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Not the person you're responding to, but no. Until uMatrix actually breaks for me, I'm not switching to Firefox. Switching is a pain, and I don't like Firefox'

Not the person you're responding to, but no. Until uMatrix actually breaks for me, I'm not switching to Firefox. Switching is a pain, and I don't like Firefox's UI/UX. I'd switch if they did this because I value the extension very highly, but I wouldn't be happy about it.

rattray 8y ago
Why not Brave? It uses Chromium. UI/UX also isn't as nice as Chrome but it's closer.
- masonic 8y ago
  Do we know that Brave will continue to be immune to this?
- IggleSniggle 8y ago
  The headline is “changes to Chromium,” on which Brave is built...
  - rattray 8y ago
    I trust the Brave team to find a way around this, eg; with a fork. Otherwise their organization will fail.
fucking_tragedy 8y ago
Funny, I switched to Firefox because I preferred the UI/UX. I'm happy with my choice.
sodosopa 8y ago
I'm in the same boat. I'm not a fan of Firefox at all. Leadership, code, marketing, UI, etc. I'll probably move to Safari
- bobajeff 8y ago
  There's also Brave and Kiwi browser if they disable/limit this api in their extensions there's no stopping Chromium-based browsers from implementing them natively outside of extensions.
- erklik 8y ago
  Isn't Firefox like much better in terms of the technical side of things i.e. faster, uses fewer resources, has better code inspection tools etc?
  - clumsysmurf 8y ago
    On the Mac, Safari is far more power efficient. With each update I notice Firefox is using more and more ram too. Also good luck finding out which tab is causing problems.
  - feikname 8y ago
    Last time I did a DOM benchmark Chrome still beat it by a significant margin. Also, only personal experience, but Chrome seems way more responsive with multiple tabs open than Firefox. One annoying thing is that current versions of Firefox seem to rely on disk I/O too much, so if it's busy, you can't really do anything (switching or creating new tabs is greeted by spinning loading circle that takes a long time to happen).
- feikname 8y ago
  Could you explain more about your dislike of Firefox's leadership?
  - jammygit 8y ago
    IIRC, the complaints I've read online are along the lines of: Mozilla ran a Mr Robot ad campaign with browser integration, partnered with an ad company for some research in a seemingly-sneaky way, made their CEO resign (now the CEO of Brave) because he donated personal money to an anti-gay marriage lobby effort, forced pocket integration for ad revenue purposes, and they deprecated their extension api which broke most extensions that did not get updated. I'm not saying anything in favour of or against these decisions, they're just what I remember reading people complain about over the last year. edit: typo and clarification
mbrumlow 8y ago
I was in your boat, it is a pain, but... I found that I actually like the UI in firefox after customizing it. For me it may have been easy because I use sway (i3 clone on wayland -- clone is the best, it is actually more / better than i3). But it really ended up looking nice[0]. I found I could customize more things that I could on chrome, including the start page. In any case, if you don't switch, I urge you to give it 15 mins and tinker with the ui config and a home page config. You can rid your self of alot of weird chrome bits that I think most find ugly and make it look smooth. Further more, you can set up your own sync server and sync all your stuff to a safe spot. [0]: https://imgur.com/XpTxwn9 https://imgur.com/XpTxwn9
- jgtrosh 8y ago
  I actually don't switch to Firefox because I'm on i3. I fell in love with surf-like browsing, and am able to somewhat get the same result with chrome in --app mode. There is however no way (to my knowledge) to get tab-less full-window browsing in Firefox.
  - jgtrosh 8y ago
    edit: I just installed the tab-less extension, edited my userChrome.css, and I'm really happy with the results. I'm going to give Firefox a go from now on!
    - mbrumlow 8y ago
      Can you please share a screenshot, and information on what you edited in userChrome.css ?
      - jgtrosh 8y ago
        Sorry I hadn't seen this earlier. I don't have a screenshot right now, but it's just as you might expect, the whole tab line is removed (the nav bar line with menus comes to the top instead). [This post](https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/736cji/how_to_hide_native_tabs_in_firefox_57_tree_style/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/736cji/how_to_hide...) talks about doing the same thing in the context of tree-style tabs. Good luck!
dylan604 8y ago
> and I don't like Firefox's UI/UX Maybe I'm not as critical about the UI, but I have both browsers open at the same time so I took a second to compare them. Both browsers have a row of tabs. Below that is a second row. The left most set of buttons is navigation (back, forward, refresh, etc), then the address bar, then on the very right of the row is a set of buttons for extensions, settings, etc. The remaining portion of the window is the webpage. I'm just not seeing many differences. The view of recently downloads is different, but nothing that bothers me from either one. I also just compared how both browsers displayed HN main page. Slight differences in color of orange and font weight, but only noticeable if comparing both directly (and besides devs, who does that?). So I guess I'm asking what about the UI/UX is bothering you. I'm almost hesitant to ask because I'm sure if you point something out that bugs me, I'll never un-see it.
- vSanjo 8y ago
  Your reply resounded with me a little. I agree with the person you replied to, I don't like the UI/UX. I think it's the 'second level' of UI stuff - menu's behind buttons, settings pages, things like that. I think Chrome does a good job balancing 'advanced user' and 'basic user' stuff. Firefox feels a little too 'dumbed down' for me. I'm honestly trying hard to put a fine point on it, but it a lot of it just feels 'off'. I'd love a very minimal-design, maximum function look into it.
  - askmike 8y ago
    I felt like this as well when I was still using Chrome for everything (I switched when Firefox launched Quantum). For me it simply turned out that after getting used to Firefox (again) I had no problems at all with the UI. Chrome felt better before the switch because I was used to it.
  - dylan604 8y ago
    I was going to add a stipulation about the about:settings type stuff being different and what not, but chose not to originally. My thinking was how often are you in settings that it's a problem? I'm not a browser power user, so I only go in to the settings usually after reading something here. I set it, and forget it. Maybe 30 seconds? As far as dev stuff, I'm really only familiar with Firefox after Firebug was rolled into the browser so that it is similar to Chrome with a Cmd-Option-i key press. I hear people stating that the dev tools are still very different. All I really ever use it for is seeing how the DOM is changing in the inspector, looking for output in the console, and see what files are doing (404,200,500, params/response, and CSS values type of stuff. Both browsers do what I need in a way that I can't tell the difference.
mrhappyunhappy 8y ago
Firefox UI feels like it was left behind. When I open up Firefox I feel like I've stepped into last decade. I realize this is just a personal opinion but it's strong enough to keep me from using FF. I was also super irritated with their default tab that shows all of the links you visited. I prefer my porn not showing every time I open a new tab. Features like this one, even if easy to disable should be opt in, not opt out. Any company that enables an opt out feature by default will get the boot unless no alternative exists. I know, it's harsh, but I vote with my usage and with my money.
davnicwil 8y ago
I'd recommend giving Brave a try if you haven't already. It's built on top of Chromium so has the same UI/UX as Chrome, including dev tools. And it does ad blocking out of the box, no need for an extension even.

rattray 8y ago

Why not Brave? It uses Chromium. UI/UX also isn't as nice as Chrome but it's closer.

masonic 8y ago
Do we know that Brave will continue to be immune to this?
IggleSniggle 8y ago
The headline is “changes to Chromium,” on which Brave is built...
- rattray 8y ago
  I trust the Brave team to find a way around this, eg; with a fork. Otherwise their organization will fail.

fucking_tragedy 8y ago

Funny, I switched to Firefox because I preferred the UI/UX. I'm happy with my choice.

sodosopa 8y ago

I'm in the same boat. I'm not a fan of Firefox at all. Leadership, code, marketing, UI, etc. I'll probably move to Safari

bobajeff 8y ago
There's also Brave and Kiwi browser if they disable/limit this api in their extensions there's no stopping Chromium-based browsers from implementing them natively outside of extensions.
erklik 8y ago
Isn't Firefox like much better in terms of the technical side of things i.e. faster, uses fewer resources, has better code inspection tools etc?
- clumsysmurf 8y ago
  On the Mac, Safari is far more power efficient. With each update I notice Firefox is using more and more ram too. Also good luck finding out which tab is causing problems.
- feikname 8y ago
  Last time I did a DOM benchmark Chrome still beat it by a significant margin. Also, only personal experience, but Chrome seems way more responsive with multiple tabs open than Firefox. One annoying thing is that current versions of Firefox seem to rely on disk I/O too much, so if it's busy, you can't really do anything (switching or creating new tabs is greeted by spinning loading circle that takes a long time to happen).
feikname 8y ago
Could you explain more about your dislike of Firefox's leadership?
- jammygit 8y ago
  IIRC, the complaints I've read online are along the lines of: Mozilla ran a Mr Robot ad campaign with browser integration, partnered with an ad company for some research in a seemingly-sneaky way, made their CEO resign (now the CEO of Brave) because he donated personal money to an anti-gay marriage lobby effort, forced pocket integration for ad revenue purposes, and they deprecated their extension api which broke most extensions that did not get updated. I'm not saying anything in favour of or against these decisions, they're just what I remember reading people complain about over the last year. edit: typo and clarification

mbrumlow 8y ago

I was in your boat, it is a pain, but... I found that I actually like the UI in firefox after customizing it. For me it may have been easy because I use sway (i3 clone on wayland -- clone is the best, it is actually more / better than i3). But it really ended up looking nice[0]. I found I could customize more things that I could on chrome, including the start page. In any case, if you don't switch, I urge you to give it 15 mins and tinker with the ui config and a home page config. You can rid your self of alot of weird chrome bits that I think most find ugly and make it look smooth. Further more, you can set up your own sync server and sync all your stuff to a safe spot. [0]: https://imgur.com/XpTxwn9 https://imgur.com/XpTxwn9

jgtrosh 8y ago
I actually don't switch to Firefox because I'm on i3. I fell in love with surf-like browsing, and am able to somewhat get the same result with chrome in --app mode. There is however no way (to my knowledge) to get tab-less full-window browsing in Firefox.
- jgtrosh 8y ago
  edit: I just installed the tab-less extension, edited my userChrome.css, and I'm really happy with the results. I'm going to give Firefox a go from now on!
  - mbrumlow 8y ago
    Can you please share a screenshot, and information on what you edited in userChrome.css ?
    - jgtrosh 8y ago
      Sorry I hadn't seen this earlier. I don't have a screenshot right now, but it's just as you might expect, the whole tab line is removed (the nav bar line with menus comes to the top instead). [This post](https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/736cji/how_to_hide_native_tabs_in_firefox_57_tree_style/ https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/736cji/how_to_hide...) talks about doing the same thing in the context of tree-style tabs. Good luck!

dylan604 8y ago

> and I don't like Firefox's UI/UX Maybe I'm not as critical about the UI, but I have both browsers open at the same time so I took a second to compare them. Both browsers have a row of tabs. Below that is a second row. The left most set of buttons is navigation (back, forward, refresh, etc), then the address bar, then on the very right of the row is a set of buttons for extensions, settings, etc. The remaining portion of the window is the webpage. I'm just not seeing many differences. The view of recently downloads is different, but nothing that bothers me from either one. I also just compared how both browsers displayed HN main page. Slight differences in color of orange and font weight, but only noticeable if comparing both directly (and besides devs, who does that?). So I guess I'm asking what about the UI/UX is bothering you. I'm almost hesitant to ask because I'm sure if you point something out that bugs me, I'll never un-see it.

vSanjo 8y ago
Your reply resounded with me a little. I agree with the person you replied to, I don't like the UI/UX. I think it's the 'second level' of UI stuff - menu's behind buttons, settings pages, things like that. I think Chrome does a good job balancing 'advanced user' and 'basic user' stuff. Firefox feels a little too 'dumbed down' for me. I'm honestly trying hard to put a fine point on it, but it a lot of it just feels 'off'. I'd love a very minimal-design, maximum function look into it.
- askmike 8y ago
  I felt like this as well when I was still using Chrome for everything (I switched when Firefox launched Quantum). For me it simply turned out that after getting used to Firefox (again) I had no problems at all with the UI. Chrome felt better before the switch because I was used to it.
- dylan604 8y ago
  I was going to add a stipulation about the about:settings type stuff being different and what not, but chose not to originally. My thinking was how often are you in settings that it's a problem? I'm not a browser power user, so I only go in to the settings usually after reading something here. I set it, and forget it. Maybe 30 seconds? As far as dev stuff, I'm really only familiar with Firefox after Firebug was rolled into the browser so that it is similar to Chrome with a Cmd-Option-i key press. I hear people stating that the dev tools are still very different. All I really ever use it for is seeing how the DOM is changing in the inspector, looking for output in the console, and see what files are doing (404,200,500, params/response, and CSS values type of stuff. Both browsers do what I need in a way that I can't tell the difference.

mrhappyunhappy 8y ago

Firefox UI feels like it was left behind. When I open up Firefox I feel like I've stepped into last decade. I realize this is just a personal opinion but it's strong enough to keep me from using FF. I was also super irritated with their default tab that shows all of the links you visited. I prefer my porn not showing every time I open a new tab. Features like this one, even if easy to disable should be opt in, not opt out. Any company that enables an opt out feature by default will get the boot unless no alternative exists. I know, it's harsh, but I vote with my usage and with my money.

davnicwil 8y ago

I'd recommend giving Brave a try if you haven't already. It's built on top of Chromium so has the same UI/UX as Chrome, including dev tools. And it does ad blocking out of the box, no need for an extension even.