I have been wanting to switch to FF for a lot of time, but insufficient performance used to hold me back. With FF 57 there are no excuses anymore, it's fantastic!
Ask HN: Who's switched from Chrome to Firefox 57?
111–120 of 203 posts
Re: Ask HN: Who's switched from Chrome to Firefox 57?
#112Switched yesterday, so far loving it! My objection to Chrome was mostly on principle (anti-Google), so it's nice that there's a performance-based reason to switch to Firefox as well. Though I just ran into a problem that reminded me of why I stopped using Firefox in the first place: I used xdg-open a lot (in Emacs), and Firefox tries to supplant that whole functionality. It advertises itself as being able to open pre…
It's better than it used to -- until a couple of years ago, Firefox altogether had its own awful version of xdg-open; had all the logic to detect file associations, select apps etc. In any event, you can edit ~/.config/mimeapps.list to fix it up. Hope that helps.
I believe it's better!
But it is still trying to handle application/octet-stream. Ie, it must have registered itself as a default fallback somewhere, and I can't find where...
Re: Ask HN: Who's switched from Chrome to Firefox 57?
#113I never stopped using FF. I'm holding off on upgrading until I find a replacement for TabMixPlus. I need something that will ensure: 1. middle-click to open links in new tabs. 2. address bar, search bar, and bookmarks open in a new tab by default.
Your #1 is already the case by default. Mid-clicking bookmarks and items in the URL/search bar should also just work to open in new tab.
If you're talking about entering an url and having it open in a new tab, that I don't know.
Still looking for scroll wheel to switch tabs though... :|
Re: Ask HN: Who's switched from Chrome to Firefox 57?
#114Re: Ask HN: Who's switched from Chrome to Firefox 57?
#115Me! I have been running nightly for the past couple of months and it is really good. I use uBlock, Res, Ghostery and Imagus. I use Compact and Dark UI mode and it seems more compact than chrome. Also I noticed it consumes a lot less memory, but CPU is 50/50 I'd say. One thing that I find a bit weird is that I find that some Google services work worse, like YouTube eats more CPU than on chrome when it is not maximized…
YouTube defaults to serving WebM on Firefox, but on a Mac there is no hardware support for video decoding WebMs like there is for h.264. BUT there is an awesome plugin called h264ify that will force YouTube to use the h.264 codec. I've been running it a while and it stops my fan from kicking on when visiting YouTube.
Re: Ask HN: Who's switched from Chrome to Firefox 57?
#116Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's better than it used to -- until a couple of years ago, Firefox altogether had its own awful version of xdg-open; had all the logic to detect file associations, select apps etc. In any event, you can edit ~/.config/mimeapps.list to fix it up. Hope that helps.
I believe it's better! But it is still trying to handle application/octet-stream. Ie, it must have registered itself as a default fallback somewhere, and I can't find where...
Your DE may be at fault as some of them try to do "smart" defaults. xdg-open itself may also be at fault (it's an atrociously bad shell script -- you can take a look at it if you want to debug it).
Re: Ask HN: Who's switched from Chrome to Firefox 57?
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah, got it. I use Nightly; there's a Container Tabs > Settings page in Preferences. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!
Or go ahead and install https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account... Makes it simpler and more accessible.
Wow, thanks for the link. That makes things a lot better; the accessibility features are great.
Re: Ask HN: Who's switched from Chrome to Firefox 57?
#118- It feels a lot faster than Chrome
- It uses less memory (especially with many tabs open)
- multi-account containers are a game changer
- I think it also looks better than Chrome
Re: Ask HN: Who's switched from Chrome to Firefox 57?
#119I never stopped using FF. I'm holding off on upgrading until I find a replacement for TabMixPlus. I need something that will ensure: 1. middle-click to open links in new tabs. 2. address bar, search bar, and bookmarks open in a new tab by default.
Your #1 is already the case by default. Mid-clicking bookmarks and items in the URL/search bar should also just work to open in new tab. If you're talking about entering an url and having it open in a new tab, that I don't know. Still looking for scroll wheel to switch tabs though... :|
yeah, i want whacking the enter key to basically be guaranteed to give me a new tab.
Re: Ask HN: Who's switched from Chrome to Firefox 57?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
Chrome has this as a first-class feature, "People." I have one window open for personal, and another for each of the AWS accounts I have access to. Sounds from your description like FF can do this at the tab level?
Yea, firefox has profiles as well. Containers are different and apply your browsing context based on the tab. Super useful, you can also configure sites to open in a certain container. I do wish I could just pin an entire window to a container, but overall the flexibility is worth it. (I abhor having more than one window open per app at a time.)
I am unfamiliar with it, but the profile manager in FF does not seem to be on the same level as Chrome. In Chrome you can change the profile and reopen your previous tabs by clicking in the top right.
With FF, you have to quit FF and type in the terminal 'firefox -P'.
They are not at the same level.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-...
Containers are really bad at saving your workspace: tabs with a profile so I can just shut down work at the end of the day or on a weekend.