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How to Firefox

kau.sh

231–240 of 505 posts

Re: How to Firefox

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> - I can't run the extensions I develop in dev mode. I haven’t been able to find a solution for this. That said, I don't encounter this issue in LibreWolf. I don't have this problem. I was gonna type a long winded thing to descrbe how I do it but since you managed to make it work in LibreWolf it's likely not an issue with how you're doing it >- I experience video codec issues, which I hope I’m not the only one facin…

- In Librewolf, when I set the `xpinstall.signatures.required` preference to `false` in the `about:config` section, I'm able to install my `.xpi` extension. However, this setting doesn't work in Firefox. - The other issue was related to codecs. On Windows, I encountered an error message saying: "No video with supported format and MIME type found." The issue was resolved after installing the following codecs on Window…

>- The other issue was related to codecs. On Windows, I encountered an error message saying: "No video with supported format and MIME type found."

I did get that for a few days!

But then it went away. By itself.

Re: How to Firefox

#232

A tip I would add to this article is that Firefox natively supports sidebar tabs now without needing hacky extensions. Go to about:preferences under the Browser Layout section of the General tab, and select Vertical Tabs. The tab group functionality along with Multi-Account Containers are a lot more useful under this layout IMO.

> Firefox natively supports sidebar tabs now without needing hacky extensions

glad you mentioned it!

edge and opera do too

Re: How to Firefox

#233

I am surprised how many people have so many problems with Firefox. I've never felt impeded by loading speeds, and my ADHD regularly has me forgetting to restart it, to the tune of 100+ tabs open across multiple desktops. My wimply little MacBook Pro doesn't seem to mind. The only downside I've found is that, because so many people just default to "Chrome or nothing," there's occasionally sites that have bugs because,…

Where does the article mention anything about loading speed?

Re: How to Firefox

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a heavy user of firefox and I am still unhappy with mozillas policy. * Firefox-Hello is a easy to pick example of a broken service run by a 3rd party being imposed on users. * Pocket is another service I never asked for. * Instead of focusing on the browser, mozilla puts their effort into an English language database. It appears to me mozilla does not understand their target audience. Recently I tried to customi…

Pocket is shutting down soon and fresh Firefox installs don't install its extension any more.

Which kinda makes sense. It was actually cool when it could save webpages for later reading offline (camping, airplane). Once it lost that feature, there's nothing left but bookmarks.

Re: How to Firefox

#235
Another FF feature I love that I believe Chrome lacks: text replacement in bookmarks. Add a bookmark with url "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search/%s" and keyword "wp" and typing "wp Potato" in the url bar will take you to the wikipedia entry on Potato.

I switched to FF a few years back I really do like it better, but honestly even if it crashed every hour on the hour I'd still use it over chrome for uBO alone.

Re: How to Firefox

#236

Lots of Firefox hate here, but little discussion about the articles kicker, which is the exclusion of uBlock Origin from Chrome. I hope this will mean that in the long run Firefox (and other secondary browsers) will gain more users again. For me, Firefox is a solid piece of software. Works well in strict privacy mode, with uBlock Origin and Multi-Account Containers.

On my list of concerns for big tech abusing power, the ad company with the browser monopoly leveraging their position to essentially end ad blocking on the web by disabling it on the browser people are using in practice is very high on the list, and I would have been fine waiting on forcing Apple to let you uninstall the camera app, or switching the iPhone to USB-C if it could have prevented this. This didn't come out of nowhere, we've known about manifest v3 for years now.

In fact Google's browser monopoly only looks like it's gonna get further cemented as Apple is forced to allow other browser engines, which is the only thing keeping any sort of competition against Chrome.

I feel like the anti-Apple snark that's been so popular since around the late 2000s (and I took part in in my angsty teen years) has been affecting the priority of what's being dealt with from regulators and it annoys me.

Re: How to Firefox

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm about the same, I don't even know what the loading speeds issue is about, I still remember Firefox Quantum beating the daylights out of Chrome, and I don't know if Chrome ever fully caught up to Quantum? What's really funny is for ages Chrome would load the browser window even if the whole browser UI wasn't done loading, and sometime after Quantum, Firefox started doing the same trick to make you feel as though i…

I don't have anything but anecdotal experience here, but I think Google Chrome was gaming Windows Defender better for awhile, when Windows Defender treats you poorly IO grinds to a halt and then some. I've never had Firefox issues on Linux.

> I've never had Firefox issues on Linux.

My experience on Linux running on very old hardware (4th Gen Intel) is also good. Firefox feels quick and snappy. It uses a reasonable amount of resources, and has a relatively modest memory footprint by modern browser standards. In comparison, Chromium makes my fans spin on every site and eats several GB of memory.

The annoying part of Firefox is that development seems a bit stagnant in some areas, especially taking into consideration the amount of resources Mozilla has. For example, bookmarks and history still rely on a very old native UI that is quite clunky. Customization via user.js is too imperative and most options are largely undocumented.

Re: How to Firefox

#238
post #50

I would just like to add that in my experience, "How to Firefox" is just: - Download Firefox - Install uBlock Origin - Use Firebox Somehow this blog post makes it seem like adopting Firefox is hard, or overwhelming, or some multi step process, and if you don't do those steps you're effectively downgrading. But really it isn't. It's a browser. Its UX is great. It just... works. The suggestion that to use it properly y…

You forgot - Disable all telemetry in your list.

In the context of switching from Chrome? No, I very much did not. On the privacy front, I'm absolutely convinced that switching from Chrome to Firefox is an upgrade even if you don't do stuff like this.

This is my entire point. Yes, you can tweak Firefox to the max and yes you can complain about the more questionable stuff Mozilla has done, but compared to the privacy/goodness you get just from ditching Chrome (or Edge for that matter), all that is pretty marginal.

Re: How to Firefox

#239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I've never felt impeded by loading speeds I honestly think it's just something people here like to complain about. It's a complete non-issue. No everyday web experience is even close to being noticeably different. Full stop. It's almost like a meme, people say it because they think they should say it. I would ask those people that are complaining, what are you doing with all those extra milliseconds you claim you're…

I can't answer your question directly, as I haven't experienced Firefox problems in a few years. In the past, I experienced regular hangs and crashes. There are a few point to unpacck here: - Qualifying a statement with "Full stop" is a thought-terminating cliche. - Due to the different hardware, operating systems, and use cases people have, peoples' experience, and the problems they encounter vary between users of P…

> - Qualifying a statement with "Full stop" is a thought-terminating cliche.

Yeah, well I like it. Full stop.

Re: How to Firefox

#240

I am surprised how many people have so many problems with Firefox. I've never felt impeded by loading speeds, and my ADHD regularly has me forgetting to restart it, to the tune of 100+ tabs open across multiple desktops. My wimply little MacBook Pro doesn't seem to mind. The only downside I've found is that, because so many people just default to "Chrome or nothing," there's occasionally sites that have bugs because,…

My take is that Firefox is not very effective at marketing. For example, Chrome publishes articles like 'Chrome achieves highest score ever on Speedometer' (2024) [1]. I haven't found similar articles or any reliable scores for Firefox. Some computer magazines suggest that Firefox is in second place after Chrome in running Speedometer 3. For me, at least, it's hard to find any specific numbers. Also, it's important to note that Speedometer is a browser benchmark test developed by WebKit, Firefox, and Chrome.

Also, i don't understand why people prefer google over open source. And the sometimes disrespectful and destructive criticism of Mozilla.

[1] https://blog.chromium.org/2025/06/chrome-achieves-highest-sc...

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