3 ms·

The implication of what you're saying is that it somehow isn't friendly and approachable to your average non-techie person, which doesn't make sense because the

by Teever 2y ago

The implication of what you're saying is that it somehow isn't friendly and approachable to your average non-techie person, which doesn't make sense because the UI paradigm of browsers hasn't really changed for 20+ years and Firefox has been just fine for technies to switch their parents/grandparents over to for years now. The problem with Firefox isn't the UI, the problem with Firefox is mismanagement by the board that has been captured by Google and the lack of proper antitrust action against Google by the US and EU.

nindalf 2y ago
First time I’ve heard Google being blamed for Mozilla’s self inflicted problems. Google is highly incentivised to make sure Mozilla survives with some reasonable market share. Without Mozilla antitrust enforcement becomes much more likely. That’s why Google pays Mozilla for being the default search engine provider. That’s the main source of revenue for Mozilla. If Mozilla could maintain 10% market share in perpetuity and also keep signing search licensing agreements with Google that works just fine for Google. Sadly it has a lot less than that.
- palata 2y ago
  > Google is highly incentivised to make sure Mozilla survives with some reasonable market share. Assuming that "surviving" is good and "reasonable" is... what... 3% and dropping?
- Teever 2y ago
  First time huh? That's surprising. It's only mentioned every time Firefox and Mozilla come up. I'm sure Google would like a slightly healthier captured 'competitor' but that doesn't mean that they didn't put them in this place through subversive practices.
schmidtleonard 2y ago
> the UI paradigm of browsers hasn't really changed for 20+ years (Checks calendar) ugh, it really has been 15 years since they ground up the url box + search box into the big mystery meat mash-up that mostly works but is so damn obnoxious when it doesn't.
- cassepipe 2y ago
  I thought I would miss the search box when it disappeared but actually the "awesome bar" is pretty awesome : You can disable search suggestions and it will only search your keywords in history/bookmarks/opened tabs and then you just tab into the list, else if there's nothing of interest in the list you can always press enter and it will launch a search in your default search engine. All that power accessible with just Ctrl + L, Tab and Enter. You can also launch @search_engine $keyword directly in the bar, search bookmark/history/tabs directly with */^/% symbols. You can't disable search suggestions on Chrome (I wonder why...) This is the main reason I am still on Firefox despite the weird UI design choices... which can easily be fixed with that script : https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix
  - JohnFen 2y ago
    I dislike the "awesome bar" quite a lot. Fortunately, as you say, you can disable a lot of its "awesomeness" (enough that I can live with it), but not all of it. You do have to do a bit of research to find out the various magic "about:config" settings you need to change.
    - cassepipe 2y ago
      It's easy enough to bring back the search bar without about:config though : right-clik on the chrome then drag and drop the search box item
      - JohnFen 2y ago
        Sure, but that's a bit different. What I'm talking about is that I want the "awesome bar" to be just a plain URL bar and not be overloaded with other functions like search. You can get very close to this with a few setting changes. Whether or not you can enable the search bar is unrelated to this. You can enable the search bar without changing the behavior of the "awesome bar". In my personal preferred configuration, I don't enable the search bar and I disable searching in the awesome bar. When I search, I use the search engine's website. That's just my personal preference and I'm not recommending it to others. I'm just mentioning it to illustrate that the two things are independent of each other.

by Teever 2y ago

nindalf 2y ago

First time I’ve heard Google being blamed for Mozilla’s self inflicted problems. Google is highly incentivised to make sure Mozilla survives with some reasonable market share. Without Mozilla antitrust enforcement becomes much more likely. That’s why Google pays Mozilla for being the default search engine provider. That’s the main source of revenue for Mozilla. If Mozilla could maintain 10% market share in perpetuity and also keep signing search licensing agreements with Google that works just fine for Google. Sadly it has a lot less than that.

palata 2y ago
> Google is highly incentivised to make sure Mozilla survives with some reasonable market share. Assuming that "surviving" is good and "reasonable" is... what... 3% and dropping?
Teever 2y ago
First time huh? That's surprising. It's only mentioned every time Firefox and Mozilla come up. I'm sure Google would like a slightly healthier captured 'competitor' but that doesn't mean that they didn't put them in this place through subversive practices.

schmidtleonard 2y ago

> the UI paradigm of browsers hasn't really changed for 20+ years (Checks calendar) ugh, it really has been 15 years since they ground up the url box + search box into the big mystery meat mash-up that mostly works but is so damn obnoxious when it doesn't.

cassepipe 2y ago
I thought I would miss the search box when it disappeared but actually the "awesome bar" is pretty awesome : You can disable search suggestions and it will only search your keywords in history/bookmarks/opened tabs and then you just tab into the list, else if there's nothing of interest in the list you can always press enter and it will launch a search in your default search engine. All that power accessible with just Ctrl + L, Tab and Enter. You can also launch @search_engine $keyword directly in the bar, search bookmark/history/tabs directly with */^/% symbols. You can't disable search suggestions on Chrome (I wonder why...) This is the main reason I am still on Firefox despite the weird UI design choices... which can easily be fixed with that script : https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix
- JohnFen 2y ago
  I dislike the "awesome bar" quite a lot. Fortunately, as you say, you can disable a lot of its "awesomeness" (enough that I can live with it), but not all of it. You do have to do a bit of research to find out the various magic "about:config" settings you need to change.
  - cassepipe 2y ago
    It's easy enough to bring back the search bar without about:config though : right-clik on the chrome then drag and drop the search box item
    - JohnFen 2y ago
      Sure, but that's a bit different. What I'm talking about is that I want the "awesome bar" to be just a plain URL bar and not be overloaded with other functions like search. You can get very close to this with a few setting changes. Whether or not you can enable the search bar is unrelated to this. You can enable the search bar without changing the behavior of the "awesome bar". In my personal preferred configuration, I don't enable the search bar and I disable searching in the awesome bar. When I search, I use the search engine's website. That's just my personal preference and I'm not recommending it to others. I'm just mentioning it to illustrate that the two things are independent of each other.