8mo ago

The Dying Web | Matthias Endler

endler.dev

I look left and right, and I'm the only one who…

Firefox @lemmy.world

Vincent @feddit.nl

8mo ago

The Dying Web | Matthias Endler

endler.dev /2024/the-dying-web/

15 comments

Stay strong, brother.
another Firefox user

It's depressing watching the same thing play out a generation later: one browser vendor captures the entire market and no one fights back. We all know variations of this phrase:
Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.
There's another phrase that further illustrates the conundrum:
Those who know history are doomed to know that it's repeating.

There was a time when I tried to educate people on the negative effects of browser monoculture. Okay, my mum didn't get it, but I was more disappointed by my fellow devs. Everyone took the easy route and happily stayed on Uncle Google's lap.
Hot take: Developers used to all be tech focused. Development today is just a job.
- There's still some nerds in the dev world, we're just growing thin.

Things we all (FF users) think, but are too tired of saying

I use Firefox, but the #1 complaint that's made me stop evangelizing it to random people is the endless, endless complaints that it's slow.
And, frankly, it is: Chromium-based browsers perform better a good amount of the time on sites that use too much JS, which is, well, basically everything.
It's better than it used to be, but boy do people care less about free software than they do fast software.
I will admit I dumped Firefox on my android phone and went back to Chrome because, good grief, it was taking nearly twice as long to open and load pages and yeah, my patience doesn't stretch THAT far.
- I dumped Firefox on my android phone and went back to Chrome because, good grief, it was taking nearly twice as long to open and load pages
  Really?
  I use both Firefox and Chrome on Android, and both seem similar and ok to me. Firefox appears to be a bit faster, with uBlock, as my network is not always fast.
  Which websites do you mainly use?
  I keep chrome mainly for the google websites and services.
  
  To be fair, I blame the phone more than Firefox for the performance, though at the end of the day, it's still slower than Chrome.
  I went cheap and low spec (OnePlus Nord N30, because it had a headphone jack AND sdcard) for my last phone replacement and, for 99% of the things I do, it's perfectly fine.
  That last 1% is kind of annoying and browsing falls into it.
  It's a case where loading a bookmark from the home screen will crash about 1/3rd of the time with Firefox and will routinely take long enough that I'm sitting there annoyed at how long it's taking to load. No specific sites are better/worse, but it's all mostly self-hosted stuff: redlib, Lemmy, PeerTube, Firefish, etc.
  It's a case of it being basically instant for Chrome, and 5+ seconds for Firefox - and more like 20-25 in the case of Firefish to actually load all the content - so I'm assuming Google is doing some background pre-loading or something that's causing the discrepancy.
- I use Firefox, but the #1 complaint that's made me stop evangelizing it to random people is the endless, endless complaints that it's slow.
  Part of the problem is that Chrome is so widespread that it's seen as the default, and thus anything that deviates from that is quickly blamed for any problems.
  I heard someone tell an anecdote recently about why their daughter always ordered Domino's pizza for her friends. She said that if Domino's pizza is bad, her friends blame Domino's, whereas if pizza from elsewhere is bad, they blame her.
- I will admit I dumped Firefox on my android phone and went back to Chrome because, good grief, it was taking nearly twice as long ...
  I'm not doubting you, but I am surprised. My android is 10 years old now. I switched to FF on it recently and haven't noticed a difference other than the URL bar is on the bottom now 🙃

it's funny that this is posted in the Firefox echo chamber. We should be sharing this outside our own circles.

That last paragraph about Safari was just unnecessarily snarky and condescending. Not to mention Google pays Mozilla a lot of money, too.
- If he was really into the idea of a diverse set of browsers he’d mention Gnome Web / Epiphany rather than leave it as “Safari doesn’t run on Linux”.

15 comments