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Why I use Firefox

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Re: Why I use Firefox

#241

Post by swat535 »

skizm wrote: post #171
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…

I still need to use Chrome for YouTube when I'm on my Windows 11 desktop unfortunately. YouTube in FF causes weird issues with my monitor turning on and off after I've been watching YT for more than like 20 min. It gets into a state where any new windows I open or close cause the screen to turn off then on. I have no idea where to even begin diagnosing what's going on. This behavior seemingly goes away when I run YT…

Yup, you also need Chrome if you are using Google Meet, otherwise our experience will be significantly degraded.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#242

Post by coryfklein »

ajorgensen wrote: post #195
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…

I have tried to switch quite a few times over the years to Firefox and I still to this day consistently run into websites that are unusably broken on Firefox, do you have the same experience? I realize this probably speaks volumes to the need for more people to use browsers other than Chrome but its unfortunately frequent enough that I always end up switching back to Chrome after a few months.

I use Firefox as my daily driver. There are in fact some websites that don't work on it, but it is rarely anything mainstream. My example is the website 3M provides for doing medical code grouping. Probably less than 0.01% of the internet uses it, but it only works on Chrome and then just barely.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#243

Post by ajorgensen »

smhenderson wrote: post #205
ajorgensen wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have tried to switch quite a few times over the years to Firefox and I still to this day consistently run into websites that are unusably broken on Firefox, do you have the same experience? I realize this probably speaks volumes to the need for more people to use browsers other than Chrome but its unfortunately frequent enough that I always end up switching back to Chrome after a few months.

I, similar to the parent, have very few issues on either my computers or phones. I run Firefox on several different OS's and I just don't have the issues you mention. Do you have some examples of websites that really behave that differently depending on the browser you're using? Having lived through the "best viewed with..." days I'd hoped we were past all that by now!

The most recent ones that I ran into seem to have been fixed based on a quick check. mermaid.js docs site was one of them where nothing on the page was clickable (I think Firefox was rendering an invisible div over the entire page) but this issue wasn't present in Chrome or Safari. That appears to have been fixed. Examples are hard to provide since they almost always get fixed but in the moment its enough pain to always get me to drop Firefox.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#244

Post by ajorgensen »

Twirrim wrote: post #208
ajorgensen wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have tried to switch quite a few times over the years to Firefox and I still to this day consistently run into websites that are unusably broken on Firefox, do you have the same experience? I realize this probably speaks volumes to the need for more people to use browsers other than Chrome but its unfortunately frequent enough that I always end up switching back to Chrome after a few months.

Honestly? No. If I do it's on the order of "once in a year", and usually only sites that are doing something specifically quirky, like particular types of webgpu demos or somesuch.

Oh interesting. I actually find custom docs sites (mermaid.js was the most recent one for me) seem to be the ones that break most commonly for me in Firefox but work in Chrome and Safari.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#245

Post by franky47 »

abound wrote: post #137
franky47 wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does the storage layer (database) contain? Clear-text, usable data, or encrypted randomness?

Great question! I'd never actually checked, but opening up the SQLite database, it looks encrypted. I see a table `batch_upload_items` full of ciphertexts. I'm running the old Python sync server for the time being.

It is indeed using end-to-end encryption: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2018/11/firefox-sync-privacy/

Re: Why I use Firefox

#246

Post by wiether »

swat535 wrote: post #241
skizm wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still need to use Chrome for YouTube when I'm on my Windows 11 desktop unfortunately. YouTube in FF causes weird issues with my monitor turning on and off after I've been watching YT for more than like 20 min. It gets into a state where any new windows I open or close cause the screen to turn off then on. I have no idea where to even begin diagnosing what's going on. This behavior seemingly goes away when I run YT…

Yup, you also need Chrome if you are using Google Meet, otherwise our experience will be significantly degraded.

Now on FF you also have the webcam filters and stuff like that on Google Meet.

It was my only reason to launch Chrome on my job laptop and it's been six months that I use Google Meet daily on FF without issue.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#247

Post by foobarchu »

wiether wrote: post #246
swat535 wrote: post #241

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup, you also need Chrome if you are using Google Meet, otherwise our experience will be significantly degraded.

Now on FF you also have the webcam filters and stuff like that on Google Meet. It was my only reason to launch Chrome on my job laptop and it's been six months that I use Google Meet daily on FF without issue.

I and my coworkers have recently switched from WebEx to Meet in the last month (thank goodness), and all found meet unbearable on ff. The most common issue is audio simply going out a few minutes in until you refresh. These issues, for whatever reason, don't happen on chrome, so we all keep both installed (except the regular chrome users).

For whatever reason, the experience just isn't there. Maybe it's Mozillas fault, maybe it's Google's, maybe it's even Apple's.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#248

Post by tasuki »

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

Isn't that pretty much irrelevant? Won't network speed etc make much more of a difference?

Re: Why I use Firefox

#249

Post by CoolCold »

swat535 wrote: post #241
skizm wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still need to use Chrome for YouTube when I'm on my Windows 11 desktop unfortunately. YouTube in FF causes weird issues with my monitor turning on and off after I've been watching YT for more than like 20 min. It gets into a state where any new windows I open or close cause the screen to turn off then on. I have no idea where to even begin diagnosing what's going on. This behavior seemingly goes away when I run YT…

Yup, you also need Chrome if you are using Google Meet, otherwise our experience will be significantly degraded.

I do use Edge for this, any hint of what I may be loosing by not using Chrome for Gmeet?

Re: Why I use Firefox

#250

Post by extra88 »

dathinab wrote: post #127
rappr wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In general, wouldn’t Chrome be much closer to being Internet Explorer?

both Chrome is doing the "I make my own web standards and push them through, ups now my feature is standard incompatible so I try to force change the upcoming standard just before it gets committed" thing IE had done in the past (it's e.g. the main reason why you sometimes end up with CORS issues on FF, the site isn't standard compatible as it doesn't handle a certain thing the standard requires from websites but due…

Yes both Chrome and Safari are "the new IE" but for different reasons

I think people make too much of Safari lagging in the adoption of standards. Yes, they lag behind on what Chrome is pushing but they're also ahead on other features, like color spaces.

I'm familiar with Safari strange bugs but it's usually while I'm testing with VoiceOver so I have fewer occasions to notice bugs with Chrome or Firefox, which don't work as well with VoiceOver overall.

I think of Safari being the new IE because it's not as evergreen as other browsers; old but still usable iPhones and iPads can't run the current version and aren't allowed to run anything else. Thus, developers have more reason to care about what a browser from 2+ years ago supports.

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