Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

if there is one little thing I miss in Firefox, is Desktop PWA support. Apart from that, I've been using it instead of Chrome for quite a few years, and it's greatly improved. Can't see any reason to switch back.

I'll share my anecdote in that case

I installed Manjaro on my Surface Pro and Firefox was included (? or I happened to install it instead of Chrome, I'm fuzzy on that)

The next day, a few minutes before a job interview I opened Firefox to find a curious error

Using an older version of Firefox can corrupt bookmarks and browsing history already saved to an existing Firefox profile. To protect your information, create a new profile for this installation of Firefox

I click through it and... everything's gone. Including my plugins, which I need for... 1Password. To log into my Google account, to access the link I need to join.

Cue me frantically googling how to fix it, before I end up having to type in a 70 character password off my phone screen.

In the end I did manage to fix it by manually editing the profile. But obviously off to a terrible start, joining the meeting almost 5 minutes late.

Enter the interview and we're screen sharing my IDE. But it's a complete slideshow on my end. My computer is running like it's throttling itself, I can barely create a new project.

Cue me fumbling through the activity monitor when it becomes clear that there's no way I'll be able to complete the interview like this.

Firefox is going haywire and using all my resources.

"Hey sorry, do you mind if I take a second and install Chrome"

Install Chrome in the middle of the interview and it handles screen sharing just fine without killing the laptop.

Keep in mind, this is all WebRTC screen sharing, no custom plugin or anything, so the implementation is 100% on the browser.

You could watch my interviewers enthusiasm fade, and my confidence drop off a cliff as I went through all this. I was pretty much told I didn't perform terribly, but they weren't sure about my knowledge based on the final output (half the interview being wasted on FF issues)

So yeah, stuck with FF for 24hrs, figuring what's the worst that could happen, HN is always hyping it up.

Indirectly cost me a job opportunity in those 24hrs.

I won't be trying it again.

“Bans” you?

Have you ever applied any of the about:config settings from one of those harmful “privacy” guides? Are you using an enterprise or school managed computer?

I have never seen such a dialogue. Is this a corporate machine? Perhaps they have implemented some policy to keep the browser up-to-date.

That's a really good idea. To achieve similar result, I am currently using multiple Firefox profiles which have different proxies configured. I also have separate profiles for social media. It wouldn't be bad if they made profiles work in the same way or with similar functionality like containers work (profile per tab, each tab uses different proxy etc.).

Ideally, I'd love to have Firefox handle the whole proxying or even networking part. Like have each Firefox profile use different network gateway (useful when you want to route all network traffic trough VPN for example).