11 ms·

Firefox Is the Superior Browser

85 points by max_ 2y ago

fithisux 2y ago
It is a great piece of software
tetris11 2y ago
not the most in depth article
eimrine 2y ago
Please return Brendan Eich and the old mos://a logo instead of the green yelling bird.
- jacknews 2y ago
  omg I didn't notice that had changed. The mos://a logo is (was) iconic and completely sums up what the org should be about. To me the new logo looks like a dinosaur, or a lizard or a snake. Quite appropriate.
croes 2y ago
HD DVD was superior, Betamax was superior, 8-track was superior.
- Dwedit 2y ago
  HD DVDs all rotted from the red dye in the packaging. You can't play them anymore if they were stored in the original cases.
- ktallett 2y ago
  I feel the issue with all of these was general uptake required for companies to produce enough content for it to be worth owning. Firefox doesn't have that issue. It is a more fully featured browser across mobile and desktop with access to the exact same content as Chrome or Safari.
abtinf 2y ago
> [article with many words about why you should use firefox]. Tree Style Tabs. uBlock Origin. There, I rewrote it for you.
- easygenes 2y ago
  I converted from TST to Sidebery years ago and haven't looked back, but generally agree with the sentiment.
  - lambdaba 2y ago
    how do they compare? I have TST set up exactly how I want but I'm open to new options
    - easygenes 2y ago
      Mostly I preferred the aesthetic, the menu and sessions system, and how I could configure it easily to handle my tab containers strategy.
- abtinf 2y ago
  https://imgur.com/a/MddLF4p https://imgur.com/a/MddLF4p
- tim333 2y ago
  I got Firefox with tree style tabs. Then it looked odd so I followed the youtube instructions about copying some code into some obscure file to make it look ok. Then yesterday it changed appearance and put another bar in. Dunno. I'm kind of back on Chrome which just works without all that.
  - abtinf 2y ago
    The worst part of Firefox is Mozilla.
lambdaba 2y ago
true, I only wish Firefox could bridge some of the performance gap, but frankly, it's pretty fine as it is - Firefox Sync is much better than Safari/Chrome options, you can close tabs remotely, sending tabs is instantaneous and never fails (Chrome IME was flaky) - as the article mentions, a lot of mobile addons, including Stylus and the *Monkey userscript addons, I have cloud sync set up for both and it's nice to have userscripts running on all platforms - Tree Style Tabs is still the best UI for managing tabs in any browser I've used - browser UI customization via userChrome.css file, and user.js for persistent about:config flags, every time you set up a new Chrome profile, have to set up flags manually - it's fast (enough), ironically I switched from Chrome after I started have inexplicable slowdowns that I couldn't solve by disabling extensions or a new profile, since the Manifest V2 moment was upon us, I took the opportunity to give Firefox a try again
- mentalgear 2y ago
  Not to mention Firefox is much less RAM-blocking and battery draining!
brabel 2y ago
I use it most of the time. But it's indeed not perfect. For example, on Linux, quite a few Youtube videos won't play and sometimes they even crash the browser. Other websites have also crashed it for me, but I can't remember which ones, it just happens every now and then on random websites... The problem was so bad that I switched to using Chromium on my Linux machine. On Mac and iOS, it seems to be more stable and it's still my main browser.
- thangngoc89 2y ago
  On iOS, all browsers (well except Safari) use Safari webview with customized browser GUI.
- ktallett 2y ago
  I feel you should investigate this more, as this isn't normal. I feel it could be related to a combination of OS or ram as I have found FF to be the most stable browser I've used running it on Fedora and Android. I've had no crashes and no issues with any media consumption.
- vladvasiliu 2y ago
  Do you have links to some of those videos? I haven't noticed anything like that on my system. Actually, YouTube on Firefox works so well on my Linux machine that it doesn't even start its fan when I'm watching videos, whereas on my similar work machine with Edge on Windows it's fairly loud.
- GeoAtreides 2y ago
  never had any problems with firefox on Linux, absolutely none at all
nikolay 2y ago
Really?! It's even a bigger memory hog than Chrome!
- ghjfrdghibt 2y ago
  Not in my experience, though likely it depends on what you're running in the browser. My experience with web apps designed only against chrome are they perform worse in Firefox (Gmail, etc). This is not a Firefox issue though.
- mentalgear 2y ago
  I specifically switched to Firefox 2 years ago because the inverse is/was true. Even if Chrome has improved, it can't be as dramatically.
  - nikolay 2y ago
    I tried many times to switch to Firefox from Chrome and went back every single time. Yesterday by mistake I started Firefox with a few hundred tabs - it was using 128GB of memory and simply died. Chrome handles thousands of tabs without an issue. The only lean browser is Safari. Many sites don't work on Firefox or Chrome, but never had any issues with Safari.
deleted 2y ago
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deleted 2y ago
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chrismorgan 2y ago
Current HN title: > Firefox Is the Superior Browser Original article title: > Switching to Firefox An important thing that both titles miss: this is talking about Firefox for Android. The things discussed in the first section mostly actually happened around desktop Firefox, but the rest of the article is exclusively about Firefox for Android. Please, HN, a request: given that this is what the article is about, could we please make this discussion about Firefox for Android, and leave desktop Firefox alone as much as possible? Firefox versus Chrome on desktop gets discussed frequently¹, we all know the arguments; but Firefox versus Chrome on Android doesn’t, and the calculus is quite interestingly different. For example, the first two points raised are mobile-only, as they’re things both give you on desktop, but only Firefox on Android. —⁂— ¹ My guess is that there’s a dedicated Firefox- or Chrome-related thread that ends focusing on such matters in some way at least once every couple of months, and a few more minor subtheads in between.
unnamed76ri 2y ago
I was a Firefox user for more than a decade. I switched to Brave earlier this year and it’s been great.
- attendant3446 2y ago
  I think Firefox is truly superior on the desktop, but Firefox on mobile is inferior. I also once switched to Brave (on mobile and as a secondary browser on desktop), but lately, in the last year or so, Brave has become bloated with services and features that I don't need and can't disable. I am back with Firefox (Fennec, to be precise). Not a great experience, but good enough for me.
ko27 2y ago
I am not convinced at all: > extensions You can use a Chromium browser like Samsung Internet > View PDFs in browser Chrome is adding support for that https://www.androidauthority.com/open-pdf-files-chrome-android-3505618/ https://www.androidauthority.com/open-pdf-files-chrome-andro... Not to mention, performance is better on Chrome (and Samsung Internet), and the difference is obvious in Speedometer benchmark.
- saylisteins 2y ago
  Chrome is adding, not added. His point is still valid.
- mentalgear 2y ago
  uBlock Origin and other adblocker performance will never be as good on Chrome as they are on Firefox, since Chrome forced MV3 on users (which they pushed specs-wise to keep their ad empire running), while Firefox stated they will always keep MV2 also supported. Source: https://ublockorigin.com/ https://ublockorigin.com/
mentalgear 2y ago
Truth Firefox is the last major independent browser engine standing. As engineers, it's our responsibility to keep the fox strong and help it reclaim the popularity it once enjoyed. Let's rally behind it!
- BSDobelix 2y ago
  >As engineers, it's our responsibility to keep the fox strong and help it reclaim the popularity it once enjoyed. That's the problem: Mozilla makes ~590 million, but the vast majority is not for engineers, but for: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/women-in-ai-ethics-explores-building-trustworthy-ai-with-mozilla/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/women-in-ai-ethics-ex... Not to mention firing a CEO with cancer, throwing a Party (Feminist, Decolonial, LGBTQIA+, Climate Justice using Al) in Zambia (no joke) after firing 1/3 of the staff and so on. Firefox/Mozilla is the best paid OSS project (apart from Linux), but spends most of the money on non-technical stuff (same with the Linux Foundation). Mozilla.org/Mozilla is now a Ad-Company not a OSS-Project.
  - 2Gkashmiri 2y ago
    please look at their financials. how much money they spend on salary, remuneration to managers, administrative and finally moonshots. besides, how would YOU finance to pay around 1200-1800 employees (from my initial online search) salaries that are competitive to Facebook and google or microsoft? why would someone work at mozilla for less money when they could work in the same city at a bigger office for more cash? now, if mozilla took to employing foreigners, like from asia, they could reduce their salary spend by 5-10 times which would make them less dependent on external funding or employ 5-8 times many people for same money. point is, building a browser takes money so how will YOU finance the company/non profit if you were given the charge edit: also, how much would you consider your remuneration be commensurate to the level of work you are putting in?
    - BSDobelix 2y ago
      >point is, building a browser takes money so how will YOU finance the company/non profit if you were given the charge My point is that they dont invest it into the browser but: >managers, administrative and finally moonshots. >how would YOU finance to pay around 1200-1800 employees Get rid of most of the non-technical staff and work on the software you get your donations for. Out with the leeches, in with the makers, it's software, not a political campaign. Google Chrome has/had ~23 paid developers, then we bring back the MDN team, let's say 8 people, administrative stuff 5 for a total of 36 people, let's double that because we have $590 million to spend and round it up to 80 people, okay? But hey, look at that ("Firefox Maker Rebrands as 'Global Crew of Activists'"), this is where the money is going: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCJ5emSxK7A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCJ5emSxK7A
edent 2y ago
Yup, I've been using it on Android for the last few years and it has been great. Fast, customisable, lots of power-user features. Chrome feels like it was written for the benefit of Google, not for me.
frizlab 2y ago
If I’m not mistaken all of this is available on Safari too. Does that make Safari its equal?
szundi 2y ago
I think the article is right, I don't feel I'm missing out on anything with Firefox. Every month I need Chrome for a dodgy goverment or school website, but basically, that's it. Not even Firefox's fault.
- kzrdude 2y ago
  It didn't use to be much of a problem, but it's ramping up unfortunately.
cfjgvjh 2y ago
I know the author is talking about the mobile experience, so a bit of a tangent but Multi account containers, especially with temporary containers improved my web experience so much that I don’t think I could ever go back. It’s so much more fluid than profiles.
alex3305 2y ago
I am currently using Brave after switching from Chrome. Chrome changed the way accessibility worked last year which didn't work for me. Instead of scaling text it zooms in on pages which results in an undesirable scrollfest. Once in a while I retry Firefox but text scaling is a hot mess. On some sites it simply doesn't work, on others content will go outside of the bounding box and on some sites it just clips text. For me it is barely usable in its current form leaving me at Brave.
vfclists 2y ago
Why is it flagged? HN should change their policy to ensure that users who flag articles should publicky explain the reasons for it.
- jacknews 2y ago
  I agree, and even for downvotes.
lioeters 2y ago
Firefox, uBlock Origin, Sideberry. No complaints. I just hope Mozilla doesn't ruin it with their misguided investments and laying off devs.
ghjfrdghibt 2y ago
Why has this thread been flagged?
CTOSian 2y ago
"Superior" ... unless you don't use IoT, Arduino etc that most if not all of the programming/debugging webapps are using things that the Mozilla folks refuse to implement : webUSB/webSerial , sorry we are not on 90s!
jacknews 2y ago
Har har. I've just had the third experience over just a couple of months, where FF has completely lost all my tabs etc. Previously I've been able to recover some state by moving the sessionstore-backups files around, but this time, completely gone. The trigger this time was starting FF when my internet was down. It could not 'verify' all the addons, and just seemed to hang indefinitely. Really, why does it need t 'verify' the extensions on startup? And what does that involve, actually? Is it phoning-home all my addons and settings just to even start up? I've really lost trust in this browser.
akagusu 2y ago
Why this is flagged?
- OutOfHere 2y ago
  Any anti-capitalist post or comment quickly gets flagged on this site. Unfortunately, it isn't really an appropriate site for extensions of the open source philosophy, although it does pretend to be.
monsieurgaufre 2y ago
Sync does not work reliably. Features are missing or forever in development. Not sure where lies the superiority except in virtue of not being Google. And let’s not talk about the pleas to keep the funnel of Google’s money.

85 points by max_ 2y ago

fithisux 2y ago

It is a great piece of software

tetris11 2y ago

not the most in depth article

eimrine 2y ago

Please return Brendan Eich and the old mos://a logo instead of the green yelling bird.

jacknews 2y ago
omg I didn't notice that had changed. The mos://a logo is (was) iconic and completely sums up what the org should be about. To me the new logo looks like a dinosaur, or a lizard or a snake. Quite appropriate.

croes 2y ago

HD DVD was superior, Betamax was superior, 8-track was superior.

Dwedit 2y ago
HD DVDs all rotted from the red dye in the packaging. You can't play them anymore if they were stored in the original cases.
ktallett 2y ago
I feel the issue with all of these was general uptake required for companies to produce enough content for it to be worth owning. Firefox doesn't have that issue. It is a more fully featured browser across mobile and desktop with access to the exact same content as Chrome or Safari.

abtinf 2y ago

> [article with many words about why you should use firefox]. Tree Style Tabs. uBlock Origin. There, I rewrote it for you.

easygenes 2y ago
I converted from TST to Sidebery years ago and haven't looked back, but generally agree with the sentiment.
- lambdaba 2y ago
  how do they compare? I have TST set up exactly how I want but I'm open to new options
  - easygenes 2y ago
    Mostly I preferred the aesthetic, the menu and sessions system, and how I could configure it easily to handle my tab containers strategy.
abtinf 2y ago
https://imgur.com/a/MddLF4p https://imgur.com/a/MddLF4p
tim333 2y ago
I got Firefox with tree style tabs. Then it looked odd so I followed the youtube instructions about copying some code into some obscure file to make it look ok. Then yesterday it changed appearance and put another bar in. Dunno. I'm kind of back on Chrome which just works without all that.
- abtinf 2y ago
  The worst part of Firefox is Mozilla.

lambdaba 2y ago

true, I only wish Firefox could bridge some of the performance gap, but frankly, it's pretty fine as it is - Firefox Sync is much better than Safari/Chrome options, you can close tabs remotely, sending tabs is instantaneous and never fails (Chrome IME was flaky) - as the article mentions, a lot of mobile addons, including Stylus and the *Monkey userscript addons, I have cloud sync set up for both and it's nice to have userscripts running on all platforms - Tree Style Tabs is still the best UI for managing tabs in any browser I've used - browser UI customization via userChrome.css file, and user.js for persistent about:config flags, every time you set up a new Chrome profile, have to set up flags manually - it's fast (enough), ironically I switched from Chrome after I started have inexplicable slowdowns that I couldn't solve by disabling extensions or a new profile, since the Manifest V2 moment was upon us, I took the opportunity to give Firefox a try again

mentalgear 2y ago
Not to mention Firefox is much less RAM-blocking and battery draining!

brabel 2y ago

I use it most of the time. But it's indeed not perfect. For example, on Linux, quite a few Youtube videos won't play and sometimes they even crash the browser. Other websites have also crashed it for me, but I can't remember which ones, it just happens every now and then on random websites... The problem was so bad that I switched to using Chromium on my Linux machine. On Mac and iOS, it seems to be more stable and it's still my main browser.

thangngoc89 2y ago
On iOS, all browsers (well except Safari) use Safari webview with customized browser GUI.
ktallett 2y ago
I feel you should investigate this more, as this isn't normal. I feel it could be related to a combination of OS or ram as I have found FF to be the most stable browser I've used running it on Fedora and Android. I've had no crashes and no issues with any media consumption.
vladvasiliu 2y ago
Do you have links to some of those videos? I haven't noticed anything like that on my system. Actually, YouTube on Firefox works so well on my Linux machine that it doesn't even start its fan when I'm watching videos, whereas on my similar work machine with Edge on Windows it's fairly loud.
GeoAtreides 2y ago
never had any problems with firefox on Linux, absolutely none at all

nikolay 2y ago

Really?! It's even a bigger memory hog than Chrome!

ghjfrdghibt 2y ago
Not in my experience, though likely it depends on what you're running in the browser. My experience with web apps designed only against chrome are they perform worse in Firefox (Gmail, etc). This is not a Firefox issue though.
mentalgear 2y ago
I specifically switched to Firefox 2 years ago because the inverse is/was true. Even if Chrome has improved, it can't be as dramatically.
- nikolay 2y ago
  I tried many times to switch to Firefox from Chrome and went back every single time. Yesterday by mistake I started Firefox with a few hundred tabs - it was using 128GB of memory and simply died. Chrome handles thousands of tabs without an issue. The only lean browser is Safari. Many sites don't work on Firefox or Chrome, but never had any issues with Safari.

deleted 2y ago

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deleted 2y ago

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chrismorgan 2y ago

Current HN title: > Firefox Is the Superior Browser Original article title: > Switching to Firefox An important thing that both titles miss: this is talking about Firefox for Android. The things discussed in the first section mostly actually happened around desktop Firefox, but the rest of the article is exclusively about Firefox for Android. Please, HN, a request: given that this is what the article is about, could we please make this discussion about Firefox for Android, and leave desktop Firefox alone as much as possible? Firefox versus Chrome on desktop gets discussed frequently¹, we all know the arguments; but Firefox versus Chrome on Android doesn’t, and the calculus is quite interestingly different. For example, the first two points raised are mobile-only, as they’re things both give you on desktop, but only Firefox on Android. —⁂— ¹ My guess is that there’s a dedicated Firefox- or Chrome-related thread that ends focusing on such matters in some way at least once every couple of months, and a few more minor subtheads in between.

unnamed76ri 2y ago

I was a Firefox user for more than a decade. I switched to Brave earlier this year and it’s been great.

attendant3446 2y ago
I think Firefox is truly superior on the desktop, but Firefox on mobile is inferior. I also once switched to Brave (on mobile and as a secondary browser on desktop), but lately, in the last year or so, Brave has become bloated with services and features that I don't need and can't disable. I am back with Firefox (Fennec, to be precise). Not a great experience, but good enough for me.

ko27 2y ago

I am not convinced at all: > extensions You can use a Chromium browser like Samsung Internet > View PDFs in browser Chrome is adding support for that https://www.androidauthority.com/open-pdf-files-chrome-android-3505618/ https://www.androidauthority.com/open-pdf-files-chrome-andro... Not to mention, performance is better on Chrome (and Samsung Internet), and the difference is obvious in Speedometer benchmark.

saylisteins 2y ago
Chrome is adding, not added. His point is still valid.
mentalgear 2y ago
uBlock Origin and other adblocker performance will never be as good on Chrome as they are on Firefox, since Chrome forced MV3 on users (which they pushed specs-wise to keep their ad empire running), while Firefox stated they will always keep MV2 also supported. Source: https://ublockorigin.com/ https://ublockorigin.com/

mentalgear 2y ago

Truth Firefox is the last major independent browser engine standing. As engineers, it's our responsibility to keep the fox strong and help it reclaim the popularity it once enjoyed. Let's rally behind it!

BSDobelix 2y ago
>As engineers, it's our responsibility to keep the fox strong and help it reclaim the popularity it once enjoyed. That's the problem: Mozilla makes ~590 million, but the vast majority is not for engineers, but for: https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/women-in-ai-ethics-explores-building-trustworthy-ai-with-mozilla/ https://foundation.mozilla.org/en/blog/women-in-ai-ethics-ex... Not to mention firing a CEO with cancer, throwing a Party (Feminist, Decolonial, LGBTQIA+, Climate Justice using Al) in Zambia (no joke) after firing 1/3 of the staff and so on. Firefox/Mozilla is the best paid OSS project (apart from Linux), but spends most of the money on non-technical stuff (same with the Linux Foundation). Mozilla.org/Mozilla is now a Ad-Company not a OSS-Project.
- 2Gkashmiri 2y ago
  please look at their financials. how much money they spend on salary, remuneration to managers, administrative and finally moonshots. besides, how would YOU finance to pay around 1200-1800 employees (from my initial online search) salaries that are competitive to Facebook and google or microsoft? why would someone work at mozilla for less money when they could work in the same city at a bigger office for more cash? now, if mozilla took to employing foreigners, like from asia, they could reduce their salary spend by 5-10 times which would make them less dependent on external funding or employ 5-8 times many people for same money. point is, building a browser takes money so how will YOU finance the company/non profit if you were given the charge edit: also, how much would you consider your remuneration be commensurate to the level of work you are putting in?
  - BSDobelix 2y ago
    >point is, building a browser takes money so how will YOU finance the company/non profit if you were given the charge My point is that they dont invest it into the browser but: >managers, administrative and finally moonshots. >how would YOU finance to pay around 1200-1800 employees Get rid of most of the non-technical staff and work on the software you get your donations for. Out with the leeches, in with the makers, it's software, not a political campaign. Google Chrome has/had ~23 paid developers, then we bring back the MDN team, let's say 8 people, administrative stuff 5 for a total of 36 people, let's double that because we have $590 million to spend and round it up to 80 people, okay? But hey, look at that ("Firefox Maker Rebrands as 'Global Crew of Activists'"), this is where the money is going: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCJ5emSxK7A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCJ5emSxK7A

edent 2y ago

Yup, I've been using it on Android for the last few years and it has been great. Fast, customisable, lots of power-user features. Chrome feels like it was written for the benefit of Google, not for me.

frizlab 2y ago

If I’m not mistaken all of this is available on Safari too. Does that make Safari its equal?

szundi 2y ago

I think the article is right, I don't feel I'm missing out on anything with Firefox. Every month I need Chrome for a dodgy goverment or school website, but basically, that's it. Not even Firefox's fault.

kzrdude 2y ago
It didn't use to be much of a problem, but it's ramping up unfortunately.

cfjgvjh 2y ago

I know the author is talking about the mobile experience, so a bit of a tangent but Multi account containers, especially with temporary containers improved my web experience so much that I don’t think I could ever go back. It’s so much more fluid than profiles.

alex3305 2y ago

I am currently using Brave after switching from Chrome. Chrome changed the way accessibility worked last year which didn't work for me. Instead of scaling text it zooms in on pages which results in an undesirable scrollfest. Once in a while I retry Firefox but text scaling is a hot mess. On some sites it simply doesn't work, on others content will go outside of the bounding box and on some sites it just clips text. For me it is barely usable in its current form leaving me at Brave.

vfclists 2y ago

Why is it flagged? HN should change their policy to ensure that users who flag articles should publicky explain the reasons for it.

jacknews 2y ago
I agree, and even for downvotes.

lioeters 2y ago

Firefox, uBlock Origin, Sideberry. No complaints. I just hope Mozilla doesn't ruin it with their misguided investments and laying off devs.

ghjfrdghibt 2y ago

Why has this thread been flagged?

CTOSian 2y ago

"Superior" ... unless you don't use IoT, Arduino etc that most if not all of the programming/debugging webapps are using things that the Mozilla folks refuse to implement : webUSB/webSerial , sorry we are not on 90s!

jacknews 2y ago

Har har. I've just had the third experience over just a couple of months, where FF has completely lost all my tabs etc. Previously I've been able to recover some state by moving the sessionstore-backups files around, but this time, completely gone. The trigger this time was starting FF when my internet was down. It could not 'verify' all the addons, and just seemed to hang indefinitely. Really, why does it need t 'verify' the extensions on startup? And what does that involve, actually? Is it phoning-home all my addons and settings just to even start up? I've really lost trust in this browser.

akagusu 2y ago

Why this is flagged?

OutOfHere 2y ago
Any anti-capitalist post or comment quickly gets flagged on this site. Unfortunately, it isn't really an appropriate site for extensions of the open source philosophy, although it does pretend to be.

monsieurgaufre 2y ago

Sync does not work reliably. Features are missing or forever in development. Not sure where lies the superiority except in virtue of not being Google. And let’s not talk about the pleas to keep the funnel of Google’s money.