I really want to use Safari, but for me the deal breaker is the fact that Safari doesn't seem to block pop-ups properly. Yes, they've changed it in the latest version. I have Block and Notify option selected in Privacy tab. But many popups still go through -- sometimes they open in a new tab, sometimes in a new window. Is there a way to fix that? Also, is there a Tree Style Tab alternative for Safari?
To be fair, FF shot themselves in the foot. They didn't keep pace with Chrome. I use FF and think it is better NOW, but that wasn't always the case. I think that's where they lost their market share. I'm glad they put the work into Quantum. But it is going to be hard to regain that market share.
The classic problem of being first to market in software, is that your competition can learn from your design and move forward with a fresh code. Firefox is still trying to shed off code from a decade ago. The history of browsers is littered with legacy code being defeated by new code.
The rust rewrites are ripping out loads of old code.
Been really enjoying Firefox, especially after Quantum. More devs should support and use it, lest we be beholden to Chrome for the rest of time.
I would love to use Firefox more for dev, but until it has a first class way to disable CORS, I can't. "CORS Everywhere" is not sufficient (it alters responses, but does not actually disable CORS, which doesn't cover all needs). Chrome I can at least disable CORS via the command line, and Safari does it best by putting it in a Developer menu that I can easily toggle. Firefox's dev tools also seem to still be behind —…
This is one of my gotchas (and I prefer to do so from the commandline). I also need a good extension manager and a session/tab manager. The extension manager makes it easy to disable extensions that are only used occasionally. The session manage makes it easier for me to keep tab count down.
I have found a few session manager options on Firefox but most suffer from permission bloat and poor UI.
Last I checked, there was nothing to make it easier to manage add-ons.
I'd like to use Firefox. I've tried it out several times the last year. It's okay. Unfortunately, I always end up going back to Safari. Despite the performance improvements, Safari still feels like a faster, smoother browser. Firefox is still pretty ugly, too. On macOS, it feels chunkier and less natively integrated. Safari's "omnibar" is superior to Firefox's. Safari actually suggests web sites, which I use all the…
We all have wants, but I can't blame FF for not pursuing them if the numbers in the link can be believed. Safari has a much smaller adoption rate than even FF, so it could be argued FF are doing more things right. On a link about desktop browser adoption, I don't see the value of complaining about FF issues compared to a lesser adopted browser or comparing to a mobile browser on an OS that doesn't allow real browser…
Not sure it’s the way to go if you want to make Firefox better. The concerns about OP matches my experience coming from Chrome.
netmarketshare collect data from their slim clientele base. A few years they had to modify their data using weighting to get inline with other websites. Other sites have more accurate data which will reflect browser usage more accurately. I recommend using wikimedia's data. It's one of the biggest sites that open up their usage to the public:
I would love to use Firefox more for dev, but until it has a first class way to disable CORS, I can't. "CORS Everywhere" is not sufficient (it alters responses, but does not actually disable CORS, which doesn't cover all needs). Chrome I can at least disable CORS via the command line, and Safari does it best by putting it in a Developer menu that I can easily toggle. Firefox's dev tools also seem to still be behind —…
Curious what use cases you have for disabling CORS? Is it for 3rd party domains and APIs or response that you control? Either way, controlling it in browser doesn't sound like the right way.
For testing a client side app in development locally against a remote API, disabling cors is really handy.
I have localhost.com in my hosts file and a local web server to run around it, but it's still really frustrating not being able to turn it off entirely.
I'd kinda agree. As described in Zero to One, to convince shift users to adopt, you need a product that is an order of magnitude superior to the incumbent. Incremental changes or parity mostly won't cut it. A browser would have to be radically innovative or better to gain share which is difficult considering the services Google has hooked into it.
Mozilla did this (below) once, about 15 years ago when knocking IE from it's 95+% 2004 marketshare, they need to find a way to do it again: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” - R. Buckminster Fuller
It was quite a bit different then. IE was in the "first mover" batch. Chrome is the "last mover". It was easy to knock out the first mover as things had stalled yet there was still lots of innovation to be done. But browsers have since commoditized, and the door for differentiation has closed. Especially as browsers inherently need to match each other through web standards. I don't see a way for 2D browsers to rise up against Chrome. Firefox, after hundreds of millions of dollars over the last several years, hasn't made radical changes.
Personally, I'm chasing VR and AR to be the new wave of the Web, where browsing experience will be heavily differentiated.
I switched to desktop with Quantum and love it. But the huge win for me was switching to Firefox Mobile on my iPhone. It may just be a wrapper for WebKit. But it integrates with Firefox Sync. The killer feature is "send this tab to your iPhone". Great when you're looking at a recipe / restaurant address / funny picture on your computer and want to have it on your phone.
> The killer feature is "send this tab to your iPhone".
You can do the same in Safari with AirDrop and Handoff.
If you enable iCloud for Safari, you can see all your Safari tabs from other devices.
Dropping support for legacy extensions absolutely gutted what made Firefox different from every other browser. I'll use Firefox 56 and NoScript until the end of time before I use a browser with tabs above the address bar.
Having the tabs at the top is much better because of Fitts's law [0], essentially making their size infinite in one direction and therefore much easier to reach with a quick flick of the mouse.
Although it is possible to move the tab bar using user CSS [1].
You're also missing out on a much faster browsing experience with the newer versions. In the older version I remember the scrolling lagged when I opened a new tab in the background, that hasn't happened in a while.
I would love to use Firefox more for dev, but until it has a first class way to disable CORS, I can't. "CORS Everywhere" is not sufficient (it alters responses, but does not actually disable CORS, which doesn't cover all needs). Chrome I can at least disable CORS via the command line, and Safari does it best by putting it in a Developer menu that I can easily toggle. Firefox's dev tools also seem to still be behind —…
I love using Firefox as my daily driver, and I can always pop open chrome if I really have to. What kind of life do you lead where your browser needs to have CORS constantly disabled?
This can be helpful in development scenarios. I’m supporting a team that uses localstack to support local development against some AWS services. Unfortunately, the CORS settings for localstack break the development environment. With Chrome allowing them to disable from the command-line, I can provide a shortcut to launch with degraded security, no plugins, no user settings, etc. My only wish is that Chrome would make it more obvious that it’s running with these protections disabled.