"Begin disabling installed extensions still using Manifest V2 in Chrome stable"

Sure, but we saw this coming a mile away (as in, people have been saying this about Chrome for about a decade). People--especially tech nerds--didn't have to switch to the closed source, conflict-of-interest, browser. But, everyone did, and this is what we get for it. We now have proprietary DRM built in to the web standards, and all kinds of other bullshit, because a bunch of people decided to not learn any lessons at all from Microsoft and Internet Explorer.

But, every time Mozilla does something slightly abrasive, HN users pile on about how Mozilla is ruining their privacy-respecting reputation, and then go back to using Chrome... The double-standard is really something else.

Maybe instead of getting someone else to break up Google for us, we could just... stop using their shit? I'm typing this from Firefox, I use Proton Mail (and pay for it!) for email, and I mostly search with DuckDuckGo (I know that's not perfect, either). I certainly don't feel like I'm living like a caveman...

/rant

> tech nerds you would be surprised how many devs these days have drunk the big tech coolaid.

leetcode all the time and dream of working at google and using chrome and writing javascript.

if the tech nerds took a stand and used firefox en masse, we wouldn't have this problem.

unfortunately it is now normie season. we have to travel through these dark times.

Google made something better than what existed with Chrome, it was obvious it would capture the market significantly especially among more technical people.

I don't think the fact that Chrome is (was) better is the question, it's a question of how they got here.

Google took tons of money and threw it into Chrome and therefore developed something better. It's better because Google put more money into it than anyone else would have because, in the absence of considering using it to enshrine their search and ad revenue, it wouldn't make sense.

Isn't this part of the antitrust test?

It was only true that Chrome was significantly superior (performance-wise, anyway) for a little while. Firefox had to play catch up and it took several years. It was (mostly) called the "electrolysis" (a.k.a., "e10s") project. It was considered complete by 2018, and had already offered significant performance and stability improvements for years before then.

I wouldn't be surprised if Chrome still performs better on Google-owned web sites, for obvious reasons. But, nobody is really going to notice a difference between Firefox and Chrome when visiting, e.g., your bank's web site.

So, it's been somewhere between six and eight years that Firefox has had comparable performance, comparable web dev tools, and way cooler extensions. I'm sure plenty of people will reply that this isn't true and there was some website just this week that FORCES them to stay with Chrome because they noticed a jitter once, but people on the internet are top-tier experts at rationalizing and I don't buy it.

We could've all jumped on board with Firefox when the e10s project landed, but nobody did because it was just slightly less convenient to switch than to not. I hope it was worth it for them.

There's still hope. I would like to draw a parallel to Microsoft Windows, with my own narrative added over.

Tech nerds mostly knew that Windows was not a good server operating system. It was also not a fantastic software development environment unless you were using a big, all-inclusive, IDE that was probably aimed specifically at developing Windows libraries and applications.

But, Windows was (and still is) the choice for normies by a WIDE margin.

The tech nerds continued to mostly ignore Windows for server stuff, and more and more ignored it for other dev stuff, too (many migrating to Macs, some to Linux, etc).

If you have a lot of users, but no developers on your platform, you're playing a dangerous game. Eventually Microsoft found a way to have Linux running in Windows. I don't know or care if that "saves" Microsoft or Windows or whatever, but I do see that as a win for the tech nerds.

All we have to do is get the tech nerds to stop using Chrome. Chrome can't survive forever if the nerds stop using Chrome, if we stop optimizing our web pages specifically for Chrome, and if we stop writing and maintaining extensions for it.

Eventually, they'll probably cave and put back more stuff to make the nerds happy, in order to bring them back to the platform and save their normie userbase. Either that or Chrome will die. Both are fine with me.

> I wouldn't be surprised if Chrome still performs better on Google-owned web sites, for obvious reasons.

Most websites (except for those doing some really fancy stuff with new experimental web apis) tend to work just fine in Firefox. Google's sites are the only ones I regularly encounter that perform terribly and leak memory continuously.

Meh, the "slightly abrasive" stuff Mozilla is doing is stuff like buying up ad analytics companies and adding features to help ad tracking companies track users. Fuck Mozilla, and fuck Google even more.

I admire your optimism by the way that a few technologists saying "stop using Chrome, Google is evil, use Firefox" is enough to overcome the market dominance of a monopoly like Google's, but I sadly don't share it. People have been saying it (and similar things, like "don't use Windows, Microsoft is evil, use Linux") for decades with little success. Even the few people who do get swayed will switch back after a few instances of "I was late for my important meeting/was unable to open this important document because the website didn't work with Firefox".

Most people's tech choices are deeply pragmatic and based on familiarity. And to expect anything else is honestly foolish, in my opinion.

This is coming from a Firefox and Linux user by the way.

> People--especially tech nerds--didn't have to switch to the closed source, conflict-of-interest, browser.

Do you not remember all the ads promoting chrome? First was chrome-frame IE extension, then came all the ads - then tie-ins where you got Chrome in addition when you really wanted some other app.

They pushed it hard because they knew they had no real competitors and could eat up marketshare.

> All we have to do is get the tech nerds to stop using Chrome. Chrome can't survive forever if the nerds stop using Chrome, if we stop optimizing our web pages specifically for Chrome, and if we stop writing and maintaining extensions for it.

Agreed 100% with this.

Chrome won because it was more performant (read: only point of interest for Joe Average) and it was modern and cool (read: only point of interest for nerds).

Firefox failed because it stagnated on performance and code quality (read: memory leaks for daaaaaaaaays) and ultimately because Mozilla was corrupted by Mitchell Baker and still is to this very day driving away nerds and engineers by the truckload.

Lest we forget, Internet Explorer lost to Firefox despite bundling with Windows. Edge still loses to Chrome despite bundling with Windows. Safari despite bundling with iOS and MacOS only survives thanks to the Walls of Applestantinope holding against the SelEUk Empire's onslaught.

>"stop using Chrome, Google is evil, use Firefox" is enough to overcome the market dominance of a monopoly like Google's

That is exactly how Firefox slew Internet Explorer.

The one that is the worst for me is Google Cloud console. It takes tens of seconds to update page state when trying to create or edit resources in Firefox, especially anything in Compute Engine. Chrome feels reasonably snappy, at least as good as AWS's console. I'm not sure who is to blame for that but I use `chrome-new` to log into Google Cloud when I need to.

Thanks for the unexpected laugh at the end. Maybe there is a typo in that imaginary world: "Applestantinople". But maybe it is as intended :)

Chrome had better stability (not sure about performance) for nearly a decade - far more than "a little while". I gave Mozilla 3-4 years to catch up before finally switching to Chrome.

Even once e10s supposedly fixed their problems another 4 years down the road, I didn't see any reason to rush back. I've switched to another Chromium browser, but I'd rather try a new engine entirely like Ladybird than switch back to Mozilla, until they prove they're not going to let the browser stagnate for so long again.

I didn't even notice that. lmao

I criticise Mozilla in tech circles, I recommend Firefox and a working adblocker to friends and family, and I donate to Ladybird. What else should I be doing?

unfortunately, there's not much else you get to do. With the exception of the anti-trust suits on google coming out with a decent outcome (which i wouldn't hold my breath for), there's little that individuals can do to push back against google's might.

If you're in a position of power in a corporation to dictate software usage, consider making firefox the default choice.

> Chrome won because it was more performant (read: only point of interest for Joe Average)

It's hard to argue chrome won on merit here when they were using their monopoly to actively sabotage users running firefox on the most popular sites.

> YouTube page load is 5x slower in Firefox and Edge than in Chrome because YouTube's Polymer redesign relies on the deprecated Shadow DOM v0 API only implemented in Chrome

Imagine browsing the web without an adblock. A single ad can consume 1GB in 5 minutes on my mobile phone. The CPU will be super slow. We often underestimate the loss of performance that ads represent.

Well, that’s going to be Chrome from now on.

Google spent astronomical amounts of money advertising Chrome, including pushing Chrome from literally priceless Web real estate like the Google start page, bundling deals with e.g. Flash, and preinstalls on various desktops and laptops. It really is hard to say what would have happened without that advantage.

But it has been few years since Firefox got the Quantum update, and now much more memory efficient than Chrome.

Yeah that's last part is funny but pretty true. I had always used Safari (basically since they replaced Internet Explore for Mac with it) but it became much less performant and had many annoyances regression (like the favicons in bookmarks). Still, I kept using it but what make me switch to Chrome a few years ago (about 2) was a bug preventing proper password sync with my iPhone (acquired from a beta testing I believe, some got it successfully resolved by contacting support but I can't be arsed, they should just have a reset everything option, including their cloud thingy).

Hilariously since you can use Chrome password manager on iOS, it became a better solution overall than trying to stick with Apple mess. With it I got support for uBlock Origin (nothing is as good for Safari, and it came to a point where I just couldn't deal with the ads anymore) and a much faster/more modern browser. As a bonus, it syncs everything with my Windows installation much better and I can use my Chrome profile on other computers when I need to. But when uBlock Origin is not supported in Chrome anymore I'll probably revisit the choice for something else.

Apple has completely lost the plot, pushing their half-assed, barely work, cloud stuff while simultaneously raising the price of entry/maintenance of their hardware. This is why I laugh my ass choice when they brag about their privacy bullshit. If they have wanted, they could have very well figured out a sync without relying on any cloud stuff; instead, they push iCloud to make more money (it's a crutch for people with iPhones that have way too little storage and other proper computing device) even though it makes no sense for what was the philosophy of Apple software/hardware previously. They have no competitive advantage in this matter and it often just sucks or doesn't work properly.

Who's IBM now, right ?

With the path Apple/Google are taking it looks like Microsoft will be the best bet for quite a while still. The thing with Microsoft is that while they lack taste and have some nasty corporate behavior, they are less greedy than the others and are willing to work with their customers more, respond to needs/demands better. Oh, and they don't try to have a captive hardware market, that is a massive plus.

The reason the "normies" "choose" Microsoft is because it's the only choice that make somewhat sense from a financial standpoint if you don't care that much. There is a whole mythology about Apple hardware lasting longer and all but, in my experience, the reverse is true and you get much more for your money if you opt for a standard computer that happens to come with Windows.

Linux would have a fight chance with better hardware/software support but dev/manufacturers can be arsed because it's a chicken and egg problem (there are also too many variations of what is Linux, so that doesn't help).

With the iPhone success, Apple had a chance to gain market share for "real" computer in a way that would have long lasting effect both for business and consumer support, instead they went full greed mode and found many clever ways to close even more a platform that was already not the most open, while had the same time selling weak computer that are clearly lacking for the price, very often with terrible engineering decision (like their new Apple Silicon iMac, already having issues, less than 4 years after release, what a joke).

That's it, I think. I think as long as enough of us actually do that, it'll make a difference. People seem to think that you need 50%+ of the users to "rebel" for there to be change, but the truth is that not all "users" are created equal. Developers, tech supporters (personal or professional), and "power users" matter more than typical users because it's our feedback, contributions, and demands that keep pushing these products forward. The "normies" will use whatever you put in front of them and they won't know or care that something could or should be different. If the nerds leave, the product will stagnate and other options will pick up steam.

This is the double standard I'm talking about. First, I honestly don't even believe your claim that Chrome was more stable than Firefox for a decade.

But, even so, you basically admit in the second paragraph that they're probably both fine, but you won't switch back to Mozilla "until they prove they're not going to let the browser stagnate for so long again." What the heck kind of test is that? And how long, exactly, will that take for you? If they "stagnated" for a decade, according to you, is it going to take another decade to prove they won't let it stagnate? Two decades, maybe? What does "stagnate" even mean? To me, it looks like Chrome is stagnating- what have they done lately that's innovative and actually good for users? Breaking a bunch of extensions and removing the ability to block ads? How many years does Chrome have to start behaving itself before you'll switch back to it after all of this? Ah, right- you won't switch away from it; you're probably only concerned about Firefox stagnating.

The truth is that you'll always make an excuse to not switch away from Chrome (and yeah, a browser that uses the Chromium guts is effectively the same thing when it comes to the monopoly on web standards).

Or, as Ballmer used to say, "developers, developers, developers, developers."