Is there a reason why? Less funding? Web devs don’t make the pages Firefox friendly? Since the user base is smaller, they just don’t care?
Hmm, do you mean in the web console?
I know Firefox has a bit of a reputation for being rather precise in how it handles web standards compliance. So, it’ll show comparatively many warnings and errors, if you don’t keep to the web standards.
This is actually quite useful for web devs, because it means, if Firefox is happy with your implementation, then it’s relatively likely to run correctly on all browsers.
Yeah, if that’s what OP means (though that’s unclear), I’m not sure why OP thinks it’s a bad thing. It’s a good thing.
Or maybe OP means Firefox crashes more or something. In which case I can only say that hasn’t been my experience.
My experience has been, however, that Firefox is quite usable on a Raspberry Pi 4 while Chromium is far too resource hungry to be usable on that platform.
Anecdotal, but I’ve never once had a problem with any function of Firefox in the decade I’ve been using it. On the contrary it’s been the most stable browser I’ve had the pleasure of using, orders of magnitude more reliable in all situations than Chrome or Opera ever was.
This post smells of astroturfing. There’s been an awful lot of “why is Firefox so shit?” posts recently, now that Google is proving itself untrustable.
The only time I’ve ever had issues with errors or ads is while using it on iOS, because it’s not possible to add extensions. Otherwise as you said, it is by far the best and most stable browser I’ve used in the last decade
Web devs don’t make the pages Firefox friendly? Since the user base is smaller, they just don’t care?
correct
also in the case of Google controlled websites the errors are often deliberately introduced to sabotage firefox
Wait, what? Do you have a source on this?
The browser war has been long and bloody, but here’s a current battle.
https://fosspost.org/google-slowdown-firefox-users-when-watching-youtube
Didn’t that turn out to be an issue related to adblockers?
Adblockers existed so google took it out on all of Firefox, the collateral being a win-win to their monopoly
I don’t think I’ve experienced this. Do you mean some pages not working in Firefox, but working in Chrome? That’s mainly because of parts of web standards that are ambiguous or undefined, and Firefox and Chrome have different behavior. Some web developers (read lazy web developers) don’t test in Firefox, so they write bad code. Both Firefox and Chrome follow the standards, so if web devs just stick to the standards, everything should work.
Not a dev, but I work with them. It’s often the product manager that pushes an ignore everything but chrome so we can ship more features. I’ve seen devs argue and lose on such things.
Back in the early days I found Firefox to be clunkier and slower than Chrome, which was the reason for my using Chrome for well over a decade. But since Chrome became Google’s My Little Spyware, I’ve moved back to Firefox and it’s so much better. More stable, better customization, and way more privacy focused.
Someone else said it but yeah, this feels like astroturfing.
it’s like how something like 99% of computer viruses or tailored for windows. most of the people that you’re going to be pulling revenue from are using Chrome, so optimize for Chrome and then ship
Once in a while I’ll get the odd webpage that supposedly isn’t supported on Firefox or doesn’t render completely well. I always assumed web developers just made their stuff for the largest audience, which is Chrome users. Back in the day it was the same with IE…
Could you give an example of a web page that doesn’t work right on it? I’ve never noticed browsers differing like you describe.
I work in web and app development company and we don’t check Firefox anymore, because it’s the only outlier and has not many users. But mainly because we wouldn’t have to do it for any other browser specifically and Firefox is not special in any way. The errors come from it being more strict, which might sound good, but it’s actually really just inconvenient. The errors go from image alignment issues to apps not working at all. We don’t fix any of that.
Aaah so you and your company were proponents of the “This Site is optimised for Internet Explorer”
Ok boomer.
Woah such a scathing retort.
Perhaps consider the accessibility angle why it’s a bad idea only catering to one browser and that your team/company should do better than that.
It was humorous. I try to take stuff lightly.
Its not a bad idea. Nobody uses Firefox. We tested and there is no reason for us to start putting in the effort.
Nobody uses Firefox
well thanks to companies like yours, its not surprising that the trend is going downwards. Pfft who needs a vendor free Web after all, eh? Everything’s Google now, yay!
Trend is down, somebody just wrote it’s up 🤣.
Look, I don’t care. I don’t. I use what works and I develop for what works. Then I go home and spend time with my family.
I have no interest of progressing any agenda for anyone. If mozzila what’s to be a player, they should address the reasons why no one is using their browser. That for sure ain’t me.
I have no interest of progressing any agenda for anyone.
except you and your company do and you are being ignorant of that.
but hey, as long as it puts the meal on the table…
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Look I understand you are offended. I didn’t mean to offend you. But I’m not calling anyone names I’m defensive because this has been an all out attack on me! But I didn’t take it personally, this is my opinion, it’s clear that many share it otherwise not so many websites would be broken on Firefox.
I’m just calling it like it is.
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I mean it’s not a bad point, IE once had the market dominance that chrome does now. By all means continue only supporting one engine but at least be aware that you’re gambling on the browser market not shifting again as it has done in the past.
Look, its not like we wont notice a shift like that. It would be very easy to adapt if the situation warranted.
If it were really that easy to adapt there would be no reason not to support Firefox in the first place…
At that point its out of your hands. Once the users have fully decided only one browser is all they’re going to use, because most websites only develop for that browser (gee sound familiar?) then whoever owns that browser owns the web. That’s the point people are trying to get you to understand and you aren’t getting.
its not like we wont notice a shift like that. It would be very easy to adapt
This has has happened before. It took over a decade to get people to start using other browsers. Your little company can’t wave a magic wand and make the entire internet ecosystem shift, even though you were part of the cause.
Firefox market share is going up. But because small vendors not testing on it, it’s preventing its adoption. So you’re letting Google own the web.
That is a wild and completely wrong assertion. I’m not Microsoft. Im a guy that has used Firefox last year and the experience was sub par. So I switched back.
I’m not letting anyone do anything. You are exaggerating to the absurd.
Those were your words – you said you would notice a shift like that and adapt, which to me is saying you think you could undo the harm once you noticed it. Maybe you worded it wrong.
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If you’re developing software for one client who only uses a specific browser, I can see this being okay, but several times I have chosen not to buy things from websites that were broken in Firefox. I don’t bother to check whether they’d work in Chromium, I just buy it elsewhere.
The number of people who act like me probably isn’t large in absolute terms, but how many customers have been lost because of a broken website that you didn’t even know about because they just left without a trace?
This might not apply to you, but it’s some food for thought whenever Web developers decide to be sloppy and not check compatibility for a browser that still has significant market share.
Same. I’m not bothering with broken web sites.
I’m not in the US though, so I don’t get many of them.
The number of people who act like that is negligible. We tested for that.
We don’t see it as that we are sloppy but that Firefox is not a good browser. We came to that conclusion because no other browser acts like that.
Don’t you think that it may be because Firefox is pretty much the only browser using a different engine that Chromium? There are literally two major browser engines, and you’re developing for one them. Ofc everything else will act like Chromium, because they are Chromium for the most part.
That’s all really nice. But the fact is, we use what works. It’s a pragmatic decision. They’re are so few Firefox users and on the end issues are not very common.
The number of Edge users is only a few % more, do you skip that too? Just check Chrome and Safari and call it a day?
As someone that uses only Firefox and knows others who do, this really surprises me. If a website is broken on Firefox then it’s shitty webdev work and I’ll find another store.
Edge is the same as Chrome, so no extra testing is needed for that.
Yes, Edge has transitioned to using their own forked version of Chromium under the hood, but they make enough changes that it’s necessary to test for. It’s not like Cromite that takes Chromium and removes some things and change configs. They modify core components of the engine itself.
Everything works fine in edge. Only Firefox has issues.
Users don’t care why that is. If their app doesn’t work they won’t use this niche browser that very few people use.
Funny, we get more complaints about DuckDuckGo browser than anything else, and that’s one of the few we don’t test on. I know this because I make it a point to have someone from CS tell me about consistent pain points users are having. I wonder how many complaints about Firefox not working your customer service team is getting daily and you just don’t hear about it because they’ve been told to tell users “just say Firefox isn’t a supported browser and to try installing Chrome.”
You should ask someone in CS. Whichever agent bullshits the least (not the manager) - you might learn something.
Almost 3/10 people accessing your sites are using Firefox. All those “images not loading right or whatever” are probably blatant to them, making them think “wow, what an absolute shit website.”
3 out of 10.
We don’t see it as that we are sloppy but that Firefox is not a good browser. We came to that conclusion because no other browser acts like that.
Your views seem to be very narrow despite being a developer.
There are many misconceptions in your short sentence.
I want you to point them out.
That my view is narrow and that developers somehow can’t have narrow views.
That my view is narrow
Yes. Your view is narrow. You do not care about the technical details and just label Firefox as “bad/broken” because you do not know how to work with it. That is a pretty narrow view. You do not care about the idealogical reasons that people bring up in here either.
and that developers somehow can’t have narrow views.
I am expecting a person that is talented enough to be a developer to not have narrow views.
Funny enough this ‘slop’ is compliance, but hey you seem to think you’re mega dev supreme so I’m sure you already knew that
I never said anything about me. I only said I’m pragmatic.
We tested for that
Genuinely curious—how?
Ah. You pray at the altar of Google with the mantra: “It only works in Chrome or Edge. Why not upgrade your browser?”
What could possibly go wrong with giving all the power to one browser engine? If only there was a precedent to learn from…
Bruh, he just explained what his company’s workflow is like. He wasn’t espousing the opinions that everybody is accusing him of, just saying how his job requires him to work.
This community can be hyper-reactionary sometimes.
Do you think that this workflow is some divine commandment? Developers like him create these. He should totally get some of the blame.
Yeah I’m sure he, alone, is responsible for his company’s practices, and isn’t just a dude trying to make a paycheck.
I never said he alone did it. I’m sure he’ll be happy to share credit for any great product his company makes. Why not take some of the blame too? (I’m not sure if he does think that way though. He hasn’t replied since. I’m just replying to other people.)
Why should he take the blame for something he likely has no influence over? That’s like blaming the Sandwich Artist because you don’t like Subway’s bread; he just makes the sandwiches, he doesn’t design the recipe.
Honestly, I’d be fine and understand that he cannot but be complicit in this due to powers beyond his reach. I’d eat my words if he says that he doesn’t like it, but has to comply. But he seems like he’s pretty happy with it. (Again, from that one comment.) I will blame the sandwich artist if he defends shitty sandwiches. Because one has to be responsible for their own work. They’re free to not give a fuck about what anyone thinks. But they are complicit.
Haha, no. We don’t pray. We make web apps to make money. Catering to a negligible users who for some reason want to use the single browser with issues, that’s up to them.
I use firefox exclusively, on both my laptop and my phone. It works perfectly on any website I throw at it. I work for a startup which makes video call apps, the web client works perfectly under Firefox, and there’s a grand total of 2 devs working on it.
All this to say that if I come across your website and it doesn’t work under Firefox, AFAIC it’s your website that has issues, not Firefox.
As for the reason, you might be fine with a single megacorp dictating the way the web works, but for many of us who remember what it was like in the IE hegemony days it’s a serious concern.
Again, I’m not a soldier for any software. I don’t care. It’s a pragmatic business decision.
I guess my point is, you should :)
I would, if there wasn’t for my personal experience of using Firefox, when I had to switch to other browsers for some websites I used.
Its because of that, that when we decided to ignore Firefox, I wasn’t against it.
You do realize that you had the experience due to lazy developers such as yourself?
It’s a question of
How much effort (man hours which ultimately translates to $$$) versus how much revenue lost (people not buying because of Firefox bugs)
In my experience this depends on your specific application. Sometimes there are weird bugs or behavior where you have to really hunt down what’s going on. Other times it’s as simple as changing a few css lines or something.
It’s almost impossible to calculate revenue lost, but as much as we tried, it was 0 or almost 0.
Again, we don’t even check anymore.
It’s funny, I am not a web developer, but have built my own page for indexing my photo galleries.
It uses a lot of CSS, and I gave up on developing for Chrome/Webkit just because it is less precise, I make it work in Firefox because then I know it works fine in Chrome.
Way more efficient.
Well no. It doesn’t work like that. Unfortunately.
It did for me…
That’s great for you. These issues are not that common really.
They would be less common if you developed for Firefox
It’s like making a .txt document with tables and ASCII art and then on my God other text editors use different fonts and the look breaks. Only the most popular, Windows Notepad is supported.
Web was supposed to be bulletproof, easy to archive and implement. If a webpage break because a browser is supporting 99% of super bloated web standards instead of 99.5% of Chrome, there is clearly something wrong.
My rule of thumb is, try to randomly remove some HTML tags and CSS declarations. If whole site break and is unusable because of one/two lines missing, this website is a hack exploiting browser monoculture.
Again, I’m not a soldier for any particular software. I’m a pragmatic user. I will use whatever works and will develop of whatever works.
Some apps and websites are broken on Firefox, that’s why we don’t use it and don’t optimise for it. We don’t care it’s not the fault of Firefox. It’s a pragmatic business decision that is practically inconsequential, because Firefox has so few users.
I work in web and app development company and we don’t check Firefox anymore, because it’s the only outlier and has not many users.
Fellow webdev here, You’re absolutly correct.
I mostly use Firefox, so I develop on Firefox and check other browsers for issues. That way, I can make sure the app and websites I’m working on still work on Firefox.
