6 ms·

When you still need to explain why Mozilla matters, despite a market share of ~20%, I guess it's already doomed... Practically nobody uses a browser, or any ot

by tjansen 14y ago

When you still need to explain why Mozilla matters, despite a market share of ~20%, I guess it's already doomed... Practically nobody uses a browser, or any other product, only to "fight monoculture". It may be an honorable goal, but a product needs compelling advantages beyond that.

robotmay 14y ago
The reason I use Firefox over Chrome is mostly down to memory usage with a large amount of tabs open. Chrome really starts chugging when you get over 40 tabs (and it's a pain to organise them too). It also has some really weird caching problems which you only seem to stumble upon if you're doing a lot of web development.
- Xion 14y ago
  That's a bit ironic. I remember not so long ago I've heard many people who switched to Chrome were deeming Firefox "memory hungry". I haven't heard similar complaints about Chrome up until now.
  - mhd 14y ago
    Firefox improved quite a bit with the more recent rapid release cycle. And don't forget the "organise" part. Once you get beyond a certain amount of tabs in a window, the usual tabbed arangement shows its weakness -- and at this point, you probably need something like XUL to expand the GUI, what Chrome/Safari have to offer in this regard just doesn't seem to cut it. TreeStyle Tabs is basically my #1 reason why I'm sticking with Firefox.
    - kanzure 14y ago
      > TreeStyle Tabs is basically my #1 reason why I'm sticking with Firefox. Tree Style Tabs is, of course, one of the greatest things ever to happen to Firefox. It's on the list immediately after FireBug. These days, I have been switching over to xmonad (and other simple window managers). Instead of using tabs inside of a browser, I use windows for each page. Next, I have a global key binding (C-o) that brings up windows as I type out tags which I can set with C-j. This way, I don't need tabs anymore, and I don't need impossibly long lists. I can just type the thing I want. C-o mdn, done. C-o google, done. C-o gmail, done. C-o irssi, yep. I am still trying to figure out if this is better than constantly seeing a list of open tabs.
      - mhd 14y ago
        That's a bit similar to the way I did it way back when Firefox came out. One of the early window managers that supported this, probably pwm. And it does work quite okay as a simple tab substitute for most applications. For browsers, I would need some kind of hierarchy support, though. A bit harder to do in a window manager, but then you'd have it for all kinds of applications. Maybe even combine it with some additional exposed information -- so without support you manager your hierarchy yourself, but if there's an easy way to get a buffer list, the top-level would be from the wm, and the second level from that list. I would need some kind of display for a browser, though. I'm fine with on-demand buffer lists in editors (and actually turn off sidebars when I use Sublime), but for my browsing habits I'm better off with a list that's always visible.
      - onedognight 14y ago
        FWIW, you xmonad technique is easily emulated in Firefox. Try C-l mdn, etc. The awesome bar really is awesome. Not only does it search open tabs, but it also searches your history and titles and it learns.
  - Wilya 14y ago
    It depends on the usage. Users have different habits. Firefox's memory usage is a bit less predictable (and can get crazy, especially when you leave badly coded js websites open for days in a row) and there are more situations when you say to yourself "I'm leaking memory, I'd better restart", but Chrome memory usage grows faster when you open more tabs. Plus, Chrome UI is less suited to many tabs: favicons stop appearing beyond around 30 tabs (for me, it's probably machine-dependent), and the omnibar doesn't give you a way to switch to already open tabs by default. Plus, Chrome autoupdates aren't exactly optimized for low-end configs.
  - lucian1900 14y ago
    Chrome is great at releasing memory (since it often is just killing a process) and it does tend to use less memory with few tabs. But even from Chrome's birth, Firefox was already using less memory with lots of tabs.
  - josteink 14y ago
    I've seen Chrome claim up to 512MB ram per tab on several occasions when you keep it running for a while. Chrome could be enough to use my (old) system's 8GB of RAM. Now I have a 32GB system so it's less of an issue, but Chrome is still seriously a memory hog.
  - nnethercote 14y ago
    It's a very common observation that Chrome can't handle more than a few 10s of tabs. In comparison, I know several people who regularly have more than 500 tabs open in Firefox -- 1200 is the highest number I've heard, though not all of these were loaded at once thanks to Firefox's "Don't load tabs until selected" option.
    - groby_b 14y ago
      500 open tabs? Good lord, I don't have that many bookmarks! I'm really curious, why would one do that?
      - shitlord 14y ago
        I've had a little over a hundred open at one point... I go browsing on HN and reddit a lot. I click on a bunch of different links to open in new tabs, and once the tabs start overflowing, I move them to different tab groups, and eventually and forget about them. Since I usually close my browser when I am done browsing and reopen it when I want to browse again, it does not make much of a difference in terms of snappiness.
  - dredmorbius 14y ago
    It's a mixed bag. Firefox uses far less memory per tab, but still chugs down more memory with time. Chrome uses metric shit-tons of memory, but its multi-threading allows individually killing tabs (or just massacring them in bulk if necessary, which it is). When memory's tight, Firefox seems to bog down as a whole, while Chrome gets boggy on individual pages (and you can kill/reload these as needed). I find myself using both though I'll fairly routinely go through and kill off Chrome tabs, and periodically restart Firefox, to keep memory management reasonable. Firefox's tab and state management is far superior to Chrome. Chrome plays better with some advanced sites (notably Google's own webpages, surprise, surprise).
- nathan_long 14y ago
  I've heard several people say they keep lots of tabs open like you do and I'm curious why. Personally, I find I never need more than ~10 for the task at hand. Also, if I ever DO have more than that open, the titles get too small to read and I start forgetting what I have. I either go flipping through all of them to find one, or I just give up and open a duplicate tab, making the problem worse. Instead, if I want to look at something later, I usually tag it in Pinboard. Later, I can scroll down through a readable list of things I've recently bookmarked, or if I vaguely remember it, I can search by tags or text to find it. Given this, I can't see a reason to have so many tabs open. Can you explain why you like to work that way?
  - robotmay 14y ago
    It's honestly out of laziness. I mostly just keep opening tabs and can't be arsed to go back through them and decide which ones to keep. I've tried using all manner of sites like Pinboard, but none of them work as I like. I want a one-click bookmark button where I don't have to tag anything. Maybe I should finally get around to building the bookmarking app I really want.
    - takluyver 14y ago
      I'm trying Pocket for a similar reason. It adds a little icon by the bookmark icon. There's no tagging or anything required, the things I save go into a private queue 'in the cloud', and it even syncs to my phone.
      - robotmay 14y ago
        I can't remember why I stopped using Pocket. I really need to write down reasons why I stop using software/libraries etc; there always comes a time when I need to justify it and I can never remember the reason :D
    - Shorel 14y ago
      I do use Instapaper for that. With some one-click extension.
    - 14y ago
Svip 14y ago
I think that is a little petty. While I may be a vivid Mozilla supporter (and user of Firefox!), I did too get the strange feel of it being a bit of a 'whining'. At least the title gave that impression. But reading the entry, it is actually rather good reasoning for why Mozilla won't switch to WebKit. I am not sure WebKit-dev really needs more companies telling them what to do. Or fight over what to be done. While others may disagree, I consider XUL a compelling advantage over the alternatives, because I can modify my browser to my liking, without writing my own browser from scratch. I am not trying to be conservative, but I like the way Firefox does things. Yes, there are issues, it is hardly perfect (I use Chromium to watch Flash and use Java at home, because I fear Firefox's heavy memory footprint[1]). And Firefox's desktop share has remained rather stable the past year, along with Chrome's share.[2] [1] Although, in fairness, I do usually have over 100 tabs open. [2] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/internet-explorer-still-growing-as-windows-7-starts-its-decline/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/intern...
Offler 14y ago
Then I suggest you read the article as he gives a very good explanation.
- tjansen 14y ago
  He gives a lot of political reasons for that, and I agree fully with them, but in the end the only thing that matters is the resulting product. Don't get me wrong, I am very thankful for what Mozilla did for the web at a time when IE was practically the only browser. And I also see that they continue innovate. Mozilla can only survive if a sizable percentage of end users perceive Firefox as the best browser for them, and this usually means that Firefox needs to provide the best user experience. Personally I think that other browsers currently provide a better user experience, and I see a lot of people around me switching from FF to Chrome. The reason for that is not Webkit , but Firefox's user interface.
  - pjmlp 14y ago
    Funny, this is the same argumentation I see on open vs commercial software. In the end only the product matters.
Proleps 14y ago
I use Firefox because it is free software. It feels more honest than Chrome, IE or Opera.
- Drakim 14y ago
  Is Firefox more free than Chromium?
  - Proleps 14y ago
    Some parts of Chromium lack a free license[1], but is is a lot more free than Chrome. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_%28web_browser%29#Licensing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_%28web_browser%29#Lice...
- mpyne 14y ago
  I keep Firefox up-to-date because it's the only web browser on Linux that appears to support the PKCS#11/Client-SSL/CoolKey/etc. needed to support using smartcards for SSL-enabled authentication on websites.
Ygg2 14y ago
I don't think fighting a monoculture is a bad thing. Monoculture is bad in the long run, there are several implications to it mostly security wise. So its not just monoculture. It's also Mozilla's wast ecosystem of customization and the good will it's projects generate. Look at it this way - Did Chrome made/sponsor PDF reader in JS? Did it sponsor a Flash VM in JS? Did Google Chrome team made tools other than would help all vendors equally? Dart and NaCl are valiant efforts but they help Chrome first and other browsers second.
- hollerith 14y ago
  >I don't think fighting a monoculture is a bad thing. he didn't imply it was bad, just that no one in this environment is going to switch to or stick with Firefox just to fight monoculture.
guelo 14y ago
I'm pretty sure you're wrong about that. The last time we had a corporate controlled monoculture there really was little practical reason to switch away from Microsoft to Mozilla except the idealism of fighting against corporate control, in fact, there were plenty of practical reasons not to switch since a big chunk of the web at the time worked only on IE browsers. But significant people did switch, enough to make a difference.
fpgeek 14y ago
I think you missed an important point. OP is not arguing people should be using Firefox or other Mozilla products to "fight monoculture". OP is arguing that in order to deliver browsers (and other products) with compelling advantages in a way that advances Mozilla's mission, Mozilla needs to maintain their own rendering engine(s).
- PommeDeTerre 14y ago
  What good is having an independent rendering engine if essentially every other aspect of Firefox as of late has been a copy of how Chrome or Safari handles things? I'm talking about stuff like getting rid of the traditional menu bar and status bar, hiding the protocol in the URL input field, support for SPDY, the new tab page, silent updates, the built-in PDF viewer of the upcoming Firefox 19, and forth. Meanwhile, we've also seen them spinning their wheels with failed me-too initiatives like Firefox for Mobile and Firefox OS, rather than producing any true innovation. Ever since Firefox 4, all that Mozilla has managed to deliver is the Chrome experience, but in a less-effective manner. It makes perfect sense why people are leaving Firefox for Chrome; they'll get a nearly identical UI in Chrome, but they'll get new features sooner, and with better performance.
  - alistair77 14y ago
    I use Firefox Nightly and the latest Chrome stable. You're just plain incorrect. The Firefox user experience is very different to Chrome. Sure there are similarities but it's ridiculous to claim it's just a copy. They've taken a completely different approach to their built-in PDF viewer and as a developer I can tell you there's a huge number of differences in the way that FF and Chrome handle networking and interface standards. And, yes, these are noticeable to my non-developer friends and family. The reason so many non-techies are using Chrome is that Google has a much stronger brand presence than Mozilla and has, at least in the UK, spent a fortune on advertising. I love both of these browsers for different reasons. Please don't claim they're the same just for the sake of making a point.
    - blibble 14y ago
MatthewPhillips 14y ago
The lady doth protest too much, methinks.

by tjansen 14y ago

robotmay 14y ago

The reason I use Firefox over Chrome is mostly down to memory usage with a large amount of tabs open. Chrome really starts chugging when you get over 40 tabs (and it's a pain to organise them too). It also has some really weird caching problems which you only seem to stumble upon if you're doing a lot of web development.

Xion 14y ago
That's a bit ironic. I remember not so long ago I've heard many people who switched to Chrome were deeming Firefox "memory hungry". I haven't heard similar complaints about Chrome up until now.
- mhd 14y ago
  Firefox improved quite a bit with the more recent rapid release cycle. And don't forget the "organise" part. Once you get beyond a certain amount of tabs in a window, the usual tabbed arangement shows its weakness -- and at this point, you probably need something like XUL to expand the GUI, what Chrome/Safari have to offer in this regard just doesn't seem to cut it. TreeStyle Tabs is basically my #1 reason why I'm sticking with Firefox.
  - kanzure 14y ago
    > TreeStyle Tabs is basically my #1 reason why I'm sticking with Firefox. Tree Style Tabs is, of course, one of the greatest things ever to happen to Firefox. It's on the list immediately after FireBug. These days, I have been switching over to xmonad (and other simple window managers). Instead of using tabs inside of a browser, I use windows for each page. Next, I have a global key binding (C-o) that brings up windows as I type out tags which I can set with C-j. This way, I don't need tabs anymore, and I don't need impossibly long lists. I can just type the thing I want. C-o mdn, done. C-o google, done. C-o gmail, done. C-o irssi, yep. I am still trying to figure out if this is better than constantly seeing a list of open tabs.
    - mhd 14y ago
      That's a bit similar to the way I did it way back when Firefox came out. One of the early window managers that supported this, probably pwm. And it does work quite okay as a simple tab substitute for most applications. For browsers, I would need some kind of hierarchy support, though. A bit harder to do in a window manager, but then you'd have it for all kinds of applications. Maybe even combine it with some additional exposed information -- so without support you manager your hierarchy yourself, but if there's an easy way to get a buffer list, the top-level would be from the wm, and the second level from that list. I would need some kind of display for a browser, though. I'm fine with on-demand buffer lists in editors (and actually turn off sidebars when I use Sublime), but for my browsing habits I'm better off with a list that's always visible.
    - onedognight 14y ago
      FWIW, you xmonad technique is easily emulated in Firefox. Try C-l mdn, etc. The awesome bar really is awesome. Not only does it search open tabs, but it also searches your history and titles and it learns.
- Wilya 14y ago
  It depends on the usage. Users have different habits. Firefox's memory usage is a bit less predictable (and can get crazy, especially when you leave badly coded js websites open for days in a row) and there are more situations when you say to yourself "I'm leaking memory, I'd better restart", but Chrome memory usage grows faster when you open more tabs. Plus, Chrome UI is less suited to many tabs: favicons stop appearing beyond around 30 tabs (for me, it's probably machine-dependent), and the omnibar doesn't give you a way to switch to already open tabs by default. Plus, Chrome autoupdates aren't exactly optimized for low-end configs.
- lucian1900 14y ago
  Chrome is great at releasing memory (since it often is just killing a process) and it does tend to use less memory with few tabs. But even from Chrome's birth, Firefox was already using less memory with lots of tabs.
- josteink 14y ago
  I've seen Chrome claim up to 512MB ram per tab on several occasions when you keep it running for a while. Chrome could be enough to use my (old) system's 8GB of RAM. Now I have a 32GB system so it's less of an issue, but Chrome is still seriously a memory hog.
- nnethercote 14y ago
  It's a very common observation that Chrome can't handle more than a few 10s of tabs. In comparison, I know several people who regularly have more than 500 tabs open in Firefox -- 1200 is the highest number I've heard, though not all of these were loaded at once thanks to Firefox's "Don't load tabs until selected" option.
  - groby_b 14y ago
    500 open tabs? Good lord, I don't have that many bookmarks! I'm really curious, why would one do that?
    - shitlord 14y ago
      I've had a little over a hundred open at one point... I go browsing on HN and reddit a lot. I click on a bunch of different links to open in new tabs, and once the tabs start overflowing, I move them to different tab groups, and eventually and forget about them. Since I usually close my browser when I am done browsing and reopen it when I want to browse again, it does not make much of a difference in terms of snappiness.
- dredmorbius 14y ago
  It's a mixed bag. Firefox uses far less memory per tab, but still chugs down more memory with time. Chrome uses metric shit-tons of memory, but its multi-threading allows individually killing tabs (or just massacring them in bulk if necessary, which it is). When memory's tight, Firefox seems to bog down as a whole, while Chrome gets boggy on individual pages (and you can kill/reload these as needed). I find myself using both though I'll fairly routinely go through and kill off Chrome tabs, and periodically restart Firefox, to keep memory management reasonable. Firefox's tab and state management is far superior to Chrome. Chrome plays better with some advanced sites (notably Google's own webpages, surprise, surprise).
nathan_long 14y ago
I've heard several people say they keep lots of tabs open like you do and I'm curious why. Personally, I find I never need more than ~10 for the task at hand. Also, if I ever DO have more than that open, the titles get too small to read and I start forgetting what I have. I either go flipping through all of them to find one, or I just give up and open a duplicate tab, making the problem worse. Instead, if I want to look at something later, I usually tag it in Pinboard. Later, I can scroll down through a readable list of things I've recently bookmarked, or if I vaguely remember it, I can search by tags or text to find it. Given this, I can't see a reason to have so many tabs open. Can you explain why you like to work that way?
- robotmay 14y ago
  It's honestly out of laziness. I mostly just keep opening tabs and can't be arsed to go back through them and decide which ones to keep. I've tried using all manner of sites like Pinboard, but none of them work as I like. I want a one-click bookmark button where I don't have to tag anything. Maybe I should finally get around to building the bookmarking app I really want.
  - takluyver 14y ago
    I'm trying Pocket for a similar reason. It adds a little icon by the bookmark icon. There's no tagging or anything required, the things I save go into a private queue 'in the cloud', and it even syncs to my phone.
    - robotmay 14y ago
      I can't remember why I stopped using Pocket. I really need to write down reasons why I stop using software/libraries etc; there always comes a time when I need to justify it and I can never remember the reason :D
  - Shorel 14y ago
    I do use Instapaper for that. With some one-click extension.
  - 14y ago

Svip 14y ago

I think that is a little petty. While I may be a vivid Mozilla supporter (and user of Firefox!), I did too get the strange feel of it being a bit of a 'whining'. At least the title gave that impression. But reading the entry, it is actually rather good reasoning for why Mozilla won't switch to WebKit. I am not sure WebKit-dev really needs more companies telling them what to do. Or fight over what to be done. While others may disagree, I consider XUL a compelling advantage over the alternatives, because I can modify my browser to my liking, without writing my own browser from scratch. I am not trying to be conservative, but I like the way Firefox does things. Yes, there are issues, it is hardly perfect (I use Chromium to watch Flash and use Java at home, because I fear Firefox's heavy memory footprint[1]). And Firefox's desktop share has remained rather stable the past year, along with Chrome's share.[2] [1] Although, in fairness, I do usually have over 100 tabs open. [2] http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/internet-explorer-still-growing-as-windows-7-starts-its-decline/ http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2013/02/intern...

Offler 14y ago

Then I suggest you read the article as he gives a very good explanation.

tjansen 14y ago
He gives a lot of political reasons for that, and I agree fully with them, but in the end the only thing that matters is the resulting product. Don't get me wrong, I am very thankful for what Mozilla did for the web at a time when IE was practically the only browser. And I also see that they continue innovate. Mozilla can only survive if a sizable percentage of end users perceive Firefox as the best browser for them, and this usually means that Firefox needs to provide the best user experience. Personally I think that other browsers currently provide a better user experience, and I see a lot of people around me switching from FF to Chrome. The reason for that is not Webkit , but Firefox's user interface.
- pjmlp 14y ago
  Funny, this is the same argumentation I see on open vs commercial software. In the end only the product matters.

Proleps 14y ago

I use Firefox because it is free software. It feels more honest than Chrome, IE or Opera.

Drakim 14y ago
Is Firefox more free than Chromium?
- Proleps 14y ago
  Some parts of Chromium lack a free license[1], but is is a lot more free than Chrome. [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_%28web_browser%29#Licensing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_%28web_browser%29#Lice...
mpyne 14y ago
I keep Firefox up-to-date because it's the only web browser on Linux that appears to support the PKCS#11/Client-SSL/CoolKey/etc. needed to support using smartcards for SSL-enabled authentication on websites.

Ygg2 14y ago

I don't think fighting a monoculture is a bad thing. Monoculture is bad in the long run, there are several implications to it mostly security wise. So its not just monoculture. It's also Mozilla's wast ecosystem of customization and the good will it's projects generate. Look at it this way - Did Chrome made/sponsor PDF reader in JS? Did it sponsor a Flash VM in JS? Did Google Chrome team made tools other than would help all vendors equally? Dart and NaCl are valiant efforts but they help Chrome first and other browsers second.

hollerith 14y ago
>I don't think fighting a monoculture is a bad thing. he didn't imply it was bad, just that no one in this environment is going to switch to or stick with Firefox just to fight monoculture.

guelo 14y ago

I'm pretty sure you're wrong about that. The last time we had a corporate controlled monoculture there really was little practical reason to switch away from Microsoft to Mozilla except the idealism of fighting against corporate control, in fact, there were plenty of practical reasons not to switch since a big chunk of the web at the time worked only on IE browsers. But significant people did switch, enough to make a difference.

fpgeek 14y ago

I think you missed an important point. OP is not arguing people should be using Firefox or other Mozilla products to "fight monoculture". OP is arguing that in order to deliver browsers (and other products) with compelling advantages in a way that advances Mozilla's mission, Mozilla needs to maintain their own rendering engine(s).

PommeDeTerre 14y ago
What good is having an independent rendering engine if essentially every other aspect of Firefox as of late has been a copy of how Chrome or Safari handles things? I'm talking about stuff like getting rid of the traditional menu bar and status bar, hiding the protocol in the URL input field, support for SPDY, the new tab page, silent updates, the built-in PDF viewer of the upcoming Firefox 19, and forth. Meanwhile, we've also seen them spinning their wheels with failed me-too initiatives like Firefox for Mobile and Firefox OS, rather than producing any true innovation. Ever since Firefox 4, all that Mozilla has managed to deliver is the Chrome experience, but in a less-effective manner. It makes perfect sense why people are leaving Firefox for Chrome; they'll get a nearly identical UI in Chrome, but they'll get new features sooner, and with better performance.
- alistair77 14y ago
  I use Firefox Nightly and the latest Chrome stable. You're just plain incorrect. The Firefox user experience is very different to Chrome. Sure there are similarities but it's ridiculous to claim it's just a copy. They've taken a completely different approach to their built-in PDF viewer and as a developer I can tell you there's a huge number of differences in the way that FF and Chrome handle networking and interface standards. And, yes, these are noticeable to my non-developer friends and family. The reason so many non-techies are using Chrome is that Google has a much stronger brand presence than Mozilla and has, at least in the UK, spent a fortune on advertising. I love both of these browsers for different reasons. Please don't claim they're the same just for the sake of making a point.
  - blibble 14y ago

MatthewPhillips 14y ago

The lady doth protest too much, methinks.