11 ms·

After the recent missteps by Chrome (mangling the display of URLs), I decided to switch to Firefox and DuckDuckGo a few months ago and I was pleasantly surprise

by yori 7y ago

After the recent missteps by Chrome (mangling the display of URLs), I decided to switch to Firefox and DuckDuckGo a few months ago and I was pleasantly surprised at how fast Firefox is these days than what I found it to be 10 years ago. While I still consider DuckDuckGo to be in the "not bad" category, Firefox is in the "seriously awesome" category now. If you have been away from Firefox for a while like me, give it another shot. It won't disappoint you for sure.

oneeyedpigeon 7y ago
Are you a devtools user? How do the Firefox ones compare? I speak as someone who originally switched to Chrome (having been a Firefox user since the Phoenix days!) specifically for the devtools — it's pretty much the biggest factor in my browser choice.
- Siecje 7y ago
  I like Edit and resend in the Network tab. I don't know how to do that in Chromium.
- mushufasa 7y ago
  I think Firefox is better in some areas, especially their CSS grid viewer. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Page_Inspector/How_to/Examine_grid_layouts https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Page_Inspecto... I'm also keen to checkout the new Replay feature. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/WebReplay https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/We...
- sergiosgc 7y ago
  Better in some aspects, worse in others, the interface is different enough to create a bit of a transition barrier. You won't be worse off, it isn't a big effort to get used to FF devtools, but you must accept a learning curve if you want to switch.
  - digitarald 7y ago
    DevTools member here. As this is something we are chipping away on, are there any specific places where the UI throws you off?
    - sergiosgc 7y ago
      Sorry, I'm not that useful for your question. My experience is from the reverse switch. I'm used to Firefox (it's my daily driver) and had to get acquainted to Chrome. I had to get used to Chrome devtools because javascript debugging is a lot better there. For completeness sake, CSS debugging is much better in Firefox. In time, I think both will converge.
- yingw787 7y ago
  I’m a Firefox ddg user, and I would recommend Chrome for devtools still. As of last month, Firefox devtools didnt even recognize meta viewport tags which caused UI discrepancies between testing and production. Chrome devtools does have it. That being said, I still switched back to Firefox and ddg after I close devtools.
  - splatcollision 7y ago
    Interesting then that this release enables meta viewport support in responsive design mode - from the link: "Firefox now supports simulation of meta viewport in Responsive Design Mode."
    - yingw787 7y ago
      Me and my not reading things. Thanks for the link!
  - DangerousPie 7y ago
    From the 72.0 changelog: > Firefox now supports simulation of meta viewport in Responsive Design Mode.
- leesalminen 7y ago
  I heard FF recently added WebSocket support to their dev tools (being able to see payloads). Been meaning to give it another try.
  - JshWright 7y ago
    I use that feature regularly, and it works very well.
- makepanic 7y ago
  Sadly, the performance inspector is still pretty useless compared to what Chromium is offering.
  - leeoniya 7y ago
    this is the biggest blocker for me. i still use ff as my main browser, but i cannot develop with it, so i have to spend a lot of my time in chrome. we had a recent dialog about it here: https://old.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/ecyhmr/mozilla_survey_how_can_devtools_support_you/fbez5c0/ https://old.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/ecyhmr/mozilla_... there's some cool stuff in the works but it doesnt sound like there's a plan to internalize the work into devtools but to keep it as a web app and rely on a serviceworker for "localness" - not great, imo.
    - digitarald 7y ago
      Thanks again for that discussion, it already spawned some follow up.
  - Moru 7y ago
    Sadly noone cares what the performance inspector says. Newspapers just get slower and slower. Our local newspaper takes 15 seconds to first visible paint and another 5-10 seconds to usefulness on my phone...
  - omaranto 7y ago
    My impression as a web user is that if any devs actually use the performance inspector it's just to learn their site is slow and then not do anything about it.
    - folkrav 7y ago
      Your devs might develop perfectly well behaving stuff just to see it get totally obliterated by loading 3 external tracking scripts through Tag Manager, three different pixels and 7 external contact form/chat bots/newsletter popover scripts from their CRM/ad platform/whatever crap marketing wants.
- splatcollision 7y ago
  You get used to it - UI is slightly different in some areas, but it lacks for no major features and performance is good, like firefox in general. I've found it's extremely valuable to be developing sites in Firefox using the dev tools simply to help catch issues that the rest of the team ignores as they're all stuck on Chrome. Fights monocultures by default!
  - Waterluvian 7y ago
    I remember Firefox being seriously lacking in some WebSocket dev tools that I needed. But I checked again and they're there. So it seems like they are actively improving the dev tools.
    - kossae 7y ago
      Yep, I believe that was a relatively recent addition actually. They're making great progress on the dev tools side of things.
- towndrunk 7y ago
  In Chrome 79 they broke or removed hovering over variables. They say it will be fixed in Chrome 80. https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/22882968?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/22882968?hl=en
  - gboss 7y ago
    This has been a huge Pita, for my team. Good news is it has gotten some of them to switch to Firefox for debugging. It really is awful that bug slipped through.
- SCdF 7y ago
  I am not OP but I'm a FF user. I haven't got around to learning FF's dev tools and still need Chrome(ium) to test that platform for compat anyway. So I just still use Chrome dev tools (which also work for NodeJS instances) but use FF for actual browsing.
- z3t4 7y ago
  I use Firefox as my default browser. But the dev tools is too slow, apparently someone thought it was a good idea to rewrite it in React, causing it to lag even on a few thousand console log messages on a fairly powerful workstation. And there is no search functionality, only filter. So I've started to prefix all my debug messages with whatever I'm working on just so that the logs can be found in the Firefox dev tools console. One good feature though is that you can filter on type of messages, like only show error messages, or warnings. Which is very annoying in Chrome dev tools where it will tell you there is an error, but you can't click on it, so there is no way to see the actual error.
  - digitarald 7y ago
    DevTools member here. We have been working on performance over the past release – is there anything specific that you can point out as being slower for us to focus on?
    - z3t4 7y ago
      I have not yet tested v72, I'm on v71. The Chrome dev tools Console feels (not measured) about 100x faster then the Console in Firefox. Even Chromium Console can be limiting though. Yeh, I probably should not use console.logs for debugging, but it's much faster forkflow then firing up the debugger. Even with the lag. With the Chromium Console the lag is not that bad, and it has a search function. Both console's have a bunch of cool features, like being able to inspect DOM nodes, explore objects, etc. Witch I think might be a reason for the lag. Most of the time I just want to search the logs to find out what happened. An idea is if you can just get the plain text from the console.logs somehow. In chromium all console.logs get sent to stdout, so I can pipe the logs to a file, then use any editor to search it. But I prefer using the dev tools. Maybe make a perf switch in the console, which dumps the text without formatting or other features. Something that can handle one million lines of logs and search in it. Being able to search the logs is critical. Filtering doesn't work as I need to see the surrounding logs, what happened after. I don't need to see all one million lines at the same time though, it can be buffered to only show 100 lines above it and 100 lines below it. Chromium has such an optimization. But search is a bit slow.
- Semaphor 7y ago
  When I’m using the Chrome tools, I miss some FF features, when I use the FF tools, I miss some Chrome features. I generally like the FF tools better nowadays, but Chrome’s are a bit faster.
- alwillis 7y ago
  I’ve always preferred Firefox’s dev tools compared to Chrome’s. Really like the ability to outline flexbox and grid elements.
- lysp 7y ago
  Firefox has a great feature where live css changes are placed into a "diff" panel. Rather than having to remember all the small changes you made, you can just copy and paste the script out (or even just view what you changed).
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
prgmatic 7y ago
How much better is it than Safari? I find the differences in browser performance so subtle nowadays that I lean towards whichever gives me the most seamless experience—-which, as a Mac/iPhone user, is safari.
- neuronic 7y ago
  As a Mac/iPhone user the only thing that sort of breaks seamless is that Apple doesn't allow you to define a custom default browser on iPhone. I have Firefox in the dock on iPhone and it's really great but random links, e.g. via messaging, get opened by Safari first.
  - err4nt 7y ago
    On iOS/iPadOS _all_ browsers are using Safari's webkit engine to render. That goes for FF on iOS, that goes for Chrome on iOS - it's all webkit.
    - dkdbejwi383 7y ago
      For me it's mainly about synced history, open tabs on various devices (phone, tablet, computer), shared preferences, etc. The rendering engine is secondary to that in my list of priorities.
_eric 7y ago
I also gave Firefox another shot a couple months ago and I'm surprised at how much better it is nowadays. It's been such a good experience I'm also giving a go to the Firefox Preview[0] on my Android - even though it's still under heavy development, I like some of the changes to the mobile browser it makes and it'll make in a near future. [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/12/03/firefox-preview-beta-reaches-another-milestone/ https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/12/03/firefox-p...
- Normal_gaussian 7y ago
  Firefox preview is fantastic. I started using it expecting a very unstable experience and... it hasn't been. For me its been fantastic.
  - eitland 7y ago
    Agree! The only thing I missed from the ordinary Firefox on Android was that Firefox used to have a brilliant hack with the sharing option where they would show the two most frequently used options (+ a sharing button to access the rest) instead of just one or just the sharing button. This saved me a few seconds again and again and again. Wonder why no one else does that?
    - _eric 7y ago
      Yeah, the sharing button thing is something I miss from the ordinary Firefox too. I usually share links with my friends through Whatsapp and its icon is hidden far to the right.
- signal11 7y ago
  Firefox is definitely an amazing experience, especially if you use Firefox Containers[1]. My only gripe is that the UX of containers isn't quite ready for prime time yet (e.g. your container setup doesn't sync by default). And there really needs to be an easy way to switch profiles. Firefox has had profiles for basically forever, but it's much easier to switch profiles in Chrome. [1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers
maxheadroom 7y ago
>While I still consider DuckDuckGo to be in the "not bad" category... If you're into privacy-conscious search engines and want one that's not susceptible to blanket FISA warrants[0], check out either Qwant[1] or SwissCows[2]. [0] - DuckDuckGo's address is in Pennsylvania - 20 Paoli Pike, Paoli, PA 19301. [1] - https://www.qwant.com https://www.qwant.com [2] - https://swisscows.ch/ https://swisscows.ch/
- 6510 7y ago
  wow, those seem quite fantastic at first glance. If I search for my real name I get every single profile I've ever created since the beginning of time - as opposed to google listing a bunch of random garbage. Names there are like John Doe returns famous people named John OR Doe above the person(s) with the actual name. EDIT: I right click the search box and make qw and sw keywords for them. EDIT2: I'm just looking for a functional google alternative.
- jannes 7y ago
  Qwant doesn't work for me at all on Firefox. It displays an empty page. Does anyone else have that problem? In the console I get a warning and an error: > Content Security Policy: Couldn’t process unknown directive ‘script-src-elem’ > TypeError: browserLanguage is undefined
  - icebraining 7y ago
    For some reason, your Firefox profile doesn't have a preferred language, but Qwant expects one. If you add one in the Preferences (option "Choose your preferred language for displaying pages"), it should work.
    - cpeterso 7y ago
      Seems like Firefox should fall back to the OS language of a preferred language had not been set in the browser. I wonder how that happened.
      - 7y ago
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
umanwizard 7y ago
> After the recent missteps by Chrome (mangling the display of URLs) Me too! I'm not as bothered by software-politics as many of the commentators on here (I don't hate Facebook, and worked there for four years; I don't hate ads; I don't worry too much about trafficking and privacy...) but Chrome fucking with the URL was a bridge too far. I switched to Firefox and when Google walked back their hiding-the-URL business, I never bothered switching back, because I didn't trust them anymore. Companies take note: users' trust that you won't arbitrarily change their workflow in annoying ways is hard to win back.
- dhimes 7y ago
  Yeah I'm still a little pissed about not getting the green bar for payments (and definitely about not being able to see 'https' to verify it).
  - driverdan 7y ago
    Green bar for payments?
    - deadmutex 7y ago
      Enterprise SSL certs, I think.
    - cpeterso 7y ago
      The EV (Extended Validation) certificate notification inn the address bar was removed in Firefox and Chrome: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/chrome-and-firefox-changes-spark-the-end-of-ev-certificates/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/chrome-and-fi...
- zamadatix 7y ago
  The problem is it's impossible to separate "this changed it sucks" from "this is actually bad" since the messages are always the same. E.g. in this case you didn't even bother explaining why the new way works worse for you you just said "it changed, I left! Make note!" and I mean that's fine if that's what you actually wanted them to make note of but no company with competition is just going to keep every workflow the same for over a decade and wait for someone else to come out with a better product to replace them.
agumonkey 7y ago
Switched too ffx few monthes ago, good enough. It's still not as quick as Chrome (my laptop is not recent, not helping) but I'd rather support Mozilla.
- miohtama 7y ago
  You can get some extra speed by forcing GPU rendering https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21945206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21945206 It is not 100% bug free yet, though
bambax 7y ago
I finally switched to FF two months ago after the uBlock fiasco, and I find it ok. Is it as fast as Chrome? No. Does it never freeze? No. But is it good enough? Hell yes.
- OGWhales 7y ago
  What was the ublock fiasco?
  - npongratz 7y ago
    Not OP, but probably referencing Chrome's v3 manifest: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338 HN discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20050173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20050173 (281 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20044430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20044430 (893 comments)
    - bambax 7y ago
      Yes.
OGWhales 7y ago
Any tips for transitioning? I've seen people recommend various stuff like containers and other stuff but I never saved their recommendation as I was happy with chrome at the time.
drummer 7y ago
I agree Firefox is becoming awesome. If only they could also speed up mobile development and bring more features to it from desktop.
unicornporn 7y ago
Try https://www.startpage.com/ https://www.startpage.com/ . It's uses Google. DDG (mainly) uses Bing (and it sucks).
- lysp 7y ago
  Changed ownership: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577
  - unicornporn 7y ago
    I know. They answered to some questions on Reddit and my conclusion was: seems OK.
complianceowl 7y ago
I stopped using Chrome about 2-months ago. It was difficult at first, simply because I was so used to it. But you are 100% right; I couldn't imagine going back to Chrome now that I've made the switch.

by yori 7y ago

oneeyedpigeon 7y ago

Are you a devtools user? How do the Firefox ones compare? I speak as someone who originally switched to Chrome (having been a Firefox user since the Phoenix days!) specifically for the devtools — it's pretty much the biggest factor in my browser choice.

Siecje 7y ago
I like Edit and resend in the Network tab. I don't know how to do that in Chromium.
mushufasa 7y ago
I think Firefox is better in some areas, especially their CSS grid viewer. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Page_Inspector/How_to/Examine_grid_layouts https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Tools/Page_Inspecto... I'm also keen to checkout the new Replay feature. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/WebReplay https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Projects/We...
sergiosgc 7y ago
Better in some aspects, worse in others, the interface is different enough to create a bit of a transition barrier. You won't be worse off, it isn't a big effort to get used to FF devtools, but you must accept a learning curve if you want to switch.
- digitarald 7y ago
  DevTools member here. As this is something we are chipping away on, are there any specific places where the UI throws you off?
  - sergiosgc 7y ago
    Sorry, I'm not that useful for your question. My experience is from the reverse switch. I'm used to Firefox (it's my daily driver) and had to get acquainted to Chrome. I had to get used to Chrome devtools because javascript debugging is a lot better there. For completeness sake, CSS debugging is much better in Firefox. In time, I think both will converge.
yingw787 7y ago
I’m a Firefox ddg user, and I would recommend Chrome for devtools still. As of last month, Firefox devtools didnt even recognize meta viewport tags which caused UI discrepancies between testing and production. Chrome devtools does have it. That being said, I still switched back to Firefox and ddg after I close devtools.
- splatcollision 7y ago
  Interesting then that this release enables meta viewport support in responsive design mode - from the link: "Firefox now supports simulation of meta viewport in Responsive Design Mode."
  - yingw787 7y ago
    Me and my not reading things. Thanks for the link!
- DangerousPie 7y ago
  From the 72.0 changelog: > Firefox now supports simulation of meta viewport in Responsive Design Mode.
leesalminen 7y ago
I heard FF recently added WebSocket support to their dev tools (being able to see payloads). Been meaning to give it another try.
- JshWright 7y ago
  I use that feature regularly, and it works very well.
makepanic 7y ago
Sadly, the performance inspector is still pretty useless compared to what Chromium is offering.
- leeoniya 7y ago
  this is the biggest blocker for me. i still use ff as my main browser, but i cannot develop with it, so i have to spend a lot of my time in chrome. we had a recent dialog about it here: https://old.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/ecyhmr/mozilla_survey_how_can_devtools_support_you/fbez5c0/ https://old.reddit.com/r/javascript/comments/ecyhmr/mozilla_... there's some cool stuff in the works but it doesnt sound like there's a plan to internalize the work into devtools but to keep it as a web app and rely on a serviceworker for "localness" - not great, imo.
  - digitarald 7y ago
    Thanks again for that discussion, it already spawned some follow up.
- Moru 7y ago
  Sadly noone cares what the performance inspector says. Newspapers just get slower and slower. Our local newspaper takes 15 seconds to first visible paint and another 5-10 seconds to usefulness on my phone...
- omaranto 7y ago
  My impression as a web user is that if any devs actually use the performance inspector it's just to learn their site is slow and then not do anything about it.
  - folkrav 7y ago
    Your devs might develop perfectly well behaving stuff just to see it get totally obliterated by loading 3 external tracking scripts through Tag Manager, three different pixels and 7 external contact form/chat bots/newsletter popover scripts from their CRM/ad platform/whatever crap marketing wants.
splatcollision 7y ago
You get used to it - UI is slightly different in some areas, but it lacks for no major features and performance is good, like firefox in general. I've found it's extremely valuable to be developing sites in Firefox using the dev tools simply to help catch issues that the rest of the team ignores as they're all stuck on Chrome. Fights monocultures by default!
- Waterluvian 7y ago
  I remember Firefox being seriously lacking in some WebSocket dev tools that I needed. But I checked again and they're there. So it seems like they are actively improving the dev tools.
  - kossae 7y ago
    Yep, I believe that was a relatively recent addition actually. They're making great progress on the dev tools side of things.
towndrunk 7y ago
In Chrome 79 they broke or removed hovering over variables. They say it will be fixed in Chrome 80. https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/22882968?hl=en https://support.google.com/chrome/thread/22882968?hl=en
- gboss 7y ago
  This has been a huge Pita, for my team. Good news is it has gotten some of them to switch to Firefox for debugging. It really is awful that bug slipped through.
SCdF 7y ago
I am not OP but I'm a FF user. I haven't got around to learning FF's dev tools and still need Chrome(ium) to test that platform for compat anyway. So I just still use Chrome dev tools (which also work for NodeJS instances) but use FF for actual browsing.
z3t4 7y ago
I use Firefox as my default browser. But the dev tools is too slow, apparently someone thought it was a good idea to rewrite it in React, causing it to lag even on a few thousand console log messages on a fairly powerful workstation. And there is no search functionality, only filter. So I've started to prefix all my debug messages with whatever I'm working on just so that the logs can be found in the Firefox dev tools console. One good feature though is that you can filter on type of messages, like only show error messages, or warnings. Which is very annoying in Chrome dev tools where it will tell you there is an error, but you can't click on it, so there is no way to see the actual error.
- digitarald 7y ago
  DevTools member here. We have been working on performance over the past release – is there anything specific that you can point out as being slower for us to focus on?
  - z3t4 7y ago
    I have not yet tested v72, I'm on v71. The Chrome dev tools Console feels (not measured) about 100x faster then the Console in Firefox. Even Chromium Console can be limiting though. Yeh, I probably should not use console.logs for debugging, but it's much faster forkflow then firing up the debugger. Even with the lag. With the Chromium Console the lag is not that bad, and it has a search function. Both console's have a bunch of cool features, like being able to inspect DOM nodes, explore objects, etc. Witch I think might be a reason for the lag. Most of the time I just want to search the logs to find out what happened. An idea is if you can just get the plain text from the console.logs somehow. In chromium all console.logs get sent to stdout, so I can pipe the logs to a file, then use any editor to search it. But I prefer using the dev tools. Maybe make a perf switch in the console, which dumps the text without formatting or other features. Something that can handle one million lines of logs and search in it. Being able to search the logs is critical. Filtering doesn't work as I need to see the surrounding logs, what happened after. I don't need to see all one million lines at the same time though, it can be buffered to only show 100 lines above it and 100 lines below it. Chromium has such an optimization. But search is a bit slow.
Semaphor 7y ago
When I’m using the Chrome tools, I miss some FF features, when I use the FF tools, I miss some Chrome features. I generally like the FF tools better nowadays, but Chrome’s are a bit faster.
alwillis 7y ago
I’ve always preferred Firefox’s dev tools compared to Chrome’s. Really like the ability to outline flexbox and grid elements.
lysp 7y ago
Firefox has a great feature where live css changes are placed into a "diff" panel. Rather than having to remember all the small changes you made, you can just copy and paste the script out (or even just view what you changed).

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

prgmatic 7y ago

How much better is it than Safari? I find the differences in browser performance so subtle nowadays that I lean towards whichever gives me the most seamless experience—-which, as a Mac/iPhone user, is safari.

neuronic 7y ago
As a Mac/iPhone user the only thing that sort of breaks seamless is that Apple doesn't allow you to define a custom default browser on iPhone. I have Firefox in the dock on iPhone and it's really great but random links, e.g. via messaging, get opened by Safari first.
- err4nt 7y ago
  On iOS/iPadOS _all_ browsers are using Safari's webkit engine to render. That goes for FF on iOS, that goes for Chrome on iOS - it's all webkit.
  - dkdbejwi383 7y ago
    For me it's mainly about synced history, open tabs on various devices (phone, tablet, computer), shared preferences, etc. The rendering engine is secondary to that in my list of priorities.

_eric 7y ago

I also gave Firefox another shot a couple months ago and I'm surprised at how much better it is nowadays. It's been such a good experience I'm also giving a go to the Firefox Preview[0] on my Android - even though it's still under heavy development, I like some of the changes to the mobile browser it makes and it'll make in a near future. [0] https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/12/03/firefox-preview-beta-reaches-another-milestone/ https://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2019/12/03/firefox-p...

Normal_gaussian 7y ago
Firefox preview is fantastic. I started using it expecting a very unstable experience and... it hasn't been. For me its been fantastic.
- eitland 7y ago
  Agree! The only thing I missed from the ordinary Firefox on Android was that Firefox used to have a brilliant hack with the sharing option where they would show the two most frequently used options (+ a sharing button to access the rest) instead of just one or just the sharing button. This saved me a few seconds again and again and again. Wonder why no one else does that?
  - _eric 7y ago
    Yeah, the sharing button thing is something I miss from the ordinary Firefox too. I usually share links with my friends through Whatsapp and its icon is hidden far to the right.
signal11 7y ago
Firefox is definitely an amazing experience, especially if you use Firefox Containers[1]. My only gripe is that the UX of containers isn't quite ready for prime time yet (e.g. your container setup doesn't sync by default). And there really needs to be an easy way to switch profiles. Firefox has had profiles for basically forever, but it's much easier to switch profiles in Chrome. [1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers

maxheadroom 7y ago

>While I still consider DuckDuckGo to be in the "not bad" category... If you're into privacy-conscious search engines and want one that's not susceptible to blanket FISA warrants[0], check out either Qwant[1] or SwissCows[2]. [0] - DuckDuckGo's address is in Pennsylvania - 20 Paoli Pike, Paoli, PA 19301. [1] - https://www.qwant.com https://www.qwant.com [2] - https://swisscows.ch/ https://swisscows.ch/

6510 7y ago
wow, those seem quite fantastic at first glance. If I search for my real name I get every single profile I've ever created since the beginning of time - as opposed to google listing a bunch of random garbage. Names there are like John Doe returns famous people named John OR Doe above the person(s) with the actual name. EDIT: I right click the search box and make qw and sw keywords for them. EDIT2: I'm just looking for a functional google alternative.
jannes 7y ago
Qwant doesn't work for me at all on Firefox. It displays an empty page. Does anyone else have that problem? In the console I get a warning and an error: > Content Security Policy: Couldn’t process unknown directive ‘script-src-elem’ > TypeError: browserLanguage is undefined
- icebraining 7y ago
  For some reason, your Firefox profile doesn't have a preferred language, but Qwant expects one. If you add one in the Preferences (option "Choose your preferred language for displaying pages"), it should work.
  - cpeterso 7y ago
    Seems like Firefox should fall back to the OS language of a preferred language had not been set in the browser. I wonder how that happened.
    - 7y ago

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

umanwizard 7y ago

> After the recent missteps by Chrome (mangling the display of URLs) Me too! I'm not as bothered by software-politics as many of the commentators on here (I don't hate Facebook, and worked there for four years; I don't hate ads; I don't worry too much about trafficking and privacy...) but Chrome fucking with the URL was a bridge too far. I switched to Firefox and when Google walked back their hiding-the-URL business, I never bothered switching back, because I didn't trust them anymore. Companies take note: users' trust that you won't arbitrarily change their workflow in annoying ways is hard to win back.

dhimes 7y ago
Yeah I'm still a little pissed about not getting the green bar for payments (and definitely about not being able to see 'https' to verify it).
- driverdan 7y ago
  Green bar for payments?
  - deadmutex 7y ago
    Enterprise SSL certs, I think.
  - cpeterso 7y ago
    The EV (Extended Validation) certificate notification inn the address bar was removed in Firefox and Chrome: https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/chrome-and-firefox-changes-spark-the-end-of-ev-certificates/ https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/chrome-and-fi...
zamadatix 7y ago
The problem is it's impossible to separate "this changed it sucks" from "this is actually bad" since the messages are always the same. E.g. in this case you didn't even bother explaining why the new way works worse for you you just said "it changed, I left! Make note!" and I mean that's fine if that's what you actually wanted them to make note of but no company with competition is just going to keep every workflow the same for over a decade and wait for someone else to come out with a better product to replace them.

agumonkey 7y ago

Switched too ffx few monthes ago, good enough. It's still not as quick as Chrome (my laptop is not recent, not helping) but I'd rather support Mozilla.

miohtama 7y ago
You can get some extra speed by forcing GPU rendering https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21945206 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21945206 It is not 100% bug free yet, though

bambax 7y ago

I finally switched to FF two months ago after the uBlock fiasco, and I find it ok. Is it as fast as Chrome? No. Does it never freeze? No. But is it good enough? Hell yes.

OGWhales 7y ago
What was the ublock fiasco?
- npongratz 7y ago
  Not OP, but probably referencing Chrome's v3 manifest: https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338 HN discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20050173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20050173 (281 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20044430 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20044430 (893 comments)
  - bambax 7y ago
    Yes.

OGWhales 7y ago

Any tips for transitioning? I've seen people recommend various stuff like containers and other stuff but I never saved their recommendation as I was happy with chrome at the time.

drummer 7y ago

I agree Firefox is becoming awesome. If only they could also speed up mobile development and bring more features to it from desktop.

unicornporn 7y ago

Try https://www.startpage.com/ https://www.startpage.com/ . It's uses Google. DDG (mainly) uses Bing (and it sucks).

lysp 7y ago
Changed ownership: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577
- unicornporn 7y ago
  I know. They answered to some questions on Reddit and my conclusion was: seems OK.

complianceowl 7y ago

I stopped using Chrome about 2-months ago. It was difficult at first, simply because I was so used to it. But you are 100% right; I couldn't imagine going back to Chrome now that I've made the switch.