

Ask HN: Have you lost your passion for Mozilla Firefox? - themechanic

I have been using Firefox  since the early days but over time, there are some  parts of it that I have grown to hate. I really hate  their printing support on Linux and Mac. Firebug is a great tool but I feel it is beginning to suck compared to Chrome's developer tools. Have any of you noticed  any other longstanding bugs with Firefox? Also, do you think Mozilla is still in line with its core values with the increased competition it is facing?
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technomancy
I was wooed away by Chrome's speed around a year ago, but after using it a few
months I naturally was looking at extending it. It's night and day compared to
Mozilla. All the interesting UI bits (tab switcher, menu, location bar) are
hard-coded in C++; none of it's extensible via JS.

Once I realized this the magic was gone and Chrome held zero appeal to me.
Luckily that was right around when the improved JIT in FF4 started getting
usable with Conkeror, (<http://conkeror.org>) so I was able to switch back to
the Moz without a noticeable speed hit. And what an amazing difference in
flexibility... I don't know what I was thinking.

This is not so much about Firefox itself; as an application it's pretty meh,
but as a platform it's excellent. It's the only thing I've ever seen that
comes close to Emacs in terms of hackability.

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beatpanda
When I click on the Firefox icon in my dock, it may take up to 2 minutes for
Firefox to load and be usable. Chrome feels almost instant. I want badly to
use Firefox more, but I can't justify it when it's so slow (and I'm using
4.0).

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epc
Firefox was my core browser for years when I split my time working on a
Windows laptop and a Mac desktop. When I switched over to a Mac for 99% of my
work I started using Safari more and eventually stopped using Firefox (this
was in the v2-v3 timeframe). I now mostly use Safari & Chrome but have been
using Firefox more now since 4.0.1 came out.

I use almost no plugins/extensions on any of the browsers, found they just
slowed down the browser too much.

So: less passion, yes. Lost interest previously but we've made up.

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cstrouse
I ditched Firefox for Camino three years ago and then upgraded to Chrome when
I got a new MBP two months ago. I'll never switch back from Chrome.

Firefox on the Mac is brutally slow at times for me and the interface doesn't
look nearly as nice as Chrome. I like software that gets outta my way and lets
me work effectively. The developer tools in Chrome are way better than Firebug
IMO anyway so no hangup for me there.

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themechanic
can you please elaborate on what made you switch?

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cstrouse
The switch from FF to Camino was because I wanted something based on FF but
that behaved like a native OS X application. The switch from Camino to Chrome
was mainly due to curiosity/hype/etc and it turned out to be true what people
said about Chrome being pretty great. Another main consideration was the fact
that I want to get into WebGL and Chrome supports it well.

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eiji
I still believe Firefox is well on track on the desktop, however, I'm becoming
frustrated with it's performance on mobile devices (in my case Android 2.2
Galaxy Tab). And I'm wondering if this is a strategic failure. Firefox is not
available on all Android devices, and in my case, it does install, but is
unusable. My none-tech opinion: I don't care what processor my phone or tablet
has, when I go into the Android Marketplace, I expect to find Firefox, no
matter what device and what Android version. There is a browser preinstalled
(I guess some chrome/webkit thing), so it's not rocket science. I'm more and
more tempted to play around with other browsers to share bookmarks and stuff
between desktop and mobile, and Firefox is falling short.

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trafficlight
I definitely agree with you on the speed issues. I really tried to use Firefox
Mobile because I liked Sync, but it's just too slow. It takes forever to
start. I'm back to the default Android browser now.

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whichdan
I switched to Chrome initially when I upgraded to Fx4 and had some stability
issues - it was a good excuse to try it fulltime. I've been using it since
then. The only feature I find myself missing is the AwesomeBar, but that's on
the Chrome roadmap, so I can't complain just yet.

Chrome feels a little lighter/faster, and I also like that themes don't take
over the entire browser. A lot of nice FireFox themes absolutely destroy
readability in certain places like the page title, and FireFox's chrome by
default doesn't look as nice as Chrome's.

For what it's worth, I'd love to give Opera a fair chance again, but it
doesn't play nicely with inertial scrolling on Mac.

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pokoleo
I was about to report a bug that I noticed in Chrome today.

Then I switched to Canary, and realized that it was fixed.

Then looked back at the form:

Builds: 13.0.772.0 dev 13.0.775.0 canary

It's a great day for browsers.

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fjabre
Using the URL bar as search was F'ing brilliant! It single-handedly changed
the way I browse the web in much the same way FF did when it released tabbed
browsing.

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godkira
I switched from Firefox 3.6 to Chrome and I never looked back. I loved the
fact that Chrome was fast, sleek looking, simple and once got extension
support easily customizable. The only thing I currently don't like about
Chrome is it's spell-checker.

Firefox 4 has been out for a while and it seems to be just as good as Chrome
in most aspects, so I would recommend you use whichever one you prefer.

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ameasure
I started splitting my time between Chrome and Firefox maybe a year ago. After
I read about how difficult Chrome is to hack I started using it more
faithfully. My only complaint is that it tends to crash a lot more than
Firefox. Not sure why that is.

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c_t_montgomery
Totally lost my passion for firefox. It's so clunky and slow now, and Chrome
is just so fast & sexy. I used to use it solely because of FireBug, but now
Chrome's Developer Tools are just as good, and in my opinion, better than
FBug.

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mapster
I've installed and used Chrome but am staying with FF because I know it, it
works, and it does everything The occasional crash is no problem as FF
restores with no problem, and using Windows I am used to crashes :d

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dpio
I still use Mozilla. It's cool. If you're not a Mozilla fan how about Safari?

~~~
themechanic
what makes you keep using it? What do you like and what do you hate?

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dfeng
the only thing keeping me from moving completely from Firefox to Chrome is
Pentadactyl (<http://dactyl.sourceforge.net/pentadactyl/>), and better
greasemonkeyscript-ability. Firefox on Mac has always had memory hogging
issues, but I really can't live without my vim overlay (I've tried the Chrome
alternatives, like vimium, but they pale in comparison)

As people have said about Firefox's hackability, I don't think there will be a
Chrome extension as good as Pentadactyl.

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starfox64
I've used Firefox since it was Phoenix/Firebird. It saved me from IE. You can
pry it from my cold, dead hands.

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stdcinout
Firefox was definitely my favorite browser until Chrome came out.

~~~
themechanic
What made you switch?

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rick888
mine started crashing on me at least 3 or 4 times a day. I eventually
completely switched to chrome.

The only thing really keeping me is firbug.

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Geee
Firebug Lite is now available for Chrome.
<http://getfirebug.com/releases/lite/chrome/>

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TeHCrAzY
The built in dev tools are comparable (and personally, better) than the full
firebug plugin. firebug lite doesn't quite cut it.

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pasbesoin
Au contraire. The more ham-handed Chrome becomes with its UI decisions, the
more I appreciate Firefox. I just hope Firefox doesn't follow the same route
(give my my address bar, dammit).

