6 ms·

Just my personal $0.02: 1. The biggest thing keeping me tied to Chrome over any other browser is the extension support. Extensions are second class citizens in

by Puer 8y ago

Just my personal $0.02: 1. The biggest thing keeping me tied to Chrome over any other browser is the extension support. Extensions are second class citizens in any other browser. This is partly because other browsers keep overhauling their systems and deprecating old software which discourages extension developers, and mainly because (as an extension developer) why would you code for browser X when you can get more users on browser Y? 2. Anecdotal evidence, but every time an update of Firefox (and most notably Quantum) is released people laud how fast it is. On my 2015 Macbook running Mac OS Firefox has never been faster. Maybe there are things behind the scenes such as caching playing a role, but web pages load slower, scrolling feels sluggish, videos drop frames and freeze or get out of sync. It isn't an enjoyable experience compared to Chrome or Safari.

hnaccy 8y ago
Are there specific WebExtension APIs you care about that Chrome supports and Firefox doesn't?
- Puer 8y ago
  There are a few niche plugins I use for specific sites to enhance usability that I definitely don't expect to be ported to Firefox, but even the ones that are take an understandable backseat in terms of developer priority. For example, for more than 10 years I've been using Chrome extensions that allow you to hover over image links to view them without clicking. There are dozens of these extensions in almost any browser, but they require constant updating to keep up with 1) new image/video hosts and 2) changes to existing image/video hosts. For me, these extensions are an essential part of the browsing experience of many websites. I've found that the same extensions by the same developers often lag behind 6+ months on Firefox vs. Chrome which makes them really useless when gfycat, streamable, imgur, etc. all stop working.
  - bjz_ 8y ago
    You can use most WebExtensions from Chrome with Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-foxified/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-...
    - PurpleRamen 8y ago
      "This add-on has been discontinued" It's kinda strange how bad mozilla is in doing the obvious good. Building in a direct support for chrome-store should be a priority. Solutions like this addon have such a bad experience..
ericabiz 8y ago
For #2, might be the same issue I posted about on HN a while back, particularly if you have a 13” MBP. I corresponded with Mozilla employees, but I still don’t think it has made much movement toward getting fixed. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18072091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18072091
jimmybot 8y ago
What extensions in particular do you use that you can't find equivalents on Firefox?
- fiddlerwoaroof 8y ago
  Dirac Devtools for Clojurescript use the custom formatters api to render Clojure data structures and Firefox hasn’t implemented it.
Mayzie 8y ago
> 2. Anecdotal evidence, but every time an update of Firefox (and most notably Quantum) is released people laud how fast it is. On my 2015 Macbook running Mac OS Firefox has never been faster. Maybe there are things behind the scenes such as caching playing a role, but web pages load slower, scrolling feels sluggish, videos drop frames and freeze or get out of sync. It isn't an enjoyable experience compared to Chrome or Safari. This is my experience too, unfortunately. I keep using Firefox instead of Chrome now to support Mozilla and their positive attitude towards end-user privacy, but compared to when I use Chrome it is an annoying product to use with the endless waiting and lag. Using Linux, so maybe it is just really only optimised for Windows PCs (arguably their largest user base)?
- godelski 8y ago
  Really? I'm on Linux and I saw immediate changes once Quantum hit. It runs better for me on Ubuntu{16,18} and Arch. I had some glitches at the beginning, but not anymore. The only glitch I have now is that I can't use send tabs to push a tab to my phone (but the reverse works and it is fine to any other computer). So that's not that big of an issue.
  - Mayzie 8y ago
    I wish I had your experience. But I switched from Chrome when Quantum came out, and it felt like a big downgrade in performance. And I feel that is still the case these days when comparing Firefox and Chrome. Granted, I hadn't used Firefox prior to the Quantum release for a long time because of the performance so I likely didn't notice the improvement as you did. I just wish it was better, because while it does get annoying at times, I do want to support Mozilla :-/
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
kibwen 8y ago
> other browsers keep overhauling their systems and deprecating old software which discourages extension developers Note that this is why Firefox underwent the extensionpocalypse last year; the prior extensions model made it impossible not to regularly break the ecosystem. The next bit about "why code for browser X?" is also why they based their new APIs on Chrome's, to make it easy for existing Chrome extensions to support both browsers.
baby 8y ago
I'm not sure I understand, there is no side-tab plugin like Tree Style Tab plugin on Chrome. How do you handle more than 10 tabs?
- shawn 8y ago
  With more than 10 windows.
- spurgu 8y ago
  Not OP, but I currently have around 80 tabs open spread/organized over 6 different windows (and two different Chrome profiles). And a bunch more "snoozing" with OneTab.
  - baby 8y ago
    You should probably give tree style tabs a try
- shittyadmin 8y ago
  I miss the old XUL extensions, way better tab extensions and stuff like DownThemAll was amazing. Modernly Firefox can't be customized much more than chrome - extreme hacks are needed: https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/wiki/Code-snippets-for-custom-style-rules#for-userchromecss https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/wiki/Code-snippets-fo...
  - pmoriarty 8y ago
    The XUL extension I miss most is Pentadactyl. Tridactyl is a pale imitation, and still immature. Qutebrowser has potential, but still lacks critical extensions like uMatrix and uBlock Origin.
    - The-Compiler 8y ago
      Might want to subscribe to https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/28 https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/28 and https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/29 https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/29 if you haven't already ;-) (To clarify: it does have an adblocker, but it's quite basic, only based on a blacklist of hosts. You can also selectively enable JavaScript for individual domains, but not yet based on both webpage and its origin like with uMatrix)
craftyguy 8y ago
> 1. The biggest thing keeping me tied to Chrome over any other browser is the extension support. Extensions are second class citizens in any other browser. You say this, but on mobile, the only major browser that supports extensions is Firefox. Not Chrome. Not Safari.
- fireattack 8y ago
  I'm a heavy Firefox+addon user, but I just don't use phone browser enough to even bother using addons. (And Firefox for Android is pretty bad otherwise, unfortunately.)
  - craftyguy 8y ago
    Since I refuse to install apps on my phone for services I use that have websites, I'm a fairly heavy phone browser user.. so being able to adblock, block arbitrary JS (noscript), and kill tracking cookies is wonderful. > And Firefox for Android is pretty bad otherwise, unfortunately I disagree. Why do you think it is "pretty bad"?
    - fireattack 8y ago
      Sync, bookmark handling, performance. Sync is the worst by a mile. You can NEVER expect a tab you opened (or history) on computer to show up reliably on mobile device in timely fashion.
      - deleted 8y ago
        [deleted]
    - baroffoos 8y ago
      It was working really slow for me 6 months ago but it seems to be totally solved in recent versions.
    - SyneRyder 8y ago
      One problem I have with Firefox on Android is that it doesn't support the Samsung DeX desktop environment, while all the other browsers do (Chrome, Edge, Bing, Samsung Internet). Presumably that means it doesn't run well on ChromeOS laptops either. It's also noticeably slower than the other browsers. That said, I keep going back to Firefox as my preferred phone browser, I still like it more than the others. And Firefox is definitely my favorite desktop browser, ever since Quantum. It was an enormous speed improvement over Safari on Mac for me when it came out, and I'm enjoying Firefox on my new PC laptop too.
justsee 8y ago
I just deleted Chrome, and switched to Brave as my full-time personal browser: faster, more secure, and based on Chromium so full extension support[1]. I still use and support Firefox for development purposes, and am wedded to containers, but apart from that it's Brave all the way (especially on mobile, which has been my default browser for over a year now). [1] Excluding anything that bakes in Google spyware, and I believe they'll do a bit more curating of extensions from a security perspective.
- henryw 8y ago
  Thanks for suggesting Brave. Just downloaded it, and it seems very well put together. Interesting how that plan to pay you to view ads.
  - justsee 8y ago
    Even better is that it's optional, so those of us who don't want to see any ads but still want to support sites are in a position to tip / donate / potentially subscribe to sites across the web using a browser-native crypto wallet. That also means I can financially support sites without handing over any PII data as well. It's up to them to offer a deal to get subscriber data (marketers gonna market), but the bar is increasingly high as we see hacks like Quora. I think we're moving to a world where publishers will see that an MVP business model is 'dollars without data', and BAT with ZKP anonymity enables that.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- spurgu 8y ago
  Waiting for them to implement sync until I switch full time but yeah, impressed so far.
clouddrover 8y ago
> Extensions are second class citizens in any other browser. I'd say Firefox's support for extensions is better than Chrome's, even after the change to WebExtensions. The author of NoScript, for example, thinks Firefox has the best environment for add-ons: https://hackademix.net/2017/11/21/noscript-1011-quantum-powerball-finish-and-rebooting/ https://hackademix.net/2017/11/21/noscript-1011-quantum-powe...
0xADEADBEE 8y ago
I am an edge-case but my favourite extensions are AdNauseum [1], CookieAutoDelete and NoScript. The first isn't even available on the Chrome store (although you can install it via Dev Mode [2]), and that's before I weight concerns like Google's dragnet. Totally agree with the Network Effect point though, and I hear Chrome's dev tools are quicker than Firefox's in DOM rendering. With regard to 2, I've not found it to be noticeably slow, nor experienced dropped frames or the other complaints (ran on a 2014 and a 2017), but that's more likely me being unobservant. My recreational browsing is mostly on an iPad, and the user story there is pretty desperate. I'd prefer to mimic my Desktop setup, but the walled garden doesn't afford me that opportunity. I'm cautiously optimistic that situation will catch up before I move platforms though! Anyway, thank you for helping me see the other side a little better. [1] - https://adnauseam.io https://adnauseam.io [2] - I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but there's a needless and incessant Chrome (and Chromium) prompt on each startup as follows: """ Disable Developer Mode Extensions Extensions running in developer mode [sic] can harm your computer. If you're not a developer, you should disable these extensions running in developer mode to stay safe """ I personally find it inherently hostile, but perhaps I'm just an old man disregarding the use-case of other people!
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  I used NoScript forever, but recently switched to uMatrix, and it's so much better in that it gives you much more fine-grained control over what to block/allow. I'd recommend giving it a try. uBlock Origin is a great complement to it, for when I want to block specific page elements.
  - m-localhost 8y ago
    I use both in parallel and sometimes it's annoying to make a video player work (or captcha). I don't know how a video player can rely on 5000 injected dependencies from 5000 different domains.
  - 0xADEADBEE 8y ago
    Thank you for this - I'd never looked into uMatrix but I'm test driving it today.
pizzazzaro 8y ago
Extensions get to modify the same about:config in FF as the firefox internal settings. Some extensions dont work after a year of being undeveloped, because the API changes. Is this really a bad thing? Opensource software uses patching as a "heartbeat" to discern whether a project is still developed or not. Hackers find holes over time, and when devs no longer fill them, the project needs to be left for dead. Why should browser addons be any different? I guess its a different philosophy - if the devs leave a browser addon for dead, the users should too. Once every couple of years, the API changes and cleans out dead addons. Im not sure this is often enough. But the best addons stay. NoScript. Adblock Plus or uBlock Origin. httpsEverywhere. The best Canvas blockers. These stay up to date. What is missing?

by Puer 8y ago

hnaccy 8y ago

Are there specific WebExtension APIs you care about that Chrome supports and Firefox doesn't?

Puer 8y ago
There are a few niche plugins I use for specific sites to enhance usability that I definitely don't expect to be ported to Firefox, but even the ones that are take an understandable backseat in terms of developer priority. For example, for more than 10 years I've been using Chrome extensions that allow you to hover over image links to view them without clicking. There are dozens of these extensions in almost any browser, but they require constant updating to keep up with 1) new image/video hosts and 2) changes to existing image/video hosts. For me, these extensions are an essential part of the browsing experience of many websites. I've found that the same extensions by the same developers often lag behind 6+ months on Firefox vs. Chrome which makes them really useless when gfycat, streamable, imgur, etc. all stop working.
- bjz_ 8y ago
  You can use most WebExtensions from Chrome with Firefox: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-foxified/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/chrome-store-...
  - PurpleRamen 8y ago
    "This add-on has been discontinued" It's kinda strange how bad mozilla is in doing the obvious good. Building in a direct support for chrome-store should be a priority. Solutions like this addon have such a bad experience..

ericabiz 8y ago

For #2, might be the same issue I posted about on HN a while back, particularly if you have a 13” MBP. I corresponded with Mozilla employees, but I still don’t think it has made much movement toward getting fixed. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18072091 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18072091

jimmybot 8y ago

What extensions in particular do you use that you can't find equivalents on Firefox?

fiddlerwoaroof 8y ago
Dirac Devtools for Clojurescript use the custom formatters api to render Clojure data structures and Firefox hasn’t implemented it.

Mayzie 8y ago

> 2. Anecdotal evidence, but every time an update of Firefox (and most notably Quantum) is released people laud how fast it is. On my 2015 Macbook running Mac OS Firefox has never been faster. Maybe there are things behind the scenes such as caching playing a role, but web pages load slower, scrolling feels sluggish, videos drop frames and freeze or get out of sync. It isn't an enjoyable experience compared to Chrome or Safari. This is my experience too, unfortunately. I keep using Firefox instead of Chrome now to support Mozilla and their positive attitude towards end-user privacy, but compared to when I use Chrome it is an annoying product to use with the endless waiting and lag. Using Linux, so maybe it is just really only optimised for Windows PCs (arguably their largest user base)?

godelski 8y ago
Really? I'm on Linux and I saw immediate changes once Quantum hit. It runs better for me on Ubuntu{16,18} and Arch. I had some glitches at the beginning, but not anymore. The only glitch I have now is that I can't use send tabs to push a tab to my phone (but the reverse works and it is fine to any other computer). So that's not that big of an issue.
- Mayzie 8y ago
  I wish I had your experience. But I switched from Chrome when Quantum came out, and it felt like a big downgrade in performance. And I feel that is still the case these days when comparing Firefox and Chrome. Granted, I hadn't used Firefox prior to the Quantum release for a long time because of the performance so I likely didn't notice the improvement as you did. I just wish it was better, because while it does get annoying at times, I do want to support Mozilla :-/
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

kibwen 8y ago

> other browsers keep overhauling their systems and deprecating old software which discourages extension developers Note that this is why Firefox underwent the extensionpocalypse last year; the prior extensions model made it impossible not to regularly break the ecosystem. The next bit about "why code for browser X?" is also why they based their new APIs on Chrome's, to make it easy for existing Chrome extensions to support both browsers.

baby 8y ago

I'm not sure I understand, there is no side-tab plugin like Tree Style Tab plugin on Chrome. How do you handle more than 10 tabs?

shawn 8y ago
With more than 10 windows.
spurgu 8y ago
Not OP, but I currently have around 80 tabs open spread/organized over 6 different windows (and two different Chrome profiles). And a bunch more "snoozing" with OneTab.
- baby 8y ago
  You should probably give tree style tabs a try
shittyadmin 8y ago
I miss the old XUL extensions, way better tab extensions and stuff like DownThemAll was amazing. Modernly Firefox can't be customized much more than chrome - extreme hacks are needed: https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/wiki/Code-snippets-for-custom-style-rules#for-userchromecss https://github.com/piroor/treestyletab/wiki/Code-snippets-fo...
- pmoriarty 8y ago
  The XUL extension I miss most is Pentadactyl. Tridactyl is a pale imitation, and still immature. Qutebrowser has potential, but still lacks critical extensions like uMatrix and uBlock Origin.
  - The-Compiler 8y ago
    Might want to subscribe to https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/28 https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/28 and https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/29 https://github.com/qutebrowser/qutebrowser/issues/29 if you haven't already ;-) (To clarify: it does have an adblocker, but it's quite basic, only based on a blacklist of hosts. You can also selectively enable JavaScript for individual domains, but not yet based on both webpage and its origin like with uMatrix)

craftyguy 8y ago

> 1. The biggest thing keeping me tied to Chrome over any other browser is the extension support. Extensions are second class citizens in any other browser. You say this, but on mobile, the only major browser that supports extensions is Firefox. Not Chrome. Not Safari.

fireattack 8y ago
I'm a heavy Firefox+addon user, but I just don't use phone browser enough to even bother using addons. (And Firefox for Android is pretty bad otherwise, unfortunately.)
- craftyguy 8y ago
  Since I refuse to install apps on my phone for services I use that have websites, I'm a fairly heavy phone browser user.. so being able to adblock, block arbitrary JS (noscript), and kill tracking cookies is wonderful. > And Firefox for Android is pretty bad otherwise, unfortunately I disagree. Why do you think it is "pretty bad"?
  - fireattack 8y ago
    Sync, bookmark handling, performance. Sync is the worst by a mile. You can NEVER expect a tab you opened (or history) on computer to show up reliably on mobile device in timely fashion.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
  - baroffoos 8y ago
    It was working really slow for me 6 months ago but it seems to be totally solved in recent versions.
  - SyneRyder 8y ago
    One problem I have with Firefox on Android is that it doesn't support the Samsung DeX desktop environment, while all the other browsers do (Chrome, Edge, Bing, Samsung Internet). Presumably that means it doesn't run well on ChromeOS laptops either. It's also noticeably slower than the other browsers. That said, I keep going back to Firefox as my preferred phone browser, I still like it more than the others. And Firefox is definitely my favorite desktop browser, ever since Quantum. It was an enormous speed improvement over Safari on Mac for me when it came out, and I'm enjoying Firefox on my new PC laptop too.

justsee 8y ago

I just deleted Chrome, and switched to Brave as my full-time personal browser: faster, more secure, and based on Chromium so full extension support[1]. I still use and support Firefox for development purposes, and am wedded to containers, but apart from that it's Brave all the way (especially on mobile, which has been my default browser for over a year now). [1] Excluding anything that bakes in Google spyware, and I believe they'll do a bit more curating of extensions from a security perspective.

henryw 8y ago
Thanks for suggesting Brave. Just downloaded it, and it seems very well put together. Interesting how that plan to pay you to view ads.
- justsee 8y ago
  Even better is that it's optional, so those of us who don't want to see any ads but still want to support sites are in a position to tip / donate / potentially subscribe to sites across the web using a browser-native crypto wallet. That also means I can financially support sites without handing over any PII data as well. It's up to them to offer a deal to get subscriber data (marketers gonna market), but the bar is increasingly high as we see hacks like Quora. I think we're moving to a world where publishers will see that an MVP business model is 'dollars without data', and BAT with ZKP anonymity enables that.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
spurgu 8y ago
Waiting for them to implement sync until I switch full time but yeah, impressed so far.

clouddrover 8y ago

> Extensions are second class citizens in any other browser. I'd say Firefox's support for extensions is better than Chrome's, even after the change to WebExtensions. The author of NoScript, for example, thinks Firefox has the best environment for add-ons: https://hackademix.net/2017/11/21/noscript-1011-quantum-powerball-finish-and-rebooting/ https://hackademix.net/2017/11/21/noscript-1011-quantum-powe...

0xADEADBEE 8y ago

I am an edge-case but my favourite extensions are AdNauseum [1], CookieAutoDelete and NoScript. The first isn't even available on the Chrome store (although you can install it via Dev Mode [2]), and that's before I weight concerns like Google's dragnet. Totally agree with the Network Effect point though, and I hear Chrome's dev tools are quicker than Firefox's in DOM rendering. With regard to 2, I've not found it to be noticeably slow, nor experienced dropped frames or the other complaints (ran on a 2014 and a 2017), but that's more likely me being unobservant. My recreational browsing is mostly on an iPad, and the user story there is pretty desperate. I'd prefer to mimic my Desktop setup, but the walled garden doesn't afford me that opportunity. I'm cautiously optimistic that situation will catch up before I move platforms though! Anyway, thank you for helping me see the other side a little better. [1] - https://adnauseam.io https://adnauseam.io [2] - I don't know if anyone else has noticed this, but there's a needless and incessant Chrome (and Chromium) prompt on each startup as follows: """ Disable Developer Mode Extensions Extensions running in developer mode [sic] can harm your computer. If you're not a developer, you should disable these extensions running in developer mode to stay safe """ I personally find it inherently hostile, but perhaps I'm just an old man disregarding the use-case of other people!

pmoriarty 8y ago
I used NoScript forever, but recently switched to uMatrix, and it's so much better in that it gives you much more fine-grained control over what to block/allow. I'd recommend giving it a try. uBlock Origin is a great complement to it, for when I want to block specific page elements.
- m-localhost 8y ago
  I use both in parallel and sometimes it's annoying to make a video player work (or captcha). I don't know how a video player can rely on 5000 injected dependencies from 5000 different domains.
- 0xADEADBEE 8y ago
  Thank you for this - I'd never looked into uMatrix but I'm test driving it today.

pizzazzaro 8y ago

Extensions get to modify the same about:config in FF as the firefox internal settings. Some extensions dont work after a year of being undeveloped, because the API changes. Is this really a bad thing? Opensource software uses patching as a "heartbeat" to discern whether a project is still developed or not. Hackers find holes over time, and when devs no longer fill them, the project needs to be left for dead. Why should browser addons be any different? I guess its a different philosophy - if the devs leave a browser addon for dead, the users should too. Once every couple of years, the API changes and cleans out dead addons. Im not sure this is often enough. But the best addons stay. NoScript. Adblock Plus or uBlock Origin. httpsEverywhere. The best Canvas blockers. These stay up to date. What is missing?