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Inside Mozilla:Firefox fights back against Google Chrome

making browsers great again  

292 members have voted

  1. 1. What is the browser you use for your PC/Mac the most?

    • Google Chrome
    • Mozilla Firefox
    • Microsoft Edge (PC only)
    • Safari (Mac only)
    • Opera
    • Chromium
    • Vivaldi
    • Internet Explorer (PC only)
    • Tor browser (based on Firefox)
      0
    • Others (eg. AOL explorer, Netscape Navigator, IE for Mac, etc)
  2. 2. What is the primary browser you use the most for your smartphone?

    • Safari (iPhone only)
    • Google Chrorme
    • Microsoft Edge (Windows 10 Mobile only)
    • Mozilla Firefox
    • Opera/Opera Mini/Opera Coast
    • Internet Explorer (Windows Mobile 6.5 up to Windows Phone 8.1)
    • Firefox Focus (privacy oriented browser with built in tracking protection and ad blocking, iPhone and Android only)
    • Others
  3. 3. Would you consider trying Firefox 57?

    • Yes, definitely
    • No, I'm happy with what I'm using


3 hours ago, Rune said:

No extensions? That means no adblock. That means no use :P

Those extensions have to be rewritten as it turns out for Firefox 57

There is more that meets the eye
I see the soul that is inside

 

 

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Honestly, who the fuck actually gets excited for new browser releases? It's not like any new features that I care for are being added. I understand the use for Firefox on older PCs (typically those with 4GB of RAM or older)

But, for me I have 8GB of RAM and a 7700K, so I'm perfectly happy with Chrome.

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other for all as you don't let me pick multiple. :(

 

i use chromium for my linux desktop (its my laptop replacement for now, it is in place of where i would use my laptop) because .. it just is there already and i dont want to fiddle around with finding chrome, and it's the same for my usage, even slightly better as it has some features that i like that chrome doesn't (scroll on the tabs to go back/front tabs, click with both buttons to close a tab)

 

i use chrome on my iPhone / PC / hackintosh as i really really need tab syncing. i do a lot of my browsing on my phone, and i want to finish up what i was doing on my phone on my computers, or maybe i found something interesting on my phone and i want to transfer it over to my computer, i can do that with chrome. else i would be using something like safari on iOS / hackintosh, and chrome on PC, and firefox on linux. 

 

 

 

i don't want to and i won't try new firefox. the iOS app sucks and I don't like the UI on desktop sadly, but i can forgive the UI on desktop but NEVER iOS. 

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Samsung 850 EVO 240 GB 

138 is a good number.

 

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I've been using Firefox for the past 10 years, and Firefox 57 is the worst version I have used to date. Is it the fastest? Yes, but I feel like that barely matters since I have an SSD and a great CPU so I don't really notice the difference in speed. (plus I don't object to waiting a few more seconds if it means I can be free from the botnet that Chrome is) The reason I find 57 to be the worst is because currently a lot of functionality is cut from Nightly because of the changes to extensions- only a few extensions that I have are compatible. For the first time since Nightly came out I am considering going to the standard build of Firefox. I love being on the bleeding edge and having the newest version of software, but with functionality cut the browser is left just a bland web page viewer. With the current state of Firefox 57, if I still wanted the near unidentifiable speed boost I would much rather use something like Qutebrowser, which is much faster thanks to it's simplicity.

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10 hours ago, dizmo said:

That would mean I was always on the same site though, would it not?

It would only mean having one website open in some tab, eg people often have their email open constantly. 

Anyhow it was only a guess ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

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I been a Cyberfox user for many years now before firefox was 64bit itself and kind of stuck with it because it works great for me and never have any issues with it. Speed wise it is more than fine I always run good hardware so yeah nothing really to notice on that front.

"Hope, what a concept." - Deunan Knute

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6 hours ago, hey_yo_ said:

Those extensions have to be rewritten as it turns out for Firefox 57

Unless there's adblock for it, firefox 57 is DOA for me.

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48 minutes ago, mrthuvi said:

Unless there's adblock for it, firefox 57 is DOA for me.

There is probably the web extensions version of ad block, alternatively you could use PiHole as a network wide adblocker.

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Only real beef I have with Firefox is VP9/youtube.  Can't consume youtube content on my old laptop with firefox, but I can with chrome. Though I use both, FF is the daily driver.  Can't say I've noticed any other performance differences between the two that meaningfully impact the experience.

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Anyone know hoe to make it so when you click in the URL bar is highlights it like on chrome? It's my onw annoyance with FF

                     ¸„»°'´¸„»°'´ Vorticalbox `'°«„¸`'°«„¸
`'°«„¸¸„»°'´¸„»°'´`'°«„¸Scientia Potentia est  ¸„»°'´`'°«„¸`'°«„¸¸„»°'´

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5 minutes ago, vorticalbox said:

Anyone know hoe to make it so when you click in the URL bar is highlights it like on chrome? It's my onw annoyance with FF

same tag me with that fix if its somewhere 

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Samsung 850 EVO 240 GB 

138 is a good number.

 

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Some serious marketing crap.

So.. at at least they are willing to invest money into the idea.

 

 But you know what? I don't care what company it is. I don't care for marketing. Ill see what they release in november and judge what i see then, not what the marketing can come up with now.

 

See you in november to what is most likely the same every big marketing push is. A dissapointment.

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the whole OP made me so turned off that now id be going in biased against it and probably wont even give it a shot lmao 

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Daredevil? The horns are way off, this is more like red batman.

On 5/8/2017 at 2:58 PM, Taf the Ghost said:

My main thought is: "and where was this focus for the last 8ish years while Chrome got faster and Firefox got noticeably slower?". 

 

Also, why are they hyping a new release coming in November, now? The articles are clearly paid-media of some form, so even their marketing is off-point in timing. Make the Tech good, THEN do the Ad Campaign. But, well, missing the point is something Mozilla has gotten really good at.

Presumably their focus was on developing a new rendering engine. It's not something that happens in one day. As for announcing it, literally every company does this. Nobody stays mum until release day and then suddenly goes "oh hey, we have a new awesome product! It's out now!". Furthermore they announced it right as they began public testing, the alpha is out right now - and it's not like the press wouldn't have picked up on the big changes by itself anyway. What's the point in maintaining radio silence?

On 5/8/2017 at 3:13 PM, Jito463 said:

Not much love for Opera, it seems.  Not that it hasn't been the case for pretty much as long as Opera has existed.

Even though current Opera is based off the Blink engine (from the Chrome source), it has the option to make a separate search bar in the address bar, though I've never used it.

Vivaldi is being made for former Opera devs.  I've considered switching, but their features just haven't been good enough yet to justify it.  I need to check them out again.  I was really disappointed when Opera became a Chrome-clone, though it has got better.

It's mostly because it's "just a chrome clone". Yeah, more features etc, but if you just do normal browsing the difference is minimal. I tried vivaldi but it's too buggy for me to truly consider using it.

On 5/8/2017 at 2:55 PM, mate_mate91 said:

I use firefox on my PC. and some browser based on firefox on my linux phone (i use Sailfish OS which is kind of linux distro for smartphones)

I hate apple, MS and Google. They spy on us and only god know what are their software doing on our own hardware.

Well windows 10 is great example of spyware. They send data to MS servers, they have keyloger, it records video feed and audio feed through mic and videocamera on notebooks or usb cameras. Everytime windows starts it's doing wierd things that everything feezes. No matter you are on SSD or HDD. This does not happen on linux. It's under my control. Windows and macOS are not under your control. You do not own your own PC/laptop.

Google is way worse. they are everywhere. that is why i do not want to use androidit's full of googles things.

I try to use as much free and open source software as i can.

Do you use Libreboot? If you're using the stock bios/uefi they could still take control of your machine through the intel management engine. AMD has their own version too I think.

 

And as much as I share your sentiment, there comes a point where you have to get to a compromise between what you want to do and what data you have to give away to do it. I think there's a reasonable halfway where your potentially sensitive information is safe but you don't have to go live as a hermit in Tibet.

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

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13 minutes ago, Sauron said:

It's mostly because it's "just a chrome clone". Yeah, more features etc, but if you just do normal browsing the difference is minimal. I tried vivaldi but it's too buggy for me to truly consider using it.

There are some nice features in Opera/Vivaldi that were carried over from classic Opera, such as rocker gestures (hold left button, click right to go forward; or hold right button and click left to go backward).  The one thing I miss terribly from classic Opera is using the scroll wheel to switch between pages (tabs).  You could hold the left mouse button and scroll to move between them.  I've missed that greatly since I finally moved to new Opera (mostly because classic started having too many issues on various websites).

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19 hours ago, Rune said:

No extensions? That means no adblock. That means no use :P

They aren't removing the possibility to add on functionality, it will just be done differently. And yes, it will break legacy compatibility, but I'm sure the major stuff like adblockers will be available very quickly. It's the only way to actually move on, otherwise we'd always be stuck with the same technology forever.

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

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16 minutes ago, Sauron said:

They aren't removing the possibility to add on functionality, it will just be done differently. And yes, it will break legacy compatibility, but I'm sure the major stuff like adblockers will be available very quickly. It's the only way to actually move on, otherwise we'd always be stuck with the same technology forever.

In fact, most Firefox add-ons are already on the new extension API, since developers have known XPCOM/XUL add-ons were going to be deprecated since almost 3 years ago. The new API shares several core methods with Chrome/Opera's API, making cross-browser development much easier. So even if a dev has still not ported a legacy firefox add-on, I'm sure we will see a flood of ported extensions as this moves forward.

Edited by Qub3d
depricate != depriciate

F#$k timezone programming. Use UTC! (See XKCD #1883)

PC Specs:

Ryzen 5900x, MSI 3070Ti, 2 x 1 TiB SSDs, 32 GB 3400 DDR4, Cooler Master NR200P

 

 

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16 minutes ago, Qub3d said:

In fact, most Firefox add-ons are already on the new extension API, since developers have known XPCOM/XUL add-ons were going to be deprecated since almost 3 years ago. The new API shares several core methods with Chrome/Opera's API, making cross-browser development much easier. So even if a dev has still not ported a legacy firefox add-on, I'm sure we will see a flood of ported extensions as this moves forward.

DownThemAll will not work, and it won't be supported.

It will be a great loss and let's say the developer is not that happy with WebExtensions APIs.

 

The addon redesign is the one thing (and it's a big one) that worries me about Firefox 57. All the other stuff seems good, but addons is Firefox's main benefit, and they are killing that.

 

Mail from the DownThemAll developer, to Mozilla:

Spoiler

Hi mig[-1], and everybody who also asked and I BCCed, and whomever it
may or should concern too,

First: the "fucks" are directed exclusively at mozilla - the
organization, not you.

If I CC'ed you and you're now thinking: Who are you even? Valid
question: I develop one of the most popular Firefox add-ons (open source
without profit motivation), and am a decade long mozilla enthusiast,
advocate and volunteer contributor.


> I'm just back from a Mozilla event where i was sorry to hear you were
> giving up on DownThemAll. I don't know the whole story, but in my
> opinion, this would be a shame to leave a 1.25M users audience.

The whole story is basically that mozilla folks are fucking up the
add-on space.

The whole story is that DownThemAll! would need a ton of niche APIs that
mozilla has neither the resources nor the will to spec, implement and
maintain[0].

The whole story is that WebExtensions APIs explicitly are supposed to be
high level APIs, while tons of add-ons actually want, nay need low level
APIs to implement their functionality.
The rational here seems to be "Fuck yall, we consider you too stupid
and/or evil to give you low level access, also we're lazy and not good
with money so we couldn't possibly support low level anyway"
The high level API shit is what's killing the platform, not XUL or
(partial) XPCOM deprecation.

The whole story is that I just finally grew tired of the steaming pile
of utter rotten horse manure that is the mozilla decision making process.

I'll evaluate the list of forks that do exist or will exist once mozilla
pulls the WebExtension switch for real, and see if any of them will be
an alternative to the then deliberately-made-retarded mozilla browser.

I gave mozilla a list of what interfaces DTA source code contains
currently (mozI*, nsI*) either way and other feedback, since they asked.

It is my opinion that it's not me who's leaving a 1.25M Active Daily
Users DownThemAll! audience, but mozilla is abandoning them (and me) and
not just them but also the developers and users of tons of other add-ons
with small and large audiences[1].

I'll keep maintaining (most of) my add-ons for the time being, albeit
with far less enthusiasm, in case mozilla wakes up or some viable fork
comes along, tho.


> As far as i can tell, DownThemAll will be able to run on WebExtensions
> once the missing APIs (mainly file writing) will be integrated, and i
> got the confirmation this will happen in due time.

I have no hopes that they will implement proper APIs, not even for file
writing[0 again]. Other than file writing, there are no proper APIs to
do requests, there are no proper APIs for other stuff such as executing
files, other kinds of OS integration, UI integration and so on and etc
and pp.

And that's just DownThemAll!, looking at my other add-ons (public or for
personal use) and also those I use of other devs, most of them will be
dead in the water, or could only be ported with serious, serious
limitations. Some add-ons I use already were abandoned, rightfully so
because WebExtensions offer no way forward for those addons, and for now
I fix them locally for me if something breaks (I cannot take over
maintainership and publish them as I lack the time and motivation to do so)
I have no use for crappy webrequest/toolbar button APIs alone. At least
the Adblockers will survive I guess... hurray!


Dismantling the add-on system just because mozilla doesn't like the
maintenance burden all of a sudden?

"B-but we want away from XUL and a lot of XPCOM".
So what? Neither is this going to happen anytime soon realistically, nor
is that any reason not to give add-on developers access to whatever
replaces it.

"B-but add-ons will break less if ever if they are WebExtensions".
Sure, and tons of add-ons should and will go the WebExtensions route.
Doesn't mean you have to fuck over the add-ons not fitting in the
WebExtensions space. There are tons of dedicated add-on developers who
have been dealing with breaking changes in Firefox since it first got
add-ons, for better or for worse. Most of the time, we managed in a
timely fashion.

Even those add-ons which can be reasonably ported need to be ported in
the first place. Somebody will have to do the actual work, which is on
entirely different scale than a "few" "let's move this shit into a
framescript so it works with e10s" fixes.

Frankly, it's add-ons which contributed a lot to Firefox' success, and
it's add-on which eased Firefox bleeding users to Chrome, and once the
add-ons that go beyond WebExtensions stuff are gone, the bleeding will
only increase again.


> To tell the truth, i have been myself very frustrated just a few weeks
> ago, and considered giving up VDH on Firefox. Now i can see a clear
> future (even if there is a lot of development work to be done).

Quite honestly, I'm over the frustrated stage and arrived at the furious
anger stage. And I grow only more hopeless about mozilla as time progresses.

WebExtensions are far off from feature parity, let alone bug parity for
even the Chrome extension APIs, yet announce EOL for new add-ons in 53
and EOL for all add-ons in 57 [0 again]?
What the fuck are they thinking?
Whoever was involved in that decision with actual say: Please do us all
a favor and just step down from any leadership position you might have.
Or better yet, apply for a leadership position in the Google Chrome
team; Firefox can use some help from you eventually ending up
inadvertently sabotaging Chrome sooner than later.

What's even more discouraging is that mozilla will be using their
"signing required" Walled Garden they installed because "reasons, not of
them actually sane or good" that they swore they will not use to fuck
with add-ons[2] - just to do exactly that, and fuck with add-ons,
stopping to sign new non-WE add-ons with the Firefox 53 release.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH! I TOTALLY TRUST EVERYTHING YOU SAY NOW MORE THAN EVER!

Does the Walled Garden help make Firefox more secure? Nope.
Is it abused to force unrelated policy changes instead? Yep!



mozilla has been a huge clusterfuck for years now, not just in the
add-on space; lacking proper (tech) leadership, lacking vision, focusing
on the wrong things at large more often than not, fucking with their
core users for no apparent reason other than "but we have to do
*something* to stay relevant". And even stupid stunts like force
bundling crapware (pocket) isn't too goddamn stupid to do these days.
"1 million mozillians!", yeah, you will certainly achieve this by
alienating everybody on many fronts at once.

I've been part of the mozilla universe for almost one and a half decades
(or almost 15 years in "metric") now. I'm doing DownThemAll! and other
extensions since about a decade now. I've seen tons of fuckups in that
time, and produced a few myself; but that was OK because none of those
were deliberate and we always worked together on fixing things.
Not ever before did I think mozilla is hopelessly fucked at a
fundamental level. But the last one or maybe two years changed that.

I have to admit that I failed to see this for a quite some time,
deluding myself into thinking "it's not that bad", "they'll will do it",
"temporary setback", "they will recover", "I can learn to live with
that"... Tried to rationalize all this away...
But that's ended.

I'm fed up as an add-on developer, I'm fed up as a mozilla advocate, I'm
fed up as somebody who used to help the other add-on devs, I'm fed up as
somebody who contributed an enormous amount of volunteer time directly
in many different ways, I'm fed up as a Firefox user.

In conclusion, let me end with two quotes from[3] (second one quoting
myself)

"It’s fascinating how Mozilla manages to always find the exactly right
words — to make their most avid browser enthusiasts feel absolutely
miserable!"

"I honestly hate you [mozilla] right now."
"Bye"

Nils

PS: If anybody feels the inexplicable urge to reply and wants me to know
about it or even respond, make sure to CC me.


[-1] who is on BCC because publicly posting his email address might be rude.
[0] I'm explicitly not dumping on the team that actually implements the
WebExtensions support and APIs, they seem to be doing a fine job with
the resources they got from mozilla. And I am not opposed to
WebExtensions, quite the opposite. But I am opposed to WebExtensions-only!
[1] Well, unless you're NoScript and get special treatment. Well again,
DTA is probably large enough to beg and get special treatment, but I
don't actually want better treatment than others.
[2] And that's still a large legal gray area; e.g. can mozilla legally
sign add-ons of devs from countries with US sanctions/embargoes
[3]
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2016/11/23/add-ons-in-2017

 

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I will not switch over to FF57 because of the way they are "updating" the addons. Some of my addons that I use daily will not work. Downthemall, Bazzacuda Image Saver, and Tree Style Tabs all won't work because of the way they fundamentally work (afaik). 

Ensure a job for life: https://github.com/Droogans/unmaintainable-code

Actual comment I found in legacy code: // WARNING! SQL injection here!

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1 hour ago, Sauron said:

Do you use Libreboot? If you're using the stock bios/uefi they could still take control of your machine through the intel management engine. AMD has their own version too I think.

 

And as much as I share your sentiment, there comes a point where you have to get to a compromise between what you want to do and what data you have to give away to do it. I think there's a reasonable halfway where your potentially sensitive information is safe but you don't have to go live as a hermit in Tibet.

Yeah i know about intel ME. Yes AMD has something simillar too, but there were some rumors they are going to open it's source code which i doubt they'll do.

My current laptop does not support libreboot but i am searching for lenovo thinkpads which can use libreboot.

I saw guide on FSF website and they have list for supported models. I am currently choosing which one i want and i'll be installing libreboot when i will have supported thinkpad :)

Computer users fall into two groups:
those that do backups
those that have never had a hard drive fail.

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1 minute ago, mate_mate91 said:

Yeah i know about intel ME. Yes AMD has something simillar too, but there were some rumors they are going to open it's source code which i doubt they'll do.

My current laptop does not support libreboot but i am searching for lenovo thinkpads which can use libreboot.

I saw guide on FSF website and they have list for supported models. I am currently choosing which one i want and i'll be installing libreboot when i will have supported thinkpad :)

the x220 should be getting libreboot soon, I can recommend it personally (but do try to get the version with the ips screen)

Don't ask to ask, just ask... please 🤨

sudo chmod -R 000 /*

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