Re: Should Firefox stay the default browser in Fedora Workstation?

Kalvin Lee <kalvinist273@xxxxxxxxx> · Fri, 06 Jun 2014 20:09:09 -0700



    Speaking entirely from a layman's perspective, I disagree
    with this proposal. I have GNOME Web on my machine as a secondary
    browser; while I do like its UI and its GTK support, these are only
    marginal considerations before the rest of the functionality in
    Firefox. 

    
    In the spirit of "Don't fix what's not broken" and "tyranny of the
    masses," I think that, constraining our view to Fedora users only,
    Firefox has a bigger userbase than Epiphany. Speaking purely for the
    layman end-user, it would appear a strange decision to abruptly
    abandon Firefox for GNOME Web. Yes, I am aware just how easy it us
    to run "su -c 'yum install firefox'," but not all unfortunate
    end-users are able, and I suspect the move would generate a great
    deal of bad publicity and FUD on the eye-rolling review sites. 

    
    Yammering aside, I see Christian Schaller has actually summed up my
    points better than all my blabbering here. I do, however, agree with
    you (Elad) and Michael Catanzaro in that shipping two browsers won't
    work very well. Michael's usability questions also apply. For some
    reason I'm obligated to kill Epiphany every time after I close it
    (the process lingers?) and the compatibility issues are a little
    irksome (Google Images, for example, refuses completely to give my
    its modern continuously-scrolling interface). 

    
    I would appreciate more exposure for GNOME Web, but shipping it by
    default might not attract the right audience for that. And I don't
    quite understand how Fedora contributing to Firefox "instead of"
    GNOME Web is the wrong direction, if anyone could expand on that for
    me? 

    
    On 06/06/2014 08:52 AM, Elad Alfassa
      wrote:

    
          Should Firefox stay the default browser in
            Fedora Workstation?

            
            I know it's powerful, it has a lot of extensions, and it's
            popular. But it's integration with our desktop is lacking
            and getting worse all the time.

            
            Here's a list of things Firefox lacks in Fedora:

            * GPU acceleration

            * Integration with the desktop's geolocation services

          
            * On that note, geolocation doesn't work at
            all in Fedora's firefox at the moment

          
          * Integration with the desktop's notification
            system

            * Support of url scheme handlers (this used to work)

            * UI that matches the rest of the desktop (without
            installing 3rd party theme and extensions)

            * GTK3 support

            * High-DPI support

            * Touch input support
          

        Some of those issues are being actively worked on, other have
        incomplete patches in upstream's bugzilla with nobody working to
        finish them, and some of them seem to be issues that will never
        be solved (such as making the UI feel more "native" to GNOME).

        
        Meanwhile, Epiphany (GNOME Web) keeps getting better and
          better, perhaps we should consider it as the default?

        
        -- 

          -Elad Alfassa.
        
      
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