Switch from Chrome to Firefox • Hacker News Board

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#591

Post by jackewiehose » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:54 PM UTC

gonational wrote: post #555

Firefox banned Dissenter[1], a plug-in that did nothing nefarious - only enables browser users of the plug-in to chat / comment with each other about webpages. They did this for political reasons. Regardless of what kind of trash talk takes place on Dissenter, the point is that nobody is forced to use it. My point: neither Google nor Mozilla should be trusted and both seek to be your totalitarian Internet overlord. 1…

But it looks like they didn't "ban" it, they just don't want to host it on their store [1]. As long as they don't refuse to sign these "problematic" add-ons, this is fine (although it's worrying that they are able to do so because of this signing-required-crap).

[1]: https://reclaimthenet.org/firefox-rejects-free-speech-bans-f...

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#592

Post by actuator » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:55 PM UTC

jwr wrote: 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…

As others have said, Safari has vastly inferior dev tools. I am not a fan of the UI at all. Also, Safari generally lags other browsers in supporting features. They added beacon years after others, even Edge had support for it way before Safari.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#593

Post by WorldMaker » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:55 PM UTC

zamadatix wrote: post #565

WorldMaker wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least Microsoft managed to open source the guts of Chakra before they shutdown Edge. V8 hegemony might be worse for the internet given Node and Electron than Chrome alone.

Is there an Electron backing that doesn't use Chromium?

Unfortunately, not one I've seen get past "bare prototype" stage.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#594

Post by insulanus » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:56 PM UTC

marricks wrote: post #15

Google will keep locking down Chrome and using corporate talk to hand wave it away, only recourse is to leave. First it’s “sign in” with obtuse ways to turn it off. Then block Adblocking, once again with obtuse ways to disable... the end goal is pretty obvious, get the majority of Chrome users to turn on ads and tie their real names to their Chrome browser. Of course let “power users” (who’ll turn that crap off anywa…

Yes. And on top of the video codec issue, there is also the issue of getting Chrome to build, and integrating code changes from every upstream Chromium release, which is quite frequent. The build setup process is very manual for an outsider, and changes often.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#595

Post by calferreira » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:56 PM UTC

lucb1e wrote: post #238

calferreira wrote: post #169

Still there's one thing that Firefox can beat, Chrome dev tools are just the best, period.

As someone who uses Firefox 98% of the time, every time I open the Chromium dev tools I'm just lost. Could it be personal?

Different people, different tastes :)

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#596

Post by TheKarateKid » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:56 PM UTC

marricks wrote: post #15

Google will keep locking down Chrome and using corporate talk to hand wave it away, only recourse is to leave. First it’s “sign in” with obtuse ways to turn it off. Then block Adblocking, once again with obtuse ways to disable... the end goal is pretty obvious, get the majority of Chrome users to turn on ads and tie their real names to their Chrome browser. Of course let “power users” (who’ll turn that crap off anywa…

As a developer and power user, it's difficult for me to switch to Firefox.

However for most average Joe's it's fine and won't make a difference, so I always install and recommend Firefox when I play IT guy for family/friends. Time to start doing this again like we did in 2005!! It worked then and it can now!

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#597

Post by cbdumas » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:57 PM UTC

betaby wrote: post #545

Firefox experience on Linux is lackluster. No hardware acceleration, neither on opensource video drivers, nor on proprietary(Nvidia and AMD). On the same hardware on Win10 Firefox experience is definitely better.

I haven't found the lack of GPU page rendering to be much of an issue, what problems do you experience because of it? Only difference I can see personally is marginally smoother scrolling.

I have however found the lack of hardware accelerated video decoding to be a HUGE bummer, watching youtube absolutely destroys my laptops battery life. That is also a problem in Chrome though as far as I know.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#598

Post by appleflaxen » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:58 PM UTC

What I want is a "canned" installer for firefox that has all my preferences saved. Sync is ok, but I'd rather not even give that information to Mozilla. Instead, give me an installation package that will allow me to provide a config file next to it, and the ability to automatically create the config file from an existing install.

I want search engines, home pages, and plug-ins way more than I need my bookmarks.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#599

Post by dgellow » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:58 PM UTC

TheKarateKid wrote: post #596

marricks wrote: post #15

Google will keep locking down Chrome and using corporate talk to hand wave it away, only recourse is to leave. First it’s “sign in” with obtuse ways to turn it off. Then block Adblocking, once again with obtuse ways to disable... the end goal is pretty obvious, get the majority of Chrome users to turn on ads and tie their real names to their Chrome browser. Of course let “power users” (who’ll turn that crap off anywa…

As a developer and power user, it's difficult for me to switch to Firefox. However for most average Joe's it's fine and won't make a difference, so I always install and recommend Firefox when I play IT guy for family/friends. Time to start doing this again like we did in 2005!! It worked then and it can now!

I’m a developer and power user, I switched to Firefox months ago. What is making difficult to switch? I found equivalent for all my plugins so far.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#600

Post by betaby » Thu, May 30, 2019, 7:59 PM UTC

mattlondon wrote: post #578

betaby wrote: post #545

Firefox experience on Linux is lackluster. No hardware acceleration, neither on opensource video drivers, nor on proprietary(Nvidia and AMD). On the same hardware on Win10 Firefox experience is definitely better.

I've not found it to be an issue on Linux - seems to be about as performant as Chrome for me. The only wrinkle was when I tried to watch Netflix the first time I had to click a button to let me watch DRM'd Netflix streams.

HW accelerated video do work in Chrome/Chromium on Linux, while does not in Firefox, thus visibly loading the CPU and CPU fan on laptop. There is a visible tearing while quickly scrolling in Firefox, while no such problem with Chrome.