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> This worked because, at the time, Firefox was genuinely, and more importantly, visibly better. With Manifest V3 in Chrome stopping the use of uBlock and frie

by e2le 5y ago

> This worked because, at the time, Firefox was genuinely, and more importantly, visibly better. With Manifest V3 in Chrome stopping the use of uBlock and friends, Firefox could be a real alternative that provides users with a visibly better experience. Firefox will soon become one of only a few browsers capable of blocking the CPU unfriendly visual pollution that pervades every webpage nowadays. Users are going to leave Chrome and I would prefer they don't flee to Brave. If Mozilla fails to position themselves to capture these users (uBlock and AdBlock each have more than 10 million users), they wont be getting another opportunity like this for a very long time.

dspillett 5y ago
> With Manifest V3 in Chrome stopping the use of uBlock and friends, Firefox could be a real alternative that provides users with a visibly better experience. Coincidentally a similar issue is why a number of people I know shifted away from FF to Chrome: breaking changes in the add-ons system which meant a lot of old ones stopped working completely and some major ones were slower to update then you'd expect. Moving onto better maintained extensions is a good thing in the end in terms of security and stability, but the hassle of needing to find/choose new options meant one of the sources of friction stopping people move to Chrome then existing even if they stayed with FF. > If Mozilla fails to position themselves to capture these users Hopefully they'll remember the other side of the coin and organise to make sure those users are aware their option is viable. I don't currently use FF much (though I've experienced some irritations in Chrome in recent months so maybe it is time for my bi-/tri-annual switch of primary browser) but the existence of a significant browser that isn't essentially a reskin of Chromium and isn't locked to one platform is important to avoid the monoculture issues we experienced in IE6's 90+% market share days.
blooalien 5y ago
> "Firefox will soon become one of only a few browsers capable of blocking the CPU unfriendly visual pollution that pervades every webpage nowadays." Not only CPU-unfriendly, but network bandwidth stealing adverts like auto-play full-motion video ads (in a world where every one of the major "mini-monopoly" ISPs impose bandwidth usage caps with insane overage penalty billing), not to mention the security and privacy risks of some advertising "services"…
lentil_soup 5y ago
I think that's the best opportunity Firefox has. If they position themselves as THE privacy-first/ad-free browser they could get people back. It would truly be a better experience (specially the ad-free part) which is the only way to get the non-IT crowd interested. Other features like memory, speed, etc are a commodity now, both browsers are good enough for non power users, but Chrome is stuck with ads because of Google. Firefox is free from this and can use it to disrupt the market.
danShumway 5y ago
Just want to advocate that, while the difference isn't currently so large that it's obviously visible, Firefox already has better Ublock Origin support than Chrome (and by extension, Brave) have. This kind of comes down to what your tolerance is for the occasional ad slipping through -- if you need the best Ublock Origin support right now, use Firefox right now. If you only care at the point where it becomes really noticeable, then maybe that won't matter until after Manifest V3 becomes a requirement. Anecdotally I run into people who say that Safari's adblocking is fine, and if those people feel that way about Safari, they aren't going to view the loss in effectiveness on Chrome as being a dealbreaker post Manifest V3. So I also kind of wonder how many people are actually going to switch just because they lose Ublock Origin.

by e2le 5y ago

dspillett 5y ago

> With Manifest V3 in Chrome stopping the use of uBlock and friends, Firefox could be a real alternative that provides users with a visibly better experience. Coincidentally a similar issue is why a number of people I know shifted away from FF to Chrome: breaking changes in the add-ons system which meant a lot of old ones stopped working completely and some major ones were slower to update then you'd expect. Moving onto better maintained extensions is a good thing in the end in terms of security and stability, but the hassle of needing to find/choose new options meant one of the sources of friction stopping people move to Chrome then existing even if they stayed with FF. > If Mozilla fails to position themselves to capture these users Hopefully they'll remember the other side of the coin and organise to make sure those users are aware their option is viable. I don't currently use FF much (though I've experienced some irritations in Chrome in recent months so maybe it is time for my bi-/tri-annual switch of primary browser) but the existence of a significant browser that isn't essentially a reskin of Chromium and isn't locked to one platform is important to avoid the monoculture issues we experienced in IE6's 90+% market share days.

blooalien 5y ago

> "Firefox will soon become one of only a few browsers capable of blocking the CPU unfriendly visual pollution that pervades every webpage nowadays." Not only CPU-unfriendly, but network bandwidth stealing adverts like auto-play full-motion video ads (in a world where every one of the major "mini-monopoly" ISPs impose bandwidth usage caps with insane overage penalty billing), not to mention the security and privacy risks of some advertising "services"…

lentil_soup 5y ago

I think that's the best opportunity Firefox has. If they position themselves as THE privacy-first/ad-free browser they could get people back. It would truly be a better experience (specially the ad-free part) which is the only way to get the non-IT crowd interested. Other features like memory, speed, etc are a commodity now, both browsers are good enough for non power users, but Chrome is stuck with ads because of Google. Firefox is free from this and can use it to disrupt the market.

danShumway 5y ago

Just want to advocate that, while the difference isn't currently so large that it's obviously visible, Firefox already has better Ublock Origin support than Chrome (and by extension, Brave) have. This kind of comes down to what your tolerance is for the occasional ad slipping through -- if you need the best Ublock Origin support right now, use Firefox right now. If you only care at the point where it becomes really noticeable, then maybe that won't matter until after Manifest V3 becomes a requirement. Anecdotally I run into people who say that Safari's adblocking is fine, and if those people feel that way about Safari, they aren't going to view the loss in effectiveness on Chrome as being a dealbreaker post Manifest V3. So I also kind of wonder how many people are actually going to switch just because they lose Ublock Origin.