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Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now

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Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now

#401

Recommend: 1. Sign up to Firefox sync 2. Install the Multi-Account Containers extension. Create containers to partition your identities. Eg: Banking, Shopping different Gmail accounts, different AWS console accounts etc 3. Install the "containerise" extension so you can create URL rules that automatically open sites in the correct container. (It can match URL regexes, allowing you to identify different accounts on ea…

7. Don't use any add-ons for sensitive identities like the Banking one.

You can't (as far as I can tell, and I'd love to be wrong!) set add-ons to only activate on certain containers in Firefox. You have to setup separate profiles, which are fully isolated browser contexts and only install extensions you want into each profile.

It's the biggest thing that I like better about Chrome - the profiles are seamless and easy to switch and I can set up different profiles with different extensions.

Containers work "ok" for Firefox for me, but for my biggest use-cases, like splitting work, personal, banking, shopping (e.g. where "Honey" or "Rakuten" are allowed to live) into different contexts with different extensions - Chrome is so much more seamless/effortless.

Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now

#402
post #163

The Tree Style Tab extension[1] is wonderful for "keeping tabs" on our modern "to forget" lists (unclosed tabs). Putting tabs on the left is also a good screen real estate trade for wide aspect ratio screens. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...

I use Sidebery, which is similar, but adds features like 'panels' (essentially switch between sets of tree-style tabs in the sidebar) that integrates with Firefox 'containers', so you can have a 'work' vs. 'personal' panel&container for example. The tabs being listed vertically is by far the most important aspect to me though, I previously used something (that stopped being maintained) that did that without being 'tr…

Interesting integration of panels and containers. Definitely going to try it.

Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now

#404

The Tree Style Tab extension[1] is wonderful for "keeping tabs" on our modern "to forget" lists (unclosed tabs). Putting tabs on the left is also a good screen real estate trade for wide aspect ratio screens. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...

Tree Style Tabs is absolutely vital to me, I don't understand how people can live without that extension. The other thing I use a lot is firefox's readability builtin (it's not an extension), which removes all the cruft and *walls from websites and makes them... readable in one click. These two together are killer apps for me. I might consider switching to another browser (firefox isn't exactly the paragon of virtue…

Thankful for the readability builtin.

Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now

#405
post #49

> I'd be glad to learn of any other cool features and extensions that y'all might want to share. I'm sure others will be sharing it as I type this comment as well, but for many HN readers, Multi-Account Containers [1] are bound to be a godsend. Easily log in to different accounts for any website, in different tabs. Great feature that's not available in other browsers. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/mult…

Hate to be a black cloud, but as much as I love containers, my containers and their settings often disappeared. I can no longer remember exactly why. it may be if i disabled containers and then re-enabled them. (Containers may be a source of glitches so disabling is to help with troubleshooting.) getpocket.com needs to be logged in via container 0. if you put getpocket to a personal container, and don't login to getp…

Why not start firefox with the -P flag for troubleshooting? And keep your default Profile using containers.

Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now

#406
Always has been

I used Firefox when it came out, then I moved to Chrome when Chrome came out because Firefox was terribly slow (and it was because of the addons). When Chrome became slow because of the addons, I jumped back to Firefox, and I haven't looked back.

It is specially important to use Firefox now given that there are very few non-Chromium alternatives for web browsers. Keep the web open!

Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now

#407
post #5
post #3

Firefox was my go-to 3 years ago because it was just lighter than Chrome (and easier on my battery). I still hate the fact that different browser profiles and profile switching aren't surfaced like they are in Chrome. I think it's such a major use case for modern web browsing, I find it hard to believe they aren't prioritizing it. (FWIW this isn't even supported in Safari, which I would have preferred using) I still…

Out of curiosity, what do you need different profiles for? Kids/SO?

One example - my shopping profile runs the extensions Rakuten/Honey to find coupon codes. I don't want those running on every single page I load outside of the shopping intent, so I use a separate profile.

Firefox's containers don't allow for limiting extensions, so you have to use profiles. Chrome only has profiles.

Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now

#408
post #49

> I'd be glad to learn of any other cool features and extensions that y'all might want to share. I'm sure others will be sharing it as I type this comment as well, but for many HN readers, Multi-Account Containers [1] are bound to be a godsend. Easily log in to different accounts for any website, in different tabs. Great feature that's not available in other browsers. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/mult…

One thing I haven't figured out with container tabs: say I'm currently in one of the container tabs and I want cmd + T to open a new container tab. This doesn't work by default, AFAICT...instead it opens a regular non-container tab. How can I make it so that I get a new tab for the same container I'm currently on. Right now, I have to either go to File > new container tab or right-click the tab and click "new tab"..b…

Control + Shift + a number key should open a tab in a specific container. You can map containers to specific number keys in the addon settings.

Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now

#409
post #49

> I'd be glad to learn of any other cool features and extensions that y'all might want to share. I'm sure others will be sharing it as I type this comment as well, but for many HN readers, Multi-Account Containers [1] are bound to be a godsend. Easily log in to different accounts for any website, in different tabs. Great feature that's not available in other browsers. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/mult…

One thing I haven't figured out with container tabs: say I'm currently in one of the container tabs and I want cmd + T to open a new container tab. This doesn't work by default, AFAICT...instead it opens a regular non-container tab. How can I make it so that I get a new tab for the same container I'm currently on. Right now, I have to either go to File > new container tab or right-click the tab and click "new tab"..b…

cmd + shift +

You can configure 10 different tabs in extensions settings

Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now

#410
post #347

No it is not. In the past months/years they removed: - ability to zoom out images. Firefox has two different zooms, but none of them can zoom out images. If an image doesn't fit your screen, you can't see it period. - ability to open an image in the same window - ability to use different search engine in the search bar and URL bar - ability to quickly change search engine clicking the magnifier icon top right - custo…

They removed RSS, removed compact mode, removed bookmark descriptions... I'm scared that at their current pace by 2030 they'll remove the last remaining feature and it will disappear.
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