8 ms·

I switched to Firefox from Chrome years ago because Chrome was slower. Specially, when there were many tabs opened, switching tabs in Chrome were usually prefac

I switched to Firefox from Chrome years ago because Chrome was slower. Specially, when there were many tabs opened, switching tabs in Chrome were usually prefaced with a blank white screen for about 2 seconds. I've been staying with Firefox not for the performance (today Chrome loads Google sites like YouTube faster), but mainly for Tree Style Tab extension. I couldn't imagine opening more than a dozen of tabs without it.

generalizations 3y ago
That's pretty much the reason for me as well. The day some other browser makes tree-style tabs, firefox will probably lose a user.
- sp332 3y ago
  Edge has had vertical tabs with tab groups natively for a couple years now. It also has a nice Reader mode, good text-to-speech, and a screenshot tool built in. And it supports uBlock Origin as an add on.
  - generalizations 3y ago
    Yeah, that's not the same, or even functionally close. Just a superficial resemblance. The value of tree style tabs is that you don't manually organize anything, and the tabs are nested arbitrarily deep so that you literally end up with a hierarchical tree of tabs that shows you the logical view of your browsing history with no manual input on your part. (Note the comparison to edge has been made before, which is why I specifically said tree-style tabs, not vertical tabs.)
- kevinlinxc 3y ago
  Longtime ff user, I use "Tab Groups Extension" for Chrome at work where ff is not allowed
  - purerandomness 3y ago
    What kind of work allows Chrome, but not Firefox? Google?
- hackinthebochs 3y ago
  Tabs Outliner for chrome/edge is far superior than any other tab extension, and I've tried nearly all of them.
  - capableweb 3y ago
    Looks like a separate window, so clearly not superior to Tree Style Tabs in Firefox.
    - hackinthebochs 3y ago
      Unfortunately due to limitations of chrome's extension model, there is no way to have a built-in extension sidebar like on firefox. I just manually position the tab window next to the browser window and it's fine. The window sizes are remembered and so it's really a non-issue.
mortalkastor 3y ago
I switched to Orion[0] as a test, discovered the awesomeness of superbly integrated, native, tree style tabs, and now I'm stuck with this browser where sites I need for work are half broken. I tried Firefox with Tree Style Tab extension, but it's not nearly as good :( [0] https://browser.kagi.com https://browser.kagi.com
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
  Too bad it only runs on Apple platforms.
- fht 3y ago
  On firefox you can also use sidebery. If I recall correctly it worked decently well. Currently I'm using Arc which performs well enough for my use cases, although being locked into chromium kinda sucks.
- mthoms 3y ago
  I've been looking into Orion. Are the broken sites you're referring to very niche or common ones? Do they work in Safari but not Orion?
whynotkeithberg 3y ago
I switched about a year ago as well, partially because of performance pains but also because I tried to leave as many google products behind as I could for privacy reasons. I have not been disappointed so far... There are a few plugins I miss on Chrome but nothing I couldn't live without or find an acceptable alternative.
dahfizz 3y ago
> I couldn't imagine opening more than a dozen of tabs without it. I can't imagine having more than a dozen tabs open, period. You tab hoarders will never make sense to me...
- Night_Thastus 3y ago
  There are plenty of legitimate reasons to have multiple tabs open that doesn't really have to do with "hoarding". For games, I often have a bunch of wiki tabs open at the same time.
  - grogenaut 3y ago
    For me I just type titles or word back into the browser bar and Firefox searches history. How are you searching/navigating to find the right tab of several hundred to go back to that tab?
    - SomeHacker44 3y ago
      Too many sites have useless titles, or URLs that if you go back to you don't get to the same state you had when you closed the window. So, I find that history is for the most part useless. Sometimes it works - but not reliably.
    - sundarurfriend 3y ago
      Vimium - press shift-T - search among all page titles and URLs of open tabs.
      - grogenaut 3y ago
        Why is that better than searching history or bookmarks?
        sundarurfriend 3y ago
        Bookmarks are long-term useful things to keep saved, and don't serve the same purpose as these open tabs. As for history, imagine you're researching a topic and have gone through fifteen search results, decided three of them were relevant, and closed the others. Your history is polluted with all fifteen, whereas this tab search will directly return you these most relevant pages only.
permo-w 3y ago
Brave has tree style tabs now
dhimes 3y ago
I've stayed (edit: with Firefox) because of (1) containers and (2) password storage. I have to use Chrome for some things, and every now and then it prompts me for a password and refuses to use the auto-fill. Totally torques me off because my passwords are not easy. But I completely trust Firefox on the password issue, to the point that I let it generate them for me.
- FirmwareBurner 3y ago
  >But I completely trust Firefox on the password issue, to the point that I let it generate them for me. Not that I don't trust them but I always recommend using a dedicated PW manager like KeePassXC which is FOSS and has been security audited, plus it gives you full control over where you get to store your PWs and how they're secured and generated.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    I'm even stricter than you. I use a password manager, but on a separate device from where I use passwords and it does not talk over the network. Wen I use a password, I look it up and type it in by hand. No autofill is possible, intentionally.
    - LtdJorge 3y ago
      That doesn't bypass keyloggers
      - mcpackieh 3y ago
        It would limit the scope of the damage. Instead of getting the entire password database, the keylogger would only get those passwords that were used while the system was compromised.
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        True, but keyloggers aren't one of the threat vectors I am most concerned about, and as mcpackieh said, it still limits the potential damage quite a lot. We all have to gear our security mechanisms toward our particular threat assessments.
hollander 3y ago
I hate the tab reload in Chrome after switching tabs, which often changes form input.
- yboris 3y ago
  I believe you can disable this newly-added functionality.
dmix 3y ago
> but mainly for Tree Style Tab extension. Same, I like to pretend I use Firefox for other reasons but 99% of it is tree tab.
bigpapikite 3y ago
Tree style tabs along with changing the CSS to remove the tabs from the top of the screen has been a game changer for me. Back when I had an M1 macbook air, it was the difference between everything feeling cluttered to feeling like a real laptop screen.

generalizations 3y ago

That's pretty much the reason for me as well. The day some other browser makes tree-style tabs, firefox will probably lose a user.

sp332 3y ago
Edge has had vertical tabs with tab groups natively for a couple years now. It also has a nice Reader mode, good text-to-speech, and a screenshot tool built in. And it supports uBlock Origin as an add on.
- generalizations 3y ago
  Yeah, that's not the same, or even functionally close. Just a superficial resemblance. The value of tree style tabs is that you don't manually organize anything, and the tabs are nested arbitrarily deep so that you literally end up with a hierarchical tree of tabs that shows you the logical view of your browsing history with no manual input on your part. (Note the comparison to edge has been made before, which is why I specifically said tree-style tabs, not vertical tabs.)
kevinlinxc 3y ago
Longtime ff user, I use "Tab Groups Extension" for Chrome at work where ff is not allowed
- purerandomness 3y ago
  What kind of work allows Chrome, but not Firefox? Google?
hackinthebochs 3y ago
Tabs Outliner for chrome/edge is far superior than any other tab extension, and I've tried nearly all of them.
- capableweb 3y ago
  Looks like a separate window, so clearly not superior to Tree Style Tabs in Firefox.
  - hackinthebochs 3y ago
    Unfortunately due to limitations of chrome's extension model, there is no way to have a built-in extension sidebar like on firefox. I just manually position the tab window next to the browser window and it's fine. The window sizes are remembered and so it's really a non-issue.

mortalkastor 3y ago

I switched to Orion[0] as a test, discovered the awesomeness of superbly integrated, native, tree style tabs, and now I'm stuck with this browser where sites I need for work are half broken. I tried Firefox with Tree Style Tab extension, but it's not nearly as good :( [0] https://browser.kagi.com https://browser.kagi.com

mtlmtlmtlmtl 3y ago
Too bad it only runs on Apple platforms.
fht 3y ago
On firefox you can also use sidebery. If I recall correctly it worked decently well. Currently I'm using Arc which performs well enough for my use cases, although being locked into chromium kinda sucks.
mthoms 3y ago
I've been looking into Orion. Are the broken sites you're referring to very niche or common ones? Do they work in Safari but not Orion?

whynotkeithberg 3y ago

I switched about a year ago as well, partially because of performance pains but also because I tried to leave as many google products behind as I could for privacy reasons. I have not been disappointed so far... There are a few plugins I miss on Chrome but nothing I couldn't live without or find an acceptable alternative.

dahfizz 3y ago

> I couldn't imagine opening more than a dozen of tabs without it. I can't imagine having more than a dozen tabs open, period. You tab hoarders will never make sense to me...

Night_Thastus 3y ago
There are plenty of legitimate reasons to have multiple tabs open that doesn't really have to do with "hoarding". For games, I often have a bunch of wiki tabs open at the same time.
- grogenaut 3y ago
  For me I just type titles or word back into the browser bar and Firefox searches history. How are you searching/navigating to find the right tab of several hundred to go back to that tab?
  - SomeHacker44 3y ago
    Too many sites have useless titles, or URLs that if you go back to you don't get to the same state you had when you closed the window. So, I find that history is for the most part useless. Sometimes it works - but not reliably.
  - sundarurfriend 3y ago
    Vimium - press shift-T - search among all page titles and URLs of open tabs.
    - grogenaut 3y ago
      Why is that better than searching history or bookmarks?
      - sundarurfriend 3y ago
        Bookmarks are long-term useful things to keep saved, and don't serve the same purpose as these open tabs. As for history, imagine you're researching a topic and have gone through fifteen search results, decided three of them were relevant, and closed the others. Your history is polluted with all fifteen, whereas this tab search will directly return you these most relevant pages only.

permo-w 3y ago

Brave has tree style tabs now

dhimes 3y ago

I've stayed (edit: with Firefox) because of (1) containers and (2) password storage. I have to use Chrome for some things, and every now and then it prompts me for a password and refuses to use the auto-fill. Totally torques me off because my passwords are not easy. But I completely trust Firefox on the password issue, to the point that I let it generate them for me.

FirmwareBurner 3y ago
>But I completely trust Firefox on the password issue, to the point that I let it generate them for me. Not that I don't trust them but I always recommend using a dedicated PW manager like KeePassXC which is FOSS and has been security audited, plus it gives you full control over where you get to store your PWs and how they're secured and generated.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  I'm even stricter than you. I use a password manager, but on a separate device from where I use passwords and it does not talk over the network. Wen I use a password, I look it up and type it in by hand. No autofill is possible, intentionally.
  - LtdJorge 3y ago
    That doesn't bypass keyloggers
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      It would limit the scope of the damage. Instead of getting the entire password database, the keylogger would only get those passwords that were used while the system was compromised.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      True, but keyloggers aren't one of the threat vectors I am most concerned about, and as mcpackieh said, it still limits the potential damage quite a lot. We all have to gear our security mechanisms toward our particular threat assessments.

hollander 3y ago

I hate the tab reload in Chrome after switching tabs, which often changes form input.

yboris 3y ago
I believe you can disable this newly-added functionality.

dmix 3y ago

> but mainly for Tree Style Tab extension. Same, I like to pretend I use Firefox for other reasons but 99% of it is tree tab.

bigpapikite 3y ago

Tree style tabs along with changing the CSS to remove the tabs from the top of the screen has been a game changer for me. Back when I had an M1 macbook air, it was the difference between everything feeling cluttered to feeling like a real laptop screen.