Firefox 96(mozilla.org)
mozilla.org
Firefox 96
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/96.0/releasenotes/
381 comments
Having not seen the Web Locks proposal before, it feels like a mistake. The ease of using the API combined with the intricacies of locking feels like substantial misuse is guaranteed (especially in a language dominated by learners).
We've only recently seen languages capable of being smarter about preventing concurrency issues at compile time, and JavaScript is not ready.
I suppose it could be nice to have, but I'm almost certain I'd be searching for ways to solve my problem in other ways before reaching for this.
Edit: The lock is acquired via a string as well - I'm sure that'll never collide in a third party library...
We've only recently seen languages capable of being smarter about preventing concurrency issues at compile time, and JavaScript is not ready.
I suppose it could be nice to have, but I'm almost certain I'd be searching for ways to solve my problem in other ways before reaching for this.
Edit: The lock is acquired via a string as well - I'm sure that'll never collide in a third party library...
Cookies and localStorage are scoped by string and we've just learned to deal with it. Namespaces are hard and strings are probably one of the best of the bad solutions that don't massively increase complexity.
It could just be an object that you create, and then .lock() on though. Like almost every other language...
Fair, but how does one claim the same object on two pages in a race-free manner?
You could allow them to be smuggled through postMessage, but then two pages would have to coordinate creation/reception of the lock.
I'd love to hear better solutions as I might be too tired pre-coffee to brainstorm something more elegant. I find it interesting that Windows effectively uses global string-named mutexes and overall still has a few very rare conflicts that usually make the news [1].
[1] https://geek-week.imtqy.com/articles/en488834/index.html
You could allow them to be smuggled through postMessage, but then two pages would have to coordinate creation/reception of the lock.
I'd love to hear better solutions as I might be too tired pre-coffee to brainstorm something more elegant. I find it interesting that Windows effectively uses global string-named mutexes and overall still has a few very rare conflicts that usually make the news [1].
[1] https://geek-week.imtqy.com/articles/en488834/index.html
Yeah, they should at least allow using symbols for name.
isn't "leader election" a big part of RAFT consensus?
So does this mean it's basically "partially-applied RAFT"?
I could see that becoming a problem
So does this mean it's basically "partially-applied RAFT"?
I could see that becoming a problem
Re: `color-scheme` CSS prop: AFAIU it can be useful pretty soon, because Chrome is experimenting with forced dark mode for web content (i.e. the equivalent of "Dark Reader" extension, but natively built in the browser).
If your website supports dark mode and you want to opt-out from browser messing things up, this property is the one you need.
https://twitter.com/__jakub_g/status/1478847423913107456
If your website supports dark mode and you want to opt-out from browser messing things up, this property is the one you need.
https://twitter.com/__jakub_g/status/1478847423913107456
>We’ve also significantly reduced main-thread load.
Such an important detail that deserve at least few more sentence of marketing message or explanation. But the whole release note just feels like they couldn't be bothered anymore.
Such an important detail that deserve at least few more sentence of marketing message or explanation. But the whole release note just feels like they couldn't be bothered anymore.
This has been happening for god knows how many releases now. Release notes make it seem like it's a minor version update and I'm not sure there were that many changes since they don't and haven't been caring. I will still use Firefox since it's not Chrome, but what people have been saying is true: it's a facade so google does not get sued for antitrust/monopoly.
I don't know how to fix this, but I believe sometime down the road the EU is going to sue Google and also believe Firefox is going to be forked. Can't wait for both of those things to happen.
I don't know how to fix this, but I believe sometime down the road the EU is going to sue Google and also believe Firefox is going to be forked. Can't wait for both of those things to happen.
> and also believe Firefox is going to be forked
Out of curiosity: by whom? I don't think this is likely at this point, short of some truly benevolent benefactor pushing tens of millions of dollars per-year into a competing foundation.
None of the "alternative" browser companies today built upon Gecko or forked Firefox itself, because _it's really hard to maintain a browser engine_. Mozilla itself barely manages to keep up, and Apple sort-of-does (and can riff off work on Blink due to WebKit's shared history). This is also why Chrome & Chromium tend to drive de-facto standards (some good, some not so good) with an implementation-first approach.
Building browsers is hard. Really hard, especially as we consume more media and build richer applications on top of the web. Dedicated teams for video & audio, WebRTC, Wasm, CSS, JS itself (huge, let alone the security challenges), etc.
Out of curiosity: by whom? I don't think this is likely at this point, short of some truly benevolent benefactor pushing tens of millions of dollars per-year into a competing foundation.
None of the "alternative" browser companies today built upon Gecko or forked Firefox itself, because _it's really hard to maintain a browser engine_. Mozilla itself barely manages to keep up, and Apple sort-of-does (and can riff off work on Blink due to WebKit's shared history). This is also why Chrome & Chromium tend to drive de-facto standards (some good, some not so good) with an implementation-first approach.
Building browsers is hard. Really hard, especially as we consume more media and build richer applications on top of the web. Dedicated teams for video & audio, WebRTC, Wasm, CSS, JS itself (huge, let alone the security challenges), etc.
Not even Brave, founded by Mozilla's ex-CTO/CEO forked Firefox. Microsoft Edge switched from homegrown to Chromium.
These two clues should be enough to cement your idea about how hard it is.
Even more important though is that it doesn't matter. You don't have reach. Apple locks you into Safari on mobile and Google pushes Chrome on Android and services having billions of users, like Youtube.
That's Mozilla's real problem. They lack in engineering power but engineering isn't the problem anyway. It's reach.
These two clues should be enough to cement your idea about how hard it is.
Even more important though is that it doesn't matter. You don't have reach. Apple locks you into Safari on mobile and Google pushes Chrome on Android and services having billions of users, like Youtube.
That's Mozilla's real problem. They lack in engineering power but engineering isn't the problem anyway. It's reach.
I think it's less about being hard and more about it being expensive redundent work. You will have to spend a lot of money to essentially make a duplicate version of an existing piece of software which you can use and build upon right now.
True, and if we're honest, the result of this hard work is a negative. Nobody in commercial software development benefits from having multiple slightly different engines. It just means more testing and more bugs, differences in feature support, the like.
> None of the "alternative" browser companies today built upon Gecko or forked Firefox itself, because _it's really hard to maintain a browser engine_.
What we really need isn't a fork.
It's for someone to do the same deal of selling the default search engine to the highest bidder, but then commit to using all of the money for promoting and improving the browser instead of all the non-Firefox things Mozilla does with it.
Then the extent of the fork is to change the browser name and the search engine link and all the improvements go back to upstream Firefox instead of having to maintain an independent one. But when it gets out that someone is doing this, who isn't going to want the one which is actually funding the browser and is otherwise identical?
In time the "fork" could become the dominant contributor to Firefox and just take over. Or convince Mozilla to commit to doing the same thing to make them go away.
What we really need isn't a fork.
It's for someone to do the same deal of selling the default search engine to the highest bidder, but then commit to using all of the money for promoting and improving the browser instead of all the non-Firefox things Mozilla does with it.
Then the extent of the fork is to change the browser name and the search engine link and all the improvements go back to upstream Firefox instead of having to maintain an independent one. But when it gets out that someone is doing this, who isn't going to want the one which is actually funding the browser and is otherwise identical?
In time the "fork" could become the dominant contributor to Firefox and just take over. Or convince Mozilla to commit to doing the same thing to make them go away.
> It's for someone to do the same deal of selling the default search engine to the highest bidder, but then commit to using all of the money for promoting and improving the browser instead of all the non-Firefox things Mozilla does with it.
That's a really, really minor part of the costs of Mozilla. Most of the money, by far, is spent paying engineering, design and marketing.
That's a really, really minor part of the costs of Mozilla. Most of the money, by far, is spent paying engineering, design and marketing.
It would be nice if there was some way to know that, but the browser is developed by Mozilla Corporation, which is a subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation and not a public company so as far as I can tell it has no published budget.
Meanwhile, the Mozilla Foundation that does have published financial statements spends millions on all kinds of not-Firefox things. Including the money it gets as donations from people who think they're donating to fund Firefox and the money it gets from the for-profit Mozilla Corporation that actually does develop Firefox and should be using the money for that instead.
Meanwhile, the Mozilla Foundation that does have published financial statements spends millions on all kinds of not-Firefox things. Including the money it gets as donations from people who think they're donating to fund Firefox and the money it gets from the for-profit Mozilla Corporation that actually does develop Firefox and should be using the money for that instead.
Well, last time I checked (which was before the recent layoffs) Mozilla Corp had around 1,000 employees, most of whom were working either on technology or around technology (i.e. I'm including designers, support, end-user research, managers) and a revenue of ~800 M$. I'd be really surprised if the budget per employee (including salary and employer taxes) was below 300 k$ per annum.
That's already close to half of the revenue. I won't try to guesstimate operating costs, but Mozilla needs to rent plenty of cloud computing power for both CI (heck, Mozilla pretty much invented Continuous Integration), Telemetry, Sync, Accounts, MDN, ... Offices in Silicon Valley and around the world (several of which have closed in recent years) can't be cheap, either.
I also seem to remember that Mozilla had marketing campaigns that cost dozens of millions of dollars. Pretty cheap in comparison to what e.g. Google can afford, but less so for a smaller company.
I realize that there's lots of guesses here, but I believe that my earlier claim makes definite sense.
That's already close to half of the revenue. I won't try to guesstimate operating costs, but Mozilla needs to rent plenty of cloud computing power for both CI (heck, Mozilla pretty much invented Continuous Integration), Telemetry, Sync, Accounts, MDN, ... Offices in Silicon Valley and around the world (several of which have closed in recent years) can't be cheap, either.
I also seem to remember that Mozilla had marketing campaigns that cost dozens of millions of dollars. Pretty cheap in comparison to what e.g. Google can afford, but less so for a smaller company.
I realize that there's lots of guesses here, but I believe that my earlier claim makes definite sense.
> short of some truly benevolent benefactor pushing tens of millions of dollars per-year into a competing foundation.
TBH, there's no shortage of new billionaires that could do this. If they committed to it hard, they might be able to get it to break even after a while. Google pretends that default search engine rights on firefox are worth half a billion per year. They have to be worth some fraction of that.
TBH, there's no shortage of new billionaires that could do this. If they committed to it hard, they might be able to get it to break even after a while. Google pretends that default search engine rights on firefox are worth half a billion per year. They have to be worth some fraction of that.
there's a lot of things that could happen if only there were a concerned billionaire that didn't care about profit
none of those things seem to ever happen. if you are not one of those billionaires start thinking of another approach
none of those things seem to ever happen. if you are not one of those billionaires start thinking of another approach
Release notes are generally very concise. They are typically followed up with a detailed blog on https://hacks.mozilla.org/
Why can't they just make a combined reason notes with both of those. Casual readers don't need to scroll to the bottom and understand everything and it makes updates look more meaty.
Casual readers not confronted with a wall of text also don't feel compelled to accidentally drown in scrolling through all of it just in case there was a juicy morsel buried somewhere down below. Both approaches have pros/cons.
If only the web had some kind of technology to make more content appear when clicking on things... Almost as if they were linked, somehow. Then we'd need some kind of program to browse that content by clicking on stuff.
You know that site isolation shipped recently, right? That was a massive, massive amount of work.
Though I do not like monopolies, how did Google reach this position? Is there any kind of abuse going on? Or it is just a better product?
I say so because I think there should be alternatives, but suing just for being better does not make any sense to me, if that is the case, of course.
I say so because I think there should be alternatives, but suing just for being better does not make any sense to me, if that is the case, of course.
> Is there any kind of abuse going on
There is several kinds of abuse going on:
- antitrust abuse, in that Google is cross-subsidising spending billions of dollars per year on a free browser, pulled from revenues from their dominant market position on search advertising (and then setting the default search engine to re-inforce that dominant search position)
- dark patterns where Google both sneakily installs Chrome with lots of other programs even if the user doesn't want it, as well as popping up banners on Google properties that suggests that your computer doesn't run properly without Chrome (yes MS does it too, and no that doesn't make it right)
- repeated so-called "bugs" where Google 'engineers' slow down Youtube or Gmail massively on rival browsers by exploiting minor differences in Javascript interpretation for plausible deniability
There is several kinds of abuse going on:
- antitrust abuse, in that Google is cross-subsidising spending billions of dollars per year on a free browser, pulled from revenues from their dominant market position on search advertising (and then setting the default search engine to re-inforce that dominant search position)
- dark patterns where Google both sneakily installs Chrome with lots of other programs even if the user doesn't want it, as well as popping up banners on Google properties that suggests that your computer doesn't run properly without Chrome (yes MS does it too, and no that doesn't make it right)
- repeated so-called "bugs" where Google 'engineers' slow down Youtube or Gmail massively on rival browsers by exploiting minor differences in Javascript interpretation for plausible deniability
why is sign in to chrome a thing? i have been using firefox for the past 12-15 years exclusively now and i am starting to see coworkers all "signed into their browser". why?
before anyone says syncing, no one uses that. i guarantee that. people either now use "office work" and mobile phone. they do not mix together and no one wants to stay in touch with office notifications from browser. i do understand this is a thing for some people but why expose EVERYONE to a feature whose only purpose is to collect data on specific people and their browsing habits, bookmarks, passwords, favorites,
before anyone says syncing, no one uses that. i guarantee that. people either now use "office work" and mobile phone. they do not mix together and no one wants to stay in touch with office notifications from browser. i do understand this is a thing for some people but why expose EVERYONE to a feature whose only purpose is to collect data on specific people and their browsing habits, bookmarks, passwords, favorites,
> why is sign in to chrome a thing?
Because your personal data and browsing habits can be monetised.
"They" sell it under the guise of conveniently taking your browsing history from one device to another (your PC to your phone and vice versa), but actually the big companies have realised that _knowing your browsing habits_ as intimately as possible means they can profit by targeted advertising and so on.
Because your personal data and browsing habits can be monetised.
"They" sell it under the guise of conveniently taking your browsing history from one device to another (your PC to your phone and vice versa), but actually the big companies have realised that _knowing your browsing habits_ as intimately as possible means they can profit by targeted advertising and so on.
I think the question was asked from the user's standpoint rather than Google's. In other words: Why, as a user, would I bother signing into my browser?
Some people like the lie that is 'convenience' of moving history and bookmarks between devices.
This would explain why, recently when I opened MS Edge, it sucked up all my bookmarks from Firefox and then signed me in to itself using my Microsoft account - all automatically and without my permission.
it's been a while since I've used chrome, but iirc it signs in on the browser automatically when you sign in on google
You're thoroughly incorrect in your assumptions about how people use browsers.
arent you assuming everyone will have more than 1 computing device, laptop or desktop or tablet that they want to work on at all times? how many people are those compared to who only have any one of these devices only? who will they sync to ? their phones? why?
You only need to upgrade your PC once to value that sync functionality.
And besides I'm pretty sure most office workers have two devices: work and personal.
Chrome having profiles makes it super easy to just login on the work laptop on a secondary profile, which is preconfigured with login data etc so they're able to do online shopping etc in breaks
And besides I'm pretty sure most office workers have two devices: work and personal.
Chrome having profiles makes it super easy to just login on the work laptop on a secondary profile, which is preconfigured with login data etc so they're able to do online shopping etc in breaks
slow down and think. i live in a third world country. people use their office devices. they do not have money to own a personal laptop or desktop. that is the sad truth in countries like india, cheap labour remember.
you are thinking tech engineers. i am talking about junior staff, accountants, clerks, secretaries, data entry operators, the backbone of the service industry, all the low paying jobs. the ones who do not get to do wfh because the work they do can't afford home devices.
thousands and thousands of government employees who work at their desks pushing files around and tying stuff.
thousands of call center operators,service tech. all these do not pay enough to afford personal devices.
you are thinking tech engineers. i am talking about junior staff, accountants, clerks, secretaries, data entry operators, the backbone of the service industry, all the low paying jobs. the ones who do not get to do wfh because the work they do can't afford home devices.
thousands and thousands of government employees who work at their desks pushing files around and tying stuff.
thousands of call center operators,service tech. all these do not pay enough to afford personal devices.
That's fair, I guess I should've said most office workers in developed nations. Though I do think that caveat is kinda redundant here considering the demographic.
Yes I sync bookmarks between my desktop, laptop and phone by signing into Firefox. I also am able to see open tabs on other devices in a pinch. It's damn useful.
you are a minority out of around 4 billion humans who are online. majority of the 4 billion only have at best a single device, many times shared between users.
> Though I do not like monopolies, how did Google reach this position?
Someone has probably written a book on this. There were a lot of factors that lead to Google gaining dominance.
Some of the highlights:
1 - Microsoft let IE6 languish after capturing the market. This was strategic because they felt the Web threatened their dominance on the desktop.
2 - Mozilla attacked IE6 by promoting standards compliance and worked to clearly document web standards and compliance.
3 - Mozilla attacked IE6 by launching Firefox (formerly Phoenix) and focusing standards compliance.
4 - Apple introduced a platform (iPhone) that was rapidly adopted and incompatible with IE6, necessitating change
5 - Google saw Mozilla Firefox clawing back 25% market share from IE6
6 - Google leveraged the browser engine in Safari (the iPhone browser) to launch their own browser with a focus on performance.
7 - Google put ads for Chrome on Google Search which basically put them in Firefox and on all platforms.
Someone has probably written a book on this. There were a lot of factors that lead to Google gaining dominance.
Some of the highlights:
1 - Microsoft let IE6 languish after capturing the market. This was strategic because they felt the Web threatened their dominance on the desktop.
2 - Mozilla attacked IE6 by promoting standards compliance and worked to clearly document web standards and compliance.
3 - Mozilla attacked IE6 by launching Firefox (formerly Phoenix) and focusing standards compliance.
4 - Apple introduced a platform (iPhone) that was rapidly adopted and incompatible with IE6, necessitating change
5 - Google saw Mozilla Firefox clawing back 25% market share from IE6
6 - Google leveraged the browser engine in Safari (the iPhone browser) to launch their own browser with a focus on performance.
7 - Google put ads for Chrome on Google Search which basically put them in Firefox and on all platforms.
All good points, but I think it's also important to remember that we felt very differently about Google when Chrome came out. On top of search, they'd given us gmail, maps and earth and a bunch of other stuff that was amazing at the time and free.
There was a feeling that Google just "got it" when it came to the web, so a lot of people didn't need much convincing to try Chrome.
It was a good browser, too- fast, (mostly) standards-compliant and it came with fully featured dev tools back when IE and FF didn't even ship with them.
I don't like what Google has become, but it was a very different company back then.
I don't like what Google has become, but it was a very different company back then.
8. Google produced a cleaner, faster browser than the buggy, slow and bloated Firefox.
Mozilla began addressing performance issues with Firefox 57 and future releases, but for almost the entire decade prior Firefox was unstable trash.
Mozilla began addressing performance issues with Firefox 57 and future releases, but for almost the entire decade prior Firefox was unstable trash.
> but for almost the entire decade prior Firefox was unstable trash.
I don't think it was any more unstable than other browsers at the time, however they were the ones who introduced session restore to combat crashing. It's funny how a mitigation to crashing evolved into a must have feature.
I've been using it since it was called Phoenix and trash is the last word I'd use to describe it.
I don't think it was any more unstable than other browsers at the time, however they were the ones who introduced session restore to combat crashing. It's funny how a mitigation to crashing evolved into a must have feature.
I've been using it since it was called Phoenix and trash is the last word I'd use to describe it.
i think old opera's session restore left everybody in the dust. i think opera was the fastest and best browser for a long long time.
The thing I've never understood about Opera is - what were they missing? They pioneered a ton of features that are now ubiquitous, like tabs and "speed dial," but somehow never managed to gain much market share. Why not?
yes, it was truly the utorrent of browsers.
well it was commercial software.. first trialware, then it showed ads, and so on. i guess for a long time it couldnt be given away freely as it was developed by a small company.
not being open source also hampered true cross platform, for example on openbsd it could be run only under linux emulation.
well it was commercial software.. first trialware, then it showed ads, and so on. i guess for a long time it couldnt be given away freely as it was developed by a small company.
not being open source also hampered true cross platform, for example on openbsd it could be run only under linux emulation.
> but for almost the entire decade prior Firefox was unstable trash.
People say this all the time.
Personally I didn't like Chrome for UX and technical reasons even back when Google were nice so I have used Firefox from 2005 until now, across mostly Windows and Linux but also Mac from 2009 to 2012, often having a few hundred tabs open.
I cannot say that your statement is false for everyone but I can say that it is definitely not true for everyone.
People say this all the time.
Personally I didn't like Chrome for UX and technical reasons even back when Google were nice so I have used Firefox from 2005 until now, across mostly Windows and Linux but also Mac from 2009 to 2012, often having a few hundred tabs open.
I cannot say that your statement is false for everyone but I can say that it is definitely not true for everyone.
How about offering a good search engine? A good e-mail service? A good product. That never existed?
It seems we explain all things in terms of wars among browsers when actually when Chrome came out (at first, when no market share) it was really fast and lean and they are well-known by their search engine.
The problems I have with Google are more sort of privacy stuff. But they also have their own merits. I myself am not using Chrome anymore based on privacy concerns.
It seems we explain all things in terms of wars among browsers when actually when Chrome came out (at first, when no market share) it was really fast and lean and they are well-known by their search engine.
The problems I have with Google are more sort of privacy stuff. But they also have their own merits. I myself am not using Chrome anymore based on privacy concerns.
There's also the failure of the Windows phone. So Microsoft bought Nokia, and are now subservient to Android.
> how did Google reach this position?
In part, at least, by relentlessly promoting Chrome on their (hugely popular) web properties, as well as other advertising channels.
Was it legitimate for them to use their dominance of online search to aggressively push their web browser? I'm no expert, but some people may think that was improper.
In part, at least, by relentlessly promoting Chrome on their (hugely popular) web properties, as well as other advertising channels.
Was it legitimate for them to use their dominance of online search to aggressively push their web browser? I'm no expert, but some people may think that was improper.
I think there are two different things here being discussed.
> In part, at least, by relentlessly promoting Chrome on their (hugely popular) web properties, as well as other advertising channels.
It is their property, of course they can use it to promote their stuff.
The other topic is how much they are doing without user consent. That would definitely could incur in privacy violations. But promoting my stuff in my own places? That is not a reason to complain.
> In part, at least, by relentlessly promoting Chrome on their (hugely popular) web properties, as well as other advertising channels.
It is their property, of course they can use it to promote their stuff.
The other topic is how much they are doing without user consent. That would definitely could incur in privacy violations. But promoting my stuff in my own places? That is not a reason to complain.
>It is their property, of course they can use it to promote their stuff.
Luckily for consumers and small and medium-sized businesses Microsoft vs Eu and Microsoft vs US tells a different story about the legality of using a monopoly in one area to push for monopoly in other areas.
I'd not invest significant shares of my money into either MS or Google before we see the end of this, then maybe there is a chance to pick up some at a more realistic price.
As the saying goes: the wheels of justice grinds slowly.
Luckily for consumers and small and medium-sized businesses Microsoft vs Eu and Microsoft vs US tells a different story about the legality of using a monopoly in one area to push for monopoly in other areas.
I'd not invest significant shares of my money into either MS or Google before we see the end of this, then maybe there is a chance to pick up some at a more realistic price.
As the saying goes: the wheels of justice grinds slowly.
You as a consumer have the power of where to put your money.
If you think a company is creating monopolies just use an alternative. If you keep using the one from the big company, you should wonder why as well. Maybe they are offering something better than the alternatives and I do not think someone should be entitled to force all the other consumers have inferior or more expensive products because a third party decides that they are too big.
By this reasoning, what you are saying is that we have to stop companies making better products for the people on the basis that they are too big. The dynamics of competition tells us that when IBM existed, it appeared Microsoft, when Microsoft and IBM existed, it appeared Google, Apple came back, Facebook appeared. If big companies had absolute power then this would not happen.
More companies will be born, the same way Zara was born in Spain from a guy sewing at his own home.
Telling someone that because they are "too big" they cannot make better products makes no sense to me, since you just said you support consumers. Me too, that is why I won't force inferior products on them.
The reasons should be something else like agreeing prices among companies or similar stuff. But even that could make some small company emerge if the prices are artificially puffed up, because it makes them less competitive. It is a business chance for someone else in that case.
If you think a company is creating monopolies just use an alternative. If you keep using the one from the big company, you should wonder why as well. Maybe they are offering something better than the alternatives and I do not think someone should be entitled to force all the other consumers have inferior or more expensive products because a third party decides that they are too big.
By this reasoning, what you are saying is that we have to stop companies making better products for the people on the basis that they are too big. The dynamics of competition tells us that when IBM existed, it appeared Microsoft, when Microsoft and IBM existed, it appeared Google, Apple came back, Facebook appeared. If big companies had absolute power then this would not happen.
More companies will be born, the same way Zara was born in Spain from a guy sewing at his own home.
Telling someone that because they are "too big" they cannot make better products makes no sense to me, since you just said you support consumers. Me too, that is why I won't force inferior products on them.
The reasons should be something else like agreeing prices among companies or similar stuff. But even that could make some small company emerge if the prices are artificially puffed up, because it makes them less competitive. It is a business chance for someone else in that case.
> If you think a company is creating monopolies just use an alternative.
I do. I've used Firefox as my main browser since well over a decade ago.
> If you keep using the one from the big company, you should wonder why as well.
Again, I never use it. I tried it back when it was new but it wasn't that much faster and the extensions were subpar.
Later the reasons expanded as K didn't want to deal with Google.
> Maybe they are offering something better than the alternatives and I do not think someone should be entitled to force all the other consumers have inferior or more expensive products because a third party decides that they are too big.
If this was all then they should probably go free even if no one liked them. I think I am fair enough to judge them that way.
However they, like Microsoft before (and after) them use their monopoly in one space to chase monopolies in other space.
> By this reasoning, what you are saying is that we have to stop companies making better products for the people on the basis that they are too big.
Not at all what I am saying.
I do. I've used Firefox as my main browser since well over a decade ago.
> If you keep using the one from the big company, you should wonder why as well.
Again, I never use it. I tried it back when it was new but it wasn't that much faster and the extensions were subpar.
Later the reasons expanded as K didn't want to deal with Google.
> Maybe they are offering something better than the alternatives and I do not think someone should be entitled to force all the other consumers have inferior or more expensive products because a third party decides that they are too big.
If this was all then they should probably go free even if no one liked them. I think I am fair enough to judge them that way.
However they, like Microsoft before (and after) them use their monopoly in one space to chase monopolies in other space.
> By this reasoning, what you are saying is that we have to stop companies making better products for the people on the basis that they are too big.
Not at all what I am saying.
FWIW I used Chrome and now use Firefox.
When I said "you" I meant people who complain in general terms about these companies yet they still have a choice and use stuff from companies they hate.
I am just trying to make my point that a superior product is good for the consumer and there are rules that can hurt you as a consumer that are apparwntly good.
Nothing can replace good judgement and information.
I find natural companies trying to reinvest. That creates employments anyway.
I prefer that there are more services providers as opposed to a big one but that is not a reason to stop them if they offer the best alternative. After all, smaller companies have always emerged when the big ones were there already. That shows that being big does not mean you can beat everyone at everything at all.
When I said "you" I meant people who complain in general terms about these companies yet they still have a choice and use stuff from companies they hate.
I am just trying to make my point that a superior product is good for the consumer and there are rules that can hurt you as a consumer that are apparwntly good.
Nothing can replace good judgement and information.
I find natural companies trying to reinvest. That creates employments anyway.
I prefer that there are more services providers as opposed to a big one but that is not a reason to stop them if they offer the best alternative. After all, smaller companies have always emerged when the big ones were there already. That shows that being big does not mean you can beat everyone at everything at all.
Google may just have more resources to throw at the problem. And not to forget, a few of the most-viewed pages on the internet, each of which will show you a popup suggesting that you switch to the browser that Google's sites are really made for.
Ads on the google search page and youtube help quite a bit, but once they became a large presence in the browser market it was just a case of relentlessly adding and changing features non stop, force your opponents to have to develop at a frantic pace just to keep pace with you.
> Though I do not like monopolies, how did Google reach this position? Is there any kind of abuse going on? Or it is just a better product?
tl;dr REST, competition, the shift to devices, and explosion in "web apps". The market for webapps in the 90s/00s was tiny compared to today.
A brief history of web browsing from the 90s to now:
NCSA Mosaic came along. It was alright. Then Netscape Navigator came along and it ended up a bloated mess.
In the meantime, AOL appeared, and home computer users started connecting to the internet for the first time.
Then IE6 became an awful entrenched thing, and it was "ok". It gave us XMLHttpRequest [1] which gave us REST, but apart from that, it was barely updated apart from security fixes because of 'reasons', not limited to: "part of the OS", enterprise paying customers encourage MS to make it stay the same otherwise breaking poorly written web apps. Search 'box model'.
In the meantime, Firefox appeared and was progressing, but made little headway against IE. It was faster than NN, but not exceptionally so.
Vista came along, then Windows 7, along with IE 7. And Apple with Safari. Finally, there's some competition - Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and IE. Things like JQuery, CSS Zen Garden appeared along with w3c compliance scoring, and finally IE started dropping market share. Legacy "this site works best in IE6" apps and sites started becoming irrelevant to most people other than enterprise companies.
Newer sites and web apps started appearing and flipped it "we don't support IE any more", or in some cases showed a degraded site (IIRC there were ecommerce companies that actively charged you more if you surfed to their site using IE in the User-Agent string).
Chrome in 2010 was a far faster, better browser than IE bundled with Windows.
Chrome on Android, obviously now accounts for a huge percentage of online browsing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLHttpRequest#History
tl;dr REST, competition, the shift to devices, and explosion in "web apps". The market for webapps in the 90s/00s was tiny compared to today.
A brief history of web browsing from the 90s to now:
NCSA Mosaic came along. It was alright. Then Netscape Navigator came along and it ended up a bloated mess.
In the meantime, AOL appeared, and home computer users started connecting to the internet for the first time.
Then IE6 became an awful entrenched thing, and it was "ok". It gave us XMLHttpRequest [1] which gave us REST, but apart from that, it was barely updated apart from security fixes because of 'reasons', not limited to: "part of the OS", enterprise paying customers encourage MS to make it stay the same otherwise breaking poorly written web apps. Search 'box model'.
In the meantime, Firefox appeared and was progressing, but made little headway against IE. It was faster than NN, but not exceptionally so.
Vista came along, then Windows 7, along with IE 7. And Apple with Safari. Finally, there's some competition - Firefox, Opera, Chrome, and IE. Things like JQuery, CSS Zen Garden appeared along with w3c compliance scoring, and finally IE started dropping market share. Legacy "this site works best in IE6" apps and sites started becoming irrelevant to most people other than enterprise companies.
Newer sites and web apps started appearing and flipped it "we don't support IE any more", or in some cases showed a degraded site (IIRC there were ecommerce companies that actively charged you more if you surfed to their site using IE in the User-Agent string).
Chrome in 2010 was a far faster, better browser than IE bundled with Windows.
Chrome on Android, obviously now accounts for a huge percentage of online browsing.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMLHttpRequest#History
XMLHttpRequest led to the Ajax paradigm, not REST.
Yeah, that's what I meant. Long day... :D
I figured. My first draft of that comment was "you probably meant", but decided it would be better to do it without making inferences about your state of mind ;)
The improvements seem to be in which thread WebRTC does work: moving more work to workers and off the main thread.
The release notes for alpha builds (e.g. [1]) link to this bug [2] "[meta] Update libwebrtc to new stable branch 2H2020", which as a number of comments about WebRTC using the main thread as its worker thread.
[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/96.0a1/releasenotes/ [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1654112
The release notes for alpha builds (e.g. [1]) link to this bug [2] "[meta] Update libwebrtc to new stable branch 2H2020", which as a number of comments about WebRTC using the main thread as its worker thread.
[1] https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/96.0a1/releasenotes/ [2] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1654112
If you go back and look at previous versions of release notes, many are just as terse. This definitely isn't new.
Is saving the webpage (as PDF or MHTML or ANY BLOODY FORMAT) on Android back? It's incredible that that functionality just disappeared a few years ago and Mozilla is apparently ignoring user feedback.
It's still possible to install SingleFile [1] on Firefox Nightly but you will need, for example, another browser to display saved pages [2].
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/single-file/
[2] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/7546
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/single-file/
[2] https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/7546
My routine is send the tab to a PC device and do it there later. I love Firefox Sync so much I think I might just host my own backend server for it some day.
I would love Firefox Sync too, but a lot of times it just doesn't send the tab I wanted (I always fallback to checking what is open on my other browser).
You need to re-sync in your PC side then it will show the tabs that you sent. I had issues with FF Sync with not appearing on the other side. It is usually that Firefox haven't start the syncing that you have to tell it to sync now.
If you are using Android, disable the battery optimization on Firefox in Android setting.
If you are using Android, disable the battery optimization on Firefox in Android setting.
I'd like to be able to open PDFs with Firefox and search the contents for a string.
I tried this a week or so ago and don't think it is.
Not the first time I say this but I have to say it again: Firefox: the last remaining mostly independent, maintained and reasonably popular browser.
Even if it were inferior in any aspect to other options, I'd still use it for the above mentioned reasons.
Even if it were inferior in any aspect to other options, I'd still use it for the above mentioned reasons.
The only reason we cannot have a single browser engine that everyone uses is governance and ownership.
That's the key problem with Chromium, it is largely under Google's thumb. If control of Chromium could be fairly split between Apple/Google/Microsoft/Mozilla/et al within a nonprofit, with no one party having ownership or override, Firefox could be Chromium based.
The thing a lot of people ignore is that having one OSS engine that everyone uses is the most efficient way for all parties. You just have to solve governance and ownership, which aren't technical problems (they're about power).
And, yes, standards would largely be dictated via this one monopoly-engine but again if governance and ownership were healthy that too wouldn't be problematic within itself (you could even include standards orgs/committees within the structure).
User choice would largely be the add-ins, unique settings, niche features, and UI (see Chrome Vs. Edge Vs. Brave, for example).
That's the key problem with Chromium, it is largely under Google's thumb. If control of Chromium could be fairly split between Apple/Google/Microsoft/Mozilla/et al within a nonprofit, with no one party having ownership or override, Firefox could be Chromium based.
The thing a lot of people ignore is that having one OSS engine that everyone uses is the most efficient way for all parties. You just have to solve governance and ownership, which aren't technical problems (they're about power).
And, yes, standards would largely be dictated via this one monopoly-engine but again if governance and ownership were healthy that too wouldn't be problematic within itself (you could even include standards orgs/committees within the structure).
User choice would largely be the add-ins, unique settings, niche features, and UI (see Chrome Vs. Edge Vs. Brave, for example).
I disagree that this would be a good idea. I think it’s important that the Standard rather than an Implementation is the source of correctness.
Also, rendering engines are so tightly tied to the underlining drawing apis of different platforms this would be impractical and stifle innovation.
Safari, for example, is more closely tied to the drawing apis in iOS and MacOS, which in turn are tuned to the hardware Apple sells. This allows it to be more energy efficient, particularly on mobile.
You could abstracts the drawing with an intermediate api, but that prevents different browsers from experiments or moving toward different drawing architectures.
Also, rendering engines are so tightly tied to the underlining drawing apis of different platforms this would be impractical and stifle innovation.
Safari, for example, is more closely tied to the drawing apis in iOS and MacOS, which in turn are tuned to the hardware Apple sells. This allows it to be more energy efficient, particularly on mobile.
You could abstracts the drawing with an intermediate api, but that prevents different browsers from experiments or moving toward different drawing architectures.
I've made this comment before. It seems to me that there is an almost unsolvable information theoretic problem with the human language spec approach. Browsers need to have a standard specification for interoperability and one that includes an open source reference implementation of the core parts. Chromium seems to have become that standard.
I argue here against pure natural language specifications in favor code based specs. I just don't think human language is nearly precise enough to write an adequate specification. Natural language words are incredibly polysemic and contextual. Look for example, at how many meanings the word "break" has: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/break
Kolmogrov has long ago suggested that fully specified information distills down to a computer program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_description_length
The ideal language for a pure specification might be a mix of natural language and pseudo code with a pseudo test suit. However, if you are writing that, you might as well go one step further and write working testable code.
Other technical fields usually go beyond language for specifications, using blueprints and diagrams which are their version of code.
There is also an history of trying to tackle the inadequacy of natural language for technical specifications. A pioneer of this is Donald Knuth with his Literate Programming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming) and the descendant concepts of having code with extractable inline comments that you can use to auto generate documentation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentation_generator
I would argue that modern platforms with pull request based workflows that tie discussions to version controlled code changes are also the progression of this line of thought.
A cleaned up version of these might make sense for a specification.
And I get some of the concerns. While natural language under specifies, reference implementations over specify. This is more of a problem with low level languages however. Modern, high level languages are getting fairly close to a form of pseudo code. I fully agree that the reference implementations shouldn't contain or should hide, low level optimizations. I also understand that reference implementations can unduly tie specs to specific hardware, OSs and platforms.
But to me, over-specification is less of a problem than under-specification and it can be mitigated by labeling particular functions or blocks of code as implementation specific and not part of the spec.
Without spec written in code, the different implementations always have subtle incompatibilities. I see egregious versions of under-specification in government where horrendously vague specs are created in order to issue RFPs for getting software built. They usually end up with non working software at mind blowing cost.
People have this weird misconception that they are contracting out to build software. They are not. Building software is really easy. You press the build button or type the compile command. Building software has been fully automated for a while now. What is difficult is designing software and specifying what it must do. This is because there is a vast jungle of protocols, business flows, hardware and software platforms that need to be interacted in different ways for different needs. This is what needs to be specified and only computer code can do it adequately.
I wish that Mozilla adopted the chromium core. We really need a well funded non-profit managed release of the reference browser.
I argue here against pure natural language specifications in favor code based specs. I just don't think human language is nearly precise enough to write an adequate specification. Natural language words are incredibly polysemic and contextual. Look for example, at how many meanings the word "break" has: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/break
Kolmogrov has long ago suggested that fully specified information distills down to a computer program: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kolmogorov_complexity, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minimum_description_length
The ideal language for a pure specification might be a mix of natural language and pseudo code with a pseudo test suit. However, if you are writing that, you might as well go one step further and write working testable code.
Other technical fields usually go beyond language for specifications, using blueprints and diagrams which are their version of code.
There is also an history of trying to tackle the inadequacy of natural language for technical specifications. A pioneer of this is Donald Knuth with his Literate Programming (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literate_programming) and the descendant concepts of having code with extractable inline comments that you can use to auto generate documentation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Documentation_generator
I would argue that modern platforms with pull request based workflows that tie discussions to version controlled code changes are also the progression of this line of thought.
A cleaned up version of these might make sense for a specification.
And I get some of the concerns. While natural language under specifies, reference implementations over specify. This is more of a problem with low level languages however. Modern, high level languages are getting fairly close to a form of pseudo code. I fully agree that the reference implementations shouldn't contain or should hide, low level optimizations. I also understand that reference implementations can unduly tie specs to specific hardware, OSs and platforms.
But to me, over-specification is less of a problem than under-specification and it can be mitigated by labeling particular functions or blocks of code as implementation specific and not part of the spec.
Without spec written in code, the different implementations always have subtle incompatibilities. I see egregious versions of under-specification in government where horrendously vague specs are created in order to issue RFPs for getting software built. They usually end up with non working software at mind blowing cost.
People have this weird misconception that they are contracting out to build software. They are not. Building software is really easy. You press the build button or type the compile command. Building software has been fully automated for a while now. What is difficult is designing software and specifying what it must do. This is because there is a vast jungle of protocols, business flows, hardware and software platforms that need to be interacted in different ways for different needs. This is what needs to be specified and only computer code can do it adequately.
I wish that Mozilla adopted the chromium core. We really need a well funded non-profit managed release of the reference browser.
> I wish that Mozilla adopted the chromium core. We really need a well funded non-profit managed release of the reference browser.
At that point you may as well just cede the w3c to Google itself unless you've magically disentangled it from Google's business interests.
At that point you may as well just cede the w3c to Google itself unless you've magically disentangled it from Google's business interests.
> However, if you are writing that, you might as well go one step further and write working testable code.
I disagree there. Not in every circumstance. If the people on the business side are devs, then sure. Technical-minded non-devs can be taught to write their specs in a domain-specific pseudo-language without needing to learn about implementation details or deeper programming language knowledge/concepts, or deal with technical debt. Something on the order of writing JSON for an API.
>I just don't think human language is nearly precise enough to write an adequate specification.
Standard language, no. Several fields such as law, sciences, philosophy handle it by defining their own jargon. The first year of university often focus on onboarding students to the terminology so they can effectively communicate on the subject matter and understand papers. Natural language version of DSLs.
I disagree there. Not in every circumstance. If the people on the business side are devs, then sure. Technical-minded non-devs can be taught to write their specs in a domain-specific pseudo-language without needing to learn about implementation details or deeper programming language knowledge/concepts, or deal with technical debt. Something on the order of writing JSON for an API.
>I just don't think human language is nearly precise enough to write an adequate specification.
Standard language, no. Several fields such as law, sciences, philosophy handle it by defining their own jargon. The first year of university often focus on onboarding students to the terminology so they can effectively communicate on the subject matter and understand papers. Natural language version of DSLs.
I mean legal code is a bit like computer code with judges being the interpreters. It might be practically the closest they can get to something like computer code. I still think for software, you might as well use actual computer code in most cases. Code is our DSL.
What you say is true, and the way to solve it is a small minimal spec rather than these 5k page ones that try to describe every bit of detail. HTML4/javascript/css were eminently approachable, the problem is the loads and loads of edge case API's/etc that have been stuffed into the browser to make it a "platform" are the problem these days. The browser IMHO should have been allowed to be something you write applications in, rather than a fancy display terminal. There are no ends of technical reasons why its a bad idea, but you have a couple powerful corps that see it in their interest (because they can control it) so it happened.
As soon as you start to create "platforms" its inevitable that a single organization will monopolize it.
As soon as you start to create "platforms" its inevitable that a single organization will monopolize it.
Lately I've been thinking that the "perfect" programming language would be a specification language that precisely defines the relationship between outputs and inputs. Given that, the next step is to 'compile' this specification to a set of tests and (possibly naive) implementations. Profiling then tells the programmer which components of the implementation need improvement and the programmer touches them up and the test verifies they are still correct.
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The HTML5 specs are to some extent code disguised as human language. E.g. https://html.spec.whatwg.org/#user-activation-processing-mod...
Note that WebKit ships on Linux and to a much lesser extent Windows (and many, many embedded products).
The failure mode of a single shared engine is extremely brittle.
What would happen if that engine decided to ignore standards bodies? (coughMicrosoftAppleGooglecough)
What would happen if a single party managed to upsurp governance and obtain de facto single party control?
Better to have 2+ options, so there's always a "What if..." life raft.
What would happen if that engine decided to ignore standards bodies? (coughMicrosoftAppleGooglecough)
What would happen if a single party managed to upsurp governance and obtain de facto single party control?
Better to have 2+ options, so there's always a "What if..." life raft.
If Microsoft, Apple, and Google all disagree with WHATWG or W3C, they're winning regardless of whether or not Firefox exists.
The second scenario is just repeating the problems with Chromium.
In theory, if one engine was agreed upon as ideal and collaborated on fairly, the other parties could just fork it and maintain that branch separately from the usurper and make that the standard.
The second scenario is just repeating the problems with Chromium.
In theory, if one engine was agreed upon as ideal and collaborated on fairly, the other parties could just fork it and maintain that branch separately from the usurper and make that the standard.
The hypothetical here is FLoC.
If everything were based on Chromium, and Google really wanted FLoC, how would that play out?
They'd add support to the codebase and... what? Everyone else would fork? Or how about for DRM support?
It's the "collaborated on fairly" that's the difficult and unsustainable piece. Especially when we're talking last mile things (i.e. that interact with the user) and the additional rewards those entice less altruistic parties with.
Java/Oracle/IBM is what you realistically get when there's serious $$$s on the table and multiple parties. And that's probably about the best possible outcome.
If everything were based on Chromium, and Google really wanted FLoC, how would that play out?
They'd add support to the codebase and... what? Everyone else would fork? Or how about for DRM support?
It's the "collaborated on fairly" that's the difficult and unsustainable piece. Especially when we're talking last mile things (i.e. that interact with the user) and the additional rewards those entice less altruistic parties with.
Java/Oracle/IBM is what you realistically get when there's serious $$$s on the table and multiple parties. And that's probably about the best possible outcome.
Does this criticism also apply to the Linux kernel? Which is as widely used as Chrome on servers?
There's at least Windows, macOS, FreeBSD as popular and fairly used alternatives.
Also, the Linux kernel itself is just one small part of a Linux distro, which means everyone from kernel maintainers, to distro creators/maintainers, to particular app makers have some direct to indirect sway on the kernel development.
Also, the Linux kernel itself is just one small part of a Linux distro, which means everyone from kernel maintainers, to distro creators/maintainers, to particular app makers have some direct to indirect sway on the kernel development.
You could say the same about WebKit, that it's just a small part of a browser - Chrome/Safari/Edge/Brave/...
Note that Chromium hasn't been based on WebKit for almost a decade. Google forked WebKit and created Blink as their rendering engine in 2013. The two have diverged quite a bit. Safari is the only major browser still based on WebKit explicitly. Chrome, Edge, Brave, Samsung Internet, etc., are all based on Chromium and thus have Blink as their rendering engine.
There are other OSs available though. Including other POSIX compliant OSs
What happens when the Linux kernel decides to ignore standards bodies?
What happens if a single party manages to usurp governance?
What happens if a single party manages to usurp governance?
"The Linux kernel", in this analogy, doesn't also own a major cloud platform and/or device ecosystem and/or top ranked websites.
I think in the 21st century we should have clearer glasses about what key enablers corporations can leverage to push their visions, even on ostensibly open source codebases.
I think in the 21st century we should have clearer glasses about what key enablers corporations can leverage to push their visions, even on ostensibly open source codebases.
Google did this with Android. It's GPLv2, 'standards bodies' (and Linus, but he seems to be cool) can go pound sand.
> The only reason we cannot have a single browser engine that everyone uses is governance and ownership.
Consider the governance and ownership angle a little more.
Apple, Google, and Microsoft are LARGE companies. These companies do things that many have ethical issues with. Putting a bunch of large companies in such a point of control is something that should give people pause.
Large multi-national companies aren't democracies and their end goals are fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders. These are often super wealthy or large funds.
Consider the governance and ownership angle a little more.
Apple, Google, and Microsoft are LARGE companies. These companies do things that many have ethical issues with. Putting a bunch of large companies in such a point of control is something that should give people pause.
Large multi-national companies aren't democracies and their end goals are fiduciary responsibilities to shareholders. These are often super wealthy or large funds.
If you only have a single implementation of a standard, you don’t have a standard.
Incorrect. The easiest place to see where this breaks down is in backwards compatibility.
Web browsers need to be backwards compatible with the vast majority of web pages out there. That's half the point of the Web.
If you define standards by implementation, you can never fix bugs once web sites start using them. (If you think you can just tell web sites to suck it up, consider the vast number of configuration web pages burned into ROM. And yes, they do use new features.)
The standards themselves have this problem already, even though they're at a much higher level. (See Appendix B in the JS spec, for example.) The problem is far, far worse at the lower level of implementation.
Relying on a single implementation will quickly produce the next IE6. And if you think Google programmers (or any company X's programmers) are good enough to avoid that sort of thing, then consider how well resourced those programmers will become once there's no longer competition or even a basis for comparison.
Monoculture is bad, m'kay?
(More detailed argument: https://blog.mozilla.org/sfink/2013/02/14/browser-wars-the-g... )
Web browsers need to be backwards compatible with the vast majority of web pages out there. That's half the point of the Web.
If you define standards by implementation, you can never fix bugs once web sites start using them. (If you think you can just tell web sites to suck it up, consider the vast number of configuration web pages burned into ROM. And yes, they do use new features.)
The standards themselves have this problem already, even though they're at a much higher level. (See Appendix B in the JS spec, for example.) The problem is far, far worse at the lower level of implementation.
Relying on a single implementation will quickly produce the next IE6. And if you think Google programmers (or any company X's programmers) are good enough to avoid that sort of thing, then consider how well resourced those programmers will become once there's no longer competition or even a basis for comparison.
Monoculture is bad, m'kay?
(More detailed argument: https://blog.mozilla.org/sfink/2013/02/14/browser-wars-the-g... )
Google tried this with WebKit. But they had to fork it to Blink because Apple is a very poor steward of open source. So that will always be the problem.
Google forking WebKit to make Blink has nothing to do with pore stewardship of open source. They have different agendas and Google wanted total control.
Indeed. WebKit has historically been managed fairly reasonably by the team–at least, about as well as you'd expect a corporate-backed project to work.
Would such shared stewardship of Chromium really help, though? I don't believe that a shared governance structure for Chromium would stop Google from going their own way with Chrome, while effectively yielding the same problems.
"Oops, we added this experimental feature to Chrome, now it's be come a de facto standard, I guess you all had better let us upstream it!"
EDIT: Or even worse, they stop upstreaming anything at all!
"Oops, we added this experimental feature to Chrome, now it's be come a de facto standard, I guess you all had better let us upstream it!"
EDIT: Or even worse, they stop upstreaming anything at all!
Firefox doesn't help with this though. Chromium is technically superior, thanks to all of the money Google has invested in it. Chromium is open-source and there are many popular forks (Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi, ungoogled). Those forks provide a much more robust "safety net" than Firefox does. If Google starts pushing something egregious on users, I'm sure Vivaldi and Brave would jump at the opportunity to promote their forks without that problem. And have you seem the Edge ads?
daft question, but could mozilla fork Chromium and run it more openly?
Firefox is open source and predates Chromium. Why didn’t Google just contribute to Firefox?
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Does Mozilla have the resources to maintain a Chromium fork?
Sure, but what is the leverage for others to join their fork?
If Chromium had better governance that is "leverage" for Mozilla to join as an equal party and for them all to work together on a single engine.
If Chromium had better governance that is "leverage" for Mozilla to join as an equal party and for them all to work together on a single engine.
>Even if it were inferior in any aspect to other options, I'd still use it for the above mentioned reasons.
I agree with you, but luckily, it's not inferior!
I agree with you, but luckily, it's not inferior!
I hope I will never have to use Chrome again and I love Firefox but sometimes it's a PITA.
It surely isn't generally "inferior" but let's say it has character.
I always thought it just needs a bit more attention, and I'm willing to donate, but I don't trust Mozilla for routing what we give towards Firefox development.
It surely isn't generally "inferior" but let's say it has character.
I always thought it just needs a bit more attention, and I'm willing to donate, but I don't trust Mozilla for routing what we give towards Firefox development.
Agreed. I wish they created a dedicated fund for Firefox the way it was done for Thunderbird.
Let's not forget the ridiculous pay for the executives which has been shown to not correlate with revenue (or anything else):
https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html
I give to the Thunderbird fund every year but have not given to Mozilla for a long time!
Let's not forget the ridiculous pay for the executives which has been shown to not correlate with revenue (or anything else):
https://calpaterson.com/mozilla.html
I give to the Thunderbird fund every year but have not given to Mozilla for a long time!
Executive pay does not follow the product's success. It follows the broader market for executives.
If it followed the product's success, products that are going through a bad patch, or are going downwards, would not be able to attract good executives, when arguably they are the ones who need the best executives, relative to products that are doing well, which on many occasions can sustain themselves purely on momentum.
This is further complicated for non profits which cannot use ownership stakes as an incentive either.
If it followed the product's success, products that are going through a bad patch, or are going downwards, would not be able to attract good executives, when arguably they are the ones who need the best executives, relative to products that are doing well, which on many occasions can sustain themselves purely on momentum.
This is further complicated for non profits which cannot use ownership stakes as an incentive either.
So why do executives bother doing anything if they get paid no matter if they succeed or not?
In fairness, some executives are there just to fill a seat and not rock the boat when a company needs a face.
If the executives are bad they will be removed, and their reputation will suffer.
Does that happen, though? We've been hearing about golden parachutes for a while but are there cases supporting the logic that you just laid out?
> Let's not forget the ridiculous pay for the executives which has been shown to not correlate with revenue (or anything else)
I may be a naive person who generally detests the organization chart gymnasts, but I honestly believe Mozilla would be better off if they just got rid of all C-suites and handed that cash to their developers to do whatever they want. So many open source projects are hugely successful without a CEO. Why would Mozilla be different? Keep the cash for the devs, and it's already miles ahead of any other big open source project financially!
I may be a naive person who generally detests the organization chart gymnasts, but I honestly believe Mozilla would be better off if they just got rid of all C-suites and handed that cash to their developers to do whatever they want. So many open source projects are hugely successful without a CEO. Why would Mozilla be different? Keep the cash for the devs, and it's already miles ahead of any other big open source project financially!
$2.5M?!
How does that compare to executives in similar roles at similarly-sized software companies?
Similarly-sized software companies are also overpaying their executives at the expense of worker wages, so Mozilla is right on track.
Bingo. And so you hit the dilemma of trying to be an ethical company in an unethical environment. If Mozilla decreases their executive compensation, then they can't compete for the same executives that less-ethical companies who don't care about worker wages can. People complaining about Mozilla's executive compensation are asking for Mozilla to hobble themselves.
What ethics are we talking about here? Mozilla leadership carried out two large layoffs rounds whilst drastically increasing their own salaries. They already have unethical leaders.
For countless years they've been handed some 400-500 million(!) for "free", just by keeping Google the default search engine. For a conventional company, this kind of money requires a massive operation, customer base, etc.
Mozilla just gets a check. Half a billion for free. And then pisses away this money on projects where most are questionable, have no impact, etc. All the while the user base shrinking further and further, for over a decade now.
If that is the situation, it seems pretty reasonable to me to just get rid of leadership altogether. Let the tech people figure it out, it's not like they can do worse.
For countless years they've been handed some 400-500 million(!) for "free", just by keeping Google the default search engine. For a conventional company, this kind of money requires a massive operation, customer base, etc.
Mozilla just gets a check. Half a billion for free. And then pisses away this money on projects where most are questionable, have no impact, etc. All the while the user base shrinking further and further, for over a decade now.
If that is the situation, it seems pretty reasonable to me to just get rid of leadership altogether. Let the tech people figure it out, it's not like they can do worse.
Have you looked at the chart in the link I provided? Mozilla was doing better and had more revenue with previous management who's compensation was a fraction of current management's.
To contribute negative value to the company? Seems like a good deal, for the CEO.
I'm skeptical of some of Mozilla's focus, but Firefox is over 20 years old and over 20MM lines of code. They've been putting a lot of attention to it for a long time (and some incredible work has come from it, including within the past five years).
I'd love to see them pour more resources into it, but it's a huge project, so I think moving the needle likely is never as simple as "a bit" more attention.
It would be neat if Mozilla added a "where do you want your money to go to" option in donations. The bulk of their funding would likely continue be from partnerships, but it would make it so much more tangible that the users really care about browser development. We're not just noisy people in the HN comments--we'll put money into it given the option.
I'd love to see them pour more resources into it, but it's a huge project, so I think moving the needle likely is never as simple as "a bit" more attention.
It would be neat if Mozilla added a "where do you want your money to go to" option in donations. The bulk of their funding would likely continue be from partnerships, but it would make it so much more tangible that the users really care about browser development. We're not just noisy people in the HN comments--we'll put money into it given the option.
> I always thought it just needs a bit more attention, and I'm willing to donate, but I don't trust Mozilla for routing what we give towards Firefox development
+1 A whole back I wanted to give to Firefox but I wanted to specify which projects it goes to. Many other orgs do this but last I checked Mozilla does not
+1 A whole back I wanted to give to Firefox but I wanted to specify which projects it goes to. Many other orgs do this but last I checked Mozilla does not
> I always thought it just needs a bit more attention, and I'm willing to donate, but I don't trust Mozilla for routing what we give towards Firefox development.
In fact if they cannot avoid answering their answer is that donations are not even allowed to go to the browser. Something about Mozilla being a non-profit and Firefox being a fully owned commercial company.
To which I have to say that this is weird: 1. non-profits are allowed to do maintenance of their buildings and machinery, why not something that keeps generating income 2. even if the above doesn't work because of tax reasons they could just stop bleeding it dry. Firefox alone without Mozilla is very cash positive.
Summary: Donating to Firefox goes to Mozilla, the organization that keeps taking away all the money that Firefox generates.
Update: Firefox VPN and maybe Pocket too goes through Mozilla Corporation I think, but verify this before buying 1000 subscriptions :-)
In fact if they cannot avoid answering their answer is that donations are not even allowed to go to the browser. Something about Mozilla being a non-profit and Firefox being a fully owned commercial company.
To which I have to say that this is weird: 1. non-profits are allowed to do maintenance of their buildings and machinery, why not something that keeps generating income 2. even if the above doesn't work because of tax reasons they could just stop bleeding it dry. Firefox alone without Mozilla is very cash positive.
Summary: Donating to Firefox goes to Mozilla, the organization that keeps taking away all the money that Firefox generates.
Update: Firefox VPN and maybe Pocket too goes through Mozilla Corporation I think, but verify this before buying 1000 subscriptions :-)
Mozilla is working as hard as they can to regress though!
I haven’t been excited for a browser upgrade in years. I see these announcements and I know I’ll lose time re-learning something or just missing old functionality that has been removed.
The Mozilla of 2022 is very much only the least evil option.
I haven’t been excited for a browser upgrade in years. I see these announcements and I know I’ll lose time re-learning something or just missing old functionality that has been removed.
The Mozilla of 2022 is very much only the least evil option.
The developer section (or whatever its called, F12) is the best
idk
Google Maps performance seems to be way worse
I do wonder how's the WASM performance
Google Maps performance seems to be way worse
I do wonder how's the WASM performance
I love Firefox over Chrome in almost every single aspect....except, I cannot shake the feel it still leaks memory like crazy. Open several tabs, then a couple of youtube tabs (you know how people are), eventually the machine is slow as molasses, you close 50% of the tabs (including the youtube ones) and you get back like 10% of the memory, so you need to restart the browser. That gets old, fast.
IIRC, Firefox doesn't always give back memory when the machine has free memory. If you start running other high memory processes, then Firefox might dump some memory. The reason for this is 1) there's not much point in freeing memory if it will be unused and 2) switching web pages is something browsers do a lot, and freeing and then reallocating large chunks of memory is a significant performance hit.
That's fantastic in theory, not so much in practice. Visual studio code crawls into a halt and the only way to "get it back" it is restarting Firefox, even if it had just one tab opened.
Well it crashes my computer like 3 times a day on Linux, I now know its because of hardware acceleration, but I don't expect average users to keep using Firefox. I'm just getting tired of all the things that is happening to Firefox. Although I've been using it for the past 10 years, I might have to look for alternatives.
If it's crashing your computer you can pretty squarely place the blame on the driver, not the browser.
Without bugs in the driver, even bad behaviour from the browser shouldn't bring the whole machine down.
Graphics drivers are sadly famously buggy, and occasionally the hardware is buggy too, and the driver needs to work around those bugs in the hardware, and occasionally the users hardware specifically is broken in some way, and then there's no winning.
It's probably true that Firefox has less workarounds for buggy drivers hardcoded into it than Chromium, but in the end the blame is on the driver, and if they had blacklisted your driver the likely "improvement" is you'd no longer have any hardware accelleration, which is not exactly a great result - the real fix needs to be better drivers that don't crash the system for no good reason.
Without bugs in the driver, even bad behaviour from the browser shouldn't bring the whole machine down.
Graphics drivers are sadly famously buggy, and occasionally the hardware is buggy too, and the driver needs to work around those bugs in the hardware, and occasionally the users hardware specifically is broken in some way, and then there's no winning.
It's probably true that Firefox has less workarounds for buggy drivers hardcoded into it than Chromium, but in the end the blame is on the driver, and if they had blacklisted your driver the likely "improvement" is you'd no longer have any hardware accelleration, which is not exactly a great result - the real fix needs to be better drivers that don't crash the system for no good reason.
Firefox is my main and only GUI browser on Debian. I use to daily and it's up/on constantly. Even with nightly builds, I haven't had Firefox crash let alone crash the entire computer. I don't view very many resource intensive sites or SPAs trying be desktop apps. The worst performance I get is usually Slack in a tab. Hasn't crashed though.
Same here. Worst thing that's happened is when it refuses to load a site until I restart it after a background update, which kinda kills my flow for a second, but at least it restores the session immediately. I have noticed something on some of the more sketchy sites in which resource usage spikes, which I am guessing is some new abuse of workers or something. The uneducated conspiracy theorist in me assumes some magic crypto mining background thing that uBlock hasn't identified yet, but I haven't been bothered to investigate since it's rare and brief.
Same here. Rock solid on FreeBSD for weeks on end (I don't go longer without rebooting). I don't think it ever crashed. And FreeBSD isn't even an officially supported platform for FF.
And no problems with websites either. I don't even have Chrome or any chromium based browser installed.
And no problems with websites either. I don't even have Chrome or any chromium based browser installed.
I use it on ios, macos, and windows with zero issues. I can't remember the last time it crashed on me.
Firefox uses hardware acceleration for page rendering (WebRender), WebGL, and video decoding. You can try switching to Firefox’s software implementation of each of those feature to see if that avoids the crashes.
To use software WebRender, set about:config pref “gfx.webrender.software” = true. To use software WebGL, set "widget.dmabuf-webgl.enabled" = false. To use software video decoding, set "media.ffmpeg.vaapi-drm-display.enabled" = false.
If those settings do avoid the crashes, please file a bug report in Bugzilla with a copy of your Firefox's about:support information. Perhaps there is a GPU driver bug that Firefox needs to work around.
To use software WebRender, set about:config pref “gfx.webrender.software” = true. To use software WebGL, set "widget.dmabuf-webgl.enabled" = false. To use software video decoding, set "media.ffmpeg.vaapi-drm-display.enabled" = false.
If those settings do avoid the crashes, please file a bug report in Bugzilla with a copy of your Firefox's about:support information. Perhaps there is a GPU driver bug that Firefox needs to work around.
This is exactly what I last week and this seems to have fixed the issue. But the point still stands, I don't expect my mom who uses Ubuntu to do these things.
I'm glad you found a workaround. Do you know which setting change fixed the issue?
If file a bug report in Bugzilla with a copy of your Firefox's about:support information, Firefox developers can work around the buggy GPU driver so other users don't experience the driver crash.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi
If file a bug report in Bugzilla with a copy of your Firefox's about:support information, Firefox developers can work around the buggy GPU driver so other users don't experience the driver crash.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi
Just gonna add on to the pile of replies: I've got hardware-accelerated Firefox set up as well, and have zero issues with crashing. Can't remember the last time it crashed. Even going months back.
(And one of the PCs it's on runs a GT 710 with now outdated drivers)
(And one of the PCs it's on runs a GT 710 with now outdated drivers)
I thought hardware acceleration is not even turned on by default yet on Linux? That said, I've been running hardware accelerated firefox for several years on 3 different computers with different graphics cards, what hardware are you using? Have you reported a bug?
Hardware acceleration was turned on by default for me. I'm using Thinkpad x270. Also, there is an open bug already.
It is essentially impossible for user-space applications to crash Linux. This is a property of Linux itself. A user-space application can call into the kernel through very focused API layers, which in turn calls hardware drivers. Those can crash Linux. It is almost guaranteed it is a driver problem.
I've been using Firefox almost exclusively as my browser on Windows and Linux for the last 18 years, switched to it from Netscape Navigator and Opera.
I can't remember a single time when it last crashed on me in the last 2 years on both operating systems.
I can't remember a single time when it last crashed on me in the last 2 years on both operating systems.
> mostly independent
Not exactly 'independent' if >85% of all revenues is directly from Google in which when that funding was threatened by them, Mozilla caved and let go most of its staff and rushed to get that contract renewed.
They can't live without the money from their worst competitor.
I don't even think Mozilla takes itself seriously to be 'independent' or free from Google's money which that was promised by the Mozilla CEO 14 years ago.
So that was complete lies from them, wasn't it? Everyone knows they don't care about privacy at this point.
Not exactly 'independent' if >85% of all revenues is directly from Google in which when that funding was threatened by them, Mozilla caved and let go most of its staff and rushed to get that contract renewed.
They can't live without the money from their worst competitor.
I don't even think Mozilla takes itself seriously to be 'independent' or free from Google's money which that was promised by the Mozilla CEO 14 years ago.
So that was complete lies from them, wasn't it? Everyone knows they don't care about privacy at this point.
> Not exactly 'independent' if >85% of all revenues is directly from Google in which when that funding was threatened by them, Mozilla caved and let go most of its staff and rushed to get that contract renewed.
That's not at all what happened. Source?
> They can't live without the money from their worst competitor.
Probably true. We could switch to a different search engine (again), but I'd imagine it wouldn't be pretty.
> I don't even think Mozilla takes itself seriously to be 'independent' or free from Google's money which that was promised by the Mozilla CEO 14 years ago.
False. (Source: I work for Mozilla.) I won't attempt a further argument here; it doesn't seem worth the attempt. I'll just say that in my daily experience, it's very very hard to detect any "evil Google overlord influence".
> So that was complete lies from them, wasn't it? Everyone knows they don't care about privacy at this point.
... I think you might be reading too much into specific complaints. I agree that you can construct a narrative out of a bunch of events that makes Mozilla look bad.
Or, you know, you could construct a different narrative.
I guess people are drawn to what they want to believe.
That's not at all what happened. Source?
> They can't live without the money from their worst competitor.
Probably true. We could switch to a different search engine (again), but I'd imagine it wouldn't be pretty.
> I don't even think Mozilla takes itself seriously to be 'independent' or free from Google's money which that was promised by the Mozilla CEO 14 years ago.
False. (Source: I work for Mozilla.) I won't attempt a further argument here; it doesn't seem worth the attempt. I'll just say that in my daily experience, it's very very hard to detect any "evil Google overlord influence".
> So that was complete lies from them, wasn't it? Everyone knows they don't care about privacy at this point.
... I think you might be reading too much into specific complaints. I agree that you can construct a narrative out of a bunch of events that makes Mozilla look bad.
Or, you know, you could construct a different narrative.
I guess people are drawn to what they want to believe.
> That's not at all what happened. Source?
So this is not true, and it is all lies? [0] So Mozilla can survive without Google's money and be free from the demand to be the default search engine by their own competitor? That isn't taking privacy seriously is it?
Either way, Google seems to have Mozilla on life support and Mozilla will do anything to keep itself alive whilst falsely preaching their mission on 'privacy'. What else are they hiding?
> False. (Source: I work for Mozilla.) I won't attempt a further argument here; it doesn't seem worth the attempt.
It is true. Don't bother denying or arguing it because everyone knows it's true. [2] Even from the title in 2007:
> "Mozilla can live without Google's Money, Baker says"
> "Mozilla Corp. will walk away from Google Inc. and the millions it collects from the search company each year, if that's what it takes to stay independent, the open-source developer's CEO promised"
I expect Mozilla employees to continuously deny it. Even when 14 years later, Mozilla still has no significant revenue sources or any plans on being independent and still wants to be heavily reliant on Google's money despite promising to 'walk away' a decade ago.
They know that they cannot live without Google's money and call itself 'independent' or 'privacy-first'. There is no significant revenue source other than Google is there?
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2020/08/13/mozilla...
[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-lays-off-250-employees...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.compu...
So this is not true, and it is all lies? [0] So Mozilla can survive without Google's money and be free from the demand to be the default search engine by their own competitor? That isn't taking privacy seriously is it?
Either way, Google seems to have Mozilla on life support and Mozilla will do anything to keep itself alive whilst falsely preaching their mission on 'privacy'. What else are they hiding?
> False. (Source: I work for Mozilla.) I won't attempt a further argument here; it doesn't seem worth the attempt.
It is true. Don't bother denying or arguing it because everyone knows it's true. [2] Even from the title in 2007:
> "Mozilla can live without Google's Money, Baker says"
> "Mozilla Corp. will walk away from Google Inc. and the millions it collects from the search company each year, if that's what it takes to stay independent, the open-source developer's CEO promised"
I expect Mozilla employees to continuously deny it. Even when 14 years later, Mozilla still has no significant revenue sources or any plans on being independent and still wants to be heavily reliant on Google's money despite promising to 'walk away' a decade ago.
They know that they cannot live without Google's money and call itself 'independent' or 'privacy-first'. There is no significant revenue source other than Google is there?
[0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/barrycollins/2020/08/13/mozilla...
[1] https://www.zdnet.com/article/mozilla-lays-off-250-employees...
[2] https://web.archive.org/web/20120105090543/https://www.compu...
> > That's not at all what happened. Source?
> So this is not true, and it is all lies? [0]
Everything in that article sounds correct to me.
> So Mozilla can survive without Google's money and be free from the demand to be the default search engine by their own competitor? That isn't taking privacy seriously is it?
Ah, so that's the operative definition of privacy you're using. Yes, Mozilla sends people to Google's search engine, and that search engine is at least capable of tracking users (and many Google properties definitely are tracking users, intensively.)
But if you visit www.google.com with any browser, the same thing happens.
Yes, it would be better for privacy to default to DuckDuckGo, for example. (That's what my browser is set to.) Mozilla could switch to DDG as its default, but then it would be paid far less and would not be able to support anywhere close to the current level of development. Or they could continue to take Google's money to compete with Google. If Google is secretly in full control of Firefox's direction, then that would be better. But given my personal experience, that is nowhere even close to being the case, and so it's better that Firefox survives.
> Either way, Google seems to have Mozilla on life support and Mozilla will do anything to keep itself alive whilst falsely preaching their mission on 'privacy'. What else are they hiding?
Mozilla is working hard on privacy. If having google.com as the default search engine invalidates that in your mind, then I have no argument to give.
> > "Mozilla Corp. will walk away from Google Inc. and the millions it collects from the search company each year, if that's what it takes to stay independent, the open-source developer's CEO promised"
> I expect Mozilla employees to continuously deny it. Even when 14 years later, Mozilla still has no significant revenue sources or any plans on being independent and still wants to be heavily reliant on Google's money despite promising to 'walk away' a decade ago.
If that's what it takes to stay independent. Mozilla is independent. Therefore, no need to walk away.
It's not a comfortable independence, and Mozilla is actively working on diversifying revenue. I'm sure they could be doing better. I'm not sure random internet commenters could do better, no matter their level of confidence.
Taking Google's money is not identical to being "an arm of Google", as Baker put it in that article you quoted. I guess that's the fundamental disagreement here?
> So this is not true, and it is all lies? [0]
Everything in that article sounds correct to me.
> So Mozilla can survive without Google's money and be free from the demand to be the default search engine by their own competitor? That isn't taking privacy seriously is it?
Ah, so that's the operative definition of privacy you're using. Yes, Mozilla sends people to Google's search engine, and that search engine is at least capable of tracking users (and many Google properties definitely are tracking users, intensively.)
But if you visit www.google.com with any browser, the same thing happens.
Yes, it would be better for privacy to default to DuckDuckGo, for example. (That's what my browser is set to.) Mozilla could switch to DDG as its default, but then it would be paid far less and would not be able to support anywhere close to the current level of development. Or they could continue to take Google's money to compete with Google. If Google is secretly in full control of Firefox's direction, then that would be better. But given my personal experience, that is nowhere even close to being the case, and so it's better that Firefox survives.
> Either way, Google seems to have Mozilla on life support and Mozilla will do anything to keep itself alive whilst falsely preaching their mission on 'privacy'. What else are they hiding?
Mozilla is working hard on privacy. If having google.com as the default search engine invalidates that in your mind, then I have no argument to give.
> > "Mozilla Corp. will walk away from Google Inc. and the millions it collects from the search company each year, if that's what it takes to stay independent, the open-source developer's CEO promised"
> I expect Mozilla employees to continuously deny it. Even when 14 years later, Mozilla still has no significant revenue sources or any plans on being independent and still wants to be heavily reliant on Google's money despite promising to 'walk away' a decade ago.
If that's what it takes to stay independent. Mozilla is independent. Therefore, no need to walk away.
It's not a comfortable independence, and Mozilla is actively working on diversifying revenue. I'm sure they could be doing better. I'm not sure random internet commenters could do better, no matter their level of confidence.
Taking Google's money is not identical to being "an arm of Google", as Baker put it in that article you quoted. I guess that's the fundamental disagreement here?
Same here. Firefox and Mozilla aren't perfect (Firefox is fantastic), but I'm not going to give in to the Chrome dominance.
I agree, but when you say last remaining, were there ever any other contenders in the “mostly independent, maintained and reasonably popular” category?
Konqueror (ancestor of WebKit) is the closest I can think of.
Konqueror (ancestor of WebKit) is the closest I can think of.
Perhaps Opera, before it became another Chrome wrapper?
I still have a soft spot for Netsurf, Dillo, w3m and Lynx :)
I still have a soft spot for Netsurf, Dillo, w3m and Lynx :)
I still hope for Gemini to get bigger. At least in the hacker community, so I can stop having to visit the web often.
Yes, I think it's interesting!
Preemptively tackling two common criticisms:
"We already have HTML". Yes, but with Gemini, you know the entire "Geminispace" is going to be like that. It's nice for the state of mind! It also ensures sites on the network won't track you, as the wealth of HTTP headers can kindly assist with.
"We already have Gopher". Yes, but Gemini comes with some very useful, almost essential, additions for broader adoption like mandated TLS encryption and things that should have been solved decades ago like defining character encodings, use of MIME types to define binaries, and well supported links to non-Gopher protocols.
Preemptively tackling two common criticisms:
"We already have HTML". Yes, but with Gemini, you know the entire "Geminispace" is going to be like that. It's nice for the state of mind! It also ensures sites on the network won't track you, as the wealth of HTTP headers can kindly assist with.
"We already have Gopher". Yes, but Gemini comes with some very useful, almost essential, additions for broader adoption like mandated TLS encryption and things that should have been solved decades ago like defining character encodings, use of MIME types to define binaries, and well supported links to non-Gopher protocols.
I loved what Opera was. It used to be my main browser, before Firefox. These days though, Firefox wins for various reasons and not being a blink rebrand.
Konqueror now use QtWebEngine by default but iirc correctly can still be used with QtWebKit and KHtml/Kjs. But the both are deprecated and will be dead in Qt6/KDE Framework 6.
It's just not sustainable for a small open source community to build an open source browser engine.
It's just not sustainable for a small open source community to build an open source browser engine.
QtWebKit is independently maintained now and intends to support Qt6 in the future.
There was Opera, before it moved to the Blink world. Whether it was popular enough to count, I don't know.
[deleted]
>Firefox: the last remaining mostly independent
~90% revenue coming from its main "competitor", Google. (not sure whether to put quotes there or not, the relationship is more akin of 'sponsorship')
https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2020/mozilla-fdn-202...
>maintained
over 10,000 bugs, some going as far back as 2007
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=UNCONFIR...
>reasonably popular browser.
3.91% market share.
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
Firefox may be the first love for many of us, but this description is a stretch of reality. And stretching reality for the last 10 years is what may have gotten Firefox in the downward spiral it is in. Time for a wake up call maybe?
~90% revenue coming from its main "competitor", Google. (not sure whether to put quotes there or not, the relationship is more akin of 'sponsorship')
https://assets.mozilla.net/annualreport/2020/mozilla-fdn-202...
>maintained
over 10,000 bugs, some going as far back as 2007
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?bug_status=UNCONFIR...
>reasonably popular browser.
3.91% market share.
https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
Firefox may be the first love for many of us, but this description is a stretch of reality. And stretching reality for the last 10 years is what may have gotten Firefox in the downward spiral it is in. Time for a wake up call maybe?
Same. And I still wish Mozilla the best even though I'd like less focus on branding and appearances and more on solid work. But they'll do as they can.
-- sent from firefox nightly
-- sent from firefox nightly
It’s my go to personal browser.
My admittedly anecdotal experience is that I find Firefox way more performant.
My admittedly anecdotal experience is that I find Firefox way more performant.
I've been using Firefox for a looong time. What convinced me to choose that over any other browser is the following:
A. It ran on macOS AND Solaris (which I worked on for a looong time).
B. It took awhile for the feature to arrive but eventually I was able to sync my bookmarks across both platforms (this made me so happy).
At this point, even though I'm not using Solaris anymore (sniff) I'm so used to it I don't feel the need to try anything else.
At this point, even though I'm not using Solaris anymore (sniff) I'm so used to it I don't feel the need to try anything else.
I’ve been using the Nightly for years.
Help with the testing so they build a better product.
Help with the testing so they build a better product.
I know this is painful to say and to hear, but below 4 percent is not reasonably popular anymore. It doesn’t mean Firefox isn’t a good browser or that you shouldn’t use it. But we shouldn’t pretend it is even semi-popular anymore. (Except among geeks where I think you can reasonably say it is popular.)
Less than 4 percent is still a lot. You need 9 digits to represent the number of users Firefox has
You know, there used to be good things about Firefox *other* than them not being run by Google or based on Chrome. That's been a while though.
Firefox's anti-fingerprinting features are being pulled up directly from Tor, if you seriously want to resist fingerprinting in your normal browsing, you use Firefox. Additionally, Firefox has the best extension support of any browser. Ublock Origin works better in Firefox than it does in Chrome, today. Firefox containers also don't really have a good equivalent in other browsers; they are an incredibly useful tool for easy separation of site data -- and containers are exposed as an API that extensions can take advantage of. That kind of easy access to privacy controls matters because privacy controls have to be simple enough to use that people can actually use them day-to-day and not just once and a while when they're doing something sensitive.
On the developer side of things, Firefox also outperforms Chrome in its CSS developer tools; I use Chrome for debugging Javascript, I usually prefer to debug CSS and prototype layout in Firefox. There are other advantages, Firefox and Chrome kind of go in different directions in what they prioritize for developers.
But the extension support is the big one. Properly configured, Firefox will be more private than any other browser, including stuff like DeGoogled Chromium, because DeGoogled Chromium is still based on Chrome and is still missing the extension APIs that Ublock Origin uses in Firefox, it's still missing the anti-fingerprinting features from Tor.
People can debate a lot of stuff (I like Firefox's resource usage but performance is subjective and user-dependent), and people get mad about Firefox defaults and decisions the company makes (sometimes legitimately, Firefox often makes bad decisions), but just as a private browser, Firefox is objectively more capable today than any other full-featured browser I've ever seen. I don't think that's just my opinion, Firefox objectively has more privacy features and better privacy APIs for extensions.
On the developer side of things, Firefox also outperforms Chrome in its CSS developer tools; I use Chrome for debugging Javascript, I usually prefer to debug CSS and prototype layout in Firefox. There are other advantages, Firefox and Chrome kind of go in different directions in what they prioritize for developers.
But the extension support is the big one. Properly configured, Firefox will be more private than any other browser, including stuff like DeGoogled Chromium, because DeGoogled Chromium is still based on Chrome and is still missing the extension APIs that Ublock Origin uses in Firefox, it's still missing the anti-fingerprinting features from Tor.
People can debate a lot of stuff (I like Firefox's resource usage but performance is subjective and user-dependent), and people get mad about Firefox defaults and decisions the company makes (sometimes legitimately, Firefox often makes bad decisions), but just as a private browser, Firefox is objectively more capable today than any other full-featured browser I've ever seen. I don't think that's just my opinion, Firefox objectively has more privacy features and better privacy APIs for extensions.
The problem with fingerprinting is that Firefox's market share is so low that using Firefox is a pretty unique fingerprint in an of itself.
That would be the problem if 1. firefox only had a _literal_ handful of users (rather than 100s of millions), or 2. if any browser was _that_ good at anti-fingerprinting.
But at the moment which browser you use is nowhere near as powerful in identifying you as the rest of the huge fingerprinting surface available.
Fingerprinting currently gives pretty much everyone a unique fingerprint in almost every browser, so even if only 100 people managed to share a fingerprint, that would already be a big success. Firefoxes relatively low usage share doesn't currently add up to any real significance in the fingerprinting calculus.
But at the moment which browser you use is nowhere near as powerful in identifying you as the rest of the huge fingerprinting surface available.
Fingerprinting currently gives pretty much everyone a unique fingerprint in almost every browser, so even if only 100 people managed to share a fingerprint, that would already be a big success. Firefoxes relatively low usage share doesn't currently add up to any real significance in the fingerprinting calculus.
As a matter of fact, as of the end of 2021,Firefox does not actually have "hundreds of millions" of users anymore. It has 198 million.
I'm not really sure what that changes about scratcheee's argument.
A 1% browser (and Firefox is solidly above that) means approximately 6-7 bits of entropy. If Firefox's fingerprinting protection removes at least these many bits, then it's worth using Firefox.
This would only work in isolation, but there are other fingerprintable bits such as the IP address (which you can't hide).
IP address alone is already a very good identifier unless you share it with other people. If you do share it, then user-agent and browser fingerprint becomes the next thing. If other users on the same IP use Safari and you're the only one using Firefox then you are trivial to identify.
IP address alone is already a very good identifier unless you share it with other people. If you do share it, then user-agent and browser fingerprint becomes the next thing. If other users on the same IP use Safari and you're the only one using Firefox then you are trivial to identify.
> but there are other fingerprintable bits such as the IP address (which you can't hide).
We're (collectively within privacy spaces) working on this. It's one of the reasons why I think the "VPNs are useless" debates are so disingenuous. Tor also has this problem (if you're the only person on your network connecting to Tor, that's a decent signal about things), and nobody argues that Tor is useless.
But I'll refer back to a point I've made a couple of times in the past: if you are in a boat with 5 holes on the bottom, and you want to patch those holes before the boat sinks, there is going to be a point in time where you have 2-3 holes patched and some holes are still leaking.
Figuring out a mass-market way to deal with IP addresses (hopefully using a better method than VPNs) is a real challenge. I'm encouraged by what Apple is doing with its private relay, I'm encouraged by some (not all, but some) of the work going on with P2P connections. But it's a tough problem. We don't want these systems to be opt-in or expensive, and we want to protect people from shady actors that can abuse them (see again, VPNs).
That being said, if the response is that we shouldn't care about fingerprinting because IP addresses are an unsolved problem (even though with significant work, they're not an unsolved problem, VPNs/Wireguard/etc do legitimately help here), it just seems really fatalistic and worthless to me as a perspective. Sites do fingerprinting today, they see value in it. If fingerprinting was worthless and all you needed was an agent and an IP address, sites wouldn't fingerprint; and yet they do. To me that's evidence enough that anti-fingerprinting matters, sites don't just look at the Firefox header and then call it a day and I don't think they would waste their time if the header alone gave them all the information they wanted.
More to the point, I regularly see people argue that we shouldn't be doing anything about IP addresses because fingerprinting exists, it's an extremely common argument about why relays/VPNs/Tor/DoH/ESNI don't matter. So there's a little bit of circular reasoning here; Firefox is pretty much doing the best job at anti-fingerprinting right now, but people don't care because of IP addresses. And then when you talk about IP addresses, people don't care because of fingerprinting. The reality is that you are currently on a boat with multiple holes, it is filling with water, and you need to start patching some of them.
We're (collectively within privacy spaces) working on this. It's one of the reasons why I think the "VPNs are useless" debates are so disingenuous. Tor also has this problem (if you're the only person on your network connecting to Tor, that's a decent signal about things), and nobody argues that Tor is useless.
But I'll refer back to a point I've made a couple of times in the past: if you are in a boat with 5 holes on the bottom, and you want to patch those holes before the boat sinks, there is going to be a point in time where you have 2-3 holes patched and some holes are still leaking.
Figuring out a mass-market way to deal with IP addresses (hopefully using a better method than VPNs) is a real challenge. I'm encouraged by what Apple is doing with its private relay, I'm encouraged by some (not all, but some) of the work going on with P2P connections. But it's a tough problem. We don't want these systems to be opt-in or expensive, and we want to protect people from shady actors that can abuse them (see again, VPNs).
That being said, if the response is that we shouldn't care about fingerprinting because IP addresses are an unsolved problem (even though with significant work, they're not an unsolved problem, VPNs/Wireguard/etc do legitimately help here), it just seems really fatalistic and worthless to me as a perspective. Sites do fingerprinting today, they see value in it. If fingerprinting was worthless and all you needed was an agent and an IP address, sites wouldn't fingerprint; and yet they do. To me that's evidence enough that anti-fingerprinting matters, sites don't just look at the Firefox header and then call it a day and I don't think they would waste their time if the header alone gave them all the information they wanted.
More to the point, I regularly see people argue that we shouldn't be doing anything about IP addresses because fingerprinting exists, it's an extremely common argument about why relays/VPNs/Tor/DoH/ESNI don't matter. So there's a little bit of circular reasoning here; Firefox is pretty much doing the best job at anti-fingerprinting right now, but people don't care because of IP addresses. And then when you talk about IP addresses, people don't care because of fingerprinting. The reality is that you are currently on a boat with multiple holes, it is filling with water, and you need to start patching some of them.
Definitely, 6-7 bits might be enough to identify you. But Chrome allows for plenty of fingerprinting methods of its own. You can't just install add ons that disable the features or feed bogus data. Then you are the one guy who uses fingerprinting. Your only chance is to use software that is at least commonly used, and not enable options that are most of the time disabled.
That is also a good point -- if you are trying to get rid of fingerprinting vectors in Chrome, I vaguely suspect that is going to stick out more than using Firefox.
I don't have hard data to prove that, so I won't make a bold claim about it. But it seems illogical to me to say that you're using Chrome to blend in if you're also customizing Chrome (or using DeGoogled Chromium, Chromium itself, or a ton of extensions) in a way that makes it obvious you're a power user that cares about privacy.
In contrast, in Firefox having Ublock Origin installed is probably a bit more common than in Chrome, and turning on the anti-fingerprinting features standardizes a large percentage of your setup with anyone else who flips that bit in their Firefox settings. You can worry somewhat less that you're doing something that is completely unique with your anti-fingerprinting setup. But again, I would hesitate to make strong claims about that without more data.
I don't have hard data to prove that, so I won't make a bold claim about it. But it seems illogical to me to say that you're using Chrome to blend in if you're also customizing Chrome (or using DeGoogled Chromium, Chromium itself, or a ton of extensions) in a way that makes it obvious you're a power user that cares about privacy.
In contrast, in Firefox having Ublock Origin installed is probably a bit more common than in Chrome, and turning on the anti-fingerprinting features standardizes a large percentage of your setup with anyone else who flips that bit in their Firefox settings. You can worry somewhat less that you're doing something that is completely unique with your anti-fingerprinting setup. But again, I would hesitate to make strong claims about that without more data.
Not being run by google is already a _very_ good thing. That said in my experience Firefox is much faster than chrome both on Linux and Android, on top of that I find the extensions available for Firefox much better as well.
Having uBlock Origin and NoScript in a mobile browser is amazing.
Not just for getting rid of the annoyance, but uBlock Origin also makes the browser perform way better too. And it's especially noticeable on mobile.
It was better having all the extensions in a mobile browser. Like a damn user agent switcher. Firefox is not worse than Chrome by any means, it's just a pathetic shadow of the powerful tool it used to be.
The main financial contributor to Mozilla is Google. So in a way, Firefox is run by Google. Some say it's convenient for Firefox to exist to avoid anti-trust lawsuits.
That's more or less what Microsoft did with Apple for I believe the same basic reason. They invested 150 million in 1997 to keep Apple afloat. Now Apple is worth 3 trillion. It can be turned around.
All browsers have gotten kind of sameish. I don't feel much difference between Edge, Chrome and Firefox (on Windows). A couple minor differences like Edge having native vertical tabs, where I have to go to a more powerful but less performant and less stable extension in Firefox, or Firefox having the sync feature I trust more. But overall it feels hard to find good reasons to use one browser over another. Firefox's multi-account containers are the only major feature I could name that makes a major difference.
For me, Firefox has a lot of subtle niceties that I miss if I'm using Chrome to test something out.
Firefox has much more efficient browsing keyboard shortcuts (although old Opera was comparably good), / allows you to jump to text where you're typing and you can use ' to search only texts of links, then you can just press return/enter to click links.
Tab management is better. Custom CSS allows multiple rows of tabs at the top and allows you to hide the close tab X's entirely, so you can close tabs only with middle click or double click without having to target (or avoid) a tiny close button. Also keyboard shortcuts CTRL Shift PgUp/PgDn to rearrange tabs which doesn't seem to be present in Chrome. CTRL+Tab as an option to browse tabs in recently used order (leaving CTRL pgup/pgdn for left/right order). Also for whatever reason Chrome doesn't let you mute individual tabs, only muting entire sites, while Firefox lets you mute individual tabs.
Extensions in general on Firefox are a bit more powerful, uBlock Origin on Firefox is a bit more effective at blocking ads than it is on Chrome. On Android Firefox supports uBlock Origin while Chrome has no extensions, but honestly I think every mobile browser is pretty shit (just Firefox slightly less so).
Firefox has much more efficient browsing keyboard shortcuts (although old Opera was comparably good), / allows you to jump to text where you're typing and you can use ' to search only texts of links, then you can just press return/enter to click links.
Tab management is better. Custom CSS allows multiple rows of tabs at the top and allows you to hide the close tab X's entirely, so you can close tabs only with middle click or double click without having to target (or avoid) a tiny close button. Also keyboard shortcuts CTRL Shift PgUp/PgDn to rearrange tabs which doesn't seem to be present in Chrome. CTRL+Tab as an option to browse tabs in recently used order (leaving CTRL pgup/pgdn for left/right order). Also for whatever reason Chrome doesn't let you mute individual tabs, only muting entire sites, while Firefox lets you mute individual tabs.
Extensions in general on Firefox are a bit more powerful, uBlock Origin on Firefox is a bit more effective at blocking ads than it is on Chrome. On Android Firefox supports uBlock Origin while Chrome has no extensions, but honestly I think every mobile browser is pretty shit (just Firefox slightly less so).
> multi-account containers are the only major feature I could name that makes a major difference.
And for me, that's a key difference. Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave, all garbage --- staying logged into several AWS SSM sessions in different accounts at the same time w/ full features, logged into several paypal accounts at once etc etc etc. The containers fix so much of web dumbness that they've become indespensable in my workflow, both at work and at home. Unless the other browsers have feature parity regarding MAC, they are not even among the competition.
And for me, that's a key difference. Chrome, Chromium, Opera, Vivaldi, Brave, all garbage --- staying logged into several AWS SSM sessions in different accounts at the same time w/ full features, logged into several paypal accounts at once etc etc etc. The containers fix so much of web dumbness that they've become indespensable in my workflow, both at work and at home. Unless the other browsers have feature parity regarding MAC, they are not even among the competition.
I agree on containers being Firefox's only headline feature. To potentially add to your comparison list, Brave is the only other fully open-source browser other than Firefox. I'm an ex-FF user after 19 years of dedication, and now use Edge, but Brave is my close 2nd choice due to its focus on OSS transparency and privacy. And Brave is the only browser that's Chromium-based, fully open-source, and focuses on privacy. If these things interest someone at least.
Kind of, their multi-account stuff is truly a game changer in my day to day workflows. I just wish handling profiles were a bit better
Have you tried the Profile Switcher for Firefox add-on? It works just like the profile switcher on Chrome.
- Add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-switc...
- Connector (required for add-on): https://github.com/null-dev/firefox-profile-switcher-connect...
- Source: https://github.com/null-dev/firefox-profile-switcher
- Add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-switc...
- Connector (required for add-on): https://github.com/null-dev/firefox-profile-switcher-connect...
- Source: https://github.com/null-dev/firefox-profile-switcher
For me, automatic highlight all on mouse selection in an add-on, which Chrome doesn't have, has been the biggest reason I've preferred Firefox for years now. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/highlightall/
On Linux + Wayland Firefox very notably has the best performance for me ( except certain very JS heavy/Chrome optimized sites)
Have been an active Firefox user for 15+ years and not had much trouble, even running on preview builds.
isn't Safari also mostly independent and popular?
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I've become conditioned to react to Firefox version announcements with 'I wonder how Mozilla has screwed up the browser this time'. Either by introducing useless features or by removing options I considered useful. I hope I'm wrong this time.
They had a couple big blunders with the ugly border/expansion when clicking the address bar, and "Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently used order".. both of these things should have never been the default (or at least we should've been given the option to select a default when they were first added, similar to what they did with the new color theme support), but besides that then I can't think of anything terrible and always happy to see new updates.
I would especially love to see deeper integration with their Multi-Account Containers add-on, e.g. allow us to tell a bookmark to open in X container, or allow us to always open X container based on URL path instead of just domain name.
I would especially love to see deeper integration with their Multi-Account Containers add-on, e.g. allow us to tell a bookmark to open in X container, or allow us to always open X container based on URL path instead of just domain name.
> but besides that then I can't think of anything terrible
How about stuff getting removed from the right-click / context menu, e.g. "page information" or "site information" (or whatever it used to be called in English)? How about no longer being able to remove specific (i.e. single) cookies? How about no longer being able to install arbitrary extensions?
I've been using Firefox for almost two decades now and have generally liked it a lot but GP has a point: The fact that the Mozilla devs have repeatedly removed (or at least hidden) more advanced features really is annoying.
How about stuff getting removed from the right-click / context menu, e.g. "page information" or "site information" (or whatever it used to be called in English)? How about no longer being able to remove specific (i.e. single) cookies? How about no longer being able to install arbitrary extensions?
I've been using Firefox for almost two decades now and have generally liked it a lot but GP has a point: The fact that the Mozilla devs have repeatedly removed (or at least hidden) more advanced features really is annoying.
The ridiculous tabs that look like buttons for no good reason is my recent pet peeve.
> and "Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently used order".. both of these things should have never been the default
Personally, Ctrl+Tab-bing cycling through tabs in most recently used order is greatly useful. Maybe its just me, but everytime I go back to Edge or Chrome, it becomes painful to the point I have to use the mouse for moving through tabs.
Personally, Ctrl+Tab-bing cycling through tabs in most recently used order is greatly useful. Maybe its just me, but everytime I go back to Edge or Chrome, it becomes painful to the point I have to use the mouse for moving through tabs.
I think you can compare it to "natural scrolling" - imagine if an operating system suddenly flipped the default scrolling direction without even presenting a dialog where you could choose your preferred option.
> everytime I go back to Edge or Chrome, it becomes painful to the point I have to use the mouse for moving through tabs
Sometimes I worry if that's exactly what they hoped would happen, similar to how Windows/Linux users often hate using a MacOS keyboard layout and vice versa.. but hopefully that isn't the case, especially because I can't think of any other software where you don't cycle through the tabs in their located order.
> everytime I go back to Edge or Chrome, it becomes painful to the point I have to use the mouse for moving through tabs
Sometimes I worry if that's exactly what they hoped would happen, similar to how Windows/Linux users often hate using a MacOS keyboard layout and vice versa.. but hopefully that isn't the case, especially because I can't think of any other software where you don't cycle through the tabs in their located order.
> Sometimes I worry if that's exactly what they hoped would happen, similar to how Windows/Linux users often hate using a MacOS keyboard layout and vice versa
Well, think of it this way: In what order do windows appear when you Alt-Tab through them? Surely its not the order in which they are located on your taskbar?
Well, think of it this way: In what order do windows appear when you Alt-Tab through them? Surely its not the order in which they are located on your taskbar?
I'm still traumatized from the time they broke all and I mean ALL extensions. I've only gotten back ti using Firefox very recently because I have an issue where chrome keeps hibernating, and nothing short if a complete restart of my computer fixes it.
This one seems to be mostly performance related with no/few functional changes.
I usually expect some relatively insignificant but highly maligned UI adjustment, like adding an extra pixel or two of padding or bouncing back and forth between rounded and square cornered tabs. After one of the more egregious changes awhile back I modified some thing (I don't even remember what it was anymore) and it's been fine since, but I still expect something to change every time.
I very much want "reader view" to have a "true black" mode specifically for oled phone screens. This is extremely valuable for people who want to read on their phones, because the black pixels emit no light at all. Unfortunately, dark mode isn't true black, which means those pixels emit light, leading to more eye strain, and defeating the real purpose (IMO) of dark mode on phones.
I want this for all display technologies. I paid for as dark gray and consistent a black level LCD as I could afford, and set the brightness to as white as is comfortable. Why waste the dynamic range of the screen?
Gray on gray definitely increases eye strain for me.
Gray on gray definitely increases eye strain for me.
In chrome/userContent.css in your Firefox profile directory:
@-moz-document url-prefix("about:reader") {
body {
background-color: #000000 !important;
color: #FFFFFF !important;
}
}
I'm not sure if it's possible to edit userContent.css in Android or iOS. Is it? I can't find a way to do it.
> We’ve made significant improvements in noise-suppression and auto-gain-control as well as slight improvements in echo-cancellation to provide you with a better overall experience.
What does that even mean?
What does that even mean?
These could be useful:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_control
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_gain_control
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_suppression_and_cancellat...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_noise_control
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_gain_control
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echo_suppression_and_cancellat...
Wow, didn't know it did this. I'm doing my own audio processing before it gets to the browser, so this is actively harmful. This bit:
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Firefox/Tweaks#Disable_WebR...
proved helpful. Wish I'd known sooner.
https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Firefox/Tweaks#Disable_WebR...
proved helpful. Wish I'd known sooner.
Same here. This is super helpful to know. I've tried to incorporate a Blackhole-Reaper workflow to apply an equalizer/compressor/limiter to video calls and have experienced odd behavior in both Firefox and Chrome which this might explain.
This is why I love HN -- I'm running basically the same setup as you two. There are dozens of us, dozens!
Better audio in calls using the browser, seems pretty clear to me.
I was not aware that this is something the browser would do.
It has to, and as far as I understand it always has (as well as the operating system).
Take for example echo suppression. For this to work, the algorithm has to be aware of the audio that's being output in real-time. We can't have the server do that, of course, and it would be very inefficient to do this in JavaScript (which also wouldn't have access to audio output by other tabs or processes).
So this has to be something done by the browser, in a very low latency and efficient way.
As far as I understand it, Chrome and Firefox have both been doing browser side DSP in WebRTC for a while. There is a way to disable this however.
Take for example echo suppression. For this to work, the algorithm has to be aware of the audio that's being output in real-time. We can't have the server do that, of course, and it would be very inefficient to do this in JavaScript (which also wouldn't have access to audio output by other tabs or processes).
So this has to be something done by the browser, in a very low latency and efficient way.
As far as I understand it, Chrome and Firefox have both been doing browser side DSP in WebRTC for a while. There is a way to disable this however.
I would've expected this to be done at the OS level, or at the very least have this configurable and opt-in at the browser level just so you know and can decide as I assume that it would be counter-productive to have both the OS and the browser do it.
Modern operating systems provides APIs so they can coordinate this kind of audio processing, so you don't have to worry about it.
It isn't opt-in at the browser level, but there is a standard in WebRTC to disable this across all browsers.
It isn't opt-in at the browser level, but there is a standard in WebRTC to disable this across all browsers.
You can test it out with meet.jitsi.org or via element if you like
Version 93 back in October added sponsored search suggestions on by default, [1] without even explicitly mentioning it in the release notes. [2] Is there going to be a similar surprise this time?
I still use Firefox as the lesser evil, and I believe there are lots of great people working on it (to whom I am thankful) but to see how the project has been run by the Mozilla Corpo-Foundation in the recent years is really disillusioning. I would love to see a change that would put a stop to the incessant stream of anti-features, while instead focusing on staying true to the original goals of the project.
1. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-suggest
2. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/93.0/releasenotes
I still use Firefox as the lesser evil, and I believe there are lots of great people working on it (to whom I am thankful) but to see how the project has been run by the Mozilla Corpo-Foundation in the recent years is really disillusioning. I would love to see a change that would put a stop to the incessant stream of anti-features, while instead focusing on staying true to the original goals of the project.
1. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-suggest
2. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/93.0/releasenotes
If you don't like nasty surprises, I recommend that you use Firefox ESR instead:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/enterprise/
(In the same vein, if you use Windows, I recommend Windows LTSC)
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/enterprise/
(In the same vein, if you use Windows, I recommend Windows LTSC)
Thank you for your suggestions. I've been considering what to do about my Firefox setup for some time (switching to ESR vs one of the forks, which I have to research first). Thing is, I'm using a heavily-customized profile with lots of extensions, Violentmonkey [1] userscripts, containers (including Containerise [2], and Temporary Containers [3]), and a custom user.js (based on [4]), so I should also revisit the settings for all of these at the same time as it's been a while since I last did so. It's all on my to-do list but as the current setup works well, there's always something more urgent to do instead.
1. https://violentmonkey.github.io/
2. https://github.com/kintesh/containerise
3. https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers
4. https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js
The LTSC suggestion is also good. I'm already using a heavily-debloated LTSC with lots of unnecessary packages removed (including the hidden ones, which are not supposed to be officially removable), and all kinds of customizations for privacy, security, performance, and convenience. While I'm satisfied with my setup (automated with custom scripts I've been maintaining since Windows 8), the number of hoops one has to go through to have their computer do what the user wants and nothing else, or a "User-Agent" that gives actual agency to the user these days is truly astonishing, and makes the goal unattainable for most people.
1. https://violentmonkey.github.io/
2. https://github.com/kintesh/containerise
3. https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers
4. https://github.com/pyllyukko/user.js
The LTSC suggestion is also good. I'm already using a heavily-debloated LTSC with lots of unnecessary packages removed (including the hidden ones, which are not supposed to be officially removable), and all kinds of customizations for privacy, security, performance, and convenience. While I'm satisfied with my setup (automated with custom scripts I've been maintaining since Windows 8), the number of hoops one has to go through to have their computer do what the user wants and nothing else, or a "User-Agent" that gives actual agency to the user these days is truly astonishing, and makes the goal unattainable for most people.
Whoa, I didn't even know there was a Windows LTSC.
I run Windows 10 LTSC 1809 which has extended support until 2029-01-09 (security and bug fixes). Licensed via my academic institution. It is stripped of the store, edge and a few other features which may be a draw for some.
How do you browse the web without using Edge or MS Store to download another browser?
Librefox is a drop in replacement without the antifeatures.
https://github.com/intika/Librefox
Edit: I meant Librewolf, not fox.
https://github.com/intika/Librefox
Edit: I meant Librewolf, not fox.
I'm always hesitant to use such patched versions because you have to trust your security to some 1 random anonymous stranger on the internet.
Also because they tend to be someone's hobby project and when they get bored of it (as we all do) you'll be left with an unpatched security nightmare. Which is exactly what happened with Librefox. Looks like it was last updated 3 years ago and is abandoned.
https://librewolf.net/ seems to be a fork, but I have the same reservations..
Also because they tend to be someone's hobby project and when they get bored of it (as we all do) you'll be left with an unpatched security nightmare. Which is exactly what happened with Librefox. Looks like it was last updated 3 years ago and is abandoned.
https://librewolf.net/ seems to be a fork, but I have the same reservations..
It seems like it comes with 3 years worth of CVEs aswell.
It's a patchset over firefox removing so called "antifeatures". Anyway being the last commit 34 years old I wonder how do they actually remove the Mozilla VPN ads.
There's also Librewolf. Would be curious to hear on takes if anyone has looked closer on both. Main difference is that Librefox doesn't really patch or fork Firefox itself - it's "just" config and extensions, whereas Librewolf is a more classic fork (though very close to upstream).
The default browser of Garuda Linux is a rebranded Librewolf build.
https://librewolf.net/
The default browser of Garuda Linux is a rebranded Librewolf build.
https://librewolf.net/
Oh man, Librewolf was the one I meant to link.
The only reason Mozilla exists is due to the money they take from Google, so making compromises is built into the company's DNA.
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I switched to Waterfox a few months ago after infamous Proton redesign. I love Firefox in principle but hate UI redesigns for the sake of "fresh" look without improvements in usability.
Waterfox based on Firefox but with an old school compact UI and privacy features turned on by default.
Waterfox based on Firefox but with an old school compact UI and privacy features turned on by default.
From wikipedia
>In February 2020, Alex Kontos faced criticism over selling Waterfox to System1, an advertising company.[23][24]
>In 2018, How-To Geek advised users to not use Firefox forks such as Waterfox because security updates take longer to be incorporated into the forks compared to Firefox.[25]
>In February 2020, Alex Kontos faced criticism over selling Waterfox to System1, an advertising company.[23][24]
>In 2018, How-To Geek advised users to not use Firefox forks such as Waterfox because security updates take longer to be incorporated into the forks compared to Firefox.[25]
I like their idea in general, but are you concerned that System1 ("[we] operate the world's most advanced Responsive Acquisition Marketing Platform") owns the project?
Yes, but the same concerns are applicable to Firefox given that Google is their major sponsor.
Here are instructions for customizing the Proton UI to imitate previous versions:
https://www.userchrome.org/firefox-89-styling-proton-ui.html
https://www.userchrome.org/firefox-89-styling-proton-ui.html
I like proton. THe menus are easy to scan. I don't have to learn a bunch of icon-function associations, I just scan the short titles. It's clean, but it doesn't diminish usability. It got rid of a bunch of clunky design choices.
I love firefox and use it avidly, but why does every firefox update keep trending on HN? I'm genuinely curious, most of these updates seem fairly minor
I work on Firefox and have the same question. These release notes in particular didn't really seem to have anything worth commenting on, other than to wonder wtf they mean. And yet, here it is on the front page.
It does seem like it's mostly driven by people's desire to complain about Mozilla, defend Firefox, and/or opine about the direction of the web. Which is fine, though it's kind of funny that those discussions get attached to minimal release announcements.
(Don't get me wrong; it's sort of gratifying to have one's day job product showing up regularly on HN.)
It does seem like it's mostly driven by people's desire to complain about Mozilla, defend Firefox, and/or opine about the direction of the web. Which is fine, though it's kind of funny that those discussions get attached to minimal release announcements.
(Don't get me wrong; it's sort of gratifying to have one's day job product showing up regularly on HN.)
Because there they are part of a bigger discussion around the web, chrome, and browser engine diversity. Browsing is a difficult problem and the existing solutions do not satisfy big part of the audience here.
I love firefox too and I have a different question. Why is the general sentiment negative towards firefox on HN? While other threads are generally anti Google.
If I had to hazard a guess:
- The HN crowd were likely burned the hardest by Mozilla's continued dumbing down of the browser (you'll reliably see complaints about how it seems like new releases always remove or move things needlessly)
- Firefox is de facto a Google project. If Google says jump, Mozilla says 'how high' because Google holds them at budgetpoint.
- Mozilla's stewardship of Firefox has been abysmal. A history of unforced errors, with a result of a completely irrelevant market share. (While paying a CEO millions to do... what, exactly?)
- Talking out of both sides of their mouth wrt. privacy (telemetry, cliqz and hiding it, etc)
- The HN crowd were likely burned the hardest by Mozilla's continued dumbing down of the browser (you'll reliably see complaints about how it seems like new releases always remove or move things needlessly)
- Firefox is de facto a Google project. If Google says jump, Mozilla says 'how high' because Google holds them at budgetpoint.
- Mozilla's stewardship of Firefox has been abysmal. A history of unforced errors, with a result of a completely irrelevant market share. (While paying a CEO millions to do... what, exactly?)
- Talking out of both sides of their mouth wrt. privacy (telemetry, cliqz and hiding it, etc)
> Firefox is de facto a Google project. If Google says jump, Mozilla says 'how high' because Google holds them at budgetpoint.
Nope. Look at deviations in implementing Manifest v3 as an example.
Nope. Look at deviations in implementing Manifest v3 as an example.
Meh, I think all of those points are highly exaggerated by drama, to the point of most of them not even being true.
For once, I like most of their decisions (except maybe for the layoffs, but they were arguably needed). Some were unfortunate, but they realized that and fixed them publicly. Everyone makes mistakes.
For once, I like most of their decisions (except maybe for the layoffs, but they were arguably needed). Some were unfortunate, but they realized that and fixed them publicly. Everyone makes mistakes.
I don't believe the general sentiment is negative. It's just that the subset with a negative sentiment are more likely to voice their opinion than those who feel neutral or good about Firefox.
I'm unimpressed with these commenters griping about the UI change or sponsored this and that. I don't think that's an honest standard you hold yourself to in any fashion and is simply not a functional way to live your life! What about your toothpaste packaging -- or gasp the product itself?! Things change all the time, you can be annoyed about it, of course! But accepting change is part of being a human in societies. "UI changes breaking my workflow" -- seriously? I don't buy it. I wish the conversations like this would fade because it encourages bad attitudes across the board -- I can't put my finger on it. Is it entitlement? Mozilla owes ME a good browser?
> Things change all the time
Why do they need to change? The tab bar has been perfectly functional for decades, and the relatively recent change makes it worse in many aspects.
I don't mind changes that fix problems or introduce new useful features, but don't fix what ain't broke. And no, some designer/product manager somewhere having to justify their salary doesn't count as a valid problem in my book.
Why do they need to change? The tab bar has been perfectly functional for decades, and the relatively recent change makes it worse in many aspects.
I don't mind changes that fix problems or introduce new useful features, but don't fix what ain't broke. And no, some designer/product manager somewhere having to justify their salary doesn't count as a valid problem in my book.
Don't perpetuate that type of logic. It's toxic to your peers and not good for society. It's shorthand for a phrase like "It works for ME, so don't change it for OTHERS." Also, this concept requires anyone making a change to justify it to you so you understand it -- even though the changes are for a product and user base as a whole. Most other people read and accept the change and either make adjustments or even switch products all without requiring a bespoke explainer.
Also, your comment about designers and product managers is pretty dismissive and leads me to believe that you aren't very appreciative how hard it is to get UI/UX right. Just because it's area you don't understand or don't practice within doesn't mean it's not important.
Also, your comment about designers and product managers is pretty dismissive and leads me to believe that you aren't very appreciative how hard it is to get UI/UX right. Just because it's area you don't understand or don't practice within doesn't mean it's not important.
> "It works for ME, so don't change it for OTHERS."
I don't recall every seeing anyone complain about the existing UI though (either from FF or other browsers implementing similar tab bars), so seems like most "others" were also perfectly satisfied with the existing UI. A browser tab bar is a solved problem and attempts to mess with it usually end up worse, both for Firefox and even for Safari's as their recent-ish attempt demonstrates - which they ended up thankfully rolling back in a subsequent update (the "separate" tab display option now behaves like it used to but there was a time when even the separate option added a disgusting amount of whitespace, along with a bug that would crash the browser if you dragged a tab while it was loading).
> even though the changes are for a product and user base as a whole
You mean the single-digit marketshare which is mostly power users, a good chunk of whom is here on HN always complaining about their changes because they're so out of touch with their current users? Or the user base that doesn't exist and never will because those are perfectly happy with Chrome and don't want to switch to what looks to them like a slower, knockoff version?
> you aren't very appreciative how hard it is to get UI/UX right
I absolutely am aware how hard it is to get those things right. I also believe that once you do get it right (through a decade of effort, experience and feedback) you don't ruin it on a whim like Mozilla did. Today's low-effort trend of replacing everything with whitespace and removing most affordances is also a major step backwards and this isn't limited to Firefox.
I don't recall every seeing anyone complain about the existing UI though (either from FF or other browsers implementing similar tab bars), so seems like most "others" were also perfectly satisfied with the existing UI. A browser tab bar is a solved problem and attempts to mess with it usually end up worse, both for Firefox and even for Safari's as their recent-ish attempt demonstrates - which they ended up thankfully rolling back in a subsequent update (the "separate" tab display option now behaves like it used to but there was a time when even the separate option added a disgusting amount of whitespace, along with a bug that would crash the browser if you dragged a tab while it was loading).
> even though the changes are for a product and user base as a whole
You mean the single-digit marketshare which is mostly power users, a good chunk of whom is here on HN always complaining about their changes because they're so out of touch with their current users? Or the user base that doesn't exist and never will because those are perfectly happy with Chrome and don't want to switch to what looks to them like a slower, knockoff version?
> you aren't very appreciative how hard it is to get UI/UX right
I absolutely am aware how hard it is to get those things right. I also believe that once you do get it right (through a decade of effort, experience and feedback) you don't ruin it on a whim like Mozilla did. Today's low-effort trend of replacing everything with whitespace and removing most affordances is also a major step backwards and this isn't limited to Firefox.
I'm still annoyed they got rid of the option to not see the tab bar if you have only one tab open. For a while they kept a preference for it but of course eventually got rid of it. I say "of course" because similar things have happened with other changes as well.
It strikes me as dishonest to continually make it harder and harder to do something and then get rid of it on the grounds that "no one uses it".
It strikes me as dishonest to continually make it harder and harder to do something and then get rid of it on the grounds that "no one uses it".
Reminds me of https://xkcd.com/1172/
[deleted]
> We’ve made significant improvements in noise-suppression and auto-gain-control as well as slight improvements in echo-cancellation to provide you with a better overall experience.
Where can I find out more about this?
Where can I find out more about this?
From here: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/96.0a1/releasenotes/
I found this link: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1654112
Which contains this comment: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1654112#c371
Which explains that the improvements came from upgrading their libwebrtc library to version 2H2020. I wasn't able to find release notes for libwebrtc itself.
I found this link: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1654112
Which contains this comment: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1654112#c371
Which explains that the improvements came from upgrading their libwebrtc library to version 2H2020. I wasn't able to find release notes for libwebrtc itself.
wow, ty!
I love Firefox, but I hate to see that they seem to have given in to the Chrome hegemony once again and hide the login realm message when doing HTTP basic authentication now. I still hate Chrome to this day for starting to do that, because you can no longer send people to a site protected by basic auth and expect them to know which credentials to fill in. Firefox was the last popular browsing allowing the user to read the login message provided by the server.
What's the rationale for hiding it?
I don't know the true rationale, but if I remember correctly a Chrome dev provided some really dubious reasoning one the related issue tracker item, something like "someone could MITM the connection and change the basic auth message to 'please enter your YouTube credentials'". Well guess what, if I MITM your connection, I can provide a much more convincing HTML representation of the YouTube login page! I guess the grain of truth that was in there is that this is one of the few times where a server-provided string is presented as part of the browser's UI, but I am sure there are better ways to highlight that the browser is just quoting the server than outright not showing the message.
Edit: It seems like a dubious security report was the origin of this, not a developer: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=544244
Edit: It seems like a dubious security report was the origin of this, not a developer: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=544244
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Been using Firefox as my daily for 5+ years, couldn’t be happier.
This morning various websites stopped working (really random js failures). After lots of digging around…chrome works fine… :/ Waiting on a restart which hopefully fixes things so I can delete this line.
This morning various websites stopped working (really random js failures). After lots of digging around…chrome works fine… :/ Waiting on a restart which hopefully fixes things so I can delete this line.
Nope, restart didn't fix it. Seems like most CORS requests are failing; for example on LinkedIn.
Sigh. Switching from "Strict" to "Standard" in the Firefox security settings "fixes" it. Or disabling Enhanced Protection for the individual website.
This is a great example of the challenges browser developers face: when something breaks, people often blame the browser since that's the thing they remember most recently changing but it's far more often that it's something the remote website pushed out which isn't visible to the user.
I don't blame Firefox here though I do believe this was a change to perhaps the strictness or level of introspection. I've observed two websites with similar issues.
Either way, I'm a-ok with these types of changes even at the expense of my time in remembering the cause and the solution.
Either way, I'm a-ok with these types of changes even at the expense of my time in remembering the cause and the solution.
Yes — I just find it an interesting challenge for even an experienced technical user to localize the cause of a problem like this. Visibility is important and I really like the way rapid releases have helped the web but it also sets you up to be the initial suspect.
Weird. This[1] only mentions "We’ve also significantly reduced main-thread load." while this[2] says "No notable changes." in Javascript section.
1: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/96.0/releasenotes 2: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Rel...
1: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/96.0/releasenotes 2: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Firefox/Rel...
[deleted]
> On macOS, command-clicking links in Gmail now opens them in a new tab as expected.
How is this Firefox's problem? Isn't Gmail just a website?
How is this Firefox's problem? Isn't Gmail just a website?
That called my attention too. Does that mean Firefox runs code specifically on Gmail?
As others have pointed out, not in this case but in general yes - browsers do have website specific fixes for compatibility.
Firefox: https://github.com/mozilla/gecko-dev/blob/d107bc8aeadcc816ba...
Safari: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/blob/86143cf226f227bac5ffad...
I'm not sure what's the file for Chromium but I bet there's something similar.
Firefox: https://github.com/mozilla/gecko-dev/blob/d107bc8aeadcc816ba...
Safari: https://github.com/WebKit/WebKit/blob/86143cf226f227bac5ffad...
I'm not sure what's the file for Chromium but I bet there's something similar.
I know there is quirks file for webkit which is used to be safari and webkit was forked to blink which runs chromium so it depend if its still there.
I found this link from another bug that was marked fixed in 96. It contains all bugs marked to be included in the changelog for 96: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?f1=cf_tracking_fire...
From there I found this bug relating to cmd-clicking links in Gmail: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1739929
You can find detailed discussion about what's going on there. I believe this is the ultimate fix: https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/0fb0990124cf
It does not appear to be specific to Gmail, no.
From there I found this bug relating to cmd-clicking links in Gmail: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1739929
You can find detailed discussion about what's going on there. I believe this is the ultimate fix: https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/rev/0fb0990124cf
It does not appear to be specific to Gmail, no.
Great find. I would've worded this differently then.
Changelogs are really hard! Do you describe the actual bug that was fixed ("mouse click events in secure contexts would sometimes be ignored even if the web application didn't handle them") or do you describe the end-user impact ("middle-clicking links in gmail works again")? There's no right answer.
Does Chrome?
I loaded up my Firefox 95 in macOS and did the command-clicking link, it opens it as new tab just fine. Not sure why this fix is needed for this new version? Perhaps edge cases that are reporting this issue?
I have had this problem for years, and I am clearly not alone - see https://webapps.stackexchange.com/questions/151885/why-does-...
I completely misunderstood the context. I realize it is about the Cmd
+Clicking as in trackpad clicking, not the Cmd+Left-Mouse-Button originally. My apologies about the confusion. I am surprised this bug exists and I never encounter that kind of bug since I always use the mouse for the clicking.
I've been using Firefox and packaging it for portable use at PortableApps.com since before version 1.0. It's my daily browser on Windows and Android (yay extensions). And the best alternative to Chrome/Safari domination.
Haven’t used PortableApps in at least a decade, but wanted to say thank you. It was immensely useful at school, work and with multiple machines.
You're welcome! Glad it helped you out.
Gave up on FF a month ago because it was just too damn slow, but I didn't want to go back to use Chrome because I don't want to have to install a ton of addons just to have features that should be baked in the browser by now.
I found Vivaldi and besides really minor things that I'd like to have, it looks like the perfect browser. Highly customizable, fast, and with full access to the Chrome addons. Not going back to either of the other two for the time being.
I found Vivaldi and besides really minor things that I'd like to have, it looks like the perfect browser. Highly customizable, fast, and with full access to the Chrome addons. Not going back to either of the other two for the time being.
If you're finding Firefox to be noticeably slower than Chrome/Edge, disable extensions until you find which one is slowing it down that much. On a clean install they're very comparable in speed.
So, you are back to Google dictating what you can and cannot have. Lets not pretend that Vivaldi has much influence over that (if any at all). They ship Chromium with trivial/irrelevant tweaks. If that makes you feel good, more power to you.
However, people underestimate the amount of influence Google has in the Chromium ecosystem. At this point it's their way or the highway (i.e. Firefox/Safari). None of the companies shipping Chromium based browser have either the competence, willingness, or team to ship a functional browser that is meaningfully different. It's just lipstick on a pig and magical thinking when it comes to privacy.
Firefox works well enough for me. If there are websites that work less well in it, I've long stopped caring about those. All the essentials that try to sell me stuff work just fine. Financial dependence does that. People put in an effort to make shit works when money is on the line.
However, people underestimate the amount of influence Google has in the Chromium ecosystem. At this point it's their way or the highway (i.e. Firefox/Safari). None of the companies shipping Chromium based browser have either the competence, willingness, or team to ship a functional browser that is meaningfully different. It's just lipstick on a pig and magical thinking when it comes to privacy.
Firefox works well enough for me. If there are websites that work less well in it, I've long stopped caring about those. All the essentials that try to sell me stuff work just fine. Financial dependence does that. People put in an effort to make shit works when money is on the line.
The less addons I need, the better. As long as I can block ads with uBlock Origin and handle a few other small things, I'm good.
I gave up on my freedom a long time ago since I use gmail and outlook for everything. I leave those things to people more enlightened than me, I just want things to work.
I gave up on my freedom a long time ago since I use gmail and outlook for everything. I leave those things to people more enlightened than me, I just want things to work.
Troubleshooting mode might have been useful for diagnosing what was making Firefox slow:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/diagnose-firefox-issues...
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/diagnose-firefox-issues...
I really want to like Vivaldi, but it's just so damn slow. The multiple seconds delay when pulling a tab into a new window is infuriating.
I tried vivaldi a while back, but ot suffered from being too slow/stuttery for me.
Any chance we can have bookmarks back on a new tab page? Not 'recent' bookmarks. Regular, old, cultivated bookmarks.
> On macOS, command-clicking links in Gmail now opens them in a new tab as expected.
I wonder what happened here?
I wonder what happened here?
Tangential, but every time I read "macOS" in FF release notes, I hope that this fundamental bug gets fixed: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1600153
Gist: You click a link (outside FF, say from an app), and FF opens 2 windows - one with the link and other blank. I have no idea how is this acceptable for a browser as mainstream as FF.
Gist: You click a link (outside FF, say from an app), and FF opens 2 windows - one with the link and other blank. I have no idea how is this acceptable for a browser as mainstream as FF.
Every time a new version of Firefox comes out I try it on my XPS 13 to see if two finger scroll & pan and pinch to zoom still feel janky and weird compared to every other app on my computer.
Yup, still weird. Still can only scroll either horizontally or vertically but not both at the same time. Pinching feels weirdly linear and zooming out still doesn't use the mouse cursor position as a central point but just zooms from the center.
It's 2022, why doesn't Firefox just behave like every other application on my computer with scroll and pinch?
Yup, still weird. Still can only scroll either horizontally or vertically but not both at the same time. Pinching feels weirdly linear and zooming out still doesn't use the mouse cursor position as a central point but just zooms from the center.
It's 2022, why doesn't Firefox just behave like every other application on my computer with scroll and pinch?
Oh crap, they broke backdrop-filter: blur. It was so beautiful, and now it doesn't work, despite being enabled in about:config.
Why are you doing this to me, Firefox Developers?
Why are you doing this to me, Firefox Developers?
Firefox development seems to be stagnating (despite pumping an insane amount of money to it /s)
I wonder where all the Google money goes? definitely not in firefox, otherwise it wouldn't have only just 3% market share
If they do pump money in firefox, then i guess it's time to replace the entire team, including the people at the top of the mafia, they are clearly incompetent
I wonder where all the Google money goes? definitely not in firefox, otherwise it wouldn't have only just 3% market share
If they do pump money in firefox, then i guess it's time to replace the entire team, including the people at the top of the mafia, they are clearly incompetent
I love Firefox but I can't really use it at work because our front-end devs refuse to support it, so our application doesn't have scrollbars - and switching between browsers sucks.
Use it at home and all of my personal devices though, and will not be switching any time soon.
Use it at home and all of my personal devices though, and will not be switching any time soon.
[deleted]
> We’ve also significantly reduced main-thread load.
Does anyone know the technical details here?
Does anyone know the technical details here?
I've been using Firefox Nightly for a while now, had no discernible issues
I saw the name and thought it might be some kind of retro throwback to the 1996 version of Netscape Communicator. I was sort of looking forward to the integrated but awkward built-in mail client and newsreader.
I'm using Firefox since Phoenix 0.1 :). I'm not giving it up! (I hate the look of the "new" tabs though :( (looks wrong on macOS and Windows, okish on Linux).
Not much innovation in new versions anymore but I'm still excited to be running Firefox.
It's something about using a browser written for privacy from day one.
It's something about using a browser written for privacy from day one.
When I saw the version number, I was expecting some retro nostalgic version of Firefox with Windows 95 window decorations and theming.
Oh well. Congrats on the release!!
Oh well. Congrats on the release!!
> Cookie Policy: Same-Site=lax by default
LET'S GOOOOO
The day web developers forget about stupid "csrf protection tokens" is coming \o/
LET'S GOOOOO
The day web developers forget about stupid "csrf protection tokens" is coming \o/
annoyingly, it breaks the Lepton UI fix: https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix
I realize I'm just one person, but the dealbreaker for me is still the very minimal WebAuthn support. No soft tokens, and therefore no TouchID/Hello support.
The difference in friction between "Getting my Yubikey out of my bag" and "Pressing the TouchID button" is enough to keep me on Chrome.
The difference in friction between "Getting my Yubikey out of my bag" and "Pressing the TouchID button" is enough to keep me on Chrome.
I don’t know about TouchID support, but Windows Hello has been supported by Firefox for at least a couple of years or longer now.
I use fingerprint authentication on a laptop with Windows 10 and Firefox on sites that allow me to use this as the second factor.
There is also a flag in about:config (signon.management.page.os-auth.enabled = true) to make sure this support is enabled.
Initially I found that it wasn’t working, and then I went through troubleshooting mode (disable all extensions) and found an extension that was blocking this from working (I didn’t spend time on investigating why or if someone else had seen the same issue).
I use fingerprint authentication on a laptop with Windows 10 and Firefox on sites that allow me to use this as the second factor.
There is also a flag in about:config (signon.management.page.os-auth.enabled = true) to make sure this support is enabled.
Initially I found that it wasn’t working, and then I went through troubleshooting mode (disable all extensions) and found an extension that was blocking this from working (I didn’t spend time on investigating why or if someone else had seen the same issue).
That's for signing in to Firefox (as well as unlocking the built-in password store, I believe). I'm referring to using TouchID for WebAuthn (i.e. "a built-in Yubikey")
This is the Bugzilla ticket in question: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1536482
This is the Bugzilla ticket in question: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1536482
"When printing, you can now choose to print only the odd/even pages."
It took 96 versions to reach this feature? Meanwhile, while browsing the web the whole browser becomes unresponsive anyway, even with 32gb of ram?
It took 96 versions to reach this feature? Meanwhile, while browsing the web the whole browser becomes unresponsive anyway, even with 32gb of ram?
Funny, I thought “Firefox 96” might be a new Vaporwave artist!
Hacker News needs to rename itself to Crybaby News.
And it broke reopen recently closed tabs.
Every time a Firefox thread pops up on HN, I read through it hoping to learn the source of the persistent vitriol, which often comes off as entitled whining.
I once wrote a little app for myself and (what the heck) decided to release it under the GPL in case it might be of some small use to someone else. The emails I received were split between a very small fraction with useful feedback (and even a couple patches), a group of people who merely wanted to thank me, and the rest were various levels of upset and demanding. What an eye-opener that was.
What am I missing? People being defensive because they use some other browser? I'm truly mystified.
I once wrote a little app for myself and (what the heck) decided to release it under the GPL in case it might be of some small use to someone else. The emails I received were split between a very small fraction with useful feedback (and even a couple patches), a group of people who merely wanted to thank me, and the rest were various levels of upset and demanding. What an eye-opener that was.
What am I missing? People being defensive because they use some other browser? I'm truly mystified.
One reason could be that active users of the browser are annoyed at the constant useless UI changes that break their workflow.
My reason is that I don't like Mozilla's false-advertising as a privacy-protecting browser which is absolutely not the case and gives a false sense of security to less savvy users that aren't aware that they need to change many settings and install specific third-party extensions to reach a semblance of privacy.
My reason is that I don't like Mozilla's false-advertising as a privacy-protecting browser which is absolutely not the case and gives a false sense of security to less savvy users that aren't aware that they need to change many settings and install specific third-party extensions to reach a semblance of privacy.
I would like to have some insights, if possible at the level of privacy reached by Firefox compared to Chrome and what the best alternative for privacy is overall in which I can keep things usable.
Honest question, since I am not into this research that much. I am using Firefox right now on the basis that Chrome prostitutes user data as much as possible.
Honest question, since I am not into this research that much. I am using Firefox right now on the basis that Chrome prostitutes user data as much as possible.
Chrome is terrible as it sends extra metadata to Google domains which can be used to track you. It however doesn't come as a surprise as it's a browser made by an advertising company notorious for tracking users.
Firefox by default is on par with other mainstream browsers but at least most other browsers don't shout "privacy!" at every possible opportunity.
Firefox with some configuration options changed and uBlock Origin is very good but changing configuration from the defaults exposes you to extra fingerprinting, so it's a double-edged sword.
Firefox by default is on par with other mainstream browsers but at least most other browsers don't shout "privacy!" at every possible opportunity.
Firefox with some configuration options changed and uBlock Origin is very good but changing configuration from the defaults exposes you to extra fingerprinting, so it's a double-edged sword.
I use Firefox, and have used for a long time. My history with the browser has been marred with weird and frustrating changes that break the work flow, going back to when Firefox 2 completely changed how the URL bar worked.
I just want a browser that works. Why does the UI keep changing every other year? I would be very happy if it looked like Netscape. I don't care how the window looks, it's a tool, not a fashion accessory. I don't want to have to re-learn how to do things I've done for 20 years every few months. Why can't I have a menu at the top of the window like other windows do? Why can't my browser follow the same UI-conventions as other native applications?
I just don't get why they keep changing this stuff. It wasn't bad. It didn't get better. It just appears to have been changed for the sake of changing things. That's frustrating.
There's also a lot of hypocrisy that rubs me the wrong way. Mozilla talks big about privacy, but have you tried turning off Firefoxes telemetry? It's like half a dozen checkboxes you need to hunt down, and even then I'm not sure it's entirely disabled. Yeah I guess it's only bad when other people are doing it.
I just want a browser that works. Why does the UI keep changing every other year? I would be very happy if it looked like Netscape. I don't care how the window looks, it's a tool, not a fashion accessory. I don't want to have to re-learn how to do things I've done for 20 years every few months. Why can't I have a menu at the top of the window like other windows do? Why can't my browser follow the same UI-conventions as other native applications?
I just don't get why they keep changing this stuff. It wasn't bad. It didn't get better. It just appears to have been changed for the sake of changing things. That's frustrating.
There's also a lot of hypocrisy that rubs me the wrong way. Mozilla talks big about privacy, but have you tried turning off Firefoxes telemetry? It's like half a dozen checkboxes you need to hunt down, and even then I'm not sure it's entirely disabled. Yeah I guess it's only bad when other people are doing it.
> It just appears to have been changed for the sake of changing things
Unfortunately it just seems to be the way things work now. People joke all the time about UI/UX designers needing to justify their salary, I guess it's not too far from the truth.
Unfortunately it just seems to be the way things work now. People joke all the time about UI/UX designers needing to justify their salary, I guess it's not too far from the truth.
It's weird because Firefox is has a lot of fairly basic UX problems, such as imposing mobile conventions on a native desktop application instead of following native conventions.
Besides the missing top menu bar already mentioned, desktop applications don't have hamburger buttons and material design-aesthetics, looks really out of place. If you open a sub-menu in that menu, the entire menu is replaced with the submenu, that's also not how desktop menus work.
Besides the missing top menu bar already mentioned, desktop applications don't have hamburger buttons and material design-aesthetics, looks really out of place. If you open a sub-menu in that menu, the entire menu is replaced with the submenu, that's also not how desktop menus work.
I hate the sub-menu thing as well. Because of the way it works currently, a sub-menu doesn't auto-expand when you hover over the parent menu, you have to explicitly click on it, and same thing when you have to go back. I have to access the "Reopen all tabs" function from time to time, and I can never remember where that menu item is, so I have to click around to find it, and have to explicitly click to go back to the previous menu when I make a wrong guess.
I miss being able to put a traditional menu bar next to the URL bar (and with the "Help" menu removed). I've trimmed the excessive whitespace with custom CSS, but it still wastes more vertical pixels than it used to do several years ago. There's no reason the URL bar needs to stretch all the way across the screen. Human-readable URLs are not that long, so the space could be put to better use.
Just use Seamonkey if you want it to look like Netscape, surely.
This is a good point. SeaMonkey is still maintained to this day, and it's basically that: Firefox, but it doesn't really change.
I actually do sometimes, but its CSS engine is sadly a bit out of date :-/
> Yeah I guess it's only bad when other people are doing it.
The "other people" don't do Telemetry like Mozilla does. You're making an apples to oranges comparison.
The "other people" don't do Telemetry like Mozilla does. You're making an apples to oranges comparison.
I just don't want my software spying on me, and I don't care if you pinky swear it's nothing to worry about, because literally everyone is saying that.
This should be opt-in, not opt-out in multiple screens and different dialogs and two about:config-settings.
This should be opt-in, not opt-out in multiple screens and different dialogs and two about:config-settings.
To add my anecdote to yours, I've been with Firefox for some time and I weathered the changes fine. I might not be crazy about Web in general, but Firefox has been good to me and I have not found the choices they make to break my workflows. I guess I fall within the target audience of their changes.
>I don't care how the window looks, it's a tool
But don't you? Your entire post is complaining about how it "looks" :^)
But don't you? Your entire post is complaining about how it "looks" :^)
I would be absolutely fine if it just stayed the same. I can deal with a crappy UI, what I don't want is to have to constantly search for things in that UI.
Constant, needless, routine-breaking UI or UX changes. Really difficult to not get pissed off when features or hotkeys you've used for 10+ years are suddenly changed without warning and for no remotely justifiable reason.
Unlike most open source code that's published online, it's damn near impossible to just go an re-implement your own browser if all available ones are not to your liking. Up until somewhat recently, Firefox has been the best browser for tech minded and privacy focused people, but it seems like Mozilla has lost their focus and are implementing features that their user base find questionable. I'll admit that some other features are very welcome, like containers and the like. But I do understand that their core userbase feel disappointed and whenever they see their best choice in browsers move all the more closer to the other subpar choices.
Specifically, people feel it was a let down to throw away the layout engine that was rewritten in Rust and drop the efforts to modernize other components too. There's a lot of people who feel let down with the deprecation and removal of support for older, more powerful plugin APIs.
And as for writing a browser on your own, lots of competent developers might implement an HTML renderer. I don't think a single person could implement a browser that's capable running youtube, banking websites, amazon, a fully features javascript VM, all the modern sandboxing and various web APIs (that now even include Bluetooth and USB).
I don't think bringing pitchforks to Mozilla will make them write better software or listen to users more, but I don't want to de-legitimize the concerns that some of their core audience might have. IMO, Firefox is still the best browser to use. Chrome and it's derivatives, please go.
Specifically, people feel it was a let down to throw away the layout engine that was rewritten in Rust and drop the efforts to modernize other components too. There's a lot of people who feel let down with the deprecation and removal of support for older, more powerful plugin APIs.
And as for writing a browser on your own, lots of competent developers might implement an HTML renderer. I don't think a single person could implement a browser that's capable running youtube, banking websites, amazon, a fully features javascript VM, all the modern sandboxing and various web APIs (that now even include Bluetooth and USB).
I don't think bringing pitchforks to Mozilla will make them write better software or listen to users more, but I don't want to de-legitimize the concerns that some of their core audience might have. IMO, Firefox is still the best browser to use. Chrome and it's derivatives, please go.
Firefox's rapidly shrinking userbase likes to shoot themselves in the foot. There's always somebody whining about a tiny UI change they really liked from 7 years ago. The fact that the organization has existential problems seems less relevant.
Sometimes Mozillians help with the self destruction. Like last week, when Mozilla reminded people they take donations, including in crypto. Luckily, ex-Mozillians came to the rescue to carve a line in the sand on Twitter. Absolutely unacceptable. An online mob forms, likely of people whom never donated a cent, and Mozilla is pressured to stop accepting crypto.
They had been accepting it since 2014.
It doesn't matter if you hate crypto. If somebody else has crypto and donates this to Mozilla, that is a good thing for Mozilla. If one is bothered by environmental concerns, Mozilla did not mine the crypto. They are on the receiving end of a transaction, one that now will take place elsewhere.
Who needs enemies with friends like this.
Sometimes Mozillians help with the self destruction. Like last week, when Mozilla reminded people they take donations, including in crypto. Luckily, ex-Mozillians came to the rescue to carve a line in the sand on Twitter. Absolutely unacceptable. An online mob forms, likely of people whom never donated a cent, and Mozilla is pressured to stop accepting crypto.
They had been accepting it since 2014.
It doesn't matter if you hate crypto. If somebody else has crypto and donates this to Mozilla, that is a good thing for Mozilla. If one is bothered by environmental concerns, Mozilla did not mine the crypto. They are on the receiving end of a transaction, one that now will take place elsewhere.
Who needs enemies with friends like this.
I think Firefox is great. Running it here on FreeBSD, Mac, Windows. It works well.
Only thing I mind a bit is the hidden compact theme which makes me worried it'll disappear completely at some point. The standard mode is too big imo. But the way it is now in about:config is fine
But the browser works well, renders well and I love the E2E encrypted sync. I don't use any other browser anymore. No problems with crashes or sites not working.
Just wanted to say that because people who are satisfied tend to be less vocal :)
Only thing I mind a bit is the hidden compact theme which makes me worried it'll disappear completely at some point. The standard mode is too big imo. But the way it is now in about:config is fine
But the browser works well, renders well and I love the E2E encrypted sync. I don't use any other browser anymore. No problems with crashes or sites not working.
Just wanted to say that because people who are satisfied tend to be less vocal :)
It is annoyance at Mozilla routinely eliminating features that had made Firefox better than competition, along with random UI churn that add up to make it less usable.
Decisions are made at Mozilla by a crew with only business school management training, and no personal awareness of engineering processes or possibilities. It is a lot like what has happened at Boeing.
That said, ten years ago it crashed all the damn time. So there's that.
Decisions are made at Mozilla by a crew with only business school management training, and no personal awareness of engineering processes or possibilities. It is a lot like what has happened at Boeing.
That said, ten years ago it crashed all the damn time. So there's that.
Firefox is important for the web. Mozilla is severely mismanaged, and that fact is ruining Firefox.
As an example, they keep asking for donations which they are not spending on Firefox development. It is that kind of stuff that people such as me are tired of. This has nothing to do with your experience releasing GPL code.
As an example, they keep asking for donations which they are not spending on Firefox development. It is that kind of stuff that people such as me are tired of. This has nothing to do with your experience releasing GPL code.
Pretty sure Mozilla's CEO isn't particularly well liked. She has a wage in the millions, which she insists is only fair for some family related reason, while Firefox' userbase has tanked.
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At the risk of being downvoted and called out for my potential biases, I don't really buy the 'last bastion of hope' argument re: FF. I spend most my day trying to create a competitive alternative to chrome.
Heres my main reasoning: I trust open source and the governance and operations around it. Chromium the engine is open-source licensed permissively, way more hackable than Firefox, and has a ton of organizations work on it actively (even more if you include derivative projects like CEF and Electron)
The web standards are still driven via committee, theres now just a much more reliable and stable reference implementation. The economic incentives are still largely there to be a relatively good open source custodian (forking is easy and probably a better place to start anyway). If anything it feels more Linux-like in that sense too (common compatible core with lots of room for forking/creating distros).
The anti-competitive practices are IMO things like Widevine and Google properties blocking non-whitelisted browsers, which we should be talking about. The chromium convergence doesn't quite feel the same to me.
Heres my main reasoning: I trust open source and the governance and operations around it. Chromium the engine is open-source licensed permissively, way more hackable than Firefox, and has a ton of organizations work on it actively (even more if you include derivative projects like CEF and Electron)
The web standards are still driven via committee, theres now just a much more reliable and stable reference implementation. The economic incentives are still largely there to be a relatively good open source custodian (forking is easy and probably a better place to start anyway). If anything it feels more Linux-like in that sense too (common compatible core with lots of room for forking/creating distros).
The anti-competitive practices are IMO things like Widevine and Google properties blocking non-whitelisted browsers, which we should be talking about. The chromium convergence doesn't quite feel the same to me.
> Heres my main reasoning: I trust open source and the governance and operations around it. Chromium the engine is open-source licensed permissively, way more hackable than Firefox, and has a ton of organizations work on it actively (even more if you include derivative projects like CEF and Electron)
And what if they stop? Or what if they bring the development into something you don't like anymore? Hard forking a giant codebase like Chrome's is basically impossible for anyone nowadays, so you are stuck with Google's decisions for Blink and Chromium. We still need Firefox.
And what if they stop? Or what if they bring the development into something you don't like anymore? Hard forking a giant codebase like Chrome's is basically impossible for anyone nowadays, so you are stuck with Google's decisions for Blink and Chromium. We still need Firefox.
I like the custodian approach with the open-source software.
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does it still crash your OS if you delete a site (domain) that you frequently visited from history?
2022 and still no native IPFS?
> We’ve also significantly reduced main-thread load.
Good.
Still waiting for a message about "fixed the extension API".
Good.
Still waiting for a message about "fixed the extension API".
> "fixed the extension API"
What does that constitute in your opinion?
Because if it's "go back to XUL", that's:
1. never going to happen,
2. would invalidate A LOT of work that's been done to make Firefox more performant and more secure and reduced technical debt (IIRC XUL leeched into FF internals all over the place, making pretty much any sort of update to the browser into a breaking change for extensions)
What does that constitute in your opinion?
Because if it's "go back to XUL", that's:
1. never going to happen,
2. would invalidate A LOT of work that's been done to make Firefox more performant and more secure and reduced technical debt (IIRC XUL leeched into FF internals all over the place, making pretty much any sort of update to the browser into a breaking change for extensions)
Feature parity. There are still things you could do then and can't do now with this neutered 'hey-lets-be-like-Chrome' API that nobody asked for.
No, it is not going back to XUL.
But, it is amomg other things to make a function available that will remove the top tab bar or at least make it invisible.
Not exactly hard, I do it manually every single time I restart my Firefox Developer edition. (Yes, the chrome (i.e. frame) around the browser window is still written in markup. I go into it with inspector and enter display:none at the right place.)
But, it is amomg other things to make a function available that will remove the top tab bar or at least make it invisible.
Not exactly hard, I do it manually every single time I restart my Firefox Developer edition. (Yes, the chrome (i.e. frame) around the browser window is still written in markup. I go into it with inspector and enter display:none at the right place.)
Still no built-in uBlock Origin (or equivalent in-house implementation compatible with uBlock-style lists) in a browser by a company that claims to care about privacy.
That's the kind of thing you don't want to be "in-housed" because then you end up being stuck with in-house politics. Install your choice of ad-blocking extension and be thankful you have a choice.
The blocking capability should absolutely be in-house, with only the filter rule sets outsourced.
It's kind of like releasing an operating system without the concept of user accounts (everything running as root) in 2022 and defending the choice by saying that you can install third-party extensions.
No, in 2022 a browser without uBlock Origin or equivalent enabled by default should be considered defective and a security vulnerability.
No, in 2022 a browser without uBlock Origin or equivalent enabled by default should be considered defective and a security vulnerability.
Firefox comes with Enhanced Tracking Protection. It's an integrated blocklist and it's enabled by default.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/enhanced-tracking-prote...
That would be an accurate metaphor if ads had root privileges on the browser, but web pages are sandboxed - so no, everything is not being run as root.
Ads have root privileges as far as your online fingerprint is concerned.
(not to mention that running untrusted code could expose you to browser exploits so running untrusted code for no benefit is a liability when there are permissively-licensed tools such as uBlock and its filter lists to detect & block them)
(not to mention that running untrusted code could expose you to browser exploits so running untrusted code for no benefit is a liability when there are permissively-licensed tools such as uBlock and its filter lists to detect & block them)
I've never used it. Always used no-script. Should I change to ublock?
NoScript is different; I believe it allows you to choose whether to run scripts. Tracking can be done in different ways with simple pixel tags which I'm not sure whether NoScript would block. It also presumably requires manual configuration & trial and error to determine which scripts to allow.
uBlock Origin uses Adblock-style lists maintained by the community to determine what to block, and "what" can include scripts, CSS selectors or entire URLs regardless of how they're requested (even <img/> pixel tags can be blocked, and similarly you can load malicious JS but "defang" it by blocking the endpoints it uses to phone home so other JS on the page that expects the malicious JS to be there will still work).
I suggest you install uBlock Origin - whether you keep NoScript is up to you; it may provide greater protection (or simply performance by not running scripts you don't need) if you're happy with the management overhead of manually choosing which scripts to execute.
uBlock Origin uses Adblock-style lists maintained by the community to determine what to block, and "what" can include scripts, CSS selectors or entire URLs regardless of how they're requested (even <img/> pixel tags can be blocked, and similarly you can load malicious JS but "defang" it by blocking the endpoints it uses to phone home so other JS on the page that expects the malicious JS to be there will still work).
I suggest you install uBlock Origin - whether you keep NoScript is up to you; it may provide greater protection (or simply performance by not running scripts you don't need) if you're happy with the management overhead of manually choosing which scripts to execute.
Thanks for the explanation. I only allow javascript to run on a handful of sites, so no-script isn't typically a problem.
At least it's still an option to install it though. Even on mobile.
I have read the blog post from Mitchell Baker -> https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplat...
I uninstalled Firefox. I don't trust anyone who is trying hard to corner me into an echo chamber.
I uninstalled Firefox. I don't trust anyone who is trying hard to corner me into an echo chamber.
I wonder when it will get forced on me.
Was having trouble meeting some aggressive deadlines, so keeping a session going with mostly reference manuals loaded was important. But Firefox kept badgering me about 95.0.2 and providing a dialog with only Download and Dismiss options. Looked at the site and saw 95.0.2 addresses frequent crashes on c/e/z-series Bobcat processors running Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 which has no relevance to me. Then my Windows 10 box Firefox stopped bothering with the Download/Dismiss dialog and started updating directly. Only Windows security allowed me to stop it.
It is great that Firefox developers are making progress and releasing fixes, but they should really try to make the updating process more friendly and allow people who do not have outdated processors and operating systems to get work done without being interrupted by irrelevant junk. This may seem small, but having the operating system and all major applications constantly demanding updates and restarts is getting really distracting.
Was having trouble meeting some aggressive deadlines, so keeping a session going with mostly reference manuals loaded was important. But Firefox kept badgering me about 95.0.2 and providing a dialog with only Download and Dismiss options. Looked at the site and saw 95.0.2 addresses frequent crashes on c/e/z-series Bobcat processors running Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 which has no relevance to me. Then my Windows 10 box Firefox stopped bothering with the Download/Dismiss dialog and started updating directly. Only Windows security allowed me to stop it.
It is great that Firefox developers are making progress and releasing fixes, but they should really try to make the updating process more friendly and allow people who do not have outdated processors and operating systems to get work done without being interrupted by irrelevant junk. This may seem small, but having the operating system and all major applications constantly demanding updates and restarts is getting really distracting.
> This may seem small, but having the operating system and all major applications constantly demanding updates and restarts is getting really distracting.
Because of the nature of vulnerabilities and software patches, that's not really possible. You pretty much need patches every few weeks to avoid getting exposed to vulnerabilities. That said, you can get ESR/LTS versions of software to keep the amount of non-security changes from breaking your workflow. For firefox this means switching to firefox ESR release.
Because of the nature of vulnerabilities and software patches, that's not really possible. You pretty much need patches every few weeks to avoid getting exposed to vulnerabilities. That said, you can get ESR/LTS versions of software to keep the amount of non-security changes from breaking your workflow. For firefox this means switching to firefox ESR release.
What an odd response. I don't want an ESR release. I downloaded v95 and v95.0.1 because they had potential relevance. The 95.0.2 was a patch for crashes on old hardware and os configurations which have absolutely zero relevance to me. The download or dismiss dialog is clear evidence of intention to let users skip unwanted stuff. If it were supplemented with a why link to the release notes and a hard refusal option then that would work great. What you are endorsing is incompetence at release management and ignorance from users. This is much like the passive hostility of developers working on high end hardware and then wondering why ordinary people have such bad experiences.
So, true story: yesterday at work, trying to catch a web bug, linux musheen. Download different version of firefoxes, run them, check the web to pinpoint the regression between versions. Doing some pinpointing, running again a specific version with the bug. No bug anymore. 30 minutes later. "Ah, I see firefox auto-update itself by default, so when running again it's on 9$.$ something".
PS: You know about mozregression? It's a tool for automating as much of that workflow of pinpointing a regression as possible – you just tell it between which versions you want to test and it then automatically downloads the appropriate builds and runs them and you just need to answer which builds were good and which were bad in order to narrow down the date range. Should be easily installable via python/pip.
Never heard of it. Thanks, I will check it out.
Another helpful feature is that for builds within the last year or so, it can also narrow things down beyond the regular daily Nightly builds down into the integration builds that are built for each individual commit (or series of commits) as it lands in the source tree, which is really helpful in narrowing down which change exactly caused a particular issue.
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I haven't seen Firefox asking me about an update for ages. It just does it in the background and on next start-up it is updated.
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Highlights:
* CSS color-scheme support, which was the last of the major browsers:https://caniuse.com/?search=color-scheme
* Web Locks API: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Web_Locks_A... (Still not in Safari)