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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

#531

Post by raffraffraff »

ydant wrote: post #401
trompetenaccoun wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 extension…

I think that private tabs are the ones where you can set extensions to not run

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

#533

Post by raffraffraff »

wolongong942 wrote: post #317
raffraffraff wrote: post #237

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…

In the wake of Lastpass there were some criticism of Firefox's password storage security IIRC, might look into that before using sync for passwords.

I disable all password storage in the browser and use a password manager. It's just used to sync extensions, bookmarks and open tabs

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

#534

Post by INTPenis »

Proud to say I never left. I used Mozilla, and as soon as Phoenix was released I jumped on it. Stuck with it through thick, thin and name changes. Just had a short period when Firefox became too bloated for my 256M FreeBSD laptop so I had to use Opera temporarily. But as soon as I upgraded my laptop I was back with Firefox.

For a long time, maybe still, noscript was unchallenged on FF. Something about Chrome API not allowing the deep JS blocking required. I consider JS to be the number one threat online, so I must block it by default to feel safe(r).

But really it's a no brainer to me that my web browser, my most used graphical program, should be FLOSS.

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

#535

Post by raffraffraff »

clircle wrote: post #509
raffraffraff wrote: post #237

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…

What's the advantage of using multi-account containers and partitioned identities?

Typo in my text, can't correct it now. But you can simultaneously log into multiple Google accounts by putting each into a different container. These containers are mapped onto tabs. So in one tab, one Gmail account, in another tab, another Gmail account. And it's not just Gmail it's anything that you might want multiple accounts in (eg: AWS)

The containerise extension is the cherry on top. Once you've set up your containers, it can recognise URL patterns so you can set up bookmarks for each Gmail account and they'll automatically open in the correct container, already logged in.

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

#536

Post by commoner »

alexelcu wrote: post #208
II2II wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't Firefox's profiles accomplish the same thing? (Yes, I understand they are difficult to access but they are still there.) That said, containers are a handy tool for people who want to access multiple accounts without the trouble of setting up individual profiles. Keep in mind, if you're only trying to access a personal and work Google account you probably don't want to spend time setting up a separate profile…

Yes, but Firefox's profiles are very hard to use (apart from keeping multiple Firefox channels installed, e.g., stable, beta), I tried, and I couldn't. Starting a profile is difficult, and also switching between windows, since the OS sees profiles as different apps. It's probably not hard to fix, but Mozilla has had other priorities.

Try Profile Switcher for Firefox, which provides a Chrome-like interface for managing and switching between profiles in Firefox.

Add-on: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-switc...

Source: https://github.com/null-dev/firefox-profile-switcher

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

#537

Post by negative_zero »

INTPenis wrote: post #534

Proud to say I never left. I used Mozilla, and as soon as Phoenix was released I jumped on it. Stuck with it through thick, thin and name changes. Just had a short period when Firefox became too bloated for my 256M FreeBSD laptop so I had to use Opera temporarily. But as soon as I upgraded my laptop I was back with Firefox. For a long time, maybe still, noscript was unchallenged on FF. Something about Chrome API not…

So there are others!

I've also ever used Chrome and I never will. Also never used IE either. Netscape was way better.

I actually found a copy of the Firefox 1.0.14 (I think) installer when going through an old hard drive a few months ago. That was a cool little discovery.

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

#538

Post by commoner »

nfriedly wrote: post #444

If you use Android, Firefox on Android is also really nice because it can sync with your desktop and also has about a dozen extensions (ublock origin, dark reader, etc.)[1]. And then Iceraven[2] is even better, because it's just Firefox for Android, but with several hundred extensions enabled and a few other annoyances fixed. (A few years ago all extensions were enabled on Firefox on Android, but a few didn't work so…

> (A few years ago all extensions were enabled on Firefox on Android, but a few didn't work so they decided to limit it to a very short list of allowed ones. And then they let that list stagnate for years. Kind of a dick move IMO.)

After years of negative user feedback, Mozilla finally enabled custom add-on collections in Firefox Beta for Android last October, which allows any add-on from addons.mozilla.org to be installed again. (Firefox Nightly for Android recieved this option in 2020, but the nightly channel was not stable enough for my daily use.)

https://www.ghacks.net/2022/10/20/firefox-beta-for-android-n...

Last December, Mozilla announced their intent to fully support WebExtensions on Android with work starting this year.

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2022/12/15/new-extensions-av...

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

#539

Post by jodrellblank »

chronial wrote: post #450
jodrellblank wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> " You don't know the other cases. " Why would I care about the other cases? It's no use to me if FireFox is really fast at caching if I'm not using caching. > " What you do is write code and check if it's fast enough in Chrome. If it's not you change your code. " I can't change my code, it's at the limit of (my understanding of JavaScript/web performance) crossed with (how much work time I can spend developing this…

> Why would I care about the other cases? Because you talk about the other cases when you make general statements like: > it's that FireFox just isn't as fast as Edge. > I can't change my code, I wasn't suggesting you change anything about your code. Remember, the context of this conversation is this Statement by GP: > I hate that I know exactly why. It's because they were only ever tested on Chrome during developmen…

The context from the GP is relevant, my reply was to say no don't accuse laziness and ignorance, I do use FireFox as my daily browser, I did test with FireFox, I wanted my page to be equally good and I couldn't achieve that. The effort of rewriting to get 'great' responsiveness in Edge got 'sub-par' in FireFox - and it's not because I didn't bother trying.

Your last paragraph is probably true in general, and true specifically for me because the Windows server I was using had Edge and didn't have Chrome or FireFox.

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

#540

Post by charcircuit »

Zak wrote: post #460
charcircuit wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Chrome doesn't allow installation of ad-blockers That is not accurate. The Android version of Chrome does not support web extensions at all. It's not like Google has a switch somewhere that they can flip and make web extententions work. Supporting web extensions on Android would be a brand new feature and would need significant development time. Not even Firefox properly supports web extensions on Android. They trie…

> Supporting web extensions on Android would be a brand new feature and would need significant development time. Kiwi Browser, a Chromium fork for Android with a small development team manages to have extensions, and successfully runs almost all extensions for desktop Chrome. Google doesn't have extensions in Android Chrome because it doesn't want them. I'm not surprised; many popular extensions make Google's busines…

Did Google reject an effort to upstream this support? The priorities of a small browser trying to have unique features to offer people to use it are different from a large existing browser which isn't trying to attract new users, but are more focused on more impactful changes.
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