> I agree with you here. I want a viable non-Chromium browser.

It doesn't look like you do.

Firefox has worked for me across 7 different employers in the last 15 years with no problems, and yet you haven't switched to it.

Actions speak louder than words. There is a viable alternative. You aren't using it.

You are making assumptions about me which are not correct. I am not using Firefox because it has bugs which made it stop working as web browser for me. I have had breaking problems with Firefox on every platform I've used it on.

On desktop (multiple Linuxes, Windows 7 and 10, and MacOS) I run into problems which I spend hours trying to fix, until I give up and go back to a Chromium browser. On iPadOS and iOS, it would crash when using arrowkeys to navigate URL history(or something like that, if I remember correctly. Been awhile). I had another issue with it on Android, the details of which I'd forgotten. I don't even use the sync features- these are just independent bugs.

Every time I tried to switch to Firefox, it's a time sink that ends with a broken install. I used Firefox as my primary browser in the early 00s through to ~2010. I tried to switch back every few years between 2017 and 2023.

The recent bad new changes (forced built-in advertising, new worse ToS, forced AI stuff) make me uninterested in spending more time on Firefox. I'm happy it works for you, but we are not the same person, and Firefox is entirely nonviable for me.

> On desktop (multiple Linuxes, Windows 7 and 10, and MacOS) I run into problems which I spend hours trying to fix, until I give up and go back to a Chromium browser. On iPadOS and iOS, it would crash when using arrowkeys to navigate URL history(or something like that, if I remember correctly. Been awhile). I had another issue with it on Android, the details of which I'd forgotten. I don't even use the sync features- these are just independent bugs.

And yet I, and a few hundreds of thousands of others, have used it on all of those platforms. Even at FAANGs.

If it's only breaking for you, and you alone, you can see why the rest of us are skeptical that it really is that broken.

Welcome to the HN/Social Media/Internet/Humanity! If someone has special needs that can't be fulfilled by X, they will make known about their experience and tirelessly defend against why X isn't usable for them, often with a list of reasons (I personally have a txt file full of reasons not to use X, Y, Z). It definitely doesn't mean everyone is that way, they are simply sharing their personal views on why they can't/won't use X. Arguing about this seems generally futile, as their point must be made and their opinion will probably not change regardless of anything you say.

I myself am guilty of this in the past, and I hope GP does not take offense at my writing this, as I don't intend to offend. I think it's just a feature/bug of humanity... some underlying mechanism that can possibly only be explained with psychology of lizard brains or something ;)

> If it's only breaking for you, and you alone, you can see why the rest of us are skeptical that it really is that broken.

There are several problems here.

Before anything, I want to note that we don't have to fight, we aren't enemies. We're on the same ideological side, even. This tastes like an angry and bitter internet argument. Do you taste it too?

We're just two people talking about web browsers. We don't need acrimony for each other. My bitterness is for the browser ecosystem. I am very sad about the browser ecosystem.

On that note, who are you speaking for, other than yourself, when you talk about "the rest of us"?

You are only you, and I am only me. The difference here is that you have good experiences with Firefox, and I have had bad experiences with Firefox.

Second, your skepticism is part of the problem with Firefox. In trying to find support for these issues, I mostly found people who did not believe me (or that I'm using it wrong, etc.)

The way you engage with people is common in the Firefox community, which is deleterious to the goal of having more people use Firefox. I think it's actually really important that we have a good non-Chromium non-corporate browser which people want to use, and Firefox is still the most promising one in the running.

Third, it's just incorrect to think I am alone in my issues. Some of these issues I could confirm were unfixed bugs, by finding them in the issue trackers. Others I could find with my issues in threads on Reddit, for example. Others are in this same thread we're commenting on. You can see people here talking about issues with Firefox, or needing to "Frankenstein" their install to get it to a usable state (a relatable experience for me, except I couldn't get it back into a usable state. I never want to touch user.js again.) My experience is lonely, but I am not the only person with my experience.

There is also the 94% to 98% of people on the internet who do not use Firefox. Some of those must be because they wanted to use Firefox, but had a breaking issue and went to Chrome.

People use software with bugs all the time, and Chromium and Safari's dominance is mostly because of years of costly domination from Apple and especially Google. But part of it is also things simply not working in Firefox. (Which is, also, partially due to Google expanding on Microsoft's IE-era standards playbook).

Finally, what is your position exactly? That Firefox can't possibly have the bugs I had? Or that I am lying about wanting a viable non-Chromium browser? I think you might be responding with a knee-jerk defense of Firefox, and you might assume I'm arguing in bad faith, which is fair, given this is the "Forum for Bad Faith Arguments About Computers with Some Amount of Financially-Motivated Arguments".

But I am ideologically motivated to be on Firefox's side. It's the largest browser engine not owned by a FAANG. Ideological motivation is the reason why I tried to use Firefox several times over several years, and why I spend time talking on the internet with strangers about web browsers.

Okay, let's get back to your original assertion, that FF isn't viable.

It clearly is, with hundreds of thousands of daily users. Maybe it's broken on some specific sites[1]; can you recall which sites those were?

Because it works, right now, on all the mainstream and popular sites, including every banking site I use it on, every shopping site, every wordpress site, every forum, subreddit, LLM/webchat, search engine, LoB and social networking site I used it on over the last decade and a half.

Actions speak louder than words - use FF, and then when you get to a site it doesn't work on, start Chromium, instead of complaining about the hours trying to fix it.

=============

[1] Note I am not saying that it is broken for you, I am saying that it is broken for specific sites.

It's not specific sites. See my previous comments about crashes, and about captchas. Like you said, when I use Firefox, I get to a site that doesn't work and then I start Chromium. I'm not going to use Firefox again, that's just silly.

I'm going to generally side with with ops "bitterness" here.

Sure, I don't want bad blood -- but like, I get why their tone is this way; this ain't just McDonalds vs Burger King.

Op is correctly frustrated at the "consumer is always right" mindset folks like you show. This is more important than consumer choice and (as someone who uses Firefox as a daily driver and will just bounce to Chromium as needed) "fixing a billion little bugs that you see" isn't as near as important as promoting the ideology more?

But the bugs made the browser not work for me, and I spent hours on them with no progress. The big thing are crashes, and webpages not working (usually in captcha and auth).

I read you two's conversation and didn't get an adversarial tone at any point. It sounds like you two have a difference of opinion, and are just kind of dug in on your "Apples" and "Oranges," quite honestly.

What is your definition of “viable”? Plenty of people own iPhones, which is locked down to webkit.

Similarly, firefox is fine. I switch between it chromium and safari for dev work, and (unless you go out of your way to find a counterexample) they’re completely interchangeable in terms of compatibility and real-world performance.

Firefox runs fine on android, so there’s not even a platform where chrome is the only choice (other than chromebooks).

I know this is not typical, but I just run into breaking bugs on Firefox on every platform which prevent me from using Firefox (except Intel MacOS, which I have not used, and Windows, which I haven't used in a few years.)

For Safari, the problem for most platforms is that it doesn't run on most platforms. It doesn't really count to me if I can't use it on my computers. (Caveat that there are non-Safari webkit browsers, but they're not very good.)

I like Arc browser by The Browser Company. As far as I understand it, it's made by a bunch of jaded ex-google employees, so the Google stuff is also stripped-out. The features are next level, and I feel it's a very forward-thinking browser. Maybe it will work for you

That’s dead: https://browsercompany.substack.com/p/letter-to-arc-members-...

I didn’t know either until a few weeks ago.

Arc was famously not built by ex-Chrome people but rather a bunch of opinionated UX folks. It amounted to what I can best describe as a glorified "skin" for Chromium and nothing innovative under the hood.

They realized they couldn't make any money with that, so they abandoned it and started Dia which was "AI". Again, they had no capability nor plan to make any solid product, was just sold to Atlassian

Actually, they really knew how to hype up their product. And their marketing videos were top notch. Innovation I suppose.

its not MacOS only. just installed on windows

Oh you are right! I guess the site must be inferring User Agent and just presenting one download link. It looks like they have Linux, MacOS, and Windows builds.