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.

122

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.

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

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?

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

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll definitely try it out.

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 )

I'll give you one reason where Firefox blows chrome out of the water: multi account containers:

Firefox Multi-Account Containers lets you keep parts of your online life separated into color-coded tabs. Cookies are separated by container, allowing you to use the web with multiple accounts

That way you can seamlessly have multiple accounts for a specific site open side by side (for example, your work and your personal mail with the same mail provider). Especially amazing if you're an IT contractor who works for multiple clients.

Yeah it is also good for a bit more privacy on the internet. I have separate containers for Amazon websites, Google, banking etc. Even more powerful tool if you pair it up with a VPN - can have different VPN locations on each container so break up attempts at tracking and profiling you across the web.

Yup, and there are dedicated extensions to manage them individually paired together with noscript. I have one of each for the couple major sites I occasionally use to contain all their tracking.

This is one feature I literally can't do my job without. Used to have 3 separate browsers installed + opened at the same time for all my various Azure accounts till FF saved the day!

Hi fellow IT contractor, thanks for sharing! That is awesome. Just installed and works like a charm. I was using Chrome profiles for this, but having all in one window is much easier.

As an employee of an MSP, Firefox containers are a lifesaver. No more incognito mode every time I need to check another client's Office 365!

This is super useful for any sort of development work - you basically get unlimited, separate private windows that you can log into stuff separately.

I use it for multi account switching on Reddit, I still do a lot of scam bot fighting over there and being able to easily switch between several users is really helpful.

I've been using Firefox at home for as long as I can remember. I've not found anything I can't do with it yet.

If something doesn't work you can always try it in edge of something either way.

Firefox doesn't support background effects in Google Meet so i can't blur my background during my daily work meetings. That's the only reason i still have to use Chromium browsers

Did you try agent spoofing (which probably won't work in the future because of this). This sounds like things Microsoft (and now Google) does to make their product look better.

I haven't tried that. I'll give it a shot tomorrow. Thanks!

I actually tried this last month and it works! Firefox already support features needed to enable background effects on Google Meet, but Google is dragging their ass to actually allow Firefox to use the feature so you'll have to spoof your user agent.

Why do you need to blur your background?

I'm gonna guess it's so that people can't see his background and/or to make the picture look nicer.

The good news is if you have a recent Nvidia GPU you can inject background blur using that on all webcam footage using Nvidia's Broadcast software.

Lots of reasons. You may not want clients or outside vendors to be looking into your home, which is IMO a sort of intimate thing. I have a client who has a custom, branded background so things look more professional and cohesive - very important in the financial field (or so I'm told). Or maybe your WFH setup is in the kitchen because that's the only space you had to put it and you don't want your kids, pets, and spouse ducking into and out of every meeting you have.

That’s part of the fun of working from home though. It lets people see the real you and how you live.

I'm guessing you don't work in corporate environment or no longer work from home.

There are times when video is expected to be on, but you don't want to show your room to everyone.

Having said that I can't think of firefox being able to stream video yet not being able to do this, so likely it is Google's way to make its competitor look subpar. Probably can be fixed by spoofing user agent. Ironically the most recent change in Chrome will make this very difficult in the future.

I’ve worked from home full-time since we were all sent home in March of 2020, and the background of the room I use was one of the first things I figured out that week.

Not sure what you’ve got in your living space that you’re ashamed of, but even if it’s a hovel, the bosses should see that and it should guilt them into paying you more!!

It is privacy. I don't have mess, just don't feel like sharing inside of my house with strangers. Maybe I'm working in weird company, but I noticed that vast majority of coworkers either have camera off, blurs the background or sets up a fake one.

Yeah, I’ve never understood that. I find people like me better when I’m not hiding who I am.

Do not use any Chromium based browser. Full stop.

  • If you are on Mac, I recommend Orion (Webkit based, but Mac only ATM).
  • For every other platform, including Linux, Firefox.

Honestly, Google has gotten so aggressively evil I'd strongly recommend cutting yourself off from all their products entirely. Consider Kagi instead of Google search and Proton instead of GMail. Other offerings also have alternatives that won't spy on you, steal your information, or treat you like both a criminal and a product instead of a customer.

At first i was hesitant with kagi, like: Why would i pay for a search engine? Then i realized, on the others i am the product anyway, so privacy vs little bit of money. So i am a kagi user now! At the same time, kagi will keep getting better and better (just checked their blogs how much they upgraded in a year.)

TL;DR: Anone who sees this, give kagi search a try!

Same boat! I did their free trial, was genuinely impressed with their search results, and now I have a family subscription. I can control what my kids see too, which is a plus.

Orion is available on iOS and iPadOS as well, and I second Kagi search

I recommend Brave search, it's an independent index so you get different results. Then you can add !g to search Google and get something else, you get more coverage

It also has an AI summary that's often good enough to give you answers without clicking links, which I like

I generally install chrome to people who have no idea what they are doing. But since you are tech-savy enough to be in the fediverse, I'd recommend firefox without a second thought.

I generally install chrome to people who have no idea what they are doing.

Why? It's not like Firefox is more complicated for the end user than Chrome.

True. However, when something goes wrong with an ignorant person's machine, they are quick to blame it on the "unconventional" choice someone else made.

Good point. No one knows what a Mozilla is, but if you say it's Google’s problem everyone shuts up.

If you want to have choice in the future you should go with Firefox. Google is close to (or maybe already did) make Chrome equivalent of the Internet Explorer.

The better thing to what was with IE is that majority of websites still work fine in Firefox and people who stick to Chrome just do due to mostly ignorance.

Firefox with containers for day to day use. Chrome for google docs. Safari for sites where I don't want to have to go through the login process every time I open a page.

I went to Firefox as soon as manifest v3 got announced, rather do it sooner rather than later.

Firefox if you take the time to harden it. You can also use librewolf which is hardened OOTB.

I only find Chromium useful for very browser-intensive things like browser games

If you need to use a chromium based browser, I recommend Eloston's ungoogled-chromium

Firefox, but if you do need a chromium based browser try ungoogled chromium

Unless you really like things like CSS Overview and Sleeping Tabs and the intuitive extension bar you should switch to Firefox. It has container tabs and is a lot more resource efficient.

Is it, though? They seem very comparable to me these days.

That, and I'm pretty sure one of the multiple extensions I use to make Youtube watchable has a memory leak, because I do end up having to restart it periodically.

And yeah, I do miss the automatic tab grouping feature, trying to replicate it is such a hassle on Firefox.

Crucially, though, I still main Firefox despite all that, so... I guess that's my vote.

Tbf I don't think I'd hold YouTube's enshittification against Firefox. Google is very active in trying to ensure users see adverts on YouTube on all platforms, which makes it hard for any extension to stay ahead.

I'm pretty sure one of the multiple extensions I use to make Youtube watchable has a memory leak, because I do end up having to restart it periodically.

It's an extension, so has nothing really to do with the browser. That's on par with one star reviews on Amazon because the package was delivered damaged.

I've never encountered such issues and when they do happen they're very random and not "periodically". I have no idea what you mean by "automatic tab grouping" but that did remind of two more features I miss from chromium which I've added.
To me my CPU usage has definintly gone down after switching to waterfox. Edge kept crashing periodically for me.
BTW, do you use any other extensions besides Enhancer, Annotations Restored, SponsorBlock and DeArrow?

Enhancer and a downvote revealer. To @gigglybobble 's point below, I would argue Enhancer is part of Firefox at this point.

And while I do understand that's not your experience, I assure you the issues do occur, and the overall weight and performance of Chrome and default Firefox is about the same. I still prefer Firefox, but I'm not gonna lie about the issues I've found for the sake of promoting it, either.

I would not say Enhancer is a part of firefox; the same extension also exists for chrome. However an early 2021 guide did say Firefox wasn't less resource consuming, thanks for that.

Yeah I also have Return Youtube Dislike, forgot to mention that.

Honestly, its personal preference, there's different forks of each, base Firefox is good, if you want a more private fork try Fennec or Mull. With chromium the only two ive heard good privacy things about is Brave and Cromite (a fork of Bromite, a project that looks like it got discontinued as there hasn't been an update since last December). Honestly try both and see which you prefer.

Sorry, I just assumed you were asking about android specific apps. For Apple, Safari is decently private, Apples strong suit is that everyone knows Apple hate sharing things, so while you can't be sure about how much apple collects, you know they're not giving data to 3rd parties. For computer I'd say base Firefox, (or Librewolf if your okay with the lack of auto updating) or Brave.

Also, I forgot to mention this, but Google didn't really support WEI yet. It's all from two engineers' private opinions, though it's also strange that they haven't made an official statement yet.

Sure, let's test the waters and keep deniability. It's called a weather balloon.

Even just the fact that Google could force something like WEI on to everyone should be a wake-up call though.

I use Firefox on high privacy settings but that breaks some sites so, when necessary, I use Iron. Iron is a less spy-y version of Chrome which has all the same apps (and a handful of its own).

If Iron is built on Chromium, which its website says that it is, it will be affected by Google's upcoming changes.

I wasn't suggesting the OP should use Iron instead of Firefox. I was pointing out one drawback of (locked down) Firefox and noting a slightly better alternative to Chrome which has all the functionality and less of the spying.

My choice is to use both because a very small proportion of sites won't work with Firefox on high privacy settings. Sites which force me to use lower privacy standards are used (quarantined) in a separate browser.

I go for firefox. If a particular site is broken in there I open edge just for that task and I'm done with it

Absolutely. Vivaldi is great. I prefer it to FF. They definitely won't incorporate DRM changes unless it's completely not modifiable from the chromium core, and if they do how big a deal is it to change browsers? Switch then.

Why not both? If anything, what (truly) makes Chromium-based browsers stand out is cloud gaming (since it forces you to use em. While firefox is a no-go).

After using Firefox for nearly a year, I am using Google Chrome again and it feels much more snappier/fluid, and also uses less power compared to firefox (power draw is often near idle or outright idle), font rendering seems better on Chrome too. Only issue is that it doesn't support hw video decoding (vaapi) on wayland, but I just use MPV for that. Firefox does support vaapi even on Wayland but it's outrageously less efficient than mpv.

Personally, i'd day neither. Mozilla is on Google's payroll, so if you're trying to battle Google's monopoly, it won't matter if you pick Firefox or Chrome (or any forks or derivatives)

If you need to pick, i would say Firefox, and Librewolf if you want a browser which is more privacy friendly and has saner defaults.

If you want to battle the monopoly, you should pick a browser that's not based on Gecko, Blink or Chromium. Something like Ladybird, BadWolf, LuaKit or Lynx if you're into that

Mozilla gets Google's money only because Google wants to avoid antitrust charges, so they have to help keep Mozilla alive as competition. It doesn't mean Mozilla is in Google's pocket or has any strings attached at all.

How isn't Mozilla in Google's pocket, if the only reason they're still around is because of Google funding them?

They could switch to Bing any time

There are a lot of articles exposing each option. Personally I prefer chromium based browsers because they support full site isolation (sandboxing) of each tab.

I tried googling about Chrome containerization of tabs and found nothing. Can you elaborate?

In fact, searching "chrome tab containerization" only results in discussions asking if there's a way to use something like firefox's containers on chrome. -

Also isn't that what Firefox containers do?

It's not per tab, but I don't see how that would be useful. I add specific topics and then make / destroy the containers as needed.

It's already annoying enough logging into the sites per container, I can't imagine doing that every time I open a tab.

This is the even better sandboxing. You can only give access to the groups container.

It's one of the main features of Vivaldi