I feel like that's true only because we have a culture of making needlessly complex websites on the level of OS drivers, mostly to artificially grab attention due to the sickness of SEO.
agree. but why wouldn't you just use stock chrome? even if you're doing something sensitive it's not hard to block dataflows to the GOOG, and in all likelihood it doesn't matter for most testing.
I use Firefox as my main browser on a Mac. A lot, every day - I have about 30 Firefox windows open now. But there are a number of things that only work in Chrome or Safari.
So I also use Ungoogled Chromium. I have about 3 Ungoogled Chromium windows open now.
Occasionally a banking, financial service, shopping or video meeting site doesn't work right in Firefox. I've had some site logins just spin forever in Firefox, and work immediately in Chromiun.
For example, for work with one company we use Google video meetings a lot. In theory this works in Firefox, but in practice sometimes the audio doesn't work. The microphone volume gets set to zero, unpredictably. It's flaky enough that I switched to Ungoogled Chromium for those, and decided to use it for all the Google Workspace linked services for that company, as well as AWS, Hetzner etc accounts linked with that company.
Chromium's profiles are good, with clear separation and a reasonable UI. So are Firefox containers, but in different ways.
Firefox automatic per-site container selection doesn't work at all well when you have multiple accounts on the same site, though. It doesn't group container-switching according to working context. So I have a couple of Ungoogled Chromium profiles for work with different companies.
Finally, Chrome renders print-to-PDF better for some use-cases, so I use Ungoogled Chromium to generate invoices and similar documents. Firefox print-to-PDF works, but I could never get ruled lines to be.a good thickness on the printed page. They were always too thick, or invisible. Firefox did better pagination last time tried it, though.
Even though I use Firefox and upvoted your comment, I will also say that it's good for this to exist.
A monoculture of Firefox would be just as bad. In fact there are already right now reasons to use various "de-mozilla'd Firefox" forks instead of Firefox.
Ie the same effort as this even while using Firefox, so that effort doesn't actually factor into anything.
We’re so far aware from a non-Chrome monoculture, though, that this feels like saying an ice age could be as disruptive as global warming. Right now Google can dictate what happens on the web, and using Safari or Firefox is better than any browser engine which is controlled by Google, including this one.
I personally use Safari for performance (going back to Chrome adds noticeable jank even on an M2 Max) after using Firefox for the 2010s but the key part here really is centering on web standards.
Why would you use Firefox—that would be supporting Mozilla, or Safari—as they correctly pointed out in the comments—the IE of 2020's? Have you actually seen Firefox source code? It's horrible; not one bit surprising that Chromium won! This is also why there's rich ecosystem of browsers around it. Brave comes to mind; built-in ad-blocker is not half bad, not to mention they're committed to v2 extension APIs, deserving praise. I've been really happy with it. Not sold on most products they're trying to sneak in there like Search, or the AI things, however as occasional crypto user, I'd found the built-in Wallet real handy. Vivaldi? I was told it's quite popular with streamers and so on. Edge from Microsoft, too.
What does Firefox have going for it? LibreWolf? Tor Browser?
Edit: mobile Firefox is still superior, I think, because extensions.
IE used to crash ALL the time, and a lot of those crashes could be triggered by really nasty vulnerabilities in ActiveX which had kennel level access in Windows.
>This is also why there's rich ecosystem of browsers around it.
The initial releases of Brave, Vivaldi, and Edge (Chrome-based) were in 2016, 2015, and 2018, respectively. In 2015, Chrome already had a ~50% usage share, followed by Safari and IE, at ~10%, and Firefox at ~5%. Now the choice is between basing your browser on one with ~50% usage share and one with ~5%. Here's the first reason MS provided for the decision to migrate their browser to Chrome base:
>Although Microsoft Edge has very high web compatibility for both standards-based HTML and for capabilities added by highly-used browsers like Chrome, our unique web-platform codebase still faces occasional compatibility problems as web developers focus less on HTML standards and rationally focus on widely used platforms like Chrome to develop and validate experiences for their customers.
The "rich" ecosystem you're talking about could be due to technical merit but could also be irrelevant to it.
> Have you actually seen Firefox source code? It's horrible
That's the first time in many years I have seen anyone saying something like this (on HN, reddit or other forums where I waste my time). It's so elitist and ridiculous that it's almost funny -- really? You read (likely a very small portion of) a product's source code and use very short-sighted, biased and subjective understanding of the code to determine whether it's a good product? How is that any better or more meaningful than flipping a coin?
I happened to have read the HTML page source of some random Amazon product page and Apple product page a while ago. Wow that seems a horrible unmaintainable mess with lots of waste of bandwidth. But that's just my very uneducated opinion by quickly scanning the code without more context and could be completely wrong. Even that's "true", it doesn't matter -- it does not affect my shopping experience a single bit, and they are both great websites to use in the end.
Just curious, what is wrong with the Firefox source code specifically? I've used it for a couple years and haven't noticed anything awful, but if there's something I'm not aware of and it's as bad as you say I'll swap in a heartbeat.
> It's horrible; not one bit surprising that Chromium won!
Nope. It's just old (maybe older than you, even, IDK). It's Netscape, actually. It's very commendable that the codebase we're talking about has been successfully evolved up to that point [0].
Zak|1 year ago
vouaobrasil|1 year ago
dewey|1 year ago
red-iron-pine|1 year ago
jlokier|1 year ago
So I also use Ungoogled Chromium. I have about 3 Ungoogled Chromium windows open now.
Occasionally a banking, financial service, shopping or video meeting site doesn't work right in Firefox. I've had some site logins just spin forever in Firefox, and work immediately in Chromiun.
For example, for work with one company we use Google video meetings a lot. In theory this works in Firefox, but in practice sometimes the audio doesn't work. The microphone volume gets set to zero, unpredictably. It's flaky enough that I switched to Ungoogled Chromium for those, and decided to use it for all the Google Workspace linked services for that company, as well as AWS, Hetzner etc accounts linked with that company.
Chromium's profiles are good, with clear separation and a reasonable UI. So are Firefox containers, but in different ways.
Firefox automatic per-site container selection doesn't work at all well when you have multiple accounts on the same site, though. It doesn't group container-switching according to working context. So I have a couple of Ungoogled Chromium profiles for work with different companies.
Finally, Chrome renders print-to-PDF better for some use-cases, so I use Ungoogled Chromium to generate invoices and similar documents. Firefox print-to-PDF works, but I could never get ruled lines to be.a good thickness on the printed page. They were always too thick, or invisible. Firefox did better pagination last time tried it, though.
Brian_K_White|1 year ago
A monoculture of Firefox would be just as bad. In fact there are already right now reasons to use various "de-mozilla'd Firefox" forks instead of Firefox.
Ie the same effort as this even while using Firefox, so that effort doesn't actually factor into anything.
acdha|1 year ago
I personally use Safari for performance (going back to Chrome adds noticeable jank even on an M2 Max) after using Firefox for the 2010s but the key part here really is centering on web standards.
phendrenad2|1 year ago
rcarmo|1 year ago
akimbostrawman|1 year ago
tucnak|1 year ago
What does Firefox have going for it? LibreWolf? Tor Browser?
Edit: mobile Firefox is still superior, I think, because extensions.
aeonik|1 year ago
IE used to crash ALL the time, and a lot of those crashes could be triggered by really nasty vulnerabilities in ActiveX which had kennel level access in Windows.
forgotpwd16|1 year ago
The initial releases of Brave, Vivaldi, and Edge (Chrome-based) were in 2016, 2015, and 2018, respectively. In 2015, Chrome already had a ~50% usage share, followed by Safari and IE, at ~10%, and Firefox at ~5%. Now the choice is between basing your browser on one with ~50% usage share and one with ~5%. Here's the first reason MS provided for the decision to migrate their browser to Chrome base:
>Although Microsoft Edge has very high web compatibility for both standards-based HTML and for capabilities added by highly-used browsers like Chrome, our unique web-platform codebase still faces occasional compatibility problems as web developers focus less on HTML standards and rationally focus on widely used platforms like Chrome to develop and validate experiences for their customers.
The "rich" ecosystem you're talking about could be due to technical merit but could also be irrelevant to it.
n144q|1 year ago
> Have you actually seen Firefox source code? It's horrible
That's the first time in many years I have seen anyone saying something like this (on HN, reddit or other forums where I waste my time). It's so elitist and ridiculous that it's almost funny -- really? You read (likely a very small portion of) a product's source code and use very short-sighted, biased and subjective understanding of the code to determine whether it's a good product? How is that any better or more meaningful than flipping a coin?
I happened to have read the HTML page source of some random Amazon product page and Apple product page a while ago. Wow that seems a horrible unmaintainable mess with lots of waste of bandwidth. But that's just my very uneducated opinion by quickly scanning the code without more context and could be completely wrong. Even that's "true", it doesn't matter -- it does not affect my shopping experience a single bit, and they are both great websites to use in the end.
ferguu_|1 year ago
bayindirh|1 year ago
Yes.
> It's horrible; not one bit surprising that Chromium won!
Nope. It's just old (maybe older than you, even, IDK). It's Netscape, actually. It's very commendable that the codebase we're talking about has been successfully evolved up to that point [0].
[0]: https://arewefastyet.com