5 ms·

Firefox says Hello.

tomxor 7y ago
There was a time i couldn't imagine moving away from chromium... all the FF people shout about features, I care not, I want a browser that is good at the fundamentals, has a non intrusive UI and allows me to block ads, that wasn't FF, i should know I've submitted my fair pile of FF bugs, and stumbled across a decent amount of decade old ones. However these days I find myself using FF more and more for those very reasons, where chromium/chrome is failing more and more. The other side of this is of course that FF has been improving massively in recent years. There is no best, browsers are ridiculously complicated and hard, but i suppose there are phases, if chromium team loose sight of how non-obscure the requirement to block ads easily is to all users today, this may be the start of a different phase.
- chepaslaaa 7y ago
  >if chromium team loose sight of how non-obscure the requirement to block ads easily is to all users today, this may be the start of a different phase. I don't think you realize how many tech illiterate people don't block ads.
  - tomxor 7y ago
    You could be right, but i'd be more convinced by some stats. On the occasions that i use a browser without an ad blocked, it's so intrusive and unplesant these days that I imagine plenty "non-technical" users seeking out a solution purely from the perspective of basic usability.
was_boring 7y ago
I love firefox, but it's still leagues behind chrome -- even with the new engine. Especially when used with "enterprise" tools, like Jira. I keep hoping for the day I can switch and not lose productivity.
- siddhant 7y ago
  What exactly are you missing from Firefox?
  - trufflepig 7y ago
    Probably chrome looks better and “feels smoother” .. haha
    - ubercow13 7y ago
      What's funny about that? Both vendors probably spend 10s or 100s of millions of development $s on improving "smoothness"
      - JohnFen 7y ago
        Personally, I find it amusing because "smoothness" is something that I consider completely unimportant. (I do understand that I am not representative of the average user.)
    - kingnothing 7y ago
      You can tweak FF's scrolling, etc. to behave more like Chrome.
  - GuB-42 7y ago
    Speaking for myself, what brought me to Chrome from Firefox was a regression bug with my Logitech Revolution mouse: zoom out didn't work. It works in Chrome and in every other app. Here is the bug report https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=791429 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=791429 No one seems to care, basically a soft "won't fix". I even thought about fixing it myself but after seeing that the solution wasn't obvious, I gave up. I wanted to give Chrome a try anyways, so I did. And not only mouse zoom worked but pages also loaded faster. Time to completion was about the same but it took less time to actually see something. For the rest, I had no trouble finding extensions to match what I could do with Firefox. Clear win for Chrome. Now, I am using Firefox at work and Chrome at home so I can follow. What I noticed was: - Firefox performance more or less caught up with Chrome (or is it the other way around?) - Chrome seems a bit more stable - Generally, switching is super-easy, besides syncing (Firefox doesn't sync with Google and Chrome doesn't sync with Firefox sync, and I am not a fan of third party solutions) - I've yet to re-test mouse zoom, but according to the bug report, it still isn't fixed. Note that mouse zoom may seem trivial but it is not. Chrome and Firefox are practically the same, at least on the desktop, so small details like that are what make people switch. And to be honest, I am pretty pissed off with Firefox. They have really good core devs. Servo is awesome, and even though I dislike the community (seen from the outside), I also find Rust to be just as awesome for its application. Direction however is seriously lacking. The latest goof was the extension signing fiasco. Again, small thing, but enough to turn off some people. The most ironic part is that they fixed that using a telemetry-related backdoor. I don't really have a problem with that (otherwise I wouldn't use Chrome) but for a browser that advertise itself as privacy oriented, it is not good publicity.
a_imho 7y ago
I really hope FF does not follow suit.
- wongarsu 7y ago
  Blocking ads goes against Googles main revenue stream, but giving people the option to block ads follows directly with Mozilla's mission. I don't think there's any danger they follow Chrome in this.
  - a_imho 7y ago
    I don't think there is anything about that in moz://a's manifesto, but maybe my interpretation is wrong. On the other hand, Google being their main source of revenue they are indirectly funded by ad money too. Commercial involvement in the development of the Internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial profit and public benefit is critical. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/
    - wongarsu 7y ago
      Principle 5 "Individuals must have the ability to shape the Internet and their own experiences on the Internet." can be read as "the user can modify how the client displays the page". More importantly: with the current status quo where both site operators and ad networks reject responsibility for security implications of their ads and ad networks show little regards for privacy, the only way I see to respect Principle 4 "Individuals’ security and privacy on the Internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional." is to block offending ad networks.
      - a_imho 7y ago
        Regardin principle 4 I don't quite agree, if that was the interpretation we would had something like ublock in core FF years ago. It is very clearly not a technical problem. As for principle 5 I do not hold my breath but hope you are right.
bhaavan 7y ago
Firefox uses much more of my CPU cycles than Chrome for some reason. I wish it had a good task manager for me to debug the culprit process. I can feel my laptop loudly spinning fan, after a long running firefox session. It stops doing this, if I close / restart firefox.
- driverdan 7y ago
  Do you keep Gmail open? It's poorly optimized for non-Chrome browsers and tends to peg the CPU at seemly random times.
  - wyre 7y ago
    I didnt know this, but im not surprised.
  - 0az 7y ago
    Honestly, at this point, I don't even use Gmail web: I just use the macOS built-in Mail app (Thunderbird unfortunately doesn't have a friendly UI). If more people switch to Firefox, this might be an additional effect: a rise in the usage of desktop mail clients.
- sp332 7y ago
  about:performance is not very detailed, but it could help pick out a misbehaving tab.
- djanogo 7y ago
  You can always quit Firefox process and reopen it again, unlike Chrome, Firefox doesn't auto load all tabs again, so this will kill any scripts running or monitoring in rest of the tabs. This almost always solves my issues.
- imurray 7y ago
  If you're on linux you could try moving out your ~/.fonts to see if it's a fontconfig problem https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=909818 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=909818 (I've seen variants of this problem on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.)
cabaalis 7y ago
I switched to Firefox on all my devices last year and haven't looked back. Opening up Chrome feels very dated.
- davidkuhta 7y ago
  The performance improvements that came with the Quantum update were what convinced me to return to FF.
- wasdfff 7y ago
  I keep chrome around exclusively to log into my cc website which for some reason doesnt work at all on firefox. Every time I open it up I feel like I’m stepping back in time to 2009. All those rounded bezels!
ressetera 7y ago
Firefox had a certificate bug recently where all extensions, including adblockers, stopped working. I'd imagine Google saw a slight increase of revenue during that period. No wonder why they don't allow extensions on their Android browser. From everyone I know, only I am using Firefox on a Chrome device.
bogdanoff_2 7y ago
Firefox has recently decided that it is totally fine to refuse to work after an update until you restart it. I don't mind automatic updates. I don't mind being bugged to restart. However I really dislike that my browser can just break in the middle of a browsing session because of some remote decision. It feels like the people at Mozilla are forgetting that the browser and browser extensions are tools that people use to do important things.
JohnFen 7y ago
I just wish that I liked the new Firefox, but I really don't. I don't like Chrome either, though.

Firefox says Hello.

There was a time i couldn't imagine moving away from chromium... all the FF people shout about features, I care not, I want a browser that is good at the fundamentals, has a non intrusive UI and allows me to block ads, that wasn't FF, i should know I've submitted my fair pile of FF bugs, and stumbled across a decent amount of decade old ones. However these days I find myself using FF more and more for those very reasons, where chromium/chrome is failing more and more. The other side of this is of course that FF has been improving massively in recent years. There is no best, browsers are ridiculously complicated and hard, but i suppose there are phases, if chromium team loose sight of how non-obscure the requirement to block ads easily is to all users today, this may be the start of a different phase.

chepaslaaa 7y ago
>if chromium team loose sight of how non-obscure the requirement to block ads easily is to all users today, this may be the start of a different phase. I don't think you realize how many tech illiterate people don't block ads.
- tomxor 7y ago
  You could be right, but i'd be more convinced by some stats. On the occasions that i use a browser without an ad blocked, it's so intrusive and unplesant these days that I imagine plenty "non-technical" users seeking out a solution purely from the perspective of basic usability.

was_boring 7y ago

I love firefox, but it's still leagues behind chrome -- even with the new engine. Especially when used with "enterprise" tools, like Jira. I keep hoping for the day I can switch and not lose productivity.

siddhant 7y ago
What exactly are you missing from Firefox?
- trufflepig 7y ago
  Probably chrome looks better and “feels smoother” .. haha
  - ubercow13 7y ago
    What's funny about that? Both vendors probably spend 10s or 100s of millions of development $s on improving "smoothness"
    - JohnFen 7y ago
      Personally, I find it amusing because "smoothness" is something that I consider completely unimportant. (I do understand that I am not representative of the average user.)
  - kingnothing 7y ago
    You can tweak FF's scrolling, etc. to behave more like Chrome.
- GuB-42 7y ago
  Speaking for myself, what brought me to Chrome from Firefox was a regression bug with my Logitech Revolution mouse: zoom out didn't work. It works in Chrome and in every other app. Here is the bug report https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=791429 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=791429 No one seems to care, basically a soft "won't fix". I even thought about fixing it myself but after seeing that the solution wasn't obvious, I gave up. I wanted to give Chrome a try anyways, so I did. And not only mouse zoom worked but pages also loaded faster. Time to completion was about the same but it took less time to actually see something. For the rest, I had no trouble finding extensions to match what I could do with Firefox. Clear win for Chrome. Now, I am using Firefox at work and Chrome at home so I can follow. What I noticed was: - Firefox performance more or less caught up with Chrome (or is it the other way around?) - Chrome seems a bit more stable - Generally, switching is super-easy, besides syncing (Firefox doesn't sync with Google and Chrome doesn't sync with Firefox sync, and I am not a fan of third party solutions) - I've yet to re-test mouse zoom, but according to the bug report, it still isn't fixed. Note that mouse zoom may seem trivial but it is not. Chrome and Firefox are practically the same, at least on the desktop, so small details like that are what make people switch. And to be honest, I am pretty pissed off with Firefox. They have really good core devs. Servo is awesome, and even though I dislike the community (seen from the outside), I also find Rust to be just as awesome for its application. Direction however is seriously lacking. The latest goof was the extension signing fiasco. Again, small thing, but enough to turn off some people. The most ironic part is that they fixed that using a telemetry-related backdoor. I don't really have a problem with that (otherwise I wouldn't use Chrome) but for a browser that advertise itself as privacy oriented, it is not good publicity.

a_imho 7y ago

I really hope FF does not follow suit.

wongarsu 7y ago
Blocking ads goes against Googles main revenue stream, but giving people the option to block ads follows directly with Mozilla's mission. I don't think there's any danger they follow Chrome in this.
- a_imho 7y ago
  I don't think there is anything about that in moz://a's manifesto, but maybe my interpretation is wrong. On the other hand, Google being their main source of revenue they are indirectly funded by ad money too. Commercial involvement in the development of the Internet brings many benefits; a balance between commercial profit and public benefit is critical. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/manifesto/details/
  - wongarsu 7y ago
    Principle 5 "Individuals must have the ability to shape the Internet and their own experiences on the Internet." can be read as "the user can modify how the client displays the page". More importantly: with the current status quo where both site operators and ad networks reject responsibility for security implications of their ads and ad networks show little regards for privacy, the only way I see to respect Principle 4 "Individuals’ security and privacy on the Internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional." is to block offending ad networks.
    - a_imho 7y ago
      Regardin principle 4 I don't quite agree, if that was the interpretation we would had something like ublock in core FF years ago. It is very clearly not a technical problem. As for principle 5 I do not hold my breath but hope you are right.

bhaavan 7y ago

Firefox uses much more of my CPU cycles than Chrome for some reason. I wish it had a good task manager for me to debug the culprit process. I can feel my laptop loudly spinning fan, after a long running firefox session. It stops doing this, if I close / restart firefox.

driverdan 7y ago
Do you keep Gmail open? It's poorly optimized for non-Chrome browsers and tends to peg the CPU at seemly random times.
- wyre 7y ago
  I didnt know this, but im not surprised.
- 0az 7y ago
  Honestly, at this point, I don't even use Gmail web: I just use the macOS built-in Mail app (Thunderbird unfortunately doesn't have a friendly UI). If more people switch to Firefox, this might be an additional effect: a rise in the usage of desktop mail clients.
sp332 7y ago
about:performance is not very detailed, but it could help pick out a misbehaving tab.
djanogo 7y ago
You can always quit Firefox process and reopen it again, unlike Chrome, Firefox doesn't auto load all tabs again, so this will kill any scripts running or monitoring in rest of the tabs. This almost always solves my issues.
imurray 7y ago
If you're on linux you could try moving out your ~/.fonts to see if it's a fontconfig problem https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=909818 https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=909818 (I've seen variants of this problem on Ubuntu 18.04 LTS.)

cabaalis 7y ago

I switched to Firefox on all my devices last year and haven't looked back. Opening up Chrome feels very dated.

davidkuhta 7y ago
The performance improvements that came with the Quantum update were what convinced me to return to FF.
wasdfff 7y ago
I keep chrome around exclusively to log into my cc website which for some reason doesnt work at all on firefox. Every time I open it up I feel like I’m stepping back in time to 2009. All those rounded bezels!

ressetera 7y ago

Firefox had a certificate bug recently where all extensions, including adblockers, stopped working. I'd imagine Google saw a slight increase of revenue during that period. No wonder why they don't allow extensions on their Android browser. From everyone I know, only I am using Firefox on a Chrome device.

bogdanoff_2 7y ago

Firefox has recently decided that it is totally fine to refuse to work after an update until you restart it. I don't mind automatic updates. I don't mind being bugged to restart. However I really dislike that my browser can just break in the middle of a browsing session because of some remote decision. It feels like the people at Mozilla are forgetting that the browser and browser extensions are tools that people use to do important things.

JohnFen 7y ago

I just wish that I liked the new Firefox, but I really don't. I don't like Chrome either, though.