As a regular end user why do I care about what Mozilla's mission is? Apple makes shiny devices, Google gives me great free services, and in return I use their (perfectly great) browsers. What is one single reason to use Firefox?
As long as these large companies continue to put effort into their browsers (which Microsoft didn't do with IE), users are simply never going to switch, the same way no one is using desktop Linux or LibreOffice or DuckDuckGo.
I wish Firefox would focus on being a useful tool (like the rest of the software I use). Compare Firefox's first-run experience with that of GNOME Web: Firefox is obnoxious; GNOME Web just gets out of the way.
I believe in Mozilla's mission circa 2004, but I'm not convinced that Firefox does any more.
The other day I opened up Firefox to discover that the theme had automatically changed to some garish pink monstrosity, overlaid by a popup that asked if I wanted to keep the new "colorway".
Did you actually took the time to setup firefox to your liking once? From the above post it looks like you didn't.
Pocket is pretty much invisible, especially if you remove the button from the toolbar. The only time I see mentions of the mozilla VPN is when I go to the configuration of an existing container and I see the option to integrate it to mozilla VPN.
> Did you actually took the time to setup firefox to your liking once?
Yes. I use Firefox pretty much exclusively.
I'm saying that the first-run experience, and the amount of setting up it takes to make Firefox less intrusive, illustrate that Firefox is not as focused on being a useful tool as I would like.
Compare that to browsers having more market share and firefox isn't any more intrusive or less focused at being useful. Chrome is totally shitty in stock form as well unless you love ads and don't care about privacy.
I have set up Firefox to my liking but UI reworks and new anti-features mean that I have to invest significant time for each update to just get things back to how I like them.
I agree. More than this, it's not just “I don't like change and I have to tweak Firefox to my liking”; it's “I don't trust that Mozilla is acting in my interests; I expect that any changes are to my detriment”.
It is not like every update break everything. They did one major update that broke a number of extensions and they didn't even do it without prior announcement and time for extensions developpers to adapt them. Appart from them those are tiny changes.
I actually don't use the direct Firefox branch anymore, although my wife and daughter have it on their computers so it is often available to me. I tend to use Firefox Developer branch so a lot of these complaints people are seeing I haven't experienced. (haven't experienced in the normal Firefox on other computers either so sort of weird, maybe I set up a don't bother me with changes profile a long time ago and I just forgot)
I'm not sure how critical this is in practice; but the way this evolved may be a symptom of the fact that Blink's authors' motivations align less well with those of an ad-block user than Firefox's authors' motivations do.
The worry of course is that once there truly are no competing rendering engines, that google will no longer feel the pressure to put user's interests before those of sites of even itself. And because blink and webkit don't really compete (still nice to have two, but on virtually no devices are both engines serious alternatives), that day is pretty close; it's likely already having an impact.
There’s no guarantee that lightning will strike twice in this case.
When Firefox overtook IE6, Microsoft had been colossally mismanaging IE for years, which meant that IE had become a rusted husk of what it was in its glory days. This made for incredibly strong incentive for web developers to support an alternative, because having to develop for an utterly broken browser for an indefinite period of time was intensely unappealing. On the end user side of the equation, Firefox’s incredible speed, UX improvements, and robust support for extensions did a lot to win people over.
Fast forward to today. Google is infinitely more savvy with web developer relations than late-IE-era MS could’ve ever been — they keep devs “fed” well enough with a steady stream of new shiny features that it’s unlikely that they’d ever revolt. For users, the difference in speed and UX between Firefox is negligible or even works in Chrome’s favor (which is tilting further in Chrome’s direction with every site that’s developed and tested only against Chrome).
Additionally, the barrier to entry for new web engines is so high now that anybody trying to build a browser that is to Chrome what Firefox was to IE is almost certainly doomed to fail unless backed by a company with deep pockets and no expectation of return on investment for many years.
This is an interesting argument. But this is effectively stating that Google has to be a good steward. If that is the case, then there really isn't much of a problem afaict (i.e. majority is happy).
If Google is treating devs and users well, there is no reason to switch. It's when they falter on one, migrations can and will occur (given past history as experience).
They don't have to be a good steward. They can simply be a good-enough steward until they kill off all remaining competition (of which - hey, only Firefox is left!), then they can coast on minimum effort for as long as it takes for the web to die off and for the app-ification process of everything to complete. Then they can move on to greater, bolder things.
Exactly. Once there’s nothing but Chrome, there can never be another significant challenger because the barrier to entry is too high.
Additionally, even in the situation that Google is a “good steward”, their total dominance means that there is no room for meaningfully different visions of the web to compete, which is very bad.
And if Wal-Mart drives the local Mom-and-Pops out of business by undercutting them, that's fine too because people wouldn't switch if it weren't better.
</analogy>
Bootstrapping competitors is hard. Driving your competitors under and then cranking up the heat when the field is clear is a classic strategy.
The DRM industry's answer to the previous waves of DRM and DRM-breaking was Denuvo.
The copyright cartel's answer to copying via digital bypassing and the analogue hole was to make it all but mandatory to cryptographically secure every single element in the chain between their own servers and the pixels on our displays, and refuse to serve HD content if your hardware and software won't implement that. Not to mention, DMCA.
Just because Firefox was the liberation from IE6, doesn't mean it will be proportionally as easy to liberate ourselves from Chromium if it does become the only browser engine.
I mean, we don't need competition, sure. But we also have a social structure that utterly depends on competition for economic efficiency. I'm not seeing the popular up-swell for communism quite yet, so until that happens, having privately owned monopolists act not just as single providers of critical goods and services, but also control access to information about those goods and services, and the publications reporting about those goods and services, and getting to pick which shops get to even open their doors, and the roads to those goods and services, and the banking system you need to pay for em... you know, that might just weaken your negotiating position. You just might get shafted.
These aren't the weak little monopolies of times past, stuff like standard oil - these new setups are much more clever, and much more pervasive, and much more powerful.
Oh hey, as it turns out tech companies are making obscene profits (so much for economic efficiency!), and we've given them little legal monopolies by implementing copyrights, patents and contract law in just the right way to make competition almost impossible. Startups competing with them need great luck, huge pockets, a brilliantly found niche - and even then they'll probably just get bought or simply fail.
I mean I get that browsers are just one small element of the whole puzzle. But on the other hand, it's also one of the few where avoiding lock-in might still be fairly easy. I don't blame anybody for using chrome - use it myself on occasion - but I'll avoid it as long as it's at least easy to do so.
Browsers are complex. Just because Netscape managed to commit corporate harakiri in just the right way to leave a spoiler for Microsoft behind doesn't mean that'll happen again. The web is quite different now from then, and much more centralized. If google were to dominate; or to simply share the pie in a non-competitive truce with apple, well, users would have very little leverage over google/apple whenever new developments were to slowly evolve the web into a whatever benefits the corporate bottom line over users interests; for instance by tracking users or playing gatekeeper. Note that that can happen even now, but more insidiously: by _preventing_ evolution that might protect users from exploitation.
Browser complexity is an issue in a more direct, plainly technical way too. Even from a purely technical perspective it's just nice to see alternatives, and the world is a big place; the extra investment spread over the now huge online economy is surely worth simply the extra reliability that such reproducibility brings to design of the web fundamentals and discovering new, useful platform features.
If you only have one implementation, it's very easy to accidentally have oversights in the spec that in effect render the true spec "whatever the browser does"; and while I applaud the pragmatism in that approach, I don't applaud the design-by-coincidence that then results in some pretty bad api's being permanent gotcha's in new webdev. Some of the API's that resulted from MS + apples more... "innovative" moments are pretty terrible, and here to stay.
Basically: having a bit of competition is just a good idea for all kinds of reasons, especially when the downsides are... well what exactly? Why would you want a blink monoculture?
It can, hypothetically. Whether that realistically would happen is another question (and I wish this distinction was more clearly grasped in conversations about these things!).
As a strategy, it would be reckless in the extreme.
On mobile, definitely. I realize that many people like to complain about the mobile version of Firefox, but it offers extensions when their competition does not.
about the same but soon chrome is going to be handicapping adblocking and ublock origin dev said he'd probably have to back away from it since they are crippling the interface he used primarily (basically taking it away in the name of "security").
Security, privacy, and customization are why I use it. It takes a lot of work to do it, but you can lock down firefox very effectively and you have more freedom to decide what your browser is and isn't allowed to do with firefox than anyone else.
In the end, what we're missing in browsers is a browser that works for you instead of exploiting you to make money. Out of the box, firefox doesn't hit that mark today, but at least it can be beaten into submission. No other browser gives users that kind of control.
I actually do use duck duck go. There doesn't seem to be any advantage to using G search anymore, the web has reached a critical mass of trash that just overwhelms unspecific searches.
Yeah, DDG can even give better results at time than google does. Google search has gone from being exceptional to becoming ad filled trash. Every other major search engine (directly or indirectly) gets their results in part from Google, but since most spammers are focused on Google the father from google you get the better results can be.
I recently switched to try out ddg (again). Local search is terrible. Other searches have at least been ok. Nothing so far seems worlds better, but there does seem to be a bit less spam in the results.
However the one reason that instantly pops into my mind is containers. I can easily have multiple "accounts" without mucking around with multiple browser profiles. This alone is worth it switching from Chrome to Firefox for me.
I use Firefox because I believe its important for there to be more than one browser implementation (rendering engine) in the world. If you believe the same, go and download and use Firefox, even if it inconveniences you to do so. Now, about Skia...
It's not user-facing features that move users from one browser to another, it's the number of websites they use that don't break with one or the other.
Because I consider websites with obnoxious ads and a bunch of tracking "broken" Firefox gives people a lot of reason to switch, but unless they try it for themselves they have no idea what they're missing or how the pages they visit would look and be improved without all that junk.
I agree, and imho firefox should even bet more on user privacy (for example adopting strong measures against fingerprinting, and migrating away from google as a default search engine).
They recently signed a new deal with Google, and those deals more or less completely fund the development of Firefox, so I don't see a change there happening any time soon.
I think the major problem with a privacy focus from a business perspective is that not enough people care. So you have to spend both a lot of time and effort _being_ better at privacy and then also a bunch of time and effort trying to convince people that it matters.
For a minute there Firefox was running significant advertising against Chrome along these lines, and touting its improved speed, but I don't think it really moved the needle for them.
> . So you have to spend both a lot of time and effort _being_ better at privacy and then also a bunch of time and effort trying to convince people that it matters.
The good news for Mozilla is that the task of trying to inform the public on privacy issues doesn't fall to browser makers alone. Many businesses spanning multiple industries are offering services for people looking for better privacy and they're working to convince more people of the need. There are also several non-profits and online communities which are spreading the message about the importance of privacy and security. The news media also often reports on abuses of our data as they are discovered. As more and more people become aware of how they're being screwed over as a result of handing out the intimate details of their lives like candy the market will grow.
The bad news is that the largest and most powerful companies are making money hand over fist exploiting our private and personal data and they're working hard to normalize it and shield themselves from legal responsibility. The influence and money they possess, along with support from the state which also benefits by taking copies of that data for themselves is no small hurdle to overcome, but the entire system isn't sustainable if we really want freedom and equality so at a certain point the tide has to turn or we fall into total oppression.
I have not seen an important website genuinely break in a long time. Certainly not enough to build any sort of decision heuristic. Who are these people who have websites break all the time on Firefox but not in Chrome so much it drives them from one to another?
The problem with building a web browser is that if you introduce too many new features then you are breaking with web standards. The most you can do is add some user conveniences like sync, themes and extensions, but those don't go far enough to make enough users consider switching. A browser can, by definition, never have a "killer app".
There is so much more a browser can add beyond just rendering websites "correctly" - and even that does not mean always rendering them the way the designer wants. Just a few things that could win over power users:
- Better tab organization. Vertical, tree-style tabs are an improvement possible with extensions, but surely we can do even better, especially if with direct support from the browser.
- Better bookmarking. All bookmarks should take a snapshot of the website in case it disappears or changes and should have fast full-text search. And those are only the obvious parts that are missing.
- Integrated ad-blocking and user scripts/styles to enhance and fix user-hostile websites. Make it easy to share these with non-technical users. Really anything that puts the user in control. This includes the Browser UI too - firefox has been going backwards con customizability.
- Ability to keep up with websites directly through the browser. Aka bring back RSS support and actually make it useful.
- Anything that works against the centralization of the web. Allow users to comment and share websites with their friends or community right from the browser in a way that is resistant to censorship.
And this is just what I could think of right away.
LibreOffice is the dominant OpenOffice fork and the main alternative to Microsoft Office, unless you count Google Docs. LO seems much healthier when compared to Firefox, if anything.
This is exactly right, and as you’ll see from the long tail of answers, there isn’t one that actually applies to normal people.
It used to be that IE etc was actually quite bad, and Firefox was substantially faster while adding important features like tabs. That’s when the nerds installed Firefox on their parents computers. Then FF languished, Chrome came out and was much faster and used less resources. So the nerds replaced everyone’s browsers with Chrome.
Now everyone is using their default browser from their phones, or apps, or inline system browsers in apps. All the browsers are roughly equivalent now, so the nerds don’t have a lot of reason to go around and change their parents browsers. Plus you don’t have any real advantage to changing the mobile browser from Chrome (Android) or Safari (iOS). Thus the market has shifted away from desktops, FF lost there, hasn’t regained, and has made almost no inroads on mobile.
They need a reason for the nerds en masse to go and change everything, while inertia and incompatible built-in password managers will make this painful.
Once Google have a total monopoly there is nothing stopping them from making adblocking impossible and add even more user tracking/data gathering.
It's a stance.
And tbh I don't see much difference with Firefox when using Chrome
(besides all the data that I can see leaving my computer to go to google servers even when I'm not on any website)
As long as these large companies continue to put effort into their browsers (which Microsoft didn't do with IE), users are simply never going to switch, the same way no one is using desktop Linux or LibreOffice or DuckDuckGo.