[worble]

The rhetoric around Firefox is so exhausting. They change some wording while having made no actual technical changes to the browser and the internet is on fire for days calling them the devil incarnate, meanwhile Chrome gutted uBlock and other extensions a week ago and there was barely any noise about it.

What causes this phenomenon where the project with significantly less resources is held to a higher standard than the other players?

[mkl]

From long experience we expect Google and hence Chrome to act against our interests. We have not expected that of Mozilla and Firefox.

Google did give us a lot of warning that they would greatly restrict ad-blocking and tracker-blocking, so most of that angst has already been and gone.

[InDubioProRubio]

But firefox always was a monopoly figleave sockpuppet - and now they do not need it anymore, so firefox either finds a new purpose (doing what it promised) or it tries to sell out in one final scam.

[KevinMS]

> From long experience we expect Google and hence Chrome to act against our interests. We have not expected that of Mozilla and Firefox.

HN used to gush over how great Chrome was. Some of us were saying, um guys, you know google is in the business of selling advertising right? Nobody seemed to care. Now mozilla's lawyers have them change some legalese and they are instantly the bad guys.

[magicalhippo]

> meanwhile Chrome gutted uBlock and other extensions a week ago and there was barely any noise about it

Because anyone who cared knew this was coming in the near future after they published manifest v3 several years ago. Back then there was a huge kerfuffle, but since then anyone who cared has moved on.

[lukan]

Well, no one (sane) has any illusions left about chrome.

But FF was supposed to remain the shiny counterexample (despite acting also shady since years).

[sebazzz]

It is still the least worse option. These posts like OP is just throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

[cassianoleal]

OP's premise is that "Firefox is gone" and "Chrome is the only option". That suggests Chrome is better than current Firefox.

Personally, even though my trust in Firefox (and especially Mozilla) has been eroding rapidly in recent years, it's still so much greater than what I have for Google and Chrome that it's not even a choice.

Therefore, I agree with GP that this rhetoric is exhausting.

Bringing up the issues with FF and Mozilla is important and deserves attention. This kind of misleading FUD is not and does not.

[beehivebasic]

> OP's premise is that "Firefox is gone" and "Chrome is the only option". That suggests Chrome is better than current Firefox.

To be fair, OP asked if "Chrome-ish" is the only option, i.e. Chromium-based browsers - not Chrome itself.

Even so, I don't think the implication is that Chromium is better than Firefox, but that without Firefox only Chromium-based browsers remain. "If I don't want to use Firefox, is it really only Chrome-clones available?"

[torstenvl]

Chrome is better than current Firefox. Chrome does not require users to grant Google a license to the information they enter online.

[refulgentis]

> What causes this phenomenon where the project with significantly less resources is held to a higher standard than the other players?

Hm, my lived experience is the inverse, and both seem sort of important to talk about.

We've been hearing about Chrome implementing the same privacy protections as Safari as a transgression for years, years, and years, as it was delayed again and again.

It was ex-Mozilla people who brought to my attention that they were deeply alarmed by the privacy-concious-Do-Not-Track people making this pivot and that it was a really bad sign.

Generally, I try to avoid loaded questions phrased like "why is X considered as A while Y is considered as B?" because it suffers from high failure rates

(likelihood you're the first person to realize the truth; likelihood these things ended up sorted neatly into opposing binaries; undecidability of 'how come everyone believes the wrong thing?'; uncomfortable conversation when someone starts from 'how come everyone believes the wrong thing?' and you have to sort of lead them gently to 'is it possible you are missing something, not everyone else?' without making it obvious)

[scarface_74]

> We've been hearing about Chrome implementing the same privacy protections as Safari as a transgression for years, years, and years, as it was delayed again and again.

Well Apple didn’t turn around and try to push the Topics API..

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Topics_API

(Just to be clear. Mozilla is opposed to it too. They are just documenting it and don’t plan to implement the API)

[refulgentis]

To be clear, I don't think trying to score or rank browser manufacturers on Goodness is an achievable goal. Endless what-abouts are available, with rational arguments available to opposing opinions.

However, I must admit I am intrigued by seeing Topics posited as a stain.

I strongly believe we would have been obviously better off as consumers with topics, than the status quo, a wild west of tracking, but AFAIK, weakly, it could have entrenched incumbents further.*

Selfishly, for my individual interests, I wish Apple had proposed it.

I have a feeling it would have been more dogged in working through it, rather than Google's laissez-faire "oh well! guess we get to keep tracking" when the bottom feeders complained.**

That's probably why it seems unachievable to me to rank on Goodness, opinions abound and they're all reasonable.

* i.e. even if the topics are retrievable via JS by any page, I'd assume there's some clever way for Google to do something strictly superior from an advertiser perspective leveraging some E2E integration, ex. perhaps most pages have to wait till load to get topics, but Google can do a special preflight request given a special HEAD tag, idk

** My weak understanding is this essentially was put on pause/shit-canned after UK competition authorities relayed general concern, and I don't remember Google giving up so easily on anything ever

[scarface_74]

I’m opposed to any advertising on the web. Not because of ideology. It just makes the web worse especially on mobile.

Despite the outcry of manifest v3, if I understand it correctly it’s a standardize version of how Apple implements content blocking on the web, similar functionality works well in Safari.

[beehivebasic]

When Firefox removed Do Not Track in December last year [0] people also freaked out, which came as a considerable surprise to me; I thought most tech-savvy users were well aware of the flaws with DNT, and were well aware of DNT's newfangled replacement (GPC) that Firefox had already adopted [1].

I will never understand why people attack Firefox so eagerly at every given opportunity.

[0]: https://circuitbulletin.com/what-is-global-privacy-control-t... [1]: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/global-privacy-control

[TiredOfLife]

>there was barely any noise about it.

10 posts daily about it on HN.

[firefax]

>The rhetoric around Firefox is so exhausting. They change some wording while having made no actual technical changes to the browser and the internet is on fire for days calling them the devil incarnate

Having worked there, it's concerning, since if you saw the discussions that go on with regard to user data, you'd know they are trying to make sure they word things correctly, not... insert weasel words to grab your data.

[yjftsjthsd-h]

> meanwhile Chrome gutted uBlock and other extensions a week ago and there was barely any noise about it.

At this writing, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43322922 has 962 points and 485 comments, and is the latest in a long line of posts. What are you on about?

> What causes this phenomenon where the project with significantly less resources is held to a higher standard than the other players?

There is the thing where Mozilla explicitly claimed to uphold a higher standard.

[TiredOfLife]

>What causes this phenomenon where the project with significantly less resources is held to a higher standard than the other players?

It's not the resources. It's their holier than thou attitude.