4 ms·

> there’s just no good alternative Are you referring to the chromium space options, or the browser market as a whole? I’ve never left Firefox and still find it

> there’s just no good alternative Are you referring to the chromium space options, or the browser market as a whole? I’ve never left Firefox and still find it to be a pleasant browser, one with which I’ve never felt really left out barring a few annoying bugs from time to time that are typically short lived.

aphextron 8y ago
I love Firefox in theory, it's just that in practice I've never been able to stick with it. One thing or another always leaves me running back to Chrome. It's possible that it's just my own bias and familiarity, but I'm not principled enough to endure an inferior experience in any way. Plus working in chrome dev tools all day long, you really miss it when you want to pop something open and look under the hood real quick, and I don't think Firefox is quite up to par there.
- kbenson 8y ago
  Firefox's web tools are slightly different, but very comparable. Firefox container tabs are game changing.
  - zmw 8y ago
    Container tabs just makes up for lack of easy profile switching (at least on macOS, not sure about Windows or Linux), which was in Chrome for years. Even after it came, I gave it a try and found it pretty cumbersome. (Before I get you-can-do-this-and-that replies, I know Profile Manager exists, and that's an ugly hack: macOS users should not need to run multiple copies of the same app bundle.)
    - emayljames 8y ago
      Profile switching takes more steps to use than container tabs: 0.
      - zmw 8y ago
        Profile switching takes one step to use: cycle through windows.
    - Aelius 8y ago
      If you think different profiles is comprable to container tabs, you haven't really understood how to use container tabs, or possibly even what container tabs are for.
    - kbenson 8y ago
      No, container tabs are fundamentally different than just supporting different profiles, in that how it extends that concept allows for a whole new mode of use. Container tabs allows for domains to be tagged to always (or sometimes, with a prompt) open in a specific container, so after you've correctly configured it, you don't ever have to switch profiles. If I click a link to Amazon, it opens in my Amazon/shopping container. If I open a link to Goodreads, it does the same. If I open a link to any of the banking sites I need to use for different car/house/card payments, that automatically goes in it's own container. The big thing that's different with container tabs is that after you set it up (which is done little by little as you decide to open something in a specific tab and then mark it to always open there), it's not something you actively manage, it passively does what you want. That's why it's so different. Having every site be it's own container (which is also a mode Firefox supports, to my knowledge) would be slightly more passive, but also likely cause problems with some sites that use multiple domains, so I think container tabs is a good compromise (for now) that allows good compartmentalization while also allowing escape hatches for sires that require it.
- calcifer 8y ago
  > Plus working in chrome dev tools all day long, you really miss it when you want to pop something open and look under the hood real quick, and I don't think Firefox is quite up to par there Based on what? What did you try to do and couldn't? Or is your complaint - like the rest of your comment says - that you weren't immediately familiar with the UI, you didn't bother learning, and then decided it was the browser's fault? How long did it take originally for you to learn the Chrome tools and how long have you given Firefox?
  - Klonoar 8y ago
    Protip: when you want to sell someone on something, a response of "you're doing it wrong, you're the problem" generally doesn't work. It's a pretty widely held thing that FF's dev tools don't feel as smooth or well thought out as Chrome's, which is frustrating because FF (really, FireBug, unless you count the weird IE stuff) pretty much _made_ the concept of browser tools great. I'd love to use FF again too, but for me the blocker is the UI and battery drain. 's why I just use Safari.
    - calcifer 8y ago
      > Protip: when you want to sell someone on something, a response of "you're doing it wrong, you're the problem" generally doesn't work. I agree, but how is this relevant to my comment? I didn't say the GP did anything wrong - I asked them what they did. Not nearly the same thing. > It's a pretty widely held thing that FF's dev tools don't feel as smooth or well thought out as Chrome's There are a large number of groups with widely held beliefs where said beliefs don't stand up to scrutiny. "It doesn't feel like Chrome" is not a belief that doubles as valid criticism because it's not actionable. Its sole purpose is to complain about things while making sure nobody can ever act on them because it's so vague. > for me the blocker is the UI and battery drain While "the UI" fits in to the category above, battery drain is an actual, specific, measurable and actionable complaint. So please, more of the latter, less of the former.
  - danShumway 8y ago
    Stack rewinding, code editing/saving, breakpoints on DOM subtree and attribute modifications, the ability to search for requests via response text (very useful when reverse-engineering APIs), breakpoints on XHR requests, event listener breakpoints. These are not things that Firefox just does differently, they're features that Firefox just doesn't have. Firefox's dev tools aren't bad in and of themselves. The UX is fine, and getting better. I don't know if other people have opinions about memory tools or profiling -- I don't all that much. I guess Firefox's dev tools look prettier, and they do have some features that Chrome doesn't. But Firefox features tend to trend more towards, "here's a cool thing like the ability to debug shaders". Chrome's trend more towards, "here's a useful thing like the ability to debug Javascript."
- JeremyNT 8y ago
  Firefox's developer tools are quite powerful, I'd recommend trying them for a bit and getting used to working with them. If you ultimately do want to keep using chrome for the dev tools, you can switch your primary browser to ff and use Chromium (without signing in at all) just for that purpose. There's no reason you have to use your primary browser for your web development work.
- danShumway 8y ago
  I use Firefox exclusively to browse, I use Chromium for local development. It is true the Firefox's dev tools are a lot better now than they used to be - I use them regularly when I test sites cross browser. But they lack critical features like source editing and stack rewinding, and the tiny visual/layout improvements they've made are not enough to get over that. In Chromium, if I pause a script, I can edit a line code earlier in the function, resume, and Chromium will rewind the stack to that point and replay it forward with my changes. It is insanely useful, hands down the single tool that I use most often. Stuff like that blows Firefox's dev tools out of the water, because it turns out that I debug Javascript more often than I debug Grid layouts. A while back I looked into whether or not anyone at Mozilla was working on something comparable, and there was somebody. But then everything went silent and I don't know the status anymore. I've been wondering for multiple years now why this kind of stuff isn't higher priority than new Grid tools or color selectors or whatever. Firefox's dev tools are way behind Chrome's in basic functionality, even if the user experience is otherwise excellent. You can't even set breakpoints on DOM elements. I would disagree with anyone who claims that they're even remotely comparable tools at this point.

aphextron 8y ago

I love Firefox in theory, it's just that in practice I've never been able to stick with it. One thing or another always leaves me running back to Chrome. It's possible that it's just my own bias and familiarity, but I'm not principled enough to endure an inferior experience in any way. Plus working in chrome dev tools all day long, you really miss it when you want to pop something open and look under the hood real quick, and I don't think Firefox is quite up to par there.

kbenson 8y ago
Firefox's web tools are slightly different, but very comparable. Firefox container tabs are game changing.
- zmw 8y ago
  Container tabs just makes up for lack of easy profile switching (at least on macOS, not sure about Windows or Linux), which was in Chrome for years. Even after it came, I gave it a try and found it pretty cumbersome. (Before I get you-can-do-this-and-that replies, I know Profile Manager exists, and that's an ugly hack: macOS users should not need to run multiple copies of the same app bundle.)
  - emayljames 8y ago
    Profile switching takes more steps to use than container tabs: 0.
    - zmw 8y ago
      Profile switching takes one step to use: cycle through windows.
  - Aelius 8y ago
    If you think different profiles is comprable to container tabs, you haven't really understood how to use container tabs, or possibly even what container tabs are for.
  - kbenson 8y ago
    No, container tabs are fundamentally different than just supporting different profiles, in that how it extends that concept allows for a whole new mode of use. Container tabs allows for domains to be tagged to always (or sometimes, with a prompt) open in a specific container, so after you've correctly configured it, you don't ever have to switch profiles. If I click a link to Amazon, it opens in my Amazon/shopping container. If I open a link to Goodreads, it does the same. If I open a link to any of the banking sites I need to use for different car/house/card payments, that automatically goes in it's own container. The big thing that's different with container tabs is that after you set it up (which is done little by little as you decide to open something in a specific tab and then mark it to always open there), it's not something you actively manage, it passively does what you want. That's why it's so different. Having every site be it's own container (which is also a mode Firefox supports, to my knowledge) would be slightly more passive, but also likely cause problems with some sites that use multiple domains, so I think container tabs is a good compromise (for now) that allows good compartmentalization while also allowing escape hatches for sires that require it.
calcifer 8y ago
> Plus working in chrome dev tools all day long, you really miss it when you want to pop something open and look under the hood real quick, and I don't think Firefox is quite up to par there Based on what? What did you try to do and couldn't? Or is your complaint - like the rest of your comment says - that you weren't immediately familiar with the UI, you didn't bother learning, and then decided it was the browser's fault? How long did it take originally for you to learn the Chrome tools and how long have you given Firefox?
- Klonoar 8y ago
  Protip: when you want to sell someone on something, a response of "you're doing it wrong, you're the problem" generally doesn't work. It's a pretty widely held thing that FF's dev tools don't feel as smooth or well thought out as Chrome's, which is frustrating because FF (really, FireBug, unless you count the weird IE stuff) pretty much _made_ the concept of browser tools great. I'd love to use FF again too, but for me the blocker is the UI and battery drain. 's why I just use Safari.
  - calcifer 8y ago
    > Protip: when you want to sell someone on something, a response of "you're doing it wrong, you're the problem" generally doesn't work. I agree, but how is this relevant to my comment? I didn't say the GP did anything wrong - I asked them what they did. Not nearly the same thing. > It's a pretty widely held thing that FF's dev tools don't feel as smooth or well thought out as Chrome's There are a large number of groups with widely held beliefs where said beliefs don't stand up to scrutiny. "It doesn't feel like Chrome" is not a belief that doubles as valid criticism because it's not actionable. Its sole purpose is to complain about things while making sure nobody can ever act on them because it's so vague. > for me the blocker is the UI and battery drain While "the UI" fits in to the category above, battery drain is an actual, specific, measurable and actionable complaint. So please, more of the latter, less of the former.
- danShumway 8y ago
  Stack rewinding, code editing/saving, breakpoints on DOM subtree and attribute modifications, the ability to search for requests via response text (very useful when reverse-engineering APIs), breakpoints on XHR requests, event listener breakpoints. These are not things that Firefox just does differently, they're features that Firefox just doesn't have. Firefox's dev tools aren't bad in and of themselves. The UX is fine, and getting better. I don't know if other people have opinions about memory tools or profiling -- I don't all that much. I guess Firefox's dev tools look prettier, and they do have some features that Chrome doesn't. But Firefox features tend to trend more towards, "here's a cool thing like the ability to debug shaders". Chrome's trend more towards, "here's a useful thing like the ability to debug Javascript."
JeremyNT 8y ago
Firefox's developer tools are quite powerful, I'd recommend trying them for a bit and getting used to working with them. If you ultimately do want to keep using chrome for the dev tools, you can switch your primary browser to ff and use Chromium (without signing in at all) just for that purpose. There's no reason you have to use your primary browser for your web development work.
danShumway 8y ago
I use Firefox exclusively to browse, I use Chromium for local development. It is true the Firefox's dev tools are a lot better now than they used to be - I use them regularly when I test sites cross browser. But they lack critical features like source editing and stack rewinding, and the tiny visual/layout improvements they've made are not enough to get over that. In Chromium, if I pause a script, I can edit a line code earlier in the function, resume, and Chromium will rewind the stack to that point and replay it forward with my changes. It is insanely useful, hands down the single tool that I use most often. Stuff like that blows Firefox's dev tools out of the water, because it turns out that I debug Javascript more often than I debug Grid layouts. A while back I looked into whether or not anyone at Mozilla was working on something comparable, and there was somebody. But then everything went silent and I don't know the status anymore. I've been wondering for multiple years now why this kind of stuff isn't higher priority than new Grid tools or color selectors or whatever. Firefox's dev tools are way behind Chrome's in basic functionality, even if the user experience is otherwise excellent. You can't even set breakpoints on DOM elements. I would disagree with anyone who claims that they're even remotely comparable tools at this point.