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I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

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Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#91

TouchID support for WebAuthn is the last thing I need to make the switch for my daily driver browser. I used Firefox for years, but being able to use TouchID for auth/MFA is just such a huge quality of life improvement for me that it keeps me on Chrome. Fortunately it looks like there has been at least a little movement on this recently (bumped from a P4 to P2) https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1536482

Yes WebAuthn (passwordless mode) really needs to be fixed on Firefox.

It still doesn't work on Mac or Linux.. FFS.

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#92

I’m a Firefox user but I’m not sure that I can agree that it’s lighter than Google Chrome. I think Chrome is generally faster at everything. Chrome is also more stable. For some reason my Firefox randomly freezes once or twice a month and gets stuck in a crashing loop where only a reboot will fix it. But on principle I use Firefox whenever possible. I appreciate the effort that went into it. Still have to use Chrome…

Within the past couple years I've went from Chrome to Edge, then to Firefox, and on to LibreWolf. Edge is probably my favourite of the bunch, and I think the CSS devtools are a lot nicer in it, but I just want to keep my stuff as independent as possible etc.

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#93

I don’t intend to diminish the article itself, since yes ditching chrome and Google is a win for personal privacy. But I can’t ignore the irony of this article loading dozens of trackers. Like, is the cognitive dissonance that bad in web publishing? Do the teams writing the content not know about the way the publisher presents the data? Is this just pure hypocrisy? I’m at a loss.

I feel this sort of black-and-white thinking about morality is responsible for a lot of problems. Short of moving into the desert and becoming some sort of Hesychastic hermit, it's difficult, near impossible to lead a life where you do no evil.

The conclusion many draw from that is not to even bother trying. I think the better conclusion is to be forgiving of the failings of others, because they too struggle with this. Maybe the point isn't to be perfect, but to reach for what's good.

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#95

Along with obvious ones like uBlock Origin working perfectly, etc., I have 2 other favorites: - Native reader mode - Native PiP mode for videos Yes, you can get extensions for this in Chrom(e/ium) but having these as a native feature is really nice. Things I want to see in Firefox: - Good/extensible keybindings - Tab groups - Tab search EDIT: How do I break sentences to newline in HN without really making a new parag…

Tree Style Tabs solved the tab grouping problem for me. I like to put it on the right and I'm looking for a way to have the tab bar hidden. Tab search exists: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/search-open-tabs-firefo... , also you type % into the address bar to start searching over tabs. Not sure if this covers your needs, though.

TST is literally the killer feature for FF. It's actually the only reason I went to FF, it was getting out of hand to have all my tabs across the top, and it makes little sense with modern screens being so wide that giving up a little horizontal space to get legible titles is absolutely worth it.

Someone in Chrome/Edge/Safari must be thinking about doing this, I don't know why it hasn't been cloned. Can't be too hard to do.

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#96

I've switched from Firefox to Safari for most of my browsing, and Chrome for anything that needs devtools. Why? Battery. Efficiency. On the new M1 Macbooks I can run Safari and be unplugged all day long. The increased power consumption and battery drain is noticeable when using FF and I can't make it all the way through the day. As far as extensions go, I have 1Blocker and it works well, it does block YouTube ads. Th…

On the smoothness of JS, I wonder if that is more about site developers testing against Chrome and Safari but not FF.

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tree Style Tabs solved the tab grouping problem for me. I like to put it on the right and I'm looking for a way to have the tab bar hidden. Tab search exists: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/search-open-tabs-firefo... , also you type % into the address bar to start searching over tabs. Not sure if this covers your needs, though.

TST is literally the killer feature for FF. It's actually the only reason I went to FF, it was getting out of hand to have all my tabs across the top, and it makes little sense with modern screens being so wide that giving up a little horizontal space to get legible titles is absolutely worth it. Someone in Chrome/Edge/Safari must be thinking about doing this, I don't know why it hasn't been cloned. Can't be too hard…

Edge has vertical tabs but no grouping by parent tab.

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article specifically talks "of Google breaking those AdBlock extensions in 2023 with a massive update, which is rather terrifying, to say the least." What is referenced here is Manifest V3. Gorhill, uBlock Origin developer, agrees that this will significantly limit uBlock Origin on Chrome. https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-issues/issues/338#iss...

Yeah you can bet that Google will do anything they can to stop adblockers once their FLoC replacement is online. After all, in their view they have solved the "privacy problem". Chrome is only going downhill from now. So is Edge, Microsoft has already at the stage where they don't prioritise user experience and appeal anymore and are priorising monetisation. Like with the "buy now and pay later" scams they're includi…

Can you elaborate on the Mozilla corporate weasel part? As far as I can tell, they are just a) poorly managed and b) desperately trying to diversify revenue away from search prioritization contracts.

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#100
For the privacy conscious, the arkenfox user.js template provides a nice structure for setting up Firefox settings [1]. This works extra nicely if version controlled with your dotfiles and NixOS.

    programs.firefox.profiles..extraConfig = builtins.readFile ./user.js;
One of my favorite settings is setting "keyword.enabled" to false, to prevent leaking mistyped URLs to the search engine provider. It feels much cleaner to explicitly specify the search engine using e.g. "g" when you want to search.

[1] https://github.com/arkenfox/user.js/

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