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I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

• rob_c 4y ago
  Only people left using it are now tech people and they've started dropping decisions that lead mainly to bad profits... Albeit slowly...
• esharte 4y ago
  Firefox is worth it alone for its 'reader view'. Especially on Android. And it's the easiest way to get around the likes of the NYT weak paywalls.
  • zitsarethecure 4y ago
    Reader view is great, but it seems to work on less and less sites every day. I don't know what the mechanism is by which the browser decides whether to allow reader view rendering, but it seems to not work on about half the sites I wish I could use it on these days.
• Zekio 4y ago
  anyone else find that only Firefox behaves properly when opening up a saved state that opens multiple windows on multiple virtual desktops. I've had problems with both Edge and Chrome changing the current virtual desktop or behaving weird until I click at least once on every window that opens
• ivanjermakov 4y ago
  I wish to love Firefox, but some things are dragging it down 1. Noticabely slower and less snappy than Chromium in both page load and interaction. 2. HTML5 rendering is horrendously slow. 3. Shortcuts mapped by chars, not keycodes; e.g. pressing ctrl+t on Cyrillic layout will do nothing instead of opening a new tab.
• greyhair 4y ago
  Privacy Badger flagged 51 cookies on that techrader page. Just saying.
• padfootprong 4y ago
  The biggest problem I had with firefox back in the day was it would eat up so much RAM. I'm a developer and I'm constantly loading, reloading, profiling etc across multiple tabs and eventually my pretty powerful PC would become slow. I had to restart firefox every time. When chrome launched, I was thrilled that it had firebug features "built in" and that it didn't eat up 80% of my RAM. The article mentions Firefox being not a processor hog anymore, has that changed that drastically? After a while, Firefox would be incredibly sluggish and when I switched to chrome, I haven't looked back at all. These days, I use brave browser for personal browsing and chrome for work
  • pixiemagic 4y ago
    This is weird, because I thought that Chrome (at least semi-recently, perhaps not in the earliest days) was infamous for hogging RAM. I use Firefox and can't say that I've thought much about browser resource usage, which probably means it's not catastrophically bad, at the very least. Why not try it out and see if it's better for you now?
• karimmaassen 4y ago
  Safari user here. I often feel I'm a minority, but it's a really good browser for my Mac. Had been using Firefox after Chrome before switching to Safari.
• sankalp_sans 4y ago
  Been using Firefox for 80%+ of my use cases, but whenever I need to make a payment online, it is easier to just use Chrome which stores and syncs payment methods. And I am amazed how Firefox doesn't have profiles unlike Chrome, or at least the implementation is so counterintuitive (I use "Personal" profile as a Facebook container for instance). On the other hand, Chrome profile switching and isolation are just still so good. I hope this is not some patent-protected thing which Firefox can't just copy for good. If Mozilla team is reading, here is some direct feedback for why I couldn't completely switch over.
• doliveira 4y ago
  Firefox is worth it if only for the Ctrl-Tab going in recently used order. I hate using Chrome and needing to use the mouse to actually find a tab
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • layer8 4y ago
    It’s mystifying why any browser would choose not to have that feature. It’s basic ergonomics of tabbing UIs.
    • chrismorgan 4y ago
      Firefox is literally the only program of any kind that I can think of that even supports MRU Ctrl+Tab. Windowed UIs, sure, MRU is conventional, but tabbed?
      • layer8 4y ago
        All IDEs and editors I use support MRU order. IE also had/has MRU tabs.
      • SixDouble5321 4y ago
        Windows itself?
  • zamadatix 4y ago
    Chrome uses an alternative tab workflow brought up by alt/cmd+shift+a which will bring up a list of tabs in last used order. You can then navigate via keyboard or just type to search tabs. That doesn't explain why the other method isn't at least an option in Chrome but I figured it was worth mentioning for those that missed the functionality.
  • chrismorgan 4y ago
    Huh, you’re the first person I’ve encountered liking that behaviour. Since Firefox switched to MRU Ctrl+Tab by default, every Firefox user I know (whether a long-time user, one migrating from another browser, or someone for whom it is their first browser by virtue of their youth, and I have at least one in each category) has successfully found and toggled that option. I must admit, however, that I do have Tab Flip for Tree Style Tab, with Shift+F2 to switch between the current and most recently selected tabs (like Ctrl+6 in Vim to toggle between the most recent buffers), and have added similar elsewhere, with Meta+F2 to switch between most recent workspaces in the Sway or i3 window managers: bindsym Mod4+F2 workspace back_and_forth bindsym Mod4+Shift+F2 move container to workspace back_and_forth, workspace back_and_forth I wouldn’t want to be without at least this single-level MRU in my browser or window manager. (On more traditional window managers, you normally have Alt+Tab or ⌘⇥ and ⌘` which are all some form of more extensive MRU list, though I find macOS’s application-level treatment bizarre and extraordinarily frustrating because of how cripplingly limiting it is if you work with multiple multi-window apps and want to see a window of each. And yeah, it’s easy to see when reflecting on Alt+Tab why Firefox went the way they did with Ctrl+Tab, making it behave similarly. But I haven’t previously found anyone actually liking it.)
• aetherspawn 4y ago
  I’m a Firefox user but I’m not sure that I can agree that it’s lighter than Google Chrome. I think Chrome is generally faster at everything. Chrome is also more stable. For some reason my Firefox randomly freezes once or twice a month and gets stuck in a crashing loop where only a reboot will fix it. But on principle I use Firefox whenever possible. I appreciate the effort that went into it. Still have to use Chrome daily for one or two business web apps that block FF.
  • szundi 4y ago
    I have a colleage who has a separate monitor for the open tabs. That many he has. Only Firefox can do this for him.
  • invalidname 4y ago
    Chrome is possibly faster for 10 tabs or less. When you go upwards of 100 like I do... It's not even in the competition. Its UI becomes terrible and its unresponsive. FF keeps chugging along without missing a beat.
    • haunter 4y ago
      Total opposite experience. At least under Windows Chromium is perfectly fine with 150-200 tabs but FF starts falling apart
      • invalidname 4y ago
        Odd. I've been on Mac for more than a decade so no idea. Notice that this only became a thing with Quantum so if you used an older version of FF it wouldn't apply.
        • jlokier 4y ago
          I'm with the GP on this: FF is unstable with lots of tabs. It's a big memory hog, and it's been like this for about 2 years in my experience so far. I'm using a Mac with 16GB RAM, and it's not enough for Firefox any more (something changed, it used to use less memory). Using current FF (103.0b9). Lot of tabs, but auto tab-unloading so there shouldn't be a large number active. Reported memory use (in Activity Monitor) varies, 8GB-25GB, and it's often swapping. Sometimes it uses more, and then the system crashes. Often it fills my remaining 20GB of free disk space for swap space. Surprisingly, even opening HN pages and only following HN links (i.e. all text-only), the memory usage grows in this way over time. It's not possible to scroll smoothly or type a comment like this without pauses and occasional spinning beach balls. Just scrolling through a page with two-finger drag, it will stop every 10 seconds or so, then jump forwawrd. Moving the cursor with the cursor keys in this comment window is similar. The constant jank and pauses may be entirely due to memory swapping or some other garbage-collection like overhead, I have no way to know. What other people write about this issue is that it's likely some combination of number of tabs, and the fact that modern pages need a lot of memory for large images, compositing and similar, and perhaps memory used by add-ons. But all of this has suggestive evidence against it: If I go to about:memory and click "Minimize memory usage", it consistently brings memory usage down to not much more than when Firefox starts up, without appearing to change any functionality or deactivate any tabs; and when it starts up it's using less than 8GB despite loading up the same session. It also does this itself spontaneously from time to time, though not reliably enough. That said, I switched from Safari when I realised Safari was also being a memory hog and was causing everything else on the laptop to be slow. At the time I switched, Firefox was a lovely breath of fresh air in that department. Even though I copied over all my tabs from Safari (by hand), Firefox ran in very much less RAM, and life was good again on the laptop. Something has changed since then, making Firefox much worse for memory usage, and I don't yet know what it is.
• CarVac 4y ago
  Firefox is worth it if only for Tree Style Tab.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• bbkane 4y ago
  I'm a big fan of Firefox containers. I occasionally need different logins for the same sites and containers make that much easier than Google's profile feature.
  • happymellon 4y ago
    Saves us with AWS accounts!
    • GekkePrutser 4y ago
      O365 tenants too! Finally possible to log into multiple at the same time. Though MS Teams often gets stuck in a reload loop inside a container, but Teams is a total trainwreck anyway.
      • happymellon 4y ago
        Not surprised. Do they not realize that some of us deal with more than one account?
  • raffraffraff 4y ago
    Containers is the big thing imho. Having two bookmarks that go to different Gmail accounts, with each opening in a different container tab, and each container being logged into just that account. Same for AWS accounts.
    • bee_rider 4y ago
      Is the purpose of using two bookmarks to open the container and gmail simultaneously? I just use one bookmark, two containers, each is only logged on to one gmail account.
      • raffraffraff 4y ago
        One bookmark opens one account, the other opens the other account. I use an extension to match URLs to containers. So it's possible to have bookmarks "gmail [work]" and "gmail [personal]" that open in the right container, already authenticated.
• epups 4y ago
  My computer has enough power that any performance hit from Firefox is negligible. I will continue to use it over Chrome as long as possible.
• flerchin 4y ago
  Firefox on Android with ublock origin is a _must_. Otherwise the mobile web is nigh unusable.
  • haolez 4y ago
    I use Chrome Mobile with NextDNS blocking the ads. The experience is mostly the same.
    • raffraffraff 4y ago
      Except the cost, unless that's now free
    • celsoazevedo 4y ago
      A lot of stuff is loaded from the same host as the content. For example, a DNS blocking solution like NextDNS can't block YouTube ads without breaking the videos (same with ads on Google Search and many other sites). It also can't apply cosmetic filters to block things like cookies popups or hide empty spots where ads are supposed to be displayed. DNS blocking is better than nothing, but it's very basic when compared to a browser extension like uBlock Origin.
  • baal80spam 4y ago
    I use Brave - it has builtin ad/scriptblocker.
    • GekkePrutser 4y ago
      But also builtin cryptoscams :(
      • fuckcensorship 4y ago
        Out of curiosity, do you have an issue with crypto as a whole or is there something about Brave’s BAT in particular that you dislike?
• endorphine 4y ago
  Without Firefox and a few extensions like uBlock Origin, Decentraleyes and Privacy Badger, I feel like I'm naked when browsing the web. Also, check out Firefox Focus on Android. Pretty convenient to use as the default browser for guest browsing.
  • ssl232 4y ago
    You don't actually need Decentraleyes or Privacy Badger now that Firefox has total cookie protection and that uBlock Origin supports their other features (some via lists). Arkenfox has a useful write-up on this: https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/wiki/4.1-Extensions https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/wiki/4.1-Extensions. I only have four extensions now: uBlock Origin, I Don't Care About Cookies, one for user agent switching, and one for removing HTML elements via the context menu.
    • nklmilojevic 4y ago
      You can also add I Don't Care About Cookies list in uBlock Origin.
      • ssl232 4y ago
        Oh that's great - thanks - yet another extension to disable!
    • gorhill 4y ago
      > one for removing HTML elements via the context menu Isn't this equivalent to the element zapper in uBO?[1] It's not available from the context menu but you can assign a shortcut to bring it up.[2] [1] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Element-zapper https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Element-zapper [2] https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Keyboard-shortcuts https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Keyboard-shortcuts
• zerop 4y ago
  I did that transition recently and have no major problem with FF. I am liking it.
• unpopularopp 4y ago
  I don't get the extensions part. All of them apart from the containers (that's a browser or more like engine specific behavior) are available for Chrome so they are not FF-only. Most of them are "over the top" if you start with uBlock Origin too. Like you don't need multiple extensions to do the same thing > most of the time that leads to broken sites. uBlock Origin on its own is incredibly powerful. Last but not least HTTPS Everywhere is also obsolete because you can force any browsers now to open sites with HTTPS only, you don't need it that anymore. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/09/https-actually-everywhere https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/09/https-actually-everywh... And no offense if TechRadar is writing articles like this... they should open their own site without any of the extensions and watch the ads, popups, autoplay videos and such. Maybe they will notice the problem doesn't start with the browser of your choice.
  • MegaDeKay 4y ago
    The article specifically talks "of Google breaking those AdBlock extensions in 2023 with a massive update, which is rather terrifying, to say the least." What is referenced here is Manifest V3. Gorhill, uBlock Origin developer, agrees that this will significantly limit uBlock Origin on Chrome. https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#issuecomment-456134855 https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#iss...
    • thrown1aways 4y ago
      >The article specifically talks of Google breaking those AdBlock extensions I bet there will be a Chromium for without that + Brave is already working on it. Power of open source I guess?
      • GekkePrutser 4y ago
        Every feature removed by Google will have to be maintained by the open source community instead. That's going to be a workload that I'm not sure who is going to pick up. After all Chromium right now is maintained by Google. There's some forks like degoogled chromium but they are mainly focused on removing features, not rebuilding ones that have been deprecated. Brave is an option but I don't really like where they're heading with their crypto tokens.
• TheDesolate0 4y ago
  The only thing I really hate about firefox is the build. Building FF from scratch is a fucking nightmare. It's the only shitty package that REQUIRES python 2 for building.
  • mdaniel 4y ago
    That information is outdated; I build FF from source a couple of times a week, and use python3.9 for mach's python. I do agree the build is special needs, made worse by all the rust, but of the things I really hate about Firefox, the build is pretty low on that list The Chromium (and its derivatives) builds makes it clear they have a compile farm of unlimited compute and ram, so it's just "which kind of bad" I nowadays, I guess
    • SixDouble5321 4y ago
      A couple times a week seems excessive. Hopefully you are being paid for this madness.
  • soraminazuki 4y ago
    Browsers seem to require an order of magnitude more effort to package than is typical that distros occasionally struggle to keep up. It's the only software in which I use upstream binaries out of preference. I assume it's a safer bet from a security and/or performance perspective.
• adhoc_slime 4y ago
  techradar on mobile is truely an awful experience.
  • Hnrobert42 4y ago
    Funny. I use Firefox Focus on mobile, and I didn’t see any ads.
• kretaceous 4y ago
  Along with obvious ones like uBlock Origin working perfectly, etc., I have 2 other favorites: - Native reader mode - Native PiP mode for videos Yes, you can get extensions for this in Chrom(e/ium) but having these as a native feature is really nice. Things I want to see in Firefox: - Good/extensible keybindings - Tab groups - Tab search EDIT: How do I break sentences to newline in HN without really making a new paragraph? You know, for bullet points, etc.
  • jackosdev 4y ago
    If you're into Vim, this is a fantastic extension for keybindings: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tridactyl-vim/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tridactyl-vim...
    • kretaceous 4y ago
      I should be clear. What I was referring to when I said `keybindings` is browser/developer keybindings that are not yet made configurable. There's been an open issue for 7 years asking for a shortcut key for the eyedropper[0]. The navigation between developer panels is also a bit tedious. The page focus key, F6, is not configurable. These are some instances I was thinking when I said I wanted good keybinding support. I'll be really willing to try an extension that achieves these but it's really the browser's job. With that said, I've tried a bunch of these extensions in the past! I'm not a vim guy so I settled with Link Hints[1] for in-page navigation. I cannot recommend it enough for non-vim guys. It's really underrated. 0: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1177108 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1177108 1: https://lydell.github.io/LinkHints/ https://lydell.github.io/LinkHints/
      • 5e92cb50239222b 4y ago
        > focus key, F6 JFYI, Alt+D and Ctrl+L also work.
        • kretaceous 4y ago
• zamadatix 4y ago
  For me the containers on desktop and uBlock origin support on moble are the big features of Firefox. I was glad containers made it in considering usage must be pretty low since even just "user has an extension" is less common than "user has no extensions".
• 5350-uiop-1130 4y ago
  I find FF slower than Chrome. Tried to use it, ported all my preferences but it just feels heavier. Brave with uMatrix works well for me. Disabled the metrics and crypto stuff.
• JshWright 4y ago
  TouchID support for WebAuthn is the last thing I need to make the switch for my daily driver browser. I used Firefox for years, but being able to use TouchID for auth/MFA is just such a huge quality of life improvement for me that it keeps me on Chrome. Fortunately it looks like there has been at least a little movement on this recently (bumped from a P4 to P2) https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1536482 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1536482
  • GekkePrutser 4y ago
    Yes WebAuthn (passwordless mode) really needs to be fixed on Firefox. It still doesn't work on Mac or Linux.. FFS.
  • CoolCold 4y ago
    Afair couple of times I was using fingerprint auth (that'd touchid if I understand things right) in Firefox. Very rare, but definitely had it as it was big WOW for me.
    • JshWright 4y ago
      It's supported for logging in to Firefox itself, but not for MFA/WebAuthN flows (which are much, much more common)
• sivakon 4y ago
  Firefox is amazing except when working with electron based web apps. Most of the note taking apps I use only have chrome extensions. So now, I have to use both.
• natex 4y ago
  Recently, I've researched browser battery consumption for laptops. Every test I've seen rates Firefox the worst out of the big 3 or 4. Are there any settings/extensions that may have been overlooked for these reviews that can be used to help Firefox be more energy efficient?
• binarymax 4y ago
  I don’t intend to diminish the article itself, since yes ditching chrome and Google is a win for personal privacy. But I can’t ignore the irony of this article loading dozens of trackers. Like, is the cognitive dissonance that bad in web publishing? Do the teams writing the content not know about the way the publisher presents the data? Is this just pure hypocrisy? I’m at a loss.
  • agilob 4y ago
    Are you writing this on internet - a tech that most if not all government use to spy on their citizens? Did you buy your computer online paying by a card or cash? Is your hardware, software all opensource and audited? Did you compile it all yourself?
  • dylan604 4y ago
    An author doesn't get to choose what the website of the publisher does. It's not like this is the author's personal website that they have decided to put all of these trackers on it. This is a voice crying from within the system about how bad the system is. Is there a lot of cognitive dissonance in understanding how web publishing works?
    • a2800276 4y ago
      An author does get to choose which platform they publish on. I'm really surprised by all the apologists here, the article is clearly click bait trying to cram ads down your throat. The real irony is that while the post is bearable to look at in chrome it's near enough unreadable in Firefox.
      • dylan604 4y ago
        Funny, I had no problem reading it in FF. Of course, I run uMatrix, so my experience is probably better. Also, the author in this case is a staff writer for the publication. The entire point of her being on staff is to write content for that site.
      • shortformblog 4y ago
• kahnclusions 4y ago
  I've switched from Firefox to Safari for most of my browsing, and Chrome for anything that needs devtools. Why? Battery. Efficiency. On the new M1 Macbooks I can run Safari and be unplugged all day long. The increased power consumption and battery drain is noticeable when using FF and I can't make it all the way through the day. As far as extensions go, I have 1Blocker and it works well, it does block YouTube ads. The only things I miss are Tree Style Tabs and Container Tabs. I also find performance on FF to be a lot worse than both Chrome and Safari. Firefox gets sluggish with many tabs open. JS-heavy sites will be jittery and laggy in Firefox, but buttery smooth in Chrome. Having 100 tabs open is sluggish in Firefox, but smooth in Chrome/Safari. In FF some sites will occasionally crash their tab, but they don't crash in Chrome/Safari. Etc. Then there's the attitude of Mozilla constantly changing the interface, shoving things like Pocket or Mozilla VPN in my face. Sorry Firefox, but I've left and not coming back.
  • nullwarp 4y ago
    My favorite part about Safari is how, because I don't own an Apple device, I have next to no options for testing and fixing the issues that get filed with regards to my web application not working in Safari. Probably 2/3rds of the bugs I get are specifically related to Safari while the other 1/3rd are just general issues that affect every browser. It's insane to me that they provide no way to possibly resolve this without going out and spending money to buy their hardware.
    • seejayseesjays 4y ago
      Is Epiphany unworkable for testing? It's got the same engine behind it.
      • selfhoster69 4y ago
        Wait, Epiphany on elementaryOS is 100% WebKit? Had no idea tbh.
    • tannhaeuser 4y ago
      What exactly do you expect? That Apple brings back Safari to Windows and Linux? There's public demand for that every now and then (eg [1]), but that has it's own set of problems ie. that Safari-on-Win/Lin won't be representative of what's rendered on Mac OS due to font handling, antialiasing, power management, and other peculiarities on Mac OS (Mac OS would typically run on much higher resolution than Win/Lin). I'm not even using Mac OS currently, but I don't think it's Apple's job to make your web app run like on Chrome when Google is calling the shots on so-called "web standards" with tens or hundreds of new features every quarter, with necessarily surprising results. Personally, I'd find it ok if you just label your app with "Best run on Chrome" because that's the reality the web has degraded to, and the actual problem of web apps. Or deploy as Electron app on Mac OS. Maybe Apple could provide a Mac OS + Safari VM, like MS was doing (or still is doing?) when they were producing IE. But then the question is on which machine would you be able to run those VMs given Apple is heading towards ARM-only instruction set machines. Should Apple commit to produce x64 binaries for backward-compatible emulation on historic hardware? Personally, I do like Apple's innovation where the rest of the industry is lagging behind. [1]: https://www.xda-developers.com/safari-for-windows-editorial/ https://www.xda-developers.com/safari-for-windows-editorial/
• pjmlp 4y ago
  Ironically I just went the other way today, because Firefox became unusable in a 2009 laptop, and requires add-ons to control their exponential use of processes (on a dual core). Meanwhile Chrome, with all its usual bloat, works perfectly fine.
• rraghur 4y ago
  You'll have to pry Firefox from my cold, dead hands! At the outset, yes, chromium based browsers feel snappier.. But, stuff that Chrome will not have and are absolutely essential 1. Containers... I use another unverified extension to match urls and automatically assign containers... 2. Ublock origin 3. Tree style tabs 4. Developer console... Edit and resend any request That said, i still end up using chromium for teams and outlook 365 (pwa install feature is nice)... But that's only because i don't have any other options with those two
  • amelius 4y ago
    Perhaps someone can build a container system around chrome (or in fact any application). Ideally, an OS should be able to do something like this.
    • zamadatix 4y ago
      The way Firefox style containers work they need to be "built into" not "built around". It's not as much about creating a profile and running it separately (that's just standard profiles in Chrome/Firefox, or normal OS level sandboxing) as it is auto-launching webpage requests into that profile based on matches and integrating the profiles into the app UI so the tabs stand out, can co-exist in the same window, and can be managed via built in tab creation UI. Chromium hasn't been interested in this feature but nothing would stop someone from making a Chromium derivative that does this.
    • zh3 4y ago
      On linux, just create a separate login and use Chrome there. In fact, what I do is create a separate user, start Chrome once, do any configuration I want and then create a tarball of the separate user's home directory. Then to start a fresh it's just a wipe of the whole directory and unpack the tarball again. It's fast enough to just run Chrome in a loop, and on each exit wipe and unpack the original state again. I call it Groundhog Day Mode.
      • chupasaurus 4y ago
• tapper 4y ago
  If you use a screen r3eader then firefox is the best. Plus all the addons that block all the shit on the web. ublock being the best of them.
• GekkePrutser 4y ago
  I don't have the impression that Firefox is so much more optimised. If anything I had the opposite impression (Chrome using less CPU than Firefox). Makes sense too because Google has a ton of money and Mozilla doesn't. Still I mainly use firefox and on most computers it's the only browser I even have installed.
  • rvwaveren 4y ago
    I'm back to FF as well (after some Chrome years), and love it. However, for my work I use Google Meet and online collaboration tools such as Miro. Unfortunately, I only use Chrome for those services because FF will jumpstart my Macbook fans quickly when using Google Meet / FF.
  • eimrine 4y ago
    I use both browsers (mostly FF on powerful machines and Chrome if I need to use Core2Duo or older) and I have an impression that Firefox has some memory leaks. Chrome browser loaded with as much tabs as allowed by my RAM can store its tabs forever. But Firefox can not do the same, despite it has been written on Rust.
• oxff 4y ago
  I use Vivaldi, it is slowest of them all, but it is the best browser overall ime.
  • stavros 4y ago
    Is it that slow? I've recently switched to it and it doesn't feel slower, though I am indeed very impressed by it.
  • SixDouble5321 4y ago
    +1, but I use it where I would otherwise use chrome/chromium.
• nathias 4y ago
  I can't go back because chrome doesn't allow customization that I really need.
• HKH2 4y ago
  If Mozilla really cares about your privacy, why do you have to install extensions in Firefox to get it? By the way, Firefox does track you. At the very least, it phones home, and it gives each installer a unique identifier.
  • Hnrobert42 4y ago
    If you use Firefox Focus, you don’t need to install extensions.
  • jfk13 4y ago
    There's a vast difference between Mozilla's telemetry and Google's user tracking.
  • pessimizer 4y ago
    Mozilla actively removed the ability to conveniently disable javascript, and left deleting cookies or localStorage from specific sites hellishly difficult. Mozilla somewhat cares about press releasing about your privacy.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• fernvenue 4y ago
  Here's another thing, Firefox use OCSP to check certificates of websites by default, but Chrome don't.
• seejayseesjays 4y ago
  My pecking order is Firefox on my PC, Firefox on my Mac when I need uBlock for something, Safari for everything else. (And Edge, for when I want to make sure everything I make looks as good on Chromium as it does on WebKit and Gecko)
• Snuupy 4y ago
  Shout out to librewolf which removes all the dumb Mozilla stuff like Pocket/telemetry (default on)/etc. I wish firefox would have live captions for audio/video. It's one of the few features Chrome has that I use regularly and miss on FF.
• pveierland 4y ago
  For the privacy conscious, the arkenfox user.js template provides a nice structure for setting up Firefox settings [1]. This works extra nicely if version controlled with your dotfiles and NixOS. programs.firefox.profiles.<name>.extraConfig = builtins.readFile ./user.js; One of my favorite settings is setting "keyword.enabled" to false, to prevent leaking mistyped URLs to the search engine provider. It feels much cleaner to explicitly specify the search engine using e.g. "g<space>" when you want to search. [1] https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/ https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/
• wishfull 4y ago
  I wish I could switch to Firefox exclusively, but the commerce websites I frequent only work correctly with Chrome. No doubt it's due to laziness and lack of testing by these websites, but it is reality. The worst part is the complete lack of warning that these sites have not been tested on anything but Chrome, and are not likely to function correctly.
• frogperson 4y ago
  My biggest complaint with Firefox is the upgrade nag. I get it, I need to upgrade, why can't they just put a reminder in the corner instead of insisting I click a dismiss button every hour.
  • chii 4y ago
    there's an easy way to fix this problem: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-using-policiesjson https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/customizing-firefox-usi... firefox supports a policy.json to turn off upgrade nagging via the `ManualAppUpdateOnly` key: { "policies": { "ManualAppUpdateOnly": true } }
    • zamadatix 4y ago
      As a heads up though as suggested by the name "ManualAppUpdateOnly" doesn't just disable the notification it completely disables the entire auto-update system. Not only will you not get notifications about updates you will not get updates at all until you remember to check the about dialog or manually download them. This is intended for environments that have managed packages where the browser doesn't need to update itself.
      • pessimizer 4y ago
        > Not only will you not get notifications about updates you will not get updates at all until you remember to check the about dialog or manually download them. What if you feel like you can handle this not particularly difficult problem?
        • zamadatix 4y ago
          Then activate the setting and enjoy. If what you actually want is silent manual updates not just for the update notifications to go away then it's the perfect option for you.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
• firfog 4y ago
  Same here, I recently installed Firefox on a new Android device and am very much enjoying the privacy features, particularly the adblocking capability via add-ons. The only three things I miss from Chrome are: - swiping down to refresh page - a Delete action on the menu of text box selections - the option to run webpages as separate apps For that last one, I do use Chrome for a couple of sites (Wordle and Quordle), but Firefox is excellent for everything else.
  • llacane 4y ago
    3 work on my machine (Firefox 102 on Android 12) if the site is a PWA else it lets you to have a link in your home screen. The option is "Add to home screen"/"Install app" in the menu. -- Also about 1: did you tried to put the bar in the bottom?
    • terinjokes 4y ago
      Firefox removed PWA support on desktop. It still exists on Android.
• frickinLasers 4y ago
  This story is on the front page of Reddit. I wonder if it will make a dent in Chrome's market share.
  • boomboomsubban 4y ago
    Even if everybody that saw it on reddit switched to Firefox, I bet it'd gain a fraction of a percent.
• wooque 4y ago
  I tried to like Firefox, I really do, I tried to use it as primary browser, but it's just noticeable less snappy and slower than anything Chromium based, so I always return back to Chromium (now Brave). Not to mention that I always hit some glitches in sites or some things not working in Firefox because developers didn't even bother to test on Firefox or just plainly refuse to support it.
  • AdvancedCarrot 4y ago
    Will say as well that Brave is much, much better out of the box for privacy than Firefox. Even with uBlock Origin and other privacy-friendly extensions, Firefox doesn't offer much in the way of anti-fingerprinting.
    • wooque 4y ago
      I agree, Brave has pretty good privacy protections, anti-fingerprinting and ad-blocking out of the box. No need to install dozen of extensions and custom user.js like in Firefox. Only extension that I need is password manager and I'm good to go. Brave on Android is also best Android browser I used.
  • a-dub 4y ago
    this has been my experience. i even prefer some parts of the firefox ui. but for the reasons you mention, the net result is that then i have to run two browsers which means twice the work, complexity and risk. i hate this. i really want firefox to succeed and i really appreciate their stated goals with respect to privacy, and their significant contributions to the internet commons.
  • frankjr 4y ago
    That pretty much sums it up. The only thing I regularly miss is Firefox's Awesome bar (Omni bar) - its fuzzing engine works much better and seems to include the entire browsing history.
  • SixDouble5321 4y ago
    Imagine if speed or color was your only concern for your car. Choosing a feature like speed which is arbitrary and relative seems overly reductive.
• selfhoster69 4y ago
  I feel like I'm in the minority here, but Edge has been consistently better than every other browser I've tried. I have about 30 tabs open across 3 windows on my 10 yo. laptop, that I upgraded to 8GB of RAM. If I try to open even 10 tabs in Firefox, the laptop slows down to hell. Running a local speed test to my Linux server on MS Edge, I get ~910Mb/s download (CPU maxes out) and ~980Mb/s upload. If I fire up Firefox and run this same test, I get ~260Mb/s download/upload, with the CPU maxed out of course.
  • briHass 4y ago
    Edge is the way to go for Windows machines,especially if you prefer the chromium engine. MS made lots of Windows specific optimizations, with a focus on memory use. The other killer feature is 'secure mode' that disables JS JIT, which is where most if the security issues have come from in modern browsers. Plus, in this context, MS's incentives align much closer to mine than one if the largest advertising companies in the world.
    • encryptluks2 4y ago
      I disagree. I have yet to see a browser try to enable so much telemetry and features that track everything you do on the web. There are like 30+ things unique to Edge that they push on users. Even after turning them off, I've had Edge magically turn them back on without my consent. Chrome isn't perfect, but if you know what to disable it really isn't that challenging to make it as privacy-friendly as Firefox... and Firefox isn't the perfect angel here either. Chromium is even better, especially on Linux to escape some of the "Google-ification". I really do not see any difference between Chromium and Firefox when it comes to default privacy settings. Regardless, it is always best to go in and disable them or use a policy file to do so.
  • thomascatt 4y ago
    I've used Edge for almost a full year, didn't notice any difference from chrome, despite being complimented for better windows optimization. Moved back to Chrome. It wasn't disappointing, but it's just that I didn't have a reason to stay there.
• ilrwbwrkhv 4y ago
  WebKit gets small details right such as option left right arrow selects a word but not a comma after it. In Firefox if a comma is next to a word without a space, it also gets selected. Stuff like that makes Firefox less polished in my opinion.
• aikah 4y ago
  The 2 reasons why I don't use Chrome is 1/ You can't mute tabs by default 2/ You can't prevent videos to auto-start. Simple as that, I think muting tabs was possible in the past, but of course, Chrome team removed that function because youtube.
  • tomComb 4y ago
    Gawd yes, thank you. I actually find Chrome to be faster and generally appreciate the contributions that Google has made to try to keep the web competitive with the proprietary platforms, but I can't get past the auto-start video issue.
  • gernb 4y ago
    You know that Chrome tried to remove auto-start videos and advertisers just ended up writing their own battery sucking slow canvas based software decoders? That Firefox is doing this is very much like yesterday's new Facebook URL https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32117489 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32117489 where people complained Firefox screwed up by escalating.
    • bilkow 4y ago
      By default firefox only prevents content with audio from autoplaying, which I can't think of any way to circumvent and it's probably good enough for most people.
    • soraminazuki 4y ago
      > where people complained Firefox screwed up by escalating I believe that was a single person.
• tzs 4y ago
  I went the other way after a few years on Firefox mostly for one reason. Too often when posting something here, on Reddit, in a web-based email client, on Facebook, etc., I'd end up having to spend too much time dealing with false positives in its spell check. It's weird because they use the same spell check engine that Chrome, Apple, LibreOffice, and a bazillion other commercial and open source things use, and those almost never produce false positives on my writing. Mozilla needs to address things like this if they want to stop losing share to other browsers.
• bballer 4y ago
  The fact that the XHR/network console on Chrome doesn't format JSON responses is insane. Your in the most popular browser in the world and you have to copy paste the JSON into a formatter to read it?? Really??
  • whittingtonaaon 4y ago
    You just have to open the Preview tab.
• Kiro 4y ago
  I'm making browser games and there are some still some performance issues that make my game unplayable in Firefox, e.g. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=925025 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=925025 I really don't want to have a "works best in Chrome" banner but until Firefox catches up I don't have much choice (don't get me started on Safari, I've already given up).
  • ghoomketu 4y ago
    Same for me, my app used the html5 webspeech api and the text to speech and speech to text on Ff was nothing compared to chrome. So had to put that dreaded banner myself. I hope things have changed now and ff is just as good as chrome now with the recent progress in ML and so many good open source projects for tts and dictation.
  • the_gipsy 4y ago
    I assure you, if you had developed against firefox first, you would have found "performance bugs" on chrome. Source: I developed a web game.
    • koonsolo 4y ago
      For me, it seems with the latest update of firefox, some textures are not rendered properly. All works fine in the other browsers. Before that, some other update gave issues with some certificate. Looking at all the issues this browser causes, and the very low usage, I'm not spending time tracking down what is going wrong. Safari on iOS is such another problem child, but used high enough to justify the time to investigate and fix.
      • the_gipsy 4y ago
        The low usage is a fair point, but "all the issues this browser causes" simply isn't true. You would say the same about chrome if you developed for Firefox first.
        • 4y ago
• wly_cdgr 4y ago
  Why would you go back to Chrome? Everyone knows that the best desktop browser these days is Edge
• Macha 4y ago
  The extension list is a bit based on dated information. HTTPS everywhere is discontinued and replaced by built in browser features. Privacy Badger doesn't do user side learning anymore as people proved that in itself could be used for fingerprinting.
• baby 4y ago
  Just for tree style tabs, firefox is worth it
• patrick451 4y ago
  I used to use firefox exclusively. But they have been on a road of adding increasinly user hostile "features" to the browser that I just can't take. I snapped when they implemented automatic updates. I've never been so pissed at a piece of software than I have been at firefox when I hit Ctrl-T and the damn thing refuses to work until I restart it. And for a long time, it wouldn't even restart, it just exited. While I'd prefer to install updates manually through apt (like every other piece of software on my laptop), if they are going to be so patronizing that they won't allow that, they need to fix they update process to not require a restart. Until that happens I'll use chromium.
  • zamadatix 4y ago
    Firefox has always had automatic updates but only on systems that don't manage the software updates via centralized package manager. E.g. any chance you're an Ubuntu user? They just switched it over to being a snap package instead of an apt package with 21.10. Regardless if you open settings UI there is a radiobox to toggle between auto-installing updates and just notifying you when your version is out of date. If that's not there then it's your distro's build that is forcing updates to be done that way, not Mozilla.
• shadowgovt 4y ago
  I'm glad it's working for her. I unfortunately had the opposite experience... Some sites I use that are smooth enough on Google Chrome just positively chugged on Firefox. I assume there's some key differences in the rendering engines. If that's not a problem you have, then I can't think of a reason not to use Firefox.
• prmoustache 4y ago
  Any browser that do not have a multi-containers features is unfit for use in 2022.
• pachico 4y ago
  I would love to switch to Firefox but Brave seems to be really faster. I'll give it a try again.
• solardev 4y ago
  Meanwhile, most of the internet started using Chrome and can never go back to Firefox.
• dabedee 4y ago
  Agreed, and I would add that I have been keeping my bookmarks & tags synced on all devices using Firefox Sync for several years now without any issues. It's just great. Same for passwords. There is a in-depth article about the privacy features of their design [1]. If you add containers[2], then there is really no reason to use Chrome. [1] https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/11/firefox-sync-privacy/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/11/firefox-sync-privacy/ [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
  • onelovetwo 4y ago
    multi-account container is *chef's kiss If only it synced with my vpn so each container got its own ip.
    • everfrustrated 4y ago
      Mozilla VPN missed a real trick by being an additional client and not (also) integrating it into the browser/container natively. Was a real chance to do something better rather than just doing the minimum (rebrand an existing VPN client app) and potentially pulling in a new customer base.
    • CoolCold 4y ago
      Not exactly the same, but there is FoxyProxy extension which allows to use different proxies based on URI (domain). So you can point your uris to go to outside world via different proxies (say `ssh -D ...` to vps or your vpn gateway or ..) Technically as it's possible to use multiple profiles you may even be able to configure different sets for the same URLs.
• rmdoss 4y ago
  As a long time Firefox user, my main issue with Firefox is Mozilla itself and their focus shifting to VPNs, pocket and things non browser related. But still love Firefox.
  • Tagbert 4y ago
    Oddly, I kind of like Pocket but I understand why you might choose not to use it.
  • SixDouble5321 4y ago
    Unfortunately Mozilla needs money.
• reaperducer 4y ago
  Somewhat off-topic, but perhaps the smart people on HN can help me with this. The one thing that keeps me from switching from Safari to Firefox is that I cannot customize tab switching. In every macOS program I use, I use the same key binding to switch between tabs. Because there is no "Next tab" or "Previous tab" menu item in Firefox, I cannot assign this function to a key with the macOS keyboard shortcuts in System Preferences. I've looked in Firefox's setting and searched online and haven't found anything that helps. Though, to be honest, I'd prefer it to be part of the system native options so that it can follow me during upgrades. At this point, I'm willing to consider employing BetterTouchTool, if that's a solution. But again, I'd rather go native.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• DeathMetal3000 4y ago
  Firefox is the best browser in many respects. But even if it wasn’t. Even if it was missing extensions, used all my RAM and chewed my CPU, I would still choose it over Chrome. Because using a browser from the world’s biggest advertiser is wrong on principle. And using an ad blocker (I don’t use one) while using a browser made by an advertiser is next level cognitive dissonance.
  • mrits 4y ago
    It is literally not cognitive dissonance.
    • haswell 4y ago
      It would be helpful to share an argument supporting your assertion if the goal is to help people understand and/or agree with your position. If you consider a simplified definition of cognitive dissonance that goes something like “thoughts or actions that do not match your beliefs or values”, then the behavior described by the parent comment could be cognitive dissonance, but probably only if certain things are true: - The person understands the nature of Google’s business - The person believes that using Chrome still benefits Google even when anti-tracking extensions are installed That said, the people who understand enough to be categorized as such are not the average Chrome user. The average user is not experiencing cognitive dissonance, they just don’t know any better.
  • dontcontactme 4y ago
    I think most people use an adblocker to avoid seeing ads, not privacy. Most people (myself included) care more about saving time on YouTube videos and making webpages not have pop ups all over the place than privacy.
    • feanaro 4y ago
      That's a pretty big assumption. I'd say my motivation is exactly the reverse of that.
• irrational 4y ago
  I started using Firefox ages ago because of firebug. I’ve been using it as my primary browser ever since. I’ve never had an issue with it (other than the occasional web site that is designed to only work with Chrome). Maybe I don’t know what I’m missing since I haven’t given Chrome a try (other than loading the occasional website that only works on Chrome). Maybe Chrome is better than Firefox, but I don’t have any complaints about Firefox (though I do have complaints about bad website developers).
  • julianlam 4y ago
    The big one for me is that Chrome's JavaScript engine is much faster than Mozilla's. I'm not sure why, but it makes a noticible difference. I use this to my advantage by using FF as my daily driver. I believe that if my site is fast on Firefox, then it's damn near fast enough for everyone.
    • drathier 4y ago
      Lots of web devs only testing in chromium browsers, perhaps?
      • irrational 4y ago
        What we do at my company is I only test in Firefox, another developer only uses Chrome, a third only uses edge and QA tests on Safari.
    • robin_reala 4y ago
      I ran into an interesting situation where I was building a Conway implementation and getting 60fps in Firefox / 10fps in Chrome. Turned out that Chrome had absolutely horrible performance with attempts to access out-of-bounds array indexes, where Firefox had some early fail fasts in place. So anecdata, but I wouldn’t rely on Chrome automatically working well if Firefox does.
  • Beldin 4y ago
    I keep having to "forget about this site" for YouTube after watching (admittedly many) videos - every 2 months or so. The tell-tale sign is that videos stutter outrageously. It is surprisingly consistent - stutters / freezes happening, forget about site, problem solved. I would be surprised if this is solely due to Firefox btw; I trust YT-owner Google about as far as I can toss the lot of them.
• donutshop 4y ago
  Love FF. Container tabs was a game changer as it allows for easy contesting switching between different identities. For those who are more privacy focused LibreWolf is a good fork.
• weetniet 4y ago
  As mentioned by others, the recommended list of extensions in the article is a bit outdated. These days not much more than uBlock Origin is needed for a good configuration, with the addition of maybe CanvasBlocker.
  • zahllos 4y ago
    True but I use some other extensions anyway. They are: - Multi Account Containers - does exactly what it says on the tin. I load Google stuff inside a Google container for example, and banking websites all get their own container only used for that purpose. - Auto Cookie Optout, with their config added to uBlock Origin. Basically automatically clicks "essential cookies only" everywhere it can (it helps to allow loading of these sites automatically in uBlock and uMatrix, otherwise it can't). Possibly not an issue if you're outside the EU, though. - uMatrix so I have some level of control over what loads when I want it. - ClearURLs - takes out tracking and unnecessary URL parameters. uMatrix tends to block and warn if you do click one and you can find the dest_url without parameters on its warning page, where ClearURLs fails. - Decentraleyes - injects resources instead of loading them from CDNs. Quite mixed results with this but it is still on the list for the moment. - Sideberry, basically another tree style tabs. Nice testing sites for these extensions are basically any newspaper website or shopping website, which are all thoroughly infested with trackers and such.
    • aftergibson 4y ago
      Just a heads up, with umatrix no longer being developed, you can actually enable the same functionality in unlock origin.
      • zahllos 4y ago
        Ahhh thanks! Didn't realize umatrix had been discontinued. Well, scratch that from the list, I've enabled it in uBO. Looks like the box to check is 'I am an advanced user'.
    • Thiez 4y ago
      > Basically automatically clicks "essential cookies only" everywhere it can But does it also object to 'legitimate' interests?
• butz 4y ago
  Yes, Firefox has quite a few issues, starting from strange UI decisions (tabs that don't look like tabs, etc.), product integration (Pocket) and promotion (Firefox VPN in private mode window), compatibility issues with video conferencing applications (MS Teams, Facetime, probably others). But compared to other browsers, you can customize browser and solve quite a few of them, unlike in other competing browsers, where what you get, that you are forced to use and cannot change. I'd only wish Firefox developers (or management team) would take customization more seriously, as it is one of main selling features, that few users know about.
  • moffkalast 4y ago
    I'm still missing the "share tab" option in Google and Jitsi Meet, without it work meetings get a lot less private. I've found a pretty good plugin to fix the 'tabs that don't look like tabs' design problem, though it's a real pain in the ass to install and a major problem when switching to new devices. I'm not sure why they changed that, the old design was a lot clearer. On the other hand the fact that it doesn't support Chromecast is a big plus, since that's impossible to turn off in Chrome with recent updates and can it be problematic if you're not the owner of all Chromecasts on your damn network. As of right now Firefox stays the side browser for code testing and whatnot, but it falls short for daily use for me.
  • phendrenad2 4y ago
    What customization do you use? Personally I only customized FF by adding a youtube video downloaded, and I just open Firefox whenever I need that.
• EchoReflection 4y ago
  Vivaldi browser https://vivaldi.com/ https://vivaldi.com/ and Vivaldi browser snapshot (both available for desktop and mobile) have become my favorite(s). Support all Chrome(ium) extensions, highly customizable, tab groups and tab-stacking. Been using both for 5ish years and probably never going back. I like FF but its insistince that I need to sign in from another device to verify that I am me has always been a little bit...obnoxious. Google is a joke in terms of privacy, no matter what they claim. Their entire business model is selling ads, and they do that by watching us.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• spotlesstofu 4y ago
  Mozilla plugin to Translate web sites without using the cloud https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/firefox-translations/ https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/firefox-translation...
• Jenk 4y ago
  I used Firefox in the early-mid 00s, switched to Chrome not long after launch, after my colleagues showed me how much slicker is was than a now fairly heavy Firefox (at the time.) Then evil Google emerges, Chrome got fat, FF trimmed up and went privacy-as-a-default, and I'm back on FF again for the better part of the last decade. Opera had a look-in around 2008 but it didn't last long, although some of the features were nicely done, it just had a clunky feeling and the rendering was ... Different.
  • pmoleri 4y ago
    Around 2012 my 6GB Ram laptop was struggling with Chrome, I switched to FF and got much better experience there. Then with FF Quantum release I adopted it definitely.
  • tppiotrowski 4y ago
    The right click mouse gestures of Opera were great for quickly navigating back/forward and creating new tabs.
    • chx 4y ago
      I never stopped using them. I never could stop using them, it feels so clumsy to work a PC without gestures. I am currently using StrokesPlus.net for this purpose, I am sure there are others.
      • 6510 4y ago
        Long ago MyIE2 had the most sophisticated mouse gestures. For example: One could select some text, drag it and it would search. (I had search configured to open non advertisement results in background tabs) If the text contained any links it in stead opened each of them in tabs to the right. So you selected the entire menu of the blog and tossed it to the right. There were gestures to move to the tab on the left or right but also to close the current tab AND move to the left or right. This was important to dig though an enormous pile of preloaded tabs you still had to look at. Things went so fast I got tired after surfing for a few hours.
• comprev 4y ago
  I only ever use Chrome for websites which need translation into English - probably less than 1% of those I visit. Firefox for everything else.
• zahma 4y ago
  Is there really a killer feature of Chrome that justifies its use over FF? I've been using Firefox and have never been disappointed with it. I always just assumed that if you wanted privacy, it's better to use Firefox over Chrome, Safari, or Brave.
  • ccmcarey 4y ago
    I flip flop between Firefox and Chrome constantly and for as long as I can remember, Chrome has always just felt snappier
    • 13of40 4y ago
      I have an older Surface tablet (that I recovered from a recycle bin, TBH) and I've been using Chrome on it, but I was annoyed by some of the latency and tried Firefox the other day. It had all the problems of Chrome, plus jittery scrolling and some extra random lags thrown in, so I noped right out of it. I've got nothing against Firefox as a concept, but it's apparently too hardware intensive for that scenario.
      • hammyhavoc 4y ago
        Are you sure it isn't the hardware? Perhaps there's a reason it was in the recycling bin. Not my experience whatsoever, even with "old Surface tablets".
  • dmitryminkovsky 4y ago
    DevTools I think... although FF's are solid, Chrome's are just that much better.
  • avinassh 4y ago
    Multiple profiles, so that I can keep personal and work related stuff separately. Firefox has containers, but it’s not really a first class support baked into the browser. For example, I use OneTab extension which lets you suspend tabs to save memory. This doesn’t work well unless you have profiles support. Even with containers, when I suspend a tab, when I unsuspend I would want it in the same tab group
• Shadonototra 4y ago
  This sounds like an AD more than a recommendation Everything listed can be achieved by using uBlock Origin There is a reason why people abandoned Firefox, Mozilla refused to fix the performance issues, they refused to do something about the toolbar bloat, the browser became a nest for adwares/malwares, a security and privacy nightmare and later they refused to abandon the Google deal Google came with chrome and everyone switched, safe, efficient, reliable, and it stayed with the same UX since the beginning, a win for the users Privacy? they don't share your data with anybody, there are no 3rd party addons or 3rd party links, unlike with Firefox for example (Pocket, Google, Duckduckgo, and various Ads in your home page) Chrome or Chromium is the way to go if you care about: - security - privacy - battery usage Concerning their position of power, i don't buy it, Apple and WebKit have a greater impact imo and now that Microsoft is working on Chromium, it no longer is a viable argument
• INTPenis 4y ago
  I've always been pragmatic about my browser choice, not prioritizing performance but rather security, configurability and open source contribution. So I used Firefox since the very first Phoenix beta because I came from using the Mozilla browser. Only for a short while in the early 00s my poor laptop couldn't runt FF with 256M RAM so I had to use Opera. I had to enter PF rules to make the stupid ads in the UI disappear. But within probably 2 years I had a new laptop and was back with FF. The main sell in the early 00s was that afaik noscript could not function in Chrome or Opera due to the design of its web plugins, so FF pretty much had a monopoly of the paranoid like me. And by now I just feel that any privacy enhancements can be done with a custom user.js so I see no reason for any other browser than the upstream FF.
• kybernetyk 4y ago
  I switched to FF when Safari became unusable on Mac (Apple killing off extensions). For me FF is the least worst browser. They all suck. FF just sucks less.
• brassattax 4y ago
  Says a website with 20 ads on it
• quijoteuniv 4y ago
  I use all of them. Edge for work pages/corporate intranet, Chrome for spe ific testing and customer remote, and Firefox with Ublock for web surfing. Duckduck for most and google search if I do not get what I am looking for.
• j45 4y ago
  I'm curious if anyone is using Brave or another Chrome based browser in lieu of Chrome and what their experience has been?
  • efonzie 4y ago
    I've been using Brave almost exclusively for the past year or two. I very rarely run into any issues that make me reach for a different browser. Basically feels like chrome with a built in add blocker.
• siraben 4y ago
  The HTTPS Everywhere extension has been redundant for some time[0] and I have Firefox configured to give a visible warning when connecting to a website with HTTP. [0] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/09/https-actually-everywhere https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/09/https-actually-everywh...
• stavros 4y ago
  I've been using Firefox for around a decade, maybe? I've always liked it, but recently I switched to Vivaldi and I'm impressed by the amount of useful features it has. My first browser was Opera and I'm a huge fan, so to see that the CTO of Opera has decided to basically recreate Opera is very alluring.
• megraf 4y ago
  I feel the same way about Safari. Yes, it's not perfect- and no, you don't get all the flexibility, but it's so lightweight, stable, and energy efficient, I have a hard time considering something with a few more features in the categories I've been able to do without.
  • wyclif 4y ago
    Serious question: what's the best way to block ads and enable privacy features on Safari? I'm open minded about Safari but it seems like it's a lot more difficult and maybe impossible to have the same level of privacy as I do on Chrome/Firefox/Brave.
    • megraf 4y ago
      1Blocker, and Vinegar. Darkmode everywhere with Dark Reader.
• colordrops 4y ago
  I'm finally using Firefox as my daily driver now after a half dozen attempts over the years. They finally got the major perf issues and UX warts ironed out. I don't feel like I'm compromising anymore, in fact quite the opposite, especially when using privacy containers.
• slowmovintarget 4y ago
  I only use Chrome for some of the pants-down redirect-happy stuff required by work. FF tends to break the transitions because they are inherently insecure, but Chrome happily proceeds with them.
• gverrilla 4y ago
  Chrome is horrible you can't even click on a tab sound icon to mute it, you have to right click and select mute. All Google does puts in first place their interests, not users. Fuck these people.
• ph4evers 4y ago
  I really enjoy Firefox. Only time I use Chrome is for Google Meet, that really sucks in Firefox
• bzmrgonz 4y ago
  I was made to believe(from my readings) that it's not the browser that tracks you, it's the corporations who track you by your browsers ID(signature). Therefore, the best we can do, is to use chrome for google stuff and facebook(the 2 biggest offenders) and use FF for anything else(meaningful/serious stuff). Additionally, get the container-tab addon for firefox for super secure engagements like banking and other sensitive connections.
• yasoob 4y ago
  PiP in Firefox is the killer feature for me.
• k__ 4y ago
  Firefox was good a few years ago. Somehow they managed to get on-par with Chrome performance. So, I switched back to FF after being a Chrome user for years. But they couldn't keep up, so I was forced to leave them again. I went for Brave, because I wanted to reduce my use of Google products and I couldn't be happier. Chrome performance, good adblock integrated, Tor, IPFS, and crypto wallet out of the box. Awesome piece of tech.
  • NaturalPhallacy 4y ago
    I've been on brave for years now. Two vital extensions though: uBlock Origin Sponsorblock - skips sponsored segments/outros/self promotion etc that has spread like a plague across YouTube
    • k__ 4y ago
      Thanks for these suggestions
• roschdal 4y ago
  Once you go Firefox, you can never go back.
• Andrew_nenakhov 4y ago
  I find Firefox to be a superior browser and I use it Firefox on all my devices. But I would have used it even if it wasn't better, because I have lived through IE6 era and I know what browser monoculture results in. We don't need another browser engine monopoly.
  • ecuaflo 4y ago
    When I tried it a few years ago on iphone, it would constantly crash and I’d lose all my tabs. I wanted sync between mobile and desktop so needed to switch to Chrome. Any idea if it has gotten better?
    • na85 4y ago
      Firefox sync works well. I have an Android so can't comment on the iphone but Firefox works well on my MacBook.
    • dj_gitmo 4y ago
      It hasn't crashed for me in a very long time. IOS now (reluctantly) lets you set it as the default browser, although you'll need to hunt around the settings.
    • deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    • roca 4y ago
      iPhone Firefox isn't really Firefox, it's still using Apple's Webkit engine (as does Chrome on iPhone).
    • kriops 4y ago
      Crashes multiple times per day for me, but does not lose tabs. Love it on PC, so the sync makes me tolerate the inconvenience on my phone anyways. Chrome is still faster on some sites, so I still have it installed and pull it out when I have a specific need. For example: Watching long videos in unfocused windows.
  • Barrin92 4y ago
• newbieuser 4y ago
  I've been using google chrome for years but now it works worse with every new update. constantly changing features, newly added nonsense, ram usage problems, I'm really tired of it all now. I think it is the most logical to switch to firefox or another alternative.
• hepinhei 4y ago
  Firefox has great privacy features today. The containers, also Relay which allows you to create email alias. We all can wait some ms more to open a web page and support an independent browser
• retrocryptid 4y ago
  Mmm... Firefox left me cold. But I have to admit I am increasingly suspicious of Chrome. My offspring just installed the latest version of Opera after a year or two with Brave. So... not sure Firefox works for me (though... dang... it's JavaScript implementation has come a long way) but solidly support the idea of finding something other than Chrome. Oh. Also. Most of my news browsing I now do with lynx in a terminal window. I see no ads, autostart videos or kruft. And HN doesn't look too bad in Lynx.
• sydney6 4y ago
  Hacker's First Aid Kit: Firefox ESR with Raymond Gorhill's uBlock Origin.
  • wyclif 4y ago
    Why not use Firefox Developer Edition with uBlock?
• Beached 4y ago
  I wish I could use FF full time. but unfortunately I need to be able to use background blur in Google hangouts, and FF doesn't support. that's the last feature I'm waiting on.
  • lol768 4y ago
    Is it FF that doesn't support these things, or Google that doesn't bother supporting browsers that aren't their own? I suspect the answer is somewhere in the middle. Here's the bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1703668 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1703668 - sounds like it would work, but not with acceptable performance at present
  • g3rv4 4y ago
    Replied with this on a different thread, but I built an extension[1] so that I could choose which sites are opened in Chrome... so that whenever I need to use Google Meet, it automatically opens it on Chrome. [1]: https://onchrome.gervas.io https://onchrome.gervas.io
• 1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
  I started using a text-only browser for recreational web use (not lynx) and can never go back to a graphical one. The popular graphical browsers keep growing in size and complexity but I am still doing the same basic tasks on the web, i.e., retrieving files and consuming them. For these basic tasks, the so-called "modern" browsers are overkill. Chrome is something like 150MB with dynamic libraries. The text-only browser I am using to submit this comment is a 1.3MB static binary.^1 1. It does not matter which one. Generally, all of them can be modified and re-compiled to suit personal tastes, a process that (compared to compiling Firefox, Chromium, etc.) is relatively quick and only requires modest computing resources. There is no shortage of people with both the skill and the time to write such text-only browsers. Whether we can we say the same for those with both the skill and time to write "modern" graphical browsers intended to compete with the likes of Chrome is left as a question for the reader. Users of "modern" web browsers have very little control over them. We never see anyone report they disliked something about Firefox, Chrome, etc., so they modified the source and re-compiled. On the contrary, we routinely see people report they switched from the browser of one "tech" company profiting from online advertising to the web browser of another. Or we see people reporting use of some browser "extension" that the "tech" company browser vendor can disable at any time.
  • 1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
    "Chrome is something like 150MB with dynamic libraries." That is, the Chrome binary alone is like 150MB.
  • dleslie 4y ago
    ... so which one is it, if not Lynx? Links, elinks, links2, netrik, w3m, ..?
    • metadat 4y ago
      Do any of these support JS?
      • 1vuio0pswjnm7 4y ago
• phyzome 4y ago
  Some corrections: The HTTPS Everywhere extension is no longer necessary (it's a Firefox feature now, for the most part) and Privacy Badger no longer learns from your browsing by default (as that can itself be a privacy leak).
• terrycody 4y ago
  Chrome browser crashed my old laptop so I had to find an alternative, at the beginning I was sick of the Firefox's interface but quickly adjusted to it, and now I am pretty okay with it for everything. PS: Firefox indeed has a lot of good plugins (for some reasons, only Firefox got them) Yeah, it is good to get the job done.
• matrix_overload 4y ago
  Firefox has a nasty bug where after running for some days it would suddenly stop making new connections until you completely restart it. It started happening after an update a couple of years ago and keeps happening on multiple computers. I'm curious if anybody else ran into it or it's just my setup.
• I_am_tiberius 4y ago
  You can also switch between two tabs using ctrl+tab in Firefox.
• Fr0styMatt88 4y ago
  Firefox is great. I couldn’t ever go back to a browser without multi-account containers -> container tabs + temporary containers. I do notice that as time goes on I seem to be having more issues with sites breaking under uBlock Origin, but to be fair I think I’m using all the blocklists, not just the defaults, so I think breakage is expected. It’s easy to turn off for particular sites, so it’s not a huge issue for me. Somewhat related - I’m really enjoying the new Thunderbird. It feels way more polished than the previous version.
• 7tech 4y ago
  While firefox is certainly improving, the javascript engine is a hog at times with lockups. Developer bar is much less friendly compared to chromium.
  • SixDouble5321 4y ago
    That's funny, I find the opposite to be true of the Dev tools. Chrome is missing features here and there to boot. They do have lighthouse or whatever they call it though, which can be useful to some.
• mbrodersen 4y ago
  Every time I try Firefox I give up because of bad save-as-PDF support.
  • SixDouble5321 4y ago
    I'm assuming you are a Windows user, and also assuming you aren't on Windows 10 because it should be built-in there, but I would recommend getting a "printer" shell extension to save as PDF. That's what I always did back when I used Windows.
• boopmaster 4y ago
  NGL: Sometimes I do worry about the overall health of the Mozilla foundation, but moreso that if Firefox gets too far behind - we may lose out on having an open web. Maybe HN can help save it, therefore the web, and therefore the future for our children's children? :-P This headline article is a good first step ;)
• Sugimot0 4y ago
  I use firefox because i can add things like treestyle tabs and tridactyl and also eliminate unnecessary parts ofvthe UI when i don't need them like the url, tab, and menu bar. I also don't have to worry about security and updates like I would with chrome.
• oconnor0 4y ago
  Except that Google Drive just doesn't seem to work in Firefox.
  • csbartus 4y ago
    It works for me seamlessly since the beginning. In fact, I've encountered no major app which weren't working in FF only in Chrome. Since ~2000.
• nunez 4y ago
  Until Chrome stops cutting my battery life in half, I won't be using it. Firefox is much better in that regard; Safari even more so.
• yellowapple 4y ago
  Tree Style Tabs alone is enough for me to always install Firefox and never consider another browser. No, merely having a vertical tab bar ain't enough (though that's itself infinitely better than boneheadedly squeezing as many tabs as possible in a single horizontal row like a fucking maniac); the actual tree is critical for staying organized while deep in some investigation.
• nokya 4y ago
  I have been using Firefox + Chrome + Edge on a daily basis for years just because it helped me mentally separate my browsing areas that needed to absolutely not collide with each other. I remember a few years ago, Firefox was making my browsing experience miserable: incompatible rendering, high memory/cpu usage, and it just felt "old". Flash-forward 2016 or 2017 (don't remember precisely), two things changed at the same time: Firefox started feeling less poorly developed, Google started making changes in Chrome that really bothered me on a more ethical / privacy level (general stance on default values in privacy/security settings, increasing hiding stuff from me such as in the address bar or the network tab, features added "for my own good", heavy use of dark UI patterns, etc.). I felt I needed to get out of Chrome rapidly, and there was no way it was going to be Edge (trust had to build, and it takes years), so I started re-using Firefox more heavily while anticipating I'd be frustrated. That day never came: the months passed and Firefox kept getting better and faster. I guess I had my epiphany when I discovered there was a hard profile switcher in Firefox, which makes separation of concerns both easy and efficient to implement. This is not the "containerized tabs" thing (which I could never trust, don't ask me why) but the actual hard profile switch, that makes it impossible from one Firefox instance to access what happens in another instance simply because the separation is controlled by the operating system. Now, when I click the Firefox icon, a list of profiles is shown on the screen: (browsing, work, facebook, linkedin, banking, shopping, training-X, training-Y, etc.). I select the profile and the browser is themed in a way that I instantly know which profile is in front of me. I also wanted to make sure than if I mistakenly open a link to a third-party website in my "work" or "banking" profiles, that link would never actually be queried. The trick is very simple: I configured a proxy that points to a non-existing service (127.0.0.1:9999) and added the list of trusted domains (work + banks) in the proxy exceptions list. Anything else gets clicked/opened in these sessions gets directed into a black hole. If you're interested in reaching this setup, simply replace your firefox shortcut by adding: -ProfileManager at the end of the command-line. From that point on, a window with a list of profiles will be shown everytime you click the Firefox icon, and you can have truly separated browsers running.
• Karolis_K 4y ago
  Killer feature for me - add blocking in on mobile browser.
• 2143 4y ago
  > A huge complaint among even the most stalwart Google Chrome users is that the browser eats through your CPU like a Snorlax at a buffet. While this is an issue for any PC, having a browser that consistently takes up almost half your processing power is especially a problem for laptops or other devices with very little RAM. > Which is why Mozilla Firefox is such a breath of fresh air, as it uses much less of your CPU while still delivering a fast browsing experience. This. Even for identical set of tabs, Chrome eventually slows down my entire machine, whereas Firefox does not! In both Linux and Mac (don't know about Windows because I don't use it). Anecdotal.
• stefandesu 4y ago
  Incidentally, Firefox on my M1 MacBook Air suddenly got very slow. Scrolling got super laggy. I've tried refreshing it and disabling all extensions, nothing helps. It's on the latest version and the rest of the system is very smooth as always. It's even laggy after I completely wiped it from my system and used a fresh Firefox installation. Any ideas?
  • stefandesu 4y ago
    Late update: I feel extremely stupid. I'm using an app called "App Tamer"[0] and had it configured to run Firefox on the efficiency cores only, even when it's in the foreground. Maybe I thought originally that the e-cores would be more than fast enough to handle a browser, but I guess that's not the case. This also explains why I might not have noticed this issue before: I only use Firefox for work-related tasks and I rarely work while on battery. [0]: https://www.stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/ https://www.stclairsoft.com/AppTamer/
  • dharmit 4y ago
    > Scrolling got super laggy. Are you sure that it is not due to the "smooth scrolling" being enabled? I remember it used to enabled by default on fresh installations of FF.
    • stefandesu 4y ago
      Changing that option doesn't change anything in my subjective feeling. It's not only scrolling that is laggy, I think. Also I didn't change any settings between a week ago and now, still suddenly it got laggy. It works fine on my iMac (albeit an older Intel iMac) with the exact configuration. (I use Firefox as my work browser and since I usually work at the iMac, it's been a week or two since I've last used Firefox on my M1 MBA.)
• gowthamgts12 4y ago
  My primary now is ungoogled-chromium and it works well. I tried FF multiple times, but eventually went back always to chrome for it's snapiness.