I've been using Firefox for a few weeks now and I like it enough.
Some things Chrome does better than Firefox:
bookmarks editor and handling (Firefox doesn't seem able to remember the last folder where you bookmarked something). The bookmarks work better in Chrome in general
Basic Auth window in Firefox doesn't allow you to interact with the toolbar, which means I can't get the credentials from LastPass, which means that everytime I need to quit the window, copy the credentials, reopen the window and paste them, a bit annoying
Design of the default HTML controls. Selects look really ugly, same for default alert and controls. I guess it depends on the browser default stylesheet.
open image a in a new tab. You need to install an extension to have that entry in the context menu!
USB security keys support. Firefox has it in Quantum but it's not as complete as in Chrome
Some things Firefox does better than Chrome:
synced tabs between the phone and the computer. I'm using Firefox on the phone as well and this comes in handy
Builtin privacy settings. Though they both have most of the "privacy extensions" the container mode in Firefox and the fact that you can "disable tracking" on the phone as well is nice. I've used Brave a bit for that reason but the fact it doesn't have extensions and it doesn't sync between phone and computer it's a deal breaker.
The memory occupation feels like it's the same.
Ah, I discovered, 30 seconds from the beginning of a conference call that Google Hangouts calls do not work in Firefox, at all (which is Google's fault I guess). Yay for interoperability.
Some great points! If you like the privacy Firefox provides on mobile, you may want to try out Firefox Focus browser. Doesn't keep history or cookies, location tracking disabled. It's like you're using private browsing all the time.
Firefox Developer has a pretty amazing suite of tools as well! But when it comes to the ecosystem, many sites (eg glitch.com) are falling into the old Internet Explorer trap of building integrations specific to Chrome.
Helping everyone create the web together at 🎏 @Glitch! Blogging since the last century. I like ethical tech, transit & transportation, mangoes, and funky music.
Hey Donald, just wanted to make sure everybody knows that we’ll be supporting our Glitch debugging features on Firefox as soon as they’ve finished some updates they’re doing to their dev tools. This has been about the browser not yet supporting the capability (and debugging not being governed by web standards), but we’re adamant about not being Chrome-specific.
That's very exciting about Firefox dev tool integration with Glitch! I'm glad to see that you have a strong cross-browser policy too.
Looking back, my comment sounded way more like a drag on Glitch than I intended it to. At EXPLO, we do a whole lot of our JS frontend work in Glitch, because it is so much easier + better than trying to manage it locally. I used Glitch as an example because, as practically the only tool I use for front-end development, it was an example familiar to me.
By the way, welcome to dev.to, Anil Dash, our pal. I hope you stick around + check things out a bit. Hopefully my offhanded comment will be the most negative one you encounter :)
Free-as-in-freedom, actually open, and values before profits--or none in this case--make it no contest: Mozilla all the way. That plus the bookmarks sidebar, which for the life of me no one in Chrome Land seems to want.
I've been using Opera for a while now. Gives all the benefits of Chrome, plus a few extras that come handy:
Facebook Messenger on the sidebar
Built-in Ad blocker
Built-in VPN in private window
The new Firefox seemed promising and I tried to give it a shot. But without even any browsing activity (even no tab opened) it heats up my CPU usage in macOS sierra - completely bizarre.
As a user, I always like Safari for its light resource usage. But then as a developer I always discover something terrible, like the lack of a native datepicker. I love the way it runs, but I hate the missing features.
I switched back to Firefox (Quantum) a few months ago after having used Chrome for a few years. It seemed less polished in general, but I decided to keep using it in order to support a web that isn't Chrome-only.
I like that it's easy to enable tracking protection, though that did cause bugs in a few sites. Dev.to and Pandora both had login issues, but they fixed them pretty quickly (thanks Andy!), and probably other sites will as well if they have them. On one other site a google ad wouldn't display, which didn't really bother me, and I think the site owner planned to redo their site anyway.
I used Chrome extensively and looked at Firefox with complete disdain. It was slow and ugly. But since Quantum came out, I've been rarely using Chrome. And since my old laptop has memory issues the RAM-sucking Chrome just sits on my taskbar.
Though Chrome has it's uses too - like the Vuejs devtools for Chrome are awesome. Even then, I rarely use Chrome since the rest of the applications just freeze or lag.
On the note of devtools, Firefox's Responsive mode proves to be so useful. Firefox used to be so slow, but now it's lightning fast!!
I've tried multiple times to switch to firefox but i still end up using chrome as my primary browser for daily and dev use. Firefox always manages to slow down (for me) as the day goes on. Not sure why.
The first browser other than IE that I got to know was Firefox 3.0 (or slightly higher/lower version, can't quite remember). Chrome was just one kind of metal to me, until several years later.
But Firefox breaks more and more extensions/addons I use as the version number grows, so I switched away.
Haven't really tried Firefox Quantum, but that's what I'd suggest to those who are not tech-savvy.
I think I'd like the new Firefox more based on what I do and do not like as a user, but I'm a bit too stuck in my ways to have fully made the switch at the moment.
Programming 35+ years, including 25+ years of web app development for document management. Recent work with web components and Lit, as well as Java apps.
I like the improvements to Firefox, but I’m sticking with Chrome for now because Chrome supports Web Components and Shadow DOM. Firefox should be there soon.
I've been using Firefox for a few weeks now and I like it enough.
Some things Chrome does better than Firefox:
bookmarks editor and handling (Firefox doesn't seem able to remember the last folder where you bookmarked something). The bookmarks work better in Chrome in general
Basic Auth window in Firefox doesn't allow you to interact with the toolbar, which means I can't get the credentials from LastPass, which means that everytime I need to quit the window, copy the credentials, reopen the window and paste them, a bit annoying
Design of the default HTML controls. Selects look really ugly, same for default alert and controls. I guess it depends on the browser default stylesheet.
open image a in a new tab. You need to install an extension to have that entry in the context menu!
USB security keys support. Firefox has it in Quantum but it's not as complete as in Chrome
Some things Firefox does better than Chrome:
synced tabs between the phone and the computer. I'm using Firefox on the phone as well and this comes in handy
Builtin privacy settings. Though they both have most of the "privacy extensions" the container mode in Firefox and the fact that you can "disable tracking" on the phone as well is nice. I've used Brave a bit for that reason but the fact it doesn't have extensions and it doesn't sync between phone and computer it's a deal breaker.
The memory occupation feels like it's the same.
Ah, I discovered, 30 seconds from the beginning of a conference call that Google Hangouts calls do not work in Firefox, at all (which is Google's fault I guess). Yay for interoperability.
Some great points! If you like the privacy Firefox provides on mobile, you may want to try out Firefox Focus browser. Doesn't keep history or cookies, location tracking disabled. It's like you're using private browsing all the time.
I think most people want chrome right now. It's just so hard not to be excited about the dev tools chrome offers
Firefox Developer has a pretty amazing suite of tools as well! But when it comes to the ecosystem, many sites (eg glitch.com) are falling into the old Internet Explorer trap of building integrations specific to Chrome.
Hey Donald, just wanted to make sure everybody knows that we’ll be supporting our Glitch debugging features on Firefox as soon as they’ve finished some updates they’re doing to their dev tools. This has been about the browser not yet supporting the capability (and debugging not being governed by web standards), but we’re adamant about not being Chrome-specific.
That's very exciting about Firefox dev tool integration with Glitch! I'm glad to see that you have a strong cross-browser policy too.
Looking back, my comment sounded way more like a drag on Glitch than I intended it to. At EXPLO, we do a whole lot of our JS frontend work in Glitch, because it is so much easier + better than trying to manage it locally. I used Glitch as an example because, as practically the only tool I use for front-end development, it was an example familiar to me.
By the way, welcome to dev.to, Anil Dash, our pal. I hope you stick around + check things out a bit. Hopefully my offhanded comment will be the most negative one you encounter :)
Thanks for mentioning Glitch I was looking for this type of resource
Free-as-in-freedom, actually open, and values before profits--or none in this case--make it no contest: Mozilla all the way. That plus the bookmarks sidebar, which for the life of me no one in Chrome Land seems to want.
I use Firefox over chrome, because Chrome in Linux sucks :) Firefox works amazing with Ubuntu.
I think Chrome works fine
I have been using Ubuntu for more than a year
I've been using Opera for a while now. Gives all the benefits of Chrome, plus a few extras that come handy:
The new Firefox seemed promising and I tried to give it a shot. But without even any browsing activity (even no tab opened) it heats up my CPU usage in macOS sierra - completely bizarre.
I think built-in VPN is not working anymore
It works for in the Private Window.
I'm happiest in Safari.
As a user, I always like Safari for its light resource usage. But then as a developer I always discover something terrible, like the lack of a native datepicker. I love the way it runs, but I hate the missing features.
What do you like the most about it?
I don't do web development, so any shortcomings in that area don't matter to me. I'm a pure user (of web browsers).
I switched back to Firefox (Quantum) a few months ago after having used Chrome for a few years. It seemed less polished in general, but I decided to keep using it in order to support a web that isn't Chrome-only.
I like that it's easy to enable tracking protection, though that did cause bugs in a few sites. Dev.to and Pandora both had login issues, but they fixed them pretty quickly (thanks Andy!), and probably other sites will as well if they have them. On one other site a google ad wouldn't display, which didn't really bother me, and I think the site owner planned to redo their site anyway.
I used Chrome extensively and looked at Firefox with complete disdain. It was slow and ugly. But since Quantum came out, I've been rarely using Chrome. And since my old laptop has memory issues the RAM-sucking Chrome just sits on my taskbar.
Though Chrome has it's uses too - like the Vuejs devtools for Chrome are awesome. Even then, I rarely use Chrome since the rest of the applications just freeze or lag.
On the note of devtools, Firefox's Responsive mode proves to be so useful. Firefox used to be so slow, but now it's lightning fast!!
You can use the Vue devtools on Firefox as well: addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/a...
Oh, thanks! I thought only Chrome had it. This makes stuff a lot easy 😃
I've tried multiple times to switch to firefox but i still end up using chrome as my primary browser for daily and dev use. Firefox always manages to slow down (for me) as the day goes on. Not sure why.
Firefox for most of the time, when I use dev tools. I prefer chrome.
I prefer Waterfox now.
The first browser other than IE that I got to know was Firefox 3.0 (or slightly higher/lower version, can't quite remember). Chrome was just one kind of metal to me, until several years later.
But Firefox breaks more and more extensions/addons I use as the version number grows, so I switched away.
Haven't really tried Firefox Quantum, but that's what I'd suggest to those who are not tech-savvy.
I had used FireFox for about 3 months, but eventually switch back to Chromium based browser(Cent Browser).
The pros of FireFox for me is:
But there's some reason that I stop using it:
As a result, I thought FireFox is a good browser now. But it is not good enough to makes me totally replace Chrome.
I think I'd like the new Firefox more based on what I do and do not like as a user, but I'm a bit too stuck in my ways to have fully made the switch at the moment.
The one I thing I like about Firefox is that they really care about your privacy since they have a lot add-ons that protects your data
I like the improvements to Firefox, but I’m sticking with Chrome for now because Chrome supports Web Components and Shadow DOM. Firefox should be there soon.
For browsing and most Dev work, Safari. For debugging React / Redux or more heavy Dev work, Chrome.