However, my main reason for ditching Chrome years ago was the fact that I think a browser engine monoculture is bad for the web as a whole, especially if that engine is primarily controlled by a single corporate entity.
Manifest v3 and other Google nonsense came later, and are extra reasons to stay away from Chrome, but I still feel strongly that a good alternative needs to use a different engine.
That lack of capability prevents it from being my daily driver, even if the rest were good enough (I’m not saying it isn’t, I’m saying I have no reason to find out).
I am certain I have inadvertently pushed many people away from Firefox for that reason alone, because when they ask for me to add Firefox support for my tools, I have to tell them it’s impossible.
I have tried to talk to Firefox developers about that a few times, at open-source conferences and such, but they think AppleScript is some power-user feature and fail (refuse?) to understand power users drive adoption and create tools that regular users rely on.
I remember whenever a Firefox story was submitted on HN, multiple people commented “I want to use Firefox but it’s missing <whatever>”. Then Mozilla started doing a lot of questionable stuff (all of which they eventually abandoned) outside their core competency and even pulling distasteful marketing stunts, and at some point people started commenting even that. I presume many got tired and gave up on Firefox entirely. I almost have. I now root for them only conceptually, because browser diversity is good.
I also noticed that no matter how politely someone pointed out on HN “Firefox doesn’t fit for me because of <whatever>”, they always got downvoted. If valid polite criticism is buried, no wonder things stay the way they are.
https://data.firefox.com/dashboard/hardware
They're really not going to be able to dedicate resources to something as bijou as AppleScript.
If you've tried chrome recently, you'll know that it's jam packed full with even more stuff you don't want. And the article lays out how to easily disable all AI in firefox (which you cant do at all in Chrome)
They don’t need to do it themselves, they could just not stifle the efforts of third-parties who do want to and have worked on it. Multiple people started on it over the years and were simply ignored by the devs.
I disagree with Mozilla here, too - but you can't cast Chrome as a magic spell. Chrome sucks ass. Google sucks ass. It's trivial to suck less ass than Google.
It doesn’t to tabs, and links that the site forces to open in a new tab often don’t work. It also doesn’t do JS well by design.
I use Firefox focus for throw away links I come across, but for everything else I need a full browser
- Change to first browser tab whose URL or title matches <whatever>.
- Close every browser tab matching <whatever>.
- Grab all your tabs and backup their URLs to a file.
- Join all tabs from all windows into a single window.
- Execute JavaScript on a page and get results back.
- Grab the URL of the current tab and open it in a different browser in a Private window.
- And many more things.
Anyway, the reasons are irrelevant and I’m frankly tired of explaining this to Firefox defenders. Someone asked “what about Firefox are you missing” and I responded with what it’s missing for me. Plugging your ears and coming up with excuses doesn’t move the needle. Accept it or don’t, it makes no difference. In the meantime I’ll continue being honest with my users that I would like to support Firefox but I can’t, and many of them will keep switching browsers.
If you’re running in a Custom Tab on Android, you need to switch to the full Focus if multiple tabs are involved.
I don't see why a browser should have to support AppleScript specifically. The Chrome DevTools Protocol and WebDriver BiDi are the standard protocols for interacting with browsers programmatically. Firefox supports WebDriver BiDi. Just use any tool that supports it, or talk to it directly. Maybe AppleScript can do that, I wouldn't know.
You don't even need an mcp server. Claude Code can just run osascript. >>44492369
As a user, I do not want nor need my browser to support AppleScript. AppleScript is something that should not exist. In somewhat typical apple fashion, it's some NIH platform-specific bullshit that nobody really cares about and is only half-assed supported even on it's native platform. The only way to deter Apple from creating these sisyphus-ian pieces of software is to just stop supporting them and force their hand to use something less bespoke. Although, Apple is not the only culprit of this - nor are they even the worst about it.
If I had my way, Mantle would not exist, iMessage would not exist, and some others. We would live in a perfect utopia and then we'd all hold hands and sing Kumbaya.
(not to diminish the css, it's great for theming and correcting the many usability mistakes in browser defaults, and wish all the browsers used that)
I'm not sure what you mean with the context menus, but Web Extensions can add things to context menus.
I’ll say it again:
> Plugging your ears and coming up with excuses doesn’t move the needle. Accept it or don’t, it makes no difference.
> If you’re going to keep ignoring my points and making up new things while moving the goalposts, I don’t see the point in having a discussion.
I'm not ignoring anything - it's called disagreeing with your points. Because I do disagree with them, to an extent.
I agree that Firefox is missing features. I DO NOT agree that this is generally, keyword generally, a bad thing.
Also, Firefox is not even the most behind browser. Uh, that would be Safari, and it's not even close.
If you don't support Firefox but you DO support Safari, then:
1. You must not give a flying fuck about web standards or features, as Safari is missing the most of both OR
2. You squarely target primarily Apple users so you have no choice but to put up with Apple's subpar software, i.e. you're Stockholm'd in
For option 2, the only way to stop that is to do what I said - stop playing Apple's games and don't target their bespoke barely-functional bullshit.
Also, let me just say: there is absolutely no shame in number 2. You have to make your money. Just a couple years ago, I was maintaining an application that still targeted IE 6. Yes, really. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do to reach the users where they are.
> You asked for one reason
No, I did not. I didn’t ask for any reason. I don’t need one, the result is the same.
> I gave it to you
No, you did not, you gave speculation. Which changes nothing.
> you didn't like it
I couldn’t care less about your speculation. I specifically said I don’t care. The only thing I don’t like is how you’re just making up reasons based on what you want and like, as if your tastes and needs are all that matters, instead of what’s the truth for Firefox development.
> I'm not ignoring anything
You moved the goal post without addressing my initial reply to your response, which poked a direct hole in your speculation:
> Then they should just say so and close the open issues, instead of letting them linger for literal decades and have people waste time on them then ignore them. That’s just bad stewardship.
You continue:
> it's called disagreeing with your points.
It makes no sense to disagree with a personal opinion! My reasons are my own. It’s like if you said you disagreed with me for saying I don’t like chocolate. Your opinion is irrelevant to someone else’s taste or needs.
And then the rest is just more speculation. Again, Firefox is the only major browser not supporting AppleScript. And just so you know, Chromium browsers typically support it better than Safari.