5 ms·

> God damn is it noisy What is this noise you're referring to? I'm 90% Firefox and 10% Safari and I don't understand this comment.

by pivo 3y ago

mrweasel 3y ago
I kinda do. Safari feels very much like a simplistic browser, but a damn good one, except when it's not. Firefox tried to do a lot, tons of features baked in, Safari outsources a lot to the operating system and as a result the interface and interaction becomes simpler, but less flexible. The primary reason I don't use it 100%, but 90/10 like you, is due to extensions and those few sites that doesn't work in Firefox.
- jwells89 3y ago
  And much of the “noisiness” stems from tooltips, popups, etc explaining changes and additions. I can see where some users might want those but it should be possible to disable those entirely, or at least make them more “quiet” (e.g. a notification icon with red news count pip on the new tab screen where changes can be seen at the user's leisure).
- pivo 3y ago
  > Safari outsources a lot to the operating system and as a result the interface and interaction becomes simpler, but less flexible. Yes, definitely agree with that. But I think of "noise" as stuff that interrupts your normal interaction with web sites and in that regard I don't think Firefox is particularly noisy. There are definitely a lot of features, settings and extensions with Firefox and while I don't use very many of them I do really appreciate the ones that I do use.
mvdtnz 3y ago
I know what he's talking about. Firefox has constant nag screens. I just restarted Firefox and got two separate nags[1]. I am certain that within the next week it will nag me for at least one more thing. Maybe it'll want me to try Pocket, or sign in with a Mozilla account, or set up sync, or the absolute worst offender - when I launch the browser it will say "heyyyy I gotta update and I treat this like it's 1998 so you'll need to wait, and then I'll need to restart". Firefox is VERY naggy. [1] https://imgur.com/a/dLr6E0C https://imgur.com/a/dLr6E0C
- pivo 3y ago
  Ok, but obviously in this case you can check the "Don't show me this message again" checkbox and, like me, you'll have had to endure the burden of responding to this nag just once in years of using Firefox. I may be forgetting about nags that don't allow themselves to be disabled, but if so, they're infrequent enough that they seem insignificant and obviously non-memorable. Edit: I should add, when I had to have Chrome installed I really didn't like the fact that it updated itself automatically via a daemon process. I don't think having a constantly running background process for a browser, especially one from a giant advertising company, is a good alternative.
  - mvdtnz 3y ago
    > in this case you can check the "Don't show me this message again" checkbox I had literally just installed Firefox minutes ago (inspired by this thread). During the install it asked me if I wanted to make it the default browser, and I had said no. This is what we mean by nagging. Firefox needs to know when to shut up and get out of the way. > you'll have had to endure the burden of responding to this nag just once in years of using Firefox. Twice. For this one particular nag. Next time Mozilla releases some shitty VPN or AI program, it will nag me again. If I don't log in to a Mozilla account, it will nag me to. If I don't try Pocket, I will be nagged to try it.
    - Capricorn2481 3y ago
      And Chrome does this too. They want you to know about new features, and they're easy to dismiss. The only reason Safari doesn't is because they aren't developing it because it's too broken already. So much doesn't work with Safari.
      - danaris 3y ago
        That's just comically false. Safari is under active development, gets new features all the time, and has a dev blog you can subscribe to over RSS [0]. You may not like Safari, and you're welcome to your opinion about it, but you're not welcome to your own facts. [0] https://webkit.org/blog/ https://webkit.org/blog/
nonbirithm 3y ago
I don't know if it's the same "noise", but for a period of months I used an extension that replaced the New Tab page. When you do this with Firefox it pops up a notification the first new tab you open each session stating "your new tab has changed, keep settings?" I mean, I installed the extension to change the new tab page, so presumably I wouldn't need to be asked a second time. The noisy part was this notification steals focus so you can't type into the search bar immediately, you have to hit escape or click out to gain focus again. And the popup kept appearing until I realized you had to specifically press "yes, keep changes" on the notification to get it to stop (usually I canceled out of it reflexively to do actually important things). If you just hit Escape or tried to use the URL bar it would come back next session and steal focus again. It sounds like something minor but the idea of stealing focus to re-confirm a change you already confirmed is a mild source of headaches, and not necessary in my view. Not to mention, this process would repeat itself for every Firefox installation synced with, since the extension counts as a fresh install each time. In a world where switching browsers is trivial, I think minor annoyances like those are best removed.
lolinder 3y ago
There was this, a couple months ago: Firefox displayed a pop-up ad for Mozilla VPN over an unrelated page (382 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36077360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36077360 I tabbed away from Firefox for a bit, and when I tabbed back I had a full screen popup ad for Mozilla VPN overlayed on top of the webpage I had been using.

> God damn is it noisy What is this noise you're referring to? I'm 90% Firefox and 10% Safari and I don't understand this comment.

by pivo 3y ago

> God damn is it noisy What is this noise you're referring to? I'm 90% Firefox and 10% Safari and I don't understand this comment.

mrweasel 3y ago

I kinda do. Safari feels very much like a simplistic browser, but a damn good one, except when it's not. Firefox tried to do a lot, tons of features baked in, Safari outsources a lot to the operating system and as a result the interface and interaction becomes simpler, but less flexible. The primary reason I don't use it 100%, but 90/10 like you, is due to extensions and those few sites that doesn't work in Firefox.

jwells89 3y ago
And much of the “noisiness” stems from tooltips, popups, etc explaining changes and additions. I can see where some users might want those but it should be possible to disable those entirely, or at least make them more “quiet” (e.g. a notification icon with red news count pip on the new tab screen where changes can be seen at the user's leisure).
pivo 3y ago
> Safari outsources a lot to the operating system and as a result the interface and interaction becomes simpler, but less flexible. Yes, definitely agree with that. But I think of "noise" as stuff that interrupts your normal interaction with web sites and in that regard I don't think Firefox is particularly noisy. There are definitely a lot of features, settings and extensions with Firefox and while I don't use very many of them I do really appreciate the ones that I do use.

mvdtnz 3y ago

I know what he's talking about. Firefox has constant nag screens. I just restarted Firefox and got two separate nags[1]. I am certain that within the next week it will nag me for at least one more thing. Maybe it'll want me to try Pocket, or sign in with a Mozilla account, or set up sync, or the absolute worst offender - when I launch the browser it will say "heyyyy I gotta update and I treat this like it's 1998 so you'll need to wait, and then I'll need to restart". Firefox is VERY naggy. [1] https://imgur.com/a/dLr6E0C https://imgur.com/a/dLr6E0C

pivo 3y ago
Ok, but obviously in this case you can check the "Don't show me this message again" checkbox and, like me, you'll have had to endure the burden of responding to this nag just once in years of using Firefox. I may be forgetting about nags that don't allow themselves to be disabled, but if so, they're infrequent enough that they seem insignificant and obviously non-memorable. Edit: I should add, when I had to have Chrome installed I really didn't like the fact that it updated itself automatically via a daemon process. I don't think having a constantly running background process for a browser, especially one from a giant advertising company, is a good alternative.
- mvdtnz 3y ago
  > in this case you can check the "Don't show me this message again" checkbox I had literally just installed Firefox minutes ago (inspired by this thread). During the install it asked me if I wanted to make it the default browser, and I had said no. This is what we mean by nagging. Firefox needs to know when to shut up and get out of the way. > you'll have had to endure the burden of responding to this nag just once in years of using Firefox. Twice. For this one particular nag. Next time Mozilla releases some shitty VPN or AI program, it will nag me again. If I don't log in to a Mozilla account, it will nag me to. If I don't try Pocket, I will be nagged to try it.
  - Capricorn2481 3y ago
    And Chrome does this too. They want you to know about new features, and they're easy to dismiss. The only reason Safari doesn't is because they aren't developing it because it's too broken already. So much doesn't work with Safari.
    - danaris 3y ago
      That's just comically false. Safari is under active development, gets new features all the time, and has a dev blog you can subscribe to over RSS [0]. You may not like Safari, and you're welcome to your opinion about it, but you're not welcome to your own facts. [0] https://webkit.org/blog/ https://webkit.org/blog/

nonbirithm 3y ago

I don't know if it's the same "noise", but for a period of months I used an extension that replaced the New Tab page. When you do this with Firefox it pops up a notification the first new tab you open each session stating "your new tab has changed, keep settings?" I mean, I installed the extension to change the new tab page, so presumably I wouldn't need to be asked a second time. The noisy part was this notification steals focus so you can't type into the search bar immediately, you have to hit escape or click out to gain focus again. And the popup kept appearing until I realized you had to specifically press "yes, keep changes" on the notification to get it to stop (usually I canceled out of it reflexively to do actually important things). If you just hit Escape or tried to use the URL bar it would come back next session and steal focus again. It sounds like something minor but the idea of stealing focus to re-confirm a change you already confirmed is a mild source of headaches, and not necessary in my view. Not to mention, this process would repeat itself for every Firefox installation synced with, since the extension counts as a fresh install each time. In a world where switching browsers is trivial, I think minor annoyances like those are best removed.

lolinder 3y ago

There was this, a couple months ago: Firefox displayed a pop-up ad for Mozilla VPN over an unrelated page (382 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36077360 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36077360 I tabbed away from Firefox for a bit, and when I tabbed back I had a full screen popup ad for Mozilla VPN overlayed on top of the webpage I had been using.