Is Firefox OK?

Mozilla’s privacy-heavy browser is flatlining but still crucial to future of the web.

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[vershner]

I'm not seeing anything in Mozilla's statements that suggests they understand where they went wrong, so I've little hope of them turning it around.

Firefox built its user base by appealing to tech-savvy users who then spread the word through the mainstream. That meant encouraging and supporting customisation. Privacy was only one area that Firefox lead the way. The fact that add-ons could customise the UI was a big deal.

Mozilla has spent a decade now removing customisation and, seemingly, doing everything it can to alienate tech-savvy users. All to try and compete directly with Chrome in the mainstream market where they are so grossly outmatched in money and influence that they never had a chance.

 

[vershner]

As a desktop Linux user, the thought of Firefox going away is frightening.

Putting aside Mozilla's own lack of direction, what really perplexes me is why there's so many projects dedicated to fluff like desktop environments but almost zero motivation for a good browser/fork. RedHat/IBM seem to only care about the cloud, so there's no hope for Epiphany anymore. Canonical is busy trying to snapify everything to ensure we turn geriatric while waiting for snap packages to load. System76 wants to build yet-another-gnome-alternative instead of doing sensible like donating to the Librewolf project.

Seriously, if/when Firefox dies (they've started working with Satan/Meta, so it's pretty close I reckon), I'll probably just ditch desktop Linux for home use and move to iPadOS (personally not a fan of MacOS, which I use at work) and Safari or something, because the only alternatives on Linux at that point will be reskinned Chrome alternatives like Brave, ugh.

Have you not tried Palemoon? I use that on Linux and Windows. It's pretty much Firefox from 10 years ago as far as the GUI is concerned.

 

[vershner]

As a desktop Linux user, the thought of Firefox going away is frightening.

Putting aside Mozilla's own lack of direction, what really perplexes me is why there's so many projects dedicated to fluff like desktop environments but almost zero motivation for a good browser/fork. RedHat/IBM seem to only care about the cloud, so there's no hope for Epiphany anymore. Canonical is busy trying to snapify everything to ensure we turn geriatric while waiting for snap packages to load. System76 wants to build yet-another-gnome-alternative instead of doing sensible like donating to the Librewolf project.

Seriously, if/when Firefox dies (they've started working with Satan/Meta, so it's pretty close I reckon), I'll probably just ditch desktop Linux for home use and move to iPadOS (personally not a fan of MacOS, which I use at work) and Safari or something, because the only alternatives on Linux at that point will be reskinned Chrome alternatives like Brave, ugh.

Have you not tried Palemoon? I use that on Linux and Windows. It's pretty much Firefox from 10 years ago as far as the GUI is concerned.

I used it some years ago but something (can't remember what) broke and I ran back to FF. Nowadays I'm mostly on Librewolf (basically Firefox + Arkenfox.js). Currently taking a look at Palemoon's website. I do like that it offers a traditional repository install method instead of the new-age Snap/Flatpak nonsense. Some questions about the Linux version, if you don't mind;

How's Palemoon doing these days on the security front? Are they up-to-date with all the usual CVEs and whatnot?

It receives regular updates and most vulnerabilities seem to be patch quickly. It is a small team though and there have been some CVEs in the past that took a while to be fixed.
Quite a lot of the detection and patching of vulnerabilities comes from work done on Firefox though, so I don't know how well the Palemoon team would cope if Firefox ceased. The two browsers have steadily diverged over the years though, so I don't know how much common code there is now.

What kind of browser-fingerprint does it leave, and can I spoof it?

By default it pretends to be Firefox, but you can switch that to be native. I've never look at its fingerprint in any detail though.

Does uBlock Origin work? Currently looking at the Extensions section on Palemoon's site and it's listed as "Legacy".

I don't use uBlock Origin myself, but I have used Noscript, and that works, but it is considered unsupported by the Palemoon team. ie - if you report a bug and you have that extension, they'll only look at it if the bug still occurs with that extension removed.
I use eMatrix myself, which is a much more granular script blocker, and that works fine.

Does it integrate with my GTK theme? Current Firefox/Librewolf doesn't either, but at least I can beat it into submission with CSS editing, unlike Brave or Chrome which just look like their Windows versions.

Seems to, and you can fix it with CSS if needs be.

X11 or Wayland, or both? For X11, will the usual firejail sandboxing cause problems?

I'm running it on MX which only has X11, so not sure about Wayland support.

GPU acceleration?

Well there is a checkbox in the preferences for this. Can't say I notice a massive difference with or without it though.

 

[vershner]

I don't understand all the complaints about loss of customization.

Neither does Mozilla, hence why they will keep bleeding users.

It's a bizarre catch 22. Most browser users don't need/care about extreme UI customization. Yet Mozilla needs some of the people that do to be evangelists for them but those features were literally holding back the performance that general users do care about. Meanwhile those customization people are letting it loose to browsers that are even less flexible/customizable like Chrome. I don't get it and honestly I think they made the right call.

I do think the Quantum UI was a little better than the current one though. It was unique yet very comfortable. The new one is fine and fits in with other "modern" apps but it's a bit bland and monochrome

We're not just talking about extreme customisation, and I think you're wrong about most users not caring. It's just that they're less able to do something about it when something doesn't work the way they expected.
Also, when most users complain about performance, it's rarely the browser's fault that something is slow. It's far more often their internet connection or their machine.

 

[vershner]

To be precise:

* XUL abandoned and with it thousands of powerful extensions (a ton of them have never been reimplemented)

On that specific point, see here.

There were good reasons, as that article points out. But people aren't rational like that. All they saw, was that almost 20.000 addons became obsolete. Firefox became more like Chrome. So why not use the original? I think that's a major reason why Firefox lost market share, and still is losing it. There are no compelling features that can attract new users. "It's not Chrome" isn't a good sales pitch.

I'm not sure it works quite like that. I think that most tech-savvy users have a list of things that they require from a browser. That list will vary from user to user, but if their browser stops offering one of those features, they will look for an alternative.
My list is:
1. Stable and working with most websites I use.
2. Regular security updates.
3. Full URL displayed and editable in the URL bar with no auto-fixing or search.
4. Tabs at the side.
5. Script blocking on a per-domain basis.
6. Search-as-you-type.

I'm only aware of Palemoon and Vivaldi that fulfil these, and Palemoon is beginning to struggle with 1. as more sites are only tested on Chrome.
Firefox struggles with 3. and 4.
Edge fails on 6.
Chrome fails on 3,4,5 & 6 plus a host of other annoyances.

 

[vershner]

I used Firefox since it was called Firebird, started with version 0.78, waay back in 1999. Used it until Mozilla fired Brendan Eich. I dropped them instantly and have never gone back. I used PaleMoon for years, until they broke Firefox add on compatibility, so now I use Waterfox. I have never, and will never, use Chrome in any version or form whatsoever; Google is absolutely evil, and consequently Chrome is banned from my systems.

Why do people care about this Eich character? He seems to just be another bigot that thinks other people's happiness infringes on his own. God forbid gay people be allowed to marry /s. I swear, these people would stone gays if they could get away with it. And that's the guy you're rooting for?

The fall of Eich coincided with the start of the fall of Firefox, so people assume that it was the cause. Now, correlation does not equal causation, but it's quite clear that the people now running Mozilla have no idea what made it popular in the first place. There was a notable change in the tone of messages coming from Mozilla post-Eich, with the emphasis on vague political ideas like "privacy" and "freedom", rather than specific technical changes.

Also, some people simply don't care about the political leanings of a CEO, as long as it doesn't affect the product. Firefox worked just fine before you knew the CEO was an arsehole, and it'll keep working just fine afterwards.

 

[vershner]

Firefox worked just fine before you knew the CEO was an arsehole, and it'll keep working just fine afterwards.

And how long will it continue to work just fine, if all the developers leave because the CEO creates an environment actively hostile to them?

Then you would move to another browser. The point is that the decision is made on the quality of the product, not the opinions of the CEO.

 

[vershner]

Firefox worked just fine before you knew the CEO was an arsehole, and it'll keep working just fine afterwards.

And how long will it continue to work just fine, if all the developers leave because the CEO creates an environment actively hostile to them?

Then you would move to another browser. The point is that the decision is made on the quality of the product, not the opinions of the CEO.

So, the correct response to the Mozilla leadership forcing out a CEO, is to make a decision to stop using the browser based on the politics of project leadership, because you think people should judge the project on its technical merits instead of politics? I am confuse.

Sorry, but that sentence makes no sense. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but I think you must have misunderstood my post.
For a start, I said nothing about a "correct response". People can use whatever browser they want, for whatever reason.
My point before was that some people make their choice based on the quality of the product, regardless of the politics of the CEO (or even the entire company).
So, if the quality of the product drops (regardless of the reason) then they would switch to something else, but if the product continued to be satisfactory they would stay with it, regardless of whether the CEO was removed or not. If the removal (or non-removal) of the CEO later caused developers to leave and this lead to a drop in quality of the product then they would switch, but again, the drop in quality would be the deciding factor.

 

[vershner]

Firefox worked just fine before you knew the CEO was an arsehole, and it'll keep working just fine afterwards.

And how long will it continue to work just fine, if all the developers leave because the CEO creates an environment actively hostile to them?

Then you would move to another browser. The point is that the decision is made on the quality of the product, not the opinions of the CEO.

So ethics and morals mean nothing to you as the product is technically-superior?

So, for example, if the CEO espoused the view that using child/slave labor to source and manufacture a product was okay, you'd be fine with that as long as the product's quality was better? You're free to hold such a view, but don't expect the rest of us to do so.

The views and actions of a company's CEO definitely matters as they set the direction and behavior of the company from the top. Not all of us believe in an world in which companies are simply ruthless, amoral actors.

I spoke about political views. Using child or slave labour is not generally a political view these days.

Also, I didn't state that this was some sort of moral framework to live ones life by. In fact, I didn't even state that it was my own personal view. I certainly don't share Eich's politics, but I'd already moved away from Firefox before I found out about the Eich stuff, so it didn't affect my decision.

Generally speaking though, I don't boycott products because of the CEO's views, but I can think of cases where I would.

 

[vershner]

Firefox worked just fine before you knew the CEO was an arsehole, and it'll keep working just fine afterwards.

And how long will it continue to work just fine, if all the developers leave because the CEO creates an environment actively hostile to them?

Then you would move to another browser. The point is that the decision is made on the quality of the product, not the opinions of the CEO.

So, the correct response to the Mozilla leadership forcing out a CEO, is to make a decision to stop using the browser based on the politics of project leadership, because you think people should judge the project on its technical merits instead of politics? I am confuse.

Sorry, but that sentence makes no sense. I'm not sure what point you're trying to make, but I think you must have misunderstood my post.
For a start, I said nothing about a "correct response". People can use whatever browser they want, for whatever reason.
My point before was that some people make their choice based on the quality of the product, regardless of the politics of the CEO (or even the entire company).
So, if the quality of the product drops (regardless of the reason) then they would switch to something else, but if the product continued to be satisfactory they would stay with it, regardless of whether the CEO was removed or not. If the removal (or non-removal) of the CEO later caused developers to leave and this lead to a drop in quality of the product then they would switch, but again, the drop in quality would be the deciding factor.

Because we're in a thread arguing with a bunch of people who DID stop using Firefox because they were angry the homophobic CEO resigned. I assumed because you jumped in to argue against getting rid of a homophobic CEO that you were one of the homophobes who stopped using Firefox because "SJWs" were ruining it, magically, in the space of the few days it took for the news of the homophobe leaving to percolate out into the media.

Well you assumed wrongly. I'd already moved away from Firefox before I read about Eich anyway.
My criticism of the people running Mozilla now is not about them being "SJW"s. I've no idea if they are or not, but I can see that they have no understanding of why people once loved Firefox.