With Firefox succumbing this week, this is pretty horrible.
I’m not a Richard Stallman type, but I think it’s come to the point where if you have even the slightest pretense of being a “free web” person, using Chrome or a Chromium-based browser has become unconscionable. This company is playing embrace extend extinguish to a T and they are nearing the end game.
I switched to Firefox this year and so can you! Just download it, install it, and then clear your Chrome history so it doesn’t feel like home anymore. Firefox is really nice and I was surprised that I don’t miss Chrome at all (except for the developer tools color picker).
The same goes for Google Search/DuckDuckGo. I use the latter on my personal devices, but when I'm tracking down a problem at work I just need the thing that's going to work the best.
I used to think they weren’t as good, but they are good. And I think I’m a pretty serious dev tools user.
BUT, if you want to keep using Chrome dev tools that doesn’t mean you can’t switch to FF. Just de-personalize Chrome (clear you history, sessions, settings etc) and then you’ll stop using it. Say you’re developing and open a new tab to search something on SO: you won’t be logged in on SO. Same goes with any site. So you’ll instantly realize you’re using Chrome to browse and hop over to FF instead.
Seems like a lot of work but it’s not. Maybe I drank the kool aid but I now feel naked browsing with Chrome and try to avoid it as much as possible. I think the important thing is to stop using Chrome for personal browsing.
Depending on your IDE, you can make it just open Chrome when you boot up web projects. That's what I do, but I do normal browsing on Firefox, it helps keep distractions away even. Leaving Chrome with only work related things.
Why? I’m a full time developer at a Fortune 100 company and I have no issues just using the Firefox dev tools. I literally never use the Chrome dev tools. Though, this might soon change now that Mozilla has laid off the dev tool team.
#!/bin/sh
test -e "$(which chromium)" && CHROME="chromium"
test -e "$(which google-chrome)" && CHROME="google-chrome"
test -e "$(which google-chrome-dev)" && CHROME="google-chrome-dev"
TMPDIR=`mktemp -d /dev/shm/chrome-XXXXX`
$CHROME --user-data-dir=$TMPDIR --no-first-run --no-make-default-browser "$@"
rm -rf $TMPDIRFirefox succumbed to what? Genuinely curious, i had not heard this.
Firing a team building a meaningful advancement in Firefox's tech stack is a big signal, imo.
Thanks for phrasing it like this - I'm also not a Richard Stallman type but it's hard to disagree with this statement. Just downloaded Firefox and made the switch.
Clearing my history/sessions in Chrome was an important factor in adoption for me as well. It helps that when you start typing in that search bar, it doesn’t feel familiar. Took a few weeks but did eventually stop looking to Chrome. Now I just use it for testing/Android debugging.
My level of respect for origin was similarly the tie-breaker when choosing between Vue, Angular, and React.
All these moves just turns up the temperature of the innovation cauldron, speeding up the pace of whatever will replace them.
More clout and depth has nothing to do with longevity. See every Empire that has evaporated in History.
Google will fail faster than it took most empires too for 2 reasons
1. Things move much faster these days. The time between rise and fall keeps shrinking for large orgs struggling to cope with the furious pace of change.
2. Complexity of playing empire defense grows exponentially with scale. You can't find enough skilled people quick enough. You cant solve increasingly complex issues with just your cash hoard. You can't escape increasing internal politics that slows the speed of innovation within. You can't escape external actors mistrusting every small move made etc etc etc.
So they will keep making such moves. And there is a way to speed up their decline - Encourage them and praise them for whatever they come up with.