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Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

marko.fyi

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Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#281

Post by 2ion »

Naac wrote: post #253
catalogia wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Make a copy of your profile (to preserve your history) then in Firefox's Show All History window, search for a site that has thousands of visits, select them all, then press delete. Firefox will start burning a few CPU cores and lock up for a long time, every time.

That might very well be performing poorly. But I interpreted the OP to talk about usability of viewing all the previous history. My goal is to never delete my firefox "sites visited" history so I can refer to it back later. So naturally I've never experienced the problem you're describing.

No I meant deleting items takes a very long time, like the current grand parent.

Search is quick, in Ctrl+H and the URL bar suggestions are instantaneous. No complaints there.

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#282

Post by paulintrognon »

maaaats wrote: post #242
2ion wrote: post #223

The only drawback I have with FF nowadays is history management. I have enabled 'infinite history' (do not delete old history, ever) so I can keep a journal of what I've visited when. The history, as large as it might turn out, is just a few MB of an sqlite3 database (places.sql) -- problematic is the management of it using the Firefox UI. Searching is laggy and deletion of swaths of entries is impossible as it makes…

At least Firefox gives proper suggestions from history when typing in addresses. Chrome is way off, as if it wants you to search in google instead.

That's the main reason I've always stuck with Firefox. I use the address bar as a way to quickly access my history instead of using bookmarks, and it has worked so well for me so far.

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#283

Post by edoceo »

wutbrodo wrote: post #274
edoceo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do this so frequently that I wrapped FF (and chrome) with a PyGTK starter, each profile with an icon. Less clicks to launch a new session of my preferred flavor

For those unaware, this interface already exists this simply in the browser's UI (the difference being that your approach allows launching from desktop)

In FF each profile is a different directory (good) for Chrome I force it to specific user-settings so there is no cross contamination.

And yes, it's basically a trivial interface shortcutting that FF built tool.

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#284

Post by dronestriker »

verisimilidude wrote: post #195
hollerith wrote: post #143

OK, Firefox experts: which desktop OS does Firefox run best on? And which desktop OS has the largest usage share among the developers of Firefox? (I want to know because I am undecided on which OS I will be using in the future. By "run best" I mean the fewest bugs and the fewest instances of behavior that would surprise an ordinary user.)

(This is probably subjective, and I don't consider myself and expert.) I think Firefox feels best on Gnome-based Linux desktops: Fedora, Ubuntu, etc. Windows 10 is also a fine target for Firefox; I never encounter any problems there. I hear some features are missing on touchscreen laptops: gestures, etc. I could be wrong. Firefox has always had a little bit of funkiness on the Mac. Little UI things, battery killing p…

>Gnome-based

How unfortunate.

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#286

Post by crispinb »

dguo wrote: post #82

The post briefly mentions multi-account containers[1]. I have loved using them and regard them as a killer feature for Firefox. Very few websites support account switching. Google is probably the best example, and even then, I don't really want to log in to both my personal and work Gmail within the same session. But containers effectively and cleanly enable multiple sessions for all websites. Like tabs so many years…

I wish it was a bit more reliable - browser crashes and/or updates have lost all my containers several times.

Nevertheless once you've got used to it, it becomes an essential feature. Another reason to be thankful for Firefox's existence.

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#287

Post by abawany »

Waterluvian wrote: post #24

About once a week Firefox bans me from opening new tabs until I reboot it for an update. It promises to return my existing tabs but it never has. For this reason I don't trust it when I'm doing meaningful work.

I use a session restore add-on to ensure that I have a alternative location for my tabs. Works nice with its periodic backups of session state. Edit: I use https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tab-session-m... .

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#288

Post by crispinb »

lima wrote: post #87
dguo wrote: post #82

The post briefly mentions multi-account containers[1]. I have loved using them and regard them as a killer feature for Firefox. Very few websites support account switching. Google is probably the best example, and even then, I don't really want to log in to both my personal and work Gmail within the same session. But containers effectively and cleanly enable multiple sessions for all websites. Like tabs so many years…

Chrome supports multiple profiles, and you can seamlessly switch between them using Ctrl-Shift-M and the "Open link as" context menu entry.

I don't think you can use them to automatically sequester urls to certain profiles though? That's a serious limitation for my use - eg. I always want gmail to open in my logged-in 'engoogled' container, and never want plain google searches to be logged in. I don't want to manually enforce those rules (that's what computers are for).

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#289

Post by Havoc »

I've taken to using both.

FF -> main browser with Noscript & and clear cookies on close. Which cripples some website, but is fine for most browsing.

Chrome -> For when priority is site working not privacy. e.g. airline checkin, banking, email etc.

Plus obv all the usual pihole etc.

Currently the best compromise I've managed on blocking sketchy stuff while not going full stallman email myself articles.

Re: Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet

#290

Post by justsee »

Nextgrid wrote: post #142
huzaifaahmed wrote: post #120

What do you guys think about Brave? I use it and I think it's actually better that firefox in terms of speed and other features.

The problem of Brave is that at heart it's still from an advertising company, no matter how nice they come across. Advertising is inherently at odds with productivity (ads waste your time) and potentially privacy (for better ad targeting), so I wouldn't recommend it. Under the hood it's just a reskinned Chromium so the battery life & performance concerns remain.

Actually because Brave aggressively and efficiently blocks ads and trackers by default it has a much better battery & performance profile.

They've blogged about this in detail. One recent post was : https://brave.com/accurately-predicting-ad-blocker-savings/.

Stating that they're simply an advertising company misses a significant amount of innovative work they're doing in-browser too.

They're building a new business model and infrastructure that is diametrically opposed to the current surveillance capitalism model, and this infrastructure can replace donations, sponsorship, advertising and subscription models in a way that reduces transaction friction significantly, and could very likely challenge a significant number of powerful incumbents.

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