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Firefox has definitely been getting better over the past year or two. I've always used Firefox, since Chrome doesn't have the ability to scroll through tabs, t

Firefox has definitely been getting better over the past year or two. I've always used Firefox, since Chrome doesn't have the ability to scroll through tabs, they just get smaller and smaller on the tab bar. I've never understood why the feature hasn't been added, it seems pretty minor. Firefox also lazy loads existing tabs on startup. Anyway, for a while, around 2011-2012, Firefox had terrible memory and stability issues. It's good that they've largely been fixed. Firefox is the most extensible and free browser, I'm surprised more tech people don't use it, considering the tech communities love for power and the ability to customise things.

dingo_bat 9y ago
> I'm surprised more tech people don't use it, considering the tech communities love for power and the ability to customise things. I used to be pretty fanatical about Firefox. But when it got so slow that simple scrolling started dropping frames, I had to switch.
- bjz_ 9y ago
  Thankfully Quantum is silky smooth (been using it on the Nightlies and now the web developer edition).
- Siecje 9y ago
  That is because of smooth scrolling. I had to reduce the time for smooth scrolling to complete. I forget the key I modified in about:config.
  - Sylos 9y ago
    Some people do perceive smooth scrolling as annoying, but for the most part what he's referring to was because of JavaScript ScrollEventHandlers being run in between the user moving their mouse wheel and the page actually scrolling. This was fixed with Asynchronous Panning and Zooming (APZ) which moves the webpage and runs the ScrollEvents in parallel on different processes.
- m_st 9y ago
  Consider giving it a try again with the Firefox Beta (or wait for 57 final next week). I switched back from Chrome.
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    Already switched to quantum nightly about a month ago :)
- bwat49 9y ago
  When was the last time you used firefox? There's been a ton of improvements in this area in the past few years (off the main thread compositing, async pan/zoom, e10s etc...). Scrolling is now smooth even when pages are loading, or there's activity in other tabs etc... I actually use Firefox over Chrome on my xps 13, mainly because firefox's scrolling is considerably smoother than chrome (only beaten out by Edge)
nachtigall 9y ago
> since Chrome doesn't have the ability to scroll through tabs How can you scroll through tabs? What do you mean by this?
- gyaru 9y ago
  Scrolling the mousewheel while hovering the mouse over the tab bar to switch between tabs I guess?
  - swsieber 9y ago
    This. This was the feature I missed most when I moved away from Firefox.
  - BOBOTWINSTON 9y ago
    I have always just used ctrl + pgup/pgdown in Chromium for tab switching (same in Sublime). I am guessing OP is referencing the fixed min-width of the tabs though? I know it is completely insane, but I have a strong compulsion to keep my tab count low. Once it starts approaching 7 or so, it is time to evaluated which 3 or 4 have to go. Meanwhile I go look at someone else's monitor and they have 25 open all the time, and I can recognize some haven't been touched in weeks. I just think to myself "Clean up after yourself. How can you live like this?"
    - thedaemon 9y ago
      I use ctrl+tab and ctrl+shift+tab to cycle tabs. Good to know that there are other options. I also don't see how people have the RAM to have 50 tabs open. If I can't read part of the title of my tab, it's being moved to a new window or closed.
      - terminalcommand 9y ago
        Actually having 50 tabs should not be an issue RAM-wise. The problem is that chrome (and firefox quantum) open many many processes and therefore consume a lot of ram. Quantum is expected to be much better than current Chrome in Ram consumption. Because chromium allegedly opens seperate processes for each tab(?), quantum uses the same process for a couple of tabs and thus allows resource sharing. In a single processed browser, ram is not an issue. I've been using 25+ tabs for many years, only recently in Chrome I experienced a low ram warning (i have 8GB). I switched back to firefox 56.
naasking 9y ago
> I've never understood why the feature hasn't been added, it seems pretty minor. I don't want it. I don't like Firefox's approach, I much prefer the shrinking tabs paradigm.
- callahad 9y ago
  We're also experimenting with making it configurable. You can ratchet down `browser.tabs.tabMinWidth` in `about:config` to pack more tabs in per window.
  - detaro 9y ago
    This has been added back? That'd be awesome news. It existed once, but was removed because of "complexity" and since then the recommended solution was editing userChrome.css manually (or using an extension that did so, but that of course doesn't work in 57+). Still haven't quite tied down what the CSS has to be in recent versions. Here's the bug from back then https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654 (yes, I'm still salty about the attitude in there)
- kibwen 9y ago
  Firefox tabs do shrink. Then, once they get to a width where shrinking any more would start negatively impacting the ability to use the UI, they start to scroll. Until you reach this point, the tab scrolling UI is hidden, so there's no concern for anyone who doesn't use tabs heavily.
  - naasking 9y ago
    > Until you reach this point, the tab scrolling UI is hidden, so there's no concern for anyone who doesn't use tabs heavily. Which is me. :-)
malnourish 9y ago
I would love it if Chrome could enable hiding the tab bar and real panel support for extensions so I could have tree style tabs. I use both browsers in tandem for different things, although primarily Chrome at work.
lordlimecat 9y ago
>Firefox is the most extensible Not after quantum.
- seba_dos1 9y ago
  I think it still is, aside of older versions of itself.
  - jhasse 9y ago
    Only if you consider Pale Moon as "an older version of itself".

dingo_bat 9y ago

> I'm surprised more tech people don't use it, considering the tech communities love for power and the ability to customise things. I used to be pretty fanatical about Firefox. But when it got so slow that simple scrolling started dropping frames, I had to switch.

bjz_ 9y ago
Thankfully Quantum is silky smooth (been using it on the Nightlies and now the web developer edition).
Siecje 9y ago
That is because of smooth scrolling. I had to reduce the time for smooth scrolling to complete. I forget the key I modified in about:config.
- Sylos 9y ago
  Some people do perceive smooth scrolling as annoying, but for the most part what he's referring to was because of JavaScript ScrollEventHandlers being run in between the user moving their mouse wheel and the page actually scrolling. This was fixed with Asynchronous Panning and Zooming (APZ) which moves the webpage and runs the ScrollEvents in parallel on different processes.
m_st 9y ago
Consider giving it a try again with the Firefox Beta (or wait for 57 final next week). I switched back from Chrome.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  Already switched to quantum nightly about a month ago :)
bwat49 9y ago
When was the last time you used firefox? There's been a ton of improvements in this area in the past few years (off the main thread compositing, async pan/zoom, e10s etc...). Scrolling is now smooth even when pages are loading, or there's activity in other tabs etc... I actually use Firefox over Chrome on my xps 13, mainly because firefox's scrolling is considerably smoother than chrome (only beaten out by Edge)

nachtigall 9y ago

> since Chrome doesn't have the ability to scroll through tabs How can you scroll through tabs? What do you mean by this?

gyaru 9y ago
Scrolling the mousewheel while hovering the mouse over the tab bar to switch between tabs I guess?
- swsieber 9y ago
  This. This was the feature I missed most when I moved away from Firefox.
- BOBOTWINSTON 9y ago
  I have always just used ctrl + pgup/pgdown in Chromium for tab switching (same in Sublime). I am guessing OP is referencing the fixed min-width of the tabs though? I know it is completely insane, but I have a strong compulsion to keep my tab count low. Once it starts approaching 7 or so, it is time to evaluated which 3 or 4 have to go. Meanwhile I go look at someone else's monitor and they have 25 open all the time, and I can recognize some haven't been touched in weeks. I just think to myself "Clean up after yourself. How can you live like this?"
  - thedaemon 9y ago
    I use ctrl+tab and ctrl+shift+tab to cycle tabs. Good to know that there are other options. I also don't see how people have the RAM to have 50 tabs open. If I can't read part of the title of my tab, it's being moved to a new window or closed.
    - terminalcommand 9y ago
      Actually having 50 tabs should not be an issue RAM-wise. The problem is that chrome (and firefox quantum) open many many processes and therefore consume a lot of ram. Quantum is expected to be much better than current Chrome in Ram consumption. Because chromium allegedly opens seperate processes for each tab(?), quantum uses the same process for a couple of tabs and thus allows resource sharing. In a single processed browser, ram is not an issue. I've been using 25+ tabs for many years, only recently in Chrome I experienced a low ram warning (i have 8GB). I switched back to firefox 56.

naasking 9y ago

> I've never understood why the feature hasn't been added, it seems pretty minor. I don't want it. I don't like Firefox's approach, I much prefer the shrinking tabs paradigm.

callahad 9y ago
We're also experimenting with making it configurable. You can ratchet down `browser.tabs.tabMinWidth` in `about:config` to pack more tabs in per window.
- detaro 9y ago
  This has been added back? That'd be awesome news. It existed once, but was removed because of "complexity" and since then the recommended solution was editing userChrome.css manually (or using an extension that did so, but that of course doesn't work in 57+). Still haven't quite tied down what the CSS has to be in recent versions. Here's the bug from back then https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=574654 (yes, I'm still salty about the attitude in there)
kibwen 9y ago
Firefox tabs do shrink. Then, once they get to a width where shrinking any more would start negatively impacting the ability to use the UI, they start to scroll. Until you reach this point, the tab scrolling UI is hidden, so there's no concern for anyone who doesn't use tabs heavily.
- naasking 9y ago
  > Until you reach this point, the tab scrolling UI is hidden, so there's no concern for anyone who doesn't use tabs heavily. Which is me. :-)

malnourish 9y ago

I would love it if Chrome could enable hiding the tab bar and real panel support for extensions so I could have tree style tabs. I use both browsers in tandem for different things, although primarily Chrome at work.

lordlimecat 9y ago

>Firefox is the most extensible Not after quantum.

seba_dos1 9y ago
I think it still is, aside of older versions of itself.
- jhasse 9y ago
  Only if you consider Pale Moon as "an older version of itself".