I feel this article almost do more harm than good. It paints a picture that you need to "sacrifice" something to use Fx and lists various "problems".<p>For instance it mentions how troublesome it is to use profiles as a "problem". Don't. Use containers. Hundred times more smooth than profiles. Hence why no one cares about making profiles in Fx better, there is already a better solution to the problem profiles solve.<p>Never had problems with font rendering. The download manager being different isn't a "problem", and even Chrome is changing it to become more like Fx's [0]. So it's not like Fx's version is "bad", just different.<p>I'd rather have an article on "Switching from Chrome to Firefox? Here are some tips on great features in Firefox".<p>Like how to use the multi-account containers I mentioned. Or how the address bar ("awesome bar") in Firefox is so much greater than Chrome's in finding stuff (probably because Google wants you to do a google search, not find stuff from your own history or bookmarks). On how Sidebery or other tree-style tabs can make the experience so nice. etc.<p>[0]: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36996287">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36996287</a>
Something I didn't find mentioning is increasing the number of parallel connections in Firefox. When I inspect the network and responses of FF, I often find connections were "blocked" (for several hundreds ms). Thus, increasing the number of persistent connections to a server will unblock those connections and allow the website to render much faster.
Go to about:config and change:<p>network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server<p>from the default value of 6 to 24 or 32.<p>Experimental results for a website: (time until finish loading)<p>No of Conns Prime Cache w/o Cache<p>6 (default) 25 s 257 s<p>12 21 s 212 s<p>18 18 s 190 s<p>24 15 s 147 s
I love Firefox. The only time I struggle it's because it is the only browser today that correctly implements CORS. This is a good thing. But it means broken middle boxes and MiTM enterprise tech (like Zscaler) should fix their stuff rather than pointing their smelly fingers at Firefox.<p>Mozilla should up its game in educating the public that Edge and Chrome aren't following the standards correctly. This seems IMHO pretty important in a world where everything relies on the browser to sandbox things.
The font rendering problem is very interesting to me because I have always found Firefox to use the same font rendering as the rest of my system, meanwhile Chrome has this universally thin and conspicuous font rendering across all systems I have attempted using it on.<p>I currently use Mac OS and I see no difference between text rendered on Firefox and text rendered in other Mac OS applications, but there is a world of difference between Chrome and anything else.<p>So if I had to make a bold claim without evidence, I would guess Firefox uses the OS default font rendering (i.e. it will be as bad the rest of your OS), meanwhile Chrome's font rendering is universally bad (i.e. it does not follow what your OS uses, on any platform, and if you don't like it, then there's not much you can do).
Do people <i>live</i> in their browsers like that? I find it useful to keep both.<p>95% of the time I'm in Firefox, as one should be -- with all the good adblockers etc.<p>And for the 5% unavoidable garbage of "things I must use/sign up for in life" that don't implement things properly, including Zoom, I keep Chrome around.
Install ublock origin and you're good to go. It's really quite a great browser, on Android, Linux and Windows I reckon it's the best.<p>On Mac I still use safari for the performance and battery saving.
> A growing uneasy feeling about Google’s approach to user privacy, […], their rejection of JPEG XL<p>The part about JPEG XL seems strange, given that the article linked in the blog post says Mozilla too is rejecting JPEG XL:<p>> Mozilla's Martin Thomson wrote that while JPEG XL "offers some potential advantages," it wasn't "performing enough better than its closest competitors (like AV1F) to justify addition on that basis alone."<p>Could someone maybe clarify this point?
Nice tips.<p>I would add: embrace tab containers (<a href="https://support.mozilla.org/fr/kb/utiliser-conteneurs-firefox" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://support.mozilla.org/fr/kb/utiliser-conteneurs-firefo...</a>), especially if you love chrome profiles.<p>They do half of what profiles do: they isolate cache, cookies, sessions, etc. But they do so in a very light manner and fast manner. The UI is better too. So for things that don't need getting different settings or extensions and so on, containers are the way to go.
I wish people would stop mentioning benchmarks, even when Firefox is wins one.<p>It is like evaluating bicycles based on their towing capacity. Any website that requires a high performance JavaScript implementation is already doing so much wrong that you should just leave.
Warning for people who use or install Firefox UI Fix on other people's computers:<p>Mozilla occasionally breaks everything with new Firefox releases, and you can end up with a non-functional tabs bar until you reinstall the newest version of Firefox UI Fix. Not so much a problem if you're a techie, but a big problem for the non-techies you install it for.
Firefox has actual browsing history! You can search your real browser history unlike chrome, which allows you to search your google web history, which does not contain all websites.
Don't forget to install Dark Reader! <a href="https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/darkreader/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/darkreader/</a><p>This makes old reddit, HN, and google cloud console all dark mode friendly and it really "just works"
Nobody mentioned "Ctrl+Tab cycles through tabs in recently used order" Firefox option that is almost impossible to replicate on Chrome even with extensions. And there is huge user need for this option as there are bunch of Chrome extension for this, mostly using external executables to achieve this.
> I like Chrome’s download bar at the bottom of the screen, as I need to download and handle many files for work. The fact that it is always visible, in every tab, until you close it<p>Is there a way to re-enable this in chrome? It’s been replaced with the dreaded Firefox downloads butt Next to the address bar.
> Firefox’ built-in profile switcher is far worse than Chrome’s. To open it, you need to start Firefox with the -p parameter.<p>You can also just go to `about:profiles` in the address bar, without having to launch Firefox with the -p switch. I even have `about:profiles` as my homepage so when I launch Firefox, I then decide which profile I will be using.
My Profiles tips:<p>1. You can have multiple profile sessions running at the same time.<p>2. It is best to theme your alt profiles with a different color so you don't confuse them. For example, green one is for one profile and the red one another.<p>3. "firefox -p 'profile-name'" launches directly into a profile<p>4. "firefox -p 'profile-name' -private-window" launches a profile in a private window<p>5. I use keybindings on linux to auto launch different profiles.<p>As for why you should consider multiple profiles. It gives you the ability to separate concerns. I use a main account, one for work, one for testing stuff, another that has no extensions, and one for anything NSFW.<p>Too many of you don't keep NSFW stuff off your work profiles, I'm embarrassed for you during your zoom meetings when the url autocomplete briefly betrays your interests.
I still find it very confusing that the active tab does not 'extend' to the content, but is separated by a shadow. I often mistake the inactive tab for the active one, because it's background is almost closer to the content.
I've always found the Firefox devtools be a little less 'quality of life' like. Just my opinion. Haven't used it in a few years. But for me, I just live in devtools, you know. As most of you here, probably. Opinions?
I havent been able to uninstall Chrome. Everyone makes sure they test their website for Chrome. Firefox/Safari just don't have devs testing on them.<p>I currently have Firefox for most things, but I seemingly always have chromium open to check to see if a website isnt behaving correctly.<p>What a terrible time for computing. Chrome is in total control of web. Nvidia + M$ have complete control of high performance computing, and M$ sucks. Apple captures tons of attention and time with their marketing but has low quality products.
I recently switched over and am quite happy with Firefox all in all.<p>My only gripe is the loss of Tab Groups (I'm a tab hoarder) and I haven't been able to find a decent replacement.
I have a considerable number of tweaks I apply to my Firefox installs, too and the process is a little cumbersome.<p>I wonder if it would be a reasonable task to set up an “opinionated” fork of Firefox with all the changes being UI/UX-related and keep it up to date with mainline… that would make fresh installs more effortless and allow improvements that aren’t practical with regular Firefox.
I'll throw this advice in as well, about Firefox' disk cache. Not related to Chrome but mainly as a generic way to make Firefox a bit snappier and less grindy/bloated:<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35168625">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35168625</a>
> I have used Chrome with a personal and a work profile, both of them tied to different Google accounts.<p>You guys have two Google accounts? I didn’t know that this was even possible.
"A growing uneasy feeling about Google’s approach to user privacy, Manifest v3, Googles’s WebDRM plans, their rejection of JPEG XL and the omnipresence of Chromium-based browsers nowadays – Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera and some others are basically the same programs in different clothes."<p>He hits the nail on the head. Why support the fascist empire when you can support those making it better. That said, if you really wanted a privacy focused browser then the Bromine, Waterfox, Opera, DuckDuckGo and Tempest browsers should all be investigated.