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I have attempted to move to Firefox twice: once 12 years ago and once 8 years ago (probably, I don't really remember exact time). I know, Firefox has come a lon

I have attempted to move to Firefox twice: once 12 years ago and once 8 years ago (probably, I don't really remember exact time). I know, Firefox has come a long, long, long way since then, but the same were also promised 8 years ago, and it turn out Firefox cannot handle my use case well to the point of almost being unusable. (That said, my use case are definitely not normal) It's a lot of effort to move everything: current session, bookmarks, extensions, sync (which mean I need to move on my 5+ devices at once). I have been bitten twice -- not sure if I want to risk it again. No matter how much people are saying how good it is now, it's hard to muster up the effort to move again. EDIT: Perhaps I wasn't clear enough. Back when Firefox was saying it's as fast as Chrome without being multi-process. They were saying that it's better. I tried. I moved. I got f*cked up. I move back. Twice. You'd excuse me if I no longer believe what the Firefox dev were saying about their browser.

jraph 5y ago
8 years ago, Firefox 25 was released. I don't know your needs but a lot as changed underneath. Notably, Firefox is now using multiple processes, the Javascript engine is probably a lot faster, the web engine too. I don't like every change, especially the latest revamp of the UI, but it is still the best browser for me. You could try, and them move if conclusive? If you consider switching anyway. Moving everything before being sure seems expensive.
- innocenat 5y ago
  As I said, I was bitten twice. It's hard to even try now. Back then I try for a few week before committing, but when I move my session (of 200+ tabs) onto Firefox, it's dead. And back then I was told the exact same thing I was told this time, too.
  - jraph 5y ago
    I sure reached 200 tabs on Firefox at times and it's probably a lot better at handling this kind of things than a decade ago. But I hear you.
  - abtinf 5y ago
    200 tabs is nothing for Firefox. I have thousands of open tabs, managed with the Tree Style Tabs (TST) plug-in.
  - quesera 5y ago
    FWIW, I have 3668 tabs open in Firefox right now. Looks like it's using about 1.6GB of RAM. (Notes: most of those thousands of tabs are unloaded, I block JavaScript rather aggressively, and yes I do recognize the absurdity but I confess my sins here to illustrate my point!) I have no experience migrating from Chrome to Firefox, but FF can certainly handle lots of tabs. Vertical tab layouts are very helpful for navigating them. My limited experience using Chrome says that Firefox requires vastly less RAM to handle multiple tabs (anything more than a dozen!). Re: Conspicuous tab consumption: If I pared down, I'd be more like 50-100 active tabs. I appreciate that Firefox remains completely usable even when I do not pare down. Chrome fails for me at about 20 tabs due to lack of usable vertical tabs layout, even before RAM becomes an issue on this machine.
    - littlecranky67 5y ago
      Your use case is covered by Firefox, its called Bookmarks.
      - quesera 5y ago
        If only it were so. Unfortunately, bookmarks serve a very different use case. I have 55821 of them.
  - filchermcurr 5y ago
    If you do ever want to try to make the switch again, you might try the 'Auto Tab Discard' extension. It lets you customize how tab unloading works. I had 2755 tabs open without breaking a sweat (down to 1093, woo!). Starting the browser will only load the last active tab and, as you continue to work, your older tabs (depending on your setting) will start to get unloaded. I want to say this is a feature of the browser itself, but the extension (add-on, whatever we call them now) gives you a lot more control. As for session migration, maybe an extension like 'Tab Session Manager' will help? It supports several different formats, so surely one of those formats is something that Chrome can export. That would let you move everything in one fell swoop, at least.
ryukafalz 5y ago
You can't get even an idea of whether or not it'll work for you without switching over completely?
- innocenat 5y ago
  I said I did twice? Both of them f*cked me up completely.
vlod 5y ago
Maybe just dip your toe in? It's okay to use Chrome for X and FF for Y. i.e. Use it exclusively for HN (say for a few weeks) and see how it goes.
- innocenat 5y ago
  Not going to help when my session is 200+ tabs. Previously it's dead after moving my main session.
  - vlod 5y ago
    You really have 200+ HN tabs open? I don't understand how that's manageable at all. So for this HN article. You can't use FF to try it out. You HAVE to add it to the 200+ tabs to Chrome?
    - innocenat 5y ago
      I meant that trying for a few tab with one site won't help me, because previously it's dead AFTER I migrated my entire 200+ tab session.
  - sharps1 5y ago
    You can use Bulk URL opener to move tabs between browsers. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bulkurlopener/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bulkurlopener... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bulk-url-opener/kgnfciolbjojfdbbelbdbhhocjmhenep?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bulk-url-opener/kg...
  - zo1 5y ago
    Start a new session then.

jraph 5y ago

8 years ago, Firefox 25 was released. I don't know your needs but a lot as changed underneath. Notably, Firefox is now using multiple processes, the Javascript engine is probably a lot faster, the web engine too. I don't like every change, especially the latest revamp of the UI, but it is still the best browser for me. You could try, and them move if conclusive? If you consider switching anyway. Moving everything before being sure seems expensive.

innocenat 5y ago
As I said, I was bitten twice. It's hard to even try now. Back then I try for a few week before committing, but when I move my session (of 200+ tabs) onto Firefox, it's dead. And back then I was told the exact same thing I was told this time, too.
- jraph 5y ago
  I sure reached 200 tabs on Firefox at times and it's probably a lot better at handling this kind of things than a decade ago. But I hear you.
- abtinf 5y ago
  200 tabs is nothing for Firefox. I have thousands of open tabs, managed with the Tree Style Tabs (TST) plug-in.
- quesera 5y ago
  FWIW, I have 3668 tabs open in Firefox right now. Looks like it's using about 1.6GB of RAM. (Notes: most of those thousands of tabs are unloaded, I block JavaScript rather aggressively, and yes I do recognize the absurdity but I confess my sins here to illustrate my point!) I have no experience migrating from Chrome to Firefox, but FF can certainly handle lots of tabs. Vertical tab layouts are very helpful for navigating them. My limited experience using Chrome says that Firefox requires vastly less RAM to handle multiple tabs (anything more than a dozen!). Re: Conspicuous tab consumption: If I pared down, I'd be more like 50-100 active tabs. I appreciate that Firefox remains completely usable even when I do not pare down. Chrome fails for me at about 20 tabs due to lack of usable vertical tabs layout, even before RAM becomes an issue on this machine.
  - littlecranky67 5y ago
    Your use case is covered by Firefox, its called Bookmarks.
    - quesera 5y ago
      If only it were so. Unfortunately, bookmarks serve a very different use case. I have 55821 of them.
- filchermcurr 5y ago
  If you do ever want to try to make the switch again, you might try the 'Auto Tab Discard' extension. It lets you customize how tab unloading works. I had 2755 tabs open without breaking a sweat (down to 1093, woo!). Starting the browser will only load the last active tab and, as you continue to work, your older tabs (depending on your setting) will start to get unloaded. I want to say this is a feature of the browser itself, but the extension (add-on, whatever we call them now) gives you a lot more control. As for session migration, maybe an extension like 'Tab Session Manager' will help? It supports several different formats, so surely one of those formats is something that Chrome can export. That would let you move everything in one fell swoop, at least.

ryukafalz 5y ago

You can't get even an idea of whether or not it'll work for you without switching over completely?

innocenat 5y ago
I said I did twice? Both of them f*cked me up completely.

vlod 5y ago

Maybe just dip your toe in? It's okay to use Chrome for X and FF for Y. i.e. Use it exclusively for HN (say for a few weeks) and see how it goes.

innocenat 5y ago
Not going to help when my session is 200+ tabs. Previously it's dead after moving my main session.
- vlod 5y ago
  You really have 200+ HN tabs open? I don't understand how that's manageable at all. So for this HN article. You can't use FF to try it out. You HAVE to add it to the 200+ tabs to Chrome?
  - innocenat 5y ago
    I meant that trying for a few tab with one site won't help me, because previously it's dead AFTER I migrated my entire 200+ tab session.
- sharps1 5y ago
  You can use Bulk URL opener to move tabs between browsers. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bulkurlopener/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/bulkurlopener... https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bulk-url-opener/kgnfciolbjojfdbbelbdbhhocjmhenep?hl=en https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/bulk-url-opener/kg...
- zo1 5y ago
  Start a new session then.