
Switching from Chrome to Firefox - nachtigall
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switching-chrome-firefox
======
thibran
Firefox is nice. But over time there are more and more things I need to
configure to get a "good" browser experience.

Things I do:

\- about:preferences#general > Startup > restore previous session

\- about:preferences#general > Tabs > uncheck Ctrl+Tab cycle ...

\- about:preferences#general > Downloads > always ask where to save

\- about:preferences#home > Firefox Home Content > disable all except Top
Sites

\- about:preferences#privacy > Permission > Notification Settings > Block new
requests

\- about:preferences#privacy > Firefox Data Collection and Use > disable

\- Set in about:config extensions.pocket.enabled to false

\- Install the addons: uBlock Origin, Gesturefy, Firefox Multi-Account
Containers

\- I remove the home button

\- I remove the sidebar button

\- I reject every Firefox pop-up that wants me to enable Sync or whatever

The result is a decent browser, which doesn't get in my way. But I can
understand that those steps are too many for casual users and can understand
why a lot of people don't like the Internet. I wouldn't like it too, if I had
to use default browser settings without an ad-blocker.

~~~
mschuetz
> \- about:preferences#general > Downloads > always ask where to save

I hate the default behaviour so much. What's wrong with asking me where to
save the file? I almost certainly have a place in mind where the file should
go.

~~~
Zarel
I think it's easier to drag-and-drop from the Downloads folder to where I want
to save it, than to dig through a Save dialog to find the folder I want to
save something in. So it's less work whether or not you want to put your
download somewhere long-term.

~~~
mschuetz
The download folder can still be the default, and all you'd have to do is to
press "save" if you're okay with the default.

------
philshem
For those new and old to Firefox, check out the new-ish privacy feature
“multi-account containers”

[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-
account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-
containers/)

~~~
sir_brickalot
Unfortunately NoScript is not able to allow/deny selectively for containers.

I block all Facebook domains with NoScript so I cant really use facebook in a
container.

~~~
pritambaral
You might be interested in Facebook Container by Mozilla[1] then, as an
alternative to your NoScript rules.

1: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-
cont...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-container/)

~~~
sir_brickalot
Thanks already using it, but this doesn't give me confindence, that all
Facebook traffic on all other sites is blocked.

~~~
giancarlostoro
Its primary purpose was for blocking Facebook on other sites as you browse the
web.

------
jonny383
Firefox has indeed come a huge way in the last two years.

\- It's multi-process architecture redesign _really_ improved performance
(it's like using a whole new browser, honestly. If you haven't at least tried
it, it's worth a shot).

\- Mozilla's commitment to privacy (I know in the eyes of some, their current
commitment isn't enough) is the best option you have outside of Safari /
macOS.

\- In version 71, battery drain on macOS is indeed largely improved

\- The multi-account containers, anti-tracking and anti-fingerprinting are a
breath of fresh air (yes, I know they are not perfect). I am satisfied that
each time I sign on to YouTube, my recommended videos are just a bunch of
random things.

\- Firefox looks like it will remain one of the only browsers that fully
supports current ad-blocking technology. (Yes, I know about Brave, but that's
besides the point).

\- The devtools section has seen a lot of attention that easily brings the
experience on par with Chrome (in my experience).

\- Firefox on Android with AdBlock drastically speeds up browsing the internet
on mobile devices.

But, despite all of these good points, the browser still feels... clunky.

Sure, the UI performance drastically improved since Quantum, but really, open
a fresh Firefox window, browse to your favorite site and click around a
little. Then, try the same thing with Chrome / Chromium / Edge. I don't know
exactly what it is, but these other browsers just feel that little bit
"smoother" or more "modern".

Say what you will about Google and Chrome. But morals aside, in my opinion,
there's no denying they built a world-leading software product that has vastly
increased the perceived quality expectations of browser users.

Note: I still remain a primary Firefox user. The eye-candy is nice, but for me
it's not worth sacrificing all of the other pros of Firefox.

EDIT: grammar

~~~
beanaroo
The difference is quite noticeable for me when using Atlassian's Cloud
products. May their framework is simply optimised for Chrome.

I also really do hope Firefox gains hardware video acceleration on Linux some
day.

------
keyP
I switched to FF for my daily driver almost a year ago on my Windows machine
and haven't looked back. Previously FF had too many performance issues but
since each tab is run in a separate process, it's been just as good as Chrome
(not so much on OSX however, I still use Chrome there).

The other advantage of FF for me, besides Pocket, is that I can share and send
pages with FF on Android which has support for ad-blockers. Last time I
checked, Chrome didn't support extensions on Android.

~~~
inetknght
I wish Pocket didn't come enabled by default. It's intrusive spyware.

Edit: It's information leaks for advertisements. I switched from Chrome to
Firefox to get away from advertisement empires. Having to manually disable
Pocket to do that leaves a sour note.

~~~
czechdeveloper
Pocket is owned by Mozilla, so if Pocket is spyware, Mozilla is making
spyware. Does not sound right.

~~~
hydgu
Yeah, they would never do that.

[https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-
cliqz-i...](https://blog.mozilla.org/press-uk/2017/10/06/testing-cliqz-in-
firefox/)

"Users who receive a version of Firefox with Cliqz will have their browsing
activity sent to Cliqz servers, including the URLs of pages they visit"

Ooops.

~~~
cerberusss
I think you're misleading in quoting a two-year old blog, then closing off
with "ooops", implying that Mozilla was caught in a privacy-related oops.

When in fact, Mozilla was super duper clear in the blog about the privacy
implications of this experiment. And in the past two years, they have been
focusing more and more on the privacy angle.

At the moment, both Safari and Mozilla look to me to be leading in privacy.

~~~
hydgv
Being super duper clear about having sent the full URL history of users to a
third party doesn't excuse you from the fact that you, well, sent the full URL
history of users to a third party.

And unless the entire leadership of the Mozilla Corporation has been replaced
since then (a wet dream of mine) that blog entry is relevant, since they've
done it and they could do it again.

~~~
cerberusss
Are you saying that nothing could ever excuse that fact?

Cliqz is building a European, independent privacy-oriented search engine. This
seems a worthy reason to me, especially with the complete and total
transparency here. And in any case, the experiment has ended.

I still maintain your comments are misleading, by leaving out the context.

~~~
hydgv
Setting aside whether Cliqz could be trusted or not, just think of it: this is
a decision that went through lots of managers in the Mozilla Corporation, and
nobody ever stopped to think for a moment "sending the entire URL history of
our users to a third party? well this is wrong". This is the kind of decision
that should've led to lots of resignations inside the company, but nothing
happened. To me this means there's something deeply rotten inside Mozilla.
What kind of assurance do I have that they won't pull this off again in the
future? And let's remember that they are strapped for cash, so it's not like
they don't have an incentive to sell private user data again.

~~~
franga2000
"nobody ever stopped to think" is used constantly, yet is almost never the
truth. What is infinitely more likely is that many people raised eyebrows and
were assured by someone way above their pay grade that "everything is fine".
Calling Mozilla "deeply rotten" is an extreme leap that (imo) is not
justified.

~~~
sneak
I agree, but in this case, hydgv might be right. Leaking full browsing history
is pretty far beyond the line.

Mozilla burned a big chunk of reputation when they fucked that up, as
evidenced by this thread.

------
i2shar
I switched to Firefox from Chrome a couple of months ago. The sole motivation
was the fiasco that ensued after Google decided to mingle Chrome Sync login
with accounts.google.com cookies - there is simply no way to sign in to Chrome
Sync without creating browser cookies for the same account. I wanted the
benefit of saving and syncing bookmarks and extensions across my chrome
installations, but I did not want to be tracked across the web with my logged
in Google identity and the Chrome changes for "Identity consistency between
browser and cookie jar" made it impossible. It was time to move on from
Chrome.

And I have been very pleased with the new Firefox. Highly recommend it to
everyone!

------
dfsdfklgjljg
Loyal firefox user here. Never touched chrome unless I had to.

The australis days were rough, but since quantum it's been feeling fast. It
doesn't even feel obviously slower than chrome anymore.

------
newscracker
In addition to telling others on HN the benefits of using Firefox and its
extensions, please evangelize Firefox with the people you know (online and
offline). That will make a bigger impact for everyone.

~~~
techntoke
Or evangelize Chromium, which is faster and less buggy. Also better supported
on Linux.

~~~
newscracker
Chromium dances to Google’s tunes. I don’t see any reason to use or support
Chromium, especially with things like Manifest V3 coming in the future and
disabling extensions like uBlock Origin. A fork of it that makes it very
different from Chrome, perhaps. But not Chromium as is or Chrome.

~~~
techntoke
Chrome never disabled uBlock Origin. They are making changes to an API and
have been open to feedback to ensure adblockers continue to work. The whole
propaganda campaign that Chrome was disabling ad-blockers was practically ran
by Mozilla itself. I recall however, shortly after Mozilla forgot to renew
their certificate and all my extensions in Firefox got disabled, and it took
well over a day for a fix. Meanwhile, uBlock continued to work fine in
Chromium.

------
foxfired
Having multiple small tutorials like these will make it easy for anyone who
wants to move to Firefox. The more the merrier. That said, I still can't get
used to Firefox.

It's fine on desktop, and using profiles is not too much of a big deal for me.
But on mobile, Firefox is not as intuitive as chrome is to me. On my phone I
have Chrome, which I only ever use if a website fails on all other browsers, I
have Brave as my daily driver, and Firefox because I want to make it my
default.

I just can't navigate as easily on Firefox as I can on Chromium browsers. An
example, when I use HN, I open links on a new tab and I can swipe the header
left or right to navigate from tab to tab. Easy breezy.

On Firefox, I have to click on the tab menu, figure out where I am, and read
titles to know where I am going. Every single time I forget, I end up clicking
on many tabs before I find where I am going.

Don't know if this feature in Firefox's pipeline, but that's the only thing
stopping me from making the switch.

~~~
matsemann
Firefox for android supports addons, though, so can be customized to do
anything. I can't believe people use Chrome om Android when you can have Fx
with ad blocking!

For your problem, I use an addon called "simple gesture" that allows me to add
all kinds of gestures/actions.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Assuming it's [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/simple-
gestur...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/simple-gesture/):
any ideas why does it need to "access my data for all websites" and "access
the clipboard"?

Curiously the blurb recommends "Quick Gestures" which presumably is a
different gesture addon.

~~~
matsemann
\- access data: probably because the gesture is actually done inside the page
you're viewing, so it has to be able to capture that \- clipboard: it was a
feature requested, for gestures to be able to work with the clip board:
[https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/simple-
gestur...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/simple-
gesture/reviews/1449456/) So just recently added for that reason

------
butz
Migrated to Firefox on my work PC after Chrome removed protocol display in URL
bar and all flags to revert this change - that was the last straw.

------
levani
I switched from Chrome to Firefox on my old Macbook pro and overall it really
feels faster and more responsive.

~~~
update
Ah, I've been using firefox for web dev stuff on my old Macbook pro and I've
noticed it's a lot faster than it was last year.

Definitely considering making the plunge as speed has been the only thing
that's held me back from switching to FF.

------
mgninad
I am on FF but i miss having one profile for work and one profile for personal
use that i used to have with chrome.

~~~
hyperdunc
You need the containers extension. It's better than Chrome profiles.

~~~
philshem
Link: [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-
account...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-
containers/)

------
r_singh
I use Safari full-time and am pretty happy with it. Pinned tabs, the keyboard
shortcuts, developer options, ghostery extension, I find everything pretty
neat.

Anyone else here feel the same?

~~~
deepburner
I would use it since it's the native browser but last I checked it didn't have
any proper ad blockers due to apple shenanigans. I would consider swapping
back if I could use ublock origin.

~~~
dan1234
I use Adguard with Safari 13, which has a bit of a clunky startup but doesn't
seem to affect performance once everything is running & does a decent enough
job of blocking trackers/ads.

------
ailideex
I really want to use FireFox but it is simply too heavy on resources compared
to chrome (running on Linux - both Fedora 31 and RHEL 8). In general I like
FireFox more and prefer features like multi-account-containers so I'm quite
sad to have to use chrome.

~~~
tenant
I'm back using firefox full time since about 3 months and don't notice that at
all. In fact I now struggle to remember why I ever moved to chrome in the
first place, I know there were reasons but I can't remember what they were.
Moving back was surprisingly painless. If I could find a similarly easy and
good path out of gmail I'd be gone tomorrow.

~~~
kiwijamo
I recommend FastMail if you're willing to pay for your email services. They
have an excellent import tool to help with migrating your email from Gmail.

~~~
kevinkeller
There was some talk of privacy concerns with FastMail, due to Australian laws:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19242698](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19242698)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18654434](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18654434)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_Australia...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_surveillance_in_Australia#Assistance_and_Access_Bill)

~~~
RandomBacon
Went it comes to governments spying on people, I weigh Fastmail the same as
Gmail. Considering I find everything else about Fastmail better than Gmail, I
am slowly making the switch (using my own domain names though so I could
potentially switch again in the future).

------
rahuldottech
Firefox is great, and I've had an amazing experience on both mobile and
desktop ever since I switched almost a year ago.

I only wish that their password manager allowed you to import passwords in
standard formats from other password managers.

~~~
kiwijamo
I find the Bitwarden extension is very good. The advantage of using an
independent password store is that you can use it on other platforms. For
example, Bitwarden provides iOS integration which provides autofill in both
Safari and even within individual apps (which is a huge time-saver). In the
future you may move to a different browser, and Bitwarden (or your independent
password manager of choice) will most likely have an extension for that
browser too so you can start using it straight away. I love Firefox but I
honestly can't see any reason to lock myself into its password store.

------
unnouinceput
Switched to Firefox a ~year ago from Chrome. uBlock Origins + Privacy Badger +
NoScript does wonders. And on Firefox I love private containers, such a joy to
be able to do multiple logins for same service.

------
ropiwqefjnpoa
I switched from Chrome to Firefox a few months ago across all my devices. Got
to say, I should have done it earlier.

~~~
whatever_dude
Ditto. I waited a bit because I was afraid the change would be difficult, I'd
be missing something, etc... in the end it was a super smooth transition.

Now every time I see some new disastrous Chrome-related news I just nod and
move on.

------
woranl
I would like to switch to Firefox too, but it just lacks some of the most key
features. It cannot effectively create large blob from chunks through the use
of Filesystem & FileWriter API. Yes, I can use IndexedDB for blob storage, but
the time required to copy and paste chunks in/out of IndexedDB will grow
exponentially for large blob. There is simply no other effective ways to build
a large blob from chunks that can work in Firefox. This is why Firefox will
always be slow on some modern web app.

All other major browsers support Filesystem & FileWriter API:
[https://caniuse.com/#feat=filesystem](https://caniuse.com/#feat=filesystem)

~~~
kgwxd
What sites need that to run efficiently?

------
LoSboccacc
I'm using Firefox as primary browser since Chrome war on as blockers and it
works fine for the most part but it's quite rough around the edges

my biggest grows come from the omnibar, it still has a heck of a trouble
guessing what's a search and what's a domain, the sorting out partial matches
feels weird because bookmarks aren't prominent and there's no promotion of
URLs entered Vs useless navigated toward and three default click action
(append to bottom of the URL) might be fine if you are a developer but it's
not for the most part what I want as a user.

edit: thanks all for the suggestions

edit2: imagine being so committed into a browser religion to downvote facts

~~~
_Microft
There are some ways to refine the results in the Firefox adress bar, in case
you already know what you are looking for. I mainly use * + and % :

Add ^ to search for matches in your browsing history.

Add * to search for matches in your bookmarks.

Add + to search for matches in pages you've tagged.

Add % to search for matches in your currently open tabs.

Add ~ to search for matches in pages you've typed.

Add # to search for matches in page titles.

Add @ to search for matches in web addresses (URLs).

Edit: it looks as if one can search for the input by prepending a ? to it.
This will hide any other (local) results from the omnibar, giving easy
keyboard access (by direction keys) to the list of search engines at the end
of the list.

~~~
lioeters
Wow I didn't know about these, thanks for the info!

I found the complete list documented here:

[https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-
autocomplet...](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplete-
firefox#w_changing-results-on-the-fly)

~~~
_Microft
Yes, this must be the source that I got the list from. I have not memorised
the more obscure filters and have this list sitting on my desktop for easy
access.

------
clement_b
I did that about a month ago, after more than 10 years with Chrome only.

So far so good, apart from battery usage on Android. I sometimes feel it
spirals when too many tabs are left open. Desktop, no problem.

I have kept Chrome for my work stuff, because I want 100% efficiency / no
delay due to my tech choices and I work on a SaaS tool primarily targeting
Chrome. I still think Chrome is better when it comes to powering web apps,
ahem, made by Google in particular.

The real question for me is, besides privacy, what is the killer feature that
will / does make it obvious to switch to Firefox?

It seems that other browsers like Brave are also quite good at dealing with
privacy, so why Firefox and not Brave?

~~~
feanaro
> The real question for me is, besides privacy, what is the killer feature
> that will / does make it obvious to switch to Firefox?

Preventing the web from devolving into a closed garden. For this we need
alternative browser engines and hence Brave does not make the cut.

Other than that, containers are a pretty useful tool that's so far Firefox
only.

~~~
kmlx
> Preventing the web from devolving into a closed garden. For this we need
> alternative browser engines and hence Brave does not make the cut.

1\. all web engines are open source

2\. we had multiple engines. it didn't work out, at all. user experience was
thrown out the window, technologies weren't implemented, the web was massively
fragmented.

3\. we're now trying to have a single open source engine that everyone
contributes to since it's better for everyone's experience.

~~~
feanaro
> 2\. we had multiple engines

We _have_ multiple engines. This is a fact.

> 3\. we're now trying to have a single open source engine that everyone
> contributes to since it's better for everyone's experience.

 _We_ are not trying that at all. The experience is perfectly fine with our
currently existing multiple engines.

> 1\. all web engines are open source

This does not matter much if your goal is to maintain a single engine. What
matters is control of software releases.

In order to maintain a web which is not exclusively controlled by a single
entity, the releases need to be controlled by more than a single entity. This
sounds like a tautology because it almost is one.

The only thing the free software aspect helps with is that it is easier to
assume control of the releases, but as soon as you do this, you've forked the
engine and there are now multiple engines. Hence, there is actually no way of
maintaining a single engine while also decentralizing control. Short of Google
relinquishing control of Chrome and forming some kind of international browser
development committee, but that sounds like a creature from nightmares and is
yet again a central point of failure.

------
Eli_P
I found it interesting how Chrome and FF handle differently cpu-heavy code
like this:

    
    
        arr = new ArrayBuffer(4)
        arrInt = new Uint32Array(arr)
        t0 = performance.now(); for (; arrInt[0] <= 1000000000; ++arrInt[0]) {} ; 
        performance.now() - t0
    

On Windows it takes 2.5 secs even on old chrome versions, while it never
finishes on the latest FF. The latter's call stack says
firefox.exe!TargetNtUnmapViewOfSection(), xul.dll!get_stored_pointer. I wonder
if that happens on other platforms?

Update - on my Android: Chrome: 7.5 secs, forever on FF. Weird. If I say a var
is typed it should work faster.

~~~
bzbarsky
Are you running that in a web page, or in the devtools console?

I just tried running it in a web page, with the last line replaced by
`console.log(performance.now() - t0);` and on my hardware it finishes in ~1.5
seconds in Firefox and ~2 seconds in Chrome.

Similar if I run it in a devtools console like so:

    
    
        (function() {
          var arr = new ArrayBuffer(4)
          var arrInt = new Uint32Array(arr)
          t0 = performance.now(); for (; arrInt[0] <= 1000000000; ++arrInt[0]) {} ; 
        })();
        performance.now() - t0
    

and hence avoid the undeclared global variable accesses. If I run the original
code in the devtools console, it is in fact quite slow in Firefox, because
global variable access is slower in the devtools console there. So each get of
`arrInt` takes a quite long time. That's
[https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=793345](https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=793345)
and I suspect that's what you're running into here.

The main moral is to not do performance testing in the console, because it's a
_very_ different execution environment from actual web pages.

~~~
Eli_P
> in the devtools console

Wow, you are right, thanks. Lesson learned.

------
juliend2
Not sure why, or if i'm the only one, but sometimes I have this problem with
Firefox (latest) on Win10:

When I open a new tab, there is a ~50% chance that the URL i'm querying won't
ever connect. As if there was no internet.

I tried to remove some open tabs (I have ~20 open tabs all the time) and it
worked again.

When it happens, opening a new tab on Chrome always works, though. I wasn't
using a proxy and my internet connexion is pretty stable and fast.

Restarting Firefox also helped, IIRC. But I never had such a problem with
Chrome, when it was my main browser. Now, this happens every month or so with
Firefox.

~~~
frettchen
I have the same issue on openSUSE Leap 15 - it's not Windows specific. I've
found that the number of tabs doesn't matter too much - if I copy the URL of
the non-loading tab, close the tab, open a new one and paste the URL there, it
will load around 9/10 times (if it doesn't, third time is always the charm).

Drove me nuts enough that I switched to Brave for a bit as my main driver, but
I've been experiencing some crashing from it recently and I miss my bookmark
keywords, so I might go back.

~~~
juliend2
Thanks for sharing this. I will give other browsers a try as well.

------
mikelyons
One day after enabling 2-factor auth for AdWords, all google services started
to give the "this browser is insecure" error and I was unable to log into
_any_ google services in Chrome. Things worked fine in Firefox, so I switched
over 100%. It's something I'd been considering for a while as Google appears
to be getting more evil over time. Hardly had to do any configuration except
installing adblocker and password manager. The only annoyance is that
scrolling behavior is slightly different and less easy to control than in
Chrome.

------
izacus
Question I can't find an answer for anywhere: are desktop PWAs supported by
Firefox yet? As in, installing them as a desktop app with icon, notifications
and everything that goes with it?

What about chromecast support?

~~~
techntoke
Did you try it out? No they aren't supported by Firefox. Chromium is much more
innovative in this field.

------
dzink
I have been using Firefox for a few months and I’ve noticed browsers on
Windows are far slower than on Mac (despite much faster hardware). Is that
normal / happening to you as well? Firefox on Windows seems noticeably slower
than Chrome. (Any page from entering address to seeing content feels
ridiculously slow) I still use it for privacy, but I wonder if there is
something I could do to speed it up.

~~~
bboygravity
What I find mind blowing is that it takes gigabytes (of RAM and/or other local
storage) to load a couple of websites. Regardless of which browser is used.

~~~
eloisant
What you call "a couple of websites" are actually full-blown applications.
Your browser is more a virtual machine than a document reader.

Also, applications tend to use RAM when it's available. Think of all the
cache, typically that's why back is snappy (it doesn't re-render the page from
scratch). Maybe it would make you feel good to see a lot of unused RAM, but
since it's there, it's better to use it than not.

~~~
bboygravity
Well, maybe the point I'm trying to make is that they shouldn't be
applications.

Hackernews could take 100's of megabytes to load (like pretty much all of the
other similar websites do). RAM, page file or otherwise. But it doesn't. It
could be a complex application. But it isn't. And it shouldn't be.

Also, I don't think having "too much RAM" is the issue on my 16 GB machine. I
routinely have to just shut down the browser entirely to be able to properly
do CAD work. Party like it's 1995.

Even if these websites are "legit applications" for good reasons, putting the
processing burden on the client is still a choice. There are efficient ways to
leave most of the processing to the server. Example:
[https://www.phoenixframework.org/](https://www.phoenixframework.org/)

Disclaimer: correct me if I'm wrong. I'm just an EE guy with shallow limited
knowledge on web stuff.

------
SubZtep
The main reason I switched to Firefox was an extension where I can see all of
my tabs on a sidebar. I don't think it's possible with Chrome until they
introduce sidebar pane. [https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-
style-ta...](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/)

------
azinman2
I tried to use Firefox on a new install of elementary OS with nvidia drivers
installed. Full screen video was super choppy. I installed Chrome, and it was
perfect.

I don’t want to have to debug this.. I just want it to work, so yet again
Firefox gets put on the back burner for me. Maybe one day...

------
stevenicr
I have to use chrome on one device, and the only thing I like about it is that
it will warn you when you try to download the same thing a second time - this
would nice in firefox maybe.. saving web pages, or mp4 files - chrome will pop
up with "again?" or something.

------
amelius
I'm using Firefox 71.0 (64-bit) on Ubuntu, and password fields are completely
broken! I've tried disabling add-ons, and running in private mode, nothing
helps. The only thing that works is if I run in a different profile where
there is no account "Sync".

~~~
techntoke
Firefox on Linux is considered a second-class citizen compared to Chromium.

------
runn1ng
Switching saved passwords (with the built in password managers) between
Firefox, Chrome and Safari is a pain.

I remember that in order to get my passwords from Chrome to Firefox on macOS,
I needed to install a virtual machine with Windows, and log in to Chrome and
Firefox there.

------
ryan8020
I still try to get away from safari, so many things keep not working how I
want them to. But I guess I'm just too locked in by using the keychain and
nowadays apple pay.

------
tuan
I tried to switch to Firefox, but it randomly freezes after my mac wakes up
from sleep, so after a month or so I had to go back to Chrome.

------
sschueller
Firefox is great but not so great is asking users to automatically use
Cloudflair's DoH service. Let me pick which DoH I want to use.

~~~
kiwijamo
It hasn't asked me to, as you say, automatically use Cloudflare's DoH service.
The default seems to have DoH disabled.

~~~
majewsky
It's not rolled out everywhere yet. AFAIK they only activate it for US users,
and it may only be activated for a subset of those (not sure about that part).

~~~
kiwijamo
I am outside the US so that explains it, thank you.

------
maple3142
One of the reason why I haven't switch from Chrome to Firefox again is Join
still don't have a Firefox extension:
[https://joaoapps.com/join/firefox/](https://joaoapps.com/join/firefox/)
Another reason is I had switched to Firefox just after Firefox Quantum came
out, and eventually switched back to Chrome because it didn't give me a good
experience at that time. (buggy devtool, many unfamiliarity)

~~~
perttir
The devtool is nice nowadays. It supports inspecting websocket messages, log
events and has a multi-line support for console.

------
haunter
I like Firefox but I'm also a heavy tab user. Usually around 70-100 open with
~10-13GB RAM. Chrome is just better in that aspect, much better performance.
Altho I use ungoogled-chromium not retail Chrome

[https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium)

~~~
mantap
I use an extension that automatically closes tabs after 30 minutes of
inactivity. So my tab counts never get super high.

I think when people say they want a lot of tabs, they mean they want better
bookmarking and history search. There's almost no reason to keep more than a
few dozen tabs open in the background, wasting CPU and RAM.

~~~
jeltz
Yes, what I want are two things:

1\. Work spaces so that I can return to the same set of tabs with the same
scroll positions as last time I worked on a certain project (e.g. one for
work, one for leisure and one for my open source projects).

2\. A better UI for bookmarks. The current bookmark UI is just too many clicks
and too much manual management.

------
Dumblydorr
Firefox has bad performance for my use cases. It crashes around 50% of the
time I open Gmail, and the other 50% of the time it crashes with any old tab.
I know Gmail is bloated and less performant now but it's been my address for
15 years. Does Mozilla want me to deal with the constant crashes or abandon
Firefox or abandon Gmail?

~~~
51Cards
Interesting, it has to be something specific to your use case or hardware. I
have Firefox open 24/7, 150+ tabs (Panorama tab manager), 4 Gmail account tabs
(2 personal, 2 work) always pinned open, and FF just never crashes for me.
Since Quantum was released it has just been stable.

------
acvny
Sorry for the stupid question. But can anyone paste a link about why chrome is
bad?

~~~
hylaride
It’s a browser made by an advertising company. They’ve made a few decisions
lately that have shown that fact (recent changes that have placed limits on
third party ad blockers, for example). It’s also gotten more bloated lately.

They’ve also forced the integration with google sync. If you sign into google
anywhere (including using google to sign in to a third party website), it will
sign chrome in as well.

~~~
acvny
Thanks. Yes automatic browser login when you login into gmail for example is
very annoying.

------
jcrben
If only they had built-in keyboard shortcut customization.

------
f0rfun
Can someone EIL5 what's so wrong about Chrome?

------
Aperocky
Switched when quantum came out and never looked back.

No complaints.

------
foray1010
7\. Remove Chrome and never look back.

------
onetimemanytime
Firefox user here too! Chrome is on not my side, it's only to make sure Google
increases their revenue.

------
dmje
I dunno why Brave doesn't get more airtime. All the good things about Chrome,
none of the creepy

~~~
techntoke
Built on Chrome. Encourages ads. Company built by homophobic CEO. Sounds more
creepy to me.

------
dimator
Time for the weekly Chrome bash thread on HN. Cue the "I also switched to ddg
and it's great!"

Seriously, why does this happen so much here? I'm not even talking about the
merits of the argument (I switched to Firefox), I'm just talking about how
much of an echo chamber this is.

~~~
notkaiho
Because we, as largely the more clued-in kind of IT users, know the importance
of avoiding closed gardens and the dangers of the tracking ad-tech stuff
Chrome has?

~~~
dimator
So we have to bring it up every few days?

Just look at this comment thread. All switch stories. At this point it's
preaching to the choir.

~~~
thinkingemote
Well the article is explicitly about switch stories so it's a good thing the
comments have stayed in track.

------
_tkzm
the custom search engines and the banning of dissenter extension is why i am
still on chrome. ff failed me on technical and personal level with these. at
least with chrome/google ... the devil you know.

~~~
andrepd
Your answer to ff refusing to host an extension and forcing you to sideload it
is to move to a platform that has _continuous and proven_ censorship and
surveillance track record? Doesn't make much sense to me.

~~~
hydgu
Chrome has continuous and proven censorship? I think they are more or less on
the same page than Firefox: they have their curated "app store" and they
inconvenience you if you try to bypass it.

I would use Firefox if they actually were more open and free than Chrome. But
if they are the same, just slower, then why would I want to support Mozilla?

------
bennyz
I am still missing chrome-like profiles

~~~
ypeter
Have you tried Multi-Account Containers? It’s not the same but for me it works
(I want to be logged in with various accounts on the same website)

~~~
jpalomaki
Multi-account containers is the reason why I'm using Firefox.

Too bad it is just an extension and not a first-class feature. The settings
are not synced with other Firefox settings. Somewhat annoying as there is lot
of work to setup the container settings if you happen loose then.

------
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) - reasons why I'm not use
Fox anymore.

~~~
Zren
What does firefox say in the "decision log" for your pc in `about:support`? Is
hardware acceleration enabled?

~~~
paulcarroty
Yeah.

------
psv1
For people who are considering switching away from Chrome - give Brave a try,
it's really good.

I was a bit reluctant for a while because their branding is weird and there's
too much focus on their crypto ad model. But if you switch the crypto stuff
off, you have a fork of Chrome that performs just as well and also has a few
additional privacy features and isn't linked to your Google account. Highly
recommend.

~~~
anon_alchemist
Brave blocks all ads and provides its own "ad platform" which basically means
that they curate what ads you will see. I fail to see how their model could
fix what is wrong with facebook or google.

~~~
psv1
Their ad model is what gets discussed every time Brave comes up and it's
irrelevant to me - I block all ads myself regardless of the browser.

My point is that if you switch ads off in Brave, you end up with a really good
browsing experience, better than Chrome + adblock or Firefox + adblock.

------
dnpp123
Am I the only one not able to switch from Chrome to Firefox because of
performances issues (2yo laptop) ?

According to :
[https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=firefox-...](https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=firefox-70-chrome-78&num=5)
firefox still has some work to do....

~~~
thinkingemote
I'm on an old laptop with a CPU graph on my top panel. It appears that Firefox
uses more CPU than chromium and so I use Chromium when in battery power or
when I forget my power cable!

The other thing I dislike with new Firefox is the removal of the ability to
change the size of the tabs and alter the window decorations so that they
still take up valuable screen estate on smaller netbooks. Chromium isn't any
better but does have the option to remove the window title bar.

------
hrgiger
if someone has more details: I remember years ago that when I was digging FF
source code I saw it was using chromium source code (not everywhere but for
the CSS engine and extensions i think),that was the time servo was in
consideration, is it still the case? I personally dont mind that I use both
chromium + FF with some firewall rules but it always gave me impression that
while FF using chromium source it does an advertise like completely different,
isolated secure platform. Here is quick search just on "chrome" keyword on
source code repo. [https://github.com/mozilla/gecko-
dev/search?q=chrome&unscope...](https://github.com/mozilla/gecko-
dev/search?q=chrome&unscoped_q=chrome)

~~~
zaphirplane
Chrome is Mozilla terminology pre existing the chrome browser There is even
[https://support.mozilla.org/en-
US/questions/1248747](https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1248747) to
explain it in depth

~~~
hrgiger
Thanks for the link and light for my ignorance! it was interesting read, I
didnt know that chrome was a term

