7 ms·

Choose Firefox Now, Or Later You Won't Get A Choice

175 points by joshmoz 12y ago

wldcordeiro 12y ago
Chose it years ago and was never really taken by Chrome, I usually install it to test against from time to time but I spend 95% of my browsing time within Nightly (daily browser for 9 years now!)
lingben 12y ago
I'm using firefox for another reason, it is the fastest, most secure, most memory efficient browser out there. Chrome doesn't even compare on benchmarks. They may have had the crown for a tiny split second a few years ago but not anymore firefox closed the distance a while ago and now they're ahead and the gap is growing.
- trhway 12y ago
  second that. Visiting sites linked from even the first rated Russian sites frequently makes your IE or Chrome catch something nasty. Never with FF.
- pzxc 12y ago
  Everything you said is absolutely true. Firefox rocks my world for all those reasons and more. Hell, I would use it just for the Tree-Style Tabs addon, which isn't available for Chrome. But I use Chrome at least as often as Firefox for one reason alone: when everything doesn't go smoothly and a page does crash, it doesn't take the whole browser down with it. When Firefox hangs and/or crashes, it's much more annoying because everything is interrupted to a greater degree. Chrome: Oops! This tab crashed, just reload it or close it and move on. Firefox: Firefox has encountered an error and must be closed. Do you wish to debug? As someone who spends a third of the day on the web professionally, and always has 10-50 tabs open, it matters.
  - findjashua 12y ago
    +1 switched to ffox primarily because of tree-style tabs.
    - MetaCosm 12y ago
      Forever on Firefox because of tree-style tabs.
    - deleted 12y ago
      [deleted]
  - jdpage 12y ago
    Yeah, the tab thing is in progress. The problem is that Chrome was designed from the ground up to be process-per-tab, while Firefox is having to adapt extensive existing code. Thankfully, plugins made it into their own processes a while ago, which has greatly reduced the number of crashes.
  - JohnTHaller 12y ago
    I don't really encounter bugs in Firefox more than maybe once a month. That said, per-tab multi-process is coming as part of Electrolysis: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis You can follow along the roadmap here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis/Roadmap https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis/Roadmap It's already available in Nightly builds just disabled by default. If you'd like to try out a Nightly on Windows without messing with your local copy of Firefox, grab a copy of Firefox Portable Nightly and it'll run with it's own separate profile and Firefox install without affecting your local one: http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable/test#nightly http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable/test#...
  - CyberShadow 12y ago
    Fortunately, Mozilla has been working on this problem for a while now: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis I believe you can enable it right now in about:config (browser.tabs.remote), but it's not production-quality yet.
- JohnTHaller 12y ago
  Don't forget that Firefox is fully open source. Rendering engine, PDF engine, updater, installer, all of it. Chrome isn't. Chromium is, but it lacks quite a few features of Chrome and Firefox and isn't available in stable builds for Windows or Mac.
- mafuyu 12y ago
  Chrome is much better than Firefox in terms of security, as the Chrome team has put a huge amount of time into it.
  - GutenYe 12y ago
    Let's just say Google have more awesome developers than Mozilla.
- wmt 12y ago
  I did not switch to Chrome a few years back because it was better, but for because Firefox was worse. If both would've worked fine I of course would've not changed. I don't know about today, but a few years back starting up Firefox was painfully slow, and when an update arrived it would first nag you about it and then during restart started checking for extension compatibilies. Even using felt sluggish and was temporarily fixed by running the sqlite vacuum in it db. Chrome for whatever reason had none these issues, and it felt even slightly nicer to use, with usability enhancements all around like more fluid animations in tab moving, and all settings on a nicely laid out web view instead of a tiny modeless window with 10 tabs. I really hope Firefox can not just catch up, but go past Chrome. Unfortunately the last time I tried it not too long ago, it didn't start but instead wanted to show that it is checking for extension compatibilies. Didn't exactly fill me with excitement.
  - holri 12y ago
    An open and free Web is much more important than those ridiculous personal complaints about tiny issues.
    - anko 12y ago
      Just interested, aren't blink/webkit still open? As long as that is true, it seems to me that there is no worries with using chrome. If google starts doing dev behind closed doors, people will just fork blink/webkit and build new browsers. I don't understand the argument that using chrome is anti-open source.
      - dkns 12y ago
        But forking blink/webkit would be a huge undertaking for anyone interested, wouldn't it? I'm not sure if there are that many companies out there who would like to go that route (imagine web browser made by facebook, that would be interesting).
      - holri 12y ago
        It is about an open WEB not Open Source. An Open Source Browser controlled by a big corporation is still a problem if it has a giant market share.
- kybernetikos 12y ago
  Also, until recently Chromes font rendering on my 'high dpi' screen has been almost impossible to look at, and I really like my gesture plugin and the way firefox syncs with mobile firefox.
- ksk 12y ago
  Could you explain how you came to the conclusion that Firefox is the most secure browser? Firefox had the most number of reported security bugs according to Secunia. http://secunia.com/vulnerability-review/browser_security.html http://secunia.com/vulnerability-review/browser_security.htm...
- ac29 12y ago
  Could you name those benchmarks where Chrome "doesn't even compare" to Firefox? On my x86_64 linux system, Firefox is marginally faster at Mozilla's Kraken benchmark (a few %), and Chrome is much faster at Google's Octane benchmark (30+%).
- emergentcypher 12y ago
  Firefox? Faster? Tell that to my browser which gets sluggish whenever I have large or complex pages open. Tell that to my browser which slows to a crawl when flash or HTML5 video is loaded. Tell that to my browser which slows every other tab to a crawl when one is slow. Tell that to my browser which allows a single tab to crash the entire show. There's a reason why I keep going back to Chrome after trying each version of Firefox for a week or two, and it's all related to basic user experience: performance and stability.
kisil_reboot 12y ago
This is baseless FUD; any serious objections he might have are only hinted at: "things I can't talk about". If everyone switched to Chrome, at worst Chrome would get complacent, as IE did, and at best, it would continue to be a great browser. Use whatever browser you like best.
- reubenmorais 12y ago
  IE only got complacent because hundreds of millions of users switched to Firefox over the years, and then the same thing with Chrome. It took them almost a decade and 50% of market share to start caring about their browser again.
- millstone 12y ago
  Everyone switching to Chrome would give Google de-facto control of the web. "No company should control the web" is a valid objection.
- nnethercote 12y ago
  > This is baseless FUD; any serious objections he might have are only hinted at: "things I can't talk about" The author is Robert O'Callahan, who is a Distinguished Engineer at Mozilla and a 15-year veteran of browser development. He's not just some random blogger spouting off.
  - dwaltrip 12y ago
    Being a distinguished engineer at Mozilla doesn't necessarily make one far more qualified to understand the vast array of potential implications of Google gaining monopoly power in a variety of web sectors.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 12y ago
      No, but it might. I'm sure the author has spent vastly more time looking at web standards and trends than I have and as such, his opinion should carry more weight than your average person. You've simply pulled out a variation on the old "correlation does not imply causation" retort.
baddox 12y ago
> So if you want an Internet --- which means, in many ways, a world --- that isn't controlled by Google, you must stop using Chrome now and encourage others to do the same. If you don't, and Google wins, then in years to come you'll wish you had a choice and have only yourself to blame for spurning it now. I sympathize with the general sentiment of the article, but this is just hyperbole. I used Firefox when it was the best browser (for me), and I'm using Chrome now because it's the best browser.
- lb27149 12y ago
  sdsd
- nnethercote 12y ago
  "I eat candy because it tastes better than vegetables". It's an analogy, and hence imperfect, but might still be useful.
  - usingpond 12y ago
    I strongly disagree with your analogy. Chrome is not a superficially better browser—as a web developer I can attest that Chrome beats out Firefox in myriad ways. Candy has no value other than flavor, and is actually bad for you. The advent of Google's release of Chrome (and the collaboration between Google and Apple engineers on WebKit) has launched the web forward at a speed that Firefox has been struggling to keep up with. That INCLUDES security and openness, not just new prefixed CSS properties. The browser war was Firefox's to lose, and they dropped the ball. They weren't ready for Chrome, and have yet to catch up.
nanexcool 12y ago
Deoesn't Mozilla get like 85% of its budget from Google? [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing
- dethstar 12y ago
  Yup, to be the default search engine. I'm so glad they get that money. aren't most biggish free(and open source) software projects in GSOC? https://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org/list/public/google/gsoc2014 https://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org/list/public/google/g... Should we stop using/trusting anything that get resources from Google, ever?
  - sheetjs 12y ago
    In fact, it looks like the blog is hosted by Blogger, which IIRC is a google company.
    - M2Ys4U 12y ago
      He addresses this in the comments on his blog: "Yeah. I use GMail too. Fortunately, switching browsers is easier than switching hosted services ... for now ... and I think it also has more impact."
  - Eyas 12y ago
    We shouldn't-- but I think the grandparent post is saying that "switch from Chrome to Firefox so as not to support Google" is not an entirely valid argument given the funding situation. Simply put, if you think "this is Google-related" is a reason to switch away from something, then maybe it becomes relevant that Google is funding a big portion of alternative sources? Obviously there are a few issues with the argument, but I think it brings up an important point.. and demands that the anti-Chrome/pro-Firefox argument matures a bit more.
    - reubenmorais 12y ago
      Roc's point is specifically about Chrome, and letting a single player control how people access the Web. Using Firefox with DuckDuckGo, or Bing, or whatever search engine you prefer is still better than using Chrome.
waffl 12y ago
Also a very happy user of Aurora, the new dev tool features in r33 are making Firefox yet more wonderful to browse/work with. I was using Chrome exclusively for years until I began to realize the general ramifications of giving in to an 'all Google' internet. My only issue with Firefox is the still seemingly slower JS engine. I still feel SpiderMonkey isn't still as fast as V8.
glesica 12y ago
I just wish they'd focus more on producing a great browser and less on random, wacky, side projects. Not that the side projects aren't interesting, but the browser is what I care about. Even this person, who is associated with Mozilla can't say anything more positive than "[w]e have a good browser...". That said, he's right... `sudo apt-get install firefox`.
- ejr 12y ago
  There are halo benefits to the side projects as well. Some experimental or otherwise "daring" functionality in a side project can become invaluable within the browser core at a future date. It's a bit like an external stimulus triggering a random mutation that proves to be beneficial. Ex: Popup blocking required modification to the browser before it became a vital core feature.
Kiro 12y ago
I'm not going to switch because of some imaginary ideological reason I couldn't care less about. I'm not going to switch until Firefox is actually better (I use both on a daily basis when developing).
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
socalnate1 12y ago
Err... Didn't Internet Explorer have 90% browser share 10 years ago? (i.e. Microsoft achieved exactly what this post is warning against?) And yet, somehow we aren't all living in a Microsoftian dystopia.
- x0x0 12y ago
  they did stall the internet as a development target for at least 5 years
- wycats 12y ago
  O_o
- dblohm7 12y ago
  And yet, now we hear people complaining that everybody should just run WebKit, while at the same time whining about needing to hack around IE6.
- nnethercote 12y ago
  Browser share is only part of the puzzle. Microsoft didn't also own several of the most popular sites on the web. See callahad's comment for more detail (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8151400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8151400).
- spain 12y ago
  Yeah, and then Firefox came along.
- jomohke 12y ago
  It did. But Microsoft disbanded the IE team after they won that marketshare, which gave other browsers years to catch up. Things may have looked very different had they continued the heavy development pace after releasing IE6. IE had a fast and modern engine compared to contemporaries when IE6 was first released, but then it went five years without any major updates. I'm undecided about Google's growing browser control, but in any case I don't see Google making the same mistakes as Microsoft.
- radmuzom 12y ago
zorked 12y ago
I use Firefox, but it would be easier to recommend if it had a sandbox.
- dblohm7 12y ago
  Coming soon! https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox
diminoten 12y ago
I've been using IE11 ever since Chrome caused BSODs on my custom build, and frankly I don't really notice the difference very much.
tunnuz 12y ago
The End is Nigh!
ubercow 12y ago
There are always going to be people that use a particular browser for a particular reason and it's that competition that encourages the organization behind the browser to improve. Instead of using baseless FUD to try and win people over to your browser, work on making it the best from a usability and performance standpoint so people move over to it naturally. That's what Chrome did to me when it came out and what keeps me using it today.
- dj-wonk 12y ago
  Sure, competition is good, but Google vs. Mozilla isn't a fair fight. Google has more resources. As long as Google improves Chrome enough to keep users, they can simultaneously do things that are not good for the Web as a whole. They can, on average, get away with it if people don't complain or switch away due to the parts that are unsavory. The article does not lay out a watertight argument, but I see what it is trying to say: pay attention to more than just the obvious features of a browser -- also pay attention to its implications in the market. Smart people realize that it is not in your self-interest to simply buy the best (cheapest or fastest) product or service, if defined narrowly. If you care about reliability, longevity, and service, sometimes you pay more or accept some idiosyncrasies, because your goal is to support an organization that behaves in a way that you like. It is naive to think that "choosing the best browser" is simply a matter of the browser itself. There is a bigger story, and if you don't at least recognize this, it might be time to take the blinders off.
- callahad 12y ago
  I'm not sure it's baseless. Mozilla's hand was recently forced on H.264, and the Chrome team is strong-arming Web Components through while explicitly disregarding standards bodies. Not to mention their own promise to avoid unprefixed, non-standard platform features in Blink. "Chrome will be shipping Shadow DOM publicly (in conjunction with Moz) in the very near future. Whatever API gets shipped will be frozen almost immediately. If you want to suggest name changes, as we brainstormed a bit at the f2f, do so RIGHT NOW or forever hold your peace." http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0103.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0103.h... That's not the Web I want.
yousifa 12y ago
Even if chrome does end up gaining a monopoly on browsers (or google in general is in a monopoly position), eventually they will cease to innovate and will be taken over by the underdog (or the newest/best solution).
- chatmasta 12y ago
  Is that true? It seems like an oft-quoted truism that when companies get big, they "turn into Microsoft," or (gasp), "turn into IBM!" This assertion is logically impossible to verify or prove. There have been less than a dozen monolith tech corporations, every one is different, and the world changes every day. Just because Microsoft "stopped innovating" (is that even true?) does not mean that Googe will. That kind of macroscopic extrapolation is predicated on weak logic and completely unreliable. It remains to be seen, and likely forever will, whether large corporations suffer from some unavoidable, fundamental flaw that prohibits them from innovating. As a casual observer, it seems to me that Google is very aware there is a risk of that, and its executives consistently make moves to mitigate it. They silo small innovation labs like Google X within the company, they fund "moonshots," and they acquire as many innovative small teams as they can. They do all of that with more resources at their disposal than almost any other company in the world. So it stands to reason that if Google is consciously aware of the risk of innovation slowdown ("turning into Microsoft"), and actively throwing more money at avoiding the problem than any other company on the planet, that they have a far better chance of continued innovation than "the underdog."
- kedean 12y ago
  I think the difference this time is that if Google controls the browser AND the biggest websites, then they'll be more confident introducing features that lock you into that browser (See the offline storage bit mentioned in the article). With those lockin features more common, people will be less willing to support other browsers in the future, because they wont be able to offer those exclusive features. With that large userbase that can use cool features like those, other large websites will take advantage of the proprietary API's (see, the issue with webkit css prefixes right now). Lack of possible support from users means most alternatives wouldn't be able to gain any traction, which is going to discourage any growth in that field. A comparison I think is valid is if an
brianpgordon 12y ago
I've been using Firefox as my primary browser since it was called Firebird, and I have to say that I'm on the cusp of switching away from it. It seems like every time I update, the UI breaks. With the latest update, for some reason my address bar is gigantic: https://i.imgur.com/2QlIZwo.png https://i.imgur.com/2QlIZwo.png It also enabled address bar autocomplete, which I did not previously have enabled. The previous update, Firefox 29, came with Australis, which left me with a completely unusable configuration and required me to fiddle with yet another "classic restorer" style addon. I now use: * "Classic theme restorer" to gut Australis * "oldbar" to get rid of the AwesomeBar * "Old default image style" to restore the old style for displaying raw images. * "Switch to tab no more" to cut off yet another head of the hydra that is AwesomeBar * "Undo close tab replacement" to restore the Recently closed tabs menu. All to fight back against UI-breaking new features. I also had to muddle around with browser.urlbar settings in about:config to restore some kind of sane behavior to the address bar after AwesomeBar was introduced. But what can I do? I obviously need security updates and the latest support for web standards, so I can't ignore new versions. But I'm tired of fighting a browser that I no longer recognize.
- jdpage 12y ago
  What's wrong with the AwesomeBar? Every time the Firefox team has come out with a new feature, I've been excited about it, and it's improved my workflow.
  - dbbolton 12y ago
    It's completely useless to most if not all pentadactyl and vimperator users, and actually interfered with my configuration of the former. Now no addon icons can be added to pentadactyl's statusline (well they can be, but they reset every time you start the browser).
    - tarminian 12y ago
      How many firefox users actually use those add-ons? I'm a vim user, but that doesn't mean I want to use vim key-bindings everywhere.
jdhendrickson 12y ago
I was a huge proponent of Firefox for years (since Netscape 6), version 30 broke it so badly I had to move on to Chrome, two tabs open no plugins and it crashes on a machine with 16Gb of ram if left open over night, and the bug is trivial to reproduce. Updates haven't remedied the situation. When Google no longer monetizes Firefox via paying them to be the default search engine I don't see Firefox staying relevant, it's a shame I miss built in (no plugin needed) tab grouping, I miss having a search box that doesn't tell Google everything I'm typing as I'm typing it, and I certainly miss the smaller memory footprint. I just can't handle the constant crashing, the webpages that render as a completely black box (whether video acceleration is check marked or not) and the continued degradation in performance while they spend developer cycles on things like making it look like Chrome (a move I detested) or removing options power users and professionals use. Most of the time I can use about:config to restore functionality but should I have too? (echos of Gnome).
- bdcravens 12y ago
  When Google no longer monetizes Firefox via paying them to be the default search engine I don't see Firefox staying relevant You think Microsoft would hesitate cutting a Bing deal?
  - agapos 12y ago
    Well, afaik they didn't break their bones to do so before. Also, if Google is gone, no matter how small amount MS would offer for defaulting Bing, Mozilla would have no choice but to accept it.
- dblohm7 12y ago
  > two tabs open no plugins and it crashes on a machine with 16Gb of ram if left open over night, and the bug is trivial to reproduce Keep in mind that whatever the bug is, it's probably only trivial to reproduce for you. If it truly was globally easy to reproduce, it would send the crash stats (https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/products/Firefox https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/products/Firefox) through the roof. Having said that, it's not good when crashes make your Firefox installation unusable. Firefox has a feature called about:crashes that will provide you with the URLs of your crash reports. Have you considered going to http://support.mozilla.org http://support.mozilla.org and reporting this?
BinaryIdiot 12y ago
You shouldn't use a product only because you're worried the competition will do something theoretical; you should use a product that provides you with the best value. For me, right now, it's Chrome. Before Chrome it was Opera. Mozilla needs to focus on providing better value in their browser rather the current releases which seem to always contain odd half-assed features.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
DanBlake 12y ago
Im sad to say there is only one reason left that I continue to use firefox as my main browser- The most excellent security addon, noscript, by Giorgio Maone. (and before you say chrome can block javascript- understand noscript does much, much more than just block JS) If he was to port that to chrome, I would be gone in a heartbeat. Chrome is (from my experiences browsing the web with both browsers), a better browser in almost every sense of the word. Faster updates, Feels much faster browsing and overall just a more enjoyable user experience. If firefox wants to stay relevant, they will have a real battle on their hands. This latest design update firefox did is especially infuriating. The steps firefox was making me take to revert my experience to what I knew was insulting. I understand you want me to use this new interface, but you are going to hardcode it so much that I have to read a 3 page doc and install random addons to revert it? This mentality seems to plague mozilla. A bunch of FOSS guys get to decide what the rest of end up with every release.
- PhantomGremlin 12y ago
  Agree. NoScript is fantastic and under-appreciated. Also agree on how FF updates tend to be infuriating. I'd really love to see FF do something really smart with certificate management. E.g. like Certificate Patrol but more advanced. That would be a major security improvement over what's out there.
- greenyoda 12y ago
  I also use Firefox as my primary browser (with NoScript), but when I need to use Chrome, I find that the NotScripts[1] extension provides much of the same functionality. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/notscripts/odjhifogjcknibkahlpidmdajjpkkcfn https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/notscripts/odjhifo...
- fabrice_d 12y ago
  And how will that be better for you if you switch to chrome? Will google listen more to your UI wishes? I also don't understand why you claim that Chrome has faster updates, since both browsers have a 6 weeks update cycle.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
eikenberry 12y ago
I switched to Chromium back when they first started with the fast release system and kept breaking my plugins. I've thought about switching back but need Chromium's ability to run newer versions of Flash. So I want to run both, but I have a large bookmark collection I use all the time and have found no good way to either keep the 2 browsers bookmarks in sync or an external bookmark management program. Anyone have a good solution to bookmarks? This would be for Debian.
- cpeterso 12y ago
  I haven't used it, but Xmarks Sync is an add-on for Firefox and Chrome that synchronizes your bookmarks. Xmarks Inc also maintains the popular LastPass add-on. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xmarks-sync/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xmarks-sync/
chrismorgan 12y ago
I have been a Firefox user from 0.93 or so, except for a year or so of Chrome usage on a USB disk when Firefox really was performing too badly in that case—but once that was fixed I gladly moved back to Firefox. I see how people use Chrome and wonder how they can possibly stand it, especially if they end up with more than twenty tabs in a window… Firefox is certainly way better for tab management for me. I use Firefox both because I believe it is the best browser for me and for philosophical reasons. (I also have approved of almost every change to Firefox that I’ve seen; 4 was a great thing, Australis was a great thing, &c.) I have also been gravely concerned, as the author is, by what I see at Google. Five years ago, had there been Google offices in Melbourne, I would have enjoyed working for them. In the three years since then I steadily became opposed to Google and I do not believe that I would be willing to be employed by them; they are now pushing the Chrome brand far too far, using a very significant marketing budget on it purely to get people to use it, and from their other web properties pushing Chrome constantly, almost always to my mind deceptively and far too often outright lying. Telling people to upgrade from IE6 was entirely understandable, and I could even forgive that they will push their own browser rather than merely pushing for a newer browser of whichever brand. But if I’m using Firefox, why would you go pestering me to “upgrade” to this browser with claims of its being faster which are simply not true? Four years ago they were true, to be sure; Firefox was slower than Chrome. But that has long since been fixed and the two are competitive now, Chrome winning in some areas, Firefox winning in others. (Of course, I believe Firefox to be winning in more, but that can immediately be discounted as a biased and unreasoned view.) I look at what punishment Microsoft got for its anticompetitive behaviour and I wonder how long it can be before Google is dealt with. Because as it is, they’re just as great a threat as Microsoft ever was to the web, if not greater. Google looks fair and feels foul.
- greenyoda 12y ago
  "I look at what punishment Microsoft got for its anticompetitive behaviour and I wonder how long it can be before Google is dealt with." That's a good point. The article says that Google is "writing contracts with Android OEMs forcing them to make Chrome the default browser". When Microsoft was doing that a while back with Internet Explorer, they were sued by the government and forced to unbundle IE from Windows.
mconley 12y ago
Viva la resistance!
redxblood 12y ago
I have just one comment: Go mozilla, you rock.
cwyers 12y ago
IE and Safari are always (for some reasonable definition of always) going to exist. Firefox is the browser whose entire revenue stream is based around hoping Google DOESN'T want a browser monoculture to develop. If Mr. O'Callahan wants to use Firefox as a way to stop Google from taking over the web, there's two things he as a Mozilla coder he could do that would be far more effective than histrionic blog posts that say "other bad things are happening that I can't even talk about" and expect me to be able to fill in the blanks: 1) Build a better browser than Chrome, and 2) Come up with a way to generate revenue that doesn't depend on Google's benevolence towards Firefox.
tonteldoos 12y ago
A bigger takeaway from this blog may be the centralization of information (regardless of the company that does it). I'd be less worried about my browser of choice, and more about my ability to retain ownership of my data. FWIW, I've started self-hosting as much as possible of my 'critical' items, be it at home, or on a VPS. You don't need vast amounts of bandwidth, and it's become much easier to setup over time (OpenVPN, OwnCloud, gitlab, or even just using a NAS with such features). Items that you want to share are a slightly different matter (size, bandwidth, server security, etc), but in general I dislike putting my entire life on social media anyway.
- seanflyon 12y ago
  I friend of mine is making it more user friendly to "self-host" third party apps on hardware you have control over. https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/
leeoniya 12y ago
quote about Mike Shaver (mozilla co-founder, now at FB) from http://john.jubjubs.net/2011/09/15/mike-shaver-thanks/ http://john.jubjubs.net/2011/09/15/mike-shaver-thanks/ > And he affected my framing of the problem deeply – I remember one day a couple of years back when we were talking about some market share point, thinking about how incredibly, insanely competitive the browser technology landscape was – and he said to me: “Look, this is the world we wanted. And this is the world we made.” Wow. Exactly right. He taught me so much about how enormous an impact a group of dedicated people can make.
simonlebo 12y ago
I just tried using Firefox again after reading this. I stopped after 2 minutes, when I realised installing the flash plugin was a pain. Apparently Adobe stopped supporting Flash for linux in 2012.
bkerensa 12y ago
<3 Firefox
boards2x 12y ago
If the first thing you have to say about yourself is that you're "Christian", I don't know that I really care what else you have to say. Are non Christians suppose to be offended ? Will I be able to ignore the fact that he may be a pro-lifer supporting attacks on abortion clinics? A tea-bagger... Find it tasteless to present oneself this way, and it seems it's only Anglo-Saxon Christians who choose to do so. As if they're a persecuted minority coming out of the closet. Did anyone ever see non Christians introducing themselves on their blog by their religion or belive system? Jon Doe, atheist? Jane Doe, Muslim?
Qwertious 12y ago
I think half of the comments on this thread are missing the point - to paraphrase Richard Stallman, the link is arguing from freedom, not convenience. Responding with "but Chrome is better" may be true or it may be false, but in both cases it is irrelevant. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....
ksk 12y ago
I try to use FF every now and then, but unfortunately, Chrome is just a better browser in every respect, for my needs. My configuration is pretty simple, no flash, no java, no silverlight, no nothing. With FF I always get the feeling like I'm running a single threaded app, and where one tab can interfere with the performance of the other.
syf81 12y ago
Telling people to stop using a Google product, because it's a Google product... from a Google blog platform, hilarious.
ludwik 12y ago
I was using Firefox to keep the web free, but then they agreed to start supporting DRM and I figured out here is no point to do this any more. I use Chrome now.
- M2Ys4U 12y ago
  Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.
GHFigs 12y ago
Choose Opera Now, Opt-out of Chrome/Firefox fanboy slapfights.
Shorel 12y ago
But I like Opera.
WorldWideWayne 12y ago
Good. I hope Mozilla goes away. They think everything should be "web". They think everything should be "open". They don't respect native platforms and they want to keep the web duct-taped together the way it is instead of making something better that is actually an application platform. I disagree on all counts. (Remember folks, don't down-vote just because you disagree! Sorry if it offends your sensibilities :)
cordite 12y ago
Mozilla is not interested in enterprise users, so my employer chooses to only use chrome and internet explorer internally, and for supporting internal and external products.

175 points by joshmoz 12y ago

Chose it years ago and was never really taken by Chrome, I usually install it to test against from time to time but I spend 95% of my browsing time within Nightly (daily browser for 9 years now!)

lingben 12y ago

I'm using firefox for another reason, it is the fastest, most secure, most memory efficient browser out there. Chrome doesn't even compare on benchmarks. They may have had the crown for a tiny split second a few years ago but not anymore firefox closed the distance a while ago and now they're ahead and the gap is growing.

trhway 12y ago
second that. Visiting sites linked from even the first rated Russian sites frequently makes your IE or Chrome catch something nasty. Never with FF.
pzxc 12y ago
Everything you said is absolutely true. Firefox rocks my world for all those reasons and more. Hell, I would use it just for the Tree-Style Tabs addon, which isn't available for Chrome. But I use Chrome at least as often as Firefox for one reason alone: when everything doesn't go smoothly and a page does crash, it doesn't take the whole browser down with it. When Firefox hangs and/or crashes, it's much more annoying because everything is interrupted to a greater degree. Chrome: Oops! This tab crashed, just reload it or close it and move on. Firefox: Firefox has encountered an error and must be closed. Do you wish to debug? As someone who spends a third of the day on the web professionally, and always has 10-50 tabs open, it matters.
- findjashua 12y ago
  +1 switched to ffox primarily because of tree-style tabs.
  - MetaCosm 12y ago
    Forever on Firefox because of tree-style tabs.
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
- jdpage 12y ago
  Yeah, the tab thing is in progress. The problem is that Chrome was designed from the ground up to be process-per-tab, while Firefox is having to adapt extensive existing code. Thankfully, plugins made it into their own processes a while ago, which has greatly reduced the number of crashes.
- JohnTHaller 12y ago
  I don't really encounter bugs in Firefox more than maybe once a month. That said, per-tab multi-process is coming as part of Electrolysis: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis You can follow along the roadmap here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis/Roadmap https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis/Roadmap It's already available in Nightly builds just disabled by default. If you'd like to try out a Nightly on Windows without messing with your local copy of Firefox, grab a copy of Firefox Portable Nightly and it'll run with it's own separate profile and Firefox install without affecting your local one: http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable/test#nightly http://portableapps.com/apps/internet/firefox_portable/test#...
- CyberShadow 12y ago
  Fortunately, Mozilla has been working on this problem for a while now: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis I believe you can enable it right now in about:config (browser.tabs.remote), but it's not production-quality yet.
JohnTHaller 12y ago
Don't forget that Firefox is fully open source. Rendering engine, PDF engine, updater, installer, all of it. Chrome isn't. Chromium is, but it lacks quite a few features of Chrome and Firefox and isn't available in stable builds for Windows or Mac.
mafuyu 12y ago
Chrome is much better than Firefox in terms of security, as the Chrome team has put a huge amount of time into it.
- GutenYe 12y ago
  Let's just say Google have more awesome developers than Mozilla.
wmt 12y ago
I did not switch to Chrome a few years back because it was better, but for because Firefox was worse. If both would've worked fine I of course would've not changed. I don't know about today, but a few years back starting up Firefox was painfully slow, and when an update arrived it would first nag you about it and then during restart started checking for extension compatibilies. Even using felt sluggish and was temporarily fixed by running the sqlite vacuum in it db. Chrome for whatever reason had none these issues, and it felt even slightly nicer to use, with usability enhancements all around like more fluid animations in tab moving, and all settings on a nicely laid out web view instead of a tiny modeless window with 10 tabs. I really hope Firefox can not just catch up, but go past Chrome. Unfortunately the last time I tried it not too long ago, it didn't start but instead wanted to show that it is checking for extension compatibilies. Didn't exactly fill me with excitement.
- holri 12y ago
  An open and free Web is much more important than those ridiculous personal complaints about tiny issues.
  - anko 12y ago
    Just interested, aren't blink/webkit still open? As long as that is true, it seems to me that there is no worries with using chrome. If google starts doing dev behind closed doors, people will just fork blink/webkit and build new browsers. I don't understand the argument that using chrome is anti-open source.
    - dkns 12y ago
      But forking blink/webkit would be a huge undertaking for anyone interested, wouldn't it? I'm not sure if there are that many companies out there who would like to go that route (imagine web browser made by facebook, that would be interesting).
    - holri 12y ago
      It is about an open WEB not Open Source. An Open Source Browser controlled by a big corporation is still a problem if it has a giant market share.
kybernetikos 12y ago
Also, until recently Chromes font rendering on my 'high dpi' screen has been almost impossible to look at, and I really like my gesture plugin and the way firefox syncs with mobile firefox.
ksk 12y ago
Could you explain how you came to the conclusion that Firefox is the most secure browser? Firefox had the most number of reported security bugs according to Secunia. http://secunia.com/vulnerability-review/browser_security.html http://secunia.com/vulnerability-review/browser_security.htm...
ac29 12y ago
Could you name those benchmarks where Chrome "doesn't even compare" to Firefox? On my x86_64 linux system, Firefox is marginally faster at Mozilla's Kraken benchmark (a few %), and Chrome is much faster at Google's Octane benchmark (30+%).
emergentcypher 12y ago
Firefox? Faster? Tell that to my browser which gets sluggish whenever I have large or complex pages open. Tell that to my browser which slows to a crawl when flash or HTML5 video is loaded. Tell that to my browser which slows every other tab to a crawl when one is slow. Tell that to my browser which allows a single tab to crash the entire show. There's a reason why I keep going back to Chrome after trying each version of Firefox for a week or two, and it's all related to basic user experience: performance and stability.

kisil_reboot 12y ago

This is baseless FUD; any serious objections he might have are only hinted at: "things I can't talk about". If everyone switched to Chrome, at worst Chrome would get complacent, as IE did, and at best, it would continue to be a great browser. Use whatever browser you like best.

reubenmorais 12y ago
IE only got complacent because hundreds of millions of users switched to Firefox over the years, and then the same thing with Chrome. It took them almost a decade and 50% of market share to start caring about their browser again.
millstone 12y ago
Everyone switching to Chrome would give Google de-facto control of the web. "No company should control the web" is a valid objection.
nnethercote 12y ago
> This is baseless FUD; any serious objections he might have are only hinted at: "things I can't talk about" The author is Robert O'Callahan, who is a Distinguished Engineer at Mozilla and a 15-year veteran of browser development. He's not just some random blogger spouting off.
- dwaltrip 12y ago
  Being a distinguished engineer at Mozilla doesn't necessarily make one far more qualified to understand the vast array of potential implications of Google gaining monopoly power in a variety of web sectors.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 12y ago
    No, but it might. I'm sure the author has spent vastly more time looking at web standards and trends than I have and as such, his opinion should carry more weight than your average person. You've simply pulled out a variation on the old "correlation does not imply causation" retort.

baddox 12y ago

> So if you want an Internet --- which means, in many ways, a world --- that isn't controlled by Google, you must stop using Chrome now and encourage others to do the same. If you don't, and Google wins, then in years to come you'll wish you had a choice and have only yourself to blame for spurning it now. I sympathize with the general sentiment of the article, but this is just hyperbole. I used Firefox when it was the best browser (for me), and I'm using Chrome now because it's the best browser.

lb27149 12y ago
sdsd
nnethercote 12y ago
"I eat candy because it tastes better than vegetables". It's an analogy, and hence imperfect, but might still be useful.
- usingpond 12y ago
  I strongly disagree with your analogy. Chrome is not a superficially better browser—as a web developer I can attest that Chrome beats out Firefox in myriad ways. Candy has no value other than flavor, and is actually bad for you. The advent of Google's release of Chrome (and the collaboration between Google and Apple engineers on WebKit) has launched the web forward at a speed that Firefox has been struggling to keep up with. That INCLUDES security and openness, not just new prefixed CSS properties. The browser war was Firefox's to lose, and they dropped the ball. They weren't ready for Chrome, and have yet to catch up.

nanexcool 12y ago

Deoesn't Mozilla get like 85% of its budget from Google? [1] [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation#Financing

dethstar 12y ago
Yup, to be the default search engine. I'm so glad they get that money. aren't most biggish free(and open source) software projects in GSOC? https://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org/list/public/google/gsoc2014 https://www.google-melange.com/gsoc/org/list/public/google/g... Should we stop using/trusting anything that get resources from Google, ever?
- sheetjs 12y ago
  In fact, it looks like the blog is hosted by Blogger, which IIRC is a google company.
  - M2Ys4U 12y ago
    He addresses this in the comments on his blog: "Yeah. I use GMail too. Fortunately, switching browsers is easier than switching hosted services ... for now ... and I think it also has more impact."
- Eyas 12y ago
  We shouldn't-- but I think the grandparent post is saying that "switch from Chrome to Firefox so as not to support Google" is not an entirely valid argument given the funding situation. Simply put, if you think "this is Google-related" is a reason to switch away from something, then maybe it becomes relevant that Google is funding a big portion of alternative sources? Obviously there are a few issues with the argument, but I think it brings up an important point.. and demands that the anti-Chrome/pro-Firefox argument matures a bit more.
  - reubenmorais 12y ago
    Roc's point is specifically about Chrome, and letting a single player control how people access the Web. Using Firefox with DuckDuckGo, or Bing, or whatever search engine you prefer is still better than using Chrome.

waffl 12y ago

Also a very happy user of Aurora, the new dev tool features in r33 are making Firefox yet more wonderful to browse/work with. I was using Chrome exclusively for years until I began to realize the general ramifications of giving in to an 'all Google' internet. My only issue with Firefox is the still seemingly slower JS engine. I still feel SpiderMonkey isn't still as fast as V8.

glesica 12y ago

I just wish they'd focus more on producing a great browser and less on random, wacky, side projects. Not that the side projects aren't interesting, but the browser is what I care about. Even this person, who is associated with Mozilla can't say anything more positive than "[w]e have a good browser...". That said, he's right... `sudo apt-get install firefox`.

ejr 12y ago
There are halo benefits to the side projects as well. Some experimental or otherwise "daring" functionality in a side project can become invaluable within the browser core at a future date. It's a bit like an external stimulus triggering a random mutation that proves to be beneficial. Ex: Popup blocking required modification to the browser before it became a vital core feature.

Kiro 12y ago

I'm not going to switch because of some imaginary ideological reason I couldn't care less about. I'm not going to switch until Firefox is actually better (I use both on a daily basis when developing).

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

socalnate1 12y ago

Err... Didn't Internet Explorer have 90% browser share 10 years ago? (i.e. Microsoft achieved exactly what this post is warning against?) And yet, somehow we aren't all living in a Microsoftian dystopia.

x0x0 12y ago
they did stall the internet as a development target for at least 5 years
wycats 12y ago
O_o
dblohm7 12y ago
And yet, now we hear people complaining that everybody should just run WebKit, while at the same time whining about needing to hack around IE6.
nnethercote 12y ago
Browser share is only part of the puzzle. Microsoft didn't also own several of the most popular sites on the web. See callahad's comment for more detail (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8151400 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8151400).
spain 12y ago
Yeah, and then Firefox came along.
jomohke 12y ago
It did. But Microsoft disbanded the IE team after they won that marketshare, which gave other browsers years to catch up. Things may have looked very different had they continued the heavy development pace after releasing IE6. IE had a fast and modern engine compared to contemporaries when IE6 was first released, but then it went five years without any major updates. I'm undecided about Google's growing browser control, but in any case I don't see Google making the same mistakes as Microsoft.
radmuzom 12y ago

zorked 12y ago

I use Firefox, but it would be easier to recommend if it had a sandbox.

dblohm7 12y ago
Coming soon! https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox

diminoten 12y ago

I've been using IE11 ever since Chrome caused BSODs on my custom build, and frankly I don't really notice the difference very much.

tunnuz 12y ago

The End is Nigh!

ubercow 12y ago

There are always going to be people that use a particular browser for a particular reason and it's that competition that encourages the organization behind the browser to improve. Instead of using baseless FUD to try and win people over to your browser, work on making it the best from a usability and performance standpoint so people move over to it naturally. That's what Chrome did to me when it came out and what keeps me using it today.

dj-wonk 12y ago
Sure, competition is good, but Google vs. Mozilla isn't a fair fight. Google has more resources. As long as Google improves Chrome enough to keep users, they can simultaneously do things that are not good for the Web as a whole. They can, on average, get away with it if people don't complain or switch away due to the parts that are unsavory. The article does not lay out a watertight argument, but I see what it is trying to say: pay attention to more than just the obvious features of a browser -- also pay attention to its implications in the market. Smart people realize that it is not in your self-interest to simply buy the best (cheapest or fastest) product or service, if defined narrowly. If you care about reliability, longevity, and service, sometimes you pay more or accept some idiosyncrasies, because your goal is to support an organization that behaves in a way that you like. It is naive to think that "choosing the best browser" is simply a matter of the browser itself. There is a bigger story, and if you don't at least recognize this, it might be time to take the blinders off.
callahad 12y ago
I'm not sure it's baseless. Mozilla's hand was recently forced on H.264, and the Chrome team is strong-arming Web Components through while explicitly disregarding standards bodies. Not to mention their own promise to avoid unprefixed, non-standard platform features in Blink. "Chrome will be shipping Shadow DOM publicly (in conjunction with Moz) in the very near future. Whatever API gets shipped will be frozen almost immediately. If you want to suggest name changes, as we brainstormed a bit at the f2f, do so RIGHT NOW or forever hold your peace." http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0103.html http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2014Feb/0103.h... That's not the Web I want.

yousifa 12y ago

Even if chrome does end up gaining a monopoly on browsers (or google in general is in a monopoly position), eventually they will cease to innovate and will be taken over by the underdog (or the newest/best solution).

chatmasta 12y ago
Is that true? It seems like an oft-quoted truism that when companies get big, they "turn into Microsoft," or (gasp), "turn into IBM!" This assertion is logically impossible to verify or prove. There have been less than a dozen monolith tech corporations, every one is different, and the world changes every day. Just because Microsoft "stopped innovating" (is that even true?) does not mean that Googe will. That kind of macroscopic extrapolation is predicated on weak logic and completely unreliable. It remains to be seen, and likely forever will, whether large corporations suffer from some unavoidable, fundamental flaw that prohibits them from innovating. As a casual observer, it seems to me that Google is very aware there is a risk of that, and its executives consistently make moves to mitigate it. They silo small innovation labs like Google X within the company, they fund "moonshots," and they acquire as many innovative small teams as they can. They do all of that with more resources at their disposal than almost any other company in the world. So it stands to reason that if Google is consciously aware of the risk of innovation slowdown ("turning into Microsoft"), and actively throwing more money at avoiding the problem than any other company on the planet, that they have a far better chance of continued innovation than "the underdog."
kedean 12y ago
I think the difference this time is that if Google controls the browser AND the biggest websites, then they'll be more confident introducing features that lock you into that browser (See the offline storage bit mentioned in the article). With those lockin features more common, people will be less willing to support other browsers in the future, because they wont be able to offer those exclusive features. With that large userbase that can use cool features like those, other large websites will take advantage of the proprietary API's (see, the issue with webkit css prefixes right now). Lack of possible support from users means most alternatives wouldn't be able to gain any traction, which is going to discourage any growth in that field. A comparison I think is valid is if an

brianpgordon 12y ago

I've been using Firefox as my primary browser since it was called Firebird, and I have to say that I'm on the cusp of switching away from it. It seems like every time I update, the UI breaks. With the latest update, for some reason my address bar is gigantic: https://i.imgur.com/2QlIZwo.png https://i.imgur.com/2QlIZwo.png It also enabled address bar autocomplete, which I did not previously have enabled. The previous update, Firefox 29, came with Australis, which left me with a completely unusable configuration and required me to fiddle with yet another "classic restorer" style addon. I now use: * "Classic theme restorer" to gut Australis * "oldbar" to get rid of the AwesomeBar * "Old default image style" to restore the old style for displaying raw images. * "Switch to tab no more" to cut off yet another head of the hydra that is AwesomeBar * "Undo close tab replacement" to restore the Recently closed tabs menu. All to fight back against UI-breaking new features. I also had to muddle around with browser.urlbar settings in about:config to restore some kind of sane behavior to the address bar after AwesomeBar was introduced. But what can I do? I obviously need security updates and the latest support for web standards, so I can't ignore new versions. But I'm tired of fighting a browser that I no longer recognize.

jdpage 12y ago
What's wrong with the AwesomeBar? Every time the Firefox team has come out with a new feature, I've been excited about it, and it's improved my workflow.
- dbbolton 12y ago
  It's completely useless to most if not all pentadactyl and vimperator users, and actually interfered with my configuration of the former. Now no addon icons can be added to pentadactyl's statusline (well they can be, but they reset every time you start the browser).
  - tarminian 12y ago
    How many firefox users actually use those add-ons? I'm a vim user, but that doesn't mean I want to use vim key-bindings everywhere.

jdhendrickson 12y ago

I was a huge proponent of Firefox for years (since Netscape 6), version 30 broke it so badly I had to move on to Chrome, two tabs open no plugins and it crashes on a machine with 16Gb of ram if left open over night, and the bug is trivial to reproduce. Updates haven't remedied the situation. When Google no longer monetizes Firefox via paying them to be the default search engine I don't see Firefox staying relevant, it's a shame I miss built in (no plugin needed) tab grouping, I miss having a search box that doesn't tell Google everything I'm typing as I'm typing it, and I certainly miss the smaller memory footprint. I just can't handle the constant crashing, the webpages that render as a completely black box (whether video acceleration is check marked or not) and the continued degradation in performance while they spend developer cycles on things like making it look like Chrome (a move I detested) or removing options power users and professionals use. Most of the time I can use about:config to restore functionality but should I have too? (echos of Gnome).

bdcravens 12y ago
When Google no longer monetizes Firefox via paying them to be the default search engine I don't see Firefox staying relevant You think Microsoft would hesitate cutting a Bing deal?
- agapos 12y ago
  Well, afaik they didn't break their bones to do so before. Also, if Google is gone, no matter how small amount MS would offer for defaulting Bing, Mozilla would have no choice but to accept it.
dblohm7 12y ago
> two tabs open no plugins and it crashes on a machine with 16Gb of ram if left open over night, and the bug is trivial to reproduce Keep in mind that whatever the bug is, it's probably only trivial to reproduce for you. If it truly was globally easy to reproduce, it would send the crash stats (https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/products/Firefox https://crash-stats.mozilla.com/products/Firefox) through the roof. Having said that, it's not good when crashes make your Firefox installation unusable. Firefox has a feature called about:crashes that will provide you with the URLs of your crash reports. Have you considered going to http://support.mozilla.org http://support.mozilla.org and reporting this?

BinaryIdiot 12y ago

You shouldn't use a product only because you're worried the competition will do something theoretical; you should use a product that provides you with the best value. For me, right now, it's Chrome. Before Chrome it was Opera. Mozilla needs to focus on providing better value in their browser rather the current releases which seem to always contain odd half-assed features.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

DanBlake 12y ago

Im sad to say there is only one reason left that I continue to use firefox as my main browser- The most excellent security addon, noscript, by Giorgio Maone. (and before you say chrome can block javascript- understand noscript does much, much more than just block JS) If he was to port that to chrome, I would be gone in a heartbeat. Chrome is (from my experiences browsing the web with both browsers), a better browser in almost every sense of the word. Faster updates, Feels much faster browsing and overall just a more enjoyable user experience. If firefox wants to stay relevant, they will have a real battle on their hands. This latest design update firefox did is especially infuriating. The steps firefox was making me take to revert my experience to what I knew was insulting. I understand you want me to use this new interface, but you are going to hardcode it so much that I have to read a 3 page doc and install random addons to revert it? This mentality seems to plague mozilla. A bunch of FOSS guys get to decide what the rest of end up with every release.

PhantomGremlin 12y ago
Agree. NoScript is fantastic and under-appreciated. Also agree on how FF updates tend to be infuriating. I'd really love to see FF do something really smart with certificate management. E.g. like Certificate Patrol but more advanced. That would be a major security improvement over what's out there.
greenyoda 12y ago
I also use Firefox as my primary browser (with NoScript), but when I need to use Chrome, I find that the NotScripts[1] extension provides much of the same functionality. [1] https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/notscripts/odjhifogjcknibkahlpidmdajjpkkcfn https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/notscripts/odjhifo...
fabrice_d 12y ago
And how will that be better for you if you switch to chrome? Will google listen more to your UI wishes? I also don't understand why you claim that Chrome has faster updates, since both browsers have a 6 weeks update cycle.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

eikenberry 12y ago

I switched to Chromium back when they first started with the fast release system and kept breaking my plugins. I've thought about switching back but need Chromium's ability to run newer versions of Flash. So I want to run both, but I have a large bookmark collection I use all the time and have found no good way to either keep the 2 browsers bookmarks in sync or an external bookmark management program. Anyone have a good solution to bookmarks? This would be for Debian.

cpeterso 12y ago
I haven't used it, but Xmarks Sync is an add-on for Firefox and Chrome that synchronizes your bookmarks. Xmarks Inc also maintains the popular LastPass add-on. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xmarks-sync/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/xmarks-sync/

chrismorgan 12y ago

I have been a Firefox user from 0.93 or so, except for a year or so of Chrome usage on a USB disk when Firefox really was performing too badly in that case—but once that was fixed I gladly moved back to Firefox. I see how people use Chrome and wonder how they can possibly stand it, especially if they end up with more than twenty tabs in a window… Firefox is certainly way better for tab management for me. I use Firefox both because I believe it is the best browser for me and for philosophical reasons. (I also have approved of almost every change to Firefox that I’ve seen; 4 was a great thing, Australis was a great thing, &c.) I have also been gravely concerned, as the author is, by what I see at Google. Five years ago, had there been Google offices in Melbourne, I would have enjoyed working for them. In the three years since then I steadily became opposed to Google and I do not believe that I would be willing to be employed by them; they are now pushing the Chrome brand far too far, using a very significant marketing budget on it purely to get people to use it, and from their other web properties pushing Chrome constantly, almost always to my mind deceptively and far too often outright lying. Telling people to upgrade from IE6 was entirely understandable, and I could even forgive that they will push their own browser rather than merely pushing for a newer browser of whichever brand. But if I’m using Firefox, why would you go pestering me to “upgrade” to this browser with claims of its being faster which are simply not true? Four years ago they were true, to be sure; Firefox was slower than Chrome. But that has long since been fixed and the two are competitive now, Chrome winning in some areas, Firefox winning in others. (Of course, I believe Firefox to be winning in more, but that can immediately be discounted as a biased and unreasoned view.) I look at what punishment Microsoft got for its anticompetitive behaviour and I wonder how long it can be before Google is dealt with. Because as it is, they’re just as great a threat as Microsoft ever was to the web, if not greater. Google looks fair and feels foul.

greenyoda 12y ago
"I look at what punishment Microsoft got for its anticompetitive behaviour and I wonder how long it can be before Google is dealt with." That's a good point. The article says that Google is "writing contracts with Android OEMs forcing them to make Chrome the default browser". When Microsoft was doing that a while back with Internet Explorer, they were sued by the government and forced to unbundle IE from Windows.

mconley 12y ago

Viva la resistance!

redxblood 12y ago

I have just one comment: Go mozilla, you rock.

cwyers 12y ago

IE and Safari are always (for some reasonable definition of always) going to exist. Firefox is the browser whose entire revenue stream is based around hoping Google DOESN'T want a browser monoculture to develop. If Mr. O'Callahan wants to use Firefox as a way to stop Google from taking over the web, there's two things he as a Mozilla coder he could do that would be far more effective than histrionic blog posts that say "other bad things are happening that I can't even talk about" and expect me to be able to fill in the blanks: 1) Build a better browser than Chrome, and 2) Come up with a way to generate revenue that doesn't depend on Google's benevolence towards Firefox.

tonteldoos 12y ago

A bigger takeaway from this blog may be the centralization of information (regardless of the company that does it). I'd be less worried about my browser of choice, and more about my ability to retain ownership of my data. FWIW, I've started self-hosting as much as possible of my 'critical' items, be it at home, or on a VPS. You don't need vast amounts of bandwidth, and it's become much easier to setup over time (OpenVPN, OwnCloud, gitlab, or even just using a NAS with such features). Items that you want to share are a slightly different matter (size, bandwidth, server security, etc), but in general I dislike putting my entire life on social media anyway.

seanflyon 12y ago
I friend of mine is making it more user friendly to "self-host" third party apps on hardware you have control over. https://sandstorm.io/ https://sandstorm.io/

leeoniya 12y ago

quote about Mike Shaver (mozilla co-founder, now at FB) from http://john.jubjubs.net/2011/09/15/mike-shaver-thanks/ http://john.jubjubs.net/2011/09/15/mike-shaver-thanks/ > And he affected my framing of the problem deeply – I remember one day a couple of years back when we were talking about some market share point, thinking about how incredibly, insanely competitive the browser technology landscape was – and he said to me: “Look, this is the world we wanted. And this is the world we made.” Wow. Exactly right. He taught me so much about how enormous an impact a group of dedicated people can make.

simonlebo 12y ago

I just tried using Firefox again after reading this. I stopped after 2 minutes, when I realised installing the flash plugin was a pain. Apparently Adobe stopped supporting Flash for linux in 2012.

bkerensa 12y ago

<3 Firefox

boards2x 12y ago

If the first thing you have to say about yourself is that you're "Christian", I don't know that I really care what else you have to say. Are non Christians suppose to be offended ? Will I be able to ignore the fact that he may be a pro-lifer supporting attacks on abortion clinics? A tea-bagger... Find it tasteless to present oneself this way, and it seems it's only Anglo-Saxon Christians who choose to do so. As if they're a persecuted minority coming out of the closet. Did anyone ever see non Christians introducing themselves on their blog by their religion or belive system? Jon Doe, atheist? Jane Doe, Muslim?

Qwertious 12y ago

I think half of the comments on this thread are missing the point - to paraphrase Richard Stallman, the link is arguing from freedom, not convenience. Responding with "but Chrome is better" may be true or it may be false, but in both cases it is irrelevant. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/open-source-misses-the-point....

ksk 12y ago

I try to use FF every now and then, but unfortunately, Chrome is just a better browser in every respect, for my needs. My configuration is pretty simple, no flash, no java, no silverlight, no nothing. With FF I always get the feeling like I'm running a single threaded app, and where one tab can interfere with the performance of the other.

syf81 12y ago

Telling people to stop using a Google product, because it's a Google product... from a Google blog platform, hilarious.

ludwik 12y ago

I was using Firefox to keep the web free, but then they agreed to start supporting DRM and I figured out here is no point to do this any more. I use Chrome now.

M2Ys4U 12y ago
Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

GHFigs 12y ago

Choose Opera Now, Opt-out of Chrome/Firefox fanboy slapfights.

Shorel 12y ago

But I like Opera.

WorldWideWayne 12y ago

Good. I hope Mozilla goes away. They think everything should be "web". They think everything should be "open". They don't respect native platforms and they want to keep the web duct-taped together the way it is instead of making something better that is actually an application platform. I disagree on all counts. (Remember folks, don't down-vote just because you disagree! Sorry if it offends your sensibilities :)

cordite 12y ago

Mozilla is not interested in enterprise users, so my employer chooses to only use chrome and internet explorer internally, and for supporting internal and external products.