So many people saying they're switching from Firefox. Won't this only make the problem worse?
If you're switching to Brave or qutebrowser or UnGoogled Chromium or something, you're only strengthening Google's monopoly. If you're switching to a Webkit-based browser like Epiphany, you're shifting the monopoly towards Safari, whose parent company doesn't consider the Web a priority.
That Mozilla has bad management doesn't change the fact that Firefox is the most viable option for the open web.
@aadil This is the sad conclusion I"ve been forced into over time.
@aadil Thanks for writing that down. One cannot stress enough how important this argument is.
The reflex to switch over to another browser because Mozilla did a stupid decision is something that is hard to grasp for me.
@_xhr_
There are some Firefox derivatives which don't include Mozilla's product placement etc. I use Fennec on my phone, for example.
Mozilla did not just make one stupid decision. For exame, they're trying to hide my user profile every few updates in an effort to make me look at their stuff (and to get an account and let them store my user profile on their server so I don't have to dig it out myself everytime...). You can't deal with that type of shit unless you have some expertise.
@aadil
@aadil Didn't Mozilla began to give up on Gecko and already partially implemented Chromium codebase for some features? I guess it is not relevant what we do now. The duopoly is bad enough, and I think there is no real ethical choice of what to do now except hoping for a miracle of a new web (engine) coming. This is the reason why I will ditch Firefox, and will reduce my use of the Web drastically. I'm afraid even Firefox is not safe from corporate shills. There were too many incidences already.
@nihiltarian It is bleak as you say but I don't follow how ditching Firefox does anything to improve the situation, unless you are talking of ditching it in favor of gemini:// or gopher:// or other alternative protocols.
@aadil you're absolutely right. The situation cannot be improved at all though, it is clear that the modern web is so beyond repair that any *new* effort of creating new web engines will be more demanding than the Apollo missions. Capitalism screwed us over, and we will not be able to fix the web under it. It is just a question of time whether Mozilla or Google succeeds, and afterwards the winning team will just be a boring, not-privacy respecting entity.
@aadil The least I could do is to support independent projects already existing, i. e. Epiphany or Pale Moon (which I tend to in the moment). They are not perfect, of course, but they do not play into Mozilla's or Google's user statistics, and as they are independent, they rather respect our privacy more than even Firefox (concerning telemetry etc.)
@nihiltarian @aadil Pale Moon is independent in the same way brave is independent, ie not at all.
Epiphany is certainly a good contender and i respect the effort immensely
tho i remain to be convinced that the web has been forever lost, if that were the case, why bother with even trying to use an independent browser?
Are you referring to WebExtensions? It is the only Chrome-ish thing that comes to mind and even then, it isn't exclusive to them.
@aadil Switching to lynx (because I'm not hardcore enough to use curl) is OK.
@bortzmeyer @aadil I prefer w3m. But for now I stick on Firefox.
@bortzmeyer @aadil Another option: I'm building "Rhapsode" so you can listen to webpages.
Output's working great! Input shouldn't take me long...
@aadil For me one of the most important criteria of a browser is, that I can sync the bookmarks, extensions and passwords accross all my devices by a selfhosted server appication - and unfortunately Firefox is the only browser which support that.
@aadil yeah it's the "least worse" option…
@aadil The thing is: the firefox browser has trackers (even from Google) in its mobile app. Why would I want to support that, even when I could block it with TrackerControl. Thats why I use Kiwi browser on my phone.
@AnarchoFox you could use Fennec from F-droid
@aadil I know but its the slowest browser I have ever seen in my life. 3-10 seconds per Website.
@AnarchoFox that's fair. But there are good FF forks on desktop though
@aadil fully agree!
@aadil "If you're switching to a Webkit-based browser like Epiphany" - aren't they all Blink based since the split? I know that at least Qt and JavaFX both went with Google's engine fork, instead of staying with WebKit.
Also, yea, Firefox sadly is the most viable option... The lesser evil.
@zilti afaik Epiphany is based on GTKWebKit. Not as informed about QT browsers
@aadil Yes, I agree with you. I've use Firefox for 3 years.
@aadil I agree totally. I have no intention of moving away from Firefox. I am holding out hope that work on Servo (and/or Gecko) will continue...somehow...outside of Mozilla.
Maybe I will be wrong. Maybe Firefox really will die. But I don't see any point in giving up until we've actually lost.
@aadil In the end, the web is over anyways. Google will take it over. Whatever you do now. You are too weak for anythink - do you think you can prevent that? What bad things have you prevented in this millennium?
Do you see how the web is replaced by Google/Apple apps in their walled garden? Where is the web?
Also: Why do I need two parties that try to fool me? One is enough.
Why exactly is Firefox a more viable option for the open web? Can you explain details? What are they doing for that?
@pino_ac @aadil You are so pessimistic. if everyone thought that, linux, openstreetmap, vlc, libreoffice, wikipedia, mastodon and so many other great projects wouldn't have existed. But they exist. I prefer a weak concurrent than no concurrent, because freedom is very important.
At least, Firefox is preventing Google to have a monopoly with chrome (and all chromium based browser), which is invaluable.
And I don't understand why Firefox is fooling their users ? I would be happy to know more, I trust Firefox.
And sure, web isn't a priority in it, which IMO is a great idea, we need to slow the fuck down on web ""features"" (a lot of them being user-hostile).
And Mozilla has also been shifting from Firefox as their main product to a bunch of services.
@lanodan It isn't only Apple, but it feels like it is 98% Apple.
From what I have seen, the GNOME/Igalia folks are mostly playing catch-up to implement features that are already in Safari, and integrating the browser better with the desktop environment.
I say this as a fan of GNOME Web.
It's good that Firefox is diversifying their revenue streams, relying on search revenue from Google is a terrible business model.
And sure, Mozilla should get money from other sources but I'm pretty sure they're not going to make much with Pocket, Firefox Send, … as it's gratis.
Also Firefox's Market Share has been dropping to a mere few percents that it's going more and more irrelevant (and Firefox has less and less identity as a browser).
@aadil
Yes !
Yes !
Thanks for saying it !
@aadil Exactly.
@aadil it seems like "I want to use a browser engine that has maintainers" is a pretty good reason to me?
@technomancy
It is not that the layoffs will make all of the maintainers disappear.
@aadil
@aadil why are people switching? Because of the lay offs?
@jamesmullarkey @aadil Mozilla came out with a press release saying surveillance capitalism is a foundational part of the web, and cozied up to zuckerbook.
@aadil The web is a mistake.
We're now stuck with its overarching complexity and forced adoption because everything is one the web now.
We have to deal with the fact that all options are utter trash too.
Sigh.
@aadil #rust fanboys (not actual Rust developers) are non-programmers who have had a weird imprint-bonding relationship with a technology they don't really interact with. How it happens, I dunno, but it's the modern incarnation of Team OS/2. We were obnoxious. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Team_OS/2
I was looking at Pale Moon... It uses Goanna which was forked from Gecko... Still have to look into it more but to me that's the most interesting option right now...
Amber (@amber@toot.site)
Also fuck waterfox
@abloo
"fiddling around with plugins and http header settings"
See, I'm using NoScript on most of my browsers but that's already not something I could recommend to most of my friends. Header settings? I wouldn't even know where to look, and I can't imagine it would not more than double the time I'd be spending just to browse the web.
I tried icecat on android.
@aadil
Icecat on linux puts a bunch of settings like the option to spoof some http headers in "about:prefrences". Click a box and the setting is toggled on and off.
@abloo
okay ... will give it a try. Tor on Android is pretty slow, though. I do use it sometimes but when I'm in a hurry and things need to work, I just go with Fennec.
For nontechnical people, though, whom I can recommend a browser, who will at best install it the way it comes, never change a setting and expect everything to work (at worst notice something doesn't work, go back to Internet Explorer and never ask me again) -- the best I know is Fennec (Android) and Firefox (Windows)
@aadil
@aadil 🍬 Sometimes, Apple's neglect turns out for the best, like with podcasts. What parts of the web are held back by Safari not implementing all the new features? 🍬
@lyrabon There's the fact that they refuse to allow any browser engines apart from Webkit on iOS. They also do things like this:
which gives the impression that they want to deprioritize the Web as a platform for publishing apps
@jollyrogue That's because there's a huge amount of work put in by the web devs for you to not notice. Thanks to progressive enhancement* you won't see the features that are not supported on iOS. But it also means that if they are crucial for the webapp, the devs will have to invest into Apple's walled-gardened store and pay the racket.
* https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Glossary/Progressive_Enhancement
@lyrabon @aadil
Niklas
@aadil Sure,Chromium based browsers are the worst options but there are many Firefox forks which try to make things better and are actually driven by the community.I really like IceCat,Pale Moon and Basilisk.Maybe I'll try moving over to one of them.Currently I'm using the normal Firefox but I'm not happy with it's anti-privacy defaults.
I used to use Firefox for very long time. However they've made so many outright bad decisions that I just can't fathom staying with them anymore. I use PaleMoon now full time. And I've been very very happy with it.
@aadil It's sad that it's the most viable option for the open web, because making websites that conform to simpler standards would be a far better way—you aren't stuck in a miasma of standards-compliance and accessibility hell in a Net that's mostly simple hypertext—headings, links, tables, images (don't forget the descriptions),.... Aside from hype and capital, there's little deep reason why we need tools built to support some weird DRM or WebRTC or AMP or whatever the new thing is this week baked into the soul of most of the applications or services you're going to use this week.
Certainly no great reason to use it as the base for, say, your text editor...
@aadil I've just installed Brave Browser, No idea why other than EVERYONE keeps telling me to do it. 🤔