4 ms·

Although I agree it's not better, it's also not worse. So there's a case to use the web browser that will improve your safety and privacy.

feanaro 5y ago
It's better in terms of configurability. It's going to become even better when Manifest V3 comes around because ad blockers on Chrome will no longer be as effective.
murderfs 5y ago
It performs significantly worse than Chrome for me on both desktop Linux and Android (although Chrome mobile not supporting extensions means I use Firefox anyway). On privacy, I tentatively agree (but Mozilla's actions with Pocket etc. casts doubt), but Firefox is significantly behind Chrome when it comes to safety. Firefox's sandbox is substantially weaker (e.g. it's basically worthless on linux, because you can reach the X server from inside the "sandbox").
- Semaphor 5y ago
  > It performs significantly worse than Chrome for me on both desktop Linux and Android Not sure about Android, as I can’t remember how Chrome performs, but I regularly test things in Chrome on Desktop (or when sites are so third-party heavy, I can’t figure out a sensible way to enable sites), and on Windows the performance for both is indistinguishable, and that’s despite tons of extensions for FF and none for Chrome.
- boudin 5y ago
  I find Firefox less resource hungry and don't see much performance difference on Linux. Any resources on the sandbox weaknesses? I know it was the case a while back but I thought those issues had been addressed since. Firefox works really well on Wayland though, which addresses X's problems (and a few other regarding input and clipboard). Edit: found out the issue you mentioned: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1129492 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1129492 That's not great indeed. I guess that the only workaround for now is Wayland
mbreese 5y ago
Maybe a little over a year ago, I switched from Chrome to Firefox (phone, desktop, etc...). I didn't really see much difference, and I liked using Pocket. Plus, I wanted to support Firefox. Fast forward to last week and I'm considering switching back. It's not because of any sites that Firefox hasn't supported. It's because I recently needed to start using a webapp to access to email from $WORK. They locked up email and now my local Mail.app client won't connect to $WORK. My preferred way of handling this is to wrap the webapp as a desktop shortcut, so the entire site is wrapped in it's own window, etc. I also have a couple of other work webapps that I like to treat as applications. Chrome makes this easy/possible. Firefox does not. This used to be something I did with Firefox, but now, it's not possible (or at least easily, on a Mac). Firefox was something you could embed. And now, I have no idea. Small little features like this are where Firefox starts to lose users. Right now I have both running, but I can't see that lasting long.
- toastal 5y ago
  Firefox 86 removed SSB (site-specific browser) because people weren't using it; also it was behind a flag in about:config no one knew about.
  - aidog 5y ago
    I'm still bitter about that.
  - mbreese 5y ago
    I'm glad to know that I wasn't just imagining things. I could have sworn that I could do this a few years ago. But I wasn't sure that I wasn't just mis-remembering.
    - toastal 5y ago
      I learned about it because I happened across a post from Peppermint OS leveraging it heavily to get lightweight 'apps'. Unless you were following specific posts about the feature, you would never have known about it. SSB had bugs for sure (and sot much dev attention was given), but it could have been a great alternative to Electron in a PWA landscape.

feanaro 5y ago

It's better in terms of configurability. It's going to become even better when Manifest V3 comes around because ad blockers on Chrome will no longer be as effective.

murderfs 5y ago

It performs significantly worse than Chrome for me on both desktop Linux and Android (although Chrome mobile not supporting extensions means I use Firefox anyway). On privacy, I tentatively agree (but Mozilla's actions with Pocket etc. casts doubt), but Firefox is significantly behind Chrome when it comes to safety. Firefox's sandbox is substantially weaker (e.g. it's basically worthless on linux, because you can reach the X server from inside the "sandbox").

Semaphor 5y ago
> It performs significantly worse than Chrome for me on both desktop Linux and Android Not sure about Android, as I can’t remember how Chrome performs, but I regularly test things in Chrome on Desktop (or when sites are so third-party heavy, I can’t figure out a sensible way to enable sites), and on Windows the performance for both is indistinguishable, and that’s despite tons of extensions for FF and none for Chrome.
boudin 5y ago
I find Firefox less resource hungry and don't see much performance difference on Linux. Any resources on the sandbox weaknesses? I know it was the case a while back but I thought those issues had been addressed since. Firefox works really well on Wayland though, which addresses X's problems (and a few other regarding input and clipboard). Edit: found out the issue you mentioned: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1129492 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1129492 That's not great indeed. I guess that the only workaround for now is Wayland

mbreese 5y ago

Maybe a little over a year ago, I switched from Chrome to Firefox (phone, desktop, etc...). I didn't really see much difference, and I liked using Pocket. Plus, I wanted to support Firefox. Fast forward to last week and I'm considering switching back. It's not because of any sites that Firefox hasn't supported. It's because I recently needed to start using a webapp to access to email from $WORK. They locked up email and now my local Mail.app client won't connect to $WORK. My preferred way of handling this is to wrap the webapp as a desktop shortcut, so the entire site is wrapped in it's own window, etc. I also have a couple of other work webapps that I like to treat as applications. Chrome makes this easy/possible. Firefox does not. This used to be something I did with Firefox, but now, it's not possible (or at least easily, on a Mac). Firefox was something you could embed. And now, I have no idea. Small little features like this are where Firefox starts to lose users. Right now I have both running, but I can't see that lasting long.

toastal 5y ago
Firefox 86 removed SSB (site-specific browser) because people weren't using it; also it was behind a flag in about:config no one knew about.
- aidog 5y ago
  I'm still bitter about that.
- mbreese 5y ago
  I'm glad to know that I wasn't just imagining things. I could have sworn that I could do this a few years ago. But I wasn't sure that I wasn't just mis-remembering.
  - toastal 5y ago
    I learned about it because I happened across a post from Peppermint OS leveraging it heavily to get lightweight 'apps'. Unless you were following specific posts about the feature, you would never have known about it. SSB had bugs for sure (and sot much dev attention was given), but it could have been a great alternative to Electron in a PWA landscape.