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I switched to Firefox earlier this year, having used Chrome since 2008/2009, previously having used Firefox. Mostly out of laziness. Can't believe how good Fir

I switched to Firefox earlier this year, having used Chrome since 2008/2009, previously having used Firefox. Mostly out of laziness. Can't believe how good Firefox is now, and how great it is on Android (addons, config). Being able to control anything on the browser is fantastic. Want to increase a certain UI elements font size just a tad? Sure! Want to tweak every aspect of the UI? sure! Want a myriad of config options, sure go ahead! Love the concept of Nightly, has worked great for me.

atrettel 3y ago
One UI feature that I love that Firefox lets you change is the scrollbars. I forget the precise settings, but I set them up so that they are always present and always big enough for me to see how far down a page I am (yes, like I'm using Windows 95!). That might only be something that matters to a few people, but the fact that it is customizable to that level is one of Firefox's greatest strengths.
- plugin-baby 3y ago
  This sounds great, but for web developers I feel it’s a risky change if you want to see your sites as your users do.
  - atrettel 3y ago
    You raise a good point. Fortunately, I'm not a web developer but I will keep your point in mind in case I do any web development later. From a web development standpoint, the scrollbars do seem to be an ignored feature for a lot of web pages. Adding scrollbars actually fixes a lot of issues with some sites. For example, some sites often have a frame inside of another frame, and this reveals the scrollbars for both frames. If I were to use my mouse wheel, I might scroll down inner frame or the outer frame, and I wouldn't know which one would be activated until I try, but with the scrollbars on, I always know which one is which. This was a surprise benefit to this change.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - lolinder 3y ago
    Web developers should be in the habit of checking against many different configurations anyway. I've lost track of the number of times that I've stumbled on a scrollable area that wasn't meant to be scrollable, which would have been caught if the developer had opened the site in the browser with always on scroll bars.
  - qkls 3y ago
    That's why I still develop using pluginless Chrome, even though I've always used Firefox as my default browser.
cwillu 3y ago
Unless you're on mobile, in which case you'd find it to confusing, so they removed the option, unless you're on nightly, with all the issues that entails.
- sp332 3y ago
  It took a long time, but the situation improved a couple weeks ago. https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/11/28/open-extensions-on-firefox-for-android-debut-december-14-but-you-can-get-a-sneak-peek-today/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/11/28/open-extensions-o...
  - cwillu 3y ago
    Great, it's still too bad about all the QoL options only accessible via about:config though.
prossercj 3y ago
At the risk of losing credibility in this community, I'm going to voice an opinion which I think belongs to the silent majority: I do not want to customize anything. I want to read the news and check my bank account with as little drama as possible. More customizable settings always means more things that can break. If the best feature of Firefox is that it has lots of things to configure, that's a negative for me. But this is coming from somebody who really would like to embrace better privacy...sigh... Holding out hope for the DuckDuckGo browser on Windows. The current beta is decent, but extensions are yet to come, which means no ad blocking at the moment. That makes it essentially unusable with today's internet
- soundnote 3y ago
  Brave. Seriously. Turn off a few things at first boot, it won't bother you after and is just nice and clean: https://i.imgur.com/tuMGc3c.png https://i.imgur.com/tuMGc3c.png
  - aAaaArrRgH 3y ago
    Still based on Chromium though, so the Manifest v3 drama about Google trying to sabotage adblockers still applies.
    - soundnote 3y ago
      Doesn't. Brave's adblockers are not an extension, they're integrated directly into the browser so they don't care what happens with extension APIs. Same reason they can do CNAME unmasking, which uBO can't on Chromium but can do on Firefox.
- thejosh 3y ago
  Sane defaults are always good, (which firefox has, IMHO), but not allowing the user to tweak basic stuff is a pain.

atrettel 3y ago

One UI feature that I love that Firefox lets you change is the scrollbars. I forget the precise settings, but I set them up so that they are always present and always big enough for me to see how far down a page I am (yes, like I'm using Windows 95!). That might only be something that matters to a few people, but the fact that it is customizable to that level is one of Firefox's greatest strengths.

plugin-baby 3y ago
This sounds great, but for web developers I feel it’s a risky change if you want to see your sites as your users do.
- atrettel 3y ago
  You raise a good point. Fortunately, I'm not a web developer but I will keep your point in mind in case I do any web development later. From a web development standpoint, the scrollbars do seem to be an ignored feature for a lot of web pages. Adding scrollbars actually fixes a lot of issues with some sites. For example, some sites often have a frame inside of another frame, and this reveals the scrollbars for both frames. If I were to use my mouse wheel, I might scroll down inner frame or the outer frame, and I wouldn't know which one would be activated until I try, but with the scrollbars on, I always know which one is which. This was a surprise benefit to this change.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- lolinder 3y ago
  Web developers should be in the habit of checking against many different configurations anyway. I've lost track of the number of times that I've stumbled on a scrollable area that wasn't meant to be scrollable, which would have been caught if the developer had opened the site in the browser with always on scroll bars.
- qkls 3y ago
  That's why I still develop using pluginless Chrome, even though I've always used Firefox as my default browser.

cwillu 3y ago

Unless you're on mobile, in which case you'd find it to confusing, so they removed the option, unless you're on nightly, with all the issues that entails.

sp332 3y ago
It took a long time, but the situation improved a couple weeks ago. https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/11/28/open-extensions-on-firefox-for-android-debut-december-14-but-you-can-get-a-sneak-peek-today/ https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2023/11/28/open-extensions-o...
- cwillu 3y ago
  Great, it's still too bad about all the QoL options only accessible via about:config though.

prossercj 3y ago

At the risk of losing credibility in this community, I'm going to voice an opinion which I think belongs to the silent majority: I do not want to customize anything. I want to read the news and check my bank account with as little drama as possible. More customizable settings always means more things that can break. If the best feature of Firefox is that it has lots of things to configure, that's a negative for me. But this is coming from somebody who really would like to embrace better privacy...sigh... Holding out hope for the DuckDuckGo browser on Windows. The current beta is decent, but extensions are yet to come, which means no ad blocking at the moment. That makes it essentially unusable with today's internet

soundnote 3y ago
Brave. Seriously. Turn off a few things at first boot, it won't bother you after and is just nice and clean: https://i.imgur.com/tuMGc3c.png https://i.imgur.com/tuMGc3c.png
- aAaaArrRgH 3y ago
  Still based on Chromium though, so the Manifest v3 drama about Google trying to sabotage adblockers still applies.
  - soundnote 3y ago
    Doesn't. Brave's adblockers are not an extension, they're integrated directly into the browser so they don't care what happens with extension APIs. Same reason they can do CNAME unmasking, which uBO can't on Chromium but can do on Firefox.
thejosh 3y ago
Sane defaults are always good, (which firefox has, IMHO), but not allowing the user to tweak basic stuff is a pain.