10 Reasons You Should Switch From Chrome to Firefox.
10 Reasons You Should Switch From Chrome to Firefox.
10 Reasons You Should Switch From Chrome to Firefox.::The best browser sync out there.
192 comments
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11: It's the only browser on the market that is not either apple webkit or google chrome based. And it's in our best interest to keep said market healthy, with as many competing actors as possible.
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At some point there were more than 1 relevant browsers using Gecko, though. Somebody at Mozilla decided to gloriously triumph over allies by killing XULRunner and not offering a replacement.
Not sure if WebKit is such a bad choice in that context.
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Well, there are also the mobile variants of Firefox, which are more of their own thing.
IMO Mozilla limited itself a bit too much on Firefox. Which results it their web engine not attracting many developers for it outside Mozilla.
Embedding gecko in your own app was much easier in the past. This is now mostly taken over by CEF and WPE for Blink and WebKit respectively.
Also stuff like B2G (Boot 2 Gecko) or FirefoxOS are dead as well.
A goal of open source should be to be hacker friendly as well, were currently Blink/WebKit is leading. There are so many more projects around those engines than Gecko, which is sad.
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It really is telling that even Microsoft don't find it viable to maintain a browser engine.
The "standards" are an absolute fucking nonsense, and boil down to "just do what Chrome does because nobody can stop them".
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To be fair to Chrome.
Microsoft had the vast majority with Trident. Mozilla/Firefox slowly gained market share with Gecko. Chrome/Webkit* then took market share from both.
It's not like Chrome just appeared one day and demanded everyone use them, they gained market share by being a good browser.
*(Chrome now uses a fork of Webkit called Blink.)
That being said I do think Firefox provides the best browser experience, and Chrome users should look into switching.
Which is a long way of saying Microsoft fucked up bad. Real bad.
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I feel like I'm going crazy since we kept preaching for years that this is the end goal and that this is what will happen with Google's anti-competitive practices. Just get shit on in the comment threads until recently.
It's not even a feel good I told you so because this just sucks.
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Sigh. Every fucking thread.
This is not true. Firefox is not the only browser that's not based on Webkit.
There's Iceweasel, Waterfox, Pale Moon, Seamonkey and Librewolf. That they have a negligible portion of the market is one thing. But they're on the market, dammit!
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I just had to install chrome to book plane tickets. Kept getting an error on Firefox.
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There's a new feature inside Firefox that allows you to report webpages that are broken on Firefox but work in other browsers. Please use it. It's a great way to push for universal compatibility within browsers. It's usually the webpage developer's fault for using a non-orthodox technique that works exclusively on Chrome, but shouldn't be done for any sort of reasons, like compliance with web standards. But, it's possible for Firefox to derive intelligence from the reports and write workarounds.
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All the more reason to get more people to use it.
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The one time I have to use Chrome is T-Mobile's site for some reason
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Thai Airways by any chance? I kept getting weird errors in ff but was ok I'm chrome.
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Posting this on Lemmy is preaching to the choir.
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have any instance admins ever shared the browser stats?
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Well, me :) right here : https://analytics.kawa.zip/reddeet.com
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Hi. I'm on lemmy. I haven't switched. Why? Because there an insane amount of incorporation into Google. Email, my phone communicating to pc, passwords, auto fill, saved cookies, credit cards.
I want to switch. I want to get off chrome from what I've been reading regarding it's practices. But I'm so engraved and the undertaking of switching is not something I've committed to yet. Or might never. I already have a Google Home in my kitchen. I feel like privacy isn't something I have a privilege of anymore.
They've got me.
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https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/switching-chrome-firefox
Firefox makes it easy to import all that stuff
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The article mentions that "Chrome [has a] more restrictive Manifest 3 plugin API", but doesn't go into any examples, when this one is the main one (and why Google brought in manifest v3 at all).
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It should also be mentioned that even compared to Manifest v2, Firefox's extension API is already more powerful and makes uBlock Origin more effective: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/uBlock-Origin-works-best-on-Firefox
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There’s like… no downside: all upside.
Edit: I exaggerated, of course. Below this are some downsides that individuals have experienced. But personally, my experience using Firefox on desktop for Mac has been all upside. If everybody who can just tries it out, you might be surprised at how friction-free the change is.
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Not strictly true. Firefox gets inferior support from cloud services, like Microsoft. Newer versions of their Web apps are not available on Firefox.
But there should be no downside. It's all artificial.
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The big services purposely degrade their sites when users connect with Firefox. It's well documented.
Unfortunately nothing is being done about it so far.
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No, in my experience especially the Android version of Firefox is less smooth when playing animations or scrolling on older or lower end devices.
I really hope with the new Focus on Firefox mobile, that they will iron that out.
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Use Fennec instead, no issues on Android
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Just need one reason: Google.
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I feel like anyone on Lemmy who isnt yet using Firefox is the kind of person who isnt going switch now because an article told them they should
edit: it seems I had a stroke (not seriously) while writing this message, and have since edited it so it makes sense
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For Android users, there's also the Firefox-based Mull.
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I wish the password autofill feature was more robust for Firefox on Android. Using it as my default password provider but it regularly does not pick up on password fields.
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Dunno if this helps you at all, but I've been using BitWarden to manage my passwords since I made the switch from Chrome to Firefox (both on PC and my Android phone). It doesn't fill passwords automatically in either case, but it's not much extra work to invoke BitWarden to fill those fields as-needed on either device, and it works very consistently. It's also (I'm told) much more secure. Just thought I'd share that here!
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I've had this happen with obscure government sites that look like they were made in the 90s, I manually add the login & password for these
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You guys switched away from Firefox?
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Switched away to Vivaldi and Opera on desktop years ago due to better design and ability to swap between workspaces. Trying to migrate back to Firefox for ethical reasons. Desktop design still lags behind but privacy is great.
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Years ago Firefox had a massive memory leak that would wind up crashing FX randomly or just crushing your system resources. The bug persisted for years. and I swirched to Chrome to get away from that poor experience. A few years back, a random community contributer, that was also fed up, dug in and fixed several issues responsible for the leaks. I remeber thinking that I should give FX a go again, but didn't until relatively recently.
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Been with the fox since before the quantum update. I never realized it was as obscure as it apparently is.
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It wasn't, popularity waned slowly over the years.
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TAB GROUPS, FIREFOX, BRING BACK TAB GROUPS.
And no, extensions aren't helping, their UX is so much worse.
That's just a make or break feature for me.
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I would love tab groups
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So I tried to find what tab groups are but most of the results are feature request threads so apologies if this isn't what you want.
Waterfox will soon be adding some sort of tab grouping feature akin to what tree-style-tab extension does. Here's the blogpost about it https://www.waterfox.net/blog/waterfox-x-treestyletab/
Again I'm not sure if that type of grouping is what you're looking for but if it is consider watching out for the feature release. Longtime waterfox user and haven't had many complaints, Alex has quickly responded to the two issues I made in the github including a feature request that got added within a week (ability to unload tabs with right click).
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Not OP, but this is one of my long-time desires too. I'm pretty sure they mean Tab Groups implemented in the way Chrome does natively. Currently no extension on Firefox can do it on the tab bar because no extension can modify the tab bar.
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Does anyone have any experience with Firefox on Android?
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It runs great now. Most importantly, it supports extensions like ublock.
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Firefox on Android is fine, except they insist upon disabling about:config on the main branch of the browser for some damn stupid reason. You have to use a nightly or beta build to be trusted with your own config that much.
Personally, I ended up switching to the Fennec fork over this.
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Yeah, it's alright.
You can install an ad blocker in it, so it's automatically better than Chrome.
With that and a few cookie popup removers, it's almost like the web is usable again.
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with ublock origin plugin, it's amazing
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Using use daily. Only problem I sometimes have is the inability to upload images, so I just use duckduckgo's browser
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Firefox on Android is great. I migrated that first before I actually migrated back to Firefox on desktop.
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Yes. It used to suck, say, 10 years ago. My baseline was Youtube and Reddit (back then, okay?) Could I watch Youtube videos the same way as with Chrome or Android browser? No? Then, not ready. Did i.reddit.com open fine? No? Not ready.
Then it happened. And I switched and it has been wonderful ever since.
The only thing that I miss is the "pull down page to reload" gesture [EDIT: THANK YOU ALL! I'VE ENABLED IT - GREAT!!!!].
Not sure why Firefox hasn't implemented that yet. Patents?And also, when a video is in an iframe, it won't respect the "block autoplay" feature. The rest is dandy. -
For me it is great on a smartphone but pretty underwhelming on my android tablet. It doesn't scale websites properly on the larger screen and doesn't support a tab list on top anymore (like Firefox on desktops).
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Its ok but I regularly have to swipe the app away and re open it when it displays a blano screen instead of the website.
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It is my default. I use ublock and Dark Background Light Text extensions. And the reader view is better than any chromium phone browser.
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Works mostly great. Addons like uBlock Origin and Super Agent (auto reject all cookies) is great for your mobile experience.
I noticed Youtube site sometimes has weird framerates. But since Google removed premium lite subscription, I refuse to use the Youtube app and just view with uBlock in browser, even with the framerate issues.
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It's great but they are two, reported, bugs that annoy me.
First, it sometimes gets stuck half way between dark and light mode.
Second, sometimes it gets stuck starting to load a page. The webciew gets stuck but not the chrome. If you switch tabs the same page will appear. If you enter a new page it will never load. A force close fixes it but it's annoying.
Using beta is imperative since it enables add-ons . However the bugs are also in stable.
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I am, sometimes there is an issue with videos in Fullscreen, where the video plays just somewhere to the top and off screen, besides that it's fine.
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I recently made the switch. Make sure to install whatever add-ons you need, turn on the "open links in apps" setting, and turn on the "pull to refresh" setting. Import your bookmarks and you can still use the Android password manager. It's not 100% as smooth, but it's pretty close.
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The main problems I have with it now are sometimes there are still issues with loading between browser and apps. Like it might open multiple tabs trying to open an app, and it leaves the app redirect pages open in your tabs list. Additionally, sometimes (like 3% of the time) website scaling doesn't always work, especially on older sites or those made with janky CMS's, and I've also rarely had problems with some dynamic content like inline forms and graphs.
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10 reasons:
- I always used Firefox
- I always used Firefox
- I always used Firefox
- I always used Firefox
- I always used Firefox
- I always used Firefox
- I always used Firefox
- I always used Firefox
- I always used Firefox
- Google can suck my saggy man tits
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@L4s
Fully agree, but @howtogeek.com please enhance your privacy with reducing your dependency to third party scripts.
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Anybody else having flaky behavior with youtube videos in Firefox lately? Like, only audio resuming but video freezing after rewinding? I'm wondering if this is intentional on the part of Google.
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Given Google and YouTube's history of intentionally and maliciously disrupting other browsers that aren't chrome, it'll be a safe bet that it's intentional.
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I think youtube makes itself terrible if you don't have premium. I have the problems you describe and others on both my desktop with FF or my chromebook with chrome.
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Nope, it's still just as terrible with premium.
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Yes, but I've had it across multiple sites that play video, so I don't think it's youtube.
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On my pc with a couple ad blockers youtube is SLOW.
If i turn them off it runs fine.
On my android using adaway I have zero youtube lag.
So yeah. Seems pretty intentional
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I’ve heard this but it hasn’t happened to me.
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On mobile I only use New Pipe for videos. Admittedly, I don't do much YouTube but I haven't noticed any problems on my laptop.
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Firefox Multiaccount Containers, the thing that can't be beat by even the best chrome derivatives
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Firefox is king (saying this as someone who actually likes it, not as a fanboy)
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Mozilla in general honestly is pretty awesome ngl
They have this nonprofit called Privacy Not Included that rates companies/products based on how much they respect user privacy.
Modern cars collect literally everything they can about you. Low key kinda scary yo
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I love Firefox. Been enjoying DDG browser on iOS.
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Imn loving floorp so far.
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The only reason I have chrome even installed is because I am forced to use it for chromecast every once in a while.
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I use Ungoogled Chromium exclusively for YouTube, cause my graphics card csn upscale videos and convert them to HDR, but not in Firefox. The moment I get those features in Firefox, I'm done with Chrome for good.
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using chrome in 2024
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And one thing that irks is that you can't have a local file be your homepage and new tab page. I want to have all my work related links in a local immutable HTML page and every new tab or every time I open the browser it goes there for me to choose what of 5 links to pick....time sheet, team site, hr site, all the vendors sites etc...npr, my home servers etc. c'mon man! The only way to make it happen is to serve it on a local server that I am not allowed to install, or a server at home that I don't actually want to do.
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Host it on Netlify or something similar, it's free.
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Extensions are your friend My new tab has all my sites pinned. Have a look at the add-ons I am 99% sure what you want has already been made
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Add-ons have no access to the local system anymore:
https://mastodon.social/@werefreeatlast/112004523925195688
You know, for security reasons.
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Preach!
I'm convinced that were it not for Mozilla, microsoft would have prevented google from taking over. We'd be in a shittyworld controlled by the asinine cerification heierarchy of microsoft obfuscation.
MS owned a big chunk of Apple before Safari was a thing and they had crazy drm-ish plans with IE before they got thwacked with the monoploy stick by the feds in the late nineties. Netscape was on the ropes and there was essentially no one left.
I think it's time for Google to be thwacked. Apple too. They're going really anti-consumer in shady ways leading us to a weird new AI/surveillence capitalism led middle ages... Like no new knowledge, education will be towards the new corporate capitalist religion that gets people to serve their lords and noone has money or knowledge but the king and a few of their buddies. They'll grant the shineyist most deluded followers with a meaningless knighthoods that only serve to get that person laid so others will strive to sacrifice for the king so they can win the knighthood lottery and get laid and raisea family in a nice house... Anyway...
It's no good. We gotta skip straight to the next Renaissance where everyone has control over their identity, data and thoughts and can follow their own god in peace and healthy debate. And everone has healthcare and basic needs met and we're all moving towards Star Trek.
Moving towards Star Trek is what made the 90's great... Well, more accurate to say it was the great thing out of the nineties; before the new fascisism riding the 9/11 fear wave and the TSA and before 'enshittification' was a word.
Anyway... What was I sayinf?
Oh yeah Open source all the way!
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Screen capture being disabled in private mode on firefox is really reassuring to me.
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I never got this whole "speed" argument.
I never had a lot of difference between both browsers (never got to use chrome much, admittedly), but even when it was supposedly "bad", Firefox never struck me as being especially slow.
Was it a windows thing or what?
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I think it was from a time when you could notice the difference. Now it’s just a race towards marginal gains.
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I definitely noticed, before quantum (like 5 years ago) single page apps and frameworks like react were becoming a thing, and it was noticeably less snappy than chrome
After they announced the rewrite to better handle shadow doms and partial repaints, I switched for everything but development
Since then, they've done another rewrite, and the dev tools are closer, so I only open chrome when a site I have to use isn't working, or by client request
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I just need one, being able to change if something in the code is against my interests.
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I switched on my personal devices (need to use chrome for gsuite integrations at work).
On desktop, it's great and I'm loving it. And kicking myself for not switching back sooner after the massive-years-long-memory-leak was finally fixed a few years back
On mobile, it's mostly great. The privacy focus, ad block support, and plug-in support is a plus. But I realllly want the tab groups that mobile Chrome introduced a while back. That had such a great mobile UX that I've found myself still loading up chrome now and then when I find myself wanting that UX. I looked to see if there were plugins that could make that possible, but was disappointed to see none and let down that it seems impossible with the current tab implementation.
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How many of these apply to ungoogled-chromium?
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A lot of the privacy aspects mentioned in the article would apply but the extra features(like facebook container) would not. The extension support is also an issue since the extensions themselves have their own privacy policies, so if you get any which are hosted on google owned chrome web store all your privacy cautiousness goes down the drain unless you're using a vpn.
Firefox addons also have their own privacy policies but you can simply choose the ones with open source licenses so it should be rather simple to be more protected.
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Why not Brave? I mean... Firefox is fine, just, some of the extensions I need for example are not available on it.
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Even Brave uses Chromium as a launching point before all of its customizations.
This in turn gives Google control over web standards because if they choose not to support something or if they implement it in a particular way they effectively govern it's adoption because of their near universal market share.
I'm sure I missed a lot of nuance but this is my best take at explaining it.
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That is a good point!
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Look at how Vivaldi and Arc do tab management.
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I've been moving away from Google in the last year and moving to Firefox was one of my first moves. It's honestly a downgrade in usability but I guess that applies to all alternative products.
I just wish I could sync my bookmarks between desktop and mobile. Seems like no one has this problem but firefox sync just does not work for me. It just says last update was never. Let me know if you know how to fix it.
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Sync works great over here. It even syncs history which is great because I use an extension on the laptop to limit history to 28 days and that becomes synced with Android without an additional extension.
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What was the downgrade in usability you saw? I used to be an avid chrome user turned Firefox, but I would say the opposite.
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- Tab Grouping would be my first pick.
- When I first started using Firefox on Linux, dragging tabs was really reallyyyyyy bad but they have heavily improved it. UI just feels more polished on chrome
- Sync doesn't work for me, though it seems to work for everyone else. It doesn't give me any error or a hint to what the problem might me, which is just bad UX.
- Chromecasting an entire tab doesn't work, though I guess can't we can't blame Firefox for that, can we?
- My unit tests take at the very least twice as long to run on Firefox
- Pinned tabs occasionally just disappear and I have to create everything again. Extensions exist to prevent this but don't work with multi containers, which is honestly Firefox best feature.
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Just log out and log back in, and make sure you use the same account on both machines .
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I've done that several times.
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Thanks but I'm sticking to Brave
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Forgetting politics, I liked Brave. But sometimes they do seem a little shady. I'm loving Librewolf even more, though there's no Android version. It does sync with Firefox and Mull though.
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Meh. Been using Safari since 2012 and it’s fine.
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