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Firefox somehow fell into the hole of feature-pack in an effort to save itself. Firefox instead desperately needs to focus on making it a high performance brow

Firefox somehow fell into the hole of feature-pack in an effort to save itself. Firefox instead desperately needs to focus on making it a high performance browser that people enjoy using for.....browsing. They can start with fixing the spell check, which is hilariously awful for 2008. And we are in 2025. Signed, a 20 year user.

rpgbr 11mo ago
I wish they rely more on OS features, like the built-in, system-wide spell check. I know it's a bigger task for them, since Firefox runs on multiple OSes, but maybe it's worth it. It dreads me how “un-macOS” Firefox feels, and I guess this feeling extends to Windows, Linux and elsewhere.
- wilsonnb3 11mo ago
  In Windows-land everything is so inconsistent that it doesn’t really stand out like it does on MacOS. 97% of Windows users wouldn’t notice if it followed OS conventions and the remaining 3% would complain that it was following the current conventions instead of copying Word 2003 :)
- paradox460 11mo ago
  Firefox has always felt rather bad on Mac. Ages ago they made Camino, which was basically "aqua Firefox" and it was nice.
- ethmarks 11mo ago
  Is it really that big of a task? More so than maintaining custom spellcheck dictionaries in every supported language? Even if they only implemented OS spellcheck compatibility on MacOS and Windows and just used the existing custom spellcheck on other OSes, that'd still be a huge improvement and they'd only have to do the work for two OSes rather than every OS that Firefox supports.
noisy_boy 11mo ago
They can add features that help with browsing. E.g. they can steal the workspaces idea from Vivaldi. Or the side by side split window idea which is great for comparisons. Or adding a light weight mode which is somewhere between full fledged and text reader modes. There are so many improvements that can make the browsing experience significantly better. I wish they picked at least some of these things instead of stuffing AI in yet another sidebar.
- AlienRobot 11mo ago
  They can steal Workspaces from Vivaldi. Or they can steal vertical tabs from Vivaldi. Or they can steal the built-in RSS client form Vivaldi. Or they can steal the ability to save sessions from Vivaldi. Or they can steal the built-in notes from Vivaldi. Or they can steal the tab stacking from Vivaldi. Or they can steal the profile switching from Vivaldi. Honest question. What could Vivaldi "steal" from Firefox?
  - rkomorn 11mo ago
    > Honest question. What could Vivaldi "steal" from Firefox? Not being so weirdly buggy on Windows. It's my main browser but man does it have odd behaviors that need restarts occasionally.
  - ethmarks 11mo ago
    > Or they can steal vertical tabs from Vivaldi. Firefox already has vertical tabs and they work great. > Or they can steal the profile switching from Vivaldi. I'm pretty sure that Firefox has profile switching in some capacity, although I don't personally use it and can't vouch for it. As for the rest of these, I agree completely. Firefox has too many wacky AI experiments and not enough normal browser features.
  - betamint 11mo ago
    Containers. Firefox has this ability to separate cookies etc into different partitions, and users can make use of this feature by opening tabs in different containers. Many times when I use profiles in other browsers what I really want is container tabs. That combined with sideberry makes Firefox the superior one when I was checking if Vivaldi was worth switching to.
tstrimple 11mo ago
> They can start with fixing the spell check Is there a spell check feature implemented anywhere that isn't garbage? I swear half the time the red squiggles are false positives. I have taken to copy and pasting words into search engines to find spelling corrections because spell checkers are so fucking unreliable.
array_key_first 11mo ago
Firefox IS a high performance browser that is nice to use. It has much more tab management features than chrome and the speed is indistinguishable! I think, obviously, that is not enough. I think we all know that, and are in various stages of denial. I think that fixing spell check is going to do jack fucking shit.

rpgbr 11mo ago

I wish they rely more on OS features, like the built-in, system-wide spell check. I know it's a bigger task for them, since Firefox runs on multiple OSes, but maybe it's worth it. It dreads me how “un-macOS” Firefox feels, and I guess this feeling extends to Windows, Linux and elsewhere.

wilsonnb3 11mo ago
In Windows-land everything is so inconsistent that it doesn’t really stand out like it does on MacOS. 97% of Windows users wouldn’t notice if it followed OS conventions and the remaining 3% would complain that it was following the current conventions instead of copying Word 2003 :)
paradox460 11mo ago
Firefox has always felt rather bad on Mac. Ages ago they made Camino, which was basically "aqua Firefox" and it was nice.
ethmarks 11mo ago
Is it really that big of a task? More so than maintaining custom spellcheck dictionaries in every supported language? Even if they only implemented OS spellcheck compatibility on MacOS and Windows and just used the existing custom spellcheck on other OSes, that'd still be a huge improvement and they'd only have to do the work for two OSes rather than every OS that Firefox supports.

noisy_boy 11mo ago

They can add features that help with browsing. E.g. they can steal the workspaces idea from Vivaldi. Or the side by side split window idea which is great for comparisons. Or adding a light weight mode which is somewhere between full fledged and text reader modes. There are so many improvements that can make the browsing experience significantly better. I wish they picked at least some of these things instead of stuffing AI in yet another sidebar.

AlienRobot 11mo ago
They can steal Workspaces from Vivaldi. Or they can steal vertical tabs from Vivaldi. Or they can steal the built-in RSS client form Vivaldi. Or they can steal the ability to save sessions from Vivaldi. Or they can steal the built-in notes from Vivaldi. Or they can steal the tab stacking from Vivaldi. Or they can steal the profile switching from Vivaldi. Honest question. What could Vivaldi "steal" from Firefox?
- rkomorn 11mo ago
  > Honest question. What could Vivaldi "steal" from Firefox? Not being so weirdly buggy on Windows. It's my main browser but man does it have odd behaviors that need restarts occasionally.
- ethmarks 11mo ago
  > Or they can steal vertical tabs from Vivaldi. Firefox already has vertical tabs and they work great. > Or they can steal the profile switching from Vivaldi. I'm pretty sure that Firefox has profile switching in some capacity, although I don't personally use it and can't vouch for it. As for the rest of these, I agree completely. Firefox has too many wacky AI experiments and not enough normal browser features.
- betamint 11mo ago
  Containers. Firefox has this ability to separate cookies etc into different partitions, and users can make use of this feature by opening tabs in different containers. Many times when I use profiles in other browsers what I really want is container tabs. That combined with sideberry makes Firefox the superior one when I was checking if Vivaldi was worth switching to.

tstrimple 11mo ago

> They can start with fixing the spell check Is there a spell check feature implemented anywhere that isn't garbage? I swear half the time the red squiggles are false positives. I have taken to copy and pasting words into search engines to find spelling corrections because spell checkers are so fucking unreliable.

array_key_first 11mo ago

Firefox IS a high performance browser that is nice to use. It has much more tab management features than chrome and the speed is indistinguishable! I think, obviously, that is not enough. I think we all know that, and are in various stages of denial. I think that fixing spell check is going to do jack fucking shit.