Source: I made it up
That doesn’t seem to be a source for OP’s message.
I guess Anonym, PPA, Cliqz, pocket, the default telemetry that is non-trivial to disable, and whatever this latest nonsense is are all just hallucinations.
I use firefox, I mostly like it, but it still doesn’t support chromium style tab groups (no, that one extension is not similar), and its webgpu implementation also doesn’t work on most websites more than a year after Google made their version available by default
Not sure if this is “that one extension”, but I use Simple Tab Groups for Workspaces-like functionality, similar to Edge and Vivaldi. I know, it isn’t tab groups, but I use it similarly.
I’m guessing, they’re referring to multi-account container tabs. It’s what the Chrome feature took heavy inspiration from, but of course without the privacy protection aspect.
I’ve started using Tree Style Tabs in Firefox and really like it. Maybe vertical tabs aren’t so bad?
I’ve been using Vivalid, they have ‘Workspaces’ (as its Tab Group analog) which is different but in a way that was a pleasant surprise and kind of reminds me of older systems. Imagine working with one tab group at a time and the rest disappear when you’re not on that workspace.
Vivaldi has 3 types of tab groups, workspaces, sessions, and profiles.
Take your pick
is that chromium?
It’s chromium based, but it’s pretty custom at this point. Chrome extensions are still compatible, but the interface/etc will throw you a bit if you’re looking for something that’s a direct swap.
Tab groups are in the works but we haven’t heard anything new about it since March.
Mozilla could definitely be putting their development time into the areas that the browser is actually behind in
How convenient that this happens just a few days after Firefox implements the features that have been blocking me from switching for the last few years.
Still, I’m curious about other browsers. We know Chrome is killing V2, but what about other Chromium-based browsers? I saw below a comment espousing Brave, but I’d rather use Chrome than Brave because of the gross crypto bs. What about Vivaldi, Opera, and Chredge? Will they keep supporting Manifest V2?
just a few days after Firefox implements the features that have been blocking me from switching for the last few years.
Which are those?
Multi-window support on iPad is the main one. Less important, though it would have bugged me if they didn’t have it, is sustained Incognito tabs—which apparently they had until a couple of months ago, then removed without explanation, then added back in just 1 day ago, also without explanation. Found a thread on their forums with a whole bunch of people perplexed and asking what happened.
Your first point at least is an iPad thing. Nothing is fully featured on the iPad. Not even safari. It’s thanks to that exact fact that chrome is at least mostly fully featured on the iPad. If safari had comparable function, you could bank on them blocking those features from the chrome app too. There’s a deal made somewhere. I wouldn’t be surprised if cash flow from Google is why safari is still the same piece of crap it always has been. “Hey your R&D + return for safari only nets you 1% YOY. We’ll give you 2% YOY if you just don’t even bother.”
They only know raising prices and knee-jerk reactions to competitive moves in their market space. Additional functionality for the user is only granted when it’s being used as a cudgle against their competition. Never for users benefit.
If you’re seeing new functionality on the iPad Firefox app, it’s likely because Firefox figured out a way to implement it without paying apple because they want the user to have that function. Totally different ethos.
If you’re seeing new functionality on the iPad Firefox app, it’s likely because Firefox figured out a way to implement it without paying apple because they want the user to have that function
Nothing at all remotely like that. They just don’t have enough developers to have implemented it sooner. It’s an API that Apple introduced in 2019, that Google implemented within months, Microsoft implemented within a couple of years, and Mozilla finally implemented this July.
Regulations, like the Digital Market Act, are also a big factor.
There are actually no alternative browser on iOS. Before the European Digital Market Act all iOS browser have to use webkit, so while you could install Firefox, Chrome and others, they were actually using Safari’s rendering engine. I believe that’s where a lot of the limitations come from. Now with the DMA Firefox could use it’s own rendering engine but this hasn’t landed yet. I don’t know if any other browser has switched from webkit yet.
There are actually no alternative browser on iOS
Sort of. As you say, it’s more accurate to say that they’re forced to use Safari’s rendering, but everything else is up to them, the same as how any other app would be developed. That’s how they get their own features like bookmark syncing etc.
Being able to have multiple windows of the same app is a feature Apple introduced in 2019, and obviously Safari supported it immediately. Google Chrome added support for multiple windows after a few months. I switched to Microsoft Edge once they added support for it about a year, maybe 18 months later, and have just been waiting for Firefox to finally support it so I can switch to that.
Incidentally, 2019 is also the year Firefox finally added support on their desktop browser for a CSS property (
column-span
) that a site I used to frequent required to work. Though by that time I no longer used that particular site.
Floorp for power users
I moved from vivaldi to it. Move the the side bar to the left and it felt just like home
I’ve been curious about Floorp. Are you using it as your daily driver? And pros and cons?
The biggest pro for me is the vertical tabs. It’s got the same vertical tabs that Edge has which are great. I only use Edge at work but it’s great especially when you have a web based production environment like nCino that you work in all day and have dozens of tabs open. You can group them up nicely and keep yourself organized. Floorp is based off of Firefox ESR so it’s on an older build (but up to date security). The current build is based off FF 115 while FF is on 129 now.
Have you tried Tree Style Tab or Sidebery?
I’ve tried but for some reason, I can never get them set up correctly and I’m not technologically illiterate. Its been a while since I tried it though since Floorp just works.
Firefox feels so much slowwr than chrome when loading sites for me
If you’re talking about Google owned sites, there’s circumstantial evidence that Google sets their sites up to do that intentionally in order to gimp competitors.
For me, switching from chrone to ff around 3 years it felt the opposite. Ff opens so much faster. Also scrolling is way smoother.
That’s weird, something is definitely wrong. Are they set up in a similar way? The first thing that comes to my mind is: Are you using the same DNS server on both? Differences in DNS response time should be more noticeable than rendering time on most hardware. And I think Firefox doesn’t use the system DNS by default but I might be wrong. Do you mind checking? I’m curious now.
I’ll take slower over ad-bloated every day.
Pihole for the win
I keep seeing this posted here and elsewhere. Is there a simple, easy step-by-step explanation for how to build one of these and how to deploy it on your home network?
I’ve got very limited experience with working with Raspberry Pi.
You actually need a pi to run pihole, anything that can run docker would do
You absolutely don’t need a pi to run pihole. They have a list of officially supported OSs that can run the software, regardless of the hardware (as long as it meets the insanely low system requirements), and it can also be run in a docker container.
I looked into making one a while back and it’s honestly quite complicated if you’re not a techy person. I gave up on it, though I think you can also buy them pre-built for a bit more money so you might look into that.
Their Official website has easy to follow step-by-step instructions
Step 1) Get a raspberry pi. Step 2) Open terminal and paste: curl -sSL https://install.pi-hole.net | bash Step 3) Point your DNS to the raspberry pi’s IP address.
Interesting. So does it slow down your speeds any that you can tell?
It doesn’t really. I won’t give a whole course on DNS and network stuff, but basically it has zero effect on your download and upload speeds.
DNS is like a phone book. You type Wikipedia.org and DNS translates that to an address like 200.92.36.68
When you download stuff, that’s not going through the Pi at all. So there’s no negative effects.
Your own raspberry pi will probably outperform your ISPs DNS, since it’s on your local network.
Also, just by blocking what it does, pages load a lot less, so they load a lot quicker.
If you don’t want to tinker with a Raspberry Pi, a simpler alternative would be AdGuard DNS
https://adguard-dns.io/en/public-dns.html
(Configure manually -> Routers)
I use one too, but it doesn’t block certain things like YouTube’s embedded adverts. Also use uBlock Origin.
It will block youtube ads if the video is embedded in another website. When I want to find a youtube video on my tv I just search it on DuckDucGo, since watching it there blocks ads and seems to bypass any restrictions they’ve placed on watching videos outside of youtube.
I need to set up a cheap computer and just run the TV as a monitor so I can have all the features I want, including a real browser with ublock. But in the meantime, this fixes the one issue I have with DNS level blocking.
You can get “android on a stick” computers and sideload some de-googled stuff. They plug right into the USB port of some smart tvs. You might be able to hack an Amazon Firestick too.
That’s not the same. DNS blocking is great but it can’t block as well as a proper ad blocker.
No, but better then nothing and network wide
my issue with firefox atm is that both twitter extensions I use have been hobbled/removed by it for what looks to me to be spurious reasons.
https://github.com/kheina-com/Blue-Blocker/discussions/294
https://github.com/dimdenGD/OldTwitter/discussions/752
inb4 “lol @ using twitter in 2024” I just steal memes from it, and mastodon/bluesky simply aren’t up to speed yet.
Weighing options though I’ll go with Firefox and shitty twitter experience rather then Chrome and the ads everywhere experience. Not really a contest there. Just idle complaints.
the number of forks says ff is next. the ad machine needs your money.
The ad machine doesn’t need my money. They never even asked. I am the product to them.
I mean unless Mozilla starts getting sued by Ad companies to force them to ban ad blockers, I don’t think that will happen because being able to have ad blockers is a major selling point.
But even if it does happen, Firefox is open source and has been forked, so the next alternative is LibreWolf.
Sadly Mozilla is becoming the next Google of web browsers.
What?
Have you not heard the news? Mozilla essentially have become an advertising company by acquiring adtech start-up called Anonym. I think the only way to escape this bullshit is by installing privacy-enabled Firefox fork (such as LibreWolf) or to wait for an alternative web browser to rise up (like Ladybird or Servo) which has user freedom and privacy in its first priority, which is something that Mozilla doesn’t seem to care lately.
no I don’t, I have not keeping up with browser news lately after switched to Floorp, not sure if I still live long enough to see Ladybird or Servo officially released
Still the best browser, even though the majority left it for the speed they think chrome has.
YouTube videos for some reason won’t load for me on Firefox. I switched to the Waterfox fork and it’s fine.
Well, Google has been caught trying to make their sites slower / malfunctioning on Firefox. Usually they get away with it by saying it’s a mistake.
Google just maliciously makes their websites work way worse on Firefox. For YouTube I personally just use FreeTube on desktop and Tubular (A NewPipe fork) on Android so I never have to interact with that goddamn website
As someone who uses tubular I wish it got updated more tho. The number of debug versions I have installed from pull requests is like 5 at this point 😭
I’m fine with a slow update cycle as long as they don’t wait too long to actually merge app breaking features, like when recently youtube changed a few things and videos would no longer load.
I’m back on Firefox now, but I did originally leave it because Edge had the speed. Not sure if that’s because it’s more optimized for Windows.
I mean yeah, all these big tech companies are trying to make their products feel faster, because that’s the only space they can compete. When it comes to privacy, they all lose.
Chrome definitely has the more sleek and responsive UI.
But that’s all Chrome has.
Pretty happy with Brave, but I’m guessing that being a downstream chromium fork they’ll eventually be stuffed and forced into using V3?
Brave said they would stay on v2.
I’m really hoping Google’s antitrust case doesn’t kill Mozilla. Over 85% of Mozilla’s cash flow is dependent on Google paying for that search box.
If Mozilla stopped paying his CEO millions of dollars… and if they actually financed development with people donations…
We don’t know what they pay their new CEO.
Honestly at least they’d be forced to revamp their business model and focus on their users. I’d willingly donate to them monthly if it went to firefox directly and they acted in our interest accordingly
I don’t think google wants to get hit with another antitrust lawsuit for web browsing, so I am sure they will figure out some other deal to funnel money to Firefox
Good point. Could be like MS and Apple in the late 90’s. When Apple was on death’s door, Gates invested in Apple so MS would have faux competition for regulators.
I use Opera
(yes i know it’s “Chinese spyware” if the Chinese government really wants to know what youtube videos i watch for hours, what porn i browse, and what impulse purchases i make they can have it, i don’t fucking care, when i want privacy i use Tor)
anyway i use Opera, and despite the fact it’s been my browser of choice for over a decade i will switch to Firefox in a heartbeat if my ad blockers stop working and i’m forced to watch ads for over 3 days in a row (in uBlock devs i trust)
If you want opera without rationalizing what the Chinese government does to you, you can try vivaldi.
nah it’s not rationalising, i really just don’t care. I mentioned it there because the second i mention Opera anywhere the first reply is always “but did you know it’s Chinese spyware?”
I like Opera’s features like workspaces, tab islands, built in adblock, built in vpn etc. it really suits my scatter brain self
I also used to use opera, and thought the Chinese ownership made me uneasy, I only left due to their short term loan scandal.
But honestly I don’t regret it because vivaldi has a lovely community. Opera just felt cold and faceless, and I didn’t even know anyone else who used it.
Vivaldi has all the features (except VPN) and a lot more, so you won’t find it lacking there
huh interesting! is it chromium based too though? I think at this point i’d mostly want to make a switch off chromium browsers with all the rumoured forced ads nonsense
Yes, but built in adblocker like opera so it’s unaffected
nah i’d not trust that, if chromium itself gets invaded by forced ads no chromium based browser is safe
Are you talking about manifest v3 or something else? Cause manifest v3 doesn’t force ads, it just cripples third party ad blockers. Also viv, (and some others, like brave) already disable plenty of Google stuff like FloC and privacy sandbox
wasn’t tor created by DARPA?
Nah it was the United States Naval Research Laboratory.
uBO Lite works on Manifest v3 and it works quite well in my experience, so I kinda don’t get the whole manifest whining
Mozilla is about to collapse due to the Google antitrust ruling though.
The antitrust case is about Google and Apple, not Mozilla. It doesn’t mean the antitrust case will have any impact on Mozilla, because it’s not a major player, unlike Apple.
I don’t think you realize where and why Mozilla gets its funding.
Um, what makes you think that?
The Google antitrust decision will result in Mozilla losing 90% of their revenue since Google won’t be allowed to pay them to use their search engine anymore.
Mozilla makes about $590m a year.
$510m of that is from Google paying for the search engine default spot.
Well I for one hope they figure out an alternative income, like a premium subscription? Or perhaps look to get acquired by proton and get some integration going with those services? I’m no expert here, I just think that they have a lot of happy users, and there must be some way to figure this out financially.
They need to reform as a non-profit with user membership, an elected board, and fundraising like Wikipedia.
I’m not aware of any non-profit with staffing the size of Mozilla. The problem is that you need to be able to make money and to set it aside for bad times, so you don’t have to fire employees the moment the donations falter.
The 501©(3) non-profit form of tax-exempt non-profit, which is what the Mozilla Foundation continues to be, is not allowed to do so. That’s why they opened up the for-profit Mozilla Corporation subsidiary that does most of the Firefox development.
On the plus side, the only shareholder of the Mozilla Corporation is the Mozilla Foundation, which therefore essentially cannot accept any of the profit the MoCo might make.
This is the real answer
That’s a ridiulously low amount of money given the amount of users. I’d happily pay 10-20 bucks a year to keep mozilla alive. Not that I like it much, but more so than the big alternatives
Yeah, Apple seems to be able to fetch a little more than a billion per percent of the browser market (18% at 20B), but Mozilla is only able to score 0.5B for 2-3% of the market. Mozilla is getting a quarter of Apple’s rate.
That said, Apple has a lot more leverage than Google, and they can strong arm a better deal. I also wouldn’t be surprised if Safari users are just a more valuable marketing cohort. Firefox’s user base is going to have a lot more people who opt out of and or block targeted marketing.
Mozilla and its murder/suicide pact with Google falling apart may be the best thing that could possibly happen to Firefox.