9 ms·

Desktop Linux has a Firefox problem

113 points by yaks_hairbrush 3y ago

midasuni 3y ago
As a firefox and desktop linux user I don’t see any problem
- teekert 3y ago
  Seconded, I have no issues. In fact when I’m not on ff I immediately miss the lack of cookie containers and get annoyed by the horrible need to log in to and out off different accounts all the time. On ff I sync my add-ons, bookmarks and containers. What’s not to like?
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
  Open a new tab and you’ll see advertisements in your homepage (which afaict you cannot change to a non default page) Open a 1080p YouTube video and watch your processor get slammed. No, I do not want to install an unvetted third party plug-in. If nothing else, flag that the browser doesn’t support hardware acceleration when playing videos, in easy to understand terminology so I, and thousands of others don’t have to go troubleshoot exactly what is causing my computer to choke.
  - hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
    Oh and maybe invest in actual Firefox development instead of whatever meme tech interests the executive this month…
  - bobnamob 3y ago
    You can turn off suggested links on the new tab page through the cog in the top right corner. That’s been the case for years
  - lastgeniusua 3y ago
    not only can you easily turn off any ads or suggestions, but you can set custom urls in easily-accessible settings at about:preferences#home
- nine_k 3y ago
  As a Firefox and Linux user, I do see that problem. Hardware video acceleration is fine now, and apparently has been for some time. But e.g. Google Meet plainly refuses to blur the video call background when run on Firefox. It happily does that when running in Chromium.
  - userbinator 3y ago
    Have you tried changing user-agent header or similar? I'm not familiar with your specific example but have encountered plenty of sites which complain about "not supported" but work fine when UA header is the "right" one.
    - nine_k 3y ago
      I have, and it did not work last few times :(
  - thayne 3y ago
    As a Firefox on Linux user I also see a problem. It isn't that uncommon to see a feature drop on windows and mac before linux. And for a long time, there has been an issue where if you update Firefox with a linux package manager, you have to restart the whole browser, or the browser stops working. That isn't a problem on windows or mac (usually). And it isn't something you have to deal with with chromium on linux either.
    - midasuni 3y ago
      I see that as a benefit. I don’t want features, I want stability
  - ladyanita22 3y ago
    That seems like a Firefox problem, not a Chromium one.
    - accoil 3y ago
      Yes? This is phrased as a disagreement, but the content looks like an agreement?
- amelius 3y ago
  Read the entire article.
  - midasuni 3y ago
    I couldn’t get past the nonsense about how awful firefox was (again I am quite happy with firefox)
- ladyanita22 3y ago
  Me neither. It works flawlessly on Fedora.
smcleod 3y ago
The world has a chrome problem.
bitsandboots 3y ago
> The love the Linux world has for Firefox is not reciprocated by Mozilla in the same way, and this shows in various places where issues fixed and addressed on the Windows side are ignored on the Linux side for years or longer. > The best and most visible example of that is hardware video acceleration. That's not "Desktop Linux has a Firefox problem", that's "Desktop Linux has a problem". hardware acceleration was always a pain to get working in linux, as a subset of the larger problem of linux video drivers having varying levels of support for the plethora of features that video cards need to do these days. Things like this ultimately led me to my current Linux usage: Windows host, linux vm, fullscreened on its own virtual desktop. If I need to do something that linux wasn't going to do efficiently, I do it in the windows host. Otherwise, I do it in the linux vm. Anyway, I wonder if any of the problems this person is pointing out are going to be made better or worse by wayland
- ladyanita22 3y ago
  I'm using Firefox on Fedora and VAAPI works perfectly fine with no issues. In my experience, it's a problem carried from the past, and not real limitation anymore.
- hollerith 3y ago
  Where do you do most of your web browsing, in the host or in the VM?
  - bitsandboots 3y ago
    VM, which is fine for text but when it comes to video like twitch or youtube, there's a pretty high cpu cost on it. It's still smooth, 60fps, but at a cost.
- PennRobotics 3y ago
  Wayland might eventually be better, but for a Linux-hostile computer configuration (10 bpp color, Nvidia, audio only half-supported by Realtek, no snaps/flatpak) the constant flag setting friction, video codecs being in limbo, and programs like OpenSCAD having a huge keyboard delay and screen flickering (which Firefox also had for a long time) led me after a decade of Linux use to a reasonably satisfying experience (ignoring time sync problems and slow-ass cross-OS file access): Windows 10 + WSL I thought an AMD + Radeon laptop would be a great improvement. Evidently I have the Reverse Midas Touch. Also garbage. Sadly, FULL hardware/peripheral support requires Windows or Mac, happiness everywhere else dictates Linux, and WSL delivers both (plus WebGPU, which is another aspect of Firefox/Linux that is perplexing and half-baked). On both computers, X was a dramatic improvement over Wayland: proper color support (i.e. parts of the GIMP UI wouldn't turn magenta or half-transparent, you could enable HDR in Chrome), no extreme keyboard lag, all my Java binaries work without requiring cryptic flags, I didn't have to compile my own drivers from a guy named ElFarto, I could finally forget the difference between AV1 and VP9 and whichever gstreamer package lets you watch video again...
edvinbesic 3y ago
> I’m genuinely worried about the state of browsers on Linux, and the future of Firefox on Linux in particular. I think it’s highly irresponsible of the various prominent players in the desktop Linux community, from GNOME to KDE, from Ubuntu to Fedora, to seemingly have absolutely zero contingency plans for when Firefox enshittifies or dies, despite everything we know about the current state of the browser market, the state of Mozilla’s finances, and the future prospects of both. So what are you proposing then? It seems so irresponsible to complain about new-buzzword-shittification of something thousands of people contribute to and offer no contribution in return.
polyamid23 3y ago
Is there a consensus on how correct browser market share calculations are? Google does apparently not even know what OS I am using.
logdap 3y ago
[dead]
sillywalk 3y ago
Mozilla has a revenue problem, sort of like Netscape. It's main product is free and doesn't directly generate revenue except through Google ads. Using Firefox to get the people who use Firefox to use Mozilla's revenue generators - Pocket or VPN through ads in the browser won't work. Google pays it to select it as the default browser, but Firefox' tiny declining market probably makes Google want to not to continue this except perhaps as a way to avoid monopoly stuff.
geophile 3y ago
Can someone knowledgeable comment on the possibility of VivLdi becoming the de facto standard browser for Linux? I played with it a little, thought it worked well, and most notably, it worked well for websites that gave Firefox trouble.
- LorenDB 3y ago
  I'd prefer to see Brave be the de facto default. Except for some crypto stuff that is bundled by default, it seems to be really nice and even ships its own privacy focused search engine. (Disclaimer: I personally don't daily drive Brave, but I would consider it if I ever decided to drop Opera.)
  - geophile 3y ago
    I hadn't heard about Brave. Just started using it, and finding it very nice so far. Easy to get started, as the import from Firefox was quick and painless. I have high hopes for this one.
  - scrum-treats 3y ago
    Brave is really showing up in terms of privacy and security focused browsing. What's interesting to me is that Mozilla had Brendan Eich, and excused him. And today, with Eich at the helm, Brave is climbing the ranks while Mozilla finds itself in an ever-increasing slump.
- timeon 3y ago
  This article pointed out that GNOME Web and Falkon have problem as they are WebKit and Chromium based. Is not Vivaldi Chromium as well?
- tmtvl 3y ago
  Very low chance: it's another Chromium browser but with proprietary modifications. I think Chromium proper would become standard before Vivaldi.
  - thayne 3y ago
marcodiego 3y ago
Together, Linux + ChromeOS (much closer to standard GNU+Linux than Android) have something between 6% and 7% of the desktop. I don't remember people saying the same about MacOS when it was around that mark. Of course, we must be realistic. Linux around 6% is very different from MacOS at 6%. In that case, they already had support from items people complain to this day about Linux not having; main examĺes are msoffice and photoshop. Nevertheless, Linux on the desktop has never been so good. Flatpak (or even AppImages and snaps) allow me to have a "stable core" with recently updated software. Support for most hardware is much better now (looks like most vendors make sure the hardware supports Linux, even though they themselves don't announce it). Pipewire and Wayland matured to the point where you can finally stream your desktop on Wayland using Pipewire. GNOME is snappier today then it was and cleaner and more elegant; of course we still need some consistency but windows suffers from that too; and, look, it even has thumbnails on the file picker! The kernel evolved to a point where desktop is just another well supported system: MGLRU and other improvements made latency on the desktop even under memory pressure just ideal. The environment around it also evolved a lot. Many FLOSS software are on a quality level today that mostly only professional on almost niche areas can't use Linux on the desktop. Consider Blender, Godot, Audacity, Inkscape, Firefox, OBS... these things are refined, stable, elegant and don't try to steal your attention, require periodic payments or throw ads on your face. Actually a Linux desktop user feels very sorry when they see a "standard" windows user. And I'm not even talking about proton or areas where Linux leads or is well established. So yes, it improved. Nevertheless, I'd love to, but I don't think I'll see Linux on the desktop beat windows or MacOS. But, know one thing: I don't care. Linux on the desktop has been good enough for me for a very long time and it will only get better. I just hope someday its market share will be big enough for it to no longer be ignored by so many vendors. Watching current growth, I don't think that is too far anymore now.
- Beached 3y ago
  I use kubuntu as my daily driver for work for a little over 2 years now. I still run into daily issues that just make me not want to use it for my personal desktop os. I fret Everytime I update, yet I must update due to work. but I have to schedule and plan those updates so that when the whole thing takes a shit, I can spend 2 or 3 hours fixing it. Just using the built in update utility, or apt upgrade, or really anything runs about a 10-20% chance of shit breaking. (I didn't do the math) audio experience is terrible all around, and Bluetooth and wifi use out the box, is meh at best for range and stability. I've tried a dozen distros to see if the grass is greener somewhere else, it isn't, and I have to work, I don't have an hour every day to fiddle, I have to bill clients. good support is almost non existent, IF you get help, it's from some greater than thou righteous asshole who suggests you just rewrite the drivers yourself and create a pull request. while I agree it is close, there is a still a LOT of 'polish' that needs to come where I will feel confident that hitting update doesn't ruin my day, and that when I'm done with a stress filled day of work, I'll be able to boot up and play my games without having to troubleshoot for an hour first.
politelemon 3y ago
To compare, how is Chrome or Chromium's attention to Linux Desktop, in terms of features and fixes?
- PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
  whatever drips off from Chrome OS support.... Chrome on Linux had a random weird 3d grey border for years which was only fixed when it was announced ChromeOS was going to switch to the Linux desktop version.
- thayne 3y ago
  It depends. IIRC chrome/chromium had support for video acceleration on linux long before Firefox. And had better support for WebRTC using pipewire on linux. OTOH chrome's support for native wayland lagged far behind Firefox.
SushiHippie 3y ago
> In an ideal world, the major stakeholders of the Linux desktop – KDE, GNOME, the various major distributions – would get together and seriously consider a plan of action. The best possible solution, in my view, would be to fork one of the major browser engines (or pick one and significantly invest in it), and modify this engine and tailor it specifically for the Linux desktop. Is it really the best solution to create a fork? Why not invest in people to directly work on Firefox? The author even mentions a few paragraphs before that sentence that maintaining a browser is hard: > The problem here is that making a capable browser is actually incredibly hard, as the browser has become a hugely capable platform all of its own. Undertaking the mammoth task of building a browser from scratch is not something a lot of people are interested in [...] And who guarantees that the fork will further exist without weird funding? EDIT: sorry, after reading my comment again, I think it sounds a bit snarky. English is not my native language, and I don't know how to phrase these questions better, so they don't sound that way.
- zdragnar 3y ago
  Mozilla has boatloads of money, but they don't seem keen on increasing investing in FF- if anything, cutting servo seemed quite the opposite. To me, Mozilla is like the Wikimedia foundation- they take in a lot of money, but it seems like very little actually goes to the projects people think of when they hear the name. Maybe that isn't a bad thing- surely there are worthy projects they could be investing in, in addition to FF or Wikipedia - but supporting them isn't as simple as offering more bodies in seats, because lack of money and talent isn't what is holding them back.
  - NuSkooler 3y ago
    I'm confused. I get a new Firefox version on my Windows, Android, and Linux machines consistently, with new features, fixes, and the latest web tech minus the privacy nightmares Google is trying to feed, at a regular basis. How are they not investing in FF?
    - elaus 3y ago
      The person you replied to did not say that Mozilla is _not_ investing in Firefox. I too am worried that Mozilla was cutting Servo development, in a time where Firefox already has a problem keeping up with new web features.
clumsysmurf 3y ago
To be fair, its still got plenty of warts on OS X too. After all this time, putting Firefox in full screen mode results in seriously wonky & intolerable behavior. Its the only app I have that shifts all its chrome (toolbars, tabs) when you bang the top of the screen. Compare this to Safari (only the menu shifts). No, hiding all of it is not the solution.
- cassianoleal 3y ago
  That doesn't happen to me at all. What happens is that the menubar shows, and the top bar of the browser (where the back/forward buttons and the URL bar are) slides down to give space to the window bar (with the zoom and close buttons) over the top of the browser. That's all. All the content, sidebar, etc stays stationary. It's true that Safari does it better, but honestly not by much.
  - clumsysmurf 3y ago
    Sidebar and content do stay stationary, but everything else (tabs, url bar, toolbars) shifts for me. Its hard selecting tabs when they cause a shift down, being they are at the top of the bang area. The best part, is when they do shift down, they only expose empty space.
- TillE 3y ago
  The only real complaint I have about Firefox on macOS is that fullscreening a video takes forever. Safari does it twice as fast and with a smooth animation instead of blanking the screen. Otherwise I find the experience on Windows and Mac very similar.
aidenn0 3y ago
... I thought I was one of the few Linux users left using Firefox. All of my coworkers are using Chromium.
- goku12 3y ago
  Every acquaintance of mine who uses Linux (and many who don't) uses Firefox. And that's a conscious decision too - they are aware of the recent chrome shenanigans.
mixmastamyk 3y ago
They should fire most of the overhead personnel and sock their salaries into income producing investments, so when big G closes the tap, R&D can continue indefinitely. Hopefully then they’ll stop reinventing tabs, ruining privacy, and focus on the aforementioned bugs.
- n_ary 3y ago
  The sort of have other revenue generating products. From top of my head, they have firefox relay, vpn, a cooperation with pocket(getpocket_com) and I see some more test products. They are trying but once you offer people something for free, trying to side/up-sell your monetized products feel sleezy and a lot of reputation hit(see pocket integration causing outrage, or brave promoting their crypto bundle thing which you can entirely hide and never use).
devit 3y ago
That's obviously infeasible (either it would be bad or it would cost too much time/money). However, maintaining a variant of Ungoogled Chromium or Vanadium targeted at desktop Linux would be feasible.
linuxandrew 3y ago
As a long-time Firefox user (or rather, LibreWolf and Mull now) the biggest problem as I see it is websites that no longer support it. Compatibility is constantly getting worse as Chrome/Blink monopolises web dev and testing. I'm considering writing letters to some of the sites that have the biggest issues and raising it as an issue. Otherwise, Firefox is mostly fine. I have a few gripes with it and Moz are mismanaging their projects, but desktop Linux is hardly their #1 issue.
- Vinnl 3y ago
  It's also helpful to report them at https://webcompat.com https://webcompat.com. Browsers can (and do) add site-specific workarounds every now and then, and/or reach out to the websites in question.
predictabl3 3y ago
I'm just wondering how many of the Firefox/Linux devs actually test on, or use, Wayland. (Based on how often it seems to regress on Nightly)
alentred 3y ago
Having never developed a browser engine, my naive question is why is it so hard to develop a new one? We have decent free and/or open-source software in other areas, why is it hard to reproduce this experience with the browsers? Or, is the problem in the complexity of the modern web browsing experience, and the walled garden created around it by current major browser developers (new standards, etc.)?
- a_humean 3y ago
  Web browsers are extraordinarily large and complex applications that conform to reams and reams of constantly expanding standards adding up to tens of millions of lines of code. They have to maintain backwards compatibility with software dating back decades. Their complexity and size rivals the operating systems they run on. All mainstream browsers today are effectively forks or cosmetic skins of a handful remaining browser lineages that have been in development for decades now. Probably the only notable attempts at building something from scratch recently is servo and ladybird. Servo was (is) an experimental platform to trial new components for Firefox is isn't a serious option for everyday use. Ladybird is primarily a hobbyist project that isn't a serious option for everyday use but has managed to implement a large part of the features of a modern working browser. The article called it "crazy", but it is impressive how far it's got so far. Also, all of these browsers are open source with permissive licences for the bulk of their source code.
  - TheCycoONE 3y ago
    Where handful is 2 now that Trident is effectively dead. Gecko (from Netscape 6) in Firefox And KHTML (from KDE Konqueror) -> Apple Webkit -> Google Blink in everything else.
- goku12 3y ago
  I have no firsthand experience either. So, this might be informative: https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.html https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope....
anonymousiam 3y ago
People here have talked about Mozilla's financial issues, but so far nobody has posted the donation link. If you use Firefox or Thunderbird and wish to continue doing so, here's the link: https://donate.mozilla.org/ https://donate.mozilla.org/
- trashburger 3y ago
  Please don't donate to Mozilla, they have more than enough but refuse to accelerate Firefox development. https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-investigating-the-bizarre-finances-of-mozilla https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-invest...
- e2le 3y ago
  Thunderbird collects donations separately from Mozilla. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate/ https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate/
kleiba 3y ago
What problem? I've been using Linux with Firefox for at least 15 years, and I've never thought this to be a problem. Linux is not an operating system for the unwashed masses, it's a specialist operating system for more technical oriented folks. It's less polished in many areas and requires some jumping through hoops at times as we all know. In return, you get a vastly better user experience if you're the right kind of user. Whenever I am placed in front of a standard Windows install, I'm shaking my head in astonishment and wonder how people put up with that. Yet, if I were a standard Windows user placed in front of a linux machine, I'd probably do the same. We're just a different species of users. If linux users cared as much about browser specifities as they did about other things, I'm sure they would already be fixed. But the truth is: as a long-time linux user I can state that Firefox is just fine. Really, it is. For me. And probably for many other happy linux users too. Does that mean if couldn't be improved? Of course not. But show me the software for which you couldn't say the same. Okay, maybe Emacs. Just kidding.
- smitty1e 3y ago
  The Famous Article points out that Mozilla is kept afloat by Google's search deal. Fans of the browser (starting with the guy in my mirror) need to start subscribing to services like their VPN or something to give Mozilla a better financial footing.
  - hilios 3y ago
    Thing is their VPN isn't great on Linux either (or in general for tech savvy users). Needing a VPN and wanting to support Mozilla I did subscribe to their service, only to find you needed a special program to use their VPN, which you'll have to build yourself if you're using any distribution other than Ubuntu. If you manage to build it you'll find their selection of servers is more restricted than Mullvad's own offerings. At least their 30-day money back guarantee is working.
- mardifoufs 3y ago
  One of the big issues imo is that it is often packaged by maintainers who sometimes just choose to deactivate or activate flags or features at will. It doesn't happen very often, but it sure is annoying to debug considering you basically have a "custom" build of the software.
rvz 3y ago
Acknowledging the problem(s) is the first step to creating a solution. Those who choose to ignore Firefox's problems, are there to only continue its slow death. Here are the most obvious problems: 'Defining' Linux support: >> Firefox is first and foremost a Windows browser, followed by macOS second, and Linux third. The love the Linux world has for Firefox is not reciprocated by Mozilla in the same way, and this shows in various places where issues fixed and addressed on the Windows side are ignored on the Linux side for years or longer. 80% of all revenue is from Google: >> The giant sword of Damocles dangling above Firefox’ head are Mozilla’s really odd and lopsided revenue sources. As most of us are probably aware, Mozilla makes most of its money from a search deal with Google. Roughly 80% of Mozilla’s revenue comes from Google, who pays the browser maker to set Google Search as the default search engine. Firefox declining usage and anti-trust risks with Google. >> How long will this deal continue? Will it be renewed indefinitely, regardless of how much farther Firefox slides into irrelevance? Will the size of the deal drop, or will it end altogether? When will Google decide that spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year in what is essentially charity for a competitor is no longer worth it, or needed? >> Google’s similar search deal with Apple is already facing legal scrutiny; will that scrutiny have consequences for the deal with Mozilla, too? Solution: >> "Linux needs a browser engine that is independent of Google (and Apple), and takes Linux seriously as a platform." Mozilla could have done that by being a Rust consultancy which can fund the development of both Rust and Firefox without being heavily dependant on Google. That opportunity has been lost. Realistically the likely outcome is to just break up Chrome from Google and use the Chrome engine as the standard browser engine, just like the Linux kernel is the standard kernel for all distros. Case solved.
rado 3y ago
When is :has() coming to FF? It’s been too long.
- mariusor 3y ago
  I'm sure you're able to keep informed about it on the bugtracker: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418039 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418039
hnbear 3y ago
Maybe it’s a Linux success. Ironically though, given Chrome came from WebKit (Safari), which came from KHTML (Konqueror). The Linux browser escaped out to conquer (konquer?) the world. Konqueror was a nice browser, my fav back in the day, and it was exciting when Apple picked it to defeat IE with Safari.

midasuni 3y ago

As a firefox and desktop linux user I don’t see any problem

teekert 3y ago
Seconded, I have no issues. In fact when I’m not on ff I immediately miss the lack of cookie containers and get annoyed by the horrible need to log in to and out off different accounts all the time. On ff I sync my add-ons, bookmarks and containers. What’s not to like?
hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
Open a new tab and you’ll see advertisements in your homepage (which afaict you cannot change to a non default page) Open a 1080p YouTube video and watch your processor get slammed. No, I do not want to install an unvetted third party plug-in. If nothing else, flag that the browser doesn’t support hardware acceleration when playing videos, in easy to understand terminology so I, and thousands of others don’t have to go troubleshoot exactly what is causing my computer to choke.
- hsbauauvhabzb 3y ago
  Oh and maybe invest in actual Firefox development instead of whatever meme tech interests the executive this month…
- bobnamob 3y ago
  You can turn off suggested links on the new tab page through the cog in the top right corner. That’s been the case for years
- lastgeniusua 3y ago
  not only can you easily turn off any ads or suggestions, but you can set custom urls in easily-accessible settings at about:preferences#home
nine_k 3y ago
As a Firefox and Linux user, I do see that problem. Hardware video acceleration is fine now, and apparently has been for some time. But e.g. Google Meet plainly refuses to blur the video call background when run on Firefox. It happily does that when running in Chromium.
- userbinator 3y ago
  Have you tried changing user-agent header or similar? I'm not familiar with your specific example but have encountered plenty of sites which complain about "not supported" but work fine when UA header is the "right" one.
  - nine_k 3y ago
    I have, and it did not work last few times :(
- thayne 3y ago
  As a Firefox on Linux user I also see a problem. It isn't that uncommon to see a feature drop on windows and mac before linux. And for a long time, there has been an issue where if you update Firefox with a linux package manager, you have to restart the whole browser, or the browser stops working. That isn't a problem on windows or mac (usually). And it isn't something you have to deal with with chromium on linux either.
  - midasuni 3y ago
    I see that as a benefit. I don’t want features, I want stability
- ladyanita22 3y ago
  That seems like a Firefox problem, not a Chromium one.
  - accoil 3y ago
    Yes? This is phrased as a disagreement, but the content looks like an agreement?
amelius 3y ago
Read the entire article.
- midasuni 3y ago
  I couldn’t get past the nonsense about how awful firefox was (again I am quite happy with firefox)
ladyanita22 3y ago
Me neither. It works flawlessly on Fedora.

smcleod 3y ago

The world has a chrome problem.

bitsandboots 3y ago

> The love the Linux world has for Firefox is not reciprocated by Mozilla in the same way, and this shows in various places where issues fixed and addressed on the Windows side are ignored on the Linux side for years or longer. > The best and most visible example of that is hardware video acceleration. That's not "Desktop Linux has a Firefox problem", that's "Desktop Linux has a problem". hardware acceleration was always a pain to get working in linux, as a subset of the larger problem of linux video drivers having varying levels of support for the plethora of features that video cards need to do these days. Things like this ultimately led me to my current Linux usage: Windows host, linux vm, fullscreened on its own virtual desktop. If I need to do something that linux wasn't going to do efficiently, I do it in the windows host. Otherwise, I do it in the linux vm. Anyway, I wonder if any of the problems this person is pointing out are going to be made better or worse by wayland

ladyanita22 3y ago
I'm using Firefox on Fedora and VAAPI works perfectly fine with no issues. In my experience, it's a problem carried from the past, and not real limitation anymore.
hollerith 3y ago
Where do you do most of your web browsing, in the host or in the VM?
- bitsandboots 3y ago
  VM, which is fine for text but when it comes to video like twitch or youtube, there's a pretty high cpu cost on it. It's still smooth, 60fps, but at a cost.
PennRobotics 3y ago
Wayland might eventually be better, but for a Linux-hostile computer configuration (10 bpp color, Nvidia, audio only half-supported by Realtek, no snaps/flatpak) the constant flag setting friction, video codecs being in limbo, and programs like OpenSCAD having a huge keyboard delay and screen flickering (which Firefox also had for a long time) led me after a decade of Linux use to a reasonably satisfying experience (ignoring time sync problems and slow-ass cross-OS file access): Windows 10 + WSL I thought an AMD + Radeon laptop would be a great improvement. Evidently I have the Reverse Midas Touch. Also garbage. Sadly, FULL hardware/peripheral support requires Windows or Mac, happiness everywhere else dictates Linux, and WSL delivers both (plus WebGPU, which is another aspect of Firefox/Linux that is perplexing and half-baked). On both computers, X was a dramatic improvement over Wayland: proper color support (i.e. parts of the GIMP UI wouldn't turn magenta or half-transparent, you could enable HDR in Chrome), no extreme keyboard lag, all my Java binaries work without requiring cryptic flags, I didn't have to compile my own drivers from a guy named ElFarto, I could finally forget the difference between AV1 and VP9 and whichever gstreamer package lets you watch video again...

edvinbesic 3y ago

> I’m genuinely worried about the state of browsers on Linux, and the future of Firefox on Linux in particular. I think it’s highly irresponsible of the various prominent players in the desktop Linux community, from GNOME to KDE, from Ubuntu to Fedora, to seemingly have absolutely zero contingency plans for when Firefox enshittifies or dies, despite everything we know about the current state of the browser market, the state of Mozilla’s finances, and the future prospects of both. So what are you proposing then? It seems so irresponsible to complain about new-buzzword-shittification of something thousands of people contribute to and offer no contribution in return.

polyamid23 3y ago

Is there a consensus on how correct browser market share calculations are? Google does apparently not even know what OS I am using.

logdap 3y ago

[dead]

sillywalk 3y ago

Mozilla has a revenue problem, sort of like Netscape. It's main product is free and doesn't directly generate revenue except through Google ads. Using Firefox to get the people who use Firefox to use Mozilla's revenue generators - Pocket or VPN through ads in the browser won't work. Google pays it to select it as the default browser, but Firefox' tiny declining market probably makes Google want to not to continue this except perhaps as a way to avoid monopoly stuff.

geophile 3y ago

Can someone knowledgeable comment on the possibility of VivLdi becoming the de facto standard browser for Linux? I played with it a little, thought it worked well, and most notably, it worked well for websites that gave Firefox trouble.

LorenDB 3y ago
I'd prefer to see Brave be the de facto default. Except for some crypto stuff that is bundled by default, it seems to be really nice and even ships its own privacy focused search engine. (Disclaimer: I personally don't daily drive Brave, but I would consider it if I ever decided to drop Opera.)
- geophile 3y ago
  I hadn't heard about Brave. Just started using it, and finding it very nice so far. Easy to get started, as the import from Firefox was quick and painless. I have high hopes for this one.
- scrum-treats 3y ago
  Brave is really showing up in terms of privacy and security focused browsing. What's interesting to me is that Mozilla had Brendan Eich, and excused him. And today, with Eich at the helm, Brave is climbing the ranks while Mozilla finds itself in an ever-increasing slump.
timeon 3y ago
This article pointed out that GNOME Web and Falkon have problem as they are WebKit and Chromium based. Is not Vivaldi Chromium as well?
tmtvl 3y ago
Very low chance: it's another Chromium browser but with proprietary modifications. I think Chromium proper would become standard before Vivaldi.
- thayne 3y ago

marcodiego 3y ago

Together, Linux + ChromeOS (much closer to standard GNU+Linux than Android) have something between 6% and 7% of the desktop. I don't remember people saying the same about MacOS when it was around that mark. Of course, we must be realistic. Linux around 6% is very different from MacOS at 6%. In that case, they already had support from items people complain to this day about Linux not having; main examĺes are msoffice and photoshop. Nevertheless, Linux on the desktop has never been so good. Flatpak (or even AppImages and snaps) allow me to have a "stable core" with recently updated software. Support for most hardware is much better now (looks like most vendors make sure the hardware supports Linux, even though they themselves don't announce it). Pipewire and Wayland matured to the point where you can finally stream your desktop on Wayland using Pipewire. GNOME is snappier today then it was and cleaner and more elegant; of course we still need some consistency but windows suffers from that too; and, look, it even has thumbnails on the file picker! The kernel evolved to a point where desktop is just another well supported system: MGLRU and other improvements made latency on the desktop even under memory pressure just ideal. The environment around it also evolved a lot. Many FLOSS software are on a quality level today that mostly only professional on almost niche areas can't use Linux on the desktop. Consider Blender, Godot, Audacity, Inkscape, Firefox, OBS... these things are refined, stable, elegant and don't try to steal your attention, require periodic payments or throw ads on your face. Actually a Linux desktop user feels very sorry when they see a "standard" windows user. And I'm not even talking about proton or areas where Linux leads or is well established. So yes, it improved. Nevertheless, I'd love to, but I don't think I'll see Linux on the desktop beat windows or MacOS. But, know one thing: I don't care. Linux on the desktop has been good enough for me for a very long time and it will only get better. I just hope someday its market share will be big enough for it to no longer be ignored by so many vendors. Watching current growth, I don't think that is too far anymore now.

Beached 3y ago
I use kubuntu as my daily driver for work for a little over 2 years now. I still run into daily issues that just make me not want to use it for my personal desktop os. I fret Everytime I update, yet I must update due to work. but I have to schedule and plan those updates so that when the whole thing takes a shit, I can spend 2 or 3 hours fixing it. Just using the built in update utility, or apt upgrade, or really anything runs about a 10-20% chance of shit breaking. (I didn't do the math) audio experience is terrible all around, and Bluetooth and wifi use out the box, is meh at best for range and stability. I've tried a dozen distros to see if the grass is greener somewhere else, it isn't, and I have to work, I don't have an hour every day to fiddle, I have to bill clients. good support is almost non existent, IF you get help, it's from some greater than thou righteous asshole who suggests you just rewrite the drivers yourself and create a pull request. while I agree it is close, there is a still a LOT of 'polish' that needs to come where I will feel confident that hitting update doesn't ruin my day, and that when I'm done with a stress filled day of work, I'll be able to boot up and play my games without having to troubleshoot for an hour first.

politelemon 3y ago

To compare, how is Chrome or Chromium's attention to Linux Desktop, in terms of features and fixes?

PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
whatever drips off from Chrome OS support.... Chrome on Linux had a random weird 3d grey border for years which was only fixed when it was announced ChromeOS was going to switch to the Linux desktop version.
thayne 3y ago
It depends. IIRC chrome/chromium had support for video acceleration on linux long before Firefox. And had better support for WebRTC using pipewire on linux. OTOH chrome's support for native wayland lagged far behind Firefox.

SushiHippie 3y ago

> In an ideal world, the major stakeholders of the Linux desktop – KDE, GNOME, the various major distributions – would get together and seriously consider a plan of action. The best possible solution, in my view, would be to fork one of the major browser engines (or pick one and significantly invest in it), and modify this engine and tailor it specifically for the Linux desktop. Is it really the best solution to create a fork? Why not invest in people to directly work on Firefox? The author even mentions a few paragraphs before that sentence that maintaining a browser is hard: > The problem here is that making a capable browser is actually incredibly hard, as the browser has become a hugely capable platform all of its own. Undertaking the mammoth task of building a browser from scratch is not something a lot of people are interested in [...] And who guarantees that the fork will further exist without weird funding? EDIT: sorry, after reading my comment again, I think it sounds a bit snarky. English is not my native language, and I don't know how to phrase these questions better, so they don't sound that way.

zdragnar 3y ago
Mozilla has boatloads of money, but they don't seem keen on increasing investing in FF- if anything, cutting servo seemed quite the opposite. To me, Mozilla is like the Wikimedia foundation- they take in a lot of money, but it seems like very little actually goes to the projects people think of when they hear the name. Maybe that isn't a bad thing- surely there are worthy projects they could be investing in, in addition to FF or Wikipedia - but supporting them isn't as simple as offering more bodies in seats, because lack of money and talent isn't what is holding them back.
- NuSkooler 3y ago
  I'm confused. I get a new Firefox version on my Windows, Android, and Linux machines consistently, with new features, fixes, and the latest web tech minus the privacy nightmares Google is trying to feed, at a regular basis. How are they not investing in FF?
  - elaus 3y ago
    The person you replied to did not say that Mozilla is _not_ investing in Firefox. I too am worried that Mozilla was cutting Servo development, in a time where Firefox already has a problem keeping up with new web features.

clumsysmurf 3y ago

To be fair, its still got plenty of warts on OS X too. After all this time, putting Firefox in full screen mode results in seriously wonky & intolerable behavior. Its the only app I have that shifts all its chrome (toolbars, tabs) when you bang the top of the screen. Compare this to Safari (only the menu shifts). No, hiding all of it is not the solution.

cassianoleal 3y ago
That doesn't happen to me at all. What happens is that the menubar shows, and the top bar of the browser (where the back/forward buttons and the URL bar are) slides down to give space to the window bar (with the zoom and close buttons) over the top of the browser. That's all. All the content, sidebar, etc stays stationary. It's true that Safari does it better, but honestly not by much.
- clumsysmurf 3y ago
  Sidebar and content do stay stationary, but everything else (tabs, url bar, toolbars) shifts for me. Its hard selecting tabs when they cause a shift down, being they are at the top of the bang area. The best part, is when they do shift down, they only expose empty space.
TillE 3y ago
The only real complaint I have about Firefox on macOS is that fullscreening a video takes forever. Safari does it twice as fast and with a smooth animation instead of blanking the screen. Otherwise I find the experience on Windows and Mac very similar.

aidenn0 3y ago

... I thought I was one of the few Linux users left using Firefox. All of my coworkers are using Chromium.

goku12 3y ago
Every acquaintance of mine who uses Linux (and many who don't) uses Firefox. And that's a conscious decision too - they are aware of the recent chrome shenanigans.

mixmastamyk 3y ago

They should fire most of the overhead personnel and sock their salaries into income producing investments, so when big G closes the tap, R&D can continue indefinitely. Hopefully then they’ll stop reinventing tabs, ruining privacy, and focus on the aforementioned bugs.

n_ary 3y ago
The sort of have other revenue generating products. From top of my head, they have firefox relay, vpn, a cooperation with pocket(getpocket_com) and I see some more test products. They are trying but once you offer people something for free, trying to side/up-sell your monetized products feel sleezy and a lot of reputation hit(see pocket integration causing outrage, or brave promoting their crypto bundle thing which you can entirely hide and never use).

devit 3y ago

That's obviously infeasible (either it would be bad or it would cost too much time/money). However, maintaining a variant of Ungoogled Chromium or Vanadium targeted at desktop Linux would be feasible.

linuxandrew 3y ago

As a long-time Firefox user (or rather, LibreWolf and Mull now) the biggest problem as I see it is websites that no longer support it. Compatibility is constantly getting worse as Chrome/Blink monopolises web dev and testing. I'm considering writing letters to some of the sites that have the biggest issues and raising it as an issue. Otherwise, Firefox is mostly fine. I have a few gripes with it and Moz are mismanaging their projects, but desktop Linux is hardly their #1 issue.

Vinnl 3y ago
It's also helpful to report them at https://webcompat.com https://webcompat.com. Browsers can (and do) add site-specific workarounds every now and then, and/or reach out to the websites in question.

predictabl3 3y ago

I'm just wondering how many of the Firefox/Linux devs actually test on, or use, Wayland. (Based on how often it seems to regress on Nightly)

alentred 3y ago

Having never developed a browser engine, my naive question is why is it so hard to develop a new one? We have decent free and/or open-source software in other areas, why is it hard to reproduce this experience with the browsers? Or, is the problem in the complexity of the modern web browsing experience, and the walled garden created around it by current major browser developers (new standards, etc.)?

a_humean 3y ago
Web browsers are extraordinarily large and complex applications that conform to reams and reams of constantly expanding standards adding up to tens of millions of lines of code. They have to maintain backwards compatibility with software dating back decades. Their complexity and size rivals the operating systems they run on. All mainstream browsers today are effectively forks or cosmetic skins of a handful remaining browser lineages that have been in development for decades now. Probably the only notable attempts at building something from scratch recently is servo and ladybird. Servo was (is) an experimental platform to trial new components for Firefox is isn't a serious option for everyday use. Ladybird is primarily a hobbyist project that isn't a serious option for everyday use but has managed to implement a large part of the features of a modern working browser. The article called it "crazy", but it is impressive how far it's got so far. Also, all of these browsers are open source with permissive licences for the bulk of their source code.
- TheCycoONE 3y ago
  Where handful is 2 now that Trident is effectively dead. Gecko (from Netscape 6) in Firefox And KHTML (from KDE Konqueror) -> Apple Webkit -> Google Blink in everything else.
goku12 3y ago
I have no firsthand experience either. So, this might be informative: https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope.html https://drewdevault.com/2020/03/18/Reckless-limitless-scope....

anonymousiam 3y ago

People here have talked about Mozilla's financial issues, but so far nobody has posted the donation link. If you use Firefox or Thunderbird and wish to continue doing so, here's the link: https://donate.mozilla.org/ https://donate.mozilla.org/

trashburger 3y ago
Please don't donate to Mozilla, they have more than enough but refuse to accelerate Firefox development. https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-investigating-the-bizarre-finances-of-mozilla https://lunduke.locals.com/post/4387539/firefox-money-invest...
e2le 3y ago
Thunderbird collects donations separately from Mozilla. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate/ https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate/

kleiba 3y ago

What problem? I've been using Linux with Firefox for at least 15 years, and I've never thought this to be a problem. Linux is not an operating system for the unwashed masses, it's a specialist operating system for more technical oriented folks. It's less polished in many areas and requires some jumping through hoops at times as we all know. In return, you get a vastly better user experience if you're the right kind of user. Whenever I am placed in front of a standard Windows install, I'm shaking my head in astonishment and wonder how people put up with that. Yet, if I were a standard Windows user placed in front of a linux machine, I'd probably do the same. We're just a different species of users. If linux users cared as much about browser specifities as they did about other things, I'm sure they would already be fixed. But the truth is: as a long-time linux user I can state that Firefox is just fine. Really, it is. For me. And probably for many other happy linux users too. Does that mean if couldn't be improved? Of course not. But show me the software for which you couldn't say the same. Okay, maybe Emacs. Just kidding.

smitty1e 3y ago
The Famous Article points out that Mozilla is kept afloat by Google's search deal. Fans of the browser (starting with the guy in my mirror) need to start subscribing to services like their VPN or something to give Mozilla a better financial footing.
- hilios 3y ago
  Thing is their VPN isn't great on Linux either (or in general for tech savvy users). Needing a VPN and wanting to support Mozilla I did subscribe to their service, only to find you needed a special program to use their VPN, which you'll have to build yourself if you're using any distribution other than Ubuntu. If you manage to build it you'll find their selection of servers is more restricted than Mullvad's own offerings. At least their 30-day money back guarantee is working.
mardifoufs 3y ago
One of the big issues imo is that it is often packaged by maintainers who sometimes just choose to deactivate or activate flags or features at will. It doesn't happen very often, but it sure is annoying to debug considering you basically have a "custom" build of the software.

rvz 3y ago

Acknowledging the problem(s) is the first step to creating a solution. Those who choose to ignore Firefox's problems, are there to only continue its slow death. Here are the most obvious problems: 'Defining' Linux support: >> Firefox is first and foremost a Windows browser, followed by macOS second, and Linux third. The love the Linux world has for Firefox is not reciprocated by Mozilla in the same way, and this shows in various places where issues fixed and addressed on the Windows side are ignored on the Linux side for years or longer. 80% of all revenue is from Google: >> The giant sword of Damocles dangling above Firefox’ head are Mozilla’s really odd and lopsided revenue sources. As most of us are probably aware, Mozilla makes most of its money from a search deal with Google. Roughly 80% of Mozilla’s revenue comes from Google, who pays the browser maker to set Google Search as the default search engine. Firefox declining usage and anti-trust risks with Google. >> How long will this deal continue? Will it be renewed indefinitely, regardless of how much farther Firefox slides into irrelevance? Will the size of the deal drop, or will it end altogether? When will Google decide that spending hundreds of millions of dollars every year in what is essentially charity for a competitor is no longer worth it, or needed? >> Google’s similar search deal with Apple is already facing legal scrutiny; will that scrutiny have consequences for the deal with Mozilla, too? Solution: >> "Linux needs a browser engine that is independent of Google (and Apple), and takes Linux seriously as a platform." Mozilla could have done that by being a Rust consultancy which can fund the development of both Rust and Firefox without being heavily dependant on Google. That opportunity has been lost. Realistically the likely outcome is to just break up Chrome from Google and use the Chrome engine as the standard browser engine, just like the Linux kernel is the standard kernel for all distros. Case solved.

rado 3y ago

When is :has() coming to FF? It’s been too long.

mariusor 3y ago
I'm sure you're able to keep informed about it on the bugtracker: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418039 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=418039

hnbear 3y ago

Maybe it’s a Linux success. Ironically though, given Chrome came from WebKit (Safari), which came from KHTML (Konqueror). The Linux browser escaped out to conquer (konquer?) the world. Konqueror was a nice browser, my fav back in the day, and it was exciting when Apple picked it to defeat IE with Safari.