Google will keep locking down Chrome and using corporate talk to hand wave it away, only recourse is to leave.<p>First it’s “sign in” with obtuse ways to turn it off. Then block Adblocking, once again with obtuse ways to disable... the end goal is pretty obvious, get the majority of Chrome users to turn on ads and tie their real names to their Chrome browser.<p>Of course let “power users” (who’ll turn that crap off anyways) have their switches to do so. It gives Google plausible deniability.<p>——<p>To those who say just fork Chrome adfm had a good article explaining why that doesn’t work:<p>> And while you can use or adapt Chromium to your heart's content, your new browser won't work with most internet video unless you license a proprietary DRM component called Widevine from Google. The API that connects to Widevine was standardized in 2017 by the World Wide Web Consortium, whose members narrowly voted down a proposal to change the membership rules for the W3C to require members not to abuse the DMCA to prevent DRM from becoming a tool to undermine competition.<p><a href="https://boingboing.net/2019/05/29/hoarding-software-freedom.html" rel="nofollow">https://boingboing.net/2019/05/29/hoarding-software-freedom....</a>
It is so clear to me that we need to support and promote mozilla and Firefox. They're not perfect, but they, wikipedia, eff, archive.org (who else?) are such an important part of the Internet guardianship in the face of the monopolies, that it's our duty to support them.
Doesn't hurt that Firefox is actually a great product.
On top of uBlock Origin / uMatrix, some of the <i>other</i> Firefox's trump cards to me are:<p>* Tree Style Tab: makes tabs much more manageable, no parallel in Chrome. If you open dozens of tabs, after using this, you can only pity the traditional tab management [1].<p>* Containers and container tabs: it's a bit like having separate Chrome profiles for separate contexts, but you can also have them as tabs in the same window.<p>* Sync / sign-in server that is open source and that you can run on your own if you choose.<p>[1]: <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/" rel="nofollow">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...</a>
I don't understand why Mac users use Chrome. Safari seems to be out of fashion: people just assume that it should not be used for some reason, even though it is actually a great browser.<p>I use Safari for both my own browsing and for development (a fairly large ClojureScript application), and it is by far the best browser on the platform by all measures (speed first and foremost).<p>The only place where Safari falls short is 3D CAD programs (like OnShape), where Chrome is faster and better.
I switched a couple of months ago because Chrome is just a bloated piece of garbage. One of my favorite features in Firefox is containers, which I used to have different users for in Chrome. Maybe Chrome has something similar now but it's one of the things I liked when I switched over. Haven't had any issues so far, glad I did
Firefox banned Dissenter[1], a plug-in that did nothing nefarious - only enables browser users of the plug-in to chat / comment with each other about webpages.<p>They did this for political reasons. Regardless of what kind of trash talk takes place on Dissenter, the point is that nobody is forced to use it.<p>My point: neither Google nor Mozilla should be trusted and both seek to be your totalitarian Internet overlord.<p>1. <a href="https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/36490/firefox-and-chrome-banned-dissenter" rel="nofollow">https://forum.vivaldi.net/topic/36490/firefox-and-chrome-ban...</a>
I hope so because almost every bug I run into during webdev is Chrome, and usually I'm told it's intended behavior or a WONTFIX.<p>With the way Google tries to strongarm standards and at the same time defy them, it's the modern Internet Explorer and it's a PITA to develop for.
That page is just missing one critical thing: 4. Migrate my extensions.<p>It would be great if they developed a graph mapping Chrome extensions to Mozilla equivalents. Then the user could confirm installation of the ones with 1:1 parity, like LastPass, allow users to select similar extensions, or skip installing an equivalent.<p>There are some Chrome-Exclusive extensions that keep me hooked. That and Firefox’s Storage inspector is terrible, there isn’t a native way to clear localstorage during development.
I wish MIcrosoft would have worked off Firefox for the new Edge instead of Chrome. Just doesn't make sense why they would feed into a direct competitor. Bagging Edge off Firefox would have made it a real option for me as well as creating an opportunity now with all the ad blocking stuff going down...
It would be nice if there was also something in place which allowed Firefox to detect when an addon like uBlock Origin is also available on Firefox, then suggest installing the Firefox version during the upgrade.
Am I missing something here? There is no article just a download link correct?<p>I use Firefox exclusively because of the sidebar tab extension and will probably use it until Firefox dies a slow death.
In case Firefox developers read this,<p>Can you please make the popped up bookmark dialog box much much bigger? Please!<p>When clicking the star icon at the end of the address bar, the bookmark dialog box pops up. But it is too small! It only shows very few folders and choices. In order to locate a desired bookmark folder, people have to click and scroll many times. The whole dialog box is $^%&*& too small! Please make it bigger to show much more folders! Like three times bigger! Chrome has the same problem. Firefox can do better!<p>Also, please make the last used bookmark folder as the default folder at the next time when the bookmark dislog box opens, because people often bookmark many related/similar pages consecutively in one short period of time. Thank you. I love Firefox.
For years I have been working with my mom to get her to be suspicious of any pop-ups in her browser. Many times she has texted me a photo asking if some pop-up update box was legit (almost always a shady ad). When she got her new computer, I set up Firefox in a fairly locked down state: uBlock Origin, third-party cookies disabled, and clear all cookies and history when firefox closes.<p>It's been amazing. With the ad-blocker she almost never texts me now with suspicious stuff. Also, it was super easy to teach her that if she ever gets into a situation that feels shady, just close the browser and open it up again. Starting from a clean slate every time in a well protected browser makes her feel a lot safer because she knows that if things get scary, she can just close the window and start over.<p>Having to log in every time hasn't turned out to be that much of an inconvenience either. See actually feels safer because of it. It makes perfect logical sense to her that the website ask her to login every time. "My bank asks me for my ID every time I go in to deposit a check, so of course it makes sense to ask for my password every time I open my browser and visit the website."<p>Anyway, my takeaway is that Firefox + uBlock Origin for parents is really a wonderful thing.
If you forked Chrome, how hard would it be to change it do DRM'd video however Firefox does?<p>I'm not saying forking Chrome would be easy, it's complicated software, I think it would require a lot of labor to keep it competitive over the long term, which is the real barrier.<p>But I'm not sure if the DRM is an insurmountable barrier, Firefox plays that same video <i>somehow</i>, it should be at least theoretically possible to get a forked Chrome to do it the same way?
I never left! I've been using Firefox nonstop since 2002. For the most part, I was a Netscape Navigator user prior though had nothing against IE and sometimes used it. Since Firefox was 'Phoenix', I've stuck with it and only randomly (once every few years) checked in on Chrome. I never really did care for it, and can't say I've ever had any issues with Firefox, even in the supposed dark ages. It has been impacted with Google's use of the Shadow DOM v0 API, and probably Mozilla's own mistakes, but I never felt it was "slow".<p>To roll out the welcome mat for any new or returning users, I have some general suggestions.<p>Consider the following extensions: Containerise; Decentraleyes; HTTPS Everywhere; Livemarks; Privacy Badger; Redirect AMP to HTML; uBlock Origin.<p>For privacy settings: set custom privacy settings to block trackers 'in all windows', block cookies from all unvisited websites, block cryptominers and fingerprinters. Of course enable 'Do Not Track'. Then block all new permission requests for location, web cam etc.
Lean towards whitelisting sites that you do want these settings, as stringent privacy settings like this can in rare instances, break sites. The only example I've ran into is during NCAA March Madness and the site used to watch the games, but you may find others.<p>Random bits: I'd also suggest enabling the dedicated search bar for quick DDG bang updates. I also give Mozilla some information so my preferences can be added to the collective as to not be removed at some point down the road. Yes to 'Allow Firefox to send technical and interaction data to Mozilla', 'Allow Firefox to make personalized extension recommendations' and 'Allow Firefox to send backlogged crash reports on your behalf'. Can't say I suggest Firefox Studies though, that's one thing Mozilla rubbed me the wrong way with.<p>With all of that and your own further customization to make it yours, you should be a happy Firefox user. :)
I'd love to switch but the technique of having one browser import another's bookmarks, settings, and autofill just isn't good enough anymore. I have no fewer than 28 extensions installed on my Chrome installation and while not all of them are enabled all the time I do use them regularly. For me, the "cost" of switching to Firefox is, for each of these extensions, finding and vetting a firefox-compatible replacement.
It would be awesome to create somekind of quide on how to switch from the Google ecosystem to something different. Mail, browser, agenda, drive, photos etc. I would seriously pay 50 bucks per month to have something different without bullshit companies like Google behind it.
I like to switch from Chrome to Firefox but only thing keeping me with Chrome is its superior web development tool. One my the dev here recommends us to use Chrome because of its better Javascript debugger - something to do with the output in the web console takes you to the corresponding Javascript line & instance where it is invoked on the web page. I am not entirely sure what it is.<p>Whatever it is, its not in Firefox.
I think link forgot to mention a step 4.<p>Step 4: Spend weeks getting used to new shortcuts, finding equivalent extensions/plugins and getting used to their dev tools.
I've been using Safari on Mac for months, I only open Google Chrome when React Native debugger launches it.<p>I'm not sure how hard it would be for the RN team to switch to another browser such as Firefox or the new Edge so I can uninstall Google Chrome from my computer.
What some probably consider a privacy nightmare is a Chrome feature I like very much: It syncs all my history, bookmarks and passwords across devices via my Google account. That's especially convenient whenever I get a new device.<p>Is there something comparable for Firefox?
Too bad it takes a lot more than "a few minutes" to get used to Firefox and all of its quirks. Like the fact that I can have like 20 tabs open at the same time before they start hiding themselves from me.
Firefox experience on Linux is lackluster. No hardware acceleration, neither on opensource video drivers, nor on proprietary(Nvidia and AMD). On the same hardware on Win10 Firefox experience is definitely better.
I switched to Firefox about a month ago.<p>Initially I ran into problems because I took on too much at once, I tried enabling uMatrix at the same time as I switched over. Once I removed uMatrix I was doing much better, and I'm saving it for another month or two.<p>Several features of Firefox are real killer apps for me. Adding a taxonomy to my bookmarks has really helped as I've moved more heavily into org-mode. I've started adding a couple of tags to every bookmark I save, that really helps with organization and recall. Beyond tags, the container tabs feature has been pretty amazing. Being able to sign into multiple Office 365 accounts is great, plus the obvious use case of "keep those few times I use facebook in their own special sandbox".<p>I've donated a few bucks to Mozilla, and I recommend everyone do that. Google seems to rapidly be heading towards 1990s Microsoft territory, with the added "bonus" of discarding apps that they lose interest in.
Thanks but no thanks.<p>There isn't enough functional parity for me - although I'm certainly an outlier - so I've attempted the switch and went back to chrome.<p>One of the issues is that I spend a lot time writing in English and then a lot in Portuguese. Chrome can spell check both and ff needs me to tell which language I'm using.
I tried Firefox coming from chrome. Two things were dealbreakers for me<p>1) I’m a heavy window/tab user. 300+ tabs across 10+ windows is normal. I have not been able to recreate the same tab bar overflow behavior as in chrome, default ff will keep tabs at fixed width and scroll horizontally, making it impossible to see how many tabs there are in the window. Changing css helps but there are still enough problems with small width tabs not showing favicons, always showing (and overlapping) close tab button etc.<p>2) performance when switching videos e.g. on yt to full screen and back is terrible. Latest MacBook, external uwqhd screen, took upwards of 3 seconds every single time from pressing f to having the video show. Might not sound like a lot but it adds up. If everything else is fast this will just feel extra slow
I never Switched to Chrome in the first place. It felt like an uphill battle sometimes when Firefox deprecated the old add-on APIs, which made add-ons like CTR die.<p>However, in the past few years, Firefox has been improving left and right, with it's Rust components, containers in core, and it's new dialect in design. The recent improvements alone should convince someone to switch.<p>The reason why I stayed with Firefox is because Chrome is from, well, Google. It boggles my mind to see someone praising a browser that is from a an advertiser. They never put ads on the browser (I'm looking at you, Opera), but systematically did a lot to track it's users and make money out of it.<p>You can clearly see the difference in motivation when Firefox removing a whole API of add-ons vs Google removing one particular API feature.
I tried to switch two years ago, but back then Firefox was very resource hungry on my MBP so I stick to Safari. Chrome - with Google‘s approach to privacy - was no option at all, even if their browser was magnitudes better (which it was not; the differences are marginal in my perception). A few months ago I tried FF again. This time I was amazed. No CPU spikes. Super fast startup. - I cannot explicitly express my arguments and my sentiment, but my gut feeling says that Google‘s approach to privacy is totally wrong. So I don‘t want to touch any of their products. That‘s why I migrated my emails to fastmail.com, am using duckduckgo.com instead of Google.com, switched to Firefox from Chrome, to Dropbox from Google Docs. Abandoned Google Photos.
I don't really like Mozilla as an organization. I don't like Google either. Recently, I've started using the Brave browser (<a href="https://brave.com" rel="nofollow">https://brave.com</a>). So far, I like it quite well.<p>I like Brave's concept of Shields, which block ad-trackers.
I also think one of the more interesting concepts in Brave is the Rewards ad-revenue-sharing program. I haven't turned it on yet, so I don't know how well it works (if at all) but I find the idea interesting and outside the box when considering the major browser players.<p>The developer tools in Brave are exactly what you would expect.<p>Brave has worked well for me so far, so I'll continue with it for the time being.
I see a lot of people here complaining about firefox performances and other things/bugs. But we are on hacker news. Many devs are here. Firefox needs us, we need a strong alternative. Instead of complaining, we need to participate to the open source effort.
I seriously don't understand why people have been gravitating towards Chrome for years despite Google being synonymous with surveillance, even on Linux. Google chrome is the fifth most popular download on Arch User Repository[1].<p>Alternatives like ungoogled chromium exist, but aren't as powerful/stable as the real thing, so why not use Firefox. Call me overly optimistic, but augmenting the firefox/mozilla community with participating/privacy conscious users can only lead to good down the line.<p>1. <a href="https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/" rel="nofollow">https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/</a>
I really want to switch to Firefox. I don't need it to be better-performing than Chrome on my work PC or Safari on my home machine - I want to support free software. But Firefox's text just looks bad, like really bad. On both a retina Mac screen and 24" 1080p monitors on Windows at work, the fonts look pixelated and blurry, like there's something around the edges of the characters. Contrast seems off too, much lower than Chrome or Safari presents text, which makes it hard to read. PDFs in the browser are especially awful to look at. Has anyone else had this experience and found a fix?
Firefox still has the same issues as Chrome on my MBP, namely it uses a lot more battery than Safari. It seems as though Chrome has been keeping a small performance edge over FF as well, but they are so close now it makes sense to use FF to support the brand.<p>One HUGE issue over Chrome is that many websites break for me due to broken JS that was only tested on Chrome, including internal sites for work. Ugh.<p>The visuals of FF including their website are beautiful. Wish they would put that same design team on Rust, which has a website made by a clown now.
As of Firefox 67, it is actually very fast and performant for me on Linux. Every time I have tried Firefox Quantum it has been noticeably slower than Chrome. I really want to use Firefox because Google is basically evil and I'm trying to migrate from every service I have with them; slowly but surely; but I used Hangouts Meet the other day with work and it was very very unstable. Of course I don't blame Firefox for this, I blame Google, but this is literally the only thing that is stopping me from migrating.
I tried to do this, and I had to switch back. My setup is that I have loads of tabs open, with a vertical tab manager on the side. And FF has a pretty nice extension for that, plus you can take back some screen space by removing the top tabs using some css.<p>Anyway, when I have the same tabs and extensions in FF as in Chrome, the FF CPU usage is huge. I tried several things from the web, but nothing helped. Now I'm back on Chrome, which is less nice looking and less convenient, but the CPU usage is barely anything.
I love Firefox's features, but I've tried it for a week and I just have a too big loss of performance. My 2017 Macbook pro with 8gb of RAM just doesn't cut it. The browser is something I use +6 hours per week, I can't handle it being laggy.<p>When I try it a little bit it seems fine, but after using Firefox for a week going to Chrome seemed like a relief in terms of performance. I'm missing some cool features from Firefox like containers, but performance is more important.
Yes, I want to switch... but I have something like 25 plugins and many of them don't have corresponding plugins on Firefox.<p>For example, when I press Apple + Shift + C, I copy the URL and save it as markup. I want this functionality in Firefox -- it's not good if I can't keyboard shortcut.<p>Also... and this one is a bit more painful... we use Lighthouse for a lot of testing. Contractually, it's an easy thing to build in, "We'll meet scores of at least 85 on Lighthouse for accessibility..." and I can't run that out of Chrome. Any similar tool suggestions?<p>I found a lot, but I haven't found suitable replacements for:<p>* Lighthouse - Chrome Web Store || <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lighthouse/blipmdconlkpinefehnmjammfjpmpbjk" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/lighthouse/blipmdc...</a><p>* Create Link - Chrome Web Store || <a href="https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/create-link/gcmghdmnkfdbncmnmlkkglmnnhagajbm" rel="nofollow">https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/create-link/gcmghd...</a> (need to have keyboard shortcut and export link to MarkDown for easier pasting into GitHub issues).<p>Also... I'd love a good replacement for Xmarks. If Firefox wrote a plugin for Chrome that lets me keep my bookmarks from Firefox sync in sync with Chrome I would be happy. I have to have multiple browsers... and I miss how easy Xmarks made it to go between them.
Google had said they wanted revise the way advertising and tracking is done on the web to address the many issues with the current train wreck. I would be more open to sticking with Chrome if they had done that first before breaking ad blockers.<p>Ad-driven content should be a viable business model, but the way it's currently done is simply unacceptable, and Google shouldn't crack down on people's conscientious objections via ad-blockers without providing a viable alternative.
I did it. I switched from Chrome to Firefox this week. Problem was that I broke my advice I give to all my friends/customers : "reinstall Windows at least every 6 months". And I had Windows for the past 2 years watching it becoming more and more bloated, with more and more quirks. At the same time I had Chrome. Sure, I had Firefox in the past too, but was slower then Chrome. For reasons unknown to me it seemed Firefox loved flash, and I was watching in Task Manager how Flash component of Firefox was growing more and more in memory until it ate all of it and required me to restart Firefox entirely. Which I hate it to do that. Hence why I used Chrome instead. With ad blockers and DuckDuckGo as default engine. But once I've reinstalled Windows I was like "OK, time to see Firefox again".<p>Let me tell you brothers and sisters, it was a blessing to see Firefox having the same speed as Chrome, and no bloating. Sure, for each tab opened it alos creates a firefox.exe in task manager, but so does Chrome. I can live with that. Now all I need is to move my entire productions from Windows to Linux and I'll be really free. But that's gonna be at least an order of magnitude harder then switching from one browser to another.
Does Firefox have an equivalent of Chrome's [...] > More tools > Create shortcut... these days? With an option like Chrome's 'Open as Window' checkbox? I would love to give up Chrome, but that's a really important piece of functionality for me. I hugely prefer webapps that mostly act like normal apps in my desktop environment. I want then to show up in the window list, have their own icon, be alt-tabbable, etc.
I have 6 profiles that I like to keep separate, and the only browser that supports seamless switching in the toolbar is Chrome. That's the only reason I continue to use it. If Firefox were to implement this, I'd immediately switch. I know there's addons that try to simluate what Chrome does, but they just aren't as easy to use and don't do exactly what I want.
Um, Firefox does the same sorts of thing.<p>A) Want to use unsigned addons to play around, or tweak your existing ones[1]? Nope, even if you allow them in about:config, you can't; you have to use a special development version and update it separately.<p>B) Want to customize your keyboard shortcuts? Sorry, that's not safe, you have to use a crippled API that won't take effect until a given page loads.<p>C) Want to control your setup? Sorry, their "studies" feature is <i>owned by the marketing team</i> and can make <i>arbitrary changes</i> to the app on the fly, all the way up to its cryptographic infrastructure! (As we learned in the recent add-on mishap [2].)<p>I use Firefox, but they're not obviously better on these matters.<p>[1] Like, I don't know, if you made a big deal about underprivileged groups getting into coding, and actually wanted to take the concept seriously rather than just get some photogenic token to write hello-world for a photo op.<p>[2] <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19826827" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19826827</a>
What is the <i>actual</i> performance story these days? Last time I tried Firefox (soon after they were making a fuss about Quantum) I was fairly disappointed. I'm including performance of the Android browser here (because they work in concert as far as I'm concerned).<p>Also, what pain am I going to hit with DRM and online video? I use the usual suspects - Amazon, Netflix, Youtube.
I want to, but the simple behavior issues of the LastPass extension force me to use Chrome just for it.<p>I don’t know if its LastPass or a limitation of Firefox that’s causing it, but it’s enough of a headache for how often I use LastPass that it prevents me from switching browsers.<p>Is there an alternative to LastPass that has a better user experience on Firefox? If so I’ll try it.<p>EDIT: I'll test out Bitwarden.
A few things that still make me not love FF:<p>- Going full screen on Youtube takes longer than Chrome at least on OS X and there is a momentarily black screen.<p>- Moving the cursor to the top of a full screen video in Chrome brings down the OS X menu bar this is useful if you want to check the time/date/other menu bar activity, in FF nothing happens when moving the mouse to the top of the screen in full screen mode.<p>- When a page requests to send web notifications FF basically pretty much blocks the entire browser until you answer whether you want to allow the notification or not, this is very annoying if you visit many sites for the first time that ask for notification permission, which apparently a lot of them nowadays do, making it more apparent now that I switched to FF from Chrome.<p>There might be settings you can change to fix these, but even if that's the case not having them set as default makes me question whether I made the right choice making the switch.
I actually just gave this another try. First thing I did was see if WebAuthn/U2F support finally works well with Google services, which it now does!<p>Second thing I did was try to open a private window using the universal macOS shortcut of Cmd+Shift+N. Nothing happened, because Firefox decided to use Cmd+Shift+P unlike all other browsers. No problem, this is a macOS app, I’ll just change the keyboard shortcut in system preferences and I’ll be good to go. Except after doing that, Firefox doesn’t actually respect the remapped shortcut (an issue which has existed for <i>11 years</i>).<p>And the baked in color management is not correct for a macOS app, and the right click menus are not Mac-like and don’t respect dark mode.<p>I thought it was time to make the switch, but the reality is that Firefox is still an even poorer macOS app than Chrome. Fix that and I’ll switch tomorrow, as I really want to ditch Chrome!
I've been happily using Firefox for about 2-3 months now.<p>The main difference I've noticed is how easy it is to get the same experience and in some cases a better experience on Firefox just but taking 15-30 minutes to set it up.<p>Chrome was my browser for almost all of the 2010s and now I'm happy to say I'm not stuck with it.
A few months ago I created an alfred workflow to help train quick `⌘ + space` users to use Firefox.<p><a href="https://github.com/jasonraimondi/alfred-workflow-launch-firefox-instead-of-chrome" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/jasonraimondi/alfred-workflow-launch-fire...</a>
How much of Firefox success depends on donations?<p>I have seen successful crowd-funding projects where the budget is always transparent and communicated to the public. I am certain this motivates the masses to donate.<p>Wouldn't it be better for Mozilla to make their funding fully transparent, to attract the masses?
Firefox is a great browser. However, the reason I end up back on Chrome is because neither iOS or Android have Firefox as the default browser.
Sadly, as a front-end focused dev life is easier to build stuff out for Chrome and to a lesser extent, Safari because you know that’s the rendering engine the vast majority of your users will see.
I’d happily opt for Safari, as I respect Safaris ethos (privacy, speed, battery perf etc) but their dev tools are lacking so many basic features. Bugs like this don’t help: <a href="https://mobile.twitter.com/benfrain/status/1131142392386641921" rel="nofollow">https://mobile.twitter.com/benfrain/status/11311423923866419...</a>
I've switched from Chrome to Brave.. It's fast, clean, "seems" more minimalist, it's got good default privacy features (blocks tracking and stuff), It's based on Chromium and you can use all your Chrome extensions etc. The only thing I had to do to make sure I stuck with it was delete Chrome so I don't accidentally out of habit or muscle memory start Chrome.. it's worked beautifully and it's the best browser I've ever used I think. (bonus: they also have a cool way that you can pay your favorite websites - it's not super now because it's mostly crypto currency but soon if you can subscribe via credit card that would be nice).
Just throwing it out there, this post is currently at 3239 and needs 151 votes to move to the seventh highest rank in HN history and 154 votes to move to the sixth highest rank.<p>As long as we're saying how we really feel, we should +1 to move it up the ladder.
Controversial question from someone not as informed on the state of current as most here:<p>Anyone thinking of switching to a browser that doesn't have any script-interpretation ability? (Text-only or html/css only?) What options are currently out there?
I will tell my story.<p>I use Chrome for years, but recently a new update(I dunno the exact version) lags my laptop so much that it can not even used normally, everything delay several seconds, I spend several days and finally found out its the Chrome did this to my computer.Note: I am using an old laptop, but its still solid.<p>So I have to reinstall Chrome, I have no choice. Then I give firefox a try, to my surprise, with just a few of clicks, all my bookmarks and cookies are all ported to firefox seamlessly, very comfortable feature I'd say.<p>So yeah, if you are using old PC like me, u may feel lags when using new Chrome browser, and I suggest u to switch to Firefox, I DOES work!
I will say I love firefox containers, they are surprisingly simple to set and forget and have it "just work".<p>My least favorite parts of firefox (switched last weekend) are:<p>Dark mode. Dark Reader from Chrome is dead slow on Firefox, and none of the 5 others I've tried from Reddit/HN recommendations come close to its usability on Chrome.<p>Extension / config syncing. I want the same settings and extensions on my mobile device as my desktop, but it seems like only some configuration settings are able to sync, and add-ons/extensions don't sync between mobile and desktop. I know it's on purpose, but I'd like the option to choose.
I'd like to add that Firefox on mobile supports plug-ins, and Chrome on mobile does not. This means that you can run an adblocker, or other UI tweaks of your liking, on mobile, where ads hurt (both the UI and UX) the most.
I've been back to FF since Quantum release and like the new experience so far. Occasionally, I have to use Chrome since some of the internal websites at work don't work with Firefox. I always get those errors related to cross-site scripting issue like this:<p>"Cross-Origin Request Blocked: The Same Origin Policy disallows reading the remote resource at <a href="https://internal-xxxxxxx" rel="nofollow">https://internal-xxxxxxx</a>. (Reason: CORS header ‘Access-Control-Allow-Origin’ missing)."<p>Does anybody know what kind of knob I have to turn on/off in FF to make this disappear?
I use cloud profiles heavily. All bookmarks, history, plugins. However, if ads get re-enabled for Chrome, then I am definitely going to have to figure out how to port myself back to Firefox. Very, very, very, annoying.
I finally made the switch a few months ago. I have no regrets. I used to use Firefox back in the windows XP days before chrome even existed, but since Chrome came out I've been sort of stuck in it largely because the gsuite integration and the fact that I am part of 7 different google organizations that I have to juggle.<p>What killed chrome for me is the gradually failing linux support. Had a persistent bug on all my linux machines with chrome (and chromium) would only update the view if the mouse is moving. I actually put up with that for a few months before I switched to FF.
While Firefox is pretty great, be under no illusion that it’s a utopia of openness. It’s plugins are signed and quite tightly controlled. They banned the controversial ‘Dissenter’ plug-in seemingly for political reasons, and recently had the expired certificate ‘oops’ that rendered all plugins unusable for a day or so (without fiddly workarounds)<p>They too could well bend to corporate pressures to limit ad-blocking, they already have the tech that could be used to block widespread use of ad blockers?
The situation follows the "mobile" (cellphone, tablet) situation where Chrome was just not providing an extension API that could be used to implement adblockers (or much else for that matter, e.g. Cookienukers).<p>This is no surprise at all. Competitive pressure for "desktop" (non-crippled computers incl. Laptops) required providing suitable extension APIs, but the writing was on the wall for a long time.<p>Some powerful people inside Google consider it theft to browse the web while blocking ads.
I happily use Google services inside a separate Firefox container. I do have Chrome installed on one of my laptops but haven't used it for a long while.<p>Anyway, I am not a hater on Google, I appreciate their open contribution to deep learning tools and I happily pay for GCP, Play books and movies, and I use gmail as a backup email.<p>But for me, Firefox is just such a better experience than Chrome.<p>It is also a good idea to have a diverse ecology for Internet infrastructure, tools, and platforms. More choices are better.
I would switch off of Chrome if Firefox has better developer tools. Unfortunately, as a developer, Chrome's developer experience is just significantly better.
Chrome is now my mail, calendar, and maps app. It took me a good month to psychologically pivot myself into thinking this way but it’s worked.<p>Everything else is on Firefox now.
What I want is a "canned" installer for firefox that has all my preferences saved. Sync is ok, but I'd rather not even give that information to Mozilla. Instead, give me an installation package that will allow me to provide a config file next to it, and the ability to automatically create the config file from an existing install.<p>I want search engines, home pages, and plug-ins way more than I need my bookmarks.
I have been using Firefox as my default browser for as long as I can remember and after the release of Quantum I have loved using Firefox even more. I still have Chrome for cross-browser testing and the occasional website that loads correctly on Chrome, but not Firefox (for whatever reason). However, this occurs very rarely.<p>A big thank you to Mozilla. Keep up the great work!
What's up with Firefox's font rendering?<p>It seems pretty bad.<p>Here is this HN thread in both for comparison (On Win10)<p><a href="https://i.imgur.com/ZDVoWXI.png" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/ZDVoWXI.png</a><p>Notice how the Firefox sample seems bolder, but with uneven letter weight and generally a higher line height. It's not good for readability. Kerning is a bit iffy also.
Some of the current issues I face with Firefox. They are mostly UI/UX-choices that are personal to me.<p>* No global zoom by default which also remembers per-page zoom changes.
* Bookmarking is overly cluttered with with other other, toolbar, menu, etc.
* Skype Web doesn't work on Firefox.
* User profiles which are as easily accessible as in Chrome.
> Firefox imports your bookmarks, autofills, passwords and preferences from Chrome.<p>I can't for the life of me figure out how to do this. I went to File > Import from another browser... and got a dialog that only allowed me to select "Cookies, Browsing History, or Bookmarks". No mention of autofills or passwords.<p>Am I missing something here?
I tend to use both and keep switching between home/work but it just feels like FF is still not as snappy in terms of performance (could just be my perception -- no actual data on this one).<p>I think the Manifest V3 change on ad-blocking is probably a big win for FF and will likely make many people switch over to FF permanently.
Random, only slightly-related question: has any one used suckless' surf? I've seen it recommended by the hyper-minimalist nuts, but am more looking into it so I can tweak it easily. I figure it would be a lot easier than trying to slog through webkit, gecko, servo, blink, etc. as it is so much simpler.
I switched Firefox today, after so many years on Chrome. One of the reasons I found valid to use Chrome it was having the browsing history on my phone, but now i felt i really don't care that much. I value more to be controlling all privacy and not eating that many cookies, scripts.
I didn't see this mentioned, but for a bit more customization, check out Firefox Profilemaker, a tool to "help you to create a Firefox profile with the defaults you like": <a href="https://ffprofile.com" rel="nofollow">https://ffprofile.com</a>
I saw a comment on a previous thread say that WebRender will fix the unacceptable performance on retina MBPs. FF 67 released webrender to stable, but only for Windows 10 per the release notes.<p>Will WebRender fix the CPU taxing problem, and will that be released for macOS in a subsequent release?
The only reason I don't switch is that whenever Firefox has control of the webcam, I can't seem to be able to access the webcam with any other software, is this configurable? I work with webRTC a lot, so this is essential for me, I really want to switch
I would use FF more (and GC less) if FF supported multiple users the way GC does. I have a Chrome instance for each project/client. That has its own bookmarks, history, password manager, etc. Everything is silo'ed and therefore neatly organized.
There’s one annoyance I have with Firefox right now and it’s the search bar. When I type the start of a frequently visited site then instead of jumping to that site it googles my half-word. Very annoying and different to Safari or Chrome.
I remember we used to have "IE Tab" for websites which were so bad that they needed IE and failed otherwise. I think Firefox needs a "Chrome Tab" which runs some website in chromium for the really bad offenders.
Firefox UI is absolute shit. Takes ages to figure out what the fucking buttons do because who needs labels?!
Chromes is no better, just speaks to the current situation and lack of UX professionals on the dev teams.
I tried switching to Firefox so many times but have to go back to Chrome for performance reasons.<p>There is still an open problem on Retina Macbooks with scaled resolution where the performance drops like 10x over non-scaled versions.
While you're at it, stop using Google products altogether.<p>This cycle will only repeat itself, Google is an advertising company.<p>If you work for this company, please quit and ply your talents somewhere less motivated to exploit people.
Dunno if it's just me but one thing preventing me from switching is my preference for the chrome dev tools. To me they are just head and shoulders easier to use than the firefox or safari versions.
Ugh. Look, I used to use Chrome as my primary browser but I switched to Firefox like a year ago. I tried really, really hard to stay with Firefox. But it just doesn't work as well as Chrome. I get that it's not entirely Firefox's fault. Sometimes it is (for instance when things crash in Firefox it almost always crashes my entire browser, Chrome never crashes that way). But it's hard to tell a user to go use another browser when everyone is testing and using Chrome.<p>It's IE6 all over again just in different ways.<p>Perhaps I'll try a chronium fork. Sure it's not as good of a move but maybe I'll have better luck with issues. I'll likely try Firefox again to see if things are better (I usually use Firefox for some things at work anyway).
Let's talk again when <a href="https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042" rel="nofollow">https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042</a> is fixed.
Brave Browser seems to do everything I normally would use Chrome for, with none of the issues that caused me to leave Firefox in the first place.<p>FF performance is improved, but still lagging, especially on Mobile.
I switched back to firefox little before the quantum release because I was around when we had Internet Explorer 6 (and the many years of fallout from it). What's your excuse for using chrome?
I suggest that we instead switch to Pale Moon. Whatever you might feel about Moonchild, the browser is solid and reliable. All it really could benefit from would be a wider add-on dev community.
I almost switched a few months ago but didn't because Chrome just felt smoother, but I'm sorry, this is the straw that breaks the camel's back.<p>Firefox supports every extension I care about.<p>I'm a convert.
Does anyone have a single thing that Chrome does that FF does not?<p>For the life of me I cannot understand why anyone uses Chrome. But if anyone has information on Chrome that I do not, please let me know.
I really like my Chromebook, but also would really prefer Firefox.<p>Even with Crostini, there doesn't seem to be a good way to get an official FF build onto the chromebook. Or am I missing something?
I use Firefox on mac. One feature that is missing in Firefox is that it cannot do a smooth pan zoom like Safari or Chrome. Hope Firefox developer fix this in future release.
Is there a good, crossplatform, embedable browser as an alternative to cef? As far as i know there's gecko which is outdated and servo ain't there yet...
My issue is extensions. Firefox will never have all the extensions I use on Chrome. I want to switch. I use firefox on my mobile. But I cant do it on my desktops.
What they ALSO need to implement is differential sync... so if you continue to accidentally use Google Chrome then Firefox can just snarf in change for you.
Here's the secret: Make Firefox faster than Chrome. I'll switch. I'll push Firefox on all my customers, my family, my friends, everybody.
I've never switched to Chrome from Firefox. I don't really care that it's 10% faster, when Chrome is wielded as a weapon against freedom.
This page does not make clear how to switch back if the user get anything wrong by switching to Firefox. That is probably the biggest blocker right now.
To note, firefox quantum is a game changer. Worth switching to on that alone.<p>Overall once firefox did process isolation, chrome had no more reason to exist.
Has <i>anyone</i> actually Wireshark'ed a machine with just Chrome running?<p>I ask because I keep reading about how Google is bad because of their business, but I haven't seen an actual pcap, or any reporting for that matter, on what Google actually sends back home.<p>If you have, or know of a place that has done that, I'd be interested to read about it.<p>Until then, Chrome, and Firefox are just more tools in my arsenal; and people trying to get me to ditch one, just because they dont like it, is just outright dumb.
If I could just get it to start up as reliably as Chrome, I would. Instead, I have to hope I won't get the "black window" on startup, where I have to play a cat and mouse game of killing the process and restarting it until it works. I do use FF for some things, like HN, but unfortunately, I must use Chrome when I just need things to work right away on the first try.
Switch to Safari instead if you're on Mac, if you care about privacy and security: <a href="https://webkit.org/blog/8943/privacy-preserving-ad-click-attribution-for-the-web/" rel="nofollow">https://webkit.org/blog/8943/privacy-preserving-ad-click-att...</a>
other ethical alternatives have been compiled here: <a href="https://ethical.net/resources/" rel="nofollow">https://ethical.net/resources/</a>
Can also switch to <a href="https://brave.com/" rel="nofollow">https://brave.com/</a>, based on Chromium, with native ad blocking at the lowest level, fast.
Support localhost subdomains (<a href="http://foo.localhost:8080" rel="nofollow">http://foo.localhost:8080</a>) like Chrome does and I'll consider it!
Firefox is back where it was back in like 2005, but instead of fighting IE/Microsoft, it's fighting Chrome/Google. Although now it has a bit more of a checkered record than it once did. Everything old is new again.<p>I really wish Microsoft would open source the Edge/Titan engine. There can't possibly be any NSCA code in there they don't own the rights too anymore.
Can someone remind me what will happen to all the chromium derivatives that support ad block? Will Google restrict their functionality? If Firefox and Safari are the last browsers to support ad block, then they totally stand a chance.
Would love to, but can't, for one simple reason: I like to keep my work and personal profiles completely separated and frequently need to switch between the two. Firefox has profiles, but does not have a low-friction profile switcher. This is why every time I try it I'm back to Chrome a few days later.
The one thing i really need before i switch to firefox is vivaldi style stackable tabs. Does anyone know if there is any way to get stackable tabs in firefox?
... or install Edge Dev in seconds and keep most of your Chrome extensions<p><a href="https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/welcome?channel=dev" rel="nofollow">https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/en-us/welcome?channel=d...</a>
Is this a coordinated ad campaign for Firefox?<p>I find it odd how there will be Google Hate, and unanimous Firefox support.<p>I guess I'm looking to hear from users who actually removed Google from their life and are happy. Chrome is only 1 of the Google products I've used.
I tried to switch just now, looks like uMatrix doesn't work in Firefox? That's a blocker for me... I've spent a lot of time creating a ruleset on uMatrix, not looking to try recreating that.
For Apple users (MacOS, iOS), I would suggest Safari over Firefox as FF is the most hacked browser and very unsafe. On the other hand, Safari syncs bookmarks, tabs on all your Apple devices very seamlessly.
Is it okay for Firefox to maintain a manually curated list of sites it deems to be trackers [1]? Why is reddit on this list and not, say, Gab?<p>This breaks a site I built called reVddit [2], and after discussing with Mozilla devs [3], I'm unable to come up with a solution that doesn't significantly alter user experience and maintenance costs.<p>I find it ironic because the intent of reVddit is to increase transparency, one of Firefox's key principles. I'd love to hear ideas if anyone has any insight into any of this.<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protection/blob/master/services.json" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/disconnectme/disconnect-tracking-protecti...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://revddit.com" rel="nofollow">https://revddit.com</a><p>[3] <a href="https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.privacy/XO84EzrwWp0/t3cgc7H-AgAJ" rel="nofollow">https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.dev.privacy/XO84Ezrw...</a>