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Why I use Firefox

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Re: Why I use Firefox

#161

Post by berkes »

robertoandred wrote: post #149
jhoechtl wrote: post #2

For me it's > Mozilla develops their own browser engine This is key. Without Mozilla we are aproaching monopoly as Safari aproaches gradually Internet Explorer.

A ludicrous and non-serious statement. Safari leads in several areas, and both it and Firefox push back against Google’s self-serving and privacy-threatening “features” it wants people to think are web standards.

> Safari leads in several areas

This is the first time I've ever heard someone say this. The overwelming sentiment is that safari is leagues behind, lacks features, lacks performance is has the worst standards support of all common browsers.

What areas are you referring to?

All we ever did at my jobs, when people complained "it doesn't work on safari" is put up a banner for safari users pointing them to either the app-store for our app, or to the fact their browser is not supported.

I've only ever gotten complaints from safari users that stuff was broken (It wasn't, their browser just did stuff wrong/differently/not-yet)

Re: Why I use Firefox

#162

Post by wilsonnb3 »

J253 wrote: post #141
javajosh wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I would also suggest occasionally checking out the other browsers like Opera and Vivaldi because they often have a surprising feel and feature set. Vivaldi in particular has a very nice RSS/Atom feed reader built into it, and Opera tends to be very fast. (Mozilla and Goog were smart to start offering account-based sync because this creates a moat for regular adoption. But anyone can and should go window-shop…

Agreed. I find Vivaldi’s split pane ability incredibly useful. Surprised other browsers haven’t implemented this kind of this yet.

I think edge has it

Re: Why I use Firefox

#163

Post by wkat4242 »

Yeah I love it too. I use it for everything even mobile. I block not only ads but also images on many news sites so they appear similar to hacker news. Just headlines and nothing else (no i don't like RSS very much for various reasons)

Re: Why I use Firefox

#164

Post by tgv »

reddalo wrote: post #32
Synaesthesia wrote: post #6

It's a great browser for Android. You get superior ad blocking and background video playing, extensions like dark reader...

And soon, thanks to the European Union, it's going to be great on iOS too. Now browsers will be allowed to use their custom engine (they were forced to all use Safari up until now), so thank you EU for the new DMA!

On the contrary. Chrome will push out Safari on iOS. Lazy web devs will do the rest. It will usher in a glorious era of Chrome/Google/Alphabet dominance, with Google accounts becoming unavoidable. All hail the personalized ad!

Re: Why I use Firefox

#165

Post by corney91 »

anneessens wrote: post #120
DavidPeiffer wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use it for 95% of my browsing, with exactly the extensions you mention, but I do have to recognize it's stability is rough at times. Every now and then I run into a site that fails hard, crashing the entire UI on my Pixel 6 Pro. Admittedly I haven't tried disabling extensions and finding the root cause. I just switch to Chrome for that task.

Same, Firefox on Android is extremely buggy for me. I experience frequent crashes because I have too many tabs open at once. Multiple times per day, I have to restart the app because the theme will bug between light and dark, which makes some of the UI text unreadable. And sometimes when I restart, I lose some of my most recent tabs for some reason. Very frustrating, but Firefox Sync and extension support are essenti…

FWIW I also use Fennec from F-Droid and I'm getting very slow behaviour and crashes with lots of tabs open (between 10-30). I don't have the theme change or tabs missing though.

I've been meaning to try different Firefox distributions though because switching away from Firefox isn't really an option for the reasons you've stated.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#166

Post by romanows »

dralley wrote: post #115
jjordan wrote: post #78

Sometimes I wonder where Firefox might be today if, in the last 10 years, it had competent leadership singularly focused on delivering the absolute best browser in existence.

Oh look, it's my least favorite HN trope. Comment A) "Screw Mozilla, all their funding comes from their Google Search deal, they're just Google in a mask" Comment B) "Screw Mozilla, they waste all this money on side projects (that would provide non-Google revenue streams) when they should be spending all of their effort on Firefox (which is effectively un-monetizable apart from the search deal - and you can bet hard…

It's possible that different sets of people hold different opinions. I'm in the "build the people's browser" camp. I don't care where the $500 million comes from, but it doesn't seem to mostly go into Firefox development, and I wish it would.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#167

Post by nozzlegear »

incontrol wrote: post #37
zahma wrote: post #19

I don't see why I would want to use anything else. Even if Chrome is marginally faster in an arbitrary benchmark test, I doubt I'd notice. And so far, I have no interoperability issues between Firefox on my laptop (macOS) and my iPhone (iOS), which runs Safari + Firefox Focus (because it's all the same webkit underneath). The add-on and plug-in marketplace is quite healthy, too. At the end of the day, I care about op…

Funny enough on my machine, Chrome is the slowest on https://browserbench.org/Speedometer2.1/ 401 - Chrome 446 - Firefox 546 - Safari

Neat site but it almost needs a flash/epilepsy warning =P

Re: Why I use Firefox

#168

Post by aembleton »

SilasX wrote: post #89
Ayesh wrote: post #18

I'm glad to see posts like this. Some of my favorite features not mentioned in the article: - User Styles: I can customize pretty much everything about the browser UI using CSS. - Containers: Shared history, form data, bookmarks,etc. But containerized cookies. - Separate search field next to the address bar.

>I can customize pretty much everything about the browser UI using CSS. Not the controls, though. For that you’d need Firefox 2016.

Which controls do you want to remove? Can't you do that through the customize toolbar? I'm removing the toolbar and the sidebar header with the following userChrome:

  /* to hide the native tabs */
  #TabsToolbar {
      visibility: collapse;
  }

  /* to hide the sidebar header */
  #sidebar-header {
      visibility: collapse;
  }

Re: Why I use Firefox

#169

Post by dpkirchner »

ed_blackburn wrote: post #72

How does Firefox work with Google Meet? I'm finding Google Meet gets less and less reliable on Safari on my Mac. What's the point of a web app if it only works on one browser?

I use Meet every few days on Firefox while running Windows. Video, audio, screen casting all work well.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#170

Post by Pufferbo »

dralley wrote: post #115
jjordan wrote: post #78

Sometimes I wonder where Firefox might be today if, in the last 10 years, it had competent leadership singularly focused on delivering the absolute best browser in existence.

Oh look, it's my least favorite HN trope. Comment A) "Screw Mozilla, all their funding comes from their Google Search deal, they're just Google in a mask" Comment B) "Screw Mozilla, they waste all this money on side projects (that would provide non-Google revenue streams) when they should be spending all of their effort on Firefox (which is effectively un-monetizable apart from the search deal - and you can bet hard…

Firefox Rely is the best mail alias service I’ve used. Even though my Fastmail subscription comes with both aliases and masks, I still pay the 1$/month for Relay. It’s such a great UX to be able to create new alias on demand.
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