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Me, far too many times.

Everytime there's a "Why you should use Firefox" or" Using FF is the right thing to do" post on hackernews, I gave FF a chance, only to be disappointed and go back to Chrome.

However, a few weeks ago, I decided to try out FF Quantum (aka FF 57, vanilla, non dev edition) after hearing it repeatedly in /r/rust and hackernews. I was immediately hooked with how fast it is at rendering pages.

Now, the reason I always switch back to Chrome was because of the dev tools. With FF Quantum, the dev tools have vastly improved and is on par with Chrome. Its a bit wonky in some parts, but I can see that their UI are already in place, getting ready to be fully implemented in future releases. I've been using it as my main browser, wrote an add-on using their new API.

For those considering to switch, I suggest you give it a few days to be familiar with the dev tools' UI/UX as it is not a direct copy of the Chrome UI/UX. Other than privacy, its a really great product. Its worth the switch.




Please let us know if you'd like to see the devtools improved!

Also, the devtools are actually a React app (https://github.com/devtools-html/debugger.html), and this means that you can hack on them using ... your devtools (and any other HTML/JS/React tooling you like)! And you can hack on them in any browser, and use them to debug any browser (however some browsers may not support the same debugger protocol features the Firefox devtools support). They're super easy to work on and it's really fun.

(Of course, there's also a devtools "server" on the firefox side that responds to the queries of the React devtools client, and hacking on that is harder, but a lot of the stuff can be done without needing to touch this)


I really wish I could create my own theme for the dev tools. I just can't get into the colors of the existing themes.

The dark theme is too dark/not enough contrast between background color and text colors (pastel fonts on dark bg).

The light and firebug themes are too light and don't have enough contrast between background color and text colors (pastel fonts on white bg).

The lack of bg/font contrast in the dev tools always drives me back to Chrome despite really wanting to be a Firefox user.


Serves me well at this point. Maybe other devs can chime in. Love the work you guys put on FF and Rust btw, cheers!


> only to be disappointed and go back to Chrome.

Me too.

Unfortunately, it seems like Chrome is still wining for me over the new FF. For example, this comments section page takes about 3.5 seconds to load in Chrome and about 7.25 seconds in FF. I run a fair few privacy add-ons in each, so that may not be helping things, but still, a 2x increase in loading for a mostly text comments page is not cool (at least for me). Don't get me started on the YT main page ...


Took less than a second to load.

(Running Adblock, but that's about it.)


Different computers and networks have an effect. Still, for me, FF is ~2x longer.




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