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It’s too bad that Firefox has such a great UX and privacy-focused cloud features like this, yet is being held back by its engine. As a heavy FF user for the las
by yesimahuman 3y ago
It’s too bad that Firefox has such a great UX and privacy-focused cloud features like this, yet is being held back by its engine. As a heavy FF user for the last few years it’s become more and more clear that the world just doesn’t care about making sites work on FF and I’m more frequently having to switch to Chrome. My dream is that FF would switch to Chromium while keeping all the great features around the browser engine. But suggesting such a thing is blasphemy in the FF world so we’re stuck with an engine that no one targets any more and isn’t keeping up with modern web APIs more web devs are using.
- GeekyBear 3y agoIn a decade of use, I have yet to run into sites that don't work just fine with Firefox.
- intrasight 3y agoIt's too bad that I can't read the article - because I'm using Firefox and an ad blocker. I get "Something went wrong. Please disable your blocker on How-To Geek"
- lagniappe 3y agoWorks fine on my Firefox with several blockers.
- tetris11 3y agoworks fine for me with uBO
- MrDrMcCoy 3y agoI'm using Mull, an Android Mobile browser based on Firefox with some privacy tweaks, with uBlock origin enabled, Android set to use NextDNS with even more adblocking, and a VPN. The page loads just fine for me. Maybe you're missing one of the lists that helps with anti-adblocking?
- GeekyBear 3y agoWorks fine on Firefox with uBlock Origin.
- byyll 3y agoIt shows nothing of the sorts for me. Try uBO if you are not using it.
- intrasight 3y agoI am using uBO. When I disable it, the article renders.
- nottorp 3y agoHow-To Geek is one of those spam sites that is full of basic tutorials that don't really help with your problem and pollutes your search results for ... anything. Don't think you lost much, I didn't even try to open the original article.
- avg_dev 3y agoMy experience has been quite different in that I don’t even have Chrome installed on my Windows machine just yet, because FF has been working fine for me for a long time. I like to use uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger. I don’t use the cloud sync feature myself, because I mostly switch between FF and Mobile Safari and I don’t know if there is a good sync solution, and I’d prefer not to send my usage history and stuff out anyway. I’m sure someone out there - many someones, probably - has painted a number of more or less accurate pictures of who I am using my browsing data anyway.
- ugjka 3y agoIn most cases FF is blocked by useragent sniffing, so you just need an useragent changer addon
- gertlex 3y agoThis assertion doesn't match my experiences. I can't recall the last time a site gave a clear complaint about "we don't support firefox". I remember doing useragent modification 10-15 years ago, but more recently, when I tried to do it (I forget why), it seemed like changing the useragent has gotten less convenient, too (installing an addon feels worse than whatever I used to do). I also have the impression from podcasts maybe, that useragent filtering just isn't the near-source-of-truth it used to be.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- robinhood 3y agoI have the exact opposite experience. I've been using FF for a very, very long time, and I have yet to encounter a site that doesn't work on it. Also, what modern web APIs Firefox doesn't support?
- KANahas 3y agoThe only roadblock I’ve found has been the webserial API, which enables users to flash ESP32/8266 or other devices from webpages. It’s super handy for flashing WLED or ESPHome to devices because you don’t have to install any extra software. As far as I know, it has been marked as a “wontfix” in the Firefox bugtracker as they consider it a harmful feature [0] [0]: https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/336 https://github.com/mozilla/standards-positions/issues/336
- djbusby 3y agoBig blocker for me too. Would love to see support, perhaps behind some buried flag.
- toyg 3y agoI mean, I understand the attractiveness, but it's a super-niche feature that wouldn't really move the needle. The real problem, imho, is the constant glitching on Google properties like Gmail and YouTube. Even if they were really "accidental" (big if), they impact massive amounts of users in their everyday lives, and it takes very little to lose a user forever. Maybe FF should launch a GMail competitor, and/or promote alternatives to any Google property.
- gertlex 3y agoI have issues, but rarely. (but I'm tech savvy... wouldn't want to tell my mom to try a different browser...) My sense of what sites don't work properly (not necessarily 100% of the time, joy) are some big corporate, non-tech company websites, like Kaiser Permanente's and ADP's sites. My sense of recollection says these cases are frequently experienced as the combination of, "Ugh, gotta log into that stupid bloated benefits/work related site, oh and it's not working... time to try Chrome."
- beezlewax 3y agoI very rarely have issues with FF and I've been using it for 10 years or so. If a site doesn't work I'll try agan in a chromium based browser I use as needed but that's it. It's easy to keep one installed for such a use case.
- 878654Tom 3y agoI took a glance at Can I Use what the difference between the last public release of Firefox and Chrome is [1] and they don't really have that big of a difference in the eyes of normal use-cases? Some of these aren't implemented purely because of privacy reasons, the proposals aren't finished yet or complexity [2]. Why would Firefox need to change to Chromium engine? The only websites I notice that don't work with Firefox is because of user-agent targetting or just putting 5-second time-outs in Youtube code on non-chrome webbrowsers [3]. Can you give some examples of websites not working on Firefox? [1] https://caniuse.com/?compare=chrome+120%2Cfirefox+121&compareCats=all https://caniuse.com/?compare=chrome+120%2Cfirefox+121&compar... [2] https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ https://mozilla.github.io/standards-positions/ [3] https://www.neowin.net/news/youtube-seemingly-intentionally-crippled-and-slow-on-firefox-while-google-chrome-works-fine/ https://www.neowin.net/news/youtube-seemingly-intentionally-...
- tristan957 3y agoWhy should Firefox move to an engine that is completely controlled by Google? Firefox's independence is exactly why uBlock Origin will continue to work just as well as it always has, and Chromium-based browser will flounder with MV3.
- dj_mc_merlin 3y agoIt's too bad this is always one of the most upvoted comments on every FF thread when it just doesn't reflect reality.. been using Firefox for basically it's entire existence and it just works. It's always worked. Never been significantly slower than Chrome, at least to an extent that it matters, and now it's not slower at all. I don't have Chrome installed on my computer since everything works. What parallel reality do others live in?
- cleandreams 3y agoMy experience also. Whenever a site doesn't work I try it in chrome and bing -- and it doesn't work there also.
- toyg 3y agoYeah, in most cases sites "break" only because they integrate too much with some ad-tech SDK etc. Which means they break on any browser doing any serious ad-blocking.
- whoisthemachine 3y agoSome smaller sites (for example local restaurants) will recommend chrome, but Firefox still works just fine for me.
- harryquach 3y agoI have also been using Firefox since its early days. The only issue I have is trying to share my screen with Google Meet it just does not work. While, not surprising it is a slight annoyance as my company uses Google meet for all of our meetings.
- squidbeak 3y ago> As a heavy FF user for the last few years it’s become more and more clear that the world just doesn’t care about making sites work on FF Wouldn't it be better to build according to standards - rather than browsers? Do that and any site will work in Firefox.
- jhasse 3y agoTry Brave, it also has privacy-focused sync, but uses the Chromium engine.
- ParetoOptimal 3y agoI've run into one site having oversized svg icons in Firefox only over the past few years. Aside from that, no "chrome only" issues you describe.