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Recently switched to Linux and only installed Firefox. When you force yourself to use it, it's doable. I think only once in the last 6 months did a website not

Recently switched to Linux and only installed Firefox. When you force yourself to use it, it's doable. I think only once in the last 6 months did a website not work (my dumb HOA website). Other than that, it's more than sufficient. It crashes sometimes but if that's the price for not having coercive software controlling my life, so be it.

alpaca128 5y ago
I can't remember Firefox crashing in recent years and that includes times I approached 2000 open tabs. Though after using the same profile for over 5 years now it has trouble remembering the color scheme for whatever reason.
- antod 5y ago
  I never had Firefox crashes until Ubuntu 21.10 which I think made Firefox a snap, now I get crashes when it tries to load fonts. And I get that colour scheme thing now too.
  - voidlogic 5y ago
    You can still run firefox as normal app, and it's rock solid.
- selfhoster11 5y ago
  "Soft" crashes where websites simply don't load or function properly in FF, but do in Chrome, are far more common.
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    I'd say that's usually a problem with websites and not the browser. Many websites are just designed with the 80% of most frequent configurations. And when autoplay is disabled, the browser window is too narrow, a special font isn't loaded or a cookie is blocked all bets are off.
Valord 5y ago
My data point, FF has worked fine for me on MacOS and Windows for years.
zelphirkalt 5y ago
Not claiming, that your experience isn't true, but: Firefox hasn't crashed for me in years! And I am a real tab hoarder. 400 tabs and more are not so uncommon for me. Then again I don't allow arbitrary websites to run all sorts of shit scripts. It might or might not be your hardware, or it might be the websites you visit.
- jeltz 5y ago
  Another tab hoarder and for me the only times Firefox has crashed is when I have upgraded Firefox but not yet restarted it.
- sockaddr 5y ago
  Yeah, I think there are measures I could take to help the situation but it's a little low on my priority queue at the moment. The crashes are rare and not really a big issue for me.
- mhitza 5y ago
  Not the OP, but I consider it a soft crash every time I update Firefox in my OS, and it won't allow me to spawn new tabs until I restart Firefox. Annoying behavior they've included a couple years back.
  - sfink 5y ago
    If I understand what you're reporting correctly, then that's something your OS "included a couple of years back". If you install Firefox from Mozilla's site, it won't have these update problems. What's happening is that your package manager is swapping Firefox's bits out from under it while it's running. Firefox's built-in update system doesn't do that. Which is not to say that I think you shouldn't be using a packaged version of Firefox. Personally I'm running Nightly so I don't have the option anyway. Generally speaking, I vastly prefer sticking to my package manager's stuff. I just wish the package managers would fix their Firefox updates. (I don't know what the right fix would be, and I imagine it could be hard.)
    - 5y ago
feanaro 5y ago
Hmm, interesting, because I don't force myself to use Firefox. I use it because it's just plain better than Chrome, in that I can configure it just the way I want.
- sockaddr 5y ago
  I'm curious what OS you're running. For me, on macOS Firefox performs the best out of all browsers I've tried, but on Linux it feels a bit sluggish.
  - sgc 5y ago
    I use it almost exclusively on Linux. It was much worse just 9 months ago. I do close and reopen it every week or so, it reopens all my tabs per my config, and it never gets sluggish on me if I do that. I agree with commenter above. I prefer it, with its flaws, because of configurability. It's been 6 months since I ahve been forced to open a site in Chromium. It tends to be some bloated highly commercial (F500) site that requires that.
  - feanaro 5y ago
    I'm on Arch Linux.
  - grey_earthling 5y ago
    My experience is the opposite :) I have to use macOS at work, and it makes Firefox much more janky than it is on this 10-year-old Linux laptop. (Though I rarely use other browsers on macOS, so maybe they're even worse.)
selfhoster11 5y ago
Damning by faint praise shows how bad it is right now for FF. Back in the golden age of Firefox (arguably, before the versions started incrementing like Chrome), it was a pure pleasure to use, even if certain things like ActiveX refused to work. Now, if we "force ourselves" to use it, it's "maybe OK".

alpaca128 5y ago

I can't remember Firefox crashing in recent years and that includes times I approached 2000 open tabs. Though after using the same profile for over 5 years now it has trouble remembering the color scheme for whatever reason.

antod 5y ago
I never had Firefox crashes until Ubuntu 21.10 which I think made Firefox a snap, now I get crashes when it tries to load fonts. And I get that colour scheme thing now too.
- voidlogic 5y ago
  You can still run firefox as normal app, and it's rock solid.
selfhoster11 5y ago
"Soft" crashes where websites simply don't load or function properly in FF, but do in Chrome, are far more common.
- alpaca128 5y ago
  I'd say that's usually a problem with websites and not the browser. Many websites are just designed with the 80% of most frequent configurations. And when autoplay is disabled, the browser window is too narrow, a special font isn't loaded or a cookie is blocked all bets are off.

Valord 5y ago

My data point, FF has worked fine for me on MacOS and Windows for years.

zelphirkalt 5y ago

Not claiming, that your experience isn't true, but: Firefox hasn't crashed for me in years! And I am a real tab hoarder. 400 tabs and more are not so uncommon for me. Then again I don't allow arbitrary websites to run all sorts of shit scripts. It might or might not be your hardware, or it might be the websites you visit.

jeltz 5y ago
Another tab hoarder and for me the only times Firefox has crashed is when I have upgraded Firefox but not yet restarted it.
sockaddr 5y ago
Yeah, I think there are measures I could take to help the situation but it's a little low on my priority queue at the moment. The crashes are rare and not really a big issue for me.
mhitza 5y ago
Not the OP, but I consider it a soft crash every time I update Firefox in my OS, and it won't allow me to spawn new tabs until I restart Firefox. Annoying behavior they've included a couple years back.
- sfink 5y ago
  If I understand what you're reporting correctly, then that's something your OS "included a couple of years back". If you install Firefox from Mozilla's site, it won't have these update problems. What's happening is that your package manager is swapping Firefox's bits out from under it while it's running. Firefox's built-in update system doesn't do that. Which is not to say that I think you shouldn't be using a packaged version of Firefox. Personally I'm running Nightly so I don't have the option anyway. Generally speaking, I vastly prefer sticking to my package manager's stuff. I just wish the package managers would fix their Firefox updates. (I don't know what the right fix would be, and I imagine it could be hard.)
  - 5y ago

feanaro 5y ago

Hmm, interesting, because I don't force myself to use Firefox. I use it because it's just plain better than Chrome, in that I can configure it just the way I want.

sockaddr 5y ago
I'm curious what OS you're running. For me, on macOS Firefox performs the best out of all browsers I've tried, but on Linux it feels a bit sluggish.
- sgc 5y ago
  I use it almost exclusively on Linux. It was much worse just 9 months ago. I do close and reopen it every week or so, it reopens all my tabs per my config, and it never gets sluggish on me if I do that. I agree with commenter above. I prefer it, with its flaws, because of configurability. It's been 6 months since I ahve been forced to open a site in Chromium. It tends to be some bloated highly commercial (F500) site that requires that.
- feanaro 5y ago
  I'm on Arch Linux.
- grey_earthling 5y ago
  My experience is the opposite :) I have to use macOS at work, and it makes Firefox much more janky than it is on this 10-year-old Linux laptop. (Though I rarely use other browsers on macOS, so maybe they're even worse.)

selfhoster11 5y ago

Damning by faint praise shows how bad it is right now for FF. Back in the golden age of Firefox (arguably, before the versions started incrementing like Chrome), it was a pure pleasure to use, even if certain things like ActiveX refused to work. Now, if we "force ourselves" to use it, it's "maybe OK".