I'm a FF user since the early 00's and Firefox will mostly not go away because Google has an interest in using it against monopoly accusations but the reality is bleak..
And the reality is these people ( Google in this case ) are so far removed from any moral compass about the Web ( at least what most people here think of "the Web" ) that it's near impossible to do anything about it. These companies are huge and from top to bottom there are certain groups that are hired guns to do a job, no matter what "job" it is, they'll do it, achieve those KPIs, get promoted, get paid. Even for their own detriment in the future, it doesn't matter. Big money now, screw the rest.
Btw, this is how every big company operated since forever, the only "news" here is the disproportionate impact their acts do to the World due to their huge size and influence.
I don't see how this matters, it's an open source project, if people find enough value, it will be forked and improved by community or a new organization will form around it. This is the beauty of open source, you must embrace.
Seriously, how is this a question? (Unless you want to go with another independent option, then sure)
Google Meet does have some key features missing on Firefox such as blurring / changing video background.
Firefox does some things better (like PiP video playback on most websites, like YouTube!) but others are so poorly done (like Profiles) compared to Chrome that it overall makes Chrome my first choice browser.
Making FF more prominent will not give Google more power, it will give Mozilla more power to negotiate better deals with Google and Bing to become the default search engine, because in the world of browsers, that's what pays the bills.
Giving more power to Mozilla hinges on them having a larger user-base so their voice is heard on these technical issues.
I'm tired of people complaining about how much better they could do "if only" this, or that FF was % slower on some tasks 10 years ago.
Firefox is a better alternative. It's the only alternative, and we can make more demand on its direction if we actually use it.
It doesn't mean that we shouldn't hold Mozilla to higher standards, but if we keep waiting for them to be perfect before we will consider using and pushing FF, we're just going to lose the only alternative not controlled by Google or Microsoft.
It's Firefox here and now. There probably won't be a tomorrow otherwise. Google is making that very clear.
It's just the latest Firefox release, recompiled without all the Mozilla telemetry, and with all the settings flipped to more secure/private defaults so all the tracking features are opt-in instead of opt-out.
About the only use case I still need Chrome for is for sites requiring experimental web APIs not supported by Firefox, such as Web USB or Web Bluetooth. Site compatibility for everything else, including very heavy web apps, is just fine.
History sync is encrypted, which is what made me switch over in the first place (Chrome deactivates history sync when activating end-to-end encryption – go figure…)
Which sort of underscores the monopoly point. There’s no universal free/cheap alternative to Meet, further entrenching Chromium.
Firefox is actually a pretty good example of good branding. It’s short, rolls off the tongue, has pleasant alliteration, and evokes mental imagery.
The only site I have compatibility issues with on desktop is MS Teams and even then it's only for voice/video calls, everything else works fine.
Firefox Android is a slightly less happy place. The password manager doesn't work very well (am moving away from the built-in one) and I can't log in on Amazon (which is important because I can't buy Kindle books in the app because of the Play Store).
A chrome browser on the same device has maps behave almost instantaneously.
It's free and open source, works everywhere, has stuff like background replacement, and doesn't require signup at all.
This is why I don't use FF (although I'm on Linux). It's unusably slow for me. My experience is not the most common one (indicating that there's something about my ecosystem that FF hates), but I haven't been able to make FF work in any of the releases starting a couple of years back, I think.
I don't browse on my phone at all, so I won't be using FF there purely for that reason.
I don't doubt your experience, but it's clearly not universal.
The only choice is to boycott your favorite artist because their record label made a deal with the wrong company. That's too many layers of indirection, for many fans.
Regardless, I have Googled this for you: please return the favor by helping others learn to use search engines in the future before leaving comments insinuating that they are lying.
The tldr (as you'll probably insist on that also) is that Firefox finds Mozilla, not the other way around, as the latter is a non-profit while the former is a FOR-profit, so Mozilla actually can't directly fund Firefox.
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/ow9k0y/is_there_a_...
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/a98gmi/donations_t...
I mostly use maps via an app (Apple or Google, they seem to be the same for basic use). Usually if I’m using a map, I’ll be using it in my car for navigation, so Firefox doesn’t even come to mind.
I suspect, on top of the “maybe it is internal apps” thing I mentioned at first, some of the really bad sites are the really interactive ones, I probably just use the app without even thinking of it.
So its a regular drag for me. If I really need to move quick to find something, I'll begrudgingly open chrome.
One company dominates "the Web" and pulls these shenanigans all every other year, the other one is totally dependent of the former to pay their bills.
So yeah, Google has been better managed than Mozilla. That doesn't invalidate Google's execs are a bunch of lizards on the now common SV ego trip and screw up all the time, but they can and ensure they can continue to do so, Mozilla is not in the same position and part of blame must be attributed to them.
- ie6 which was a security nightmare for everybody
- browsers like Opera developed by very small companies against which competition was more based on merit
The only way for Mozilla have been able to maintain its market share against chrome would have to manage to reach both these requirements:
- build the #1 smartphone OS in the market in term of market share to have it preinstalled everywhere
- build the #1 search engine in term of market share to advertise using it everytime the user search for something.
Both feats requiring:
- financial means that were out of reach from the Mozilla foundation at any moment in time regardless of its management.
- giving up on mozilla ethics and values to be on same level as the definitely evil competitor.
He provides a nice piece of anecdata there: for one-on-one meetings, you can just send people a link and usually they just join. Even if they've sent a link to Zoom or Meet or whatever, you still can say “hey, join this instead” and it will work. I haven't tried this yet, but sounds plausible to me.