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Ask HN: Any Decent Firefox Alternatives?

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Re: Ask HN: Any Decent Firefox Alternatives?

#31
It looks like you'll have to find a browser that is based on WebKit or Blink and has a JavaScript engine comparable to V8 or Nitro.

Plugging this into something like https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_web_browsers#WebKit-ba... yields a number of options depending on your OS like SRWare Iron or Otter Browser.

Re: Ask HN: Any Decent Firefox Alternatives?

#32
post #25

FWIW I use google meet with Firefox all the time with no issues. The only annoying thing is that it won’t let you blur the background. (They allowed this feature on FF for one glorious week but then took it away) Even my coworkers who use chrome prefer zoom though, so we’ve been switching more and more meetings to zoom.

I have a specific use case where I'm communicating with a person from across the world weekly.

Tried Zoom but eventually moved to Google Meet because it worked better. It could be WAY better but meh. And the difference between Meet on Firefox & Google Chrome is significant.

All this considering I'm running on a gigabit network. Not 100% sure about the partner.

Re: Ask HN: Any Decent Firefox Alternatives?

#33

Regarding point 2, I always let them know (if I care enough). If I don't care, I don't visit their site - if they haven't bothered to make sure it works with FF, there are likely to have other problems.

I had problems like this with websites I must use. Like various state services websites, school, etc.

It's not the only problem, but I have to use the sites :)

Re: Ask HN: Any Decent Firefox Alternatives?

#34
post #17

There's none, to be quite honest. Chrome is spyware, Edge is spyware, Brave has too many crypto sponsor for my liking, Firefox is going off a cliff, Vivaldi is the definition of bloat. The web browser ecosystem is frankly appalling, and it's so complicated it's impossible for new competitors to appear and improve the status quo. We just have to put up with it, and I am furious Mozilla, one of the shining beacons on t…

To my knowledge the crypto rewards feature on Brave is opt-in. How is that an argument against Brave?

Re: Ask HN: Any Decent Firefox Alternatives?

#35
So use Firefox where it works, and Chrome where Firefox doesn't work for you. There's a little Firefox extension called "Open with..." which makes it really quick and easy to open a tab or link with another browser.

If the problem is that you don't have enough memory to comfortably use two browsers at once, then... well, then that's your real problem. Get more more RAM.

As for Firefox, although I haven't always been happy with the changes Mozilla has forced on their users, overall it's still the best browser out there, and when it comes to giving you the tools to preserve your privacy specifically it's worlds ahead of the alternatives... although it does take some awareness and effort on part of the user but that's unavoidable nowadays.

Re: Ask HN: Any Decent Firefox Alternatives?

#36
I switched from Firefox to Vivaldi. Yes, Vivaldi. There are some folks here complaining it has a lot of bloat and while that's true, I don't care. I like it. Why?

* Based on Chrome. Unfortunately there's a lot of truth to the statement that "Chrome is the new IE", from the standpoint that modern sites are optimized (and tested) to run on Chrome.

* The sidebar. Downloads, bookmarks, etc. are quickly available in a simple pull-out.

* Speed Dial. Sounded corny when I first installed Vivaldi, now I love it. YMMV.

* Tab Stacking. If you're like me and have lots of tabs open, this is a great feature.

* Notes. Tracking notes on a page is an awesome feature!

People say Vivaldi is slow, but I haven't noticed it being slow to render sites - it's slow to launch. How often do you launch your browser though? At least for me the browser is one of the few always-running programs I run. There is a performance issue I've noticed in making YT videos run full-screen - there's a very noticeable lag especially if you have several tabs open. So far that hasn't been enough to outweigh the positives.

Re: Ask HN: Any Decent Firefox Alternatives?

#37

Disclaimer: I have not yet tried this browser, so I am not sure if it will meet your performance needs. I think it is worth looking at though, since it is fully open source and community driven. Falcon GPLv3 URL: https://www.falkon.org/ source: https://invent.kde.org/network/falkon

Looks awesome but the fact that updates are 1 year apart is a bit of a turn off lol.

Perhaps all that is needed to pick up the momentum is a spark of interest.

Re: Ask HN: Any Decent Firefox Alternatives?

#38

1. Use Firefox 2. Use Edge for Meet or any other situation where Firefox fails.

This is what I do. It seems to work ok.

Google Meet perf really is terrible though. Makes me wonder if the entire idea of in-browser video is misbegotten.

Slowly but surely, I've noticed my general exasperation with browser apps growing in the last few years. Between getting into mobile development, better sandboxing, easy app store-based distribution, much better isolation between apps, and learning C++ (from working in robotics) it feels it's time to get back to writing high-performance native code that doesn't involve the ridiculous tradeoffs the modern browser requires (latency, memory use, etc). I think this might be a trend we see more of in the next decade.

Re: Ask HN: Any Decent Firefox Alternatives?

#39
I just downloaded Edge based on some replies in here (though Safari is my daily driver, Firefox is my dev browser, Brave is my usual video conferencing browser but is pretty terrible at it) and boy does it take a long time to turn off all the crapware that comes with it. And even when you do, it comes back ten minutes later. I'm super impressed that Microsoft have managed to faithfully recreate the Windows experience for Mac users who might be tempted to switch!

Re: Ask HN: Any Decent Firefox Alternatives?

#40
I use Brave on both the Mac and on Android. The issues I see below relate mainly to their crypto sponsorships, and I don't care for that either, but it's pretty voluntary, isn't it?

The only issue I've seen that some sites can detect that they're an ad blocker and complain or refuse to work.

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