As said in that article, those changes aren't bad - multiprocessing and sandboxing are definitely very positive changes. While it's true that Firefox becomes more Chrome-like in many aspects, there are still important differences: 1. Firefox is still way more configurable in about:config. Yes, Chrome offers a lot of command-line switches but Firefox is still much more powerful if it comes to tailor it to your needs. 2. The review or vetting process for extensions is much more thorough for Firefox (there is not only an automated process like for Chrome extensions), and I'm sure this won't change with the coming extension framework. This means that Firefox extensions are usually of a higher quality and are unlikey to spy you out. 3. Moreover, Chrome has changed the webrequest API so that extensions like uMatrix are no longer able to control hidden requests by other extensions. This is the reason why I recently switched form Chromium to Firefox. 4. Sooner or later Firefox will get a new rendering engine called Servo which is written in the Rust language. This will result in a much safer and faster browser.
Both are affected. Chrome is basically Chromium plus closed-source Adobe flash player, some more audio and video codecs, different branding and crash reporting if enabled.
Which begs the question: what are Mozilla's future plans WRT allowing an extension to inspect/block requests issued by another extension or webapp? Arguably, the approach that is best would be context specific and therefore something that should be practical for admin users to control.
BTW, is it just me or do certain Google sites (like Maps) don't function correctly in FF. Almost like Google is doing this on purpose?
Yes, it's weird as hell, but Google Maps refuses to go into "earth view", this didn't happen a couple of weeks ago.
