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Comment by bad_user | Hacker News Reader

     Firefox is terrible. It's embarrassing.

I do have Firefox occasionally choking, which annoys me as hell, but I'm on Firefox 8.

I do get frustrated, but criticizing a software package that you get for freaking free, especially one that you ow so much to, with such a harsh tone really is unwarranted.

And it really is free in a not-for-profit way. The Awesome bar that the article mentions really saves you from making useless round-trips to Google / being exposed to Google Ads, even if this hurts Mozilla's revenues; on the other hand Chrome's primary reason for being is Google's control on the web, ensuring that Google's search remains the default, which is one reason the Awesome bar will never make it into Chrome.

Also, AdBlock Plus in Chrome has known bugs and limitations because of Chrome, because while Firefox is a platform, Chrome is a product that treats its users like idiots.

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Free doesn't play into it. Either something is good or it's not. One of the best aspects of OSS is that there are so many examples of products that are every bit as good, if not better than, their commercial competition. If I give you a free durian sandwich you are not obligated to like it or to hold back your criticism, you should be free to say "dude, this tastes like garbage water."

Indeed, that line of reasoning has even less standing in regard to browsers since the top 4 browsers are all free. Encouraging people to stiffle their very real complaints will only serve to lower the quality of firefox, who does that benefit?

"Chrome is a product that treats its users like idiots."

I found myself agreeing with some of your points, but that comment was unnecessary. It's just two different design philosophies: Firefox allows extension of the browser itself at the cost of completely-silent upgrades and sandboxing, while Chrome treats extensions like miniature web pages.

I agree that Chrome is a strategic move for Google, but it has made some definite contributions (like V8!) to free software. Not to mention it had a very unique interface when it was first launched (very well designed).

Chrome was part of the reason why Mozilla is hustling to improve Firefox. If anything, appreciate Chrome for giving people more options and placing pressure on Mozilla to innovate.

> which is one reason the Awesome bar will never make it into Chrome.

What does the AwesomeBar do that Chrome's address bar doesn't? Heck the Chrome address bar even does autocomplete of search terms when you have it set to use Bing…

When I first started using Chrome, the awesomebar is probably what I missed most from Firefox. On Firefox, I type a partial keyword or two, and pages from history show up which are very relevant. Do the same on Chrome, and I usually have to finish a list of keywords to search Google in order to get to the page I'm thinking of.

I ended up changing my address bar behavior on Chrome, but when I ran Firefox again for a while, I relearned my old behaviors by chance just by trying to search for stuff via the address bar, and instead finding the awesomebar offer what I was looking for with less effort. Once you get used to it, it really is inferior to how Chrome's address bar works. That said, Chrome has lots going for it as well.

Chrome is a product that treats its users like idiots.

Many, many products do that these days.

which is actually a good thing

I disagree heavily. Treating more and more people like they are idiots in all areas of life is the reason we've become a lethargic, consume-drunken shade of society. This needs to stop. We need to force people to think. Think for themselves. Teach a man to fish and all that.

Indeed, only I wouldn't phrase it like that. Maybe "gets out of the way". Remember Krug's "don't make me think"?

"Free" projects lose that excuse when they start making money through third parties (Google pays Mozilla a ton of money to be the default search engine) and make concentrated marketing pushes.

I'm certainly going to treat them like I would any other ad-supported software, and that means treating them like any other commercial piece of software.

Wrong "free".

It's free as in speech, not beer.

Though there's a Free Software implementation of Chrome as well: Chromium.

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