
Using Firefox for a faster, calmer and distraction-free internet - markosaric
https://marko.fyi/firefox/
======
dguo
The post briefly mentions multi-account containers[1]. I have loved using them
and regard them as a killer feature for Firefox. Very few websites support
account switching. Google is probably the best example, and even then, I don't
really want to log in to both my personal and work Gmail within the same
session. But containers effectively and cleanly enable multiple sessions for
all websites.

Like tabs so many years ago, it's the kind of feature that seems obvious in
retrospect. I can't think of a hard technical reason why we couldn't have had
container tabs a long time ago. I hope mobile and desktop OSes will one day
implement the same feature for apps/programs.

Whoever was involved in coming up with the idea and with implementing it,
thank you!

[1]: [https://support.mozilla.org/en-
US/kb/containers](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/containers)

~~~
ubercow13
Containers still have quite a bad UX though. It’s OK to open a tab in the
desired container and load Facebook, but whenever you leave Facebook via a
link, it will stay in the same container. If you eventually end up on a
website you want to be logged in to, you’ll have to manually switch to the
right container again.

It seems like containers are a powerful concept with multiple different uses,
but the UX for each of those uses would need to be different and at the moment
it’s not optimised for any of them. Maybe there are extensions that can fix
this for specific use cases but when I looked it seemed hard to work out which
ones I’d want.

~~~
hellofunk
Yet these days facebook will be using IP tracking anyway, it won’t matter
whether you’re logged in or not, in the other containers, if you’re just
logged in once, they will know what sites you’re visiting, your browser
fingerprint easily identify as you, even if you’re not logged into Facebook in
those containers.

~~~
paulie_a
Ip tracking is worthless. Most people have half a dozen devices. I was
actually shocked recently that I have 22 devices on my network. Then think
about a relatively small business. There could be hundreds of devices. All
from the same ip

~~~
codedokode
You can combine IP address with fingerprint built from WebGL video card
information, fonts list and rendering details, OS name, CPU type, memory size
(yes, browser provides this) and screen resolution.

~~~
catalogia
I'm a bit confused, is the nature of the complaint that Firefox lets you use
multi-account containers without at the same time forcing you to use resist-
fingerprinting? Because you can certainly choose to use both.

If your point is that resist-fingerprinting would be a sane default, I agree.
But Mozilla insists that most firefox users would be too confused by a few
websites breaking because of it.

------
tyingq
Is Chrome still planning on rolling out manifest v3, which kills uBlock
Origin?

I imagine that would boost Firefox growth.

Edit: Answering my own question...yup, it's in canary as of November 1st.
[https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/google-
begins...](https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/google-begins-
testing-extension-manifest-v3-in-chrome-canary/)

~~~
vbezhenar
Are there definite plans for uBlock Origin not to support new blocking API?

~~~
tyingq
I believe so: [https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-
issues/issues/338#iss...](https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBlock-
issues/issues/338#issuecomment-456179825)

And:
[https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1134127701583904770?s=20](https://twitter.com/gorhill/status/1134127701583904770?s=20)

~~~
vbezhenar
Thanks. uBlock Origin has a unique author who does not bend with "acceptable
ads" nonsense and it's a shame to lose that addon. Hopefully something similar
will emerge. I think that Chrome developers have a good reason to abandon old
API, because Apple did something similar with Safari approach to ad blocking.
Also it's a good thing if more users will migrate from Chrome. While I,
myself, use it and love it, I think that healthy competition benefits
everyone.

~~~
worble
>Hopefully something similar will emerge

Nothing similar will ever emerge, because the only reason Gorhill isn't
supporting development on Chrome is due to the API changes that means that
uBlock literally cannot function anymore. There will never be a new uBlock, or
anything similar, on Chrome without some kind of exploit or Chrome
backtracking on the manifest changes.

------
Dragory
I switched back to Firefox (after using Chrome for a long time) back when
Quantum launched and have stuck with it since. Initially I fell back to Chrome
every now and then for the devtools, but I haven't felt the need to do that
for a good while now. Works really well for my use cases at least.

~~~
iscrewyou
I’ve said this in many other similar threads and I’ll say it here again.
Google services suck in Firefox. And that’s why I first went back to chrome
after switching to Firefox. And then it clicked, chrome is just an app for
google services for me. Want to use google maps? Chrome. Want to browse the
web? Firefox. Chrome is literally a google app now. I love using Firefox for
everything and I’ve mentally transitioned to using it completely (sans google
services).

It’s a great mental exercise and I love the fact that I’ve been able to
abandon chrome this way. I feel happy using Firefox now. And all the data
google has on me now is so biased because they only get my usage for their own
services.

~~~
51Cards
What features of google maps aren't working in Firefox? I use maps constantly
and never have an issue. In fact I use the whole suite of Google apps daily
(mail, calendar, YouTube, maps, photos, keep, drive, office suite, etc)
without issue.

~~~
iscrewyou
Google maps zooming is horrendous. Loading of the maps is bad when you zoom in
and out.

YouTube doesn’t load as fast on Firefox.

Gmail is sometimes slow.

Those are two big ones. So I have google signed out on Firefox and use chrome
as simply the gateway to all things google.

------
2ion
The only drawback I have with FF nowadays is history management.

I have enabled 'infinite history' (do not delete old history, ever) so I can
keep a journal of what I've visited when. The history, as large as it might
turn out, is just a few MB of an sqlite3 database (places.sql) -- problematic
is the management of it using the Firefox UI. Searching is laggy and deletion
of swaths of entries is impossible as it makes the history manager UI hang for
many minutes or even hours (=essentially I always kill Firefox when I do this
by mistake). I suspect the GUI constructs a view of the sqlite db using single
GUI objects tied to single DB entries and therefore has maximum overhead.

Editing the places.sql file directly via the sqlite3 CLI (with Firefox shut
down) is a matter of (milli)seconds at best.

If I had the resources to compile FF in reasonable time I would give
developing the patch a shot myself, but browser development is not an option
with my current hardware, and I do not have a build server set up.

PS. The fact that Chrome does not support tagged bookmarks is another nail for
its coffin. Makes it impossible to organize 10000s of bookmarks, and search on
them.

~~~
maaaats
At least Firefox gives proper suggestions from history when typing in
addresses. Chrome is way off, as if it wants you to search in google instead.

~~~
tripzilch
Actually it only gives a limited numer (10 or so) hits from your history. I
remember years ago, this wasn't the case and you could keyword search your
history/bookmarks and the dropdown would get longer and get a scrollbar, but
you could actually scroll through 100s of hits that way.

I used that a LOT, and I'm still sad they removed it for some reason. 10 is
very often not enough, because it lists too many similar domains.

~~~
onurtag
It is possible to get that feature back with two advanced tweaks (which I had
to use):

1) Increase the number of results in about:config: Set
browser.urlbar.maxRichResults to your desired value (like 60).

2) Make the results scrollable with a userchrome.css tweak: Using this example
or your own: [https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/firefox-
csshacks/blob/master/c...](https://github.com/MrOtherGuy/firefox-
csshacks/blob/master/chrome/scrollable_urlbar_popup.css)

------
asadkn
It's true. I have kept giving Firefox another chance over time but haven't
been convinced.

Recently, I tried Firefox again on Windows. And the experience is amazing
indeed - faster, smoother, and with trackers blocking, very pleasant. And with
strict protection, that's sort-of a builtin ad blocker.

Something still feels off on MacOS even though the last version has been a
massive improvement for MBP Retina.

~~~
neogodless
Anecdote: I use it everyday at work on a 2015 MBP Retina, now on Catalina. No
problems!

What feels off for you?

~~~
notamaan
Lack of media key control and pinch to zoom are the 2 that stop me from using
Firefox (I use Brave instead)

~~~
aorth
Pinch to zoom is in beta for some time now. From a Firefox developer on
/r/firefox¹:

> _You can turn it on by setting 'apz.allow_zooming' to true. It sort of works
> but has bugs. You can track the progress and report problems that you see
> here:
> [https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461360.*](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1461360.*)

¹
[https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/bcebze/its_2019_wh...](https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/bcebze/its_2019_when_will_firefox_support_smooth_pinch/)

------
pcr910303
As I have already said in
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21026626](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21026626)
:

Firefox really should take care of it's native interface, it feels like a
cross-platform app, and while it does have some worthy features to consider,
for me it's too non-mac (and in that aspect, it really doesn't look like an
Window/Linux app either) for someone using Safari to migrate.

~~~
bhauer
> _it really doesn 't look like an Window/Linux app either)_

I guess this is a subjective matter because to my eye, it looks fantastic on
Windows, matching the Windows 10 dark theme very well. The active tab
highlight looks like the open app highlights in my top-docked Windows taskbar.
And the Firefox Container color-bars look great below that. Its sharp edges
are a match for the sharp look of Windows.

To me, Chrome is the browser that doesn't look right on Windows. Its over-use
of curved lines looks anachronistic, as if it's from the 2000s.

~~~
pedrocx486
The new Edge based on Chromium is full of rounded edges (heh). Microsoft has
plans to make Windows' UI round (again).

~~~
jug
Yep. Firefox doesn’t really look and play like a Fluent design app. This look
worked well for Windows 8-10 but it’ll look more and more out of place as time
goes on now. Would be nice to see an UI refresh for Windows using WinUI for
the chrome. I was never a big fan of HTML/CSS as their chrome because this
also guarantees we’ll never have a cross platform browser in a native user
interface.

------
csdreamer7
I have always been a heavy user of Firefox, even in the pre-Quantum days.

My main reason was that Chrome would sync my bookmarks out of order and I am a
heavy bookmarks sync user.

I gave Chrome multiple tries for bookmark syncing and yet they would sync them
out of order (can't believe I am the only heavy bookmark user on Chrome who
cares) so I just stuck with FF.

Then the privacy concerns happened and I stopped trying Chrome. Then Quantum
happened and now FF is the lighter, faster browser. I had no real reason to
use Chrome except browser compatibility and a few dev tools.

Then ublock origins is getting blocked and now I am recommending people to
switch to Firefox.

I do like the seamless and easy to use multiple profiles that Chrome has.
Makes it very nice to isolate your tasks. If I am not logged into reddit or HN
I waste less time and less cognitive overhead. FF technically has them but I
hate how I have to open a prelaunch dialog to use them.

~~~
kompakt
Another heavy bookmarks user / hoarder here. I have around 30k bookmarks, so
much bookmarks that Firefox freezes for a few seconds when I click on
bookmarks menu bar item, because it tries to load them all within that drop
down menu. I keep bookmarks sidebar permanently open without any slowdowns.

I've been using Firefox from its very beginnings so I can tell you I've tried
switching to Chrome and Safari a few times over the years. Every time I tried
to import bookmarks to other browsers they would simply crap out, while
Firefox handled them without breaking a sweat.

Of course I continue to use FF for many other reasons but, at least at first,
good and fast bookmarks management kept me using Firefox.

Lastly, if anyone knows a way to prevent Firefox to show all bookmarks in
drop-down menu, let me know :)

------
lovelearning
I've been happy with everything about Firefox (on Xubuntu) from many years
now. But when they released Quantum, the thing that bothered me a bit was not
any feature or performance, but them removing curvy tabs for rectangular ones.
Rather shallow of me, but we all have our UI quirks :). Luckily, Firefox UI is
very customizable and somebody had already put in the effort [1] to provide
curvy tabs. Just had to download it, change the RGB() values therein, and got
back my preferred green curvy tabs. Just a silly thing, but might give
somebody one more reason to switch to Firefox.

[1]: [https://github.com/wilfredwee/photon-
australis](https://github.com/wilfredwee/photon-australis)

~~~
speg
Not silly at all. I tried getting back into Firefox on macOS after Quantum but
it still didn’t sit well with me. I just felt slightly out of place. Fast
forward to last week and I happened to try it again and it looked real nice!
The UI seemed smoother and less jarring than before. Plus the icon was new and
slick. Not sure when those changes landed but just the look and feel give me
more confidence in its solidness.

~~~
Ntrails
Never in my life has a slick new icon been a positive factor when assessing
software. I just do not get it.

------
jnet
I switched over to Firefox when I read that Chrome was limiting the
functionality of ad block extensions and it's been a fantastic browser so far.

~~~
bootlooped
I'll switch back to Firefox the day that happens. I don't think it's a
compelling reason until that day though.

~~~
integricho
That day is already here my friend.

~~~
ndzig
It is not, Manifest v3 hasn't been rolled out yet. It is in Canary already
though. But it will take some time before it reaches stable.

~~~
wongarsu
With Manifest v3 in Canary it feels like there's no chance it won't reach
stable in substantially the same form. Moving to Firefox now gives you a
transition period where both browsers are viable.

~~~
ndzig
Of course, it will be stable, but we can still enjoy Chrome's snappiness in
the meantime... that's my point

------
jaredcwhite
If you're on a Mac with wide color gamut, here's a trick to improve Firefox's
rendering so colors aren't oversaturated:

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1250461#c28](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1250461#c28)

~~~
floatingatoll
For those testing this, open Safari and Firefox to HN and compare the shade of
orange in the header. In Safari it’ll be the correct dull sRGB orange as shown
to PC users decades ago when HN picked that color. In Firefox it may be
blindingly saturated and bright.

If it is, and you prefer Firefox to apply ICC color correction to match
Safari, set gfx.color_management.mode to 1 in about:config and restart.

There is an upcoming color standard change that will allow web developers to
specify wide gamut CSS colors. Right now, they cannot. The current draft of
that spec declares that all #aabbcc web colors are _not_ wide color by
default, unless specified by the designer. If that is kept in the final
release, Firefox will eventually comply and this option will no longer be
required.

------
robbrown451
My biggest gripe with Firefox is that it doesn't support MIDIAccess. So any
web app that works with an electronic piano, doesn't work. They've been saying
they are working on it for years. Works in Chrome, Brave, Opera, Edge, etc.

[https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/MIDIAccess](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-
US/docs/Web/API/MIDIAccess)

[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=836897](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=836897)

It's actually pretty bizarre since the basic functionality (hit a note on the
piano, send it to the web page that is listening for such events) is so
trivial, compared to the vast majority of features.

~~~
dan-robertson
I guess the reason is probably that it probably requires a developer with a
midi device, and it affects too few users for Mozilla to want to prioritise
it. The bug currently has priority P3. There are about 8300 existing P1 and P2
bugs, and over 10000 P3 bugs.

Saying that it works in chrome, brave, opera, edge etc sounds like “look at
all these other vendors who put the effort in” but really they are all running
the same code these days so you could instead write “chromium implements it”.

~~~
boomlinde
_> I guess the reason is probably that it probably requires a developer with a
midi device_

That is not true at this point. AFAIK Windows, OS X and ALSA all support
virtual MIDI devices. Windows and OS X (last time I used it) ship with virtual
General MIDI outputs and there is a lot of free third party software for
virtual input.

I'd rather say that the reason is probably that you need a developer with
domain knowledge and interest, and a consensus on what the standard should
include.

------
mplanchard
Since these threads always wind up with lots of top-level comments from people
providing anecdotal complaints about how [browser under discussion] crashes
all the time on their computer, or eats up all the RAM, or whatever, I just
wanted to add a similarly anecdotal top-level comment with my own, positive
experience.

I have been using FF Nightly and FF Dev Edition on both my work and home
machines (MacOS and Arch Linux) for years, using the former for personal
browsing and the latter for work.

I generally only restart the browser when there are updates, and I’ve maybe
had two or three restarts in all that time where I lost my tabs. Even
rebooting the computer, I usually get a window asking if I want to restore my
tabs, which works with no fuss. On the rare occasions that doesn’t happen,
I’ve been able to “restore previous session” from the history menu.

I have generally beefy machines, but I’ve never had personally noticeable
issues with performance since Quantum was released. I usually have somewhere
between five and fifty tabs open in each browser.

The only crashes I’ve seen that I remember have been when I was playing with
WebRender settings in about:config, and happened whenever I was scrolling in a
particularly large Confluence document. Also, occasionally my strict third
party settings will make a login or other functionality break, in which case
it’s easy to relax the settings just for that page.

FF integrates very well with 1Password, which is my password manager of
choice.

I use FF Mobile on iOS, and while it is a bit rougher on battery life than
safari, having all my history and bookmarks synced is worth it.

Anyway, my experience is definitely not everyone’s, and I don’t doubt that
some people have strange and frustrating issues with the browser. That being
said, I suspect experiences like mine are more common than comments on threads
like this suggest.

~~~
BoorishBears
I'll share my anecdote in that case

I installed Manjaro on my Surface Pro and Firefox was included (? or I
happened to install it instead of Chrome, I'm fuzzy on that)

The next day, a few minutes before a job interview I opened Firefox to find a
curious error

 _Using an older version of Firefox can corrupt bookmarks and browsing history
already saved to an existing Firefox profile. To protect your information,
create a new profile for this installation of Firefox_

I click through it and... everything's gone. Including my plugins, which I
need for... 1Password. To log into my Google account, to access the link I
need to join.

Cue me frantically googling how to fix it, before I end up having to type in a
70 character password off my phone screen.

In the end I did manage to fix it by manually editing the profile. But
obviously off to a terrible start, joining the meeting almost 5 minutes late.

Enter the interview and we're screen sharing my IDE. But it's a complete
slideshow on my end. My computer is running like it's throttling itself, I can
barely create a new project.

Cue me fumbling through the activity monitor when it becomes clear that
there's no way I'll be able to complete the interview like this.

Firefox is going haywire and using all my resources.

"Hey sorry, do you mind if I take a second and install Chrome"

Install Chrome _in the middle of the interview_ and it handles screen sharing
just fine without killing the laptop.

Keep in mind, this is all WebRTC screen sharing, no custom plugin or anything,
so the implementation is 100% on the browser.

You could watch my interviewers enthusiasm fade, and my confidence drop off a
cliff as I went through all this. I was pretty much told I didn't perform
terribly, but they weren't sure about my knowledge based on the final output
(half the interview being wasted on FF issues)

So yeah, stuck with FF for 24hrs, figuring what's the worst that could happen,
HN is always hyping it up.

Indirectly cost me a job opportunity in those 24hrs.

I won't be trying it again.

~~~
mplanchard
Yes, that sounds terrible, and I can understand why it would sour you on the
whole application!

Edit: just wanted to make sure to say that there’s no sarcasm here at all. I
would absolutely feel the same way if I had had that experience

------
RavinduL
The only thing that keeps me from moving _back_ to Firefox is the lack of
support for precision touchpads---a feature present in Chromium-based
browsers, Edge UWP, and even Internet Explorer!

Several issues have been opened on Bugzilla in this regard [1][2], none of
which have been resolved to date.

[1]:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1564022](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1564022)

[2]:
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=890878](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=890878)

------
garbagetier666
There's nothing 'calm' or 'distraction-free' about the obnoxious toolbar
animations: [https://i.imgur.com/N6v30Sa.gif](https://i.imgur.com/N6v30Sa.gif)
. Which just happen over and over and over and over again as you navigate from
page to page. Do you really need a blue animated progress bar flash signifying
the page has loaded? Does the refresh and stop icon need to have a half second
long animation every single time it switches between the two? Does the
throbber need to oscillate back and forth like a pendulum used to induce
hypnosis? Worst part is it requires some userchrome.css patch to fix that
awful throbber animation, not easily in the normal settings area.

------
bambax
I made the switch from Chrome to Firefox about 3 weeks ago. It's a little
bizarre at first but you get used to it. No autoplay is really nice. Being
unable to use two dictionaries at once for spell checking is super annoying,
but it's a detail. All in all it works quite well, and if uBlock Origin has to
leave Chrome, the switch is a no-brainer.

------
paulcarroty
Stop sending my data to Google
([https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/11658588961766604...](https://twitter.com/jonathansampson/status/1165858896176660480))
and make Firefox fast on Linux (minimum as Chrome) - reason't why I'm not use
Fox anymore.

~~~
jwalton
What are you using instead, then?

------
tzs
I've used Firefox as my main browser on my Mac for quite a while. I use Chrome
when working on my company's web stuff, because I like its developer tools
better and its handling of multiple profiles is a lot better [1].

There is one thing that threatens now and then to move me to Chrome.

Here is a sample of that thing: prosecutable subtractive tunable epicycle
inductor subparagraphs transactional micropayments blacksmithing inductor
solvability verifier ethicist tradable tradeable auditable splitter surveil
responder commenter.

Firefox tells me that all of those words are spelled wrong. Chrome, Safari,
and on Windows Edge all know that most or all of them are spelled right.

It just gets tiring to regularly be commenting somewhere and get distracted by
Firefox falsely claiming some word is misspelled, disrupting my train of
thought as I have to go look it up to verify that I am in fact spelling it
right.

Everything else I type text into manages to spell check orders of magnitude
better than Firefox.

[1] Yes, I know about Firefox's multi-account containers. Great if all you are
trying to do is keep yourself logged in to a couple different accounts at the
same site. If you want to have separate bookmarks, extensions, and history
too, you need to use profiles. Firefox has them, but Chrome does them better.

~~~
SubiculumCode
I agree that the dictionary needs to be expanded; It constantly annoys me.

~~~
ken
I would say the problem here is that Firefox needs to use the _system_ spell
checker. They can't just "expand" it. It needs to support per-user custom
dictionaries.

That's the same complaint I have, BTW, with every part of Firefox. If it's
part of the UI, I don't want them to try to do better. I want them to just use
the built-in one.

------
Waterluvian
About once a week Firefox bans me from opening new tabs until I reboot it for
an update. It promises to return my existing tabs but it never has.

For this reason I don't trust it when I'm doing meaningful work.

~~~
ubercow13
Sometimes I open Chrome, not after any kind of abnormal force-close, and it
says something like “your browser profile was corrupt and has been permanently
deleted”.

Which browser is good for meaningful work?

~~~
Waterluvian
Whichever one works best for you.

------
lcall
I like the idea of not concentrating yet more power with Google, but, on
OpenBSD, I use Iridium (Chrome derivative), so I see these benefits, and am
wondering what Firefox would add for me, privacy- and security-wise:

1) Iridium doesn't send info to Google like Chrome does (or that is the idea);

2) It is easier (last I checked) than with Firefox to leave some config tabs
open so I can quickly turn on/off javascript, images, and/or cookies for those
sites where I need them (by exception list or temporary exception, and easy to
manage it without a mouse once the tab is open; separately, I do change the
search engine also, and create search keywords), and

3) OpenBSD adds pledge/unveil system calls from the browser, to prevent it
from reading/writing files where it should not (plus I browse under a
different user than I do other things with high confidence there will not be a
privilege escalation; also they say the pledge/unveil support is easier to
implement in Chrome/Iridium than in Firefox because of the cleaner separations
of concerns in the code organization (my wording; though they have probably
also put pledge/unveil in FF also for all I know),

4) Maybe the security of Chrome/Iridium benefits from Google's bug bounties,
more than what Firefox has done (ie, the security track record of each,
frequency of major holes over, say, the last 1-3 years). I don't really know
but I'm glad they try.

Given those things, what are the remaining biggest reasons I might prefer
Firefox? (I am aware of OBSD removing DNS-over-HTTP from Firefox, indicating
that is a choice that should be made by the user at the system level instead).

------
thsowers
Nit: This article recommends StartPage as a search engine "without all that
tracking and profiling", but quite recently StartPage was acquired by System1,
an advertising company[0]

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21371577)

------
jedberg
I switched to FireFox about a year ago. Containers is a killer feature.

But the container UX is still not perfect. Only recently did they fix it so
you can log into a site via Facebook or Google.

But my biggest issue is power management. On my Mac, when I run Firefox, the
fans spin at around 3K at all times and the load is moderate at all times.

When I turn off Firefox and switch to Chrome or Safari, the fans spin at 2K.

Firefox is just a huge resource drain when it runs on Mac. Which is too bad
because it's my favorite browser feature-wise.

~~~
bondolo
Did it not get better with FF 70 for you? They switched the rendering to use a
better API on MacOS:
[https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-
red...](https://mozillagfx.wordpress.com/2019/10/22/dramatically-reduced-
power-usage-in-firefox-70-on-macos-with-core-animation/)

~~~
jedberg
It did actually get a bit better with 70 so I'm still giving it a chance.

------
ayoisaiah
My experience with Firefox in the last few months have not been good. I
encounter so much input lag when typing in the address bar, usually after
opening a few tabs. In general, the UI is not responsive as I'd like so I'm
using Brave right now where those issues are non-existent

~~~
pistoriusp
This is exactly my main gripe. The address bar lags and I can't help but feel
like everything's slow after that initial interaction.

------
lordnacho
I can confirm the macos version has had its performance issues fixed. Runs
perfectly fine on my 2015 mbp, with several real time tabs and dozens of other
tabs.

It's also nice to use tree style tabs to manage them all, plus you can reclaim
the space for the tabs at the top with some css. I couldn't find anything
matching this in chrome in terms of stability and ease of use.

------
ivanstegic
Why is it that there is never any mention of Chrome’s profile switcher? It
exists in FF but is so cumbersome to use that I just don’t. I spend time in
both browsers but if I could use profiles easily on FF I’d just uninstall
Chrome.

~~~
ivanstegic
OK, so the feature I have been using in Chrome (Profiles) and that I thought I
was missing in FF, won't ever exist in FF. Because, Multi-Account Containers
([https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-
account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-
containers/)). I guess I just needed to know that this was a thing and that it
had another name. Going to try to now totally forego Chrome. Thanks for the
discussion under
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21498452](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21498452)
that made me realize this was a thing.

------
egze
I recently ditched both Chrome and Firefox. Now super happy with Safari.

~~~
vehemenz
How do you get by without extensions? The extension "store" (now part of the
App Store) isn't searchable, and among the available extensions, which are
very few, most are junkware.

~~~
barrowclift
Not OP, but my use cases don't really require "traditional" extensions;
1Blocker and the Instapaper button are all I really need and want for day to
day browsing, so improved extension support on other browsers doesn't add any
value for me.

------
shultays
I have been using firefox... forever now and only thing I miss is translate
functionality chrome has. I searched for some extensions but they were opening
a new window for translation which does not compare to google's inlined
translation. Any suggestions?

~~~
markosaric
I miss that too but the good news is that it is coming thanks to the EU
funding[1].

[1]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21321430](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21321430)

------
everybodyknows
T-mobile's login page last month dropped Firefox support -- returned a cryptic
complaint about "agent ID".

There is actually something we can do to make T-mo reconsider: Call up one of
their agents and play the naive user reporting the problem. Then voice a
complaint when told that "the site supports Chrome and Safari". These calls
get logged as an expense, presumably charged to the earlier policy decision to
drop FF.

~~~
Fej
It works fine for me. Firefox for Android (Fennec) with uBlock Origin. What
exactly is broken?

------
x3haloed
I tried for a while. The experience was just too sloppy for me. I got fed up
and switched to Chromium Edge. I hate the Pocket integration and other crap
they try to shove down your throat. And at work, the lack of integrated
Windows authentication was a deal breaker. Plus, Chromium's UI is a lot tamer,
cleaner, and focused.

~~~
whamlastxmas
I disabled pocket a single time and haven't had to see it since

~~~
x3haloed
Yeah, but they keep trying to shove other monetization schemes down our
throats.

------
buboard
Firefox needs to work on solutions that help webmasters, not just the users.
Some of these choices may affect the revenue of websites negatively without
providing a better alternative, so you might not see developers being happy to
suggest firefox. Brave is at least trying to bring new models to the world.
Firefox is not.

------
michalu
I'm using Firefox on Mac and I got used to it somehow especially after energy
efficiency improvemnts but the main reason was that I had issues using Google
Drive on Safari + discontinued support from uBlock ... I like it but I still
wish to go back to Safari for user experience ... I can't believe Firefox has
been around for so long and they haven'tyet firgured out basic stuff like
moving pointer up to switch tab brings out the main panel that covers the tabs
... other stuff like open image in new window, get definitions of words etc. I
miss those a lot.

~~~
octosphere
> other stuff like open image in new window

Well you can open an image in a new tab by holding down control as you click
the 'view image' button. Right click on any image and hold control.

------
isarat
I always had given Firefox another choice, but throws me out of websites,
unoptimized websites and font issues etc. stopping me from using it. I really
wish Firefox tighten up their game.

~~~
lol768
>but throws me out of websites, unoptimized websites and font issues etc.
stopping me from using it

Do you have examples of these? It's helpful to report them to the webcompat
web-bugs repository as you discover them - e.g.
[https://github.com/webcompat/web-
bugs/issues/36955](https://github.com/webcompat/web-bugs/issues/36955) \-
[https://webcompat.com/](https://webcompat.com/) has more information on the
project.

------
grappler
Other than multi-account containers, already discussed in the top comments
here, another killer firefox extension that I think is largely undiscovered is
SessionSync.

I searched for a while for a decent way to deal with the "too many tabs"
problem and SessionSync is where I've landed, so far anyway.

SessionSync doesn't ask you to set up an account anywhere new - it just saves
tabs as bookmarks into a 'SessionSync' folder in your firefox bookmarks menu,
which are then synced automatically with the rest of your firefox profile
data, to any other computers or phones synced with the same profile. Even if
you decided to stop using SessionSync, you'd still have access to everything
using Firefox's usual bookmarks interface. It basically gives you some options
that I think firefox was missing, to save and restore whole sets of tabs to
ordered lists in bookmark folders rather than dealing with urls individually.

I have no affiliation with SessionSync; just wanted to mention it as one thing
I really like in the firefox ecosystem. It has rough edges (e.g. no 'undo' if
you save over the wrong folder accidentally, and sometimes weirdly changes the
order of tabs on save), but it's the best tool I've found so far to do this
sort of thing. Please let me know if you're using something as good or better
though :)

------
zelphirkalt
People, who choose Chrome (not even Chromium) over Firefox for a fraction of a
second faster load speed of some pages (, which is often even "fake" as Google
artificially slows down some pages for Firefox users or engineers them in
Chrome optimization specific ways,) disregarding any privacy concerns, are
simply not the target group of Firefox developers, because they do not care
about privacy enhancing features. To sacrifice ones rights to gain tiny speed
improvements or often only the feeling of being faster – It is simply a
laughable trade-off to make. Many people and even institutions of education,
which should know better, choose to do so apparently.

If one is concerned about privacy and data being sent to Google using FF,
well, there is always IceCat. Managed by the people, who stand most firmly for
your rights in computing and software. GNU.

It is also quite well known, that Chromium and Chrome are memory hogs. One OS
process per tab? Really? I've also not read anything about improvements on
that front in the last many months, while at least with Quantum the FF
developers aim to keep memory usage low and cores optimally used - at least in
their pitch. I think Chromium has a long way to go, before it gets close to
low memory usage for many tabs scenarios. As a tab hoarder and curious person,
memory usage patterns like the one of Chromium are not acceptable. I am
sitting on 238 tabs in IceCat right now and 33% of my 8GB RAM are in use, with
several other applications, including one electron based open at the same
time. No problem whatsoever to have my browser and multiple other memory
intensive applications open.

The same seems infeasible with Chromium and its forks. I've seen it with
double of my RAM and much less tabs on a co-worker's machine. Chrome just ate
all of his RAM. I cannot remember, whether it crashed then, or he had to close
the browser, to continue to work. Both are quite disruptive for getting things
done.

I think FF devs have done a great job with Quantum. Unfortunately one cannot
always trust Mozilla entirely (see some cases of "studies" and the money they
get from Google), although they often do great work and enhance online
privacy. For me it seems the better option to stay behind a shield of people,
who take privacy and user rights very seriously and remove telemetry and
similar things from FF and use the outcome of that.

~~~
microcolonel
> _...for a fraction of a second faster load speed of some pages (, which is
> often even "fake" as Google artificially slows down some pages for Firefox
> users or engineers them in Chrome optimization specific ways,) disregarding
> any privacy concerns..._

That is false and defamatory. Chromium is noticeably faster than Firefox on a
large swath of popular websites and web applications, the majority of which
Google does not control; particularly on resource-constrained devices, and on
Linux.

Memory usage comparisons on different machines with different pages and
different other applications running are beyond meaningless. Chromium will use
less memory if you don't have much, and it will use more if you have memory to
spare; I'm sure Firefox will do some similar things.

~~~
zelphirkalt
Deactivate pre-loading of websites the website you look at links too and then
talk again. Chrome uses all kind of tricks to trick you into thinking it is
the faster rendering browser. Deactivate the gimmicks and then look at a
comparison. There wont be much difference there. Also I'd rather have my
browser have a low memory footprint, than using GBs of more RAM, just to load
a page a fraction of a second faster.

Still the whole argument is laughable, because even if I saw every page a
second or 2 slower, it would still be worth it, if it protects my rights
online.

Also using more memory just because I have more, to the degree of using all of
it, is not a good strategy. Sorry, I run other applications too, the browser
is not the only contender for my RAM. I highly doubt that Firefox does
anything half as aggressive with regard to memory as Chrome does, in order to
"impress the user" with their speed. As I said, sitting on over 200 tabs and
only using 33% of my RAM, while other applications are running too. It is not
simply eating up all my memory, as I have seen Chrome doing with loads of
tabs.

~~~
microcolonel
> _Deactivate pre-loading of websites the website you look at links too and
> then talk again. Chrome uses all kind of tricks to trick you into thinking
> it is the faster rendering browser. Deactivate the gimmicks and then look at
> a comparison._

Why would I hobble interesting performance features of the browser just to
compare it unfairly to a browser which lacks those features, or doesn't
implement them properly? FWIW I have some forms of prefetch disabled, it's
still faster. Chromium _is in fact faster_ , in addition to having more of
those "tricks" to hide latency.

> _Still the whole argument is laughable, because even if I saw every page a
> second or 2 slower, it would still be worth it, if it protects my rights
> online._

What rights do you gain by using a Netscape fork rather than a KHTML fork?
Both Mozilla and Google censor extensions and occasionally install proprietary
components the user did not ask for; but Google doesn't preach about being
some saintly do-gooder (and Chromium distributions with privacy and do-good
claims like this are about as trustworthy as Mozilla).

> _Also using more memory just because I have more, to the degree of using all
> of it, is not a good strategy. Sorry, I run other applications too, the
> browser is not the only contender for my RAM._

AFAIK it will size down when other applications allocate more memory.

> _I highly doubt that Firefox does anything half as aggressive with regard to
> memory as Chrome does, in order to "impress the user" with their speed._

Is that... a good thing? Seems like you're spinning Firefox lacking
sophistication as some sort of great advantage.

Added: If you just don't want to be attached to google services, or have the
possibility to accidentally enable a google service, you can try ungoogled-
chromium.

~~~
zelphirkalt
One: Ungoogled-Chromium still adds to web engine mono culture, so that wont be
a good solution.

Two: I did mention GNU IceCat, for those worried about Mozilla. So all your
points about "Google is not worse than Mozilla" drip off like raindrops off a
raincoat.

Aside from that, I do not see Google implementing privacy enhancing features
in their browser, nor do I see it happening in Ungoogled-Chromium. Mozilla
developers on the other hand did provide us with some tracking protection
features during the last months. So I am not buying what you are trying to
sell me.

------
no_gravity
The main reason I often use Chromium instead of Firefox is that it starts up
faster.

I even wrote a oneliner to see if it is just an illusion:

[http://www.gibney.de/browser_startup_speed](http://www.gibney.de/browser_startup_speed)

As can be seen in the tests, it is mainly about the startup time after a
reboot. Where Chromium is way faster.

Not sure what the reason. Maybe Chromium actively caches something right
during the boot? Or maybe it uses less dependencies?

~~~
toastal
How often do you realistically launch the browser? I do once per session and
it's only closed to update, so I don't really care about this number. I'm sure
most do similarly.

------
Hitton
Reasons I use Firefox instead of Chrome: better customizability (both
about:config and interface - for instance allows me to move tab bar under
urlbar, it's more complicated than it used to be though), allows autoscroll on
Linux without having to resort to buggy extension, allows to disable calls to
Google/Mozilla/Cloudflare..., and finally has generally more powerful addons
(even though it's worse than XUL based ones)

~~~
jeena
My reasons:

1\. I feel I can trust Mozilla much more than I can trust Google.

2\. I can run my own sync server for passwords, bookmarks, etc.

------
Medicalidiot
I wish Firefox worked well with MacOS, but even with the newest version, which
was intended to fix battery issues and such, it still is vastly inferior to
Chrome. Pinch to zoom still does not natively work in Firefox. Battery life
still sucks compared to Chrome. Video performance lags behind, even on non-
Youtube sites. I wish Firefox was significantly closer, but I still find
myself limited by it at the moment.

~~~
whalesalad
If you think it’s inferior to Chrome – give Safari a shot. I use it all the
time now because it’s so incredibly energy efficient. It also feels faster on
the butt dyno in many ways than Chrome.

~~~
kkarakk
Using safari on macos feels like using edge on windows. you know there are
supposed to be some advantages to doing so but the whole thing feels clunky
and outdated comparatively

------
jknz
I am as happy as I could get with Firefox except for the native tab-switching
Among opened tabs.

Tab search is done by typing % in the address bar followed by a keyword to
search among opened tabs.

\- Ctr+L to get in the address bar

\- Shift+6 to type %

\- space,

\- type your keywords.

My fingers, especially the pinky just cannot do this, particularly switching
between Ctrl and Shift. Also, you have to release Shift otherwise the space
doesn’t get typed.

Please, please come up with an easier finger gymnastics to use this native
feature.

~~~
simion314
A solution that works for me in all application is remapping keyboard, there
are no major keyboard shortcuts I use that use Alt so what I did is this

\- remap Left Alt to Ctrl

\- remap Windows/Meta btn to Alt

\- I also set CapsLock as Esc

So all my shortcuts, in apps, DE and IDE are suiper comfortable for me though
this could suck if you have to work on a different person computer.

------
indymike
I switched to Firefox when Chrome stopped working with drag-and-drop for
files. It's a PITA to use tools like Google Drive without working drag and
drop. Since then, I've been pleasantly surprised by Firefox Developer
Edition's dev tools, and compatibility. So much innovation has been driven by
the browser... hats off to Mozilla for persevering in being option b for so
long.

------
Havoc
I've taken to using both.

FF -> main browser with Noscript & and clear cookies on close. Which cripples
some website, but is fine for most browsing.

Chrome -> For when priority is site working not privacy. e.g. airline checkin,
banking, email etc.

Plus obv all the usual pihole etc.

Currently the best compromise I've managed on blocking sketchy stuff while not
going full stallman email myself articles.

------
octosphere
I read somewhere that Chrome will be adding DoH (DNS over HTTPS) and I'm not
sure if it's some experimental flag you toggle. I imagine they will be using
8.8.8.8 (which supports DoH). So now you are sending all your personal data to
Google instead of Cloudflare :o But you can always use another DoH provider if
you dislike Google or Cloudflare[0]

I imagine any browser worth its salt will eventually switch over to DoH as the
default as time goes on, as it's a great feature even though it doesn't honor
the /hosts file or honor pi-hole[1] configured routers, it's still a great
feature to have.

[0] [https://github.com/curl/curl/wiki/DNS-over-
HTTPS](https://github.com/curl/curl/wiki/DNS-over-HTTPS)

[1] [https://pi-hole.net/](https://pi-hole.net/)

~~~
kodablah
> I imagine they will be using 8.8.8.8 [...] now you are sending all your
> personal data to Google

You shouldn't guess/imagine something and then build your opinion on it. IIRC,
Chrome will continue to use your configured nameservers and only use DoH if
it's in a whitelist of known implementers.

------
algorithm_dk
I want to use Firefox, and I would if it provided a _faster_ internet
experience, which it doesn't on Linux (compared to Brave/Chromium/Chrome). The
devtools in Firefox lack basic features that have been requested for years.
Too bad that these are the only viable options.

~~~
bzbarsky
Which basic devtools features are you missing, if I might ask?

~~~
algorithm_dk
simple things, like being able change the order of the columns in the network
tab

~~~
bzbarsky
I just checked the bug database, and this has never been filed as an issue,
for what it's worth. The closest to it was the offhand mention in
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1509560](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1509560)
which otherwise focused on column resizing.

I filed
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1595961](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1595961)
just now to track this, but I have a hard time reconciling this specific
example with the "requested for years" characterization in the original
comment...

If you are able to file issues you run into, that would be much appreciated;
people can't fix problems they're not aware of.

------
photonios
This post actually made me switch to Firefox. The set up process was very
smooth. Importing all my settings from Chrome just worked. I feel safer
already.

Is it just me or does the scrolling feel a bit different in Firefox? I am
running Firefox on a Macbook from 2019 using the touch pad.

Thanks OP!

~~~
markosaric
Very happy to see your message, thank you! When I saw Firefox so low on the
browser market share list (4% only), my intention was to write something that
may get a person or two to give it a chance. It deserves it as it brings so
much value. Thank you again.

~~~
jeena
I was also kind of shocked about how low that number is because most of my
family and friends use Firefox, but most probably I live in a self inflicted
bubble because I tell everyone to use Firefox instead when I see that they
don't.

------
myth_buster
I'm surprised by the lack of focus on mobile in that post.

Most of the third world leaped the desktop stage and are coming online using
mobile. Primarily due to cost factor but also the additional infrastructure
(telephone line, router, dongle etc) and maintenance (dirt/dust on keyboards)
you need for a desktop. And imho, this trend will catch up in the first world
countries specially with newer generations.

Hence I would think focusing on mobile would be the best strategy for FF to
gain market share. Additionally mobile users are more sensitive to data usage.
A lot of data is consumed by downloading tracking scripts and serving rich
content ads. Currently there are no viable alternatives as we can't install
uBlock or other extension for Mobile browser. If these features ships out of
the box, I'm pretty sure it would increase adoption purely by word-of-mouth.
The case I can think of when this strategy would not work is if users on
mobile are spending most of their time on individual apps (Google assistant,
Siri, Fb/Instagram/Twitter mobile app) and not on browser.

Which brings me to the state of Firefox mobile app. Firefox's mobile market
share [0] is non -existent compared to desktop [1], which was at 32% at one
point in time. I may be a minority here (HN/US), as I do most of my browsing
on the phone. (I use desktop only for searching of technical
implementation/issues. Primarily because this way I'm aware of the cost and
duration that I've been browsing as I would have to reach for my phone and
divert my attention away from desktop.) I tried to switch to Firefox mobile
app on android but it felt like a desktop app jammed into a mobile viewport. A
lot of space is devoted to the tab and address bar. A lot of sites that I
navigate to, renders a desktop page instead of triggering a mobile layout as
they do if I were to access it through Chrome. All of this results in a bad
UX.

IMHO, focusing on Firefox mobile app's performance, privacy and usability will
help grow adoption of Firefox overall, specially in the environment where
discussion on privacy are becoming increasingly mainstream.

0: [https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-
share/mobile/world...](https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-
share/mobile/worldwide/#monthly-200901-201910) 1:
[https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-
share/desktop/worl...](https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-
share/desktop/worldwide/#monthly-200901-201910)

~~~
remir
That's a very important point: Firefox missed the boat on mobile and Mozilla
would need a miracle to increase its marketshare.

I personally use Brave on mobile which is great since it natively blocks ads
and allow me to use Youtube with the screen turned off. On desktop I use
Firefox since I prefer it's interface and the container feature.

------
pier25
I switched to FF a couple of weeks ago and I'm loving it. Completely blocking
autoplay on videos and preventing Facebook from stalking you feels great.

My only major gripe is that FF is terrible if you write in more than 1
language.

------
mgalgs
I've ditched Chrome completely in favor of Firefox (desktop and mobile). I've
been surprised about Firefox's speed, but not in a good way... After all the
hype I've been seeing about Firefox getting faster I've been disappointed by
how sluggish it feels on my system (Linux, 20 CPUs, 32GB RAM -- yes, this is
my personal dev machine :D). Chrome is still faster, but I'm sticking to FF
because I believe in their mission.

------
swilliamsio
For mobile, I switched to Firefox which was a fantastic decision. Firefox on
mobile is as fast as Chrome whilst allowing the much needed adblock and
darkmode plugins.

I'm hesitant to do the switch on desktop right now because, last time I
checked, Firefox was slower than Chrome. However, the day I see ads on Chrome
will be the day I am forced to make that switch. I do not need my browser
experienced tainted by the slowing and frustrating appearance of ads nor do I
want my mind subject to the so often poisonous online marketing.

~~~
awful_waffle
While I worked there, I heard about user studies Mozilla performed comparing
Chrome and FF. It turned out that with all branding stripped, users found FF
to be faster - but as soon as it became 'Chrome' vs 'Firefox', users always
chose Chrome. I recall they actually faked browser UI's (i.e. made FF look
like Chrome and vice versa) to test if it was about branding - and it was.

The reason I bring this up is I assume a lot of folk are in that bucket.
Chrome was on top for a long time, and I think people are hesitant to switch
to FF, despite the effort Mozilla has put into revamping/rewriting their
browser.

(Also, I find it interesting that you only have a quarrel with Google tracking
you (via Chrome) if you _see_ the ads. They're still collecting data whether
or not you see the end result.)

------
eternalny1
I've been a Firefox user since Phoenix/Firebird, but I did switch to Chrome
when it first came out, then back to Firefox when Google started being the
opposite of "not evil".

One quip on this website, why is the text limited to such a small column? I
thought it had gutters that my adblock was blocking but it doesn't. The image
is literally twice the width of the text. The first row of text only fits
"We're living in the Google Chrome" ... and that's it.

~~~
acidburnNSA
In Firefox, if you don't like the layout of a site, you can try "reading mode"
and it will reformat it. Its the little document-like icon towards the top
right of the address bar.

------
jotm
Never had a major problem with Firefox, used it since v2.something, along with
Opera, then Chrome, which fell by due to lack of add-ons and stability.

There was a point where I almost started using Chrome due to performance, but
the Google powered suggestions, lack of some add-ons, and small tabs when
opening a lot of them (can't believe people _still_ put up with that, it's
just a bunch of tabs with X on them, how do you live?!) kept me on Firefox.
Long may it live!

------
neighbour
I use Firefox on both my work and personal computers with macOS. Very happy
with it. Only major gripe is no picture-in-picture like Safari which is a
great feature.

------
Andrew_nenakhov
Does firefox really need giving it a chance? I have switched to it 2 years ago
on all my devices and was happy with it ever since. Not looking back to
Chrome.

Major points of what I like in Firefox: \- passwords sync between devices
nicely and securely, Google no longer knows them \- more reliable tab sync
than in Chrome \- it just looks better

The only thing I miss from mobile Chrome is a persistent icon to force close
private tabs.

------
GetOutOfBed
I really really want to use Firefox but I am still annoyed by the relative
slowness compared to Chrome.

For me it is noticeable slower both when it comes to basic functionality such
as opening new tabs, but also when it comes to the dev tools. When I want to
use the dev tools I launch Chrome and use it from there just because I know it
will be a more pleasant experience.

------
neiman
A question for HN readers that use Chrome: why did you choose that? The
readers here seems like the ideal crowd of Firefox users.

~~~
hu3
Better energy efficiency

Superior video playback

Allows 2 simultaneous dictionaries

Doesn't show ads when I open a new tab

Pinch to zoom

They haven't forgotten to renew certificates so far

Smooth Gmail

Never crashed on my machine vs Firefox used to crash once a day

Superior dev tools

Doesn't cause high cpu usage in some sites like Twitch

\-----

I'll revisit my options when/if Chrome breaks uBlock Origin on stable

~~~
hollerith
I switched from Firefox to Chrome right after I discovered that malware on
Firefox had changed so many about:config settings that I couldn't untangle my
own changes to about:config from the changed made by the malware.

That and my having seen repeated assertion by HN user tptacek that Chrome's
security team is the second best in the industry (behind only the iOS security
team).

Well, that and the lack of any signs that Mozilla management was prioritizing
improving Firefox's resistance to malware. (Mozilla's interest in using Rust I
saw as a positive sign, but not particularly directly relevant to the
question.) At the time, one of Mozilla's priorities was introducing a new
mobile OS.

------
testerhn
the password management[1] and GCP support (likely Google doing something non-
standard) was lacking last I tried. I hope it got better.

[1] I use a password manager, but avoid browser add-ons or extensions to limit
the surface I expose my manager such as on work machines. Besides there being
the occasional exploit targeting those browser add-ons or extensions.

What do you all do?

~~~
vbezhenar
I'm using KeePass, also avoiding any plugins. Most websites remember my
credentials, so I don't need to log in every day and it's not a big hassle to
press few more keys.

------
zelly
Either Brave or plain Chromium is the obvious choice. Privacy is not a
technical challenge--it's just a switch that's trivial to turn off. I can
either:

\- Install Chromium from a community-maintained package manager on any
platform: apt (even on Raspbian), choco, brew, AUR, ports

\- Install a Chromium fork like Brave

\- Download a nightly Chromium build from
[https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-
sn...](https://commondatastorage.googleapis.com/chromium-browser-
snapshots/index.html) (and optionally copy Google API keys from a community
package like Ubuntu's)

\- Compile it from source (and optionally copy Google API keys from a
community package like Ubuntu's). You are free to tinker and harden as much as
you want, but it will cost you several days worth of electricity and your
time.

    
    
      #define google.com 127.0.0.1
    

But even with compiling Chromium, you'd still save more electricity than
having Mozilla Firefox open all day. You won't deal with losing all your work
because of a segfault somewhere in a behemoth from the 90s that ships all its
new features as JavaScript (on SpiderMonkey!) addons.

This push for Firefox as a privacy browser is a nothingburger. Privacy can be
switched on overnight; good software development takes years.

~~~
stephenr
Suggesting a chrome based browser as a way to save energy is truly ironic.

------
hollerith
OK, Firefox experts: which desktop OS does Firefox run best on?

And which desktop OS has the largest usage share among the developers of
Firefox?

(I want to know because I am undecided on which OS I will be using in the
future. By "run best" I mean the fewest bugs and the fewest instances of
behavior that would surprise an ordinary user.)

~~~
verisimilidude
(This is probably subjective, and I don't consider myself and expert.)

I think Firefox feels best on Gnome-based Linux desktops: Fedora, Ubuntu, etc.

Windows 10 is also a fine target for Firefox; I never encounter any problems
there. I hear some features are missing on touchscreen laptops: gestures, etc.
I could be wrong.

Firefox has always had a little bit of funkiness on the Mac. Little UI things,
battery killing performance issues, and so on. YMMV. But I still used Firefox
on the Mac as my default for many years, and it was fine.

------
dkersten
I switched back to Firefox early in the summer. I tried to do it earlier in
the year but I had some problems where it locked up my system every now and
again (apparently some kind IPC bug or something) but its been fixed and I've
had no problems in the past few months. I'm pretty happy with Firefox.

------
johnmorrison
Does anybody know how to remove the forward/backward arrow buttons in Firefox
for windows? I love how customizable the UI is, and they allow you to remove
the reload and home button by default, but other things like the
forward/backward button and search bar are fixed to the toolbar.

------
andremendes
I've been exclusively using Firefox for browsing and developing for a few
years now and I've never thought of looking back. The customization and
privacy features plus the possibility of having multiple profiles / accounts
side by side in the same window are now a must-have for me.

~~~
purple_ducks
It feels like the people who make Firefox dev tools don't use it to develop.

Prime example every dev has: clear all data from site for fresh start. 1
button in Chrome - Clear site data.

Meanwhile in Firefox, enjoy clicking through, checking & deleting from a
minimum of at least 5 sections.

~~~
dbrgn
Open history (ctrl+H), right click on page entry, choose "forget data about
this site" (wording might be slightly different).

~~~
purple_ducks
That also deletes the url & any other urls from domain from history, not just
the site data.

------
ss2003
I used to use FF exclusively until the last update. After that it doesn't
fully load some websites like Slack. I poked around to try and figure what is
the problem, but in the end it was just easier for me to switch to Brave.

------
ngenstyle
Echoing the sentiment for Brave Browser as well. It's been great as a faster
alternative to Chrome so far. Haven't actually used Brave Rewards, but it's
nice that it at least offers some remuneration for personalized ads.

Despite years of trying to use Firefox as my default browser, as a direct
alternative to Chrome, it's never been as performant and almost always somehow
clunky and reminiscent of 2000's browser bloat. I did reinstall Firefox very
recently and was surprised that it was even faster than Brave Browser for non-
cached page loads.

However, for some benign reason I cannot resize browser windows at all using
Firefox, and it seems I'm far from alone after searching for solutions online.
At least there's more browser parity now in 2019/2020 onwards.

------
thkim
I gave Firefox a try yesterday. It crashed four times in a day. I'm switching
back to Chrome for peace of mind. Chrome hogs memory but I'd rather suffer
memory than irritating browsing experience.

~~~
floatingatoll
Were you on a fresh Firefox profile without any about:config changes? If not,
try that: you may have options set that are overriding defaults, where the
defaults don’t crash but your custom choices do.

Did you try Release or Nightly/Developer?

------
gtyras2mrs
Does anyone know of a working Picture-in-Picture plugin for Firefox?

Safari and Chrome both have working PiP - which still keeps me switching back
to them when I want to play something in the background.

~~~
po1nter
I'm on the Firefox Developer Edition and it supports this natively. You can
see how it works here [https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/07/testing-picture-in-
picture...](https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/07/testing-picture-in-picture-for-
videos-in-firefox-69/)

~~~
gtyras2mrs
I remember reading it back in August - however I should have mentioned that I
specifically needed this for MacOS. Does it work for MacOS? The post indicates
that it's limited to Windows.

On my Windows desktop, I already use Firefox as I have multiple monitors - so
PiP wasn't much of a concern.

However it's a feature that I sorely miss on the small screen of my Macbook
Air.

------
flaxton
+1 for the Brave browser. And Chrome plugins work on it too!

------
vcavallo
for all those here who want a chrome-like experience (including dev tools) but
with easy tracker blocking out of the box may I remind you about Brave
browser?

------
heydonovan
It took forever, but I finally made the switch a month or two ago. Firefox
Quantum had promised to fix performance issues on the MacBook Pro, but tons of
users (myself included) were complaining of CPU or RAM spiking, making it
unusable. I'm trying to find the article, but they switched something, maybe
the way windows are drawn, and all those issues are now gone.

There was also the bug where the top of the tab bar would have these little
random glitches, and that has been fixed as well. There isn't anything for me
to complain about anymore. Good job Mozilla!

------
huzaifaahmed
What do you guys think about Brave? I use it and I think it's actually better
that firefox in terms of speed and other features.

~~~
Nextgrid
The problem of Brave is that at heart it's still from an advertising company,
no matter how nice they come across.

Advertising is inherently at odds with productivity (ads waste your time) and
potentially privacy (for better ad targeting), so I wouldn't recommend it.

Under the hood it's just a reskinned Chromium so the battery life &
performance concerns remain.

~~~
joemaller1
This and other accusations against Brave came up in the last Firefox thread
too. Can you provide a link?

~~~
Nextgrid
If you check out Brave’s own website or Wikipedia page their whole model is to
block ads and replace them with their own advertising network based on a
crypto currency which allows you to earn it while you browse and see their
ads.

They are an advertising company at heart.

------
franczesko
Unfortunately, mobile experience is not that good. Once it will be as good as
in Brave, I will consider transitioning.

------
paulie_a
Dumb question. Can I transfer my bookmarks and more importantly my passwords
easily. Also does Firefox support 2fa?

------
jangid
I am on macOS. For browsing and managing bookmarks, I used to stick to Safari
and for development work I was using Chrome.

After Quantum, never used Safari and Chrome. I tried FF just to check if it
works any better. For few days, I was using all three browsers. But now,
sticking to FF only since last may be six months.

Containers is really nice feature. Nothing matches FF Containers. I miss
containers on iOS though. I am sure they will be launched soon.

------
npmaile
I've been using Firefox developer edition for a couple of months now and think
it's great.

------
evacchi
if there is one little thing I miss in Firefox, is Desktop PWA support. Apart
from that, I've been using it instead of Chrome for quite a few years, and
it's greatly improved. Can't see any reason to switch back.

------
hinkley
I just wish mobile Firefox had more flexibility.

I never stopped using desktop but mobile has been languishing on my tablet
until the last iOS update totally broke safari (click and hold loading the
anchor, and some dns glitch that means hacker news and two other sites are the
only thing that works for hours at a time)

------
mrandish
With recent improvements, Firefox is absolutely the best overall browser
experience on desktops and at least at parity on mobile. The transition a
couple of years ago to the new plug-in standard was a bit rough and I switched
to Chrome for a while but Firefox has it sorted now.

------
qrbLPHiKpiux
I love the capability for encrypted SNI with Cloudfare’s DNS service.

------
OrgNet
I've been using Firefox since the beginning... even when it used to be a lot
slower then Chrome. I didn't like the updating service that Google installed
on my computer that was always running in the background... do they still do
that?

------
darkwater
Personally, I had never left Firefox even when Chrome was faster/leaner. But
I'm happy all these "switch to Firefox" posts over the Internet

------
thegreatpeter
I’ve been using Firefox primarily for about a year now and don’t plan on
switching back any time soon.

The web feels faster and their Devtools browser has a lot of baked in features

Try it!

------
pknerd
Alright, I am ready to resume using Firefox if it does not eat up memory as
Google Chrome does on macOS.

------
hilbert42
There's no way I'll use Mozilla's stock-standard Firefox. Why would I when:

1\. When Mozilla has forced us to use WebRTC, it kowtowed to this line out of
fright of the likes of Google _et al_. Well tough, by Mozilla nuking important
differences that differentiate Firefox from other browsers I may as well use
Chrome (its user-base is bigger anyway and most of Firefox's users have
already deserted to Chrome for probably this reason). Moreover, Mozilla's
inclusion of WebRTC in Firefox broke everything (it's a case of damn the
user—which is something Mozilla is truly expert at).

2\. Use Firefox and one's plugins have a functional lifetime similar to that
of free neutron _(for those not in the know, that ain 't very long)!_ I cannot
think of another software product on the planet whose developers have managed
to nuke so much supporting code (add-ons etc.) as Mozilla done with Firefox.
Over the years, add-on after add on—literally many thousands of them have been
made redundant and obsolete by Mozilla changing the code base so as to break
compatibility. _' Compatibility'_ is a word totally unknown to Mozilla's
developers. The lack of version compatibility in Firefox can only be described
as truly monumental; with Mozilla, it’s a case of damn both users as well as
the independent developers who develop plug-ins/add-ons—clearly all the
valuable time they've wasted chasing Mozilla's headless, ever-fickle
development methods doesn't mean a thing to Mozilla.

3\. Programmers are and have always been notorious for developing programs the
way they want them rather than what the users want or need. However, at
Mozilla this waywardness has reached new heights, there it seems Mozilla's
programmers can do what they damn well want without question or impunity (or
without referral to the Firefox user base despite Mozilla's many pretensions
to the contrary). For example, in Firefox the move to the Australis interface
_without_ a fallback option to use the old interface showed a blatant
disregard for its many users. With actions like that, it's no wonder that
Firefox's user base is in free-fall!

4\. Many other deliberately introduced annoyances only back up my previous
point. For example, the deliberate removal of the JavaScript on/off toggle
from Firefox was nothing other than an act of authoritarian programming
vandalism. Just because Mozilla's programmers believe JavaScript is the
orgasmic nirvana of the programming language world, they shouldn't
straitjacket those of us who live a freer, better and much, much faster web
existence without it. As this JavaScript on/off switch only affects those of
us who do not use JavaScript, then its removal can only be considered as
authoritarian bastardry. It's bad enough that we've already lost the internet
to the corporate giants—likes of Google, Facebook and Microsoft, _et al_
without the so-called independents like Mozilla also slavishly towing the
party line.

5\. The same goes for the embedded DRM code within Firefox. Yes, let those
users who believe in a proprietary internet use it but do so by way of a
downloadable plugin/add-on. The proprietary DRM code should not be embedded
within the primary open source Firefox code base for a very good reason
becasue it demonstrates to those who wish to make the web their very own
proprietary domain—Google, Netflix, _et al_ —that they have actually
won/succeeded.

6\. The longstanding failure of Mozilla to provide many important features in
Firefox default code—features that many users want and consider essential—has
meant that users have to resort to many plugins/add-ons to try and rectify
Firefox's many limitations and shortcomings. For example, let's start way back
_[this isn 't a new problem, Mozilla has 'form' going back decades]_: Internet
Explorer always had several ways of saving a web page: normal HTML 'save page
complete' and the MHTML (mime) format which saved the web page to a single
file (.MHT extension). Not only did Mozilla never introduce a feature that
would allow a web page to be saved to a single 'zipped'/concatenated file (as
in Internet Explorer) but also it never bothered to embed the Mozilla Archive
Format (.MAFF/MAF extension) in Firefox either, thus users of that very useful
format had to rely on plugins written by others. For many, myself included,
this nobbled Firefox was operationally inferior to even horrible Internet
Explorer! Talk about shooting oneself in the foot. It's yet another example of
Mozilla programmers doing what they want/telling users to go take a jump. _[If
you don 't realize why a single file web page archive is better than the
multi-file HTML approach and or why the single-file save should be embedded in
the base code then I'm sorry, that explanation will just have to wait.]_

What's more, to add insult to injury, Mozilla blatant pushing of WebRTC and
WebExtensions into Firefox killed the ability of the Mozilla Archive Format to
work in its latest versions so MAF's developers have now abandoned its
development altogether. To put it bluntly, Mozilla has a damn hide to treat us
users just like shit. Clearly, Mozilla doesn't give an iota about how this
disrupts users (for example, I've thousands of MAF files that I view regularly
but which I now cannot view in the latest versions of Firefox).

 _[Please don 't send me feedback on this. I know the MAF format is
essentially a ZIP file and thus said files can be converted. This is not the
main issue, which is that Mozilla's careless actions have likely resulted in
many thousands of people around the world having to expend millions of tedious
hours resolving an 'unnecessary' problem—it's wasted human effort that should
never have been expended. As I see it, Mozilla is far from being alone here;
Microsoft and many others are also past masters at it. When considered
globally, the huge collective loss of human time and effort because
programmers program for themselves first with users' considerations coming in
a poor second is a serious problem across the software industry and that's why
I and many others consider it unacceptable for the industry to define itself
as "software engineering". The term "engineering" used in this context is an
affront to true engineers/true engineering. As a person who programs
myself—even with my blinkered and biased eyes—comparing the maturity of other
engineering endeavors (say chemical engineering for instance) to that of the
software industry is akin to comparing a mature adult to that of an
undisciplined child that's still running around helter-skelter in short pants.
The gross examples I've already mentioned here are proof enough (look around
you and you'll easily find thousands more). QED!]_

Just from my own experience, I've found that there are literally dozens of
other essential features still missing from Firefox some 20 years on after its
initial development. That's why I don't believe Firefox is a serious product,
nor do I believe its developers take the product sufficiently seriously to
ever make it a great product.

7\. Moving on: let's for a moment look at the unfinished and ragged edges in
Firefox. There are many but I've only time to mention two. First is the
decade-plus long and quirky bug where a CTRL-C on some highlighted web page
text will not take, that's to say when one attempts to paste the text into
another program there's nothing there. It's not as if Mozilla is unaware of
this bug as it's been mentioned dozens of times over many years. Right, it's a
damn annoying bug for users but Mozilla considers it too trivial to fix (it's
another example of Mozilla's 'damn the user' attitude). Yet another is the
truly primitive/archaic state of Firefox's web page printing routine. I could
just about write a thesis on this issues but I'll make only two points (a)
it's been in this dysfunctional state for going on two decades and Mozilla has
still done nothing about it; and, (b) the problems are large and many (for
example the way Firefox fails to properly handle an image that spans over a
page break—it prints half on one page and half on the other).

For me, the people at Mozilla, despite all their beat-up rhetoric about
Firefox's glossy features, just haven't delivered the necessary (utilitarian)
goods let alone any enticing gloss. Just because these issues are harder to
spot or live under the surface doesn't make them any less important. The fact
that Firefox has so many unresolved issues that still remain on Mozilla's
books (or more likely have never even made it here), are key reasons why
Firefox's ratings are free-fall.

Therefore, you may well ask what to I do for a browser if Firefox is so bad.
The answer is that I use the Pale Moon browser. Pale Moon is far from perfect
but unlike Mozilla, its developers and users alike think similarly to me—that
is users needs come before programmers' egos.

~~~
hu3
I'll try Pale Moon! Thanks for the tip.

[https://www.palemoon.org/](https://www.palemoon.org/)

------
anthk
I have gopher for that, much better.

~~~
catalogia
What sort of gopher<->web proxy are you using to post here?

------
Slashbot
Used to be a major advocate of Firefox as power user for almost 10years after
switching from Maxthon/MyIE2 as the previous best browser.

Now I just use [https://Vivaldi.com](https://Vivaldi.com) ... far more
customisation and features than Firefox. Even includes some of the power
addons Firefox used to have as good addons... before it became the complete
noob dog shit like it is now.

Seriously Mozilla can go fuck themselves (I mean they already are, they
lobotomised there browser into a crappy chrome clone in all but engine
backend) maybe I should make a website like majrko.fyi competently trashing
every aspect of Firefox. I can't even stand it (it pales in comparison to what
it could be with the previous addon system) and it's new stupid slide menu
system is just a big fucking waste of time designed by idiots who haven't a
clue about good workflow. And the complete lack of customisation and features
compared to Vivaldi is joke (or even what Firefox used to be capable of..so
sad)

At this point vanilla Chrome is just basic google garbage, but I wouldn't goto
Firefox because of it's so called privacy aspects.. I'd goto Vivaldi instead
for the features.. Privacy is dead.

------
Causality1
Distraction-free? Have they stopped filling the new tab page with revenue-
generators like Pocket?

~~~
po1nter
This is my new tab page:
[https://imgur.com/TpSzOCZ](https://imgur.com/TpSzOCZ)

Note that the search bar can also be removed. So yes, as distraction free as
you want to make it.

~~~
drankula3
Defaults matter. And currently, Firefox fills their new tab page with spam and
self-promotion by default.

~~~
dao-
> spam

I don't think this fits the definition of spam. Many average Joe users happen
to find those curated suggestions useful. Yes, user testing has been done.

> Defaults matter.

Yep. More advanced users also tend to be better positioned to opt out compared
to average Joe opting in.

~~~
drankula3
Spam: unsolicited usually commercial messages (such as e-mails, text messages,
or Internet postings) sent to a large number of recipients or posted in a
large number of places[1]. By that definition, it is spam.

> user testing has been done

User testing isn't flawless, and is what got us the ribbon in Microsoft Office
for example, an incredibly unintuitive interface.

[1] [https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spam](https://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/spam)

~~~
madhadron
> got us the ribbon in Microsoft Office for example, an incredibly unintuitive
> interface.

On the contrary. The ribbon is a really excellent piece of UX work, much more
discoverable and usable than the masses of menus that preceded it. It just
isn't what people were used to. My favorite story is a friend of mine ranting
about how he couldn't find anything with the ribbon in Word, and adding, "but
at least they added styles to Word." I had to point out that styles had been
in Word for a long, long time and the ribbon had just done its job very
nicely.

------
Dumblydorr
I use firefox on ubuntu and the performance is terrible. Its constantly
crashing, tabs crash individually, it hangs, launching memory heavy websites
seems to crash it most often. When I switched to chromium the performance got
a lot better.

~~~
deepersprout
I use firefox on ubuntu as well and it works very nicely. Its RAM and CPU
usage is negligible, sites load very fast, and the developer tools are
awesome.

I think something is wrong on your system.

~~~
acidburnNSA
Same for me. Been using Firefox in Ubuntu for years and it is lightning fast
and extraordinarily stable.

------
pmoriarty
Firefox is agonizingly slow for me on an otherwise idle system, on my old,
slow (2 core, 1.5 GHz) laptop, with only 8 tabs open.

It takes about 30 seconds to load a web page, and I'm using an ad blocker
(uBlock Origin) and also block unnecessary Javascript (via uMatrix). I have
some other blockers too: Decentraleyes and CanvasBlocker, along with some
other extensions like Stylus, Tree Style Tab, and Multi Account Containers
which might slow things down as well.

~~~
floatingatoll
Note that each third-party content blocker you listed slows down page load
speed by a fraction of a second on fancy multi-core desktops. That slowdown
may be more significant in your case.

------
microcolonel
No, you make it function properly before I consider “[giving] it a chance”.

Firefox is ridden with decade-old compliance bugs, and is generally a pain to
write applications and documents for. That's just part of why web applications
and documents work worse in Firefox than they do in Chromium.

Mozilla should derive from Chromium, if they want to actually deliver a web
browser worth choosing. They can even fight their small battles with niche
concerns more efficiently this way; but alas they will choose to make their
users suffer needlessly for the scintilla of a principle of “implementation
diversity”, which in practice just means “Firefox workarounds”.

~~~
toastal
I still have issues with Blink's CSS columns 7 years later, so this isn't a
one-sided deal.

~~~
microcolonel
Sure, though the balance of issues actually affecting the viability of
documents and web applications greatly favours Chromium.

Like I said, I think Mozilla could put themselves in a great position to
differentiate themselves on _quality_ or any other important axis if they
would just give up on maintaining Netscape. At this point they don't even
support any of the old plugin or extension interfaces, so even if they wanted
to rebuild all of their current UI gimmicks, it wouldn't be a crazy amount of
work.

As it stands, the least you could say between the two, regarding
implementation quality, is that Firefox is _almost_ not noticeably worse most
of the time. That's not a terribly high standard.

The an example of the sort of differentiation users appreciate, unbreaking
content blockers like uBlock Origin with a patchset that forces Google to
either merge it, or acknowledge that they had ulterior motives for deprecating
the content blocking APIs in favour of ones with serious limitations. For
example, a performance improvement to declarativeNetRequest with an increase
of the rule limit from 30,000 to something more useful, with no loss in
performance.

------
sesuximo
Firefox is okay overall but it's quite distracting. for example it often
blocks apt-get with auto updates. it crashes once an hour

~~~
acidburnNSA
I personally have used it for years on linux and have never once experience
the apt-get block. I also can't remember the last time it crashed.

------
alexis_fr
Let’s enumerate how Firefox is bugging the user to tell him they respect his
privacy:

\- Each time one opens a tab,

\- Every week in my mailbox,

\- When opening any other website and their popup is here to tell me « You’re
protected! »

\- When one opens a website and FF asks « Do you want to install this privacy
extension? », pointing at the facebook jail or the container feature.

\- When suggesting to use Pocket or any new idea,

Chrome succeeded by advertising in competitors’ browsers (through Google
properties) for Chrome and making Chrome get out of the way... in Chrome. I’m
not sure Firefox can succeed by bugging the user in their own browser. Also,
coming from a company who fired his CEO for a private donation made 10 years
earlier, claiming it’s a privacy-respecting company is rich.

~~~
jakelazaroff
_> Also, coming from a company who fired his CEO for a private donation made
10 years earlier, claiming it’s a privacy-respecting company is rich._

Two corrections. Brendan Eich made a _public_ donation in support of
Proposition 8 banning same-sex marriage in California. He also was not fired;
he voluntarily stepped down.

~~~
swebs
>Brendan Eich made a public donation

He meant private, as opposed to corporate. I'm not aware if it's even possible
to hide charitable donations from the public eye.

~~~
jakelazaroff
It is, but a political campaign is not a charitable organization.

I also think it strains credulity that he could check his feelings at the door
and treat all employees equally, given he felt it _so important_ to oppress
LBGTQ people that he wanted it enshrined in the California state constitution.

