7 ms·

Thanks for the reminder. I just downloaded the latest FF beta and exiled Chrome to an "only when needed" role. All the back-and-forth about speed and features

by tspike 9y ago

Thanks for the reminder. I just downloaded the latest FF beta and exiled Chrome to an "only when needed" role. All the back-and-forth about speed and features is understandable, but misses the point that Firefox needs our support if we are to have any real non-proprietary options for what is quickly becoming the base system abstraction layer for most computing.

Santosh83 9y ago
Indeed this is the main point, and the reason I've stuck with Firefox ever since it launched, despite being rather slow a few years back. This is the only browser engine that is not shaped by major corporate interests. And frankly it has no major downsides as compared to Chrome. The latter only enjoys the market share it does (in my opinion) because of being aggressively pushed on Google.com and being bundled everywhere.
- Kluny 9y ago
  I gave Firefox a try a month or two ago when people started saying it was good again. I think I had a problem with uBlock origin not working well enough - too much crap was getting through. What are people using for adblock?
  - SSLy 9y ago
    uBlock origin with uMatrix
    - jordanb 9y ago
      I use uBlock Origin plus uMatrix but I have to say that it's probably only for people who are really serious about security. It breaks nearly every site by default.
      - nextos 9y ago
        Does uMatrix really give a lot more security on top of uBlock Origin, in exchange for all the inconveniences? I tried several times, but ended up sticking to a sandbox (firejail) + uBlock Origin + HTTPS Everywhere.
        NoGravitas 9y ago
        I wonder this, too. I use uBlock Origin in medium mode (advanced settings available, no third-party scripts or frames until enabled), and it seems to do what's needed. It breaks a lot of things, but also makes it easy to fix them.
      - Technetium 9y ago
        This really depends on the lists that you use in each. Research exactly what you want to block. I personally don't like a few of the lists for that specific reason, they block everything all together, not just tracking pixel domains and things of that nature. There is also an official uBlock Origin Extra extension that I find very handy for blocking websocket garbage. This is becoming more important as websocket connections become more prevalent. https://github.com/gorhill/uBO-Extra/wiki/Sites-on-which-uBO-Extra-is-useful https://github.com/gorhill/uBO-Extra/wiki/Sites-on-which-uBO...
        rrix2 9y ago
        uMatrix doesn't have any predefined lists though, you have to configure each site's matrix on first-visit, and it defaults to deny.
    - dvddgld 9y ago
      You can just run uBlock in medium or hard mode...
  - balajics 9y ago
    Though not a adblocker, Privacy Badger[0] works well as adblocker for me [0] https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
  - mintplant 9y ago
    I think I know what you're referring to, if you were using one of the unstable (beta, nightly, developer edition) channels with Firefox 57. There was a brief period I noticed during which the uBlock Origin WebExtension edition wasn't fully up to par with the old XUL-based version, letting some ads slip through. That's been fixed since then.
  - talonx 9y ago
    AdBlock Plus was working well, until now, when they were forced to change the UI in 3.0 to be compatible with Firefox's new version. Now it is practically unusable.
  - arien 9y ago
    On one of my laptops I downloaded a hosts file with a comprehensive list of advertising hostnames. This was to be able to browse with Edge back when it didn't have extensions and certain ads made it freeze. It was a bit of a pain because I had to go through the whole file to make sure there was nothing dodgy going on. But it did the trick. I thought of making a script that updates that file automatically, but I can't say I've seen any ads on that laptop even without updating the file for months, so hasn't been my first priority.
- isolli 9y ago
  Unfortunately Firefox breaks usability features at notion.so and app.intercom.io, so I still have to use Chrome (on Linux).
jakub_g 9y ago
BTW: if using Android, if FF is not for you, try Brave instead of Chrome. It feels exactly like Chrome (it's Chromium-based), but has a built-in adblocker, tracker blocking, HTTPS everywhere, no nagging to sign in, and does not throw "suggested news" (with no opt-out) upon you. Brave's founder is ex-Mozilla's CEO (Brendan Eich). However latest FF on Android is actually not bad, at least if you have a modern phone (the UI feels slowish though on pre-2016 phones).
- comatose 9y ago
  I use ff on my galaxy s5 and the ui isn't noticibly slow, but I'm on lineageos (cyanogen) and keep apps from running when not needed so ymmv
- leeoniya 9y ago
  i would be using FF on Android if the scrolling was not so crappy. It's pretty terrible :(
  - Drdrdrq 9y ago
    ... <scrolls down and up> ... What do you mean?
    - colanderman 9y ago
      There are two distinct problems I've noticed with FF scrolling vs. Chrome on Android. First is that certain elements block scrolling. I use FF primarily for Facebook (since FF allows me to use my – shameless plug – idle-time faker extension [1]). If my scrolling thumb lands on the "Like" button of a post, the screen just stays put. So about 1/3 of my "scroll" gestures are in vain. Second is that "flinging" motions don't register very well with Firefox. With Chrome, "flinging" sends the web page flying at a predictable speed; with Firefox, it lags for a fraction of a second before scrolling at a random speed which is usually much slower than that in Chrome. It's as if Firefox doesn't register the final thumb flick of a "fling", but Chrome does. Since "flinging" is my primary method of browsing longer web pages, ultimately my thumb has to physically do more work, and gets exhausted more quickly, when using Firefox than Chrome. A third nitpick is that, while (non-flinging) page scrolling keeps up with my thumb, it does so in a jerky manner, like it can't quite keep up with rendering, or it doesn't see all the touch events. Reminds me of an old PDA. In contrast, scrolling in Chrome is very smooth. This looks ugly but I could live with it. It is the first to two issues that prevent me from using Firefox on Android for anything but Facebook. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/social-network-chat-idle/?src=cb-dl-created https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/social-networ...
mtgx 9y ago
FF57 stable is arriving tomorrow. But you can get it from the FTP server today: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/57.0/ https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/57.0/
Ntrails 9y ago
> exiled Chrome to an "only when needed" role It's been my second browser for Twitch and Netflix only for a while now. I'm bit even sure how useful that is anymore if I'm honest as I've not tried them in firefox for a while - but they used to be unusable and I've become accustomed to having another browser for them
- NoGravitas 9y ago
  You don't need Chrome for Netflix anymore; it seems to work fine in current Firefox.
  - Ntrails 9y ago
    I'll try again soon-ish but I was seeing the netflix home page freeze for 5-10 seconds on open and often going unresponsive which is just intolerable tbh
    - SkyMarshal 9y ago
      Was that with FF 57? 57 is a whole new browser, any impression you have that was created with a pre-57 version needs to be re-tested.
ralfn 9y ago
Yeah but for our support we need to start getting in depth with Firefox devtools again. They have features not in chrome and Visa versa. But to blindly switch means taking a productivity penalty, at least temporarily.

by tspike 9y ago

Santosh83 9y ago

Indeed this is the main point, and the reason I've stuck with Firefox ever since it launched, despite being rather slow a few years back. This is the only browser engine that is not shaped by major corporate interests. And frankly it has no major downsides as compared to Chrome. The latter only enjoys the market share it does (in my opinion) because of being aggressively pushed on Google.com and being bundled everywhere.

Kluny 9y ago
I gave Firefox a try a month or two ago when people started saying it was good again. I think I had a problem with uBlock origin not working well enough - too much crap was getting through. What are people using for adblock?
- SSLy 9y ago
  uBlock origin with uMatrix
  - jordanb 9y ago
    I use uBlock Origin plus uMatrix but I have to say that it's probably only for people who are really serious about security. It breaks nearly every site by default.
    - nextos 9y ago
      Does uMatrix really give a lot more security on top of uBlock Origin, in exchange for all the inconveniences? I tried several times, but ended up sticking to a sandbox (firejail) + uBlock Origin + HTTPS Everywhere.
      - NoGravitas 9y ago
        I wonder this, too. I use uBlock Origin in medium mode (advanced settings available, no third-party scripts or frames until enabled), and it seems to do what's needed. It breaks a lot of things, but also makes it easy to fix them.
    - Technetium 9y ago
      This really depends on the lists that you use in each. Research exactly what you want to block. I personally don't like a few of the lists for that specific reason, they block everything all together, not just tracking pixel domains and things of that nature. There is also an official uBlock Origin Extra extension that I find very handy for blocking websocket garbage. This is becoming more important as websocket connections become more prevalent. https://github.com/gorhill/uBO-Extra/wiki/Sites-on-which-uBO-Extra-is-useful https://github.com/gorhill/uBO-Extra/wiki/Sites-on-which-uBO...
      - rrix2 9y ago
        uMatrix doesn't have any predefined lists though, you have to configure each site's matrix on first-visit, and it defaults to deny.
  - dvddgld 9y ago
    You can just run uBlock in medium or hard mode...
- balajics 9y ago
  Though not a adblocker, Privacy Badger[0] works well as adblocker for me [0] https://www.eff.org/privacybadger https://www.eff.org/privacybadger
- mintplant 9y ago
  I think I know what you're referring to, if you were using one of the unstable (beta, nightly, developer edition) channels with Firefox 57. There was a brief period I noticed during which the uBlock Origin WebExtension edition wasn't fully up to par with the old XUL-based version, letting some ads slip through. That's been fixed since then.
- talonx 9y ago
  AdBlock Plus was working well, until now, when they were forced to change the UI in 3.0 to be compatible with Firefox's new version. Now it is practically unusable.
- arien 9y ago
  On one of my laptops I downloaded a hosts file with a comprehensive list of advertising hostnames. This was to be able to browse with Edge back when it didn't have extensions and certain ads made it freeze. It was a bit of a pain because I had to go through the whole file to make sure there was nothing dodgy going on. But it did the trick. I thought of making a script that updates that file automatically, but I can't say I've seen any ads on that laptop even without updating the file for months, so hasn't been my first priority.
isolli 9y ago
Unfortunately Firefox breaks usability features at notion.so and app.intercom.io, so I still have to use Chrome (on Linux).

jakub_g 9y ago

BTW: if using Android, if FF is not for you, try Brave instead of Chrome. It feels exactly like Chrome (it's Chromium-based), but has a built-in adblocker, tracker blocking, HTTPS everywhere, no nagging to sign in, and does not throw "suggested news" (with no opt-out) upon you. Brave's founder is ex-Mozilla's CEO (Brendan Eich). However latest FF on Android is actually not bad, at least if you have a modern phone (the UI feels slowish though on pre-2016 phones).

comatose 9y ago
I use ff on my galaxy s5 and the ui isn't noticibly slow, but I'm on lineageos (cyanogen) and keep apps from running when not needed so ymmv
leeoniya 9y ago
i would be using FF on Android if the scrolling was not so crappy. It's pretty terrible :(
- Drdrdrq 9y ago
  ... <scrolls down and up> ... What do you mean?
  - colanderman 9y ago
    There are two distinct problems I've noticed with FF scrolling vs. Chrome on Android. First is that certain elements block scrolling. I use FF primarily for Facebook (since FF allows me to use my – shameless plug – idle-time faker extension [1]). If my scrolling thumb lands on the "Like" button of a post, the screen just stays put. So about 1/3 of my "scroll" gestures are in vain. Second is that "flinging" motions don't register very well with Firefox. With Chrome, "flinging" sends the web page flying at a predictable speed; with Firefox, it lags for a fraction of a second before scrolling at a random speed which is usually much slower than that in Chrome. It's as if Firefox doesn't register the final thumb flick of a "fling", but Chrome does. Since "flinging" is my primary method of browsing longer web pages, ultimately my thumb has to physically do more work, and gets exhausted more quickly, when using Firefox than Chrome. A third nitpick is that, while (non-flinging) page scrolling keeps up with my thumb, it does so in a jerky manner, like it can't quite keep up with rendering, or it doesn't see all the touch events. Reminds me of an old PDA. In contrast, scrolling in Chrome is very smooth. This looks ugly but I could live with it. It is the first to two issues that prevent me from using Firefox on Android for anything but Facebook. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/social-network-chat-idle/?src=cb-dl-created https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/social-networ...

mtgx 9y ago

FF57 stable is arriving tomorrow. But you can get it from the FTP server today: https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/57.0/ https://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/firefox/releases/57.0/

Ntrails 9y ago

> exiled Chrome to an "only when needed" role It's been my second browser for Twitch and Netflix only for a while now. I'm bit even sure how useful that is anymore if I'm honest as I've not tried them in firefox for a while - but they used to be unusable and I've become accustomed to having another browser for them

NoGravitas 9y ago
You don't need Chrome for Netflix anymore; it seems to work fine in current Firefox.
- Ntrails 9y ago
  I'll try again soon-ish but I was seeing the netflix home page freeze for 5-10 seconds on open and often going unresponsive which is just intolerable tbh
  - SkyMarshal 9y ago
    Was that with FF 57? 57 is a whole new browser, any impression you have that was created with a pre-57 version needs to be re-tested.

ralfn 9y ago

Yeah but for our support we need to start getting in depth with Firefox devtools again. They have features not in chrome and Visa versa. But to blindly switch means taking a productivity penalty, at least temporarily.