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It’s time to give Firefox a fresh chance

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Re: It’s time to give Firefox a fresh chance

#51

Post by torstenvl »

klez wrote: post #28
torstenvl wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the work on Quantum cannot be understated" I agree 100%, which is why I am not switching back.

Why? What's wrong with Quantum?

On Mac at least, basic UI like hover highlighting is extremely slow. Obviously everyone's environment, use case, and experiences are different. For me, personally, Quantum is not even in the same league as Chrome or Safari.

(Also, for me, personally, I think downvoting people who have differing experiences is less than productive.)

Re: It’s time to give Firefox a fresh chance

#52

Post by uiri »

_V_ wrote: post #41

The thing with the FF was it did not support U2F tokens in Linux correctly when I tried it few months ago. U2F requires some "U2F addon" that is incompatible with Quantum. This is a no-go for me as I have numerous websites secured with Yubikey and without this the browser is just "YT/Facebook viewer"... As soon as this changes, I might give it another chance. ---- EDIT: Oh, FFS I just tried to look it up again and fo…

I think it is disabled by default because it doesn't work with the U2F sites that aren't standards compliant (e.g. Google, Facebook). It's one thing if you have to go in and enable the feature and find out it doesn't work everywhere, it is something else entirely to have the feature "randomly" working on some sites but not others.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox a fresh chance

#53

Post by lwhsiao »

_V_ wrote: post #41

The thing with the FF was it did not support U2F tokens in Linux correctly when I tried it few months ago. U2F requires some "U2F addon" that is incompatible with Quantum. This is a no-go for me as I have numerous websites secured with Yubikey and without this the browser is just "YT/Facebook viewer"... As soon as this changes, I might give it another chance. ---- EDIT: Oh, FFS I just tried to look it up again and fo…

Thanks for the follow-up, when I was using Firefox a few months ago this was a pain point as well. I'll need to go try it out again.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox a fresh chance

#54

Post by briandear »

ghostly_s wrote: post #39
mmsimanga wrote: post #20

I have been using Firefox since it was called Firebird. Off late one of the reasons, adoption isn't climbing is because Firefox is not included as one of the supported let alone allowed pieces of software in corporate companies. At my last company, security guys went as far as to classify Firefox a risk. They instructed Desktop Support to remotely uninstall Firefox off users machines. Most people I support would rath…

Sounds like you just worked with some incompetent IT departments. IE is still the only widely 'supported' browser in enterprise, but most places I've worked have allowed alternative browsers (any of them), even when they have not been willing to support their internal platforms on them. I can think of no rational basis to decide Chrome is supported but not Firefox.

To be fair though, the most valuable company in the world works on Safari. Salesforce is a pretty massive enterprise and IE isn’t the browser they use. Facebook employees don’t use IE.

I wouldn’t say “IE is the only widely supported browser in the enterprise.” Has just gave you theee examples of major enterprises that specifically don’t use IE.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox a fresh chance

#55

Post by neogodless »

I know I'm a lazy, spoiled brat, but can anyone describe their Android + Desktop experience in regards to password managers?

I use Chrome + LastPass, which has icons on desktop and autofill prompts on mobile. It's easy and integrated. The last thing I want to do is have to switch between apps, copy and paste each time I log into a web site.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox a fresh chance

#56

Post by giancarlostoro »

I never gave up on Firefox. I always knew Google Chrome was sending back telemetry data or whatever and never looked back. Also with how many sites are "only working in Chrome" these days I still hold the claim that Chrome is working itself to being the next IE in terms of breaking the web for people using other browsers. I still hold respect for Chrome in other areas though.

Firefox was always complained about but honestly I never noticed any differences that mattered especially with how ad encrusted the web has become these days. In fact I could never enjoy Chrome the same way I enjoy Firefox it just behaves and feels the way I've grown to know and enjoy.

We have a major issue with websites poorly supporting mobile browsers and websites being cross-browser friendly overall. The web still feels a little immature in these respects.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox a fresh chance

#57

Post by bad_user »

zeta0134 wrote: post #9

I switched to Firefox as my primary browser a couple of months ago, and have been happy enough that I haven't looked back. It is significantly more smooth and performant than it was; the work on Quantum cannot be understated, and the minor fiasco with their extensions ecosystem, though painful, I feel was the right move. With that said, a few anecdotes keep jumping out at me: - Pocket integration. Dive into about:con…

I use Pocket and I like it. I don't consider it a blunder, because it addresses a problem I have and because Pocket is now owned by Mozilla, an organization that I trust. The Pocket mobile apps are also really good and polished.

I'm actually a paid customer of Pocket Premium ever since it got acquired by Mozilla.

I hope they'll open source the implementation and fix their interface — I don't like that their search doesn't have an URL that I can use as a search provider.

Also Pocket's Firefox integration is actually less invasive than Chrome's extension, which I don't appreciate. I like for example having an "add to Pocket" link on HN items or in Twitter. And the Chrome extension also gives you a homepage with trending articles on Pocket. So I don't like Pocket's Firefox integration, but not for the same reason. I don't like it because it is less capable than Chrome's.

--

I also have Chrome installed and try it out from time to time. But Firefox's UI is much better and I haven't had any performance issues with it, quite the contrary, for my usage patterns Firefox feels better.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox a fresh chance

#59

Post by csdreamer7 »

I have been using FF as my main browser for years. While most of the world moved to Chrome-I stuck around because Chrome's bookmark sync would rearrange every bookmark in a bookmark folder. This was years ago, but then I started getting concerned about Google's tracking and have stuck with FF since. (I gave Chrome a chance years later-same exact issue.)

During this time I kept running into reasons to keep FF besides the bookmarks:

- I have noticed Chrome isn't as speedy and responsive as it used to be.

- I found plugins that suspended unused tabs so I can have 40 open with minimum issue pre-FF Quantum and keeps memory usage down.

- There are other plugins that I couldn't find in Chrome's store, such as the SQLite browser. (Now I use DB Browser from the Arch repos.)

- Chrome's memory usage shot up over the years. It always used a lot of memory with all those processes to sandbox the tabs, but FF kept getting more features without so much bloating.

- I have seen a few sites that FF does not like, but I have also seen different sites that's didn't play well with Chrome too.

- Google's business is in ads and tracking-how long until they ban ublock origins?

However FF still has issues that were never solved or crept up:

- Website PDF printing on Linux is terrible-the websites look mangled while Chrome can take the same sites and print out a decent PDF copy.

- Chrome is usually first to have features that could be the future of the web. Subtitles for HTML5 video-webvtt. WebAssembly, I had to use Chrome to use FF's own webassembly tools because I didn't use Nightly.

- Chrome's PDF reader works better than FF's open source JS one.

- Pocket... back when it first announced I wondered why...? an organization committed to open source and open standards used a closed source service backend and if I remember at the time, a proprietary connection. It was the first time I considered going back to Chrome. I have an instapaper JS booklet that will save any page I am on to instapaper; does the same thing without an annoying little icon in my toolbar.

- Mr Robot... why......? This is the Orwellian worry I had that Google would do with Chrome. Never affected me, but did piss me off.

The Pocket and the Mr Robot were real issues to me that made me consider finding another alternative.

Re: It’s time to give Firefox a fresh chance

#60

Post by dawnerd »

andy-wu wrote: post #42

I tried Firefox on OS X but it maxes my CPU frequently, doing simple tasks like scrolling or loading small gifs on Reddit, slowing my system down significantly. I noticed my fans spinning much more frequently than Chrome. It appears to be linked to using scaled resolutions [0]. Until this is fixed, Chrome is significantly faster for me, which is disappointing because I like everything else about FF. [0] https://bugzi…

Same experience here. Typing performance was pretty poor.
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