Switch from Chrome to Firefox • Hacker News Board

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#931

Post by The-Compiler » Fri, May 31, 2019, 8:42 AM UTC

alpaca128 wrote: post #929

The-Compiler wrote: post #907

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The only browser that I think could make me switch is qutebrowser, though the lack of an adblocker is an obstacle for me. qutebrowser has a built-in adblocker (based on a host blacklist) which works fine for most scenarios. There's also https://gitlab.com/jgkamat/jblock though that's not really supported until extension support is finished.

I do already block ads via the /etc/hosts file and it largely works pretty well but it completely fails on YouTube and Reddit. I've read that YT is at best tricky with pihole as well, so for now I just use Firefox for these sites and qutebrowser for most other purposes. But great to know there's some progress.

FWIW I just use a keybinding to open mpv for Youtube. There's also https://github.com/ParticleCore/Iridium which can prevent ads (though I'm not sure if it still works, it was broken at some point).

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#932

Post by jzl » Fri, May 31, 2019, 9:06 AM UTC

kaffee wrote: post #803

bastih wrote: post #525

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Container tabs have made my life much easier, as I'm managing a number of Amazon accounts, and being able to do that side-by-side is a life-saver.

I really enjoy the Containers. The only problem is that you can only have a single container tied to an individual site. I'd rather like it to be tied to a subpath or url "root" so I could use it with GitHub.

Only for the automatic association you mean? You can manually open a tab into any container.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#933

Post by Piskvorrr » Fri, May 31, 2019, 9:15 AM UTC

_vk_ wrote: post #886

saidajigumi wrote: post #640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like Google found developer goodwill burdensome, and decided to pack it all up into container trucks and ship it all to Microsoft.

>It's like Google found developer goodwill burdensome, and decided to pack it all up into container trucks and ship it all to Microsoft. Funny how that changes. If anyone told me in 1999 that Microsoft would eventually become one of the Good Guys...

Nah. "Stands against the Big Bad" is not sufficient to become one of the Good Guys...but it's a very convenient spin.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#934

Post by hellofunk » Fri, May 31, 2019, 9:16 AM UTC

akras14 wrote: post #902

chupasaurus wrote: post #894

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just checked it (I have a recommended setup) - it's whooping fast.

I don't know what these commenters are talking about. I've been using FF on Mac for over a year now on 3 different Mac Machines. It's super fast, as good as Chrome. May be you need to reset it or something to get it working properly. The only issue I had with FF is Developer Tools, which are also have improved a lot with latest release, and continuing to improve.

As I noted, the issue affects many, but not all, Mac users. It seems to be a special configuration of display resolution and other factors that can be difficult to replicate. That’s great for you that it’s working, but you shouldn’t discredit this very serious problem for the general user base.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#935

Post by grumdan » Fri, May 31, 2019, 9:17 AM UTC

hodder wrote: post #562

codedokode wrote: post #547

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already happening. Web version of Skype refuses to work in Firefox, but if you change user-agent to Edge, it works.

This is risky behaviour though when dealing with other megacorps. Legal ramifications and antitrust suits come out of actions like that.

It seems like Google just treats fines due to antitrust lawsuits as the cost of doing business, and they're potentially making more money with such behavior than they are losing due to legal costs.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#936

Post by om2 » Fri, May 31, 2019, 9:26 AM UTC

webninja wrote: post #749

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…

Does Safari have a sandbox now? (like Firefox and Chrome have had for a long while now)

Yes. Safari had sandboxed separate processes per tab for years (well before Firefox).

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#937

Post by om2 » Fri, May 31, 2019, 9:28 AM UTC

latexr wrote: post #729

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…

> The only place where Safari falls short is 3D CAD programs Safari has poor controls if you care about privacy and having some modicum of control over the websites you visit. In Chrome we can — on a per-site basis — disable/enable JavaScript; disable/enable cookies (and local storage); allow only some cookies; set which cookies clear on exit. You can also do more, but those are the ones I use. You can do all that wi…

Safari gives you privacy by default without the need to fiddle with controls.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#938

Post by vurpo » Fri, May 31, 2019, 9:43 AM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #816

mikedilger wrote: post #732

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here are a few firefox settings to make your URL field behave only as a URL field: user_pref("keyword.enabled", false); user_pref("browser.fixup.alternate.enabled", false); user_pref("browser.urlbar.suggest.searches", false); user_pref("browser.urlbar.filter.javascript", true); You can put these in a "user.js" file in your profile directory if you don't have one already, or just set them in about:config

Thank you for perfectly illustrating why Firefox will not find the mainstream acceptance of other browsers.

It's not like Chrome has an easy and user-friendly way to do the same thing. Quite the opposite: Chrome has no way at all to do this, while Firefox has a technical way to do it even if it's not obvious to most users that it's possible.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#939

Post by satysin » Fri, May 31, 2019, 10:28 AM UTC

asdff wrote: post #350

satysin wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I want to use Firefox on my Mac but it just feels so out of place. Are you using any extensions to get a more true macOS feel? While Chrome isn't perfect it doesn't feel anywhere near as "multi-platform" as Firefox does.

I made my view compact as possible, removed bookmark toolbar, etc. Pretty native looking now aside from tabs on top.

But what about things like pinch zoom, elastic scrolling and such? I know there are some extensions but all that ones I have tried (the top 5 that come up in search) are all janky.

While not a deal breaker it would be nice to have a more native macOS feeling version of Firefox but I guess Mozilla have other things to work on.

Re: Switch from Chrome to Firefox

#940

Post by eitland » Fri, May 31, 2019, 10:32 AM UTC

JohnBooty wrote: post #890

JohnBooty wrote: post #844

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On my machine, I can’t even launch Firefox in headless mode without the fans turning on, which never happened on Chrome. While I haven’t benchmarked it, for normal browsing it does feel slower than Crome. I believe you, but I'm always so confused by hearing this. I use my Mac (2015 MBP) 10+ hours a day, evenly split between FF and Chrome. Truly is close to an even 50/50 split -- FF is my personal browser and I use Ch…

Too late to edit my post, but "where Google has clearly invested time and money into optimizing things for FF" should read "where Google has clearly invested time and money into optimizing things for Chrome." Sorry.

Makes more sense :-)

Personally I feel it is worse than that: there have been som issues so bad that I hardly get Hanlons razor to work at all, notably one where just having a search result page open in Firefox would consistently spin up my CPU for no good reason twice a minute.

(Of course there were a number of other weird lagging issues as well.)