Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

mobile.nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

361–370 of 753 posts

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#361

Post by gwenzek »

grundymonday wrote: post #153

I switched to Vivaldi a year or two ago after using Firefox as my main browser for the longest time. I've considered switching back, but every time I run up against several features in Vivaldi that I am just not ready to part with yet: 1) tab stacks, 2) the ability to save and reopen an entire session, 3) a page load progress indicator in the URL bar, 4) using Ctrl-F highlights the position of all matching locations…

1) sounds like you should try Tree Style Tabs addon 5) FF has this too. I'm not exactly sure but I think it's under "history" > "recently closed windows/tabs"

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#362

Post by isolli »

enriquto wrote: post #348
isolli wrote: post #344

I have always used Firefox, ever since they implemented tabbed browsing (an incredible improvement, for those who don't remember the time before that). However, in recent times I have had to switch more and more apps to Chrome because the UI breaks in Firefox: intercom.io, trello.com, notion.so. Probably no fault of Firefox, but if a UI is broken there is no choice but to migrate.

> if a UI is broken there is no choice but to migrate. you also have the choice of not using the broken website

In general you would be right, but this is at work.

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#363

Post by zaarn »

From other comments it seems FF is having some perf problems on MacOs.

I'll weigh in with Linux + Windows experience: FF is currently the best browser. It pulls a bit more CPU but it also trumps with very good privacy options out of the box and in about:config (first party isolation, which I've been using as daily driver for a few months now)

Containers allow me to isolate aspects of myself and contain tracking or otherwise unwanted websites in their own little world.

The only item on my wishlist is to make multi-window tab handling better, I think Chrome still wins that on the UI/UX front (since FF sometimes feels like it's about to crash when I drag a tab out of the window)

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#364

Post by chme »

fencepost wrote: post #85

I haven't seen anyone mention this, but Firefox is my "daily driver" for almost all browsing, and is also locked down with uMatrix, uBlock Origin, DecentralEyes and Ghostery (though I could probably drop Ghostery without missing it). Chrome has uBlock Origin and a few other things but interferes with pages less. I keep a set of pages for some specific web apps (e.g. GMail, Google Calendar, task management, etc.) open…

I really love addons like 'Dark Background and Light Text', but they don't work with the 'New Tab', 'about:*' and addons.mozilla.org pages like most other addons in recent Firefox.

For the 'New Tab' page I now use 'New Tab Tools' to set the background to black. But I am still unhappy that its not possible to set all other pages to a dark theme.

Also that Vimium doesn't work with those pages is a shame as well. I hope Mozilla fixes that regression soon. Web Extensions should have the same abilities as the XUL extensions.

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#365

Post by a_imho »

Y_Y wrote: post #345
a_imho wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FWIW the major factor driving user experience is content blocking. It is good to know the subtle diffrences, but any browser that ships with content blocking enabled by defult smashes the browser with the fastest rendering speed when it comes to actual browsing. Moz://a could easily ship the best browser on the market if they actually cared about the users, instead of taking Google money and pretending to be a compet…

If they stopped taking the Google money it would be much harder to pay developers. I think this would be worse overall for the users, and I bet Mozilla thinks the same.

Disagree, there are many ways to financial stability besides taking money from a direct competitor. Are they that cash strapped?

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#366

Post by teekert »

dmortin wrote: post #296
teekert wrote: post #295

I never left Firefox, but I was able to completely drop all other browsers when they introduced containers. All the tracking stuff can only see each others cookies whereas my default session only logs me into my own services and some that I trust. I love it. I use Privacy Badger (doesn't block non-tracking ads by default) and sometimes uBlock origin but I unblock sites I like with an ad policy that shows some thought…

What about browser fingerprinting? If you use the same browser then they know it's you from the same fingerprint, so they can still track you if they want.

Hmm, yes good point. Still waiting for the browser-finger-print-obfuscation plugin ;)

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#367

Post by arendtio »

digitalpacman wrote: post #339

It doesn't have built-in websocket support so it can F off. Build better dev tools and feel bad. Even the plugin that used to be usable isn't supported on the new FF.

Yes, the FF Dev-Tools need some love. They have some cool features which are unavailable in Chrome (e.g. the CSS Grid view), but overall they tend to be less accessible (managing (wifi/usb) connected devices and service workers should be much easier and more reliable).

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#368

Post by ar0 »

vntok wrote: post #320
exodust wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's simply an incorrect statement. Firefox did not become irrelevant. I'm not sure where the author is coming from with his remarks, but obviously he lived in a Google Chrome bubble for a long time.

Have a look at the trends[0] and tell me it does not show a descent to darkness. 1. Firefox was at ~30% market share at its apex (it's now half that) 2. It got surpassed by a newcomer with no previous experience in browser making in less than 3 years 3. And the newcomer was so much better at technical stuff and marketing that it not only kept superseding Firefox but it kept growing uninterrupted ever since 3. Meanwhi…

While the trend is correct, I would argue that the original authors statement that this is due to Chrome having been "a faster, more secure and versatile browser" is omitting the elephant in the room:

The main reason for Firefox's (and IE's) decline IMHO is the pink line "Mobile vs Desktop" in the chart you linked to. People won't bother installing a different browser if the one that comes with the device they use is halfway decent (on iOS, they don't even have a choice). And so as more and more browsing comes from smartphones and tablets, more and more people will use Chrome (Android) or Safari (iOS).

Unfortunately, this is quite a depressing finding for Firefox, because it means that all technical enhancements will not be able to move the needle much. (The rise of Firefox on the desktop was arguably helped by the EU requiring Microsoft to implement the browser choice window in Windows; unless something like this comes along for the dominant mobile platform(s) it will be an uphill struggle.)

Edit: And the move to mobile might even affect desktop browser usage because of things like link- and password-syncing. If you use Chrome on mobile, you might want to also install Chrome on your PC to be able to sync your settings across.

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#369

Post by vladimir-y »

I was a Firefox user long time ago, but then switched to Chrome since Firefox was freezing as hell. But just recently I switched back to Firefox Quantum and have been happy so far. No freezing anymore, open source, all the needed features. So totally agree, Firefox is back.

Re: Firefox is back. It's time to give it a try

#370

Post by chme »

susam wrote: post #76

Firefox was never away, at least for me. Therefore the expression "Firefox is back" sounds a little odd to me. I have been using it since 2006 (Firefox 2.0). Back then, the presence of the Firebug extension for Firefox made me switch to Firefox as my primary browser. Two years later, Chrome arrived but Firefox remained as my primary browser because I wanted to continue using the Vimperator extension for Firefox that…

The same for me, but with the recent Firefox they broke the old addons and the current ones cannot do the same.

I hope they fix that regression.

Post reply on HN