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In 2024, please switch to Firefox

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Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#561

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox doesn’t need to get me to “engage” when I’m already in their browser.

Firefox needs to make money.

That’s why I have to change the default search engine.

Most of what they’re nagging me about won’t even make them money. It’s marketing-changelog pages nobody reads. They could save some money by keeping text change logs where people who care can find them, and dropping those altogether.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#563

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Brave and Edge are just chromium. Bro. You’re still using chrome.

Chromium !== Chrome.

That is true, but the Chrome/Chromium ecosystem is largely driven by Google. And Google makes use of this power position to push through web standards that benefit them, but not the users. Therefore I choose to use Firefox, to support a more open browser ecosystem.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#564
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but that's not on Mozilla in any way. That's just Google's anti-competitive practices. Firefox refuses to jump on Google's attempts to ban adblockers with Manifest V3 so Google wants to punish them

What matters for the end user is the experience. If using FF will lead to a poor experience on certain websites, then why recommend it? Do people honestly believe that if they keep recommending FF, people will magically switch to FF and Google will be forced to stop its anti-competitive practices?

What good does not recommending it achieve? Maintaining the status quo which as well discussed elsewhere in these threads is hardly generally desirable?

My move back to FF has been slow (as mentioned already too) but I've been recommending it to others, who don't have my self-inflicted blocker, for some time. Maybe some will stop listening if I keep mentioning it, but people online I'll never meet in person are hardly a great loss in my life. The sort of people who are going to take such issue in RealLife™ are likely those just paying me attention in exchange largely for free tech support (the matter isn't likely to come up in other contexts) and they can do one anyway too.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#565

Hi, macOS user here. I know Firefox is great, and I'd love to use it (again), but Mozilla's decision to remove all user-facing, OS-level scripting capabilities from it (i.e., AppleScript) made me drop it a few years ago. Getting anything out of FF on macOS, locally, is a major pain in the ass, actually. Try to grab the current URL from the active tab… Add to that the non-macOS text handling, macOS-unlike font renderi…

If you are using Safari on Apple’s platform, you are already contributing to the user base of the browser that isn’t headed for monopoly. IMO, you are probably contributing better than us Firefox users; Safari remains large.

I wonder if, like in Apps, Apple users are known to be more likely to pay for things…

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#566

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…

Not sure about the others but uBlock Origin allows you to disable it for specific websites and remember the setting.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#567
Problem is it's not the best browser out there, Chromium is. I wanted to switch to Firefox many times, and while for regular websites it's ok, the performance in more complex web apps simply sucks. And the developer tools are dogsh* compared to Chromium's.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#568
post #383

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On desktop, various Firefox updates would change my settings subtly and nag me about features I had no interest in If Firefox suited my needs 100% as well as Safari, this is why I’d still not use it. God damn is it noisy. You’re a browser, I have no interest in engaging with you more than necessary, whatever-I-was-trying-to-do is what I care about. Please stop acting like a kid who’s not getting enough attention. I…

> God damn is it noisy What is this noise you're referring to? I'm 90% Firefox and 10% Safari and I don't understand this comment.

I don't know if it's the same "noise", but for a period of months I used an extension that replaced the New Tab page. When you do this with Firefox it pops up a notification the first new tab you open each session stating "your new tab has changed, keep settings?" I mean, I installed the extension to change the new tab page, so presumably I wouldn't need to be asked a second time.

The noisy part was this notification steals focus so you can't type into the search bar immediately, you have to hit escape or click out to gain focus again. And the popup kept appearing until I realized you had to specifically press "yes, keep changes" on the notification to get it to stop (usually I canceled out of it reflexively to do actually important things). If you just hit Escape or tried to use the URL bar it would come back next session and steal focus again.

It sounds like something minor but the idea of stealing focus to re-confirm a change you already confirmed is a mild source of headaches, and not necessary in my view. Not to mention, this process would repeat itself for every Firefox installation synced with, since the extension counts as a fresh install each time. In a world where switching browsers is trivial, I think minor annoyances like those are best removed.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#569
post #442
post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but that's not on Mozilla in any way. That's just Google's anti-competitive practices. Firefox refuses to jump on Google's attempts to ban adblockers with Manifest V3 so Google wants to punish them

I feel like it doesn't matter how many examples of Firefox not working properly you are faced with, you will simply respond "well that's not Mozilla's fault, that on the website developer" for each and every one. At the end of the day it's the Firefox user who is faced with the problem.

I do feel that there’s a difference in kind between: “a website was built with Chrome in mind, and has problems rendering in Firefox”, and “a website was built specifically to degrade in Firefox”.

If no engineering time was spent on Firefox, and it’s broken in Firefox, that’s a Firefox problem.

If active engineering time was spent on _deliberately breaking_ Firefox, then yes, I don’t think that’s a Firefox problem. I think it’s a website problem at that point.

Re: In 2024, please switch to Firefox

#570

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…

I love & support Firefox but feel nervous about going all in on it when Mozilla appears to be pivoting away from investing in it.
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