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Give Firefox a chance

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Re: Give Firefox a chance

#291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

An easier way to manage and launch Firefox profiles is the about:profiles page.

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#292

I've switched to Firefox over the last few weeks. It definitely feels faster on my desktop PC which runs Linux, also no problem in Windows when dual-booted. Though there are two big issues imo: - When running Firefox on my late 2013 Macbook Pro, it doesn't feel as fast as Chrome or Safari, it feels very sluggish. I am forced to use h264ify to force YouTube to use h264 instead of VP8/9 as it makes my Macbook Pro turn…

I just moved to a new OS and was somewhat surprised my Firefox configuration didn’t come along with my extensions.

Out of all the data they can collect about me, what I’d be least worried about is how wide I’d like the width of the address bar to be.

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#293
I can't trust chrome. For me Firefox is not a choice but a necessity.

I have to login into too many systems with different credentials and I need NOT to be remembered by the browser even if I happen to forget to put it into private mode.

The only time I had to use chrome recently was because I had to login into google cloud and my company just don't support Firefox as a browser option and cannot install firefox.

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#294
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool, I’ll dig into this. Would be helpful if the Firefox store made it clear if extensions support this. Also, why do some first-party extensions ignore it?? Also: there are other things sync still misses, like config.

The storage is more limited for synced extension data than for unsynced data. IMO this is quite unfortunate, and is mostly a consequence of the implementation of extension storage sync being done separately from the rest of sync (which in retrospect was a mistake, but at the time that wasn't clear). Also, the limits are copy-pasted directly from the limits chrome places on sync, so it's possible there are compatibili…

> For config (assuming you mean prefs in about:config)

And userChrome/Content.css... looks like I’ll need to dropbox those.

Editing css was essential to make the switch from Vivaldi to FF - yesterday! Getting TreestyleTab et al. to feel like Vivaldi with vertical tabs required some fiddling: sidebar without menu, hidden top tabs, darker text color, etc.

In any case, it’s my new daily driver and I'm quite satisfied so far. Even set DDG as the default while at it.

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#295

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…

I never switched from Firefox either. I always felt the UI has been vastly superior (especially bookmarks) on this side of the browser ecosystem.

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#296
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…

The funny thing is a lot of what makes Chrome seem faster are subtle hacks. They show an empty window while it all loads so does Firefox now. Firefox used to only show the window once everything rendered. Firefox was a lot faster at rendering web pages from my experience before they changed this. I am sure theres other subtle changes out there.

I remember after Quantum pages would render HTML so fast and asynchronously the CSS hadnt loaded just yet. Then a split second would occur where the CSS would kick in and the page would be styled.

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For passwords the browser's built in management is inferior to password managers. I use 1Password (most polished) and there's also Bitwarden (hosted, but open source) and others. And I use my password manager every day, so if there's a cost associated, it's worth it.

> For passwords the browser's built in management is inferior to password managers. This is a good thing. Browsers should be good at browsing. Password managers should be good at managing passwords. The two should have API’s as necessary to interact so that the user can choose what’s best for them.

Technical differences aside, why is it a good thing that the password manager shipped with Firefox isn't as good as most 3rd party password managers? It seems odd to prefer that software be bad.

Lockwise, which admittedly requires an add-on but integrates with the built-in password manager, I think is pretty on par with its contemporaries.

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#298

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Temporary Containers is almost perfect, except when you create a new tab it takes a split second for that tab to be assigned a new temporary container. For that split moment, if you're typing in an address whatever you've typed in so far will be erased when the new tab is switched to the temporary container. On my underpowered machine, this usually means one or two keys are dropped, such that if i was typing in "goog…

Interesting. I haven’t noticed any performance impact. I’m using it on fairly beefy general-purpose machines though. Maybe you could work around this by using separate search and address bars? Then you can search before tab and container creation happens. Not gonna help for standard direct navigation though.

It most often bites me when I'm in a new tab and I'm trying to complete a site URL from history. AFAIK there is no other clean way to open a new tab of a site you've been to before. Maybe if the history sidebar were useful, but using that is a PITA for me because I'm already using the Tree Style Tabs sidebar (which is really a feature that should be implemented in firefox itself..)

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#299
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tree Style Tabs is a popular one. Though none can take away the Tabs in title bar without manually installed CSS hacks.

It’s only a few lines of code, though.

Not a big problem for technical users, but it's enough to dissuade many non-technical users. With vertical tabs being such a second class feature in this and other ways, consumers have not been given a fair opportunity to try both schemes and decide for themselves which they prefer. Thus the tyranny of horizontal tabs is perpetuated.

Re: Give Firefox a chance

#300
post #294
post #266

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The storage is more limited for synced extension data than for unsynced data. IMO this is quite unfortunate, and is mostly a consequence of the implementation of extension storage sync being done separately from the rest of sync (which in retrospect was a mistake, but at the time that wasn't clear). Also, the limits are copy-pasted directly from the limits chrome places on sync, so it's possible there are compatibili…

> For config (assuming you mean prefs in about:config) And userChrome/Content.css... looks like I’ll need to dropbox those. Editing css was essential to make the switch from Vivaldi to FF - yesterday! Getting TreestyleTab et al. to feel like Vivaldi with vertical tabs required some fiddling: sidebar without menu, hidden top tabs, darker text color, etc. In any case, it’s my new daily driver and I'm quite satisfied so…

Hmm, I don't think many have requested we sync user{Chrome,Content}.css. It's possible we'd accept a patch to sync them (I'd be for it, at least), but it's not trivial since we don't already have file syncing code.

Syncing them with dropbox and symlinking does sound to me to be the most reasonable.

Glad you're satisfied other than that!

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