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The only reason chromium is my primary browser is the developer tools (it's a pain to use Firefox for normal browsing, but Chromium for debugging.) I can only

The only reason chromium is my primary browser is the developer tools (it's a pain to use Firefox for normal browsing, but Chromium for debugging.) I can only hope for chrome's devtools to be ported to firefox. (firebug is close but slow).

rvern 10y ago
For every person who says Chromium's developer tools are better than Firefox's, you can find another person who will say exactly the reverse. It's possible one of the two positions is correct and the other is not, but I find it more likely that people are just used to particular developer tools and that there is no significant difference between the two. People get work done with Firefox and Chromium's developer tools equally, you just have to learn to use them.
- apatters 10y ago
  No, he shouldn't have to learn to use them. When open source fails this type of thinking is often why. Firefox makes a product and therefore should improve that product so that more people want to use it. Vendors in a market are rarely in a position to tell the customers in that market what they should and shouldn't do. We don't want them to be in that position either, even Mozilla. They have to improve their offering. I for one also think that Chrome's dev tools are better and am 100% in the camp of wanting to see Firefox gain market share.
  - rvern 10y ago
    If the open source tools are worse than the other ones, then sure, they should be improved. But I have no reason to believe this is the case here.
  - vectorjohn 10y ago
    I think you missed the point. I for one can't stand the chrome dev tools. I use Firefox largely because i prefer the dev tools there. So, the point is, it's possible there is no real difference and it just comes down to personal preference or what you're used to. At least, that was the commenter's point which you didn't address.
    - apatters 10y ago
      You could say the same about Coke vs Pepsi, but that doesn't stop either one from trying to maximize their market share. I think the dev tools in Firefox and Chrome are much more distinct from each other than Coke vs Pepsi, though. The last time I used the FF dev tools (which was admittedly over a year ago) they were much slower and their support for changing attributes on HTML tags inline was more limited. I think the Net tab had fewer features too but this is going back a while so my memory is fuzzy. Even if the only difference is personal preference, what's wrong with Firefox trying to accommodate more users' preferences?
      - pitay 10y ago
        Even if the only difference is personal preference, what's wrong with Firefox trying to accommodate more users' preferences? Neither of the comments you replied to said anything about 'Firefox trying to accommodate more users' preferences'. So I don't think they had anything against Firefox accommodating more users preferences. They were just saying what people prefer is different, some people like Chrome's web developer tools more, some people like the web developer tools in Firefox more.
- kristopolous 10y ago
  Depends what you are building. Chrome seems to handle ionic and cordova better but I use Firefox for everything else
Sylos 10y ago
Mozilla is currently working on this: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2016/09/introducing-debugger-html/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2016/09/introducing-debugger-html/
hackuser 10y ago
> firebug is close but slow Hasn't Firebug been mostly replaced, long ago, by Firefox' built-in tools? Press Ctl+Shift+i, or click Tools > Web Developer.
- trungaczne 10y ago
  I found it impossible to debug very large scripts on Firefox. Searching for a string in the script is next to impossible, it would hang the interface for minutes. In Chrome it take seconds to do something similar, you can tell that the script is too big but at least it's debuggable. Also as a user I cannot bear to use Firefox. I recently retried it (can't recall the version, IIRC it's the first version they introduced multiprocessing) and it still underperforms: I experienced (sub second) lag on UI interactions whereas I wouldn't using Chrome.
  - gcb0 10y ago
    never had slow search on Firefox. also Firefox can search a string on all source files, while chrome you have to know the file beforehand
nikolay 10y ago
Nonsense! Firefox Developer Edition [0] is the best browser for web development and it doesn't need Firebug as it has better built-in tools! Not to mention the lovely dark theme! [0]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/
- anotheryou 10y ago
  Do you know if there is an option to auto-reload the CSS on change? Love that in chrome.
  - nachtigall 10y ago
    You might want to use wepack dev server or the live reload addon. That's what I use together with Firefox (Developer Edition).
    - anotheryou 10y ago
      Sadly reload changes the state of SPAs, that's why the sneaky CSS-only reload is so useful.
      - nachtigall 10y ago
        Is this feature natively built into the devtools of chrome or a chrome extension?
        anotheryou 10y ago
        yes, quite hidden and complicated to set up though, because it needs to map the server stuff to the local file system.
        nachtigall 10y ago
        ok, I think that's not available with firefox devtools, but in case your SPA is react based, I think that the react devtools addon has hot (and state preserving) reloading: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/react-devtools/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/react-devtool...
grokavi 10y ago
I use Chrome for developing and Firefox for normal browsing. That way, I know when I'm wasting my time ;-) Simply, I just couldn't switch to Chrome for normal browsing. One thing I couldn't do without is the bookmark tagging in FF. I also like the fact that the address bar behaves much more predictably, like when I type something and it shows me links only from my recent history. Youtube does play better in Chrome, FF uses a lot more CPU and it is a known issue. So now I use Chrome for playing Youtube and FF for everything else! It's a mess.
- LaurentVB 10y ago
  I do the same. But my rationale for normal browsing with firefox is not about tooling, it's really about what OP says in the article. Agreed on the adress bar though.

rvern 10y ago

For every person who says Chromium's developer tools are better than Firefox's, you can find another person who will say exactly the reverse. It's possible one of the two positions is correct and the other is not, but I find it more likely that people are just used to particular developer tools and that there is no significant difference between the two. People get work done with Firefox and Chromium's developer tools equally, you just have to learn to use them.

apatters 10y ago
No, he shouldn't have to learn to use them. When open source fails this type of thinking is often why. Firefox makes a product and therefore should improve that product so that more people want to use it. Vendors in a market are rarely in a position to tell the customers in that market what they should and shouldn't do. We don't want them to be in that position either, even Mozilla. They have to improve their offering. I for one also think that Chrome's dev tools are better and am 100% in the camp of wanting to see Firefox gain market share.
- rvern 10y ago
  If the open source tools are worse than the other ones, then sure, they should be improved. But I have no reason to believe this is the case here.
- vectorjohn 10y ago
  I think you missed the point. I for one can't stand the chrome dev tools. I use Firefox largely because i prefer the dev tools there. So, the point is, it's possible there is no real difference and it just comes down to personal preference or what you're used to. At least, that was the commenter's point which you didn't address.
  - apatters 10y ago
    You could say the same about Coke vs Pepsi, but that doesn't stop either one from trying to maximize their market share. I think the dev tools in Firefox and Chrome are much more distinct from each other than Coke vs Pepsi, though. The last time I used the FF dev tools (which was admittedly over a year ago) they were much slower and their support for changing attributes on HTML tags inline was more limited. I think the Net tab had fewer features too but this is going back a while so my memory is fuzzy. Even if the only difference is personal preference, what's wrong with Firefox trying to accommodate more users' preferences?
    - pitay 10y ago
      Even if the only difference is personal preference, what's wrong with Firefox trying to accommodate more users' preferences? Neither of the comments you replied to said anything about 'Firefox trying to accommodate more users' preferences'. So I don't think they had anything against Firefox accommodating more users preferences. They were just saying what people prefer is different, some people like Chrome's web developer tools more, some people like the web developer tools in Firefox more.
kristopolous 10y ago
Depends what you are building. Chrome seems to handle ionic and cordova better but I use Firefox for everything else

Sylos 10y ago

Mozilla is currently working on this: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2016/09/introducing-debugger-html/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2016/09/introducing-debugger-html/

hackuser 10y ago

> firebug is close but slow Hasn't Firebug been mostly replaced, long ago, by Firefox' built-in tools? Press Ctl+Shift+i, or click Tools > Web Developer.

trungaczne 10y ago
I found it impossible to debug very large scripts on Firefox. Searching for a string in the script is next to impossible, it would hang the interface for minutes. In Chrome it take seconds to do something similar, you can tell that the script is too big but at least it's debuggable. Also as a user I cannot bear to use Firefox. I recently retried it (can't recall the version, IIRC it's the first version they introduced multiprocessing) and it still underperforms: I experienced (sub second) lag on UI interactions whereas I wouldn't using Chrome.
- gcb0 10y ago
  never had slow search on Firefox. also Firefox can search a string on all source files, while chrome you have to know the file beforehand

nikolay 10y ago

Nonsense! Firefox Developer Edition [0] is the best browser for web development and it doesn't need Firebug as it has better built-in tools! Not to mention the lovely dark theme! [0]: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/

anotheryou 10y ago
Do you know if there is an option to auto-reload the CSS on change? Love that in chrome.
- nachtigall 10y ago
  You might want to use wepack dev server or the live reload addon. That's what I use together with Firefox (Developer Edition).
  - anotheryou 10y ago
    Sadly reload changes the state of SPAs, that's why the sneaky CSS-only reload is so useful.
    - nachtigall 10y ago
      Is this feature natively built into the devtools of chrome or a chrome extension?
      - anotheryou 10y ago
        yes, quite hidden and complicated to set up though, because it needs to map the server stuff to the local file system.
        nachtigall 10y ago
        ok, I think that's not available with firefox devtools, but in case your SPA is react based, I think that the react devtools addon has hot (and state preserving) reloading: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/react-devtools/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/react-devtool...

grokavi 10y ago

I use Chrome for developing and Firefox for normal browsing. That way, I know when I'm wasting my time ;-) Simply, I just couldn't switch to Chrome for normal browsing. One thing I couldn't do without is the bookmark tagging in FF. I also like the fact that the address bar behaves much more predictably, like when I type something and it shows me links only from my recent history. Youtube does play better in Chrome, FF uses a lot more CPU and it is a known issue. So now I use Chrome for playing Youtube and FF for everything else! It's a mess.

LaurentVB 10y ago
I do the same. But my rationale for normal browsing with firefox is not about tooling, it's really about what OP says in the article. Agreed on the adress bar though.