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Why I use Firefox

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Re: Why I use Firefox

#301

Post by dathinab »

Anthony-G wrote: post #206
dathinab wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that they're usually politically motivated feel-good marketing distractions most of them where not especially if you look at resource distributions Like tab containers, browser sync, firefox SSO, VR, FirefoxOs, Pocket, the send file thing, relay, VPN, privacy preserving Translation, TTS, reader mode, pdf.js. Non of them are "politically motivated feel-good marketing distractions" but bets to diversification (which…

That’s a great list of nice things that are easy to take for granted. While reading it, I couldn’t help but think of the “ What have the Romans ever done for us ” scene from Monty Python¹. I didn’t know about Text to Speech (TTS) but personally wouldn’t have much use for it. The other things I didn’t recognise is VR. I’m guessing this refers to Firefox Reality on the Oculus Go VR Headset ² (which seems to be no longe…

> Firefox Reality on the Oculus Go VR Headset

yes, through not limited to the Oculus

and it kinda folded Hubs (https://hubs.mozilla.com/) into it

and and I think there was a bit of additional research level stuff never ending up in user hands

but both are somewhat dead, idk. if Firefox Reality still works with any VR headset at all (it might still work with non standalone headset usage) and Hubs is shutting down end of March, a community version still exist (Hubs ~= somewhat like VRChat from the idea but not as VR specific and just less interesting in general)

same for most other things they are either dead or fizzled out (and some are stables, but don't bring users, like pdf.js)

One thing I forget to mention is FF does a lot of work to reduce fingerprint-ability of existing interfaces (while trying to avoid breaking websites by changing/breaking existing interfaces, like some other more privacy focused browsers do). A bunch of this is done in context for the tor-browser but also benefit normal FF. Sadly you using FF ads more information to the fingerprint then any of the protections due to better fingerprint protection (something which is true for any form of privacy protection not used en mass by every one).

Re: Why I use Firefox

#302

Post by Zambyte »

Aeolun wrote: post #126
bachmeier wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems to be a popular opinion, but I believe they probably do it because it's good for their bottom line. The MS case was very different. The only relevant market was desktop computing, they had a monopoly on the desktop OS market, they baked the browser into the OS for no good reason, and they were taking actions to make OS competition impossible. Having a high desktop browser market share number honestly isn't…

It’s also hard to argue they don’t allow competition when literally anyone can pull the source at any time.

I don't think that's relevant to the argument about competition. Being able to pull (most) of their source code doesn't make it easy to write a competing browser engine. Why do you think writing a browser engine is an impossibly daunting task nowadays? Who made the web this way?

Re: Why I use Firefox

#303

Post by jklinger410 »

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 don't see why I would want to use anything else.

I am back again to remind people that profiles suck on Firefox, container tabs are not a great solution, and there are tons of extensions that Chrome has that Firefox doesn't.

So just 3 very simple examples of why someone would use Chrome over Firefox.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#304

Post by MasterYoda »

rprospero wrote: post #228
jstanley wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People always say this but almost never are they able to give examples.

Concrete examples: The web interfaces for both Jitsi and Zoom fail to recognise my web camera. I've gone through the permissions settings a dozen times and Firefox says that it sees camera, but it only displays a black feed. Vivaldi correctly accesses the camera on both sites. imascientist.org.uk makes it "impossible" to sign up for outreach sessions under Firefox. The div with the sessions has a `max-width` paramete…

If I record correctly, Mozilla has said that like 97% of all problems people has is with problems is due to extensions, not Firefox. '

When you have a site not working as expected, start Firefox in "Troubleshoot Mode" (alt-key then in the menu at the top Help > Troubleshot mode) that starts Firefox with addons turn off. If the site works, restart and turn of addons one by one to you see which one creates the problem.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#305

Post by MasterYoda »

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…

I think this mpre could be a graphic driver problem. Test update to the latest from your pc manufacturer or your graphic card manufacturer (they could differ).

Re: Why I use Firefox

#306

Post by SR2Z »

jklinger410 wrote: post #303
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 don't see why I would want to use anything else. I am back again to remind people that profiles suck on Firefox, container tabs are not a great solution, and there are tons of extensions that Chrome has that Firefox doesn't. So just 3 very simple examples of why someone would use Chrome over Firefox.

I mean, sure, but I (and probably most people) only have a few extensions that actually matter regardless of the browser.

In my case it's Dark Reader and uBlock, and both work well in FF.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#307

Post by flkiwi »

gitaarik wrote: post #292
flkiwi wrote: post #201

I have tried, oh how I've tried. But the vertical tab options on Firefox are just not very good compared to the disappointingly elegant Edge implementation (with something either identical or very similar used by Brave). And, for me, with the sheer amount of work I do in a browser, the base interface is a huge concern. I've been a fan since the Firebird days--which I wish they'd been able to stick with because the an…

Vertical tabs are native in Edge? In any case, it has existed in Firefox for a long time before Edge even existed. But I guess you particularly like Edge's implementation. It does sound funny though that someone would prefer Edge because they browse a lot. Usually people use Edge because it's the default browser in Windows and they don't know any better.

Yes, they’re native in Edge and superior to any of the extension-based implementations in Firefox (and FF has no native vertical tabs). Floorp is a pretty good FF fork that has better vertical tabs, but they’re still not as clean and stable as Edge.

Every word of that is painful to type but no less true.

Re: Why I use Firefox

#308

Post by nightpool »

snarfy wrote: post #276
deanishe wrote: post #260

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't see why I would want to use anything else I use FF, too, but I can see why someone wouldn't want to: It's just not a very good Mac app. Weird windowing and focus bugs in fullscreen mode. Keyboard shortcuts that randomly stop working. Zero scripting capabilities (it used to have the bare minimum, but Mozilla bizarrely ripped it out), and just poor integration in general. My system-wide shortcuts — the ones t…

To be fair, Apple is a bit hostile towards open source developers. I can write windows and linux software from both windows and linux, but to write apple software I need a mac and a developer account that costs money. If firefox depends on patches from the community, they will receive less patches for macos features because of this asymmetry.

I have never needed to pay for a developer account to run my own code on my own machine. What? How does this have anything to do with OP's point?

Re: Why I use Firefox

#309

Post by fruktmix »

The only issue that I have with Firefox is that some UI libraries don't work very well in the browser. Been trying to use svelte-typewriter (https://www.npmjs.com/package/svelte-typewriter) but it seems to only work in Chrome for instance.

But it seems to be fixed now with polyfills https://todo.sr.ht/~henriquehbr/svelte-typewriter/13

Re: Why I use Firefox

#310

Post by kzhe »

Mostly agree but Firefox does not have the best Android extensions. Kiwi thrashes Firefox and Iceraven is better too with support for custom ones
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