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Great. Unlike many, I walk my talk and have always used Firefox since more than a decade with no exceptions. The very commonly given reason that DevTools are be
by Santosh83 6y ago
Great. Unlike many, I walk my talk and have always used Firefox since more than a decade with no exceptions. The very commonly given reason that DevTools are better in Chrome still doesn't stop one from using Firefox for all other general browsing. Unless we support alternatives we really shouldn't complain when they gradually die off in a space that is increasingly coming under the control of giant corporations with bottomless pockets.
- logeekal 6y agoI love to use Firefox and run away from Chrome but but but... Firefox never matches the perfomace with chrome in windows. Although, in linux Firefox FTW.
- MaxBarraclough 6y agoI use Firefox as my main browser, in Windows 10. Its performance doesn't seem any worse than Chromium-based browsers. Looking at [0], it seems Firefox sometimes outperforms Chrome/Chromium, and sometimes loses, depending on what's being tested. [0] https://arewefastyet.com/ https://arewefastyet.com/
- philliphaydon 6y agoFor me performance is better than chrome by a long shot now. Used to be FF was a memory hog and got slow and clunky. Now if I have 5 windows and 30+ tabs open for days, chrome will slow to a crawl while FF will happily continue to run at the same speed as if 1 tab was open.
- logicprog 6y agoI switched to Firefox a few years ago and it's great. Never looked back. I didn't even do it for ideological reasons like you and others, either, since I'm fine with Google.
- slowmovintarget 6y agoWhen Google made moves to hem in ad blocking, I switched back to Firefox. It's not ideology. It's about being able to visit a site and read the the story without the text dancing around as the page fills with ads and animations. Security is also a practical concern, not ideological.
- viraptor 6y ago> reason that DevTools are better in Chrome still doesn't stop one from using Firefox for all other general browsing It doesn't even stop you from developing with FF. DevTools were completely usable for years and unless you need very specific functionality, FF is just fine.
- jeltz 6y agoAgreed, Firefox's dev tools have been really good for over 5 years now.
- SketchySeaBeast 6y agoThere's even a special version - I've used Firefox developer edition for a while now - it supports web sockets while the normal Firefox didn't (I don't know if it now does). My only complaint is that clearing the cookies has a weird delay to it when compared to chrome.
- simion314 6y agoFor my work project I feel like the debugger has got slower, like when you press Ctrl+P to load a js file(we are using source maps) in debugger it takes so much longer in present where it was instant in the past - does anyone feel this slowdown or is something on my side only.
- Zardoz84 6y agoI personally think that FF dev tools are better that Chrome. Every time that I'm forced to use Chrome Dev tools, I get confused.
- needle0 6y ago"Unless we support alternatives we really shouldn't complain when they gradually die off in a space that is increasingly coming under the control of giant corporations with bottomless pockets." Exactly this. Sure Firefox sometimes isn't the absolute best in a given characteristic, but it's still a damn good browser overall, and the concern over the encroaching Chromium monoculture is more than enough to keep me using it.
- weaksauce 6y agoI haven't found firefoxe's dev tools to be much different than chrome's... and you can use chrome for a particular debugging issue or development. I think firefox is a great daily driver.
- LocalPCGuy 6y agoBeen using Firefox daily as my development browser for the last 6 months. Started as an experiment, but stayed because I liked it. The only thing I noticed is that sometimes Chrome's errors in the console are slightly better. I prefer Firefox's HTML/CSS panels, and the CSS Grid/Flex support is generally better. As anything, this comment is a point-of-time comment, they are both iterating rapidly, and when one adds something people like, the other usually pushes it in also.
- weaksauce 6y agoif you use nightly too you get some extra features that might even be better than chrome's.
- LocalPCGuy 6y agoI use the Developer Edition - it is ahead of beta but more stable than Nightly.
- blitmap 6y agoI wish I could find a practical video/web series on using Devtools. Real-world examples of how to use every feature. I think Chrome probably benefits from better performance in its Devtools, but I do agree that Firefox does just fine. I find them nearly identical. My only criticism of Firefox Devtools is they seem to move around buttons and icons pretty frequently. It's frustrating to search for "is .... possible in Firefox devtools?" and see screenshots of how things looked only a couple months ago. Then I play i-spy for the icon that does this. I do wish a remote debugging standard were defined. Firefox says it supports remote debugging but I have no exposure to this. I just want to hook up node to it like in Chrome.
- ilikepi 6y agoCheck out the "Developer Tools" category on hacks.mozilla.org[1]. When new features are added to DevTools, it's pretty common for blog posts to appear there, often with videos or animations. These are sometimes linked from the official developer release notes of the browser. It's probably not quite what you're asking for, but it's a start... [1]: https://hacks.mozilla.org/category/developer-tools/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/category/developer-tools/
- blitmap 6y agoThank you very kindly for that. Mozilla would be the best source for stuff like this. :) I had looked on Youtube or on egghead.io and such, but I didn't really find what I wanted. This is an offshoot, separate topic: I wish there were a Firefox extension for using the compatibility/emulator mode in Devtools to avoid fingerprinting. I want the website to always think I am 1920x1080 (a common res) and have it be easy to pan around in if the viewport does not match the dimensions of Firefox's window/tab.
- burtonator 6y agoLove that FF exists but one of the things that always strikes me is that if FF is successful in their mission they will cut off their major revenue channel. Google is still the majority of their revenue is it not? The reason they're making that money is off the backs of other consumers who are NOT benefiting from the privacy features that you guys want to see everywhere. Willing to be totally wrong here and would love to see more FF advocates speak out here but FF wouldn't be financially viable without Google and many FF advocates say Google is the problem...
- coldpie 6y agoYes, I wish there was a clear way to fund Firefox development. You can (and I do) donate to the Mozilla Foundation, although the funding relationship between the Mozilla Foundation and Firefox isn't clear. I believe that if Google's funding were to become insufficient, then the Foundation would step in to fund it if they have the funds, which is why I donate to them. But I don't know if this is actually the case.
- cxr 6y ago> the funding relationship between the Mozilla Foundation and Firefox isn't clear It's not really an unknown. Donations to Mozilla Foundation do not and cannot fund Firefox development. > if Google's funding were to become insufficient, then the Foundation would step in to fund it if they have the funds There are two assumptions here that are off. One is that the Foundation could come up with the kind of money that the Corporation spends on Firefox. The other is that the Corporation is somehow in a tight situation financially. Reality is opposite to both. First, the Corporation is not strapped for cash. It brings in a lot of money. Like, in-the-neighborhood-of-half-a-billion-dollars-a-year a lot. It spent something like 29MM acquiring Pocket (which is still as closed source now as it was 3 years ago), and it manages to spend 50MM on its marketing campaigns that most people aren't even aware exist. Under the current arrangement the Corporation funds the Foundation, paying a percentage of its revenues to allow the Corporation to trade on Mozilla's name. (If that sounds like a weird way to put it, consider revisiting your other assumptions about Mozilla and Firefox.)
- buu700 6y agoThat was one of my bigger reasons for a long time, but last I checked FF's dev tools were finally comparable to Chrome's. At this point I'm just blocked on https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042. I've seriously tried switching to Firefox a few times, and I really want to switch, but it's just not acceptable to have my CPU regularly pinned at 200%.
- devit 6y agoYou should also switch to Linux (or Windows with WSL if you insist on running a proprietary OS).
- Shared404 6y agoHeaven forbid anyone use the software they like. Neither you or I like macOS. However, people who do like it are welcome to use it. Being a jerk does nothing to get $YOUR_FAV_OS to gain population.
- wybiral 6y agoI used Firefox back when it was competing with IE and then switched to Chrome for a while because of the performance difference. But I switched back to Firefox about 3-4 years ago because of the growing Chromium monoculture (which is even greater now that Edge is using Chromium) and because the performance difference isn't really there anymore. Mozilla has done some great work keeping up with the giants. Lockwise is great. The "Send Tab to Device" feature is great. And they're working on offline voice recognition using DeepSpeech in future releases (Chrome sends all audio to Google for recognition).
- wincent 6y agoI really wanted to switch to Firefox, but after several weeks the thing that pushed me back was janky scrolling. It seems like a trivial thing, but it absolutely drove me first up the wall, and then back to Chrome.
- StyloBill 6y agoYeah I try FF every 6 months to see if the scrolling has improved and each and every time I go back to using Chrome after a few days. I wouldn't say it's bad but it's noticeably worse than Chrome and I just can't get over it. Exact same thing for FF on Android.
- cptskippy 6y agoI'm literally flipping back abd forth between the two on my phone and I can't tell the difference. Is there a specific site?
- cpeterso 6y agoWhich platform are you seeing janky scrolling? On desktop, you might try enabling WebRender (set about:config pref gfx.webrender.all = true). On Android, you might try the Firefox Beta. It is the new "Fenix" browser that is a big perf improvement over the older Firefox Android ("Fennec") browser. All Fennec users will eventually be migrated to the new Firefox Fenix browser this year, but you can try Fenix in Beta now. Installed along Fennec as a separate app, it won't overwrite your Fennec user data. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.firefox_beta https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fi...
- jhatax 6y agoUncheck "Use smooth scrolling" in preferences to see if that makes a difference to your scrolling experience. FWIW, I have "Use autoscrolling" checked; most, if not all, websites scroll fine on my MacBook Pro and iMac. I cannot speak to the scrolling behavior on Windows.
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- sevencolors 6y agoI think the DevTools for Firefox are better personally. Their way of showing css grid and flexbox models makes debugging so much easier
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- matsemann 6y ago> The very commonly given reason that DevTools are better in Chrome I don't find that to be true. At least not anymore. I use both Chrome and Fx bout 50/50 for developing, and they each have something the other misses. For instance, "preserve log" in Chrome's network tab throws away all the actual response data when moving to a new page. In Firefox it's there. So when debugging through our micro-frontend flow I prefer Fx.
- jniedrauer 6y agoI also massively prefer the request replay workflow in firefox. Using the chrome console with curl just feels clunky compared to firefox's "edit and resend."
- giancarlostoro 6y agoAgreed, I kept trying Chrome after it first came out and honestly it just never became my daily browser. I use it when developing but not because I think the dev tools are better, Firefox's dev tools arent that bad, I dont know what magical features people are missing, but they're all there for me.
- agumonkey 6y agoI had relapses but I've been on firefox 99% since about around the quantum release and some google privacy / app killing / browser upgrades. I felt firefox was less a social platform product and more a nice tool. I used to miss chrome but I barely think about it nowadays. And as usual, kudos to all mozillians.
- hinkley 6y agoFor a similar reason, I took some advice years ago (after the last mosaic virus scare) to eat multi-grain bread even though it's not entirely my favorite. Without demand, supply dries up. Without supply, the knowledge base dries up. When the shit hits the fan you have to start over from first principles. And if the 'shit' is someone flexing their muscles, then the world looks like extortion while people scramble to play catch-up. There are other forms of "charity" besides giving money to non-profits. You can buy from the store where the owner is pleasant instead of the one that is cheap. You can eat at your 5th most favorite restaurant so that you continue to have more than 4 choices. Use privacy software when your life is pretty boring. You can contrive 'hand-me-downs' for your kid's friend. All of these keep society working, and none of them have a clear reward for you, so it's down to a matter of ethics.
- danudey 6y agoI find multi-grain bread just awful to eat, but I'm at the point where I'm suspecting that, if I ate it exclusively for a while, I would forget that other bread is better and accept multi-grain as the new normal. It would certainly be healthier at least.
- hinkley 6y agoMultigrain for a PB&J is kind of a weird experience, but at least in my mind is de rigeur for a deli-meat sandwich or even a better grilled cheese sandwich (Colby Jack. It is the way.) If you haven't tried a PB&J on multigrain toast, it can be messy but a different flavor profile. ETA: Also there's multi-grain and there's multi-grain. Some brands get their 'N-grain' by making wheat and X bread and then sprinkling N-2 grains on the crust, not unlike a poppy-seed bagel. I think my brain was more comfortable with the latter. Perhaps I expect the crust to get stuck in my teeth anyway, but chunky bits in the middle remind me of badly-made bread.
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- pessimizer 6y ago> Unless we support alternatives we really shouldn't complain when they gradually die off in a space that is increasingly coming under the control of giant corporations with bottomless pockets. The company behind Chrome also supports Firefox. And will continue to, for fear of their browser dominance being used against them within an antitrust action.
- paulryanrogers 6y agoIIRC there was a time Yahoo bought search-default rights, for the US at least. So it's not guaranteed that Google will always have influence over Mozilla.
- techntoke 6y agoMozilla has continually put Linux last in nearly everything they do. Hardware acceleration on Linux has been absent but works on Chromium. Wayland support is broken with noticeable artifacts but works on Chromium. In their recent VPN announcement there is no support for Linux. In their password manager announcement revamp they don't support Linux. Why would I support a company that doesn't put open source first?
- andreaorru 6y agoHardware acceleration works just fine for me on Linux (granted, I had to flip a few values in about:config). And all the Wayland glitches have been fixed months ago.
- techntoke 6y agoIt wasn't even enabled until this release for video. It has been working on Chromium for over 2 years, if not longer. The Wayland issues have improved after trying it out just now, but I still often get artifacts when resizing and switching between fullscreen and split screen.
- techntoke 6y agoTurns out still uses much higher CPU playing video with latest Firefox than Chromium
- kristiandupont 6y agoAgreed. FF is my "browser"-browser, mostly because the Awesomebar is better than what Chrome has. Chrome, for obvious reasons, tries to nudge you towards searching via Google whereas FF searches through your history which is so much nicer. I also have an instance of Brave open. I use this for "apps" like my email and Spotify which are always open. It seems to perform slightly better for this and it supports media keys, so that works well. The thing that made this easy was using a password manager which synchronizes across all my browsers. As for dev tools, I find that they both have strenghts and weaknesses and so, I switch back and forth.
- mixmastamyk 6y agoI've used Firefox since it was called NCSA Mosaic and later Netscape Navigator. We had to push the browser uphill, both ways. :D
- NetOpWibby 6y agoI love FF’s dev tools. Safari however? MEH
- la_fayette 6y agoDevtools differ in the two browsers, e.g. firefox has great tools for animations, grid, flexbox etc. It is true performance tools are superior in chrome though...