I think they make a pretty good browser. It is performant, supports blocking ads easily, standard compatible, customizable and recently even added support for vertical tabs. What are you missing?
I recently discovered that the sponsored sites on the homepage I had previously removed have reappeared. I've had similar issues with a few of the buttons on the browser chrome I had also removed. I'll still use it because I don't want to deal with the security and privacy nightmare that is ads. But it's a bit annoying to have to play this game of whack 'a mole.
I was mainly thinking about userChrome.css changes, which allow you to more or less rebuild the whole UI with code. Can't think of many other browsers that let you do that.
Vertical tabs are a native feature of Firefox for a few months now, and before that they were supported with an extension. userChrome.css was (then) used for hiding the original tabs.
I'm not sure what you mean with the context menus, but Web Extensions can add things to context menus.
Personally (I’m not the person you asked) I’m missing AppleScript support. Firefox is the only major browser without it, and the bug report for it is old enough to drink in every country.
That lack of capability prevents it from being my daily driver, even if the rest were good enough (I’m not saying it isn’t, I’m saying I have no reason to find out).
I am certain I have inadvertently pushed many people away from Firefox for that reason alone, because when they ask for me to add Firefox support for my tools, I have to tell them it’s impossible.
I have tried to talk to Firefox developers about that a few times, at open-source conferences and such, but they think AppleScript is some power-user feature and fail (refuse?) to understand power users drive adoption and create tools that regular users rely on.
I remember whenever a Firefox story was submitted on HN, multiple people commented “I want to use Firefox but it’s missing <whatever>”. Then Mozilla started doing a lot of questionable stuff (all of which they eventually abandoned) outside their core competency and even pulling distasteful marketing stunts, and at some point people started commenting even that. I presume many got tired and gave up on Firefox entirely. I almost have. I now root for them only conceptually, because browser diversity is good.
I also noticed that no matter how politely someone pointed out on HN “Firefox doesn’t fit for me because of <whatever>”, they always got downvoted. If valid polite criticism is buried, no wonder things stay the way they are.
> They're really not going to be able to dedicate resources to something as bijou as AppleScript.
They don’t need to do it themselves, they could just not stifle the efforts of third-parties who do want to and have worked on it. Multiple people started on it over the years and were simply ignored by the devs.
Probably because they don't want to take on that maintenance burden. Even just letting someone do that and merging it in is opening up a whooooole can of worms.
Then they should just say so and close the open issues, instead of letting them linger for literal decades and have people waste time on them then ignore them. That’s just bad stewardship.
Anyway, the reasons are irrelevant and I’m frankly tired of explaining this to
Firefox defenders. Someone asked “what about Firefox are you missing” and I responded with what it’s missing for me. Plugging your ears and coming up with excuses doesn’t move the needle. Accept it or don’t, it makes no difference. In the meantime I’ll continue being honest with my users that I would like to support Firefox but I can’t, and many of them will keep switching browsers.
The features that firefox does not support are few and far between, and, IME, usually things you do not necessarily want supported.
As a user, I do not want nor need my browser to support AppleScript. AppleScript is something that should not exist. In somewhat typical apple fashion, it's some NIH platform-specific bullshit that nobody really cares about and is only half-assed supported even on it's native platform. The only way to deter Apple from creating these sisyphus-ian pieces of software is to just stop supporting them and force their hand to use something less bespoke. Although, Apple is not the only culprit of this - nor are they even the worst about it.
If I had my way, Mantle would not exist, iMessage would not exist, and some others. We would live in a perfect utopia and then we'd all hold hands and sing Kumbaya.
So first they didn’t do it because of the maintenance burden, and now it’s because the feature sucks and shouldn’t exist. If you’re going to keep ignoring my points and making up new things while moving the goalposts, I don’t see the point in having a discussion.
I’ll say it again:
> Plugging your ears and coming up with excuses doesn’t move the needle. Accept it or don’t, it makes no difference.
It's both, obviously. You asked for one reason, I gave it to you, you didn't like it, so I gave another reason. These are all speculative, of course, and just my opinion.
> If you’re going to keep ignoring my points and making up new things while moving the goalposts, I don’t see the point in having a discussion.
I'm not ignoring anything - it's called disagreeing with your points. Because I do disagree with them, to an extent.
I agree that Firefox is missing features. I DO NOT agree that this is generally, keyword generally, a bad thing.
Also, Firefox is not even the most behind browser. Uh, that would be Safari, and it's not even close.
If you don't support Firefox but you DO support Safari, then:
1. You must not give a flying fuck about web standards or features, as Safari is missing the most of both OR
2. You squarely target primarily Apple users so you have no choice but to put up with Apple's subpar software, i.e. you're Stockholm'd in
For option 2, the only way to stop that is to do what I said - stop playing Apple's games and don't target their bespoke barely-functional bullshit.
Also, let me just say: there is absolutely no shame in number 2. You have to make your money. Just a couple years ago, I was maintaining an application that still targeted IE 6. Yes, really. Sometimes you have to do what you have to do to reach the users where they are.
Everything about your answer is wrong and full of assumptions.
> You asked for one reason
No, I did not. I didn’t ask for any reason. I don’t need one, the result is the same.
> I gave it to you
No, you did not, you gave speculation. Which changes nothing.
> you didn't like it
I couldn’t care less about your speculation. I specifically said I don’t care. The only thing I don’t like is how you’re just making up reasons based on what you want and like, as if your tastes and needs are all that matters, instead of what’s the truth for Firefox development.
> I'm not ignoring anything
You moved the goal post without addressing my initial reply to your response, which poked a direct hole in your speculation:
> Then they should just say so and close the open issues, instead of letting them linger for literal decades and have people waste time on them then ignore them. That’s just bad stewardship.
You continue:
> it's called disagreeing with your points.
It makes no sense to disagree with a personal opinion! My reasons are my own. It’s like if you said you disagreed with me for saying I don’t like chocolate. Your opinion is irrelevant to someone else’s taste or needs.
And then the rest is just more speculation. Again, Firefox is the only major browser not supporting AppleScript. And just so you know, Chromium browsers typically support it better than Safari.
Interesting! The last time I used a Mac was many years ago, so I'm not sure what would you do with AppleScript in the browser. What are some example use cases?
Those are browser automation tasks. Most of them can be done with Playwright/Puppeteer/Selenium.
I don't see why a browser should have to support AppleScript specifically. The Chrome DevTools Protocol and WebDriver BiDi are the standard protocols for interacting with browsers programmatically. Firefox supports WebDriver BiDi. Just use any tool that supports it, or talk to it directly. Maybe AppleScript can do that, I wouldn't know.
That requires installing a third-party tool which doesn’t look to be under development, and is an entirely different interaction. Thank you, but that’s not adequate.
Just wait until someone has the bright idea to expose Apple Events over an MCP server or something. Then everyone will be scrambling to integrate applescript into their applications so they can cash in on the computer-use model craze.
Directly writing applescript is kind of terrible syntax (I doubt there is enough high quality data, even humans find it hard to write) and lacks the discoverability portion. The good part of AppleScript is the self-discovery (via scripting dictionary) and the general graphql-RPC-esque nature of apple events.
