Congrats to Firefox, it really has made substantial improvements over the years.
Firefox a few years ago would kill my Mac battery in a couple hours, now it’s as good as safari for energy management. No reason not to use it as a daily driver now.
Maybe it'll start maintaining Mozilla again. You know: its namesake project.
Mozilla Suite, the thing discontinued seventeen years ago!?
There is a project called Mozilla? Afaik it is the company name? What is it?
Mozilla is the name of the Open Source version of Netscape Navigator. It is the pre-cursor to Firefox.
Not only that, they had goals beyond just a browser. They wanted to create a whole OS ecosystem integrated with the browser. They released Firefox as a side project to just get a browser in everyone's hands while they worked on Mozilla. Turns out the OS ecosystem in a browser was a bust, and Firefox was a winner. Just the Mozilla devs haven't stopped being bitter about it. The old Netscape motivations around the project have been a boat anchor.
There was the Firefox mobile OS but apparently that didn't pan out too well it seems. I remember vaguely hearing about it long ago, but not by much.
I remember that! Pretty sure I tried it out on my Nexus 5. It was cool but even then it seemed an impossible hill to climb. Looks like it was forked into a feature phone OS that’s maintained to this day!
I mean didn't they achieve that? Today a lot of things are web based. Firefox is a powerful browser. Especially on Android. So if you want you can have your OS in a browser thingy...
Not at all. They created a great browser, which is what us end users wanted, but they never achieved their ecosystem goals.
It's called SeaMonkey now and AFAIK it is maintained and under community management.
Yep, I use it every day.
That doesn't change the fact that Mozilla gave up on its flagship.
Now all we need is that it provides a better experience than Chrome.
Meh, I'll be honest and say that I'm not impressed by chrome in modern day. While I hate Microsoft, edge is a nicer browser to use than chrome, and that's saying something
I agree, but I think that the normies like to use Chrome because... that's what everyone is using, so I am eager to see how FF can give a better experience to the normal user.
Normies (also me) use Gmail, it's easy when you login to your browser and you're partially already authenticated everywhere else.
Same goes for android.
it’s easy when you login to your browser and you’re partially already authenticated automatically sending your personal, private information everywhere else.
FTFY
You're correct, but the majority of normies don't care. A lot of people don't naturally feel a strong impulse towards privacy, so the fact that Google knows everything about them doesn't really bother them.
It already does. I dislike using Chrome. Firefox works better, looks better, and containers are really useful to me.
I’ll stick to Safari. I don’t trust Mozilla any more than Google or Microsoft.
Ah yes, an open source popular browser that is made by a nonprofit organization is less trustworthy than a close source browser made by a public company
An open source organization with a track record of dubious user-hostile behavior.
Apple does not add plugins to my browser without my consent, nor do they show ads in my browser.
Isn't Safari made by Apple? It's not like Apple is some paragon of corporate virtue, why do you trust them?
If you’re running Safari, you’re already running their OS. If Apple wants to spy on you, they’ve already got the means to do so, so you’ve already decided to trust them.
Switching to Chrome or Firefox means trusting one more entity in addition to Apple. This expands your possible exposure.
Because with Apple I’m the paying customer, not the product being sold.
You're always both. With Apple, it doesn't sell your data, but it does sell curated ad space where they use your data to power their tools. While this is less of an invasion of privacy than Google or the atrocity of Meta's privacy policy, it still exists on a spectrum of how much companies are willing to use your data for extra profit. I'm not saying to not use Apple, hell I'm currently using Microsoft Edge, but I think it's important to understand that literally every profit-driven company is subject to the same systemic flaws and none of them can be completely trusted.
I'm sticking with Firefox until some dev decides to use it's engine to make a new better browser. I truly enjoy Arc and Vivaldi, but since they're chromium i don't trust them an inch with my personal data.
LibreWolf is an option. It's mainly just a Firefox fork but removes the adware and sponsored garbage as well as had more privacy-focused defaults, though IMO the defaults are too much and need to be toned back. No ads though so it's 100% worth the switch.
Have you ever tried WaterFox?
since they're chromium i don't trust them an inch with my personal data.
This is such a ridiculous position. Do you have any evidence at all that every Chromium browser (even the ones specifically designed to avoid this) are transmitting your personal data?
This is such a ridiculous position.
I'm not the original person you responded to, but I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I disagree. While I personally do not think that all Chromium browsers (especially since there are projects like ungoogled-chromium) transmit your personal data, I can't verify this myself because the Chromium codebase is far too much of an undertaking for myself to review.
While the same is also true for Firefox (and really any potential open source browser), on a pure personal-trust factor I trust Mozilla/Firefox to be more caring about protecting my personal data than I do Google, who literally revolves around data collection. Inevitably its a moot point for me since I do use Google services anyways, but I don't think its that far reaching for someone who potentially doesn't to take the original person's stance.
While I personally do not think that all Chromium browsers (especially since there are projects like ungoogled-chromium) transmit your personal data, I can't verify this myself because the Chromium codebase is far too much of an undertaking for myself to review.
Don't you think that, with so many contributors and projects having eyes on it (arguably more so than on gecko), if there was foul play wouldn't anyone have sounded the alarm?
but they did sound the alarm? Debian took Chromium out of their repos for a time because they found unreported telemetry sent encrypted back to Google. All the info is on the net. You just need to read it.
All the info is on the net. You just need to read it.
"The net" is kind of a big place. I've researched "the net" on this subject quite extensively and come up empty-handed so maybe you'd like to share where you found this information?
It sounds like you're referring to the Chromium web browser, which is not the topic of discussion. Rather it is Chromium-based web browsers such as Brave, Vivaldi, Edge, Opera, etc.
Argh, I originally finished typing out a reply and went to upvote your reply - which apparently causes Lemmy to close the reply box, sending my original reply to /dev/null, sigh...
What I was originally going to say, in a more abridged version is that plenty of people audit and review open source libraries such as OpenSSL which ended up having a massive vulnerability that no one knew about in the form of Heartbleed for two years - so while its possible someone would ring the alarm bell on Chromium, its also possible that they wouldn't (through no fault of their own).
At the end of the day, I still believe that my own personal trust in a project is going to trump the stamp of approval from people that I have zero connection to. There have been countless times in my life where someone said that X was okay, and I blindly trusted them instead of relying on my own judgment only to inevitably bitten in the ass when they ended up being wrong. Even down to medications that I've taken in the past that were deemed fine by multiple doctors, which have now resulted in me having permanent negative side effects that I'll have to deal with for the rest of my life.
I appreciate your level headed reply (as opposed to the passive aggressive "people do not understand chromium is NOT CHROME" reply), and to your credit I would say its probably significantly harder to forget to remove a ton of telemetry from a project than it is to not catch one line of code that accidentally causes a massive vulnerability to a project - but if Firefox works just fine for me, I don't see a need to even have to take a (probably small) gamble on Chromium.
I don't even advocate to others that they shouldn't use Chromium for the reason that was listed in the top parent comment (usually if someone does ask me how I feel about my choice of browser, I will tell them that I prefer Firefox because it doesn't have a dominant position of marketshare over web standards), but I did feel it was worth retorting that the parent comment was in fact, not really a "ridiculous position to take".
Fair enough! FWIW, I also think your stance on the matter is fairly level-headed and well thought out, even if I'm more or less on the other side of the fence.
I can't verify this myself because the Chromium codebase is far too much of an undertaking for myself to review.
No, but there are several people and organizations that can and do that would be screaming from the rooftops if there was some sort of telemetry that they could not remove.
I trust Mozilla/Firefox to be more caring about protecting my personal data than I do Google, who literally revolves around data collection.
You don't need to trust Google because Chromium-based projects are not made by Google. They are forks of the open-sourced Chromium, made by completely independent organizations, explicitly for the purpose of removing telemetry.
People are seemingly incapable of understanding that Chromium-based browsers are not Chrome, nor are they Chromium.
Evidence? OF COURSE!
Have you even tried searching for it?
Google even says so for Chromium on its own official page!
You don't need to trust us. Trust Google, they are telling you legally if you want to listen.
Also, look up the handful of open bugs on the Debian but tracker, where known people, with name and faces (I've met some on conferences), showcase and share how Chromium calls home and sends encrypted data. They share their Wireshark logs.
Look up how Debian removed Chromium for a time, until some of it got removed upstream.
And all of this doesn't mean that Google cannot re-introduce it or add different approaches in new updates.
Plus, Google actively creates and pushes for their "standards" via Chrome(ium), which allows them to push for even more surveillance.
In addition, Chromium is not a community project. It's developed behind closed doors, with a secret roadmap, and a code dump happens on release. That's no way to develop the 90% of web browser market that society needs in this day and age. But, don't think you will care about that, do you? you are happy with papa Google for the foreseeable.
Have you even tried searching for it?
Of course I have. I've never found any substantiation, which is why I'm asking. I use them every day so I would certainly like to know if there is, but the concerns I constantly see only apply to Chrome, and not Chromium-based browsers.
Google even says so for Chromium on its own official page!
This is specifically for the Chromium browser, not Chromium-based browsers. I know, it's confusing. Chromium is basically just the open-sourced version of Chrome.
Plus, Google actively creates and pushes for their "standards" via Chrome(ium), which allows them to push for even more surveillance.
This is yet another item attributed to Chrome and it's users. You can totally create a Chromium fork that adheres to conventional standards.
How hard can you simp for Vivaldi. Jesus Christ.
You don't think Google themselves admitting that Chromium has the same privacy notice is substantial? What more could you possibly need?
What's worse is that Vivaldi took an open source browser with a bunch of privacy concerns, added some things and closed the source. And you think it's somehow less of a cause of concern.
You're nuts.
How hard can you simp for Vivaldi. Jesus Christ.
I use 5 different browsers, zero of which are Vivaldi, and thus do not "simp" for Vivaldi. The only "simping" I do is for the truth. The Google hate train is valid but misplaced in this instance.
You don't think Google themselves admitting that Chromium has the same privacy notice is substantial?
You're simply deliberately misreading my comment because what I said is not that it's unsubstantial, I said that it's inaccurate. Google does not and cannot have any control over any Chromium forks or their respective individual privacy policies'. This statement only pertains to the Chromium web browser.
I can see that you have no interest in an honest discussion so I won't be engaging with you further. Bye.
Google does not and cannot have any control over any Chromium forks
That is not true. I remember several chromium-based browser developers saying for several changes made by google to chromium that they can't afford the maintenance burden to reverse it.
One instance of that happening is switching the addon framework to manifest v3, which severely degrades the functionality of browser firewalls, like uBlock Origin, by restricting (for "security reasons", apparently) the amount of network filters they can apply (and maybe with other changes too, I don't remember it exactly).
But there were also other instances of this happening, which I don't remember right now. Maybe also when they released the first version with FLoC.
And then I think these 2 (anti)features (even any of them alone) also qualify for invasions of privacy, and they are present in most of the chromium based browsers.
I remember several chromium-based browser developers saying for several changes made by google to chromium that they can't afford the maintenance burden to reverse it.
...reverse what?
manifest v3
uBlock already solved this issue and still for other browsers it was never a problem in the first place, because they have domain-blocking built into the browser itself.
Do you really think there is Google telemetry in all chromium based browsers? lol
Of course I have. I’ve never found any substantiation, which is why I’m asking. I use them every day so I would certainly like to know if there is, but the concerns I constantly see only apply to Chrome, and not Chromium-based browsers.
Just run WIreshark against your Chromium then. Enjoy.
This is specifically for the Chromium browser, not Chromium-based browsers. I know, it’s confusing. Chromium is basically just the open-sourced version of Chrome.
Additional Information on Chromium, Google Chrome, and Privacy
Features that communicate with Google made available through the compilation of code in Chromium are subject to the Google Privacy Policy.
There, you have it. Now you can try moving more goalposts again, and provide excuses for them.
This is yet another item attributed to Chrome and it’s users. You can totally create a Chromium fork that adheres to conventional standards.
Nah it's not. I'm talking about Google pushing and implementing IETF standards that hamstring privacy. They are open standards, but they are malicious. That a standard is open doesn't mean is doing things that are not ethical.
To me, it's obvious that you don't even want to look for proof. Why so hell-bent on taking the stance of a state-level billionare corporation built by extracting privacy from users? How do you think they got there?
Or do you have something specific against the legal non-profit organization that is Mozilla?
To me it's clear, based on your personal attacks, that you have no interest in an honest discussion so I will not engage with you further. Goodbye.
Personal attacks? Jesus, you are a little cupcake.
The mere fact that you're forced to use a Google service for synchronicity between devices? Yes, Firefox has the same but i find them much more trustworthy.
Give me a browser that allows for using a synchronization service of my own choice.
Decentralize!
The mere fact that you're forced to use a Google service for synchronicity between devices?
Uh...was that supposed to be a question? If so, the answer is "no".
Probably more/better fingerprinting techniques for chromium engine browsers but I feel like if invasive telemetry was discovered in the open-source codebase of the chromium engine we’d hear about it.
Yes, or it would just be removed.
Firefox rules
Chrome drools
Three chrome users said, “nuh uh!”.
If only. Every chrome user said the same thing they’ve said after every other overtake. A poignantly disinterested silence. They just don’t care.
Great job Mozilla. I hope that Firefox will one day be as popular as Chrome or even more! ❤️
Oh it was already- Before Chrome became popular. When Chrome came out, only weird people used it. All my friends were FF kids.
Chrome took over FF because of Chrome being a default Android web browser after replacing its vanilla/AOSP browser.
It was better than Firefox at the time. Firefox only needed to be better than IE so it has become a bit of a ram-hungry bloaty mess, then Chrome came along and was actually really quick. How the tables have turned.
Yep. I was very young at the time but what I remember is firefox being spoken of as kind of a "hack" to make everything web-based faster compared to IE.
Then chrome came out and firefox was completely replaced. It felt like an instant change. Anyone that knew anything about computers was using chrome.
I think that chrome is still living off its glorious past.
Multi-process was huge. Firefox was pretty stagnant for a long time, and it took a long time to catch up.
Also being synonymous with "using Google", where people thought they had to get chrome to use Google.com.
This also applies to Microsoft, but they're too late, I guess.
Google is blitzscaled techbro big tech, the honeymoon is over, now it's time for enshittification !
true for the industry at large --especially at these interest rates
I've been using Firefox since Windows XP days and speed has never really been a complaint. Well back in Flash days some sites got janky but that was probably Flash as much as Firefox.
That was the act that most home computers and internet connections weren't that powerful yet, and when I was loading some old flash games I played back in the day recently, they were so absurdly fast.
anyone care to explain what we're looking at here?
As a Firefox Desktop/Android user this sure sounds awesome.
The purple line is chrome's speed scorem the blue line is firefox's
Great, now do the phone browser
I've been using FF on mobile for couple of weeks now, I dont see any major issues, in fact, no issues at all. Plus, it has extension support.
Why do people hate FF on mobile?
People hate on FF mobile? It works great for me. To be honest I think I like it more than the desktop FF.
Not a reason to hate it though, just a reason why sadly Chromium-based browsers are preferable for now
No hate on FF mobile from me, but I can objectively say Chrome, at least visually and subjectively, performs noticably faster than FF. That said, I still prefer FF over Chrome.
My mobile FF install runs uBlock origin, which blocks youtube ads btw, this is enough for me to use it exclusively. That it syncs with my desktop FF is just a nice bonus.
any benefits over using newpipe?
I was happy with chrome performance. After switching to FF, based on the accolades on Lemmy, I've been mostly happy... But fuck if there's not major lag at times. It isn't connection related, as I've immediately popped over to Chrome for that site and had no issue.
I'm not unhappy with Firefox, but I notice it's presence, which is not what I want in a browser.
iirc the firefox javacript interpreter is much slower than chrome's. I guess the lag is most noticable in JavaScript heavy sites?
Idunno, i had mega lag after hitting enter on a duck duck go search in the address bar.
i feel like its laggy
i use voyager for browsing lemmy on firefox, it often freeze while chromium fork doesn't do that
Are you using a potato? I've never had an issue. FF with ublock ftw
It lags a lot on some websites, but it's fine for most
We don't do that here
Get your forks out
Good. Now, stop being forced as a snap, please.
You could always use a distro made by sane people.
Bro, I've been using Kubuntu for 4 years, it's the most I have spend with a single distro, but I'm this close to jump to Debian 12 (in fact I just tried it with VirtualBox today), I'm just waiting for the weekend because job.
I have also used Ubuntu when they sent out those free CDs. And for work when they had the Unity desktop (12.04 LTS). It was a good distro once.
I am pretty happy with the Arch (btw) I installed as a VM on Ubuntu 12.04 and then used as my main OS on the new work PC since 2017.
The memories. My first LiveCD was 10.04. Distro-jumped for some years, then left Linux altogether for some more, and returned and stayed with it.
As a user of Windows my entire life, I've tried Ubuntu and Manjaro before and went back to Windows. I randomly felt like trying Linux again recently and set up Debian 12, and am finally not going back.
Your words are encouraging.
Yea do it. It boggles my mind why anyone would use Ubuntu at this point. Makes more sense to use Mint, even.
Kind of crazy that Ubuntu has some packages exclusively as snaps...
This... If I wanted an app in snap form, I would install it through snap instead. But installing an app through apt redirects to snap? No. It's ridiculous and unacceptable.
Holy shit, didn't know that
It makes sense that they don't want to maintain 2 versions. What doesn't make sense is that when you ask it for an apt, instead of saying "this package isn't avalible as an apt" and maybe "by the way it is available as a snap if you want", it just installs the snap without telling you.
Canonical is not maintaining fuck-all. They're just re-distributing Debian packages (sometimes with a few patches on top at most). The Debian team is doing all the heavy lifting of packaging software (including firefox-esr).
It's not a technical limitation that Canonical doesn't offer firefox as a deb. It's an intentional attempt to trap people into their walled garden.
I didn't say it was a technical limitation, I said it was laziness. Even if they just straight up take the deb from Debian, they are still responsible for if it works well on Ubuntu.
Anyway, it's hardly a very good trap. You can still download the deb from Debian, or use Mozilla's ppa, or use flatpak. Or hell, snap is the main difference between Ubuntu and Debian at this point anyway, so just use any other Debian distro. I hate to be the person defending Canonical here as I vastly prefer community distros, but when the vast majority of people are using OSs from Microsoft, Apple and Google, painting Canonical as a big greedy villain sounds like a joke.
Yeah, Vivaldi is the best chromium-based browser. Personally, I use it a secondary for sites that were made to only display right on chromium browsers. Librewolf, a privacy-focused fork of Firefox, is the one I use as a main browser.
Vivaldi looks cool, and I have heard tell that Mozilla is far from its former glory, but my user experience on Firefox is excellent so I have no reason to switch
@imaqtpie, that is the point, the best browser is the one which suits the best your needs and use.
Apart of Vivaldi as main browser, I also have Firefox and the Otter Browser for test reasons (f.Exmpl to see if an isue is due to Chromium or general, FF with Gecko and Otter with Qt5)
Yeah for sure. You're much more advanced than I am, let's just say it's not a coincidence that I'm on sh.itjust.works 😅
@imaqtpie, I don't think so, I only a normal user with the experience since my first modem with 56k.
Vivaldi since 7 years, which fits all my needs, due it's more a Internet suite than a browser, with all the funcionality you mauy need, without using extensions, apart of the end2end encrypted sync with Vivaldi Mobile, without sharing userdata to Google (Alphabet), what Mozilla does.
Does it have adblock?
the best browser is the one which suits the best your needs and use
This is objectively false. The best browser is the one that gets the job done and doesn't have endless absolutely terrible security vulnerabilities (e.g. IE before they switched to Edge which is just Chrome) or intentionally leaks your private information (e.g. Edge leaking every site you visit to Bing and Chrome doing the same but with Google).
Also, from a performance perspective "the best" is obviously objectively measurable and Firefox just took the crown which is what the post is all about. Realistically though both Chrome and Firefox have had completely acceptable levels of performance (imperceptible differences to normal humans) for like a decade. So it's probably not that big a deal.
A bigger deal for normies using their browser IMHO is memory utilization which is a much bigger factor than, "how fast does the browser load and run HTML, CSS, and JavaScript?" Just ask Google how much more memory efficient Firefox is! LOL
I use firefox and I like it but they have been dumbfying their UI and nagging users to use pockets.
Why on earth would I need to go to about window to update? Also, I don’t know where to find extensions so I just choose addons then manually go to extensions.
Hm, where do they nag? I don't know what Pockets is and haven't seen anything about it.
I also never manually update Firefox, I just restart when it tells me it's downloaded an update.
Every other update would show an ad to use it. Also, you cannot remove it afaik.
Also, you cannot remove it afaik.
Remove it where? If its the toolbar, you can just remove it from the Customize Toolbar menu. If it is the home/new tab page, you can remove it by clicking the settings gear at the top right of that page and disable the option (or from the main brwoser settings area). If you use Firefox Account syncing (or just sync your Firefox profile folder via other means) then that option persists across different devices accordingly too. This page explains how to disable any Pocket integration, including the ones that I've mentioned here, along with even the "Save to Pocket" menu entry that comes up when right clicking a link.
You can remove it
You can with about:config flags, you can also set the API url to some random shit so it can't even ping Mozilla.
Going to the about window to check for updates is a decades old thing among thousands of different software(it's the same in Edge, Chrome, Opera(old and new), etc)
Clicking on the "Add-ons and Themes" literally takes you straight to the extension tab(extensions are add-ons).
First of all, I know other browsers keep update in about page, however, this is why I don't use them. It wasn't used to be in a burger menu tho.
Second, add-ons and theme isn't saying exactly "extensions". Also, it would take you to the last tab which is by default plug-ins. try it.
I like Firefox and I'd support the developers but they should stick to their roots to keep their current user base.
Second, add-ons and theme isn’t saying exactly “extensions”. Also, it would take you to the last tab which is by default plug-ins. try it.
You can click the Extensions toolbar icon that was added by default for everyone a bit ago, and at the bottom of the list of your extensions it has a "Manage Extensions" option (it is actually pinned to the bottom of the visible menu, so even if you have enough extensions that it "overflows" into a scroll menu, the Manage Extensions button is always visible). That page lets you remove / configure any currently installed extensions, and has a search bar for the Extensions store as well.
Would love a more customizable UX for Firefox and the option of a more compressed UI. Aesthetically it definitely needs a rethink.
Agreed, this is the main reason I switched to Librewolf over official Firefox. Firefox has devolved into adware.
adware
That's a gigantic stretch
Yup, the new FF UI is unbearable. And it was the last straw (among other things) that convinced me that it was time to switch to something else (after 20 years).
Yeah i can't stand it either, stayed on the old UI for 18 months or so until sites started breaking.
I'm using this mod to make it work like the old UI and it's exactly the same, plus you only need to setup once updates haven't broken it for me so far. https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix
Thanks, I already knew about the "unfuck" fix made by Black. Too late for me, anyway. I have realized that Mozilla doesn't care about feedbak or users' opinion (or the users at all...), so I don't feel like supporting them anymore.
By the way, the fix is fine. But it is a matter of principle: people shouldn't have to waste their time unfucking Mozilla's fuckups and users shouldn't have to waste their time trying to make a browser usable. So, congrats, Moz Corp, you've managed to lose an hardcore user.
May I ask what are you using now?
Brave. I was between it and Vivaldi. Finally settled on Brave.
Never complained about its performance but that's awesome!
I'm still using Chrome, but it keeps getting shittier. At some point they'll push me over to Firefox. Hope Firefox can avoid getting shitty.
While Mozilla is far from perfect, I think they've managed to avoid getting shitty for almost 20 years.
That's because the Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit. They don't need to maximize value for their shareholders™.
Thank you Netscape for setting Navigator free!
The Enshitification cycle is a feature of for profit corporations, Google was always going to turn evil at some point.
The Mozilla Corporation is for profit, but they reinvest all of their profits. They are also wholly owned by the Foundation. You can't donate to Firefox.
Yes, and they've made some profit-driven decisions, such as pocket integration, but never on the level of what google does.
That's why I've said they are far from perfect (but the best we have).
And dropping Thunderbird :(
Although it seems to be doing well now under its own, newish commercial corporation.
Somehow it's always the lead software in a category that becomes shitty while everything else is praised. Regardless of what's being talked about. (I know why)
People get used to it, it's "fine" but doesn't improve considerably or add anything exciting, so people get bored. I moved from Firefox to Chrome, and honestly Chrome feels smoother and uses less ram seemingly for me on my laptop. Aside from no support for vaapi on wayland, chrome is fine imo
How about today? I believe in you. You can do it! Break the cycle. Ditch the Chrome.
my friend actually convinced me to switch just a few days ago lol. i'm just super thankful that i could transfer all my bookmarks and stuff
Once you finish setting up and are happy, if you care about privacy and don't mind a little more upfront work, set up Multi account tabs. It "sandboxes" your logins and cookies to categories you choose. I have a category for each social media site, one for my finances, one for amazon, one for other shopping, etc.
I live by, "never do anything you don't have to." But seriously I have some things customized in Chrome I'd have to adapt to Firefox. It would take a little effort on my part and I just don't want to deal with it until I have to. I'm sure it will happen sooner than later. I think the deprecation of Manifest V2 is going to force it because my browser is essentially a uBO support system. Until then I'll keep slogging along.
Have you tried Brave? Idk the full story, but it is basically chrome with more privacy stuff and is way faster than normal chrome. Feels just like using chrome but faster.
Brave has recently had some controversy around selling user data for AI training and isn't really a great suggestion for privacy due to this.
I've been avoiding Chrome as devil avoids holy water for years. So I'm glad FF does well.
There's been a few comments on here talking about Firefox on Android being laggy compared to Chrome on Android.
Nobody seems to have mentioned this, but the main reason this is and/or appears to be the case is because Firefox is capped at 60Hz, whereas Chrome will display at 90Hz, making it feel much smoother.
No, I have no idea why.
Edit: The above is misinformation after I did some research - it appears that resisting fingerprinting causes the browser to set itself to 60Hz, but this can be disabled to get your screen's refresh rate, but of course this means throwing away a privacy protection...
Could be one of those "optimisations" some brands make. I wasn't getting 120Hz on all apps on my OnePlus device. I had to force it with developer options or some 3rd party app. Gave up, installed a custom ROM (LineageOS), and it's 120Hz all the time without any issues 😎
What is exactly being measured here? Someone care to elaborate what kind of things they kept into account?
TodoMVC is a popular UI example use-case, which illustrates basic interactivity concepts. Webdevs will often implement TodoMVC when learning a new framework to get the hang of all the core concepts.
And well, there's a lot of frameworks, which may all have different performance in different browsers, so this benchmark tests many different implementations of TodoMVC, all done in different frameworks.
Ultimately, it tries to simulate normal web usage, it's not some speciality benchmark.
Exactly. Also, one might prefer 75, 80% of Chrome’s speed, but also 75% of the battery usage and maybe only 90% for RAM.
I for one would definitely not be against less battery usage on laptop/mobile
I would still use FF for moral reasons but I'd understand if uses it for the things you mention, but saying it's "faster" isn't really a good term in this case, faster in what? I mean, I'm not saying this is done in bad faith or anything, but would be even better if we could know that instead of simply clamoring over "fastness".
i had left firefox for a while due to the google ecosystem but i’m happy i came back to it.
Same. I have switched between the two several times, but I started on Firefox for a long time before switching, and now I've been back on Firefox for at least 5 years. There was definitely a good stretch of chrome in the early 2010s though.
Firefox is well clear by now. I'm also using the Android version, and I think it's great.
Firefox on Android using Ublock Origin is as good as it can get.
Factos
Most Google web apps (Maps, Earth, Gmail, etc) work in Firefox.
I just love reading post like this, congrats Firefox and f*** Google!
Damn that's huge improvements in a relatively short span of time. I'm just waiting for more features on Firefox Android.
Be aware that Firefox Android supports addons. So maybe there is already a fix...
Seriously, I learned Firefox supports addons on mobile and suddenly the Internet became useable again on my old smartphone. Ads made browsing for me borderline impossible.
Yeah. After years I had to make an urgent booking via chrome browser in an airport on my mobile. The website didn't work with firefox. when using chrome, I always add unlock origin and similar add blockers before I actually browse - and I was surprised, that Google Chrome on android doesn't even allow any extensions at all!
Blokada
@swnt@Extrahammer, Vivaldi Android has an inbuild ad and trackerblocker, same as in Desktop, apart an own feature to play YouTube Videos, because of this you don't need the YT app in Android.
But how would that solve the "works only on chrome" issue? It's certainly very bad website design to make the website only work with chrome and not other Browsers. And neither Firefox nor Vivaldi are blink engine based (which is what chromium, edge, safari etc. use). I'd have the same problem with Vivaldi as with Firefox. When this problem isn't there, I prefer to stick with firefox.
@swnt, Vivaldi is Chromium based (Blink). Never had any problems with Vivaldi in any page, but I know that some pages us the discriminating Browsersniffings, which should be illegal, but even with this I never had a problem, because Vivaldi appears by in their UA as Chrome, ever since Vivaldi removed their branding from the UA a few years ago because of these criminal practices of some pages.
Now in the Desktop browser you can even use BingChat, because Vivaldi automaticly switch its UA to EDGE
Ah, cool. Thanks!
Yes and they're awesome, but there's some QoL features in looking for. Like being able to enter reader mode from custom tabs, and set reader mode color scheme to match system theme, and more colors. Also dynamic color (Material You" support would be sweet.
What features are you missing?
For me, I l'd like to go into reader mode from custom tabs, for reader mode to sync with system color, and more colors on reader mode.
Also Material You/Dynamic Color for the UI would be awesome.
Improved PWA support would be nice, definitely lagging behind Chrome in terms of PWA implementation right now. Fission doesn't exist on Android yet, only desktop.
Have your collections be synced to your profile, which definitely seems like a design oversight right now.
Also better extension support since right now to add the non supported list it's a very complicated and convoluted process to do so that feels hacked in.
Regardless, I'm still very happy with the state of the Android browser and it by far beats out the other browsers imo. Stuff like uBlock Origin, much better reader mode then Chrome, and first party bottom toolbar puts it miles above the alternatives for me. Also because Firefox is awesome. I use a fork called Fennec which is just Firefox Stable without telemetry/analytics/proprietary blobs removed, and is available on f-droid.
For me, proper PWA support.
How is it not properly supported at the moment? Genuinely curious, I don't use PWAs a lot but when I have it has worked fine with Firefox.
The experience is not as smooth, it just looks snappier in Chrome. Also some features (like wake locks) are not supported.
Not sure, but Wiki has a bunch of footnotes that may explain
This is not so much related to "proper" PWA support, but you can't install PWAs as desktop apps from Firefox, whereas you can from Chrome/Edge. It's the only reason I use Edge, just to locally install PWAs.
I use this addon to get "installable" PWAs and it works great for me. I use three installed PWAs regularly and have several more installed.
Can anyone verify that this is also true for platforms beyond windows (what is plotted in the link by default)?
(I tried to change the plot to show macOS and Linux, but the plotting site is dubiously functional on mobile, plus there are a bewildering number of plot options with long, confusing names).
Here are the Linux results. macOS looks a bit different as well.
Awesome. What’s the difference between the three plots here?
Different tests on macOS. See the link for Linux
So I tested both FireFox and Edge real quick and it's true.
Although, I enabled every security and privacy setting on both (just about the same set of extentions also). But even then, even with a lower score, Edge still feels much smoother to use. Also, every time test refreshed, FF flashed white for a split second as opposed to Edge's black. Since I use dark mode and Dark Reader, it's extremely annoying on FF's part.
Chromium-based browsers still trounces Firefox on the Jetstream benchmark. I mean, I realize the Speedometer benchmark is supposed to test real-world scenarios, while Jetstream is more synthetic, but whatever work mozilla did to improve performance I'd expect to scale in other benchmarks too, so I'd expect Firefox to at least be bit closer to Chromium, even if losing a little.
Mozzila re-writing parts of the browser in the rust programming language has made a decent improvement to the performance. For those who aren't to into programming rust is has a strict compiler, meaning better code quality (Less Bugs) and offers more optimization methods then other programming languages.
Fennec from fdroid, for android, is even better as it didnt originate from google play store. My understandong is Google Playstore injects data into the app package. I use fennec for my day to day access. It syncs with desktop Firefox so all my passwords and logins are there.
There is also Firefox Nightly for "developers". I use it for the custom add on packages and doom scrolling.
Google playstore does not inject data in app packaging because it doesn't own the signature key. F-Droid, however, does.
I mean, they own the signature, but they do not inject or modify apps. They could, though.
do you know of any app developers that publish their signature, so one can compare it with the one in Google Play?
I would love for my banks to do this, for example..
Some developers will publish their apps on github, you can download it, and use a different app to get the apk file from the app you get from the play store, and compare the hash of the file. If they're identical then Google didn't meddle with it. If they're not, either Google did, or the developer releases a different version to Google Play.
As long as they can't manage to make a half-decent mobile browser this hardly matters.
Performance improvements are nice and all, but unless the performance is truely terrible, it's the least relevant factor.
Much more importent are:
consistently good UX over all platforms, together with good sync
good support for all websites
Their Android version is completely useless since the reboot (which is especially sad since the version before was hands down the best UX for a mobile browser on the market). They even dropped their VR version, even though it was literally just their Android version with slightly adjusted UX. They don't even have any form of tablet UI or Android TV UI.
And since their market share is steadily approaching zero, more and more websites drop support for FF and it's noticable.
The support part is what really kills FF, since it's not really in their hands whether web devs test websites with FF.
Lower market share -> less support -> lower market share.
Especially users who "just want the browser to work" are affected by that. They don't care much about the browser, but about the websites. And if their favourite websites tell them to stop using FF, they will. And that kind of user makes up the biggest part of the market share.
And since FF has no platform where they can push their browser (contrary to all other major browsers), they also won't get new users.
As much as we would want it otherwise, FF is dead, they just haven't accepted it yet. And that's true for almost all Mozilla products and Mozilla itself.
The only way I see how this can be reversed is if e.g. the EU decides that Mozilla and/or its products have some special value and starts funding and pushing them.
What is actually your problem with Android FF? I use it every day on my phone.
Yes, it's not as snappy as Chrome, but besides that everything works perfectly. In addition to that: Fully fledged ad-blocker like on desktop, one big reason why I no longer use Chrome on my phone.
No tablet UI, no tab bar: This is a big downside for me. I set the minimum width on my phone pretty high, so the screen fits as much on there as a small tablet. The lack of tablet UI/tab bar is a pretty big issue
The tab drawer is a whole mess in itself. It's really clunky to use, tab reordering (an essential feature if you want to ever e.g. compare products) wasn't available for a very long time. Now it is, but it's super clunky to use. And it's still not available for private tabs.
There are addons, but since they only allow a very small selection of addons, they boil down to adblockers and dark reader. There is hardly anything else in there, which is a shame, since FF on Android used to support all addons the desktop browser supported. Their "walled garden" approach to addons also hinders anyone from developing addons for FF on Android, because these addons will likely not be added to the curated list.
Compare that to e.g. Vivaldi:
It's got a great tablet UI including a tab bar.
The tab drawer works just as expected, pretty much exactly like in old FF
It doesn't have addons, but it has adblock (based on and compatible with uBlock Origin) built right into the browser, same with dark mode for websites. All of the addons that both are available on FF for Android and that I care about are built right into Vivaldi.
The UI in general is much better. For example, opening a new tab is just one click. Same with switching tabs and closing tabs on the task bar.
Additionally, Vivaldi doesn't get a "This page is not compatible with your browser" as often as FF does, and random bugs on websites are also rarer.
The only advantage FF on Android has over Vivaldi is that it's easier to access the reader mode on FF for Android.
you can use every extension for firefox desktop on mobile, you just have to add them to a collection
And in basically every instance a FF desktop extension that wasn't made for the new FF on Android will not work on it.
I tried Vivaldi, don't really even see a difference between the tab drawers. Except Vivaldi does have bigger tab previews and buttons which feel easier to press. The lack of tab reordering in private mode definitely seems like an oversight.
Tabs in tablet mode would definitely be cool too, but I don't know what the experience is like on tablet.
On Android you can just long press links to open private tab or new tab. Seeing Vivaldi's feature bloat if a bottom bar with infrequently used buttons that blocks viewing space, and a completely unnecessary tab bar on mobile that wastes space, feels like an ancient outdated design from 5+ years ago.
That's kind of Vivaldi's design though, ridiculous feature bloat and cluttering the screen with useless crap instead of trying to preserve screen space when these single press buttons can easily be moved to gestures or condensed. You know, like modern UX design. Like a third of my screen is just gone because of of redundant buttons and UI. Reminds me of Internet Explorer days with Yahoo toolbar.
Just to make sure, we are talking about Vivaldi on Android, correct?
Seeing Vivaldi’s feature bloat if a bottom bar with infrequently used buttons that blocks viewing space
What buttons do you mean? The only two buttons that I see added from Firefox are the history and the adblocker control. Both pretty useful. I also don't see how they block viewing space. What else do you want to view in the bottom bar?
and a completely unnecessary tab bar on mobile that wastes space
... that can be turned off if you don't like it. Also it's an absolute killer feature and one of the main reasons why I chose Vivaldi over FF. If you don't like it, you can turn it off. I much rather have the option to enable/disable a function than to not have the function at all.
I tried Vivaldi, don’t really even see a difference between the tab drawers.
Try to drag-and-drop a tab. In Vivaldi, it works exactly as expected.
On FF it first goes into the multiselection mode and only if you drag it over its stubbornly clingy dead zone can you rip it from its position. ~1/4 of the time the whole screen jumps to a random position, especially if you have many tabs. If you drag too early, the tab doesn't get moved at all, but instead the whole screen moves.
Other than that, I see that they fixed some of the jankiness that it had a year ago when I last seriously used FF on Android.
when these single press buttons can easily be moved to gestures or condensed. You know, like modern UX design.
Gestures are one of the dumbest UX decisions possible, because they lack affordability in most cases. Stuff like swipe to reload/go back/go forward is pretty dumb because you trigger it accidentally a lot.
Like a third of my screen is just gone because of of redundant buttons and UI. Reminds me of Internet Explorer days with Yahoo toolbar.
What kind of screen size do you have? On my screen, the bottom bar and the tab row take up maybe 5% of the screen real estate. And again, if you don't like it, disable the tab bar and make the bottom bar auto-hide.
I haven't used a different browser in a good while, so I'm not sure that these issues don't exist elsewhere, but here's a few:
For a very long time after the rework, reordering tabs was not possible. Only recently was this added again. But there seems to be no acceleration, so moving an old tab to the front takes forever. Even worse, this feature is still not available for private tabs (since you can't select those at all).
Quite often when I switch to the tab overview, it doesn't automatically scroll to my current tab so I need to do that manually.
I'm also not a fan of the "jump back in" view that shows up every so often instead of the content of my tab. Why they would assume I'm interested in anything besides what I intentionally opened is beyond me.
Creating a new tab is more cumbersome than it needs to be. I think you were able to do that by scrolling to the right on the address bar of the rightmost tab. A dedicated button would be even better.
I think it's a great browser, and pretty much the only one I use, but in my experience everything does not work perfectly.
I don't use desktop FF, but mobile off is the best there is around by the virtue of letting you use addons, and thus, an adblocker.
Without explaining the actual problems you have with Firefox on Android, your post is really pointless.
Also, "steadily approaching zero" is an intelligent an analysis as saying Edge is steadily approaching 100% just because its share is increasing.
Can you give an example of websites not supporting Firefox?
From a personal use perspective, I have rarely encountered sites that do not work on Firefox, especially in recent years. Two years ago I may have needed to keep a Chromium browser around but recently I have had no issues.
And from a professional perspective, dropping support for Firefox would be asinine. Most modern web frameworks handle browser compatibility for you, and you essentially get it for free these days. It is almost no extra effort to be compatible to all modern browsers, so why stop? Firefox is has great browser support in general and is far better than the current state of Safari
I agree that they don't have a device which they can use to force or promote their browser like other companies can. Which is a shame and is why they should perhaps try to advertise more aggressively. However, it's a free, open source browser, I don't really want them to advertise or be profit driven
I don't keep a log of websites that don't work on FF. The last one I came across is joyn.de, a TV streaming site. They don't tell you that it isn't working on FF, it just crashes when trying to play a video.
For simple stuff not supporting FF is really asinine, but for deeper stuff, like hardware accellerated video streaming, it's not quite as easy. Especially if you are, for some reason, stuck with old frameworks or in-house developed stuff.
Actually, the application that I work on (b2b software) frequently has FF-only bugs, because the frontenders in my team refuse to test every commit on FF. It's just me finding the bugs randomly.
The thing with free and open source is that it's not free to develop. Mozilla still needs to pay the development. Even though the source is open, 99% of the development is done by full-time (and obviously paid) Mozilla employees. Being open source doesn't really help Mozilla bring down the development costs at all.
And that's the second major point where Mozilla is in trouble: They don't really have any sustainable income.
I want to use the same (synced) browser across all my OS's, so the main reason I stopped using Firefox is because their Android tablet UX sucks.
Vivaldi works great though on all my devices and I'm super happy with it.
As long as they can’t manage to make a half-decent mobile browser this hardly matters.
Um, what? Last I checked, Firefox was the only mobile browser that supports extensions, including the all-important uBlock Origin, without which the web is basically unusable.
Their Android version is completely useless since the reboot (which is especially sad since the version before was hands down the best UX for a mobile browser on the market).
What in the world are you talking about? I'm writing this comment in Android Firefox. It works fine. It's my daily driver. I only use Chrome for testing.
good support for all websites
If a website doesn't work in Firefox, there's a problem with that website, not with Firefox.
I've done my share of web development. I had to deal with IE6 compatibility for years. Firefox is a dream come true compared to what I've been through. I test my work in all three major browsers, and I suffer no excuses from developers too lazy to do the same. Especially now that there are only three of them.
And since FF has no platform where they can push their browser (contrary to all other major browsers), they also won’t get new users.
That's the real problem. That's illegal, by the way; Microsoft got sued for bundling IE with Windows. Pity the courts these days don't care about upholding the law.
Um, what? Last I checked, Firefox was the only mobile browser that supports extensions, including the all-important uBlock Origin, without which the web is basically unusable.
Kiwi Browser gives you all desktop chrome addons. Yandex as well, if you prefer Russian surveillance over US surveillance.
Even Samsung's browser offers addons.
And Vivaldi has about everything I need (including an uBlock compatible adblocker and dark mode for websites) integrated directly into the browser.
If a website doesn’t work in Firefox, there’s a problem with that website, not with Firefox.
I’ve done my share of web development. I had to deal with IE6 compatibility for years. Firefox is a dream come true compared to what I’ve been through. I test my work in all three major browsers, and I suffer no excuses from developers too lazy to do the same. Especially now that there are only three of them.
That's good of you, and as a dev I also test on FF (contrary to many of my colleagues), but that's not what everyone does. And thus, as a user, I frequently stumble over stuff that doesn't work on FF.
What in the world are you talking about? I’m writing this comment in Android Firefox. It works fine. It’s my daily driver. I only use Chrome for testing.
If everyone felt like that, don't you think FF on Android would have a market share higher than 0.48% on mobile?
If a website doesn’t work in Firefox, there’s a problem with that website, not with Firefox.
That, again, comes down to maket share. If FF on Android was alcohol, it's market share could be legally called "alcohol free" (at least over here).
No market share -> no financial incentive to fix websites for that browser -> broken websites -> reduced market share
That’s the real problem. That’s illegal, by the way; Microsoft got sued for bundling IE with Windows. Pity the courts these days don’t care about upholding the law.
It actually isn't. Microsoft got sued in 2001 (so 22 years ago, and that matters), and they only got sued to open up their OS so that users could replace the browser if they wanted to. They were actually not prohibited from bundling IE with Windows.
And putting ad-banners on their own website to market their own browser (like Google is/was doing with Chrome on the Google search site and on Youtube) was never part of anything like that.
Unfortunately, maybe, illegal no.
Kiwi Browser gives you all desktop chrome addons.
Ad blockers (that actually work) will not be allowed in desktop Chrome starting next year.
Yandex as well, if you prefer Russian surveillance over US surveillance.
I don't. Better to be under the surveillance of one country than two.
Even Samsung’s browser offers addons.
And Vivaldi has about everything I need
Those two are not FOSS, so they are immediately suspect.
That’s good of you, and as a dev I also test on FF (contrary to many of my colleagues), but that’s not what everyone does. And thus, as a user, I frequently stumble over stuff that doesn’t work on FF.
And that's your cue to leave and look for an alternative to that website.
If everyone felt like that, don’t you think FF on Android would have a market share higher than 0.48% on mobile?
No one ever accused the general public of being well informed.
It actually isn’t. Microsoft got sued in 2001 (so 22 years ago, and that matters), and they only got sued to open up their OS so that users could replace the browser if they wanted to. They were actually not prohibited from bundling IE with Windows.
False. Microsoft never stopped users from installing other browsers. The issue was that IE was bundled with Windows, and other browsers were not.
From Wikipedia: “The government alleged that Microsoft had abused monopoly power on Intel-based personal computers in its handling of operating system and web browser integration. The central issue was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its IE web browser software with its Windows operating system. Bundling the two products was allegedly a key factor in Microsoft's victory in the browser wars of the late 1990s, as every Windows user had a copy of IE. It was further alleged that this restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera), since it typically took extra time to buy and install the competing browsers.”
And putting ad-banners on their own website to market their own browser (like Google is/was doing with Chrome on the Google search site and on Youtube) was never part of anything like that.
That it is not, but it is an anti-competitive practice: using one monopoly (on web search) to create another (on web browsers). I'm not certain whether this particular anti-competitive practice is illegal yet, but it needs to be.
Ok, there is no point in arguing with you. You haven't read up on the backgrounds, you haven't tried to understand, and you are arguing from fundamentalist viewpoints.
No point in talking with fundamentalists. It just goes in circles.
You just kinda listed bad website compatibility like 5 times. That's not even true lol, it's very rare there's a compatibility issue, and it's also very rare that websites refuse to support it. Can't think of any right now actually.
Most of the issues is because Chrome actually incorrectly adds something, or has a bug. Then for compatibility sake, Firefox has to actually match that broken buggy implementation so the end result is the same. This is another big reason why a chromium monopoly is bad.
Also the Android UX being bad is just funny to me. I find it by far the best, and you should absolutely not be speaking for other people. Would like to know what actual browser you think has better UX? Considering it's been so long since they changed the UI, I think you must've forgotten how truly bad it was before. Also that they added support back for some missing stuff people wanted, like grid list for tabs.
You just kinda listed bad website compatibility like 5 times. That’s not even true lol, it’s very rare there’s a compatibility issue, and it’s also very rare that websites refuse to support it. Can’t think of any right now actually.
Happens often enough. Just the other day I tried to watch something on joyn.de (a TV streaming service) and the videos just wouldn't play on Firefox. Had to actually switch over to Chromium to get it working.
Most of the issues is because Chrome actually incorrectly adds something, or has a bug. Then for compatibility sake, Firefox has to actually match that broken buggy implementation so the end result is the same. This is another big reason why a chromium monopoly is bad.
That's a frequently stated topic that's suspiciously always lacking any sources. Also, if you have >50% market share and if your engine has >75% market share, is there something like "incorrectly adding" something? Incorrectly as stated by whom? By the makers of a browser with <3% market share?
This is another big reason why a chromium monopoly is bad.
Well, if everyone is using Chromium, there is no such thing as an engine that has to implement someone else's stuff.
Tbh, I really don't miss the early 2010's when web development meant you had to test on 10 different engines
Also the Android UX being bad is just funny to me. I find it by far the best, and you should absolutely not be speaking for other people. Would like to know what actual browser you think has better UX? Considering it’s been so long since they changed the UI, I think you must’ve forgotten how truly bad it was before. Also that they added support back for some missing stuff people wanted, like grid list for tabs.
Just to check, I reinstalled the old version of FF and the UX is amazing compared to the current one. It really is. If you want one that is closely comparable, checkout Vivaldi. FF feels like a student's hobby project compared to it.
Never heard of that site nor can I test it, I'll just take your word since I can't find any examples myself. Clearly a bit toxic against Firefox here lol.
Web market share doesn't mean anything. Web follows standards decided by w3c that every web renderer follows. None of them get it exactly right because web browsers are extremely complicated and there's all sorts of edge cases. When Chrome or Firefox have mismatching behavior, the one following w3c is correct, the other one is objectively bugged. This is not opinion, this is following documented and mutually-agreed standards. Which Google and Mozilla are both on the w3c commitiee. I'll let you look into if you care. This also doesn't mean that Chrome will fix all their bugs either.
Just going to disagree with you with the UX because it's clearly subjective, but modern UX design heavily disagrees with you. Having a single visible button for every possible action is not good. It's a waste of space and clutter if it can be condensed or moved to a more intuitive action/gesture. More screen space the better.
The Firefox version on f droid is pretty good - using that right now
I guess we found a chrome fanboy that think being edgy at trolling.
I don't even use chrome... But apparenty I found the Firefox fanboy who gets butthurt whenever someone says anything about the difficulties of the thing they fanboy...
Sadly, this kind of attitude makes it really hard to (a) actually leverage constructive criticism and (b) drives people away from using the product the fanboy is defending.
But yeah, if it makes you feel better to hurt Firefox and it's community, it's your call.
Congrats to Firefox, it really has made substantial improvements over the years.
Firefox a few years ago would kill my Mac battery in a couple hours, now it’s as good as safari for energy management. No reason not to use it as a daily driver now.
Maybe it'll start maintaining Mozilla again. You know: its namesake project.
Mozilla Suite, the thing discontinued seventeen years ago!?
There is a project called Mozilla? Afaik it is the company name? What is it?
Mozilla is the name of the Open Source version of Netscape Navigator. It is the pre-cursor to Firefox.
Not only that, they had goals beyond just a browser. They wanted to create a whole OS ecosystem integrated with the browser. They released Firefox as a side project to just get a browser in everyone's hands while they worked on Mozilla. Turns out the OS ecosystem in a browser was a bust, and Firefox was a winner. Just the Mozilla devs haven't stopped being bitter about it. The old Netscape motivations around the project have been a boat anchor.
There was the Firefox mobile OS but apparently that didn't pan out too well it seems. I remember vaguely hearing about it long ago, but not by much.
I remember that! Pretty sure I tried it out on my Nexus 5. It was cool but even then it seemed an impossible hill to climb. Looks like it was forked into a feature phone OS that’s maintained to this day!
I mean didn't they achieve that? Today a lot of things are web based. Firefox is a powerful browser. Especially on Android. So if you want you can have your OS in a browser thingy...
Not at all. They created a great browser, which is what us end users wanted, but they never achieved their ecosystem goals.
It's called SeaMonkey now and AFAIK it is maintained and under community management.
Yep, I use it every day.
That doesn't change the fact that Mozilla gave up on its flagship.
Now all we need is that it provides a better experience than Chrome.
Meh, I'll be honest and say that I'm not impressed by chrome in modern day. While I hate Microsoft, edge is a nicer browser to use than chrome, and that's saying something
I agree, but I think that the normies like to use Chrome because... that's what everyone is using, so I am eager to see how FF can give a better experience to the normal user.
Normies (also me) use Gmail, it's easy when you login to your browser and you're partially already authenticated everywhere else.
Same goes for android.
FTFY
You're correct, but the majority of normies don't care. A lot of people don't naturally feel a strong impulse towards privacy, so the fact that Google knows everything about them doesn't really bother them.
It already does. I dislike using Chrome. Firefox works better, looks better, and containers are really useful to me.
I’ll stick to Safari. I don’t trust Mozilla any more than Google or Microsoft.
Ah yes, an open source popular browser that is made by a nonprofit organization is less trustworthy than a close source browser made by a public company
An open source organization with a track record of dubious user-hostile behavior.
Example one
Example two
Apple does not add plugins to my browser without my consent, nor do they show ads in my browser.
Isn't Safari made by Apple? It's not like Apple is some paragon of corporate virtue, why do you trust them?
If you’re running Safari, you’re already running their OS. If Apple wants to spy on you, they’ve already got the means to do so, so you’ve already decided to trust them.
Switching to Chrome or Firefox means trusting one more entity in addition to Apple. This expands your possible exposure.
Because with Apple I’m the paying customer, not the product being sold.
You're always both. With Apple, it doesn't sell your data, but it does sell curated ad space where they use your data to power their tools. While this is less of an invasion of privacy than Google or the atrocity of Meta's privacy policy, it still exists on a spectrum of how much companies are willing to use your data for extra profit. I'm not saying to not use Apple, hell I'm currently using Microsoft Edge, but I think it's important to understand that literally every profit-driven company is subject to the same systemic flaws and none of them can be completely trusted.
I'm sticking with Firefox until some dev decides to use it's engine to make a new better browser. I truly enjoy Arc and Vivaldi, but since they're chromium i don't trust them an inch with my personal data.
LibreWolf is an option. It's mainly just a Firefox fork but removes the adware and sponsored garbage as well as had more privacy-focused defaults, though IMO the defaults are too much and need to be toned back. No ads though so it's 100% worth the switch.
Have you ever tried WaterFox?
This is such a ridiculous position. Do you have any evidence at all that every Chromium browser (even the ones specifically designed to avoid this) are transmitting your personal data?
I'm not the original person you responded to, but I am going to go out on a limb here and say that I disagree. While I personally do not think that all Chromium browsers (especially since there are projects like
ungoogled-chromium) transmit your personal data, I can't verify this myself because the Chromium codebase is far too much of an undertaking for myself to review.While the same is also true for Firefox (and really any potential open source browser), on a pure personal-trust factor I trust Mozilla/Firefox to be more caring about protecting my personal data than I do Google, who literally revolves around data collection. Inevitably its a moot point for me since I do use Google services anyways, but I don't think its that far reaching for someone who potentially doesn't to take the original person's stance.
Don't you think that, with so many contributors and projects having eyes on it (arguably more so than on gecko), if there was foul play wouldn't anyone have sounded the alarm?
but they did sound the alarm? Debian took Chromium out of their repos for a time because they found unreported telemetry sent encrypted back to Google. All the info is on the net. You just need to read it.
"The net" is kind of a big place. I've researched "the net" on this subject quite extensively and come up empty-handed so maybe you'd like to share where you found this information?
It sounds like you're referring to the Chromium web browser, which is not the topic of discussion. Rather it is Chromium-based web browsers such as Brave, Vivaldi, Edge, Opera, etc.
Argh, I originally finished typing out a reply and went to upvote your reply - which apparently causes Lemmy to close the reply box, sending my original reply to
/dev/null, sigh...What I was originally going to say, in a more abridged version is that plenty of people audit and review open source libraries such as OpenSSL which ended up having a massive vulnerability that no one knew about in the form of Heartbleed for two years - so while its possible someone would ring the alarm bell on Chromium, its also possible that they wouldn't (through no fault of their own).
At the end of the day, I still believe that my own personal trust in a project is going to trump the stamp of approval from people that I have zero connection to. There have been countless times in my life where someone said that
Xwas okay, and I blindly trusted them instead of relying on my own judgment only to inevitably bitten in the ass when they ended up being wrong. Even down to medications that I've taken in the past that were deemed fine by multiple doctors, which have now resulted in me having permanent negative side effects that I'll have to deal with for the rest of my life.I appreciate your level headed reply (as opposed to the passive aggressive "people do not understand chromium is NOT CHROME" reply), and to your credit I would say its probably significantly harder to forget to remove a ton of telemetry from a project than it is to not catch one line of code that accidentally causes a massive vulnerability to a project - but if Firefox works just fine for me, I don't see a need to even have to take a (probably small) gamble on Chromium.
I don't even advocate to others that they shouldn't use Chromium for the reason that was listed in the top parent comment (usually if someone does ask me how I feel about my choice of browser, I will tell them that I prefer Firefox because it doesn't have a dominant position of marketshare over web standards), but I did feel it was worth retorting that the parent comment was in fact, not really a "ridiculous position to take".
Fair enough! FWIW, I also think your stance on the matter is fairly level-headed and well thought out, even if I'm more or less on the other side of the fence.
Brave Browser
Brave is icky. It's smeared in crypto and they were caught injecting affiliate links in 2020.
No, but there are several people and organizations that can and do that would be screaming from the rooftops if there was some sort of telemetry that they could not remove.
You don't need to trust Google because Chromium-based projects are not made by Google. They are forks of the open-sourced Chromium, made by completely independent organizations, explicitly for the purpose of removing telemetry.
People are seemingly incapable of understanding that Chromium-based browsers are not Chrome, nor are they Chromium.
Evidence? OF COURSE!
Have you even tried searching for it?
Google even says so for Chromium on its own official page!
https://security.stackexchange.com/questions/144289/privacy-with-chromium
You don't need to trust us. Trust Google, they are telling you legally if you want to listen.
Also, look up the handful of open bugs on the Debian but tracker, where known people, with name and faces (I've met some on conferences), showcase and share how Chromium calls home and sends encrypted data. They share their Wireshark logs.
https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=792580;msg=53
Look up how Debian removed Chromium for a time, until some of it got removed upstream.
And all of this doesn't mean that Google cannot re-introduce it or add different approaches in new updates.
Plus, Google actively creates and pushes for their "standards" via Chrome(ium), which allows them to push for even more surveillance.
In addition, Chromium is not a community project. It's developed behind closed doors, with a secret roadmap, and a code dump happens on release. That's no way to develop the 90% of web browser market that society needs in this day and age. But, don't think you will care about that, do you? you are happy with papa Google for the foreseeable.
Of course I have. I've never found any substantiation, which is why I'm asking. I use them every day so I would certainly like to know if there is, but the concerns I constantly see only apply to Chrome, and not Chromium-based browsers.
This is specifically for the Chromium browser, not Chromium-based browsers. I know, it's confusing. Chromium is basically just the open-sourced version of Chrome.
This is yet another item attributed to Chrome and it's users. You can totally create a Chromium fork that adheres to conventional standards.
How hard can you simp for Vivaldi. Jesus Christ.
You don't think Google themselves admitting that Chromium has the same privacy notice is substantial? What more could you possibly need?
What's worse is that Vivaldi took an open source browser with a bunch of privacy concerns, added some things and closed the source. And you think it's somehow less of a cause of concern.
You're nuts.
I use 5 different browsers, zero of which are Vivaldi, and thus do not "simp" for Vivaldi. The only "simping" I do is for the truth. The Google hate train is valid but misplaced in this instance.
You're simply deliberately misreading my comment because what I said is not that it's unsubstantial, I said that it's inaccurate. Google does not and cannot have any control over any Chromium forks or their respective individual privacy policies'. This statement only pertains to the Chromium web browser.
I can see that you have no interest in an honest discussion so I won't be engaging with you further. Bye.
That is not true. I remember several chromium-based browser developers saying for several changes made by google to chromium that they can't afford the maintenance burden to reverse it.
One instance of that happening is switching the addon framework to manifest v3, which severely degrades the functionality of browser firewalls, like uBlock Origin, by restricting (for "security reasons", apparently) the amount of network filters they can apply (and maybe with other changes too, I don't remember it exactly).
But there were also other instances of this happening, which I don't remember right now. Maybe also when they released the first version with FLoC.
And then I think these 2 (anti)features (even any of them alone) also qualify for invasions of privacy, and they are present in most of the chromium based browsers.
...reverse what?
uBlock already solved this issue and still for other browsers it was never a problem in the first place, because they have domain-blocking built into the browser itself.
Know why? Because. They're. Not. Chrome.
"several changes made by google to chromium"
No, they don't. They released a lite version that will attempt to do it's thing in the limited environment of up to date chromium browsers.
(Edit: here are the differences between the normal and this lite version as explained by the developer: https://libreddit.pussthecat.org/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/1067als/eli5_ublock_lite_vs_ublock_origin/j3h00xj/?context=3)
And then here is something new that shows how google can not only easily control chroimum based browsers, but basically every other one too, by creating their own definition of "open web":
Their vision: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/blob/main/explainer.md
Users thoughts: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/issues
A specific issue (there are more) where the standpoint of googlers (you are dumb! (does not explain why)) and the users (we don't want this!) can be clearly seen: https://github.com/RupertBenWiser/Web-Environment-Integrity/issues/36
Discussion on lemmy: https://lemmy.blackeco.com/post/25574
Do you really think there is Google telemetry in all chromium based browsers? lol
Just run WIreshark against your Chromium then. Enjoy.
Did you read the link I posted?
Let me copy-paste directly from the Chromium office page for you then:
There, you have it. Now you can try moving more goalposts again, and provide excuses for them.
Nah it's not. I'm talking about Google pushing and implementing IETF standards that hamstring privacy. They are open standards, but they are malicious. That a standard is open doesn't mean is doing things that are not ethical.
To me, it's obvious that you don't even want to look for proof. Why so hell-bent on taking the stance of a state-level billionare corporation built by extracting privacy from users? How do you think they got there?
Or do you have something specific against the legal non-profit organization that is Mozilla?
To me it's clear, based on your personal attacks, that you have no interest in an honest discussion so I will not engage with you further. Goodbye.
Personal attacks? Jesus, you are a little cupcake.
The mere fact that you're forced to use a Google service for synchronicity between devices? Yes, Firefox has the same but i find them much more trustworthy.
Give me a browser that allows for using a synchronization service of my own choice.
Decentralize!
Uh...was that supposed to be a question? If so, the answer is "no".
Probably more/better fingerprinting techniques for chromium engine browsers but I feel like if invasive telemetry was discovered in the open-source codebase of the chromium engine we’d hear about it.
Yes, or it would just be removed.
Firefox rules
Chrome drools
Three chrome users said, “nuh uh!”.
If only. Every chrome user said the same thing they’ve said after every other overtake. A poignantly disinterested silence. They just don’t care.
Great job Mozilla. I hope that Firefox will one day be as popular as Chrome or even more! ❤️
Oh it was already- Before Chrome became popular. When Chrome came out, only weird people used it. All my friends were FF kids.
Chrome took over FF because of Chrome being a default Android web browser after replacing its vanilla/AOSP browser.
It was better than Firefox at the time. Firefox only needed to be better than IE so it has become a bit of a ram-hungry bloaty mess, then Chrome came along and was actually really quick. How the tables have turned.
Yep. I was very young at the time but what I remember is firefox being spoken of as kind of a "hack" to make everything web-based faster compared to IE.
Then chrome came out and firefox was completely replaced. It felt like an instant change. Anyone that knew anything about computers was using chrome.
I think that chrome is still living off its glorious past.
Multi-process was huge. Firefox was pretty stagnant for a long time, and it took a long time to catch up.
Also being synonymous with "using Google", where people thought they had to get chrome to use Google.com.
This also applies to Microsoft, but they're too late, I guess.
Google is blitzscaled techbro big tech, the honeymoon is over, now it's time for enshittification !
true for the industry at large --especially at these interest rates
I've been using Firefox since Windows XP days and speed has never really been a complaint. Well back in Flash days some sites got janky but that was probably Flash as much as Firefox.
That was the act that most home computers and internet connections weren't that powerful yet, and when I was loading some old flash games I played back in the day recently, they were so absurdly fast.
anyone care to explain what we're looking at here?
As a Firefox Desktop/Android user this sure sounds awesome.
The purple line is chrome's speed scorem the blue line is firefox's
Great, now do the phone browser
I've been using FF on mobile for couple of weeks now, I dont see any major issues, in fact, no issues at all. Plus, it has extension support.
Why do people hate FF on mobile?
People hate on FF mobile? It works great for me. To be honest I think I like it more than the desktop FF.
Actual answer?
Not a reason to hate it though, just a reason why sadly Chromium-based browsers are preferable for now
No hate on FF mobile from me, but I can objectively say Chrome, at least visually and subjectively, performs noticably faster than FF. That said, I still prefer FF over Chrome.
My mobile FF install runs uBlock origin, which blocks youtube ads btw, this is enough for me to use it exclusively. That it syncs with my desktop FF is just a nice bonus.
any benefits over using newpipe?
I was happy with chrome performance. After switching to FF, based on the accolades on Lemmy, I've been mostly happy... But fuck if there's not major lag at times. It isn't connection related, as I've immediately popped over to Chrome for that site and had no issue.
I'm not unhappy with Firefox, but I notice it's presence, which is not what I want in a browser.
iirc the firefox javacript interpreter is much slower than chrome's. I guess the lag is most noticable in JavaScript heavy sites?
Idunno, i had mega lag after hitting enter on a duck duck go search in the address bar.
i feel like its laggy
i use voyager for browsing lemmy on firefox, it often freeze while chromium fork doesn't do that
Are you using a potato? I've never had an issue. FF with ublock ftw
It lags a lot on some websites, but it's fine for most
We don't do that here
Get your forks out
Good. Now, stop being forced as a snap, please.
You could always use a distro made by sane people.
Bro, I've been using Kubuntu for 4 years, it's the most I have spend with a single distro, but I'm this close to jump to Debian 12 (in fact I just tried it with VirtualBox today), I'm just waiting for the weekend because job.
I have also used Ubuntu when they sent out those free CDs. And for work when they had the Unity desktop (12.04 LTS). It was a good distro once.
I am pretty happy with the Arch (btw) I installed as a VM on Ubuntu 12.04 and then used as my main OS on the new work PC since 2017.
The memories. My first LiveCD was 10.04. Distro-jumped for some years, then left Linux altogether for some more, and returned and stayed with it.
As a user of Windows my entire life, I've tried Ubuntu and Manjaro before and went back to Windows. I randomly felt like trying Linux again recently and set up Debian 12, and am finally not going back.
Your words are encouraging.
Yea do it. It boggles my mind why anyone would use Ubuntu at this point. Makes more sense to use Mint, even.
Kind of crazy that Ubuntu has some packages exclusively as snaps...
Crazy is installing a package through apt and having it install the snap.
This... If I wanted an app in snap form, I would install it through snap instead. But installing an app through apt redirects to snap? No. It's ridiculous and unacceptable.
Holy shit, didn't know that
It makes sense that they don't want to maintain 2 versions. What doesn't make sense is that when you ask it for an apt, instead of saying "this package isn't avalible as an apt" and maybe "by the way it is available as a snap if you want", it just installs the snap without telling you.
Canonical is not maintaining fuck-all. They're just re-distributing Debian packages (sometimes with a few patches on top at most). The Debian team is doing all the heavy lifting of packaging software (including
firefox-esr).It's not a technical limitation that Canonical doesn't offer firefox as a deb. It's an intentional attempt to trap people into their walled garden.
I didn't say it was a technical limitation, I said it was laziness. Even if they just straight up take the deb from Debian, they are still responsible for if it works well on Ubuntu.
Anyway, it's hardly a very good trap. You can still download the deb from Debian, or use Mozilla's ppa, or use flatpak. Or hell, snap is the main difference between Ubuntu and Debian at this point anyway, so just use any other Debian distro. I hate to be the person defending Canonical here as I vastly prefer community distros, but when the vast majority of people are using OSs from Microsoft, Apple and Google, painting Canonical as a big greedy villain sounds like a joke.
I hate it.
https://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2022/04/how-to-install-firefox-deb-apt-ubuntu-22-04
Unfortunately this is the best you can do with Ubuntu based systems
Browsers are cyclical like fashion, I guess.
Remember when chrome launched and they had all those commercials showing how fast it loaded webpages?
If browsers are like fashion, Firefox is a well-tailored suit. Never out of style.
@imaqtpie @The_Picard_Maneuver, in Vivaldi you can create your own style to your like and need, or also download one of te more than 3500 user made themes.
https://themes.vivaldi.net
Yeah, Vivaldi is the best chromium-based browser. Personally, I use it a secondary for sites that were made to only display right on chromium browsers. Librewolf, a privacy-focused fork of Firefox, is the one I use as a main browser.
Vivaldi looks cool, and I have heard tell that Mozilla is far from its former glory, but my user experience on Firefox is excellent so I have no reason to switch
@imaqtpie, that is the point, the best browser is the one which suits the best your needs and use.
Apart of Vivaldi as main browser, I also have Firefox and the Otter Browser for test reasons (f.Exmpl to see if an isue is due to Chromium or general, FF with Gecko and Otter with Qt5)
Yeah for sure. You're much more advanced than I am, let's just say it's not a coincidence that I'm on sh.itjust.works 😅
@imaqtpie, I don't think so, I only a normal user with the experience since my first modem with 56k.
Vivaldi since 7 years, which fits all my needs, due it's more a Internet suite than a browser, with all the funcionality you mauy need, without using extensions, apart of the end2end encrypted sync with Vivaldi Mobile, without sharing userdata to Google (Alphabet), what Mozilla does.
Does it have adblock?
This is objectively false. The best browser is the one that gets the job done and doesn't have endless absolutely terrible security vulnerabilities (e.g. IE before they switched to Edge which is just Chrome) or intentionally leaks your private information (e.g. Edge leaking every site you visit to Bing and Chrome doing the same but with Google).
Also, from a performance perspective "the best" is obviously objectively measurable and Firefox just took the crown which is what the post is all about. Realistically though both Chrome and Firefox have had completely acceptable levels of performance (imperceptible differences to normal humans) for like a decade. So it's probably not that big a deal.
A bigger deal for normies using their browser IMHO is memory utilization which is a much bigger factor than, "how fast does the browser load and run HTML, CSS, and JavaScript?" Just ask Google how much more memory efficient Firefox is! LOL
https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=firefox+vs+chrome+memory+utilization
I use firefox and I like it but they have been dumbfying their UI and nagging users to use pockets.
Why on earth would I need to go to about window to update? Also, I don’t know where to find extensions so I just choose addons then manually go to extensions.
Hm, where do they nag? I don't know what Pockets is and haven't seen anything about it.
I also never manually update Firefox, I just restart when it tells me it's downloaded an update.
Every other update would show an ad to use it. Also, you cannot remove it afaik.
Remove it where? If its the toolbar, you can just remove it from the
Customize Toolbarmenu. If it is the home/new tab page, you can remove it by clicking the settings gear at the top right of that page and disable the option (or from the main brwoser settings area). If you use Firefox Account syncing (or just sync your Firefox profile folder via other means) then that option persists across different devices accordingly too. This page explains how to disable any Pocket integration, including the ones that I've mentioned here, along with even the "Save to Pocket" menu entry that comes up when right clicking a link.You can remove it
You can with about:config flags, you can also set the API url to some random shit so it can't even ping Mozilla.
Going to the about window to check for updates is a decades old thing among thousands of different software(it's the same in Edge, Chrome, Opera(old and new), etc)
Clicking on the "Add-ons and Themes" literally takes you straight to the extension tab(extensions are add-ons).
First of all, I know other browsers keep update in about page, however, this is why I don't use them. It wasn't used to be in a burger menu tho.
Second, add-ons and theme isn't saying exactly "extensions". Also, it would take you to the last tab which is by default plug-ins. try it.
I like Firefox and I'd support the developers but they should stick to their roots to keep their current user base.
You can click the Extensions toolbar icon that was added by default for everyone a bit ago, and at the bottom of the list of your extensions it has a "Manage Extensions" option (it is actually pinned to the bottom of the visible menu, so even if you have enough extensions that it "overflows" into a scroll menu, the Manage Extensions button is always visible). That page lets you remove / configure any currently installed extensions, and has a search bar for the Extensions store as well.
Would love a more customizable UX for Firefox and the option of a more compressed UI. Aesthetically it definitely needs a rethink.
Agreed, this is the main reason I switched to Librewolf over official Firefox. Firefox has devolved into adware.
That's a gigantic stretch
Yup, the new FF UI is unbearable. And it was the last straw (among other things) that convinced me that it was time to switch to something else (after 20 years).
Yeah i can't stand it either, stayed on the old UI for 18 months or so until sites started breaking. I'm using this mod to make it work like the old UI and it's exactly the same, plus you only need to setup once updates haven't broken it for me so far. https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix
Thanks, I already knew about the "unfuck" fix made by Black. Too late for me, anyway. I have realized that Mozilla doesn't care about feedbak or users' opinion (or the users at all...), so I don't feel like supporting them anymore.
By the way, the fix is fine. But it is a matter of principle: people shouldn't have to waste their time unfucking Mozilla's fuckups and users shouldn't have to waste their time trying to make a browser usable. So, congrats, Moz Corp, you've managed to lose an hardcore user.
May I ask what are you using now?
Brave. I was between it and Vivaldi. Finally settled on Brave.
Never complained about its performance but that's awesome!
I'm still using Chrome, but it keeps getting shittier. At some point they'll push me over to Firefox. Hope Firefox can avoid getting shitty.
While Mozilla is far from perfect, I think they've managed to avoid getting shitty for almost 20 years.
That's because the Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit. They don't need to maximize value for their shareholders™.
Thank you Netscape for setting Navigator free!
The Enshitification cycle is a feature of for profit corporations, Google was always going to turn evil at some point.
The Mozilla Corporation is for profit, but they reinvest all of their profits. They are also wholly owned by the Foundation. You can't donate to Firefox.
Yes, and they've made some profit-driven decisions, such as pocket integration, but never on the level of what google does.
That's why I've said they are far from perfect (but the best we have).
And dropping Thunderbird :(
Although it seems to be doing well now under its own, newish commercial corporation.
It's coming along nicely. I donate and am a fan.
Somehow it's always the lead software in a category that becomes shitty while everything else is praised. Regardless of what's being talked about. (I know why)
People get used to it, it's "fine" but doesn't improve considerably or add anything exciting, so people get bored. I moved from Firefox to Chrome, and honestly Chrome feels smoother and uses less ram seemingly for me on my laptop. Aside from no support for vaapi on wayland, chrome is fine imo
How about today? I believe in you. You can do it! Break the cycle. Ditch the Chrome.
my friend actually convinced me to switch just a few days ago lol. i'm just super thankful that i could transfer all my bookmarks and stuff
Once you finish setting up and are happy, if you care about privacy and don't mind a little more upfront work, set up Multi account tabs. It "sandboxes" your logins and cookies to categories you choose. I have a category for each social media site, one for my finances, one for amazon, one for other shopping, etc.
I live by, "never do anything you don't have to." But seriously I have some things customized in Chrome I'd have to adapt to Firefox. It would take a little effort on my part and I just don't want to deal with it until I have to. I'm sure it will happen sooner than later. I think the deprecation of Manifest V2 is going to force it because my browser is essentially a uBO support system. Until then I'll keep slogging along.
Have you tried Brave? Idk the full story, but it is basically chrome with more privacy stuff and is way faster than normal chrome. Feels just like using chrome but faster.
Brave has recently had some controversy around selling user data for AI training and isn't really a great suggestion for privacy due to this.
I've been avoiding Chrome as devil avoids holy water for years. So I'm glad FF does well.
There's been a few comments on here talking about Firefox on Android being laggy compared to Chrome on Android.
Nobody seems to have mentioned this, but the main reason this is and/or appears to be the case is because Firefox is capped at 60Hz, whereas Chrome will display at 90Hz, making it feel much smoother.
No, I have no idea why.
Edit: The above is misinformation after I did some research - it appears that resisting fingerprinting causes the browser to set itself to 60Hz, but this can be disabled to get your screen's refresh rate, but of course this means throwing away a privacy protection...
Could be one of those "optimisations" some brands make. I wasn't getting 120Hz on all apps on my OnePlus device. I had to force it with developer options or some 3rd party app. Gave up, installed a custom ROM (LineageOS), and it's 120Hz all the time without any issues 😎
What is exactly being measured here? Someone care to elaborate what kind of things they kept into account?
It's this benchmark: https://browserbench.org/Speedometer2.0/
TodoMVC is a popular UI example use-case, which illustrates basic interactivity concepts. Webdevs will often implement TodoMVC when learning a new framework to get the hang of all the core concepts.
And well, there's a lot of frameworks, which may all have different performance in different browsers, so this benchmark tests many different implementations of TodoMVC, all done in different frameworks.
Ultimately, it tries to simulate normal web usage, it's not some speciality benchmark.
Exactly. Also, one might prefer 75, 80% of Chrome’s speed, but also 75% of the battery usage and maybe only 90% for RAM.
I for one would definitely not be against less battery usage on laptop/mobile
I would still use FF for moral reasons but I'd understand if uses it for the things you mention, but saying it's "faster" isn't really a good term in this case, faster in what? I mean, I'm not saying this is done in bad faith or anything, but would be even better if we could know that instead of simply clamoring over "fastness".
i had left firefox for a while due to the google ecosystem but i’m happy i came back to it.
Same. I have switched between the two several times, but I started on Firefox for a long time before switching, and now I've been back on Firefox for at least 5 years. There was definitely a good stretch of chrome in the early 2010s though.
Firefox is well clear by now. I'm also using the Android version, and I think it's great.
Firefox on Android using Ublock Origin is as good as it can get.
Factos
Most Google web apps (Maps, Earth, Gmail, etc) work in Firefox.
I just love reading post like this, congrats Firefox and f*** Google!
Damn that's huge improvements in a relatively short span of time. I'm just waiting for more features on Firefox Android.
Be aware that Firefox Android supports addons. So maybe there is already a fix...
Seriously, I learned Firefox supports addons on mobile and suddenly the Internet became useable again on my old smartphone. Ads made browsing for me borderline impossible.
Yeah. After years I had to make an urgent booking via chrome browser in an airport on my mobile. The website didn't work with firefox. when using chrome, I always add unlock origin and similar add blockers before I actually browse - and I was surprised, that Google Chrome on android doesn't even allow any extensions at all!
Blokada
@swnt @Extrahammer, Vivaldi Android has an inbuild ad and trackerblocker, same as in Desktop, apart an own feature to play YouTube Videos, because of this you don't need the YT app in Android.
But how would that solve the "works only on chrome" issue? It's certainly very bad website design to make the website only work with chrome and not other Browsers. And neither Firefox nor Vivaldi are blink engine based (which is what chromium, edge, safari etc. use). I'd have the same problem with Vivaldi as with Firefox. When this problem isn't there, I prefer to stick with firefox.
@swnt, Vivaldi is Chromium based (Blink). Never had any problems with Vivaldi in any page, but I know that some pages us the discriminating Browsersniffings, which should be illegal, but even with this I never had a problem, because Vivaldi appears by in their UA as Chrome, ever since Vivaldi removed their branding from the UA a few years ago because of these criminal practices of some pages.
Now in the Desktop browser you can even use BingChat, because Vivaldi automaticly switch its UA to EDGE
Ah, cool. Thanks!
Yes and they're awesome, but there's some QoL features in looking for. Like being able to enter reader mode from custom tabs, and set reader mode color scheme to match system theme, and more colors. Also dynamic color (Material You" support would be sweet.
What features are you missing?
For me, I l'd like to go into reader mode from custom tabs, for reader mode to sync with system color, and more colors on reader mode.
Also Material You/Dynamic Color for the UI would be awesome.
Improved PWA support would be nice, definitely lagging behind Chrome in terms of PWA implementation right now. Fission doesn't exist on Android yet, only desktop.
Have your collections be synced to your profile, which definitely seems like a design oversight right now.
Also better extension support since right now to add the non supported list it's a very complicated and convoluted process to do so that feels hacked in.
Regardless, I'm still very happy with the state of the Android browser and it by far beats out the other browsers imo. Stuff like uBlock Origin, much better reader mode then Chrome, and first party bottom toolbar puts it miles above the alternatives for me. Also because Firefox is awesome. I use a fork called Fennec which is just Firefox Stable without telemetry/analytics/proprietary blobs removed, and is available on f-droid.
For me, proper PWA support.
How is it not properly supported at the moment? Genuinely curious, I don't use PWAs a lot but when I have it has worked fine with Firefox.
The experience is not as smooth, it just looks snappier in Chrome. Also some features (like wake locks) are not supported.
Not sure, but Wiki has a bunch of footnotes that may explain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app#Browser_support
Edit: it's just this article, which seems like too much fluff to bother reading https://www.fastcompany.com/90597411/mozilla-firefox-no-ssb-pwa-support
This is not so much related to "proper" PWA support, but you can't install PWAs as desktop apps from Firefox, whereas you can from Chrome/Edge. It's the only reason I use Edge, just to locally install PWAs.
I use this addon to get "installable" PWAs and it works great for me. I use three installed PWAs regularly and have several more installed.
Can anyone verify that this is also true for platforms beyond windows (what is plotted in the link by default)?
(I tried to change the plot to show macOS and Linux, but the plotting site is dubiously functional on mobile, plus there are a bewildering number of plot options with long, confusing names).
https://mozilla.social/@stevetex/110719022092047831
Here are the Linux results. macOS looks a bit different as well.
Awesome. What’s the difference between the three plots here?
Different tests on macOS. See the link for Linux
So I tested both FireFox
and Edge 
real quick and it's true.
Although, I enabled every security and privacy setting on both (just about the same set of extentions also). But even then, even with a lower score, Edge still feels much smoother to use. Also, every time test refreshed, FF flashed white for a split second as opposed to Edge's black. Since I use dark mode and Dark Reader, it's extremely annoying on FF's part.
Chromium-based browsers still trounces Firefox on the Jetstream benchmark. I mean, I realize the Speedometer benchmark is supposed to test real-world scenarios, while Jetstream is more synthetic, but whatever work mozilla did to improve performance I'd expect to scale in other benchmarks too, so I'd expect Firefox to at least be bit closer to Chromium, even if losing a little.
Mozzila re-writing parts of the browser in the rust programming language has made a decent improvement to the performance. For those who aren't to into programming rust is has a strict compiler, meaning better code quality (Less Bugs) and offers more optimization methods then other programming languages.
Fennec from fdroid, for android, is even better as it didnt originate from google play store. My understandong is Google Playstore injects data into the app package. I use fennec for my day to day access. It syncs with desktop Firefox so all my passwords and logins are there.
There is also Firefox Nightly for "developers". I use it for the custom add on packages and doom scrolling.
Google playstore does not inject data in app packaging because it doesn't own the signature key. F-Droid, however, does. I mean, they own the signature, but they do not inject or modify apps. They could, though.
do you know of any app developers that publish their signature, so one can compare it with the one in Google Play?
I would love for my banks to do this, for example..
Some developers will publish their apps on github, you can download it, and use a different app to get the apk file from the app you get from the play store, and compare the hash of the file. If they're identical then Google didn't meddle with it. If they're not, either Google did, or the developer releases a different version to Google Play.
As long as they can't manage to make a half-decent mobile browser this hardly matters.
Performance improvements are nice and all, but unless the performance is truely terrible, it's the least relevant factor.
Much more importent are:
Their Android version is completely useless since the reboot (which is especially sad since the version before was hands down the best UX for a mobile browser on the market). They even dropped their VR version, even though it was literally just their Android version with slightly adjusted UX. They don't even have any form of tablet UI or Android TV UI.
And since their market share is steadily approaching zero, more and more websites drop support for FF and it's noticable.
The support part is what really kills FF, since it's not really in their hands whether web devs test websites with FF.
Lower market share -> less support -> lower market share.
Especially users who "just want the browser to work" are affected by that. They don't care much about the browser, but about the websites. And if their favourite websites tell them to stop using FF, they will. And that kind of user makes up the biggest part of the market share.
And since FF has no platform where they can push their browser (contrary to all other major browsers), they also won't get new users.
As much as we would want it otherwise, FF is dead, they just haven't accepted it yet. And that's true for almost all Mozilla products and Mozilla itself.
The only way I see how this can be reversed is if e.g. the EU decides that Mozilla and/or its products have some special value and starts funding and pushing them.
What is actually your problem with Android FF? I use it every day on my phone.
Yes, it's not as snappy as Chrome, but besides that everything works perfectly. In addition to that: Fully fledged ad-blocker like on desktop, one big reason why I no longer use Chrome on my phone.
Compare that to e.g. Vivaldi:
The only advantage FF on Android has over Vivaldi is that it's easier to access the reader mode on FF for Android.
you can use every extension for firefox desktop on mobile, you just have to add them to a collection
And in basically every instance a FF desktop extension that wasn't made for the new FF on Android will not work on it.
I tried Vivaldi, don't really even see a difference between the tab drawers. Except Vivaldi does have bigger tab previews and buttons which feel easier to press. The lack of tab reordering in private mode definitely seems like an oversight.
Tabs in tablet mode would definitely be cool too, but I don't know what the experience is like on tablet.
On Android you can just long press links to open private tab or new tab. Seeing Vivaldi's feature bloat if a bottom bar with infrequently used buttons that blocks viewing space, and a completely unnecessary tab bar on mobile that wastes space, feels like an ancient outdated design from 5+ years ago.
That's kind of Vivaldi's design though, ridiculous feature bloat and cluttering the screen with useless crap instead of trying to preserve screen space when these single press buttons can easily be moved to gestures or condensed. You know, like modern UX design. Like a third of my screen is just gone because of of redundant buttons and UI. Reminds me of Internet Explorer days with Yahoo toolbar.
Just to make sure, we are talking about Vivaldi on Android, correct?
What buttons do you mean? The only two buttons that I see added from Firefox are the history and the adblocker control. Both pretty useful. I also don't see how they block viewing space. What else do you want to view in the bottom bar?
... that can be turned off if you don't like it. Also it's an absolute killer feature and one of the main reasons why I chose Vivaldi over FF. If you don't like it, you can turn it off. I much rather have the option to enable/disable a function than to not have the function at all.
Try to drag-and-drop a tab. In Vivaldi, it works exactly as expected.
On FF it first goes into the multiselection mode and only if you drag it over its stubbornly clingy dead zone can you rip it from its position. ~1/4 of the time the whole screen jumps to a random position, especially if you have many tabs. If you drag too early, the tab doesn't get moved at all, but instead the whole screen moves.
Other than that, I see that they fixed some of the jankiness that it had a year ago when I last seriously used FF on Android.
Gestures are one of the dumbest UX decisions possible, because they lack affordability in most cases. Stuff like swipe to reload/go back/go forward is pretty dumb because you trigger it accidentally a lot.
What kind of screen size do you have? On my screen, the bottom bar and the tab row take up maybe 5% of the screen real estate. And again, if you don't like it, disable the tab bar and make the bottom bar auto-hide.
I haven't used a different browser in a good while, so I'm not sure that these issues don't exist elsewhere, but here's a few:
For a very long time after the rework, reordering tabs was not possible. Only recently was this added again. But there seems to be no acceleration, so moving an old tab to the front takes forever. Even worse, this feature is still not available for private tabs (since you can't select those at all).
Quite often when I switch to the tab overview, it doesn't automatically scroll to my current tab so I need to do that manually.
I'm also not a fan of the "jump back in" view that shows up every so often instead of the content of my tab. Why they would assume I'm interested in anything besides what I intentionally opened is beyond me.
Creating a new tab is more cumbersome than it needs to be. I think you were able to do that by scrolling to the right on the address bar of the rightmost tab. A dedicated button would be even better.
I think it's a great browser, and pretty much the only one I use, but in my experience everything does not work perfectly.
I don't use desktop FF, but mobile off is the best there is around by the virtue of letting you use addons, and thus, an adblocker.
Without explaining the actual problems you have with Firefox on Android, your post is really pointless.
Also, "steadily approaching zero" is an intelligent an analysis as saying Edge is steadily approaching 100% just because its share is increasing.
Can you give an example of websites not supporting Firefox?
From a personal use perspective, I have rarely encountered sites that do not work on Firefox, especially in recent years. Two years ago I may have needed to keep a Chromium browser around but recently I have had no issues.
And from a professional perspective, dropping support for Firefox would be asinine. Most modern web frameworks handle browser compatibility for you, and you essentially get it for free these days. It is almost no extra effort to be compatible to all modern browsers, so why stop? Firefox is has great browser support in general and is far better than the current state of Safari
I agree that they don't have a device which they can use to force or promote their browser like other companies can. Which is a shame and is why they should perhaps try to advertise more aggressively. However, it's a free, open source browser, I don't really want them to advertise or be profit driven
I don't keep a log of websites that don't work on FF. The last one I came across is joyn.de, a TV streaming site. They don't tell you that it isn't working on FF, it just crashes when trying to play a video.
For simple stuff not supporting FF is really asinine, but for deeper stuff, like hardware accellerated video streaming, it's not quite as easy. Especially if you are, for some reason, stuck with old frameworks or in-house developed stuff.
Actually, the application that I work on (b2b software) frequently has FF-only bugs, because the frontenders in my team refuse to test every commit on FF. It's just me finding the bugs randomly.
The thing with free and open source is that it's not free to develop. Mozilla still needs to pay the development. Even though the source is open, 99% of the development is done by full-time (and obviously paid) Mozilla employees. Being open source doesn't really help Mozilla bring down the development costs at all.
And that's the second major point where Mozilla is in trouble: They don't really have any sustainable income.
I want to use the same (synced) browser across all my OS's, so the main reason I stopped using Firefox is because their Android tablet UX sucks.
Vivaldi works great though on all my devices and I'm super happy with it.
Um, what? Last I checked, Firefox was the only mobile browser that supports extensions, including the all-important uBlock Origin, without which the web is basically unusable.
What in the world are you talking about? I'm writing this comment in Android Firefox. It works fine. It's my daily driver. I only use Chrome for testing.
If a website doesn't work in Firefox, there's a problem with that website, not with Firefox.
I've done my share of web development. I had to deal with IE6 compatibility for years. Firefox is a dream come true compared to what I've been through. I test my work in all three major browsers, and I suffer no excuses from developers too lazy to do the same. Especially now that there are only three of them.
That's the real problem. That's illegal, by the way; Microsoft got sued for bundling IE with Windows. Pity the courts these days don't care about upholding the law.
Kiwi Browser gives you all desktop chrome addons. Yandex as well, if you prefer Russian surveillance over US surveillance.
Even Samsung's browser offers addons.
And Vivaldi has about everything I need (including an uBlock compatible adblocker and dark mode for websites) integrated directly into the browser.
That's good of you, and as a dev I also test on FF (contrary to many of my colleagues), but that's not what everyone does. And thus, as a user, I frequently stumble over stuff that doesn't work on FF.
If everyone felt like that, don't you think FF on Android would have a market share higher than 0.48% on mobile?
That, again, comes down to maket share. If FF on Android was alcohol, it's market share could be legally called "alcohol free" (at least over here).
No market share -> no financial incentive to fix websites for that browser -> broken websites -> reduced market share
It actually isn't. Microsoft got sued in 2001 (so 22 years ago, and that matters), and they only got sued to open up their OS so that users could replace the browser if they wanted to. They were actually not prohibited from bundling IE with Windows.
And putting ad-banners on their own website to market their own browser (like Google is/was doing with Chrome on the Google search site and on Youtube) was never part of anything like that.
Unfortunately, maybe, illegal no.
Ad blockers (that actually work) will not be allowed in desktop Chrome starting next year.
I don't. Better to be under the surveillance of one country than two.
Those two are not FOSS, so they are immediately suspect.
And that's your cue to leave and look for an alternative to that website.
No one ever accused the general public of being well informed.
False. Microsoft never stopped users from installing other browsers. The issue was that IE was bundled with Windows, and other browsers were not.
From Wikipedia: “The government alleged that Microsoft had abused monopoly power on Intel-based personal computers in its handling of operating system and web browser integration. The central issue was whether Microsoft was allowed to bundle its IE web browser software with its Windows operating system. Bundling the two products was allegedly a key factor in Microsoft's victory in the browser wars of the late 1990s, as every Windows user had a copy of IE. It was further alleged that this restricted the market for competing web browsers (such as Netscape Navigator or Opera), since it typically took extra time to buy and install the competing browsers.”
That it is not, but it is an anti-competitive practice: using one monopoly (on web search) to create another (on web browsers). I'm not certain whether this particular anti-competitive practice is illegal yet, but it needs to be.
Ok, there is no point in arguing with you. You haven't read up on the backgrounds, you haven't tried to understand, and you are arguing from fundamentalist viewpoints.
No point in talking with fundamentalists. It just goes in circles.
You just kinda listed bad website compatibility like 5 times. That's not even true lol, it's very rare there's a compatibility issue, and it's also very rare that websites refuse to support it. Can't think of any right now actually.
Most of the issues is because Chrome actually incorrectly adds something, or has a bug. Then for compatibility sake, Firefox has to actually match that broken buggy implementation so the end result is the same. This is another big reason why a chromium monopoly is bad.
Also the Android UX being bad is just funny to me. I find it by far the best, and you should absolutely not be speaking for other people. Would like to know what actual browser you think has better UX? Considering it's been so long since they changed the UI, I think you must've forgotten how truly bad it was before. Also that they added support back for some missing stuff people wanted, like grid list for tabs.
Happens often enough. Just the other day I tried to watch something on joyn.de (a TV streaming service) and the videos just wouldn't play on Firefox. Had to actually switch over to Chromium to get it working.
That's a frequently stated topic that's suspiciously always lacking any sources. Also, if you have >50% market share and if your engine has >75% market share, is there something like "incorrectly adding" something? Incorrectly as stated by whom? By the makers of a browser with <3% market share?
Well, if everyone is using Chromium, there is no such thing as an engine that has to implement someone else's stuff.
Tbh, I really don't miss the early 2010's when web development meant you had to test on 10 different engines
Just to check, I reinstalled the old version of FF and the UX is amazing compared to the current one. It really is. If you want one that is closely comparable, checkout Vivaldi. FF feels like a student's hobby project compared to it.
Never heard of that site nor can I test it, I'll just take your word since I can't find any examples myself. Clearly a bit toxic against Firefox here lol.
Web market share doesn't mean anything. Web follows standards decided by w3c that every web renderer follows. None of them get it exactly right because web browsers are extremely complicated and there's all sorts of edge cases. When Chrome or Firefox have mismatching behavior, the one following w3c is correct, the other one is objectively bugged. This is not opinion, this is following documented and mutually-agreed standards. Which Google and Mozilla are both on the w3c commitiee. I'll let you look into if you care. This also doesn't mean that Chrome will fix all their bugs either.
Just going to disagree with you with the UX because it's clearly subjective, but modern UX design heavily disagrees with you. Having a single visible button for every possible action is not good. It's a waste of space and clutter if it can be condensed or moved to a more intuitive action/gesture. More screen space the better.
The Firefox version on f droid is pretty good - using that right now
I guess we found a chrome fanboy that think being edgy at trolling.
I don't even use chrome... But apparenty I found the Firefox fanboy who gets butthurt whenever someone says anything about the difficulties of the thing they fanboy...
Sadly, this kind of attitude makes it really hard to (a) actually leverage constructive criticism and (b) drives people away from using the product the fanboy is defending.
But yeah, if it makes you feel better to hurt Firefox and it's community, it's your call.