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In 2024, please switch to Firefox

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Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#181

Post by Vinnl »

kemayo wrote: post #88
jamiek88 wrote: post #12

We all switched to Firefox back in the day because it was better. Better than IE, there was no chrome and safari was a joke. Entreaties and ‘trying to make Fetch (firefox) happen’ won’t work, evidently. How do we make Firefox obviously better ? I’m core market for Firefox and just use Safari. Better battery life. And it’s just as good for privacy. At least that’s my impression. Is it wrong? If I don’t use it there’s…

> Defaults are powerful. This is true, though the current dominance of Chrome is evidence that a lot of people will switch. Chrome isn't the default browser on any desktop, after all, and yet a majority of non-technical users have deliberately switched to it...

It is the default browser on many phones though.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#182

Post by whalesalad »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #59
jcalvinowens wrote: post #5

I switched back to firefox last year and haven't looked back. I still use chrome on another laptop sometimes, the performance difference from my human perspective is literally zero. These days, it's much more common for me to encounter a website that works in firefox but not chrome than the other way around. I actually switched for good when I had to use firefox to file my taxes, because the IRS free self-file site w…

The only site I've found behaves terribly in Firefox is LinkedIn. Weird pauses on page load that lock the whole browser (not just the tab) for like 5-10 seconds. No idea what they're doing to make this happen, but it's odd. Which is, well, fine, because LinkedIn is mostly a dumpster anyways.

Bigquery studio is an absolute dog in Firefox even on S-tier desktop hardware. It works better in chrome. Go figure.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#183

Post by behnamoh »

jcalvinowens wrote: post #5

I switched back to firefox last year and haven't looked back. I still use chrome on another laptop sometimes, the performance difference from my human perspective is literally zero. These days, it's much more common for me to encounter a website that works in firefox but not chrome than the other way around. I actually switched for good when I had to use firefox to file my taxes, because the IRS free self-file site w…

>\ Hot take:

I tried FF for a long time but finally switched to Brave. Yes, I'll be downvoted for saying this but it's objectively one of my top 3 favorite browsers rn.

1. Brave

2. Edge

3. Safari

I like each of them for different reasons. Brave (after disabling annoying features such as crypto and VPN) is awesome and its iOS app is the only one which can play videos in the background, has dark mode, and syncs really well with the desktop app.

Edge is so tempting esp. with recent Microsoft Copilot which makes it so useful (I can summarize pages right in the browser, organize my tabs by telling so to the Copilot, etc.)

Safari is not a good browser per se and lacks many features and plugins, but it's minimal and doesn't drain the battery like Brave and FF.

I really wanted to like FF but it's just not cutting it anymore.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#184

Post by europeanNyan »

behnamoh wrote: post #166
TheCleric wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention on iOS your choices are really between Safari and Safari with a different skin.

No, on iOS the choice is between Safari + Plugins (official Safari) and Safari w/o Plugins (Chrome, Brave)

Brave on iOS is a, more or less, perfect Youtube Player. I haven't seen ads in months and it just works while also supporting the download of videos and creation of local playlists.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#186

Post by pilaf »

geenat wrote: post #133

I will when FF doesn't regularly lose my sessions. Thanks. Dunno how bugs like this continue to exist.

I've had a couple "scares" like that, i.e. an entire window full of open tabs disappearing (usually closing it by mistake), but normally they come back with just a Ctrl+Shift+T. Not saying that's what happened to you, just sharing my experience.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#187

Post by TheFuzzball »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #95
Slackwise wrote: post #44

I use PWAs extensively and Firefox decided they won't bother to implement them, so that's going to be a no from me. Rather than wanting the web platform to be first class, they really want it to languish as a second-class citizen. Really sad, seeing as they also fired devs, and invested in "AI" instead.

Curious, can you give some examples of PWAs you use, and why? I've rarely seen any benefit of actually installing a PWA vs just bookmarking the site. On mobile, I could see privacy reasons for wanting to use a PWA vs a native app, but every time I've seen a site that supports a PWA, they also support a native app and the PWA is usually a sad substitute in comparison.

I use PWAs for YouTube Music, Slack, and Readwise Reader.

Sometimes there is a standalone app available, like with Slack, but often the PWA has the same features and doesn't duplicate the entire Web Platform stack (Electron), which saves some battery.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#188

Post by torstenvl »

I use Firefox as my main browser. I love Firefox and I want it to succeed.

However... a person who uses Firefox as their primary browser must generally still keep Chrome installed. A person who uses Chrome as their primary browser has no need to keep Firefox installed.

Firefox should endeavor to fix that.

First, Firefox should honor age-old tradition, swallow its pride, and spoof 99% of the Chrome user agent string. That's how upstart web browsers have fought against sites breaking things for them for decades.

Second, Firefox should endeavor to be as compatible as possible with Chrome with regard to the DOM and JS, being sneaky if it has to. I think O365 webmail is the first good place to start, since it's widely deployed. USG websites as well, like DFAS MyPay or Marine A-PES do not work well on it. Obviously, it's difficult for Firefox devs to test on these sites, but that's all the more reason to take bug reports seriously.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#190

Post by JohnTHaller »

krastanov wrote: post #85
jcalvinowens wrote: post #5

I switched back to firefox last year and haven't looked back. I still use chrome on another laptop sometimes, the performance difference from my human perspective is literally zero. These days, it's much more common for me to encounter a website that works in firefox but not chrome than the other way around. I actually switched for good when I had to use firefox to file my taxes, because the IRS free self-file site w…

Firefox out of the box indeed does not cause broken websites. However, the demographic of this forum probably will use Firefox with "Multi-Account Containers", "Temporary Containers", "uBlock Origin", and a few more. These are amazing for privacy and productivity, but will occasionally cause broken websites. Source: I am a Firefox-first user who occasionally uses plugin-less Chrome because the aforementioned plugins…

Firefox doesn't. But publishers de-prioritizing or being hostile to Firefox does. I keep Chrome up for VirusTotal to scan PortableApps.com releases. In Firefox, it'll throw broken ReCaptcha prompts over and over and over after a certain number of scans per day (pick the thing, next, pick the thing, next x10, etc). And that's with all extensions disabled. Possibly related: VirusTotal and ReCaptcha are owned by Google.
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