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Firefox is a truly fantastic browser now. I've been using it again for about 2 years and haven't regretted it at all. There have been a couple of weird feature

Firefox is a truly fantastic browser now. I've been using it again for about 2 years and haven't regretted it at all. There have been a couple of weird feature hiccups but generally Mozilla seems to get things right.

ferongr 8y ago
>Firefox is a truly fantastic browser now I've been seeing people repeat that for the past 5 years. It turns out to be false though.
- nAwYz 8y ago
  Could you elaborate in this?
  - ktta 8y ago
    My opinion is that the UX is no where near as polished. The history and bookmark features still look like they're from 10 years ago, and subtler things that are just given thought to because there seem to be dedicated UI/UX designer on the chrome team.
    - chinhodado 8y ago
      > The history and bookmark features still look like they're from 10 years ago It's actually a selling point for me, I just can't stomach all the material design craps that Chrome forces on me where a page lost like 70% of usable space to useless whitespace.
      - andrepd 8y ago
        I agree with both of you, really, both interfaces are shit. Chrome has that hideous whitespace that's wasteful even for touch interfaces, let alone for mouse+keyboard, and Firefox has a cumbersome and too basic interface. I can't even do an advanced search on my bookmarks.
- larkeith 8y ago
  Could you please provide reasoning and evidence for this assertion? Benchmarks, for example?
whelchel 8y ago
Also a fan. I'm also switching permanently to Firefox after this incident rather than use multiple browsers depending on the purpose.
- MentallyRetired 8y ago
  I also switched to Firefox. I wanted to give Opera a try but they also use Chromium, where this feature now exists. Firefox it is, and they have done a great job with the new version.
  - drannex 8y ago
    Surprised no one has brought I up, but Vivaldi is superior in a dozen ways to Opera (and founded by the original Oper founder).
    - theli0nheart 8y ago
      Wow, just downloaded and I'm very impressed. Vivaldi is a real pleasure to use. Thanks for the recommendation.
    - artificial 8y ago
      FYI it also uses Blink.
- therein 8y ago
  Same, I always loved FF but had switched to Chrome maybe 2-3 years ago. After this incident, I switched to FF Quantum permanently. It has come a long way and honestly I feel more at home in FF after a day than I did in Chrome after everything they've tacked on the browser. Having read these threads, and personally knowing people in the Chrome team that read these threads, I am almost certain that Google will backtrack this. I know more than a dozen developers that switched from Chrome to FF Quantum this week.
hellofunk 8y ago
I wish I could use it but it has serious performance problems on macOS. I tried and it was just terrible. (thought not all Mac users have problems, quite a number do, and Mozilla has an open issue asking for debugging logs from Macs to find the reasons).
- brian-armstrong 8y ago
  Strange. I almost exclusively use OSX (El Cap) and haven't had performance issues asides from needing to restart the browser once a month or so. Hopefully they get those problems resolved soon, the browser is super quick when it's working right.
  - itsmenotyou 8y ago
    Same here, almost exclusive FF user on OSX (Sierra) and never had any issues
  - uglycoyote 8y ago
    I find that I cannot watch a YouTube video on my MacBook in Firefox for more than 10 seconds without the fans coming on at full throttle. This is one of the few reasons that I start up chrome, as strangely I can watch the same video in chrome without performance issues. I haven't had this issue on Firefox on PC
    - colanderman 8y ago
      Disable "Automatic graphics switching" in "Energy Saver" in OS X settings. This fixed this problem for me (which started about 4 months ago). (I'm on Yosemite.)
      - fernly 8y ago
        I'm on Yosemite and I don't see anything like that in the energy saver preference pane.
        8y ago
sergiotapia 8y ago
I switched to Brave - not looking back :)
- ikketilstede 8y ago
  Thank you for this suggestion. I truly appreciate it. I just dumped Chrome on mobile and started using Firefox. While it is a fast browser it is nothing compared to Brave. I'm completely blown away by this browser. Now I'm going to install Brave on my desktop as well.
  - sergiotapia 8y ago
    FYI I'm also using Brave on my mobile device. It's fantastic there as well.
    - chrisweekly 8y ago
      Does Brave support quality dev tools?
      - sergiotapia 8y ago
        Literally the same as Chrome re: dev tools. Example: https://i.imgur.com/ZfHnNmX.png https://i.imgur.com/ZfHnNmX.png
        SnowingXIV 8y ago
        Development tools held me back and why I don't use Mozilla. Using Chrome dev tools on a daily basis keeps me stuck. Also having different profiles for work and personal is super useful (different bookmarks, logins, history that syncs) it's really slick. Does Brave offer this along with 1Password integration?
- pcunite 8y ago
  Brave shows promise, but the windows installer won't allow you to run it outside of appdata, a deal breaker.
duiker101 8y ago
My browser of choice is Vivaldi, the most features and flexibility. Love it.
larkeith 8y ago
While I switched back to Firefox a while ago due to loss of trust in Google, it should not be forgotten that they support DRM on the web.
- confounded 8y ago
  Google’s, no less! (Widevine.) At least for me, on Linux, it’s always been opt-in, and plenty of the versions of Firefox packaged by distro maintainers get rid of it all together.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  They do, (I imagine if Netflix wouldn't work, they would lose users), but at least it's opt-in.
colemickens 8y ago
I'm a huge fan too but it seems like Mozilla keeps dropping the ball on specific odd, "easy" things. The built-in screenshot tool makes it really easy to accidentally upload private information to a public inage sharing site and the Issue tracking a simple button relabeling has been open for months. They refuse to back down on Pocket integration that still leaves an awful taste in my mouth. The Library/Downloads windows have weird UX behaviors, should probably just be regular tabs, etc.
- bad_user 8y ago
  Pocket is now owned by Mozilla. I for one am glad that it exists, I love Pocket, the only annoyance I have is that the Firefox integration is not as complete as the Chrome add-on, probably because Firefox users keep bitching and moaning about it.
  - colemickens 8y ago
    And maybe if that functionality were in an optional extension it would be easier to add features to it for the users that want it. It's not as if it being an add-on has, in any way, hampered your ability to use it in Chrome. It's great that you like Pocket. I think it's a bit rude to act like it's unreasonable to have qualms about how it was added (certainly pre-Mozilla owning them) or to be confused about it's inclusion while things like RSS reading/folders, (a not-uncommon browser feature) are removed. This entire conversation wouldn't need to happen. There wouldn't be unhappy users. There wouldn't be "another side" calling criticism "bitching". They'd get active, enthusiastic user feedback, etc, etc.
    - robin_reala 8y ago
      I’m a heavy RSS consumer, but I’m absolutely in a minority. RSS features according to Mozilla’s own telemetry are used by an extreme minority of users (I can’t find the exact figures but certainly less than 0.5% of people), and are a fairly large and unmaintained part of a codebase that’s undergoing extensive modification. I’d far rather Mozilla expose some APIs and let people make RSS-based extensions than have it built in and getting in the way of performance work.
mamcx 8y ago
I try to change this week but I'm unable to make zoom to work well (Chrome is perfect to me. Safari not work neither). Exist a way to make it work? (ie: Maker a goblal zoom and a per-domain/page)
- emayljames 8y ago
  Stylish addon can do this. Install it then use userstyles website to find the custom script you need.
  - JoshMnem 8y ago
    Stylish apparently had spyware problems after being bought by another company.[1] Stylus[2] is the fork. [1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/chrome-and-firefox-pull-stylish-add-on-after-report-it-logged-browser-history/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/chrome-and-fi... [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/
    - scns 8y ago
      i use the "Dark Background and Light Text" extension, to use Solarized on every site. You can toggle with F2. Easier to use IMO.
    - mamcx 8y ago
      So I must write a css for the zoom to work?
lh7777 8y ago
I really want to like Firefox (or any of the alternative browsers mentioned here for that matter), but I frequently use my Surface in tablet mode and the only browsers with acceptable touch screen support on Windows are Edge and Chrome. Last I checked, this still didn't seem to be a priority for Firefox.
- codethief 8y ago
  What exactly do you mean? (Honest question) Firefox works great on my tablet.
  - lh7777 8y ago
    They've actually fixed a number of minor issues over the past year or so, but Firefox still doesn't support pinch zoom on Windows[1]. Being able to reorder tabs using the touchscreen would also be nice, but not as critical. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990
    - staktrace 8y ago
      Reordering tabs via touch should work, it was fixed in Firefox 59 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1362065 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1362065). And yes, pinch zoom is not supported (we do text/reflowing zoom, but not mobile-style pinch zoom). It's something that's being worked on but there's a lot of dependencies in order to get it done.
      - lh7777 8y ago
        Thanks -- I didn't realize that reordering tabs had been fixed. It only works on the active tab[1] and I guess I've only ever tried moving inactive tabs before. It's not perfect, but so far seems better than in Edge (which allows reordering of inactive tabs but is often rather janky) and Chrome (which has no ability to scroll the tab bar, so tabs quickly get uselessly tiny). [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1362065#c57 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1362065#c57
cm2187 8y ago
Yeah I don't like to change habits, I have been using chrome for as long as it has been around, but when I read that last week I made the jump to firefox. Honestly, outside of not having the option to mute sites (as opposed to muting tabs), I can barely tell the difference. Also it makes it harder than chrome to manage site specific permissions. You have to go into the settings and add some exceptions instead of just changing a setting in top left corner while on the site. But it's otherwise a smooth transition.
- pymai 8y ago
  well there's always vivaldi or chromium if you want to slowly wein yourself off google
atombender 8y ago
I wish Firefox was as sleek, fast and no-nonsense as Safari on the Mac, which is my everyday browser. I vastly prefer the idea of an open browser that is not tightly coupled to a particular industry giant. And I wish Firefox actually had a viable Safari competitor on iOS, so that I can sync my state around. Unfortunately, while Firefox has made significant leaps the last couple of years, it's still not a viable alternative to Safari for me. It doesn't feel particularly native (neither the "chrome" nor form controls etc.), and the UX is still clunky compared to native Mac-first apps. One particular way in which Safari absolutely beats Firefox is the address bar. Most of the autocompletions that Safari provide are exactly what I want. As an example, if I type "mapq" into Safari, it suggests mapquest.com (a site I've never visited before, so this is not based on anything from my history). For Firefox, it suggests a Googles search for "mapquest", which is just stupid. Aside from suggesting web sites, Safari is superb at showing good results (Wikipedia is often a top hit), and it is awesome at providing autocompletions from my bookmarks and history. Firefox also seems a bit lost when it comes to innovating, and keeps coming up with weak concepts that don't get any tractions; Personas comes to mind. Container tabs are a similarly interesting idea with a weird implementation that requires you to micromanage your tabs, which I certainly don't want to, and provides a "techie" solution to something that should just be invisible and default (i.e. all web sites should be "contained").
- smcnally 8y ago
  > Container tabs are a similarly interesting idea with a weird implementation that requires you to micromanage your tabs, which I certainly don't want to, and provides a "techie" solution to something that should just be invisible and default (i.e. all web sites should be "contained"). All websites contained would be an interesting default. With ways to “re-open current tab in container [X]” and “merge current tab with container [Y],” it would involve less micromanaging. That’s still not invisible, the container process and UX warrants plenty of thought.
  - atombender 8y ago
    I think container tabs conflates several things that won't be understandable to non-techies. One is privacy — preventing sites from abusing cross-site concerns such as cookies for tracking. The other is what could be described as "focus" or "modality". A lot of people use windows as a poor man's workspace. For example, if I'm researching where to travel, I'll have a window open with tons of tabs — Google Flights, Kayak, Tripadvisor, Booking.com, all jammed into one "workspace". If I'm comparison shopping for one specific thing, there'd be Amazon, Jet, Etsy, eBay, etc. This is how people tend to work: Windows separate modes, tabs separate units of focus within that mode. And yet there's no browser that supports such a way of working. We have to accept that people now "live" within the Internet, and need to support different modes. Rather than think of the browser as a shell, why not think of the browser as a world in which you can open up different types of interacting with that world? For example, a Google Doc tab is not something that works very well as a tab. It's a document, representing its own modality. Slack is an app, also its own modality. A "workspace" is something else again. And so on. These are all "applications" in a classical sense, yet work within the context of a user. I'm not suggesting a ChromeOS, just that what we think of as "the web" could be rethought in terms of different variations — ways to work — with the same thing. Also, in terms of privacy, why are we still using cookies? Why are we "logging in" and "logging out" of web sites and having password managers that automatically fill out form fields? Why can't the web site negotiate its session with the browser ("I want an identity for gmail.com, please give me one"), which can already know who I am?
djsumdog 8y ago
I recently moved back to Firefox from Vivaldi. It's been a good move. I feel like Firefox is back in the same boat it was in the 90s, but this time fighting Google Chrome instead of IE. But it's a bit different since you have to explicitly download Chrome. It's a bit different since you see an ad to download it right when you hit Google.
- robin_reala 8y ago
  Not on Android, and not when you install some other piece of software that surreptitiously bundles Chrome and sets it to default: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1053973 https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1053973
egfx 8y ago
I started using Firefox because I literally coudn't use Chrome anymore on my PC. Every time I opened Chrome it would hard lock and I needed to ctrl-alt-del, end-task. Even re-installing and clearing out cache and folders didn't help. I haven't been able to open Chrome for months. Using Firefox for 1 week was a bit of usability shock. But it's so awesome once you get used to it. Everything is indeed so much more thoughtful. Every feature.
mfukar 8y ago
I'd use firefox despite its schizophrenic features, if it were at least as responsive as chrome, on my mostly-idle home desktop. Maybe one day, mozilla. Maybe one day.
pymai 8y ago
I use Firefox every now and then just for reading articles so my main browser doesn't get bloated with tabs, but it runs far from fantastic on my computer for some reason. whenever a page loads all the elements move around for a second or two before they settle in their right place. that would crack me up if I had to put up with that all day
the_clarence 8y ago
It's the best browser objectively, because it has tree style tabs, it's also a bad browser because it doesn't have a native support for tabs on the side.
marichards 8y ago
Except, by default their primary product was the interface by which may of their users got targeted. They've sat on their hands on privacy for years, offering features for the informed minority, not protecting the majority of their users. It's been Safari and Brave that have started to show proper leadership in protecting users. Recent attempts I've been making to help teach web developers about the dangers of referers, before they add more tracking pixels or leak reset password links get deleted by Mozilla technical writers because " We don't think it's appropriate to have a red warning banner at the tops of the pages. That kind of design element is one we try to avoid on MDN unless it's highlighting the very first thing you need to know about the item, which we don't think it is in this case, although we do appreciate that it is important." Great idea, let's leave the wet floor warning as a note at the end of the corridor. See here https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/img$compare?locale=en-US&to=1419222&from=1419039 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/im...
- groovecoder 8y ago
  I'm a Mozillian who worked on MDN for 5 years, and now work on Firefox Privacy & Security. Most relevantly, I wrote the patch that implements strict-origin-when-cross-origin Referrer policy in Private Browsing Mode. I certainly trust the MDN team to understand how to arrange their content to match their audience. I also believe web developers should be more informed about the privacy & security issues of their work. The content you tried to add was verbose without any technical detail or links, and the MDN revision history isn't a great space for content discussion. Have you tried filing a content bug? It's much easier to converse on bugzilla than thru edit battles. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/form.doc?bug_file_loc=https%3A//developer.mozilla.org/en-US/ https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/form.doc?bug_file_loc=https%3A/...
skrebbel 8y ago
I'd like to add that the Firefox DevTools are excellent now. For a long time there was this weird stuff with built-in devtools but-you-still-kinda-needed-FireBug and it was a mess (a sufficiently big mess to keep me on a random Blink-based browser), but these days it's just great. Firefox is a truly great browser, they really made amazing improvements on all fronts in the last years. And I say this as someone who never used Firefox as their daily driver until half a year ago or so.
another-cuppa 8y ago
It always was. When I started using Firefox it was an alternative to IE6. It was the browser you used if you were a web developer because it had things like Firebug (which Google copied and integrated into Chrome). Chrome didn't convert many Firefox users, it just did a much better job of converting IE users than Firefox ever did, but that's no surprise given that they could directly market it to users through google.com. Chrome initially was faster than Firefox because it lacked features. This is a common pattern if you've been in this business long enough. Firefox itself was originally the fast-but-cut-down version of Mozilla. Like Firefox, Chrome quickly gained features and bloat and became just as slow as Firefox and everything before it.
wardrobe 8y ago
Biggest drawback to me after trying Firefox are the lack of simple profiles, as in Chrome, which let me separate work from personal from school when browsing, and the fact that all web development is done for Chrome. So many sites don't work correctly in Firefox that I eventually had to give up on it and move back.
- unethical_ban 8y ago
  Container tabs can do that from a isolation perspective, though bookmarks will be shared. I have "banking", "google services", "facebook", and the default for other stuff. >So many sites don't work correctly in Firefox I've not experienced that.

ferongr 8y ago

>Firefox is a truly fantastic browser now I've been seeing people repeat that for the past 5 years. It turns out to be false though.

nAwYz 8y ago
Could you elaborate in this?
- ktta 8y ago
  My opinion is that the UX is no where near as polished. The history and bookmark features still look like they're from 10 years ago, and subtler things that are just given thought to because there seem to be dedicated UI/UX designer on the chrome team.
  - chinhodado 8y ago
    > The history and bookmark features still look like they're from 10 years ago It's actually a selling point for me, I just can't stomach all the material design craps that Chrome forces on me where a page lost like 70% of usable space to useless whitespace.
    - andrepd 8y ago
      I agree with both of you, really, both interfaces are shit. Chrome has that hideous whitespace that's wasteful even for touch interfaces, let alone for mouse+keyboard, and Firefox has a cumbersome and too basic interface. I can't even do an advanced search on my bookmarks.
larkeith 8y ago
Could you please provide reasoning and evidence for this assertion? Benchmarks, for example?

whelchel 8y ago

Also a fan. I'm also switching permanently to Firefox after this incident rather than use multiple browsers depending on the purpose.

MentallyRetired 8y ago
I also switched to Firefox. I wanted to give Opera a try but they also use Chromium, where this feature now exists. Firefox it is, and they have done a great job with the new version.
- drannex 8y ago
  Surprised no one has brought I up, but Vivaldi is superior in a dozen ways to Opera (and founded by the original Oper founder).
  - theli0nheart 8y ago
    Wow, just downloaded and I'm very impressed. Vivaldi is a real pleasure to use. Thanks for the recommendation.
  - artificial 8y ago
    FYI it also uses Blink.
therein 8y ago
Same, I always loved FF but had switched to Chrome maybe 2-3 years ago. After this incident, I switched to FF Quantum permanently. It has come a long way and honestly I feel more at home in FF after a day than I did in Chrome after everything they've tacked on the browser. Having read these threads, and personally knowing people in the Chrome team that read these threads, I am almost certain that Google will backtrack this. I know more than a dozen developers that switched from Chrome to FF Quantum this week.

hellofunk 8y ago

I wish I could use it but it has serious performance problems on macOS. I tried and it was just terrible. (thought not all Mac users have problems, quite a number do, and Mozilla has an open issue asking for debugging logs from Macs to find the reasons).

brian-armstrong 8y ago
Strange. I almost exclusively use OSX (El Cap) and haven't had performance issues asides from needing to restart the browser once a month or so. Hopefully they get those problems resolved soon, the browser is super quick when it's working right.
- itsmenotyou 8y ago
  Same here, almost exclusive FF user on OSX (Sierra) and never had any issues
- uglycoyote 8y ago
  I find that I cannot watch a YouTube video on my MacBook in Firefox for more than 10 seconds without the fans coming on at full throttle. This is one of the few reasons that I start up chrome, as strangely I can watch the same video in chrome without performance issues. I haven't had this issue on Firefox on PC
  - colanderman 8y ago
    Disable "Automatic graphics switching" in "Energy Saver" in OS X settings. This fixed this problem for me (which started about 4 months ago). (I'm on Yosemite.)
    - fernly 8y ago
      I'm on Yosemite and I don't see anything like that in the energy saver preference pane.
      - 8y ago

sergiotapia 8y ago

I switched to Brave - not looking back :)

ikketilstede 8y ago
Thank you for this suggestion. I truly appreciate it. I just dumped Chrome on mobile and started using Firefox. While it is a fast browser it is nothing compared to Brave. I'm completely blown away by this browser. Now I'm going to install Brave on my desktop as well.
- sergiotapia 8y ago
  FYI I'm also using Brave on my mobile device. It's fantastic there as well.
  - chrisweekly 8y ago
    Does Brave support quality dev tools?
    - sergiotapia 8y ago
      Literally the same as Chrome re: dev tools. Example: https://i.imgur.com/ZfHnNmX.png https://i.imgur.com/ZfHnNmX.png
      - SnowingXIV 8y ago
        Development tools held me back and why I don't use Mozilla. Using Chrome dev tools on a daily basis keeps me stuck. Also having different profiles for work and personal is super useful (different bookmarks, logins, history that syncs) it's really slick. Does Brave offer this along with 1Password integration?
pcunite 8y ago
Brave shows promise, but the windows installer won't allow you to run it outside of appdata, a deal breaker.

duiker101 8y ago

My browser of choice is Vivaldi, the most features and flexibility. Love it.

larkeith 8y ago

While I switched back to Firefox a while ago due to loss of trust in Google, it should not be forgotten that they support DRM on the web.

confounded 8y ago
Google’s, no less! (Widevine.) At least for me, on Linux, it’s always been opt-in, and plenty of the versions of Firefox packaged by distro maintainers get rid of it all together.
AsyncAwait 8y ago
They do, (I imagine if Netflix wouldn't work, they would lose users), but at least it's opt-in.

colemickens 8y ago

I'm a huge fan too but it seems like Mozilla keeps dropping the ball on specific odd, "easy" things. The built-in screenshot tool makes it really easy to accidentally upload private information to a public inage sharing site and the Issue tracking a simple button relabeling has been open for months. They refuse to back down on Pocket integration that still leaves an awful taste in my mouth. The Library/Downloads windows have weird UX behaviors, should probably just be regular tabs, etc.

bad_user 8y ago
Pocket is now owned by Mozilla. I for one am glad that it exists, I love Pocket, the only annoyance I have is that the Firefox integration is not as complete as the Chrome add-on, probably because Firefox users keep bitching and moaning about it.
- colemickens 8y ago
  And maybe if that functionality were in an optional extension it would be easier to add features to it for the users that want it. It's not as if it being an add-on has, in any way, hampered your ability to use it in Chrome. It's great that you like Pocket. I think it's a bit rude to act like it's unreasonable to have qualms about how it was added (certainly pre-Mozilla owning them) or to be confused about it's inclusion while things like RSS reading/folders, (a not-uncommon browser feature) are removed. This entire conversation wouldn't need to happen. There wouldn't be unhappy users. There wouldn't be "another side" calling criticism "bitching". They'd get active, enthusiastic user feedback, etc, etc.
  - robin_reala 8y ago
    I’m a heavy RSS consumer, but I’m absolutely in a minority. RSS features according to Mozilla’s own telemetry are used by an extreme minority of users (I can’t find the exact figures but certainly less than 0.5% of people), and are a fairly large and unmaintained part of a codebase that’s undergoing extensive modification. I’d far rather Mozilla expose some APIs and let people make RSS-based extensions than have it built in and getting in the way of performance work.

mamcx 8y ago

I try to change this week but I'm unable to make zoom to work well (Chrome is perfect to me. Safari not work neither). Exist a way to make it work? (ie: Maker a goblal zoom and a per-domain/page)

emayljames 8y ago
Stylish addon can do this. Install it then use userstyles website to find the custom script you need.
- JoshMnem 8y ago
  Stylish apparently had spyware problems after being bought by another company.[1] Stylus[2] is the fork. [1] https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/chrome-and-firefox-pull-stylish-add-on-after-report-it-logged-browser-history/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/chrome-and-fi... [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/styl-us/
  - scns 8y ago
    i use the "Dark Background and Light Text" extension, to use Solarized on every site. You can toggle with F2. Easier to use IMO.
  - mamcx 8y ago
    So I must write a css for the zoom to work?

lh7777 8y ago

I really want to like Firefox (or any of the alternative browsers mentioned here for that matter), but I frequently use my Surface in tablet mode and the only browsers with acceptable touch screen support on Windows are Edge and Chrome. Last I checked, this still didn't seem to be a priority for Firefox.

codethief 8y ago
What exactly do you mean? (Honest question) Firefox works great on my tablet.
- lh7777 8y ago
  They've actually fixed a number of minor issues over the past year or so, but Firefox still doesn't support pinch zoom on Windows[1]. Being able to reorder tabs using the touchscreen would also be nice, but not as critical. [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=688990
  - staktrace 8y ago
    Reordering tabs via touch should work, it was fixed in Firefox 59 (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1362065 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1362065). And yes, pinch zoom is not supported (we do text/reflowing zoom, but not mobile-style pinch zoom). It's something that's being worked on but there's a lot of dependencies in order to get it done.
    - lh7777 8y ago
      Thanks -- I didn't realize that reordering tabs had been fixed. It only works on the active tab[1] and I guess I've only ever tried moving inactive tabs before. It's not perfect, but so far seems better than in Edge (which allows reordering of inactive tabs but is often rather janky) and Chrome (which has no ability to scroll the tab bar, so tabs quickly get uselessly tiny). [1] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1362065#c57 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1362065#c57

cm2187 8y ago

Yeah I don't like to change habits, I have been using chrome for as long as it has been around, but when I read that last week I made the jump to firefox. Honestly, outside of not having the option to mute sites (as opposed to muting tabs), I can barely tell the difference. Also it makes it harder than chrome to manage site specific permissions. You have to go into the settings and add some exceptions instead of just changing a setting in top left corner while on the site. But it's otherwise a smooth transition.

pymai 8y ago
well there's always vivaldi or chromium if you want to slowly wein yourself off google

atombender 8y ago

I wish Firefox was as sleek, fast and no-nonsense as Safari on the Mac, which is my everyday browser. I vastly prefer the idea of an open browser that is not tightly coupled to a particular industry giant. And I wish Firefox actually had a viable Safari competitor on iOS, so that I can sync my state around. Unfortunately, while Firefox has made significant leaps the last couple of years, it's still not a viable alternative to Safari for me. It doesn't feel particularly native (neither the "chrome" nor form controls etc.), and the UX is still clunky compared to native Mac-first apps. One particular way in which Safari absolutely beats Firefox is the address bar. Most of the autocompletions that Safari provide are exactly what I want. As an example, if I type "mapq" into Safari, it suggests mapquest.com (a site I've never visited before, so this is not based on anything from my history). For Firefox, it suggests a Googles search for "mapquest", which is just stupid. Aside from suggesting web sites, Safari is superb at showing good results (Wikipedia is often a top hit), and it is awesome at providing autocompletions from my bookmarks and history. Firefox also seems a bit lost when it comes to innovating, and keeps coming up with weak concepts that don't get any tractions; Personas comes to mind. Container tabs are a similarly interesting idea with a weird implementation that requires you to micromanage your tabs, which I certainly don't want to, and provides a "techie" solution to something that should just be invisible and default (i.e. all web sites should be "contained").

smcnally 8y ago
> Container tabs are a similarly interesting idea with a weird implementation that requires you to micromanage your tabs, which I certainly don't want to, and provides a "techie" solution to something that should just be invisible and default (i.e. all web sites should be "contained"). All websites contained would be an interesting default. With ways to “re-open current tab in container [X]” and “merge current tab with container [Y],” it would involve less micromanaging. That’s still not invisible, the container process and UX warrants plenty of thought.
- atombender 8y ago
  I think container tabs conflates several things that won't be understandable to non-techies. One is privacy — preventing sites from abusing cross-site concerns such as cookies for tracking. The other is what could be described as "focus" or "modality". A lot of people use windows as a poor man's workspace. For example, if I'm researching where to travel, I'll have a window open with tons of tabs — Google Flights, Kayak, Tripadvisor, Booking.com, all jammed into one "workspace". If I'm comparison shopping for one specific thing, there'd be Amazon, Jet, Etsy, eBay, etc. This is how people tend to work: Windows separate modes, tabs separate units of focus within that mode. And yet there's no browser that supports such a way of working. We have to accept that people now "live" within the Internet, and need to support different modes. Rather than think of the browser as a shell, why not think of the browser as a world in which you can open up different types of interacting with that world? For example, a Google Doc tab is not something that works very well as a tab. It's a document, representing its own modality. Slack is an app, also its own modality. A "workspace" is something else again. And so on. These are all "applications" in a classical sense, yet work within the context of a user. I'm not suggesting a ChromeOS, just that what we think of as "the web" could be rethought in terms of different variations — ways to work — with the same thing. Also, in terms of privacy, why are we still using cookies? Why are we "logging in" and "logging out" of web sites and having password managers that automatically fill out form fields? Why can't the web site negotiate its session with the browser ("I want an identity for gmail.com, please give me one"), which can already know who I am?

djsumdog 8y ago

I recently moved back to Firefox from Vivaldi. It's been a good move. I feel like Firefox is back in the same boat it was in the 90s, but this time fighting Google Chrome instead of IE. But it's a bit different since you have to explicitly download Chrome. It's a bit different since you see an ad to download it right when you hit Google.

robin_reala 8y ago
Not on Android, and not when you install some other piece of software that surreptitiously bundles Chrome and sets it to default: https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1053973 https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1053973

egfx 8y ago

I started using Firefox because I literally coudn't use Chrome anymore on my PC. Every time I opened Chrome it would hard lock and I needed to ctrl-alt-del, end-task. Even re-installing and clearing out cache and folders didn't help. I haven't been able to open Chrome for months. Using Firefox for 1 week was a bit of usability shock. But it's so awesome once you get used to it. Everything is indeed so much more thoughtful. Every feature.

mfukar 8y ago

I'd use firefox despite its schizophrenic features, if it were at least as responsive as chrome, on my mostly-idle home desktop. Maybe one day, mozilla. Maybe one day.

pymai 8y ago

I use Firefox every now and then just for reading articles so my main browser doesn't get bloated with tabs, but it runs far from fantastic on my computer for some reason. whenever a page loads all the elements move around for a second or two before they settle in their right place. that would crack me up if I had to put up with that all day

the_clarence 8y ago

It's the best browser objectively, because it has tree style tabs, it's also a bad browser because it doesn't have a native support for tabs on the side.

marichards 8y ago

Except, by default their primary product was the interface by which may of their users got targeted. They've sat on their hands on privacy for years, offering features for the informed minority, not protecting the majority of their users. It's been Safari and Brave that have started to show proper leadership in protecting users. Recent attempts I've been making to help teach web developers about the dangers of referers, before they add more tracking pixels or leak reset password links get deleted by Mozilla technical writers because " We don't think it's appropriate to have a red warning banner at the tops of the pages. That kind of design element is one we try to avoid on MDN unless it's highlighting the very first thing you need to know about the item, which we don't think it is in this case, although we do appreciate that it is important." Great idea, let's leave the wet floor warning as a note at the end of the corridor. See here https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/img$compare?locale=en-US&to=1419222&from=1419039 https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/im...

groovecoder 8y ago
I'm a Mozillian who worked on MDN for 5 years, and now work on Firefox Privacy & Security. Most relevantly, I wrote the patch that implements strict-origin-when-cross-origin Referrer policy in Private Browsing Mode. I certainly trust the MDN team to understand how to arrange their content to match their audience. I also believe web developers should be more informed about the privacy & security issues of their work. The content you tried to add was verbose without any technical detail or links, and the MDN revision history isn't a great space for content discussion. Have you tried filing a content bug? It's much easier to converse on bugzilla than thru edit battles. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/form.doc?bug_file_loc=https%3A//developer.mozilla.org/en-US/ https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/form.doc?bug_file_loc=https%3A/...

skrebbel 8y ago

I'd like to add that the Firefox DevTools are excellent now. For a long time there was this weird stuff with built-in devtools but-you-still-kinda-needed-FireBug and it was a mess (a sufficiently big mess to keep me on a random Blink-based browser), but these days it's just great. Firefox is a truly great browser, they really made amazing improvements on all fronts in the last years. And I say this as someone who never used Firefox as their daily driver until half a year ago or so.

another-cuppa 8y ago

It always was. When I started using Firefox it was an alternative to IE6. It was the browser you used if you were a web developer because it had things like Firebug (which Google copied and integrated into Chrome). Chrome didn't convert many Firefox users, it just did a much better job of converting IE users than Firefox ever did, but that's no surprise given that they could directly market it to users through google.com. Chrome initially was faster than Firefox because it lacked features. This is a common pattern if you've been in this business long enough. Firefox itself was originally the fast-but-cut-down version of Mozilla. Like Firefox, Chrome quickly gained features and bloat and became just as slow as Firefox and everything before it.

wardrobe 8y ago

Biggest drawback to me after trying Firefox are the lack of simple profiles, as in Chrome, which let me separate work from personal from school when browsing, and the fact that all web development is done for Chrome. So many sites don't work correctly in Firefox that I eventually had to give up on it and move back.

unethical_ban 8y ago
Container tabs can do that from a isolation perspective, though bookmarks will be shared. I have "banking", "google services", "facebook", and the default for other stuff. >So many sites don't work correctly in Firefox I've not experienced that.