With recent improvements, Firefox is absolutely the best overall browser experience on desktops and at least at parity on mobile. The transition a couple of years ago to the new plug-in standard was a bit rough and I switched to Chrome for a while but Firefox has it sorted now.
Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet
231–240 of 374 posts
Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet
#232I switched to FireFox about a year ago. Containers is a killer feature.
But the container UX is still not perfect. Only recently did they fix it so you can log into a site via Facebook or Google.
But my biggest issue is power management. On my Mac, when I run Firefox, the fans spin at around 3K at all times and the load is moderate at all times.
When I turn off Firefox and switch to Chrome or Safari, the fans spin at 2K.
Firefox is just a huge resource drain when it runs on Mac. Which is too bad because it's my favorite browser feature-wise.
Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet
#233The post briefly mentions multi-account containers[1]. I have loved using them and regard them as a killer feature for Firefox. Very few websites support account switching. Google is probably the best example, and even then, I don't really want to log in to both my personal and work Gmail within the same session. But containers effectively and cleanly enable multiple sessions for all websites. Like tabs so many years…
It doesn't protect from fingerprinting your machine using WebGL (whose main purpose is to extract data about video card), canvas (main purpose of canvas is to check what fonts you have and how they are rendered), screen size, OS and IP address and TTL of IP packets.
Then you carelessly enter your non-temporary email address or phone number to get an order from a shop and the shop links your fingerprint to your offline identifiers. Now you cannot escape from tracking anymore.
Fingerprinting is real. For example, a site of government services for Moscow has fingerprinting code and users log into it with their real name.
You can use containers or private mode but your fingerprint stays the same and uniquely identifies you. Disable WebGL, canvas, accessing non-default fonts from browser, reading OS name and screen size right now and vote for disabling it by default if you don't want to be tracked.
Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet
#234The main reason I often use Chromium instead of Firefox is that it starts up faster. I even wrote a oneliner to see if it is just an illusion: http://www.gibney.de/browser_startup_speed As can be seen in the tests, it is mainly about the startup time after a reboot. Where Chromium is way faster. Not sure what the reason. Maybe Chromium actively caches something right during the boot? Or maybe it uses less dependencie…
How often do you realistically launch the browser? I do once per session and it's only closed to update, so I don't really care about this number. I'm sure most do similarly.
Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet
#235No, you make it function properly before I consider “[giving] it a chance”. Firefox is ridden with decade-old compliance bugs, and is generally a pain to write applications and documents for. That's just part of why web applications and documents work worse in Firefox than they do in Chromium. Mozilla should derive from Chromium, if they want to actually deliver a web browser worth choosing. They can even fight their…
Create a browser monoculture just to satisfy webdevs who are too lazy or shitty at their job to support two(2)! whole browsers? Yeah no. If Mozilla made Firefox another chromium-derivative, it would become pointless to me.
If you want to use a chromium browser, you have plenty of other options. Firefox is an option for the rest of us.
Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet
#236The post briefly mentions multi-account containers[1]. I have loved using them and regard them as a killer feature for Firefox. Very few websites support account switching. Google is probably the best example, and even then, I don't really want to log in to both my personal and work Gmail within the same session. But containers effectively and cleanly enable multiple sessions for all websites. Like tabs so many years…
I love containers, and use them heavily, but am disappointed they don't sync to all your computers like bookmarks and extensions. Every new machine, I get to start over on the 'always open this site in work container'
yeah, that's the reason I stopped using them and switched to multiple profiles with syncing to different accounts.
Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet
#237I'm surprised by the lack of focus on mobile in that post.
Most of the third world leaped the desktop stage and are coming online using mobile. Primarily due to cost factor but also the additional infrastructure (telephone line, router, dongle etc) and maintenance (dirt/dust on keyboards) you need for a desktop. And imho, this trend will catch up in the first world countries specially with newer generations.
Hence I would think focusing on mobile would be the best strategy for FF to gain market share. Additionally mobile users are more sensitive to data usage. A lot of data is consumed by downloading tracking scripts and serving rich content ads. Currently there are no viable alternatives as we can't install uBlock or other extension for Mobile browser. If these features ships out of the box, I'm pretty sure it would increase adoption purely by word-of-mouth. The case I can think of when this strategy would not work is if users on mobile are spending most of their time on individual apps (Google assistant, Siri, Fb/Instagram/Twitter mobile app) and not on browser.
Which brings me to the state of Firefox mobile app. Firefox's mobile market share [0] is non -existent compared to desktop [1], which was at 32% at one point in time. I may be a minority here (HN/US), as I do most of my browsing on the phone. (I use desktop only for searching of technical implementation/issues. Primarily because this way I'm aware of the cost and duration that I've been browsing as I would have to reach for my phone and divert my attention away from desktop.) I tried to switch to Firefox mobile app on android but it felt like a desktop app jammed into a mobile viewport. A lot of space is devoted to the tab and address bar. A lot of sites that I navigate to, renders a desktop page instead of triggering a mobile layout as they do if I were to access it through Chrome. All of this results in a bad UX.
IMHO, focusing on Firefox mobile app's performance, privacy and usability will help grow adoption of Firefox overall, specially in the environment where discussion on privacy are becoming increasingly mainstream.
0: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/mobile/world... 1: https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/desktop/worl...
Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm pretty sure Mozilla has abandoned Firefox on Android to work on Firefox Preview (code named Fenix). Here is the github issue that tracks container support on Firefox Preview: https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/fenix/issues/1481
I would LOVE to use Firefox on Android. But the UX is so kludgey! My main beefs - Refresh requires two clicks instead of the now-standard pull down (like Chrome) - Text resizing is _all_ _over_ _the_ _place_. I go to Reddit and the text shrinks down to size 3 or something. There is no clear way to make any adjustment whatsoever. Compare to Chrome/Chrome-clone Brave's very easy text resizing. Why do I love firefox on…
Have you tried the new browser, still called Firefox Preview on Android?
Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet
#239The post briefly mentions multi-account containers[1]. I have loved using them and regard them as a killer feature for Firefox. Very few websites support account switching. Google is probably the best example, and even then, I don't really want to log in to both my personal and work Gmail within the same session. But containers effectively and cleanly enable multiple sessions for all websites. Like tabs so many years…
Problem with containers is that they don't work in anonymous mode (at least last time I tried them they didn't).
There is some sort of other setting you have to enable to get them to work in anonymous mode, something like "enable extensions in private mode" or something. Even then it only worked on my old computer, when I set up my new computer and enabled the setting and it didn't seem to "take" and I didn't fiddle around with it to fix it. The other option is installing an extension that simply deletes cookies when you close a tab.
Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet
#240I want to use Firefox, and I would if it provided a faster internet experience, which it doesn't on Linux (compared to Brave/Chromium/Chrome).
The devtools in Firefox lack basic features that have been requested for years.
Too bad that these are the only viable options.