I actually like Firefox and prefer it in some ways over Safari. It is very stable and reliable and doesn't stumble with the iCloud sync issues that seem to plague Safari. I've yet to figure out what Apple's true intentions are with the "Frequently Visited" list. It sometimes works, sometimes doesn't work, and sometimes vanishes for no reason whatsoever. It seems to have some hidden dependencies on behaviors that differ between iOS, macOS, and iPadOS and even between different versions of those operating systems. Firefox has no such problems with its equivalent feature, and this extends to Windows and Linux too with Firefox.
Chrome and Chromium are good too, but Chrome always seems slow to load. But when I need to check whether web content that I've developed works correctly, Chrome is my reference point, good or bad. Some of the Chrome plug-ins are very nice too. But like anything Google, you have to hold your nose when it comes to privacy.
At the same time I'm disappointed that the Mozilla organization is taking this stance. Regardless of what they want, the reality is that they are always going to be a "tail" when it comes to the big operating system "dogs." I'm sick of all of these "tails" complaining about the dog they're attached to. They are a tail. They are always going to be at the mercy of the dog, like it or not. They get wagged. They have to reside right next to the poop hole. That's a tail's lot in life.
Don't like being a tail? Become a dog, or at least a Gecko - on Linux. Tried that ... and failed ... so you're still a tail. Get over it.
So whenever a business is doing badly, just complain about the people who are successful?
how did this country get here?
It’s not about that. It’s about a fair playing field. When companies become too powerful, they become the economy instead of operating in the economy. Ironically it then is no longer a free market.
And what’s so hard for Joe Consumer to ‘discover’ Firefox or any other browser. I think I know what Mozilla wants. They either want Firefox to be included in every macOS installation or they want macOS to have no browser whatsoever installed and the user presented with a list to choose from as part of the setup process. Bullshit on that.
I have Firefox as a last resort backup. I wouldn’t install or use Chrome even if it were the only browser left in the world.
So whenever a business is doing badly, just complain about the people who are successful?
how did this country get here?
It’s not about that. It’s about a fair playing field. When companies become too powerful, they become the economy instead of operating in the economy. Ironically it then is no longer a free market.
So I run my own tire repair shop, so I should sue and blame Costco for taking my business?
And I should expect Costco to advertise to have their customers come to my shop?
no, it’s up to me to differentiate from Costco!
There are thing me as a nimble small business can do for customers that Costco cannot! That should be the focus instead for what these losers like Epic games and Firefox are doing
Whenever I encounter a web site that isn't behaving as expected in Safari (macOS of course), I try it in an alternate browser. It use to be Chrome, but now my alternate browser is ... Edge.
Yes, Edge on macOS.
Safari works for me most of the time (by far), so as the alternate browser, I don't have that much experience using Edge on macOS, but it seems to work fine. (I still occasionally use Windows, so I stick with Edge as the default there).
So whenever a business is doing badly, just complain about the people who are successful?
how did this country get here?
It’s not about that. It’s about a fair playing field. When companies become too powerful, they become the economy instead of operating in the economy. Ironically it then is no longer a free market.
And what’s so hard for Joe Consumer to ‘discover’ Firefox or any other browser. I think I know what Mozilla wants. They either want Firefox to be included in every macOS installation or they want macOS to have no browser whatsoever installed and the user presented with a list to choose from as part of the setup process. Bullshit on that.
I have Firefox as a last resort backup. I wouldn’t install or use Chrome even if it were the only browser left in the world.
I agree with you about Chrome. I don’t trust it, and I don’t use it.
At my previous job they had left it up to the user to decide what browser to use. We had an assortment of IE, FireFox, and a few others. One day Management announced that this was a security risk. We all had to use the same secure web browser. So starting that day everyone’s machine, we were on a Windows domain network so they could force these things, only had Chrome on it. That’s right, they had gone TO Chrome for security reasons.
So whenever a business is doing badly, just complain about the people who are successful?
how did this country get here?
It’s not about that. It’s about a fair playing field. When companies become too powerful, they become the economy instead of operating in the economy. Ironically it then is no longer a free market.
And what’s so hard for Joe Consumer to ‘discover’ Firefox or any other browser. I think I know what Mozilla wants. They either want Firefox to be included in every macOS installation or they want macOS to have no browser whatsoever installed and the user presented with a list to choose from as part of the setup process. Bullshit on that.
I have Firefox as a last resort backup. I wouldn’t install or use Chrome even if it were the only browser left in the world.
I agree with you about Chrome. I don’t trust it, and I don’t use it.
At my previous job they had left it up to the user to decide what browser to use. We had an assortment of IE, FireFox, and a few others. One day Management announced that this was a security risk. We all had to use the same secure web browser. So starting that day everyone’s machine, we were on a Windows domain network so they could force these things, only had Chrome on it. That’s right, they had gone TO Chrome for security reasons.
I’m still laughing about that.
But, but, Google advertises that they're protecting you!
Give us access to your personal information, and we'll protect you from others who want it. The online equivalent of paying a gang to protect you from other gangs.
Over the years I have used many browsers on the Amiga and Mac systems by choice and utter crap designed on Windows systems Microsoft and Google at work, I have tried Mozilla but the experience was like Linux a free pizza and beer show where no features are set and everything changes at a whim daily/weekly.
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For what it's worth, I use Firefox ESR, which usually gets updated only every month or two (or when there's a serious security flaw), but I really only use it for testing or when Safari fails in some unexplained fashion. I also keep a browser based on Chromium to test compatibility with Chrome without giving Google a chance to suck my data.
I started doing the above when I was still working — and fortunate enough to use Macs nearly exclusively — and have continued since I became a bum, er, retired.
So whenever a business is doing badly, just complain about the people who are successful?
how did this country get here?
It’s not about that. It’s about a fair playing field. When companies become too powerful, they become the economy instead of operating in the economy. Ironically it then is no longer a free market.
I'm glad at least one person gets it.
A Chrome hegemony is no better than an IE hegemony, or a Safari hegemony.
I guess a lot of people either weren't around, or don't remember when not being an IE-user meant being a second class user, and being a Mac user, that was assured, and a double slap. Same could apply to Flash, and RealPlayer.
Web developers will deny it, but a lot of them are lazy, and don't want to do the work to develop and test against anything but the dominant browser, and that leads to situations where support for anything but suffers, and that's not beneficial to users, or the open principles on which the Web was founded.
Sadly, most users aren't discriminating, never mind demanding, about their browsers, and will accept the bundled default without a second thought.
Try to inform them of the principles involved, and they only burrow their heads deeper into the sand.
Over the years I have used many browsers on the Amiga and Mac systems by choice and utter crap designed on Windows systems Microsoft and Google at work, I have tried Mozilla but the experience was like Linux a free pizza and beer show where no features are set and everything changes at a whim daily/weekly.
----
For what it's worth, I use Firefox ESR, which usually gets updated only every month or two (or when there's a serious security flaw), but I really only use it for testing or when Safari fails in some unexplained fashion. I also keep a browser based on Chromium to test compatibility with Chrome without giving Google a chance to suck my data.
I started doing the above when I was still working — and fortunate enough to use Macs nearly exclusively — and have continued since I became a bum, er, retired.
I want to give Mozilla another try, but not until they decide to push ahead of the competition.
So whenever a business is doing badly, just complain about the people who are successful?
how did this country get here?
It’s not about that. It’s about a fair playing field. When companies become too powerful, they become the economy instead of operating in the economy. Ironically it then is no longer a free market.
I'm glad at least one person gets it.
A Chrome hegemony is no better than an IE hegemony, or a Safari hegemony.
I guess a lot of people either weren't around, or don't remember when not being an IE-user meant being a second class user, and being a Mac user, that was assured, and a double slap. Same could apply to Flash, and RealPlayer.
Web developers will deny it, but a lot of them are lazy, and don't want to do the work to develop and test against anything but the dominant browser, and that leads to situations where support for anything but suffers, and that's not beneficial to users, or the open principles on which the Web was founded.
Sadly, most users aren't discriminating, never mind demanding, about their browsers, and will accept the bundled default without a second thought.
Try to inform them of the principles involved, and they only burrow their heads deeper into the sand.
The web is open for Mozilla to develop a browser that goes beyond Google (collecting user info) in particular, and Microsoft. They will never get anywhere being the same as Google.
"As these companies have so far failed to do better, regulators, policymakers and lawmakers have spent considerable time and resources investigating digital markets," the report concludes. "They should therefore be in a good position to recognize the importance of browser competition and to act to prevent further harm to consumers from continued inaction and competitive stagnation."
For an organisation whose name came from "Mosaic killer" they seem to have lost the competitive spirit. As others here have said: deliver on what customers want and the incumbents' current position will be threatened. Apple faced the same issue against MS in the 1990s, put in the effort and delivered a great value proposition to potential customers. To do so they had to entirely re-think what they were trying to provide, come up with profitable new solutions to fund their goals and work extremely hard.
I think the Mozilla Foundation is still stuck in a mindset of "everything should be free" and therefore their noble goal should be subsidised by those who have dirtied their hands with making money.
With my older 2009 15" MacBook Pro and 2010 White unibody MacBook, I use both Safari and FireFox. Maybe 60% Safari and 40% Firefox. But on my newer MacBook Air, I use Safari nearly 100% of the time. The difference being that the versions of Safari on my older laptops are no longer supported. And haven't been for over 4 years now.
i still have use for my older MacBook Pro and MacBook. they still run programs that I occasionally use, that will no longer run on newer MacOS. And the internet is the same on them, as on my MacBook Air. But because Safari is not the latest most secure version, I run into websites that wouldn't connect unless I update my browser to a newer version. Which of course is not possible. Plus the with the older Safari versions, I often get a message saying the "Safari can not connect to the server "or "this connection is not private, do you want to proceed (and then have to go through several steps to find out it will still not connect.)." The reason being that the older Safari is having trouble verifying the SSL certificate for these websites. i suspect this because these same websites open up just fine with the newer Safari on my MacBook Air and with the FireFox on the same MacBook Pro and MacBook.
Even though FireFox on these older laptops is stuck on an older version, it still gets security updates and thus I have yet to come across a website that requires me to update FireFox to a newer version. So when browsing the internet on these older laptops, I always have both Safari and FireFox open in a window. I still prefer Safari, but if a encounter a website that Safari can't open (which is getting more often lately.), I just switch over to the FireFox window. Plus by putting "develop" in the top menu bar, I can easily disable (and enable) "javascript" with Safari and for the most part, make my internet browsing a lot faster when I don't have to wait for ads and useless videos to load.
The same can be said about Chrome as with FireFox. But i have no need or desire to use Chrome. At least with Safari and Firefox, when using Google search and I click on a search result, Apple or Mozilla with get a faction of a fraction of a cent of Google ad revenue from the search result and the click, because I used their browsers. Instead of Google keeping all of it, if I were to use Chrome.
So whenever a business is doing badly, just complain about the people who are successful?
how did this country get here?
It’s not about that. It’s about a fair playing field. When companies become too powerful, they become the economy instead of operating in the economy. Ironically it then is no longer a free market.
So I run my own tire repair shop, so I should sue and blame Costco for taking my business?
And I should expect Costco to advertise to have their customers come to my shop?
no, it’s up to me to differentiate from Costco!
There are thing me as a nimble small business can do for customers that Costco cannot! That should be the focus instead for what these losers like Epic games and Firefox are doing
Except your comparison falls completely flat. This is not at all what is going on in this case.
The problem is that ‘Costco’ ( ߤ簟ﻦzwj;♂️ ) is preinstalled with the operating system. The average Joe doesn’t install or search for another browser. Especially when the operating system owner controls the App Store and doesn’t offer the other options equally. Less popular offerings simply don’t show up anymore nor do they have the opportunity to.
Back in the days, Apple users were kicking and screaming because “Windoze” / “Micro$oft” was doing exactly the same thing with Internet Explorer, after which they applauded governments forcing them to show a dialogue at OS installation time were the other browser brands were offered for installation rather than pre-installing IE.
Now the tables have turned and people come up with silly Costco comparisons.
Apple fanboys didn’t like to be the underdog back then, but now they are on top, they display the worst protective behavior as if they are major shareholders of the company. It’s hypocritical behavior.
Fanboy disclaimer: I own 10+ Apple devices and 1 PC.
I use Firefox on my 2 Mac minis when sites work with it and not Safari. I also use it on my PC in lieu of Bing which I only use to change Bing wallpaper.
Now that Internet Explorer is officially dead the differences between the remaining browsers are far more subtle and any one of them is so much better than the horror that was IE.
That said, the biggest problem that I encounter with browsers today has less to do with the browsers and more to do with the web itself.
I honestly can’t say with absolute surety which browser is clearly superior because I can’t tolerate much of anything on the web without using an ad blocker, privacy shield, and at least one deterrent against auto run media. I basically have no idea what the web looks like in an unfiltered state.
So my browser choices actually come down to seeing how each browser interacts with the necessary filters that I have to install to make the web tolerable. So far no single browser works for me universally. Some sites require me to use Safari while others require Firefox, Chrome, or Edge.
What’s worse is that the situation changes all of the time. It’s highly likely that some of the things I dislike about a particular browser have nothing at all to do with the browser, but are a consequence of how the browser interacts with the filter or extension I’m using.
The best possible rendition of the web imho is Safari’s Reader View, but it obviously doesn’t work for every site or type of content.
I actually just looked it up. Firefox’s initial release was September 23, 2002. So almost 20 years ago to the day. The World Wide Web became more widely available to the public in 1993 when the first browser was Mosaic. Out of Mosaic came Netscape Navigator in 1994 which became very dominate until Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer with Windows 95 and then IE dominated for 14 years. I believe 1994 was an explosion of people using the Web for the first time. I always think of 1994 as the beginning of the internet even though it really wasn’t. But before 1994 there were very few people using the internet, whereas after 1994, there were exponentially more people using the internet largely thanks to Netscape Navigator.
But Firefox is a “successor” to Mozilla and Netscape Navigator from the 90s.
My dad was a big FF user. I hated using his computer due to his FF insistence.
If they worked to make FF act more like a Mac app on the Mac maybe more people might use it. As far as my experience goes, they offer nothing compelling to make me want to change from Safari. (I use Brave when needing Chromium compatibility).
Oh, I love Firefox, it is great. But I use it mainly in my Mac Studio, I kept Safari as the default in my MBA as Safari is (probably) more efficient regarding battery usage.
It is great that the favorites in the Favorite bar show their favicon, which is something I think Safari cannot do, for instance. Much faster to find them at a glance and much more real estate efficient than using an acronym (or worse, the full name).
Safari is always fighting against 1Password: every time there is a new version, it refuses to load it. Safari on my iPad and iPhone regularly crashes on a few web sites I visit, Firefox never. I also dislike that Safari has the little cross to close a tab leftside, since after using FF for years it seems strange (and there is no way to customize it).
But Safari is a great browser too. I use Opera for its free VPN sometimes and Chrome more rarely. Edge? No, thanks, no more Microsoft software allowed here.
Maybe Mozilla should work on making a stable browser. More often than not they release versions that don’t work properly and have to be abandoned.
i use Safari and Chrome on Mac and iOS. I use Chrome and Edge on Windows. I have FireFox on all platform as well, but rarely use it.
I’ve been using Firefox and DuckDuckGo browsers on the ipad after a fight with Sockfari and its tab groups (Sockfari won), but had to abandon Firefox after the latest two updates always crashed on being brought to the front. DDG is new and still adding features. It was a relief to go back to Safari, even after the tab-eating episode (which was probably yet another gesture pitfall trap of my own making, I suspect). I don’t and won’t use Chrome and derivatives.
And Firefox removed the search bar from their tab overview page, making it less than useful. Firefox needs to up their game.
Comments
Chrome and Chromium are good too, but Chrome always seems slow to load. But when I need to check whether web content that I've developed works correctly, Chrome is my reference point, good or bad. Some of the Chrome plug-ins are very nice too. But like anything Google, you have to hold your nose when it comes to privacy.
At the same time I'm disappointed that the Mozilla organization is taking this stance. Regardless of what they want, the reality is that they are always going to be a "tail" when it comes to the big operating system "dogs." I'm sick of all of these "tails" complaining about the dog they're attached to. They are a tail. They are always going to be at the mercy of the dog, like it or not. They get wagged. They have to reside right next to the poop hole. That's a tail's lot in life.
Don't like being a tail? Become a dog, or at least a Gecko - on Linux. Tried that ... and failed ... so you're still a tail. Get over it.
I have Firefox as a last resort backup. I wouldn’t install or use Chrome even if it were the only browser left in the world.
And I should expect Costco to advertise to have their customers come to my shop?
no, it’s up to me to differentiate from Costco!
There are thing me as a nimble small business can do for customers that Costco cannot! That should be the focus instead for what these losers like Epic games and Firefox are doing
Yes, Edge on macOS.
Safari works for me most of the time (by far), so as the alternate browser, I don't have that much experience using Edge on macOS, but it seems to work fine. (I still occasionally use Windows, so I stick with Edge as the default there).
Give us access to your personal information, and we'll protect you from others who want it. The online equivalent of paying a gang to protect you from other gangs.
I want to give Mozilla another try, but not until they decide to push ahead of the competition.
The web is open for Mozilla to develop a browser that goes beyond Google (collecting user info) in particular, and Microsoft. They will never get anywhere being the same as Google.
I feel like this point should be clarified by Mozilla. Better in what context? Making a secure piece of software? Choosing privacy-first default settings?
For an organisation whose name came from "Mosaic killer" they seem to have lost the competitive spirit. As others here have said: deliver on what customers want and the incumbents' current position will be threatened. Apple faced the same issue against MS in the 1990s, put in the effort and delivered a great value proposition to potential customers. To do so they had to entirely re-think what they were trying to provide, come up with profitable new solutions to fund their goals and work extremely hard.
I think the Mozilla Foundation is still stuck in a mindset of "everything should be free" and therefore their noble goal should be subsidised by those who have dirtied their hands with making money.
i still have use for my older MacBook Pro and MacBook. they still run programs that I occasionally use, that will no longer run on newer MacOS. And the internet is the same on them, as on my MacBook Air. But because Safari is not the latest most secure version, I run into websites that wouldn't connect unless I update my browser to a newer version. Which of course is not possible. Plus the with the older Safari versions, I often get a message saying the "Safari can not connect to the server "or "this connection is not private, do you want to proceed (and then have to go through several steps to find out it will still not connect.)." The reason being that the older Safari is having trouble verifying the SSL certificate for these websites. i suspect this because these same websites open up just fine with the newer Safari on my MacBook Air and with the FireFox on the same MacBook Pro and MacBook.
Even though FireFox on these older laptops is stuck on an older version, it still gets security updates and thus I have yet to come across a website that requires me to update FireFox to a newer version. So when browsing the internet on these older laptops, I always have both Safari and FireFox open in a window. I still prefer Safari, but if a encounter a website that Safari can't open (which is getting more often lately.), I just switch over to the FireFox window. Plus by putting "develop" in the top menu bar, I can easily disable (and enable) "javascript" with Safari and for the most part, make my internet browsing a lot faster when I don't have to wait for ads and useless videos to load.
The same can be said about Chrome as with FireFox. But i have no need or desire to use Chrome. At least with Safari and Firefox, when using Google search and I click on a search result, Apple or Mozilla with get a faction of a fraction of a cent of Google ad revenue from the search result and the click, because I used their browsers. Instead of Google keeping all of it, if I were to use Chrome.
Fanboy disclaimer: I own 10+ Apple devices and 1 PC.
And Firefox removed the search bar from their tab overview page, making it less than useful. Firefox needs to up their game.