I got a new MacBook Pro. I like to take these times to refresh my application use, and one choice of mine is to go in on Firefox as my default brow...
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I do not mind the mono-browser at all. I think that there will still be diversity because everyone will have their flavor of Chromium and it is open source. Even though it is Google's product, a company like Brave can make its own privacy-focused version of it. Browser diversity has been a challenge for most web developers over the years and with the rendering and feature support being universal, a lot of that will be alleviated. It also will help us as users because big companies will contribute to Chromium and it will be even better. Microsoft has already made some great contributions and I'm looking forward to them continuing to work on it. If those vendors disagree with where Chromium is headed, they can change direction.
Chromium as open source is just a decoy. Google is killing diversity using their licensed DRM. Read more: blog.samuelmaddock.com/posts/googl...
Wouldn't a mono browser weaken an open, standard-compliant, web?
Wouldn't the main developer of the mono-browser have too much control (think Google or Microsoft a while back.)
I think it could happen, but I don't think it will just yet. I think the fears may be based on historical reasons. I do not see any indication that Chromium is adding proprietary, non-standard features in its rendering engines or adding shady things to it (I haven't looked at the source, but I trust that I would see the uproar if that did happen). If Chromium departs from standards, everyone will see it happening because the source code is available. If Google neglects the upkeep of Chromium, there is a community to help. I'm not sure of the licensing for it, but I believe companies can also fork their own version of it and distribute it.
It is definitely good to think about though. From a historical standpoint, Internet Explorer was dominant and from a lot of people's perspectives, that ended up hurting the web. I do not believe it is fair to throw shade on Microsoft for that, they built a browser that shipped with the most popular operating system. There wasn't a great alternative until Firefox and Chrome came around.
Android is another open-source project by Google. Phone manufacturers have their own versions of it. Open-source communities have their own versions. I think Chromium can be similar in that way.
Firefox is fantastic, I love it, it's been my main browser for 8 years of coding. Good choice!
Extra LIBERTY tip, set DDG as your default search and then you can always use bangs (duckduckgo.com/bang) from the search bar. Much more powerful than picking between different search engines!
Happened a couple times to search for a cryptic error message on DDG and found two or three results maximum, and trying with some other search engine found several (a lot) more (not sure how many effectively pertinent). Any clue about this behaviour?
Dunno about that but if you're not aware of this little trick, you can always search through DDG with "g!" tacked at the end of your search query. Will take you to Google search without the tracking (unless you're signed in of course).
There are other shortcuts like this as well for Wikipedia and such.
Duck duck go is great! Search has really improved since the ‘old days’ and privacy for the win! Their browser is good too - Brave.
Brave is not DDG's product. They are separate companies.
Ah ok for some reason i had it in my head they were linked!
Anyway, both great products with a similar privacy-first focus
What makes them better than Chrome devtools?
FF has dedicated tab for accessibility which shows accessibility tool and how each node is behaving.
FF also has dedicated tab with sliders to play with font size, line height, weight etc. With drop down of switching between different css units.
It also gives very dev friendly view of flex and grids. This helps a lot in debugging.
I think Chrome and Firefox each have their own strengths, but Firefox is really great for any kind of layout/styling work. Grid inspector is fantastic.
Lackluster comped to chrome Dev tools. A11y has been a staple feature in cdt for years and keeps getting better. Chrome is by far the best browser in every sense that really matters.
Only point I agree with is the fact that we are going to be in a mono browser world (albiet, being open source is good), and they no longer "don't be evil", quite the opposite. Whatever is good for them comes first, unfortunately. FF is just so damn slow, Dev tools especially. And setting up a Charles proxy?... Ugh
To do unit tests, native integration with different debug tools is better, better integration with the dom
about:welcome @ben 😊 the next battle has been already written in about:mozilla
Haven't seen this before. How metal of them. 🤘
When I got a new machine last year I spent about 6 months with Firefox, but something always felt "off" with it and I eventually ended up installing Edge 2.0 instead.
I still use Firefox as my mobile browser from when I was experimenting 🤷♂️ Not really sure why.
It'd be interesting to get an update on your thoughts after a few weeks/months of using FF 👀
Oh wow, now I may switch to Firefox too.
Firefox is amazing. Very fast, stable, great add-ons. I personally can't live without Tree Style Tabs.
Oh yeah, and also as @citizen428 says:
I can't recall exactly what it was, I think it was mostly because of the interface, although this was also the case with plain Firefox... I guess I will need to give it another go! It feels like a lot has improved since 2/3 years ago :P
Devltools were nice though!
I just tested it a bit, it has definitely changed a lot since I last used it!
Oh yeah, same browser multiple different sessions. Very handy.
This plays nicely with other of my favorites, must-have, extensions: Switch Container
I moved to Mozilla 3 months ago and today only I was thinking to write about it.
Reason which made me to move to Mozilla was security only.
As developer now I m enjoying mozilla experience especially debugging experience.
I've been using Linux exclusively and since Firefox is installed on most distros by default, I don't even need to go out of my way to get a new browser. Unlike Windows, you already have an amazing browser when you're first booting.
Which distro do you use?
Ubuntu, Manjaro, and peppermint os
I tried... Poked around on a fresh FF build, no plugins installed, and everything within dev tools is extremely sluggish compared to Chrome/Chromium. Perhaps my macbook pro just like chrome better(?) There are some pretty views they added, animations make it feel even slower than it already is, and I don't see any feature that chrome doesn't have, just a few less features. Not having ability to perform local overrides is a big deal breaker; once you use them once, you can't go back to not using them [as a web dev]. Mostly it just lags the entire time, and when trying to take a memory snap the tab crashed. I could definitely see everyday (non-web-dev) using it, though. Less capabilities, but without dev tools it seems to perform decently. And like an OS, once you learn you're way around you will be more acclimated to use it.
I hate conspiracy theories, as far as chromium is open source. It's fine. not near a mono-browser scenario, just a more (but not necessarily) consistent user experience on the web. Both for users and devs alike.
For me, the flexbox/grid tool is enough 😀
What about Brave
Chrome is a great browser but the privacy issues have long since bugged me(though never enough to change til recently).
Then when Google searches started returning 5 ads at the start of each search I decided to switch things up.
I tried brave + duckduckgo for a while which is also nice but I've settled on Firefox as my main for the distant future.
Firefox is not bad, I use it everyday (it's more of a security and customer constraint then a choice) but when I'm at home I'm on Brave or Chrome. Mostly for javascript, the V8 engine is much faster, and when I had to deal with memory, much more performant than SpiderMonkey. For a greater experience : Firefox Developer Edition
I am pretty much torn here. Really love Firefox, have been using and supporting Mozilla for ages but I feel extremely lost when looking at, in example, the fact that Mozilla Foundation has quite some dependency on Google advertisement money. Same is: There have been some situations with Firefox/Mozilla tracking their users (github.com/mozilla/addons-frontend...). At the moment, I more and more tend to using Brave because I increasingly get to understand funding of technology and content to be a crucial part of some of the problems we do have these days, and no one really seems to want or care to address this, including Mozilla. :(
At work I use Brave and for my personal accounts I use Firefox. I used Chrome because I could have profiles for different logins but with Firefox Multi-Account Containers I could left Chrome(finally) behind.
Website github.com/mozilla/multi-account-c...
It works by letting you define a group of containers and have independent sessions between them. This way I can log in in two different Twitter accounts in two different tabs.
Loving FF ❤
I'm not sure. With browsers becoming ever more complex (WebAssembly and WebGL FTW! 😉) there are less and less teams that can build a browser with all those features and crank up security updates fast enough now that browsers are the #1 exploit target by hackers. So inevitably the industry shrinks to around three or four browsers. I say this as a long time Firefox user.
I've used it in the past but didn't like it, I might give it another go : )
What are your thoughts on Brave then? I am anti-Google (maybe not anti, but I have a love/hate relationship with them), not Chrome, just saying. Can't blame a software for it's company.
I used Opera/FF for years as all other browsers were rss hogs, but it's getting a lot better (except on my old crap laptop).
I have to use all browsers to test web pages, but my main is now Brave & I won't be switching for a long while.
Switched for the exact same reasons a few months ago. The 70 release was super sweet, then got speed bumps because the Rust engine optimizations. Now recently a bump on performance and battery, finally it comes with a default Picture in Picture. I am so sold on Firefox as well. 🧡💚
OMG, that feature of always opening a domain in a specified container is really a game-changer. Thank you so much for this!
Everyone: Firefox Multi-Account Containers
Also, @citizen428 , that add-on made me think, why doesn't every domain open automatically in its own isolated container?
I enjoy using Firefox; however, when it comes to streaming video or watching Twitch, I always come across issues (like constant freezing). So I usually switch to Edge to watch videos, but use Firefox for everything else.
I love Firefox's dev tools :D
Couldn't agree more! Also;
Some things are better some things are really terrible.
My stance is, im staying with Firefox despite devtools (compared to chrome), not because of them. ;)
I use chrome solely because of the javascript engine speed (which is ~30% faster than firefox IIRC) and you can really tell the difference - even when it comes to page load.
Must say that Firefox has improved alot lately and that's the reason being devs moving to Firefox.
Awesome!
This new Firefox is amazing piece of software. I switched few months back from Chrome and have no plans of going back. Also their Developer edition is just wonderful.
Firefox's container tabs are such an incredibly useful feature; I'm surprised more browsers haven't added some sort of container functionality.
I also use ff for same reasons.
I just migrated back to Mac as well, and on there I use Brave. Using Edge on this machine until the iMac is work ready.
I'm using Firefox Dev Edition for like one year now, no regrets.
I have started using again only Firefox (for personal use) a few months ago and the most notable thing that I noticed is that I feel psychologically relieved :O
I am using Firefox since past 2 years it taking less ram|(disk space ) it's pretty good everyone should use firefox
That is a good decision and I bet you won't regret it.
I'm still waiting for a good way to use chromecast with Firefox. fx_cast is unfortunately not ready yet. Otherwise I'm all in for Firefox!
Agreed! And their devtools so much better than Chrome ones.
Moved to Firefox 3 month ago and never looked back!
me too. firefox is independent from the company.
Firefox Developer Edition is faster 💪
Nice post Ben!
I just made the switch to Firefox Developer Edition from Chrome and couldn't be happier.
Ditched Google as a default search engine recently for similar reasons.
Firefox is my favorite browser! Had to take my terminal/editor theme and make it a firefox theme for the consistency haha
I recently did this exact same thing! I have to say, I think the dev tools are better in Firefox and I'm glad I made the switch!
We need some more love for Qutebrowser!
It's actually pretty cool. Very deep vim integration and based on chromium. Though, extension support isn't really there yet.
qutebrowser.org/
/s
Cool. Actually my primary browser of work project is Chrome but I’m going to use Firefox as my personal browser.
I agree firefox developer edition has been my browser of choice for years now.
brave or vivaldi
Firefox is great, although the strong integration with Google services are missing, it's a little hard to migrate all those mess from chrome to Firefox. But still I love to use it anyway. 🤘
Great post. I’m very anti the google monopoly and tried Firefox for a while and ended up on Brave due to the security benefits and the chromium compatibility layer. Maybe I should go to ff
Firefox is awesome! I choose it for privacy and performance.
Privacy might be a good reason (and supporting Mozilla and open source is another one) ... a few years ago I used FF with the "NoScript" extension and I was definitely "tracked" a lot less
I just can't give up on Opera don't know why. I have FF installed an love it but it's not my main one
I always smile when I see someone migrating to stuff I like and share their values, like Firefox.
Yesss! 100% behind this move, Ben. I love and support Firefox for all the reasons you mentioned. #FirefoxSquad 💯
I switched to Ubuntu from a Mac and defaulted Firefox as well.
Firefox devtool has some really nice details. One of my favorites is the multiline mode they added in the console tab, which you can toggle it with ctrl+b.
Firefox is 🔥, 🦊. I made the switch some time last summer and appreciate its developer tool suite more than Chrome's at this point
Be Brave Ben !
i've been a huge fan of the Brave browser lately. I know it's built on chromium, but it is really good still and privacy minded.
Then you will get a surface book to use Microsoft Edge :D