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Celebrating 10 Years of Firefox

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Celebrating 10 Years of Firefox

#31

Post by namarkiv »

JetSpiegel wrote: post #27
bad_user wrote: post #18

My love for Chrome ended and I switched back to Firefox about 3 months ago. The switch went well and I'm happy with my choice. Reasons: 1. First version of Chrome for the desktop supported extensions, because it was competing with a popular Firefox, and now on Android they don't give a shit about enabling users to customize the behavior of their browser, which pisses me off. So I switched to Firefox on my Android bec…

What's the problem of Gmail's IMAP support? Genuine question. And if you have a headless server, you can run BTSync

SEARCH command keeps on timing out, IDLE doesn't work most of the time, email takes longer time to show up in IMAP compared to the web interface.

Re: Celebrating 10 Years of Firefox

#32

Post by bad_user »

sushid wrote: post #30
Amezarak wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The thing that bothers me in Firefox is the Private Mode (Incognito in Chrome), as it doesn't disable add-ons. And I use private mode quite often. I understand why this is important, but at the same time, I would be upset if NoScript or Adblock Plus didn't work in Private Mode.

I'm not sure about FF but the beauty of Chrome's Private Browsing mode is that all extensions are disabled by default with the option to allow on Private Browsing mode.

True, hence my slight annoyance with Firefox.

Somebody pointed out that you could setup/use different profiles in Firefox and there's a plugin "Profilist" that makes creating / switching profiles easy, just tried it out and works well.

The mentality with add-ons in Firefox is that when you install an add-on, you trust that it does the right thing (e.g. it gets a notification that you're in Private Mode such that it has a chance to stop logging or whatever) and then you trust Mozilla's review process to catch perpetrators.

The problem is of course that some add-ons are more trustworthy than others. I trust Mozilla and I may choose to trust Ghostery, but do I trust the Readability add-on in Private Mode? I can't do that. And you can take security measures, like connecting through a VPN and connecting through HTTPS, but if your browser is compromised, then tough luck.

I use Private Mode when searching / watching porn, or when logging to my Banking account. And I take security very seriously. Therefore I have to abstain from installing add-ons that I don't find to be trustworthy. Of course, at this point I trust extensions in Chrome's Store even less, but I'd also prefer its security model for extensions. Hopefully once Electrolysis is in, they'll also work on this.

Re: Celebrating 10 Years of Firefox

#33

Post by bad_user »

blutgens wrote: post #2

FF is awesome, if i wasn't an android guy, I'd be using it exclusively. But chrome android Just Works™

I like Firefox for Android much more than Chrome.

I find its UI better on my 7 inch tablet (those tabs in Chrome are small and annoying and I also prefer Firefox's UI when doing searches). It also has add-ons and for example I use AdBlock Plus (websites on your mobile full of ads are unusable), HTTPS Everywhere (especially important for mobile devices that connect to public Wifis) and LastPass.

It also has a Reader Mode that strips the annoying styling off an article, much like Readability or Pocket. You can also save articles for later reading. Feature is still young, but it's been working well for me.

It also inherits the Awesome Bar from the desktop version. It does a very good job at suggesting previous links from your history. This saves you from doing searches on Google, which many times is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

It's also a platform for apps, apps that get published in the Firefox Marketplace and that can work in Firefox OS as well as on Android (and more recently on your desktop). Much like Chrome for desktop does, but it works on your mobile. Still young, doesn't have many apps, but it's been growing and improving and the whole thing is based on web standards or APIs that Mozilla is pushing for standardization.

Try it out, you might like it. And let me tell you, once you become hooked to one of its add-ons, you won't be able to switch back to Chrome anymore ;-)

Re: Celebrating 10 Years of Firefox

#34

Post by AaronMT »

dnissley wrote: post #28
jvehent wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my opinion, Firefox for android is vastly superior to chrome.

The last time I tried it the only thing it was missing was the thing that chrome does when you tap near several links and chrome determines that the click was somewhat ambiguous and offers you a zoomed up version in a pop-up box. Does it have that now?

There's a contributor working on that feature right now as we speak: http://bugzil.la/663803

Re: Celebrating 10 Years of Firefox

#35

Post by dnissley »

AaronMT wrote: post #34
dnissley wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The last time I tried it the only thing it was missing was the thing that chrome does when you tap near several links and chrome determines that the click was somewhat ambiguous and offers you a zoomed up version in a pop-up box. Does it have that now?

There's a contributor working on that feature right now as we speak: http://bugzil.la/663803

Excellent!

Re: Celebrating 10 Years of Firefox

#37

Post by lern_too_spel »

bad_user wrote: post #18

My love for Chrome ended and I switched back to Firefox about 3 months ago. The switch went well and I'm happy with my choice. Reasons: 1. First version of Chrome for the desktop supported extensions, because it was competing with a popular Firefox, and now on Android they don't give a shit about enabling users to customize the behavior of their browser, which pisses me off. So I switched to Firefox on my Android bec…

Your memory of desktop Chrome doesn't match mine. Chrome added extensions more than a year after launch. http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/12/google-chrome-for-holiday...

Its extension model remains superior to Firefox's, and I hope Mozilla fixes this. I shouldn't need Python and an SDK installed to develop a JavaScript browser extension. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/Tutorials/In...

Re: Celebrating 10 Years of Firefox

#38

Post by rhelmer »

bad_user wrote: post #26
Excavator wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could set up a separate profile for that¹. You can also use the Profilist² extension in your main profile for easy switching and creation. 1: https://support.mozilla.org/kb/profile-manager-create-and-re... 2: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/profilist/

Hey, thanks for the tip on Profilist. Neat stuff, wonder why it isn't included by default.

Profile manager UI is still around and used to be easier to get to (there's a command-line option for it now), but it was too easy to accidentally remove profiles and also confusing for people who got into it accidentally.

Profilist is relatively new and doesn't allow profile deletion, but to me still seems like the kind of feature that's great as an add-on but not used by so many people and confusing to less power-users.

Re: Celebrating 10 Years of Firefox

#39

Post by nnethercote »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #37
bad_user wrote: post #18

My love for Chrome ended and I switched back to Firefox about 3 months ago. The switch went well and I'm happy with my choice. Reasons: 1. First version of Chrome for the desktop supported extensions, because it was competing with a popular Firefox, and now on Android they don't give a shit about enabling users to customize the behavior of their browser, which pisses me off. So I switched to Firefox on my Android bec…

Your memory of desktop Chrome doesn't match mine. Chrome added extensions more than a year after launch. http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/12/google-chrome-for-holiday... Its extension model remains superior to Firefox's, and I hope Mozilla fixes this. I shouldn't need Python and an SDK installed to develop a JavaScript browser extension. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/Tutorials/In...

I read bad_user's comment as saying "desktop Chrome supported extensions from the start, but mobile Chrome doesn't; so I switched to mobile Firefox for the extensions, and then subsequently to desktop Firefox for Sync."

Re: Celebrating 10 Years of Firefox

#40

Post by nnethercote »

bad_user wrote: post #18

My love for Chrome ended and I switched back to Firefox about 3 months ago. The switch went well and I'm happy with my choice. Reasons: 1. First version of Chrome for the desktop supported extensions, because it was competing with a popular Firefox, and now on Android they don't give a shit about enabling users to customize the behavior of their browser, which pisses me off. So I switched to Firefox on my Android bec…

> the Awesome Bar (which does a good job of doing full text searches in my history, much better than what other browsers are capable of

I'm surprised that the other browsers are still so much worse on this front, and that this difference doesn't get more attention. Firefox's implementation is fantastic and has been for years and years.

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