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Comment by pier25 | Hacker News Reader

I like using Chrome and even went back to it after trying FF and Brave 2-3 years ago. But this would really make me look for alternatives, even if those are inferior.

It's not even about Youtube. I pay for Youtube Premium. But not being able to block third party cookies would be a deal breaker.

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So switch then instead of just talking about it. It's not a big deal, it takes like 1 minute, and no one can seriously tell me you have a significantly different browser experience on Chrome vs FF.

It's very subjective, but I won't try switching again before certain things I value in Chrome are available or work similar well on Firefox. You can switch based on ideology alone but I want convenience more than that.

Ok so if you're not going to switch then don't talk about it. Google will continue to make Chrome shittier and more user-hostile much like every product they've ever released since they were founded and people like you will continue to go "yeah but what about app mode or whatever." It's not ideology, it's history.

> Google will continue to make Chrome shittier and more user-hostile

Other than this ad stuff (which I agree is tremendously hostile) Chrome has acually been getting better. The dev tools, performance, UI, and memory usage have improved considerably this year.

You want to censor me because i have a different opinion than yours?

I assume you have good intentions and want to advocate for Firefox and have it have wider adoption. I want the same thing, but it's imo not enough that Chrome gets shittier (it doesn't in my opinion btw in terms of UX), Firefox needs to become better to win.

What things are you talking about? I haven't used chrome outside of work for years, so forgive my ignorance

I recently switched to Firefox and the main blockers for staying on it were a bad experience with syncing of passwords and such a across devices, the UI (i found a nice fix but it's tedious to setup), and no app-mode.

I did switch and then went back to Chrome. Didn't you read my comment?

It doesnt take 1 minute and yes the FF experience was significantly worse when I tried it.

Here's one example. I write almost daily in 4 languages on the web. With Chrome I get multilingual spell checking automatically in those 4 langguages without having to do anything. Even in the same <textarea>.

With FF you have to manually install dictionaries and there was even a 23 year old issue (yes, 23 years) about using multiple dictionnries at the same time. This issue was only closed 2 months ago:

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=69687

> But this would really make me look for alternatives,

A stronger response would be -- a year or more ago -- techies switching to Firefox as a symbolic movement.

And when we have more techies using Firefox, that means various kinds of network effects that end up improving its adoption.

If even tech people (who could easily have multiple browsers around) prefer Chrome over Firefox for minor problems out of convenience, I don't see how Firefox is supposed to really notably gain any market share even if Google completely locks out ad blockers.

> If even tech people (who could easily have multiple browsers around) prefer Chrome over Firefox

very many of us don't.

There are dozens of us!!

I'm one of those dozens too, but sadly, "techies" are not that great at promoting the more open alternatives. Or even ad-blocking in general: just look at how hordes of HN users insist here that everyone who blocks ads is evil and how we have a moral obligation to watch advertising.

Sometimes it’s not “out of convenience” but “we only have the resources to test on one browser and most people use chrome” - so we must cater to that even if chrome is far down the road to enshittification.

majority of the people will still use Chrome even if Google literally delists all blockers from the planet. One major reason being "browser migration". The guys on HN crying foul on most of these articles are a vocal minority. This s Google's version of "corner the market and raise the prices". They ll lost 2-5% market share at max

Don't forget that google also has mozilla by the balls and can turn firefox into a community project at any time.

I've been using Firefox some lately because my work has a heavyhanded managed system-wide Chrome profile and one other problem is that Firefox is just buggy and slow in some noticeable ways that Chrome is not.

I often read these kinds of comments on HN and I don’t understand them. I’m using FF on MacOS and it feels like exactly the same experience I used to have on Chrome. Except that I like multi account containers better than Chrome profiles.

I would love for HN commenters to share a recording in which they show this “buggyness”

I’m on Linux. Attempting to drag a tab to a new window doesn’t work and permanently breaks the “x” button to close tabs (until a restart).

Too bad your lies have been upvoted. I am also on Linux - had to boot it up just to make sure I am not spreading bs - and what do you know, dragging tabs between windows works just fine, like it always has.

I am happy you have a better experience, but it doesn’t do me any good.

There's an evangelist effect - Apple benefited from it a lot way back when (less so now). Where techies lead, others tend to follow. That 2-5% might be the first few pebbles in the avalanche.

You still need a tangible reason for switching. Maybe we can push, but Firefox would need to sustain the momentum and I don't see them doing it.

My pet peeves: sync and app mode. I don't want to switch at the moment, tried many times, but it doesn't stick for me. If i ask my my aunt to do that, and she dislikes it, she won't do it again and won't trust me anymore on top of that.

The “techie” “evangelist” network effect is a thing of the past.

Today it’s all about mobile.

Nearly everybody uses their phone for everything and they aren’t making choices about which software to install on their personal laptop.

I think that's fair, actually. Appliances, not computers.

But why the scare quotes?

If browser migration stopped the majority from changing, Internet Explorer would still dominate. But Firefox got the majority, and then Chrome.

It's a bit more fluid than the OS market. A company can't get away with just anything forever in the browser space. At least not so far. 2-5% loss is significant for one change, and denotes a chink in the armor of dominance that other players can begin to exploit; whatever dissatisfaction caused people to migrate, other players can be very good at it, which can get more people trying the other product, which if it does well in other ways, can spread. So 2-5% loss has a small chance of turning into a long, slow landslide of market share loss.=

Definitely dangerous to start throwing customer experience under the bus for short to mid-term gains without paying attention to the long term picture.

> They ll lost 2-5% market share at max

IE lost a lot more than 2-5% during the golden years of FF. At its peak in 2010, FF had about 30% market share.