What's up with Firefox? - <AUTHOR> http://www.recode.net/2017/1/25/14378610/mossberg-whats-up-with-firefox-the-browser-that-time-forgot <comment><USER6> Regarding FirefoxOS, Mozilla erred in focusing their efforts on cheap, crappy phones¹ that were only available in places like Spain or India, and not getting first-tier phones into the hands of as many hackers as possible, as quickly as possible.

By focusing on low-end phones and not Nexus- or Galaxy-class handsets, they lost sight of the fact that smartphones are aspirational devices. People want the best phones they can get, with high performance and high-resolution screens. They don't care about libre software or the Open Web if the devices on which it runs are perceived as inferior. (Everyone I know uses either an iPhone or a reasonably performant Android phone, and I don't run in wealthy or tech circles much these days.)

Look at the runaway success of the iPhone. It wasn't cheap, but because it was clearly a quality device, both regular people and developers clamored for them. (Remember the hue and cry when Apple initially said they wouldn't provide a market for third-party apps?)

If Mozilla really wanted to spur interest in FirefoxOS among developers, they should have set up kiosks at every Fry's Electronics in the greater S.F. Bay area (on the doorsteps of Apple, Google, Facebook) to sell decent, unlocked phones directly. People would have lined up to buy them just to hack on them. I would have seriously considered buying one as an alternative to a Nexus phone, if one had been available.

1: Ars Technical eviscerates a $35 FirefoxOS phone: [http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/10/testing-a-3](http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/10/testing-a-3)

<comment><USER7> With respect, this seems very Bay Area short-sighted. Mozilla was open about targeting cheap, crappy phones, which my understanding makes up a _very_ significant portion of the Android phone ecosystem. They were looking at those Spain, India, China markets, yes, and nailing those markets didn't really depend upon the opinions of comparatively _extraordinarily_ rich Bay Area denizens or hackers. If you can afford a Galaxy s5 right now, even if you have to budget a bit, you are not the market that that OS was for (my understanding). Similar to that Facebook Internet thing - it wasn't for us, it was for people who can (and do) live two years off one of our paychecks.

EDIT: I just read that review you linked and it suffers the same problem - <USER2> total lack of perspective. The only _critical_ error I can see is the lack of internal battery to keep time synced, which will be a major setback for browsing because of authentication and whatnot. Other than that, the sorts of people spending 35$ on a phone _do not care_ about the three different materials, the thickness, the shitty camera, etc. I've seen the most horrifying, hackneyed together internet connectivity solutions in China that to mock a 35$ phone for being "too thick" is to be just... out of touch.

<comment><USER8> So if their strategy was a good one, why did it fail?

<comment><USER9> The Firefox team assumed that Android would be an expensive, bulky OS that wouldn't fit into sub-$120 phones -- leaving lots of room for spartan little Firefox OS to own the low end.

Not so. Android decided to do cheap and lean, too. I did some price comparisons in emerging markets back in 2015, and everywhere that Firefox OS tried to play, there was an Android alternative available at a comparable price. More details are here:

[https://www.technologyreview.com/s/537661/firefox-maker- batt...](https://www.technologyreview.com/s/537661/firefox-maker-battles-to- save-the-internet-and-itself/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER10> It is very important to use Firefox: For Microsoft, Apple or Google their "free" browser MUST eventually be a pawn in their corporate strategy. It's one thing to use a service from a company, but conceding this crucial puzzle piece to any one company? I don't know about that. Mozilla takes money from Google and others, but ultimately depends 100% on a free internet.

One could argue which browser is a little ahead in any area, and which one needs "revitalization", to use a word from the article, but Firefox would have to _seriously_ fall behind before I would switch browsers. Do you think ad- blockers would be a thing if it was between Chrome, Safari and IE? A _lot_ depends on a single number: Firefox' market share.

<comment><USER11> Firefox has also been a pawn in Mozilla's corporate strategies many times.

They changed Firefox users' default search engine to Yahoo, not only in new installations but overriding existing settings, after Mozilla cut a deal with Yahoo.

Mozilla also backed EME, eventually, a big threat to free internet as we knew it, among many other things.

If you take this history into account, portraying Firefox as being unblemished by Mozilla Corporation's monetization schemes and guardian of the free internet is just romantic fiction.

<comment><USER12> > They also backed EME,

No they didn't. They argued and fought against EME until it was clear that there was no way they would win. At that point they implemented it so that they could stay relevant, without it their market share would be even lower and they'd have zero chance of getting market share again.

And market share isn't a "corporate" concern, it is vital to their non-profit mission.

All that being said, that doesn't mean I'm happy with everything they do. Just arguing on that one point.

<comment><USER11> You just gave details on how and why they flipped their stance on EME. And you're essentially saying they traded market share for their principles about free internet. You're basically agreeing with me.

> At that point they implemented it so that they could stay relevant,

...instead of fighting it without giving up.

> And market share isn't a "corporate" concern

This literally makes 0 sense to me. Do you actually believe this? Market share share _is_ vital to Mozilla _Corporation_ 's business, which they have been using to cut million dollar deals with Yahoo, Google, etc. I don't wanna go all the want and say "you're the product", but they basically monetize their collective user base. So regardless of how they/you spin it, I don't buy that it's not a corporate concern.

<comment><USER12> To be clear, I meant market share isn't solely a corporate concern. Certainly it is in the corporation's best interest, but it is also a very big interest from a non-profit/altruistic perspective.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER13> This all seems a bit sensationalist. Mozilla tried a few other things, mostly didn't work out, maybe a bit distracted from Firefox. The decline from 2010 was about Chrome, not neglect (& maybe mobile, where they lacked a device).

I wouldn't say Firefox was leading the way or the biggest innovator in the last few years, but for me it's kept up-to-date enough not to feel at all neglected.

<comment><USER14> I've been using Firefox for years without any problems and find it much better (just as fast, more privacy-minded) than chrome.

I honestly don't understand (from a consumer standpoint) why people complain about Firefox. I can understand devs having browser preferences, but to say that "time forgot" firefox is ridiculous as a general user.

<comment><USER15> As a dedicated FF user: It feels significantly slower than chrome, it's hard to figure out what tab is killing things, and they keep making choices that I consider highly questionable.

I do love FF, and it is the browser I use everyday. But it's not without it's own warts, which Chrome is much better at hiding.

<comment><USER16> After version 50.0 I switched back from Opera. The deal is to get the e10s multiprocess windows on. It might be disabled because some of the addons. You can try to enforce it or like in my case with only uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger installed, it was on by default.

This browser is seriously fast now on Linux. I couldn't be happier with it. I've used it for weeks already, browsing a lot and it's still as snappy as when I installed it.

Good job. And soon we'll start getting the Servo stuff...

<comment><USER15> I've tried turning it on via [https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis#Force_Enable](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis#Force_Enable), but it still doens't seem to be on per about:support unfortunately.

If you have any other suggestions for getting it going, I'd appreciate it.

One additional complaint I have about FF: It's hard to find out where to change the setting that I want. I constantly have to ddg for "How do I change $x" and I end up with 3 different answers for 3 different revisions. If anyone knows of a good resource for me to find this out, I would appreciate it.

<comment><USER16> Elsewhere in the comments section there were tips about an addon that tells if one of your addons is blocking e10s. Another useful tip was the dom.ipc.processCount setting. Before I cancelled my LastPass account I was using the 3.x version from them, which doesn't support e10s and crashed the browser when I forced it on. But still I was able to turn it on even though the browser was unusable.

I run this on Arch and Wayland, which might also add to the snappyness. What I kind of observed from all the comments was, that the OSX users were complaining the most about the slowness. Might be that the Linux version is faster then.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> _> And it has been paying more attention to mobile browsing. In late 2015, it finally brought out Firefox for iOS, after years of refusing to do so because Apple requires all iPhone and iPad browsers to use its own Safari engine under the hood._

Apple should be legally stopped from doing this monopolistic garbage.

 _> In my experience, Firefox today is still only a meh product._

I wouldn't say that, but I do admit that Firefox on Linux is moving pretty slowly. Since it's not the highest priority for Mozilla in general I assume, it feels like it lags behind development wise.

<comment><USER18> > Apple should be legally stopped from doing this monopolistic garbage.

IANAL but couldn't the MS case be relevant/provide precedent?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Cor...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Microsoft_Corp).

<comment><USER19> From a legal standpoint Apple don't have a monopoly in the phone market comparable to what Ms had on the desktop.

<comment><USER20> It's true that Apple does not have — even in the US — the amount of market share necessary to be deemed a monopolist and subject to anti-tying laws for its browser. Android is a strong alternative, and as long as it remains so Apple will be effectively immune from challenge. The reason Microsoft was vulnerable to this is that its market share was much higher.

There is one thing that Apple does that Microsoft did not do: it prevents the user from designating a non-Safari default browser. Every link you open will open in Safari, unless you copy it and open paste it into another browser. Microsoft let users install other browsers and designate them as the default (I don't know if this was always the case, but it has been for a very long time.) I'm not sure if Apple has a technical argument for why this is necessary, but it probably won't ever need it because of the market share threshold.

FWIW, I am a recovering lawyer, and I spent a summer in antitrust law. So I'm not an expert, but I do know how to calculate a Herfindahl-Hirschman Index for the purpose of determining market concentration...

<comment><USER17> _> It's true that Apple does not have — even in the US — the amount of market share necessary to be deemed a monopolist and subject to anti-tying laws for its browser. Android is a strong alternative, and as long as it remains so Apple will be effectively immune from challenge._

How does a strong alternative help solving the following problem. Let's say you are a video service provider, and want to offer MPEG-DASH[1] based service which relies on browsers supporting Media Source Extensions[2].

Soon enough, you discover, that iOS users can't use your service, not only because iOS default browser doesn't support MSE, but because they can't even install any alternative that does (Apple doesn't let them).

You are literally forced to implement something[3] in addition to MPEG-DASH to address a substantial amount of Apple users and in the process potentially pay Apple and Co. for implementing it because they own related patents, or you need to agree to ignore them (which means a loss of money for you).

TL;DR: Apple stifled adoption of MPEG-DASH, and forced you to do double work and in theory can force you to pay them money too. This is just one example, there can be many like that, another big one is video codecs and etc., but you get the idea. All that bottlenecks on the same restriction - ban on competing browsers.

Shouldn't this be a subject of anti-trust regulation? If they managed to do it, they have enough control over the market. But again, may be anti-trust law simply isn't equipped to address this? I see it as a major problem.

1\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Adaptive_Streaming_ove...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_Adaptive_Streaming_over_HTTP)

2\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Source_Extensions](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Media_Source_Extensions)

3\. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming)

<comment><USER20> It's just a threshold issue — if they don't have enough market share, then they can't be sued for tying/bundling. The questions about video standards may be legit, but the assumption of antitrust law is that if there are strong enough competitors in the market, then competitive forces will pressure things in a consumer-favorable direction.

This doesn't hold true always, and certainly not in the short-run, but it's better than having every company with moderate market share being sued by any other company that wishes they had different features in their products.

I don't mean for this to sound harsh, and I wish iOS were more open in various ways that would make things easier for my startup, but I recognize that companies need to have autonomy to build products as they wish — except in rare cases.

<comment><USER17> I don't think anyone stops Apple from building products. But it's about banning competition, not about their products. And their influence on the industry is way too big to ignore it. So I'm pretty convinced, that what they are doing with excluding competition, shouldn't be happening. It's not about demanding features from them - let them produce bad browsers that are behind modern ones. It's about allowing better ones to be actually used by their users. I.e. choice.

<comment><USER21> The competition isn't another browser, it's Android. If you don't like Safari, use Android. As long as iPhones are a minority device in the market, regulators won't care what they do.

<comment><USER17> I already explained above, how Android doesn't solve the problem. The damage Apple are causing is real.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER22> Great to see Mozilla backing off from quixotic tasks like building a phone OS but I still feel like they don't understand what we need them for. They are the organization that we need to keep the client side of the Internet free and open.

Here's what that will take:

\- Make Firefox the best browser in the world at the fundamentals: speed, stability, standards support.

\- Become the free, open, OS agnostic app platform of choice: don't cede this frontier to Chrome and Electron. Make the open web platform the best platform for more and more apps. (MAYBE take a shot at a phone OS after the Firefox App ecosystem rivals Android and iOS.)

\- Following from the previous bullet, quit wasting resources on browser UX experiments - browser UX matters less every year as web apps get freed from the browser.

\- Be the absolute gold standard in user privacy and freedom - the stuff Brave is doing is the trail Mozilla was supposed to blaze.

\- Invest in Thunderbird again and fix the client side of email - <USER4> messaging is just as important as the web and we are losing to closed competitors hard and fast there.

Mozilla's supposed to be our champion of an open web client platform. For too long they've just been a browser in decline and a bunch of random side projects. Cleaning up the browser is a good start but we need more.

From a passionate Firefox user (even though Chrome runs faster on Linux).

<comment><USER23> > Invest in Thunderbird again and fix the client side of email - <USER4> > messaging is just as important as the web and we are losing to closed > competitors hard and fast there.

I was right with you until Thunderbird. I look at Thunderbird as one of Mozilla's many distractions. We don't need another open source desktop email client at the expense of the browser.

So long as we have a secure browser, there are others who can provide secure email services with a web client.

<comment><AUTHOR> Plus Thunderbird is a huge C++ project. It seems like a modern desktop mail client could be built more quickly using Electron. There are already JavaScript libraries for IMAP. Thunderbird could be innovating on new client features instead of trying to keep up with the treadmill of Gecko C++ changes.

<comment><USER24> Not again, why would anyone prefer a bloated javascript based email client pretending to be a standalone one instead of a fast native one?

If I want a javascript one I can run a browser to access it.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> I'm calling it today: 2017 will be the year of the Firefox come-back. I recently started using it again after switching to Chrome when Chrome was initially released in beta. I'm more of a second-wave of adopters--not among the very first but before the masses jump on board. I predict that tech-savvy business users will start jumping back later this year and that by 2018, we'll start to see non-technical people (like my parents and in-laws) start to use it as family and friends begin to recommend it.

Why? Battery life and speed. Chrome is just a mess these days. Absolutely terrible on laptops.

<comment><USER26> Firefox is the only browser that has microstutters in the UI for me. That's a dealbreaker, I can't deal with it constantly pestering me throughout the day.

This has been happening on Mac OS for about three years now for me, multiple devices: two macbook airs, and a 2016 5k imac.

I wish I could use Opera but it's been bought by a chinese company.

<comment><USER27> They're working on a new renderer (quantum) to replace gecko and it is said to address this performance issue that has been plaguing Firefox for too long. ETA is late 2017.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER28> I have used Chrome since it's inception. Before that I used Firefox. After feeling some nostalgia recently and having some romantic feelings about using and supporting OSS, I decided to install Firefox (on MacOS) and give it a try as my primary browser again.

I had three primary complaints that caused me to go back to Chrome after a couple days:

\- The UI feels old and clunky compared to Chrome, although this is likely just a personal preference issue for me.

\- Performance felt lacking. Pages seemed to take longer to render. The browser UI itself felt slower.

\- Stability. On a few occasions within a couple day period, it seemed like one tab would lock up the entire browser. Firefox would pop up a vague message telling me that "one of your tabs" is causing an issue (not telling me which one) and then I would need to randomly close tabs to try and get things working properly again. This seems insane and archaic and is not something I ever deal with on Chrome.

<comment><USER29> Are you using the Firefox with e10 enabled (go to about:support and look for "Multi-Processor Windows"). That makes a substantial difference in performance!

<comment><USER28> Yes, e10 is enabled. :)

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> With the state of internet privacy today it's more important than ever to evangelize about Firefox and Mozilla's efforts.

<comment><USER31> That Firefox can remain a modern and relevant browser while at least paying attention to those principles and not being owned by a tech giant is amazing to me. No one entity should provide my phone OS, phone hardware, browser, search history, and internet service. It's very worrying that Google is becoming the best, default, or even a competitive option for all of those things.

Hopefully, the dev/privacy niche that Firefox seems to compete well in today will incentivize good decisions on that front in the future. I also hope that the allure of Yahoo/Verizon money and a single-minded fixation on increasing market share won't corrupt Mozilla too much.

</comment></comment><comment><USER32> My Firefox wishlist:

1) Make background tabs completely frozen by default. No intelligent guessing. Simply assign zero CPU time to them. But give the user an easy to use switch to toggle the activity of a tab. So I can activate background tabs and freeze foreground tabs just as I like.

2) One process per tab. Even with e10s, all javascript in all tabs runs on a single core. So at the moment, using Firefox on an 8 core computer is like using Chromium on a single core machine.

3) Make the url bar functional immediately on startup. Right now, every time I start Firefox, it takes several seconds until I can start typing the url I want to go to. In Chromium, I can start typing right away.

4) Don't set a bookmark every time I press CTRL+d. Only set it after I clicked "done" in the bookmark dialog that pops up on CTRL+d.

<comment><USER33> For 2), go to about:config and search for the "dom.ipc.processCount" preferences. Set it to the number of cores you wish and enjoy.

<comment><USER32> Interesting. I am trying it out right now.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> I've been a die hard Firefox user since Phoenix was released, and after a (relatively) brief stint with Chrome, I switched back after a series of Chrome releases would randomly up and refuse to load websites while Firefox worked fine (tested frequently, using all three Chrome release channels).

I see a lot of people around the internet (not here, HN users are much better about this kinda thing) say things like "Firefox just keeps getting worse" but not once is that statement ever qualified.

It almost seems like Firefox's slow decline in use is tied in some small way to this memetic catchphrase. "Firefox just keeps getting worse." I simply don't believe that most folks are even capable of qualifying that statement, and a good bit likely don't have the technical qualifications to even gather supporting arguments for it. If that sounds a bit familiar...

It's almost identical to what is said by people that clearly believe that Java and the JVM are the same thing, and will rag on the JVM _as Java_ , the former or which is definitely not the problem. There's even at least one troll account on Reddit that is heavily dedicated to screaming about non-Java JVM languages, both on Reddit and on Medium, including posting their own Medium articles in JVM language subreddits (usually /r/scala). It's a bit surreal, honestly.

I assume there's at least one similar account, but for Firefox. I don't visit browser-centric discussion boards or subreddits, though, so I can't say for sure, and won't.

I suppose I don't have much of value to contribute to this thread, I apologize for that. I just felt like sharing some casual observations of mine.

</comment><comment><USER35> On Android Firefox is much faster than Chrome because of uBlock. I don't understand why it's not more popular there. On the other hand, Mozilla has always been reluctant to fully embrace ad blocking, there's no reason they couldn't have a built-in ad blocker and tout that loudly in their marketing. Which is probably part of the raison d'etre for Brave.

<comment><USER36> I was curious and installed Firefox on android with adblockers and everything on my Pixel XL. I was decidedly underwhelmed. It's performance was far below my expectations.

<comment><USER37> Maybe try Firefox Beta, I find it faster than the current release version of Firefox for Android and just as stable.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> Firefox really needs to get it together. I use Chrome for work, Firefox for my personal gmail, and Safari for battery-conscious use.

Firefox is the browser I have to restart the most frequently, because otherwise it slows to a crawl, or hogs so much memory (Despite only having 1-2 open tabs) that I'm constantly paging on my MBP with 16GB of ram.

There's also little UI quirks, such as not being able to natively look up a word in OSX dictionary, that make browsing less pleasant.

<comment><USER39> Did you try to "refresh"? See [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227658](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13227658)

<comment><USER40> Long time Firefox user here. I use a metric shit-ton of addons, and customize everything drastically. "Refreshing" is a massive pain in the ass, as re- configuring everything while also maintaining the "clean settings" is just a difficult combination.

Despite this, I've completely wiped out both my settings and firefox install on several occasions in an attempt to keep things stable.

It doesn't help.

I'm aware that my addons are likely a big contributor to the memory-hogging and eventual crashes, but if I didn't want to use these addons, I'd just use fucking chrome. The ENTIRE point of Firefox is for the customizability. Dropping addons to improve stability just isn't an option for me.

<comment><USER39> about:performance gives no insights? It could be just one add-on that spoils it all, unfortunately.

<comment><USER40> Didn't know about this, neat. Regardless, my problem will stay, as I have no intention of removing anything.

I'll keep an eye on it to see if there's a specific addon triggering my issues, but it will likely stick around.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER41> Firefox remains one of the browsers I use.

I sideload Chrome, Safari and Firefox on my work machine because we work with mTLS with smartcards and honestly none of the browsers work reliably (it's not a very high use case).

The biggest difference I notice to my browsing experience is when I switch over to Safari (Webkit). It's not that it's slow - it just renders pages slightly differently, whereas Firefox and Chrome seem to have aligned over the years very well on how to interpret stylesheets.

I'm never doing anything intense enough in the browser (besides maybe streaming a single video?) to notice significant performance differences.

</comment><comment><USER42> So someone managed to write an article about the state and future of Firefox - and didn't mention rust a single time? That's quite something.

<comment><USER43> They did in passing; that's what Quantum is about.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> A suggestion for FF Android (no idea of what they can do on ios)

Go to this page [http://pastebin.com/FFSQUML9](http://pastebin.com/FFSQUML9) (on HN now) with FF. Zoom. See what happens to the text. Go there with Opera. Much much better. Tldr: text reflow.

And it's not even that useful there. Go to [http://darkf.github.io/posts/problems-i-have-with- python.htm...](http://darkf.github.io/posts/problems-i-have-with-python.html) also on HN now and repeat. You can't read it with any browser but Opera.

My suggestion: implement text reflow and some people will start using it and tell to friends.

<comment><USER45> FF Mobile has text reflow in Reader Mode, which I think is an acceptable tradeoff. Next step: make Reader Mode's content detection better.

<comment><USER44> I never thought about reader mode, maybe because I don't use it on the desktop. I checked it and it works on the second link. For some reason its icon doesn't show on the pastebin page. I'll give it a try systematically. Thanks!

Next suggestion: save for offline, another feature from Opera.

<comment><USER46> On pages where the reader mode ícone doesn't show you can try prefixing the URL in the address bar with about:reader?url= and it will probably work ;)

<comment><USER44> No way, at least not on about:reader?url=[http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=13083](http://lifein19x19.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=13083) Failed to load (or something). And the Url field displays an Android icon instead of reader mode. I tap the icon and it just reloads the page. I wonder what it's for?

I wish I'd be able to write an Open with Opera extension.

<comment><USER46> It couldn't parse the page to find the content. Maybe because there is no content to parse. This is what I see on that page without reader mode: "The requested topic does not exist." It seems to break on the & before the topic ID.

It will not work everywhere, of course. It worked on the pastebin link posted above, for example.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER47> After disabling a couple old add-ons that were blocking Firefox's multiprocess architecture (Electrolysis), Firefox now feels as fast as Chrome for me.

<comment><USER48> What add-ons were those? Just curious, since Firefox feels sort of slow on MacOS for me.

<comment><USER49> I find it's easiest to restart with add-ons disabled (under Help) and confirm that add-ons are the problem first.

To narrow it down to the add-on(s) causing the problem, disabling all of them under about:addons then re-enabling one at a time is a good approach, although can be time-consuming if you have a lot of add-ons installed.

Also - about:performance might give you some clues.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER50> When Firefox started to forbid unsigned extensions it was a dealbreaker and I switched to Pale Moon. I've been happier with it.

I think there's a pattern where products first get into a great state for power users/hackers but then pivot to evolve to be the lowest common denominator for mass adoption.

<comment><AUTHOR> What are the unsigned extensions that you would like to use? Developers can automate the signing of the extensions, using a Mozilla service, that doesn't require the extensions be public on addons.mozilla.org.

<comment><USER51> My personal daily workflow is heavily dependent on the old Pocket addon. That addon was deprecated a long time ago, I think even before Mozilla tried to integrate Pocket into FF.

I think what I'm actually using now is a tweaked version of the addon that bumped some of the compat flag and signed it (per [http://hemenkapadia.blogspot.com/2015/12/get-old-pocket- expe...](http://hemenkapadia.blogspot.com/2015/12/get-old-pocket-experience- on-firefox.html) ). Because of that, I'm actually way behind on the FF update curve, and holding out as long as I can.

(If anyone has a pointer to an equivalent modern addon, I'd be interested.)

For that matter, I'm also a die-hard TreeStyleTabs user, and I'm still not clear on whether that's going to work properly as things go forward.

<comment><USER52> I use a simple bookmarklet to add to pocket in Firefox. No extension needed at all!

[https://pastebin.mozilla.org/8969368](https://pastebin.mozilla.org/8969368)

<comment><AUTHOR> A limitation of bookmarklets is that it can't run on sites that use CSP to block external JavaScript. For example, I use a bookmarklet for Pinboard and I can't pin pages on github.com. Here are the Firefox and Chrome bug reports requesting that bookmarklets bypass CSP:

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=866522](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=866522)

[https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=233903](https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=233903)

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER53> Maybe the direction taken is not what some users wanted, but Firefox development is not stagnant. In general, it feels that there is little more to offer in the browser space, but that is not only Firefox. ¿What are the big new features (from all vendors) in the last few years?

</comment><comment><USER54> Firefox is still great, and I actually appreciate their focus on a single useful product.

</comment><comment><USER55> Firefox is trying to be chrome where as chrome is leading the way.

Chrome dev tools are superior to firefox where I remember a time nothing could compete with firebug.

The chrome extension API is now better than the upcoming "Web extensions" which removes extensions access to XUL and dumbs down the API to make it compatible with chrome extensions.

They've been trying to replicate the chrome sandbox for years and it still hasn't made it to production.

It goes on and on. They are catching up and doing it poorly, not leading nor innovating.

<comment><USER56> > Firefox is trying to be chrome where as chrome is leading the way.

Firefox also does stuff that Chrome doesn't. I like having about:config, I like having some things from Test Drive, and a bunch of other things. But let's not make this a "which is better" thread.

Let's assume that Chrome is indeed leading the way. I'm quite okay with that. Firefox is still very clearly ahead of MSIE and Safari -- and even if it wasn't! Even if it was the worst popular browser. Someone has to be last, right? If it is being maintained and kept current (and it definitely is), I'd still use Firefox for not being tied to some big corp. That's what it's really about for me: independence, open source, free (as in freedom).

<comment><USER55> chromium is open source and you can create a google account and add each API you want.

There are no ties to big corp unless you want to. You don't get features from giant cluster of computers for free.

When firefox implements voice recognition, translation etc., I will look forward to how they decide to monetize it.

Regarding "about:config", that's a great feature. Let's see if it still exists in the future versions. After all, wouldn't it confuse the mainstream masses they are so desperate to appeal to?

When they start caring about power users again, I will switch. Until then, they can keep dumbing it down til it's garbage.

<comment><USER56> > You don't get features from giant cluster of computers for free.

I don't want that anyway: I'd prefer everything to run on my own laptop. And even if I didn't, that are examples of big projects that are open source and owned by a non-profit like Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, etc.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER57> I used to use Firefox, but now I use Chrome.

This means I can't use DownThemAll.

I can't use Tab Wheel Scroll. On Windows I use an AutoHotkey script to simulate Tab Wheel Scroll. On Linux, it seems to work somehow. On Mac I have learned to live without it.

On my phone, I get bombarded with useless ads all the time on Chrome since it has no uBlock. I have learned to live without it.

Firefox seems to be better than Chrome at recognizing password fields for 'Save Password' feature. I have learned to live without it in Chrome.

Why ? Firefox still feels slower in loading and showing web pages. It seems to freeze up occasionally. The new tab opening and scrolls have occasional jitters, sometimes sufficient to bring me out of my "flow".

Firefox mobile is a disaster. It sometimes loads desktop versions on some sites. Once it failed to load a favorite site of mine completely, due to uBlock ( that has never happened on the desktop, on any browser )

I want to use Firefox, I do. But, I spend an extra-ordinary amount of my time on my browser. Only the best browser is 'good enough' for me

<comment><USER58> >Why ? Firefox still feels slower in loading and showing web pages. It seems to freeze up occasionally. The new tab opening and scrolls have occasional jitters, sometimes sufficient to bring me out of my "flow".

And what's even better if you point that out here they'll come with their completely artificial benchmarks to show you how Firefox is x1337 faster than the rest of browsers.

Only that it isn't.

And what really worries me is that they actually believe what they say, which would mean they are refusing to work on making Firefox faster, because they think Firefox is fast already.

<comment> Ar-Curunir Yes, because things like Electrolysis and Servo and Project Quantum are all imaginary...

<comment><USER58> The day I see Firefox shipping Servo I'll believe it.

Knowing Mozilla, the project could be dropped at any time.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER59> I'm on Firefox for Android, it works fine in most cases.

</comment><comment><USER39> I think the concept of "Context Graph" in the sense of crowd-sourced indexing and recommendation system might the best approach to taggle Google search - <USER5> the long run. We all parse (our browser) the web all time, this could be a basis for site recommendation (and search).

</comment><comment><USER60> I understand that Mozilla changed focus in 2013, but the problems started before then.

According to all of the browser usage share data I've seen, Firefox's share began to decline around the end of 2010 or the beginning of 2011, about two years before Mozilla shifted focus to Firefox OS.

So, what went wrong between 2011 and 2013, when Mozilla was still focused on the Firefox product but its market share declined from more than 30% of the market to less than 20%? That's what really went wrong. The change of focus made a bad situation worse.

<comment><USER61> I remember that Google started to push Chrome on people with massive amounts of money. The paid for downloads, ads etc. I think thats what brought most people over from Firefox and/or Internet Explorer.

</comment></comment><comment><USER62> I've issues with firefox on linux, a lot of them, it gets dark and unresponsive sometimes without any reason and then just get back 15 sec later to normal state. On one of the sites where there is a lot of text content when I close the tab whole browser gets unresponsive for seconds, on youtube most of the time video get looped in couple of frames while sound is playing normally. I use chrome on linux also, no problems there..

<comment><USER63> probably memory swapping. on one of my inherited PCs, I recently realized I had been running with only 2 GB for over a year! I get the same black out from the OS (Ubuntu) with massive amounts of swaps seen from vmstat 1.

<comment><USER62> Machine that I have this issues on have 8 GB of ram, it's not that.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER64> They allowed politics to interfere with progress and ran off Brendan Eich.

</comment><comment><USER65> Reading this makes me so happy. I abandoned FF shortly after Chrome became popular due to severe performance issues, haven't looked back since. I've gotten into web development professionally since and Firefox always seemed to be that block IE used to be, it just always rendered random stuff differently than every other browser...

I switched from Chrome to Safari when I switched to macOS and I'm relatively happy with it, even though it is not as fast, but recent trends have me so worried about the future. With all the BS going on at Google, I have kinda began not to trust companies who develop browsers with closed source to keep their customers' interests in line with their own goals. Now I appreciate Firefox a lot more, I have great respect for it. If these improvements turn out to be completely accurate and FF can at least approximate Chrome on performance, I would happily switch back and stay with Mozilla.

</comment><comment><USER66> It's difficult for browser makers to differentiate themselves due to web standards. Thus it becomes a money-takes-all game where the diminishing returns on performance investment can be afforded only by the richest (Chrome). Maybe Mozilla should differentiate itself in another way - politically? It already fired Eich on progressive grounds. Why not go all in and become the explicitly-progressive browser? See women's march/trump protests for market share potential. Nurture add-ins that do stuff that stock- price obsessed corporations are too scared to do. Skate to where the puck is going....the anti-capitalist browser.... supporting things that corpos can't.

As an aside, as a Linux-all-day dev I use Firefox almost exclusively. I can do Chrome, but something stops me. One of those things is the idea that we need browser diversity. Also chrome just isn't "better enough" than Firefox for me - in fact I find the difference very marginal now.

</comment><comment><USER67> On my mac I avoid chrome and firefox, mainly because the the zoomable interface in safari is so nice. Maybe if I had better eye sight it wouldn't be a big deal, but I find I miss it immediately when I'm using an alternative browser.

<comment><USER68> I assume you are talking about "pinch to zoom" ? Chromium has smooth pinch to zoom also just like Safari. Firefox however, does not.

It's basically the 1 reason i stopped using Firefox, zooming (pinch to zoom) absolutely _sucks_ as opposed to Safari/Chromium. Pinch to zoom in Firefox feels like going 20 years back in time...

<comment><USER67> Is chromium different than chrome?

<comment><USER68> uhh yes, [sarcastic] for one, Chromium has a little less spyware as opposed to Google Chrome :-) [/sarcastic]

just google "chrome vs chromium", here's the first hit: [http://www.howtogeek.com/202825/what%E2%80%99s-the- differenc...](http://www.howtogeek.com/202825/what%E2%80%99s-the-difference- between-chromium-and-chrome/)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER69> I think one thing they could focus on is adding new security features (like FIDO U2F) or making TLS client certs usable by normal humans. This would be a great step forward and could drive adoption by security conscious users.

<comment><USER70> I begrudgingly left Firefox for Chrome because Chrome supports U2F and Firefox doesn't. It's just too much of a pain to log into my U2F-protected accounts on Firefox.

I even tried the U2F Firefox extension, but that doesn't work on all websites (some of which I need).

</comment></comment><comment><USER71> There were days when Firefox was my go-to browser. It was years ago. Right now Chrome is my #1 choice for daily driver. Opera seems to be doing pretty interesting stuff with Neon, so I keep an eye out for it and actually use it from time to time. Heck, I even don't mind using the Edge browser at work just because I actually really like the Microsoft Windows 10.

Now, Mozilla/Firefox has faltered in too many product deliveries in the past 5 years (I am mostly disappointed in their Firefox OS effort) while neglecting the browser. So the brand name no longer inspires me, whether or not the browser itself is good.

</comment><comment><USER72> I've been a user of Firefox for mobile since I first got a 'smartphone'. Just last night I reluctantly installed Chrome as Firefox kept crashing on my new favorite note taking app (dynalist.io if you're curious). While I know that the app should fix their code, so many modern apps seem to be almost entirely focused on developing for Chrome and don't care about Firefox, so it was the 'last straw' so to speak. I'd love to keep using Firefox, but it was just getting in the way of my day to day too much.

</comment><comment><USER73> Firefox still suffers from a lot of minor quality of life issues compared to other browsers, I don't know if it's neglect or weird internal politics but they add up to making firefox less attractive than the competition.

A few off the top of my head:

* Firefox doesn't respect Windows 10's titlebar accent colors

* No option to set a default zoom level for web pages

* Firefox for android ignores intent filters

The first two have addon or userstyle workarounds which makes it even more baffling that they have remain unsolved issues for years.

<comment><USER74> I know it sound condescending and all, but have you tried opening a bug about these issues? They seem very clear cut and actionable.

<comment><USER73> They all already have bug reports that have either been open for multiple years or were closed without actually fixing the issue which is why I suspect this may be a problem with internal politics or misguided design philosophy.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER75> I've stuck with Firefox because it works the way I want it to work and is extremely customizable. I've been doing more front-end development lately though and Chrome and Safari have been a lot nicer, and given the incredible slowness of Firefox, I've been thinking of making the switch. However, the new multithreading engine (Electrolysis) has given it a new lease on life for me.

</comment><comment><USER76> I would be interested to know, of those people that love Firefox, how many are on Windows and how many on OSX.

I love firefox on Windows, and really don't like the font rendering of Chrome on standard DPI screen. Firefox feels snappy and responsive.

On my Mac the opposite is true. Firefox feels significantly slower, and the font rendering is horrible, especially light text on dark backgrounds.

</comment><comment><USER77> I wish the Mozilla Foundation would lavish attention to Thunderbird, which remains a best-in-class product despite the reduced attention.

</comment><comment><USER78> Pretty much everybody I know using Android has switched to Firefox so that they can use plugins, primarily ad blockers.

<comment><USER52> I use Adaway [1] on rooted Android, and set my DNS to Adguard's servers [2] without root. This takes cares of all the ads. Adblocking aside, Chrome is far superior to Firefox on Android.

You do unfortunately lose the ability to whitelist sites you want to support with Adguard DNS, and addons like uBlock offer much more granular control. But they both work well enough.

[1] [https://adaway.org/](https://adaway.org/)

[2] [https://adguard.com/en/adguard- dns/overview.html](https://adguard.com/en/adguard-dns/overview.html)

<comment><USER78> "Chrome is far superior to Firefox on Android."

Not my experience. I'm happy I switched, I find Firefox to be faster and it has several features I like, like the ability to stay in your current app when clicking on links.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER79> As a web developer I find Firefox(Developer Edition) more useful, I mean sometimes I see Chrome/Chromium fix some HTML/CSS "bugs" automatically, but Firefox seems stricter and force me to catch bugs earlier. Also is easy to install on Linux unlike Chrome Canary that still doesn't support it.

</comment><comment><USER80> Using Firefox since the beginning, with year long deviations to Chrome and Opera, I'm a hostage now. Firefox is slow, memory consuming to the point I hate to use it. But it has addons for good vertical tree tabs and the Chrome plugins are all way inferior. And I just can't go back to horizontal tabs.

</comment><comment><USER81> I have known on day 1 of using Chrome that it was superior and I switched completely the next day without ever looking back. I assumed that Firefox would do everything in its power to catch up as soon as possible, both GUI wise and in general feel. 9 years later still nothing. Quite a surprise.

</comment><comment><USER82> Firefox OS development as an alternative to Android AOSP would not be good for the community?

I mean, in the desktop world, we have many Linux distributions, BSD derivates, many desktop environments, etc. May Firefox OS fit some use case that Android could not?

</comment><comment><USER83> What's up with Mossberg, the pundit that time forgot?

Until about four years ago, he used to get all these exclusives based on his position at the Wall Street Journal. But those days seem long ago. Mossberg is hardly discussed today, and his page views have cratered...

;-)

</comment><comment><USER84> I honestly don't notice the difference between chrome and firefox. What do I want my browser to do? Block ads and stay out of my way. Both browsers do that just fine.

</comment><comment><USER85> Many seem not to be aware of [https://testpilot.firefox.com/](https://testpilot.firefox.com/)

</comment><comment><USER86> I'm glad we are finally coming to terms with the fact that Firefox has been a second tier browser since Chrome was released.

Everyone has love and good will for Mozilla and Firefox because Firefox showed the world what a browser and the web could be if designed correctly to some open standard.

However, the developer tools, JS performance, and overall browser tech have languished. So while we all are cheering for them to catch up, we do it sadly from a Chrome. Debugging a modern SPA on Firefox is painful.

What should have been an "oh crap, we need to up our game" moment for them was a whoosh just like the iPhone reveal was for Balmer.

<comment><USER87> >"overall browser tech have languished"

Au contraire...

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u0hYIRQRiws](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u0hYIRQRiws)

[https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum](https://wiki.mozilla.org/Quantum)

</comment></comment><comment><USER52> I never switched from Firefox to Chrome, even though Chrome was (and is) very clearly superior in _almost_ every way-- more secure, faster, and a superior UI.

Unfortunately, Chrome mouse gesture addons are all terrible, none work perfectly, all have inconsistent performance, and most are spyware to boot! Firefox has Firegestures, the gold standard. With 20 years of muscle memory mouse gestures are non-negotiable for me. So, I stuck with Firefox.

</comment><comment><USER88> Firefox failed to innovate and alienate developers. Refusing to implement File System API is a perfect example.

</comment><comment><USER89> I'm personally extremely excited for Servo, the new Mozilla browser experiment/project.

</comment><comment><USER90> Despite failing at execution (let's run gobs of JS on barebones, circa ~2008-equivalent hardware), the Firefox OS project brought light to the problem that a mobile OS increasingly a portal to the Web and a parallel set of proprietary services. Both the Free Software Foundation [1] and the EFF [2] consider mobile OS as a crucial frontier.

It's little comfort for desktop-users to be able to dodge Google's browser logged into Google's services and serving Google ads, or Microsoft's browser on Microsoft's OS-and-apps-as-a-Service which surfaces Microsoft ads, when one can only meaningfully avoid it on mobile by switching to the _premium_ devices offered by Apple, who runs an equivalent walled ecosystem, with the sole exception of not monetizing your browsing habits and content.

That being said, it's a hard problem, and if Firefox the Desktop Browser sinks into irrelevance the battle will be completely lost.

On the desktop, Firefox faces mounting challenges from having to appeal to distinct demographics [3][4] who have conflicting needs and wants, and having to simultaneously compete and cooperate [5][6][7][8] with Google, an entity that uses its position in controlling both the client and the server to rapidly further its goals and advance the Web in a way that promotes their interest [9][10][11][12][13].

[1] [http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority- projects/](http://www.fsf.org/campaigns/priority-projects/) [2] [https://www.eff.org/mobile-devices](https://www.eff.org/mobile-devices) [3] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13425956](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13425956) [4] [https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/08/firefox-user-types-in- no...](https://blog.mozilla.org/ux/2013/08/firefox-user-types-in-north- america/) [5] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12338170#12338445](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12338170#12338445) [6] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12042767#12044962](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12042767#12044962) [7] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13390846#13392833](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13390846#13392833) [8] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12129691#12131403](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12129691#12131403) [9] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12296616#12299230](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12296616#12299230) [10] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453646#12454524](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453646#12454524) [11] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13383006#13386719](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13383006#13386719) [12] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12174503#12175561](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12174503#12175561) [13] [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12863565#12867493](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12863565#12867493)

</comment><comment><USER91> It's awfulllllllllll. Doing web dev work for it is a nightmare. There are always weird issues that pop up for it that don't occur on other browsers.

<comment><USER92> Firefox is my main development browser on personal laptop (Ubuntu) and Chrome on the PC (Win10) at work.

When I develop (HTML, CSS, ES6+babel) on Chrome, then test in Firefox there are some inconsistencies that require minor fixing. The same is true the other way around: develop with Firefox, then some fixes are needed for Chrome. These fixes are usually quite easy, make sense in retrospect and make thigs work in the second browser without breaking the first one. What I find strange, after years of hacking around IE bugs, is that everything usually just works in MS Edge.

</comment></comment><comment><USER80> Just like Wikimedia they have been kidnapped by political activist (e.g. for a free web etc.) I'm not saying this isn't important, but they confused this to be their core mission and forgot where the money really is coming from. Go to [https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/](https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/) now and see where the browser ranks on that page.

Political activism (free internet) is first.

"Introducing Our New Mozilla Identity." takes the second most screen estate.

Scrolling two pages down there is Firefox.

If it's like many companies, then the people who made these decisions and are responsible for the sad state have already moved on.

(I'm currently a Firefox user and have been a user since the Netscape/Mosaic days with some Chrome usage over the years)

<comment><USER93> Mozilla is a non-profit. Mozilla has been publicly committed to an open and free internet since 2007 when the Mozilla Manifesto was introduced. Here is the earliest version captured by Archive.org [https://web.archive.org/web/20080812000547/http://www.mozill...](https://web.archive.org/web/20080812000547/http://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto)

There is a download button on the upper right corner of the page.

<comment><USER80> 1\. The download button takes about a 1/50th of the screen estate on the page.

2\. In which way does focusing on Firefox not support an 'open and free internet manifesto' or is at odds with such an manifesto?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER94> I'm not sure it's true that Mozilla has rebounded. Only a few years ago it used to be a neck and neck race between Chrome and Firefox to see how quickly new browser features get developed.

Now it seems that Chrome has pulled far ahead, and Firefox is often in 3rd place. I can't think of too many recent features that FF has been a leader on. SW kinda, I guess, but that's it.

Often either Edge or Safari is also faster to adopt (Safari with web components, for example), depending on the feature.

<comment><USER83> Chrome gets free advertising on the world's most valuable website where you can't buy advertising for any price: the Google Search home page.

Google also spends tons of money paying companies to stealth-install Chrome when users think they're installing something else from, for example, Adobe.

I'm not saying Chrome is a bad browser but it sure as heck ain't a level playing field....

<comment><USER94> Very true, and it was just as true a few years ago when Firefox was able to keep pace. So I think it's fair to say they are slipping.

<comment><USER83> Firefox was out four or five years before Chrome appeared. When it started, it was competing against an aging IE6.

I don't think it has never kept pace with Chrome. Or if so, not for very long. Even if the products had been equally good, which they weren't, Google just has far more market power.

<comment><USER94> It kept pace with Chrome up until a few years ago, probably around the time that Eich left. Not saying that's causal, I don't know if it is.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER95> I know why I personally stopped using FF, and switched to Chrome.

Because FF has been ridiculously slow compared to Chrome.

Because FF crashed when one tab crashed.

Because I didn't care about higher RAM usage - RAM is cheap.

Because I used so many Google services, and Chrome is (obviously) better integrated.

Because Google's update cycle has been faster.

So even if FF fixed all these issues (it didn't), the only argument that remains is privacy. And I don't care. I just don't give out the information that I want private.

</comment><comment><USER96> The value of a diverse browser rendering engine market only existed when we had dominate closed source browser IE6. Those days are behind us. Focusing on a common shared browser platform would benefit the internet and every business on the web platform.

Google is an excellent leader in this space because their revenue and expense is directly tied to the quality of the browser platform. Firefox, as well as Microsoft would help everyone if we all got behind a single open source browser engine. I believe blink is the best and the architecture underlying Chrome is the best. Opera has shown you can innovate on the browser UI while still providing excellent content rendering.

I get there is value in competition, I just don't see a lot of value in creating competing engines. Even within Mozilla they are innovating on the rendering engine and that is great news - why shouldn't Google and MS consider this engine as the next engine to power the web... I believe Mozilla's resources would be better served if they focused on UX as Opera has done. I also believe the same is true of Microsoft. Why compete on browser engines when we can make the same engine better. It's in Google interest as well as many others. It's the same model that works for Linux and why so many companies contribute to Linux is to improve their own capabilities and bottom lines.

(awaiting the downvotes - but would love to have a discussion ;))</comment>


PsiTransfer – Simple open source self-hosted file sharing solution - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/psi-4ward/psitransfer <comment><USER2> really grinds my gears when I see the word decrypt on a button after you entered a password and not a key</comment>


Startup Developers – Make sure you think about the business too… - <AUTHOR> http://devblog.seomoz.org/2011/08/startup-developers-make-sure-you-think-about-the-business-too/ <comment><USER2> There is deep truth about that. For me, this makes, especially in a StartUp the difference between a good employee and a perfect fit.

If i pay someone and he overengineers and overgeneralizes every feature so i could release our code as an open source project with a fundamentally different use-case it's not only money is lose, but also time and focus.

I think there's a lesson to learn here that applys for every job... if you want to be a great addition to the team, don't do everything like you think it should be, but do it the way you think the company benefits from it the most.

</comment><comment><USER3> "Is this the highest impact thing I can do for the company?"

Sounds like that line from Office Space ("Is this good for the company?").</comment>


An Insider On the Apple Tablet - <AUTHOR> http://gizmodo.com/5335942/an-insider-on-the-apple-tablet Come on, you have to admit it. This article has all of us gizmo fanboys drooling.<p>ASK HN: How many of you guys would shell out $800 for this thing? Honestly. I'm thinking about buying it for my dad. <comment><USER2> John Gruber says it's going to be 2010 and gizmodo is wrong claiming it will be released soon (<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2009/08/13/insider-eh>)

<comment><USER3> Gizmodo is just guesstimating Christmas 2009 so Jan/Feb 2010 could still be correct

</comment></comment><comment><AUTHOR> This is my first time posting... can somebody tell me how my submitted title got changed to something else? :)

<comment><USER4> Hacker News has editors, mostly YC alumni, who patrol the site to delete irrelevant articles, and try to ensure that titles are clear.

<comment><AUTHOR> Ok... I'll refrain from "Apple WIN" titles from now on. :) Thanks!

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> $700-900. Hmph. Might as well buy a MacBook.

<comment><AUTHOR> iPhones are 10 times more expensive than other cellphones out there, but they're still selling like hot cakes wouldn't you say?

It's about the perceived value. I literally want a bigger version of my iPhone so I can do work on the fly. $700-900 is a steep price, but I am really considering it.

<comment><USER6> Why a bigger iPhone and not a smaller macbook? Unless your job is almost 100% read-bound (or sketching, I guess) I can't see this being a good replacement for "doing work"...

<comment><USER7> The majority of the market this is targeting doesn't "do work" on computers, they consume media.

I remember after first getting my iPhone 2g, and playing with it for a day straight, when I went back to my laptop I wanted to manipulate the UI by touching the screen. When I say "wanted" I mean I uncousciously reached for the screen on a couple of occasions. I got over that quickly, but it made me consider what this form factor would be good for and whether it would sell.

I agree that this machine won't replace the laptop as a work machine. I do think that it may be a better solution, from a UI standpoint, than the current netbooks on the market. Have you seen people at coffee shops typing on those things? I know it will be better than a netbook in bed or while laying on a couch, which is were I find myself using my iPhone and not my laptop.

Also, $700 isn't that much when you consider that the Kindle is $300 and used to be $500. Think how much more you will be able to do on an iTablet, or whatever you want to call it.

<comment><USER8> "The majority of the market this is targeting doesn't "do work" on computers, they consume media."

Very very true.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> My guess is it's going to be called the Newton ][.

<comment><USER10> The iPad would be interesting ...

<comment><USER11> I think that 'iPad', while interesting, wouldn't work because it's so close to iPod that many accents would make them sound too similar.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER12> This is a case where I believe there is a tablet coming out, but this is simply another unsubstantiated claim about a conversation with some dude who's playing a dude who's playing another dude. Unless someone has an actual freaking picture of one of the damn things, its all bunk and blog bait.

What I would really be interested in seeing are the log leaks that directly revealed the first versions of the iPhone. I forget which site did it, but essentially some smart admin looked through their web server logs and saw a handful of user agents that matched up to the then unreleased mobile Safari. Or maybe this was for the unibody Macbooks, I forget.

<comment><USER13> [http://www.blogcdn.com/de.engadget.com/media/2009/08/2066969...](http://www.blogcdn.com/de.engadget.com/media/2009/08/2066969618_131dda3e08.jpg)

that might be 'shopped' ...

the image at the bottom of the article looks realistic though. Hard to tell these days.

</comment></comment><comment><USER14> I find it interesting that someone, assumably high up enough in the pecking order, is sourcing information like this. I've always been interested in the psychology of it. What's the motivation? The cheap thrill to see your handy work through a third party on a popular website? Cashing in on a rise in stock (+3 today)? Or maybe it's false information being planted and this is all sanctioned by marketing?

<comment><USER15> In a company like Apple which has a careful crafted brand image and huge marketing clout, I the leak might not be unintentional.

The thing is, speculation _will_ happen, so it makes sense to manage it by controlling the most credible speculation (thereby ruling out the more wildly speculative stuff that could reflect negatively).

If it is released as a leak then Apple has no obligation to live into it if things change, but they get to co-opt the chatter so it's the best of both worlds.

-edit- grammar.

<comment><USER16> That's always been one of the most ironic things about Apple. They go after leaks without mercy but they clearly leak information themselves when it suits them.

The best example of this I can remember is the leak that Apple would be using Intel processors. Word got leaked the Friday before Jobs' Monday keynote and it almost certainly came from Apple. It's a very basic PR strategy: leak shocking news up front so people get the shock and anger out of their system and are then somewhat open minded when you make the announcement.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER17> The big question for me is whether it can mix simulateous reading and typing, as well as a traditional hinged laptop does (with one surface for typing and one for viewing).

Otherwise, it might prove awkward as a remote-getting-stuff-done unit -- in libraries, cafes, airplane seats, etc.: if flat for typing, it's hard to read; if angled for viewing, it's hard to type.

A symmetrical hinged dual touch display, as in the next-gen OLPC2 prototypes, might do the trick. (Could lens/optical tricks make the seam nearly invisible when flat? I wouldn't put it past Apple.)

Here's the OLPC 2.0 dual-touchscreen concept:

[http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/27/olpc-xo-2-to-include- mult...](http://www.engadget.com/2008/05/27/olpc-xo-2-to-include-multitouch- and-possibly-haptic-screen-from/)

[http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/28/olpc-2-0-dual- touchscreen...](http://www.engadget.com/2009/01/28/olpc-2-0-dual-touchscreen- mockup-surfaces-in-the-wild/)

<comment><USER18> I can't imagine a hinged dual display being "sexy" enough Apple. If you absolutely need a keyboard, get a bluetooth one.

<comment><USER17> Trick optics or a flexible display might make it sexy enough. "Look, there's no seam!"

But also running with your idea -- what if the unit contains an ultra-thin detachable wireless keyboard, achieving surface-angle diversity even better than a hinge?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER19> "Yes...[iPad]."

</comment><comment><USER20> I'm holding out for the 50" iPhone that can play Hulu.

<comment><USER20> I'm serious, a TV with an integrated web browser so you can watch Internet TV on a TV w/o a hassle.

</comment></comment><comment><USER21> Yeah let's hear some guesses as to what the name is. My guess is The Leibniz.</comment>


When You Can't Compete On Salary: Tech Talent on a Budget - <AUTHOR> http://jobtipsforgeeks.com/2014/02/25/compete/

<comment><USER2> I'm glad to see that equity was so far down on the list here. Too many founders think equity and salary are interchangeable, but the fact is that equity doesn't pay the bills. All of the other things you mentioned, however, are good reasons for me to take a pay cut. Very, very good list. I'd add vacation as another item, like someone else said.

Another thing employers need to realize is that sometimes the job seeker is looking to move up, and just because they applied for your job doesn't mean they hate their current job. For instance, I'm rather content at my current job. I like it. It pays well. My team is solid. The work itself... maybe a bit boring. But is that enough for me to jump ship and take a pay cut? Probably not.

Sometimes YOU need ME more than I need YOU. Sometimes I'm desperate. You need to be able to figure out which kind of candidate I am and make your offer accordingly. I'm not saying rip me off, but you can save some $$ if I'm desperate. If I'm not desperate, though, you have less leverage in the negotiation and you either need to not make me an offer at all or make me one I can't refuse. Middle ground just isn't good enough for the most part. (At the very least, expect negotiation from a strong candidate.)

/rant :)

<comment><USER3> At some point vacation is far more important than salary; two weeks is unworkable. Both my and my SO's families are in other states, so one 3-4 day trip to each family plus 1-2 personal days to take care of typical life stuff and you've blown through 10 vacation days without a vacation for us, since visiting family is nice but not all that relaxing.

Also, founders massively overrate the value of the lottery tickets they're dispensing, at least until the bay gets so bubblicious that banks accept options as payment.

</comment></comment><comment><USER4> Some other things I would consider: Dress Code, am I going to have to wear a collared shirt every day? Am I going to wear a Tie? If you expect me to take a paycut from market then you had better expect I'm going to be comfortable. Vacation: I know it may seem unfair to other employees, but if you can't pay like the big boys and you still have a vacation policy, then you need to allocate more. Normal is 3 weeks, give them 5 weeks. A conference budget, will I be able to further my education while employed? Internal Hackathons, do you allow your engineers to pick any project and work on it for a week?

If your company is having a hard time hiring great devs and/or can't afford them, take a look at your policies. Thats a big reason we don't want to work for you.

<comment><AUTHOR> Dress code could have made this list. Conference budget is something I considered, but that also costs out-of-pocket for the firm. I didn't mention benefits for the same cost reason.

I've actually had conference costs written into an offer letter a few times for new hires. That is something that benefits the employee and (sometimes) the company, particularly if the company rep is a speaker and represents well.

Internal hackathons and 20% (or less) time type programs would attract at least some others.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> Interesting point about remote work.

Would you say we're at a tipping point for large numbers of employers starting to offer remote work? It seems like there's more talk of it and it seems more mainstream lately.

<comment><USER3> I haven't seen it, and I'm an experienced data scientist, a seemingly high demand specialization. There's plenty of demand, for people who want to live in sf or the peninsula. I'd rather live in Tahoe or slt and work remotely, but nobody offers that to a first approximation (cl data scientist [1]; telecommute [2]). If you want remote ML people, contact me.

[1] [http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/jjj?zoomToPosting=&catAbb...](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/jjj?zoomToPosting=&catAbb=jjj&query=data+scientist&excats=)

[2] [http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/jjj?zoomToPosting=&catAbb...](http://sfbay.craigslist.org/search/jjj?zoomToPosting=&catAbb=jjj&query=data+scientist&addOne=telecommuting&excats=)

<comment><AUTHOR> I certainly can't get into a data debate with a data scientist, but do you think part of the reason SF companies aren't offering remote work is that they don't have to? The biggest tech market would seem least likely to need to offer remote work - even though demand is high, it's probably much harder to find data scientists in some small suburb hours from an airport or university than it is in SF. How would those numbers look nationwide?</comment></comment></comment>


Discuss HN: Underpaying at Workplace Food Services - <AUTHOR> I have edited this post to fit HNs terse 2000 char limit.  Edits identified by ellipsis "..."
Here is a pastebin of the entire submission: https://pastebin.com/kD3eDWLa
...
Companies with workplace service staff...are objectively underpaying their employees and I feel, at this time, this is more due to an ignorance I feel I can absolve than to any intentional act of discrimination.
I have been an enthusiastic member of this community for many years now. ...while I make my living by preparing people cups of coffee.
I was recently fired from a cafe job...and as such have been looking for work.
Of the places I have been interviewing to work ... there has been a consistent issue that I've concluded I am in a good position to address and felt this forum, due its proximity to the people I want to address, would be the best way to encourage a change in behaviour.
If one is to look at cafe job listings, in the SF bay area, you will find the average pay is currently around 16$/hr.
Such listings include local cafes as well as workplace food and beverage perks...
The discrepancy arises in...service industry pay practice: tipping.
I understand the reasoning...to be without tipping.  Part of the recruiting...to further incentivise highly sought after applicants, but regardless...tipping is still unfortunately a significant part of service industry workers' wage.  Removing the tipping without supplanting those lost wages results in an objective underpaying of your service staff.
I thought about the viability to name and shame the companies I interviewed with...
Instead, I simply wanted to present this issue to you all, and also to posit a supplemental challenge...:
Post a comment below naming your company and list the pay scales you have in place for your varied workplace services workers; if you are uncomfortable revealing this information here I would hope you would...think about why revealing such information makes you uncomfortable. <comment><USER2> by objectively underpaid you mean that you can easily get a better paid job but are/were staying because you liked the boss so much?

i think usually restaurant/bar/cafe personel paid quite a bit better than canteen personel because restaurant workers have to be representative, which excludes about two thirds of the population. canteen workers can be just about anyone. which means they will hire whoever is cheapest.

i want to tell you to get out of this line of work. i know it is not my place. i can imagine you even like the work. still, it is not right that somebody with mathematical inclinations should suffer the fate of a canteen worker. maybe accept a junior tech position at a cheap outsourcer like the place i work for (well we are transitioning away from that model but there are lots of others who will accept just about anyone). pay likely wont be better but you will feel better about where your life is going and you might get to work in a low cost of living place. even more, you would get very valuable experience.

<comment><AUTHOR> 'Objectively' due to employers claiming they are paying the 'on the tin' industry standard but neglecting a large portion of the paystub wages

I appreciate your encouragement, though it feels a bit backhanded, and I would encourage you to say the same to all the people who perform services for you

I can say this: it's a hard sell to say paying me for making coffee grants you rights to my research ; [https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17604251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17604251)

Regardless of the element of me in this issue I still think it is an important note for the sake of all people, especially the person who landed the job I interviewed for, and I am in a position to broach the discrepancy

<comment><USER2> employers will do anything to look good. words are cheap when they are not required to be truthful. in retrospect i consider it a positive that my current employer told me when i interviewed that they dont pay market rates.

most people who perform services for me are already studying to get out eventually. no need for me to give such unsollicited advice.

as for the research thing i would say you are right, but that is really a local law matter.</comment></comment></comment>


How to get rid of old stuff, sell it for more, and use Amazon as cheap storage - <AUTHOR> http://benguild.com/2013/10/20/store-sell-old-stuff-with-amazon/ <comment><USER2> I wish I could ship everything in my attic to Amazon and they would photograph, catalog and store the stuff privately.

Then for some kind of low annual fee I could ship things in and out as needed.

This service would include pre-scheduled shipments of holiday decoration.

The problem I have is that I forget what is in my attic. On a few occasions I've purchased something only to find out I already own one. It was just buried in the attic and I forgot about it. If I try to buy something on Amazon, this service would remind me that I already own it and ship it to me.

Besides the attic stuff, I also have small random, rarely-used things that I know I'll need in the future, but don't know where to store them so I'll find them in the future.

Someone once suggested that I just keep a running list of items near the attic door. I tried it, but didn't keep up with it.

It would be nice to set some kind of expiration of my stuff as well. If I don't request an item from Amazon Attic in 18 months, it can be sold. Maybe that's a way to offset my fees.

Another idea... This could have a social aspect (what doesn't these days!?). I could give select friends access to my personal Amazon Attic catalog and they can borrow something, again for a low shipping fee. Amazon will send them a friendly email to return it and then charge them eventually if they don't.

(YC, here I come.)

<comment><USER3> Something my daughter taught me which was really really cool was to take digital pictures of storage areas. Basically open up the drawer, make nearly everything visible, take a picture then add it to Evernote (or some git repo, or some well known folder). Then when you are wondering what you have/where it is you can scan through the pictures. It is remarkably effective.

<comment><USER4> Simple, but clever idea. I keep telling my wife our house is for people to live in, not a warehouse for her books, memorabilia and kids toys. I'll try anything to keep our house livable.

<comment><USER5> _not a warehouse for her books, memorabilia and kids toys_

Isn't that what "living" means?

<comment><USER6> Acquiring material possessions and forming emotional attachments to them? No, that is not what living means.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> Interesting idea. I looked up Amazon's storage fees [1]: $0.45 per cubic foot per month from January to September; $0.60 per cubic foot per month from October to December.

If you are using this as a long-term storage solution you have to be careful because Amazon charges, "A semi-annual Long-Term Storage Fee of $22.50 per cubic foot will be applied to any Units that have been stored in an Amazon fulfillment center for one year or longer...Each seller may maintain a single Unit of each ASIN in its inventory, which will be exempted from the semi- annual Long-Term Storage Fee."

[1]: [http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=2...](http://www.amazon.com/gp/help/customer/display.html?nodeId=200627230)

<comment><USER8> For comparison's sake, I recently rented a 10x10x10 ft. storage unit for $90/mo. or $0.09 per cubic foot per month.

<comment><USER9> Of course, you get access to a much larger group of potential buyers than a storage unit. ;)

<comment><USER10> You don't count the guys of Storage Wars as potential buyers?

<comment><USER11> >When rent is not paid on a storage locker for three months in California, the contents can be sold by an auctioneer as a single lot of items in the form of a cash-only auction[0]

No, as you will gain nothing from it.

[0] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_Wars](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_Wars)

<comment><USER12> You get three months of rent. The trick is to have nothing of value in the locker, I suppose.

<comment><USER13> Can you get access to it after 2.9 months?

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> Just remember guys: useful for small footprint, high value line items that are mass-produced. (Conversely, not so useful for old items with low resale like clothes, or craft one-off items, or big things like furniture.)

When your object of question hits a low-enough dollar value that your opportunity cost for making a buck off it exceeds your time value, why not donate it to a Goodwill instead. :)

<comment><USER15> Yeah, at one point I did a modest eBay selling campaign of stuff I owned that wasn't exactly high value but was easy to photograph and describe and had some value. I doubt I made minimum wage. I keep selling on eBay as an option for the odd item here and there but it's hard for me to see it being worth my effort for the general case. I suppose I could investigate a local eBay packager (or whatever the term is) but, as you say, for most stuff I just give it to a local charity and take a few bucks off my taxes.

<comment><USER16> I typically use craigslist for that sort of thing. Compared to the cut eBay takes, I can get the same money while offering a smoking price, which motivates the buyer to do all the legwork. I get a phonecall Thursday afternoon, they show up at my door twenty minutes later, and they are gone in five minutes.

Only works for certain items though.

<comment><USER17> What type of items have you had success doing this with?

<comment><USER16> Usually electronics. It doesn't work for super niche appeal items like a special textbook or replacement parts.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER18> Unfortunately Amazon flagged my account as fraudulent, I can only assume because a previous tenant in my apartment evidently ripped people off. We received their mail for some time and most if it seemed shady. It's been a year but I cannot sell. There is no appeal, and no recourse. I've had an account with Amazon for more than half my life (something like 12 years) but no dice.

Too bad, because this sounds handy. Kind of wish they had even a halfway decent competitor, though.

<comment><USER19> Keep in mind that addresses get normalized and also it's ultimately down to the mail carrier to deliver something. So you might be able to alter the mailing address to have it recognized as something different to Amazon but still practically the same for carriers. Or maybe ask your landlord to re- number your unit or let you use the leasing office as your address.

<comment><USER20> I would be very suprised if Amazon didn't have a very sophisticated address normalisation process (in Australia, there are several pieces of software that can process generic user provided addresses, and return a specific delivery ID ["DPID"] that ties to an explicit delivery location).

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER21> I never actually tried their warehouse fulfillment service but I swear by Amazon for selling used gadgets. Amazon gets a lot of traffic from consumers making it a great way to sell something quickly. I remember listing an used Android phone that was maybe two year old technology at that point. I went to list it and within a few hours someone snagged it at like $90. The only other route I've ever tried is Craigslist, which has worked out pretty well too. Asking for the same price you can usually have someone pick up the item locally and get every cent you are asking for if you're reasonable. I always price things about 20% more than I think I will sell through CL.

</comment><comment><USER22> One thing that should be emphasized for anyone who has not use FBA before: The cost of shipping something to an amazon warehouse is REALLY cheap if you use their provided shipping service. I would say it's about 1/3 of the actual cost of shipping it yourself.

<comment><USER23> Makes one wonder if you could ship things to other people cheaply by selling them to yourself through FBA with the other person's address as the shipping destination.

<comment><USER24> If you try this out, please share how it works out. I remember interning there I had access to very cheap shipping (~30% FedEx/UPS rates). This seems like a neat way to get access to the same benefit.

<comment><USER23> Mostly joking, so someone else will need to try it out. :) My guess is that if it worked well enough for people to start abusing it, they'd close the loophole. As another poster points out, you still need to pay their transaction fee, so the shipping savings has to more than offset that in order for the trick to even be worthwhile.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> How do books work? Can you just bung a bunch of old textbooks in a box and ship it to them? Do you have to package them separately at all, or put stickers on them, or do you literally just stick them in a box?

Are there any mobile apps for scanning barcodes on books and automatically building your Amazon catalog?

<comment><USER26> I tried to do it and, in France at least, you have to package stuff yourself. Which is THE hassle in selling things online. Having to package stuff is precisely why i just throw it away, I mean why bother losing 1h of my time buying a package and sending it for some menial money value.

You're better off selling them for pretty much nothing to a local bookstore with a Used section, i think. Quicker, less hassle, and well it can help the bookstore too...

</comment></comment><comment><USER27> Best thing is to not let things sit around after you stop using them. The chances that someone else can use them just keeps dropping.

And you can't use the space it takes up, which is probably the most expensive thing about old stuff. If you pay $2000 a month for 1000 square feet, every square foot costs you $24 bucks a year. An old PC taking up 3 square feet for 5 years costs you $360.

And, sure, it probably was going to be empty space. But we do need empty space, just as we need white space. All the clutter has a psychic cost.

</comment><comment><USER28> An article that is short on details and has no fewer that 8(eight) affiliate links to Amazon.

I am lost for words.

<comment><USER29> The whole article sounds like an advert. TGTBT

</comment></comment><comment><USER30> This article got one thing wrong; "eBay's fees can be kind of a rip off" should be "eBay's fees ARE a huge rip off". That combined with the removal of negative feedback for buyers is why you should try Amazon rather than sell as an individual on eBay.

<comment><USER31> But only if you're in the US right? I'm sick of eBay too, but they bought the "Australian" Gumtree trading site as well so there's really no alternatives.

<comment><USER32> True, somehow sellers in China can get by selling items to the US for less than a buck on eBay, shipping included. I never understood how this worked. Just mailing the same little item within the US would be like 2 bucks, plus eBay fees.

<comment><USER33> The postage thing was explained a while ago somewhere, possibly HN: there's no "settlement" between international postage services in the normal sense, and there's a HK postal service that will ship to the US for pennies. Once it arrives in the US postal service, it's their cost to deliver it.

<comment><USER32> Ahh, that explains it. Thanks.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER34> The OP suggested that it's a bad option for phones. But Amazon offers something else for higher-end items that worked great for me,"Amazon Trade-in" ([http://www.amazon.com/Trade-In/](http://www.amazon.com/Trade-In/)).

You start by finding your product in the store, and they give you prices for different condition levels. You pick a level, checkout, ship your items for free, and await receipt and review. If accepted as the condition you picked, you get an Amazon gift card for the amount. They might even upgrade your items to a higher condition.

If not accepted, your items are returned, free of charge. The only risk is the waste of time.

A month ago, I traded in two nearly-3-year-old iPhone 4's. I listed them as "Good". Both were accepted and one was upgraded to "Like New" for $20 more. I got $380 total, which I was extremely happy with.

<comment><AUTHOR> As I wrote on my blog's comments:

"True, but I've found that Amazon trade-in's prices are usually very conservative. For such an old handset I'd have sent it to Amazon's warehouse myself. For newer stuff that's falling in value, even though eBay's fees amount to about 12% in the end for electronics (last time I checked)... you can usually get the most for it there if you need it to sell by a given date for the maximum return.

Also, I do want to point out that Amazon is essentially just doing what you'd be doing here ... offering it for sale as a used item. You can do that yourself and make more of a profit if you're setup this way."

</comment></comment><comment><USER35> One thing mentioned about the cables: Do you have to create entries online under your FBA account for every item you ship, or can they figure that out for you? I have tons of cables and other things I'd like to sell that is in good condition, but me spending hours upon hours looking up every model of cable / cheap item I have isn't worth my time.

<comment><USER36> I haven't done it personally, but I did intern under FBA and so I saw a lot of the procedures and code that implements it.

I'm fairly sure you need to figure out the ASIN for each item you want to sell, and label the product accordingly.

<comment><USER35> Yup I thought so. I think that might be too much work for me to make it worthwhile... :]

<comment><USER37> It's fairly easy if you can find that product in amazon db, or have a barcode

<comment><USER35> The items I have that barcodes I'm not worried about, it is the rats nest of cables that I have really no idea what type they are that I'd like to offload and make .50c just to get them out of my hair and not feel bad about throwing them away.

<comment><USER19> Find a local hackerspace. They'll probably take them and re-use them or dispose/sell them for you.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER38> So technically, I could buy items cheaply on ebay or similar sites, ship them to amazon warehouse and sell it there for profit and also have them handle pretty much everything from selling to customer support?

Or am I missing something and this wouldn't work?

<comment><USER39> Technically, yes. You just have to know what to buy and how to price what you are selling. ("Oh, is that all?" says the broker who makes a living doing this. :) )

I had a friend who made decent money going to physical auctions and taking the items he bought and putting them on ebay (this was about a decade ago).

Arbitrage is here to stay.

</comment></comment><comment><USER40> Here is the link to Amazon Fufillment without the referral tags:

[http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by- amazon/benefits.ht...](http://services.amazon.com/fulfillment-by- amazon/benefits.htm)

</comment><comment><USER41> This is hilarious to me because I sold three things today on Amazon and thought on the drive back from UPS, this should be getting more press how easy this is.

I sold a laptop though which is the only item I'm worried about being returned. Luckily I listed it as not having a battery and not having a hdd so it's already listed as not in working condition.

</comment><comment><USER42> Thanks to benguild for the blog article. I had seen used books in Amazon price lists as shipped by Amazon and qualifying for free supersaver shipping, but I'd never gotten around to finding out how this "fulfillment by Amazon" worked.

I looked at the info on Amazon's website and I still have a couple questions.

(1) Amazon charges a fee of something like $0.42 per pound when shipping. Is this just for supersaver shipments? Or does it also apply when Amazon collects from the customer for standard or expedited shipping?

(2) I see Amazon charges fees for storage and shipping, but I don't see where they take any percentage of the sale. Am I missing something?

<comment><USER43> The seller fees are separate from the fulfillment fees and are typically another ~15% of price + shipping.

</comment></comment><comment><USER44> Do they have heated garages for my car? :-)

</comment><comment><USER45> From experience, if you want to sell something that is used and is in poor condition, don't sell it on amazon... when people buy things used through Amazon they expect it to be Like New, even if thats not what the description says.

My simple tips for selling online: New/Like New -> Amazon Used/poor/missing things -> Ebay

</comment><comment><USER46> Reposting on Facebook. This is great. I've always wanted to do this on Amazon but found I had this great inertia in finding out just how to go about doing it. It seemed like a big hassle, but it really isn't. This article simplified it.

</comment><comment><USER47> The top comment is someone wishing this was a totally different service which ends up in people either mentioning other startups which do something like that but not quite the same, or what it is like to store things in SF.

</comment><comment><USER48> I love the idea and sentiment. The pale font of the page's text, less so.

</comment><comment><USER49> Coding is dead.

When the top news on HN is how to make $5 selling used computer cables on Amazon, you know coding is dead.

<comment><USER50> Pretty sure coding is alive and well - maybe HN just isn't the place to talk about it anymore.

</comment></comment><comment><USER51> Interesting. They do need to advertise this better because I had no idea this service existed.

</comment><comment><USER52> Amazon needs to open new fullfillment facility to handle stuff in my basement + garage :)

</comment><comment><USER53> Is there something like this for Canadians? I dont think we can use this service.

</comment><comment><USER54> Amazon S3: Simple Stuff Storage

</comment><comment><USER55> Bookmarked.</comment>