Things feel "weird" when you aren't used to it. For me, using Chrome is weird. Not a legit argument here.
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2023
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Your choice.
- PWA's aren't really a thing. Linux, we has a nice 'Progressive Webapp' manager - so I can create PWA's with launchers for any website, using any browser. I think I have about 4 (Shopee/Lazada/Translate/PlexWeb).
9/10 times I just open the bookmarks in Firefox...
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Not sure what your issue is with Bookmarks or History - but they're perfectly usable. Perhaps you're just fixed in your ways.
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You can turn off Pocket. Even when it's on, it's not a problem - but Firefox has to have some revenue channels and many folks don't have any problem with Pocket. I use RSS, so I don't.
Eh to each their own, I see almost all those as positives. No problems with bookmark manager. Agreed on pocket though.
I only wish the would bring back the ability to have notes for bookmarks.
The only real problem you mentioned is no PWA which is easy solvable by: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pwas-for-firefox/
same like pocket and downloads window.
Yeah, other people use Firefox too, it is not made just for you and your preferences. But what is different than in Chrome - you can easily change it. It would take you less time than writing this post.
Firefox comes with easy to disable Pocket, Chrome comes with impossible to disable Google. And Pocket is a problem? Lol :D
They got a PWA addon now? And it works too. Darn cool, thanks for telling me! 🎉
I don't get a lot of the negative sentiment here. To me Firefox is vastly superior to Chrome. Mozilla refactored and optimized performance years ago, which fixed many issues I had back then. It's open source, not driven by the interest of gathering data for the purpose of selling ads. I've set it up in exactly the way I like with some extensions and customizations that aren't possible in the Google browser. I can have hundreds and hundreds of tabs open without my computer grinding down to a halt. Is it perfect and aren't there things that can be improved? No. But it's pretty near to me.
It has been locking up on me but that's not gonna stop me from using it. It's honestly probably my fault with the dumb decision to install win11. I'll probably wipe and go back to win10 while I still can but it has been buggier than usual on win11. Still love it though, fuck chrome.
Two of the main features I need from my browser (apart from rendering pages) are the ability to run adblocker and being able to sync my tabs between desktop and mobile. The future of the first seems very uncertain with Chrome and the second never really works when I try it. On Firefox it's 100% every time.
So easy choice. And I don't have to deal with Google's shadyness.
But each to their own really - the "browser wars" seem so far in the past.
@0xtero @ravnswood
The worst thing about Chrome, and best about FF, for my work as a web sysop, was Chrome hiding parts of the URL in it's location bar. First it was the "https://" (which is kinda important to see if you have your TLS configured right), now they are taking away "www" as well (so I have to reload in the network dev tool to see if the request directs to the right subdomain).
Also Chrome's dev tools used to be better than FF, but that was more than 5 years ago! And chrome is slow
I dont know what you feel that need to be polished but Firefox looks great to me. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
I give Mozilla a pass for a lot of stuff that’s… how do I put it?.. let’s say, “quirky” in Firefox. And I’m willing to experience minor inconveniences every now and then knowing that I’m not using a Chromium-based browser.
With this being said, I really (and I mean really) like FF Developer Edition.
Can you expand on what do you like in Developer Edition? Or maybe you have some link with differences?
I don't understand what could possibly be worse about bookmarks in Firefox? You have every option, you can put a bookmark bar, bookmark sidebar (great to bring up any time with control-B), or the full manager (which I pretty much never use), or just a bookmark menu (which I also never use, but it's like any other bookmark menu IMO).
Yeah. From what I have read, it seems Firefox has progressively gotten worse over the years. I am fine with using it, especially being able to get away from the other horrible choices.
I use Librewolf on my main computer, but on any other I disable some about:config settings.
While Firefox doesn't natively have PWA support there is an addon that I use to add PWA support to Firefox. You have to install a helper program on your computer for it to work though so follow the installation instructions.
Being able to create a separate window for videos that stay on top of other windows is too good a feature for me.
The feature is called Picture-in-Picture. And yes, it's very handy.
The best feature ever. This feature convinced me to switch back to Firefox again. Got some days to get used to it and to find replacements for some specific add ons, but it works great.
Hey, I also did not like the separate window for downloads and preferred a tab, there is an easy trick to avoid it, just add a bookmark with the URL about:downloads and it's done (been using it for years)
I'm on the opposite side with separate windows. I don't like the modern trend of having everything inside the same window as tab or modal window.
For example the new windows settings "app". Can't open multiple different things at once inside it, because everything is a tab. Compared to the old control panel where everything was it's own application.
The history browsing is a bit outdated though. Gets annoying to search for specific page from a site, especially when visiting them to look what it is puts it to the top of the history.
IMHO the Power of chromium Is that alone is very spartan. Starting from there you can achieve a ton of flavors from the ultra polished chrome to the overloaded (imho obv.) brave. If Firefox could split the "core" from the "UI" we would have more flavors and more core-centric devs.
I'm in the same boat! I have tried, really tried, the only things I like are the extensions support on mobile browser, and the sync with the Wolvic on the Quest VR, but it feels old and some websites render weirdly on it, plus the lack of support for PWAs really make it tough.
I like Brave best, with Edge as a second choice, as weird as that sounds. I miss Firefox when it was the modern and most secure browser.
I want to use Firefox. Firefox used to have really cool tab groups, then they removed it, and the extensions that do it can sometimes lose your work. It’s a shame since pretty much every other browser has tab groups now.
Vertical tabs are another thing that other browsers are adding and doing right, and Firefox is not. I don’t like the way they make stuff like tree style tabs use a sidebar and want something more native (which again, they used to have, or at least extensions could do, but now everything is worse and limited).
I end up using Brave too, and I like Edge except Microsoft keeps doing shady things with it like uploading images to their servers and removing the ability to delete your sync data - so it ends up being a neat browser that I won’t touch.
I don't see Pocket anymore on FF. It irritated me, so I eradicated it through the settings somehow. Took a bit of time to figure it out. FF has been fine for me except for a few edge cases where I need to use Chrome.
Same here, looks like I done it long time ago and never forgot what pocket is.
For others here is the official support page with detailed explanation how to disable it: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-or-re-enable-pocket-for-firefox
yeah you can customize that area of the browser as well as what extensions you have pinned. i just switched back to ff from chrome but i like to have all my extensions pinned so i can access them quickly.
I've been using Firefox for the past 20ish(?) years now, I never had an issue with Pocket. Isn't that a service you have to sign up for anyway? If you don't, then it's just an inactive icon on the toolbar. I don't see how people can be bothered by that so what am I missing?
P.S: I just noticed that there isn't even an icon now unless you manually sign up for pocket
it's just an inactive icon on the toolbar
I got rid of my icon ages ago - one of the great strengths to me is the ability to customise the taskbar as you see fit, you can remove literally any icon you don't want there. Even the URL/search box if you want.
About the only time I see anything pocket related is when FF updates and there's some blurb about it in the 'new features' page. Otherwise I pretty much forget it exists.
Exactly. I was referring to it as an "inactive icon" in the context of a user that doesn't bother customizing their UI. Firefox has got to be one of the most customizable browsers out there. Even before delving into the madness that is userscripts!
I make heavy use of the side bar, I have bookmarks, history, downloads, notepad (unfortunately only local) and even tabs there (would love to get rid of the tab bar), which works pretty well for me. What's PWA?
@MrPhibb @ravnswood PWA stands for progressive web apps. Know that little popup you sometimes get when you navigate to sites, saying 'Add to Home Screen'? That's PWA. It's basically accessing the website without navigating to it every time, but its made with HTML, CSS, JS and WebAssembly.
Better explained here
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app
Ah, Ok, thanks, should've known there was a proper name for those
On Mobile it supports PWA.But there's no advantage of them on Desktops
I just want a tab grouping sustem that works EXACTLY as it does on Edge, together with the vertical tabs.
I'd rather be using Firefox, but that Edge feature alone made me switch back to it.
@Amongog @ravnswood I'd rather use those Java based browsers from candy bar phones back in the day than use Edge.
And that is okay.
Everyone has different priorities.
I like sideberry extension for vertical tabs and tab grouping
Thank you, I was checking it out.
It's nice, but it doesn't carry on the seamless functionality as in Edge.
I use a mix of vertical and horizontal tabs across multiple windows, so that has a lot of value for me.
I sure hope we can get an official grouping/vertical tab feature that is on par with the Edge one some day.