4 ms·

> Firefox is different enough from Chrome that it's a big jump for people who are used to Chrome I find this notion completely baffling. I use Chrome, Firefox

> Firefox is different enough from Chrome that it's a big jump for people who are used to Chrome I find this notion completely baffling. I use Chrome, Firefox and Safari more or less daily cause I test in all 3, and other than Safari feeling clunkier and in general less power-user friendly, I can barely tell the difference between the 3, especially between chrome and FF (well, other than uBlock working better in FF anyways).

const_cast 1y ago
I agree, there's little to no friction in switching to Firefox and I have never, not even once, noticed a difference with websites. The same is not true for Safari.
- maest 1y ago
  There are definitely website that do not support Firefox, especially in the US. Whole portions of the Verizon website, for example. Or the website of a well known kindergarden I was researching recently.
  - const_cast 1y ago
    I'm sure they exist, I've just never seen them. I use banking and websites like Netflix, too. And, if I had to wager, you could bypass a lot of this "doesn't work on Firefox" by just changing your user agent. I think it's a case of yes, it does work, but web developers don't think so, so they implement checks just for kicks.
    - sensanaty 1y ago
      > And, if I had to wager, you could bypass a lot of this "doesn't work on Firefox" by just changing your user agent. Indeed, even in the codebase at $JOB that I'm responsible for, we have had some instances where we randomly check if people are in Chrome before blocking a browser API that has existed for 2 decades and been baseline widely available. These days 99% of features that users actually care about are pretty widely supported cross-browser, and other than developer laziness there's literally no reason why something like a banking app shouldn't work in any of the big 3. I guarantee you that if you set your `userAgent` to a Chrome one (or even better yet, a completely generic one that covers all browsers simultaneously, cause most of the time the implementation of these `isChrome` flags is just a dead simple regex that looks for the string `chrome` anywhere in the userAgent), all problems you might've experienced before would vanish, except for perhaps on Google's own websites (though I've never really had issues here other than missing things like those image blur filters in Google Meet, which always felt like a completely artificial, anti-competitive limitation)
      - glandium 1y ago
        Where did "check feature, not browser name" go?
        thayne 1y ago
        Some developers are lazy. Some probably don't know that that is the right way to do it. There is a lot of legacy code from when checking user agents was more acceptable. It is much more difficult for server code to know the capabilities of the client (although in practice this isn't usually much of an issue). Also, sometimes the feature exists so the feature check is positive, but there is a bug in one browser that breaks your functionality, so you put in a user agent check. Then the bug gets fixed, but the user agent check isn't removed for years. I've seen that happen many times.
  - bloaf 1y ago
    There are definitely sites which block firefox, even though they work fine in firefox. Most of the time, the block can be bypassed with simple user-agent spoofing.
    - thayne 1y ago
      There are also a handful of sites I've run into that only work on cheomium based browsers because they rely on non-standard experimental APIs that are only implemented in chromium.
  - devmor 1y ago
    What part of the Verizon website doesn’t work on Firefox? I am curious if it’s actually the browser or its the aggressive privacy options. > a well known kindergarden I am baffled by the choice to include this laughably obscure example alongside a major telecom. Surely there are better options less likely to be the fault of a random lazy web developer. Youtube, for example seems deliberately hampered on non-chrome browsers.
    - maest 1y ago
      For Verizon, it's one of their log in forms that doesn't work on Firefox, even with ublock disabled. Works just fine with Chrome. I was able to reproduce the behaviour on both my and my wife's laptop. (I haven't tried disabling the FF privacy features) > I am baffled by the choice... Rereading what I wrote, I see the unintended humour in my association. That being said: 1. These are both websites where I don't have much of a choice whether I use them or not 2. I actually expected Verizon to have a terrible website based on the sum of my interactions with them (both online and over the phone) and how uncompetitive the market is. But I was surprised the kindergarden had a needlessly restrictive website because I thought they'd care more about their online presence. And, to be clear, the kindergarden's website is fancy and expensively designed, so their lack of Firefox support can't easily explained by laziness.
- jasonfarnon 1y ago
  I get serious slowdown with multiple (3--5) youtube tabs open in firefox, but not chrome. Seems to happen when tabs are open for a long time (weeks), so probably some leak. Lots of others mention it on forums.
  - thayne 1y ago
    Google has a history of sabatoging Youtube on Firefox. See for example https://www.tomshardware.com/news/youtube-responds-to-delayed-loading-in-rival-browser-complaints https://www.tomshardware.com/news/youtube-responds-to-delaye.... It isn't unique to youtube either. Gmail offline mode only works on chrome, even though other browsers have the necessary APIs. And menu copy and paste in google docs uses a special chrome-only extension that google pre-installs in chrome, instead of the clipboard API that works in other browsers as well.
jeffbee 1y ago
The stuff INSIDE the viewport is pretty much the same across them all, but on the daily it makes a big difference how your other services integrate with the browser. Someone who is all-in with iCloud, macOS, iOS etc might find it annoying to use Firefox without their personal info like password and credit cards and bookmarks. And the same would be true I guess for Google fans switching to Safari and not having those things.
stevage 1y ago
Me too. On mac, FF and chrome basically look and feel identical. Only devtools are quite different.
xboxnolifes 1y ago
Firefox has multiple, user-affecting, memory leaks related to Youtube (unconfirmed if just youtube), going back at least 7 years. Tab scrollbar as no option to be disabled, so I had to write CSS to get tabs into a form close to what I would like similar to chrome. Tab mute icon has no (working) option to disable the click event, so I had to write CSS to remove it. I made some other changes, but I forget what. At least FF still has the full uBlock Origin.
- oblio 1y ago
  Just bite the bullet and use Tree Style Tabs or Sideberry. I didn't, for decades, but it was a mistake.
  - batiudrami 1y ago
    Firefox now has vertical tabs built in. Not as feature filled of course though tab groups and vertical tabs together replaces all the functionality I needed from Tree Style Tabs.
- XorNot 1y ago
  The average user does not notice any of these things. Except the YouTube thing but that's because I'm not even sure what you're talking about: I leave YouTube windows open in Firefox for weeks.
  - fud101 1y ago
    Bro you probably have a monster mac pro with 256gb unified ram. I'm typing this on a N100 minipc. We're not the same. I just tried to switch to firefox (with 3 tabs including HN and youtube) and my load topped out at 2.5. I'm back to chrome now with the same tabs (and a couple more) and it's hovering at 1.
    - ndriscoll 1y ago
      I've been using an n100 as my daily driver for months with librewolf and it's fine. I tend to end up with dozens of tabs at least before I finally decide I'll never sort through them and close the window.

const_cast 1y ago

I agree, there's little to no friction in switching to Firefox and I have never, not even once, noticed a difference with websites. The same is not true for Safari.

maest 1y ago
There are definitely website that do not support Firefox, especially in the US. Whole portions of the Verizon website, for example. Or the website of a well known kindergarden I was researching recently.
- const_cast 1y ago
  I'm sure they exist, I've just never seen them. I use banking and websites like Netflix, too. And, if I had to wager, you could bypass a lot of this "doesn't work on Firefox" by just changing your user agent. I think it's a case of yes, it does work, but web developers don't think so, so they implement checks just for kicks.
  - sensanaty 1y ago
    > And, if I had to wager, you could bypass a lot of this "doesn't work on Firefox" by just changing your user agent. Indeed, even in the codebase at $JOB that I'm responsible for, we have had some instances where we randomly check if people are in Chrome before blocking a browser API that has existed for 2 decades and been baseline widely available. These days 99% of features that users actually care about are pretty widely supported cross-browser, and other than developer laziness there's literally no reason why something like a banking app shouldn't work in any of the big 3. I guarantee you that if you set your `userAgent` to a Chrome one (or even better yet, a completely generic one that covers all browsers simultaneously, cause most of the time the implementation of these `isChrome` flags is just a dead simple regex that looks for the string `chrome` anywhere in the userAgent), all problems you might've experienced before would vanish, except for perhaps on Google's own websites (though I've never really had issues here other than missing things like those image blur filters in Google Meet, which always felt like a completely artificial, anti-competitive limitation)
    - glandium 1y ago
      Where did "check feature, not browser name" go?
      - thayne 1y ago
        Some developers are lazy. Some probably don't know that that is the right way to do it. There is a lot of legacy code from when checking user agents was more acceptable. It is much more difficult for server code to know the capabilities of the client (although in practice this isn't usually much of an issue). Also, sometimes the feature exists so the feature check is positive, but there is a bug in one browser that breaks your functionality, so you put in a user agent check. Then the bug gets fixed, but the user agent check isn't removed for years. I've seen that happen many times.
- bloaf 1y ago
  There are definitely sites which block firefox, even though they work fine in firefox. Most of the time, the block can be bypassed with simple user-agent spoofing.
  - thayne 1y ago
    There are also a handful of sites I've run into that only work on cheomium based browsers because they rely on non-standard experimental APIs that are only implemented in chromium.
- devmor 1y ago
  What part of the Verizon website doesn’t work on Firefox? I am curious if it’s actually the browser or its the aggressive privacy options. > a well known kindergarden I am baffled by the choice to include this laughably obscure example alongside a major telecom. Surely there are better options less likely to be the fault of a random lazy web developer. Youtube, for example seems deliberately hampered on non-chrome browsers.
  - maest 1y ago
    For Verizon, it's one of their log in forms that doesn't work on Firefox, even with ublock disabled. Works just fine with Chrome. I was able to reproduce the behaviour on both my and my wife's laptop. (I haven't tried disabling the FF privacy features) > I am baffled by the choice... Rereading what I wrote, I see the unintended humour in my association. That being said: 1. These are both websites where I don't have much of a choice whether I use them or not 2. I actually expected Verizon to have a terrible website based on the sum of my interactions with them (both online and over the phone) and how uncompetitive the market is. But I was surprised the kindergarden had a needlessly restrictive website because I thought they'd care more about their online presence. And, to be clear, the kindergarden's website is fancy and expensively designed, so their lack of Firefox support can't easily explained by laziness.
jasonfarnon 1y ago
I get serious slowdown with multiple (3--5) youtube tabs open in firefox, but not chrome. Seems to happen when tabs are open for a long time (weeks), so probably some leak. Lots of others mention it on forums.
- thayne 1y ago
  Google has a history of sabatoging Youtube on Firefox. See for example https://www.tomshardware.com/news/youtube-responds-to-delayed-loading-in-rival-browser-complaints https://www.tomshardware.com/news/youtube-responds-to-delaye.... It isn't unique to youtube either. Gmail offline mode only works on chrome, even though other browsers have the necessary APIs. And menu copy and paste in google docs uses a special chrome-only extension that google pre-installs in chrome, instead of the clipboard API that works in other browsers as well.

jeffbee 1y ago

The stuff INSIDE the viewport is pretty much the same across them all, but on the daily it makes a big difference how your other services integrate with the browser. Someone who is all-in with iCloud, macOS, iOS etc might find it annoying to use Firefox without their personal info like password and credit cards and bookmarks. And the same would be true I guess for Google fans switching to Safari and not having those things.

stevage 1y ago

Me too. On mac, FF and chrome basically look and feel identical. Only devtools are quite different.

xboxnolifes 1y ago

Firefox has multiple, user-affecting, memory leaks related to Youtube (unconfirmed if just youtube), going back at least 7 years. Tab scrollbar as no option to be disabled, so I had to write CSS to get tabs into a form close to what I would like similar to chrome. Tab mute icon has no (working) option to disable the click event, so I had to write CSS to remove it. I made some other changes, but I forget what. At least FF still has the full uBlock Origin.

oblio 1y ago
Just bite the bullet and use Tree Style Tabs or Sideberry. I didn't, for decades, but it was a mistake.
- batiudrami 1y ago
  Firefox now has vertical tabs built in. Not as feature filled of course though tab groups and vertical tabs together replaces all the functionality I needed from Tree Style Tabs.
XorNot 1y ago
The average user does not notice any of these things. Except the YouTube thing but that's because I'm not even sure what you're talking about: I leave YouTube windows open in Firefox for weeks.
- fud101 1y ago
  Bro you probably have a monster mac pro with 256gb unified ram. I'm typing this on a N100 minipc. We're not the same. I just tried to switch to firefox (with 3 tabs including HN and youtube) and my load topped out at 2.5. I'm back to chrome now with the same tabs (and a couple more) and it's hovering at 1.
  - ndriscoll 1y ago
    I've been using an n100 as my daily driver for months with librewolf and it's fine. I tend to end up with dozens of tabs at least before I finally decide I'll never sort through them and close the window.