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

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

#641
post #291

Is there really a killer feature of Chrome that justifies its use over FF? I've been using Firefox and have never been disappointed with it. I always just assumed that if you wanted privacy, it's better to use Firefox over Chrome, Safari, or Brave.

Firefox has traditionally given a Bronx cheer to IT making it more difficult to manage updates and configuration. Maybe it’s changed but I wrote them off years ago as a result.

As a Brit, I've never heard the term "Bronx cheer" before, looked it up and now love it.

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

#642
post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I flip flop between Firefox and Chrome constantly and for as long as I can remember, Chrome has always just felt snappier

I have an older Surface tablet (that I recovered from a recycle bin, TBH) and I've been using Chrome on it, but I was annoyed by some of the latency and tried Firefox the other day. It had all the problems of Chrome, plus jittery scrolling and some extra random lags thrown in, so I noped right out of it. I've got nothing against Firefox as a concept, but it's apparently too hardware intensive for that scenario.

Are you sure it isn't the hardware? Perhaps there's a reason it was in the recycling bin. Not my experience whatsoever, even with "old Surface tablets".

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

#644

Incidentally, Firefox on my M1 MacBook Air suddenly got very slow. Scrolling got super laggy. I've tried refreshing it and disabling all extensions, nothing helps. It's on the latest version and the rest of the system is very smooth as always. It's even laggy after I completely wiped it from my system and used a fresh Firefox installation. Any ideas?

> Scrolling got super laggy. Are you sure that it is not due to the "smooth scrolling" being enabled? I remember it used to enabled by default on fresh installations of FF.

Changing that option doesn't change anything in my subjective feeling. It's not only scrolling that is laggy, I think. Also I didn't change any settings between a week ago and now, still suddenly it got laggy. It works fine on my iMac (albeit an older Intel iMac) with the exact configuration. (I use Firefox as my work browser and since I usually work at the iMac, it's been a week or two since I've last used Firefox on my M1 MBA.)

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

#645
post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

also check out "sidebery" as a modern alternative that does a bit more

Am I doing something wrong? Every time I try to move something into a group, it just gets deselected and I have to select them again and then sometimes it works to move into a group.

you select (how this works depends on your settings, I do shift or ctrl + click), right click, group.

but most useful is the auto-grouping of child tabs anyways

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

#646
post #613

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ctrl+pgdn is a two-handed operation, doa. The use-case for a browser and IDEs etc. is vastly different. > finding back your tab amongst the many open ones is a nightmare without some form of easily accessed recently used list that also works across windows not at all, they are ordered and you already know the direction you want to go. Unlike MRU that breaks down completely after a few tabs.

They're not ordered for me, any tab could be anywhere and many tabs can exist for many contexts from different moments of time that can be relevant again at any future time. How do you get the magical ability to have the tabs in the exact order you need them and have to go in only one direction?

Because that's how you open them. Which is the relevant context you need.

As soon as you have to search for anything the MRU is poisoned beyond sense and you have to start all over again.

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

#647

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tab search in FF: Type a percent sign and a space in the address bar, your search is now on tabs. % - Tab search ^ - History search * - Bookmark search

I wish they also had a way to search tabs without the address bar. I insist that address bars act solely as address bars so I've disabled all other features from it including search.

It's the CLI component. Thank goodness your insistence is a preference no one else has to live with.

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

#648
post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“TST is literally the killer feature for FF …” No - it is figuratively the killer feature. If it were literally the killer function this would be a very different discussion .

> literally the (killer feature) vs > (literally the killer) feature A "killer feature" is a phrase with its own meaning so we can treat it as an atom and apply modifiers to it. The order of operations matters, and I posit that the OP placed their imaginary parentheses as I did in my first example.

Touché!

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

#649

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

TST is literally the killer feature for FF. It's actually the only reason I went to FF, it was getting out of hand to have all my tabs across the top, and it makes little sense with modern screens being so wide that giving up a little horizontal space to get legible titles is absolutely worth it. Someone in Chrome/Edge/Safari must be thinking about doing this, I don't know why it hasn't been cloned. Can't be too hard…

> Someone in Chrome/Edge/Safari must be thinking about doing this, I don't know why it hasn't been cloned.

Easy, most people never use more than five or six tabs because it’s annoying to have more. TST is a solution to a marginal use case so no one invests the time into developing it.

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

#650

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you need tab groups and tab search, you’re using tabs wrong. Bookmarks exist for that purpose and they do have search and grouping (folders). Coworkers look at me like I’m a freak because I usually keep fewer than 10 tabs open :)

Well, how are you persisting state? How do you quickly go back?

Your browser has a chronological list of the previous pages you visited. It’s very easy to quickly go back to a page you had open recently and fairly easy to search for it in the history if it was some time before. It’s actually probably easier than finding a tab amongst a lot of tabs.

For persisting state, it’s simple. You don’t. History is going to send you back where you were if the url scheme is not brain dead. I will personally stop using sites which don’t do that properly because they are annoying to use.

For forms I just fill them when I need to or keep them open for a bit if I forget I would need some information which I need to check. If I realise it’s going to take some time, I just close them and fill them properly when I have all I need.

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