The answer to that question, taken literally, could fill a novel (so could a description of what’s right with it).
As for Firefox Sync, the protocol is byzantine and poorly documented[1], while using it “properly” requires emailing a human at Mozilla to “document expectations and timelines”[2], which for a hobby or small-scale application I read as “fuck you”. (Using it improperly, like filching the API key from one of the official clients, risks tripping the hostile and deliberately undocumented security heuristics.) For me that’s already enough to reject it for anything I couldn’t bear losing (like my passwords).
Have been using Relay for months, I think it's a pretty good product. Shame that it's gotten onto virtually all abuse lists now, it's impossible to use my emails anywhere, even if I have a custom subdomain.
Sure (kind of)! Make a donation to the Mozilla foundation. https://donate.mozilla.org/ It's not directly paying for the product, but it also does show as "this user wants our vpn" in the stats.
As always, a note needs to be attached to this link. Money donated to the Mozilla foundation goes exclusively to their advocacy work, and none goes to the Mozilla corporation, which develops Firefox.
I reckon because it's not possible to pay for the product directly, Firefox is getting less financial support than it could. For example, I may not want to support many of the goals of the Mozilla foundation, but paying for a product that I'm using (Firefox) sounds reasonable.
Video and WebGL (Google Maps Street View/GeoGuesser) are a slideshow under Firefox on Linux, because they do compositing in software on Linux (copying the video buffer back and forth between GPU and RAM). That's the whole reason why I use a chromium based browser. Really missing containers. They are really letting Linux support slide. :(
Not my experience, even in a budget notebook, at least for video. I'm making sure that the video is decoded in hardware. It's a bit easier and more secure on wayland.
I'm still on a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760, but I have a 4k monitor (X11, desktop). Perfectly smooth in Chromium browsers, but YouTube and Street View are basically unusable in Firefox. Before when I had a Full HD monitor it was usable in Firefox, though even back then Chromium based browsers where a bit smoother at those tasks. And yes, I've set all the flags in about:config that you can find on that issue. No change.
But I need to upgrade my PC. When I do I'll try Firefox again. Would be awesome if it would work for me again.
The tricking people to sign in stuff is nefarious and is a more recent and growing problem. Google even gets away with it through iOS by forcing app logins/"authorization" that then results in the user logged in to Google on Safari. The whole Chrome logging in if someone checks their Gmail is terrible.
If your computing experience solely comes from a non-tech role in a corporate work environment where your employer legally owns your devices and they are remotely controlled and monitored, then all of this may seem fairly mundane. Otherwise, it is concerning anyone on hn would think what is going on here is ok or does not need to be actively avoided.
Yep, it did this to me and helped itself to the data from my Firefox profile, and presumably uploaded this to MS servers. Great way to obtain data on a person I suppose.
I do to use Bing+ChatGPT, which I find very helpful for research and generating code. I have also been using CodePilot for over a year. But it is a decision to use these services, and I totally understand some people not wanting to use them.
The Center for Humane Technology has good articles and video presentations on good tactics to use tech to your advantage. https://www.humanetech.com/
I use Edge at work because it suits my needs best.
I can log into my work account in the browser, letting me save my work passwords to a trusted account, and search internally using Bing. It also has decent Outlook integration, which is helpful to my workflow.
I also love vertical tabs, because I end up managing 100+ tabs at work regularly. I'm eager to see a fully conceived version of this appear in other browsers because it's honestly a game changer.
And, not a huge deal, but when you copy a URL from the address bar, it pastes as a formatted link, which is really helpful when you have to do this regularly.
It really isn't a bad browser, it's just got poor privacy, which isn't important for me when I'm working. My employer already knows what I'm up to anyway.
I use Chrome as a personal browser, so it's nice keeping them completely separate from each other.
Just install your favorite ad blocker directly from the chrome web store
> Constant changes by the evil empire
Same problem with Chrome
In my eyes edge is mostly equivalent to chrome. Edge has native vertical tabs and slightly better Windows-integration, Chrome slightly better Google-integration. Both are under the control of both your employer and a tech giant with questionable ethics. And both tech giants use their respective platforms to aggressively promote their browser.
I guess we could agree that you should use neither.
Huh? Edge, as you say, is based on Chrome. It has an extensions store where you can get uBlock. You can also get normal Chrome extensions if you want from the Chrome web store.
1- the vast majority of people who access a computing device never alter settings that matter, such as browser, location access, etc. Etc. and simply go with the flow. So when these people open Edge (or Chrome for that matter) they likely won't even notice they're logged in, and if they do will either think it's convenient or don't care
2- with the hype and hoopla of ChatGPT, a surprising number of non-tech savvy people heard " Microsoft has AI, Google doesn't", so they'll actively use Edge (and Bing) for the generative AI
It's the power of defaults. Microsoft goes hard on trying to get you to sign in anywhere in Windows with your account and if you're not careful about which button you press, it'll then use that account for everything MS-related, including Edge.
It has the best (and most reliable) integrated AI-based web experience. The Bing side bar can read what is in the open tab, etc. It's useful but it probably not worth the trade-offs
