• Firefox offers better privacy and security than Chrome, with upcoming support for 200 new add-ons.
• While Chrome dominates, Firefox gains ground with user-friendly browsing experience and open-source model.
• Mozilla's focus on user privacy and transparency challenges Google's ad-centric approach, making Firefox a viable alternative.
I've been using Firefox on desktop and mobile exclusively for a number of years now. I will say the experience isn't perfect but it's better than using a browser made by a company that is actively hostile to its users.
It is important to take note that you will experience issues with some websites. For example, https://astro.build/
Try scrolling quickly up and down on this page on Firefox vs Chrome (on mobile).
Personally I've never left Firefox. Used to develop on it when it was still called Mozilla, and I'm happy it's still around. Privacy is a major strength of it compared to other browsers.
Container tabs are hands down the best add-on I have ever used. Being able to use multiple accounts across tabs is fantastic. Alot of my colleagues have switched due to this alone
The mobile experience of Firefox with ad block is so much better than Chrome. Using chrome on mobile makes the Internet feel broken to me. I can't go back.
Since version 120 is coming to mobile soon with about 200 extensions (as mentioned in the article), can anyone recommend some good extensions that are newly added? I have ublock origin, HD YouTube, Google search fixer, clear url fixer, dark reader, privacy badger, and ghostery
Google blocks access to it's services for Firefox altogether? Maybe even ban it from the Play Store? That would finally give me a real incentive to install some CFW.
Moved from Netscape to Firefox and never used IE or Chrome. I never understood the obsession with anything made by Google, glad its going to finally all fall apart for them.
Had pentadactyl survived the infamous extension API change (or something like that, don't remember anymore) I would've never left FF. However, I finally made it back, thanks to tridactyl.
I use Firefox Focus as my default browser, and use that to "open in" Firefox if I want my session kept for any reason, or Chrome if it's a Google related thing, sometimes.
For almost everything I click through especially out of an app, Firefox Focus is fully appropriate.
I know I can right click on a given search and "add Keyword for this search" but that doesn't allow me to do custom URLs (e.g. www.reddit.comm/r/%s to go directly to a subreddit, rather than search).
edit: thank you so much everyone for these responses. I'm gonna make the switch :)
Switched back in the summer for good. Use Firefox in my android as the default browser with DuckDuckGo as search engine. The issue is still relying on the android digital hemisphere as the default OS for my phone.
Edit : The only thing lacking is tab management. I know there is an extension. But it doesn't satisfy.
For some reason I can't get my Firefox app to actually activate dark mode on my phone. I switch it in the settings and refresh it but it just won't work so I keep using chrome. Any ideas?
One big positive for me on Chrome is that I have an Android phone, so a lot of my activity on my phone and computer sync together. How is Firefox with this, if I were to use it both on my desktop and phone?
Anyone who tried it a year ago, this comment is to tell you that Firefox has improved by orders of magnitude in the past year/years. I recommend trying it again.
Have they addressed the security issues with sandboxing and site isolation and added a web view on android yet? I'd love to use Firefox on my phone too, but those issues were big enough for GrapheneOS to recommend against gecko-based browsers (though fortunately they provide their own de-googled chromium-based browser Vanadium):
Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they're currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn't have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox does not have internal sandboxing on Android. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS isolatedProcess feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox's sandbox is still substantially weaker (especially on Linux) and lacks full support for isolating sites from each other rather than only containing content as a whole. The sandbox has been gradually improving on the desktop but it isn't happening for their Android browser yet.
I use Firefox for personal use, but I exclusively use Chromium for work just because of the amazing Tab Groups feature. I can't work without it anymore
I love firefox so much, but at times, I also am ready to ditch it. Some default configurations are just nothing but stupid. E.g.: all ports above 1024 are by default blocked, even with local domains in your LAN. Or, just happened today: ftp is generally blocked. I then had to switch to Chromium to get a file. Or: if on Linux, many video codecs are not by default bundled.
Reasons like that make me hate Firefox. But I hate everything else a bit more.
So is there a browser based on Firefox but without strict configs?
I might be in the very minority crowd here, but I just can't get used to Firefox. I mean once upon a time I was clinging to Netscape screaming foul at Internet Explorer too, old habits die hard. But Chrome just clicks for me, whereas the multiple times I've tried Firefox, it just doesn't click for me. Can't put my finger on it.