I run Firefox in its own network namespace with Firejail so I can more easily observe traffic from Firefox with Wireshark. Unexpected traffic gets added to nftables to be dropped and logged. I almost feel like automating this process, but then I consider that I'd probably be better off running a fork of Firefox under different stewardship in the first place. https://librewolf.net/ looks very interesting for this reason. The health of the Librewolf project is interesting to look into.
Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now
581–590 of 619 posts
Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now
#582And if you use it longer than 30 mins the memory leak will crash your computer. /s (this is my own experience, FWIW, but I understand not everyone has this.) -Emily
Are you on macOS? FF has some issues on macOS.
Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now
#583It always has been. No real reason to use any other browser.
Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now
#584And if you use it longer than 30 mins the memory leak will crash your computer. /s (this is my own experience, FWIW, but I understand not everyone has this.) -Emily
Are you on macOS? FF has some issues on macOS.
I wish we were on macOS, but unfortunately we only have access to Windows now. So it was on Windows 10 Home 2004.
-Emily
Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now
#585I love Firefox too but this is a really weird post. The OP is clearly having performance issues with Chrome presumably due to extensions interfering or something else. I can guarantee you that Google makes sure Gmail loads at least as fast in Chrome as in Firefox. Chrome is customizable too (panes you can open/close), Chrome extensions are also thriving, and Chrome was the one who invented the "clean look", same as F…
> There's nothing actually substantive about it. It doesn't feel like it belongs on HN. Most of the comments on every new Firefox release post are just as bad and have nothing to do with the actual release (folks whining about how their incredibly-niche use-case isn't supported anymore which breaks their workflow etc.), so in some ways it's nice to see something positive (which I would wager is more representative of…
> (folks whining about how their incredibly-niche use-case isn't supported anymore which breaks their workflow etc.)
If these complaints come up every release, then perhaps they aren't "incredibly-niche" after all. At least not what they represent in aggregate.
Browsers remind me a lot of superstores and why successful ones go out of their way to stock low-volume specialty items despite them having low profit margins, costing more to handle and stock, and having a very small subset of their customers care enough to buy them:
1. Customers will usually go to a store that's further away from them if it has 100% of the items they want even when your store is much closer but only has 95%.
2. Cut enough of those low-volume items and you'll become that 95% store for most of you customers.
What the team steering firefox need to understand is that the average user is a myth. The average user does not exist. Every user is unique and has their own set of peculiarities. If you remove enough functionality based on telemetry or your own limited perception of what "niche" is (hello, gnome!), everyone will eventually be affected.
I think most of Firefox's hemorrhaging of users today is because Firefox became a 95% browser for most developers and users.
Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now
#586There was a recently-resolved issue between macOS 13 + Chrome + Microsoft MDE that caused dragging tabs from one window to the other to either beachball or crash.
Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now
#587Earlier quoted context omitted.
As a long time FF user my opinion of it took quite a hit recently. I wanted to hack together a small personal extension, likely outside the scope of what Tampermonkey can do easily. I was really shocked by the mandatory signature enforcement. You need to get your extension signed by Mozilla with no way to disable it in the standard FF, the about:config setting does nothing (see [1]). Your temporary extension will als…
Usually you find that the reason these barriers exist is because people were abusing the previous system. There are (sadly) plenty of people out there who will install a browser extension & tweak an about:config setting if you set up the right incentives to get them to look past the warnings. The price of protecting these people from those that would take advantage of them is developers having to download a different…
Why doesn't google do the same then? They have the same issue and have a much larger market share.
They don't do it because it doesn't stop those plenty of people from doing what they want to do. This misguided decision from Mozilla only serves to drive developers and tinkerers away from their browser. (No, I will not download the nightly/beta browser just to run my own addons)
Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now
#588Earlier quoted context omitted.
dont know what kind of googling prodigies you are, but I googled 'first browser with tabs' and it says the InternetWorks Browser was the first
They’re not googling. Google is useful but sometimes has incorrect answers. The truth is we probably won’t know the true first browser with tabs. It could have been before the one you found. These people are saying “I personally used browser Z with tabs before your example Browser A was even released”. If enough people continue the chain, we’ll get to “the oldest tabbed browser that anyone on HN remembers using”. The…
The easiest way to track it down isn't looking for the oldest memory. It's looking for reviews of Firefox when tabs were added and looking for the ones that complain about that earlier browser doing it better.
Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now
#589> 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…
Multi account containers + Temporary Containers [1] + I don't care about cookies [2] are an awesome combination I use, I have ~10 fixed containers and for almost everything it's a new container that lives as long as the tab is open. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con... [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-a...
Why do you need a container for almost everything? It's it for privacy reasons? If yes, what do containers offer which is not already provided by the total cookie protection feature?
Re: Tell HN: Firefox Is an awesome browser right now
#590Earlier quoted context omitted.
Multi account containers + Temporary Containers [1] + I don't care about cookies [2] are an awesome combination I use, I have ~10 fixed containers and for almost everything it's a new container that lives as long as the tab is open. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con... [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/i-dont-care-a...
Why do you need a container for almost everything? It's it for privacy reasons? If yes, what do containers offer which is not already provided by the total cookie protection feature?
Would love to know this too! It's a bit confusing the amount of options available.