Can someone remind me why we stopped using Firefox a while back? There was some piece of news that broke everyone’s trust, but I can’t remember what Mozilla did. Was it a change in their user agreement?
Who is this “we”? I still use it, never stopped.
Can’t come back to Firefox if you never leave in the first place
I come back to it every morningwait no, I don’t close my 1000+ tabs or shut down my Windows. Never mind.
Who is this “we” you talk of?
I never fully did, but I did end up using Chromium more than I wanted to:
- Some poorly written sites refuse to work with FF. My water company, for example. They eventually fixed it after I complained multiple times. Now they display a warning that it’s “Optimized for Chrome” but no longer flat out prevent FF from logging in (you know, to pay bills and such).
- FF Desktop still doesn’t support PWAs, and their recent update says they’re working on it, but they’re half-assing it (installed web apps will still have the menu bars, address, bar etc). I self-host a lot of web applications and want them to appear like native apps. Hence, Chromium.
- There was some recent ToS / Privacy Policy change, and everyone was knee-jerking “time to abandon Firefox” as if there’s anywhere better to go. (This is probably what you’re thinking of)
- A good while back, Chrom(ium) was just flat-out faster. That’s been a while, and I think when FF’s “Quantum” update (or whatever it was called) came out in like 2016 or 2017, it put it back on par.
A good while back, Chrom(ium) was just flat-out faster
Performance was huge.
I was willing to put up with a little jank from my browser because I wanted a diverse browser ecosystem, but Chrome felt much, much now performant. After I switched to Chrome, browsing felt noticably better.
A good while back, Chrome was superior. Faster yes, but also more polished and intuitive as browsers go.
Also, Google was “Do no Evil”, and Firefox was good, but not great.
Today, Firefox is still good, and Google is evil.
Times definitely have changed.
Also, Google was “Do no Evil”
At the time Google seemed awesome. Gmail was a game changer - a usable webapp that was better than maybe clients.
Firefox was good, but not great.
Firefox was the best of a bad bunch. It was so easy for devs to move to Chrome because the experience on every other browser was bad.
#2 for me. The PWAs for Firefox extension broke one too many times so I gave up.
Good news - Firefox is actively developing built-in PWA functionality right now. There’s a discussion thread I’ll link you to when I find it.
EDIT - here you go, this also has links to further discussions: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/how-can-firefox-create-the-best-support-for-web-apps-on-the/m-p/60561#U60561
There’s already a VERY early version in FF Nightly, but tbh it doesn’t yet really do anything you’d expect of a PWA.
Info on that: https://connect.mozilla.org/t5/discussions/how-can-firefox-create-the-best-support-for-web-apps-on-the/m-p/60561#U60561
Firefox is better than most but still smugly makes anti-user changes which are complete dog shit.
Remember when they turned off your ability to choose to load extensions that weren’t signed, because fuck you?
Fuck Pepperidge farm, I remember that shit.
Or how about DNS over https, because fuck you, user, why should you have any say over name resolution when you might use that power to block ads and malware?
DNS over https
Wait, can you explain that? I think I have it toggled on.
Firefox used to have a “we’re a browser that won’t sell user data” promise. Then they changed their TOS and removed the promise, adding:
When you upload or input information through Firefox, you hereby grant us a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to use that information to help you navigate, experience, and interact with online content as you indicate with your use of Firefox."
When people reacted to their TOS they said it was an accident, it’s just boilerplate, don’t take it seriously.
Or in other words: an entity with a team of lawyers claimed ownership of all your data, and then downplayed it, and then has acted good since.
Personally I stick my head way into the alligators mouth and still use Firefox.
When? There have been a few times people stopped using Firefox in large numbers.
One of them was when Chrome first came out. Firefox (and every other browser) at the time ran every site in one process. As sites became more reliant on Javascript, which was usually poorly written, that meant any one tab having a problem made other sites and even the browser’s own UI unresponsive, or sometimes crashed the whole browser. Chrome’s multiprocess model was a revelation. Firefox didn’t get its own implementation until 2016.
Recently, there’s been some movement away from Firefox due to Mozilla making decisions people don’t feel align with open source, the open web, and privacy. The one that has me looking at forks is the planned addition of terms of use to the browser. Terms of use are for an ongoing relationship between a service operator and a user; Firefox is local software I’m operating myself on a computer I own. Its fine for optional online services like Sync to have terms of use, but the browser should work without those.
That’s what I was remembering, the terms of use.
I asked ChatGPT is similar question earlier this week. This was the answer.
While Mozilla has not been found to sell user tracking data in the conventional sense, the introduction of features like PPA (Privacy-Preserving Attribution) and changes in privacy policy language have understandably caused concern among users. These developments suggest a shift towards balancing user privacy with the need to support advertising models. Users prioritizing privacy should stay informed about these changes and adjust their browser settings accordingly.
Can’t write your own comments?
but why? why did you do that?
I asked a fox that was actually on fire. It said “AIYEEEEEEE!” I trust it’s answer more than chatgpt.
How much of that is true? What did they sell? Is the conclusion even valid, given the (popular) alternatives?
I did a little checking and it all agrees with the reporting.
Changing to opt-out telemetry from opt-in is the one I remember people fussing over
The recent main one seemed to be no longer promising to not sell user data, but it’s been a culmination of little things.
https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-firefox-i-loved-is-gone-how-to-protect-your-privacy-on-it-now/
Personally I’ve been kind of miffed since they decided to use the experiments feature to be paid to shill for the Mr. Robot tv show, including in their enterprise release, making people think they got hacked. But that was years ago and forgotten.
That was the final straw for me, I switched over to waterfox for nominally more privacy.
The world in general switched from Firefox to Chrome several years ago because at that time (when just released) Chrome was new, shiny, and fast (much faster than Firefox). And at that time everyone loved Google (they still had their infamous “be no evil” motto). And Google also promoted their browser, and, given their web resources are immensely popular, that helped tremendously.
That switch had nothing to do with recent concerns about privacy in Mozilla products.
I don’t even remember many times Firefox/Mozilla has changed its extension API and broken everyone’s add-ons. It gets tiresome.
Mainly once, if you dont count prehistoric versions
Still using it here
I use IronFox because firefox decided to support bad practices. Kinda like google removing “don’t be evil”.
We did?
Small suggestion: if you’re over 21 stop blindly doing what others do. Start questioning things and do what you think is best.
I never stopped using it. There are privacy issues with all browsers. I like how Firefox works, but I regularly end up using Firefox, chrome, and edge all at the same time. I use them for some compartmentalization of my tasks and work lol
What’s your privacy issues with Firefox? How do they compare to those of the other browsers?
