#Firefox doesn’t need any new features to be more attractive for users, it just needs to make CSS theming more accessible
On my list of things important for the browser I use, CSS theming doesn’t even appear.
CSS theming is absolutely dispensable
And stop doing shady shit
Also don’t add advertising crap that is opt-out and only configurable via
about:config.majority of people dont give a fuck about that
Majority of people also don’t give a fuck about Firefox at all.
So why piss off the few that DO care?
I am not saying they shouldn’t have done that. I am saying its not a blocker in mass adoption.
Zen browser is Firefox with easy css theming
Only reason I use Chromium is PWAs (Web Apps). Which is why I made an extension that opens links from Chromium in Firefox.
Got Slack running in your work profile on Chromium? Opens links in Firefox work profile.
I should probably release this.
Same here. I have to trust/use an extension and third party desktop application (Progressive Web Apps for Firefox) to get this feature to work and not have to rely on Chrome/Edge/etc.
I can easily see less patient or understanding users dropping Firefox if they find out it doesn’t work with Progressive Web Apps.
My problem with that extension is the separate profile requirement (so new links can’t open in a specific profile), and some things (like Slack) don’t fully work outside Chromium.
My solution works like this:
- Slack open as PWA in Chromium in profile Work
- Click link to http://that
- Extension captures the request, cancels the new tab/window, sends the URL and profile name to a small service running on
localhost - Service opens Firefox with same profile to URL
The extension is set to skip this process if the base URL is the same as the current site (Slack.com/google.com/etc).
Note: Why would someone down vote you for a helpful response? Sheash.
Uhh also, auto captioning features like Google chrome pls.
Also ditch AI.
Main thing I want is to override site css. Who cares what the browser itself looks like.
There’s Stylus
or userContent.css
Tell me more about that. How does it work?
Its like userchrome but for the contents of the webpage. You match on the url and write css that overrides the site’s css.
So basically like a user style that you would use in Stylus? What are the differences, advantages/disadvantages?
my dude, this isn’t google
Didn’t FF basically solve this with their Firefox Color addon? well, at least from a color them perspective.
its still quite limited
Anyone who thinks they know what needs to happen for Firefox to regain market share, needs to consider what would happen if someone forks Firefox and makes that happen.
There’s no way that CSS theming is it. And in general, “not doing something” isn’t going to be it, either.
they need to offer a better alternative to Electron. once that happens, you’ll have Firefox everywhere. People will code their SPAs to run in Firefox first, recommend it to their users, and accelerate the development of better APIs.
Ah, so it should just be better! I wonder why nobody thought of that yet :P
(Sorry, I’m in a sarcastic mood, but you get my point.)
oh don’t get me wrong if I had a plan for it I’d be doing it. I’ve always found it really weird given the impact that Electron had in app development, why Firefox never tried to ride that train. I know of one short lived effort to take the engine out of the browser.
Usually the answer is limited resources with unclear payoff, i.e. even with Electron’s success, it’s not clear that there’s room for an alternative in the market, and it’d be a lot of effort to do.
There is Tauri which is so much better both from UX and DX.
And yet all the big apps are still using Electron.
Tauri v2 just got released, it’s very recent and corps move slowly; besides, rewriting a project in a different framework is a major undertaking, it would be a bad idea to rewrite a major project in Tauri, which is still not as widespread. I’m unfortunate enough to have to work with Electron and Tauri greatly improves on everything that is wrong with Electron. I have no doubt that companies will begin adopt it in the following years (or a similar tool, the underlying architecture is solid).
Check out Tauri, a better alternative to Electron. It avoids bundling a browser engine in the binary and relies on the OS browser engine.
Honestly, I don’t see why CSS theming is important. The customization is nice and all, but that’s not going to make people switch to Firefox. There are many other things that could be improved, like adding tab grouping. I use this extension called Tree Style Tab which I cannot live without. Firefox having something like that by default instead of an extension would be nice.
However, having said that, OperaGX did find quite a lot of success by simply making it easy to theme the browser, so I can see where they are coming from.
Tree Style Tab which I cannot live without. Firefox having something like that by default instead of an extension would be nice.
Been using TST for a while now, and I whole heartedly agree. Given that it’s essentially just some CSS, I can’t imagine that it would be difficult at all to support natively.
Maybe start rendering pages right?
Nah, get chromium and web devs to adopt web standards
When chromium is 99% of what people are using for browsing, it IS the web standard. That’s the whole point of telling people to get the fuck off of it. Are you not old enough to remember IE4 and ActiveX?
I don’t test my stuff on Firefox as a Firefox user. Don’t have time for the weirdos. My users are on Chrome. It works if and only if it works on Chromium. That’s the reality.
Most of the time its the fault of the developer if a page only works in chrome.
what pages dont render right though?
For me it’s anything like excalidraw or something like Google sheets. They work fine until I change tabs and come back then it’s blank. But if I move the arrow keys or scroll wheel then every comes in and out of existence or stays on the screen even if I select another sheet until I close and reopen the site. But I never noticed this issue before moving to Linux so maybe it’s an issue on my machine
Idk for sure, but if excalidraw uses canvas then there are a lot more possible machine/OS specific problems that come up. Web browser features that hand tasks off to the GPU have gotten a lot better over recent years but there are still oddities like max shaders for a specific browser/OS/GPU combo that’ll lead to some funny behavior.
ive never noticed anything like that, so yeah, its probably something related to your OS
@RmDebArc_5 @firefox I believe they really need better tab organization (without the need for extensions). just basic tab grouping like chrome is a very important feature.
Funny enough
Uh, no, they definitely need tab grouping before they get into making CSS theming easier.
Looks to be in the works which makes me very happy. If you use nightly, make sure browser.tabs.groups.enabled in about:config is enabled
yes i agree, tab grouping is very good
Tab grouping is nice, but I’ve found Sidebery to meet my needs (specifically nested tab groups, and separating projects — plus it worked out of the box with Firefox Color) much better. I have it configured to automatically unload collapsed branches, which is nice as a tab hoarder, and it can fully send entire panels to your bookmarks for later usage (this is a massive performance improvement when you’re regularly opening 100–200 tabs/day per panel). A native solution, however, would be much appreciated — as long as there’s a way to nest tab groups and unload their contents.
I went with floorp, because it allowed native title bar disabling, with task bar editing so I could inject a grab handle; vertical tabs in sidebery, and a clean, nearly-ui-free vertical.
I’m on Librewolf, but Floorp sounds nice!
Agreed. This is the only reason (besides the built-in fake VPN) OperaGX is popular. All browsers have pretty much the same feature set. OperaGX’s biggest strength is CSS customization, Firefox’s biggest strength is extensions, Edge’s is being the Windows default and Chrome’s is it’s image of “fast and secure browsing”.
All Firefox needs to have is be the jack of all trades. But still prioritize it’s main distinction.
