13 ms·

Hang on to Your Firefox

994 points by speckx 1mo ago

silverbluep 1mo ago
[dead]
palata 1mo ago
People just don't care. They are happy with monopolies and surveillance capitalism. Once in a while someone talks about digital sovereignty, but much like climate change, nothing will be done (successfully) about it. That's how it is, I've come to terms with it.
- sssilver 1mo ago
  I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. Do people care? What signs of this are there? Does it matter to the average person that the society is marching further and further down the road of digital monopolies and surveillance capitalism? My impression certainly is that the percentage of people who care about this is so small that it might as well be a rounding error, while on the other side I see tremendous momentum, effort, and cunning.
  - nickthegreek 1mo ago
    The userbase of Firefox existing is obvious signs of caring. You really got to go out of your way to not use chromium. The userbase grows when people help others understand these issues, or ideally just install firefox for their non techie friends and set them up with ubo. be the change you want to see.
    - palata 1mo ago
      > The userbase of Firefox existing is obvious signs of caring. And that's pretty much a rounding error, getting smaller every year, right? Or would you say that "most people don't care" does not apply when it's only 99% of people that don't care?
      - nickthegreek 1mo ago
        Well I would say that the firefox userbase is 3%+ across all platforms (over 7% on desktop) and that is larger than a rounding error.
        palata 1mo ago
        I feel like we are nitpicking here. Would you say that Google actually cares about those 3%? When you have 97% of the market, you own the market, right? It's actually problematic to own 100% because then it's strictly a monopoly. Whereas with 97% you can pretend it's not a monopoly.
        nickthegreek 1mo ago
        Why do i care about google’s opinion on the 7% desktop users. I just care that I have firefox. I continue to say that having 7% on desktop is an incredible large userbase when you convert it to people and not a percentage. Ive only pushed back on the minimizing all these people to ‘a rounding error’.
        palata 1mo ago
        Right. So I say "people don't care", and you say "they do: look at the 3% of people who use Firefox!". Can we agree on "the vast majority of people don't care", then? Does 97% or even 93% qualify for me to say "the vast majority"?
- bluebarbet 1mo ago
  Agreed. All the more reason to do what we can to make things better than they otherwise would be. Outcomes are never black and white.
- jeffbee 1mo ago
  > They are happy with monopolies and surveillance capitalism. Actually I believe for most normal people it is a feature of other platforms that they don't have to appear to be associated with weirdos who use terms like "surveillance capitalism".
  - palata 1mo ago
    Not sure if you're trying to offend me or not. But it seems like you agree with me: people don't care. You just somehow wanted to call me a weirdo on the way.
theamk 1mo ago
I am using firefox, but it is pretty hard to keep using it. I don't want the whole world to converge on one browser engine, but I also want things to work, and Firefox does not make it easy. Firefox on my laptop has a propensity for eating lots of RAM, and constant CPU usage, even if nothing is going on. Task manager is useless. Profiler just shows "GC collecting". Mobile firefox is OK, it simply feels like it's designed for a different person. For example even Chrome has "force reader mode" button.. Firefox does not. And don't even get me started on the "new tab" [age - it gives me 6 choices and all of them are "AI" ones which never show what I want. The only way to show a manually curated link list is "collections" and those do not get synced, and occasionally disappear for no reason.
- mingus88 1mo ago
  I don’t know you, but most people I work with for some reason keep so many tabs open, the tab bar is squeezed so you can barely see a favicon Probably due to my age, I religiously close every tab after I read it. If that gets more than a dozen, I literally quit the browser and declare bankruptcy because it’s not worth it to sort through the mess of tabs I clearly am not using. Firefox is old too. I’m sure it could manage memory better, but couldn’t we all? If you have tabs in GC and using CPU when you aren’t using them, kill them maybe? What else is that tab doing all day when you aren’t looking? I’ve never understood why people keep so many tabs open and why they’ll literally switch to an entirely different browser platform rather than change a bad habit
  - peri-cl 1mo ago
    I wish I had that level of executive functioning. I open tabs at a high branching rate, and faster than I have the impulse control to (for lack of a better word) run a garbage-collection pass over what I'd just done. When it balloons into the low thousands and starts hurting performance, I dump Firefox's open-tabs store (file called recovery.jsonlz4) into a different file and start over. At some point I'll point an LLM at that junk pile and see if I missed anything important. (Probably not).
    - 1mo ago
firefax 1mo ago
i like noscript
nubinetwork 1mo ago
Firefox used to be amazing, but they squandered their market share with bad decisions and stagnation. Maybe one day they'll see the light, but not likely, given their recent ai additions...
- TimTheTinker 1mo ago
  Rumors of Firefox's death have been circling for at least 15 years now... somehow it's kept going despite odd incentives and bad corporate decisions.
  - 1970-01-01 1mo ago
    Both can be true. Progressing without innovation only works when your product is Coca-Cola or Bic lighters. FireFox as a name or brand is nowhere near it's former v1.0-3.0 glory days.
    - TimTheTinker 1mo ago
      Perhaps, but is there any modern browser name or brand that inspires the kind of fierce loyalty Firefox did 20 years ago? It was the alternative to IE6, the first rays of dawn bringing hope to to a desolate, war-torn funereal valley of culpable corporate complacence. Hatred for IE6 drove people to Firefox more than anything else - IE was horrible. Firefox users crowdfunded a two-page ad in the New York Times, mostly to get people to move off of IE6.
      - 1970-01-01 1mo ago
        I think software loyalty is stuck at an all time low. Even the OS wars are over. People are stuck with subscription models. Almost everything has a cloud-based or SaaS service that works on everything. Nobody cares enough to fight about what browser they are using unless it is to fiddle around with adblockers.
        deleted 1mo ago
        [deleted]
hx8 1mo ago
I am under the impression that Firefox is the only web browser which has access to quality ad blocker. Am I incorrect in this? How is this not enough of a selling point for everyone to switch to it?
- chr-s 1mo ago
  I'm using Safari w/ AdGuard and it seems to work OK.
  - deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
- Mashimo 1mo ago
  uBlock lite is enough for me. I switched from normal to lite and did not notice a difference.
  - bluebarbet 1mo ago
    With this attitude you can expect uBlock Ultra-Lite and then uBlock Nothing in future. Mozilla is the only remaining obstacle to stop big tech from deciding everything about how the web is rendered. If we don't support Firefox we will get what we deserve.
    - Mashimo 1mo ago
      Might be, but I can't take on every battle. I switched from chrome to vivaldi in the hopes of they would keep the v2 api alive. They could not. Currently I can't be asked to switch browser again. Maybe at some point. But OP asked if "is this not enough of a selling point" and I wanted to answer that honestly.
  - cube00 1mo ago
    Just wait until Manifest V4 then Manifest V5.
  - nickthegreek 1mo ago
_jackdk_ 1mo ago
Firefox is great, and I use and recommend it as daily driver, but the actions of Mozilla leadership are really hard to differentiate from deliberately managed decline. It will be interesting to see what happens as Ladybird matures.
thebiblelover7 1mo ago
Related: There's also Ladybird that is developing quickly and is aiming for an alpha release this year. It's a truly independent browser engine built from scratch. https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/
- SirHumphrey 1mo ago
  This is mentioned under every Firefox discussion despite being possibly years away from being generally useful if the will ever progress to that point. It’s not really a feasible alternative.
  - bastawhiz 1mo ago
    If the goal is browser diversity, is the answer really Firefox? Or is it one of the active in development projects from people who are motivated to do something new? What exactly is Firefox going to do differently to grow its market share? Or just "more of whatever the last fifteen years have been"? Unless they have a plan to do better it seems foolish to trust that they'll steer the project miraculously towards success.
    - cubefox 1mo ago
      > If the goal is browser diversity, is the answer really Firefox? Or is it one of the active in development projects from people who are motivated to do something new? The former. Ladybird is currently not practically usable, it is unclear whether it will ever catch up to the main engines, and even if it does, it is unclear whether it will ever reach the market share that Firefox has. It is a nice project but science fiction at this point.
      - em-bee 1mo ago
        ladybird is passing more than 90% of the browser test suite. that's not science fiction.
        1mo ago
matheusmoreira 1mo ago
The problem is Mozilla, not Firefox.
fitsumbelay 1mo ago
> The over thinkers on Hacker News Can barely keep my eyes socketed from all this involuntary rolling that's overtaken them ... I'm personally here for the non-bullshit stuff that isn't about getting clicks with hot ledes grounded on warmed over, barely modified well worn takes on well-understood stats so miss me with _that_ shit ...
Nail2680 1mo ago
Firefox is the best of a bunch of bad options, but isn't above critique. It does suck when they do anticonsumer stuff and shove weird stuff like pocket in, but you can't leave which makes it similar to the democratic party where you can't really do anything, but they keep making really poor decisions.
- dyauspitr 1mo ago
  Pocket was awesome. I am sad it’s gone and even though I found replacements I just don’t use them as much as pocket.
  - Hammershaft 1mo ago
    I've found Raindrop to be a better stand in, but I jumped ship from Pocket a long time ago.
  - _andov_ 1mo ago
    [flagged]
- lioeters 1mo ago
  The similarity goes deeper since they're funded by the very thing they claim to oppose.
  - deleted 1mo ago
    [deleted]
- nickthegreek 1mo ago
  Firefox have forks like Zen which allow you to have the best of both worlds.
glimshe 1mo ago
I gave Firefox a chance as my PDF reader as it has a pretty efficient engine. But that didn't work out as I don't need to read PDFs often so every time it launched, it ran an update that added 10s to reading the PDF... :/ My current main browser across desktop and mobile is Brave. Pretty happy with it. Overall more efficient and with a better UI than FF. I've used FF for many years, but I feel it's simply not as good as competitors anymore.
- layer8 1mo ago
  I’d recommend using a dedicated PDF reader in any case.
  - TremendousJudge 1mo ago
    I use SumatraPDF for reading, but it doesn't do editing. The Firefox PDF editor works perfectly fine.
    - kjksf 1mo ago
      In latest pre-release it does editing too (annotations, filling out forms, extracting pages, deleting pages etc.)
  - gnyeki 1mo ago
    One advantage of Firefox's PDF reader is that it is sandboxed which a dedicated PDF reader typically isn't AFAIK.
    - jimjimjim 1mo ago
      Generally speaking most dedicated PDF readers haven't implemented the nastier parts of the PDF spec that need a sandbox. Except adobe. They support everything because they wrote it. But they keep making it worse so I can't recommend them.
    - nosioptar 1mo ago
      For Linux users, SELinux's sandbox command works well. (The manual isn't event two printed pages.) I think flatpacks also have some sandboxing. https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/sandbox.8.html https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/sandbox.8.html
autoexec 1mo ago
> Meanwhile, the over thinkers on Hacker News come up with convoluted reasons to hate on Firefox every time the subject arises...Firefox is our last best hope for browser engine diversity and competition. It's exactly because Firefox is so important that you'll see people here complaining when Firefox does things to push away users like Mozilla buying up an ad-tech company, collecting data on users, and using firefox to push personalized ads, or the addition of anti-features and questionable design choices that force us to hunt for and modify poorly documented settings in about:config and make edits to userChrome.css It isn't bots complaining about Firefox here, it's power users who are frustrated by what Firefox is turning into. Users who are seriously concerned about what Mozilla is prioritizing, and who are genuinely worried about what is at stake. I hope people here never stop bitching about Firefox. Refusing to talk about Firefox's problems wont help make them go away. Keep discussing what you'd like to see in Firefox and what things you hope they'll focus on and prioritize. There are Firefox devs and mozilla employees around here. If we're lucky, a few of them might see and listen to some of what we say. It's the most tech savvy users who disable all the telemetry and data collection, so our feedback isn't really going to be seen any other way.
- nubinetwork 1mo ago
  > I hope people here never stop bitching about Firefox. Its getting harder and harder, at some point they'll deprecate their last sane ESR, and we'll all get stuck with all their junk.
  - jaggederest 1mo ago
    This is exactly and precisely why open source exists, for both the "never upgrade frozen version" case, and the extension into "fork it and make your own" case
    - bluGill 1mo ago
      Something like Firefox is so complex that I could not fork it and make my own. I mean, I could, but the amount of changes I could put in would be trivial unless I'm getting paid full time. Even if I was paid full time, realistically, one person paid full time, no matter how good, just can't make an impact in the browser today. I'm not paid full time to work on a web browser. As a volunteer, I can't find the time to dedicate to that. I could do a few lines here and there if I really got dedicated, but like most people, I have a life. I have kids and such. My retirement account won't fund my midlife crisis to quit my job and work on a web browser, so I depend on something to build a good browser. And that is assuming I even would work on a web browser if I could afford to do whatever I want full time. There are a ton of other activities in my community that need volunteer help, some of which I'm helping a little bit, but I could do more for. I, like many here, have wished that we could donate a small amount to Firefox every month to fun development, however it turns out that the Mozilla Foundation does not fund development of Firefox and so any money would go not to Firefox but to other causes of which I may or may not support but are not a web browser which is what I want to support.
trashcan_man 1mo ago
It seems like the Browser Wars are going to converge on a singular point: "Do I need to access Big Tech services?" As long as the business world is going to continue centrallizing on the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Cloudflare, any existing or future alternative browsers will either have to kowtow on the alter of compatibility or make the deliberate decision not to support "advanced features" that enable the next generation of proprietary webmail, social media, banking webpages, etc - tending towards a total revocation of privacy in exchange for KYC via a glut of metadata. This will get even crappier as mechanisms used to filter out "suspicious" traffic (read: competing products) become standard. I imagine using Firefox in 2030 will be akin to using Tor in 2019 - web requests will be blocked, denied, or deemed "insecure". Lynx revolution when?
willjp 1mo ago
Wait, is this a thing? Why do people hate firefox? It's the only mainstream browser with an rcfile?
- doublerabbit 1mo ago
  Picture Firefox as a fence inside of a walled garden. One side is painted a dull corporate grey colour; on the other your favorite colour of happiness. The happiness sits beyond the horizon of the graveyard. The dead of digital and open-source. Instead of jumping over using another browser of the 'fox family; you have to dig under by removing all the unnecessary junk. Telemetry, Pocket, VPN et cetera; only then do you get to trek. I see why they named it fox. Each release that grey side of the fence gets a fresh coat of paint and the holes filled. Rumours from the graves are that Cloudflare are going to introduce turnstiles to your own hole if you decide to dig.
- zamadatix 1mo ago
  Honest ask, no shaming, how many who read this comment either: A) Don't know what an rc file is B) Haven't manually configured one in the last few years I'm sure there are plenty on HN who are eager to say how much they love rc files, I mean to point out how many, even here, really have no attachment to these kinds of things. Of course it's very possible they don't care enough to read this far or respond either... but it's worth a shot :D
  - nosioptar 1mo ago
    An rc file is a configuration file. Vim has .vimrc and bash has .bashrc For example, some distros add an alias for rm to bashrc to make it ask for confirmation (the -i switch iirc). I didnt know Firefox has one. I can't find any documentation on it either...
    - antisol 1mo ago
      Technically rc files tend to be a list of commands (usually to set config options) that are executed on startup, not actually configuration files per se. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RUNCOM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RUNCOM </pedantry>
gboss 1mo ago
I'm an avid Firefox user, but it seems that Firefox keeps getting worse. Pages forever load, when the issue does not happen in Chrome. History gets corrupted. Claude wouldn't load consistently if I had more than one tab of claude opened internal tools that used to work fine and we haven't updated struggle. I don't know if it's me but it's certainly maddening, especially when I go to Chrome on the same laptop and it just loads.
- starik36 1mo ago
  I use Claude all day long with Firefox - haven't seen your problem. Are you sure the issue isn't somewhere else?
- mmooss 1mo ago
  > Pages forever load, when the issue does not happen in Chrome. A bit tangential, but that's not a meaningful analysis (depending on how you tested): FF CHR Site 1 n Y Site 2 Y n Imagine a Firefox user: They try site 1, see Firefox fail, and so they try Chrome and it succeeds. Then they try site 2, see Firefox succeed, and stop there. They never see Chrome's problem. It's like what I've seen some DuckDuckGo users say about search engines: 'Google is better because when I can't find something on DDG I do find it on Google'. (I think there's also some confirmation bias with Chrome and Google.) It's like the old sales technique of comparing your product's features with the other product: MyProduct YourProduct Feature A X X Feature B X Feature C X X Feature D X X Feature E X Feature F X Feature G X X Feature H X X It doesn't show: Feature I X Feature J X Feature K X Feature L X Feature M X Feature N X Feature O
bastawhiz 1mo ago
> Firefox is our last best hope for browser engine diversity and competition. This isn't really true, and hasn't been for some time. It's just the only other browser engine with meaningful production users. Servo and Ladybird are both making great strides.
- nickthegreek 1mo ago
  It’s true up until those other browsers are released and stable.
willjp 1mo ago
wait, is this a thing? firefox is the only mainstream browser with an rcfile, that alone gives you incredible powers. I hope one day it also grows something like chrome's CDP. What is everyone so upset about?
roughly 1mo ago
There’s an old mantra from organizing: “no permanent enemies, no permanent allies.” You will never align with another group or person 100% on all things; the secret to making change is to build a coalition of those with whom you agree on an issue without holding it against them that you disagree on a different one. I disagree with Mozilla about many things, but I agree with this article - I use Firefox because it’s the only browser out there that isn’t Chrome or WebKit, and that’s worth enough to me that I’m willing to disagree with them on other issues.
- andrew_lettuce 1mo ago
  I like this, and I also think it will help this Canadian deal with the current position of the USA
  - ygjb 1mo ago
    It's absolutely critical, and worth mentioning, that even after substantial reductions, there are a lot of Canadians still working on and contributing to Firefox!
- olejorgenb 1mo ago
  It's also better that the other browser in many ways. The "Awesome Bar" among them.
  - weaksauce 1mo ago
    middle mouse click auto-scrolling too!
  - delecti 1mo ago
    What's different about the Awesome Bar from Chrome? IIRC Chrome had the unified search/URL bar before Firefox did, and I don't remember it being very different from Firefox's implementation. If anything, I remember it being easier to add search engines in Chrome (unless it's gotten worse in the past few years since I switched to Firefox). Am I missing out on cool features of the URL bar in Firefox? Edit: made my question more specific
xbar 1mo ago
Firefox still works fine for me. Sometimes it gets greedy with some activities. I smack it around and it seems to respond. I worry that Mozilla is starving it compared to other activities.
sumanep 1mo ago
palemoon is the only independent browser
gnuplustoejam 1mo ago
If you hate on Firefox because they're on X for outreach and marketing — like every other browser — you are certifiable. Your opinion is extreme and summarily discarded as noise.
- zamadatix 1mo ago
  FWIW, if you're reading this article your opinion is extreme and summarily discarded as noise by pretty much everyone else too. I don't say that because I personally mind if they are on X one way or the other, I've just given up on the idea anyone but an extreme few, usually tech nerds, seem to give a damn about this topic as a whole.
throwlifeaway 1mo ago
Part of the blame for what's wrong with the web right now is on web developers: - We "need" firefox or else everything's just chrome - Forks of chrome don't count as different browsers because they all use the same engine - Using the same engine makes you basically just chrome because you can't diverge from upstream - You can't diverge from upstream because it moves too fast and you need to keep merging with it - You need to keep merging with upstream because upstream is implementing new web platform features - You need those web platform features because if you don't add them then websites will stop working in your fork - Websites will stop working in your fork because web developers don't support older browser versions - Web developers don't support older browser versions because... they don't care? If web developers had a culture of supporting, say, 10 years of previous browser versions, then chromium would lose a lot of the power it has to drag the forks (and firefox) behind it. I don't really see this happening without some sort of major culture shift, though. Maybe if we had some versioned web standard that lagged behind the "real" ones so sites could say "StableWeb 2.0 Compatible!" or something.
- okanat 1mo ago
  There are more layers, if you'd like to look into it. - Web developers don't support older browsers because they lack the skill and economic motivation for it. - The managers of web developers will not support them, because there is no money to be made in supporting older browsers. Nor are there career benefits in maintenance projects. No developer or manager will get promotions for it. - The actual management of the companies will not promote or compensate engineering managers or developers for maintenance projects since it doesn't contribute to "line goes up"-economics.
- charcircuit 1mo ago
  >You can't diverge from upstream because it moves too fast and you need to keep merging with it Blink is very modular. Merging your changes is easier than you think. Exponentially easier than creating a whole other browser engine.
- strenholme 1mo ago
  There’s a reason why this culture doesn’t exist: Internet Explorer 6 As recently as 2012, web developers had to make sure their websites ran on IE6, a browser from 2001, and were very frustrated that had to support this 11-year-old browser instead of being able to implement new features available with Chrome/Firefox/Opera and even newer versions of Internet Explorer. There was a lot of resentment caused by this situation, resulting in web developers just not wanting to hold back their website so that it will render correctly in some random ancient browser.
cubefox 1mo ago
The big problem for Firefox/Mozilla is that the browser is currently primarily sponsored by Google, but due to an extremely stupid antitrust ruling, Google will no longer be allowed to do this after 2026. Then Mozilla could run out of money, which would imply layoffs and Firefox likely shelving its rendering engine, with the browser becoming just another Chrome reskin. The situation is quite dire I fear. And it was all the fault of a judge seeing an alleged Google search monopoly despite the fact that countless users were already using ChatGPT rather than Google. With killing off one of the last remaining web rendering engines, the ruling would instead create a Blink/Webkit (Chrome/Safari) duopoly.
vaadu 1mo ago
Will Chrome go the way of Internet Explorer 6? Microsoft killed off all competition. Then the only improvements were Microsoft proprietary.
david_shaw 1mo ago
I hate to change the subject to something so trivial -- because I have been an exclusive Firefox user for many, many years -- but the awful moving background of this website is literally nauseating. I'm no designer, but I can't understand why someone would make a graphical choice like this. It absolutely detracts from the content, and in my case, will prevent me from reading it.
- nosioptar 1mo ago
  Plenty of users use the reduced motion option for accessibility reasons. The developer of this page is just an ass for ignoring it. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/At-rules/@media/prefers-reduced-motion https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/A...
imagetic 1mo ago
I’ve been using nightly and it’s f’n awesome. The future of Firefox feels great. Even switched the telemetry and reporting on to help them out.
thataccount 1mo ago
Uh, Pale Moon? Libre Wolf? There have been browsers for a long time that just browsed...
cheschire 1mo ago
Am I the only one that doesn't really care about browsers anymore because I stopped browsing the web?
- jaharios 1mo ago
  You are in the web right now.
  - cheschire 1mo ago
    There’s a big difference between going to the same six sites every day and “browsing“ the web
jkahrs595 1mo ago
I use Zen (firefox under the hood) and I just don't understand all of the bitching people do about Firefox. Once I learned all about manifest v2 deprecation it was such an easy decision to move away from Chromium based browsers. The transition was one of the most painless things I've ever done in the software world. Literally what is the issue?
- simpaticoder 1mo ago
  Abject fear. They are afraid that the best option will go away. They're afraid that their perfectionism and critiques have driven it to a point of failure. They're afraid that a project is big as a browser can't really be open source. They're probably also angry at the squandering of resources at Mozilla particularly on executive salaries. But yeah it's ultimately fear.
- dfbettermice 1mo ago
  [dead]
- Insanity 1mo ago
  +1 for Zen, it's a great browser. I've been using it for 1.5 years now and I'm loving the UI/UX.
- dartharva 1mo ago
  It's that Firefox occasionally breaks websites because most devs only test and target for Chrome. And that it is now more CPU and RAM-hungry than Chrome. Also that it is controlled by Mozilla, an org ALLEGEDLY more interested in fringe politics than tech.
  - mplanchard 1mo ago
    I literally only have Firefox installed and cannot remember the last time I encountered a broke web page.
- joey5403 1mo ago
  +1 for Zen
at1as 1mo ago
I think FF is in a difficult place. The only community they have any penetration in is the developer one (in its prime non-technical people would tell me they used Firefox since IE was insecure. Their techy friends would tell them to use it and the message carried some actual weight back then). Today they are a large organization that needs to make money to sustain itself, while facing declining usage, and less favorable terms for search engine integrations. And our community (developers) is the least likely to take kindly to the increasing monetization slop (promoted articles, pestering about pocket and their VPN offering, continually requiring accepting new ToS, reminders to use new features, etc). I mostly use FF, because I think we'll lose something if it disappears (for example, DRM will become intolerable, web inspectors will become more opaque, and generally future web standards may be much more controlled by a small set of large orgs with their own interests). But I use FF with less enthusiasm every passing day
nicoburns 1mo ago
For those interested in how the alternative browsers are doing, I just put up an alternative to https://wpt.fyi https://wpt.fyi (displays the WPT test results of each browser) which is IMO easier to navigate, and shows Servo / Ladybird by default: https://blitz.is/wpt https://blitz.is/wpt The headline results are: - Chrome 94.7% (1053647/1112582) - Firefox 90.6% (1008073/1112582) - Safari TP 88.7% ( 987377/1112582) - Ladybird 84.2% ( 937019/1112582) - Servo 74.4% ( 827216/1112582) So Ladybird is catching up with the other pretty fast! Although it's worth noting that it still has a bunch of extra work to do with regard to performance. (my engine Blitz whose website this is on scores 42.2% for specifically the `css` subset, compared to 50.3% for Servo and 72.3% Ladybird) (the results above exclude the `encoding` suite, because that's 1 million test ~50% of the whole suite, that doesn't really measure rendering capability).
- culi 1mo ago
  I love WPT (I even have a bookmark comparing all of these browsers as well as Flow[0] that I check regularly). But this is absolutely NOT how this site is meant to be used. For example, Ladybird jumped from about 30% to over 70% when it added a bunch of unicode logic. Secondly, these tests aren't all even officially agreed upon standards. Some are specific to Chrome features that are still in the draft stages for W3C. Many tests are written by the developers of the engines themselves. Chrome, having a larger team, will naturally contribute many more tests relevant to whatever feature they're prioritizing [0] https://wpt.fyi/results/?label=master&product=chrome&product=firefox&product=safari&product=ladybird&product=servo&product=flow&aligned https://wpt.fyi/results/?label=master&product=chrome&product...
  - nicoburns 1mo ago
    > But this is absolutely NOT how this site is meant to be used. For example, Ladybird jumped from about 30% to over 70% when it added a bunch of unicode logic. That's true, but you can dive into specific categories to get a more accurate picture and also see which sets of tests are only implemented by Chrome.
- exsol 1mo ago
yesnomaybe 1mo ago
I've been using LibreWolf (FF based) for years now and I love this thing. There are many issues coming with anti-tracking, sometimes a pain in the ... but, whenever I ask myself "what if I had to switch to Brave or other" I always end up with the same firm "Nah, I'm good". If LibreWolf would disappear, it would still be FF for me, with carefully selected and regularly reviewed privacy settings.
calvinmorrison 1mo ago
nobody is (well i guess some people are) clamoring for alternative virtual machines for Perl. I guess there are some different implementations of Java. The web browsers today are virtual machines + operating systems. I don't particularly trust or care which implementation I use. Maybe i should, but i realize having multiple implementations of the same thing isnt all that profitable.
- ball_of_lint 1mo ago
  Profitable for who? I think there's immense value+profit for our society in having multiple choices for what browser and browser engine you use. If you have many options, then Chrome killing adblockers with Manifest v3 is a much smaller issue.
jonotime 1mo ago
Firefox forever! On all the things! You can take it from my cold dead hands. Thank you Mozilla, for making the web a better place for humans.
charcircuit 1mo ago
>Firefox is our last best hope for browser engine diversity and competition And this is a good thing why? It just makes web developer's lives harder and wastes engine developer's time building multiple engines when they could be contributing to a single foundation making that better.
avazhi 1mo ago
Getting mad that something is on Twitter will never not be funny to me. Cutting off your nose to spite your face kind of thing. Anyway, I’ll stick with FF for the adblocking but these Mozilla guys need to piss off with the constant popups for new features I don’t give a shit about (like a VPN). 1Password has been doing the same thing lately, too. Both my browser and my password manager fall into the category of software that should absolutely never bother or distract me from whatever I’m trying to do.
chrysoprace 1mo ago
I use Firefox, but Mozilla is increasingly eroding user trust and being primarily funded by Google to avoid a monopoly does not give me confidence either. When Google implement an anti-user feature, Mozilla have to begrudgingly implement it, and that is not a healthy ecosystem. There's a good chance that I'll move from Firefox when Ladybird reaches feature-parity, but they'll likely fall into the non-standard standards (Chrome-pushed features) trap all the same to avoid having sites break. I don't know how we solve this, other than to hold Google accountable, but that in turn hurts Firefox. At least in that case we'll hopefully have Ladybird as a truly independent browser.
- Fizz43 1mo ago
  >When Google implement an anti-user feature, Mozilla have to begrudgingly implement it Why would ladybird be any different? The developer is not anti corporate and is closer ideologically to Google than Mozilla.
aladine 1mo ago
This article seems directly target me. I was a Firefox fanboy and switch to Vivaldi for daily driver work browser. I still keeps Firefox for personal browsing. If Firefox could address the performance issue when opening many tabs, I definitely go back to Firefox.
realysy 1mo ago
Firefox is my first browser, and I've been using it for over 10 years. I like its cross-platform sync and addons.
SanjayMehta 1mo ago
I stopped using Firefox when they forced out Eich over his personal views.
cdnsteve 1mo ago
Didn't firefox have a TOS changed where they own all your content? Update: To whoever downvoted this, go read: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1iyuvjf/introducing_a_terms_of_use_and_updated_privacy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1iyuvjf/introducin...
- nosioptar 1mo ago
  Re-read the top comment in the link you posted as well as the Mozilla blog post. It says you give Mozilla a license, not ownership of your content. Dont get me wrong, I object to anything and everything they'd be doing that requires a license to my private data. Fuck that and fuck Mozilla. I just think it's important to be accurate when calling out scummy techbros on their bullshit.
asveikau 1mo ago
I still use firefox when I'm on a proper unix desktop, like *BSD or Linux running x11. This is just force of habit from when I started using those in the '90s, with the old closed source Netscape 4.7 binaries, and eventually mozilla suite, and Firefox when that started out. When I'm using windows or mac I use chrome. I've used chrome on x11 before. But somehow it never hooked me.
protocolture 1mo ago
Criticism is not "throwing out with the bathwater" Criticism is criticism. Its daft to think something should be exempt from criticism because it is good or necessary.
linuxhansl 1mo ago
I am hanging on! At home I only use Firefox. At work, unfortunately, I need Chrome for a few things that do not work well with Firefox (most Google products), but for everything else I use Firefox. IMHO, that Firefox can only really stay free if it is supported by donations (i.e. people like us who use it). Anything else will lead to various things that either push people away or make less free - probably both.
- stubish 1mo ago
  Could be. Pity there is no way to donate to Firefox. You can only donate to Mozilla for 'mission to keep the Web open and free', with an unknown fraction going to Firefox development. People have been deliberately disenfranchised from voting with their wallets for decades.
al_borland 1mo ago
> The only holdout would be Apple Safari, hanging in there only because it’s the enforced default on iPhones. This is one of the big reasons I'm against the EU trying to force Apple to open up the iPhone and allow other rendering engines. The market share of the iPhone is the only reason Google doesn't have 90+% marketshare, at which point no one will even bother testing in other browsers or worrying if features are Chrome-only. It will be Internet Explorer all over again. I know some devs want this, because it will make their life easier, but you're assuming Google will keep doing what you want and like even after all the competition is gone. That's a bad bet.
- theokrueger 1mo ago
  this is a very stange reason to take a stance against (forcibly) opening up ios? it's not like the types of webapps that are broken on firefox dont also force you to install an app if you're on a phone. i do wish govts. with spines had real power over big tech besides threatening userbase numbers, since basically everyone in the space is due for a breakup
kakadu 1mo ago
Why isn't Firefox funded from the state as a utility and is instead left to rot in the hands of the "free" market? If ff needs to turn a profit to survive how can it not follow the directives of the market?
xedrac 1mo ago
Conservatives like Firefox too.
fooker 1mo ago
No sorry, I give Firefox a try about once a year and every time so far I have switched back because some random websites were unusable. Maybe it works if you are de-googling your life at the same time and consciously choose to use apps over websites whenever possible.
- dfbettermice 1mo ago
  [dead]
- SlimyHog 1mo ago
  What websites? I've been using Firefox exclusively forever and the only times I've had to switch browsers was doing my passport application and I had to find a windows desktop to get that to work
  - InvertedRhodium 1mo ago
    99% of the time I just change my UA to Chrome and the incompatible site works fine.
  - fooker 1mo ago
    The usual culprits are government, bank, or google websites. Youtube and Google docs occasionally break in amusing ways. Definitely Google's fault to a large extent, but it is what it is. A friend recently got into making JS games, the FPS is always unplayable on Firefox. I'm not going to be snotty and ask someone doing this for fun to test stuff on multiple browsers. SVG rendering occasionally slows down to a crawl. I used to open up bug reports ten or so years ago when I worked on something SVG related, but none of those bugs got looked at from what I can tell. If I always have to have Chromium installed as a fallback, might as well use it.
tamimio 1mo ago
My personal rule: anyone who uses any chromuim based browser is a tech illiterate. Firefox has been my browser since I ever remember touching a computer, netescape before too. It’s even the best performing browser too, I have had more than 1500 tabs in one machine a couple weeks ago on a laptop of 16gib ram, running 1% of those on chromium based and it will crash. Plus the proper ad blocking and control over privacy, making it the last bastion of browsers right now.
- antisol 1mo ago
  > My personal rule: anyone who uses any chromuim based browser is a tech illiterate That's funny, that's exactly how I feel about people who haven't jumped ship from firefox yet. > I have had more than 1500 tabs in one machine a couple weeks ago on a laptop of 16gib ram, running 1% of those on chromium based and it will crash. I have 1940 tabs open in my chromium-based browser right now. This machine has 16GB RAM. It's running just fine, thanks. It's been this way for weeks. I opened a new tab to reply to this. > Plus the proper ad blocking and control over privacy, making it the last bastion of browsers right now. All that stuff is just built into brave. Which is chromium-based.
codexon 1mo ago
I want to be able to recommend firefox to everybody, but after 15 years of chrome and going back to firefox, it still feels jank. Web apps like twitter youtube discord that is left open for a few hours take up >2gb ram and is jittery. I have to shift+esc and close them to make them run smoothly again. Why hasn't stuff like this been fixed yet? Why do I need to open about:profiles just to launch a new profile?
paaloeye 1mo ago
What do people hate Chromium so much? I genuinely don't understand. AFAICS, it's one of the most decent C++ codebase.
- Insanity 1mo ago
  I'm sure it's mostly Chrome and not Chromium that people hate.
T_Potato 1mo ago
I love firefox. I did the swap 20 years ago to Chrome, and then swapped again 10 years ago. Firefox is the goat.
Insanity 1mo ago
I'm holding on.. in a way. I've switched to Zen about a year ago after ~2 decades of Firefox. It's a fork of Firefox so I'm counting it as supporting Firefox anyway. However, on my iPhone and iPad I've stuck with Safari. Because it's "good enough", I'm not a heavy phone user, and really any browser on iOS is just a reskin of Safari given they don't allow different web browser engines.
mnming 1mo ago
I am definitely hanging on my Firefox! Personally I have the same view to things like Github, Google, and many companies/products that offer public services (largely) for free for mass. Granted they have their own monetization scheme behind it, I don't feel I am entitled to used them, I feel grateful regardless.
999900000999 1mo ago
The issue is building a browser is not profitable by itself. You’d need to sell an annual subscription of 150$ to like 10 million people to get a browser that’s actually developed for users and not in some bizarre exploitive fashion.
- stephen_g 1mo ago
  The current spend on Firefox development is only about $290 million per year, not the $1.5bn you're talking about... But at the end of the day, it's not the amount of money that matters, it's the goals of the people running it.
  - mmooss 1mo ago
    > it's not the amount of money that matters I think that matters quite a bit. Otherwise, if you've got a spare $1,000, build us a browser. Maybe vibe code it?
  - 999900000999 1mo ago
    If you sell it on Steam or the Mac App Store we’re talking about a minimum of 30% gone off top. Marketing costs money. Taxes, etc. Not everyone is going to pay the full 150$. Various discount programs would probably exist. Anyway, even if my numbers are off not enough people will pay for a browser for this to be a viable business. If you disagree you can start today and I’ll gladly subscribe. Not a fork, no build a new browser from scratch with feature parity to chrome
    - eviks 1mo ago
      > Not a fork, I guess you know you're wrong because why else would you need this bizarre requirement?
      - 999900000999 1mo ago
        Because otherwise you can git clone Firefox , change it's name and call it a new browser. I guess if we really get technical we could say you can fork, but need to independently implement updates going forward.
Aozora7 1mo ago
I switched to Firefox when chrome announced manifest v3, and I'm still happy with it. Not only I get a browser with a real adblock, now that I got used to multi-account containers, I can't go back to chrome since it has no good equivalent. And I'm also using it on mobile since it's one of the few mobile browsers with extensions too.
t067633 1mo ago
I don't love FireFox. I love my uBlock Origin.
rauli_ 1mo ago
He seems to completely ignore Ladybird project for some reason.
andai 1mo ago
What's the significance of being on X?
- nosioptar 1mo ago
  The guy that bought twitter is a Nazi. To the inevitable down voters, I'm not calling musk a Nazi because I dont like him, I call him a Nazi because he did a friggin' heil Hitler salute.
  - andai 1mo ago
    Interesting. I thought he was about free speech and reducing government spending. (Musk, I mean, not Hitler, in case there was any confusion!)
    - nosioptar 1mo ago
      If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk's_Salute_at_Donald_Trump's_Second_Inauguration.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk's_Salute_at_Don...
collinvandyck76 1mo ago
Of my cohorts, I am probably the most loyal firefox fan. That said, I've broken up with it twice, and am currently in the second breakup b/c at work we're mandated to use the Island browser due to security reasons, and my work machine absolutely cannot handle two browsers running while I also have all of the work dependencies and IDEs and slack running. I know much of this is subjective, but the chrome experience just feels better / faster. This is what precipitated the first breakup, and when I think about the situation now, it feels like this dynamic is probably long lasting. It does make me sad though. I'll come back to firefox later, perhaps when I get a laptop refresh and can be a little more cavalier with RAM.
modeswitch 1mo ago
I use Firefox because it's a user agent. Chrome is a vendor agent.
hirvi74 1mo ago
I'm good with my Safari, but thanks. (Though, I do use FF on Windows).
rammy1234 1mo ago
somehow this little content made me to set default browser to Firefox on mac. I am so easy get convinced. I dont know what problems Firefox has, why firefox not improving developer experience, focusing on building new products, making it light weight and performant. But I am going to try again after 2 years. Its going to be amazing.
godwinson__4-8 1mo ago
Aren't most of the complicated and useful parts of Chrome in Chromium? Isn't that sufficiently divorced from most of what makes Chrome unpalatable to people who appreciate Firefox as an alternative? Why then aren't there more forks of Chromium? I would think with the progression of SOTA LLMs it should not be long now before everyone can simply ride their own custom flavor of Chromium.
mantra2 1mo ago
I’ve always been a Firefox fan, and I used it exclusively for quite some time. However, I had to switch back to Brave after they blocked clipboard managers from seeing what you copy in private windows, and there was no way to turn it off. I know about profiles and containers, but this is something I need for my workflow. Now that Brave has proper containers, I’m running out of reasons to miss Firefox other than my ideals.
dev1ycan 1mo ago
The only real threat to firefox is ladybird, that's it, Brave and other chromium browsers are not it.
tjdnjsrmsdidgkr 1mo ago
Totally right. On Earth, nothing is perfect, and nothing satisfies everyone. Yeah, you can feel uncomfortable or disappointed, but Firefox is still the best option we have. We should hold the line for Firefox.
dmfdmf 1mo ago
Late to the party but it does not matter what users or Mozilla does. The problem is all the Big Corps and Gov sites now refuse to work with anything but a chromium browser. We can debate Firefox features and Mozilla missteps until the cows come home and it won't make a difference. The clock is ticking. To save FF, Mozilla needs to enter the DC swamp, hire PR and lobbists to buy politicians to pass a law to force Gov.gov and (if possible) Big Corp sites to support Firefox. Maybe they can ally with EFF or others who understand Google's (don't be evil, lol) deepstate roots.
CrimsonRain 1mo ago
Firefox is shit because Mozilla is run by garbage people. I have used Firefox for 10 years; for many years I was on nightly to help testing. Their ui was bad, they could not get ui locks up issue fixed for many years, and instead of focusing on core browser, they time and spend money on bullshit. Kick out technical people like Eich, pays useless Baker 6M while market where keeping crashing. I'll still happily recurring donate money to Firefox, but not to Mozilla. Mozilla makes it impossible. Firefox is a lost cause, overtaken by mentally ill sjws. That's the reason it can not compete with chrome even though firefox always had a soft spot in everyone's heart back in those times. They also failed to capture new generation. Ladybird is the answer. A true diversity in the world of browsers; focused on making the best software instead of playing politics and paying 6M to useless CEO. It is still not ready but that's fine.
zzo38computer 1mo ago
Line Mode Browser has some features that have not been found anywhere else. (In some cases, old version of Firefox can be hacked to support a few of them, such as that URLs entered by the user are treated as relative to the current document; Lynx doesn't do that. But, there are also such things as the ability to pipe the output to another program, directly invoking HTTP methods, display a numbered list of links in the current document (also should be easy to do in most web browsers by adding an extension), direct cache management, etc.) I would rather avoid many of the features that Firefox and Chrome have, including CSS, JavaScripts (although JavaScript codes entered by the end user can be useful for the purpose of querying JSON data returned by the server, because such a situation is common enough to be worth), favicons, HSTS, etc, but include some features such as TLS 1.3. Some features that would be useful, I don't see anywhere, such as displaying a table of contents menu based on the <h1> etc in the HTML, commands to sort tables, saving form data to the local disk and later recalling it, calling external programs to edit text, etc. However, they just put too much stuff and make it more complicated than it should be, and many of the actual useful features are omitted. I don't want inline pictures, videos, etc either. However, some of the web developer tools can be useful, because e.g. you can display a list of the network requests.
hn_submit 1mo ago
The frustrating part is that we all know what the problem is (management) but we're powerless to do anything about it since they're holding all the cards. This frustration leads to hate which leads to many people turning away from Firefox. I'm still sticking with Firefox, at least until Ladybird comes toe-to-toe in terms of features and functionality. And then there are the web developers who make their site functional only on Chrome. They deserve a special place in Hell.
eviks 1mo ago
> Firefox is our last best hope for browser engine diversity and competition. What is the appropriate non-convoluted feeling towards the company that's been killing this hope for many years?
Psype 1mo ago
Firefox is getting milked for profit by a few individuals. User data collection, personalized ads and such for profit, while the CEO's paycheck exploded in 15 years.
stevage 1mo ago
Firefox has been my main browser for at least 10 years now. Occasionally something doesn't work right and I use Chrome for that one thing. It's nice to slightly reduce the totally overbearing presence of Google in my life.
Fizz43 1mo ago
I treat firefox the same way I treat politics. If I am around people I know understand the importance of firefox and are commited to using it then we can talk about its problems. If I am around anyone else I wont say a bad word about firefox. Why would I say a negative thing about firefox to a google chrome user, any point they make is instantly undermined by their usage of google chrome. To sit there and talk badly about firefox just reinforces their resolve in choosing google chrome. Plus I genuinely like firefox its a great browser and I dont feel bad telling people that its good.
Gazoche 1mo ago
Say what you want about Mozilla's propensity to shove useless features into Firefox, but I've been loving some of the recent addition to tabs management. Split-view tabs, vertical tabs, tab groups and tab pinning have made my work so much easier.
account42 1mo ago
Beware the wolf in sheep's clothing.
VCFundedGenYer 1mo ago
Mozilla will eventually run firefox into the ground due to Mozilla degeneracy, reliance on Google, etc. Firefox forks however are still the ones with light in their eyes. LibreWolf, Waterfox, Ironfox, keep those going.
john-titor 1mo ago
Honest question: I recently bought a mac for the first time. A long-time Firefox user I quickly realized it is draining my battery like crazy. What do people do? My whole browsing ecosystem is on Firefox Sync and I would like to keep supporting it, but I am not willing to sacrifice battery life for that
- neop1x 1mo ago
  Take a look at about:performance page, maybe some background tab is too active? Try some tab suspend extension like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-discard/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-disc...
kiliancs 1mo ago
I left Firefox for the first time since... well, I _think_ I used it before it was Firefox. This self-imposed exile only lasted a couple months. I left looking for low-friction answers to my need to organize tabs and content. I didn't love giving up control to some central organization to process my data, but I had promised myself I'd write one or two extensions to answer my needs "next week" for years. After doing some research, most of what I wanted already exists. Sidebery, Tab Wrangler and the new Agents window (with some styling to eliminate the default tab list), together with my other old friends like uBlock Origin, Auto Tab Discard (suspend) and a number of container-related extensions, deliver the same functionality I found elsewhere, without taking control from me. Plus, this is just me, but chromium-based browsers manage to get my m3 pro macbook with 36GB RAM hot pretty consistently with normal use. I noticed the moment I left Firefox. And I noticed the problem gone as soon as I went back to Firefox. I have often criticized Mozilla, because I care that Firefox remains the best browser, not just an alternative worth keeping.
unsungNovelty 1mo ago
> Meanwhile, the over thinkers on Hacker News come up with convoluted reasons to hate on Firefox every time the subject arises. It makes me wonder if it’s a bot campaign by Google — except, why would they bother? Not bots. Am here. Not some google bot. People putting Firefox with chrome, Vivaldi and whatever Safari users in one bag is absolutely stupid. Firefox users and community have invested heavily into Firefox unlike other browser users and the people who move from firefox for flimsy reasons like X. I will use firefox until it's available. But I don't want firefox to go on this road that they are on right now. We've done install fests and what not as communities to get Firefox installed on computers. I've stuck through firefox even when they ditched development until quantum release. It literally has effected work cos Google meet didn't use to work reliably. So if u think I will shutup about mozilla making intentional stupid decisions... Sorry not going to. First thing they should do is stop virtue signaling in their marketing stuff. Stick to technicals if they don't want to give a damn about community. That won't stop me. But I'll back off a lil. Firefox is a product of community collaboration which has also stopped recently. People who don't know that part of Firefox development... Community leaders era and stuff might think we are overreacting. We are toning it down actually since we don't want people to go to chrome. Their vision and the way it was built is why Firefox was loved even when it was technically bad. They are technically greater than or on par with chrome now. But they have lost the soul which is why there is criticism. - Not a bot.
1vuio0pswjnm7 1mo ago
The problem is not any particular "modern" web browser It is the so-called "modern" web browser itself For certain users who care about certain things, the concept is fatally flawed The problem of the so-called "modern" web browser concept is that every computing task ends up "inside the browser" and thus outside the user's control "Ad blocking" is no exception Many so-called "modern" browsers now contain their own "ad blockers" These "ad blockers" are not under the user's control^1. By putting them "inside the browser" the browser vendor has the final control, not the user These browser vendors are generally seeking to profit from advertising or marketing services For any user that seeks to avoid internet marketing and advertising, this presents a problem: the user's and the vendor's interests conflict This is why I could never take Javascript-based "ad blockers" that work "inside the browser" seriously as a long-term solution I use them, in conjunction with other methods, but I am prepared for them to stop working at any time.^2 I have always relied on programs that are "outside the browser", not under the browser vendor's control 1. In theory, if the browser is "open source", large numbers of users should be able to modify the source code to stop the browser from automatically requesting unwanted ads, tracking and telemetry. In practice, for a variety of reasons, this does not happen. The browser vendors, including Mozilla, make no effort to remove those reasons 2. This includes UBO in Firefox. The question is not if but when
firemelt 1mo ago
bro I am wanted to be firefox evangelist but alas. it not even have proper datetime picket
z_rho_one 1mo ago
One feature Firefox is really lacking is shortcuts on Android. I use Firefox on all my devices except my Android tablet. When I have a physical keyboard paird with my Android tablet and want to use keyboard shortcuts to open new tabs, switch tabs, etc. on Firefox for Android -- well, the shortcuts just don't exist. This is the only reason I use Brave instead of Firefox on my tablet. Hella annoying because my bookmarks and browsing history are not synced on the tablet, but I chose that over always having to touch the screen just to open a new browser tab.
antisol 1mo ago
> the over thinkers on Hacker News come up with convoluted reasons to hate on Firefox It's not convoluted at all: Firefox is worse today than it was in ~2012. That is all.
enesunal 1mo ago
No offence, it feels more "here's vivaldi if you haven't heard" than "let's save firefox together" to me.
samat 1mo ago
Reading this from Safari. I am willing to do my part on browser diversity but there are limits.

994 points by speckx 1mo ago

[dead]

People just don't care. They are happy with monopolies and surveillance capitalism. Once in a while someone talks about digital sovereignty, but much like climate change, nothing will be done (successfully) about it. That's how it is, I've come to terms with it.

sssilver 1mo ago
I'm not sure why this is being downvoted. Do people care? What signs of this are there? Does it matter to the average person that the society is marching further and further down the road of digital monopolies and surveillance capitalism? My impression certainly is that the percentage of people who care about this is so small that it might as well be a rounding error, while on the other side I see tremendous momentum, effort, and cunning.
- nickthegreek 1mo ago
  The userbase of Firefox existing is obvious signs of caring. You really got to go out of your way to not use chromium. The userbase grows when people help others understand these issues, or ideally just install firefox for their non techie friends and set them up with ubo. be the change you want to see.
  - palata 1mo ago
    > The userbase of Firefox existing is obvious signs of caring. And that's pretty much a rounding error, getting smaller every year, right? Or would you say that "most people don't care" does not apply when it's only 99% of people that don't care?
    - nickthegreek 1mo ago
      Well I would say that the firefox userbase is 3%+ across all platforms (over 7% on desktop) and that is larger than a rounding error.
      - palata 1mo ago
        I feel like we are nitpicking here. Would you say that Google actually cares about those 3%? When you have 97% of the market, you own the market, right? It's actually problematic to own 100% because then it's strictly a monopoly. Whereas with 97% you can pretend it's not a monopoly.
        nickthegreek 1mo ago
        Why do i care about google’s opinion on the 7% desktop users. I just care that I have firefox. I continue to say that having 7% on desktop is an incredible large userbase when you convert it to people and not a percentage. Ive only pushed back on the minimizing all these people to ‘a rounding error’.
        palata 1mo ago
        Right. So I say "people don't care", and you say "they do: look at the 3% of people who use Firefox!". Can we agree on "the vast majority of people don't care", then? Does 97% or even 93% qualify for me to say "the vast majority"?
bluebarbet 1mo ago
Agreed. All the more reason to do what we can to make things better than they otherwise would be. Outcomes are never black and white.
jeffbee 1mo ago
> They are happy with monopolies and surveillance capitalism. Actually I believe for most normal people it is a feature of other platforms that they don't have to appear to be associated with weirdos who use terms like "surveillance capitalism".
- palata 1mo ago
  Not sure if you're trying to offend me or not. But it seems like you agree with me: people don't care. You just somehow wanted to call me a weirdo on the way.

theamk 1mo ago

I am using firefox, but it is pretty hard to keep using it. I don't want the whole world to converge on one browser engine, but I also want things to work, and Firefox does not make it easy. Firefox on my laptop has a propensity for eating lots of RAM, and constant CPU usage, even if nothing is going on. Task manager is useless. Profiler just shows "GC collecting". Mobile firefox is OK, it simply feels like it's designed for a different person. For example even Chrome has "force reader mode" button.. Firefox does not. And don't even get me started on the "new tab" [age - it gives me 6 choices and all of them are "AI" ones which never show what I want. The only way to show a manually curated link list is "collections" and those do not get synced, and occasionally disappear for no reason.

mingus88 1mo ago
I don’t know you, but most people I work with for some reason keep so many tabs open, the tab bar is squeezed so you can barely see a favicon Probably due to my age, I religiously close every tab after I read it. If that gets more than a dozen, I literally quit the browser and declare bankruptcy because it’s not worth it to sort through the mess of tabs I clearly am not using. Firefox is old too. I’m sure it could manage memory better, but couldn’t we all? If you have tabs in GC and using CPU when you aren’t using them, kill them maybe? What else is that tab doing all day when you aren’t looking? I’ve never understood why people keep so many tabs open and why they’ll literally switch to an entirely different browser platform rather than change a bad habit
- peri-cl 1mo ago
  I wish I had that level of executive functioning. I open tabs at a high branching rate, and faster than I have the impulse control to (for lack of a better word) run a garbage-collection pass over what I'd just done. When it balloons into the low thousands and starts hurting performance, I dump Firefox's open-tabs store (file called recovery.jsonlz4) into a different file and start over. At some point I'll point an LLM at that junk pile and see if I missed anything important. (Probably not).
  - 1mo ago

firefax 1mo ago

i like noscript

nubinetwork 1mo ago

Firefox used to be amazing, but they squandered their market share with bad decisions and stagnation. Maybe one day they'll see the light, but not likely, given their recent ai additions...

TimTheTinker 1mo ago
Rumors of Firefox's death have been circling for at least 15 years now... somehow it's kept going despite odd incentives and bad corporate decisions.
- 1970-01-01 1mo ago
  Both can be true. Progressing without innovation only works when your product is Coca-Cola or Bic lighters. FireFox as a name or brand is nowhere near it's former v1.0-3.0 glory days.
  - TimTheTinker 1mo ago
    Perhaps, but is there any modern browser name or brand that inspires the kind of fierce loyalty Firefox did 20 years ago? It was the alternative to IE6, the first rays of dawn bringing hope to to a desolate, war-torn funereal valley of culpable corporate complacence. Hatred for IE6 drove people to Firefox more than anything else - IE was horrible. Firefox users crowdfunded a two-page ad in the New York Times, mostly to get people to move off of IE6.
    - 1970-01-01 1mo ago
      I think software loyalty is stuck at an all time low. Even the OS wars are over. People are stuck with subscription models. Almost everything has a cloud-based or SaaS service that works on everything. Nobody cares enough to fight about what browser they are using unless it is to fiddle around with adblockers.
      - deleted 1mo ago
        [deleted]

hx8 1mo ago

I am under the impression that Firefox is the only web browser which has access to quality ad blocker. Am I incorrect in this? How is this not enough of a selling point for everyone to switch to it?

chr-s 1mo ago
I'm using Safari w/ AdGuard and it seems to work OK.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
Mashimo 1mo ago
uBlock lite is enough for me. I switched from normal to lite and did not notice a difference.
- bluebarbet 1mo ago
  With this attitude you can expect uBlock Ultra-Lite and then uBlock Nothing in future. Mozilla is the only remaining obstacle to stop big tech from deciding everything about how the web is rendered. If we don't support Firefox we will get what we deserve.
  - Mashimo 1mo ago
    Might be, but I can't take on every battle. I switched from chrome to vivaldi in the hopes of they would keep the v2 api alive. They could not. Currently I can't be asked to switch browser again. Maybe at some point. But OP asked if "is this not enough of a selling point" and I wanted to answer that honestly.
- cube00 1mo ago
  Just wait until Manifest V4 then Manifest V5.
- nickthegreek 1mo ago

_jackdk_ 1mo ago

Firefox is great, and I use and recommend it as daily driver, but the actions of Mozilla leadership are really hard to differentiate from deliberately managed decline. It will be interesting to see what happens as Ladybird matures.

thebiblelover7 1mo ago

Related: There's also Ladybird that is developing quickly and is aiming for an alpha release this year. It's a truly independent browser engine built from scratch. https://ladybird.org/ https://ladybird.org/

SirHumphrey 1mo ago
This is mentioned under every Firefox discussion despite being possibly years away from being generally useful if the will ever progress to that point. It’s not really a feasible alternative.
- bastawhiz 1mo ago
  If the goal is browser diversity, is the answer really Firefox? Or is it one of the active in development projects from people who are motivated to do something new? What exactly is Firefox going to do differently to grow its market share? Or just "more of whatever the last fifteen years have been"? Unless they have a plan to do better it seems foolish to trust that they'll steer the project miraculously towards success.
  - cubefox 1mo ago
    > If the goal is browser diversity, is the answer really Firefox? Or is it one of the active in development projects from people who are motivated to do something new? The former. Ladybird is currently not practically usable, it is unclear whether it will ever catch up to the main engines, and even if it does, it is unclear whether it will ever reach the market share that Firefox has. It is a nice project but science fiction at this point.
    - em-bee 1mo ago
      ladybird is passing more than 90% of the browser test suite. that's not science fiction.
      - 1mo ago

matheusmoreira 1mo ago

The problem is Mozilla, not Firefox.

fitsumbelay 1mo ago

> The over thinkers on Hacker News Can barely keep my eyes socketed from all this involuntary rolling that's overtaken them ... I'm personally here for the non-bullshit stuff that isn't about getting clicks with hot ledes grounded on warmed over, barely modified well worn takes on well-understood stats so miss me with _that_ shit ...

Nail2680 1mo ago

Firefox is the best of a bunch of bad options, but isn't above critique. It does suck when they do anticonsumer stuff and shove weird stuff like pocket in, but you can't leave which makes it similar to the democratic party where you can't really do anything, but they keep making really poor decisions.

dyauspitr 1mo ago
Pocket was awesome. I am sad it’s gone and even though I found replacements I just don’t use them as much as pocket.
- Hammershaft 1mo ago
  I've found Raindrop to be a better stand in, but I jumped ship from Pocket a long time ago.
- _andov_ 1mo ago
  [flagged]
lioeters 1mo ago
The similarity goes deeper since they're funded by the very thing they claim to oppose.
- deleted 1mo ago
  [deleted]
nickthegreek 1mo ago
Firefox have forks like Zen which allow you to have the best of both worlds.

glimshe 1mo ago

I gave Firefox a chance as my PDF reader as it has a pretty efficient engine. But that didn't work out as I don't need to read PDFs often so every time it launched, it ran an update that added 10s to reading the PDF... :/ My current main browser across desktop and mobile is Brave. Pretty happy with it. Overall more efficient and with a better UI than FF. I've used FF for many years, but I feel it's simply not as good as competitors anymore.

layer8 1mo ago
I’d recommend using a dedicated PDF reader in any case.
- TremendousJudge 1mo ago
  I use SumatraPDF for reading, but it doesn't do editing. The Firefox PDF editor works perfectly fine.
  - kjksf 1mo ago
    In latest pre-release it does editing too (annotations, filling out forms, extracting pages, deleting pages etc.)
- gnyeki 1mo ago
  One advantage of Firefox's PDF reader is that it is sandboxed which a dedicated PDF reader typically isn't AFAIK.
  - jimjimjim 1mo ago
    Generally speaking most dedicated PDF readers haven't implemented the nastier parts of the PDF spec that need a sandbox. Except adobe. They support everything because they wrote it. But they keep making it worse so I can't recommend them.
  - nosioptar 1mo ago
    For Linux users, SELinux's sandbox command works well. (The manual isn't event two printed pages.) I think flatpacks also have some sandboxing. https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/sandbox.8.html https://www.man7.org/linux/man-pages/man8/sandbox.8.html

autoexec 1mo ago

> Meanwhile, the over thinkers on Hacker News come up with convoluted reasons to hate on Firefox every time the subject arises...Firefox is our last best hope for browser engine diversity and competition. It's exactly because Firefox is so important that you'll see people here complaining when Firefox does things to push away users like Mozilla buying up an ad-tech company, collecting data on users, and using firefox to push personalized ads, or the addition of anti-features and questionable design choices that force us to hunt for and modify poorly documented settings in about:config and make edits to userChrome.css It isn't bots complaining about Firefox here, it's power users who are frustrated by what Firefox is turning into. Users who are seriously concerned about what Mozilla is prioritizing, and who are genuinely worried about what is at stake. I hope people here never stop bitching about Firefox. Refusing to talk about Firefox's problems wont help make them go away. Keep discussing what you'd like to see in Firefox and what things you hope they'll focus on and prioritize. There are Firefox devs and mozilla employees around here. If we're lucky, a few of them might see and listen to some of what we say. It's the most tech savvy users who disable all the telemetry and data collection, so our feedback isn't really going to be seen any other way.

nubinetwork 1mo ago
> I hope people here never stop bitching about Firefox. Its getting harder and harder, at some point they'll deprecate their last sane ESR, and we'll all get stuck with all their junk.
- jaggederest 1mo ago
  This is exactly and precisely why open source exists, for both the "never upgrade frozen version" case, and the extension into "fork it and make your own" case
  - bluGill 1mo ago
    Something like Firefox is so complex that I could not fork it and make my own. I mean, I could, but the amount of changes I could put in would be trivial unless I'm getting paid full time. Even if I was paid full time, realistically, one person paid full time, no matter how good, just can't make an impact in the browser today. I'm not paid full time to work on a web browser. As a volunteer, I can't find the time to dedicate to that. I could do a few lines here and there if I really got dedicated, but like most people, I have a life. I have kids and such. My retirement account won't fund my midlife crisis to quit my job and work on a web browser, so I depend on something to build a good browser. And that is assuming I even would work on a web browser if I could afford to do whatever I want full time. There are a ton of other activities in my community that need volunteer help, some of which I'm helping a little bit, but I could do more for. I, like many here, have wished that we could donate a small amount to Firefox every month to fun development, however it turns out that the Mozilla Foundation does not fund development of Firefox and so any money would go not to Firefox but to other causes of which I may or may not support but are not a web browser which is what I want to support.

trashcan_man 1mo ago

It seems like the Browser Wars are going to converge on a singular point: "Do I need to access Big Tech services?" As long as the business world is going to continue centrallizing on the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Cloudflare, any existing or future alternative browsers will either have to kowtow on the alter of compatibility or make the deliberate decision not to support "advanced features" that enable the next generation of proprietary webmail, social media, banking webpages, etc - tending towards a total revocation of privacy in exchange for KYC via a glut of metadata. This will get even crappier as mechanisms used to filter out "suspicious" traffic (read: competing products) become standard. I imagine using Firefox in 2030 will be akin to using Tor in 2019 - web requests will be blocked, denied, or deemed "insecure". Lynx revolution when?

willjp 1mo ago

Wait, is this a thing? Why do people hate firefox? It's the only mainstream browser with an rcfile?

doublerabbit 1mo ago
Picture Firefox as a fence inside of a walled garden. One side is painted a dull corporate grey colour; on the other your favorite colour of happiness. The happiness sits beyond the horizon of the graveyard. The dead of digital and open-source. Instead of jumping over using another browser of the 'fox family; you have to dig under by removing all the unnecessary junk. Telemetry, Pocket, VPN et cetera; only then do you get to trek. I see why they named it fox. Each release that grey side of the fence gets a fresh coat of paint and the holes filled. Rumours from the graves are that Cloudflare are going to introduce turnstiles to your own hole if you decide to dig.
zamadatix 1mo ago
Honest ask, no shaming, how many who read this comment either: A) Don't know what an rc file is B) Haven't manually configured one in the last few years I'm sure there are plenty on HN who are eager to say how much they love rc files, I mean to point out how many, even here, really have no attachment to these kinds of things. Of course it's very possible they don't care enough to read this far or respond either... but it's worth a shot :D
- nosioptar 1mo ago
  An rc file is a configuration file. Vim has .vimrc and bash has .bashrc For example, some distros add an alias for rm to bashrc to make it ask for confirmation (the -i switch iirc). I didnt know Firefox has one. I can't find any documentation on it either...
  - antisol 1mo ago
    Technically rc files tend to be a list of commands (usually to set config options) that are executed on startup, not actually configuration files per se. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RUNCOM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RUNCOM </pedantry>

gboss 1mo ago

I'm an avid Firefox user, but it seems that Firefox keeps getting worse. Pages forever load, when the issue does not happen in Chrome. History gets corrupted. Claude wouldn't load consistently if I had more than one tab of claude opened internal tools that used to work fine and we haven't updated struggle. I don't know if it's me but it's certainly maddening, especially when I go to Chrome on the same laptop and it just loads.

starik36 1mo ago
I use Claude all day long with Firefox - haven't seen your problem. Are you sure the issue isn't somewhere else?
mmooss 1mo ago
> Pages forever load, when the issue does not happen in Chrome. A bit tangential, but that's not a meaningful analysis (depending on how you tested): FF CHR Site 1 n Y Site 2 Y n Imagine a Firefox user: They try site 1, see Firefox fail, and so they try Chrome and it succeeds. Then they try site 2, see Firefox succeed, and stop there. They never see Chrome's problem. It's like what I've seen some DuckDuckGo users say about search engines: 'Google is better because when I can't find something on DDG I do find it on Google'. (I think there's also some confirmation bias with Chrome and Google.) It's like the old sales technique of comparing your product's features with the other product: MyProduct YourProduct Feature A X X Feature B X Feature C X X Feature D X X Feature E X Feature F X Feature G X X Feature H X X It doesn't show: Feature I X Feature J X Feature K X Feature L X Feature M X Feature N X Feature O

bastawhiz 1mo ago

> Firefox is our last best hope for browser engine diversity and competition. This isn't really true, and hasn't been for some time. It's just the only other browser engine with meaningful production users. Servo and Ladybird are both making great strides.

nickthegreek 1mo ago
It’s true up until those other browsers are released and stable.

willjp 1mo ago

wait, is this a thing? firefox is the only mainstream browser with an rcfile, that alone gives you incredible powers. I hope one day it also grows something like chrome's CDP. What is everyone so upset about?

roughly 1mo ago

There’s an old mantra from organizing: “no permanent enemies, no permanent allies.” You will never align with another group or person 100% on all things; the secret to making change is to build a coalition of those with whom you agree on an issue without holding it against them that you disagree on a different one. I disagree with Mozilla about many things, but I agree with this article - I use Firefox because it’s the only browser out there that isn’t Chrome or WebKit, and that’s worth enough to me that I’m willing to disagree with them on other issues.

andrew_lettuce 1mo ago
I like this, and I also think it will help this Canadian deal with the current position of the USA
- ygjb 1mo ago
  It's absolutely critical, and worth mentioning, that even after substantial reductions, there are a lot of Canadians still working on and contributing to Firefox!
olejorgenb 1mo ago
It's also better that the other browser in many ways. The "Awesome Bar" among them.
- weaksauce 1mo ago
  middle mouse click auto-scrolling too!
- delecti 1mo ago
  What's different about the Awesome Bar from Chrome? IIRC Chrome had the unified search/URL bar before Firefox did, and I don't remember it being very different from Firefox's implementation. If anything, I remember it being easier to add search engines in Chrome (unless it's gotten worse in the past few years since I switched to Firefox). Am I missing out on cool features of the URL bar in Firefox? Edit: made my question more specific

xbar 1mo ago

Firefox still works fine for me. Sometimes it gets greedy with some activities. I smack it around and it seems to respond. I worry that Mozilla is starving it compared to other activities.

sumanep 1mo ago

palemoon is the only independent browser

gnuplustoejam 1mo ago

If you hate on Firefox because they're on X for outreach and marketing — like every other browser — you are certifiable. Your opinion is extreme and summarily discarded as noise.

zamadatix 1mo ago
FWIW, if you're reading this article your opinion is extreme and summarily discarded as noise by pretty much everyone else too. I don't say that because I personally mind if they are on X one way or the other, I've just given up on the idea anyone but an extreme few, usually tech nerds, seem to give a damn about this topic as a whole.

throwlifeaway 1mo ago

Part of the blame for what's wrong with the web right now is on web developers: - We "need" firefox or else everything's just chrome - Forks of chrome don't count as different browsers because they all use the same engine - Using the same engine makes you basically just chrome because you can't diverge from upstream - You can't diverge from upstream because it moves too fast and you need to keep merging with it - You need to keep merging with upstream because upstream is implementing new web platform features - You need those web platform features because if you don't add them then websites will stop working in your fork - Websites will stop working in your fork because web developers don't support older browser versions - Web developers don't support older browser versions because... they don't care? If web developers had a culture of supporting, say, 10 years of previous browser versions, then chromium would lose a lot of the power it has to drag the forks (and firefox) behind it. I don't really see this happening without some sort of major culture shift, though. Maybe if we had some versioned web standard that lagged behind the "real" ones so sites could say "StableWeb 2.0 Compatible!" or something.

okanat 1mo ago
There are more layers, if you'd like to look into it. - Web developers don't support older browsers because they lack the skill and economic motivation for it. - The managers of web developers will not support them, because there is no money to be made in supporting older browsers. Nor are there career benefits in maintenance projects. No developer or manager will get promotions for it. - The actual management of the companies will not promote or compensate engineering managers or developers for maintenance projects since it doesn't contribute to "line goes up"-economics.
charcircuit 1mo ago
>You can't diverge from upstream because it moves too fast and you need to keep merging with it Blink is very modular. Merging your changes is easier than you think. Exponentially easier than creating a whole other browser engine.
strenholme 1mo ago
There’s a reason why this culture doesn’t exist: Internet Explorer 6 As recently as 2012, web developers had to make sure their websites ran on IE6, a browser from 2001, and were very frustrated that had to support this 11-year-old browser instead of being able to implement new features available with Chrome/Firefox/Opera and even newer versions of Internet Explorer. There was a lot of resentment caused by this situation, resulting in web developers just not wanting to hold back their website so that it will render correctly in some random ancient browser.

cubefox 1mo ago

The big problem for Firefox/Mozilla is that the browser is currently primarily sponsored by Google, but due to an extremely stupid antitrust ruling, Google will no longer be allowed to do this after 2026. Then Mozilla could run out of money, which would imply layoffs and Firefox likely shelving its rendering engine, with the browser becoming just another Chrome reskin. The situation is quite dire I fear. And it was all the fault of a judge seeing an alleged Google search monopoly despite the fact that countless users were already using ChatGPT rather than Google. With killing off one of the last remaining web rendering engines, the ruling would instead create a Blink/Webkit (Chrome/Safari) duopoly.

vaadu 1mo ago

Will Chrome go the way of Internet Explorer 6? Microsoft killed off all competition. Then the only improvements were Microsoft proprietary.

david_shaw 1mo ago

I hate to change the subject to something so trivial -- because I have been an exclusive Firefox user for many, many years -- but the awful moving background of this website is literally nauseating. I'm no designer, but I can't understand why someone would make a graphical choice like this. It absolutely detracts from the content, and in my case, will prevent me from reading it.

nosioptar 1mo ago
Plenty of users use the reduced motion option for accessibility reasons. The developer of this page is just an ass for ignoring it. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/At-rules/@media/prefers-reduced-motion https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/A...

imagetic 1mo ago

I’ve been using nightly and it’s f’n awesome. The future of Firefox feels great. Even switched the telemetry and reporting on to help them out.

thataccount 1mo ago

Uh, Pale Moon? Libre Wolf? There have been browsers for a long time that just browsed...

cheschire 1mo ago

Am I the only one that doesn't really care about browsers anymore because I stopped browsing the web?

jaharios 1mo ago
You are in the web right now.
- cheschire 1mo ago
  There’s a big difference between going to the same six sites every day and “browsing“ the web

jkahrs595 1mo ago

I use Zen (firefox under the hood) and I just don't understand all of the bitching people do about Firefox. Once I learned all about manifest v2 deprecation it was such an easy decision to move away from Chromium based browsers. The transition was one of the most painless things I've ever done in the software world. Literally what is the issue?

simpaticoder 1mo ago
Abject fear. They are afraid that the best option will go away. They're afraid that their perfectionism and critiques have driven it to a point of failure. They're afraid that a project is big as a browser can't really be open source. They're probably also angry at the squandering of resources at Mozilla particularly on executive salaries. But yeah it's ultimately fear.
dfbettermice 1mo ago
[dead]
Insanity 1mo ago
+1 for Zen, it's a great browser. I've been using it for 1.5 years now and I'm loving the UI/UX.
dartharva 1mo ago
It's that Firefox occasionally breaks websites because most devs only test and target for Chrome. And that it is now more CPU and RAM-hungry than Chrome. Also that it is controlled by Mozilla, an org ALLEGEDLY more interested in fringe politics than tech.
- mplanchard 1mo ago
  I literally only have Firefox installed and cannot remember the last time I encountered a broke web page.
joey5403 1mo ago
+1 for Zen

at1as 1mo ago

I think FF is in a difficult place. The only community they have any penetration in is the developer one (in its prime non-technical people would tell me they used Firefox since IE was insecure. Their techy friends would tell them to use it and the message carried some actual weight back then). Today they are a large organization that needs to make money to sustain itself, while facing declining usage, and less favorable terms for search engine integrations. And our community (developers) is the least likely to take kindly to the increasing monetization slop (promoted articles, pestering about pocket and their VPN offering, continually requiring accepting new ToS, reminders to use new features, etc). I mostly use FF, because I think we'll lose something if it disappears (for example, DRM will become intolerable, web inspectors will become more opaque, and generally future web standards may be much more controlled by a small set of large orgs with their own interests). But I use FF with less enthusiasm every passing day

nicoburns 1mo ago

For those interested in how the alternative browsers are doing, I just put up an alternative to https://wpt.fyi https://wpt.fyi (displays the WPT test results of each browser) which is IMO easier to navigate, and shows Servo / Ladybird by default: https://blitz.is/wpt https://blitz.is/wpt The headline results are: - Chrome 94.7% (1053647/1112582) - Firefox 90.6% (1008073/1112582) - Safari TP 88.7% ( 987377/1112582) - Ladybird 84.2% ( 937019/1112582) - Servo 74.4% ( 827216/1112582) So Ladybird is catching up with the other pretty fast! Although it's worth noting that it still has a bunch of extra work to do with regard to performance. (my engine Blitz whose website this is on scores 42.2% for specifically the `css` subset, compared to 50.3% for Servo and 72.3% Ladybird) (the results above exclude the `encoding` suite, because that's 1 million test ~50% of the whole suite, that doesn't really measure rendering capability).

culi 1mo ago
I love WPT (I even have a bookmark comparing all of these browsers as well as Flow[0] that I check regularly). But this is absolutely NOT how this site is meant to be used. For example, Ladybird jumped from about 30% to over 70% when it added a bunch of unicode logic. Secondly, these tests aren't all even officially agreed upon standards. Some are specific to Chrome features that are still in the draft stages for W3C. Many tests are written by the developers of the engines themselves. Chrome, having a larger team, will naturally contribute many more tests relevant to whatever feature they're prioritizing [0] https://wpt.fyi/results/?label=master&product=chrome&product=firefox&product=safari&product=ladybird&product=servo&product=flow&aligned https://wpt.fyi/results/?label=master&product=chrome&product...
- nicoburns 1mo ago
  > But this is absolutely NOT how this site is meant to be used. For example, Ladybird jumped from about 30% to over 70% when it added a bunch of unicode logic. That's true, but you can dive into specific categories to get a more accurate picture and also see which sets of tests are only implemented by Chrome.
exsol 1mo ago

yesnomaybe 1mo ago

I've been using LibreWolf (FF based) for years now and I love this thing. There are many issues coming with anti-tracking, sometimes a pain in the ... but, whenever I ask myself "what if I had to switch to Brave or other" I always end up with the same firm "Nah, I'm good". If LibreWolf would disappear, it would still be FF for me, with carefully selected and regularly reviewed privacy settings.

calvinmorrison 1mo ago

nobody is (well i guess some people are) clamoring for alternative virtual machines for Perl. I guess there are some different implementations of Java. The web browsers today are virtual machines + operating systems. I don't particularly trust or care which implementation I use. Maybe i should, but i realize having multiple implementations of the same thing isnt all that profitable.

ball_of_lint 1mo ago
Profitable for who? I think there's immense value+profit for our society in having multiple choices for what browser and browser engine you use. If you have many options, then Chrome killing adblockers with Manifest v3 is a much smaller issue.

jonotime 1mo ago

Firefox forever! On all the things! You can take it from my cold dead hands. Thank you Mozilla, for making the web a better place for humans.

charcircuit 1mo ago

>Firefox is our last best hope for browser engine diversity and competition And this is a good thing why? It just makes web developer's lives harder and wastes engine developer's time building multiple engines when they could be contributing to a single foundation making that better.

avazhi 1mo ago

Getting mad that something is on Twitter will never not be funny to me. Cutting off your nose to spite your face kind of thing. Anyway, I’ll stick with FF for the adblocking but these Mozilla guys need to piss off with the constant popups for new features I don’t give a shit about (like a VPN). 1Password has been doing the same thing lately, too. Both my browser and my password manager fall into the category of software that should absolutely never bother or distract me from whatever I’m trying to do.

chrysoprace 1mo ago

I use Firefox, but Mozilla is increasingly eroding user trust and being primarily funded by Google to avoid a monopoly does not give me confidence either. When Google implement an anti-user feature, Mozilla have to begrudgingly implement it, and that is not a healthy ecosystem. There's a good chance that I'll move from Firefox when Ladybird reaches feature-parity, but they'll likely fall into the non-standard standards (Chrome-pushed features) trap all the same to avoid having sites break. I don't know how we solve this, other than to hold Google accountable, but that in turn hurts Firefox. At least in that case we'll hopefully have Ladybird as a truly independent browser.

Fizz43 1mo ago
>When Google implement an anti-user feature, Mozilla have to begrudgingly implement it Why would ladybird be any different? The developer is not anti corporate and is closer ideologically to Google than Mozilla.

aladine 1mo ago

This article seems directly target me. I was a Firefox fanboy and switch to Vivaldi for daily driver work browser. I still keeps Firefox for personal browsing. If Firefox could address the performance issue when opening many tabs, I definitely go back to Firefox.

realysy 1mo ago

Firefox is my first browser, and I've been using it for over 10 years. I like its cross-platform sync and addons.

SanjayMehta 1mo ago

I stopped using Firefox when they forced out Eich over his personal views.

cdnsteve 1mo ago

Didn't firefox have a TOS changed where they own all your content? Update: To whoever downvoted this, go read: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1iyuvjf/introducing_a_terms_of_use_and_updated_privacy/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/1iyuvjf/introducin...

nosioptar 1mo ago
Re-read the top comment in the link you posted as well as the Mozilla blog post. It says you give Mozilla a license, not ownership of your content. Dont get me wrong, I object to anything and everything they'd be doing that requires a license to my private data. Fuck that and fuck Mozilla. I just think it's important to be accurate when calling out scummy techbros on their bullshit.

asveikau 1mo ago

I still use firefox when I'm on a proper unix desktop, like *BSD or Linux running x11. This is just force of habit from when I started using those in the '90s, with the old closed source Netscape 4.7 binaries, and eventually mozilla suite, and Firefox when that started out. When I'm using windows or mac I use chrome. I've used chrome on x11 before. But somehow it never hooked me.

protocolture 1mo ago

Criticism is not "throwing out with the bathwater" Criticism is criticism. Its daft to think something should be exempt from criticism because it is good or necessary.

linuxhansl 1mo ago

I am hanging on! At home I only use Firefox. At work, unfortunately, I need Chrome for a few things that do not work well with Firefox (most Google products), but for everything else I use Firefox. IMHO, that Firefox can only really stay free if it is supported by donations (i.e. people like us who use it). Anything else will lead to various things that either push people away or make less free - probably both.

stubish 1mo ago
Could be. Pity there is no way to donate to Firefox. You can only donate to Mozilla for 'mission to keep the Web open and free', with an unknown fraction going to Firefox development. People have been deliberately disenfranchised from voting with their wallets for decades.

al_borland 1mo ago

> The only holdout would be Apple Safari, hanging in there only because it’s the enforced default on iPhones. This is one of the big reasons I'm against the EU trying to force Apple to open up the iPhone and allow other rendering engines. The market share of the iPhone is the only reason Google doesn't have 90+% marketshare, at which point no one will even bother testing in other browsers or worrying if features are Chrome-only. It will be Internet Explorer all over again. I know some devs want this, because it will make their life easier, but you're assuming Google will keep doing what you want and like even after all the competition is gone. That's a bad bet.

theokrueger 1mo ago
this is a very stange reason to take a stance against (forcibly) opening up ios? it's not like the types of webapps that are broken on firefox dont also force you to install an app if you're on a phone. i do wish govts. with spines had real power over big tech besides threatening userbase numbers, since basically everyone in the space is due for a breakup

kakadu 1mo ago

Why isn't Firefox funded from the state as a utility and is instead left to rot in the hands of the "free" market? If ff needs to turn a profit to survive how can it not follow the directives of the market?

xedrac 1mo ago

Conservatives like Firefox too.

fooker 1mo ago

No sorry, I give Firefox a try about once a year and every time so far I have switched back because some random websites were unusable. Maybe it works if you are de-googling your life at the same time and consciously choose to use apps over websites whenever possible.

dfbettermice 1mo ago
[dead]
SlimyHog 1mo ago
What websites? I've been using Firefox exclusively forever and the only times I've had to switch browsers was doing my passport application and I had to find a windows desktop to get that to work
- InvertedRhodium 1mo ago
  99% of the time I just change my UA to Chrome and the incompatible site works fine.
- fooker 1mo ago
  The usual culprits are government, bank, or google websites. Youtube and Google docs occasionally break in amusing ways. Definitely Google's fault to a large extent, but it is what it is. A friend recently got into making JS games, the FPS is always unplayable on Firefox. I'm not going to be snotty and ask someone doing this for fun to test stuff on multiple browsers. SVG rendering occasionally slows down to a crawl. I used to open up bug reports ten or so years ago when I worked on something SVG related, but none of those bugs got looked at from what I can tell. If I always have to have Chromium installed as a fallback, might as well use it.

tamimio 1mo ago

My personal rule: anyone who uses any chromuim based browser is a tech illiterate. Firefox has been my browser since I ever remember touching a computer, netescape before too. It’s even the best performing browser too, I have had more than 1500 tabs in one machine a couple weeks ago on a laptop of 16gib ram, running 1% of those on chromium based and it will crash. Plus the proper ad blocking and control over privacy, making it the last bastion of browsers right now.

antisol 1mo ago
> My personal rule: anyone who uses any chromuim based browser is a tech illiterate That's funny, that's exactly how I feel about people who haven't jumped ship from firefox yet. > I have had more than 1500 tabs in one machine a couple weeks ago on a laptop of 16gib ram, running 1% of those on chromium based and it will crash. I have 1940 tabs open in my chromium-based browser right now. This machine has 16GB RAM. It's running just fine, thanks. It's been this way for weeks. I opened a new tab to reply to this. > Plus the proper ad blocking and control over privacy, making it the last bastion of browsers right now. All that stuff is just built into brave. Which is chromium-based.

codexon 1mo ago

I want to be able to recommend firefox to everybody, but after 15 years of chrome and going back to firefox, it still feels jank. Web apps like twitter youtube discord that is left open for a few hours take up >2gb ram and is jittery. I have to shift+esc and close them to make them run smoothly again. Why hasn't stuff like this been fixed yet? Why do I need to open about:profiles just to launch a new profile?

paaloeye 1mo ago

What do people hate Chromium so much? I genuinely don't understand. AFAICS, it's one of the most decent C++ codebase.

Insanity 1mo ago
I'm sure it's mostly Chrome and not Chromium that people hate.

T_Potato 1mo ago

I love firefox. I did the swap 20 years ago to Chrome, and then swapped again 10 years ago. Firefox is the goat.

Insanity 1mo ago

I'm holding on.. in a way. I've switched to Zen about a year ago after ~2 decades of Firefox. It's a fork of Firefox so I'm counting it as supporting Firefox anyway. However, on my iPhone and iPad I've stuck with Safari. Because it's "good enough", I'm not a heavy phone user, and really any browser on iOS is just a reskin of Safari given they don't allow different web browser engines.

mnming 1mo ago

I am definitely hanging on my Firefox! Personally I have the same view to things like Github, Google, and many companies/products that offer public services (largely) for free for mass. Granted they have their own monetization scheme behind it, I don't feel I am entitled to used them, I feel grateful regardless.

999900000999 1mo ago

The issue is building a browser is not profitable by itself. You’d need to sell an annual subscription of 150$ to like 10 million people to get a browser that’s actually developed for users and not in some bizarre exploitive fashion.

stephen_g 1mo ago
The current spend on Firefox development is only about $290 million per year, not the $1.5bn you're talking about... But at the end of the day, it's not the amount of money that matters, it's the goals of the people running it.
- mmooss 1mo ago
  > it's not the amount of money that matters I think that matters quite a bit. Otherwise, if you've got a spare $1,000, build us a browser. Maybe vibe code it?
- 999900000999 1mo ago
  If you sell it on Steam or the Mac App Store we’re talking about a minimum of 30% gone off top. Marketing costs money. Taxes, etc. Not everyone is going to pay the full 150$. Various discount programs would probably exist. Anyway, even if my numbers are off not enough people will pay for a browser for this to be a viable business. If you disagree you can start today and I’ll gladly subscribe. Not a fork, no build a new browser from scratch with feature parity to chrome
  - eviks 1mo ago
    > Not a fork, I guess you know you're wrong because why else would you need this bizarre requirement?
    - 999900000999 1mo ago
      Because otherwise you can git clone Firefox , change it's name and call it a new browser. I guess if we really get technical we could say you can fork, but need to independently implement updates going forward.

Aozora7 1mo ago

I switched to Firefox when chrome announced manifest v3, and I'm still happy with it. Not only I get a browser with a real adblock, now that I got used to multi-account containers, I can't go back to chrome since it has no good equivalent. And I'm also using it on mobile since it's one of the few mobile browsers with extensions too.

t067633 1mo ago

I don't love FireFox. I love my uBlock Origin.

rauli_ 1mo ago

He seems to completely ignore Ladybird project for some reason.

andai 1mo ago

What's the significance of being on X?

nosioptar 1mo ago
The guy that bought twitter is a Nazi. To the inevitable down voters, I'm not calling musk a Nazi because I dont like him, I call him a Nazi because he did a friggin' heil Hitler salute.
- andai 1mo ago
  Interesting. I thought he was about free speech and reducing government spending. (Musk, I mean, not Hitler, in case there was any confusion!)
  - nosioptar 1mo ago
    If you believe that, I've got a bridge to sell you. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk's_Salute_at_Donald_Trump's_Second_Inauguration.gif https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Elon_Musk's_Salute_at_Don...

collinvandyck76 1mo ago

Of my cohorts, I am probably the most loyal firefox fan. That said, I've broken up with it twice, and am currently in the second breakup b/c at work we're mandated to use the Island browser due to security reasons, and my work machine absolutely cannot handle two browsers running while I also have all of the work dependencies and IDEs and slack running. I know much of this is subjective, but the chrome experience just feels better / faster. This is what precipitated the first breakup, and when I think about the situation now, it feels like this dynamic is probably long lasting. It does make me sad though. I'll come back to firefox later, perhaps when I get a laptop refresh and can be a little more cavalier with RAM.

modeswitch 1mo ago

I use Firefox because it's a user agent. Chrome is a vendor agent.

hirvi74 1mo ago

I'm good with my Safari, but thanks. (Though, I do use FF on Windows).

rammy1234 1mo ago

somehow this little content made me to set default browser to Firefox on mac. I am so easy get convinced. I dont know what problems Firefox has, why firefox not improving developer experience, focusing on building new products, making it light weight and performant. But I am going to try again after 2 years. Its going to be amazing.

godwinson__4-8 1mo ago

Aren't most of the complicated and useful parts of Chrome in Chromium? Isn't that sufficiently divorced from most of what makes Chrome unpalatable to people who appreciate Firefox as an alternative? Why then aren't there more forks of Chromium? I would think with the progression of SOTA LLMs it should not be long now before everyone can simply ride their own custom flavor of Chromium.

mantra2 1mo ago

I’ve always been a Firefox fan, and I used it exclusively for quite some time. However, I had to switch back to Brave after they blocked clipboard managers from seeing what you copy in private windows, and there was no way to turn it off. I know about profiles and containers, but this is something I need for my workflow. Now that Brave has proper containers, I’m running out of reasons to miss Firefox other than my ideals.

dev1ycan 1mo ago

The only real threat to firefox is ladybird, that's it, Brave and other chromium browsers are not it.

tjdnjsrmsdidgkr 1mo ago

Totally right. On Earth, nothing is perfect, and nothing satisfies everyone. Yeah, you can feel uncomfortable or disappointed, but Firefox is still the best option we have. We should hold the line for Firefox.

dmfdmf 1mo ago

Late to the party but it does not matter what users or Mozilla does. The problem is all the Big Corps and Gov sites now refuse to work with anything but a chromium browser. We can debate Firefox features and Mozilla missteps until the cows come home and it won't make a difference. The clock is ticking. To save FF, Mozilla needs to enter the DC swamp, hire PR and lobbists to buy politicians to pass a law to force Gov.gov and (if possible) Big Corp sites to support Firefox. Maybe they can ally with EFF or others who understand Google's (don't be evil, lol) deepstate roots.

CrimsonRain 1mo ago

Firefox is shit because Mozilla is run by garbage people. I have used Firefox for 10 years; for many years I was on nightly to help testing. Their ui was bad, they could not get ui locks up issue fixed for many years, and instead of focusing on core browser, they time and spend money on bullshit. Kick out technical people like Eich, pays useless Baker 6M while market where keeping crashing. I'll still happily recurring donate money to Firefox, but not to Mozilla. Mozilla makes it impossible. Firefox is a lost cause, overtaken by mentally ill sjws. That's the reason it can not compete with chrome even though firefox always had a soft spot in everyone's heart back in those times. They also failed to capture new generation. Ladybird is the answer. A true diversity in the world of browsers; focused on making the best software instead of playing politics and paying 6M to useless CEO. It is still not ready but that's fine.

zzo38computer 1mo ago

Line Mode Browser has some features that have not been found anywhere else. (In some cases, old version of Firefox can be hacked to support a few of them, such as that URLs entered by the user are treated as relative to the current document; Lynx doesn't do that. But, there are also such things as the ability to pipe the output to another program, directly invoking HTTP methods, display a numbered list of links in the current document (also should be easy to do in most web browsers by adding an extension), direct cache management, etc.) I would rather avoid many of the features that Firefox and Chrome have, including CSS, JavaScripts (although JavaScript codes entered by the end user can be useful for the purpose of querying JSON data returned by the server, because such a situation is common enough to be worth), favicons, HSTS, etc, but include some features such as TLS 1.3. Some features that would be useful, I don't see anywhere, such as displaying a table of contents menu based on the <h1> etc in the HTML, commands to sort tables, saving form data to the local disk and later recalling it, calling external programs to edit text, etc. However, they just put too much stuff and make it more complicated than it should be, and many of the actual useful features are omitted. I don't want inline pictures, videos, etc either. However, some of the web developer tools can be useful, because e.g. you can display a list of the network requests.

hn_submit 1mo ago

The frustrating part is that we all know what the problem is (management) but we're powerless to do anything about it since they're holding all the cards. This frustration leads to hate which leads to many people turning away from Firefox. I'm still sticking with Firefox, at least until Ladybird comes toe-to-toe in terms of features and functionality. And then there are the web developers who make their site functional only on Chrome. They deserve a special place in Hell.

eviks 1mo ago

> Firefox is our last best hope for browser engine diversity and competition. What is the appropriate non-convoluted feeling towards the company that's been killing this hope for many years?

Psype 1mo ago

Firefox is getting milked for profit by a few individuals. User data collection, personalized ads and such for profit, while the CEO's paycheck exploded in 15 years.

stevage 1mo ago

Firefox has been my main browser for at least 10 years now. Occasionally something doesn't work right and I use Chrome for that one thing. It's nice to slightly reduce the totally overbearing presence of Google in my life.

Fizz43 1mo ago

I treat firefox the same way I treat politics. If I am around people I know understand the importance of firefox and are commited to using it then we can talk about its problems. If I am around anyone else I wont say a bad word about firefox. Why would I say a negative thing about firefox to a google chrome user, any point they make is instantly undermined by their usage of google chrome. To sit there and talk badly about firefox just reinforces their resolve in choosing google chrome. Plus I genuinely like firefox its a great browser and I dont feel bad telling people that its good.

Gazoche 1mo ago

Say what you want about Mozilla's propensity to shove useless features into Firefox, but I've been loving some of the recent addition to tabs management. Split-view tabs, vertical tabs, tab groups and tab pinning have made my work so much easier.

account42 1mo ago

Beware the wolf in sheep's clothing.

VCFundedGenYer 1mo ago

Mozilla will eventually run firefox into the ground due to Mozilla degeneracy, reliance on Google, etc. Firefox forks however are still the ones with light in their eyes. LibreWolf, Waterfox, Ironfox, keep those going.

john-titor 1mo ago

Honest question: I recently bought a mac for the first time. A long-time Firefox user I quickly realized it is draining my battery like crazy. What do people do? My whole browsing ecosystem is on Firefox Sync and I would like to keep supporting it, but I am not willing to sacrifice battery life for that

neop1x 1mo ago
Take a look at about:performance page, maybe some background tab is too active? Try some tab suspend extension like https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-discard/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-tab-disc...

kiliancs 1mo ago

I left Firefox for the first time since... well, I _think_ I used it before it was Firefox. This self-imposed exile only lasted a couple months. I left looking for low-friction answers to my need to organize tabs and content. I didn't love giving up control to some central organization to process my data, but I had promised myself I'd write one or two extensions to answer my needs "next week" for years. After doing some research, most of what I wanted already exists. Sidebery, Tab Wrangler and the new Agents window (with some styling to eliminate the default tab list), together with my other old friends like uBlock Origin, Auto Tab Discard (suspend) and a number of container-related extensions, deliver the same functionality I found elsewhere, without taking control from me. Plus, this is just me, but chromium-based browsers manage to get my m3 pro macbook with 36GB RAM hot pretty consistently with normal use. I noticed the moment I left Firefox. And I noticed the problem gone as soon as I went back to Firefox. I have often criticized Mozilla, because I care that Firefox remains the best browser, not just an alternative worth keeping.

unsungNovelty 1mo ago

> Meanwhile, the over thinkers on Hacker News come up with convoluted reasons to hate on Firefox every time the subject arises. It makes me wonder if it’s a bot campaign by Google — except, why would they bother? Not bots. Am here. Not some google bot. People putting Firefox with chrome, Vivaldi and whatever Safari users in one bag is absolutely stupid. Firefox users and community have invested heavily into Firefox unlike other browser users and the people who move from firefox for flimsy reasons like X. I will use firefox until it's available. But I don't want firefox to go on this road that they are on right now. We've done install fests and what not as communities to get Firefox installed on computers. I've stuck through firefox even when they ditched development until quantum release. It literally has effected work cos Google meet didn't use to work reliably. So if u think I will shutup about mozilla making intentional stupid decisions... Sorry not going to. First thing they should do is stop virtue signaling in their marketing stuff. Stick to technicals if they don't want to give a damn about community. That won't stop me. But I'll back off a lil. Firefox is a product of community collaboration which has also stopped recently. People who don't know that part of Firefox development... Community leaders era and stuff might think we are overreacting. We are toning it down actually since we don't want people to go to chrome. Their vision and the way it was built is why Firefox was loved even when it was technically bad. They are technically greater than or on par with chrome now. But they have lost the soul which is why there is criticism. - Not a bot.

1vuio0pswjnm7 1mo ago

The problem is not any particular "modern" web browser It is the so-called "modern" web browser itself For certain users who care about certain things, the concept is fatally flawed The problem of the so-called "modern" web browser concept is that every computing task ends up "inside the browser" and thus outside the user's control "Ad blocking" is no exception Many so-called "modern" browsers now contain their own "ad blockers" These "ad blockers" are not under the user's control^1. By putting them "inside the browser" the browser vendor has the final control, not the user These browser vendors are generally seeking to profit from advertising or marketing services For any user that seeks to avoid internet marketing and advertising, this presents a problem: the user's and the vendor's interests conflict This is why I could never take Javascript-based "ad blockers" that work "inside the browser" seriously as a long-term solution I use them, in conjunction with other methods, but I am prepared for them to stop working at any time.^2 I have always relied on programs that are "outside the browser", not under the browser vendor's control 1. In theory, if the browser is "open source", large numbers of users should be able to modify the source code to stop the browser from automatically requesting unwanted ads, tracking and telemetry. In practice, for a variety of reasons, this does not happen. The browser vendors, including Mozilla, make no effort to remove those reasons 2. This includes UBO in Firefox. The question is not if but when

firemelt 1mo ago

bro I am wanted to be firefox evangelist but alas. it not even have proper datetime picket

z_rho_one 1mo ago

One feature Firefox is really lacking is shortcuts on Android. I use Firefox on all my devices except my Android tablet. When I have a physical keyboard paird with my Android tablet and want to use keyboard shortcuts to open new tabs, switch tabs, etc. on Firefox for Android -- well, the shortcuts just don't exist. This is the only reason I use Brave instead of Firefox on my tablet. Hella annoying because my bookmarks and browsing history are not synced on the tablet, but I chose that over always having to touch the screen just to open a new browser tab.

antisol 1mo ago

> the over thinkers on Hacker News come up with convoluted reasons to hate on Firefox It's not convoluted at all: Firefox is worse today than it was in ~2012. That is all.

enesunal 1mo ago

No offence, it feels more "here's vivaldi if you haven't heard" than "let's save firefox together" to me.

samat 1mo ago

Reading this from Safari. I am willing to do my part on browser diversity but there are limits.