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Give Firefox a chance

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Re: Give Firefox a chance

#101

Post by orpheline »

I'm apparently one of those rare people who never switched off Firefox - it's been my default browser on Mac and Linux for years. Open source, good plugin ecosystem, and does everything I need (not a web developer, so the dev tools were never a strong selling point for me).

I've used Chrome here and there through the years, but the more invasive Google became about data collection, the less inclined I've been to use their tools. The latest moves to block ad blockers, coupled with nearly every other browser using their engine, had only reinforced my decision to stay with Firefox.

Diversity makes for a healthier ecosystem.

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#102

Post by iamdamian »

aduitsis wrote: post #95

Even as we are headed for a monoculture where the only existing browser will be for all intents and purposes controlled by one or more very big companies, one can read various complaints on HN regarding Firefox battery usage, font rendering, development facilities, etc. That's not necessarily a bad thing, and of course people have the right to complain about whatever they wish. But, can we please all of us stop prete…

I wish HN did a better job of celebrating when companies ship something that we've been asking for (e.g., Apple's new privacy features, companies that are embracing more end-to-end encryption) rather than focusing on the negatives (e.g., how they fall short of being a perfect solution).

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#104

Post by auscompgeek »

ArmandGrillet wrote: post #57
petepete wrote: post #10

I switched back to Firefox from Chrome earlier this year, and the experience has been very positive. It performs well, feels snappy, the dev tools are on par with Chrome's and everything feels right. The only negatives are that container tabs are still taking a bit of getting used to (why can't I have a 'Work' window in which all the new tabs are 'Work' tabs by default?) and the initial migration of passwords was a b…

> why can't I have a 'Work' window in which all the new tabs are 'Work' tabs by default? Same. I've tried Firefox last month and it is the only no-go I've no. With Firefox profiles being a thing, I wonder if a front-end to manage them like in Chrome is in development.

There already exists a profile manager UI if you run `firefox -ProfileManager` or `firefox -P`. Not as elegant as Chrome's though.

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#105

Post by rebelwebmaster »

tapland wrote: post #70
nashashmi wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did the same. Pdfs are probably the easiest thing to switch. If you download a pdf reader, you can switch PDF renderer easily. Firefox supports browser plug in viewers where Chrome does not. And Firefox was the first browser to use js to render PDF. A complete miracle really.

We generated a few PDFs at work last week which break in Firefox default viewwe, but that we can't reproduce anywhere else =/

If it's not something sensitive, try filing a bug and attaching the PDF to it?

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?product=Firefox&c...

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#106

Post by JansjoFromIkea »

Chrome on iPhone is so restricted by Apple's rules that I found switching from it to be extremely easy.

Working on moving to Firefox on desktop, it's my default browser and whathaveyou, but I must admit any time I get confused by something I instinctively flip back to chrome. With that level of a struggle, I can only imagine how hard it'd be to get more casual users to switch over.

Anyone able to tell me how much of a difference there is between Chrome and Firefox on Android? Is it a swap I could get friends to do without it being much of an adjustment?

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#107

Post by auscompgeek »

edraferi wrote: post #99
Lazare wrote: post #59

I switched to Chrome from Firefox years ago because Chrome has a better UX (faster, snappier, cleaner UI). A couple years ago I tried to switch back to Firefox (right after the Quantum project landed, and Firefox was meant to be a lot faster), but found FF to still be bloated, slow, and painful to use. A couple weeks ago I made another try to switch back to FF, and I have found the experience to be very pleasant this…

I had the same experience. Switched to Chrome from Firefox years ago, tried and was disappointed by the initial Quantum release, tried Firefox again with the “Chrome is killing uBlock Origin” announcement, very pleased this time. My main gripe with Firefox at the moment is Sync. It just doesn’t sync everything you need. My Firefox profile is highly customized, with a lot of extensions that all have their own complex…

I believe extensions have to explicitly add support for synchronising settings. For example, uBlock Origin supports Firefox Sync: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Cloud-storage

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#108

Post by latexr »

I’m tired of seeing “change to Firefox” arguments that never address its faults. Particularly on macOS, Firefox is unusable for many users — read this thread and any others on HN where Firefox is the topic, and you’ll find the same complaints:

* Lack of AppleScript support (my main complaint, every other was lifted from other comments).

* Lack of other basic features such as pinch-to-zoom.

* Poor Keychain support.

* Slow.

* Resource-hungry.

And this article comes out just after reports of a 0-day exploit of Firefox on macOS[1].

If you want people to give Firefox a chance, make it good. For many of us it isn’t, and shouting over and over that it’s good doesn’t make it so. Fine if it works for you, but it doesn’t for many.

[1]: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2019/06/poten...

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#109

Post by [deleted] »

idoubtit wrote: post #29

Not much content in this article. A single benchmark which shows nothing of real-life cases. Two minor technical features, one of them already in Chrome beta. Lastly, an appeal to fight Chrome's monopole. Surprisingly, not a word about privacy. I do give Firefox a chance, but it gets tiring. Many years ago, I dropped Firefox's ancestor for Opera 6. The UI and the features were miles ahead (e.g. Mozilla had no tabs).…

[deleted]

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#110

Post by edraferi »

signal11 wrote: post #47

If anyone from the Firefox team is reading this: containers are a great idea (I love them), it’s just that currently they’re too much work. Even on AMO, there’s now a bunch of site-specific container addons (Facebook container, Twitter container, Google container, etc) which clearly isn’t scalable. A little bit of UX work is clearly needed to make them more mainstream and a first-class feature in Firefox.

Have you tried the Temporary Containers[0] add-on? It has an “Automatic Mode” that makes links open into fresh containers by default. Then you can create rules to dial that back as needed for usability.

I use this in concert with the Multi-Account Containers[1] Add-on. I create names containers for things where I need persistence (“work” “personal” “LinkedIn”) and then everything else is isolated by default.

The main challenges are:

1) I have complex rules defining a whitelist on Temporary Containers. I have to sync this manually with setting import/export because Firefox Sync doesn’t handle this for you

2) Multi-Account Containers doesn’t expose its settings AT ALL, so I’m constantly hitting unnecessary “always open site.com in Personal container?” modals.

[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/temporary-con...

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...

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