Live data from Hacker News

I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

techradar.com

521–530 of 699 posts

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#521

I find Firefox to be a superior browser and I use it Firefox on all my devices. But I would have used it even if it wasn't better, because I have lived through IE6 era and I know what browser monoculture results in. We don't need another browser engine monopoly.

It seems strange to compare an open source engine to the IE era. IE sucked because it stagnated technically, the engine isn't the issue with Chrome, it's the business incentives of Google that are at odds with some of the things users want in the browser as a product or service.

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#522

Along with obvious ones like uBlock Origin working perfectly, etc., I have 2 other favorites: - Native reader mode - Native PiP mode for videos Yes, you can get extensions for this in Chrom(e/ium) but having these as a native feature is really nice. Things I want to see in Firefox: - Good/extensible keybindings - Tab groups - Tab search EDIT: How do I break sentences to newline in HN without really making a new parag…

Native reader mode is fantastic! The underlying parser (readability) works great. Shameless plug: I use Readability to parse web articles and send it directly to Kindle: https://ktool.io

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#523

I find Firefox to be a superior browser and I use it Firefox on all my devices. But I would have used it even if it wasn't better, because I have lived through IE6 era and I know what browser monoculture results in. We don't need another browser engine monopoly.

It seems strange to compare an open source engine to the IE era. IE sucked because it stagnated technically, the engine isn't the issue with Chrome, it's the business incentives of Google that are at odds with some of the things users want in the browser as a product or service.

If the majority of the chromium engineers are Google employees, this seems like a distinction without a difference.

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#524

I find Firefox to be a superior browser and I use it Firefox on all my devices. But I would have used it even if it wasn't better, because I have lived through IE6 era and I know what browser monoculture results in. We don't need another browser engine monopoly.

even right now we are suffering because of the chrome dominance. the webextension manifest version 3 dropped a lot of features that coincidentally benefit google by making it harder for extensions that block ads. I don't think it's been fully ratified yet but i think it's pretty close to being the standard.

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#525

I find Firefox to be a superior browser and I use it Firefox on all my devices. But I would have used it even if it wasn't better, because I have lived through IE6 era and I know what browser monoculture results in. We don't need another browser engine monopoly.

Why dont you use more than one ? I usedequally firefox and chrome, because I lived through IE6 and actually know what monoculture does :p

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#527
post #525

I find Firefox to be a superior browser and I use it Firefox on all my devices. But I would have used it even if it wasn't better, because I have lived through IE6 era and I know what browser monoculture results in. We don't need another browser engine monopoly.

Why dont you use more than one ? I usedequally firefox and chrome, because I lived through IE6 and actually know what monoculture does :p

To drive up FF stats on various websites so their admins will better notice that humanity is still blessed with two browser engines.

Also, Firefox syncs tabs and logins really nicely. Much better experience than I had with Chrome, that one was very unreliable.

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#528

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems strange to compare an open source engine to the IE era. IE sucked because it stagnated technically, the engine isn't the issue with Chrome, it's the business incentives of Google that are at odds with some of the things users want in the browser as a product or service.

If the majority of the chromium engineers are Google employees, this seems like a distinction without a difference.

the difference is that with open source software there is always the implicit threat to just fork the thing or discard what you don't want as say, Brave does. The Linux kernel is largely developed and sponsored by big tech and that has never offended anyone precisely for that reason. The optionality afforded by the fact that anyone can walk away limits what a bad actor can do, that's one of the biggest selling points of open source software.

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#529

Along with obvious ones like uBlock Origin working perfectly, etc., I have 2 other favorites: - Native reader mode - Native PiP mode for videos Yes, you can get extensions for this in Chrom(e/ium) but having these as a native feature is really nice. Things I want to see in Firefox: - Good/extensible keybindings - Tab groups - Tab search EDIT: How do I break sentences to newline in HN without really making a new parag…

Tree Style Tabs solved the tab grouping problem for me. I like to put it on the right and I'm looking for a way to have the tab bar hidden. Tab search exists: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/search-open-tabs-firefo... , also you type % into the address bar to start searching over tabs. Not sure if this covers your needs, though.

You need to use userChrome.css (that's what I do and it works great). it's a bit of a hidden feature, I hope they expose it to extensions eventually, maybe with a different API

https://gist.github.com/ruanbekker/f800e098936b27c7cf956c560...

https://superuser.com/questions/1424478/can-i-hide-native-ta...

https://medium.com/@Aenon/firefox-hide-native-tabs-and-title...

/r/firefoxcss is great for asking questions regarding how to customize TST https://www.reddit.com/r/FirefoxCSS/search?q=tst&restrict_sr...

Re: I've started using Firefox and can never go back to Chrome

#530

I find Firefox to be a superior browser and I use it Firefox on all my devices. But I would have used it even if it wasn't better, because I have lived through IE6 era and I know what browser monoculture results in. We don't need another browser engine monopoly.

It seems strange to compare an open source engine to the IE era. IE sucked because it stagnated technically, the engine isn't the issue with Chrome, it's the business incentives of Google that are at odds with some of the things users want in the browser as a product or service.

Why wouldn't chrome stagnate technically when there is no competition? Developing it isn't exactly cheap, and manager with looming quarterly reportsb is very likely to make a sensible decision and defund the project, leaving a few developers to fix some critical bugs. No?
Post reply on HN