My comment is targeted to the developers of Waterfox and Librewolf - they're already making a browser, so the hard part is done.
I'm wondering why don't they try to step it up further by selling a paid version alongside their open source product. What is the worst that can happen? Nobody pays for it and they continue making $0 just like they are happily doing now.
https://buymeacoffee.com/waterfox wasn't hard to find that. (they also make money from search). Put your money where your mouth is and donate.
Librewolf doesn't want to deal with the administrative overhead of donations - which if they'd only get a few donations makes sense. It likely costs several hundred a month just to hire the accountants and lawyers needed to get the paper work right (you can do it yourself at cost of time doing other things. Often you can find accountants and lawyers who will donate their services, but it is still several hundred dollars worth)
Sure, I'm not counting those who contribute with their work. But if you don't contribute with your work or with your money – that's a freeloader by definition.
A paid version needs to offer something on top of it, which is usually in one way or another proprietary (such as a proprietary service).
Something like this is regarded as the enshitification process, so what typically happens is they (e.g. VC) want to do such after they lured in their users. Which Firefox has (or arguably: had), but Waterfox and Librewolf have not.
Good thought experiment.
It ain't the first drama or controversy with regards to Mozilla, who have had a long tendency which didn't occur recently (and included the time Eich was there). Nostalgia just makes people forget the bad.
It does actually seem pretty difficult to sell a browser; I don’t really see how anybody in their right mind would trust a closed source browser. So, it will be hard to make any parts of it proprietary. It isn’t impossible to sell open source software of course, but it does seem to be pretty difficult.
Rather, I wish we would stop accepting web standards that don’t come with reference implementations. Then, we could have a reference browser, and just run that. I don’t expect it to be performant, but I also don’t think browser performance matters much at all. Web pages are not HPC applications.
Currently we’re accepting the anti-competitive behavior of Google, just DDoSing the community with new standards to implement. This is the root problem. The fact that Mozilla is being killed by funding problems is downstream of the fact that maintaining a web browser requires multiple full time engineers.
And making a browser that's actually financially viable enough to pay for your time and effort without pissing off your user base because of paid features is even worse.
Especially in a crowded market, where we're arguing extensively about a browser that has 2.54% of the market share. Chrome (67%), Safari (18%), Edge (5.2%) [1]
Most of those also have a browser mostly as add-ons, bundling, ecosystem value, or trademark / brand name trojans.
Admittedly, if you're looking to make a browser, there's a lot of various prior attempts that remain in existence, yet have never really received that much attention. [2]
Personal preference is that somebody would implement a scripting language alternative other than Javascript. Anybody heard of TCL lately? It's supposed to be a browser scripting language alternative according to the w3.org specification [3] Really, almost anything other than Javascript as an alternative. Just for some variety.
Tiling is old news, bring on scrollable window managers.
I honestly think scrollable VM is the future of window management. It just make sense to arrange windows like that instead of cram multiple opened windows in a fixed area.
I've found Niri* to be the best but there are stability/performance problems (especially when you go over +20 windows) with all of them. Maybe once they will be "baked-in" in Gnome/KDE things will change.
> Why do i get this faulty patch if i'm not even using Bitlocker ?
You might not be using it now, but you might want to switch it on later.
And more importantly, it prevents an exponential explosion on the amount of different variants of the code. If you allow people to not get this patch, and later another bug is fixed, either you force people to get this patch before getting the next one (leading to N different versions), or you'll have to develop a fix both for people who have and for people who don't have this patch (leading to 2^N different versions).
Well, the compensation is not that bad for a company headquartered in Milan (Italy) and remote-friendly
> Competitive salary and stock options. Our compensation packages are designed to attract and retain the best talent in the industry. Individuals just starting their career joining on a full-time contract are offered a salary of €63,965 along with a €1,200 welfare bonus. If you already have a few years of relevant work experience, you can expect to earn between €105,737 and €143,330, depending on your expertise
That's the Google way. I was referred by 2 people on the team I'd be on but nobody on that team had anything to do with my committee interview.
So, instead of the people who know my work (from FOSS projects) it was a random gaggle of Stanford, etc people. I don't have a degree at all so to say I was intimidated and miserable and feeling very judged is an understatement.
Even my recruiter there had gone to Stanford and mentioned that her sister went to some other school and looks down at her lowly Stanford. wild place.
in older days my artsy friends would call those Stanford etc people "yuppies" or "frat guys/gals" among other things. The culture gap is real since those ordinary graduates did in fact compete and acheive in a certain way to get where they are.. so it is easy and human nature to judge others on the criteria they were judged on.. meanwhile, real skills, talent and sweat are common among the fringy outsiders, along with bad skin, odd clothing choices, low personal skills or other warts... hang in there!
That was actually my first time in SV/SFBay area (just stuck around San Mateo and San Jose) and I hated San Mateo. I'm used to gritty fun towns like Austin and Denver and San Mateo was culture shock. Netflix has the same problem being in Los Gatos, it might be worse there.
I remember one of my Uber drivers was getting their PHD in Machine Learning/AI.
They must have a huge funnel from Stanford. I'm not sure what other good schools are over there.
It always better for possible new hires to be interviewed by as many people in the team/company as possible - if they give feedback, have a veto, is that a committee?
Elon is an idividual, who happens to posess large operations, and runs them like personal toys that just happen to be big. MS is not and does not.
Individuals absolutely do stupid things for stupid reasons, at whatever scale they have access to.
I guess your point still stands though, since the Muskverse is not the only one like that where there is an individual owner at the top who is willing to treat the whole thing like personal disposable property.
>According to the ruling, DDL-Music has no other purpose than to share pirated music and Cloudflare plays a central role in making the site available.
And if they switch DNS providers what will they do ? +File a lawsuit for each DNS provider? Makes no sense to "sanction" the DNS provider because of the website content.
Also one other thing that plays a "centrol role" in making pirate websites available are electricity companies which provide power for servers. Shouldn't they sue those too ?
>In addition to stopping its services to DDL-Music as a customer, Universal also wanted Cloudflare to block the site on its public DNS resolver 1.1.1.1.
After working for a year in 3DSMax, back in the day, someone asked me to show them something in Lightwave. I couldn't find my way about anything.
There is also a far far bigger difference between IDEs than between browsers even if compare only the big names. Compare Visual Studio, IntelliJ and Eclipse.
All the browsers are same.
They were all the same for 10 years. Single window or MDI. Then Opera came with tabs, then everyone got tabs. That's it.
Basically, if we accept the notion that it's hard for someone to switch from Chrome to Firefox we accept the notion that it's hard to move anyone from any ecosystem just on the grounds of them not wanting to touch their muscle memory even a bit. You get to the same option in three to four clicks through different menues. Is it that hard?
> Basically, if we accept the notion that it's hard for someone to switch from Chrome to Firefox we accept the notion that it's hard to move anyone from any ecosystem just on the grounds of them not wanting to touch their muscle memory even a bit. You get to the same option in three to four clicks through different menues. Is it that hard?
As an emacs user in large part to avoid this, yes it us that hard.
It pains me to say that though since I want people to switch to Firefox so it can win against these spyware-laden browsers.
We are all creatures of habit. Even if something is not good in our current experience we often say "yeah, it's bad, but it's a bad I know. Who knows what will be bad in the other software?" - which shows the incredible high threshold this shitty decision by Google has reached for people to seriously consider going back to Firefox (seriously, as in "I've seen more posts about switching (back) to Firefox than in the last 2 or 3 years together")
Which really is a shame. Even worse, browsers (including Firefox) keep erasing whatever differences they do have in a vain attempt at attracting Chrome users while ignoring that their existing userbase chose them for not being Chrome.
I don't use 3D modeling software, but I use a browser for like... 95% of my day. Any minor UX differences are going to be like nails on a chalkboard, given that.
It's no wonder why people don't want to switch, really.
I went from Netscape to IE to Firefox to Chrome and back to Firefox. Sure they're different, but it's not jarring. It's like switching to another car. You can just hop in and drive away. Then you gradually adjust the seat just how you like it and install your favorite air freshener in a natural progression, and so on.
Disliking one browser's UI/UX over another is like trying to drive two different cars: one with a touch screen console and another one with an analog console. There are genuine reasons to want one over the other and it will color how you use it day to day.
Sure, but at the most, having to put up with a touch screen is a minor annoyance, and for the most part, you really don't need the functionality that's gated behind those controls. It's a little annoying, yes.
Browsers are just a window to display web apps and pages, though. And these display identically in Chrome as they do in Firefox. Hence the interactions, which 95% of the time are with the web app, not the browser, are practically identical for the most part as well.
I don't know.. but.. it's the way people may use the computer. A former colleague used exactly one window, no matter if it's word or any other software. And most important: the other programs have to be closed, firstly, before switching to eg. browsing. Even my 85y old grandfather who bought his first computer with 73y is capable to use more then 2 windows at once.
So for me, i work with chrome, edge and Firefox (main) at the same time. Firefox is 3 Windows with 150 tabs each. Chrome for quick and dirty - when I visit or do something I know I won't need it later anymore - and edge is used for being chat and/or differential search with goog and bing and other search engines (I know, it's easier to use a meta search engine, but it's ok like I do)
So.. basically. Each window is a room space in my brain for me and I store knowledge in separated rooms, so I know exactly where the tabs are I'm searching for. It's like a library where I always can look up something.
Using favorites within the browser is not possible for me, because I just forget about them. Not so if I work with all the thousands of tabs open :)
So, it's possible to use different browsers without saying "maehhh.. but, I .... "
If you just like the mental separation but don‘t want Chrome, you could also create Firefox profiles with different themes. You can even tweak the browser icon, so I found that sufficient for mental separation
>So.. basically. Each window is a room space in my brain for me and I store knowledge in separated rooms, so I know exactly where the tabs are I'm searching for. It's like a library where I always can look up something. Using favorites within the browser is not possible for me, because I just forget about them. Not so if I work with all the thousands of tabs open :)
I have a similar thing.
Firefox as the main browser for everything. I don't like Electron apps and since Firefox doesn't do PWA anymore, Edge hosts all those. Chrome for all the Google apps I have to use and streaming services (Chrome has a media hub in toolbar which can control multiple streams/PiP windows).
The big difference for me is that with clipped notes the full contents are searchable. I agree that browser bookmarks are generally poor for reference material, as you tend to forget what you've bookmarked. But by clipping the whole page you essentially build your own searchable database. I use Evernote for this because I started in 2012, but I would look at alternatives first if I were starting today.
If you can't replace your handheld drill to another model because no other model "fits your hand that well", all the other carpenters in the market are going to have an edge over you.
It's also happening with Firefox. Stupid redesign, felt, each new version. It's not about the design.. but it is, because less readability, less contrast, less visible difference between active/inactive tabs.. and so on.. but you're right. Changing browser is a no-go, but having suddenly different UI is not???? Lol.
Do you not see the irony in this? By admitting that you don't notice the (real and fairly recent and large) UI changes in Chrome you've just dropped all credibility from any argument you might have had about caring about the UI being different.
Firefox is really not that different. Even the keyboard shortcuts are the same.
most firefox changes are actually to copy what chrome is doing.
like removing the search bar and forcing sending everything you type in the address bar to a search engine, having a logged in account in the browser, etc
The differences are bigger between Chrome on Windows and Chrome on Mac than between Chrome and Firefox on one OS. At least all of the keybindings are the same.
What like when chrome updates it for you and changed the ux? At least with firefox you have powerful user configurable scripts you can do whatever you like to how things render in the browser. Treestyle tab that fades away when you mouse off of it? Done.
All Chromium-based browsers have a feature that I can't get through my day without. I can write click on any website and say "translate this page into English".
I use this feature around 20 times a day, sometimes more. It's painstaking to do this in Firefox, even with extensions.
Once every year or two I try switching to Firefox, then I remember this is the reason why I don't use it and I go back to Chrome.
The day they add this feature is the day I will switch to Firefox.
if you need a language they haven't developed a production model for yet, you can install the beta version of the add-on, which supports more languages
Oh nice! Good to see they are working on it.
Unfortunately it's only for 8 European languages to far, and the beta version only adds 4 more.
I need Vietnamese. I guess I will have to wait another few years for that. But still, it's progress.
I wonder if they will add the option for cloud providers. While I love the idea of the added privacy of doing it locally, pretty much everything I'm translating is publically available so privacy is not important to make compared to the quality of the translation.
The latest Firefox now has that functionality. Firefox translations also have the added benefit of being 100% on-device, your data doesn't have to go to a Google server somewhere.
Yeah, I see they added that in the last but one release. However it's only for a tiny number of European languages, and not the one I need which is Vietnamese.
I've tried quite a few firefix translation extensions and all of them either open a new tab or a popup, this is the first one I've seen that translates in place.
Afaik they do have an official offline translation extension Forefox Translations that would cover your usecase(maybe)
Ff also does have a Translations setting in their settings page(not sure if it's by default or appears when you install the extension) and you can predownload some offline language packs.
And i call it great music.