Firefox has lots of room to improve if it wants to beat Chrome - <AUTHOR> https://www.snazz.xyz/programming/2019/08/30/firefox.html <comment><USER3> I haven't really met anyone who is particularly bothered by these issues. They certainly should be addressed to some degree, but the issues I find people are bothered about in Firefox are something that Mozilla has very little control over: Bugs in sites.

As a full-time firefox user, I commonly find that sites have bugs, and when I boot it up in Chrome just to check my hunch, they don't manifest. It's pretty easy to figure out what happened: The developer wrote his code, tested it on chrome alone, and then called it a day. No one booted it up in another browser and even smoke-tested to see if basic use-cases work as intended.

If developers are genuinely concerned with browser diversity and not handing the Web over to Google and whatever they deem to be the next IE6, it starts with having a test plan for other browsers. Testing on only one platform is tantamount to having official support for one platform because you only guarantee your product to work on that platform in so many words. Officially supporting one platform is pressuring your users into a vendor-lock.

They - even the tech savvy ones - can't even begin to make vendor choices when the products they use accidentally lock them out left and right.

<comment><USER4> > As a full-time firefox user, I commonly find that sites have bugs, and when > I boot it up in Chrome just to check my hunch, they don't manifest.

Also a full-time Firefox user. This is fascinating because I quite literally cannot remember a website for which I had to switch browser so it would start working.

What kind of websites are these? Have you noticed any pattern about them? Perhaps it's a certain type of site that I usually avoid.

<comment><USER5> Maybe it's the combination with ad blockers, but there are a lot of times I get stucked in the payment part.

And then I have to redo all the ordering process on Chromium.

It for long failed on Visa 3D secure (so not website dependant) until I found why with Badger blocking it.

But often when the payment system is included in the website it fails (and that's really annoying)

<comment><USER6> Blocking fingerprinting can cause anti-fraud to think you're a bot.

As it turns out in recent news, credit card companies sell weakly anonymized information about cardholder purchases so ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> > While I understand that they have to make money somehow

I don't. I don't understand how Mozilla has over a thousand employees and over _500 million_ dollars in annual revenue. With that kind of money, Firefox should be absolutely dominating the browser space. They shouldn't be making Firefox worse with advertising in order to subsidize their flailing around trying to find traction in mobile or VR.

It actually reminds me of Wikipedia, especially with the donation links littered throughout the experience. They're both growing out of control, spending mountains of cash in order to justify spending previous mountains of cash on ventures that nobody asked for or wanted. The whole point of Mozilla is supposed to be Firefox and Thunderbird.

<comment><USER8> Those 500 million are easily eclipsed if you compare it to what Google's revenue is...

EDIT: It was 136 _billion_ in 2018: [https://www.statista.com/statistics/266206/googles-annual- gl...](https://www.statista.com/statistics/266206/googles-annual-global- revenue/)

<comment><USER9> And Google builds only a browser? What's the budget of the Google Chrome team?

<comment><USER10> Mozilla doesn't build only a browser either and as a Rust user, am glad they don't.

<comment><USER11> The Rust community prides itself on being independent from Mozilla, when their relationship is pointed out, but now Rust is suddenly a major beneficiary of those 500 million?

They do build only a browser.

<comment><USER10> > The Rust community prides itself on being independent from Mozilla, when > their relationship is pointed out

In terms of decision making, Rust is definitely a community oriented project, but there's not denying reality and at present practically all of Rust core devs who work on it full-time are paid by Mozilla.

Were Mozilla to pull out support, development would likely continue, but at a much, much reduced pace.

> a major beneficiary of those 500 million

I agree with you that the vast majority of it is not going to Rust and I do wish they'd increase the share of their revenue that goes to engineering from 45% to something closer to 85%.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> > This raises some questions: why is Firefox usage going down, and what does > Mozilla need to do to bring it back up?

> How does an average user get started with Firefox?

This misses the elephant in the room : the main reason Chrome is eating other browsers is that Google is putting its advertising might behind it. You know that little "want a better browser" pop-up displayed on Google's search engine? That's an absolute killer for other browsers.

<comment><USER13> not entirely true. firefox has solved a lot of startup and other performance issues, but the core rendering engine still lags when confronted with heavy loads, just a scrollable div of a couple dozen large images is enough to make it stutter seconds at time while they load and render, sure it's partly a developer issue for not using thumbnail in the listing, but chrome shows them all with zero lag.

stating that the only reason chrome is ahead is because advertising is disingenuous: firefox only started catching up with them only in the last three-four years performance wise and the gap it's still there.

<comment><USER14> _just a scrollable div of a couple dozen large images is enough to make it stutter seconds at time while they load and render_

I might be wrong, but with WebRender, isn't scrolling now done asynchronously so it doesn't stutter while things are loading? I certainly haven't experienced any scroll stutter since I turned it on.

<comment><USER15> WebRender is not really used by Firefox yet. They're currently rolling it out to some very narrow sets of end users.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER16> _It's the non-technical users, who are convinced by their technical relatives to install it, who need to be convinced._

Ironically, whenever I've complained about those irritating first-run experiences (not necessarily for Firefox, but for other software), the response has always been "that's for the non-technical users". Remember that these users are accustomed to/desensitised to being bombarded with adverts and such, so perhaps it's not as irritating to them as it is for us. Ideally, I think the first-run experience for a browser should be to open a blank page with the address bar focused and ready for you to type a URL into; but maybe average users are so used to that bombardment of attention and mollycoddling that it would look "broken" to them.

I'm not sure if those users care much about privacy either, which seems to leave the only other reasons to use Firefox being more control/customisation (which is itself slowly disappearing...) and "not controlled by an advertising company", the latter a not-so-compelling argument for the non-technical user.

Firefox is in an unfortunate position, especially as it tries to become more Chrome-like; I don't think that's going to make it gain more users at all, and on the other hand only serves to anger its already-small userbase and threaten to drive them away.

My ideal browser is one that doesn't require any installation, is a single tiny executable that starts instantly (to a blank page, as mentioned above), and is both fast and low on memory usage. I wonder if that "instantness" or ease of using it for the first time might appeal to non-technical users.

<comment><USER17> Away to what? Where can an upset long time Firefox user go? hardly to Chrome or Edge.

There's nowhere better; Firefox may not be optimum, but if you don't want rebranded Google crap, you have basically no choice.

Maybe there's Safari, Epiphany, Konqueror: but only one of these is serious and it requires you to be willing to buy a Mac - which is clearly an easier choice than Google for an anti-Googling estranged Firefox user - but still not a likely choice if the reason you're leaving Firefox is they took away your options.

Epiphany took away all its options years ago, and now it's main purpose is to be replaced with Firefox.

I've barely used Konqi, but it doesn't seem like it's any more viable than Epiphany. It looks like it fell out of a 1990s office suite.

(Web browsers can be as light on memory as they want, but since they're not programs but rather runtimes for a specific programming language, they're always going to put a huge demand on your memory. Unless you change the JS programming model, they will be your biggest app.)

<comment><USER18> you haven't dived into the rabbithole of firefox forks yet huh. every hardcore firefox user ends up with a litany of these options on hand coz they do one thing or the other well.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> Everyone's talking about what Firefox should do to beat chrome, and meanwhile here I am still suffering the bug that makes it unusable for many MacBooks with retina screens set to "more space".

Start Firefox and fans are blaring in seconds, hundreds of reports, years of waiting and no solution... Maybe making it usable in one of the most common devices for devs would be a start, I've got a full building of coworkers here waiting for a fix to try to come back.

<comment><USER20> Firefox is a dumpster fire on Mac. No pinch to zoom? Whatever. Scrolling issues? Whatever. Lighting up my CPU to the point it's noticeably warm on idle? Not cool. Having 60% of the battery life as Chrome and 50% of Safari? Unacceptable.

Simply idling Firefox on my Mac would use almost the same amount of battery as actively browsing Safari. I love Firefox on my home Linux desktop, but that's as far as my love goes at the moment.

<comment><USER21> Fixes are starting to land for the power consumption issues. [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522)

<comment><USER20> I saw that earlier, I'm hoping this resolves my issues, but we'll see.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> I agree on most points, except for the part of changing the default search engine from Google. I do support not using Google, but I think that would definitely be too much change for a non-technical user to take in one go.

If the user thinks and feels "This is just like Chrome" on the surface, that's actually good, people hate changing habits (especially if they wouldn't understand why).

Most of the time, we're asking our non-technical relatives and friends to make the change for us technical users, to simply reduce the market share Chrome has, so that Google can't forcefully (and silently) change the web to their suiting.

</comment><comment><USER22> The author clearly started with the point they wanted to prove and then went searching for the evidence.

Sitting each step of the browsing process into things like "They open it. Whoa! That's a lot of stuff in my face." and then giving a much thriftier summary of the Chrome process doesn't automatically show that Chrome is simpler to get started with

</comment><comment><USER23> I don't want Firefox to "beat" Chrome, that is a terrible idea that is killing Firefox.

Even if Firefox was superior in every way, Google has more leverage, and will always be able to shift the goalposts to stay ahead of their competition. And they will also be able to get the vast majority of users who don't know what Chrome is and just want to go on Facebook.

But what exactly does beating Google at their own game even accomplish? An ego boost for Mozilla? Focus on making a better browser!

Imagine if it were 2005, and Mozilla was like: Firebird needs to beat IE6! Only by out Microsofting Microsoft can we "win".

We need to abandon the features that make us unique and attractive to the smartest people, and focus on Windows support. We need to have better support for Microsoft's proprietary plugin architecture!

Better Windows Media Player DRM integration!

Javascript should be able to eject the cd tray!

Has anyone considered that Chrome actually has a lot of problems, and maybe Firefox should be the antidote to those problems? Containers are actually the first innovative anti-Chrome thing Firefox has done in a long time.

Firefox initially had success because of their integrated popup blocker and empowering the user to actually control what plugins were added to their browser. Awhile later, rogue plugins and browser bars were becoming an epidemic, and Firefox was there, diligently refined, and ready for IE users.

And Firefox will probably still continue to lose users, but so what?? I think if they seriously focus on being anti-chrome, they will in the long term win users back. (not that number of users should be a goal itself)

So, Mozilla should shut off the damn analytics, fire the UX and marketing people, and then roll up their sleeves and make something cool. Success will follow if they do a good job.

<comment><USER24> Agreed, and focusing upon the telematics is not a good idea when many Firefox users might be switching them off.

</comment></comment><comment><USER25> I feel there's an opening for mobile experience on Android. Chrome is pretty terrible in that space. No extensions, no reader mode, no eacape from AMP, etc.

<comment><USER26> I think kiwi browser(1) is great in this regard. It supports almost all the chrome extensions including ublock, reader mode, etc.

It also has a mode which automatically redirects to non-AMP version of site automatically.

(1) [https://www.google.com/search?q=kiwi+browser+android](https://www.google.com/search?q=kiwi+browser+android)

<comment><USER27> I can't bring myself to trust this browser. There is a repo out there but it's not the whole browser and it's extremely out of date compared to the app. Free things based on open source code that aren't open source themselves give me the heebie jeebies without a clear reason why.

Also the browser itself tends to be a version or two behind which isn't particularly comforting either.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> Two things has me almost dropping firefox and going over to chrome:

\- It still doesn't remember my credit card details, and is generally worse at filling out forms.

\- On mobile, I regularly experience that the cookie jar gets broken somehow and all my logins are broken which will work again by closing the browser down and starting it again.

The only think keeping me on Fx is a sense of ethics, the same reason I don't eat meat even though I love it.

<comment><USER29> > The only think keeping me on Fx is a sense of ethics

So do I. At least I still use Firefox as my secondary browser.

My own main recriminations:

\- The download manager is awful. I sometimes download several times a file because I didn't see it started. And I could describe half a dozen bugs with it. For example, under some conditions, the size of a download is replaced by the sum of the previously downloaded files (4GB/4.1GB instead of 0/100MB + 4GB old files).

\- about:config is broken. When I open the settings for power users in Chromium, each option has a short description. With Firefox, the documentation is not linked to the setting, it's in a wiki or blog posts.

\- I need an extension to confirm on quit. I sometimes press Ctrl-q when I intended Ctrl-w. The config browser.showQuitWarning and browser.warnOnQuit have no effect. I had to read FF's source code to understand it was intentional: the code had evolved (IMHO, in a bad way), the doc had not.

\- Local extensions are removed when FF stops. I heard that this is not the case with "developer FF", but I don't want to drop the OS packaging of ESR FF. And that feature is already in Chromium based browsers. I don't even know what devFF is, though I've heard it's based on a FF beta branch.

These are mostly not problems for the main target of FF. My parents main problem were that an update once replaced their custom starting page (tailor made) with the default one (recently visited sites + ads). They also had a few UI hard times, but these were either fixed by FF (adding a link to the starting page was impossible without reading a doc) or my parents got used to them.

<comment><USER30> > \- I need an extension to confirm on quit. I sometimes press Ctrl-q when I > intended Ctrl-w. The config browser.showQuitWarning and browser.warnOnQuit > have no effect. I had to read FF's source code to understand it was > intentional: the code had evolved (IMHO, in a bad way), the doc had not.

That's odd; I'm running stable Firefox, and the _second_ option in my Preferences is "Warn you when quitting the browser" \- and it does what it says, for me, without an extension.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER31> Firefox has plenty of room for improvement, but this article doesn't touch on it.

1\. People don't install their own browser, unless they're on a new computer and want the browser they've always used — people are conservative when making technological choices and when they switch browsers, it's often because they get a friend to install it for them, or they buy a new computer, or install some app that tricks them into also installing a new browser.

How do you think Chrome became so popular anyway?

2\. The Pocket integration has been good; there was always the issue that it's a third party proprietary service, however AFAIK it has been bought by Mozilla and I personally like it a lot — I do wish to see its source code soon, AFAIK it's not open source yet, but it's much more polished than open source alternatives (e.g. wallabag).

3\. I've never had issues with Firefox's fonts. Maybe on Linux you have, but font problems on Linux are to be expected.

4\. Google has the best search engine, especially for local searches. People want Google, they'll switch to Google anyway — and Mozilla might as well get a piece of the action.

Saying this as a DuckDuckGo user ... I would never advise my non-technical friends to use anything else but Google. Mozilla tried switching to Yahoo/Yandex/etc and failed. I'm pretty sure that they know what they are doing and random bloggers on the Internet with opinions don't.

Also let's be frank — Google is a big target. When you switch targeted advertising off, when you switch your app history off in your Google profile, I'm pretty sure that Google does indeed turn those off. Otherwise they risk huge fines, especially now post GDPR. I trust smaller companies less than I trust Google. I trust technology more of course, I trust open source, I trust encryption, but when we are talking of companies, I'd rather have a big target, than a smaller one.

Again, saying this as a DDG user — switching off Google for DuckDuckGo due to privacy issues is a stupid thing to do ;-) And it's not the same thing as with a Chrome to Firefox switch, because privacy claims for this one can be verified, instead of being something that's basically non-falsifiable for consumers.

<comment><USER10> > I've never had issues with Firefox's fonts. Maybe on Linux you have, but > font problems on Linux are to be expected.

Not really. On Linux for a decade, fonts have been fine. It's just some distros perhaps don't ship with the best defaults.

<comment><USER32> I've used Firefox with Ubuntu for over a decade and have never had any issues with the fonts the OP mentions. Maybe it's a problem with some other distros, but I thought Firefox followed your system's settings regardless.

Chromium, on the other hand, has never fully obeyed the default font settings. Even messing with the flags there are plenty of times the font hinting would be different on certain sites than what I've set it too (e.g. grayscale instead of RGB). Never got into troubleshooting it too much though, since I don't use it as my default.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Last week, a Brave browser developer documented the first-time startup phase of the competition through the eyes of a packet analyzer in a "What Happens.."-Series. Of the ones inspected, "Firefox [was] one of the most active upon installation." and ".. the only one to immediately collect telemetry data too"[^1].

Reading through his findings in detail and others responses - and what is read in this article I do not find much issue in the aggregate: bringing attention to nitpicks through bugtrackers, an organisation has the opportunity to make a concerted housekeeping effort to streamline the onboarding again. It is customary for websites and software to accumulate cruft over time from different internal teams with different goals. So it is best to turn to the bugtrackers, gently raising awareness with descriptive and good issue tickets.

[1]: [https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480)

</comment><comment><USER34> It's the best mobile browser bar none thanks to the uBlock / uMatrix. It makes the web usable again.

<comment><USER35> But the new Firefox for Android will not support extensions.

<comment><USER36> The story for extensions in Fenix has not been finalized yet.

<comment><USER37> They'd better get their act together.

I bet a sizable fraction of their mobile user base only went with Firefox for addon support.

I'd (grudgingly) move to one of the Chromium-derived alternatives that still give me uBlock and uMatrix.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Unfortunately for my application (which includes helping doctors create medical care plans) Firefox still does not support SpeechRecognition. This is despite Mozilla's DeepSpeech project on GitHub having had its first public commit in Nov 2016 (judging by its README file). As a result we don't have much choice but to recommend Chrome for the best experience.

</comment><comment><USER39> > What privacy has the average Joe user gained by switching to Firefox? None. > They're still using Google Search and (most likely) other Google products.

I don't agree with this part. Though the bigger point is that not using Google as a default engine is very user hostile - as everyone is using Google. Of course this isn't ideal from a privacy perspective. But setting it to something else will only frustrate most common users. When I think Microsoft Edge I think Bing - and I don't like Bing.

<comment><USER40> Duckduckgo is fine for like 80-85% of searches I do, but there are areas where Google is unbeatable (unbeaten?) yet

<comment><USER39> It's not for everyone I talk to he doesn't really value privacy that much (but still dislikes Chrome for some reason).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Actually what Firefox needs to be doing is doing more community devrel.

It's beyond ridiculous that Google's biggest rival Microsoft has a service called Skype (that competes with Google's Hangouts) and Skype Web _only_ works on Chrome.

Seriously ? This is a massive fail for the Firefox devrel team if you can't get Microsoft on your side. Same case exists with many products.

This is pretty much the only reason I switch back to Chrome. It's far too inconvenient not to.

</comment><comment><USER42> I'm a Firefox user. But recently, thinking about switching to Chrome. It's because some website don't work as they are supposed to on Firefox (Ex. Google analytics, Codesandbox etc.). And as the number of add-ons increases, the animations and transitions get increasingly janky and slow.

In Firefox mobile it's worse – complex (but sometimes simple) animations stutter. I have tested it using some other 4 or 5 popular ones available, including Chrome – they all produced smooth results. So, Firefox is below average in terms of animation performance. I hope they improve it.

<comment><USER10> > thinking about switching to Chrome. It's because some website don't work as > they are supposed to on Firefox (Ex. Google analytics, Codesandbox etc.).

At least on Google's part, that's likely intentional, switching is sending them a signal that being an abusive bully works.

</comment></comment><comment><USER43> I still wish FirefoxOS had pivoted on to Netbooks. As much as I appreciate the tech behind a Chromebook I rather buy a Macbook air than be another Chrome browser footprint.

I would love a Quantumbook (or whatever) to be a thing. It would make for a nice change especially if they build a Linux Distro that is very secure much like ChromeOS is (rogue Chrome plugins aside).

<comment><USER17> I've never seen a Chromebook, not from my friends not in a shop when I'm trying to buy something. I guess they're not in the market here - lots of things aren't since it's a physically very large, medium sized country a long way from the major markets.

Who has them? are they somehow useful?

<comment><USER44> I bought one for my parents two years ago, zero 'tech support' calls since.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER45> I agree with the author's criticisms of Firefox. Maybe the new MS Edge is better positioned to take over where Chrome is leaving off.

But I will say - I've been using Firefox as my daily driver for about 2 years, and I have to say I'm very happy... though I still use Chrome for the dev tools (but planning to switch to Edge as soon as their production release for macOS is out).

Safari might be my next stop for a daily driver browser. I hear Apple's doing an incredible job with power management and security.

<comment><USER46> I hear this dev tools argument occasionally, but I don't really get it. The Firefox dev tools seem just as good to me. What am I missing?

<comment><USER45> Oh man, where do I begin?

\- workspaces. This allows updating live code (JS, CSS, and languages that compile to them) without refreshing. Also allows editing and saving source files in place from DevTools, including CSS changes in the element inspector. It effectively turns DevTools into its own IDE. You can open, edit, and save any file from the workspace, regardless of whether it's been requested/loaded by the web app.

\- breakpoints on much more than just a particular line of JS. Set JS breakpoints on particular DOM and page events (including pre-navigation), XHR/fetch requests with a matching URL, and other exotic things. Find out where in the code a particular action is originating.

\- hover info during debugging: lots of extended info available, like which JS file this function is defined in, or direct access to variables in the lexical scope(s) of a function

\- stack traces that span async invocation boundaries, even fetch/XHR call to response

I'm sure there are others, but those are the big ones for me.

<comment><USER47> I debug in chrome daily and I didn't know it could do any of that.

I do however know that when working with my SPA compiled with webpack that the chrome debugger will try to open the giant chunk.js file and freeze chrome until I close the debugger and that everytime after the source tab is opened it'll freeze. Only fix is to open the debugger to another tab and then control-p to open another file.

Rather silly annoyance.

Source being reloaded on change is so-so reliable. Sometimes I have to close the debugger and reopen, sometimes refresh, and sometimes chrome thinks 2+ filed with the same name exist and starts setting breakpoints in the wrong version and nothing gets hit.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER48> I switched to Firefox from Chrome a few months ago, and I love it so far. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I think Firefox is great ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

</comment><comment><USER49> > While I understand that they have to make money somehow

Put a paid Firefox app in Mac, iOS and Windows app stores. Make it clean from integrations and pre-configured for privacy, like no 3rd party cookies, uBlock Origin installed and so on. I'd buy.

<comment><USER50> Try IceCat. It's a GNU-approved Firefox clone (tracking Firefox codebase continuously), clean from integrations and pre-configured for privacy. It's also free, in both senses!

<comment><USER49> Thanks! But IceCat is on 60.7 while FF is 68.0 ?

<comment><USER51> It tracks the Extended Support Release (ESR) branch of Firefox. That means it gets new features once a year and then only bugfixes after that. ESR 60 is last year's, work is probably ongoing to rebase IceCat on ESR 68 which came out last July.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER52> My biggest complaint with firefox is that the devtools experience still lags behind chrome.

<comment><USER53> Have you actually tried the dev tools in the last year? I can only use chrome for web socket support and that's coming to ff dev tools sooooon.

<comment><USER52> Yes, i primarily use ff dev tools. And it has greatly improved in the last couple of years. But there are still some shortcomings. For example websocket frame debugging is just barely on nightly. Load time for a web app with thousands of unminified sources with devtools open is terrible. Plus a bunch of small annoyances. It's not so bad i won't use it. But it does make me wish firefox had the same resources for devtools that google does.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER54> Having better Linux support than Chrome does would be a nice first step. Better HW accel. support, better integration with DE's, better themeing support.

</comment><comment><USER55> This isn't a problem with FF. It's a problem with the author's pitch.

"You want to be using Firefox for the foreseeable future" is plenty. If they're technical tell them FF plus Ublock Origin. If not, install FF plus Ublock Origin for them.

<comment><USER56> Firefox addons are awesome! Highly-configurable about:config is awesome! Developer tools are bit behing Chrome, true... But Firefox is what saves us from Google monopoly and I am really glad it exists. Thanks to all FF devs!

</comment></comment><comment><USER57> Can I say please that it's very annoying that Chrome (and everything Blink based) doesn't let you to open a file in an application you can choose and see the size of the file before downloading it?

[https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/firefox- do...](https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/firefox-download- dialog.png)

</comment><comment><USER58> If Firefox wants to beat Chrome, it has to lead on the technical front and focus on the developer communities. Developers won't wait for you to implement a feature (i.e. Filesystem API, custom scrollbar styling, etc...). Developers won't care about your political stand. When a critical feature already existed in Chrome, they will simply move on without you; while at the same time, bringing their users with them.

</comment><comment><USER59> FF needs a google sandbox like the facebook one. I'm tired of sites knowing who I am, showing my picture and name and asking if I want to sign in with my google profile, when I get to their site that I've never been to before. I just hit the back button and don't browse those sites, but it's really annoying google tracking you everywhere and in your face about it.

</comment><comment><USER40> It has to freaking stop crashing first. And stop freezing my computer with just 20 tabs open (for 32gb of ram). And complete their password manager. And implement recent standards to make apps work. And... Yeah, I'm still using it instead of Chrome just because I want to depend less on Google, but dammit Chrome is better.

<comment><USER60> I can't recall it ever crashing in the past year and I use it all day on multiple computers including nix, macos and windows.

<comment><USER40> I find it crashed every other morning when I wake up my mac

<comment><USER61> Probably this bug - [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1201401](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1201401)

I never saw it in High Sierra, but after upgrading to Mojave last week, I see it once in a while after resuming from sleep.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER62> >This seems like an extremely difficult but necessary change, considering how much of their income comes from Google.

In the statement listed, at most ~28% came from Google ad Yahoo paid them $375 million that year. I realize things have since changed, but they aren't as hopelessly tied to Google as people make them out to be.

</comment><comment><USER63> > What privacy has the average Joe user gained by switching to Firefox? None.

Firefox blocks trackers by default now.

</comment><comment><USER64> Sounds like an exercise in pedagogy.. a billion full spectrum users exercise.

I agreed that chrome won me because it was at extreme lean points.

\- binary setup to download was 600kB, a smart trick \- UI .. was naked and to the point, yet it did show some stuff if you needed it (the tiny status bar that would pop right or left depending on context)

Personally, Firefox only issue is UI lag. Chrome is still ahead and it matters. But not for the average (non millenial) user.

Most people today, sadly, are on internet because they have to[0]. Taxes, utilities.. every service is now on internet, and these people are mostly urged to be able to be able to interact with these in the simplest manners.

The browser is just one more hurdle between them and these.

[0] remember when internet used to be a fun distraction or a gateway to learning ?..

</comment><comment><USER65> Except... Chrome is a non-starter because it fails on the one axis I care about as a user -- along many many other users -- which is the axis upon which Google has every intention of enforcing filter rule limitations in order to neuter adblock extensions like uBlock Origin, so they can more easily force users to endure advertising. Whether or not people vehemently complain to Google will have zero bearing on Google pushing these changes into production.

We are all frogs in boiling water, so to speak. Consider if the you of 2005 would have used Chrome (or Firefox!) knowing about things like WebRTC leaks or "extension signing" walled gardens or binary blobs with microphone access or injection of executable to promote TV shows.

</comment><comment><USER66> On macOS, I've never used Chrome unless I needed to use some specific addon. Safari just works better, especially if you also have an iPhone/iPad, and takes fewer system resources.

Firefox just has to provide the strengths of Safari on Windows and that would be good enough.

</comment><comment><USER67> Ff should just mimic chrome down to last detail but be open source and pro privacy. Guarantee all features that chrome will have as soon as they will and faster. Mozilla has shown they don't know UI, probably artifact of user base and developers being heavy Linux users which is no where near other two os. Linux has lot of configuration, good, but too many steps / tedious. Mozilla should have developed mobile os by now as well. They should have built fuschia.

Pro tip for Mozilla stop focusing on Linux users.

Mozilla could capitalize on its reputation and offer cloud storage and partner with duck duck.

</comment><comment><USER68> The biggest problem for me is, I like to learn by watching videos at 3x speeds. Chrome's audio pitch correction works great whereas Firefox's pitch correction makes the audio unintelligible.

<comment><USER69> There is a bug report for this: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1383363](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1383363)

</comment></comment><comment><USER70> Manifest V3 and killing web.request API were the reasons that finally convinced me to go back to Firefox. Almost a month later, I didn't find a single thing that would make me go back to Chrome.

My main complaint about fresh Firefox installations is that it takes a lot of time to fine tune everything. Every single time I have spend hours changing settings in about:config, from disabling telemetry, Pocket, changing networking/DNS settings, pipelining etc. Vanilla installation is just not well optimized.

<comment><USER71> Do the changes to pipelining settings to have a noticeable effect?

<comment><USER70> Yes, a small but measurable improvement. The biggest perf bump you can get is probably enabling various prefetching, but most of time you are doing a performance/privacy tradeoff (e.g. enabling DNS prefetching)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER72> For me, I have found Firefox to drain my laptop's battery more (Macbook Pro, 2017) compared to Chrome (and Safari). Once it changes, I would gladly go back to using Firefox.

<comment><USER73> Firefox has been hilariously bad for Macs for as long as I can remember.

I refused to touch for over 15 years because it was incredibly slow each time I tried. Now that I'm trying to get out of Google's sphere of influence, I'm kind of forced back into it (Safari just doesn't feel right to me). Speed seems much better than it used to be and I can't really tell any difference between it and Chrome. Memory usage is an absolute disaster though. There are times where I only have 4 tabs of HN open and Firefox will be consuming over 9 GB of memory.

Right now I'm sitting at 3.6 GB used for just a couple tabs of programming documentation. Madness.

<comment><USER74> This is probably OSX issue, my FF works great on Ubuntu. I wish more users will install Linux on their Macs, it is eons better than OSX Toy.

<comment><USER75> Well, since Chrome and Safari both don't have this issue I doubt it is something intrinsic to MacOS itself.

Also, how is MacOS a toy? It's literally a certified Unix system.

<comment><USER74> MacOS is complete junk. If you want to get software security, hardware, and system stability problems then good luck. Latest MBP and Airs are total crap. Just go to nearest Apple Store and you can even see how it reboots randomly; or create a text file and chances are you will see different problems as you type.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER76> Does Firefox really want to beat Chrome? Netmarketshare shows "Firefox - 9.28%, IE - 8.29%" on desktop/laptops, it's not the position to win the race.

Also, Firefox sends analytics/telemetry to Google - [https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480)

Very strange decision for competing products, don't you?

<comment><USER77> Mozilla spent a year negotiating a contract with Google that prevents them from ever viewing or using the analytics data.

</comment></comment><comment><USER78> I wish firefox would give money to people who find security flaws in firefox.

I've heard that firefox is not very secure.

Other than that, I've switched back to firefox a looooong time ago.

<comment> ben-schaaf Mozilla have a bug bounty program: [https://www.mozilla.org/en- US/security/bug-bounty/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/bug-bounty/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER79> If they just block all ads (which burn performance), that's already a big improvement over Chrome, and probably sufficient to make people switch browsers.

</comment><comment><USER80> > Mozilla needs to [...] move away from Google as their default search engine

I hope they consider Startpage if so. That might be an easier switch for non- technical users if they explain it's still Google under the hood, but without the privacy concerns.

[https://www.startpage.com/](https://www.startpage.com/)

</comment><comment><USER81> I would _much_ rather use Firefox full time, but many sites (like youtube.com, for example) just don't render well/speedily/at all on FF.

Open Chrome and everything is fine. I get TFA said some devs don't write/test for anything but Chrome... but you _have_ to keep Chrome around for some things.

So much for an open web. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

<comment><USER82> >you _have_ to keep Chrome around for some things.

You don't though!

I agree; YouTube (and most everything else) is WAY faster on Chrome than on Firefox. But, on Firefox, I can block JS and soundly defeat YouTube ads. Trading that for whatever interval of page load time would feel gross to me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER83> heres a better new tab page for firefox -- yet another speed dial:

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/yet- another-s...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-CA/firefox/addon/yet-another- speed-dial/)

(im the author. and its open source of course!)

</comment><comment><USER84> This could be a little off topic here. I would like to contribute to Firefox but I have no idea where to start with. I dabble with C and x86 assembly. Can anyone suggest where I should get started?

I have barely contributed to any open source projects except for a few minor bug fixes.

<comment><USER85> On [https://codetribute.mozilla.org/](https://codetribute.mozilla.org/) you can find mentored Mozilla project bugs to work on (not just Firefox) indexed by language.

</comment></comment><comment> ryan-allen Since the Manifest v3 debacle, I grudgingly switched to Firefox, and... I reckon it's really great.

It's fast, it's developer tools are good, after a few customisations I was very happy.

After that small adjustment I'm right at home. I'm using Developer Edition.

</comment><comment><USER60> Well, I love Firefox! It's definitely a better browsing experience for me e.g. most-recently-used alt-tab order, vertical tab extensions, containers and deep configuration with about:config. Stability is great and my only performance problems are on Google sites.

The things I would like:

\- default to private mode

\- store bookmarks with choice of container - really weakens the feature when I can't e.g. bookmark two different gmail accounts

\- built-in vertical tabs - extensions just can't achieve perfect UX e.g. can't tear out tabs to move to different windows, poor use of space due to side-panel header, keyboard shortcuts etc.

\- Firefox IOS - lots of rough edges e.g. like always trying to autocomplete my urls to the worst possible sites that I never willingly visit e.g. outbrain, guice, oath etc. and no way to remove them

\- better debugger and dev tools - still not a patch on chrome dev tools sadly

\- become the better choice for Electron style apps (smaller, faster, easier)

\- become the better choice for headless testing

<comment><USER74> Yes, default private mode is absolutely necessary! I always open links in 'New private tab', while some of them like comments on HN in normal tabs because I am logged in to HN.

<comment><USER86> If I right-click on my launcher icon I get the option to open Firefox in Private Mode (KDE desktop).

If you want to always default to Private Mode, then set that in the Options.

[https://www.howtogeek.com/137466/how-to-always-start-any- bro...](https://www.howtogeek.com/137466/how-to-always-start-any-browser-in- private-browsing-mode/)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER87> Firefox will make text on some pages tremble and vibrate like jello. It's quite a sight.

</comment><comment><USER88> I am forced to used Firefox for an app, and the popup that prompts you to update drives me crazy.

Chrome--among other things that make it clearly superior to any other browser --gets updated in the background and without stopping your work.

</comment><comment><USER89> I just wish they had a restore feature like chrome does. On firefox, once you close gracefully, there doesn't seem to restore the whole previous session without using an extension.

<comment><USER61> See [https://support.mozilla.org/kb/restore-previous- session](https://support.mozilla.org/kb/restore-previous-session)

</comment></comment><comment><USER90> The reason why I stopped using Firefox and switched was their clear and complete disregard of their users. I had enough during the recent addon pocalypse. It was clear that they were just simply FORCING their users hands to follow what THEY want. I started using Firefox BECAUSE of the freedom it gave me to make my browser the way I want it, whether using addons or CSS styles. But now, go to the addon page and make a search and most of the results I find are themes!!!

Call it a conspiracy or whatever you like, but I hope all the money Firefox leaders are getting from Google is not just to help them kill firefox for the benefit of Google.

</comment><comment><USER91> I want to use Firefox more, but every other major update wipes out all my containers so I have to start over. The biggest reason for me to use Firefox is unreliable.

</comment><comment><USER92> firefox could work to create network effects that would "lock" its users to it, or at least make google unwillign to follow them. E.g. integrated sign-in like they tried with Persona, or integrates cryptocurrency micropayments. It doesn't have to be better to win, thats not how it works.

They could also take advantage of the flash deprecation in chrome to steal some disgruntled users from chrome. Yeah its a competition

</comment><comment><USER93> Frankly, the usability is what killed my use of Firefox. No pinch-to-zoom without installing an extension in 2019, really?

<comment><USER61> If you don't use extensions, you can set apz.allow_zooming to true.

There is an open bug with extension pop-ups, so it helps if you don't use them: [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1560770](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1560770)

</comment></comment><comment><USER94> > What privacy has the average Joe user gained by switching to Firefox? None. > They're still using Google Search and (most likely) other Google products. > They're being subjected to misleading ads on their new tab page. From their > perspective, installing Firefox was a pointless hassle.

I use DuckDuckGo instead Google in Firefox. I'm a happy user. I will switch to Safari as soon as I get a new iPhone and ditch my Xiaomi phone to gain more level of privacy.

<comment><USER95> "The everage joe".

</comment></comment><comment><USER96> Firefox is way slower than chrome to just open a web page on my pixel 3a. Do others not have this experience?

<comment><USER61> You may have a better experience with Firefox Preview: [https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fe...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fenix)

</comment></comment><comment><USER97> Nothing will change wrt usage of Google products unless/until Google starts deplatforming users from Gmail-type services on the basis of their Google searches or email content.

This is _not_ currently happening, but a) it wouldn't be super out-of- character for what Google has become b) it's likely a necessary condition for non-technical users to start caring about Google's threats to privacy.

</comment><comment><USER98> The author complains about Pocket, but I actually really like it. The quality of articles is good, and it isn't just full of clickbait like a lot of other news feeds.

The browser does use your browsing history to decide which articles to show you, but they claim that information does not leave your device. The browser downloads the full list of articles onto your device and filters them there.

<comment><USER99> I never understood the opposition (at least on HN) to Mozilla's integration of Pocket into Firefox. Pocket is a superb tool, and it's completely optional.

</comment></comment><comment><USER100> Firefox has a lot of room to suck more before I switch to a browser designed to be an optimal tracker.

</comment><comment><USER101> But our metrics show nobody is using any features except for the ones that are identical to chrome.

</comment><comment><USER102> If you are the author, increase your line height, I have to track the its start to read the next.

</comment><comment><USER103> I don't think too many people actually care about all that. People stop using Firefox because enough sites just plain don't work on it, and it lacks browser extension parity. Fix the actual browser and users will stay. Continue being too clever with the rendering engine, and people will continue to abandon it.

</comment><comment><USER104> I don't really get most of this stuff about Firefox vs. Chrome. I guess Chrome might be slightly faster or something, but for me personally I don't have a reason to switch. It's fast enough.

I originally went to Firefox because of Vimperator. There simply hasn't been a compelling reason for me to switch away.

</comment><comment><USER105> For me the lack of good support for tree style tab is what made me left firefox

<comment><USER106> What? This sounds backwards to me. I use Firefox almost exclusively and Tree Style Tab is one of the killer features for me. I tried it in Chrome once but it ran in a separate window and was therefore basically unusable. Has this changed recently?

</comment></comment><comment><USER107> I'm voting for Edge. Chromium, but with all the Google shit ripped out, a massive privacy dashboard, responsive developers, popular rendering engine, not ad supported. There's telemetry so Microsoft knotter if it works (which you may not like and I get it) but that's it.

<comment><USER107> 'know' not 'knotter'. Odd HN doesn't seem to agree, but:

Firefox relies on Google for revenue. Edge doesn't.

</comment></comment><comment><USER108> Mozilla should just buy DuckDuckGo.

<comment><USER109> I'd prefer they didn't, because I fear they'd just start making it indistinguishable from google.com.

</comment></comment><comment><USER110> As something of power FF user, I do two key things in Firefox that used to work perfectly, especially with a third thing from Session Manager.

* Multiple profiles simultaneously, one for normal browsing, another for authenticated sites I care about, etc.

* Lots of windows and tabs. My main FF usually had around ~20 windows (spread across a huge virtual desktop) and ~300 tabs.

* The amazing Session Manager addon, which would, when FF imploded, let me restart FF, choose which session to restore, and then do so, perfectly, even restoring windows to their correct positions in sections of the virtual screen several feet to the sides of my monitors.

Like I said, Firefox worked flawlessly for this, while Chrome was a flaming disaster.

The decline in Firefox since has been like this:

1) Session Manager loses the ability to restore off-screen positions.

2) So I switched to using more topic-oriented FF profiles, so that if topic X on virtual screen (2, 3) dies, I can just go restart it on the right virtual screen, without having to move a dozen windows there. Annoying as hell, but not fatal.

3) Firefox has the Great Addon Debacle - where many addons abruptly stop working, including Session Manager.

4) The firefox team recognizes that something like SM is required, but the result has far less time put into it, is buggy, forgets which URL went into some of the tabs, can only restore the last session (so if you restart twice without restoring, rank stupidity follows to restore the session you wanted), and so on.

5) At some point, Firefox starts consuming a LOT more process slots (by default), greatly increasing its ability to consume far, far more CPU time

6) This doesn't affect me a lot at first, since I've long saved process cycles - and power - by suspending all Firefox processes when my screen locks. It's worked perfectly since about a year after JavaScript become a thing (but...)

7) I discover that some aspect of FF, the new, sad, session management, and contention between all the FF content procs now means that when FF awakens after its nap when I unlock the screen, they now want to dump some 2 MB/s of data into my hard drive. After a night of suspension, since FF doesn't realize it was asleep, it apparently walks through every time point where it would have saved and does it all at once. My home and work computers (both of which are pretty meaty) are completely useless for up to 20 minutes after unlocking the screen, as FF hammers the disk drive continuously, often made even worse by FF's ongoing tendency to balloon up to 10 to 20 GiB in each content process.

Obviously I've taken steps to find variables relating to how often it checkpoints, and reduced the frequency. I've cut the number of content proc process it runs, but the fundamental issue is:

For power users with lots of profile and windows/tabs, Firefox used to be The Answer.

Chrome is horrible in the same situations Firefox used to excel in.

I don't want Firefox to become Chrome. Chrome is garbage for us. A browser only suitable for a handful of tabs (i.e. < 100 or so), which will then eat your CPU cores (depending on JS content)

The only thing I _wanted_ was for Firefox to be able to tell me WHICH TAB IS EATING CPU TIME SO I CAN KILL THAT TAB.

Still doesn't do it.

Sigh.

(Arcana: I miss NeWS and "psps" / "pskill" which _did_ address this kind of problem)

<comment><USER61> > The only thing I wanted was for Firefox to be able to tell me WHICH TAB IS > EATING CPU TIME SO I CAN KILL THAT TAB.

about:performance may help you.

</comment></comment><comment><USER111> You should come work on Startpage.com

</comment><comment><USER112> I hope you don't take offense but I feel it's hard on my eyes to read text on a black background. I tried to read the article but it kind of hurt my eyes and had to leave.

<comment><USER113> Out of curiosity, is it this page in particular that was hard on the eyes, or dark-theme pages in general?

The interesting part is that the body text appears to have a 5.71 contrast ratio, which meets the WCAG 2.1 Level AA criterion [1] but not Level AAA. I wonder if folks pursuing dark themes are making sure to give enough consideration to contrast.

Oddly enough, this is actually one of the reasons I prefer Chrome Dev Tools. They've been adding a lot of accessibility-focused features [2][3], and as it relates to my question, it seems much easier get some of these essential details from Chrome Dev Tools than Firefox.

[1] [https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#contrast- minimum](https://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG21/#contrast-minimum)

[2] [https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome- devtools/acce...](https://developers.google.com/web/tools/chrome- devtools/accessibility/reference)

[3] [https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2019/01/devtools#i...](https://developers.google.com/web/updates/2019/01/devtools#inspect)

<comment><USER17> I can't easily read dark theme apps. Basically if I start one, I have to closely study the app till I find its options and choose the light theme. (This was awful when I had to make a new install of the Gimp recently - <USER2> used to be much more user friendly. I was about a minute away from searching the internet for how to change the config file manually or - shock - asking a friend.)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER114> I feel they definitely need to revamp the UI. It's old and ugly. Perhaps they should separate into pro and amateur modes/builds...</comment>


Turn a MacBook into a Touchscreen with $1 of Hardware - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/bijection/sistine <comment><USER2> Previously posted (including comments from the author): [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16745998](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16745998)

</comment><comment><USER3> The blog post (easily missed at the bottom of the read me) is likely more interesting to non-technical reader (like me) : [https://www.anishathalye.com/2018/04/03/macbook- touchscreen/](https://www.anishathalye.com/2018/04/03/macbook-touchscreen/)

<comment><USER4> Likely even to a technical reader. Thanks!

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> All of my past couple laptops have been touchscreens. I never find it that useful honestly. It just ends up leaving fingerprints all over the screen.

<comment><USER6> I generally agree, but I still found it useful simply for up/down scrolling while reading an ebook or news articles while on the couch. Basically when I don't need to use the keyboard at all for an extended period of time.

I can hold the laptop differently in that case, using it more like a tablet. I did this often enough where I was happy I got a touchscreen...

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> Just think how different it could have been had this approach been feasible a decade or two ago. I believe it would have been, however, nobody had thought of it.

Had that route been taken then by now it would be a mature technology with most laptops having some bulge around the web camera to turn it from touch mode to web cam mode or to privacy mode.

It could have co-existed alongside expensive touch much like how other hardware gets emulated in software if the full hardware is not present. By now the device could have slimmed down to use some magic piece of mylar film that folds flat when the lid is closed but magically springs out to capture the whole screen.

But this is a tech that is too late to the party, touchscreen is not going to have a lame cut down version that works off a webcam, however, had this idea come along and been viable two decades ago then things could have been different, it could have been a tech that lasts for a while before being superseded.

I do wonder at the PIN number stealing scam applications of this and if there is something we will all have to look out for in terms of really sneaky camera on ATM machines.

</comment><comment><USER8> Absolutely amazing! Goes to show how far a clever idea can go. I wonder how much better the system can be improved with two cameras instead

<comment><USER9> Already exists professionally (as in -- commercial product). Sadly I don't remember a name.

<comment><USER10> [https://air.bar/mac](https://air.bar/mac)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER11> This is a really smart and cool implementation, seems like a kickstarter waiting to happen.

</comment><comment><USER12> Pro glossy screen arguments: Can retrofit a touchscreen Anti: everything else

</comment><comment><USER13> Why not use an AI system like PyTorch and make the system learn the rest itself, as long as you "calibrate" enough times.

</comment><comment><USER14> Does it also work when the screen is displaying lots of images of fingers, like in the demo video itself?</comment>


House Passes Cybersecurity Bill Despite Privacy Protests - <AUTHOR> http://www.wired.com/2015/04/house-passes-cybersecurity-bill-despite-privacy-protests

<comment><USER2> Another article on the same issue:

[http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/23/house-passes- protecting-c...](http://www.engadget.com/2015/04/23/house-passes-protecting- cyber-networks-act/)</comment>


Justice Department Finds Yale Discriminated Based on Race in UndergradAdmissions - <AUTHOR> https://www.wsj.com/articles/justice-department-finds-yale-discriminated-based-on-race-in-undergraduate-admissions-11597351675 <comment><USER2> This is the same Yale that had a policy of restricting the student body to at most 10% of Jewish descent. Funny how things stay the same even though we are apparently more enlightened.

</comment><comment><USER3> The whole undergraduate system in the US needs dismantling and rebuilding. it is costly, wasteful, discriminatory and largely about signaling than any skills.

[https://medium.com/swlh/y-combinator-not-lambda-school-is- un...](https://medium.com/swlh/y-combinator-not-lambda-school-is-unbundling- education-bd6fdf0c78d7)

</comment><comment><USER4> And yet the California legislature is looking to reinstate [1] discrimination in hiring based on race and endorsed by the University of California system.

[1] [https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-vote-for- discrimination-11593...](https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-vote-for- discrimination-11593127619)

<comment><USER5> The video on this link was absolutely striking. The moment we divide up America into racial groups, and then start recruiting, selecting, hiring and prosecuting people based on their race; the fabric of this nation will tear apart.

It is impossible to be a centrist. HN brings you downvotes when you convey a balanced view; friends in silicon valley despise you for offering a nuanced opinion, you get singled out and suppressed. Freedom of speech is degraded by extreme left-wing populace. Extreme right-wingers want a full authoritarian government but at the same time want freedom of speech and expression. That's contradicting and makes no sense.

I feel like leaving the United States and going to a place where there is more unity, thoughtful discourse and peace. Both left and right sides are to be blamed.</comment></comment>


Twilio Raises A $70M Series D As They Consider An IPO - <AUTHOR> http://techcrunch.com/2013/06/07/twilio-raises-a-70m-series-d-as-they-consider-an-ipo/ <comment><USER2> More power to them. One of the best SaaS companies I've worked with. Good price, good service, good docs, good support.

<comment><USER3> Thank you very much for that. Still much work ahead - glad you are with us for it.

<comment><USER4> Rob, may I how much is Twilio valued right now?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> If the next logical step for Twilio is an IPO, does that mean that they're not profitable? If they are profitable, why is an IPO the logical next step, does an IPO provide specific value to the company (or any company) beyond financing?

<comment><USER6> Aren't IPOing companies almost universally profitable?

<comment><USER7> No. The main point of an IPO is to raise money which profitable companies need less.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Congrats, guys! Great news ahead of Twilio Con.

<comment><USER3> Thank _you_. Hope to see you there - we've got some serious fun planned.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> Great news! Hoping the extra resources that this money brings, can give them the opportunity to introduce voice recognition.

<comment><USER3> Thanks so much gales. You are right - there is a whole lot of work ahead.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> As someone who just went through an IPO at a tech company, congratz Twilio, its a huge achievement! Enjoy it!

<comment><USER3> Thanks partner. Lot of work before we get there - looking forward to the next leg of the mountain.

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> Awesome! We send and receive thousands of SMS messages with twilio every day, hopefully this helps them get better international incoming message support ;)

</comment><comment><USER12> Can someone explain Twilio in relation with open federated protocols (something I care about)?</comment>


SpaceX to Debut Upgraded Falcon 9 on Return to Flight Mission - <AUTHOR> http://spacenews.com/spacex-to-debut-upgraded-falcon-9-on-return-to-flight-mission/#sthash.ZmZMNGJu.uxfs&st_refDomain=t.co&st_refQuery=/F3UyTaBjV5 <comment><USER2> "I want to _stick a landing_ this year"

That's a gymnastics phrase for landing on your feet (with no bounce) during a dismount and is a pretty appropriate analogy for what they're trying to do with the Falcon 9 first stage.

To carry the analogy further, the second landing attempt could have been a "one hop" landing if they'd had a bigger drone ship. The first landing (which needed a bit more propellant to keep the stage upright) would have succeeded as a "one step" dismount - if the stage could actually take a step with it's legs.

<comment><USER3> I wouldn't take that phrase too literally. I take it to mean that she wants them to actually land a rocket (not necessarily on all feet with no bounce). The other attempts were "landings", but they blew up. Bounce or no, if they land the rocket upright, I think that's sticking it.

<comment><USER4> The problem as I understand it, and I think what smoyer was talking about, is that there are no other viable landing methods for the rocket than "feet" first.

Sufficient thrust is only available from the main engines, and those only point in one direction.

So if it starts to tilt off vertical then the rocket has no way to right itself after a point (and certainly no way to counteract gravity). Gravity + tall enough rocket + landing on side = boom (or crumple).

So "stick it or bust"?

<comment><USER3> There are cold gas thrusters on top of the first stage that fire to keep its balance. If it lands in an uneven manner and starts to tip, those should be enough to maintain the landing. You can see them working in the video embedded in the link below. They only didn't work in that instance because the main rocket motor fired too long at it was too much for the small thrusters.

[http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/06/24/why-and-how-landing- ro...](http://www.spacex.com/news/2015/06/24/why-and-how-landing-rockets)

<comment><USER5> I think the bigger issue is that idle thrust of a single Merlin engine (which is used to land the first stage) produces more force than gravity on the vehicle.

This means it can't "hover" so the final burn must be timed with exact precision to have ~zero velocity on impact. Doesn't give a lot of room for error.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> The other side to the upgrade to the Falcon 9 is chilling down the fuel more than normal so that it shrinks and they can fit more of it in the rocket's tanks.

<comment><USER7> Do you have any reference for that? It seems to me that further cooling already liquified fuel doesn't give you any noticeable difference in volume.

<comment><USER8> Why not? According to a random page I found on the internet, kerosene has a coefficient of thermal expansion of 0.00099 per Kelvin. If you can cool it by 50 degrees then you'll be able to store about 5% more fuel in the same volume of tank, which is a nice little upgrade.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> I just want to see a Klondike Bar in middle of ocean and a pencil on top of it.

</comment><comment><USER10> Looks like they are taking the software approach to fixing things.

<comment><USER11> Still an improvement to the Von Braun approach, I'd guess.

<comment><USER12> What's the Von Braun approach? I mean, his work was a model for hardware reuse and improvement every launch. (I think considering the Atlas, Titan, and Saturn 1.)

<comment><USER11> V2.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> > _that features engines with increased thrust, providing an increase in > performance of about 30 percent._

I'm not a rocket engineer but this sounds like a mind-blowingly good increase. Is it just that they're early in the development of the engines and since they're taking an iterative approach this is just low hanging fruit? Even if that's the case, 30% increase seems impressive.

<comment><USER14> By careful selection of metric goals, impressive results can be achieved with little change. (this is a summary of modern american corporate process LOL).

So if your metric is pounds of payload delivered to orbit, for example, rockets are usually pretty heavy compared to the payload delivered so a rather small improvement in thrust to weight ratio can have seemingly extreme improvement in pounds delivered. You're still launching a million pounds sitting on the pad, its just removing a mere 300 pounds of insulation over than million pound booster means you get 1300 of payload delivered instead of 1000.

Rockets have all kinds of interesting problems with thermal limits and combustion instability and its very easy to defeat those problems at considerable weight penalty and then when telemetry consistently shows the nozzle temp is fine at full flow rate and projections show 80% flow is fine, then next model has microscopically smaller pipes or whatever. And repeat many times and next thing you know you've gained quite a bit of performance. Its hard to add fluid flow baffles to an existing system, but if it works with existing baffles its usually much easier to slowly remove them.

There is another spacex specific issue that to do the "land on a barge" thing general opinion is they overspec the marketing numbers to about 30% less. I don't know how much, if any, current improvement is lowering that to 27% or whatever. If you were to give up on recycling boosters and one-shot the booster, the marketed performance specs would go up a bit without any engineering changes (well other than software to land wouldn't be necessary, LOL).

<comment><USER15> I think you're underrating the difficulty of this kind of improvement. Rockets already have to be extremely well-optimized to reach orbit, so there wouldn't be the kind of low-hanging fruit like removing 300 pounds of insulation without side effects. Also, if you want weight reductions to give payload increases in a 1:1 ratio, the weight has to be taken off of the final stage (in F9's case, the second stage); removing it from earlier stages gives you much less benefit.</comment></comment></comment>


Start here: Statistics for A/B testing - <AUTHOR> https://medium.com/@iamguico/start-here-statistics-for-a-b-testing-5f5c7e02ce1e#.ih7a9mt6z <comment><USER2> I like this article a lot. But there is one thing that it gets a bit wrong.

The article is discussing the standard textbook Z-test. The article then talks a lot about Optimizely. However, Optimizely doesn't actually use the Z-test - they have a sequential testing method instead, and the details are a bit different.

The article also suggests "start by serving variant B to only 10% of the users to ensure there are no implementation problems". This is a good idea, but once you've ensured there are no integration problems you need to throw away the data and restart. Since conversion rates change during the week (i.e., sat != tues), keeping the data during the ramp-up period is a great way to get wrong results due to Simpson's Paradox.

<comment><AUTHOR> Hi Christ, thanks for the remarks - I'll add them to the article as an edit. Thumbs up!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Would love a non-optimizely, guide to building proper A/B tests, if anyone knows one

<comment><USER2> I've got some documents up describing the Bayesian approach to testing:

[https://www.chrisstucchio.com/pubs/slides/gilt_bayesian_ab_2...](https://www.chrisstucchio.com/pubs/slides/gilt_bayesian_ab_2015/slides.html)

[https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/310840/VWO_SmartStats_technic...](https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/310840/VWO_SmartStats_technical_whitepaper.pdf)

In my view this is the most comprehensible approach to A/B testing, and it answers the questions people really want answered.

Disclaimer: I'm the director of data science at VWO and this is the approach our new A/B testing engine uses.</comment></comment>


The New Mighty Mouse: The Magic Mouse From Apple - <AUTHOR> http://www.crunchgear.com/2009/10/20/the-new-mighty-mouse-is-the-magic-mouse/

<comment><USER2> This is the one. Ever since I got my MacBook, I have been hesitant to use any other kind of computer - even a desktop iMac - solely because of the lack of multi-touch support. I always wondered why Apple never came out with a separate touchpad, now I know why.

I'm going to test it out at the store tonight.

<comment><USER3> I'd like to know your thoughts on it.

<comment><USER2> Will have to do it tomorrow, had to stay late at work.

<comment><USER2> Well, I stopped by the store today, but they don't have any samples yet.

They will have the new iMacs on display tomorrow, so I'll be able to really try it then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER4> The "new Mighty Mouse"? The Mighty Mouse was awful - this looks significantly better with no silly little scrolly ball thing to get clogged up and stop working after six months.

<comment><USER5> The funny thing is that both of my Mighty Mouses did last six month before they got clogged uncleanably.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> The apparent lack of middle click is pretty much a deal breaker for me.. I find it too useful for tabbed browsing. Shame, everything else about it looks pretty good.

<comment><USER7> where does it say it doesn't support the middle button? It's technically a multi-touch pad on top so it could detect when you want a middle mouse button click. It could technically detect 5 buttons on top of the mouse...

Also, back in the old linux days when most PCs only had 2 mouse buttons, people could click with both buttons to emulate the middle button. This was a standard option in the xfree86.config file. I would imagine something like this would be possible if the mouse can detect 5 independent touches on the pad.

</comment></comment><comment><USER7> The best part is that it uses normal AA batteries. I hate the rechargeable mice that come with a specific recharger. When you're low you can't immediately recharge it and there are times when you forget and really need to use the mouse!</comment>


Show HN: Blur – Enterprise Solution for Securing Passwords - <AUTHOR> http://www.blur.solutions <comment><USER2> > Passwords can be sent to the Blur service from any application or system to > be secured before being further processed and stored.

So, Blur will review plain text passwords for multiple applications across the organization,possibly logging it?

1) Why shouldn't I spend money on securing the apps with good password requirements and 2fa,instead of on Blur? It seems,integration work is needed with the app anyways.

2) This might secure the passwords but it also increases my risk. The Blur infrastructure will constitute the most vulnerable segment of _my_ organization. How can I justify such a reduction of security? Is it not better to accept the risk of weak password usage? This feels much like getting a bullet proof vest weighing 200lbs,where it might protect me from bullets but then it also means I can't move,my protection suddenly made me a sitting duck.

3) Let's say my previous questions are without merit. Why shouldn't this be an internal self hosted app? Why an external service? Surely you can charge customers for support and license.

4) This solution becomes less relevant as apps move to SSO or secure their login. I would be concerned about developers and application stakeholders becoming complacent or resistant towards suggestions of improving app login security or they might neglect login security because Blur can fill in that gap.

Overall,my impression is that Blur remediates a specific security issue without considering the impact it will have on the organization's security posture as a whole.

Sorry for being negative,I hope OP can address these concerns as I am sure I won't be the only one to have them.

<comment><AUTHOR> You aren't being negative, that you very much for the thoughts

1\. Good password requirements doesn't mean that your users will use secure passwords. Password123! is not secure. There is nothing wrong with 2 factor authentication. This is not a replacement for that. A lot of users choose not to use 2 factor authentication because they don't want to go through the hassle. So we have a strong password policy and we have 2 factor authentication enabled, yet our user isn't using 2 factor authentication and their password is extremely weak.

2\. Yes the Blur infrastructure adds an extra component to your application to it and if something were to happen to it, availability would be in jeopardy. Resources would need to be put in place to reduce that risk, just like a database.

3\. This can be a self hosted internal application. Its does not have to be an external service. What i have on my website is a demo. How an organization chooses to deploy it is up to them and i agree it makes the most sense to deploy it internally.

4\. I don't understand how a SSO would make this solution less relevant. If anything I would think it would make it more relevant. To have a host of applications use one entry point for authentication, its more important for you users to use secure passwords. If the SSO account was compromised, all apps using that SSO is now at risk. SSO in my opinion isn't a security solution, its an integration solution. I don't see how Blur would cause stakeholders and developers to become less complacent regarding security. I'm sorry but that doesn't make sense to me.

Blur does not log any of the passwords it secures. No information regarding the original password and the secured password are logged or stored in any database.

Again thank you very much for the concerns.

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> >We are a security company based out of Rochester, NY that plans to deliver a high quality product which provides a way for organizations...

You plan to do it, or are doing it? Do you provide high quality products, or planning too? Your doubt, gives me doubt.

Why no domain email? Using a personal email for contact? Not very professional. Just saying....</comment>


Time to move on? The case against daylight saving time - <AUTHOR> http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/11/131101-when-does-daylight-savings-time-end-november-3-science/ <comment><USER3> I wonder - have any of you who run large projects which are sensitive to time changes ever have to deal with DST? I ran a MMORPG, which had specific events at certain times of the day, on certain days of the week. Now imagine:

North America observes DST two weeks before Europe. DST _ends_ for Australia two weeks before North America (time goes the other way). China does not observe DST. I won't even bother to get into the other countries.

Even disregarding the other issues that DST created (and trust me, there were lots), just syncing up players for events was a giant hassle. Yes, people _should_ theoretically research and know how their time works, but expecting users to sync your events to their time without missing one or two is naive ignorance. Even with mitigations, my staff and I basically spent every DST start/end dealing with a plethora of IRs to the degree of, "why did you change the time?"

I would not miss DST at all.

(We did standardized time quite early on, and did announce in server-time)

<comment><USER4> This is one this I'm thankful for in the .Net framework. Give it any datetime in UTC, then give it a time zone and it spits out a local time. There is zero work to do.

<comment> brown9-2 You realize that the tzdb files this functionality depends on has several updates each year that are probably never being installed on 90% of computers?

<comment><USER4> Yes, of course.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> I wish we would go one step further and just stick to UTC as well. That way when we try to set up a video conference at 0900 we don't have to translate between time zones. We can just ask if 0900 works, and everyone would know what time that is.

There's no reason 1200 should be midday. If we changed this today the next generation would never stop to think about how "weird it is that it's dark at 1200" where they live.

<comment><USER6> Most people like being awake when it is light out and asleep when it is dark. Having the world on UTC doesn't let you figure that out.

Your in London, UK and schedule a meeting for your team at 9:00 in New York, LA, Tokyo and Bangalore.

Who is awake? Who is asleep? Who's workday ended?

You live in Paris, your mother lives in Hawaii. You want to call here when you get off work. Did you wake her up? Is she at work?

Timezones give you a general idea about what it going on at that part of the world. You lose that information without them.

<comment><USER7> You are misunderstanding how it would work. People would still be awake when it's light out and asleep when it's dark.

Instead of everywhere starting their workday at 9am UTC like you're imagining, London would start their workday at 9am UTC, New York would start their workday at 4am UTC, Los Angeles would start their workday at 1am UTC.

<comment><USER6> Actually, that's exactly how I know it would work. I'm pointing out the information your going to loose without having timezones because people are still going to get up and go to sleep basically following a solar day. Are people in Paris awake at 9:00 or asleep? Are people in LA working or not? Without a table, say a table that says what time of day it is in particular zones, 9:00 tells you nothing.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Articles that debate DST always seem to have some strange anecdotal comment that doesn't make any sense. This article has a couple, but I would love to see the source for: "Many farmers still don't like DST, including some dairy farmers, who find that cows' natural milking schedules don't adapt easily to a sudden shift."

Farmers aren't stupid and cows can't tell time. Do you really think they adjust the actual time they milk cows in order to observe DST? A schedule on a farm has far more to do with actual daylight hours regardless of the official "time".

However, they did get the sentiment correct. Farmers have always opposed to changing the time twice a year and largely think the whole idea is ridiculous. Case in point, Saskatchewan does not change their time, but permanently maintain the equivalent of DST year round. Tellingly, there is no debate about adopting time changes either.

<comment><USER9> UK farmers were neutral or cautious, but have been moving towards wanting a change.

Scottish farmers sceptical: [http://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/news/daylight- robbery.156...](http://www.thescottishfarmer.co.uk/news/daylight- robbery.15681279)

Scottish farmers change position: [http://www.daylightsavingstime2014.com/the- nfu-shifts-positi...](http://www.daylightsavingstime2014.com/the-nfu-shifts- position-on-time-change/)

Politics; the bill fails for lack of time despite support: [http://www.theleader.info/article/41171/spain/national/the-s...](http://www.theleader.info/article/41171/spain/national/the- sun-rises-again-on-the-daylight-saving-debate/)

EDIT: I agree about the weird anecdotalism of a lot of reporting! I find it quite frustrating. Little snippets of fact get repeated and pulled out of context until they're almost meaningless.

</comment></comment><comment><USER10> Pro-tip for programmers: never, ever try to build your own library to handle DST. You will get something wrong. Lots of frameworks and system libraries handle this for you, and do it pretty well.

<comment><USER11> This argument "don't build it yourself - you're doing it wrong" is starting to wear off.

Why should I trust the third party library was built by programmers that knew better? What do they know that I don't?

If I ever need to build something that people say others are better at - <USER2> no argument backing - I will just ignore them (I'll do due research as in other projects though).

<comment><USER12> It's not that the programmers who wrote those libraries knew better - it's that they know better now!

Most programmers have a simplistic view of time, and start out writing some library that assumes simple arithmetic can calculate any duration, then they find their library is wrong in many cases, and problems are gradually fixed as they research and learn more about time. A robust time library that gets everything right is not going to be hacked together over a weekend.

Perhaps the parent comment was too strong as it sounded a bit like "Don't try to write a time library you idiot." Writing a time library is fine, if that is your aim. I think the suggestion is rather, don't bother writing a time library that is intended to be tacked onto your main project, as you'll either get it wrong, or waste time you could be working on your actual problem, when others have already solved the time problem.

<comment><USER13> _It 's not that the programmers who wrote those libraries knew better - it's that they know better now!_

This is exactly right and it has nothing really to do with time specifically. In any area with a lot of edge cases, you'll usually figure out how to get a lot of those edge cases right after you've got a lot of them wrong, so you should prefer to use something that's already gone through this process. Similar advice here [0]:

 _" Back to that two page function. Yes, I know, it's just a simple function to display a window, but it has grown little hairs and stuff on it and nobody knows why. Well, I'll tell you why: those are bug fixes. One of them fixes that bug that Nancy had when she tried to install the thing on a computer that didn't have Internet Explorer. Another one fixes that bug that occurs in low memory conditions. Another one fixes that bug that occurred when the file is on a floppy disk and the user yanks out the disk in the middle. That LoadLibrary call is ugly but it makes the code work on old versions of Windows 95.

Each of these bugs took weeks of real-world usage before they were found. The programmer might have spent a couple of days reproducing the bug in the lab and fixing it. If it's like a lot of bugs, the fix might be one line of code, or it might even be a couple of characters, but a lot of work and time went into those two characters."_

[0] [http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html](http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Personally I'd like to see timezones disappear too. Why does 9am have to be morning in every country? What would be so difficult about everyone in the world sticking to one timezone? Hell we could go all in and start using star dates.

<comment><USER15> I find this a really good argument for it: how are you supposed to know if you call somebody in the middle of the night, if it's noon where you are, and the hour is the same? By having different time-zones, you need to look it up, but then you have an intuitive way of judging which stage of the day they are perceiving.

<comment><USER5> You are complecting two problems: 1) When does the other person sleep. 2) What does his watch show.

Making 2) easier does not change anything with regard to 1).

<comment><USER16> For most people, their sleep is highly correlated with what their watches show.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> Junking DST completely is an unimaginative, backward solution to an imperfect system. DST just needs to be improved a bit more. The advent of computerized timekeeping and GPS means that, for the first time since timekeeping began, we can realize the natural benefits of waking the way humans were meant to--with the sun. I call this scheme Human Time.

With Human Time, the sun rises at seven a.m. every day, in every location, regardless of season.

* An hour is still an hour, but every night at three a.m., time skips about a minute or so each day, ensuring that the sunrise always occurs at seven a.m.

* Each state (or cluster of states) maintains their own 2D timezone.

* Your watch/smartphone uses GPS to ascertain the correct date and time zone. From this information it can compute the correct Human Time, and can show you the time in any other zone, or set an alarm for any other zone. Let's face it--the average human doesn't remember differences between today's time zones anyway, and hits Google whenever such calculations are needed. Moving to a more complicated time differencing algorithm will have no negligible effect on travelers.

* All "human" events (working hours, parties, etc.) use Human Time appropriate for their 2D timezone. All machine events use "machine time," which is standard non-daylight, non-slewed time, GMT, used for all things non-human.

* All watches/clocks/phones would also be able to convert to and from "machine time."

From the improved circadian rhythms that such a scheme would engender, I expect a marked increase in mood and decrease in cancer rates, but obviously this is conjecture, and not proven.

<comment><USER18> At even moderately high latitudes, this would be obnoxious during the summer.

At those same latitudes, it would also be obnoxious during the winter, taking any and all evening sun away.

(I'm near the 45th parallel, towards the edge of a timezone. Sunrise tomorrow is at about 7:30. Sunset is at about 5:30)

</comment></comment><comment><USER19> DST is obviously not the real issue.

The real issue is that people's habit have changed from what they were until a century ago : the advance of transportation has meant commuting times have extended, the advance of lighting has meant it was possible to spend more and more time awake after dark, etc.

The average time during people are awake is roughly 16 hours a day, and these 16 hours used to be aligned with 1pm being the middle of the day, meaning people would seldom go to bed after 9pm, and would usually get up around 5am.

This makes sense as daylight is well balanced between morning and afternoon. And you don't need daylight saving time !

Therefore the appropriate course of action is to set working hours to be not 9am to 5pm but 7am to 3pm, once and for all.

<comment><USER20> That is not appropriate. I do NOT want to have to go to work at 7am, and neither do many people I know.

<comment><USER19> What difference does it make ? It's just a mindset.

<comment><USER21> It's a mindset or preference to the same degree that homosexuality is: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotype](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronotype)

<comment><USER22> Whoa, I didn't know that was a thing. Now I've got a handy little reference available when the girlfriend complains that I "stay up too late" (past 10pm!).

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER23> I like how the article characterises it as a bad thing that people go out in the evening, get social, and enjoy their lives. The article spends a lot of time countering the "DST saves energy" argument (and mostly only fights to a draw, not a win), and absolutely zero countering "DST gives you more time at the long end of the day to enjoy your life".

</comment><comment><USER24> I never had a problem with it when I was young and carefree but now married with kids.. man DST is annoying. The kids seem to take a good week to adjust and I'm finding I'm still feeling tired an hour earlier than I should 6 days on.

<comment><USER25> Was looking for the person who mentions kids. Thank you. The misery of putting a kid to bed an hour early (WHY DAD WHY?) then listening to them rage for about 2 hours due to getting overwrought, just to have to wake them up in the AM rather than wake up naturally. Its miserable and having braved 4 time changes since she became sentient, it gets worse every time.

<comment><USER24> _The misery of putting a kid to bed an hour early (WHY DAD WHY?) then listening to them rage for about 2 hours due to getting overwrought, just to have to wake them up in the AM rather than wake up naturally._

It's funny how opposite some problems can be though! I have the total opposite issue: my kids love going to bed and would happily go at 4pm if we let them, the problem is they want to be up at 5:30am every day.. :-) I can't even think of a single morning in 4 years where I've had to get my eldest up..

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER26> Russia recently stopped observing DST by staying on the "ahead" time. I think that's a great compromise.

</comment><comment><USER27> Having lived with it and without it, I'm a loud and proud opposer of Daylight Saving.

It seems that the changing of the clocks causes the most problems. I've oft suggested that fans just change their timezone permanently forward - boy does that create confusion among those wanting to argue.

<comment><USER28> You can't give up now, almost all my clocks change automatically.

</comment></comment><comment><USER29> When I first heard of DST I couldn't believe that there are entire countries out there that follow this practice. It seems like it came straight out of a Terry Pratchett novel.

</comment><comment><USER30> Time is one of those things that's pretty much _all_ edge cases.

</comment><comment><USER31> Is there any viable case FOR dst? The concept is archaic and insane

<comment><USER32> I'm an electrical engineer and the first project I worked in my professional life was a Power Quality Meter, used by the power company at my city, in Brazil.

In our specific case, DST was pretty good at shifting the two main power demands we had at night: lighting and the effect of people going home (taking a heated shower, using elevators...)

I had access to oscillographies at all power stations in my state (which is not small, here is located the biggest hydroelectrical dam in the World, by annual production). It happened that during DST the quality of the power being provided increased.

I'm not arguing here that this is a solid proof that DST is good, but the effect of concentrated demand and the subtle implications that this has on the actual efficiency of the power grid seem to be all too often neglected.

Well, it's a good discussion, and my main point here is that things are not as simple as they may appear at a first glance :)

<comment><USER31> I get your point. I see it as a pain in the backside from a programming point of view. Managing arbitrary dst changes which keep changing at the whims of political powers is exhausting at best.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER33> Yes, please. We need a movement to eliminate DST. There is no reason why we should force everyone to accommodate the few who enjoy the illusion of longer days in summer. It is easier to allow those to opt into it (you can wake up an hour earlier if you want) rather than force everyone to get up an hour earlier.

</comment><comment><USER34> There should be a link here to a piece/rant from last year (or at least it made the rounds then, on here as well, I think), I think, where someone passionately, and quite convincingly, defended daylight saving time.

I searched, but I can't find it at the moment. Does anyone else remember what I'm referring to?

<comment><USER35> [http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/03/why-i-like- dst/](http://www.leancrew.com/all-this/2013/03/why-i-like-dst/) ?

<comment><USER34> Yes, thank you!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER36> In my opinion I would always leave the DST on. Because people tend to go on average in my opinion to bed later than at 8 pm and on average wake up after the dark is long gone. In other words we sleep when there is light. And I think that the argument about spending more gas because people travel somewhere to play and do activities is all but a bad thing. I have a concrete example when people have a hard time exercising outside because it is dark before you come home from a job. So I vote that DST stays always ON.

</comment><comment><USER37> I don't understand why anyone would like it to get darker earlier?

</comment><comment><USER38> Always my favorite video showing just how crazy DST makes everything: [http://youtu.be/84aWtseb2-4](http://youtu.be/84aWtseb2-4)

</comment><comment><USER39> I find most people that complain about DST actually are complaining about how it gets dark so early. So, they actually want DST year round and dislike standard time.

</comment><comment><USER40> for places that observe DST, move the clocks 30 minutes in between and call it quits.

</comment><comment><USER41> I like DST, but I recognize that it's there largely for cultural reasons. (It doesn't save much energy.) Summer nights should be light until 9:00pm; that goes back to childhood and just seems "right". (I know that that's an emotional argument with no reasonable backing.) On the other hand, I don't it to be dark at 8:00 in the morning in the dead of winter, so I prefer the reversion to standard time in the winter.

Want proof that it's cultural? It starts in March and ends in November. Lightwise, March is the midpoint while November is almost the darkest part of the year-- but not cold yet. DST follows the temperature, not the light. People wouldn't like it if they left work in darkness during the high foliage season of October. Hell, I wouldn't like that.

What's really going on, of course, is that DST forces everyone to do everything an hour earlier during the lighter months. In companies that care about presence down to exact minutes (thankfully, those are rare in tech) it becomes socially acceptable to work 8-5 instead of 9-6, because everyone is calling 8:00, 9:00. This prevents all that light in the morning from getting wasted, because people are tricked into getting up earlier than they otherwise would. They think getting up at 6:00 is for old people and gym rats, but that's exactly what they do for 8 months out of the year.

People who work the standard workday want: (a) at least an hour and a half of light _before_ they leave for work (typically, 8:30); (b) darkness by one hour before the average bedtime (about 10:45), and (c) as much evening light as possible during the nicest months (April, May; September, October) of the year. DST is the hack that makes that possible.

One could argue, on the other hand, that it would be better for people to just adapt to asynchrony in work and social life and thus make it irrelevant whether we call the summer sunset "7:30" or "8:30"... but most people don't have that luxury.

<comment><USER42> Yes. I was going to say that people should just get up earlier and quit work earlier to get the extra daylight, but practically speaking, I think doing that without changing the clocks is much harder for most.</comment></comment>