Should I use chromium based browsers or firefox?

wtry@lemm.ee to Technology@lemmy.world – 91 points –

Chromium has better features, but with google announcing its plan to 'drm the internet' I 'm not sure if it'd be a good idea.

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What better features? Firefox has pretty much everything nowadays, and is as fast as Chrome.

From the comments I'm noticing a trend

  • Google Chromecast issues
  • Not allowed to do background effects in Google meet

and from personal experience:

  • issues using the store to update add-ons on Google docs
  • can't authenticate desktop Google drive

I use a lot of Google products, but avoid Chrome because of nonsense like this. Firefox works fine for everything else EXCEPT certain Google products. Feels intentional

100% intentional. If you spoof your browser signature most work just fine

Same with Edge and Microsoft with their Bing bullshit. Big anticonsumer bullies and they wonder why their online share is stuck.

I have the same experience. At my last company they only used Google meet so I had chrome on my computer just for meetings and nothing else.

The only time I use chromium is to attach a debugger to GWT (yes, the "G" stands for Google). It runs like absolute trash in Firefox.

Everything else runs better in FF.

This is exactly why companies spend money on marketing, people remember these ideas and internalize them as their justification long after it stops being true. And Chrome being fast hasn't been true for a long time.

It still wins most benchmarks, so it's technically true. Although not really enough to matter on desktop where it's millisecond differences

I can confirm this, Chrome wins the benchmark tests and some CSS rendering but lags behind in DX. I'm not sure where OP got the idea that Firefox has fewer features from a developer POV.

It doesn't have translations. I use it anyway, but it's a minor inconvenience as I live in a foreign country.

I use an extension for translations and it works just fine

Native procedural dark mode, Developer CSS Overview, browser extension file access.

I use Firefox exclusively except for when the second one is useful. I really wish Firefox had those three though.

Chromium browsers have only 1 feature I need: access to the Chromecast API. I have 3, Firefox can't connect to them and the last 2-3 times I tried the listed 3rd party methods (fx bridge, etc), I could never get it to work.

Were it not for that, I'd be back on Firefox.

That's part of why I avoided getting new Chromecast devices 😄

well? what do you have? I would love to flush my chromecasts but they're so useful.

Microsoft Wireless Display Adapter. Despite being Microsoft, it uses Miracast.

Isn't Miracast an adhoc wifi network as opposed to simply connecting to an established WiFi network?

If you ever find one let me know because I'm in the exact same boat as you. Casting videos to my TV is so damn convenient

I've had these ones from 3-10 years depending on the unit XD

I had a similar need, and it prevented me from moving to FireFox for a long while. Luckily, I did manage to get fx_cast to work, and it's been flawless ever since. In fact, I'd say it work more reliably than Chrome's casting!

Have you tried setting browser.casting.enabled = true in Firefox's about:config settings?

Trust me, I've tried everything there is. For hours, literally. Nothing worked.

(Casting from Firefox (beta) on Android.)

That's a bummer. Personally, I use an app made to cast web video on android because it has better casting experience (including subtitles support) and wider range of supported websites. The dev is also responsive and would push a fix if you report any site where it doesn't work: Web Video Caster

Edge's vertical tabs and grouping. Every solution on Firefox feels half-baked.

I use the tree style tab extension for that.

And with a custom userConfig the top tabs disappear like Edge too

That has been the best solution so far for vertical tabs but grouping needs some work.

but to be clear it is not great compared to edge.

I settled on Sidebery after trying most similar extensions. Seems more complete and has better usability in my opinion.

Ooh, do you have a link with info for that? Last time I looked into it it wasn't possible

On Android tablets, most non-Firefox browsers support a tab bar, and tablet optimised UI. Firefox is just a giant stretched phone layout. I like to use the same browser on all platforms so I can sync tabs, so Firefox being crap on my tablet rules it out for my other devices too.

I uae Fennec, which is a better (but just okay) android browser from f-droid based on firefox. It has firefox sync. Just fyi.

I'm really happy with Vivaldi for now, but I'll have a look into Fennec anyway and maybe give it a spin. Thanks for the info!

Firefox always memory bloats out on me. Mobile app crashes.

I switched to Brave then moved to Vivaldi. I'll revisit if FF gets more stable.

even more you can import google addons into firefox ( right now only in nightly builds but it works )