>Firefox rarely copies Chrome features (or Chrome's anti-features).
In so far as web technology goes, it certainly does. Lots of half-baked, non-standard features get added to Chrome, sites start using them, and then Mozilla has to follow suit in order to maintain web compatibility.
Interesting perspective. I've largely kept out of that fight for many reasons, but it is interesting to see a counter-argument to the Mozilla/Firefox just apes Chrome story.
Firefox has some nice features that are fundamentally at odds with Google's business model so highly unlikely to ever land in Chrome. Reader mode, container tabs, and tracking protection are probably my favorites.
If I wanted Chrome features, I'd download Chrome. The reason I use FF is /because/ I don't want to use Chrome. If FF just copies from other browsers, why have FF at all?
Yeah I agree. Firefox is slowly becoming a Chrome clone. It took them a long while to migrate everything to follow the Chrome lead (release strategy, update strategy, multiprocess architecture, sandboxing, extension API, HTML UI, etc.) but I wonder what's the benefit of having two identical browsers. Yes the HTML engine is different but then so what, I don't think end users are ever going to switch because of HTML engines.
I fail to understand why Firefox takes as its lead Chrome's behavior. Let it be different, let it distinguish itself. We constantly hear how less configurability is easier to maintain. Unfortunately, that was Firefox's main distinction from Chrome. This path where it simply copies Chrome's UX and removes more and more features in the interests of something easier to maintain ... taking that to its logical conclusion, Firefox might as well become a Chromium fork now.
Exactly. If Firefox offers the same things as Chrome, why not just use Chrome?
Firefox needs to find a space for itself in the browser market, not try (and fail) to take Chrome's space. Focus on offering features that Chrome doesn't offer and the people looking for those features will come. Stop removing customization and hackability.
Unfortunately, I think none of the people in control actually understand this, probably because they're the kind of people who are happy using Chrome themselves.
I wonder how much of the Chrome is actually Firefox presenting itself as Chrome, because of the increasingly common practice of making sites that attempt to be locked to Chrome but are actually perfectly usable with Firefox if you just switch the UA.
I think it's very likely Firefox want everybody to copy them. This is a fight best fought with everyone against Windows, and it's no particular skin off Firefox's nose if Chrome is also easy to use: since Chrome is basically the default non-Edge browser, everybody choosing Firefox is already aware of Chrome and has decided against it.
This is my list, all of which Chrome does better than Firefox (roughly related bug reports included):
* Restore the old settings. They copied Chrome's settings-as-a-tab with the UI just being HTML. But in Chrome I can at least search the settings. Why did Mozilla waste their time on copying the HTML-settings without also implemented the most useful feature? It was just a huge regression, because the UI is now non-native, many things aren't resizeable anymore and some other minor bugs where introduced, without any apparent benefit. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1325286
* When you start Firefox two times in a row, the dialog "Firefox is already running, please close the running instance" or something like this pops up. Chrome doesn't have this problem, maybe just because its startup time is SO much better. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=489981
* Speed and responsiveness of the UI in general are much better in Chrome. (no bug report link, sorry)
Notice how that there's no complain about the look of the main UI, still Mozilla decides to redo it yet again with project Photon ... Did I miss the bug report with lots of votes for that?
And regarding the bug reports (most of them reported years ago): There was a comment on Reddit a while ago where a GNOME (!) developer said something along the lines "We're not Mozilla, we're actually reading and answering our bug reports". That says something.
I like firefox. I really do. I've donated to Mozilla, and wear my resulting FF t-shirt with pride.
That said, it's not just auto-update that makes Chrome more attractive. The omnibox, polarizing though it may be, sets Chrome apart from every other browser as far as U[I|X] goes. Oddly enough, that one feature alone is enough to make it my default browser. Were FF as fast as Chrome, I'd still use the latter because I just like using it more. Chrome's sandboxing, V8, and other intelligent features are just icing on the cake.
This, ultimately, confuses me more than anything about the other browser vendors' reaction to Chrome. They've copied or are copying just about everything about it: short release cycles, better JS engines, sandboxing... but not the one definitive UI feature that has made it so attractive to so many people. This surprises me. I would have though Apple, at least, with its commitment to minimalistic UIs, would have been quick to hop on that train, but no dice.
I'm a lifelong FF user, and I had problems with google docs in the beginning. I vaguely remember it was using JS features that FF hadn't implemented yet.
Currently, Chrome has a number of CSS features that Firefox and/or Safari don't support. You can find them at [1]. Some make life a bit easier, and devs use them because they like easy or even because they think everyone should force their browser maker to adapt all those features ASAP.
In an old thread, I explained that my code ignores these features because we want to be compatible with as many users as possible. I got some miffed replies saying we should make our users upgrade. Really.
Then there are also APIs in Chrome that have not been standardized, and some of which should not be in a browser (IMO), like USB access (see [2]). Some of that is an attempt by Google to replace "native" applications by web pages, which would give them even more leverage.
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