10 ms·

Firefox Browser: best for a free web

398 points by Borlands 5y ago

trts 5y ago
It makes me sad that FF browser share has continued to decline steadily. The past couple years of releases have been some its the best in terms of my own UX, since perhaps the Phoenix era. It's pretty fast these days, the UI is good, has a lot of great extensions and privacy features. I use Brave at work to have a better chrome-based experience with gsuite. It's also a fast, excellent browser with good privacy features, built-in ad/tracker blocking and for the time being seems to be user-not-revenue-first. But using a non-free browser feels like a trap to me. Just as what happened with Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Netscape before, being the middle man between the user and the rest of the internet is just too tempting for any company not to try to leverage for their own advantage. FF hasn't been always perfect, but for 20 years now they have made a browser that didn't have a shady corporate agenda. It feels like the writing is on the wall though. Even people I know who care about FLOSS are using Chrome as their daily driver these days. Mozilla is great and I hope they continue to focus on building a best-in-class browser.
- dont__panic 5y ago
  I still ask myself: has FF browser share actually dropped that much, or has FF's privacy focus caused browser share estimates to mostly miss FF users in their counts? Most of these stats come from the exact kind of skeevy companies that I (and many other FireFox users) are using FireFox to avoid.
  - ksec 5y ago
    > FF's privacy focus caused Even before the whole privacy focused thing FF was already in decline to sub 10% market on Desktop. If you think about it the other way around, it is still hanging on to 5-10% of Desktop market after all is actually quite good. At its peak, Firefox was closing to 40% in some European countries. If you consider IE in Business Cooperate usage and Firefox are not available in those settings, 40% is a really big deal.
  - doomrobo 5y ago
    Unfortunately that's not a likely explanation. If you do even the simplest possible measurement, which is just recording user agent strings and IPs, you won't end up undercounting Firefox clients
    - boomboomsubban 5y ago
      Either uBlock Origin or Matrix comes with user agent spoofing, it's not like the practice is that rare.
      - unityByFreedom 5y ago
        Does uBlock Origin turn that on by default? That's the only way I could imagine such stats being wrong by a wide margin.
      - unityByFreedom 5y ago
        Matrix used to do this but doesn't anymore [1] and uBlock never had that feature. Please don't make stuff up. [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/927 https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/927
        boomboomsubban 5y ago
        I don't think it's fair to call not knowing that a feature was removed from a discontinued app "making stuff up." I was clearly wrong, though it is easy to change your user agent it's unlikely that many Firefox users have done it.
        unityByFreedom 5y ago
        You're right, I misunderstood your comment. I interpreted what you said as in, you can get this feature via either Matrix or uBlock. I see now you meant one of those has the feature and you weren't sure which one had it. Sorry about that. In my defense I think it can be read both ways. I'd add there is a large gap in usage between uBlock and Matrix. uBlock has over 10 million users whereas Matrix is somewhere over 100,000.
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    Firefox users avoiding those tracking sites would result in an always low user share, it would not really explain the user share dropping. Maybe an increase in privacy minded users could explain a percent or two, but not most of the drop.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
  - indymike 5y ago
    Firefox has less users than desktop Safari. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. When you factor in mobile it gets worse because Chrome (the Android default) and Safari (the only real choice on iOS) are so dominant. Also, the market share numbers reported by client side trackers like StatsCounter are very close to log file collection and analysis by companies like Kinsta.
    - darig 5y ago
      ALL my homies use Firefox. You didn't address the OP's point... how can anyone know how many Firefox users there are when Firefox users refuse to be counted? You think that the subset of people willing to install a client side tracker and the subset of people who choose to use firefox are representative of the whole? You want to believe it is that way, but it isn't.
    - eric_cc 5y ago
      How are you so sure? You really didn’t address OP’s point about content blocking and privacy tools.
      - deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
      - indymike 5y ago
        Content blocking does not change requests to the originating server. Firefox would have much better market share in log file analysis method studies than it does in client side tracker based studies if the OP was correct.
    - jamie_ca 5y ago
      iOS Firefox is actually quite nice, I've been using it as my default for a year now. Biggest win for me is tab sync, so it's pretty easy to open a tab I had loaded on my phone in my desktop browser. Sure, it's using Safari as a renderer, but these days that's hardly where the differentiating value is.
  - gilrain 5y ago
    Do you trust Mozilla? They share the numbers. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity I’ve watched the decline for years, straight from the source. These usage numbers are not affected by privacy settings.
  - jakub_g 5y ago
    My take on FF "decline" is that FF user share (%) dropped because the pie started expanding (especially on mobile). New internet users are likely to be Safari or Chrome users for whom the browser they have is good enough. And Firefox on mobile is simply not as fast as alternatives (the bar set by Chromium Android is very high), kinda painful to use unless you have a highend device, esp. JS heavy sites like Twitter work much better on Chromium. This doesn't fully describe situation, but over last 3 years, mobile users went from 50% to 75% users in my prev company's data. And Firefox is nowhere in those mobile stats.
    - PostThisTooFast 5y ago
      It doesn't help that Apple effectively bans competing browsers from iOS, by forcing them all to use abysmal WebKit. So they're little better than re-skinned Safari. "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." HACKER NEWS, YOU'RE JAGOFFS. SHOVE YOUR DISRESPECT FOR USERS STRAIGHT UP YOUR ASS. THANKS.
    - gilrain 5y ago
      Number of Firefox users is dropping, not just Firefox market share.
- sverhagen 5y ago
  I'm sad too. I wonder if it demonstrates how rare it is to get a second chance.
- starik36 5y ago
  > FF browser share has continued to decline steadily Is that really a fact though? I read somewhere that >80% FF users have Ad Blocker installed. Wouldn't that keep it hidden to Google Analytics and similar outfits that come up with browser usage stats?
  - sorry_outta_gas 5y ago
    whatsmybrowser.org returns firefox for me with some privacy plugins and ublock origin installed
    - kennywinker 5y ago
      it even knows the exact version of firefox I'm running (92.0)
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    HTTP servers can still see the clients' user agent strings.
    - darig 5y ago
      just go to about:config and set general.useragent.override to anything you want. everything still works fine. most people just set it to the latest chrome default "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/93.0.4577.63 Safari/537.36" to blend in with the crowd. It is meaningless.
  - gilrain 5y ago
    Yes. Do you trust Mozilla? They share the numbers. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity
  - executesorder66 5y ago
    It's actually about 30% that have any kind of addon : https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior
- 46756e 5y ago
  Just out of curiosity, what are some of Chrome's shady dealings? I'm not too informed on the subject.
  - skinkestek 5y ago
    > Just out of curiosity, what are some of Chrome's shady dealings? A parent company that could and would literally put ads for it on the front page of Google? (i.e. before a sesrch term has been entered) This is a place where I'm not aware that anyone else has been allowed to put anything, so if this isn't abuse of market power then I don't know what. Same with other Google web properties that magically work better in Firefox if you change the request headers..!
    - techrat 5y ago
      A company putting an ad for its own product on its own website is not an example of a shady tactic. "Allowed?" Next you'll tell me that Microsoft should be forced to exclusively advertise other browsers other than their own on Bing before search... > so if this isn't abuse of market power then I don't know what. Abuse of market power would be preventing the mention of any other browser when using search and Google has never done that. Or how about a better example: Apple actively preventing any third party web browsers on iOS, then later only allowing third party web browsers to use the Safari Engine. THAT is anticompetitive. Google simply has the better product in this case.
      - skinkestek 5y ago
        Thanks for explaining your position. I'll try to explain in some more detail why this is a problem and how governments has stepped in before: > Abuse of market power would be preventing the mention of any other browser when using search and Google has never done that. Another way to abuse market power is to use ones dominance in one maket to crush competition in another market. Microsoft was punished for this after they bundled IE with Windows back in the day. Google has gone extremely much further down the road of abusing market dominance in one market (search, ads) to crush competition in browsers. Also: did you forget my point about how Google web properties work better if you fake the headers and pretend to be Chrome? > Or how about a better example: Apple actively preventing any third party web browsers on iOS, then later only allowing third party web browsers to use the Safari Engine. THAT is anticompetitive. The value is not in the engine. The engine is something you make to get an advantage in customers mind. Many browsers, both historic and present are just skins on top of other browser engines. > Google simply has the better product in this case. So you say Tree Style Tabs work in Chrome now and it doesn't eat memory for breakfast, lunch and dinner? That's news to me ;-)
- eric__cartman 5y ago
  I would love to continue using FF, but on my machine with an Nvidia card (sigh) the scrolling in Firefox gets very choppy when using two different browser windows open on the dual monitors. And for some reason this bothers me more than it should. Maybe one of these days I should try using it again. It's been over a year since I last tried it. It's odd because the Firefox on the desktop machine with the Nvidia card and a six core AMD CPU is way choppier than on my 7 year old Thinkpad with a dual core i5 and integrated graphics.
  - kvark 5y ago
    We see issues with NV multi-monitor configurations, and are still trying to figure them out. Also, the whole story of multi-windows should improve in the future: there is a good opportunity to share WebRender context between them, but we aren't doing this yet.
    - moralestapia 5y ago
      >but we aren't doing this yet Or anything at all it seems ...
  - xnyanta 5y ago
    Damn, I have this exact same problem and never suspected it was NVIDIA related :/
- mdoms 5y ago
  Every time I use Firefox I find some other stupid issue that just doesn't fly in 2021. Today it might be a top 50 website that doesn't work properly, yesterday maybe it's excessive cpu usage, day before maybe pinch to zoom doesn't work. Who knows what dumb crap is happening tomorrow. Life is too short to muck around with half baked software.
  - techrat 5y ago
    Firefox is a dumpster fire half the time. I use Firefox still for exactly ONE website: Facebook. To keep it sandboxed. I still have to restart Firefox at least once every other day because it leaks and becomes a runaway process. No plugins/addons. As stock as it gets. One single website only... and it still pukes all over itself.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - kaba0 5y ago
      Are you even using an updated version? Because I have firefox instances running for months with tremendous amounts of tabs open on 8GB of RAM laptop and has absolutely zero problem with it.
      - techrat 5y ago
        64GB Desktop. Apt runs weekly. Firefox still blows.
        dralley 5y ago
        Something is F'ed with your system. I have 10 extensions installed, nearly 900 tabs (most of which aren't actually cached) and my Firefox stays open for weeks and it still never uses more than a few GB of RAM.
        techrat 5y ago
- AniseAbyss 5y ago
  I just don't trust Google, they make almost all their money from tracking users for advertising purposes. So the cynic/realist in me believes that they are fundamentally opposed to privacy.
- ipaddr 5y ago
  After 15+ years of use it has become so slow I had to move away for day to day browsing. I'm on windows 7 on that machine. My copy on windows 10 works almost on par with chrome in terms of speed. After the rewrite things were super fast but it has gotten slower each release.
  - dralley 5y ago
    Have you tried refreshing your profile?
- raven108 5y ago
  The problem is not the browser, but a lazy mgmt. Selling user privacy to Google for easy money instead of asking users to either pay for ensuring their privacy. But that will take real work instead of easy “royalty” payments from Google. Between telemetry, safe browsing, sqlite database with all sites you visited & gvfs they siphon off some serious data. So bad for privacy but snappy otherwise, particularly the new versions. MDN is pretty good too, but they chopped off their tech team to “save money” for a top heavy mgmt team.
  - dralley 5y ago
    I can think of few worse business plans than a paid browser, in 2021. I would bet money that even the majority of HN readers wouldn't pay money for something so heavily commoditized.
    - tigroferoce 5y ago
      Maybe you are right, but if you present yourself like a privacy-first browser, the paladin of the free internet, and then you end up taking money from Google, your position and credibility don't look great.
      - kaba0 5y ago
        Why exactly? It is just as much a positive for Google paying some (to them) small money to avoid lawsuits as it is for firefox to be able to stay afloat. Do you have any reference to issues where firefox lost credibility?
- lenkite 5y ago
  Mozilla keeps firing developers and keeps increasing their CEO salary. No doubt, there will be another top-exec pay-hike soon to improve the numbers, along with another layoff.
betwixthewires 5y ago
When the "free web" is no longer just lip service from Mozilla I'll consider it.
- asimovfan 5y ago
  So what do you use instead?
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    Ungoogled chromium, Bromite and kiwi browser.
  - lmm 5y ago
    Not the person you replied to, but I still prefer Konqueror, which was built from the ground up as free software and it shows in the quality IMO.
- sverhagen 5y ago
  Care to quickly add some explanation to that stance, before getting voted off the island?
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
    It's not an unheard of point of view on this site, the talking points should already be familiar to you. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28491021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28491021 There's that article as well as my comment and others in it that draw a pretty clear picture.
  - 0des 5y ago
    >before getting voted off the island? Come on now
    - 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
      This happens often. A shitty opinion is usually down voted but at some point, if nobody's replied yet, then nobody can point out in words how shitty that opinion is, or prompt them for some further explanation.
andrewclunn 5y ago
Mozilla went full in on their OS, which went nowhere, and got explicitly political. Plus Chromium (and hence blink) are open source. Why use Firefox? Yeah, I'm drawing a blank.
bjackman 5y ago
I recently switched back to Firefox mobile (I couldn't remember why I switched to Chrome in the first place) because I was sick of using the web without ad blockers. A few months in I'm really happy with it. Main tip is: I found the scroll behaviour janky when the URL bar was at the top. Once I put it at the bottom (IIRC this is the default anyway, and once I got used to it I realised it's pretty unambiguously a better location) things behaved nicely. I wish I could install an add-on to deal with GDPR spam but unfortunately without significant faffing you can only run vetted extensions from a fairly short list of adblockers and privacy tools. This seems like a smart move but I wish they'd expand this list, e.g. perhaps blanket-allowing extensions that only use certain safer API subsets.
- yabatopia 5y ago
  As a longtime user of Firefox for Mobile, the add-on massacre a few months go pushed me over the edge. Now I switch between Vivaldi (syncs with the the desktop, decent built-in add blocking, sadly no support for extensions) and Kiwi Browser (supports desktop Chrome extensions, including uBlock Origin).
sorry_outta_gas 5y ago
Firefox is great now, but getting people to change from something that works for them is like pulling teeth I'd also imagine it's hard to convince younger folks (eg. those who didn't leave firefox in the first place) on firefox over brave which includes adblock out of the box, no setup or extensions required
imwillofficial 5y ago
This is the same Firefox that said “deplatforming is not enough” Sorry Firefox, you’re not an arbiter of truth in my book.
- adminscoffee 5y ago
  crazy. this caught my attention, what were they suggesting is enough?
  - kissickas 5y ago
    Caught my attention too so I looked it up. Looks like a great list of goals to me. > Reveal who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted. > Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact. > Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation. > Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platforms’ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  You are complaining about Mozilla, not the open source product they make. Edit: I’m HN-wrong, best type
  - 0des 5y ago
    I wish this distinction were more common, in general. We all have opinions that are bound to disagree with some people. We can also still make cool things that are a net-benefit.
    - crocodiletears 5y ago
      Tusky (an open-source mastodon client) has (or had, I hope) an integrated blacklist that prevents its users from accessing certain instances the developers find distasteful. Mozilla could implement a similar feature to block portions of the web, or particular content, or add a feature that pro-actively fact-checked page content. I still use a firefox fork, because it isn't chromium. But I won't be surprised if Mozilla decides to go a similar route to Tusky based on their espoused values.
indymike 5y ago
Are the three headline features important to you? They are: - Picture in Picture - Expanded Dark Mode - DNS over HTTPs I really like Firefox, but features like this are not going to cause people to switch browsers. I'm pretty sure most end users would never even notice them. DNS over HTTPs is actually a bit of a pain if you want to host your own DNS.
- floatingatoll 5y ago
  Most end users would never host their own DNS. Perhaps there’s a different benefit to them from the feature?
- _AzMoo 5y ago
  I use Picture in Picture all the time, it's one of the main things that keeps me on Firefox. Such a great feature.
  - SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
    It is great, but doesn’t iOS already have this with Safari? Edit: ah, nevermind, I thought this was specifically a Firefox IOS release today. Taking the link directly talked about iOS for me.
    - amarshall 5y ago
      Yes, but that doesn’t matter if you’re not using iOS or macOS.
- josephcsible 5y ago
  DoH is very, very important to me.
- leppr 5y ago
  DoH on by default is great for regular users, in order to access websites banned at the ISP DNS level. Depending on the country that can include a whole lot of websites, even not including warez and porn. Anyway, they should really put more focus on polishing the containers extension, and make it one of the main selling points. This is the feature that has converted the most people in my experience. And since it's unique to any browser AFAIK, it has great retention power once one integrates it in their workflow.
thedailymail 5y ago
The fact alone that FF is the best-optimized browser for uBlock Origin makes it an easy choice for me. It's interesting to me that many of my favorite/most used web technologies in the past decade or so have come from individual, non-profit developers just trying to make something useful, free and flying in the face of a lot of legal and industry norms (e.g., gorhill, elbakyan). In my experience, these tend to work best on FF + VPN, or on Tor (built from FF).
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  Tor isn't built from FF, AFAIAA (TorBrowser is though).
  - thedailymail 5y ago
    Ah sorry - my mistake!
yaman12 5y ago
Mozilla charge money for Firefox. I’m tired of “free” software that sell my data and attention.
- reginold 5y ago
  Here here! Are there any paid browsers out there? Or does Mozilla have any paid membership beyond "donate whatever you want"?
  - freediver 5y ago
    Orion will be paid https://browser.kagi.com https://browser.kagi.com (Mac only though)
  - Tom4hawk 5y ago
    The worst part about donating to Mozilla is that donation is not used for Firefox development.
- wintermutestwin 5y ago
  So much this! Considering how much of my work and play time is spent in a browser, I would pay a hefty sum for a browser that met my needs and kept me safe from the data thieves. I'd even pay a subscription for this, where many current products do not deserve a sub model.
- rossy 5y ago
  I can't think of a more effective way to kill Firefox. You'd give the fence-sitters a reason to switch, you'd get rid of all the volunteer contributors, and you'd get rid of everyone who uses and advocates for Firefox because it's free* software, which would probably be a significant portion of the remaining userbase. (I know it's technically possible to charge money for free* software, but it's impractical.) * as-in-freedom
  - freediver 5y ago
    Fence-sitters already switch in droves, Firefox lost 250M users in the last ten years. So keeping the status quo already clearly leads to demise. And how can you claim you are free* when 90% of your revenue comes from your main competitor? Maybe making a paid browser is what they need to become truly free* and reset to a user-centric product development culture, which could then actually make it an exciting product again (even if they initially lost 90% of users as a consequence, those would be lost with time anyhow).
wintermutestwin 5y ago
More like: "Firefox Browser: 1. It is not google. 2. It's not a Chrome fork maintained by potentially flaky/untrustworthy players. 3. uBlock Origin. 4. Multi-Account Containers."
- MiddleEndian 5y ago
  5. Very keyboard-friendly 6. Incredibly customizable via CSS, including multiple rows of tabs
  - ravenstine 5y ago
    7. Enhanced Tracking Protection 8. Non-nerfed ad blocking
  - gilrain 5y ago
    5b. Keybinds can’t be changed
    - tigroferoce 5y ago
      5c. the shortcut for opening a private browsing window is different from every other browser and collide with the main shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+P) of the main IDE (VisualStudioCode)
- cinquemb 5y ago
  I wish brave forked ff… i guess i'll be working of my own fork of ff for the end of time for my family, going on 6 years or so now lol
  - barbs 5y ago
    Out of curiosity, what have you changed in your fork of Firefox?
    - cinquemb 5y ago
      Mostly what I talk about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21653909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21653909
errantmind 5y ago
I've used Firefox since release but I'm curious what other less popular browsers people are using these days? For example, I have tried Bromite on my phone but the adblocking is limited. I've tried ungoogled-chromium on desktop and the speed is impressive. The main things I want: 1. Speed 2. Speed 3. Native plugins that can preempt network requests 4. Configurable for privacy (referrer, first party isolation, etc) All these are doable in Firefox but I've doubted them ever since Pocket integration
- yabatopia 5y ago
  Vivaldi on desktop. On Android switching between Vivaldi (sadly no support for extensions) and Kiwi Browser (supports extensions). The add-on massacre on Firefox for Mobile a few months ago pushed me over the edge.
  - edly 5y ago
    +1 to Vivaldi. I use tiled tabs all the time.
- matheusmoreira 5y ago
  Brave is interesting. Built-in ad blocker even on mobile. Not as good as uBlock Origin on Firefox but it's an option. It also has its own advertising platform. The ads are simple notifications, no bullshit. It actually pays users in cryptocurrency for their attention. It can also be completely disabled.
  - freediver 5y ago
    Not sure the world needs another ad-monetized browser. We need less ads on the web, not more. And what is the point of shipping a browser with an ad blocker only to serve your own ads built into the browser? My personal experience with it is that it is slow to start, bloated, the ad-blocker doesn't block Google ads by default and it fills home screen with some kind of crypto sites by default. It looks like it is trying to be a general purpose browser but judging by the choice of default options it looks more like a very niche browser for the crypto community. The most innovative thing they have right now is Search, hopefully it doesn't end up being ad-monetized too.
lindenstark 5y ago
when did "In-browser screenshot tool" become a key feature, seems like a job that most operating systems handle quite well. Anyone who uses this feature, feel free to chime in.
- danmur 5y ago
  I don't use it a great deal, but if you try it you can see why you'd use it over the OS screenshot. The easy answer is you can take a screenshot of a while page, or more than the portion that's showing.
- nick_g 5y ago
  I don't use it too often, but it can be really helpful for getting a perfect crop of a specific element. With firefox's screenshot tool you can select the visible window, page or a specific element which has advantages over my os's tool. If I want a clean crop of an element with the os tool, I either have to open my rough shot in an image editor to get the crop right, or be very precise with my selection rectangle. I'll often use the os screenshot if I'm just sending a quick image to friends, but if I want it to look nice the browser tool is easier and faster
- malauxyeux 5y ago
  It can take a screenshot of the entire page, including what's not currently displayed in the viewport.
- superkuh 5y ago
  Try taking an in-browser screenshot of your about:config or options tabs.
mpgarate 5y ago
I use Firefox every day as a backup, but my primary browser is qutebrowser. I would fully switch in a heartbeat if Firefox allowed full keyboard shortcut configuration. Tridactyl gets pretty close, but the fact that keyboard shortcuts stop working in certain scenarios is a nonstarter for me.
trevcanhuman 5y ago
From HN News Guidelines [0] “ In Submissions Please don't do things to make titles stand out, “ The title you wrote isn’t even in the article as far as I can tell. Please correct me if I’m wrong. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
r721 5y ago
Firefox 92 discussion from 6 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28444315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28444315 (122 comments)
stereoradonc 5y ago
Too many distractions from Mozilla (Firefox OS, VPN etc and a complete dissonance from the core- browser. It doesn't help when senior management takes fat bonuses and fires away employees during the pandemic. That doesn't make for pleasant optics and also distanced me away from their product.
- diskzero 5y ago
  Firefox seems to be the only hope to avoid a duopoly dominated by forces that are anti-privacy and anti-user. I recently made the move from Safari to Firefox and I am very pleased. This being said, I agree with you about the optics of Firefox management. There is a lot going on that isn't good and the personal enrichment of the executives feels all sorts of wrong. If FF management can not be good stewards of a vital product, who can be? What sort of system could be set up to properly manage, motivate and pay for development?
  - cjoh 5y ago
    Is there a way to simplify moving password management out of Keychain and into Firefox?
    - robotbikes 5y ago
      You can just use Firefox Sync and Lockwise on mobile to manage passwords etc instead of using Keychain I suspect. I'm not sure of the import functionality of that ecosystem but it wouldn't surprise me if someone figured it out already and posted the code.
    - diskzero 5y ago
      I wish there was (and I hope someone comes along and tells us!) During my switch to FF, I kept the Safari prefs dialog open and then copy and pasted the passwords when requested by a site in FireFox. It was a total drag, but in a few days I was all set in cross-device password management with Firefox.
    - freediver 5y ago
paxys 5y ago
I have used Firefox as my daily driver for 2+ years now. Zero problems with compatibility, including many "Chrome only" business apps. A couple Google-owned sites are the only ones that give me trouble, and spoofing the user agent on those has worked great.
risedotmoe 5y ago
I’ve opted to using librewolf as I prefer its out of the box changes removing everything that sucks about firefox. I refuse to use chrome (unless its for work in that case I use an isolated chromium) I despise the monopoly of the web and I despise google. Personally I think Brave is a honeypot and even if it isn’t, it’s still supporting the monopolized web standard. I hope things get better because we need more choice.
- ek750 5y ago
  I agree. I still vividly remember the bad old days of IE, and I find it puzzling that so many web developers are willingly going back to a monoculture, with such an anti-privacy organization holding all the cards.
timClicks 5y ago
It isn't enough for FF to be the best "for a free web". To reclaim market share, it needs to be best for users. They're self-interested.
creese 5y ago
I've been a FF user for years. This week, FF became so unusable under Wayland I had to install Brave.
- maxnoe 5y ago
  Ha, I thought I was alone, did not find anything.
- toastal 5y ago
  The patches are in place if you wait just a bit longer. NixOS merged patches into their main branch and the teams between Wayland and Mozilla have already resloved the issue. The only bit that rubs me is that this has been an issue since 92, has been out. I moved from beta to stable and then stable to ESR (v91 luckily) while I await the patches.
lucasyvas 5y ago
It's beyond me why they haven't thrown it up on GitHub yet. Let the community have a way bigger involvement and drive the future of the browser. Yes, I can go find the source for Firefox, but I sincerely doubt the engagement is anywhere near as high as it could be.
- shp0ngle 5y ago
  I’m not sure accessibility of source code is the biggest problem. You can get the code very easily. Also github is another kind of Microsoft lock-in, ironically.
  - lucasyvas 5y ago
    I don't necessarily disagree with your Microsoft comment. I'm merely trying to say that I think Firefox needs more than features to reclaim some of its popularity. Where we're at, is that most people are happy running a Chromium variant. It's open source and there are enough downstream consumers that you can pick your poison. If Mozilla is going to push the "private browser, for you" angle, they are going to need to push harder on the "for you" angle. I'm still a loyal Firefox user. It seems to me that its users would rather have more say in its direction - give the people what they want.
    - toastal 5y ago
      If you don't disagree with the monopoly statement, then start altering your speech to reflect it. You can use the phrase “(public) Git forge” and avoid using the trademark generically and encompass all alternative forges.
      - lucasyvas 5y ago
        In this case, I think that the leading Git provider is where it should be hosted, due to community size. And that's GitHub for now. That can absolutely change in the future.
        5y ago
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
RedComet 5y ago
Firefox: We're the "best for a free web". Also Firefox: We support internet censorship. (source: CEO of Mozilla, link: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...)
- rossy 5y ago
  Which part of that article advocates for censorship?
  - RedComet 5y ago
    Other than the title? How about "Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation." Not to mention what immediately follows, advocating for something beyond this in the future: "This is how we can begin to do that." Looking forward to the silently installed browser extension that hides search results and social media posts that they don't want you to see. (related: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mozilla-backpedals-after-mr-robot-firefox-misstep/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mozilla-back...)
    - rossy 5y ago
      Amplifying content in algorithmic news feeds is hardly censorship. Anything Facebook did would be counter to the usual forces that amply divisive (engaging) content.
      - _-david-_ 5y ago
        Amplifying content means other content is reduced in spread. This means some people won't see the content that they would have otherwise seen.
  - frutmonkey 5y ago
    Did you even read the title? It advocates for drowning out opposition based on what they believe "is true". Everyone thinks they are right. If you don't respect the right of those you disagree with to speak, functionally, you don't respect any freedom of speech.
mythz 5y ago
Pleas into a niche tech communities to use a different browser isn't going to stop FF's slow slide to irrelevance. Microsoft saw the writing on the wall with IE and launched Edge which by comparison looks to have a much more promising future then Mozilla. This does nothing to improve browser engine diversity but at this point Mozilla's best path to commercial success would be to launch a new browser product that's a rebranded Blink/WebKit with a focus on privacy, e.g. ad/tracker blockers, optional integrated VPN, simple UX for clearing browser history per site/date range/etc. Personally I'd prefer they adopt Safari's WebKit over Chrome's Blink to remove the dependency from Google. I'm too old to deal with navigating the web with rendering inconsistencies of browser web developers don't test against. For the same reason I've no hesitation to use their gorgeous Firefox Focus iOS browser over Chrome since they're all forced to use the same rendering engine, and given all things being equal I trust Firefox to protect privacy much more than Google.
shp0ngle 5y ago
People that have seen the inside of both: which has better codebase, Firefox or Chromium? I have seen only inside Chrome as I was debugging some edgecases; it’s very google C++, but once you get used to the enormous size, it’s not that hard to follow.
jeswin 5y ago
I'd like to mention (once again), that Firefox on Android is a huge leap in everyday browsing experience over Chrome - and you should try it if you haven't. Due to mainly one reason: ad blocker extensions; which aren't supported on Chrome. Since that's where most users are, I hope Mozilla will be able to communicate these advantages better. Chrome is arguably better on the desktop for most users, unless they're in the tiny subset of users who care about privacy.
- PetahNZ 5y ago
  Although ad blockers are supported on chrome based Kiwibrowser
- rilut 5y ago
  since Android 9.0 you can use private DNS like dns.adguard.com to use Chrome ad-free
- pxc 5y ago
  I prefer Firefox for Android as well, but there is a Chromium fork called Bromite which has adblocking built in, too.
  - unicornporn 5y ago
    Kiwi supports extensions on Android...
    - tentacleuno 5y ago
      After that whole search engine scandal with Kiwi Browser, a lot of people don't trust it anymore. I believe it also majorly lagged behind Chromium versions.
      - inside_out_life 5y ago
        It got updated to newest Chromium version recently, the build process seems to be semi-automated now too. Isn't it open source too? Unfortunately it's a bit buggy on some of my devices. Newest FF beta got unexplained speed bost and tablet UI, it's approaching irreplaceablity steadily for me, There's IceRaven FF fork which has enabled even more addons.
brutal_chaos_ 5y ago
I loved Firefox and I still believe it is the best bastion for a free web, though that view has been slowly fading. Years and years of user hostile moves (drastic UI changes, breaking am entire generation of addons) have really hurt the brand IMHO. And this PR just feels hollow.
wly_cdgr 5y ago
What is the Firefox business model? ...Oh yeah, that's right, indirect subsidies from Google Besides, there's only one mainstream browser that's better than Chrome, and that browser is Edge
jtsuken 5y ago
Firefox has a number of security issues: From here: https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they're currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn't have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox runs as a single process on mobile and has no sandbox beyond the OS sandbox. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS isolatedProcess feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox's sandbox is still substantially weaker (especially on Linux, where it can hardly be considered a sandbox at all) and lacks support for isolating sites from each other rather than only containing content as a whole.
noomen 5y ago
50 million users lost in the last 2 years alone. Sorry Mozilla, we love you, but all the good you think you're doing means nothing when you end up with no one using your browser. Of course, Mozilla can continue to arrogantly ignore its user base.
perryizgr8 5y ago
A "free" web where you are "free" to say/do anything as long as we think it is ok: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat... A "free" web where you pretend to fight against Google, but copy every user-hostile anti-feature from them, take almost all your money from them, and put them as your default search engine. Mozilla deserve every bit of their recent problems, just like they deserved their meteoric rise in the 2000s.
goldforever 5y ago
Nope. Best browsers for a free web are Brave and Dissenter.
France_is_bacon 5y ago
I have been a devoted follower of firefox for a long time. However, recently I have run into a lot of situations where foxfire does not work with some of the apps I need, and chromium based browsers do work. These apps are vital to what I do, and while I prefer firefox for all the usual reasons, I cannot use it. Sad really.
jvzr 5y ago
I'd been using Firefox ever since the Phoenix days. And somehow, sometime, I moved to Chrome like everyone did... until I had enough of Google, and came back to Firefox right at the start of the Quantum days. Haven't left since. Firefox is a really good browser (at least on Linux, even though the lack of HW-acceleration on NVIDIA cards is a pain) made even greater with best-in-class uBlock Origin support, and of course piroor's Tree Style Tab. Containers are also a great feature (I containerize Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter properties in their own silo). Tab unloaders (I don't remember which I'm currently using) is also a good idea to reduce memory usage (even though with 32 GB I have NEVER run into issues) I've been rocking it and a custom user stylesheet to hide the tabs on top, reorder and customize the address bar to be tighter, have more contrast; and the whole UI to be black (I use the dark variant of Adwaita all day on my desktop). Having an ultrawide display, I have plenty of horizontal space. Here's an screenshot if that interests you: https://imgur.com/a/8PEKED5 https://imgur.com/a/8PEKED5 Edit: How could I have missed that?! Picture-in-picture is incredibly good as well! I use it daily, mainly to watch a YT video on the side while continuing to browse the web. They even added multiple PIP windows a while back, which is a god-send when I watch livestreams such as a rocket launches (eg. official livestream in one window, and EverydayAstronaut's in another)
- fragileone 5y ago
  HW acceleration on Linux was fixed about a year ago https://9to5linux.com/firefox-81-enters-beta-gpu-acceleration-now-enabled-by-default-on-linux https://9to5linux.com/firefox-81-enters-beta-gpu-acceleratio...
  - jvzr 5y ago
    It appears to work for Netflix, but not YouTube videos. Are there restrictions in the implementation? Edit: following this¹ (without installing any driver though) was enough to make it work for YouTube, apparently. Thanks for the info! [1] https://askubuntu.com/a/1291873 https://askubuntu.com/a/1291873
linuxhansl 5y ago
At home I only use Firefox (on my Linux machines). For many (not all) sites Firefox is actually the fastest choice. Being reminded today I also just installed Firefox on my - relatively new - work machine. Somehow I am more tolerant there running Chrome than on my own machines.
zaik 5y ago
If anyone's wondering how to get Firefox mobile on F-Droid, it's called 'Fennec' and can be found here: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid
zerop 5y ago
FF might be better than Chrome etc now, but Surprisingly, firefox didn't care about the declining usage till a long time. It seemed to me, they let it go to Google. Speed, crashes etc were too often then and it never got fixed in time. that mattered to lots of users
yagop 5y ago
Lack of WebUSB is the major issue to me.
- password4321 5y ago
  Can not tell if this is sarcasm or not, but I'll suppose not. Do you mind sharing your WebUSB use case(s)?
  - yagop 5y ago
    To sing transactions with Ledger or any other cryto devices (see ID cards readers)
timo_h 5y ago
Firefox is great on desktop, been my primary browser for 15+ years. Sadly though, the mobile version (still) lacks support for "pull to refresh" gesture. Other than that, mobile FF is great (privacy features, browser addons...).
dgdfg 5y ago
https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur
happynacho 5y ago
Mozilla does really love to milk "Open source" and "free" for Firefox marketing. How about about if they actually gave users what they wanted?
account42 5y ago
A "free" web where in Firefox's default configuration Google controls what you can download. [0] [0] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing
throwaway_v9edc 5y ago
I was a long time Chrome user, I switched to Firefox 1 year ago and I won't look back: 1. Firefox has Ctrl+Tab MRU 2. Firefox has a way more usable address bar - Chrome breaks it on purpose and returns weak results to push you to use Google search for things which should immediately pop up in the address bar. 3. Firefox has container tabs - a feature so crucial to browsing the web (whenever you need to login to 2 different accounts on the same site) that you would wonder why on Earth would the leading web browser not implement it (until you remind yourself that the browser is brought to you by a certain company that has the word "evil" in it's motto and likes tracking too much). 4. Firefox has a sidebar, enabling interesting extensions. 5. This is small - but I recently noticed how Chrome broke the bookmark UI, after clicking the star icon, you don't add bookmark immediately, no. You have to choose between a bookmark or reading list first.
elchupanebre 5y ago
The main problem with Firefox is Gecko. Technically it's a great rendering engine, fast, standards-compliant, maybe only slightly more buggy than Webkit. Unfortunately it has a different set of bugs than webkit. Web developers have just so much time to debug the apps. Once the app works for ~90% of users on webkit, spending as much time or more testing and debugging for ~7% of FF users is not always justified. This is a catch 22: FF users get more bugs - more pressure to move to Chrome, fewer users on FF - less money to develop Gecko leading to more bugs. My prediction is that FF will either drop Gecko or die.

398 points by Borlands 5y ago

trts 5y ago

It makes me sad that FF browser share has continued to decline steadily. The past couple years of releases have been some its the best in terms of my own UX, since perhaps the Phoenix era. It's pretty fast these days, the UI is good, has a lot of great extensions and privacy features. I use Brave at work to have a better chrome-based experience with gsuite. It's also a fast, excellent browser with good privacy features, built-in ad/tracker blocking and for the time being seems to be user-not-revenue-first. But using a non-free browser feels like a trap to me. Just as what happened with Internet Explorer, Chrome, and Netscape before, being the middle man between the user and the rest of the internet is just too tempting for any company not to try to leverage for their own advantage. FF hasn't been always perfect, but for 20 years now they have made a browser that didn't have a shady corporate agenda. It feels like the writing is on the wall though. Even people I know who care about FLOSS are using Chrome as their daily driver these days. Mozilla is great and I hope they continue to focus on building a best-in-class browser.

dont__panic 5y ago
I still ask myself: has FF browser share actually dropped that much, or has FF's privacy focus caused browser share estimates to mostly miss FF users in their counts? Most of these stats come from the exact kind of skeevy companies that I (and many other FireFox users) are using FireFox to avoid.
- ksec 5y ago
  > FF's privacy focus caused Even before the whole privacy focused thing FF was already in decline to sub 10% market on Desktop. If you think about it the other way around, it is still hanging on to 5-10% of Desktop market after all is actually quite good. At its peak, Firefox was closing to 40% in some European countries. If you consider IE in Business Cooperate usage and Firefox are not available in those settings, 40% is a really big deal.
- doomrobo 5y ago
  Unfortunately that's not a likely explanation. If you do even the simplest possible measurement, which is just recording user agent strings and IPs, you won't end up undercounting Firefox clients
  - boomboomsubban 5y ago
    Either uBlock Origin or Matrix comes with user agent spoofing, it's not like the practice is that rare.
    - unityByFreedom 5y ago
      Does uBlock Origin turn that on by default? That's the only way I could imagine such stats being wrong by a wide margin.
    - unityByFreedom 5y ago
      Matrix used to do this but doesn't anymore [1] and uBlock never had that feature. Please don't make stuff up. [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/927 https://github.com/gorhill/uMatrix/issues/927
      - boomboomsubban 5y ago
        I don't think it's fair to call not knowing that a feature was removed from a discontinued app "making stuff up." I was clearly wrong, though it is easy to change your user agent it's unlikely that many Firefox users have done it.
        unityByFreedom 5y ago
        You're right, I misunderstood your comment. I interpreted what you said as in, you can get this feature via either Matrix or uBlock. I see now you meant one of those has the feature and you weren't sure which one had it. Sorry about that. In my defense I think it can be read both ways. I'd add there is a large gap in usage between uBlock and Matrix. uBlock has over 10 million users whereas Matrix is somewhere over 100,000.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  Firefox users avoiding those tracking sites would result in an always low user share, it would not really explain the user share dropping. Maybe an increase in privacy minded users could explain a percent or two, but not most of the drop.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- indymike 5y ago
  Firefox has less users than desktop Safari. It shouldn't be that way, but it is. When you factor in mobile it gets worse because Chrome (the Android default) and Safari (the only real choice on iOS) are so dominant. Also, the market share numbers reported by client side trackers like StatsCounter are very close to log file collection and analysis by companies like Kinsta.
  - darig 5y ago
    ALL my homies use Firefox. You didn't address the OP's point... how can anyone know how many Firefox users there are when Firefox users refuse to be counted? You think that the subset of people willing to install a client side tracker and the subset of people who choose to use firefox are representative of the whole? You want to believe it is that way, but it isn't.
  - eric_cc 5y ago
    How are you so sure? You really didn’t address OP’s point about content blocking and privacy tools.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - indymike 5y ago
      Content blocking does not change requests to the originating server. Firefox would have much better market share in log file analysis method studies than it does in client side tracker based studies if the OP was correct.
  - jamie_ca 5y ago
    iOS Firefox is actually quite nice, I've been using it as my default for a year now. Biggest win for me is tab sync, so it's pretty easy to open a tab I had loaded on my phone in my desktop browser. Sure, it's using Safari as a renderer, but these days that's hardly where the differentiating value is.
- gilrain 5y ago
  Do you trust Mozilla? They share the numbers. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity I’ve watched the decline for years, straight from the source. These usage numbers are not affected by privacy settings.
- jakub_g 5y ago
  My take on FF "decline" is that FF user share (%) dropped because the pie started expanding (especially on mobile). New internet users are likely to be Safari or Chrome users for whom the browser they have is good enough. And Firefox on mobile is simply not as fast as alternatives (the bar set by Chromium Android is very high), kinda painful to use unless you have a highend device, esp. JS heavy sites like Twitter work much better on Chromium. This doesn't fully describe situation, but over last 3 years, mobile users went from 50% to 75% users in my prev company's data. And Firefox is nowhere in those mobile stats.
  - PostThisTooFast 5y ago
    It doesn't help that Apple effectively bans competing browsers from iOS, by forcing them all to use abysmal WebKit. So they're little better than re-skinned Safari. "You're posting too fast. Please slow down. Thanks." HACKER NEWS, YOU'RE JAGOFFS. SHOVE YOUR DISRESPECT FOR USERS STRAIGHT UP YOUR ASS. THANKS.
  - gilrain 5y ago
    Number of Firefox users is dropping, not just Firefox market share.
sverhagen 5y ago
I'm sad too. I wonder if it demonstrates how rare it is to get a second chance.
starik36 5y ago
> FF browser share has continued to decline steadily Is that really a fact though? I read somewhere that >80% FF users have Ad Blocker installed. Wouldn't that keep it hidden to Google Analytics and similar outfits that come up with browser usage stats?
- sorry_outta_gas 5y ago
  whatsmybrowser.org returns firefox for me with some privacy plugins and ublock origin installed
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    it even knows the exact version of firefox I'm running (92.0)
- nerdponx 5y ago
  HTTP servers can still see the clients' user agent strings.
  - darig 5y ago
    just go to about:config and set general.useragent.override to anything you want. everything still works fine. most people just set it to the latest chrome default "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/93.0.4577.63 Safari/537.36" to blend in with the crowd. It is meaningless.
- gilrain 5y ago
  Yes. Do you trust Mozilla? They share the numbers. https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/user-activity
- executesorder66 5y ago
  It's actually about 30% that have any kind of addon : https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/usage-behavior
46756e 5y ago
Just out of curiosity, what are some of Chrome's shady dealings? I'm not too informed on the subject.
- skinkestek 5y ago
  > Just out of curiosity, what are some of Chrome's shady dealings? A parent company that could and would literally put ads for it on the front page of Google? (i.e. before a sesrch term has been entered) This is a place where I'm not aware that anyone else has been allowed to put anything, so if this isn't abuse of market power then I don't know what. Same with other Google web properties that magically work better in Firefox if you change the request headers..!
  - techrat 5y ago
    A company putting an ad for its own product on its own website is not an example of a shady tactic. "Allowed?" Next you'll tell me that Microsoft should be forced to exclusively advertise other browsers other than their own on Bing before search... > so if this isn't abuse of market power then I don't know what. Abuse of market power would be preventing the mention of any other browser when using search and Google has never done that. Or how about a better example: Apple actively preventing any third party web browsers on iOS, then later only allowing third party web browsers to use the Safari Engine. THAT is anticompetitive. Google simply has the better product in this case.
    - skinkestek 5y ago
      Thanks for explaining your position. I'll try to explain in some more detail why this is a problem and how governments has stepped in before: > Abuse of market power would be preventing the mention of any other browser when using search and Google has never done that. Another way to abuse market power is to use ones dominance in one maket to crush competition in another market. Microsoft was punished for this after they bundled IE with Windows back in the day. Google has gone extremely much further down the road of abusing market dominance in one market (search, ads) to crush competition in browsers. Also: did you forget my point about how Google web properties work better if you fake the headers and pretend to be Chrome? > Or how about a better example: Apple actively preventing any third party web browsers on iOS, then later only allowing third party web browsers to use the Safari Engine. THAT is anticompetitive. The value is not in the engine. The engine is something you make to get an advantage in customers mind. Many browsers, both historic and present are just skins on top of other browser engines. > Google simply has the better product in this case. So you say Tree Style Tabs work in Chrome now and it doesn't eat memory for breakfast, lunch and dinner? That's news to me ;-)
eric__cartman 5y ago
I would love to continue using FF, but on my machine with an Nvidia card (sigh) the scrolling in Firefox gets very choppy when using two different browser windows open on the dual monitors. And for some reason this bothers me more than it should. Maybe one of these days I should try using it again. It's been over a year since I last tried it. It's odd because the Firefox on the desktop machine with the Nvidia card and a six core AMD CPU is way choppier than on my 7 year old Thinkpad with a dual core i5 and integrated graphics.
- kvark 5y ago
  We see issues with NV multi-monitor configurations, and are still trying to figure them out. Also, the whole story of multi-windows should improve in the future: there is a good opportunity to share WebRender context between them, but we aren't doing this yet.
  - moralestapia 5y ago
    >but we aren't doing this yet Or anything at all it seems ...
- xnyanta 5y ago
  Damn, I have this exact same problem and never suspected it was NVIDIA related :/
mdoms 5y ago
Every time I use Firefox I find some other stupid issue that just doesn't fly in 2021. Today it might be a top 50 website that doesn't work properly, yesterday maybe it's excessive cpu usage, day before maybe pinch to zoom doesn't work. Who knows what dumb crap is happening tomorrow. Life is too short to muck around with half baked software.
- techrat 5y ago
  Firefox is a dumpster fire half the time. I use Firefox still for exactly ONE website: Facebook. To keep it sandboxed. I still have to restart Firefox at least once every other day because it leaks and becomes a runaway process. No plugins/addons. As stock as it gets. One single website only... and it still pukes all over itself.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - kaba0 5y ago
    Are you even using an updated version? Because I have firefox instances running for months with tremendous amounts of tabs open on 8GB of RAM laptop and has absolutely zero problem with it.
    - techrat 5y ago
      64GB Desktop. Apt runs weekly. Firefox still blows.
      - dralley 5y ago
        Something is F'ed with your system. I have 10 extensions installed, nearly 900 tabs (most of which aren't actually cached) and my Firefox stays open for weeks and it still never uses more than a few GB of RAM.
        techrat 5y ago
AniseAbyss 5y ago
I just don't trust Google, they make almost all their money from tracking users for advertising purposes. So the cynic/realist in me believes that they are fundamentally opposed to privacy.
ipaddr 5y ago
After 15+ years of use it has become so slow I had to move away for day to day browsing. I'm on windows 7 on that machine. My copy on windows 10 works almost on par with chrome in terms of speed. After the rewrite things were super fast but it has gotten slower each release.
- dralley 5y ago
  Have you tried refreshing your profile?
raven108 5y ago
The problem is not the browser, but a lazy mgmt. Selling user privacy to Google for easy money instead of asking users to either pay for ensuring their privacy. But that will take real work instead of easy “royalty” payments from Google. Between telemetry, safe browsing, sqlite database with all sites you visited & gvfs they siphon off some serious data. So bad for privacy but snappy otherwise, particularly the new versions. MDN is pretty good too, but they chopped off their tech team to “save money” for a top heavy mgmt team.
- dralley 5y ago
  I can think of few worse business plans than a paid browser, in 2021. I would bet money that even the majority of HN readers wouldn't pay money for something so heavily commoditized.
  - tigroferoce 5y ago
    Maybe you are right, but if you present yourself like a privacy-first browser, the paladin of the free internet, and then you end up taking money from Google, your position and credibility don't look great.
    - kaba0 5y ago
      Why exactly? It is just as much a positive for Google paying some (to them) small money to avoid lawsuits as it is for firefox to be able to stay afloat. Do you have any reference to issues where firefox lost credibility?
lenkite 5y ago
Mozilla keeps firing developers and keeps increasing their CEO salary. No doubt, there will be another top-exec pay-hike soon to improve the numbers, along with another layoff.

betwixthewires 5y ago

When the "free web" is no longer just lip service from Mozilla I'll consider it.

asimovfan 5y ago
So what do you use instead?
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  Ungoogled chromium, Bromite and kiwi browser.
- lmm 5y ago
  Not the person you replied to, but I still prefer Konqueror, which was built from the ground up as free software and it shows in the quality IMO.
sverhagen 5y ago
Care to quickly add some explanation to that stance, before getting voted off the island?
- betwixthewires 5y ago
  It's not an unheard of point of view on this site, the talking points should already be familiar to you. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28491021 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28491021 There's that article as well as my comment and others in it that draw a pretty clear picture.
- 0des 5y ago
  >before getting voted off the island? Come on now
  - 0xdeadb00f 5y ago
    This happens often. A shitty opinion is usually down voted but at some point, if nobody's replied yet, then nobody can point out in words how shitty that opinion is, or prompt them for some further explanation.

andrewclunn 5y ago

Mozilla went full in on their OS, which went nowhere, and got explicitly political. Plus Chromium (and hence blink) are open source. Why use Firefox? Yeah, I'm drawing a blank.

bjackman 5y ago

I recently switched back to Firefox mobile (I couldn't remember why I switched to Chrome in the first place) because I was sick of using the web without ad blockers. A few months in I'm really happy with it. Main tip is: I found the scroll behaviour janky when the URL bar was at the top. Once I put it at the bottom (IIRC this is the default anyway, and once I got used to it I realised it's pretty unambiguously a better location) things behaved nicely. I wish I could install an add-on to deal with GDPR spam but unfortunately without significant faffing you can only run vetted extensions from a fairly short list of adblockers and privacy tools. This seems like a smart move but I wish they'd expand this list, e.g. perhaps blanket-allowing extensions that only use certain safer API subsets.

yabatopia 5y ago
As a longtime user of Firefox for Mobile, the add-on massacre a few months go pushed me over the edge. Now I switch between Vivaldi (syncs with the the desktop, decent built-in add blocking, sadly no support for extensions) and Kiwi Browser (supports desktop Chrome extensions, including uBlock Origin).

sorry_outta_gas 5y ago

Firefox is great now, but getting people to change from something that works for them is like pulling teeth I'd also imagine it's hard to convince younger folks (eg. those who didn't leave firefox in the first place) on firefox over brave which includes adblock out of the box, no setup or extensions required

imwillofficial 5y ago

This is the same Firefox that said “deplatforming is not enough” Sorry Firefox, you’re not an arbiter of truth in my book.

adminscoffee 5y ago
crazy. this caught my attention, what were they suggesting is enough?
- kissickas 5y ago
  Caught my attention too so I looked it up. Looks like a great list of goals to me. > Reveal who is paying for advertisements, how much they are paying and who is being targeted. > Commit to meaningful transparency of platform algorithms so we know how and what content is being amplified, to whom, and the associated impact. > Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation. > Work with independent researchers to facilitate in-depth studies of the platforms’ impact on people and our societies, and what we can do to improve things. https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
You are complaining about Mozilla, not the open source product they make. Edit: I’m HN-wrong, best type
- 0des 5y ago
  I wish this distinction were more common, in general. We all have opinions that are bound to disagree with some people. We can also still make cool things that are a net-benefit.
  - crocodiletears 5y ago
    Tusky (an open-source mastodon client) has (or had, I hope) an integrated blacklist that prevents its users from accessing certain instances the developers find distasteful. Mozilla could implement a similar feature to block portions of the web, or particular content, or add a feature that pro-actively fact-checked page content. I still use a firefox fork, because it isn't chromium. But I won't be surprised if Mozilla decides to go a similar route to Tusky based on their espoused values.

indymike 5y ago

Are the three headline features important to you? They are: - Picture in Picture - Expanded Dark Mode - DNS over HTTPs I really like Firefox, but features like this are not going to cause people to switch browsers. I'm pretty sure most end users would never even notice them. DNS over HTTPs is actually a bit of a pain if you want to host your own DNS.

floatingatoll 5y ago
Most end users would never host their own DNS. Perhaps there’s a different benefit to them from the feature?
_AzMoo 5y ago
I use Picture in Picture all the time, it's one of the main things that keeps me on Firefox. Such a great feature.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y ago
  It is great, but doesn’t iOS already have this with Safari? Edit: ah, nevermind, I thought this was specifically a Firefox IOS release today. Taking the link directly talked about iOS for me.
  - amarshall 5y ago
    Yes, but that doesn’t matter if you’re not using iOS or macOS.
josephcsible 5y ago
DoH is very, very important to me.
leppr 5y ago
DoH on by default is great for regular users, in order to access websites banned at the ISP DNS level. Depending on the country that can include a whole lot of websites, even not including warez and porn. Anyway, they should really put more focus on polishing the containers extension, and make it one of the main selling points. This is the feature that has converted the most people in my experience. And since it's unique to any browser AFAIK, it has great retention power once one integrates it in their workflow.

thedailymail 5y ago

The fact alone that FF is the best-optimized browser for uBlock Origin makes it an easy choice for me. It's interesting to me that many of my favorite/most used web technologies in the past decade or so have come from individual, non-profit developers just trying to make something useful, free and flying in the face of a lot of legal and industry norms (e.g., gorhill, elbakyan). In my experience, these tend to work best on FF + VPN, or on Tor (built from FF).

denton-scratch 5y ago
Tor isn't built from FF, AFAIAA (TorBrowser is though).
- thedailymail 5y ago
  Ah sorry - my mistake!

yaman12 5y ago

Mozilla charge money for Firefox. I’m tired of “free” software that sell my data and attention.

reginold 5y ago
Here here! Are there any paid browsers out there? Or does Mozilla have any paid membership beyond "donate whatever you want"?
- freediver 5y ago
  Orion will be paid https://browser.kagi.com https://browser.kagi.com (Mac only though)
- Tom4hawk 5y ago
  The worst part about donating to Mozilla is that donation is not used for Firefox development.
wintermutestwin 5y ago
So much this! Considering how much of my work and play time is spent in a browser, I would pay a hefty sum for a browser that met my needs and kept me safe from the data thieves. I'd even pay a subscription for this, where many current products do not deserve a sub model.
rossy 5y ago
I can't think of a more effective way to kill Firefox. You'd give the fence-sitters a reason to switch, you'd get rid of all the volunteer contributors, and you'd get rid of everyone who uses and advocates for Firefox because it's free* software, which would probably be a significant portion of the remaining userbase. (I know it's technically possible to charge money for free* software, but it's impractical.) * as-in-freedom
- freediver 5y ago
  Fence-sitters already switch in droves, Firefox lost 250M users in the last ten years. So keeping the status quo already clearly leads to demise. And how can you claim you are free* when 90% of your revenue comes from your main competitor? Maybe making a paid browser is what they need to become truly free* and reset to a user-centric product development culture, which could then actually make it an exciting product again (even if they initially lost 90% of users as a consequence, those would be lost with time anyhow).

wintermutestwin 5y ago

More like: "Firefox Browser: 1. It is not google. 2. It's not a Chrome fork maintained by potentially flaky/untrustworthy players. 3. uBlock Origin. 4. Multi-Account Containers."

MiddleEndian 5y ago
5. Very keyboard-friendly 6. Incredibly customizable via CSS, including multiple rows of tabs
- ravenstine 5y ago
  7. Enhanced Tracking Protection 8. Non-nerfed ad blocking
- gilrain 5y ago
  5b. Keybinds can’t be changed
  - tigroferoce 5y ago
    5c. the shortcut for opening a private browsing window is different from every other browser and collide with the main shortcut (Ctrl+Shift+P) of the main IDE (VisualStudioCode)
cinquemb 5y ago
I wish brave forked ff… i guess i'll be working of my own fork of ff for the end of time for my family, going on 6 years or so now lol
- barbs 5y ago
  Out of curiosity, what have you changed in your fork of Firefox?
  - cinquemb 5y ago
    Mostly what I talk about here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21653909 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21653909

errantmind 5y ago

I've used Firefox since release but I'm curious what other less popular browsers people are using these days? For example, I have tried Bromite on my phone but the adblocking is limited. I've tried ungoogled-chromium on desktop and the speed is impressive. The main things I want: 1. Speed 2. Speed 3. Native plugins that can preempt network requests 4. Configurable for privacy (referrer, first party isolation, etc) All these are doable in Firefox but I've doubted them ever since Pocket integration

yabatopia 5y ago
Vivaldi on desktop. On Android switching between Vivaldi (sadly no support for extensions) and Kiwi Browser (supports extensions). The add-on massacre on Firefox for Mobile a few months ago pushed me over the edge.
- edly 5y ago
  +1 to Vivaldi. I use tiled tabs all the time.
matheusmoreira 5y ago
Brave is interesting. Built-in ad blocker even on mobile. Not as good as uBlock Origin on Firefox but it's an option. It also has its own advertising platform. The ads are simple notifications, no bullshit. It actually pays users in cryptocurrency for their attention. It can also be completely disabled.
- freediver 5y ago
  Not sure the world needs another ad-monetized browser. We need less ads on the web, not more. And what is the point of shipping a browser with an ad blocker only to serve your own ads built into the browser? My personal experience with it is that it is slow to start, bloated, the ad-blocker doesn't block Google ads by default and it fills home screen with some kind of crypto sites by default. It looks like it is trying to be a general purpose browser but judging by the choice of default options it looks more like a very niche browser for the crypto community. The most innovative thing they have right now is Search, hopefully it doesn't end up being ad-monetized too.

lindenstark 5y ago

when did "In-browser screenshot tool" become a key feature, seems like a job that most operating systems handle quite well. Anyone who uses this feature, feel free to chime in.

danmur 5y ago
I don't use it a great deal, but if you try it you can see why you'd use it over the OS screenshot. The easy answer is you can take a screenshot of a while page, or more than the portion that's showing.
nick_g 5y ago
I don't use it too often, but it can be really helpful for getting a perfect crop of a specific element. With firefox's screenshot tool you can select the visible window, page or a specific element which has advantages over my os's tool. If I want a clean crop of an element with the os tool, I either have to open my rough shot in an image editor to get the crop right, or be very precise with my selection rectangle. I'll often use the os screenshot if I'm just sending a quick image to friends, but if I want it to look nice the browser tool is easier and faster
malauxyeux 5y ago
It can take a screenshot of the entire page, including what's not currently displayed in the viewport.
superkuh 5y ago
Try taking an in-browser screenshot of your about:config or options tabs.

mpgarate 5y ago

I use Firefox every day as a backup, but my primary browser is qutebrowser. I would fully switch in a heartbeat if Firefox allowed full keyboard shortcut configuration. Tridactyl gets pretty close, but the fact that keyboard shortcuts stop working in certain scenarios is a nonstarter for me.

trevcanhuman 5y ago

From HN News Guidelines [0] “ In Submissions Please don't do things to make titles stand out, “ The title you wrote isn’t even in the article as far as I can tell. Please correct me if I’m wrong. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

r721 5y ago

Firefox 92 discussion from 6 days ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28444315 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28444315 (122 comments)

stereoradonc 5y ago

Too many distractions from Mozilla (Firefox OS, VPN etc and a complete dissonance from the core- browser. It doesn't help when senior management takes fat bonuses and fires away employees during the pandemic. That doesn't make for pleasant optics and also distanced me away from their product.

diskzero 5y ago
Firefox seems to be the only hope to avoid a duopoly dominated by forces that are anti-privacy and anti-user. I recently made the move from Safari to Firefox and I am very pleased. This being said, I agree with you about the optics of Firefox management. There is a lot going on that isn't good and the personal enrichment of the executives feels all sorts of wrong. If FF management can not be good stewards of a vital product, who can be? What sort of system could be set up to properly manage, motivate and pay for development?
- cjoh 5y ago
  Is there a way to simplify moving password management out of Keychain and into Firefox?
  - robotbikes 5y ago
    You can just use Firefox Sync and Lockwise on mobile to manage passwords etc instead of using Keychain I suspect. I'm not sure of the import functionality of that ecosystem but it wouldn't surprise me if someone figured it out already and posted the code.
  - diskzero 5y ago
    I wish there was (and I hope someone comes along and tells us!) During my switch to FF, I kept the Safari prefs dialog open and then copy and pasted the passwords when requested by a site in FireFox. It was a total drag, but in a few days I was all set in cross-device password management with Firefox.
  - freediver 5y ago

paxys 5y ago

I have used Firefox as my daily driver for 2+ years now. Zero problems with compatibility, including many "Chrome only" business apps. A couple Google-owned sites are the only ones that give me trouble, and spoofing the user agent on those has worked great.

risedotmoe 5y ago

I’ve opted to using librewolf as I prefer its out of the box changes removing everything that sucks about firefox. I refuse to use chrome (unless its for work in that case I use an isolated chromium) I despise the monopoly of the web and I despise google. Personally I think Brave is a honeypot and even if it isn’t, it’s still supporting the monopolized web standard. I hope things get better because we need more choice.

ek750 5y ago
I agree. I still vividly remember the bad old days of IE, and I find it puzzling that so many web developers are willingly going back to a monoculture, with such an anti-privacy organization holding all the cards.

timClicks 5y ago

It isn't enough for FF to be the best "for a free web". To reclaim market share, it needs to be best for users. They're self-interested.

creese 5y ago

I've been a FF user for years. This week, FF became so unusable under Wayland I had to install Brave.

maxnoe 5y ago
Ha, I thought I was alone, did not find anything.
toastal 5y ago
The patches are in place if you wait just a bit longer. NixOS merged patches into their main branch and the teams between Wayland and Mozilla have already resloved the issue. The only bit that rubs me is that this has been an issue since 92, has been out. I moved from beta to stable and then stable to ESR (v91 luckily) while I await the patches.

lucasyvas 5y ago

It's beyond me why they haven't thrown it up on GitHub yet. Let the community have a way bigger involvement and drive the future of the browser. Yes, I can go find the source for Firefox, but I sincerely doubt the engagement is anywhere near as high as it could be.

shp0ngle 5y ago
I’m not sure accessibility of source code is the biggest problem. You can get the code very easily. Also github is another kind of Microsoft lock-in, ironically.
- lucasyvas 5y ago
  I don't necessarily disagree with your Microsoft comment. I'm merely trying to say that I think Firefox needs more than features to reclaim some of its popularity. Where we're at, is that most people are happy running a Chromium variant. It's open source and there are enough downstream consumers that you can pick your poison. If Mozilla is going to push the "private browser, for you" angle, they are going to need to push harder on the "for you" angle. I'm still a loyal Firefox user. It seems to me that its users would rather have more say in its direction - give the people what they want.
  - toastal 5y ago
    If you don't disagree with the monopoly statement, then start altering your speech to reflect it. You can use the phrase “(public) Git forge” and avoid using the trademark generically and encompass all alternative forges.
    - lucasyvas 5y ago
      In this case, I think that the leading Git provider is where it should be hosted, due to community size. And that's GitHub for now. That can absolutely change in the future.
      - 5y ago

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

RedComet 5y ago

Firefox: We're the "best for a free web". Also Firefox: We support internet censorship. (source: CEO of Mozilla, link: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...)

rossy 5y ago
Which part of that article advocates for censorship?
- RedComet 5y ago
  Other than the title? How about "Turn on by default the tools to amplify factual voices over disinformation." Not to mention what immediately follows, advocating for something beyond this in the future: "This is how we can begin to do that." Looking forward to the silently installed browser extension that hides search results and social media posts that they don't want you to see. (related: https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mozilla-backpedals-after-mr-robot-firefox-misstep/ https://www.cnet.com/tech/services-and-software/mozilla-back...)
  - rossy 5y ago
    Amplifying content in algorithmic news feeds is hardly censorship. Anything Facebook did would be counter to the usual forces that amply divisive (engaging) content.
    - _-david-_ 5y ago
      Amplifying content means other content is reduced in spread. This means some people won't see the content that they would have otherwise seen.
- frutmonkey 5y ago
  Did you even read the title? It advocates for drowning out opposition based on what they believe "is true". Everyone thinks they are right. If you don't respect the right of those you disagree with to speak, functionally, you don't respect any freedom of speech.

mythz 5y ago

Pleas into a niche tech communities to use a different browser isn't going to stop FF's slow slide to irrelevance. Microsoft saw the writing on the wall with IE and launched Edge which by comparison looks to have a much more promising future then Mozilla. This does nothing to improve browser engine diversity but at this point Mozilla's best path to commercial success would be to launch a new browser product that's a rebranded Blink/WebKit with a focus on privacy, e.g. ad/tracker blockers, optional integrated VPN, simple UX for clearing browser history per site/date range/etc. Personally I'd prefer they adopt Safari's WebKit over Chrome's Blink to remove the dependency from Google. I'm too old to deal with navigating the web with rendering inconsistencies of browser web developers don't test against. For the same reason I've no hesitation to use their gorgeous Firefox Focus iOS browser over Chrome since they're all forced to use the same rendering engine, and given all things being equal I trust Firefox to protect privacy much more than Google.

shp0ngle 5y ago

People that have seen the inside of both: which has better codebase, Firefox or Chromium? I have seen only inside Chrome as I was debugging some edgecases; it’s very google C++, but once you get used to the enormous size, it’s not that hard to follow.

jeswin 5y ago

I'd like to mention (once again), that Firefox on Android is a huge leap in everyday browsing experience over Chrome - and you should try it if you haven't. Due to mainly one reason: ad blocker extensions; which aren't supported on Chrome. Since that's where most users are, I hope Mozilla will be able to communicate these advantages better. Chrome is arguably better on the desktop for most users, unless they're in the tiny subset of users who care about privacy.

PetahNZ 5y ago
Although ad blockers are supported on chrome based Kiwibrowser
rilut 5y ago
since Android 9.0 you can use private DNS like dns.adguard.com to use Chrome ad-free
pxc 5y ago
I prefer Firefox for Android as well, but there is a Chromium fork called Bromite which has adblocking built in, too.
- unicornporn 5y ago
  Kiwi supports extensions on Android...
  - tentacleuno 5y ago
    After that whole search engine scandal with Kiwi Browser, a lot of people don't trust it anymore. I believe it also majorly lagged behind Chromium versions.
    - inside_out_life 5y ago
      It got updated to newest Chromium version recently, the build process seems to be semi-automated now too. Isn't it open source too? Unfortunately it's a bit buggy on some of my devices. Newest FF beta got unexplained speed bost and tablet UI, it's approaching irreplaceablity steadily for me, There's IceRaven FF fork which has enabled even more addons.

brutal_chaos_ 5y ago

I loved Firefox and I still believe it is the best bastion for a free web, though that view has been slowly fading. Years and years of user hostile moves (drastic UI changes, breaking am entire generation of addons) have really hurt the brand IMHO. And this PR just feels hollow.

wly_cdgr 5y ago

What is the Firefox business model? ...Oh yeah, that's right, indirect subsidies from Google Besides, there's only one mainstream browser that's better than Chrome, and that browser is Edge

jtsuken 5y ago

Firefox has a number of security issues: From here: https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they're currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn't have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox runs as a single process on mobile and has no sandbox beyond the OS sandbox. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS isolatedProcess feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox's sandbox is still substantially weaker (especially on Linux, where it can hardly be considered a sandbox at all) and lacks support for isolating sites from each other rather than only containing content as a whole.

noomen 5y ago

50 million users lost in the last 2 years alone. Sorry Mozilla, we love you, but all the good you think you're doing means nothing when you end up with no one using your browser. Of course, Mozilla can continue to arrogantly ignore its user base.

perryizgr8 5y ago

A "free" web where you are "free" to say/do anything as long as we think it is ok: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/ https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat... A "free" web where you pretend to fight against Google, but copy every user-hostile anti-feature from them, take almost all your money from them, and put them as your default search engine. Mozilla deserve every bit of their recent problems, just like they deserved their meteoric rise in the 2000s.

goldforever 5y ago

Nope. Best browsers for a free web are Brave and Dissenter.

France_is_bacon 5y ago

I have been a devoted follower of firefox for a long time. However, recently I have run into a lot of situations where foxfire does not work with some of the apps I need, and chromium based browsers do work. These apps are vital to what I do, and while I prefer firefox for all the usual reasons, I cannot use it. Sad really.

jvzr 5y ago

I'd been using Firefox ever since the Phoenix days. And somehow, sometime, I moved to Chrome like everyone did... until I had enough of Google, and came back to Firefox right at the start of the Quantum days. Haven't left since. Firefox is a really good browser (at least on Linux, even though the lack of HW-acceleration on NVIDIA cards is a pain) made even greater with best-in-class uBlock Origin support, and of course piroor's Tree Style Tab. Containers are also a great feature (I containerize Google, Facebook, Amazon and Twitter properties in their own silo). Tab unloaders (I don't remember which I'm currently using) is also a good idea to reduce memory usage (even though with 32 GB I have NEVER run into issues) I've been rocking it and a custom user stylesheet to hide the tabs on top, reorder and customize the address bar to be tighter, have more contrast; and the whole UI to be black (I use the dark variant of Adwaita all day on my desktop). Having an ultrawide display, I have plenty of horizontal space. Here's an screenshot if that interests you: https://imgur.com/a/8PEKED5 https://imgur.com/a/8PEKED5 Edit: How could I have missed that?! Picture-in-picture is incredibly good as well! I use it daily, mainly to watch a YT video on the side while continuing to browse the web. They even added multiple PIP windows a while back, which is a god-send when I watch livestreams such as a rocket launches (eg. official livestream in one window, and EverydayAstronaut's in another)

fragileone 5y ago
HW acceleration on Linux was fixed about a year ago https://9to5linux.com/firefox-81-enters-beta-gpu-acceleration-now-enabled-by-default-on-linux https://9to5linux.com/firefox-81-enters-beta-gpu-acceleratio...
- jvzr 5y ago
  It appears to work for Netflix, but not YouTube videos. Are there restrictions in the implementation? Edit: following this¹ (without installing any driver though) was enough to make it work for YouTube, apparently. Thanks for the info! [1] https://askubuntu.com/a/1291873 https://askubuntu.com/a/1291873

linuxhansl 5y ago

At home I only use Firefox (on my Linux machines). For many (not all) sites Firefox is actually the fastest choice. Being reminded today I also just installed Firefox on my - relatively new - work machine. Somehow I am more tolerant there running Chrome than on my own machines.

zaik 5y ago

If anyone's wondering how to get Firefox mobile on F-Droid, it's called 'Fennec' and can be found here: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.fennec_fdroid

zerop 5y ago

FF might be better than Chrome etc now, but Surprisingly, firefox didn't care about the declining usage till a long time. It seemed to me, they let it go to Google. Speed, crashes etc were too often then and it never got fixed in time. that mattered to lots of users

yagop 5y ago

Lack of WebUSB is the major issue to me.

password4321 5y ago
Can not tell if this is sarcasm or not, but I'll suppose not. Do you mind sharing your WebUSB use case(s)?
- yagop 5y ago
  To sing transactions with Ledger or any other cryto devices (see ID cards readers)

timo_h 5y ago

Firefox is great on desktop, been my primary browser for 15+ years. Sadly though, the mobile version (still) lacks support for "pull to refresh" gesture. Other than that, mobile FF is great (privacy features, browser addons...).

dgdfg 5y ago

https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/r/youngboysvmanunited/ https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngxvwo14e9r https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngy4u3kwpnb https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngyaz2i7k58 https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngypzh6qviw https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzszxejq8d https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17ngzz8prwl1c https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur https://www.reddit.com/live/17nh07dryebur

happynacho 5y ago

Mozilla does really love to milk "Open source" and "free" for Firefox marketing. How about about if they actually gave users what they wanted?

account42 5y ago

A "free" web where in Firefox's default configuration Google controls what you can download. [0] [0] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Safe_Browsing

throwaway_v9edc 5y ago

I was a long time Chrome user, I switched to Firefox 1 year ago and I won't look back: 1. Firefox has Ctrl+Tab MRU 2. Firefox has a way more usable address bar - Chrome breaks it on purpose and returns weak results to push you to use Google search for things which should immediately pop up in the address bar. 3. Firefox has container tabs - a feature so crucial to browsing the web (whenever you need to login to 2 different accounts on the same site) that you would wonder why on Earth would the leading web browser not implement it (until you remind yourself that the browser is brought to you by a certain company that has the word "evil" in it's motto and likes tracking too much). 4. Firefox has a sidebar, enabling interesting extensions. 5. This is small - but I recently noticed how Chrome broke the bookmark UI, after clicking the star icon, you don't add bookmark immediately, no. You have to choose between a bookmark or reading list first.

elchupanebre 5y ago

The main problem with Firefox is Gecko. Technically it's a great rendering engine, fast, standards-compliant, maybe only slightly more buggy than Webkit. Unfortunately it has a different set of bugs than webkit. Web developers have just so much time to debug the apps. Once the app works for ~90% of users on webkit, spending as much time or more testing and debugging for ~7% of FF users is not always justified. This is a catch 22: FF users get more bugs - more pressure to move to Chrome, fewer users on FF - less money to develop Gecko leading to more bugs. My prediction is that FF will either drop Gecko or die.