Ben AdidaWhat if Firefox became the best Fediverse client? Could be very powerful and timely.
http://benlog.com/2022/12/28/firefox-should-become-the-best-freaking-fediverse-app/
Builds on ideas from @luis_in_brief
Brian Smith@ben @luis_in_brief Which of those capabilities should be built into the browser and NOT feasible for an extension to implement? I’d argue that an extension should be able to do all of that, and then there’s no advantage to having the browser do it itself. Also users shouldn’t have to use a different browser to get the best Fediverse experience; imagine substituting “Microsoft Edge” or “Safari” for “Firefox” in your post.
I'm a batteries-included kinda person. Sure, make the functionality pluggable so an extension can take it over. But build it in by default. "Go install an extension" is hostile to less techy users.
As for other browsers becoming great fediverse clients... That's great! I got no issue with it. Let's compete on that front.
Rob C@ben @briansmith @luis_in_brief make it a web app.
Firefox should have finished their PWA desktop integration and they could ship a client.
@robcee @briansmith @luis_in_brief did you read my original post and all the features I'm hoping we could get out of this? Even a great PWA couldn't do it. It has to be the user agent / a powerful extension to the user agent.
Luis Villa@ben @robcee @briansmith yeah, websites are now in many ways just a thing people get to from their social networks. So you want the two deeply integrated.
@luis_in_brief @ben @briansmith ok, I have now, (sorry for jumping on).
I think a web-first experience is still going to be preferrable. There are some useful Bookmarklets for interacting with remote instances. An Add-on could do a lot.
My point still stands: If Mozilla had shipped a “Gecko-shell” like Chrome’s Electron, they could build it in an app. Including a social media network in a browser that isn’t just an extension would feel, kind of gross. IMO.
Adam Roach@robcee @ben -- "Including a social media network in a browser that isn’t just an extension would feel, kind of gross" -- can we probe that a bit? Until 2018, Firefox included native support for Atom/RSS, which could be used to aggregate news, but was mostly used to aggregate blogs. I'm going to start with the assumption that Atom in Firefox didn't feel "gross"; correct me if I'm wrong. Now, if there were some extension to Atom that let you post comments -- are we getting closer to "gross?" 1/
@abr @ben sure, and I miss that feature a lot, but it was also subscribe only, without any account and payment services attached to it. A fully capable fediverse client app would be quite a different thing.
From the other direction, I don’t think any RSS/Atom providers felt like Firefox was making an attempt to usurp control of, or become an authority on RSS. The fediverse on the other hand, is a little wary of creeping centralization, for good reason.