8 ms·

Firefox just doesn’t have enough advantages yet that would convince someone comfortable with Chrome to switch over. While privacy is an ever growing concern, it

by QML 8y ago

Firefox just doesn’t have enough advantages yet that would convince someone comfortable with Chrome to switch over. While privacy is an ever growing concern, it isn’t a strong enough feature for most people.

antoineMoPa 8y ago
Well now Firefox will have ad blocking plugins that works and Chrome will not.
- klardotsh 8y ago
  We'll see how long it lasts. Firefox has mostly strived, in the Quantum era, to stay mostly-ish compatible with Google's interpretation of WebExtensions, from what I can tell.
  - AsyncAwait 8y ago
    They do have some parts that are Firefox-exclusive. This is an easy advantage to have over your competition practically for free. I hope they see that.
    - throwaway2048 8y ago
      Judging by how mindlessly mozilla has been copying chrome anti-features, expect this in firefox too.
albru123 8y ago
Firefox does not stack tabs like Chrome does and does not load all the restored session tabs at once either. Aren't these dumb design decisions enough to switch to a product where people actually think about how it's going to be used?
- teraflop 8y ago
  > and does not load all the restored session tabs at once either For what it's worth, Chrome stopped doing this for me in a recent update (I think version 71).
- jinnko 8y ago
  Laying all the trans at one cripples my core i8 system for some time. Firefox's lazy tab loading is a much better user experience. Together with TreeStyle Tabs and the recent multi-container add-on, Firefox is just a better experience.
  - zcid 8y ago
    I used to be a fanatic about tree style tabs, but due to the new api, it's unusable with containers. I recently switched over to vertical tabs for that reason. I miss the tree layout, but at least now my tabs maintain their ordering.
    - Nullabillity 8y ago
      All of my TST issues have been related to the layout cache. You can disable it if you right-click the toolbar icon.
      - zcid 8y ago
        Thanks for the heads up. I'll play around with it sometime later this week. I would love to have it working consistently again.
    - Izkata 8y ago
      What are you talking about? I've been using TreeStyleTabs with containers for a good year or so.
      - zcid 8y ago
        I'm sure you're aware that not every user will have the same experience with a piece of software. There are a couple of bugs referenced in the Github issues for TST relevant to containers. There is a workaround, but I experience the issue again within a half hour. Not worth it to me.
criddell 8y ago
Plus Chrome just works better for a lot of sites. That might be because the site isn't properly coded, but users don't care. They just want something that works and more often than not, that's Chrome. My main browser is Firefox, but I have to switch over to Chrome more often than I would like. Electron is also based on Chromium, isn't it? IMHO, the rise of Electron just reinforces Chromium's status and I think Microsoft is going to accelerate that trend (I'm guessing MS adopted Chromium because of Electron).
- unethical_ban 8y ago
  What sites?
  - pfranz 8y ago
    I was doing some work with very large data sets in Google Sheets last week. I started hitting row and cell limits. Personally, I think a database is more appropriate for what I was doing, but spreadsheets are more grokable by non-techies. In Firefox, macOS was showing 4+GB of memory usage and formulas would take hours to run. I switched to Safari where memory usage was closer to 1-2GB, but it had this habit of refreshing the page as soon as you switched away (before a formula would finish running). I finally switched to Chrome and memory usage was about 1-2GB and heavy formulas behaved in a way more predictable manner.
    - raptorfactor 8y ago
      Do you have examples which aren't Google sites?
      - Guest10928391 8y ago
        I get issues almost daily with well respected sites not working in Firefox. Today I'm browsing the Adidas website, and the images don't load for any of the products in Firefox. https://www.adidas.com/us/ultraboost-all-terrain-ltd-shoes/BB4145.html https://www.adidas.com/us/ultraboost-all-terrain-ltd-shoes/B... Apparently they're WEBP images and my version of Firefox (version 64) doesn't support them, but searching online I read that the upcoming Firefox version 65 is suppose to fix that issue. Strangely enough, the images were working fine a few weeks ago on the Adidas website, but I had a different Firefox issue. When I clicked the images to see the fullscreen view and zoomed in, they wouldn't pan or drag correctly, so 80% of the image was hidden off the screen. In Chrome, they worked as expected. That's one example, but as I said, I get these kind of issues almost daily from companies that should know better. I still primarily use Firefox because I have no trust in Google, but I'm forced to open Chrome on a regular basis to resolve random quirks.
S4M 8y ago
What are the advantages of Chrome over Firefox?
- xfitm3 8y ago
  You get to view ads, apparently.
- xioxox 8y ago
  Translation is the only thing I open it for. The Google Translate website doesn't work as well as the real time functionality in Chrome.
tyfon 8y ago
A major problem is also that google websites run like crap in firefox. Gmail takes 20 seconds to load and don't get me started on youtube studio. Even the "feedback" button is broken in firefox so I can't even report the bugs I find. I'm at the point of installing chromium just to be able to manage my videos, but I refuse to give in.
- yogthos 8y ago
  I find Google websites run like shit in Chrome too, just slightly less shit than in FF.
rayvy 8y ago
> While privacy is an ever growing concern, it isn’t a strong enough feature for most people. At the end of the day, this is the end-all-be-all argument to the Facebook and Google duopoly. People just don't give a goddamn (excuse the language) about their data - they simply do.not.care. I believe my generation (Y), and possibly a few after us (X, etc), will be known as the generation(s) who didn't think privacy/data was that big of a deal - until one day it was. We are the guinea pig.
- MarsAscendant 8y ago
  I don't think fatalism is the philosophy to adopt here.
mr_custard 8y ago
I switched because Firefox has Multi-Account Containers, which was extremely compelling. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers
- Lorkki 8y ago
  They're a nice feature, although after a long while of trying, I ended up using just the Facebook container. The main container extension felt like too much work in regular browsing, and the tracking protection seems otherwise adequate when combined with uBlock. Sadly, Mozilla also seem to promote containers as an alternative to user profiles, while they're nowhere near as full-featured - sharing saved logins and bookmarks between my "personal" and "work" containers is almost never desireable. Managing and switching profiles, on the other hand, is virtually unchanged since the Netscape Communicator days.
  - BuckRogers 8y ago
    That's because you weren't properly setup with containers. I have 4 sessions going on right now, without any manual intervention. Facebook, work, Google and default. All interacting as intended with their assigned domains as isolated sessions.
- renholder 8y ago
  The Temporary Containers was a nice add-on built on top of that.[0] While it's a pain in the aspect of cookie-use across domains (like logging into Azure), it's other features out-weigh the initial nuissance - like automatic deletion of the container, as soon as the last one for that particular domain is closed. All of this is, of course, configurable. This wasn't meant to be a plug, just a happenstance of "if you like 'x', have you seen 'y' based on it?". =] [0] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...

by QML 8y ago

antoineMoPa 8y ago

Well now Firefox will have ad blocking plugins that works and Chrome will not.

klardotsh 8y ago
We'll see how long it lasts. Firefox has mostly strived, in the Quantum era, to stay mostly-ish compatible with Google's interpretation of WebExtensions, from what I can tell.
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  They do have some parts that are Firefox-exclusive. This is an easy advantage to have over your competition practically for free. I hope they see that.
  - throwaway2048 8y ago
    Judging by how mindlessly mozilla has been copying chrome anti-features, expect this in firefox too.

albru123 8y ago

Firefox does not stack tabs like Chrome does and does not load all the restored session tabs at once either. Aren't these dumb design decisions enough to switch to a product where people actually think about how it's going to be used?

teraflop 8y ago
> and does not load all the restored session tabs at once either For what it's worth, Chrome stopped doing this for me in a recent update (I think version 71).
jinnko 8y ago
Laying all the trans at one cripples my core i8 system for some time. Firefox's lazy tab loading is a much better user experience. Together with TreeStyle Tabs and the recent multi-container add-on, Firefox is just a better experience.
- zcid 8y ago
  I used to be a fanatic about tree style tabs, but due to the new api, it's unusable with containers. I recently switched over to vertical tabs for that reason. I miss the tree layout, but at least now my tabs maintain their ordering.
  - Nullabillity 8y ago
    All of my TST issues have been related to the layout cache. You can disable it if you right-click the toolbar icon.
    - zcid 8y ago
      Thanks for the heads up. I'll play around with it sometime later this week. I would love to have it working consistently again.
  - Izkata 8y ago
    What are you talking about? I've been using TreeStyleTabs with containers for a good year or so.
    - zcid 8y ago
      I'm sure you're aware that not every user will have the same experience with a piece of software. There are a couple of bugs referenced in the Github issues for TST relevant to containers. There is a workaround, but I experience the issue again within a half hour. Not worth it to me.

criddell 8y ago

Plus Chrome just works better for a lot of sites. That might be because the site isn't properly coded, but users don't care. They just want something that works and more often than not, that's Chrome. My main browser is Firefox, but I have to switch over to Chrome more often than I would like. Electron is also based on Chromium, isn't it? IMHO, the rise of Electron just reinforces Chromium's status and I think Microsoft is going to accelerate that trend (I'm guessing MS adopted Chromium because of Electron).

unethical_ban 8y ago
What sites?
- pfranz 8y ago
  I was doing some work with very large data sets in Google Sheets last week. I started hitting row and cell limits. Personally, I think a database is more appropriate for what I was doing, but spreadsheets are more grokable by non-techies. In Firefox, macOS was showing 4+GB of memory usage and formulas would take hours to run. I switched to Safari where memory usage was closer to 1-2GB, but it had this habit of refreshing the page as soon as you switched away (before a formula would finish running). I finally switched to Chrome and memory usage was about 1-2GB and heavy formulas behaved in a way more predictable manner.
  - raptorfactor 8y ago
    Do you have examples which aren't Google sites?
    - Guest10928391 8y ago
      I get issues almost daily with well respected sites not working in Firefox. Today I'm browsing the Adidas website, and the images don't load for any of the products in Firefox. https://www.adidas.com/us/ultraboost-all-terrain-ltd-shoes/BB4145.html https://www.adidas.com/us/ultraboost-all-terrain-ltd-shoes/B... Apparently they're WEBP images and my version of Firefox (version 64) doesn't support them, but searching online I read that the upcoming Firefox version 65 is suppose to fix that issue. Strangely enough, the images were working fine a few weeks ago on the Adidas website, but I had a different Firefox issue. When I clicked the images to see the fullscreen view and zoomed in, they wouldn't pan or drag correctly, so 80% of the image was hidden off the screen. In Chrome, they worked as expected. That's one example, but as I said, I get these kind of issues almost daily from companies that should know better. I still primarily use Firefox because I have no trust in Google, but I'm forced to open Chrome on a regular basis to resolve random quirks.

S4M 8y ago

What are the advantages of Chrome over Firefox?

xfitm3 8y ago
You get to view ads, apparently.
xioxox 8y ago
Translation is the only thing I open it for. The Google Translate website doesn't work as well as the real time functionality in Chrome.

tyfon 8y ago

A major problem is also that google websites run like crap in firefox. Gmail takes 20 seconds to load and don't get me started on youtube studio. Even the "feedback" button is broken in firefox so I can't even report the bugs I find. I'm at the point of installing chromium just to be able to manage my videos, but I refuse to give in.

yogthos 8y ago
I find Google websites run like shit in Chrome too, just slightly less shit than in FF.

rayvy 8y ago

> While privacy is an ever growing concern, it isn’t a strong enough feature for most people. At the end of the day, this is the end-all-be-all argument to the Facebook and Google duopoly. People just don't give a goddamn (excuse the language) about their data - they simply do.not.care. I believe my generation (Y), and possibly a few after us (X, etc), will be known as the generation(s) who didn't think privacy/data was that big of a deal - until one day it was. We are the guinea pig.

MarsAscendant 8y ago
I don't think fatalism is the philosophy to adopt here.

mr_custard 8y ago

I switched because Firefox has Multi-Account Containers, which was extremely compelling. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers

Lorkki 8y ago
They're a nice feature, although after a long while of trying, I ended up using just the Facebook container. The main container extension felt like too much work in regular browsing, and the tracking protection seems otherwise adequate when combined with uBlock. Sadly, Mozilla also seem to promote containers as an alternative to user profiles, while they're nowhere near as full-featured - sharing saved logins and bookmarks between my "personal" and "work" containers is almost never desireable. Managing and switching profiles, on the other hand, is virtually unchanged since the Netscape Communicator days.
- BuckRogers 8y ago
  That's because you weren't properly setup with containers. I have 4 sessions going on right now, without any manual intervention. Facebook, work, Google and default. All interacting as intended with their assigned domains as isolated sessions.
renholder 8y ago
The Temporary Containers was a nice add-on built on top of that.[0] While it's a pain in the aspect of cookie-use across domains (like logging into Azure), it's other features out-weigh the initial nuissance - like automatic deletion of the container, as soon as the last one for that particular domain is closed. All of this is, of course, configurable. This wasn't meant to be a plug, just a happenstance of "if you like 'x', have you seen 'y' based on it?". =] [0] - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...