I very much dislike Mozilla’s direction over the last decade. They’re introducing user-hostile features that subtly break normal browsing experience, even when disabled[0]. Not like Google is better, but I’m also trying to get away from Mozilla.
[0] On Firefox Mobile, there’s a “feature” which makes the address bar auto-complete domains of companies paying Mozilla. I noticed this with Netflix - I never visit, but when I start writing a URL with n, roughly every 10th time Netflix was suggested. You can disable this feature, but this doesn’t actually disable it. The address bar no longer auto-completes with Netflix, instead it just doesn’t autocomplete! So 9/10 times I can write n and press Enter, but 1/10 times I press n and search for the letter n.
Mozilla doesn’t care whether they break features, as long as they can make more money. I strongly dislike this approach by the supposedly “good” browser manufacturer.
Do you have a good non chromium based alternative? To be clear I genuinely am asking those things make switching probably worth it considering how little of a hassle it is.
No, it’s still 100% owned and 100% controlled by Google.
The Linux Foundation is just making it easier for people outside of Google to submit work to it.
Cynically, you could say that Google is just trying to get free contributions while retaining all the control. Optimistically you could say this is the first step in Google giving up control of Chromium in the far future, although currently they’ve given zero verbal or written indicators that they plan to do that.
Too many people complain about the UI and claim it’s “outdated, ugly, unusable”. I find that funny because you can make FF look almost like anything you want, and I personally hate chrome’s UI.
Well, you USED to be able to, anyways, but they’ve slowly moved to a less customisable ui. Now you have to use extensions from outside websites to even do simple stuff like have a multi-row tab bar.
Not to mention Firefox seems to break them every year or so.
I’m one of those complaining about the UI. Used the TabMixPlus extension to adjust the UI to my liking. FF killed it. So, I started customizing the UI CSS. Every few versions, Mozilla changed the browser enough to invalidate my changes. After a while, I got tired of thiz and switched to Vivaldi, which is Chromium based.
I have no idea either. Sure, chrome is a little faster but its a minor difference in my opinion. Been using it for a long time and have no idea why it’s so unpopular.
Also, keep in mind, google has been caught slowing Firefox down in YouTube before. So if you notice any slowness in their services, it’s fair to suspect it might not be Firefox’s fault.
I advocate Firefox, but I must admit I personally am affected by regular crashes on Firefox desktop. Mostly when I enter a page I haven’t visited before (randomly though).
I don’t know if others are affected by this, and I still recommend Firefox regardless, but every crash leaves a sour taste in my mouth. As it is not widespread, it might just be my setup, but still.
That’s not normal. You should go to the support pages and see if there is a fix. And it could be an addon causing the issue, not FF itself. I had that issue many years back.
Thats really weird. I have never personally had the issue but it is more and fair enough to have issues with FF after that. I would recommend brave then, still chromium based but is actively doing things to make sure their adblock still works.
I dont have issues with FF in general which would cause me to stop using it, while it is frustrating, not using something chromium based still outweighs that heavily. Its kinda of a matter of principle to me.
E: clarification
You could probably convince a third-party password storage program to store and auto-type details like that. Preferably one that doesn’t need internet access to work.
Just double-checked with the help manual of the one I use (PasswordSafe) and it looks like it can do it. Never actually tried it though, which is one of the reasons I didn’t mention it previously.
At the risk of sounding like an ad (I’m not affiliated, just a someone who found it in their Linux distro’s package manager), there are versions of it for pretty much any device. I definitely can’t vouch for the feature set(s) of the other versions, though.
What issues do people even have with firefox? Its a browser, it seems fast enough. Isn’t that all most people need from a browser
I very much dislike Mozilla’s direction over the last decade. They’re introducing user-hostile features that subtly break normal browsing experience, even when disabled[0]. Not like Google is better, but I’m also trying to get away from Mozilla.
[0] On Firefox Mobile, there’s a “feature” which makes the address bar auto-complete domains of companies paying Mozilla. I noticed this with Netflix - I never visit, but when I start writing a URL with n, roughly every 10th time Netflix was suggested. You can disable this feature, but this doesn’t actually disable it. The address bar no longer auto-completes with Netflix, instead it just doesn’t autocomplete! So 9/10 times I can write n and press Enter, but 1/10 times I press n and search for the letter n.
Mozilla doesn’t care whether they break features, as long as they can make more money. I strongly dislike this approach by the supposedly “good” browser manufacturer.
Do you have a good non chromium based alternative? To be clear I genuinely am asking those things make switching probably worth it considering how little of a hassle it is.
Sadly not, I’d also be interested in one!
isn’t chromium under the Linux foundation now? Might look at the options on that side.
No, it’s still 100% owned and 100% controlled by Google.
The Linux Foundation is just making it easier for people outside of Google to submit work to it.
Cynically, you could say that Google is just trying to get free contributions while retaining all the control. Optimistically you could say this is the first step in Google giving up control of Chromium in the far future, although currently they’ve given zero verbal or written indicators that they plan to do that.
damn that sucks.
GNOME Web if on Linux
This comment made me look into if KDE has one and apparently they do it even has built in ad blocking.
Off to compile for 3 hours. /j
Makes me remember when I used Konqueror with FF as a fallback before Chrome existed.
Is that Falkon? I’d use it if it could integrate with bitwarden.
Download fennec it’s the fork of ff mobile with less of the cruft.
I don’t know if it has fixed that specific problem, but I can’t recall seeing it
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll give it a try!
No horizontal tab grouping. Tab groups on Chrome are perfect, and the Firefox tab extensions all suck in comparison.
That said, I’m still using Firefox today because the internet is unusable without a good ad blocker.
Tab groups and vertical tabs are at least on Nightly now; you can enable them in settings.
Too many people complain about the UI and claim it’s “outdated, ugly, unusable”. I find that funny because you can make FF look almost like anything you want, and I personally hate chrome’s UI.
Well, you USED to be able to, anyways, but they’ve slowly moved to a less customisable ui. Now you have to use extensions from outside websites to even do simple stuff like have a multi-row tab bar.
Not to mention Firefox seems to break them every year or so.
I’m one of those complaining about the UI. Used the TabMixPlus extension to adjust the UI to my liking. FF killed it. So, I started customizing the UI CSS. Every few versions, Mozilla changed the browser enough to invalidate my changes. After a while, I got tired of thiz and switched to Vivaldi, which is Chromium based.
Honestly I’m probably heading to Vivaldi after reading a lot of these things.
Security and sandboxing are important, weak points on the android implementation.
would Vivaldi on android be better? I really like having extensions on my browser and that’s the only other android one I know of that has them.
Edit: I was wrong apparently Vivaldi does not support extensions on mobile which is a bummer.
I have no idea either. Sure, chrome is a little faster but its a minor difference in my opinion. Been using it for a long time and have no idea why it’s so unpopular.
Also, keep in mind, google has been caught slowing Firefox down in YouTube before. So if you notice any slowness in their services, it’s fair to suspect it might not be Firefox’s fault.
No way it stays that way after blocking ad-blocking. Some websites genuinely take over 30s without ad block.
I advocate Firefox, but I must admit I personally am affected by regular crashes on Firefox desktop. Mostly when I enter a page I haven’t visited before (randomly though).
I don’t know if others are affected by this, and I still recommend Firefox regardless, but every crash leaves a sour taste in my mouth. As it is not widespread, it might just be my setup, but still.
That’s not normal. You should go to the support pages and see if there is a fix. And it could be an addon causing the issue, not FF itself. I had that issue many years back.
I did check the about:crashes page and it showed me that it seems to be related to “speechd init” and the crash itself is being linked with https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1794057
Having said that, I just disabled narrate, so maybe it goes away now.
If you have the time try the troubleshoot mode to help figure it out - add ons are often the cause
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-crashes-closing-or-quitting
Thats really weird. I have never personally had the issue but it is more and fair enough to have issues with FF after that. I would recommend brave then, still chromium based but is actively doing things to make sure their adblock still works.
I dont have issues with FF in general which would cause me to stop using it, while it is frustrating, not using something chromium based still outweighs that heavily. Its kinda of a matter of principle to me. E: clarification
In Australia it won’t save card details. And it can’t natively create app shortcuts for things like Gmail, keep, whatsapp etc.
I put up with it but it’s a pain compared to chrome and edge.
You could probably convince a third-party password storage program to store and auto-type details like that. Preferably one that doesn’t need internet access to work.
KeePass allows offline password management, though I am not sure if it supports card/ID autofill.
Bitwarden is mainly online only, but does support card/ID autofill and allows users to self-host their data if desired.
Not overly familiar with other password managers, but it would not surprise me if one of them out there has the best of both worlds.
Just double-checked with the help manual of the one I use (PasswordSafe) and it looks like it can do it. Never actually tried it though, which is one of the reasons I didn’t mention it previously.
At the risk of sounding like an ad (I’m not affiliated, just a someone who found it in their Linux distro’s package manager), there are versions of it for pretty much any device. I definitely can’t vouch for the feature set(s) of the other versions, though.
I know lastpass does but they lost my trust after the breach.