4 ms·

how is Firefox half-baked? i'm using it every day along with Safari and don't see any significant differences

sosull 4y ago
+1, it’s a great piece of software.
zamadatix 4y ago
With something as wide scoped as a browser this inevitably comes down to "well the 200 things I think are relevant do/don't work the same in favor of a/b" out of tens of thousands, if not more, of things implemented. For me Firefox is about as good as any. Upsides here, downsides there, and nothing truly outstanding overall. It seems severely far behind in modern color (e.g. HDR videos or all of the wide gamut CSS specifications coming out), ahead in terms of single profile compartmentalization (containers), but behind in profile management (the profile manager sucks if you even know how to get to it). For as much as it champions being the last bastion of the free web it comes default with a decent amount of crapware (pocket, vpn) and has lost its way in terms of power user flexibility (UI customization, mobile extension limits, removal of power user flags). That said it's still better than the alternatives in those spaces, just not as good as it used to be. For another none of these might matter but a lot of other reasons I don't even think about might. In the end even Firefox's own usage statistic point to the vast majority seeming to agree it doesn't have anything compelling enough to be worth switching to/evangelizing for anymore though.
- shkkmo 4y ago
  Firefox on desktop is pertty solid, despite some controversial decisions. Firedox on android has a lot of issues.
  - iamcurious 4y ago
    Which ones? On principle, I never use chrome on android. Am I missing some killer feature?
    - shkkmo 4y ago
      Constant crashes that lose open tabs, layout glitches where display gets offset from ui trigger points (including on this site), downloads that just fail / don't work. You'd think that this would have me stop using it, but I really don't want to use Chrome/Brave/DDG so have just been putting up with it.
      - dicknuckle 4y ago
        why not Kiwi Browser? uses chromium under the hood. allows chrome extensions to be installed, but most don't work.
        zamadatix 4y ago
        Like most small-backing Chromium clones it's usually ~2 months behind on patches (normal and security) and the published source is about ~10 months behind. Being effectively closed for the release version and very small from a development side it does wonky things like redirect your "Google" searches through their servers since they don't have proper search agreements. I.e. it's basically "an interesting Chromium clone maintained by a couple of folks out of Estonia". If you're cool with that it can be a nifty browser, for many that just makes it to unproven to dump access to their entire online world into.
      - TingPing 4y ago
        Anecdotally I've never experienced a single one of those bugs in Firefox on Android as a heavy user.
        pleb_nz 4y ago
        I second this. Only use ff mobile and never have any issues
      - iamcurious 4y ago
        I rarely find any of those things. I mean, it does crash, but once every six months, which I don't see as constant. Hehe, we are on the same boat about not using other browsers. I have been use firefox for the last 18 years, I will continue to do so.

+1, it’s a great piece of software.

With something as wide scoped as a browser this inevitably comes down to "well the 200 things I think are relevant do/don't work the same in favor of a/b" out of tens of thousands, if not more, of things implemented. For me Firefox is about as good as any. Upsides here, downsides there, and nothing truly outstanding overall. It seems severely far behind in modern color (e.g. HDR videos or all of the wide gamut CSS specifications coming out), ahead in terms of single profile compartmentalization (containers), but behind in profile management (the profile manager sucks if you even know how to get to it). For as much as it champions being the last bastion of the free web it comes default with a decent amount of crapware (pocket, vpn) and has lost its way in terms of power user flexibility (UI customization, mobile extension limits, removal of power user flags). That said it's still better than the alternatives in those spaces, just not as good as it used to be. For another none of these might matter but a lot of other reasons I don't even think about might. In the end even Firefox's own usage statistic point to the vast majority seeming to agree it doesn't have anything compelling enough to be worth switching to/evangelizing for anymore though.

shkkmo 4y ago
Firefox on desktop is pertty solid, despite some controversial decisions. Firedox on android has a lot of issues.
- iamcurious 4y ago
  Which ones? On principle, I never use chrome on android. Am I missing some killer feature?
  - shkkmo 4y ago
    Constant crashes that lose open tabs, layout glitches where display gets offset from ui trigger points (including on this site), downloads that just fail / don't work. You'd think that this would have me stop using it, but I really don't want to use Chrome/Brave/DDG so have just been putting up with it.
    - dicknuckle 4y ago
      why not Kiwi Browser? uses chromium under the hood. allows chrome extensions to be installed, but most don't work.
      - zamadatix 4y ago
        Like most small-backing Chromium clones it's usually ~2 months behind on patches (normal and security) and the published source is about ~10 months behind. Being effectively closed for the release version and very small from a development side it does wonky things like redirect your "Google" searches through their servers since they don't have proper search agreements. I.e. it's basically "an interesting Chromium clone maintained by a couple of folks out of Estonia". If you're cool with that it can be a nifty browser, for many that just makes it to unproven to dump access to their entire online world into.
    - TingPing 4y ago
      Anecdotally I've never experienced a single one of those bugs in Firefox on Android as a heavy user.
      - pleb_nz 4y ago
        I second this. Only use ff mobile and never have any issues
    - iamcurious 4y ago
      I rarely find any of those things. I mean, it does crash, but once every six months, which I don't see as constant. Hehe, we are on the same boat about not using other browsers. I have been use firefox for the last 18 years, I will continue to do so.