozilla-firefox-google-search?amp https://www.androidheadlines.com/2020/08/mozilla-firefox-goo...
    - kortilla 5y ago
      Bringing a lot of money doesn’t mean it’s stable. Search traffic to google is putting all of your eggs in one basket and putting you at odds with your users interest.
  - rvz 5y ago
    There you go. What the rest of the comments in your reply don't tell you is that Mozilla's expenses outweigh their income for years, which means they are constantly losing money. [0] Given that Google is their only source of income, (excluding one-time payments) it is indeed very unstable and they are ultimately at the mercy of Google, despite 14 years ago promising [1] to move away from being completely dependent on their income. At this point, Mozilla is on life support. Privacy (which is their main selling point) to Mozilla is also a joke to them. If Google wasn't bad enough, why not work with Meta on 'ads' too? Not exactly 'privacy first' - they might as well drop that claim. [0] https://www.computerworld.com/article/3600206/mozilla-reports-338m-revenue-spike-from-settlement-over-yahoo-contract.html https://www.computerworld.com/article/3600206/mozilla-report... [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9044160/Mozilla_can_live_without_Google_s_money_Baker_says_ https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.compu...

strong_as_oak 5y ago

I have no idea how representative my views are, but despite liking the browser, I find Mozilla's current marketing creepy, and it puts me off donating to the company. For one example, they send the same weird Valentine's day marketing email every year (that Cupid and the Grinch thing), which I wouldn't mind too much, except that the way it's written comes across like it's trying to trick the reader into thinking it's relating a recent conversation. I also find the tone of the email offputting; the first time I saw it, it made me feel like I was eavesdropping on someone's in-joke with their friend, while I didn't know anyone involved. This may be too much attention to give to one marketing email, but then they do send the same exchange every year! Also, personally I would prefer them to focus on privacy and security and avoid anything more partisan; I haven't counted up but it feels like the majority of their campaign emails are about battling 'unsafe' content online, and I have no reason to trust them to be the judges of what qualifies as unsafe. So it puts me off donating any money for the things I do care about, because I can't trust they won't use it for something I completely oppose. I also would expect that a company that starts getting into the business of content moderation is going to find it conflicts with any privacy and security work they're doing, sooner or later.

_Algernon_ 5y ago

Not removing every feature used by the power users who you want to advocate for you would probably be the place to start.

samwillis 5y ago

So, as the OP, just want to add my current advocacy thoughts. I have advocated for my family to use three different browsers of the last 20 years. First Firefox, then Chrome, now I push them all to just use Safari. They have all slowly migrated to Apple completely, fist with iPhones then to Macs. Over the last 5 years I have pushed them to all use Safari, as it has better battery usage on all Apple devices, a “just works” sync across devices, and better default privacy situation than Chrome. For me to advocate for Firefox (and move to it myself) it would need to be better at at least two of those three things than Safari.

whywhywhywhy 5y ago

>After the discussion yesterday I was thinking, and the passion that went into this full two page marketing campaign in the NY Times is what is needed to save Firefox. I've been thinking too and really I feel the only way to save Firefox at this point is to destroy it. Mozilla is too bloated and the executives have zero interest in working on a browser and extremely wasteful spending, firing engineering teams. The best thing that could ever happen to Firefox at this point is Mozilla running out of funds and disbanding and something new made from the ashes and the codebase. If you think I'm wrong, remember Firefox was originally called Phoenix for a reason.

shp0ngle 5y ago

What discussion? Did I miss some Firefox news?

fsflover 5y ago
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30335455 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30335455

hulitu 5y ago

It is too late. Firefox is just a reskinned chrome. The only reason i still have firefox on my computers is because there are websites who only work in chrome or firefox.

skyeto 5y ago
Isn't that way too extreme? Firefox and Chrome don't share a lot of similarities, except arguably both implementing manifest v3 after Google's push, but even those are fairly different.
jefftk 5y ago
Firefox is one of the few browsers left that isn't a reskinned Chrome: its a completely independent implementation. Perhaps you're thinking of Edge, Brave, or Vivaldi?

nimajneb 5y ago

Was it Ubuntu or Firefox that would mail you a free sticker pack if you asked? sometime between 2002-2005. I think that era is my favorite internet era that I experienced. Mid 90s was cool too.