Default Browser Follow-up

Fri Jun 28 17:11:30 UTC 2013

I don't understand. Why Firefox should use Ubuntu One and instead Chromium
can use its own sync service?

 You made me remember another point in favor of Firefox: its sync service is
much more privacy-friendly. Firefox Sync encrypts data not only on Mozilla's
servers, but also on the client side. So you and only you can access your
private data.

 Anyway, there used to be Firefox bookmarks synchronization in Ubuntu One
(see for example
http://www.webupd8.org/2010/04/ubuntuone-adds-firefox-bookmarks.html). I
guess it wouldn't be difficult to reintegrate it.

 And, ironically, the Ubuntu community has more control on Firefox Sync,
where Mozilla's servers are opensource and you can run your own server
(http://docs.services.mozilla.com/howtos/run-sync.html), than on Ubuntu One,
as Canonical's servers are closed source
(https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntuone-servers/+bug/375272).

--------- Original Message --------

 Da: "Gibson H <hgibson at sun.ac.za>" <hgibson at sun.ac.za>

 To: "ubuntu-desktop at lists.ubuntu.com"
<ubuntu-desktop at lists.ubuntu.com>

 Oggetto: RE: Default Browser Follow-up

 Data: 28/06/13 09:26

  Hi Abral

 You make some very good points about Firefox.

 But from a users perspective, I find Google Chrome extremely useful because
of the way I can easily sync my bookmarks etc.. between my work computer and
home computer and mobile device.

 I think this speaks to device convergence as Mark has so often mentioned,
as a primary goal for Ubuntu.

 I do not normally intercede on this list but I feel the goal of device
ubiquity and how an internet browser deals with it is very important.

 Perhaps if Firefox could be "configured" to automatically sync using the
cloud "Ubuntu One" service then it would be on "useful" parity with Google
Chrome.

 Regards

 Hilton Gibson

 Systems Administrator

 JS Gericke Library

 Room 1025D

 Stellenbosch University

 Private Bag X5036

 Stellenbosch

 7599

 South Africa

 Tel: +27 21 808 4100 | Cell: +27 84 646 4758

 http://www.sun.ac.za/library

 ________________________________________

 From: ubuntu-desktop-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com
[ubuntu-desktop-bounces at lists.ubuntu.com] on behalf of Abral
[abral at email.it]

 Sent: 28 June 2013 03:00 AM

 To: ubuntu-desktop at lists.ubuntu.com

 Subject: Default Browser Follow-up

 Even if I think openness and freedom should be the main reason why

 Ubuntu should have Firefox by default, I won't talk about this here.

 This is a non comprehensive list of "non-philosophical" reasons:

 1) Firefox is a lot more familiar than Chromium for Linux users. It's

 always been the default and it's the default in almost all the

 distributions. Most of the people that don't prefer Firefox are using

 Chrome, and not Chromium.

 2) Firefox has a built-in PDF reader.

 3) Firefox is better integrated with GNOME.

 4) Firefox is going to support GStreamer soon

 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=794282).

 5) Firefox is going to support GTK3 soon

 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=627699).

 6) Firefox has made a great effort to hunt down responsiveness issues,

 seen in pauses and jank. They have made significant improvements seen

 both in current releases as well as current nightlies, with more on the
way.

 7) When it comes to JavaScript performance, there is no clear winner. In

 some tests, Firefox is faster. In other tests, Chromium is faster.

 8) Mozilla is working on a project called OpenWebApps, that looks

 similar to Unity webapps. You could reuse Firefox code to make Unity

 webapps run in chromeless windows.

 9) Firefox supports more architectures.

 10) Firefox is more customizable than Chromium.

 11) Firefox memory usage is a lot better than Chromium's and has

 improved even more in the latest releases (that would be shipped with

 Saucy), for example see
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=678037.

 12) Mozilla is working on some cross-platform technologies that could

 benefit Linux users. For example, Shumway (that is a replacement for

 Flash), pdf.js (a pdf reader written in JavaScript), asm.js (that could

 enable interesting applications and games to run on every platform, so

 also on Linux).

 13) There's good support for Firefox in Ubuntu. There are some (or, at

 least, one) Canonical developers that are experienced with the Firefox

 code base and are working on it

 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=619899).

 14) About web developers, I think it's a matter of taste. Firefox has

 good web developer tools, and Chromium has good web developer tools too.

 Firefox has also the addon Firebug, that is one of the most used by web

 developers.

 15) Firefox has smooth scrolling, some people are used to it and

 wouldn't like the worse Chromium's scrolling experience.

 16) There are other Linux distributions developers that are working on

 Firefox. Canonical would benefit from it for free.

 I can't see any reason why you should switch to Chromium.

 The responsiveness issues that Chow Loong Jin was talking about have

 been mitigated a lot in the latest releases and will continue to improve

 (there are some projects to improve this, like there was a project to

 improve memory usage).

 The GLES issue that Oliver Grawert was talking about will be likely

 fixed soon enough, see

 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=788319. They're considering

 switching to EGL instead of GLX.

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