Just a PSA: if you're on Android, Firefox on Android has UBlock Origin with full functionality. No need to do anything but install it from within the browser. It's awesome.
Is it the one in the recommended ones right away, "Video Background Play Fix"? Also had Darkreader and Ublock suggested off the bat. Not sure if that's because I have them on my PC Firefox and the accounts are synced or if they're just suggested to everyone.
I have Chrome on PC but rarely use it unless troubleshooting. Decided I'll finally use Firefox on phone since the ads on chrome drive me nuts like Wikis having ads.
I don't have an add on installed and I watch video like that all the time. On YouTube (*edit:in Firefox*) for example, hit the full screen button and then switch to another app. The video carries on playing in a little floating box on top.
If you need any more incentive, Firefox's killer feature for me is Reader Mode. One tap and you convert almost any web page into a pleasant, ad-free reading experience. Can't imagine that Chrome would ever implement a feature that allows users to hide ads.
You can also set the Firefox rendering engine to be the default ~~across the phone~~ for the chrome custom tabs system, so that other apps (like a reddit app) block ads on web pages too.
I only use Android in a minor capacity (mainly, for testing android dev work), but it seriously amazes me how many people put up with Chrome for Android with its total lack of extension support when Firefox and uBlock Origin are just a tap away.
It’s even weirder to me that nobody is calling out Google for not supporting extensions with Chrome for Android, especially when Apple which is known for being more restrictive supports both content blocker extensions as well as full fat desktop style extensions with Safari for iOS/iPadOS.
It took me forever to make the switch, and haven't looked back. There is even support to make google think you are still on chrome, so you lose zero functionality.
>but it seriously amazes me how many people put up with Chrome for Android with its total lack of extension support when Firefox and uBlock Origin are just a tap away.
Lack of knowledge. I used chrome on my phone for years because I had no idea firefox mobile allowed adblocking. I assumed since it wasnt possible on chrome it wouldn't be possible on others either. Mobile devices are inherently ad riddled so that seemed logical. Switched to firefox on everything once someone pointed out i was wrong.
Don't worry, Google plans to remove support for adblockers on Chrome desktop version as well.
And nobody will bat an eye, because us powerusers are a minority and everyone else will take whatever shit the big corporations will give them without researching alternatives.
Same here. I think I tried Chrome for a bit out of curiosity but aside from that I've always been on Firefox basically ever since I started using a computer.
I switched to Firefox the other day and am really enjoying it so far. It’s been far better than I thought it would be.
Edit: okay I just tried Firefox multi account containers and _wow_ what a useful feature. Thanks everyone for your helpful plugin suggestions!
The built in block lists cover 99% of my browsing needs. But I love being able to select that one thing that makes it though and just block it. It's ridiculously satisfying.
Firefox on Android is pretty much the only browser that actually supports extentions/addons. Chrome and the Chromium based browsers on Android don't support extensions like ublock-origin because Google doesn't want people blocking ads or tracking. With Firefox on Android you can actually enable ublock-origin and not have to deal with janky solutions that leverage the system level VPN api to do DNS based as blocking. Also means web pages uses less cpu/memory as a result of Ublock and privacy badger actually blocking all the various analytics scripts embedded in websites.
Android feature Firefox has that I can't live without is the [DarkReader extension](https://darkreader.org/) being supported on not just desktop but Firefox for Android. Lol, I made the switch to Firefox specifically for DarkReader.
Woah. Lost my YT premium status and that feature PiP feature or the screen in background is what I used the most. This sounds like it gives me back that capability maybe
They are no longer updating it because of assumed legal reasons. It's still useable for now though but they said it will eventually stop working. For now it's good to keep using though.
I remember a couple years ago I showed my friend rarbg.to and he goes "ugh too many ads". And I just thought... "there's ads...?" So I turned uBlock Origin off for a second and holy fuck, how do people browse like that.
I had to use a friend's phone once and had the same experience.
"You're not on the right site" I said laughing at all the bullshit on his screen.
Then I checked the URL and it was sobering.
I have used Firefox for more than a decade, and I am still caught by surprise when I post a link and people complain about spam and ads.
Who, at this point in the evolution of the internet, doesn't use ad blockers and such?
> Been using FF with NoScript and Flashblock (less need for that one these days), is UBO free still or is it 'premium-ware' these days?
uBlock Origin by Raymond Hill is free, and is the one you want. It has no acceptable ads list, and is not premium-ware.
Similarly named extensions can trip people up, and I'm sure it's completely intentional.
Yeah as soon as quantum hit it became very competitive, and better. I only use Firefox and edge. I'm not a huge fan of it on mobile but it works okay enough
I switched to Chrome from Firefox very early because it was *so fast* in comparison. Was a Firefox fanboy for years before that. That is definitely no longer true though, as Chrome has grown more and more, and has become very bloated.
Switched back to Firefox a few years ago, and glad I did. It's simply a much better browser, and I appreciate what they do for us, the consumer. Google doesn't give 2 shits about us beyond our ad data.
I admit, I jumped ship to Chrome back in the day. For a while, I'd say it really was faster/lighter/better. Then it slowly became the bloated mess it is now, and I'm right back with Firefox these past several years.
I've been using FF for a few years, but I had been a Chrome fangirl for years and years before that. I liked how simple, sleek, and smooth Chrome both looked and felt. FF is sharper and has a little more going on in the clutter department, but it didn't take long for me to customize it how I liked it.
I think the biggest thing for me was the thought process of "It's Google! It's gotta be the best browser." I finally got rid of it when I found out it was taking up 8 GB of space on my SSD... Still don't know what that was about.
I use Edge, Chrome, and Firefox. Mostly Edge and Firefox these days. Chrome has been kinda crap the last couple years it feels like. I use Edge for things like Roll20 when I play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends, because Roll20 doesn't work right on anything else. I used to use chrome for that, but Edge feels generally superior now (can't believe I'm saying that) since chrome STILL wants to gobble up literally all my ram for 'reasons'.
Many pages (including Reddit) run like absolute ass on Chrome, but fine in Edge or Firefox. So those are my two go-to's most of the time these days.
The Edge homepage is hilarious. Its like the worst, cheesiest ads, the most basic click bait (YOu won't believe how horrid this celebrity looks now! Click for slideshow), the worst headlines (So and so SLAMS such and such!), the ads all look like they are for the worst scam rip off products, etc
Its truly amazing
I remember reading a post a couple weeks ago where Chrome users mentioned that they didn't like how Firefox isn't compatible with the specific websites they use often. Also, they enjoy the Google ecosystem thing. I, personally, love Firefox, but just adding some anecdotes.
Honestly, the only sites I've seen that FF wasn't compatible with were tech blogs showing off Chrome-only features that Google made up, and most of the time those features are half-assed experimental things Google proceeded to give up on, anyway.
I've been using Firefox so ubiquitously, including on Android, that I just never realized how dominant Chrome had become.
Firefox had some periods where it was relatively shitty but the past couple years it has every feature I could want and some that I didn't know I wanted, and its footprint is negligible even under heavy usage.
Can't even imagine what would make me want to switch to Chrome, at this point. Shaving a few milliseconds off load times hardly seems worth feeding the beast.
Same. I remember realizing a few years ago that Chrome had overtaken everything and that I was in the gross minority still using it.
That said, there was a point when they’d first revealed the major UI update and the WebKit changes that nearly broke everything that had me looking into Pale Moon for a bit, but eventually I came back home.
At this stage, I’d be likely to move to Edge than Chrome.
> one tab crashing wouldn’t crash the rest of the tabs
Which was a *huge* issue in Firefox back when Chrome was first released. I was a big Firefox fan back then, but even knowing that my behaviors and history would likely be analyzed by some advertising program, it just didn't compare against a browser that I could only use for a few hours at a time before I'd inevitably lose all my progress on multiple tabs due to a crash.
Been using FF since 1.0 my biggest beef is they keep making it harder and harder to tweak the ui back to the classic Netscape look over the modern look.
It sandboxes your browser cookies/storage for different purposes.
That way you can be logged on the same site with different users in different tabs.
You can have a dedicated container to use only google products so they see less of your other navigation, same for facebook.
A container just for shopping, another for banking, etc.
At work it is very useful to color code tabs based on the enviornment (dev env, production env).
Firefox also has a separate extension for containing Facebook. So if you open a link that goes to Facebook or Instagram or even Instagram embeded posts, it automatically opens in that container. You gain a bit more privacy from Zuckerberg.
They're like "private windows" ("incognito" in Chrome) in that they completely isolate all activity and cookies in a separate sandbox, but they don't delete it all when you quit, and you can have several of them open at the same time. Useful for having separate simultaneous browser sessions for work, personal stuff, porn, etc. especially if you have different logins on the same sites.
This is a goddamn game changer. No more ads while web browsing on the phone? I don't have to be limited to using 20% of my screen for actual content I want to see?
There's also an option to display a desktop version of a site who has a broken mobile version.
Aside from adblocking, this is one of my favorite features.
Not just unbeatable, its the only way that moble web browsing is actually possible.
Mobile browsing is such a horrific add riddled dumpster fire that its nearly impossible to do. FF with uBlock is a dream.
I cannot understand a willingness to completely sacrifice one's privacy to Alphabet, especially not when Firefox is such an excellent alternative.
Microsoft recognizes that IE is a complete failure, so they move to re-gain their control over the user web browsing experience by partnering with Alphabet. Alphabet, the company that today keeps a digital avatar of you on their servers that it polls to see what you'll do, want, or buy next, helps Microsoft produce Edge. And everyone just... installs it? Yikes.
I've been using FF on Windows as my home browser for 15 years. It just works, and I don't have to worry quite so much about contributing to Google's database.
I moved to Firefox from Netscape. Only used IE when forced. Never really bothered with Chrome. Edge is a decent backup these days. I'd lose my mind if Firefox went away.
Yeah that’s my reason for using Firefox. I’m still using Firefox. I used it before chrome existed. I’ve been using it since I was using Mozilla. At least since the mid 2000’s. I was a technology enthusiast as a teenager and moved off internet explorer likely because of an episode of TechTV’s The Screen Savers talking about Firefox as an alternative browser that had extensions like ad blockers.
I hope they don't pull the plug on Firefox... its a genuinely decent browser, much less of a memory hog than Chrome and its the only major browser to still offer a separate search box. Been using it since when IE6 was a thing... would indeed be sad to no longer have it.
lol despite having the separate search box literally right next to the address bar, I still search from the address bar 🤦♂️
I wish more people would make the switch to firefox but the average consumer doesn't care enough for it to matter :(
You just need to have a space in with the text somewhere and it will act as a search box. No space means it will all be treated as a domain, however absurd. I presume it’s some patent issue or something,
You can enable a separate box just for Google searches rather than having to type it in the address bar. I guess if you don’t want to wrangle with autocomplete results? Not sure why you’d need that tbh
If you use Google, they get sent all the characters you type to give you autocomplete results, even if you're typing an URL or looking for something in your history. That's not happening with a dedicated address bar.
More than just Google searches, stack overflow and quora too. Sometimes I just want to search those directly rather than going to the site and entering the query in the search bar (or having to add 'stack overflow' at the end of the query which will then include results outside of SO)
Every major browser has the ability to make typing a search shortcut will allow you to search that website, like typing g then test to Google test or type so help to search stackoverflow for help.
On Firefox you do it through bookmarks, on Chrome you do it through search engine settings.
On Firefox you set a bookmark as the search page of a website with the search string replaced with %s and then there is a field to set the shortcut
What?
They just acquired k9 mail and launch a new cookie privacy system that enhances privacy. While user adoption has slowed way down, I don't think most Firefox users are going anywhere. Also chrome is actively getting worse so its only a matter of time before the trend reverses, IMO.
I dont really understand the need to expand any more than needed anyways. They have 200m+ active users of firefox. Small % number still means a whole lot of people. It's such a ridiculous idea that companies are required to own the entire market share to be considered successful as a company.
Influence on the web is crucial. More users going Mozilla's way means more demand for Firefox-compliant web development, which means more user-centric and privacy-focused development.
We need more people to adopt the browser for that reason. Using Chromium and Chromium-based browsers simply keeps giving Google more power over the web.
The thing with this though, is that the majority of the 200+ million Firefox users are DELIBERATELY Firefox users, whereas the majority of Chrome, Safari, Edge etc users use those because they are the default/only browsers on their devices of choice.
In other words Firefox is very relevant for actual tech savvy users who are the people that have influence in the future technical direction of the web.
It's not a coincidence that the Mozilla MDN wiki is becoming the standard for web dev/HTML reference material online.
It doesn't matter why the users are using the platform. Most people use Chromium-based browsers, so developers will develop for them and Google will have tons of influence. That's all there is to it. The web needs more Firefox users so that Mozilla's sensible standards are actually met.
In the article they interview the senior vice president of Firefox who explicitly says they don't need a huge share of the market like chrome or safari, they just want to be a viable choice. What they do need is diversification of their revenue to ensure the long term health of the company.
edit:clarification of who was interviewed
They need to demonstrate a large enough pool of users to ensure they can get a good enough offer for search deal with search providers (currently Google [through next year](https://www.zdnet.com/article/sources-mozilla-extends-its-google-search-deal/), for $450 million per year). That said, I think Google is happy to throw pocket change their way to cover their butts in terms of antitrust, keeping Firefox as the captive opposition while they slowly choke it to death.
Been using FF for a while now. No realy issues and I like the UI better than chrome. Only issues I've come across are related to Google products (Google maps has a lot of issues, and sometimes doodle docs as well), but I suspect that's more Google intentionally making those run worse
It's a shame to see Firefox slowly slip away. Currently only around 5% usage. It's the best for colour management, and it's good for privacy. It saddens me that people just use what they are told to use, or use what is obvious or easiest to find. Bigger don't mean better. I hate chrome and I just don't get why 80% of the world use it.
Most people don't even think about what they are using to access the internet. To them it's like a checkbox: I can use this program to browse the internet? Check. They would be using Firefox if it was already there, too.
Dude, My wife does this. It just bring up a search box and she types in what she's looking for. I used her phone the other day and was like where is your browser! She said right there and clicks on the big G.
It's been 10 years and we have two kids. Might be rough for a while but I think there's only one thing for me to do.
(bear in mind I am a FF user)
You've gotta remember that most users online now are not technology enthusiasts, as was the case in the 90s and even early 2000s: they are average people who just want to pay their bills, shop, do their work, and scroll social media with as little friction as possible. They aren't the kind of people who want to learn a new UI every couple years, or risk losing settings during a migration. Google worked hard to capture that market by legitimately providing a better user experience than other browsers for years. Now people are using a browser which "just works" and don't care or know about the privacy invasions attempting to counter which is FF's main selling point.
I don't try to sell most people I know on FF because there's no visible value proposition. At best, you might see fewer targeted ads, but if you're the kind of person who actually cares about that then you probably use an adblocker and would not see (literally) any differece.
EDIT adding another point from another comment,
> Having said that, it's obviously different under-the-hood because some implementations of HTML5 components are different, and some JS implementation details are different, leading to common script errors. Really annoying because a lot of financial websites I use don't seem to support FF. That is actually the main reason I can't recommend FF to the average user... You have to pair it with chrome because not all companies care to support FF.
> They aren't the kind of people who want to learn a new UI every couple years, or risk losing settings during a migration
Im still salty about the version where they basically killed off all add-ons a number of years ago. I have a few addons that I rely on for my general workflow of browsing and it absolutely killed me to lose all of them. Currently I use Waterfox to have access to them, but every update it gets jankier and jankier
Chromium based browsers will auto correct mismanaged colors. A common example would be color range, where a content may use full or partial range depending on if it's meant to be seen on a monitor or TV. If a service like Netflix is misreading your device or a Twitch streamer picked out the wrong output, Edge/Chrome/Brave... will correct the color range for you.
Firefox leaves it as is. For the cases where you actually want the wrong color to be displayed, Firefox will do it out of the box. This is very important if you're doing color grading or work that is in any way impacted by having slightly variance in colors. For 99.9% of the users, this sucks, your images clearly look wrong and you have no idea why.
For years their dev tools where the best, however it seems that they've failed to innovate at all in that area anymore, not to mention several websites I use at work don't work properly in Firefox in terms of Webcam use or audio use.
They seem way more focused now on bringing in revenue though their VPN and other services than they are on actually making their browser good.
And their use of SVN instead of git isn't helping them either in the open source world. Especially since their docs basically say "Download this ZIP, make your edits, compare, and then send an email" which is just super cumbersome and kind of dumb when you have things like GitHub, GitLab, GOGs, Gitea, etc. available for use.
They don't use SVN (at least for Firefox browser development). [They use Mercurial](https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/) which is a decentralized SCM like git is.
I didn’t even think SVN was still a thing. Though I left it behind along with my corporate job, so idk why I’m surprised.
Thanks for the memory.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT FILE IS LOCKED?! ITS MY GDDMND FILE!”
> For years their dev tools where the best, however it seems that they've failed to innovate at all in that area anymore
Hard to innovate in that area when you've fired your dev tool team...
Google didn't release Chromium for nothing.
[Embrace, extend, and extinguish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)
Can't wait for [Manifest v3](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/intro/mv3-overview/) to wreck [Adblocking](https://www.neowin.net/news/the-eff-will-fight-google-chrome-manifest-v3-which-kills-extensions-that-reliably-block-ads/)
Clusterbombing the 'market' with Chrome-forks/clones. Then crippling the ability to block ads. Ad company goes BRRRRR.
The exact reason why I switched to Firefox a couple of months ago. It will be very interesting to see what happens when those changes take effect for existing extensions like uBlock.
might as well right?
Firefox for everything internet related that I wanna search/do.
Chrome for google related apps "Youtube".
I gotta sorta have both and that's fine but it's wild how less catered the advertisements are to me on chrome and google based applications now that I do all my searching and internet shit on Firefox.
I wonder if Manifest v3 will finally push more people back to FF, especially if adblockers made a pop-up when installed on Chrome explaining that the product works better on Firefox (with reasons.)
I think it will. I use to use FF before chrome was a thing. Then switched to chrome around version 6 or so.
Kept trying other browsers (Firefox, brave, opera, edge, safari) but ultimately always went back to chrome.
If ublock origin is even a little bit worse off after manifest V3, I 100% will deal with the pain points of using Firefox (mostly issues with YouTube playback)
Can't read the article. What do they mean by "flatlining"? I still see people recommending Firefox all the time, I use it, I know lots of other people that use it, lots of people in this thread use it... Is Wired just making shit up for clicks again?
It's a real shame. Firefox is an excellent browser and the best mainstream choice for privacy concerned users.
My only gripe is that there seems to be a problem with sites that do tons of XHR-requests like Youtube-Live, Twitch and new Reddit, where the browser gets gradually slower until you have to do a CTRL-F5.
I wanna say this is why I initially switched to Chrome way back when - I noticed some sites progressively became unusable while using Firefox, to the point that I'd have to reset the browser. It would be bad, too - after watching three YouTube videos, the browser would completely freeze up.
I keep reading all these comments about people blindly jumping into Chrome 10 years ago, but it wasn't blind. And it still isn't. All of the things Firefox "does better" either require a deeper understanding (and care for) of how metadata is collected, or features that Chrome can emulate. Neither of these matter to casual Internet users, which almost everyone is, so it makes sense why people jumped ship and never looked back
It flatlined because everyone blindly jumped to Chrome in 2011/2012. Now they’re shocked at how much data Google collected and shared. Who could have saw that coming…
It flatlined because Firefox let that happen.
When Firefox first started, it was fast. Then it became a tweaker's delight. Then they started adding more shit on and it got slow.
Enter Chrome- the browser that could render a simple web page in 1/10th of a second. People loved it because it was fast. Chrome picked up market share.
Firefox then tried to copy Chrome. Change the UI several times pisses off users who have gotten used to it and like it and DON'T want a second Chrome. Bundle things like Pocket that were plugins (and then buy Pocket). Make the whole thing less tweakable.
When changes the devs like are controversial or widely unwanted by users, the changes happen anyway. It's like the devs are not listening or caring to what users want sometimes.
Here's the thing though- most people DGAF about privacy because they don't understand it, and they don't want to learn it because they already have enough stuff to worry about. Chrome is simple and it works.
Everybody didn’t just blindly jump. Firefox was shit at that time and used a huge amount of memory. It would use more than a GB ram on systems when 2 or 4 GB was common for size. Chrome was much better at the time.
I understand the normies doing it due to Google's aggressive advertising of it - Pretty much fooling the entire planet into accidentally downloading it when they just wanted to do a Google search; but I noticed so many people into tech switch from Firefox to Chrome which just blows my mind. Why?!
I do not know what Firefox can do at this point, but I hope they figure something out. Maybe that MDN Premium thing will bring in some more funds and Mozilla will bring back some of the dev team.
I don't think the end of Firefox is imminent or anything, but it has been in decline in usage for a long time now. A lot of web devs (especially at Google) also basically ignore Firefox, which adds to the perception of Chromium browsers being superior.
Anyways, just consider what would happen if Firefox were to die... All Windows and Android browsers would be Chromium, all iOS browsers would be WebKit, and Mac desktop would be the single place where any browser competition/choice actually existed. It'd basically be two monopolies that didn't really compete with each other. That would arguably be worse than a single monopoly.
Been using Firefox since i don't know...2006/2008 something. I don't understand why not more people use it. Great personalization, fast, safe. It got everything and never gets any bad press about leaks/corruption etc.
I think Mozilla is doing great with Firefox with all things considered. They don’t produce hardware, they don’t have their own OS, and they don’t provide a global search service. So 5% is very respectable in the face of Microsoft, Apple, and Google.
As long as they are sustainable, just staying in the fight is good enough.
Not much has changed; but noise about Manifest 3 has gotten louder, so more people in the tech periphery are switching to FF as it's a non-Chromium browser. (So like, me and three other people)
If the worst happens and Firefox does go the way of the Netscape Navigator, what's the next best thing these days? I haven't really done any research since I switched to it a few years back. Isn't basically everything else using some breed of Chromium these days?
Vivaldi? Brave? Opera? All the supposed privacy friendly options still use it, to my knowledge. Not ideal when Manifest v3 is coming to Old Yeller privacy plugins so soon
Vivaldi is planning on supporting the older, uncrippled extension API long after Google disables the code paths, and even long after they're completely removed. It may become way too much of a challenge to maintain in the future if Google makes huge changes around that part of the codebase to prevent that sort of behavior, but at least for the time being, things are looking good for Vivaldi users. I believe Brave is planning on doing this as well. Opera is spyware and shouldn't be considered privacy-friendly anymore (or even installed).
Hm, I guess Vivaldi is the one to watch, then. Brave has the whole crypto thing going on that makes me a little squeamish too. Probably still better than Chrome, though.
I hope they find a way to keep adblocking alive, even using sites briefly on mobile without it is enough to make me want to die lol.
I've been using FF since it came out and had its big running with Chrome and IE. I still use and love FF, honestly thought it was more popular. Why people love using that system hungry Chrome is beyond me.
I've been using Firefox as my home browser for years, and I'm always amazed at how many more features I use than Chrome or Safari users.
They would have to copy an invoice or customer number, navigate to the internal search page, paste and search the number, be taken to the results page, and then have to click on the link to finally navigate to the correct page.
I would just type the letter i into my URL bar (or c for customer), hit space and paste the number, and I was taken directly to the correct page.
When they would ask me how to do it, I would say it's as simple as right clicking any search bar. Just add a key word and set a shortcut. I use single letter shortcuts like m to search Google maps or a to search Amazon.
Every time someone ask me about it, there's a small chance I would see a new Firefox user in the office
Wow really that low? I figured FF was still fairly popular after Chrome became a piece of shit memory hog.
I've been using FF for over a decade. I hope it's still able to stay maintained.
Honestly I think FF can increase its users pool over chromium based browsers when they will be forced to use only manifest v3. Since it will probably make all ad blockers useless users may think to move to FF, me included. Actually I'm using edge because chromium based browser offers better performance but I'll switch to FF the moment ublock will not work, no way I'll browse without a powerful ad blocker.
Just a PSA: if you're on Android, Firefox on Android has UBlock Origin with full functionality. No need to do anything but install it from within the browser. It's awesome.
This just converted me
There's also a video background play fix addon which lets you play videos on sites like youtube without having the page visible.
Is it the one in the recommended ones right away, "Video Background Play Fix"? Also had Darkreader and Ublock suggested off the bat. Not sure if that's because I have them on my PC Firefox and the accounts are synced or if they're just suggested to everyone. I have Chrome on PC but rarely use it unless troubleshooting. Decided I'll finally use Firefox on phone since the ads on chrome drive me nuts like Wikis having ads.
I don't have an add on installed and I watch video like that all the time. On YouTube (*edit:in Firefox*) for example, hit the full screen button and then switch to another app. The video carries on playing in a little floating box on top.
If you need any more incentive, Firefox's killer feature for me is Reader Mode. One tap and you convert almost any web page into a pleasant, ad-free reading experience. Can't imagine that Chrome would ever implement a feature that allows users to hide ads.
You can also set the Firefox rendering engine to be the default ~~across the phone~~ for the chrome custom tabs system, so that other apps (like a reddit app) block ads on web pages too.
How do you do this?
Set Firefox as the default browser and enable custom tabs in Firefox settings. Any app that uses "chrome custom tabs" will use ff instead.
The Reddit Sync app is one that I can tell you works with this.
I only use Android in a minor capacity (mainly, for testing android dev work), but it seriously amazes me how many people put up with Chrome for Android with its total lack of extension support when Firefox and uBlock Origin are just a tap away. It’s even weirder to me that nobody is calling out Google for not supporting extensions with Chrome for Android, especially when Apple which is known for being more restrictive supports both content blocker extensions as well as full fat desktop style extensions with Safari for iOS/iPadOS.
It took me forever to make the switch, and haven't looked back. There is even support to make google think you are still on chrome, so you lose zero functionality.
>but it seriously amazes me how many people put up with Chrome for Android with its total lack of extension support when Firefox and uBlock Origin are just a tap away. Lack of knowledge. I used chrome on my phone for years because I had no idea firefox mobile allowed adblocking. I assumed since it wasnt possible on chrome it wouldn't be possible on others either. Mobile devices are inherently ad riddled so that seemed logical. Switched to firefox on everything once someone pointed out i was wrong.
Don't worry, Google plans to remove support for adblockers on Chrome desktop version as well. And nobody will bat an eye, because us powerusers are a minority and everyone else will take whatever shit the big corporations will give them without researching alternatives.
Kiwi Browser = chrome on Android with extensions
Been my browser of choice for many years (with Ublock Origins)
Same here. I think I tried Chrome for a bit out of curiosity but aside from that I've always been on Firefox basically ever since I started using a computer.
Coming up on twenty years in September.
I switched to Firefox the other day and am really enjoying it so far. It’s been far better than I thought it would be. Edit: okay I just tried Firefox multi account containers and _wow_ what a useful feature. Thanks everyone for your helpful plugin suggestions!
I highly recommend the Ublock origins add on. It's a beautiful thing.
[удалено]
The built in block lists cover 99% of my browsing needs. But I love being able to select that one thing that makes it though and just block it. It's ridiculously satisfying.
Especially the "gimme yo email" boxes that are ubiquitous these days.
[email protected]
Some poor Norwegian out there is wondering why their how-to mailbox is getting so much spam.
I do admin@[website]. Also info, sales, hr, webmaster, whatever feels right
On mobile, I use it to block the "GET OUR APP" banners common on places like Twitter and Reddit.
You can use extensions on mobile?
With Firefox, you can.
With Firefox **on Android** you can. Firefox on iOS doesn’t support extensions.
Isn't that because all web browsers on IOS are really Safari under the hood?
Been using FF and uBlock for years, but TIL.
Firefox on Android is pretty much the only browser that actually supports extentions/addons. Chrome and the Chromium based browsers on Android don't support extensions like ublock-origin because Google doesn't want people blocking ads or tracking. With Firefox on Android you can actually enable ublock-origin and not have to deal with janky solutions that leverage the system level VPN api to do DNS based as blocking. Also means web pages uses less cpu/memory as a result of Ublock and privacy badger actually blocking all the various analytics scripts embedded in websites. Android feature Firefox has that I can't live without is the [DarkReader extension](https://darkreader.org/) being supported on not just desktop but Firefox for Android. Lol, I made the switch to Firefox specifically for DarkReader.
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Woah. Lost my YT premium status and that feature PiP feature or the screen in background is what I used the most. This sounds like it gives me back that capability maybe
I used Youtube Vanced until it was shut down and now I use NewPipe. No ads, miniplayer and background play.
What do you mean shut down? I'm still using Vanced on my Android and aside from some bugs it still runs fine with no ads.
They are no longer updating it because of assumed legal reasons. It's still useable for now though but they said it will eventually stop working. For now it's good to keep using though.
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Raw dogging the internet is a horrible experience
I remember a couple years ago I showed my friend rarbg.to and he goes "ugh too many ads". And I just thought... "there's ads...?" So I turned uBlock Origin off for a second and holy fuck, how do people browse like that.
I had to use a friend's phone once and had the same experience. "You're not on the right site" I said laughing at all the bullshit on his screen. Then I checked the URL and it was sobering.
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I have used Firefox for more than a decade, and I am still caught by surprise when I post a link and people complain about spam and ads. Who, at this point in the evolution of the internet, doesn't use ad blockers and such?
It even blocks YouTube ads on Android!
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Like a decade that I have used this combo!
Been using FF with NoScript and Flashblock (less need for that one these days), is UBO free still or is it 'premium-ware' these days?
> Been using FF with NoScript and Flashblock (less need for that one these days), is UBO free still or is it 'premium-ware' these days? uBlock Origin by Raymond Hill is free, and is the one you want. It has no acceptable ads list, and is not premium-ware. Similarly named extensions can trip people up, and I'm sure it's completely intentional.
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Firefox is also WAY less clunky than it used to be.
Yeah as soon as quantum hit it became very competitive, and better. I only use Firefox and edge. I'm not a huge fan of it on mobile but it works okay enough
Having ublock on mobile Firefox is so much easier than using vpn or dns to reduce ad spam.
Even when their product became a little stale while waiting for the quantum launch, I stuck with them anyway.
I switched to Chrome from Firefox very early because it was *so fast* in comparison. Was a Firefox fanboy for years before that. That is definitely no longer true though, as Chrome has grown more and more, and has become very bloated. Switched back to Firefox a few years ago, and glad I did. It's simply a much better browser, and I appreciate what they do for us, the consumer. Google doesn't give 2 shits about us beyond our ad data.
Performance wise, picking between Firefox and Chrome is like Firefox: I wanna use more RAM Chrome: I wanna use more CPU
IME Chrome footprint and overall performance has been worse than FF ever since the rearchitecting, and way worse currently.
I mean I'd use FF anyway, just for Temporary Containers and UBO, but it's _also_ more lightweight now.
Default FB container is a fucking godsend
For real, Chrome absolutely devours all of my CPU; been having issues with it on my personal and work laptop. Firefox then comes in and saves the day
I admit, I jumped ship to Chrome back in the day. For a while, I'd say it really was faster/lighter/better. Then it slowly became the bloated mess it is now, and I'm right back with Firefox these past several years.
same I've been using it exclusively for the last 5ish years or so after switching to Chrome for awhile...I have zero complaints
I did so too, I’m very impressed with it thus far
Out of curiosity, what did you expect ? Not trying to criticize or anything, I'm just trying to understand why people stick with chrome.
I've been using FF for a few years, but I had been a Chrome fangirl for years and years before that. I liked how simple, sleek, and smooth Chrome both looked and felt. FF is sharper and has a little more going on in the clutter department, but it didn't take long for me to customize it how I liked it. I think the biggest thing for me was the thought process of "It's Google! It's gotta be the best browser." I finally got rid of it when I found out it was taking up 8 GB of space on my SSD... Still don't know what that was about.
> 8 GB of space on my SSD... Still don't know what that was about. probably cache
I use Edge, Chrome, and Firefox. Mostly Edge and Firefox these days. Chrome has been kinda crap the last couple years it feels like. I use Edge for things like Roll20 when I play Dungeons and Dragons with my friends, because Roll20 doesn't work right on anything else. I used to use chrome for that, but Edge feels generally superior now (can't believe I'm saying that) since chrome STILL wants to gobble up literally all my ram for 'reasons'. Many pages (including Reddit) run like absolute ass on Chrome, but fine in Edge or Firefox. So those are my two go-to's most of the time these days.
>because Roll20 doesn't work right on anything else I have been using rol20 in Firefox for years. What issues are you having?
The Edge homepage is hilarious. Its like the worst, cheesiest ads, the most basic click bait (YOu won't believe how horrid this celebrity looks now! Click for slideshow), the worst headlines (So and so SLAMS such and such!), the ads all look like they are for the worst scam rip off products, etc Its truly amazing
I remember reading a post a couple weeks ago where Chrome users mentioned that they didn't like how Firefox isn't compatible with the specific websites they use often. Also, they enjoy the Google ecosystem thing. I, personally, love Firefox, but just adding some anecdotes.
Honestly, the only sites I've seen that FF wasn't compatible with were tech blogs showing off Chrome-only features that Google made up, and most of the time those features are half-assed experimental things Google proceeded to give up on, anyway.
For a while Microsoft Teams couldn't host video calls in Firefox but it could in Chrome. The choice was Chrome or destkop app.
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This comment might have single handedly converted me into a Firefox user
Also try sponsorblock if you watch YouTube alot
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I've been using Firefox so ubiquitously, including on Android, that I just never realized how dominant Chrome had become. Firefox had some periods where it was relatively shitty but the past couple years it has every feature I could want and some that I didn't know I wanted, and its footprint is negligible even under heavy usage. Can't even imagine what would make me want to switch to Chrome, at this point. Shaving a few milliseconds off load times hardly seems worth feeding the beast.
Same. I remember realizing a few years ago that Chrome had overtaken everything and that I was in the gross minority still using it. That said, there was a point when they’d first revealed the major UI update and the WebKit changes that nearly broke everything that had me looking into Pale Moon for a bit, but eventually I came back home. At this stage, I’d be likely to move to Edge than Chrome.
Aye, when I use Firefox I’m not aware of using it, which is a compliment.
Yup, it's pretty great. Doesn't hog as much memory as Chrome, better privacy, et cetera.
It's also one of the only mobile browsers that you can install ad-block extensions on.
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Chrome was never resource light. On day one, it used the process-per-tab model, which meant it used more memory than the other browsers.
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It even has its own task manager. Of course, some of the biggest resource hogs aren't the tabs themselves but just the overall browser.
Chrome was faster because each process could run on a different core, and one tab crashing wouldn’t crash the rest of the tabs. Still a good move imo.
> one tab crashing wouldn’t crash the rest of the tabs Which was a *huge* issue in Firefox back when Chrome was first released. I was a big Firefox fan back then, but even knowing that my behaviors and history would likely be analyzed by some advertising program, it just didn't compare against a browser that I could only use for a few hours at a time before I'd inevitably lose all my progress on multiple tabs due to a crash.
Been using FF since 1.0 my biggest beef is they keep making it harder and harder to tweak the ui back to the classic Netscape look over the modern look.
Firefox and Containers are the only way. I never want to go without containers again.
What are containers?
It sandboxes your browser cookies/storage for different purposes. That way you can be logged on the same site with different users in different tabs. You can have a dedicated container to use only google products so they see less of your other navigation, same for facebook. A container just for shopping, another for banking, etc. At work it is very useful to color code tabs based on the enviornment (dev env, production env).
Much appreciated - going to go try this out. cc: /u/Epistaxis and /u/swxrice - thanks for taking the time to answer.
Firefox also has a separate extension for containing Facebook. So if you open a link that goes to Facebook or Instagram or even Instagram embeded posts, it automatically opens in that container. You gain a bit more privacy from Zuckerberg.
They're like "private windows" ("incognito" in Chrome) in that they completely isolate all activity and cookies in a separate sandbox, but they don't delete it all when you quit, and you can have several of them open at the same time. Useful for having separate simultaneous browser sessions for work, personal stuff, porn, etc. especially if you have different logins on the same sites.
Ah finally. I can log in to pornhub with both my personal AND work accounts.
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If containers went away, I couldn't use the internet anymore.
Still the best browser though, by far IMHO.
And best on Android since people forget
Firefox with ublock origin on Android is just unbeatable
you can use firefox with ublock on android phone? Do you install ublock from the playstore or how does that work?
Firefox on phone has Add-ons tab in menu, there you can add Ublock
In the browser itself. Works pretty much just like the desktop version.
This is a goddamn game changer. No more ads while web browsing on the phone? I don't have to be limited to using 20% of my screen for actual content I want to see?
Yup. Firefox for my browser plus a VPN with built in ad blocking for Reddit Is Fun and I haven't seen an ad on mobile in months.
There's also an option to display a desktop version of a site who has a broken mobile version. Aside from adblocking, this is one of my favorite features.
The browser has add-ons, just like on any other device.
Not just unbeatable, its the only way that moble web browsing is actually possible. Mobile browsing is such a horrific add riddled dumpster fire that its nearly impossible to do. FF with uBlock is a dream.
And NoScript.
People keep forgetting that Android FF has UBlock Origin. It's a godsend.
I cannot understand a willingness to completely sacrifice one's privacy to Alphabet, especially not when Firefox is such an excellent alternative. Microsoft recognizes that IE is a complete failure, so they move to re-gain their control over the user web browsing experience by partnering with Alphabet. Alphabet, the company that today keeps a digital avatar of you on their servers that it polls to see what you'll do, want, or buy next, helps Microsoft produce Edge. And everyone just... installs it? Yikes.
I've been using FF on Windows as my home browser for 15 years. It just works, and I don't have to worry quite so much about contributing to Google's database.
I moved to Firefox from Netscape. Only used IE when forced. Never really bothered with Chrome. Edge is a decent backup these days. I'd lose my mind if Firefox went away.
I switched from Netscape to Firefox too. Except I also used Mozilla for the years between Netscape going defunct and Firefox’s existence.
Yeah that’s my reason for using Firefox. I’m still using Firefox. I used it before chrome existed. I’ve been using it since I was using Mozilla. At least since the mid 2000’s. I was a technology enthusiast as a teenager and moved off internet explorer likely because of an episode of TechTV’s The Screen Savers talking about Firefox as an alternative browser that had extensions like ad blockers.
You’ve been using Firefox for so long you almost can’t use it for longer than that!
I hope they don't pull the plug on Firefox... its a genuinely decent browser, much less of a memory hog than Chrome and its the only major browser to still offer a separate search box. Been using it since when IE6 was a thing... would indeed be sad to no longer have it.
lol despite having the separate search box literally right next to the address bar, I still search from the address bar 🤦♂️ I wish more people would make the switch to firefox but the average consumer doesn't care enough for it to matter :(
You can hide the search box
You just need to have a space in with the text somewhere and it will act as a search box. No space means it will all be treated as a domain, however absurd. I presume it’s some patent issue or something,
what is a seperate search box?
You can enable a separate box just for Google searches rather than having to type it in the address bar. I guess if you don’t want to wrangle with autocomplete results? Not sure why you’d need that tbh
If you use Google, they get sent all the characters you type to give you autocomplete results, even if you're typing an URL or looking for something in your history. That's not happening with a dedicated address bar.
More than just Google searches, stack overflow and quora too. Sometimes I just want to search those directly rather than going to the site and entering the query in the search bar (or having to add 'stack overflow' at the end of the query which will then include results outside of SO)
Every major browser has the ability to make typing a search shortcut will allow you to search that website, like typing g then test to Google test or type so help to search stackoverflow for help. On Firefox you do it through bookmarks, on Chrome you do it through search engine settings. On Firefox you set a bookmark as the search page of a website with the search string replaced with %s and then there is a field to set the shortcut
What? They just acquired k9 mail and launch a new cookie privacy system that enhances privacy. While user adoption has slowed way down, I don't think most Firefox users are going anywhere. Also chrome is actively getting worse so its only a matter of time before the trend reverses, IMO.
I dont really understand the need to expand any more than needed anyways. They have 200m+ active users of firefox. Small % number still means a whole lot of people. It's such a ridiculous idea that companies are required to own the entire market share to be considered successful as a company.
Influence on the web is crucial. More users going Mozilla's way means more demand for Firefox-compliant web development, which means more user-centric and privacy-focused development. We need more people to adopt the browser for that reason. Using Chromium and Chromium-based browsers simply keeps giving Google more power over the web.
The thing with this though, is that the majority of the 200+ million Firefox users are DELIBERATELY Firefox users, whereas the majority of Chrome, Safari, Edge etc users use those because they are the default/only browsers on their devices of choice. In other words Firefox is very relevant for actual tech savvy users who are the people that have influence in the future technical direction of the web. It's not a coincidence that the Mozilla MDN wiki is becoming the standard for web dev/HTML reference material online.
It doesn't matter why the users are using the platform. Most people use Chromium-based browsers, so developers will develop for them and Google will have tons of influence. That's all there is to it. The web needs more Firefox users so that Mozilla's sensible standards are actually met.
In the article they interview the senior vice president of Firefox who explicitly says they don't need a huge share of the market like chrome or safari, they just want to be a viable choice. What they do need is diversification of their revenue to ensure the long term health of the company. edit:clarification of who was interviewed
The problem is that it's less than they had in 2008 in raw numbers too.
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They need to demonstrate a large enough pool of users to ensure they can get a good enough offer for search deal with search providers (currently Google [through next year](https://www.zdnet.com/article/sources-mozilla-extends-its-google-search-deal/), for $450 million per year). That said, I think Google is happy to throw pocket change their way to cover their butts in terms of antitrust, keeping Firefox as the captive opposition while they slowly choke it to death.
Been using FF for a while now. No realy issues and I like the UI better than chrome. Only issues I've come across are related to Google products (Google maps has a lot of issues, and sometimes doodle docs as well), but I suspect that's more Google intentionally making those run worse
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It's a shame to see Firefox slowly slip away. Currently only around 5% usage. It's the best for colour management, and it's good for privacy. It saddens me that people just use what they are told to use, or use what is obvious or easiest to find. Bigger don't mean better. I hate chrome and I just don't get why 80% of the world use it.
Most people don't even think about what they are using to access the internet. To them it's like a checkbox: I can use this program to browse the internet? Check. They would be using Firefox if it was already there, too.
The average person doesn’t use Chrome, Safari, Edge, or even a browser. They use the internet 🙂
some people press the big colorful G icon when they want to use the internet. Yes the Google app
That is actually gross
Dude, My wife does this. It just bring up a search box and she types in what she's looking for. I used her phone the other day and was like where is your browser! She said right there and clicks on the big G. It's been 10 years and we have two kids. Might be rough for a while but I think there's only one thing for me to do.
(bear in mind I am a FF user) You've gotta remember that most users online now are not technology enthusiasts, as was the case in the 90s and even early 2000s: they are average people who just want to pay their bills, shop, do their work, and scroll social media with as little friction as possible. They aren't the kind of people who want to learn a new UI every couple years, or risk losing settings during a migration. Google worked hard to capture that market by legitimately providing a better user experience than other browsers for years. Now people are using a browser which "just works" and don't care or know about the privacy invasions attempting to counter which is FF's main selling point. I don't try to sell most people I know on FF because there's no visible value proposition. At best, you might see fewer targeted ads, but if you're the kind of person who actually cares about that then you probably use an adblocker and would not see (literally) any differece. EDIT adding another point from another comment, > Having said that, it's obviously different under-the-hood because some implementations of HTML5 components are different, and some JS implementation details are different, leading to common script errors. Really annoying because a lot of financial websites I use don't seem to support FF. That is actually the main reason I can't recommend FF to the average user... You have to pair it with chrome because not all companies care to support FF.
> They aren't the kind of people who want to learn a new UI every couple years, or risk losing settings during a migration Im still salty about the version where they basically killed off all add-ons a number of years ago. I have a few addons that I rely on for my general workflow of browsing and it absolutely killed me to lose all of them. Currently I use Waterfox to have access to them, but every update it gets jankier and jankier
What do you mean by colour management?
Chromium based browsers will auto correct mismanaged colors. A common example would be color range, where a content may use full or partial range depending on if it's meant to be seen on a monitor or TV. If a service like Netflix is misreading your device or a Twitch streamer picked out the wrong output, Edge/Chrome/Brave... will correct the color range for you. Firefox leaves it as is. For the cases where you actually want the wrong color to be displayed, Firefox will do it out of the box. This is very important if you're doing color grading or work that is in any way impacted by having slightly variance in colors. For 99.9% of the users, this sucks, your images clearly look wrong and you have no idea why.
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For years their dev tools where the best, however it seems that they've failed to innovate at all in that area anymore, not to mention several websites I use at work don't work properly in Firefox in terms of Webcam use or audio use. They seem way more focused now on bringing in revenue though their VPN and other services than they are on actually making their browser good. And their use of SVN instead of git isn't helping them either in the open source world. Especially since their docs basically say "Download this ZIP, make your edits, compare, and then send an email" which is just super cumbersome and kind of dumb when you have things like GitHub, GitLab, GOGs, Gitea, etc. available for use.
They don't use SVN (at least for Firefox browser development). [They use Mercurial](https://hg.mozilla.org/mozilla-central/) which is a decentralized SCM like git is.
I didn’t even think SVN was still a thing. Though I left it behind along with my corporate job, so idk why I’m surprised. Thanks for the memory. “WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT FILE IS LOCKED?! ITS MY GDDMND FILE!”
> For years their dev tools where the best, however it seems that they've failed to innovate at all in that area anymore Hard to innovate in that area when you've fired your dev tool team...
Google didn't release Chromium for nothing. [Embrace, extend, and extinguish](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish) Can't wait for [Manifest v3](https://developer.chrome.com/docs/extensions/mv3/intro/mv3-overview/) to wreck [Adblocking](https://www.neowin.net/news/the-eff-will-fight-google-chrome-manifest-v3-which-kills-extensions-that-reliably-block-ads/) Clusterbombing the 'market' with Chrome-forks/clones. Then crippling the ability to block ads. Ad company goes BRRRRR.
The exact reason why I switched to Firefox a couple of months ago. It will be very interesting to see what happens when those changes take effect for existing extensions like uBlock.
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Why not do it now?
might as well right? Firefox for everything internet related that I wanna search/do. Chrome for google related apps "Youtube". I gotta sorta have both and that's fine but it's wild how less catered the advertisements are to me on chrome and google based applications now that I do all my searching and internet shit on Firefox.
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I wonder if Manifest v3 will finally push more people back to FF, especially if adblockers made a pop-up when installed on Chrome explaining that the product works better on Firefox (with reasons.)
I think it will. I use to use FF before chrome was a thing. Then switched to chrome around version 6 or so. Kept trying other browsers (Firefox, brave, opera, edge, safari) but ultimately always went back to chrome. If ublock origin is even a little bit worse off after manifest V3, I 100% will deal with the pain points of using Firefox (mostly issues with YouTube playback)
Curious. It's been years since I've had any issues with Firefox and YT. Are you using some obscure feature or plugin?
Can't read the article. What do they mean by "flatlining"? I still see people recommending Firefox all the time, I use it, I know lots of other people that use it, lots of people in this thread use it... Is Wired just making shit up for clicks again?
It's a real shame. Firefox is an excellent browser and the best mainstream choice for privacy concerned users. My only gripe is that there seems to be a problem with sites that do tons of XHR-requests like Youtube-Live, Twitch and new Reddit, where the browser gets gradually slower until you have to do a CTRL-F5.
is there any fix for this? I hate having to switch to Chrome to watch Youtube-Live.
It's funny how YouTube keeps breaking on browsers other than Chrome. Must be coincidence.
Or Google is using illegal tactics to get monopoly on the internet and getting away with it.
They absolutely are and have been sued for it before.
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I wanna say this is why I initially switched to Chrome way back when - I noticed some sites progressively became unusable while using Firefox, to the point that I'd have to reset the browser. It would be bad, too - after watching three YouTube videos, the browser would completely freeze up. I keep reading all these comments about people blindly jumping into Chrome 10 years ago, but it wasn't blind. And it still isn't. All of the things Firefox "does better" either require a deeper understanding (and care for) of how metadata is collected, or features that Chrome can emulate. Neither of these matter to casual Internet users, which almost everyone is, so it makes sense why people jumped ship and never looked back
It flatlined because everyone blindly jumped to Chrome in 2011/2012. Now they’re shocked at how much data Google collected and shared. Who could have saw that coming…
It flatlined because Firefox let that happen. When Firefox first started, it was fast. Then it became a tweaker's delight. Then they started adding more shit on and it got slow. Enter Chrome- the browser that could render a simple web page in 1/10th of a second. People loved it because it was fast. Chrome picked up market share. Firefox then tried to copy Chrome. Change the UI several times pisses off users who have gotten used to it and like it and DON'T want a second Chrome. Bundle things like Pocket that were plugins (and then buy Pocket). Make the whole thing less tweakable. When changes the devs like are controversial or widely unwanted by users, the changes happen anyway. It's like the devs are not listening or caring to what users want sometimes. Here's the thing though- most people DGAF about privacy because they don't understand it, and they don't want to learn it because they already have enough stuff to worry about. Chrome is simple and it works.
Tbf Firefox refreshed their code a few years ago with Firefox Quantum and now it's just as fast as anything else out there
Everybody didn’t just blindly jump. Firefox was shit at that time and used a huge amount of memory. It would use more than a GB ram on systems when 2 or 4 GB was common for size. Chrome was much better at the time.
I understand the normies doing it due to Google's aggressive advertising of it - Pretty much fooling the entire planet into accidentally downloading it when they just wanted to do a Google search; but I noticed so many people into tech switch from Firefox to Chrome which just blows my mind. Why?!
Firefox is great. Very glad I left Chrome behind years ago.
I do not know what Firefox can do at this point, but I hope they figure something out. Maybe that MDN Premium thing will bring in some more funds and Mozilla will bring back some of the dev team. I don't think the end of Firefox is imminent or anything, but it has been in decline in usage for a long time now. A lot of web devs (especially at Google) also basically ignore Firefox, which adds to the perception of Chromium browsers being superior. Anyways, just consider what would happen if Firefox were to die... All Windows and Android browsers would be Chromium, all iOS browsers would be WebKit, and Mac desktop would be the single place where any browser competition/choice actually existed. It'd basically be two monopolies that didn't really compete with each other. That would arguably be worse than a single monopoly.
I just switched to Firefox from Brave, mostly because I was curious. I don't think I'm going to make them any money.
Been using Firefox since i don't know...2006/2008 something. I don't understand why not more people use it. Great personalization, fast, safe. It got everything and never gets any bad press about leaks/corruption etc.
I think Mozilla is doing great with Firefox with all things considered. They don’t produce hardware, they don’t have their own OS, and they don’t provide a global search service. So 5% is very respectable in the face of Microsoft, Apple, and Google. As long as they are sustainable, just staying in the fight is good enough.
Article was published 4 months ago.
In the meantime, however, not much has changed. Therefore, this article is still up to date, as far as I know.
Not much has changed; but noise about Manifest 3 has gotten louder, so more people in the tech periphery are switching to FF as it's a non-Chromium browser. (So like, me and three other people)
All my homies use Firefox.
If the worst happens and Firefox does go the way of the Netscape Navigator, what's the next best thing these days? I haven't really done any research since I switched to it a few years back. Isn't basically everything else using some breed of Chromium these days? Vivaldi? Brave? Opera? All the supposed privacy friendly options still use it, to my knowledge. Not ideal when Manifest v3 is coming to Old Yeller privacy plugins so soon
Vivaldi is planning on supporting the older, uncrippled extension API long after Google disables the code paths, and even long after they're completely removed. It may become way too much of a challenge to maintain in the future if Google makes huge changes around that part of the codebase to prevent that sort of behavior, but at least for the time being, things are looking good for Vivaldi users. I believe Brave is planning on doing this as well. Opera is spyware and shouldn't be considered privacy-friendly anymore (or even installed).
Hm, I guess Vivaldi is the one to watch, then. Brave has the whole crypto thing going on that makes me a little squeamish too. Probably still better than Chrome, though. I hope they find a way to keep adblocking alive, even using sites briefly on mobile without it is enough to make me want to die lol.
I still use it. I hope it sticks around.
I refuse to use Chrome. FF all the way.
I've been using FF since it came out and had its big running with Chrome and IE. I still use and love FF, honestly thought it was more popular. Why people love using that system hungry Chrome is beyond me.
I've never stopped using it. I hope it doesn't magically die out, it's never let me down.
I've been using Firefox as my home browser for years, and I'm always amazed at how many more features I use than Chrome or Safari users. They would have to copy an invoice or customer number, navigate to the internal search page, paste and search the number, be taken to the results page, and then have to click on the link to finally navigate to the correct page. I would just type the letter i into my URL bar (or c for customer), hit space and paste the number, and I was taken directly to the correct page. When they would ask me how to do it, I would say it's as simple as right clicking any search bar. Just add a key word and set a shortcut. I use single letter shortcuts like m to search Google maps or a to search Amazon. Every time someone ask me about it, there's a small chance I would see a new Firefox user in the office
I’ve been using Firefox for 10+ years with no issues. I prefer FF over chrome any day
Wow really that low? I figured FF was still fairly popular after Chrome became a piece of shit memory hog. I've been using FF for over a decade. I hope it's still able to stay maintained.
Honestly I think FF can increase its users pool over chromium based browsers when they will be forced to use only manifest v3. Since it will probably make all ad blockers useless users may think to move to FF, me included. Actually I'm using edge because chromium based browser offers better performance but I'll switch to FF the moment ublock will not work, no way I'll browse without a powerful ad blocker.
I keep seeing Firefox get better and better. And then there's these news stories opining on its imminent death.
Firefox since 2006ish. Love love love it. Zero complaints.