Microsoft Engineer Causes Online Wrath After Saying Firefox Should Use Chromium

CyberTech

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Mozilla should give up on its own browsing engine and switch Firefox to Chromium, a Microsoft engineer said in a series of tweets, as what the company does right now is “building a parallel universe that’s used by less than 5 percent.”

The message posted by Microsoft Product Manager Kenneth Auchenberg has triggered an almost instant reaction from the user community, with most of the replies pointing out that building alternative products that can compete against Chromium is vital for the health of the browsing ecosystem.

"It's time for @mozilla to get down from their philosophical ivory tower. The web is dominated by Chromium, if they really *cared* about the web they would be contributing instead of building a parallel universe that's used by less than 5%?" he tweeted.

“I couldn’t disagree with you more. It precisely *because* Chromium has such a large marketshare that is vital for Mozilla (or anyone else) to battle for diversity. I’m shocked that you think they’re not contributing. “Building a parallel universe"? That *is* the contribution,” web developer Jeremy Keith responded.

Auchenberg insisted that Mozilla can contribute to building a better web by joining the Chromium push, and not by insisting with its own engine.

“Contribution can happen on many levels, and why is it given that each browser vendor has to land their contributions in *their own* engine? What isn't the question what drives most impact for the web as a holistic platform?” he said.

“My problem with Mozilla's current approach is that they are *preaching* their own technology instead of asking themselves how they can contribute most and deliver most impact for the web? Deliver value to 65% of the market or less than 5%?”

Microsoft switching to Chromium
Microsoft has recently announced that it’s giving up on its own browsing engine in order to build Microsoft Edge, the default browser in Windows 10, based on Chromium.

In a December 6 blog post, Mozilla emphasized that by embracing Chromium for the Windows 10 browser, “Microsoft hands over control of even more of online life to Google.”
Reiterating that Firefox would remain an alternative to Google Chrome, Mozilla warned that putting Google in control of the browsing world isn’t the right way to go.

“We compete with Google not because it’s a good business opportunity. We compete with Google because the health of the internet and online life depend on competition and choice,” Mozilla said.

Auchenberg’s message has obviously received more acid replies, including this one criticizing Microsoft’s recent browser changes.

“Just because your employer gave up on its own people and technology doesn't mean that others should follow,” Asa Dotzler tweeted.

The full thread can be found here, and it is really worth a read, as it includes the opinions of several respected web developers.
 

Vasudev

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I hope Mozilla's engine doesn't die. Chromium is already so dominant. I don't know how long it will last but I like Firefox performance more right now.
Firefox is faster and lighter than Chrome in terms of resource usage.
Why MS engineer made the statement is to decrease the expense of engineering Chromium with Edge Logo is much of a hassle and integrating firefox to windows is easier and keeps Open source community and linux community happy they switched to FF.
 

tonibalas

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And as for Edge instead of giving it to W7 users also they decided that they shouldn't have it.
That means don't want more than 40% of your Windows users to have on their hands your new browser.
Instead you are telling them to stay with IE 11 or better yet to move Chrome.
Yeah that's a great decision.
And before telling me that Edge is compatible/working only with W10 i just say "you have billions MS make it
work for W7 too".
Then Edge would have a 30% of the browser market and not just 10%.
Just my thought.
 

Vasudev

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Nov 8, 2014
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Firefox in my opinion is better than Chrome in terms of UI, privacy and resources usage, but Chrome has advanced features in terms of security.
FF was slow and Chrome was a leader, FF had to innovate and brought a product that is faster and leaner than Chrome. Now, I feel Chrome is too heavyweight piece of junk which will get beaten by FF.
 
F

ForgottenSeer 58943

He's sort of right. Firefox IMO is kind of bad, but I suspect a conspiracy to keep Firefox slower by Google or something.

Monopolies are bad, we need choices. Google will eventually have to be broken up. If this was a few decades ago they'd of already been broken up. They've become very predatory.
 

Vasudev

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Nov 8, 2014
2,224
FF is lighter than Chrome in resource usage. Chrome is faster than FF where internet speed is slow like subcontinent countries. I use FF until i reach to my daily data limit and after that turn back to chrome.
Tell me is it Data saver mode? I use user agent switcher and select Safari for iOS agent and data is saved by several 100MBs.
 

jackwilli

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Jan 1, 2019
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100MB is enough to watch a 10 minute 720p video. Hahaa...
If you're on airtel, recharge with unlimited pack a week before expiry and get free 5GB extra data. I use that always.
Today is best day for me, getting 5GB data extra but little late pack will expire 3 days after. I will keep it in mind.
 
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L

Local Host

Instead of following Google, Microsoft should have invest their money on the Quantum engine so they could be a real competitor
for Google.
Now they are just followers.
Just my thought.
Microsoft should have stuck with EdgeHTML, not use Quantum.
And as for Edge instead of giving it to W7 users also they decided that they shouldn't have it.
That means don't want more than 40% of your Windows users to have on their hands your new browser.
Instead you are telling them to stay with IE 11 or better yet to move Chrome.
Yeah that's a great decision.
And before telling me that Edge is compatible/working only with W10 i just say "you have billions MS make it
work for W7 too".
Then Edge would have a 30% of the browser market and not just 10%.
Just my thought.
The current Edge Browser wouldn't work on Windows 7 no matter how much you want it, it uses built-in Windows 10 features (which W7 lacks, not to mention W7 is no longer getting new features, only security updates), is one of the reasons Edge was only updated with each W10 build.

Your values are off the hook as well, as W10 (+50%) has long surpassed the W7 (30%) market share. People don't use Edge due to lack of customization (including extensions) and the fact Google cripples third-party Browsers on their Websites.

Microsoft move to Blink is not entirely Microsoft fault, but Web Developers fault who are lazy and support Google Monopoly with Chrome.
 
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conceptualclarity

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"It's time for @mozilla to get down from their philosophical ivory tower. The web is dominated by Chromium, if they really *cared* about the web they would be contributing instead of building a parallel universe that's used by less than 5%?" he tweeted.

What insight! Now it is apparent we must also get rid of Linux!

5% of Mayberry RFD would not be much, but 5% of the world's computer users is huge.

Google is an evil empire. It imposes its political preferences in the form of deliberately biased search results and hiding non-violating content on YouTube. It is helping Communist China suppress dissidents, something which should not be forgiven or forgotten. Of course its intrusions on user privacy are well known.

I urge you consider using the fine DuckDuckGo search engine and one of the many fine browsers other than Chrome.
 

RejZoR

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Nov 26, 2016
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And that's how you make people go to Firefox. I never used IE, Edge or Chrome. Because they were all shite. And still are. Google having absolute 100% monopoly with Chromium engine is their wet dream and we shouldn't allow it under any circumstances.

Besides, Firefox is an amazing browser and I can't understand why the hell people like garbage Chrome so much. What's so good about it? It needs gazillion extensions to become even half usable and when you do that it's a big fat pig that eats bazillion megabytes of RAM, it's only really fast in raw javascript tests where all it does is throw JS around. On actual real webpages with mixed content that needs to render, it always felt sluggish and slow. And god its retarded interface and design decisions.

Not to mention Firefox comes out of the box with trackers blocking where Chrome is heading in direction to establish data hoarding monopoly by only allowing trackers Google allows (ie their own). Oh and Firefox is the only browser that allows use of extensions on mobile browser versions. Same extensions you can use on desktop can be used on Firefox for Android for example.
 

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