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I came back to Firefox a while back - maybe a year or two? - and have never regretted it. It's a fast, modern, respectful browser. Maintained by a non-profit. I

I came back to Firefox a while back - maybe a year or two? - and have never regretted it. It's a fast, modern, respectful browser. Maintained by a non-profit. I do all my front-end dev work in Firefox, and also test in Chrome. Never had a problem. Come on back folks!

starik36 7y ago
My experience exactly. The dev tools have caught up to chrome and in some ways surpassed it.
- TimTheTinker 7y ago
  The “workspace” and “blackbox script” features in Chrome devTools are real paradigm shifters and a huge productivity boost for me when developing/debugging in JS/TS or SCSS/CSS. With Workspaces, most changes to source files are reflected immediately without reloading (no LiveReload-type tooling is needed). Firefox has yet to release either of those features, as far as I know. I’ll switch dev browsers as soon as they do.
  - shstalwart 7y ago
    There will always be a trinket to keep you on the plantation.
    - TimTheTinker 7y ago
      This is more like the GPS guidance on modern, DRM’ed tractors than trinkets given to plantation slaves. It’s not integral to my work, but it does contribute significantly to my productivity.
- mmgutz 7y ago
  The only thing I miss is the ease which you can create and use different profiles in Chrome. Facilitates testing web apps. Firefox's support of multiple profiles is kludgy.
  - qzio 7y ago
    Have you tried firefox's container extension? A more light weight, but easy to use separation of "profiles"
    - Myrmornis 7y ago
      No, this suggestion is wrong. I looked into using FF containers as a chrome profiles replacement and they’re not the same thing at all. I can dig up my notes if you like, I think they’re posted on HN in fact. FF has true profiles and those are what you’d use. I agree with GP. Chrome profiles are what’s stopped me switching to FF.
      - andrewaylett 7y ago
        It does depend on exactly why you want profiles -- for my use cases, Multi-Account Containers (and Temporary Containers) do a much better job of helping me achieve what I want to do than either browser's implementation of profiles.
        Myrmornis 7y ago
        I maintain that it is a widely-propagated misconception that Firefox containers can be used to replace Chrome profiles. Here are my notes from when I investigated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15688651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15688651 I went deeply into trying to use containers as a profile replacement, replacing Chrome with the new Firefox beta for one month, and I can report that it is not the right direction to go in: - New tabs do not inherit current container - No way to make Ctrl-T do this by customization (I investigated extensions (can't remap Ctrl-T) and even system-wide Ctrl-T remapping with Karibiner; neither gives you what you want) - History is shared across containers. So e.g. work URLs mixed up with personal. That's contra to one of the main purposes of Profiles. - External applications do not open a tab in the current container. So e.g. clicking in a link in work slack will fail because it will not open in a tab which has work cookies / google account etc. Evidently Containers are not designed as a Profile replacement. I'm not sure what they are for but I don't think it's a need that I have. As I understand it using the long-standing Firefox profiles feature is the way to go, but personally I switched back to Chrome after a month of the new Firefox Beta because of the convenience of Chrome profiles. I should try Firefox profiles, but I exhausted my experimentation energy on Containers.
- pbhjpbhj 7y ago
  Chrome's audit (Google Lighthouse) is good.
  - Destiner 7y ago
    If your app is deployed (has public url), you can use https://web.dev/measure https://web.dev/measure, which I believe is the same thing.
petjuh 7y ago
I switched to Chrome the same day the beta was released mostly because of the speed. Nowadays I stay because I keep my passwords synced over my Google Account and I'm not sure if Firefox works with that.
- _zamorano_ 7y ago
  Sure it does. I keep my passwords synchronized with a Firefox account through my Windows, Linux and Android devices. Works like a charm. I won't trust google to keep them.
- ptman 7y ago
  More vendor lock-in. I keep my passwords in bitwarden, which has extensions for both firefox and chrome
  - behringer 7y ago
    I use lastpass which works well on my phone too.
- icefo 7y ago
  Firefox has its own service to do that and it works well. I don't know if you can migrate your passwords easily though.
  - qalmakka 7y ago
    Did that years ago when I switched back when Quantum came back; Firefox still has the good old venerable "import passwords from another browser" functionality. You just need to have your passwords sync'd to a local install of Chrome and Firefox can read them all and sync them with FF Sync (which does not force you to use Mozilla servers, btw; you may host your own server for max privacy).
  - avaika 7y ago
    It's not just their service. You can run self-hosted service for sync [0] and fully control it. From privacy point of view that's far more interesting than any other solutions I've seen. [0]: https://mozilla-services.readthedocs.io/en/latest/howtos/run-sync-1.5.html https://mozilla-services.readthedocs.io/en/latest/howtos/run...
ralphstodomingo 7y ago
I think I'm gonna switch now, too.
michaelbazos 7y ago
Something I miss in Firefox, is that the webextensions `management` api does not allow to toggle off/on extensions other than themes. It's no secret that some of the most popular browser extensions require a wide range of permissions to work, while being useful only occasionally. This restriction prevents to have on Firefox a quick toggler without leaving the page like (author here) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extension-manager/nddeiknmamlpagmnabfdlljlikeoanch https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extension-manager/...

starik36 7y ago

My experience exactly. The dev tools have caught up to chrome and in some ways surpassed it.

TimTheTinker 7y ago
The “workspace” and “blackbox script” features in Chrome devTools are real paradigm shifters and a huge productivity boost for me when developing/debugging in JS/TS or SCSS/CSS. With Workspaces, most changes to source files are reflected immediately without reloading (no LiveReload-type tooling is needed). Firefox has yet to release either of those features, as far as I know. I’ll switch dev browsers as soon as they do.
- shstalwart 7y ago
  There will always be a trinket to keep you on the plantation.
  - TimTheTinker 7y ago
    This is more like the GPS guidance on modern, DRM’ed tractors than trinkets given to plantation slaves. It’s not integral to my work, but it does contribute significantly to my productivity.
mmgutz 7y ago
The only thing I miss is the ease which you can create and use different profiles in Chrome. Facilitates testing web apps. Firefox's support of multiple profiles is kludgy.
- qzio 7y ago
  Have you tried firefox's container extension? A more light weight, but easy to use separation of "profiles"
  - Myrmornis 7y ago
    No, this suggestion is wrong. I looked into using FF containers as a chrome profiles replacement and they’re not the same thing at all. I can dig up my notes if you like, I think they’re posted on HN in fact. FF has true profiles and those are what you’d use. I agree with GP. Chrome profiles are what’s stopped me switching to FF.
    - andrewaylett 7y ago
      It does depend on exactly why you want profiles -- for my use cases, Multi-Account Containers (and Temporary Containers) do a much better job of helping me achieve what I want to do than either browser's implementation of profiles.
      - Myrmornis 7y ago
        I maintain that it is a widely-propagated misconception that Firefox containers can be used to replace Chrome profiles. Here are my notes from when I investigated: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15688651 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15688651 I went deeply into trying to use containers as a profile replacement, replacing Chrome with the new Firefox beta for one month, and I can report that it is not the right direction to go in: - New tabs do not inherit current container - No way to make Ctrl-T do this by customization (I investigated extensions (can't remap Ctrl-T) and even system-wide Ctrl-T remapping with Karibiner; neither gives you what you want) - History is shared across containers. So e.g. work URLs mixed up with personal. That's contra to one of the main purposes of Profiles. - External applications do not open a tab in the current container. So e.g. clicking in a link in work slack will fail because it will not open in a tab which has work cookies / google account etc. Evidently Containers are not designed as a Profile replacement. I'm not sure what they are for but I don't think it's a need that I have. As I understand it using the long-standing Firefox profiles feature is the way to go, but personally I switched back to Chrome after a month of the new Firefox Beta because of the convenience of Chrome profiles. I should try Firefox profiles, but I exhausted my experimentation energy on Containers.
pbhjpbhj 7y ago
Chrome's audit (Google Lighthouse) is good.
- Destiner 7y ago
  If your app is deployed (has public url), you can use https://web.dev/measure https://web.dev/measure, which I believe is the same thing.

petjuh 7y ago

I switched to Chrome the same day the beta was released mostly because of the speed. Nowadays I stay because I keep my passwords synced over my Google Account and I'm not sure if Firefox works with that.

_zamorano_ 7y ago
Sure it does. I keep my passwords synchronized with a Firefox account through my Windows, Linux and Android devices. Works like a charm. I won't trust google to keep them.
ptman 7y ago
More vendor lock-in. I keep my passwords in bitwarden, which has extensions for both firefox and chrome
- behringer 7y ago
  I use lastpass which works well on my phone too.
icefo 7y ago
Firefox has its own service to do that and it works well. I don't know if you can migrate your passwords easily though.
- qalmakka 7y ago
  Did that years ago when I switched back when Quantum came back; Firefox still has the good old venerable "import passwords from another browser" functionality. You just need to have your passwords sync'd to a local install of Chrome and Firefox can read them all and sync them with FF Sync (which does not force you to use Mozilla servers, btw; you may host your own server for max privacy).
- avaika 7y ago
  It's not just their service. You can run self-hosted service for sync [0] and fully control it. From privacy point of view that's far more interesting than any other solutions I've seen. [0]: https://mozilla-services.readthedocs.io/en/latest/howtos/run-sync-1.5.html https://mozilla-services.readthedocs.io/en/latest/howtos/run...

ralphstodomingo 7y ago

I think I'm gonna switch now, too.

michaelbazos 7y ago

Something I miss in Firefox, is that the webextensions `management` api does not allow to toggle off/on extensions other than themes. It's no secret that some of the most popular browser extensions require a wide range of permissions to work, while being useful only occasionally. This restriction prevents to have on Firefox a quick toggler without leaving the page like (author here) https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extension-manager/nddeiknmamlpagmnabfdlljlikeoanch https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/extension-manager/...