"Googlification" has been my main reason for avoiding chrom{e,ium} until now. This could become my main browser.

IMHO Chrome has a better track record than Firefox when it comes to security issues, but Firefox has better privacy.

Have you tried Brave? I've been using it on the side and it's speedy and constantly improving.

Not OP, but I tried it some time ago, haven't checked back on it since. How is it privacy-wise, comparable to FF?

Isn't privacy a moot point when firefox's security history has been much worse than chrome?

https://it.slashdot.org/submission/5553519/pwn2own-2016-wont...

This probably got downvoted for snark, but it's true. The worst Chrome might do is help Google target ads better (if you don't change the defaults).

The worst Firefox might do is get your machine pwned.

The worst Chrome might do is help Google target ads better (if you don't change the defaults).

Chrome is the one running any x86 binary the website presents it with, only trying to run a static verification that it won't do anything evil.

Chrome is far more at risk of pwning you (and NaCl sandbox breakouts have been quite common).

You mean "the website" which is accessed over HTTPS and more likely than not has its key pinned internally?

Point is, Chrome falls every year at Pwn2Own just like every other browser, but only Firefox has been excluded because it's too easy.

While I applaud the effort that's gone into this, I urge people to consider (and use and contribute to!) Firefox. It's one of the last truly open-source browsers - both in terms of source code visibility (which Chrome(ium) has), and in terms of being able to contribute (which Chrome(ium) has not).

Any opinions on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Moon_%28web_browser%29 ?

No good reason to run that instead of Firefox. It looks like their main motivation to fork was to preserve XUL and XPCOM, but since Firefox doesn't plan to keep those, almost no addons will continue using them; every maintained addon will update to work with current Firefox. And using an unmaintained addon is dangerous.

Except for Mozilla's policy of trying to making Firefox race Chrome to be the best browser for the lowest common denominator. You can't even edit your addons in Firefox anymore. They have to be signed by Mozilla.

And using an unmaintained addon is dangerous.

And this is the kind of thinking I'm talking about. Firefore/Chrome/etc are all about protecting tech ignorants from themselves rather than allowing adept users to do what they want.

And this is the kind of thinking I'm talking about.

The kind of thinking that says "security-sensitive software with no active maintenance and regular updates is a security hole waiting to happen"?

Letting users install and run unmaintained software is dangerous. They'll get exploited. (And they'll blame the browser for that, and rightfully so.)

You can still do what you want; it's entirely possible to install local untrusted addons. You just have to poke some settings that are intentionally hidden from most end users, to make it somewhat more likely that users doing so understand the implications. And similarly, you can make your addon available to others willing to go through the same steps. They'll balk at doing so, and rightfully so.

it's entirely possible to install local untrusted addons. You just have to poke some settings that are intentionally hidden from most end users

It's possible to install unsigned addons in ESR, developer and unbranded builds of Firefox. It's no longer possible to install them in the regular release or beta versions. The hidden setting was disabled in Firefox 48.

I would love to. But as a recent and former Firefox user, the performance just wasn't there. Both Edge and Chrome are significantly faster. I'm hoping electrolysis helps greatly in this regard. I'll be happy to switch back.

Just out of curiosity, what are you using the browser for that one is noticeably slower than the other?

Why do you say that it's not easy to contribute to Chromium? Also the "last truly open-source" browser is hyperbolic given that Chromium is both open-source and is also developed in the open[1][2][3]. If anything over the past few years it has become more open-source as many components have been upstreamed (e.g. pdfium, android/ios stuff, etc.)

[1] Chromium bug tracker: https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/list [2] Chromium code reviews: https://codereview.chromium.org/ [3] Chromium development mailing lists: https://www.chromium.org/developers/technical-discussion-gro...

It doesn't matter if it's open source - it's an issue of trust. Firefox has never secretly downloaded binary blobs in the background which listen to my microphone without my permission or knowledge.[1] Chromium lost all my trust that day, even if none of my private conversations/data made it to Google that particular time.

[1] https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=500922

The fact that it had the ability to listen to audio shouldn't be the issue, since it wouldn't do that unless you explicitly enabled it. Your grammar is kind of ambiguous there. Certainly it was downloaded without permission, but it wasn't listening without permission.

Any web page can listen to your microphone if you allow it to, and the code for it can be downloaded without your consent, even if you have JavaScript disabled, if it's embedded in the HTML code.

even if you have JavaScript disabled, if it's embedded in the HTML code.

how so?

Firefox downloads OpenH.264 blobs and are working on supporting EME blobs.

If anything, the whole Sponsored Tiles push (https://twitter.com/dherman76/status/433320156496789504 https://blog.mozilla.org/advancingcontent/2014/02/11/publish...) and attempts to justify ads in the browser as "user-enhancing" made me very wary of Firefox. Moreso than Chromium.

Why? From what I’ve read, it was completely harmless. I smell FUD :-)

I think it's only fair to tell people when they've been downvoted.

I downvoted you because that smug sarcastic smiley really set my teeth on edge.

A subset of the tiles are paid advertisements. "Completely harmless" depends on your point of view. Personally, if I have a choice, I'll opt for the browser that doesn't show me "sponsored content" on first boot, just out of principle.

IIRC, the sponsored tiles only appeared on new installations and they weren’t targeting the user (i.e. the user’s privacy wasn’t compromised). I dunno, I remember reading about this and thinking how meaningless it really is and how grotesque the negative response is.

They fired a founder for retroactive wrongthink (post ex facto). That's pretty disturbing. Hard to trust someone like that.

Meanwhile, Google doesn't return results for guns in the shopping section. So I get to search a bunch of sites and call people like i'm on astalavista in 1998.

Sad Truth: both companies inject a brand of exclusionary (read: discriminatory) politics into their products. I don't trust either.

Eich resigned because his political views made it difficult for him to continue doing his job.

He wasn't imprisoned, nothing was done to him with the force of law. He just had/has unpopular views and accepted the consequences of holding those views.

I struggle to see how the world could be arranged such that we could all hold forth with controversial views, but such that there was never a consequence to holding those views. What would that world look like?

I struggle to see how the world could be arranged such that we could all hold forth with controversial views, but such that there was never a consequence to holding those views. What would that world look like?

It's called not talking politics or religion at work. Or not discriminating against someone because of something unrelated to their job. There is zero conflict of interest between Eich supporting prop 8 and heading the Mozilla foundation. Same as there is zero conflict of interest for Palmer Luckey supporting the leading candidate in the presidential election.

You can't police people's thoughts/feelings.

Those people both exercised their freedom of speech (via donations).

Freedom of speech is not freedom from the consequences of such speech.

You can't police people's thoughts/feelings.

Cheers, Of course not.

Freedom of speech is not freedom from the consequences of such speech.

Fair point. Riddle me this:

Should we force a baptist cake company to bake a cake for a gay wedding, force a Jewish bakery to bake a swastika cake, and force a Nazi bakery to bake a Jewish cake?

If not one. Why should we force one and not the others?

If you think the government should force nothing on any baker I agree with you.

Those people both exercised their freedom of speech (via donations).

Which people? As far as I know there wasn't any actual fallout beyond saber rattling.

There are limits to that kind of tolerance, though. You shouldn't care what politicians your coworker likes. You shouldn't care what religion your coworker follows.

You should care if your coworker is neo-nazi or if he is supporting Islamic State or Westboro Baptist Church.

The only diagreement is whether Eich was closer to the former or the latter. I can perfectly imagine people whose rights he wanted to take away to think he's the latter.

You have no evidence he is closer to the former and all this is is justification for cultural Marxism.

The only thing that an individual should be judged on at work is actions/comments/etc. made at work.

If you'd like to argue otherwise I'd hope you at least have something more formally define-able than 'he was trending towards being a neo-nazi'. I'd also expect you to be able to point to an authority for defining these ideological limits other than the currently loosely defined group-think.

Please answer these few scenarios:

-Should someone believing and actively promoting pro-life stances(outside of work) be fired?

-Should a casual narcotics user on weekends be fired once it's found out he/she uses?

-Should someone be fired for having a confederate flag hanging in their living room? What if they're black?

Funny how at the same time, those spouting this tired refrain scream bloody murder when this logic is applied to themselves rather than the usual punching bags.

"Never" is a strawman, but I imagine that would be a world where academia doesn't feel a need to protect its students from ideas, and where people of different viewpoints can work alongside each other instead of shaming groupthink into existence.

So you want a view where everyone with a controversial view to loose their job? And who decides what a controversial view is, or if it is or is not controversial enough to lose their job?

In the end, I don't think one's views outside of the workplace should necessarily relate to their work performance. Eich was close to a public figure, that doesn't make the witch-hunt any better.

Thought experiment: I think excessive welfare does more harm than good. Should I politically screen my employees to ensure that they don't hold views that contradict mine?

No, because screening your employees is an action on your part. Mozilla took no action against Eich; he chose to resign himself. He could have elected to stay on, instead choosing to accept all of the consequences his views may or may not have for the company.

The equivalent situation in your case is having your views on welfare known and your employees (and anybody else transacting with your company) deciding whether or not they want to associate with you. Others' views on welfare would not be a valid reason to fire or refuse to hire them.

Eich resigned because his political views made it difficult for him to continue doing his job.

This is a very disingenuous way of describing it. More proper way to describe it would be that a group of political activists put pressure on Mozilla to fire Eich because of his political views, for political reasons, and Mozilla as organization caved. There was no instance of Eich's views ever influencing anything on his job, and no single instance or evidence of any problem with his job. It was a political decision that being friends with political activists is better than keeping Eich.

For me, that ruins the trust in the organization. If they are ready to sacrifice their own top management, would they really stand up for me as a user if that would cost them anything? I don't think so.

He just had/has unpopular views and accepted the consequences of holding those views.

And now Mozilla has to accept consequences of being the organization which will fire you because you hold unpopular political views. As a person who holds plenty of unpopular views (different from Eich's but still largely unpopular) I want to do as little as possible with such organization.

"There was no instance of Eich's views ever influencing anything on his job, and no single instance or evidence of any problem with his job."

I don't know if that's true. I don't know how many gay folks work for Mozilla, but I'm 100% it's a non-zero number. They might have had a real problem with his donating to Prop 8. I couldn't say whether they did, being neither gay nor a mozilla employee, but I could imagine it might make them uncomfortable, just from the conversations I had with my gay friends when gay marriage was becoming a thing. Given that, I kinda think your confidence that there was "no single instance" of a problem is probably misplaced.

"Mozilla has to accept consequences of being the organization which will fire you because you hold unpopular political views."

Mozilla didn't fire him. He resigned of his own volition, as I and many others have pointed out. You're free to want as little to do as possible with that organization, or with any organization, but usually when I boycott something it's for real stuff, not stuff I just made up in my head. Different strokes for different folks, I guess.

"He resigned of his own volition..."

Yeah, I'm sure he just up and decided to resign with zero pressure from political insiders and the flash mob causing outrage. That's probably what happened.

I could imagine it might make them (gay employees) uncomfortable,

Nobody likes being uncomfortable, perhaps having gay employees made Eich uncomfortable too. But I don't remember hearing about him forcing anyone out of the company or discriminating against anyone under any circumstance.

To prevent his employees from feeling uncomfortable should the government allow Eich to stop hiring gay employees?

I don't know how many gay folks work for Mozilla...They might have had a real problem with his donating to Prop 8

Does that mean CEOs/management should be forced to resign for donating to the Trump campaign if some of their employees are Mexican immigrants or Muslim?

He resigned, stating that it's because he "couldn't manage effectively". Basically: the staff didn't respect him.

As I said elsewhere, if you can't get yourself out of a situation like that, you probably don't have the chops to be CEO of the organisation anyway.

Women resign everyday "because they can't manage effectively" when, if fact, it's harassment.

You could justify any discrimination with "he quit, that was his choice". Today the discrimination is against someone who held a political opinion some day in his past. Or should I say "in his/her/its/Apachehelicopter" past as to not assume their gender and not condemn my future ability to be CEO?

Pay attention: I said "... under the present circumstances, I cannot be an effective leader." (https://blog.mozilla.org/press/2014/04/faq-on-ceo-resignatio...).

I did not say "the staff doesn't respect me". That would have been a lie.

Why don't you comment on things that you know about directly, or even just on reliable testimony?

There was no instance of Eich's views ever influencing anything on his job, and no single instance or evidence of any problem with his job.

Maybe not direct instance. But if I were at Mozilla, I would have resigned because of him.

I mean, Eich was giving money to people campaigning for removing civil rights from people based on their sexual orientation. That's not a small thing - if it was race instead of sexuality, would you be okay with it? White Power CEO?

My problem is that the law isn't enforced evenly. Either you are allowed to discriminate based on race/creed/sexuality/politics or you aren't. As it stands, the BBC can discriminate like this:

A range of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) television departments, programmes, and radio stations are currently offering highly desirable, paid internships, but white people are prohibited from applying.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/670266/BBC-advert-white-peo...

So you think that if the programer has the wrong political views, his loops and arrays stink?

That's your choice to make.

That said, most rational people can identify an opinion they disagree with without resorting to threatening the livelihood of the person espousing it.

The man made a $1,000 donation to support a view he believed in. He did nothing illegal or wrong and pledged promoting equality at Mozilla.

He then had a large concerted smear campaign run against him, with major sites threatening to block Firefox access unless Mozilla took action.

We have no way to know if you'd actually quit if you were in this situation; more likely you simply disagree with this view and see this as the easiest way to justify this situation as 'right'.

I disagree with Brandon Eich on this point, but I also disagree with how Mozilla and members of the LGBT community handled this.

The way this played out, and what it represents, introduces a chilling effect on honest political discussion/participation for anyone with opinions that might be considered offensive.

It sets a very bad precedent.

The source you link to explicitly says that it does not listen to your microphone without your permission or knowledge:

First and foremost, while we do download the hotword module on startup, we do not activate it unless you opt in to hotwording. If you go into "chrome://settings", you will see a checkbox "Enable "Ok Google" to start a voice search". This should be unchecked by default, and if you do not check it, the hotword module will not be started.

I think there also needs to be a highlighted difference between an open source product, and an open source repository which is NOT the product which is distributed.

Chromium is open source, but the supported product where the developer cares about the quality of the experience is Chrome. Android is much the same, where the platform almost all apps and services target requires Google Play.

I can't expect Google to properly address my needs in either of these open source offerings, because the actual users are almost exclusively using the proprietary version.

When Google looks at what the browser needs to do, it can either make the solution proprietary or open source, and then just tell the open source users that it's unavailable unless they switch to Chrome. (See things like browser syncing, or Google Cast support.) But when Firefox implements such features, they have to do so in an open way, which is why you can run your own Firefox Sync Server.

I second this opinion.

I think Chrome has a lot of interesting parts from a technological perspective. However, I think Firefox as an organization has done more for JavaScript and that community as far as fostering an open environment than any other browser maker. So providing a good browser plus fostering and growing the development community are both great things.

Another advantage is that it is not tied to some large conglomerate that is now engaged in questionable practices. That you need to rip entire parts of the code base out in this manner. This sort of thing has never been a concern with Firefox.

In general I think people ought to look at Google much more skeptically than they used to and all of the technologies that they push for. They all in some way push their agenda forward.

In general I think people ought to look at Google much more skeptically than they used to and all of the technologies that they push for. They all in some way push their agenda forward.

I've been skeptical of Google for a long time, and quit using them as much as possible since they rolled out "Don't be evil." Talk about telegraphing the punch.

It's funny how corporate marketing works. For a long time I used to really love their products and their processes. Maybe it was when they got rid of "don't be evil" but at some point they started turning into just another corporation.

A corporation with a ton of resources and a ton of people's information. Anyway I don't want to go into a rant but lately everything they do even the open source stuff is just to further their agenda and seldom to help the community.

As far as I remember, it was around when Google+ came out.

Google started as a technology company for nerds. Remember when Google broke all "rules" when their website was a simple image, input, and two buttons?

Then they were into open standards, tech innovation, and where the company was run by engineers, and not media people (see Yahoo).

The result was a focus on UX and not design.

Unfortunately, around when Google+ came out, they decided they're done with that, and became a "company for the masses".

XMPP integration - dead Open Source apps - dead

They're back to bloat (just JS instead of animated GIFs and Flash), "beauty" over "UX", closed source apps (remember when most apps put out by Google were open source? Remember the shock that Picasso wasn't?)

"Don't be evil" was and still is in the Google code of conduct. Source: https://abc.xyz/investor/other/google-code-of-conduct.html

Their actions don't really follow that concept and haven't for a while

Maybe I'm stretching a bit, but Snowden was the nail in the coffin. Even if you are American, it is very hard to define evil in a such a way to defend their participation in PRISM.

That code of conduct just make it worse they were caught red handed, and I can very much understand people who completely lost their trust in the company.

Have you ever tried contributing to Firefox from outside Mozilla Corp? My experience was not positive.

Could you please tell me more about your experience?

The core Firefox / Gecko repos can be a bit conservative and slow to accept patches, but subprojects like Firefox Accounts / Sync, Devtools, Rust / Servo, browser.html, TestPilot, etc. tend have much lower friction while still affecting the direction of Firefox.

As an example, we recently replaced the JavaScript debugger with one written in HTML instead of XUL, using React, etc. All on GitHub and super accessible to outside contributions: https://github.com/devtools-html/debugger.html

I mean, just look at the recent "3rd Generation bug" story here on HN, a bug which was originally reported by a man who is deceased, and is now affecting his grandchildren. There are plenty of 10-15 year-old bugs on Bugzilla. And we all know how Mozilla is fond of pulling the "advocacy" card and locking bug reports. "To the forums with you!" they say--where discussions can be ignored and deleted even more easily.

On the recent discussion here about the Session Saver code, one Mozilla dev said that it needs rearchitecting, but that the issue is "manpower." I don't understand how a company that rakes in hundreds of millions of dollars per year can't afford to rewrite a problematic component--they had the manpower to write the bad design in the first place. Can they not afford to hire another programmer or two? Even now that they've cancelled FxOS? Where is the money going?

And generally Mozilla is taking Firefox in a direction that loyal users--who have used Firefox for nearly two decades now!--do not want. Mozilla is chasing Chrome users, rather than maintaining Firefox's useful, unique features. They just don't get it: if people wanted to use Chrome, they'd use Chrome. If they turn Firefox into Chrome, there'll be no reason to use Firefox instead of Chrome.

The handwriting is on the wall. Mozilla is no longer focused on making the best, most user-empowering browser. They are chasing ghosts, and when the money runs out...

Yes, Firefox has some old bugs, because it's a large and old piece of software. But that's entirely separate from whether it's easy to contribute to.

People who loved Phoenix/Firebird/Firefox lost their browser when 2.0 came out. I still trusted the project then, but in hindsight it's clear that was the turning point. They got too feature-hungry and changed too much at once, adding tons of bloat in the process. There's no well-supported multi-platform lightweight open-source browser now. Just doesn't exist. I'm hoping Servo's allowed to fill that niche at least for a while, but I'm not holding my breath.

Last time I tried using Firefox i didn't liked it.

But last week I completely moved from Chromium to Firefox.

I didn't miss Chromium.

Are you running the multiprocess Firefox build? The speed improvements with that version are insane.

If only Firefox used a native GUI on the mac. I really don't like Safari. But I also value consistency: https://www.jwz.org/blog/2012/04/why-i-use-safari-instead-of....

This is not SFW image!

Warning, the first time my browser hit this link, it redirected to a NSFW image rant about HN. The second time it worked though. I suggest one copies and pastes the link to avoid sending the referrer.

Unfortunately for everyone that cares about security, using Firefox (or Safari or old IE) is a colossal mistake since it's orders of magnitude easier to exploit (with almost no serious anti-exploitation mitigations) than Chrome.

Spidermonkey in particular (Firefox's Javascript engine) is laughably bad when it comes to vulnerabilities. This is also the reason why the Servo browser that some folks think will be a lot more secure (due to Rust) is mostly smoke & mirrors. They're planning to keep using Spidermonkey there too!

Firefox is much less secure than other modern browsers. And Chrome is indeed very secure. But I think it's incorrect to say that it's "orders of magnitude" more secure than Safari. This hasn't been true since Safari introduced multiprocess and sandboxing. Safari and Edge are closer to Chrome in security level than they are to Firefox. That's why pwn2own doesn't even include Firefox in the competition any more but does include Safari and Edge.

Agreed on Safari/Edge but note that I didn't use the words "very secure" to describe Chrome in isolation.

How can something that gets publicly exploited year after year by _teenagers_ (1)(2) be called "very secure" ?

The grim reality is that we never had a browser than can be called even remotely secure. Major factors for that are the implementation languages (C++ and C) and the vast attack surface. It's disheartening to see this trend continue.

(1) http://www.tomsguide.com/us/pwn2own-browsers-2015,news-20680...

(2) http://blog.trendmicro.com/pwn2own-day-2-event-wrap/

I tend to agree with you: Firefox is definitely more user-focused than Chrome or Chromium.

However, Firefox's user-centric development model has been declining for years now as Mozilla has grown and become accustomed to raking in hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Mozilla has been actively imitating Chrome for some time now. It is becoming less unique.

Mozilla's future plans for Firefox continue to make it less like Firefox and more like Chromium. The coming changes to the addon APIs, deprecation of XPCOM/XUL, etc, will probably erase any useful distinction between Firefox and Chrome. Electrolysis, while nice in theory (because who isn't tired of the janky Firefox UI), will also probably erase Firefox's advantage in memory usage.

It saddens me to say it, but Firefox needs to die and be reborn--the Phoenix needs to rise again from the ashes. Perhaps this has already happened in a sense with Pale Moon, although Pale Moon isn't even in Debian, so using it requires extra effort.

But it won't really happen (Firefox dying/forking) until Mozilla hits rock bottom. Only when they are forced to confront their bloated bureaucracy and their lack of user-focus will any real change happen. It will require (near)bankruptcy, leadership change and many layoffs. And who knows if Firefox would even survive; it's so enormous and complex, would anyone pick up the pieces? Would a community effort even be able to?

Anyway, we won't have to wait long to find out. The way Mozilla's going, I'd be surprised if they still exist in their current form in 3 years. Sad, but hey, Netscape died to give birth to Firefox, so maybe Mozilla's death will give birth to...Phoenix? (Can we use that name now, after all these years?)

XUL failed... and while I really appreciate what XUL (and even XULrunner) offered, nobody really used it much in practice. XPCOM while interesting wasn't very widely used either... Neither got traction outside the Mozilla sphere of software dev.

I would actually love to see some more work on creating consistent extension APIs so that a single add-on is easier to write against the big 4. I know that FF is caving in favor of more Chrome like models in some places... In general it's sometimes because they are better models, and some because they are chasing chrome.

In some ways Chrome actually is better in terms of UX... in others (configuration in particular) FF has been better. Mozilla has never been just Firefox though. They are an important part of web development... And I'm glad they're out there... I do think some people are holding onto how things were for the sake of resisting change, and likewise some are changing for the sake of.

It's not just "the voice" of the community... it's millions of voices screaming for different things, and those stearing paying attention to the majority for most of them.

XUL failed... and while I really appreciate what XUL (and even XULrunner) offered, nobody really used it much in practice. XPCOM while interesting wasn't very widely used either... Neither got traction outside the Mozilla sphere of software dev.

Whether it "failed" is entirely a matter of perspective. From my perspective it has been a wild success, providing a flexible, powerful foundation for Firefox and Thunderbird, as well as some other projects. It enabled Firefox to be the most powerful, customizable browser by empowering extension developers to meet users' needs.

So, no, it has not failed. What has happened is that a new generation of Mozilla developers has arisen who are not enamored with the old code. They don't want to work on it; they want to make something new and shiny, users and extension developers be damned.

Just like all the OS vendors went for flat UI in a mindless herd mentality, so Mozilla is following Google and mindlessly imitating Chrome--first in UI, now in architecture. Then in 5-10 years (if Mozilla is still around), another generation of programmers will come up and want to throw out that baby as well. Meanwhile, browsing web pages will still be browsing web pages, and users will have to waste time on useless churn.

It's not just "the voice" of the community... it's millions of voices screaming for different things, and those stearing paying attention to the majority for most of them.

Firefox did not dethrone IE by paying attention to a majority of screaming voices. It led the way with a vision of empowering users to take control of their web browser, going against the commercial, corporate grain.

Mozilla is no longer leading, but following, chasing, like a jilted lover who pines, "Please, don't go with Chrome, come back, I can be like Chrome too!" What they don't understand is that, if they act like Chrome, there will be no reason to go with Firefox.

What will attract users is a strong, unique browser that knows what it wants to be, that takes care of and empowers its users--in contrast to a browser project dominated by an enormous corporation which profits from exploiting its users. Only when Mozilla groks this will it turn around and reverse its decline.

I just wish Firefox for Android played nice with other apps. I mean, I like that it has AdBlock, but no, Firefox, I don't want to open that YouTube link in Firefox.

Firefox includes the android app button in the URL bar for easily switching from Firefox.

I use Firefox on my phone. I am more comfortable with it for privacy reasons. It's a pretty nice browser outside of that.

However I'm using a pretty beefy phone whereas when I used my Moto G it wasn't quite the best browser in terms of resources however a lot has changed since then. (Like Chrome no longer having tabs integrated into the task manager. That feature was great for devices with not too much RAM and horribly buggy firmware that would unload apps prematurely. It's also very convenient to use. Maybe could have used a little bit more refinement.)

Also it's the only browser that supports my dusty old PCs. So I tend to use it on those as well.

Thanks Firefox devs.

I loved the integrated tabs.. having to drag down (oops, not fast enough, try again) then a click and a swipe to close the tap instead of click/swipe alone... also it's just nasty after getting used to it... it's why I wish VS Code would go back to the pre-tab behavior, it was just so much better once you got used to it.

I find that firefox is a little funky on Android though... the integration with lastpass is weird, have to copy/paste, at least site identification works now, there have been a few other oddities too... I notice a lot of sites improperly detect a lack of video support, or it may just be format that's the problem.

I tend to like/use chrome and prefer it... but I do think there's been some weird behavior in/from google... just finding out about chrome apps being killed off irks me to no end, considering it's the first actually decent write once run everywhere option. I'm guessing the recent hangouts change was because of this, as they'll likely move to electron on the desktop.

I'm glad Firefox is still an option though... I also appreciate what they've done to further the platform... Though I do chuckle a bit of how much easier web components, and even react might have come in if e4x had been implemented in other browsers.

Personally I prefer Firefox on my Android, because it has plugins, like HTTPS Everywhere and uBlock Origin, without which a mobile browser is IMHO unusable.

I also like the quick sharing actions, remembering the last 3 apps used for sharing. And the local search in your history it does, avoiding roundtrips to the search engine. Although to be fair this functionality appears to work better on the desktop.

the integration with lastpass is weird

On Android the defacto standard for password managers is to use custom keyboards. Ironically, the custom keyboard I found most usable for this purpose has been Keepass2Android [1], precisely because if it loses focus it still remembers the last account selected and I've tried both Lastpass and 1Password. Along with KeeWeb on my desktop, it's way better than Lastpass imho and free.

[1] https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=keepass2androi...

Yep, support for older computers is a huge plus. My 2008 iMac is nearly half a dozen Mac OS versions behind, but I can still get the latest version of Firefox. Safari and Chrome stopped updating years ago. From a security perspective, it's Firefox all the way.

I also happen to use Firefox as my daily driver on my main laptop, largely due to the Tree Style Tabs addon, which I have not seen a decent substitute for on Chrome/Safari.

From a security perspective wouldn't you be better served by having an up to date OS?

If I could reliably run a newer OS on an 8-year-old iMac, I would. But since I can't—and because the only thing I use the machine for is web browsing—the relevant question is which browser will be the safest.

Thanks for not throwing working hardware away. I imagine you would not be happy with Linux on your iMac?

El Capitan runs on mid 2007 and newer iMacs, no?

My problem with using Firefox is the extensions. Though one of my faves is Firefox exclusive(Yes, Downthemall!), but some of the other useful extensions(like Google Dictionary and it's alternatives for Firefox are crap) are not available for Firefox and that often pulls me back to chrome after some time.

Firefox is unacceptably slugging and jittery on a brand new 27 inch iMac. Laughably slow and jittery. I would switch but it's just too slow and unresponsive.

Opera, I would use but I don't trust the chinese parent company.

Since I work on Chromium, I kind of care about this... We're still an open source project. We still take a lot of external contributions, as far as I know.

Can you point to concrete cases where Chromium has not taken contributions (without giving a good reason, that is)?

It's probably hard to point out a specific case, but I think the biggest objection is that most Chromium developers have a tight connection with Google (if not employees anyway). They have mostly incentive to keep their employer happy. Google keeps the shareholders happy and they just want more money. (At the cost of privacy or open standards for example). Now this may be a simplified view, since this may apply to any company. However, Mozilla has some core principles they really try to stick to.

Chromium is Free Software as well.

Mozilla is not a club of like-minded hackers that try to keep the web livable anymore. They're a large company now with corporate salaries and expensive furniture and a prime real estate office that values advertisers over users. Firefox is their money maker.

Chromium is a Free Software version derived from a proprietary browser. The people who made that happen must have had an idealistic motivation, or otherwise it wouldn't exist.

Both browsers are libre license-wise, which is a good thing, but in my opinion Chromium is less likely to be used as a marketing stick against users, since the marketing stick version of Chromium already exist. As such using the Chromium browser is preferable for me, since the intentions behind it are likely to be more in line with a free Internet in spite of its proprietary origin.

Free Software version derived from a proprietary browser

Chrome is based on Chromium, not the other way around. It's also pretty much Chrome with changed branding and no built-in Flash (thank god!)

Thinking that google leaves Chromium alone or that it's somehow independent is naive.

I'm afraid that's my clumsy phrasing.

1st Chrome release: 2008-09-02

1st Chromium release: Dec 17th, 2012

So even though current Chrome might be based on Chromium, Chromium was initially derived from Chrome.

That means somewhere down the line someone at Google must have suggested making a free version, probably out of enthusiasm for open source, and even though it buys Google little, the project was okay'ed.

I have no illusions about Chromium being independent, but as things are, Chromium development, in my opinion, is less commercially driven than Firefox development in spite of being a Google-driven project, allowing it to better serve its users with regards to freedom and the open web.

The main danger of Google's involvement is if Chromium would somehow outpace Chrome deployments, and them pulling the plug, but that's still very far away. And even then, due to its libre license, everything is far from lost.

1st Chrome release: 2008-09-02

1st Chromium release: Dec 17th, 2012

So even though current Chrome might be based on Chromium, Chromium was initially derived from Chrome.

Not sure where you got that second date, but Chromium was definitely released the same day as Chrome: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2008/09/google...

Firefox violates user privacy since years by allowing long term tracking cookies to be saved by default without asking the user.

Millions of Firefox users lost their privacy without ever being asked about that with the help of Firefox default settings.

This long term collaboration with privacy-destroying ad tracking companies disqualifies Firefox as a privacy tool.

BTW, yes, this post carries an unusual view of things, but no illegal content - do you believe unusual views should be censored?

Firefox violates user privacy since years by allowing long term tracking cookies to be saved by default without asking the user.

This statement doesn't make sense. All cookies can be tracking cookies and for example all session cookies are tracking cookies by definition.

Assuming for the sake of argument that you're referring to third-party tracking cookies, such as those from Google Analytics, or Facebook, this is the default because it's how the web has always worked. And maybe changing this default is reasonable, much like how browsers started blocking popups at some point, but it's debatable if such actions should be taken or would benefit users.

First of all, blocking third-party cookies by default might break web pages. But even more problematic is that this restriction can be bypassed, as to turn a third-party cookie into a first-party cookie publishers only need to inject some extra Javascript. Also meet http://samy.pl/evercookie/ - In other words, if you really want privacy, blocking third-party cookies isn't enough.

Also Firefox is the only browser that does block trackers in Private Mode, without any plugins needed, a setting that you can also enable to be active all the time: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Firefox/Privacy/Tracking....

Millions of Firefox users lost their privacy without ever being asked about that with the help of Firefox default settings.

This statement is factually not true, as it implies that blocking cookies has been the default and thus users had privacy to lose.

This long term collaboration with privacy-destroying ad tracking companies disqualifies Firefox as a privacy tool.

Out of curiosity, when was the last time you contributed to the Mozilla organization? And if not, then you must have a better idea of how they should make a living, developing software in the open such that people can use it for free. They need a business model and nothing they did thus far had privacy implications for me. If you have a concrete example, I'd love to hear it.

BTW, yes, this post carries an unusual view of things, but no illegal content - do you believe unusual views should be censored?

It's not an unusual view, it's just a silly one and silly views are quite common.

Denying facts and calling me silly are both not convincing arguments. I will ask you to repeat that insult when we meet in meatspace one day.

About your fact denial: Firefox does save cookies forever by default without asking users for permission about that, what enables tracking them forever. This is the opposite of proactive privacy.

This is factually true. It is not possible to "untrue" this fact. Everybody can check it.

What makes it even worse is that Mozilla is positioning itself as a "privacy aware" organisation, effectively brainwashing non-technical users with false claims about "privacy awareness".

Great start. Although I think we need to reverse the trend of Chrome becoming the single browser web developers use. The amount of sites that unnecessarily[0] work only in Chrome is growing daily. And that's not even counting browser extensions. I think this, more than anything else, will determine if Chrome becomes the "Internet Explorer"[1] of this decade or not.

Skipping testing in IE is one thing. Skipping testing in Firefox is a sin.

[0] Unnecessarily, because cross-browser compatibility isn't hard, simply include CSS prefixes besides -webkit and use standardized JS APIs.

[1] Internet Explorer, a term for a closed-source browser that creates non-standard APIs that developers jump on, forcing either users to use that browser, or other browsers to implement the non-standard APIs too.

The thing about "Internet Explorer", is that using IE Edge, I often run into websites that demand I "Upgrade" to Chrome and won't let me use them.

Fudging the user agent however, allows that website to work perfectly fine.

Not testing in IE is one thing. Presenting an nonintrusive message warning you don't test in IE is another. Paying money to advertise your website, then, when I click your link, greeting me with a condescending "IE Users are idiots" type message that doesn't let me proceed, doesn't make me buy your product.

So much this. While on Firefox, Google only pulls that on you once, they constantly reoffer it to Edge users on a nearly weekly basis. And recently, they actually made the bar bigger and more obtrusive.

I filed an issue on the Chromium bug tracker, they assigned someone to look into it, and of course, nothing has been said since.

That's because it's not a Chromium bug. You should file feedback with the product you're using, most (all?) Google products have a way of doing this.

I am pretty sure the only way to send feedback to the Chrome team, other than the Chromium bug tracker (which is pretty much the same people), is to send feedback from within Chrome.

Obviously, I don't have Chrome, since my issue is them pestering me to install Chrome. Which I'm not going to do.

On the other hand, if Google wants to prevent their reputation from sinking to the level of "install the Ask Toolbar", one of the Googlers on the Chromium bug tracker will see that it is dealt with.

While on Firefox, Google only pulls that on you once

To this day, and for years, I continue to receive these messages from Google sites informing me to upgrade to Chrome. I've even had them pop-up on Chromium.

Add this to the fact that Edge is still the only browser on Windows that's suitable for use on a device with a touchscreen, and it's downright insulting.

I have Chrome on my Surface. I choose to use Edge instead because Chrome is unusable without my Type Cover plugged in, and I'm not doing that while laying on the couch.

Hey Google, want me to use Chrome on my Surface? Then give me the Android version of Chrome running in a container. Phone UI, please.

If you ask me, insulting is having a desktop OS pretending to also work on tablets and releasing that to consumers. You can't blame companies for not releasing apps that can work in tablet mode. It takes time, because that's basically like developing for a whole new OS. And Microsoft could do it because they are the ones developing the freaking OS.

To be fair, that notification is for the benefit of the everyone. Users are too lazy/ignorant to switch browsers. The notification pushes them over the edge and prompts them to switch. They get a more secure and overall better browser.

On the other side, developers can spend more time developing features instead of fixing IE compatibility bugs.

The notification pushes them over the edge and prompts them to switch.

Pun intended? But seriously, whenever I see one of these browser-blockers (and it seems Opera gets hit too), I just leave the site and never come back. Chances are, your site is not unique and I'll find what I need somewhere else.

developers can spend more time developing features

IMHO, those are "features" which no one really cares about. Stop messing around with fancy CSS and JS, spend the time developing a simple site that almost naturally works in IE too.

I also run into websites that force me to spoof the user agent string just to gain access. Intuit is one offender.

For a few months now, Bank of America's site has been including a giant alert at the top suggesting that I use a supported browser, such as Firefox, Chrome, or IE. ... Except I'm already using Firefox. I'm not customizing the user agent or anything.

Maybe their regex checks for Firefox on Windows and you're on some other OS?

The dumbest user agent based browser detection mechanism I ever encountered was one that a major grocery store chain had in place on their website. At the time, I was running Linux on a desktop computer which had an ARMv7 processor.

I visited their website and was, like in a lot of cases where they assume ARMv7 means I must be using a mobile device, redirected to the mobile site.

That's not the stupid part, though (just annoying). These guys took it one step further and had their mobile website decide that I was in fact not on mobile, and then they proceeded to throw me into a redirect loop between the desktop and mobile site. Talk about messing up with browser detection.

I wrote an e-mail to report the issue to the people in charge of the site, and you know what they tell me? Oh, "we forwarded your message to our web developers but they said that this doesn't happen". Wow, ok, "this doesn't happen". Guess I must be hallucinating, then? Well, jokes on them 'cause if they hire people who break their website so that I can't check the opening hours, guess where I'll be shopping? Not at their store, that's for sure.

Oh, that's probably it. I'm on Linux.

Slightly tangential, but on the topic of browser extensions: the Chrome extension API served as the basis for Mozilla's somewhat recent Web Extension API [0]. Many, if not most, Chrome extensions can run in Firefox out of the box right now (there's even a Firefox extension that lets you install these from the Chrome Store [1]). This has been an incredible development for anybody doing cross browser extension development (which has otherwise been a fair bit more complicated than simply including "CSS prefixes besides -webkit").

Having different browsers compete on things like this and then having the better technology become standardized and implemented in multiple browsers seems like a fairly positive outcome.

[0] https://wiki.mozilla.org/WebExtensions

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-...

"Web Extension API" is exactly the issue at stake here. Chrome develops a new API for extensions. Everyone jumps on it. Firefox abandons it's powerful (although insecure) extension API, and re-writes it to follow Chrome's. There's a lot of marketing-speak around the reasons FF did that, but it really boils down to: Chrome is winning in the extension ecosystem, let's make them all compatible with FF too. At the loss of the entire existing extension catalog.

Firefox's extension system was powerful but there was next to no chance that XUL based UI was ever going to be adopted in the other major browsers. I'm sure that tapping in to the Chrome extension ecosystem was a big factor in the decision but I would argue that the Chrome extension API was also a far better suited candidate for cross browser standardization.

simply include CSS prefixes besides -webkit and use standardized JS APIs.

You mean like when I spent 30 minutes figuring out that text area in chrome is counting new line as 1 letter and firefox is counting it as two ?

I work on Firefox compatability for a major website, and while obviously I agree that we need to stop building websites that only work in Chrome, it isn't always as easy as you suggest.

A large web app is almost guaranteed to run into one of Firefox's many long-open bugs. But the biggest reason in my experience is performance. Gecko's rendering engine is poorly-optimized, to the point where I regularly see a DOM modification take 10ms in Chrome (easily within a single frame) and 1000ms in Firefox (locks the UI and causes the page to flash white).

If you can isolate that DOM performance bottleneck or point me to a live example, I'm happy to pare it down to a minimal test case and make sure it gets fixed.

(We have some enormous architectural changes inbound which should help, but I'd still love to make sure we have a test to prevent regressing)

unfortunately for Firefox, performance issues are a case of death by a thousand cuts.

Here's a product that I'm working on

https://www.ux-app.com/dev/editor?m=trial

In Chrome it's buttery smooth on any decent computer made in the past 5 or 6 years. In Firefox it's usable on a powerful computer, but notably worse than Chrome.

On an under powered laptop Chrome is still very usable, not quite 60fps, but probably 30-40fps on moderately complex designs.

Firefox is a choppy mess on low end hardware.

This is a recurring issue with Firefox. It's just ok for regular web browsing, and it's a hot mess for any web app that needs to do any moderately taxing DOM manipulation.

As much as I love Firefox, it's just leagues behind Chrome in regard to performance.

Impressive app.

On Linux Mint I get

Error:Dependency is not satisfiable:libavcodec-ffmpeg56(>=7.2.4)|libavcodec-ffmped-extra56(>=7:2.4)

Suggestion -

The repo does not provide install instructions. For a highly not tech privacy enthusiast, I find it difficult to install for linux.

Never try to install a package intended for Debian or Ubuntu on another distribution that just happens to use .deb files, unless you have experience dealing with package dependency issues and similar problems. Either use a package intended for the distribution, or use a binary, or build from source.

That looks like a version of libavcodec specific to one version of Ubuntu; that package will never work on Debian, another version of Ubuntu, or most non-Debian distributions.

Can't wait for Flatpak or Snappy to make end-user binary distribution a breeze

I can, they're not really all that great as an alternative.

Use a better distro with a better packaging mechanism. Instead of inventing something new, use something that already exists.

Yes, technological process often comes from not inventing something new. I don't have strong opinions on snappy aside from the name being silly, but taking anti-NIH to the extreme is not how we advance the industry.

It's not extreme at all. All you have to do is install a distro with a good packaging system. Arch is wonderful, and I've heard good things about Void and Gentoo.

Imagine a package system where you could ask to download node.js, and you'll get the latest version. And that's it.

Better yet, imagine having to build a package from source and installing it. You could do it by hand, leaving orphan files all over your system. Or you could write a PKGBUILD that handles installing dependencies, building, and packaging, all in one go.

That's what running Arch feels like. Being able to install fresh popular packages, and being able to easily package your own. Try it sometime.

It's not extreme at all. All you have to do is install a distro with a good packaging system. Arch is wonderful, and I've heard good things about Void and Gentoo.

Depends what you classify as criteria for a "good packaging system". Arch didn't even sign their packages until a few years ago, and the build system for their packages is not very good IMO. What makes Arch great is the fact that they have a large library of very up to date packages. Personally (though I'm biased) I like openSUSE's package manager (zypper). It's an enterprise-grade package manager that supports things like patterns and can differentiate between security updates and regular updates. It also supports delta RPMs for patching.

Better yet, imagine having to build a package from source and installing it. You could do it by hand, leaving orphan files all over your system. Or you could write a PKGBUILD that handles installing dependencies, building, and packaging, all in one go.

rpmbuild has this. And there's also OBS (the open build system) which was originally written by the openSUSE community but supports many other distributions (including Arch as well as Fedora, Debian and the other usual suspects).

Right. I'm not advocating for one particular distro. I'm just advocating that people stop using distros with bad package management.

Thanks for the list of other stuff to check out, by the way.

There's literally nothing special about arch or pacman. It's just like any other package manager with newer packages.

Ha! This is one of the reasons* Chrome ships with its own copy of ffmpeg which this fork decided was a bad thing.

* the other being security updates for ffmpeg

It's a bad thing for Linux platforms, which should use the system version of ffmpeg; however, that's something much easier to solve when you're actually the Linux distribution, rather than a third party.

Note that many of the changes in this fork come from the Debian packaging of Chromium.

Is this browser expecting me to use TOR? Welcome and extensions pages on new tab pages wants me to go to http://www.9oo91e.qjz9zk/ domain.

I'm not finding anything about that in repo readme page. This looks odd and suspicious. Because it's even blocks requests there -> http://imgur.com/a/UnMu8

That isn't a tor URL. I assume it's simply a lazy way of stopping requests to google services by replacing the domains with invalid ones.

Edit: see https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/8dd86477d...

Yes, it is a lazy way of stopping requests. I also modified Iridium's "trk" scheme code to pick up domains ending in qjz9zk so I can notify the user.

Does qjz9zk have any significance? It seems a little elaborate for a fake domain :)

+1 Will be my new default when home. Does it support uBlock Origin?

Firefox is not really a good company anymore, they care more about politics than doing something awesome. Cf. the firing of their CEO.

He was not fired. Straight from Mozilla themselves:

https://blog.mozilla.org/blog/2014/04/05/faq-on-ceo-resignat...

"On April 3, 2014 Brendan Eich voluntarily stepped down as CEO of Mozilla."

He could have stayed if he wanted to. Yes, it would have hurt their brand if he did, and yes it should have. Because yes, I and many others care very much if the CEO of a product donates to strip a minority of equal rights. Thanks to people like Eich, for seven years me and my husband had to lie and check "single" on all of our federal and state forms. For seven years we had to worry about being denied hospital visitation should one of us fall ill. We had to worry about how we'd handle inheritance should one of us pass. And on and on.

So yes, everyone is entitled to their own voice. Eich had a right to make that donation. And other people had a right to protest and boycott over it. Mozilla did not cave to the protests, so there was no free speech violation here.

95% probability that was "voluntarily step down or we'll fire you."

Then you're basically saying that the entire board and Eich himself are liars. And I don't believe that's a fair thing to say with zero evidence to the contrary.

Eich was a person that could have made the entire situation disappear in an instant by making a (completely meaningless given their history) matching donation to the HRC, and issuing a short post apologizing for his actions. Sure, many would see right through such a transparent act; but it would completely deflate the opposition in an instant -- guaranteed.

He didn't do so. To this day, he's still completely unapologetic for his actions. As much as I dislike the man, the one thing I cannot fault him for is that he is a man of integrity. I don't see him lying and pretending he voluntarily resigned.

Then you're basically saying that the entire board and Eich himself are liars.

I see that the board claim he was not asked by the board to resign. You can differentiate I guess between "You see which way the wind is blowing, better do what needs to be done" and "Resign or we'll fire you" but that's really a distinction without a difference and would seamlessly segue into the other state, I expect.

but it would completely deflate the opposition in an instant

Can you cite an instance of apologizing quelling an outrage mob?

I see that the board claim he was not asked by the board to resign.

Well, you're free to your own opinions (and conspiracies), but not to your own facts. Preface your statements with, "I believe he was secretly (fired)", and that's fair enough.

But us arguing about it without any evidence is basically Russell's Teapot.

Can you cite an instance of apologizing quelling an outrage mob?

It would have certainly worked here. From when I was born until 2015, we went from 15% approval to 55% approval for marriage equality. We had several prominent republicans, and even a democratic president change their public views to support marriage equality. Eich had a good 6+ years since his donation, so it wasn't like his mind couldn't have changed during that time. I don't recall anyone on our side ever denouncing someone who announced they 'evolved' on this topic. So yes, I'm extremely confident most people would have put this issue to rest.

However, again, a man of principle shouldn't lie. That covers both lying about a change of heart, as well as lying about resigning instead of having been fired.

It would have certainly worked here

So no, you can't cite an example?

"I believe he was secretly (fired)"

I see no reason to believe that what both the board and Eich are claiming is technically false. If you define "fired" to include "you know where this is going, get out now and save some face by resigning" then yes, sure, I believe he was secretly fired.

Consider hypothetical situation: suddenly "Brave" browser (referred to below) becomes popular. Will you renew your personal vendetta against Brendan Eich? Because the reasons you cited still apply.

"On April 3, 2014 Brendan Eich voluntarily stepped down as CEO of Mozilla."

Yeah as voluntarily as those politicians resigning to spend more time with their families really resign to spend more time with their families. It's not fooling anybody else, and I have very hard time believing it's fooling you. He resigned because he was asked to resign. That's how top management firing is done.

He could have stayed if he wanted to.

Physically - yes, I guess, until they call security and carry him out :) Seriously - no, when Powers That Be in your org ask you to resign, you resign.

Because yes, I and many others care very much if the CEO of a product donates to strip a minority of equal rights.

So if somebody who thinks firing people because they have different political opinion than you is wrong, would arrange to get you fired from your job - you'd be completely ok with that, according to your beliefs? Or it's only your political enemies that have to lose their jobs for their politics, but never you?

Mozilla did not cave to the protests,

Mozilla absolutely, totally and completely caved to the protests.

He resigned because he was asked to resign.

Sorry to post a link, but I responded to the same argument already here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12579498

So if somebody who thinks firing people because they have different political opinion than you is wrong, would arrange to get you fired from your job - you'd be completely ok with that, according to your beliefs?

If they were truly my convictions, I would stand by them and tell the world that I was fired for my beliefs. I wouldn't suddenly become a liar. Especially not to protect the company that just fired me.

If what you say is true, and there is zero evidence that it is, then I would lose the very last tiny bit of respect I have for Eich. It would also mean the Mozilla board was truly and utterly incompetent; because this was an extremely predictable result. They already knew of Eich's donation. And anyone with a functioning brain would have realized that this would become a much bigger issue when he was promoted to CEO.

We do, however, share common ground that nobody should be fired for their personal beliefs (nor for that matter, for what they do in their personal time.) Yet at the same time, I refuse to accept a world where I would be denied the right to protest an abhorrent individual. Say there were a company run by a neo-nazi grandmaster wizard of the KKK that wanted to commit genocide. But hey, those were just his personal beliefs! Would you still be against anyone refusing to use that company's products? Against anyone saying the company shouldn't have hired such a man to lead them?

The critics who called for his job were wrong to do so. Saying a man should be fired for his beliefs was almost as bad as saying that gay people should not be treated as equal citizens with the same rights as straight people.

Mozilla absolutely, totally and completely caved to the protests.

Prove it. Or if that's no longer required, then NASA absolutely, totally and completely faked the moon landings.

Why don't you link to our past interactions on HN? Here's a last in thread link, so people can read up:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10660792

Hey, weren't you in Ohio the whole time, and not subject to California law in any event? Federal tax forms are not bound by California law. Nor are Ohio tax laws.

I didn't link to that because you didn't answer the topic being debated here.

Would you be willing to go on record and state whether you were forced to resign or not? If you were, then I agree that was wrong, and will stop linking to that FAQ post going forward. Instead, I'll link to your reply and offer my support that Mozilla was in the wrong for forcing you out.

However, if you're going to stay with, "NDAs and none of your business", then I can't work with that. I can only work on what knowledge is available to the public. And all publicly available evidence is that your resignation was entirely voluntary. I hope you'll agree that unless someone actually involved (such as yourself) goes on record, everything else is just baseless speculation. It wouldn't be fair to penalize Mozilla based solely on conjecture.

And yes, I was in Ohio during our 2004 vote to ban marriage equality via state constitutional amendment. I stated that people like you (as in, religious people imposing their views on others through force of law) helped make that happen. Marriage wasn't really on my radar until around 2008. I think it was just seeing California of all places vote against it that really crushed my spirit for a long time. I know empathy is really difficult, but imagine if our positions were reversed and I donated to successfully help prevent you from marrying your wife. How would you think of me? That I didn't live in California is 2008 is no reason I can't object to your actions.

As always, even if we strongly disagree, I appreciate that you're willing to respond and have a discussion with a nobody such as myself, so thank you for that :)

From the linked thread, I wrote "You have no idea why I stepped down" in reply to your "Eich chose to step down due to community pressure" line, which you made up. That "due to" explanation was your interpretation, nothing I ever said or wrote.

Have you heard of the fallacy of the excluded middle? I resigned, I said so at the time and keep saying so, even today on this HN page. This does not exclude other possibilities that are none of your business. "Forced or resigned" is a false dilemma in general. Even if you don't know the specific details, the general point stands.

I think you know this, since you understand oppression. Oppression does not in general remove all agency from the victim. Two things can be true at once: oppressors used force; victim had freedom to move. Note I'm not saying I am a victim, I'm using an analogy to knock down the excluded middle fallacy that I think you put forth. Can we agree on this much?

your "Eich chose to step down due to community pressure" line, which you made up.

You are correct. That was conjecture. I don't know the actual thoughts in your mind when you stepped down, because you won't tell me.

Right now, the only solid evidence we have is that mozilla.org blog post that you voluntarily stepped down. Unless you will renounce it, then to the public record, it will remain what is believed to be true. And anything else, "you were forced out", "you were fired", "you resigned due to pressure", etc is hearsay.

This does not exclude other possibilities that are none of your business.

I believe it is the business of the public whether you were given an ultimatum or not. It would greatly influence how many felt toward the senior leadership of Mozilla.

"Forced or resigned" is a false dilemma in general.

I disagree strongly. There's a world of difference between me choosing to leave my job to protect my company; and my company firing me, making me sign an NDA, and lying and saying I left voluntarily. The former is commendable (if unfortunate) on your part; the latter is absolutely reprehensible on Mozilla's part.

Oppression does not remove agency from the victim.

It can. There was no serious option for me to move to a country with full marriage equality (the world does not have open borders - even permanently moving to Canada requires hosting by a family member, substantial capital to invest, or an asylum request); and only partial redress (state-level) were I to choose to move to, say, Massachusetts. Which also wasn't much of a possibility as my spouse did not want to leave his family behind in Ohio. But I guess you could say the latter was a matter of prioritizing.

Those ballot initiatives were definitely aimed at removing agency from gay and lesbian couples, that much is for sure.

Can we agree on this much?

In the general case that the two can be true at once, yes. But I don't see how your resignation can possibly exist in a quantum state where you were both forced to resign and weren't. It can only be one or the other.

I can understand there being subtle hints and allusions that a firing would have been inevitable should you choose not to resign, but unless they were substantiated, they were just that. I'm not going to read between the lines to speculate on what might have happened had you chosen to stay onboard.

I'm dead serious: if you really were forced out but just can't tell me, then you have my sympathy. I never once called for you to be fired. Free speech only works when we all have it. The only thing I did, and stand by, is my own free speech to voice disapproval for your donation. I also stopped using Firefox until you had resigned.

(I do have some thoughts on money not being the same as speech, but that's a whole different issue.)

HN is for many things: wasting time, trying to persuade reasonable fellow hackers of the virtues of Blub, practicing rhetoric and dialectic, etc. etc. It's not for you to cross-examine me, though. You are not entitled. Ask Mozilla if you want more info about my exit.

I disagree strongly.

Please see my edit, adding "in general" before "remove" and "all" before "agency". I made that edit before you replied (but it seems after you cited my earlier text) because I suspected you would turn "must" to "can" on loss of agency. As you did.

Of course oppression can at the limit remove all agency, by killing the victim. Duh! But your move from "must" to "can" dodges the crucial disagreement that we seem to be having, over whether any force always and exclusively overrides a choice like resigning, or and/or other non-exclusive and exclusive alternatives.

It's nonsense to make complex human interactions involving mobs, boycotts, hidden C-suite action, and finally resignation into an either/or in every single case. Some people feel that "the mob" forced me out (whether they disagree or agree with the result). This does not mean those people all believe I was "fired".

To take another example and leave out "Oppression": did Nixon resign? Of course. Did he face force from his opponents in Congress and the press? Yes, obviously -- in the case of Congress, he faced the full force of the U.S. Constitution, up to an impeachment trial and conviction. Both force and choice were operative; no either/or.

There's a world of difference between me choosing to leave my job to protect my company; and my company firing me, making me sign an NDA, and lying and saying I left voluntarily.

You are doing it again, right here! Use your imagination. Can you not conceive of excluded middles left out by the two alternatives you pose as if mutually exclusive and exhaustive of all possibilities? I think you can. You should, just as a matter of intellectual honesty and rigor, even if I keep mum. Using my silence as justification for your fallacy is a further fallacy.

It's not for you to cross-examine me, though.

You're right. And in this case, I wasn't. I responded to someone who said you were fired with an official statement that contradicted it. You joined into the discussion with, "you don't know and I don't have to tell you."

Which is fine! In that case, I will continue to correct anyone who says you were fired by pointing to the only official statement on the matter that says you resigned voluntarily. Is that fair? Surely you can't blame me for not relying on secret information I don't know.

It's nonsense to make complex human interactions involving mobs, boycotts, hidden C-suite action, and finally resignation into an either/or in every single case.

I'm definitely not making that claim in every case, only in this one case. I agree with your premise in general.

did Nixon resign? Of course.

It was inevitable that he would have been impeached had he not. There was no indication that Mozilla did anything but stand behind you the entire time.

I do understand the point you're trying to make here. But please understand that I can't hold Mozilla's board in contempt for something without any evidence or even statements on the matter. And you don't want to give them and that's fine. Just, as such, the record stands that you left of your own volition.

Can you not conceive of excluded middles left out by the two alternatives you pose as if mutually exclusive and exhaustive of all possibilities?

No, I can't imagine a scenario where you were both made to resign, yet Mozilla was not lying when they said you left voluntarily.

I am acutely aware that there was a huge reason for you to, even if I can't speculate that it had anything to do with your actual decision. But the protests and boycotts were a clear elephant in the room.

Like you said with agency, you should have still had it despite the protests. The protestors had zero control over the Mozilla board. Yes, you staying could have damaged the brand more (I doubt it would have done much damage, but that's a separate discussion.)

We're not making progress so let's try this from the other side: we both agree those calling for your firing were in the wrong, and should not have been listened to. I'll even go further and say it was wrong of sites like OK Cupid to use their site as a tool to boycott Mozilla by blocking your browser - as that forced their users into the boycott. But do you agree that the people voicing their displeasure with your donation and deciding not to use Firefox because you were made the CEO had a right to do so?

Discounting the two things we both agree on (calls for firing, websites blocking Mozilla), what would you have wished were handled differently? What else do you feel was unfair?

If secretly Mozilla led you to believe you would be ousted soon without resigning, then that would be on the board, and only the board, yes? And if that information remains secret, then we the public can't hold them accountable for that, can we?

...

And as for me ... it seems we're never going to get past discussing a donation you made eight years ago. So when it inevitably comes up again that you were 'fired for your beliefs', how about this?

I will respond that according to the only official statement from mozilla.org, you voluntarily resigned. I will then link to your discussions with me and state that you claim there are circumstances that are not public, and that people can make up their own mind on whatever that statement means from there. But again, that the only official record refutes their claim.

Would you accept that? It's really not my goal to keep annoying you (or anyone else) here. I just don't want to see conjecture passed off as fact. Especially not on HN.

It's unfortunate that valuable and useful privacy enhancements were combined with "wishlist"-level changes like "disable the tab close event in Javascript".

While many may not like the uses of that event, it taints what otherwise could have been a "purely about privacy" fork of Chromium with non-privacy opinions.

Yes, I've realized this and made an issue for this: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/38

If you have the computing resources, you can easily take out the patch that does the "wishlist" changes you don't want.

Hey guys, I'm the developer. I was really surprised to see the number of stars on GitHub suddenly skyrocket, and I think I found why. Thank you all for your interest in my project!

Feel free to make an issue (for questions, suggestions, or bug reports) or a pull request anytime. I might respond to a few more comments here before calling it a day.

Good work!

BTW, how easy is it to add FF + noscript type of features to chrome?

--- Only enable JS on whitelist websites - all others are default disable unless user explicitly temporary or permanently enable it.

It is in the settings for Chrome.

Settings->Advanced->Privacy->Content: Cookies->Keep until quit + exceptions you choose. Javascript->Deny all + exceptions you choose.

When you browse there is a little icon in the address bar to whitelist a site. It is a bit of a pain at first but it makes things a lot safer. When you go incognito it will forget which sites you whitelisted at session end, so you are not enabling a site forever.

I can also recommend the EFF Privacy Badger and the Cross Domain Request Filter extensions. CDRF needs to be updated to work in whitelist mode instead of blacklist mode, but it is still pretty cool. I also like Poper Blocker, but their telemetry mode is wrong.

I'd really like an in-browser firewall which also blocked extensions by default. Something with an inspectable rule set.

See also: Whitelist Manager, comes with source code.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/cross-domain-reque...

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/privacy-badger/pke...

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/poper-blocker/bkkb...

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/whitelist-manager/... https://github.com/unindented/whitelist-manager

For people as conciuous as this, I highly recommend uMatrix. It is a switchboard that easily lets you control anything (from initial request to frames) per domain.

Disable JavaScript dialog boxes from showing when a page closes (onbeforeunload events) Bypasses the annoying dialog boxes that spawn when a page is being closed

That seemed pretty random, and not related to the ultimate goal of the project. Are there other normal features that are disabled, that don't relate to Google at all?

Is there a decent alternative to Chrome on Android? I am absolutely, nauseatingly sick of ads on mobile. Almost every news website I visit fills the browser with full screen ads that are infuriatingly difficult to close, change the scrolling behavior and viewport in an entirely unusable way, or try to launch Google Play Store links in the background. It's so annoying, and definitely to the point of being one of my top ten frustrations in life.

The last time I used Firefox on mobile, it didn't integrate well with the phone UI. It felt clunky, the fonts were bad, and the viewport was wrong on many websites.

I feel like Mozilla would do the most good in the world by spending more effort on a mobile browser. Mobile Chrome is flat out disgusting and abhorrent, but I haven't found anything else that's remotely as performant. It just sucks that Google refuses to allow extensions to protect their ad revenue.

Are there any good alternative browsers that block shitty, intrusive, and entirely irrelevant mobile ads? Are they open source?

I use Firefox on Android, with uBlock Origin plugin.

It's not perfect. There are deviations from the usual "Material Design" UI standards. Some sites don't render properly. It's slower. But it's worth it to me.

I recently switched to Firefox on Android as well, specifically for uBlock Origin support, which has significantly improved browsing overall. Only issue I have is that default apps won't open for links. Otherwise I've been very happy with it.

As I have only just learned higher up on this page, FF has an Android button in the URL bar to switch from, for example, a Youtube page to the Youtube native application. I was missing this too!

A user agent switcher helps too. Google intentionally hobble their own websites (can't access search tools, for example) if you use Firefox, but changing the user agent made things work well for me. YMMV of course, but I used the "Android Phone" setting in the "Phony" extension for years and had far fewer problems than I had using a Firefox user agent.

Google intentionally hobble their own websites (can't access search tools, for example) if you use Firefox

Do you have more information on this?

I really like Firefox with uBlock origin.

Just as a post about Googles next generic Whatsapp-clone (with x-size-larger emojis) will get some 500+ upvotes, so too will a post like this get upwards of 200 votes.

The HN community really is polarized ( or so it seems ) about these data-harvesting companies and issues like privacy/transparency.

My thought then, is which group is larger here (privacy-aware vs. GooAppFace )

Correct me if I'm wrong, but doesn't this remove Safe Browsing? Not a good idea.

Yeah, seems like it: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/re... and https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/commit/9163f6e... and https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/blob/master/re...

That is a very bad idea. I sympathize with the idea of the project, but please think twice before meddling in security things. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9779990

I filed an issue to explain the risks: https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium/issues/50

I have no interest in my urls being sent to google for "security checking" (I am aware of the hashing)

Then run your own safe browsing list.

Connecting to a foreign company in a country that directly threatened you with invasion and relying on that for webbrowsing is not acceptable.

Well and how would I go about that? Your suggestion doesn't make any sense because it's not viable.

There's a setting to disable SafeBrowsing in Chromium, too. You can just disable that. But force-disabling it is dangerous.

I'm not sure what your point you're trying to make with the invasion comment.

This is awesome.

One of my biggest gripes with Chrome is the inability to stop a rogue site from playing audio (on top of the music I'm listening to in another tab). CNN is one of the worst, as soon as I find the freaking video on the page and try to pause/mute it, the video controls slide away. Why can't Chrome allow me to just turn off audio on that tab? I have assumed Google doesn't give us that because it will interfere with their advertising or something.

(maybe there is an extension that will help? I haven't found one)

Why can't Chrome allow me to just turn off audio on that tab

Well this feature is built into Chrome. Just right click the rogue tab and click "Mute Tab"

Removing Google's binary blobs is mitigating one issue, but replacing it with an entire binary blog from an anonymous github user might be introducing new ones.

On that note - can you tell us more about the project? ie. if you plan on keeping this updated long terms (i've watched a lot of promising chromium forks fade after an initial big splash), what your plans are, if you'll you accept contributions, how the binary distributions are built so we can verify the checksums, if you can tag the Chromium releases from Google so they can be verified, etc.

I've had the idea of a chromium fork with privacy enhancements in the back of my mind for a while now (turns out a lot of people have) specifically to replace Tor Browser and/or have a lighter browser (without canvas, webgl, webrtc etc.) with better defaults (ie. no hardware access, location, notifications, cookies, history, etc.) for opening links, private browsing etc[1].

This may be a good base to work on - assuming you want to go beyond just "de-googlify"

[1] I think there is a real need for an alternate browser that is lightweight[2] and has stricter privacy and security controls - with proper user segregation (ie. you really don't want to open random links from social media in the same browser session as where you're logging into your primary accounts).

[2] ie. do to Chrome/Firefox what Firefox originally did to Netscape - and Chrome would be the better foundation to work on

That kind of browser sounds useful, more so particulary on mobile devices Chrome/Android/Google is incredibly 'sticky' in that it tries to quietly log you in all the damn time.

In what sense? I’m using Chrome Beta on Android, and I don’t recall being prompted to log in. Perhaps there was such a prompt during initial setup, but it has never tried to log me in quietly since.

On a fresh Android, at first boot, it will ask you if you want to sync stuff. I always choose 'no'.

I then proceed onto the settings app, into 'accounts'. There, I tap 'Google' and lo and behold: App-data, Calendar, Contacts, Google Fit Data and People details are all ticked to sync.

I turn them off.

Then I open the default browser. It logs me into Google, by default. I have to explicitly tell it not to.

Google really really wants users to be logged in. That is my experience anyway.

a lighter browser (without canvas, webgl, webrtc etc.)

Please do not do this. Webgl and Webrtc are fundamental technologies needed to efficiently do basic activities like process an image or send sound data to another user.

I am all for a "lighter" browser, by removing UI, removing dev tools, etc. Get rid of the stuff that's not required to make a web page work well. But WebGL and WebRTC are cornerstone technologies for the web to thrive. WebRTC is critical for allowing open source software to thrive in particular (allows apps that don't need a central server) and WebGL is critical in particular for web software to compete in the AR/VR age. We need 100% browser support on these two APIs, and we need it yesterday.

I realize these technologies are not currently doing anything for you. I sympathize. But we need them in browsers now so that we can use them in 10 years.

Please, please, please jetsam other parts of the ship before you cut those features.

removing dev tools

Hold your horses! The introduction of dev tools was one of the best things to happen to browsers. Removing them would take away opportunity from a lot of people in learning web development, and would also lead to websites having more bugs.

My mom doesn't need dev tools preinstalled in her browser. Though I doubt removing them would make the browser faster/leaner.

Is there something particular about your mom I should take away here? Or moms in general? Or women? Or older people?

My mom, like yours, would have no use for dev tools -- because she's just not interested. And neither would my brother, but my grandma would have loved learning about this stuff if she had lived long enough, and my kids have discovered this "secret hacker mode" all on their own and are delighted.

Yeah, but you will need it when your mom calls you asking for help with some broken website she is trying to use :)

Really? Do you commonly debug random websites for your mom?

You can hardly see source in Chrome without the dev tools. The Ctrl+U "functionality" just generates huge HTML document (a table filled with spans to highlight syntax) and it is very slow on large websites (both generating it and rendering I'd assume).

The CTRL-U is just the HTML part of the page. Not the CSS, images, or the other stuff.

That's nothing to do with Chrome though, that's how the HTML is.

I'm using Chrome and pressed Ctrl-U. Nothing happened. What was supposed to happen?

Please do not do this. Webgl and Webrtc are fundamental technologies needed to efficiently do basic activities like process an image or send sound data to another user.

fundamental technologies

basic activities

process an image or send sound data to another user.

We must live in different worlds, those are not "basic" or "fundamental" to me. I'm not sure I've ever used either.

the AR/VR age

You're overstating how important these technologies are. Maybe in 10 years but only time will tell.

IPFS already has a peer-to-peer chat room that can share messages, files, and streaming videos without a central server. This means users have a way to share content without worrying that it could fall into the wrong hands or be censored by big entities like corporations or governments. And it all depends on tech like WebRTC.

That kind of infrastructure is crucial to the freedom of information and therefore the freedom of global citizens. You will not realize we need it until it's too late.

The revolution will not be televised, it will not be in your news feed, it will happen in the streets and in the minds of citizens, and we need to prepare ourselves with the proper tools for that time, because it is coming sooner than you think.

I would be interesting to make a browser where these things are by default unloaded plugins with the ability to detect when they are needed. Then the best of both worlds are present... no? Some people wish they didn't have to pay the costs for these things because they never use them.

"Anonymous github user" part is very true. I am not about to install random binaries from the internet. I wish there was reputable org behind the builds. I'll stick with google binaries unless somebody knows a good alternative.