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Switch from Chrome to Firefox

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Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#301
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can’t you restore all the settings from a TimeMachine backup or similar? They’re just stored in files in the profile directory.

I upvoted you (because your suggestion is a good solution) but let’s be real, most people don’t have backups, even developers. In my experience as a developer companies don’t even issue me a USB backup drive to run time machine on my work issued MacBook Pro unless I specifically request it.

Really replying to @tlb here (reply depth is maxed), but what's the Time Machine equivalent for ? Most of the pre-rolled backup solutions I've used either have you point to a specific set of content folders (like Photos, Music, Videos, etc.), and do a terrible job at handling profile data, system files, and everything that's "in use" when using my box is handling some kind of state.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#302

I switched a couple of months ago because Chrome is just a bloated piece of garbage. One of my favorite features in Firefox is containers, which I used to have different users for in Chrome. Maybe Chrome has something similar now but it's one of the things I liked when I switched over. Haven't had any issues so far, glad I did

I love Firefox's containers, but AFAIK you can't sync your settings. Makes reinstalling a major pain.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#303
post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really wish that if Microsoft was going to abandon having their own engine that they'd gone to Mozilla instead.

No thanks. Keep Embrace, Extend, Extinguish away from my user agent.

Jeez not this trope(|tripe) again. It's boring and it's tedious. It's in the past. Under different management. Sure MS are no angels, but they seem to be doing far less harm these days than Google/Facebook et al.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#304
post #161

I don't understand why Mac users use Chrome. Safari seems to be out of fashion: people just assume that it should not be used for some reason, even though it is actually a great browser. I use Safari for both my own browsing and for development (a fairly large ClojureScript application), and it is by far the best browser on the platform by all measures (speed first and foremost). The only place where Safari falls sho…

How's the dev tools (aka whatever the equivalent of Chrome "dev tools" is)? As a web dev, the main reason I don't switch is I know how to use Chrome dev tools, and hate spending time I could be producing code instead learning new tools for something like this. But eventually I'll get myself to (prob to FF rather than safari, as long as I'm switching).

The dev tools in Safari are OK, usable and useful enough for the odd task. But there's no reason your everyday browser has to be your primary web dev environment too. I switch to Chrome when doing front-end web dev or hacking in WebGL playgrounds.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, nothing like 60 tabs you can't tell apart all squeezed into view.

Much like my physical desktop full of papers you can't see which is which just glancing from above, and my overall laptop desktop full of dozens of different windows... it's cluttered, but I know what's what enough to find it, usually! Sure, I could put all those papers on my desk into a drawer, or even file them, but who's got time for that? (Answer: those who are succesfully less cluttered than the cluttered among…

It takes less than 3 seconds to find a lost tab even with 300+ in Firefox. Ctrl+L, type in a keyword.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#306
While Firefox is pretty great, be under no illusion that it’s a utopia of openness. It’s plugins are signed and quite tightly controlled. They banned the controversial ‘Dissenter’ plug-in seemingly for political reasons, and recently had the expired certificate ‘oops’ that rendered all plugins unusable for a day or so (without fiddly workarounds)

They too could well bend to corporate pressures to limit ad-blocking, they already have the tech that could be used to block widespread use of ad blockers?

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#307
post #161

I don't understand why Mac users use Chrome. Safari seems to be out of fashion: people just assume that it should not be used for some reason, even though it is actually a great browser. I use Safari for both my own browsing and for development (a fairly large ClojureScript application), and it is by far the best browser on the platform by all measures (speed first and foremost). The only place where Safari falls sho…

I'd use Safari over Chrome, but Safari has a couple of show-stopping bugs:

1. Swiping back on the trackpad to navigate backwards freezes the page for a couple of seconds. It then redraws the page with any updated elements (perhaps a refresh?).

2. The element CSS attributes in the dev tools often fail to update the DOM, duplicate with every keystroke, or revert what you have typed.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#308
post #242
post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are forks such as ungoogled-chromium but why would you use them when you could just use Firefox?

Chrome’s security model is light-years beyond any other shipping browser. It’s almost not even a competition anymore.

Without denying or confirming that Chrome's security is better than any other browser, how often have you heard of someone with an up-to-date Firefox, Edge, Safari, Chrome, or some other major browser, being hacked this way? If you do an honest risk analysis, how big is the extra risk of using a less secure browser (assuming your statement is true)? And is a single 0day (which Chrome has just as well) enough to compromise your entire life, like, you would probably have defense in depth (running the browser in a VM, for example) if you're that worried in the first place?

For those who think I'm just jabbing and that a VM would be too unpactical: at work (we're a security firm) we have a fresh VM for each new project for compartmentalization. Our browser, tools, everything runs in there and nothing should ever reach the host --- unless, of course, you have a VM escape, but then you need two zero-days instead of one. For more sensitive projects, even more measures are taken, but that's rare: you have to draw the line somewhere.

Just saying "Chrome is the only secure option" is a little too short-sighted I think.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, nothing like 60 tabs you can't tell apart all squeezed into view.

Tree Style Tabs is a common Firefox add-on people use to manage large number of tabs. Or you can click on the down caret on the right side of the tabs bar to get the full list of your tabs.

I tried it out, but honestly it didn't help. Dealing with 300+ tabs at a time, it just made hierarchical resolution a total mess.

I don't need to know the physical location of my tab. That's what the address bar and Ctrl+Tab are for.

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