Privacy is like the least important reason I use Firefox. With Microsoft Edge and Opera being based on Chromium now there are just so many of them. With Chromium essentially becoming the de facto standard because everyone uses it that means Google can ignore web standards and just do whatever they want.
It’s easier to inherit because it’s less dev time spent on a part of the browser that has less evident results for the consumer. I bet they’d rather spend money on the UX provided by UI changes rather than reworking the JavaScript engine, or anything related HTML or CSS rendering.
Unfortunately, no, they don’t. As Chromium gets more and more wide spread, Google is gaining the power to change the browser standards. Websites will have to comply. If your website suddenly “Breaks” because Google won’t allow Chromium load any pages without tracking tags, users will complain to you and not google.
Yeah tech illiteracy is a thing thats true. Once they realize that its their browser that breaks their shit they will just pick a different one. Thats what i mean with google owning all the websites.
unpopular opinion: chromium is a genuinely good thing for everyone involved. Just because chrome gets all the bitches and can dictate stuff doesnt mean chromium will break the competitions will to have their own programmers make their own fork.
Everything else I said, sorry if that wasn’t clear!
Essentially there are organizations like W3C and IEEE that define standards for how the internet works and how websites behave. All browsers follow these so everything works properly. Let’s say you have some idea you want to add to your browser you develop. You do it and tell everyone about it. You don’t have many users. Maybe a few sites do it but it isn’t really a problem that it doesn’t work on other browsers because so few people do it.
Chromium has a massive market share because so many browsers use it as their base. Even Opera and Microsoft Edge which historically have been alternatives to Google Chrome now use Chromium as their base. The danger is that Chromium has such a large user base that they are essentially what the standard is.
As a quick aside, Chromium is the name for the open source base of Google Chrome. Chrome itself is technically not open source. This jus thust in case you or other readers haven’t seen that word.
Imagine a world where everyone uses Chromium. Why would you (if you were in charge of Chromium) need to listen to what standards organizations say about how the web should work? You’re literally in charge of every browser! You can just add some new features or take some out and every website would have to comply because you (in this hypothetical) truly do control every single web browser on the planet. Their websites would not work otherwise.
Sure, out of the goodness of your heart you might behave and be a good steward but there will always be reasons for you to act against the standards that you don’t view as “bad” that other people might think are bad. I’m not saying all standards organizations are perfect and good or anything like that, but I believe I trust them more than Google.
Even if Google never does anything “bad” (naive thinking lol) avoiding the situation where they have that kind of power is a good thing.
To me that’s the most important reason to use a non-Chromium based browser. To avoid Chromium becoming the one true browser.
And just for some context, Google has done bad things before with regards to web standards and then having the de facto standard with Chrome. The recent changes to the extension API to neuter ad blocking being a prime example. And we don’t even have to speculate and sound like nutjobs. They’re a public company. They’ve said before that ad-blocking is one of the biggest threats to their ad revenue. Not that it feels tin foil hatty to suggest even if they hadn’t said it, but they actually have said it in reports.
organizations like W3C and IEEE that define standards for how the internet works and how websites behave
Too bad those organizations kept dragging their feet, writing standards by committee and making them unimplementable, pushing stuff like XHTML that nobody in their sane mind wanted… until the WHATWG called quits on them and focused on a working living standard: a reference free open source browser that anyone could just copy+paste to meet the standard.
Why do you believe Google would not be able to ignore the WHATWG the same way they could ignore other standards organizations if they controlled the entire browser market?
Well, for starters the WHATWG listens to Google, not the other way around. And yeah, they do “control” the entire “browser market”, or more precisely, the part they care about: how to show ads.
I don’t agree with the W3C or IEEE defining the standards anymore, or with Chromium becoming a “de facto” standard; the whole point of creating the WHATWG was to explicitly ditch the W3C, make Chromium into the basis for a living standard… and everyone clapped (except for some die hards who didn’t get the memo).
Yeah, I see, I was just trying to list some examples of such standardization bodies I’m talking about. Don’t view it as some implicit approval over others I didn’t mention.
No actually we don’t. Chromium isn’t a reference implementation. And while XHTML was handled poorly the idea behind it was actually very interesting. Didn’t pan out and was buried years ago. So what.
Could fool me, since it implements all WHATWG standards… or is it the other way around?
XHTML didn’t just “not pan out”; the W3C kept beating its dead horse carcass, like it did with many others. The W3C didn’t pan out and was handled poorly, even though the idea behind it was actually very interesting.
Vivaldi uses about half the RAM of FF when I have equivalent tabs open and running/idling.
Of course I have to have an ad blocker installed on FF whereas Vivaldi just does it natively, so that might be causing the difference in memory.
Here come all the anti chromium bois with "tHeReS nO wAy vivALdi bLoCkS aDs aS gOoD as u BlOcK oRiGin!‘’
To that I say… Have you ever fucking tried it? Lol I’ve tried both side by side, don’t argue unless you’ve actually done so as well. V’s ad blocking didn’t break when Manifest V3 dropped and until it stops being as good or better than UBO I’m just gonna keep using it. When that day happens, well like I said I’ve already got FF up and running anyways.
For daily usage, and as long as you use uBlock Origin, Firefox has been perfect for me for the past 10 years. I don’t understand those who complain about it.
Does the 34 and 20 represent the number of tabs? If so, this is not a fair comparison, what with FF having 50% more open. But even if that number doesn’t represent tabs, I am sure there can be websites that would put them much closer in performance.
Right now I have Chrome on my work machine. It has a 14 (again, not sure if those are active tabs or not) and it is eating 1.17 GB on my work machine. On my home FF (24) is eating 1.60 GB of RAM. FF is clearly using more RAM in each case, but it isn’t slowing my desktop down any more than Chrome is on my work machine. I’d like for it to improve, but rather use something other than Google’s tools on every single machine I use, I guess.
Yes, more or less. I think some other extensions can take up processes too.
I actually have enough RAM and I’m glad that the RAM is being used to load all the stuff instead of the pagefile. It’s my fault that I’m not closing stuff, not the browser’s for not guessing what I’m going to re-load.
If you ask people, I think they’ll just say that their main browser is like that. And that’ll apply to all of them, so it’s a user problem.
I remember these talks from a very long time ago. Very long time, when Opera had its own engine and before. I think the gaps have shrunk a lot, especially now that Internet Exploder is gone.
I have 15 extensions running on my 8GB work laptop and there is little to no difference from my 16GB PC battle station at home. And I have like 4 more apps run alongside 10 tabs of FF at work, way more than what I would ever open at home
It doesn’t have to be Chromium, but asserting that Firefox is the only browser that respects your privacy is just untrue. Edit: I use FF and Brave for different browsing, as some websites just don’t like FF.
I don’t specifically mean the goDaddy site, I mean some sites that have gotten there certs from goDaddy won’t work. It will give an ssl error. I believe it is their wildcard cert specifically.
I’ll keep avoiding firefox as long as they keep pushing weird decision with each update, the latest one being forcing “pocket recommendation” on the new tab page, even if the built-in (that is, you can’t remove it) pocket extension is disabled. Sure, I can go look for the new advanced parameter to disable every time, but why pull this shit in the first place.
You can, but there’s a big difference : the average user (=the vast majority of people) will not see the difference. In some tech circles, or if you’re actively looking for it, you’ll know that it happens, and what it might (or might not) do, but 90% of people will not see a change. User interface remain the same, features remains the same, and extensions that could adapt will already have done so.
Firefox choices, for better or for worse, are very visible. The pocket extension was bundled in it, making it so that everyone have it show up one day. It being named after a (formerly) third-party service is not a good look. Then the new-tab page suggestions, which I can only see as an intrusive way to push content onto me (something I actively try to avoid, the samy way many “social network” keep pushing what their algorithms think is good for you). Add to that some decisions about actively ignoring user settings (and page content) about PDF handling, subsequently breaking tons of SPA because “they know better” (there was a long discussion, and the change was half-reverted once big enough sites showed issues).
The list could go on, ranging from “interesting” UI choices to bundling more and more advertisement for their own service, only to backpedal later with “oh, we didn’t think it would annoy people to do the exact thing you’re running from other browsers for”.
Chrome changes might be insidious, but they have limited impact to the actual users. Mozilla keeps changing Firefox in very glaring ways and not always with a sound reasons, user-wise. One could argue that these changes are all minor, but they do act as a deterrent for people that really can’t handle changes (remember, for most people changing the icon on a button is enough to make a feature “disappear” for them).
I’d argue crippling what ublock origin is caple of doing is very crippling to the end user experience. Accepting a cippled ublock is similar to accepting the change when adblock plus white listed some ads.
Again, factor in the number of people knowingly using ublock, and actively looking into what changed vs. what still works fine for now. Manifest v3 have no reach beyond techies, and as such is “accepted” by default. Remember that most people are totally fine with these changes because the larger picture is not shown to them.
In not sure anyone is eating muskrat or opossum outside West Virginia mountain hermits, people born before 1890, and anyone who self identifies as a trapper.
They’re the least “gamey” out of most small game, less so than rabbit, and taste something like leaner dark meat chicken.
Awesome in a crockpot substituted for chicken in most recipes. Can fancy up squirrel with a Sous vide to make squirrel confit bánh mì tacos, or keep it old school and make squirrel pot pie.
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