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uBlock Origin Maintainer on Chrome vs. Firefox WebExtensions

776 points by nachtigall 9y ago

penpapersw 9y ago
Huh. These actually sound like good arguments to switch to Firefox, arguments I've never heard before until now.
- zozos 9y ago
  I moved to firefox once 57 was released on nightly. Firefox is finally usable (in terms of speed) again and I can use it for day to day tasks.
  - jacquesm 9y ago
    I think I qualify as a poweruser by some standards, I tend to have 100's of tabs open and I've never left Firefox for speed reasons or others because it has held up extremely well over the years. My machine has a lot of RAM so maybe that's one reason things have been quick, and the main drive is an SSD. Is there anything specific about the 57 release that makes you feel caused the speed bottle-neck to disappear?
    - ohthehugemanate 9y ago
      57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine. Broay this is because quantum is much further along in nightly than on the other channels. Specifically, they're more aggressive with multithreaded settings, multiprocess is enabled, and the quantum css component is turned on, too. Is also helps that we compare to chrome. On Linux chrome doesn't even do GPU rendering. So the HN crowd probably has a disproportionately bad experience with it
      - alschwalm 9y ago
        Wait, what? I know that hw accelerated video decoding is generally not available on linux chrome, but I'm pretty sure that lots of other things are. From my chrome://gpu Canvas: Hardware accelerated CheckerImaging: Disabled Flash: Hardware accelerated Flash Stage3D: Hardware accelerated Flash Stage3D Baseline profile: Hardware accelerated Compositing: Hardware accelerated Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled Native GpuMemoryBuffers: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled Rasterization: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled Video Decode: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable Video Encode: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable WebGL: Hardware accelerated WebGL2: Hardware accelerated But this is with an integrated GPU, so maybe things are different for discrete cards.
      - nvarsj 9y ago
        Firefox has always been unbearably slow on Linux for me. It's the main reason I swapped to Chrome in the first place. I tried switching back to Firefox about 6 months ago, same problem of extremely slow and laggy UI. Interesting to hear 57 is faster now, it may be worth trying again.
        djsumdog 9y ago
        Same here, it's why I switched to Vivaldi. I had to restart Firefox every day or so and it still lagged. I've read the other recent post on here that shows 100+ tabs has almost no startup burden in FF57 compared to previous builds. I should try it again.
        ac29 9y ago
        Go to about:config and set layers.acceleration.force-enabled to true. Made a dramatic difference for me in Linux using a Intel iGPU. You can check the acceleration status in about:support, look at HW_COMPOSITING and OPENGL_COMPOSITING.
        JoshTriplett 9y ago
        Do you have any extensions installed? Have you tried using a fresh profile, just to narrow the possible variables? If you've checked both of those things, and you can characterize the slowness in the context of specific operations (e.g. what "laggy" means, precisely), then I'd recommend filing a bug and working with the developers to track down the problem. Because that is not normal.
        fmoralesc 9y ago
        Also, current Firefox has `about:performance`, where you can diagnose what addons and tabs can be slowing down the browser. It's quite neat. I just refreshed my profile and performance improved immensely.
        cpeterso 9y ago
        Firefox 57 should be a much, much improved experience. e10s with multiple processes started rolling out to users in Firefox 54 and tons of small performance issues have been fixed in 55-57. On Linux, manually enabling GPU acceleration as user ac29 describes below can a big difference. Unfortunately, a lot of Linux GPU drivers have issues that prevent acceleration from being enabled by default for some users.
      - Barrin92 9y ago
        > 57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine. I thought you were overstating it but I just tried it out and you're right, it's crazy fast.
      - saghm 9y ago
        > 57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine As others have said here, I just installed Firefox Nightly after reading this, and you're 100% correct. I think it might even be faster than Chromium for me.
    - ohthehugemanate 9y ago
      57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine. Broay this is because quantum is much further along in nightly than on the other channels. Specifically, they're more aggressive with multithreaded settings, multiprocess is enabled, and the quantum css component is turned on, too. Is also helps that we compare to chrome. On Linux chrome doesn't even do GPU rendering. So the HN crowd probably has a disproportionately bad experience with it
    - forapurpose 9y ago
      Here's an in-depth article on Firefox 57 and all the big changes: https://www.cnet.com/special-reports/mozilla-firefox-fights-back-against-google-chrome/ https://www.cnet.com/special-reports/mozilla-firefox-fights-...
      - tciecka 9y ago
        This article is good but the annoying div that covers your mobile browser when you are in landscape, is not!
        jhasse 9y ago
        OMG. Why do they do that?
      - unexistance 9y ago
        has cnet always been this bad? I mean you need JS to read the thing and the whole article is on a floating div?
  - overcast 9y ago
    How has the nightly been for you in terms of stability? Been thinking of switching to it from beta. The memory issues on MacOS are killing me, and I believe there are fixes in nightly now.
    - kibwen 9y ago
      IME, desktop nightly hasn't ever outright crashed (less lucky with mobile nightly). Sometimes I notice minor rendering glitches on various sites, but I also have Servo's CSS engine enabled which might be doing it (it's not yet the default).
      - overcast 9y ago
        Yeh it doesn't crash for me, it just chews up memory until it's unusable. SO far so go though. We'll see how it last through the night.
      - littlestymaar 9y ago
        Well, it used to crash a lot at some point : when e10s was first activated by default in Nightly (in 2013 IIRC) it crashed several times a day. I stopped using nightly for a year afterwards.
  - djsumdog 9y ago
    I may have to try Firefox again once 57 is in portage. A few months back I switched to Vivaldi, begrudgingly. I really liked Firefox, but the speed issues were becoming unbearable. Vivaldi has been a lot faster and mostly an alright experience, and I've watched many of the issues I've found for it get addresses in recent builds. Still there are many things I miss about Firefox, not to mention supporting that community and the browser I've used for well over a decade (including back when it was Phoenix, the original Mozilla and the old Netscape 6 that proceeded them).
  - nsm 9y ago
    For those who don't notice the speed, multiprocess may be disabled due to certain addons. Go to about:support to check if it enabled. The addon compatibility checker addon can tell you which are the offending addons. For me 1password was the big blocker, but they recently released a beta that works with the new API. Sorry for the lack of links, I'm on mobile.
    - inferiorhuman 9y ago
      Oh interesting. Firefox still seems slow and a bit of a memory hog compared to Chrome on my machine. Sure enough I checked and three add-ons are marked as legacy (and presumably disabled the multiprocess stuff): uBlock Origin, Websocket Disabler, and NoScript.
      - foepys 9y ago
        At least uBlock Origin is compatible with multi-processes. I'm using it right now. Firefox 55 marks classic extensions as legacy, this has nothing to do with multi-process comparability.
        nsm 9y ago
        Yep, not legacy, but "not compatible with multiprocess" is what it should show for offending addons.
        inferiorhuman 9y ago
        Well, how can one determine which addons are multi-process compatible?
        Vinnl 9y ago
        https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-on-compatibility-reporter/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-on-compat... Then Ctrl+Shift+A.
- INTPenis 9y ago
  One thing I learned several years ago when I decided to jump on the bandwagon and try Chrome was that Chrome was unable to safely block javascript the way NoScript does because the plugin framework doesn't allow a plugin to block Javascript before it's loaded. So all the noscript equivalent for Chrome could offer was to block Javascript after it had loaded. Which seemed unreal and pointless. So I stayed on Firefox. Because I've been convinced for many years now that Javascript plays a major role in malware delivery through the browser. And along with email the browser is the major delivery platform for malware.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    NoScript block all three: javascript, java and flash. Javascript can be used to deliver/encode/decode exploit payload. Usually the exploit itself is java or flash. At least, that's what I noticed for the zero day RCE that made it up to the first page of Google.
  - uwu 9y ago
    chrome has a setting to block scripts and it lets you add exceptions for sites it's also easy to access: http://cdn2.ubergizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/site-info-bubble.jpg http://cdn2.ubergizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/site-in... i wish firefox came with something similar
    - bo1024 9y ago
      The advantage of Firefox's NoScript plugin is that it can be selective. Say you randomly visit a site and want to temporarily allow the javascript it uses to do its thing, but you don't want to allow any other javascript on the page such as facebook's and google's. The built-in chrome javascript blocker doesn't let you pick and choose temporary permissions at that moment.
      - jamiek88 9y ago
        I didn't know the firefox version could do that, it's something I've wanted for sometime.
adrianlmm 9y ago
I use Edge and looks like is blocking everything w/o problems.
Aissen 9y ago
> I am not aware of any anti-fingerprinting initiative taken up with Chromium Brave is Chromium-based and has anti-fingerprinting tech (which it was the first to include IIRC): https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/wiki/Fingerprinting-Protection-Mode https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/wiki/Fingerprinting-... It also works on Brave for Android.
- mccr8 9y ago
  The Tor Browser has some kind of antifingerprinting stuff in it. I don't know how it compares to what Brave does.
  - Aissen 9y ago
    Indeed, I remembered wrong. I think it was bcrypt who implemented it in both Tor Browser and Brave.
  - confounded 9y ago
    Many of the Tor project's anti-fingerprinting measures are gradually being merged into mainline Firefox.
- JohnTHaller 9y ago
  Unfortunately Brave doesn't have extensions and won't let you restore some settings from backup or transfer them to another PC, so it's not really a complete browser for most techies the way we think of Chrome and Firefox. Note that the settings loss thing is an issue (ehem "feature") with Chrome/Chromium itself and not specific to Brave on Windows builds.
- xeromal 9y ago
  I'm using Brave atm, but I'm about to give it up. The tabs frequently freeze and I can only hover over them to preview. I can't click on them. Adding a bookmark takes about a minute. Brave won't remember BASIC passwords General sluggishness Kickass Torrents is able to launch ads when clicking in the search box.
  - 9y ago
AdmiralAsshat 9y ago
> It baffles me that some people thinks Firefox is becoming a “Chrome clone”, it’s just not the case, it’s just plain silly to make such statement. That's probably the single most reassuring statement about Firefox that I've heard in some time, coming from a serious dev who makes a popular cross-platform addon for both Firefox and Chrome.
- homero 9y ago
  What do you think of Opera becoming Chrome?
  - msla 9y ago
    I don't know. I haven't used Opera since the 1990s. I fully expect most people will share my view.
    - abritinthebay 9y ago
      most people will say "What's Opera?"
      - msla 9y ago
        Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit!
    - nvr219 9y ago
      Man I remember when Opera was THE one to use
  - unexistance 9y ago
    does not matter, happily 'stuck' using 12.x series :D
  - mtgx 9y ago
    I think I preferred it, but what killed Opera for me was being bought by a Chinese company + seeing what that company did to Opera Max (which I thought was a "killer app" before the acquisition).
yborg 9y ago
I found this disturbing: "Chromium-based browsers are being “infested” by Instart Logic tech which works around blockers and worst, around browser privacy settings (they may start “infecting” Firefox eventually, but that is not happening now)." From his linked post: "Instart Logic will detect when the developer console opens, and cleanup everything then to hide what it does" Is this implemented via a CDN-delivered script? Why would Chromium-based browsers be more susceptible?
- MichaelGG 9y ago
  And he has a list of sites that use WebRTC to get around blocking. Didn't Firefox or someone say they'd reconsider auto-enabling WebRTC if this practise became widespread?
- forapurpose 9y ago
  Also: > The purpose of Instart Logic technology is to disguise 3rd-party requests as 1st-party requests, thus bypassing content blockers, and even the ability of browsers to block 3rd-party cookies (because they are stored as 1st-party cookies): https://github.com/gorhill/uBO-Extra/wiki/Sites-on-which-uBO-Extra-is-useful#instart-logic https://github.com/gorhill/uBO-Extra/wiki/Sites-on-which-uBO...
  - albertgoeswoof 9y ago
    How exactly does this work? The link mentions that it detects when Dev tools are opened and changes something?
    - milcron 9y ago
      Here are a few suggestions https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7798748/find-out-whether-chrome-console-is-open https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7798748/find-out-whether...
      - hathawsh 9y ago
        Wow, the 'id' getter strategy is devious and effective on Chrome. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7798748/find-out-whether-chrome-console-is-open/30638226#30638226 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7798748/find-out-whether...
NormenKD 9y ago
I am considering going back to FF, but it seems FIDO U2F still isn't done completely and the U2F Extension for FF is not working anymore since the WebExtension switch. Please correct me if missed something, but i think i have to hold off for a little bit longer.
- cakeface 9y ago
  That is my understanding as well. I haven't been able to get my U2F working on recent Firefox builds. It's such a shame because I really want to use U2F instead of an authenticator app. I have like 20 different sites in there and finding the right number always takes me a minute or two. Also Google Hangouts and Meet do not work.
  - bugmen0t 9y ago
    meet worked well for me the other day on Firefox Nightly (57)
  - floatboth 9y ago
    Google literally checks for Chrome >_< On GitHub, U2F works with the Firefox addon https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/u2f-support-add-on/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/u2f-support-a...
- asadotzler 9y ago
  The current plan has U2F shipping as soon as Firefox 57.
- coffee-- 9y ago
  Just today someone posted that they're about to get U2F in the main browser: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1245527 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1245527
  - coffee-- 9y ago
    Actually, here's the U2F patch https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1388843 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1388843
albertgoeswoof 9y ago
Firefox is coming back, finally- I think their market share is at the bottom and we'll see a big uptake over the next couple of years.
- alt2501 9y ago
  Here's hoping! We need a privacy oriented browser that's kickass for dev work as well.
- vvpan 9y ago
  Bold statement!
- transposed 9y ago
  Pay attention to this project and volunteer if you wish - https://voice.mozilla.org/ https://voice.mozilla.org/ - it may be a big thing for Mozilla
- 482794793792894 9y ago
  Market share has already been on the rise again since Firefox 48, which was the release that shipped the separation of the UI and content in two processes. People here probably didn't notice right away, since you pretty much had to have no extensions installed for a long time for it to be enabled, but casual users seem to have noticed...
- f311a 9y ago
  Market share has nothing to do with features/functionality. Google has the ability to promote their products to the big audience.
pmoriarty 9y ago
I've been really disappointed with the direction Firefox has been moving since they decided to make changes that would permanently break some of their most powerful and useful extensions, like Pentadactyl.
syshum 9y ago
Web/browser Extensions is a terrible standard is it EXTREMELY limiting for power users. While that my not impact a ad blocker, there are countless extensions that can not work with Web Extensions and will make Chrome err sorry Firefox far less appealing to people. For me, more than a few of the extensions I use regularly are not compatible with Web Extensions, and a few of them that are critical to my productivity are in limbo still That is the Source of the "Chrome Clone". The switch to Web Extensions is hated by many many firefox power users. Sadly they feel the users that have stuck around all of these years, that did not abandoned them for Chrome are worthless, and have chosen to attempt to attract those users that did abandon FF for Chrome back. They are doing this by making a browser that is unappealing to me (and many others actual FF users, not Chrome Users who are the most vocal proponents of Firefox's current direction), a user that has been a FF loyalist since FF version 1. I am not 100% sure I will switch to another browser, the options are very thin these days but it will be a sad day for me when FF57 is all that is left
- zeep 9y ago
  Do you have one example of such extension that won't work with web extensions?
  - syshum 9y ago
    TreeStyleTabs
    - kibwen 9y ago
      I've seen people recommend this as a WebExtension-compatible replacement for TreeStyle Tabs, though I can't vouch for it myself: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-tabs/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-tabs/
      - syshum 9y ago
        It is no where near the same and has the same failing of the Chrome Vertical Tab Solutions like https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-side-tabs/hlnbneddcecehdhdfbbcifjpfpfdocaj?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-side-tabs/h... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vtabs/okpnlgbgcfchbicbhjmmhldhkbkfilce?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vtabs/okpnlgbgcfch... It is not part of the UI part of the browser like the XUL TreeStyleTabs but a separate Panel that ends up being buggy and feeling separate from the experience almost like managing your tabs from a separate window
williamle8300 9y ago
Doesn't PrivacyBadger^1 solve the fingerprinting problem? [1] https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
mnarayan01 9y ago
> It baffles me that some people thinks Firefox is becoming a “Chrome clone”, it’s just not the case, it’s just plain silly to make such statement. If you use a much narrower definition of "clone" than is typically used in this context, then sure. If, however, you use "clone" a bit more flexibly, and note the word "becoming", then it's a different story. That's not to say that Firefox won't be better than Chrome, and it's certainly not to say that it won't have any advantages over Chrome, but it is giving up some of its major current advantages.
Hasknewbie 9y ago
Slightly OT: is that what a 'Discourse' page looks like? It's pretty awful: it will automatically update the URL as you scroll past each post in any direction, while breaking the Back button, so good luck getting back to the original post, since neither clicking on Back nor reloading the page will get you there. Basic UX failure.
- eridius 9y ago
  What browser are you using? Because when I scroll on that page and the URL changes, it doesn't affect my Back stack (this is in Safari).
  - zymhan 9y ago
    That's the behavior I see using Firefox.
  - Hasknewbie 9y ago
    Using Firefox for Android. I can't not notice the irony that this is happening with FF on the mozilla.org Web site.
- littlestymaar 9y ago
  It looks like a feature to me : this way when you copy the address it links directly to the right comment. Of course this comes at the expense of a working back button.
  - SaladFork 9y ago
    The page is using Location.replace[0] to update the URL and replaces the current history entry without affecting back/forward behavior on pretty much any browser. The one downside is that the URL may no longer point to the comment you were originally linked to. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Location/replace https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Location/re...
wyc 9y ago
Keep in mind that it's not within Google's incentives to facilitate ad-blocking and prevention of tracking. After all, that's where the lion's share of their revenue comes from. However, Mozilla is free to actively support such efforts.
- fabrice_d 9y ago
  If that was that clear cut, they would ship tracking protection enabled by default, not just in Private Browsing mode. The default configuration of Safari is actually protecting you better than Firefox's and most users don't have an ad blocker installed.
  - wyc 9y ago
    Good point. Mozilla made most of their money from Google, and other advertisers, iirc. "More free" might've been prudent. You make a good observation about Safari too. Apple doesn't make much money from advertising--they still sell hardware. They can provide privacy to users at little expense to their core business.
    - 482794793792894 9y ago
      > Mozilla made most of their money from Google, and other advertisers, iirc. The much bigger problem is webpage owners which lose almost all incentive to support Firefox, if it blocks their ads. You'd have broken webpages all over the place.
  - chinhodado 9y ago
    Just like in IE/Edge, the "Do not track" setting used to be enabled by default, then it became disabled by default, and for good reason. The argument is, if it is enabled by default, sites will not bothered to support it since it was not something that the user turned on explicitly and was aware of.
    - AndrewCHM 9y ago
      Tracking Protection isn't Do Not Track. Tracking Protection in Firefox blocks web trackers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-pbm https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-pbm
kasabali 9y ago
uBlock Origin on Firefox would be more powerful than uBlock Origin on Chrome, but does it mean that uBlock Origin webextension on Firefox will be as powerful as uBlock Origin "legacy" Firefox extension ? This is a post of gorhill from the last months Firefox - Google Analytics fiasco: > Legacy uBlock Origin can block the network request to GA. > However webext-hybrid uBO as per Network pane in dev tools does not block it. Same for pure webext Ghostery, the network request to GA was not blocked, again as per Network pane in dev tools. > What is concerning is that both uBO webext-hybrid and Ghostery report the network request to GA as being blocked, while it is really not as per Network pane in dev tools. It's as if the order to block/redirect the network request was silently ignored by the webRequest API, and this causes webext-based blockers to incorrectly and misleadingly report to users what is really happening internally, GA was not really blocked on about:addons, but there is no way for the webext blockers to know this and report properly to users. https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785#issuecomment-314807534 https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785#issue...
- agrahul 9y ago
  The issue you linked is specific to the `about:` pseudo-protocol. uBO's WebExtensions version works as intended on the web.
  - kasabali 9y ago
    I know that, thanks. I posted it as a real life example of where webextensions are still not as powerful as the so called legacy extensions and wonder if that specific case still applies, is it fixed, planning to be fixed, or are there other specific examples where webextensions fall short.
    - agrahul 9y ago
      Yeah, that specific case wasn't fixed; it appears that Mozilla doesn't intend to let addons run on `about:`. However, they did make `about:` respect DNT by disabling GA. WebExtensions currently fall short when it comes to any addon that modifies the UI significantly (tree-style tabs etc), though it's been mentioned in some other comments here that they're talking to addon devs to extend the API where possible.
inglor 9y ago
As someone who uses WebRTC to deliver real value (I'm an engineer @ Peer5 YC W17) - this abuse of WebRTC is awful. I think WebRTC related tooling should get a lot better - and extensions should be able to hook into WebRTC calls just as easily as they do to regular functions. Websites can just grab a fresh copy of RTCPeerConnection from a different realm anyway (an iFrame in this case) - it looks like uBlock is mostly stuck (unless it prevents sites from opening said realms).
jancsika 9y ago
Couldn't the devtools listener shenanigans be solved merely by putting a "pause" button in the browser chrome (possibly through an extension)? Browsers are already throttling CPU usage when the tab isn't visible, so it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to just throttle to 0 with a toggle. Even better-- have the pause button in devtools window, "pause" by default when you open devtools, and then unpause once something gets mutated/re-layout'd. I guess you'd still need to protect the devtools shortcut key so that any DOM shenanigans are guaranteed to get invoked after the devtools listener. But browsers already have all kinds of crazy edge-cases in the name of security (e.g., no manual triggering of <select> menu). Keeping polymorphic worms from corrupting the devtools state seems rather important by comparison.
yohui 9y ago
> Chromium-based browsers do not support user styles Does anyone know what gorhill means by this? Stylish for Chrome seems to work fine: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylish-custom-themes-for/fjnbnpbmkenffdnngjfgmeleoegfcffe https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylish-custom-the... Am I missing something? (Probably, but what?)
- notatoad 9y ago
  IIRC, stylish for chrome converts userstyles into javascript, and runs the scripts to add inline styles to elements on the page. stylish for firefox changes the page's stylesheet.
  - jrimbault 9y ago
    Last time I checked stylish seemed to insert a link tag in the head linking to the css file. Edit: on Chrome Stylish inserts a <style> tag at the end with the css, it seems stylish insert the css via javascript in Firefox though.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
heja_bruh 9y ago
Firefox 57 made me uninstall chrome finally, the speed improvements are noticeable, servo engine is in and their is no abundance of plugins :)
nachtigall 9y ago
To add to the list: * You can run the uBlock Origin on Firefox for Android: https://addons.mozilla.org/EN-US/android/addon/ublock-origin/ https://addons.mozilla.org/EN-US/android/addon/ublock-origin... Afaik there's no ad-blocking extension for Chrome for Android which I find pretty telling. I'm using Firefox on Android and the ad-blocking (less traffic, less blink-blink animations and less CPU consumption) make mobile browsing a night-day difference
- majani 9y ago
  There's no extensions on Android Chrome, and the reason is simple: if they enable extensions, people will mostly install ad blockers and that's bad for business at Google
  - kingnothing 9y ago
    Google is in the process of allowing some adblocking in Android Chrome. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/04/report-google-will-add-an-ad-blocker-to-all-versions-of-chrome-web-browser/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/04/report-google-will-a...
bad_user 9y ago
After being a Chrome user for several years, I've switched back to Firefox for the past two years or so and I'm really, really happy with it. Latest version does multi-processing, e10s is finally here (though it might still get disabled by usage of certain add-ons, I remember I had to force it to stay enabled). On performance, in the past it felt sluggish, but now Firefox is fast and for my usage patterns it uses less memory than Chrome. And one thing I really love is the Awesome Bar, which is a pain point every single time I open Chrome. I have a lot of websites I need to return to and in Chrome I end up searching on Google far more than I should. I guess that's the biggest difference between Firefox and Chrome, as Mozilla does not feel obligated to shareholders to extract ads clicks from you (although I hope that whatever they do keeps them afloat). Also, tab management. I installed "Tab Center" from the Test Pilot and it's awesome. The experiment is now over unfortunately and the code itself for Tab Center isn't compatible with WebExtensions, but there's work going on to port it and that highlights that Firefox's WebExtensions will be more flexible than Chrome, if they aren't already. But in the end I actually care more about trusting my browser and its maker to protect my interests. I actually trust Google more than I trust other companies, but something feels very wrong for a company to have so much leverage on me. Which is why, as long as I have a choice, I'll always prefer Firefox over Chrome, or Safari, or Edge.
- nothis 9y ago
  You mention tab management. One of the main reasons I like Firefox is due to one, exemplary addon: Tab Mix Plus. It's the kind of tinker-y addon that lets you do almost anything that is typical for Firefox. With ad-blocking especially, I just can't trust Google to be fully supportive. I mean, who are we kidding? It's literally their business model.
- Ntrails 9y ago
  One thing I've been finding lately with firefox is that the Netflix website is abysmally slow. It lags on loading, goes unresponsive a lot etc etc. I've always watched twitch in Chrome (second browser, other screen, works fine) because firefox used to be bad. It's likely that I will start doing the same with Netflix.
OOPMan 9y ago
I tried switching to FF a while back but it didn't take. Right now I'm using Vivaldi.
pawadu 9y ago
I still think Chrome has some advantages. For example you can disable a lot of things like location services in the settings. In Firefox you can decline access to location once a site asks for it but I would rather disable it once and for all if I am setting up a machine for a less tech-savvy person. Also, firefox comes with tons of built in features you cannot disable. In past they have caused security issues (e.g. the pdf.js exploit).
- baby 9y ago
  > the pdf.js exploit Overall having pdf.js is a benefit to internet browsing. Should we not innovate and try to improve our tools just to preserve security?
  - snakeanus 9y ago
    > Overall having pdf.js is a benefit to internet browsing I would doubt it. The experience that pdf.js provides is inferior to dedicated programs like xpdf. > Should we not innovate and try to improve our tools just to preserve security? We should, but we should not make such things like pdf.js unable to be disabled by the user.
    - baby 9y ago
      > I would doubt it. The experience that pdf.js provides is inferior to dedicated programs like xpdf. That's not the point, I open dozens of PDF daily and I don't want to have to switch programs all the time. An integrated light PDF viewer is one of the best new feature of modern browsers. PS: You can set the pdfjs.disabled pref to true on the about:config page to disable the build-in PDF viewer PS2: Not sure this still works.
      - snakeanus 9y ago
        I will admit that I just took pawadu's word for it. I personally had no idea if it is possible to disable pdfjs or not. That being said, I will also agree that it is convenient sometimes but it is much slower and much less compatible than native viewers, making it useless for me about half the time. Still, I see no reason why it needs to be integrated into firefox instead of being just an addon (even if it is installed by default).
fauigerzigerk 9y ago
I would love to use Firefox for it's privacy credibility, the Awesome Bar and to prevent monopolization of the Web. Unfortunately 2017 is the year of the CPU usage apocalypse on the Web. Go to this insane Guardian page, scroll down a page, and observe what happens for a minute or two perhaps scrolling down some more: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/10/adele-vocal-cord-surgery-why-stars-keep-losing-their-voices https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/10/adele-vocal-cor... The numbers keep jumping around a lot, but very roughly what I'm seeing is this: Safari: 2% - 8% Chrome 50% - 150% Firefox 150% - 250% (100% is one CPU core. I'm not using any ad-blockers) Obviously, these numbers are non-deterministic and depend on the individual ads that are being displayed. But the numbers are roughly representative of what I've been seeing over the last couple of months.
- Vinnl 9y ago
  Which version of Firefox is that? It recently became much faster, and is set to see yet another improvement with version 57 (due in three months, I believe).
  - fauigerzigerk 9y ago
    Firefox 54.0.1 on macOS 10.12.6. Firefox says it's up-to-date.
    - robin_reala 9y ago
      57 is Firefox Nightly. They’ve done a lot of performance work in between 54 and 57.
    - dralley 9y ago
      Try nightly. Or even FF 55. There's a huge chasm of difference - they put a huge focus on performance improvement the past couple of development cycles.
    - Vinnl 9y ago
      Alright, that's supposed to already be a lot better (although, as said, it will get even better). You might want to check about:support, and see what it says next to "Multiprocess Windows". If that's disabled, then you won't see the speedups from 54 (and it will usually give a hint about why it's disabled).
RX14 9y ago
I heard somewhere that Firefox's security showing was pretty dismal before they introduces e10s with seccomp-bpf sandboxing. The anecdote I heard was that in "hacking competitions" a Chrome vulnerability was worth a serious hunk of cash, Firefox was worth almost nothing because it was too easy. After sandboxing, Firefox RCEs are worth money again. Does anyone know whether this claim is accurate or misleading? I know I've switched back to Firefox because of it.
- dobin 9y ago
  The claim is correct. The security of IE9+, Edge and Chrome is far superior than Firefox. As Geohot said, writing an exploit for Firefox is similar to a harder CTF challenge (done in an day or two). While IE or Chrome Exploits cost a lot. I can back it up with references, but https://www.zerodium.com/program.html https://www.zerodium.com/program.html shows a pretty clear picture (Scroll down to Payout Ranges). It will take FF like 3-5 years until they have a sandbox as good as the other Browsers, sadly.
  - RX14 9y ago
    I was viewing https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox and it appears that Firefox on Linux now has some kind of sandboxing. I presume it's not as good as Chrome but I'm sure it's raised the security level significantly. Realistically, how much danger am I in by using Firefox?
baby 9y ago
Related: Can we have Tree Style Tabs implemented by default in Firefox?
- NoGravitas 9y ago
  Currently, there aren't even the APIs needed by Tree Style Tabs in WebExtensions. That's likely to change, but not until after Firefox 57.
  - baby 9y ago
    That's why I wish they would implement it as a default function of Firefox, not as an extension.
f4rker 9y ago
I've dev'd for both Chrome and FF and Chrome is worlds better. FF was a major headache to submit / manage my addon for. I've tried to go back to FF several times, I want to go back. But it's too slow, it's too shit, the UI sucks, and the company is focused on BS like "VR web sites" (lol?) instead of fixing their broken BS. FF market share is pathetically low because millions of people know the truth. These people who say FF is fast? WTF system do you run? Ive tried on 2x hardware Windows and Linux. I've tried the dev multi thread. It all still sucks. The FF addon market sucks too. Chrome has far far more addons.
tmaly 9y ago
I was really impressed that ublock origin worked on mobile firefox on android. I recently switched to an iphone, but sadly, the ios version of Firefox does not support the extensions.
ckarlof 9y ago
Tab Center Redux that is WebExtensions compatible: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-center-redux/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-center-re...
Cryptoboss 9y ago
I know this is completely off-topic, but that might just be the worst format for support that I've ever seen. Why bother with topics when you can just mash every single thread of conversation together into a giant wall? And it looks like you can track quotes back to original post, but not the other way round? So good luck following a conversation where time flows backwards I guess...
Cryptoholic 9y ago
An interesting quote from Hill, from the article linked to: > It baffles me that some people thinks Firefox is becoming a “Chrome clone”, it’s just not the case, it’s just plain silly to make such statement. He lists several ways in which FF is better, from a security standpoint.

776 points by nachtigall 9y ago

penpapersw 9y ago

Huh. These actually sound like good arguments to switch to Firefox, arguments I've never heard before until now.

zozos 9y ago
I moved to firefox once 57 was released on nightly. Firefox is finally usable (in terms of speed) again and I can use it for day to day tasks.
- jacquesm 9y ago
  I think I qualify as a poweruser by some standards, I tend to have 100's of tabs open and I've never left Firefox for speed reasons or others because it has held up extremely well over the years. My machine has a lot of RAM so maybe that's one reason things have been quick, and the main drive is an SSD. Is there anything specific about the 57 release that makes you feel caused the speed bottle-neck to disappear?
  - ohthehugemanate 9y ago
    57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine. Broay this is because quantum is much further along in nightly than on the other channels. Specifically, they're more aggressive with multithreaded settings, multiprocess is enabled, and the quantum css component is turned on, too. Is also helps that we compare to chrome. On Linux chrome doesn't even do GPU rendering. So the HN crowd probably has a disproportionately bad experience with it
    - alschwalm 9y ago
      Wait, what? I know that hw accelerated video decoding is generally not available on linux chrome, but I'm pretty sure that lots of other things are. From my chrome://gpu Canvas: Hardware accelerated CheckerImaging: Disabled Flash: Hardware accelerated Flash Stage3D: Hardware accelerated Flash Stage3D Baseline profile: Hardware accelerated Compositing: Hardware accelerated Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled Native GpuMemoryBuffers: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled Rasterization: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled Video Decode: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable Video Encode: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable WebGL: Hardware accelerated WebGL2: Hardware accelerated But this is with an integrated GPU, so maybe things are different for discrete cards.
    - nvarsj 9y ago
      Firefox has always been unbearably slow on Linux for me. It's the main reason I swapped to Chrome in the first place. I tried switching back to Firefox about 6 months ago, same problem of extremely slow and laggy UI. Interesting to hear 57 is faster now, it may be worth trying again.
      - djsumdog 9y ago
        Same here, it's why I switched to Vivaldi. I had to restart Firefox every day or so and it still lagged. I've read the other recent post on here that shows 100+ tabs has almost no startup burden in FF57 compared to previous builds. I should try it again.
      - ac29 9y ago
        Go to about:config and set layers.acceleration.force-enabled to true. Made a dramatic difference for me in Linux using a Intel iGPU. You can check the acceleration status in about:support, look at HW_COMPOSITING and OPENGL_COMPOSITING.
      - JoshTriplett 9y ago
        Do you have any extensions installed? Have you tried using a fresh profile, just to narrow the possible variables? If you've checked both of those things, and you can characterize the slowness in the context of specific operations (e.g. what "laggy" means, precisely), then I'd recommend filing a bug and working with the developers to track down the problem. Because that is not normal.
        fmoralesc 9y ago
        Also, current Firefox has `about:performance`, where you can diagnose what addons and tabs can be slowing down the browser. It's quite neat. I just refreshed my profile and performance improved immensely.
      - cpeterso 9y ago
        Firefox 57 should be a much, much improved experience. e10s with multiple processes started rolling out to users in Firefox 54 and tons of small performance issues have been fixed in 55-57. On Linux, manually enabling GPU acceleration as user ac29 describes below can a big difference. Unfortunately, a lot of Linux GPU drivers have issues that prevent acceleration from being enabled by default for some users.
    - Barrin92 9y ago
      > 57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine. I thought you were overstating it but I just tried it out and you're right, it's crazy fast.
    - saghm 9y ago
      > 57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine As others have said here, I just installed Firefox Nightly after reading this, and you're 100% correct. I think it might even be faster than Chromium for me.
  - ohthehugemanate 9y ago
    57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine. Broay this is because quantum is much further along in nightly than on the other channels. Specifically, they're more aggressive with multithreaded settings, multiprocess is enabled, and the quantum css component is turned on, too. Is also helps that we compare to chrome. On Linux chrome doesn't even do GPU rendering. So the HN crowd probably has a disproportionately bad experience with it
  - forapurpose 9y ago
    Here's an in-depth article on Firefox 57 and all the big changes: https://www.cnet.com/special-reports/mozilla-firefox-fights-back-against-google-chrome/ https://www.cnet.com/special-reports/mozilla-firefox-fights-...
    - tciecka 9y ago
      This article is good but the annoying div that covers your mobile browser when you are in landscape, is not!
      - jhasse 9y ago
        OMG. Why do they do that?
    - unexistance 9y ago
      has cnet always been this bad? I mean you need JS to read the thing and the whole article is on a floating div?
- overcast 9y ago
  How has the nightly been for you in terms of stability? Been thinking of switching to it from beta. The memory issues on MacOS are killing me, and I believe there are fixes in nightly now.
  - kibwen 9y ago
    IME, desktop nightly hasn't ever outright crashed (less lucky with mobile nightly). Sometimes I notice minor rendering glitches on various sites, but I also have Servo's CSS engine enabled which might be doing it (it's not yet the default).
    - overcast 9y ago
      Yeh it doesn't crash for me, it just chews up memory until it's unusable. SO far so go though. We'll see how it last through the night.
    - littlestymaar 9y ago
      Well, it used to crash a lot at some point : when e10s was first activated by default in Nightly (in 2013 IIRC) it crashed several times a day. I stopped using nightly for a year afterwards.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  I may have to try Firefox again once 57 is in portage. A few months back I switched to Vivaldi, begrudgingly. I really liked Firefox, but the speed issues were becoming unbearable. Vivaldi has been a lot faster and mostly an alright experience, and I've watched many of the issues I've found for it get addresses in recent builds. Still there are many things I miss about Firefox, not to mention supporting that community and the browser I've used for well over a decade (including back when it was Phoenix, the original Mozilla and the old Netscape 6 that proceeded them).
- nsm 9y ago
  For those who don't notice the speed, multiprocess may be disabled due to certain addons. Go to about:support to check if it enabled. The addon compatibility checker addon can tell you which are the offending addons. For me 1password was the big blocker, but they recently released a beta that works with the new API. Sorry for the lack of links, I'm on mobile.
  - inferiorhuman 9y ago
    Oh interesting. Firefox still seems slow and a bit of a memory hog compared to Chrome on my machine. Sure enough I checked and three add-ons are marked as legacy (and presumably disabled the multiprocess stuff): uBlock Origin, Websocket Disabler, and NoScript.
    - foepys 9y ago
      At least uBlock Origin is compatible with multi-processes. I'm using it right now. Firefox 55 marks classic extensions as legacy, this has nothing to do with multi-process comparability.
      - nsm 9y ago
        Yep, not legacy, but "not compatible with multiprocess" is what it should show for offending addons.
        inferiorhuman 9y ago
        Well, how can one determine which addons are multi-process compatible?
        Vinnl 9y ago
        https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-on-compatibility-reporter/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-on-compat... Then Ctrl+Shift+A.
INTPenis 9y ago
One thing I learned several years ago when I decided to jump on the bandwagon and try Chrome was that Chrome was unable to safely block javascript the way NoScript does because the plugin framework doesn't allow a plugin to block Javascript before it's loaded. So all the noscript equivalent for Chrome could offer was to block Javascript after it had loaded. Which seemed unreal and pointless. So I stayed on Firefox. Because I've been convinced for many years now that Javascript plays a major role in malware delivery through the browser. And along with email the browser is the major delivery platform for malware.
- user5994461 9y ago
  NoScript block all three: javascript, java and flash. Javascript can be used to deliver/encode/decode exploit payload. Usually the exploit itself is java or flash. At least, that's what I noticed for the zero day RCE that made it up to the first page of Google.
- uwu 9y ago
  chrome has a setting to block scripts and it lets you add exceptions for sites it's also easy to access: http://cdn2.ubergizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/site-info-bubble.jpg http://cdn2.ubergizmo.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/site-in... i wish firefox came with something similar
  - bo1024 9y ago
    The advantage of Firefox's NoScript plugin is that it can be selective. Say you randomly visit a site and want to temporarily allow the javascript it uses to do its thing, but you don't want to allow any other javascript on the page such as facebook's and google's. The built-in chrome javascript blocker doesn't let you pick and choose temporary permissions at that moment.
    - jamiek88 9y ago
      I didn't know the firefox version could do that, it's something I've wanted for sometime.

adrianlmm 9y ago

I use Edge and looks like is blocking everything w/o problems.

Aissen 9y ago

> I am not aware of any anti-fingerprinting initiative taken up with Chromium Brave is Chromium-based and has anti-fingerprinting tech (which it was the first to include IIRC): https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/wiki/Fingerprinting-Protection-Mode https://github.com/brave/browser-laptop/wiki/Fingerprinting-... It also works on Brave for Android.

mccr8 9y ago
The Tor Browser has some kind of antifingerprinting stuff in it. I don't know how it compares to what Brave does.
- Aissen 9y ago
  Indeed, I remembered wrong. I think it was bcrypt who implemented it in both Tor Browser and Brave.
- confounded 9y ago
  Many of the Tor project's anti-fingerprinting measures are gradually being merged into mainline Firefox.
JohnTHaller 9y ago
Unfortunately Brave doesn't have extensions and won't let you restore some settings from backup or transfer them to another PC, so it's not really a complete browser for most techies the way we think of Chrome and Firefox. Note that the settings loss thing is an issue (ehem "feature") with Chrome/Chromium itself and not specific to Brave on Windows builds.
xeromal 9y ago
I'm using Brave atm, but I'm about to give it up. The tabs frequently freeze and I can only hover over them to preview. I can't click on them. Adding a bookmark takes about a minute. Brave won't remember BASIC passwords General sluggishness Kickass Torrents is able to launch ads when clicking in the search box.
- 9y ago

AdmiralAsshat 9y ago

> It baffles me that some people thinks Firefox is becoming a “Chrome clone”, it’s just not the case, it’s just plain silly to make such statement. That's probably the single most reassuring statement about Firefox that I've heard in some time, coming from a serious dev who makes a popular cross-platform addon for both Firefox and Chrome.

homero 9y ago
What do you think of Opera becoming Chrome?
- msla 9y ago
  I don't know. I haven't used Opera since the 1990s. I fully expect most people will share my view.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    most people will say "What's Opera?"
    - msla 9y ago
      Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit!
  - nvr219 9y ago
    Man I remember when Opera was THE one to use
- unexistance 9y ago
  does not matter, happily 'stuck' using 12.x series :D
- mtgx 9y ago
  I think I preferred it, but what killed Opera for me was being bought by a Chinese company + seeing what that company did to Opera Max (which I thought was a "killer app" before the acquisition).

yborg 9y ago

I found this disturbing: "Chromium-based browsers are being “infested” by Instart Logic tech which works around blockers and worst, around browser privacy settings (they may start “infecting” Firefox eventually, but that is not happening now)." From his linked post: "Instart Logic will detect when the developer console opens, and cleanup everything then to hide what it does" Is this implemented via a CDN-delivered script? Why would Chromium-based browsers be more susceptible?

MichaelGG 9y ago
And he has a list of sites that use WebRTC to get around blocking. Didn't Firefox or someone say they'd reconsider auto-enabling WebRTC if this practise became widespread?
forapurpose 9y ago
Also: > The purpose of Instart Logic technology is to disguise 3rd-party requests as 1st-party requests, thus bypassing content blockers, and even the ability of browsers to block 3rd-party cookies (because they are stored as 1st-party cookies): https://github.com/gorhill/uBO-Extra/wiki/Sites-on-which-uBO-Extra-is-useful#instart-logic https://github.com/gorhill/uBO-Extra/wiki/Sites-on-which-uBO...
- albertgoeswoof 9y ago
  How exactly does this work? The link mentions that it detects when Dev tools are opened and changes something?
  - milcron 9y ago
    Here are a few suggestions https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7798748/find-out-whether-chrome-console-is-open https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7798748/find-out-whether...
    - hathawsh 9y ago
      Wow, the 'id' getter strategy is devious and effective on Chrome. https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7798748/find-out-whether-chrome-console-is-open/30638226#30638226 https://stackoverflow.com/questions/7798748/find-out-whether...

NormenKD 9y ago

I am considering going back to FF, but it seems FIDO U2F still isn't done completely and the U2F Extension for FF is not working anymore since the WebExtension switch. Please correct me if missed something, but i think i have to hold off for a little bit longer.

cakeface 9y ago
That is my understanding as well. I haven't been able to get my U2F working on recent Firefox builds. It's such a shame because I really want to use U2F instead of an authenticator app. I have like 20 different sites in there and finding the right number always takes me a minute or two. Also Google Hangouts and Meet do not work.
- bugmen0t 9y ago
  meet worked well for me the other day on Firefox Nightly (57)
- floatboth 9y ago
  Google literally checks for Chrome >_< On GitHub, U2F works with the Firefox addon https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/u2f-support-add-on/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/u2f-support-a...
asadotzler 9y ago
The current plan has U2F shipping as soon as Firefox 57.
coffee-- 9y ago
Just today someone posted that they're about to get U2F in the main browser: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1245527 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1245527
- coffee-- 9y ago
  Actually, here's the U2F patch https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1388843 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1388843

albertgoeswoof 9y ago

Firefox is coming back, finally- I think their market share is at the bottom and we'll see a big uptake over the next couple of years.

alt2501 9y ago
Here's hoping! We need a privacy oriented browser that's kickass for dev work as well.
vvpan 9y ago
Bold statement!
transposed 9y ago
Pay attention to this project and volunteer if you wish - https://voice.mozilla.org/ https://voice.mozilla.org/ - it may be a big thing for Mozilla
482794793792894 9y ago
Market share has already been on the rise again since Firefox 48, which was the release that shipped the separation of the UI and content in two processes. People here probably didn't notice right away, since you pretty much had to have no extensions installed for a long time for it to be enabled, but casual users seem to have noticed...
f311a 9y ago
Market share has nothing to do with features/functionality. Google has the ability to promote their products to the big audience.

pmoriarty 9y ago

I've been really disappointed with the direction Firefox has been moving since they decided to make changes that would permanently break some of their most powerful and useful extensions, like Pentadactyl.

syshum 9y ago

Web/browser Extensions is a terrible standard is it EXTREMELY limiting for power users. While that my not impact a ad blocker, there are countless extensions that can not work with Web Extensions and will make Chrome err sorry Firefox far less appealing to people. For me, more than a few of the extensions I use regularly are not compatible with Web Extensions, and a few of them that are critical to my productivity are in limbo still That is the Source of the "Chrome Clone". The switch to Web Extensions is hated by many many firefox power users. Sadly they feel the users that have stuck around all of these years, that did not abandoned them for Chrome are worthless, and have chosen to attempt to attract those users that did abandon FF for Chrome back. They are doing this by making a browser that is unappealing to me (and many others actual FF users, not Chrome Users who are the most vocal proponents of Firefox's current direction), a user that has been a FF loyalist since FF version 1. I am not 100% sure I will switch to another browser, the options are very thin these days but it will be a sad day for me when FF57 is all that is left

zeep 9y ago
Do you have one example of such extension that won't work with web extensions?
- syshum 9y ago
  TreeStyleTabs
  - kibwen 9y ago
    I've seen people recommend this as a WebExtension-compatible replacement for TreeStyle Tabs, though I can't vouch for it myself: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-tabs/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-tabs/
    - syshum 9y ago
      It is no where near the same and has the same failing of the Chrome Vertical Tab Solutions like https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-side-tabs/hlnbneddcecehdhdfbbcifjpfpfdocaj?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/chrome-side-tabs/h... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vtabs/okpnlgbgcfchbicbhjmmhldhkbkfilce?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/vtabs/okpnlgbgcfch... It is not part of the UI part of the browser like the XUL TreeStyleTabs but a separate Panel that ends up being buggy and feeling separate from the experience almost like managing your tabs from a separate window

williamle8300 9y ago

Doesn't PrivacyBadger^1 solve the fingerprinting problem? [1] https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger

mnarayan01 9y ago

> It baffles me that some people thinks Firefox is becoming a “Chrome clone”, it’s just not the case, it’s just plain silly to make such statement. If you use a much narrower definition of "clone" than is typically used in this context, then sure. If, however, you use "clone" a bit more flexibly, and note the word "becoming", then it's a different story. That's not to say that Firefox won't be better than Chrome, and it's certainly not to say that it won't have any advantages over Chrome, but it is giving up some of its major current advantages.

Hasknewbie 9y ago

Slightly OT: is that what a 'Discourse' page looks like? It's pretty awful: it will automatically update the URL as you scroll past each post in any direction, while breaking the Back button, so good luck getting back to the original post, since neither clicking on Back nor reloading the page will get you there. Basic UX failure.

eridius 9y ago
What browser are you using? Because when I scroll on that page and the URL changes, it doesn't affect my Back stack (this is in Safari).
- zymhan 9y ago
  That's the behavior I see using Firefox.
- Hasknewbie 9y ago
  Using Firefox for Android. I can't not notice the irony that this is happening with FF on the mozilla.org Web site.
littlestymaar 9y ago
It looks like a feature to me : this way when you copy the address it links directly to the right comment. Of course this comes at the expense of a working back button.
- SaladFork 9y ago
  The page is using Location.replace[0] to update the URL and replaces the current history entry without affecting back/forward behavior on pretty much any browser. The one downside is that the URL may no longer point to the comment you were originally linked to. [0] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Location/replace https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Location/re...

wyc 9y ago

Keep in mind that it's not within Google's incentives to facilitate ad-blocking and prevention of tracking. After all, that's where the lion's share of their revenue comes from. However, Mozilla is free to actively support such efforts.

fabrice_d 9y ago
If that was that clear cut, they would ship tracking protection enabled by default, not just in Private Browsing mode. The default configuration of Safari is actually protecting you better than Firefox's and most users don't have an ad blocker installed.
- wyc 9y ago
  Good point. Mozilla made most of their money from Google, and other advertisers, iirc. "More free" might've been prudent. You make a good observation about Safari too. Apple doesn't make much money from advertising--they still sell hardware. They can provide privacy to users at little expense to their core business.
  - 482794793792894 9y ago
    > Mozilla made most of their money from Google, and other advertisers, iirc. The much bigger problem is webpage owners which lose almost all incentive to support Firefox, if it blocks their ads. You'd have broken webpages all over the place.
- chinhodado 9y ago
  Just like in IE/Edge, the "Do not track" setting used to be enabled by default, then it became disabled by default, and for good reason. The argument is, if it is enabled by default, sites will not bothered to support it since it was not something that the user turned on explicitly and was aware of.
  - AndrewCHM 9y ago
    Tracking Protection isn't Do Not Track. Tracking Protection in Firefox blocks web trackers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-pbm https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/tracking-protection-pbm

kasabali 9y ago

uBlock Origin on Firefox would be more powerful than uBlock Origin on Chrome, but does it mean that uBlock Origin webextension on Firefox will be as powerful as uBlock Origin "legacy" Firefox extension ? This is a post of gorhill from the last months Firefox - Google Analytics fiasco: > Legacy uBlock Origin can block the network request to GA. > However webext-hybrid uBO as per Network pane in dev tools does not block it. Same for pure webext Ghostery, the network request to GA was not blocked, again as per Network pane in dev tools. > What is concerning is that both uBO webext-hybrid and Ghostery report the network request to GA as being blocked, while it is really not as per Network pane in dev tools. It's as if the order to block/redirect the network request was silently ignored by the webRequest API, and this causes webext-based blockers to incorrectly and misleadingly report to users what is really happening internally, GA was not really blocked on about:addons, but there is no way for the webext blockers to know this and report properly to users. https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785#issuecomment-314807534 https://github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend/issues/2785#issue...

agrahul 9y ago
The issue you linked is specific to the `about:` pseudo-protocol. uBO's WebExtensions version works as intended on the web.
- kasabali 9y ago
  I know that, thanks. I posted it as a real life example of where webextensions are still not as powerful as the so called legacy extensions and wonder if that specific case still applies, is it fixed, planning to be fixed, or are there other specific examples where webextensions fall short.
  - agrahul 9y ago
    Yeah, that specific case wasn't fixed; it appears that Mozilla doesn't intend to let addons run on `about:`. However, they did make `about:` respect DNT by disabling GA. WebExtensions currently fall short when it comes to any addon that modifies the UI significantly (tree-style tabs etc), though it's been mentioned in some other comments here that they're talking to addon devs to extend the API where possible.

inglor 9y ago

As someone who uses WebRTC to deliver real value (I'm an engineer @ Peer5 YC W17) - this abuse of WebRTC is awful. I think WebRTC related tooling should get a lot better - and extensions should be able to hook into WebRTC calls just as easily as they do to regular functions. Websites can just grab a fresh copy of RTCPeerConnection from a different realm anyway (an iFrame in this case) - it looks like uBlock is mostly stuck (unless it prevents sites from opening said realms).

jancsika 9y ago

Couldn't the devtools listener shenanigans be solved merely by putting a "pause" button in the browser chrome (possibly through an extension)? Browsers are already throttling CPU usage when the tab isn't visible, so it doesn't seem like it would be too difficult to just throttle to 0 with a toggle. Even better-- have the pause button in devtools window, "pause" by default when you open devtools, and then unpause once something gets mutated/re-layout'd. I guess you'd still need to protect the devtools shortcut key so that any DOM shenanigans are guaranteed to get invoked after the devtools listener. But browsers already have all kinds of crazy edge-cases in the name of security (e.g., no manual triggering of <select> menu). Keeping polymorphic worms from corrupting the devtools state seems rather important by comparison.

yohui 9y ago

> Chromium-based browsers do not support user styles Does anyone know what gorhill means by this? Stylish for Chrome seems to work fine: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylish-custom-themes-for/fjnbnpbmkenffdnngjfgmeleoegfcffe https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/stylish-custom-the... Am I missing something? (Probably, but what?)

notatoad 9y ago
IIRC, stylish for chrome converts userstyles into javascript, and runs the scripts to add inline styles to elements on the page. stylish for firefox changes the page's stylesheet.
- jrimbault 9y ago
  Last time I checked stylish seemed to insert a link tag in the head linking to the css file. Edit: on Chrome Stylish inserts a <style> tag at the end with the css, it seems stylish insert the css via javascript in Firefox though.
deleted 9y ago
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heja_bruh 9y ago

Firefox 57 made me uninstall chrome finally, the speed improvements are noticeable, servo engine is in and their is no abundance of plugins :)

nachtigall 9y ago

To add to the list: * You can run the uBlock Origin on Firefox for Android: https://addons.mozilla.org/EN-US/android/addon/ublock-origin/ https://addons.mozilla.org/EN-US/android/addon/ublock-origin... Afaik there's no ad-blocking extension for Chrome for Android which I find pretty telling. I'm using Firefox on Android and the ad-blocking (less traffic, less blink-blink animations and less CPU consumption) make mobile browsing a night-day difference

majani 9y ago
There's no extensions on Android Chrome, and the reason is simple: if they enable extensions, people will mostly install ad blockers and that's bad for business at Google
- kingnothing 9y ago
  Google is in the process of allowing some adblocking in Android Chrome. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/04/report-google-will-add-an-ad-blocker-to-all-versions-of-chrome-web-browser/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/04/report-google-will-a...

bad_user 9y ago

After being a Chrome user for several years, I've switched back to Firefox for the past two years or so and I'm really, really happy with it. Latest version does multi-processing, e10s is finally here (though it might still get disabled by usage of certain add-ons, I remember I had to force it to stay enabled). On performance, in the past it felt sluggish, but now Firefox is fast and for my usage patterns it uses less memory than Chrome. And one thing I really love is the Awesome Bar, which is a pain point every single time I open Chrome. I have a lot of websites I need to return to and in Chrome I end up searching on Google far more than I should. I guess that's the biggest difference between Firefox and Chrome, as Mozilla does not feel obligated to shareholders to extract ads clicks from you (although I hope that whatever they do keeps them afloat). Also, tab management. I installed "Tab Center" from the Test Pilot and it's awesome. The experiment is now over unfortunately and the code itself for Tab Center isn't compatible with WebExtensions, but there's work going on to port it and that highlights that Firefox's WebExtensions will be more flexible than Chrome, if they aren't already. But in the end I actually care more about trusting my browser and its maker to protect my interests. I actually trust Google more than I trust other companies, but something feels very wrong for a company to have so much leverage on me. Which is why, as long as I have a choice, I'll always prefer Firefox over Chrome, or Safari, or Edge.

nothis 9y ago
You mention tab management. One of the main reasons I like Firefox is due to one, exemplary addon: Tab Mix Plus. It's the kind of tinker-y addon that lets you do almost anything that is typical for Firefox. With ad-blocking especially, I just can't trust Google to be fully supportive. I mean, who are we kidding? It's literally their business model.
Ntrails 9y ago
One thing I've been finding lately with firefox is that the Netflix website is abysmally slow. It lags on loading, goes unresponsive a lot etc etc. I've always watched twitch in Chrome (second browser, other screen, works fine) because firefox used to be bad. It's likely that I will start doing the same with Netflix.

OOPMan 9y ago

I tried switching to FF a while back but it didn't take. Right now I'm using Vivaldi.

pawadu 9y ago

I still think Chrome has some advantages. For example you can disable a lot of things like location services in the settings. In Firefox you can decline access to location once a site asks for it but I would rather disable it once and for all if I am setting up a machine for a less tech-savvy person. Also, firefox comes with tons of built in features you cannot disable. In past they have caused security issues (e.g. the pdf.js exploit).

baby 9y ago
> the pdf.js exploit Overall having pdf.js is a benefit to internet browsing. Should we not innovate and try to improve our tools just to preserve security?
- snakeanus 9y ago
  > Overall having pdf.js is a benefit to internet browsing I would doubt it. The experience that pdf.js provides is inferior to dedicated programs like xpdf. > Should we not innovate and try to improve our tools just to preserve security? We should, but we should not make such things like pdf.js unable to be disabled by the user.
  - baby 9y ago
    > I would doubt it. The experience that pdf.js provides is inferior to dedicated programs like xpdf. That's not the point, I open dozens of PDF daily and I don't want to have to switch programs all the time. An integrated light PDF viewer is one of the best new feature of modern browsers. PS: You can set the pdfjs.disabled pref to true on the about:config page to disable the build-in PDF viewer PS2: Not sure this still works.
    - snakeanus 9y ago
      I will admit that I just took pawadu's word for it. I personally had no idea if it is possible to disable pdfjs or not. That being said, I will also agree that it is convenient sometimes but it is much slower and much less compatible than native viewers, making it useless for me about half the time. Still, I see no reason why it needs to be integrated into firefox instead of being just an addon (even if it is installed by default).

fauigerzigerk 9y ago

I would love to use Firefox for it's privacy credibility, the Awesome Bar and to prevent monopolization of the Web. Unfortunately 2017 is the year of the CPU usage apocalypse on the Web. Go to this insane Guardian page, scroll down a page, and observe what happens for a minute or two perhaps scrolling down some more: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/10/adele-vocal-cord-surgery-why-stars-keep-losing-their-voices https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/aug/10/adele-vocal-cor... The numbers keep jumping around a lot, but very roughly what I'm seeing is this: Safari: 2% - 8% Chrome 50% - 150% Firefox 150% - 250% (100% is one CPU core. I'm not using any ad-blockers) Obviously, these numbers are non-deterministic and depend on the individual ads that are being displayed. But the numbers are roughly representative of what I've been seeing over the last couple of months.

Vinnl 9y ago
Which version of Firefox is that? It recently became much faster, and is set to see yet another improvement with version 57 (due in three months, I believe).
- fauigerzigerk 9y ago
  Firefox 54.0.1 on macOS 10.12.6. Firefox says it's up-to-date.
  - robin_reala 9y ago
    57 is Firefox Nightly. They’ve done a lot of performance work in between 54 and 57.
  - dralley 9y ago
    Try nightly. Or even FF 55. There's a huge chasm of difference - they put a huge focus on performance improvement the past couple of development cycles.
  - Vinnl 9y ago
    Alright, that's supposed to already be a lot better (although, as said, it will get even better). You might want to check about:support, and see what it says next to "Multiprocess Windows". If that's disabled, then you won't see the speedups from 54 (and it will usually give a hint about why it's disabled).

RX14 9y ago

I heard somewhere that Firefox's security showing was pretty dismal before they introduces e10s with seccomp-bpf sandboxing. The anecdote I heard was that in "hacking competitions" a Chrome vulnerability was worth a serious hunk of cash, Firefox was worth almost nothing because it was too easy. After sandboxing, Firefox RCEs are worth money again. Does anyone know whether this claim is accurate or misleading? I know I've switched back to Firefox because of it.

dobin 9y ago
The claim is correct. The security of IE9+, Edge and Chrome is far superior than Firefox. As Geohot said, writing an exploit for Firefox is similar to a harder CTF challenge (done in an day or two). While IE or Chrome Exploits cost a lot. I can back it up with references, but https://www.zerodium.com/program.html https://www.zerodium.com/program.html shows a pretty clear picture (Scroll down to Payout Ranges). It will take FF like 3-5 years until they have a sandbox as good as the other Browsers, sadly.
- RX14 9y ago
  I was viewing https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Sandbox and it appears that Firefox on Linux now has some kind of sandboxing. I presume it's not as good as Chrome but I'm sure it's raised the security level significantly. Realistically, how much danger am I in by using Firefox?

baby 9y ago

Related: Can we have Tree Style Tabs implemented by default in Firefox?

NoGravitas 9y ago
Currently, there aren't even the APIs needed by Tree Style Tabs in WebExtensions. That's likely to change, but not until after Firefox 57.
- baby 9y ago
  That's why I wish they would implement it as a default function of Firefox, not as an extension.

f4rker 9y ago

I've dev'd for both Chrome and FF and Chrome is worlds better. FF was a major headache to submit / manage my addon for. I've tried to go back to FF several times, I want to go back. But it's too slow, it's too shit, the UI sucks, and the company is focused on BS like "VR web sites" (lol?) instead of fixing their broken BS. FF market share is pathetically low because millions of people know the truth. These people who say FF is fast? WTF system do you run? Ive tried on 2x hardware Windows and Linux. I've tried the dev multi thread. It all still sucks. The FF addon market sucks too. Chrome has far far more addons.

tmaly 9y ago

I was really impressed that ublock origin worked on mobile firefox on android. I recently switched to an iphone, but sadly, the ios version of Firefox does not support the extensions.

ckarlof 9y ago

Tab Center Redux that is WebExtensions compatible: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-center-redux/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-center-re...

Cryptoboss 9y ago

I know this is completely off-topic, but that might just be the worst format for support that I've ever seen. Why bother with topics when you can just mash every single thread of conversation together into a giant wall? And it looks like you can track quotes back to original post, but not the other way round? So good luck following a conversation where time flows backwards I guess...

Cryptoholic 9y ago

An interesting quote from Hill, from the article linked to: > It baffles me that some people thinks Firefox is becoming a “Chrome clone”, it’s just not the case, it’s just plain silly to make such statement. He lists several ways in which FF is better, from a security standpoint.