In the short term, it might not be so bad. Chrome is a good browser--for users and developers. It's not like when Microsoft had dominance over the space, and--because of their crap, standards-flouting browser--made it harder to design and devlelop good websites for everyone.
Long-term, it stinks. Likely that Google gets a bigger seat at the table in determining what web standards of the future will be, which of course they'll use for business advantage. That could mean a lot of things: maybe making it so their web apps (Maps, Docs, etc.) perform better than any equivalent apps in Chrome/Chromium, or at least giving those apps a head start in taking advantage of new and upcoming standards. And those standards may not prioritize things like accessibility and privacy unless Google sees it in their interest (or is forced by law) to do so.
Very interesting read. Thanks!The beauty of the internet is its open nature and cross-platform ubiquity. No single corporation or developer controls it. If that were to happen it could threaten the future of the open internet. Having viable competition in the browser space is important to prevent this from happening.
The internet specifications are supposed to be open but at the end of the day web developers are typically going to be working against actual browser implementations rather than the official specs themselves. As a consequence of this the browser developers with the greatest market share end up with the most power in implementing web standards. Back in the day this was the concern with Internet Explorer and Microsoft's infamous "Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish" tactics. The threat was that if MS got their way the internet would no longer be the standard, Internet Explorer would be, and MS could effectively dictate the future of the internet. At its peak in the early 2000s Internet Explorer had ~94% market share but thanks to the development of Firefox and Apple's Safari and pushback from web developers and internet advocates, MS control of the internet ultimately never came to pass and Internet Explorer's market share gradually eroded. It's debatable whether there's ever been any truly healthy level of competition between browsers but at least in the later 2000s and earlier 2010s there were more independent viable options: Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Opera, and later Chrome.
However with the decline of Internet Explorer came the rise of Chrome. Utilizing some impressive technological advancements along with some very aggressive marketing Google was able to rapidly gain position in the browser space. This has resulted in Chrome starting to gain IE-like dominance. And the dominance of Chrome is already leading to anti-competitive behaviours. Google has admitted they frequently no longer even bother testing on browsers other than Chrome and Safari, they redesigned YouTube based on a non-standard spec only implemented in Chrome so it runs like crap on other browsers, Hangouts for months didn't work in non-Chrome browsers as Google's WebRTC implementation didn't properly follow the spec, and there are many other examples. Google is even currently trying to create a game streaming service that only runs in Chrome. If Chrome market share continues to rise expect this kind of behaviour to become more and more common.
The modern internet has become so complex that it's become extremely difficult to create a new browser engine from scratch. Doing so takes years of work and tons of resources which at this point limits it to companies and organizations with lots of experience and sufficiently deep pockets. Once a browser engine is abandoned it becomes very difficult to ever resume development in any meaningful capacity. Now that Microsoft has largely ceded control of Edge's engine to Google it will be extremely difficult for them to regain independence in the future. Sure they can fork the code but if the issue is that developers ignored them in favour of Google then they're just back to square one.
Overall the main issue to me is the longer term threat. What happens to the internet if Google effectively dictates its future? Do anti-tracking measures still exist? Does ad blocking? Does more invasive DRM become the standard? Do developers write cross-platform web content or do they develop exclusively for Chrome? Is any new internet competitor immediately snuffed out? Are new internet standards designed to benefit the user or are they made to benefit Google's bottom line? I feel like a lot is at stake here and this topic frequently isn't given the attention it deserves.
yeh i was thinking wtf is going on? Youtube is seriously bugging out for me (1 out 3 videos won't load) and small other bugs with other pages.So much shit is broken in the last update. Twitter videos, pinterest search, any media heavy sites have largre swathes that don't load or are unresponsive. This is with or without content blocking enabled.
Luckily this is not a problem I have. Could be something wrong on your end. I wouldn't know how to help thoughSo much shit is broken in the last update. Twitter videos, pinterest search, any media heavy sites have largre swathes that don't load or are unresponsive. This is with or without content blocking enabled.
I also noticed that "Reload all tabs" is no more: you now have to do an extra step (Select all tabs -> Reload selected tabs). Mozilla really loves those extra steps
Isn't that basically like asking "Does anyone know how to keep my browser vulnerable?"
Anyone know how to turn automatic updates off? And the notifications / popups to update. That drives me nuts!
Yeah, but if stuff is broken (sites, extensions, etc), I want to wait a version or two before upgrading until those issues have been worked out.Isn't that basically like asking "Does anyone know how to keep my browser vulnerable?"
They should be worked out because most developers of extensions, and maybe some web devs, would be using Firefox Developer Edition, which is like two versions ahead of the current Firefox. Theoretically, anyway.Yeah, but if stuff is broken (sites, extensions, etc), I want to wait a version or two before upgrading until those issues have been worked out.
They should be worked out because most developers of extensions, and maybe some web devs, would be using Firefox Developer Edition, which is like two versions ahead of the current Firefox. Theoretically, anyway.
WebP support, nice. Does Era support embedding WebP?
At this point, the only major browser left that doesn't support WebP is Safari, which sucks for iOS users.
Nice, looks good to me as well. Before I updated your post was completely blank, and now the picture comes through perfectly.
For a while I was yelling at people for using WebP because it was basically a Chrome-only thing up until really recently.WebP support, nice. Does Era support embedding WebP?
At this point, the only major browser left that doesn't support WebP is Safari, which sucks for iOS users.
Bug 1523701 was filed three days ago on Mozilla's bug tracking website. The user reported that it was no longer possible to connect to websites using Firefox after the upgrade to the new version of the browser.
It became clear quickly that some antivirus solutions on Windows, Avast and AVG were named explicitly, caused the issue in Firefox 65.0.
Mozilla decided to halt the distribution of the update on Windows. Windows users won't get upgraded to Firefox 65.0 automatically anymore until the issue is resolved. It is still possible, however, to download the installer to upgrade Firefox manually.
Avast, which owns AVG as well, plans to publish a patch later today that addresses the issue on their end. The company will disable HTTPS filtering for Firefox in its products as a first response to the issue; plans are underway to analyze the cause of the issue in detail and provide a full fix for the issue.
Avast users need to open Settings > Protection > Core shields > Web Shield (under Configure shield settings) and uncheck Enable HTTPS Scanning.
hmm now I know why I switched to chromium from firefox.
I can't find a way to have media keys work on youtube when it is not the focus. anyone have any idea on how to achieve this without relying on autohotkeynet?
Still not in stable. My understanding is that the current goal is for it to hit stable for 67.Are we able to force WebRender in the stable release yet or is it still nightly/beta only?
Is there any way to disable the horizontal scroll when there are too many tabs? I like Chrome's behaviour, it shows all tabs, no matter how many you open, even if i looks stupid. But Firefox starts to hide them when you open too many, I don't like that. Any tips?
Firefox dev said:we are in contact with microsoft about the problem - until there is a fix for the issue, this would be a workaround to avoid the tab crashes: enter about:config into the firefox address bar (confirm the info message in case it shows up) & search for the preference named media.wmf.vp9.enabled. double-click it and change its value to false.
What's the best way to give feedback to Mozilla on Firefox? I went to the website to find the forums, and they use Google Groups for that, which are filled with bots and shit, so I don't think that would be useful.
Firefox now prevents websites from automatically playing sound. You can add individual sites to an exceptions list or turn blocking off. To learn more about block autoplay, which will be rolled out gradually to all users, visit the Mozilla blog.
Is Fenix useable? I'm currently using Brave because Firefox mobile is utter trash and I'm getting impatient waiting on Mozilla sorting it out.
Brave is pretty decent, but I just prefer trying to stick to Firefox, especially since Brave sync only works with bookmarks so far. Ethically makes me a little uncomfortable that Christian nutter owns Brave too (ex-Mozilla guy that made a fuss about gay marriage). That BAT project is quite interesting, but we'll have to see if it takes off. An opt-in ad process to support websites you like, even although it kind of feels like Brave trying to run an advertising monopoly ring.
The amount of time it's taking Mozilla to sort out a mobile browser is a little disappointing. I'm not sure why they're juggling about 3/4 different front ends for mobile, from nightly, to the reference browser, to Fenix to the variants of the mobile browser in different regions.
Just seems an incredibly bloated way to handle a mobile browser, especially considering something like Chrome is the same WW, apart from the beta/dev channel.
Is WebRender in Firefox 66, or is it still just in the beta/nightly?webrender works pretty good havent noticed any problems on a amd gpu
if you want to try it and need to force it
about:config and set
gfx.webrender.all (for non nvidia gpu)
gfx.webrender.enabled
to true