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I've commented this before in a different thread. It's time we, developers, truly switched to non-Chromium browsers. It's Firefox. The answer to all this is Fir

by erklik 4y ago

I've commented this before in a different thread. It's time we, developers, truly switched to non-Chromium browsers. It's Firefox. The answer to all this is Firefox. Firefox is a legitimate alternative, it works for >99% of the world's websites and is an actual alternative i.e. not a fork of Chromium. We need to support Firefox. I've been using it for nearly the last 5 years full-time and have never needed to open Chrome. Do some Google websites perform worse on Firefox? Sure, but the entire reason that's because people don't use Firefox enough i.e. some websites are worse on Firefox. It's a cycle. People don't use Firefox enough, which is why some websites are not performant on Firefox and so on. Firefox expanded and became famous because of a large amount of developers telling their families and friends that it's the better browser. Same was the case for Chrome. This needs to happen again. As a side note, can someone at Mozilla please make it so that I can donate directly to Firefox? Is that not possible for some reason? If I knew that Mozilla wasn't going to spend my money on some stupid new idea, and it would directly to supporting Firefox development, I would defintely pay a subscription each month to Firefox, and feel like a lot of other people would too.

avian 4y ago
Firefox will follow Chrome with this. Over time they always tend to copy Chrome instead of going their own way, as much as their users complain. They similarly already moved away from XUL extensions in the past. I'm sure they will write a heart-breaking story about how supporting Manifest v3 extensions and removing WebRequest blocking is critical for safety and privacy on the web.
- kramerger 4y ago
  Firefox is already supporting v3 while _also_ supporting v2 for adblockers. Stop these random excuses.
  - avian 4y ago
    I use Firefox exclusively, on my computer and on my phone. I am also incresingly frustrated by the direction Mozilla has been going with it and have very little illusions left what their motivations are.
osrec 4y ago
I would happily use Firefox, however it lacks good developer tools - it's almost impossible to identify JS memory leaks using the FF dev tools. I also find FF more resource hungry than Chrome (and Chrome is pretty heavy on resources too). If they start by making the dev tools better than Chrome's, I know I'd switch, or at least start running it in parallel.
- exyi 4y ago
  Then use Chrome only when you are looking for memory leaks. FF's devtools are not worse than Chrome, I'm used to Firefox and I find Chrome devtools hard to use. For example, the CPU profiler is much better, IMHO
  - mastazi 4y ago
    I also prefer FF dev tools, even while FF was not my daily driver, I was still using its dev tools. I hate Chrome dev tools with that giant console window that takes up half of the space (even when you are not in the console tab) and even if you choose to close it, every now and then it will come back because somehow Chrome forgot your setting.
    - wildrhythms 4y ago
      Yes, I hate this. It's also mapped to open on Esc when the devtools are focused, so if you're trying to get out of some context habitually with the Esc key it will open then too. That and the What's New tab drive me insane (you can disable What's New for a given profile, but my job involves running dev tools in incognito and guest profiles where it's always enabled).
- preya2k 4y ago
  Give them a chance. I was under the same impression until a couple of years ago. Now I think Firefox Developer Tools are far superior. But I can only speak for the Inspector/DOM/CSS related stuff. These are just great!
  - 4y ago
cyber_kinetist 4y ago
Until Mozilla actually directs its funds in improving the engineering of the browser itself instead of spending it on executives and managers, I'm not going to support them in any financial way. Relevant link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24563698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24563698
- dymk 4y ago
  The perfect being the enemy of the good, yet again.
  - cyber_kinetist 4y ago
    I'm speaking this in a pragmatic rather than idealistic terms. Donations have no use when it doesn't go to developing the browser itself (which, to be honest is the most urgent issue right now. Users are having all sorts of performance and instability issues in major websites and switching to Chrome instead.)
    - LunicLynx 4y ago
      This is not an argument. How do you know that developers of other companies are better compensated? (The money distribution follows your ideals) Let’s talk about the product.
      - hn_go_brrrrr 4y ago
        Sure, let's talk about FF Android removing extension support and only adding it back in a very limited way.
        kd913 4y ago
        Compared with the alternatives which don't support extensions at all? What is your point? They did it for technical reasons, and one of the first extensions to be supported was ublock origin.
p-e-w 4y ago
> Firefox is a legitimate alternative, it works for >99% of the world's websites Which is useless if your bank shows you an empty page with a message that says they only support Chrome and Edge "for security reasons". And Mozilla had many, many, many chances to endear themselves to developers. Their actions can best be summarized as they don't give a damn. It took them years to ship basic dev tools with Firefox. Then they wiped out an extension ecosystem that had been growing for more than a decade with the justification that they needed to get rid of technical debt. Meanwhile, Firefox still contains bloatware like Pocket. As for the privacy argument, Mozilla's track record on privacy is mixed at best, considering the many questionable choices they made in this regard in the past. "The answer to all this" is not Firefox. Not the Firefox made by the Mozilla of 2022, anyway. If the Mozilla of 2004 could somehow be resurrected, perhaps they could turn Firefox into something that would indeed be "the answer to all this". At that point, developers wouldn't need encouragement to switch to Firefox. They'd do so simply because it would obviously be the better browser for them.
- nightski 4y ago
  Wow that's crazy, I've used quite a few bank websites and never had that happen. Been using Firefox as a daily driver since it first released. I think that would make me question my bank more than my browser.
  - p-e-w 4y ago
    Not just banks, I believe certain government websites in some countries do it as well. /r/Firefox has hundreds of posts showing websites misbehaving in this way.
    - yoasif_ 4y ago
      Not really. Source - I am a r/firefox moderator.
    - LunicLynx 4y ago
      Please provide sources. Which pages + statements
random_cynic 4y ago
- dsco 4y ago
  Where do you get the information that most web devs aren’t aware of Firefox?
  - random_cynic 4y ago
    From the fact that there are so many government, university and bank websites that simply doesn't work with Firefox or anything other than non-chromium based. In fact, many explicitly say that the user needs to use Chrome for the best experience. You can of course ignore and say that these don't happen in your reality but you only need to take a look at Firefox forums or issues/bug threads to know that they are very real.
    - malermeister 4y ago
      I've never driven a Tesla. Doesn't mean I'm unaware of their existence or the roads I build have to be incompatible with them.
      - pritambaral 4y ago
        Apples to oranges. Roads are nowhere near as complex as Web APIs.
        malermeister 4y ago
        How about bridges, then?
        Ygg2 4y ago
        Outside of nuclear rocket assisted brain surgery, nothing really compare to browser complexity.
sofixa 4y ago
> As a side note, can someone at Mozilla please make it so that I can donate directly to Firefox? Is that not possible for some reason? If I knew that Mozilla wasn't going to spend my money on some stupid new idea, and it would directly to supporting Firefox development, I would defintely pay a subscription each month to Firefox, and feel like a lot of other people would too. I don't see why so many people are against Mozilla using donations how they see fit. They need to diversify because relying on a single project, a free browser, in a single market segment which is saturated with free browsers, is a massive risk. Firefox's survival mostly hinges on Google's money, which of course Google have a massive interest in (they need a competitor to Chromium). However if that were to change, Firefox is going to struggle even more to keep up. So, in my opinion, Mozilla need to diversify with alternative projects that could bring in money and reputation, and maybe even through integrations users for their other projects. To be able to do that, they need flexibility on how to spend the donations. To see what could happen if there are strict limits on what funds can be used for, check out Atlanta's MARTA system. They have to split incoming funds evenly between operational and capital expenditures budgets, which results in bullshit like them having the money for shiny new trains but not enough for basic repairs. Mozilla probably don't want to find themselves with tons of money for Firefox, but not enough to keep the lights on in general (legal, office, C-suite, other projects). So I see where you're coming from, but it's just unrealistic.
- sprash 4y ago
  > I don't see why so many people are against Mozilla using donations how they see fit. Because people donating to Mozilla are expecting that those funds are used for the browser and not a string of experiments that fail miserably. People rightfully feel betrayed and stop donating. > Mozilla need to diversify Exactly wrong. Mozilla needs to concentrate on the Browser and should cut off all excess expenses and useless experiments. The goal should be to minimize cost and thus reduce the reliance on Google money which should be replaced by pure donation money.
- animuchan 4y ago
  I agree in principle, but they tend to diversify into alternative projects that leave bad taste in one's mouth. Rust being the notable exception of course. Rust is probably what Mozilla will be remembered for when Google pulls the financial support for Firefox.
dataflow 4y ago
I tried downloading Firefox on my phone and was greeted with... the inability to even set my home page to a URL of my choice? [1] I couldn't believe my eyes. Do they think this kind of thing will increase their market share? [1] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/7551 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/7551
- TuringTest 4y ago
  What are you talking about? You can set several URL links in the home page, the feature is called 'shortcuts'.
  - jhanschoo 4y ago
    They mean that when they open a new tab it should immediately load a certain web page.
    - TuringTest 4y ago
      Well, that's called a shortcut. You can have that feature by opening a shortcut instead of a tab.
  - genezeta 4y ago
    Different thing. They are asking to set [some URL] as the homepage, that is, the equivalent of this setting -available on desktop Fx- https://imgur.com/a/flHTSNe https://imgur.com/a/flHTSNe This makes it so that when you open Firefox initially or when you open a new tab, it loads the chosen URL instead of loading the about:newtab (the page where the shortcuts you mention can be found). This setting was available in some -old, Fennec- versions but not currently.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  Yup. It's another piece of software that hates its users. Another company where people are having meetings discussing the best methods to prevent their software's users from doing something with their own computers. Protecting users from their own preferences. Antiuser interfaces.
Fiahil 4y ago
> it works for >99% of the world's websites From what I can see, it works with 100% of the world's websites.
- b0afc375b5 4y ago
  I didn't get stackblitz to work. Or is it perhaps my myriad of extensions preventing it to work?
  - Fiahil 4y ago
    It works for me
    - b0afc375b5 4y ago
      Thanks for letting me know. I tried with Private Window but it's giving me "Enable Third-Party Cookies". I'll have to test on a Normal Window with plugins disabled.
_8j50 4y ago
In the corporate world, firefox doesn't fare well.
- wildrhythms 4y ago
  This + any institutions with a fleet of Chromebooks don't even have the option of using Firefox.
scrame 4y ago
Tree-style-tabs alone make firefox preferable. though their stupid mobile extension change dampened the ease to recommend it for mobile. (yes, I use nightly, and have a custom package, it's a garbage experience)
- erklik 4y ago
  Oh god. I love that you said this. Absolutely. I have 3000 tabs open (exageratting but can't be too far off) and Tree Style Tabs saves my life. Along with Tridactyl, using the browser feels far more "powerful" than Chrome ever did to me.
bambax 4y ago
Agree 100%. I would also pay for a browser that doesn't implement manifest v3 at all. If FF won't offer a paid version for some reason, why don't other people fork it and do it?
aembleton 4y ago
I've opened Chromium to check websites I'm working on are rendering correctly. Its worth doing as most of your users use a Chrome based browser.

by erklik 4y ago

avian 4y ago

Firefox will follow Chrome with this. Over time they always tend to copy Chrome instead of going their own way, as much as their users complain. They similarly already moved away from XUL extensions in the past. I'm sure they will write a heart-breaking story about how supporting Manifest v3 extensions and removing WebRequest blocking is critical for safety and privacy on the web.

kramerger 4y ago
Firefox is already supporting v3 while _also_ supporting v2 for adblockers. Stop these random excuses.
- avian 4y ago
  I use Firefox exclusively, on my computer and on my phone. I am also incresingly frustrated by the direction Mozilla has been going with it and have very little illusions left what their motivations are.

osrec 4y ago

I would happily use Firefox, however it lacks good developer tools - it's almost impossible to identify JS memory leaks using the FF dev tools. I also find FF more resource hungry than Chrome (and Chrome is pretty heavy on resources too). If they start by making the dev tools better than Chrome's, I know I'd switch, or at least start running it in parallel.

exyi 4y ago
Then use Chrome only when you are looking for memory leaks. FF's devtools are not worse than Chrome, I'm used to Firefox and I find Chrome devtools hard to use. For example, the CPU profiler is much better, IMHO
- mastazi 4y ago
  I also prefer FF dev tools, even while FF was not my daily driver, I was still using its dev tools. I hate Chrome dev tools with that giant console window that takes up half of the space (even when you are not in the console tab) and even if you choose to close it, every now and then it will come back because somehow Chrome forgot your setting.
  - wildrhythms 4y ago
    Yes, I hate this. It's also mapped to open on Esc when the devtools are focused, so if you're trying to get out of some context habitually with the Esc key it will open then too. That and the What's New tab drive me insane (you can disable What's New for a given profile, but my job involves running dev tools in incognito and guest profiles where it's always enabled).
preya2k 4y ago
Give them a chance. I was under the same impression until a couple of years ago. Now I think Firefox Developer Tools are far superior. But I can only speak for the Inspector/DOM/CSS related stuff. These are just great!
- 4y ago

cyber_kinetist 4y ago

Until Mozilla actually directs its funds in improving the engineering of the browser itself instead of spending it on executives and managers, I'm not going to support them in any financial way. Relevant link: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24563698 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24563698

dymk 4y ago
The perfect being the enemy of the good, yet again.
- cyber_kinetist 4y ago
  I'm speaking this in a pragmatic rather than idealistic terms. Donations have no use when it doesn't go to developing the browser itself (which, to be honest is the most urgent issue right now. Users are having all sorts of performance and instability issues in major websites and switching to Chrome instead.)
  - LunicLynx 4y ago
    This is not an argument. How do you know that developers of other companies are better compensated? (The money distribution follows your ideals) Let’s talk about the product.
    - hn_go_brrrrr 4y ago
      Sure, let's talk about FF Android removing extension support and only adding it back in a very limited way.
      - kd913 4y ago
        Compared with the alternatives which don't support extensions at all? What is your point? They did it for technical reasons, and one of the first extensions to be supported was ublock origin.

p-e-w 4y ago

> Firefox is a legitimate alternative, it works for >99% of the world's websites Which is useless if your bank shows you an empty page with a message that says they only support Chrome and Edge "for security reasons". And Mozilla had many, many, many chances to endear themselves to developers. Their actions can best be summarized as they don't give a damn. It took them years to ship basic dev tools with Firefox. Then they wiped out an extension ecosystem that had been growing for more than a decade with the justification that they needed to get rid of technical debt. Meanwhile, Firefox still contains bloatware like Pocket. As for the privacy argument, Mozilla's track record on privacy is mixed at best, considering the many questionable choices they made in this regard in the past. "The answer to all this" is not Firefox. Not the Firefox made by the Mozilla of 2022, anyway. If the Mozilla of 2004 could somehow be resurrected, perhaps they could turn Firefox into something that would indeed be "the answer to all this". At that point, developers wouldn't need encouragement to switch to Firefox. They'd do so simply because it would obviously be the better browser for them.

nightski 4y ago
Wow that's crazy, I've used quite a few bank websites and never had that happen. Been using Firefox as a daily driver since it first released. I think that would make me question my bank more than my browser.
- p-e-w 4y ago
  Not just banks, I believe certain government websites in some countries do it as well. /r/Firefox has hundreds of posts showing websites misbehaving in this way.
  - yoasif_ 4y ago
    Not really. Source - I am a r/firefox moderator.
  - LunicLynx 4y ago
    Please provide sources. Which pages + statements

random_cynic 4y ago

dsco 4y ago
Where do you get the information that most web devs aren’t aware of Firefox?
- random_cynic 4y ago
  From the fact that there are so many government, university and bank websites that simply doesn't work with Firefox or anything other than non-chromium based. In fact, many explicitly say that the user needs to use Chrome for the best experience. You can of course ignore and say that these don't happen in your reality but you only need to take a look at Firefox forums or issues/bug threads to know that they are very real.
  - malermeister 4y ago
    I've never driven a Tesla. Doesn't mean I'm unaware of their existence or the roads I build have to be incompatible with them.
    - pritambaral 4y ago
      Apples to oranges. Roads are nowhere near as complex as Web APIs.
      - malermeister 4y ago
        How about bridges, then?
        Ygg2 4y ago
        Outside of nuclear rocket assisted brain surgery, nothing really compare to browser complexity.

sofixa 4y ago

> As a side note, can someone at Mozilla please make it so that I can donate directly to Firefox? Is that not possible for some reason? If I knew that Mozilla wasn't going to spend my money on some stupid new idea, and it would directly to supporting Firefox development, I would defintely pay a subscription each month to Firefox, and feel like a lot of other people would too. I don't see why so many people are against Mozilla using donations how they see fit. They need to diversify because relying on a single project, a free browser, in a single market segment which is saturated with free browsers, is a massive risk. Firefox's survival mostly hinges on Google's money, which of course Google have a massive interest in (they need a competitor to Chromium). However if that were to change, Firefox is going to struggle even more to keep up. So, in my opinion, Mozilla need to diversify with alternative projects that could bring in money and reputation, and maybe even through integrations users for their other projects. To be able to do that, they need flexibility on how to spend the donations. To see what could happen if there are strict limits on what funds can be used for, check out Atlanta's MARTA system. They have to split incoming funds evenly between operational and capital expenditures budgets, which results in bullshit like them having the money for shiny new trains but not enough for basic repairs. Mozilla probably don't want to find themselves with tons of money for Firefox, but not enough to keep the lights on in general (legal, office, C-suite, other projects). So I see where you're coming from, but it's just unrealistic.

sprash 4y ago
> I don't see why so many people are against Mozilla using donations how they see fit. Because people donating to Mozilla are expecting that those funds are used for the browser and not a string of experiments that fail miserably. People rightfully feel betrayed and stop donating. > Mozilla need to diversify Exactly wrong. Mozilla needs to concentrate on the Browser and should cut off all excess expenses and useless experiments. The goal should be to minimize cost and thus reduce the reliance on Google money which should be replaced by pure donation money.
animuchan 4y ago
I agree in principle, but they tend to diversify into alternative projects that leave bad taste in one's mouth. Rust being the notable exception of course. Rust is probably what Mozilla will be remembered for when Google pulls the financial support for Firefox.

dataflow 4y ago

I tried downloading Firefox on my phone and was greeted with... the inability to even set my home page to a URL of my choice? [1] I couldn't believe my eyes. Do they think this kind of thing will increase their market share? [1] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/7551 https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/7551

TuringTest 4y ago
What are you talking about? You can set several URL links in the home page, the feature is called 'shortcuts'.
- jhanschoo 4y ago
  They mean that when they open a new tab it should immediately load a certain web page.
  - TuringTest 4y ago
    Well, that's called a shortcut. You can have that feature by opening a shortcut instead of a tab.
- genezeta 4y ago
  Different thing. They are asking to set [some URL] as the homepage, that is, the equivalent of this setting -available on desktop Fx- https://imgur.com/a/flHTSNe https://imgur.com/a/flHTSNe This makes it so that when you open Firefox initially or when you open a new tab, it loads the chosen URL instead of loading the about:newtab (the page where the shortcuts you mention can be found). This setting was available in some -old, Fennec- versions but not currently.
pessimizer 4y ago
Yup. It's another piece of software that hates its users. Another company where people are having meetings discussing the best methods to prevent their software's users from doing something with their own computers. Protecting users from their own preferences. Antiuser interfaces.

Fiahil 4y ago

> it works for >99% of the world's websites From what I can see, it works with 100% of the world's websites.

b0afc375b5 4y ago
I didn't get stackblitz to work. Or is it perhaps my myriad of extensions preventing it to work?
- Fiahil 4y ago
  It works for me
  - b0afc375b5 4y ago
    Thanks for letting me know. I tried with Private Window but it's giving me "Enable Third-Party Cookies". I'll have to test on a Normal Window with plugins disabled.

_8j50 4y ago

In the corporate world, firefox doesn't fare well.

wildrhythms 4y ago
This + any institutions with a fleet of Chromebooks don't even have the option of using Firefox.

scrame 4y ago

Tree-style-tabs alone make firefox preferable. though their stupid mobile extension change dampened the ease to recommend it for mobile. (yes, I use nightly, and have a custom package, it's a garbage experience)

erklik 4y ago
Oh god. I love that you said this. Absolutely. I have 3000 tabs open (exageratting but can't be too far off) and Tree Style Tabs saves my life. Along with Tridactyl, using the browser feels far more "powerful" than Chrome ever did to me.

bambax 4y ago

Agree 100%. I would also pay for a browser that doesn't implement manifest v3 at all. If FF won't offer a paid version for some reason, why don't other people fork it and do it?

aembleton 4y ago

I've opened Chromium to check websites I'm working on are rendering correctly. Its worth doing as most of your users use a Chrome based browser.