6 ms·

Firefox was never away, at least for me. Therefore the expression "Firefox is back" sounds a little odd to me. I have been using it since 2006 (Firefox 2.0). B

by susam 8y ago

Firefox was never away, at least for me. Therefore the expression "Firefox is back" sounds a little odd to me. I have been using it since 2006 (Firefox 2.0). Back then, the presence of the Firebug extension for Firefox made me switch to Firefox as my primary browser. Two years later, Chrome arrived but Firefox remained as my primary browser because I wanted to continue using the Vimperator extension for Firefox that allowed mouseless browsing with Vim-like key bindings and commands. Firefox still remains as my primary browser with Chrome being an additional browser that I use sometimes. These days, I use the Vimium extension for both to use Vim-like key bindings. I occasionally use Safari and qutebrowser too.

casefields 8y ago
It’s for your average NY Times reader that doesn’t keep up with the day-to-day tech news world.
- Krasnol 8y ago
  And don't forget about those thousands (millions?) of users who suddenly found Chrome installed on their computer because they updated their Virus Scanner or installed some Freeware where it was bundled with Chrome.
  - kbart 8y ago
    Still an upgrade from IE8 the same group would be using. I'm not advocating bundled installs, but installing secure (compared to old IE) browser alongside antivirus software is one of the very few cases where it makes sense.
    - Krasnol 8y ago
      From my private IT support perspective: I hate it! My "customers" have FF installed and are every time utterly confused missing their favorites on their "Internet Program". There is so much wrong with this bundling but yes, it's probably still better then IE...
danielbarla 8y ago
I have a very similar background with Firefox / Firebug and Vimperator, but there was a period where - despite all JS benchmarks seemingly proving otherwise - Chrome's real / perceived performance completely blew FF out of the water. Specifically things like startup time, opening a new window or tearing a tab off one, time to first content displayed when clicking a link, etc. As a result from about 2011 to 2017, I kept periodically checking back with FF, but was effectively a Chrome convert (Vimium was a good enough replacement for Vimperator). Once Servo hit the FF mainstream, it immediately felt faster, and I switched back. I still find myself switching back to Chrome for web dev debugging, probably for familiarity reasons. In this sense though, I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom "Firefox is back".
- Yoric 8y ago
  Do you mean "Quantum hit the mainstream"? Most of Servo itself it still a research project at this stage.
  - danielbarla 8y ago
    Yepp, you're right.
chme 8y ago
The same for me, but with the recent Firefox they broke the old addons and the current ones cannot do the same. I hope they fix that regression.
- Yoric 8y ago
  WebExtensions (aka new generation addons) are getting more powerful with each version :)
  - chme 8y ago
    Thanks for the info. :) Great work so far! High on my list is for the extensions to work on about:* and addons.mozilla.org pages. I like to use Vimium everywhere and 'Dark Background and Light Text' to also work on the preferences. Also I really miss DownThemAll... I tried a couple of replacements, but they didn't for instance download all books from a Humble Book Bundle.
    - piyush_soni 8y ago
      Oh really ... Not having DownThemAll just breaks my entire workflow, and there's no replacement. They should have at least considered the "most popular add-ons" to be in working condition before even releasing WebExtensions to all.
    - bovine3dom 8y ago
      > High on my list is for the extensions to work on [...] addons.mozilla.org pages. There's actually an about:config setting that fixes this already. I put a helper in Tridactyl for it called `:fixamo` [1], but you can easily do it manually by setting "privacy.resistFingerprinting.block_mozAddonManager" = true and "extensions.webextensions.restrictedDomains" = "" (Unfortunately, this does nothing about about: pages or the PDF viewer which used to work but was "fixed" :( ). [1] https://github.com/cmcaine/tridactyl/blob/8c49d26340cdc0db3c5a8011958339ac49051d03/src/excmds.ts#L290 https://github.com/cmcaine/tridactyl/blob/8c49d26340cdc0db3c...
      - 8y ago
tyfon 8y ago
Yes to me too. I can also use it on android with ublock etc. Chrome hasn't even been installed in my main computer in maybe a year, firefox works for everything I need, including google apps for business mail and youtube. My biggest reason for using it is the fact that it is open source, the other is that ad-block software actually block calls to adds not just the display of them as in chrome.
alex_duf 8y ago
Same here, but I think we're in a bubble. Looking at the past market share we're clearly the minority
growlist 8y ago
Firefox since at least 2004!
paulie_a 8y ago
I personally was never impressed by firebug. I haven't checked it out in a while but it was incredibly clunky.
- matthewmacleod 8y ago
  Isn’t it essentially the prototype for all modern browser dev tools though? As in, they are all substantially similar to what Firebug was like, and Firebug existed before any of the others? I could be getting my history wrong, but from what I remember Firebug was absolutely mind-blowing.
  - badosu 8y ago
    I remember the first time I found the firebug JavaScript snippet, I could finally use a decent debugger when testing other browsers. That was equally kind blowing to me.

by susam 8y ago

casefields 8y ago

It’s for your average NY Times reader that doesn’t keep up with the day-to-day tech news world.

Krasnol 8y ago
And don't forget about those thousands (millions?) of users who suddenly found Chrome installed on their computer because they updated their Virus Scanner or installed some Freeware where it was bundled with Chrome.
- kbart 8y ago
  Still an upgrade from IE8 the same group would be using. I'm not advocating bundled installs, but installing secure (compared to old IE) browser alongside antivirus software is one of the very few cases where it makes sense.
  - Krasnol 8y ago
    From my private IT support perspective: I hate it! My "customers" have FF installed and are every time utterly confused missing their favorites on their "Internet Program". There is so much wrong with this bundling but yes, it's probably still better then IE...

danielbarla 8y ago

I have a very similar background with Firefox / Firebug and Vimperator, but there was a period where - despite all JS benchmarks seemingly proving otherwise - Chrome's real / perceived performance completely blew FF out of the water. Specifically things like startup time, opening a new window or tearing a tab off one, time to first content displayed when clicking a link, etc. As a result from about 2011 to 2017, I kept periodically checking back with FF, but was effectively a Chrome convert (Vimium was a good enough replacement for Vimperator). Once Servo hit the FF mainstream, it immediately felt faster, and I switched back. I still find myself switching back to Chrome for web dev debugging, probably for familiarity reasons. In this sense though, I'm sure I'm not the only one for whom "Firefox is back".

Yoric 8y ago
Do you mean "Quantum hit the mainstream"? Most of Servo itself it still a research project at this stage.
- danielbarla 8y ago
  Yepp, you're right.

chme 8y ago

The same for me, but with the recent Firefox they broke the old addons and the current ones cannot do the same. I hope they fix that regression.

Yoric 8y ago
WebExtensions (aka new generation addons) are getting more powerful with each version :)
- chme 8y ago
  Thanks for the info. :) Great work so far! High on my list is for the extensions to work on about:* and addons.mozilla.org pages. I like to use Vimium everywhere and 'Dark Background and Light Text' to also work on the preferences. Also I really miss DownThemAll... I tried a couple of replacements, but they didn't for instance download all books from a Humble Book Bundle.
  - piyush_soni 8y ago
    Oh really ... Not having DownThemAll just breaks my entire workflow, and there's no replacement. They should have at least considered the "most popular add-ons" to be in working condition before even releasing WebExtensions to all.
  - bovine3dom 8y ago
    > High on my list is for the extensions to work on [...] addons.mozilla.org pages. There's actually an about:config setting that fixes this already. I put a helper in Tridactyl for it called `:fixamo` [1], but you can easily do it manually by setting "privacy.resistFingerprinting.block_mozAddonManager" = true and "extensions.webextensions.restrictedDomains" = "" (Unfortunately, this does nothing about about: pages or the PDF viewer which used to work but was "fixed" :( ). [1] https://github.com/cmcaine/tridactyl/blob/8c49d26340cdc0db3c5a8011958339ac49051d03/src/excmds.ts#L290 https://github.com/cmcaine/tridactyl/blob/8c49d26340cdc0db3c...
    - 8y ago

tyfon 8y ago

Yes to me too. I can also use it on android with ublock etc. Chrome hasn't even been installed in my main computer in maybe a year, firefox works for everything I need, including google apps for business mail and youtube. My biggest reason for using it is the fact that it is open source, the other is that ad-block software actually block calls to adds not just the display of them as in chrome.

alex_duf 8y ago

Same here, but I think we're in a bubble. Looking at the past market share we're clearly the minority

growlist 8y ago

Firefox since at least 2004!

paulie_a 8y ago

I personally was never impressed by firebug. I haven't checked it out in a while but it was incredibly clunky.

matthewmacleod 8y ago
Isn’t it essentially the prototype for all modern browser dev tools though? As in, they are all substantially similar to what Firebug was like, and Firebug existed before any of the others? I could be getting my history wrong, but from what I remember Firebug was absolutely mind-blowing.
- badosu 8y ago
  I remember the first time I found the firebug JavaScript snippet, I could finally use a decent debugger when testing other browsers. That was equally kind blowing to me.