Things I do:
- about:preferences#general > Startup > restore previous session
- about:preferences#general > Tabs > uncheck Ctrl+Tab cycle ...
- about:preferences#general > Downloads > always ask where to save
- about:preferences#home > Firefox Home Content > disable all except Top Sites
- about:preferences#privacy > Permission > Notification Settings > Block new requests
- about:preferences#privacy > Firefox Data Collection and Use > disable
- Set in about:config extensions.pocket.enabled to false
- Install the addons: uBlock Origin, Gesturefy, Firefox Multi-Account Containers
- I remove the home button
- I remove the sidebar button
- I reject every Firefox pop-up that wants me to enable Sync or whatever
The result is a decent browser, which doesn't get in my way. But I can understand that those steps are too many for casual users and can understand why a lot of people don't like the Internet. I wouldn't like it too, if I had to use default browser settings without an ad-blocker.
Plus, I get the added benefit of syncing all my passwords and being able to send pages to my phone, though I would quite like it if it were faster (I've had cases where the pages took days to arrive).
Edit: on mobile it's under Hamburger > Settings > Firefox Account
Why doesn't Firefox come with a Mozilla Tools section in Settings which allows easily to enable those services + a button to that settings page on the (bottom/top right) new tab page. This way it would be reachable, but at same time, not so intrusive as it is right now. I would even go as fare and say that the dev-tools should be an addon too, and not ship by default (because probably 99% of the users never use it).
It should be possible to create a delightful browser experience, which respects user privacy and enables power-users/developers to do more.
Otherwise... yeah. It's pretty unusable out the gate.
In the 90s and 2000s, software came with a bunch of features that most users would want, and also a few small but powerful features that a tiny portion of their users ("power" users) really cared about. Almost every software had "power" features of some kind. A config file, command line arguments, that kind of stuff.
Nowadays, popular software like Chrome are all too eager to drop "power" features; to make themselves simpler. This avoids confusing general users, at the cost of alienating "power" users.
Dropping Ctrl+tab (heck, making shortcuts support a low priority) is one of such features.
There is a user.js project on github[1] maintained by ghacks.net community members that provides a source of documentation for many settings. It's also useful as a way to monitor new and deprecated settings.
I hate the default behaviour so much. What's wrong with asking me where to save the file? I almost certainly have a place in mind where the file should go.
The other half the time I want it to go somewhere, but I'm not in love with using a GUI file explorer to get it there.
There is – and always was – someone who gets paid to distract you from doing what you want to do. This is called advertising and we have seen on the web multiple very aggressive excesses here: pop-ups, auto playing sound/video and nowadays notification spam. What I'm trying to say here is, that you shouldn't need to be a nerd to get a pleasant browsing experience.
- gfx.webrender.all = true (important on Linux, fixes jerky scrolling)
- general.smoothScroll.mouseWheel.durationMaxMS = 200 (makes mouse scroll animation faster)
Ode to user-friendly software.
About:config in Firefox has 3930 lines. That would be a very, very, very long walkthrough :) I can see it now, "Okay, to use Firefox, you will now have to click 'next' 4000 times." Thanks.
In the end, using Little Snitch (on mac), I ended up blocking firefox communicating with mozilla.org. I update firefox via safari.
Just as a quick counterexample, in my case:
> about:preferences#general > Startup > restore previous session
Same.
> about:preferences#general > Tabs > uncheck Ctrl+Tab cycle
Never have used Ctrl+Tab so no point in disabling it. Never going to push those keys, so the default doesn't bother me at all.
> about:preferences#general > Downloads > always ask where to save
I do _not_ want having to indicate where to save. That's why I have a Downloads folder; everything downloaded must go to the Downloads folder, no questions asked. I'll delete or organize later.
> about:preferences#home > Firefox Home Content > disable all except Top Sites
Same for me.
> about:preferences#privacy > Permission > Notification Settings > Block new requests
Same for me.
> about:preferences#privacy > Firefox Data Collection and Use > disable
I don't really mind. Depending on the mood, it will be disabled or left enabled upon a new installation. If it helps them develop Firefox, I'm willing to let Mozilla snoop a bit.
> Set in about:config extensions.pocket.enabled to false
Never used Pocket. Could disable it, but I just hide the icon. Lately I've been thinking that maybe I'm missing on some nice feature that the browser is offering me and I'm ignoring...
> Install the addons: uBlock Origin, Gesturefy, Firefox Multi-Account Containers
Those are your choice of extensions. Although I coincide with uBlock and the Multi-Account ones. The later, though, is just in a very preliminary development state; it needs much more work IMHO to be even a candidate for integration into the default installation. Right now, it is too minimal (missing convenience features such as exporting the settings and sync with the official Mozilla service)
> I remove the home button
I want my Home button. I have to explicitly enable it in Chrome, so I could complain about the same thing you do.
> I remove the sidebar button
I want my sidebar easily accessible, frequently swapping between "Tabs" and "Bookmark Search Plus 2". My sidebar is 99% time open.
> I reject every Firefox pop-up that wants me to enable Sync or whatever
I want my Mozilla account set up for synchronization of everything it allows (except history). It's a fundamental part of my workflow and it's the first thing I enable after a clean installation.
In summary, your preferences are just as valid as mine and any other person's, so I'd understand that they will never find a perfect set of defaults that would satisfy everybody.
EDIT: Added separation between paragraphs
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
It's not perfect but it beats "private browsing" windows which I used before.
For stuff that I want sessions to survive, I open them in specific multi-account containers.
[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/temporary-con...
[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/cookie-autode...
Firefox Dev Edition with Multi-Account containers is my GOTO web frontend dev browser.
With MAC you get tabs for different containers mixed up in the same window and the URL history is shared.
I prefer the profiles approach where everything - extensions, history, etc. - is all nicely segregated.
Firefox does have profiles, but there's still no good UI for managing them.
I block all Facebook domains with NoScript so I cant really use facebook in a container.
1: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/facebook-cont...
- It's multi-process architecture redesign _really_ improved performance (it's like using a whole new browser, honestly. If you haven't at least tried it, it's worth a shot).
- Mozilla's commitment to privacy (I know in the eyes of some, their current commitment isn't enough) is the best option you have outside of Safari / macOS.
- In version 71, battery drain on macOS is indeed largely improved
- The multi-account containers, anti-tracking and anti-fingerprinting are a breath of fresh air (yes, I know they are not perfect). I am satisfied that each time I sign on to YouTube, my recommended videos are just a bunch of random things.
- Firefox looks like it will remain one of the only browsers that fully supports current ad-blocking technology. (Yes, I know about Brave, but that's besides the point).
- The devtools section has seen a lot of attention that easily brings the experience on par with Chrome (in my experience).
- Firefox on Android with AdBlock drastically speeds up browsing the internet on mobile devices.
But, despite all of these good points, the browser still feels... clunky.
Sure, the UI performance drastically improved since Quantum, but really, open a fresh Firefox window, browse to your favorite site and click around a little. Then, try the same thing with Chrome / Chromium / Edge. I don't know exactly what it is, but these other browsers just feel that little bit "smoother" or more "modern".
Say what you will about Google and Chrome. But morals aside, in my opinion, there's no denying they built a world-leading software product that has vastly increased the perceived quality expectations of browser users.
Note: I still remain a primary Firefox user. The eye-candy is nice, but for me it's not worth sacrificing all of the other pros of Firefox.
EDIT: grammar
I also really do hope Firefox gains hardware video acceleration on Linux some day.
I regularly encounter things Firefox's devtools do that Chrome's don't, when trying to show something or other to a co-worker. Two I remember offhand:
* Showing a specific log level in the console, such as "info" and not any of the others. This was years ago, but at least at the time Chrome had you pick from a dropdown and it would always also display the more important levels - for example, "info" included "warning" and "error" with no way to hide those.
* A few weeks ago, with CSS Grid overlay, Chrome appeared to only show it when mousing over the element in the inspector. Firefox lets you click on the "grid" tag in the inspector to toggle the view, keeping it visible while manipulating the CSS.
Note that I'm a full-time Firefox user so it is possible these things exist in Chrome, but like 3 or 4 full-time Chrome users also couldn't find such options.
The other advantage of FF for me, besides Pocket, is that I can share and send pages with FF on Android which has support for ad-blockers. Last time I checked, Chrome didn't support extensions on Android.
Edit: It's information leaks for advertisements. I switched from Chrome to Firefox to get away from advertisement empires. Having to manually disable Pocket to do that leaves a sour note.
Please explain.
And I have been very pleased with the new Firefox. Highly recommend it to everyone!
The australis days were rough, but since quantum it's been feeling fast. It doesn't even feel obviously slower than chrome anymore.
It's fine on desktop, and using profiles is not too much of a big deal for me. But on mobile, Firefox is not as intuitive as chrome is to me. On my phone I have Chrome, which I only ever use if a website fails on all other browsers, I have Brave as my daily driver, and Firefox because I want to make it my default.
I just can't navigate as easily on Firefox as I can on Chromium browsers. An example, when I use HN, I open links on a new tab and I can swipe the header left or right to navigate from tab to tab. Easy breezy.
On Firefox, I have to click on the tab menu, figure out where I am, and read titles to know where I am going. Every single time I forget, I end up clicking on many tabs before I find where I am going.
Don't know if this feature in Firefox's pipeline, but that's the only thing stopping me from making the switch.
For your problem, I use an addon called "simple gesture" that allows me to add all kinds of gestures/actions.
Curiously the blurb recommends "Quick Gestures" which presumably is a different gesture addon.
You might want to try it out and leave this idea as a feedback on the app: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.fe...
Ironic username, then.
Definitely considering making the plunge as speed has been the only thing that's held me back from switching to FF.
Personally I edit the Firefox shortcut to add -p at the end of the target to get the profile manager showing up every time I launch.
I also use this when I spend a few weeks on a different machine at work: create a new profile, synchronize it with my account, then when I leave I nuke the entire profile.
Maybe set a different theme / persona on each profile.
If you want cookie separation, check out Multi Account Containers.
Anyone else here feel the same?
Posteo.de
Mailbox.org
Runbox.com
Mailfence.com
Migadu.com
If you don’t mind having to use apps for email, take a look at Tutanota and ProtonMail (the former doesn’t support IMAP by any means, and the latter needs additional software).
Similar experience here.
I run a VM with Linux for development and for viewing videos (e.g. anime). I only use uBlock Origin, NoScript is installed but was quickly disabled because it is too much of a hassle, and I don't care since this is the VM which I use for "pseudo-anonymous" web activities without all my regular logins anyway.
I chose Firefox there just to give it a try. I had to switch back to Chrome. At some point I could no longer watch anime on one site - on Firefox. It still worked fine in Chrome. What happened was that as soon as I started the video the entire browser seemed blocked, comparable to having a way too work-intensive Javascript running. However, Firefox showed me that none of the open tabs incl. the one with the videos had more than 1% of CPU time, plus, it worked in Chrome and that would have been blocked by a runaway JS script just the same. I also don't think the built-in HTML5 video player would be blocked by JS.
I think it was the video that was the source of the block somehow. It took several seconds for any command given to the video to have an effect (play, stop, forward 10s, timeline jump, etc.) The video site used iframes to show the videos from various sources (completely different video domains). Regardless of the source, the behavior was the same.
I gave up, because of the several-second delay of everything debugging was quite impossible anyway. Profiling did not show anything at all. I had to go back to Chrome. This only happened for one (meta) site, it was not a general video issue. I have no idea how I would even debug this, I don't think the regular dev. tools meant for (JS) web dev. were enough here. I made sure I used the exact same extensions in Chrome - only uBlock Origin, with the exact same settings too. So I'm sure the difference was in the browser itself. Similar nr. of open tabs (ca. 10), all but one suspended, on FF using its native built-in tab-suspend (i.e the tab does not load until activated after browser start) so this was not a "huge nr. of tabs" thing.
So unfortunately, at least in my experience, there does not quite seem to be parity between Chrome and Firefox. Also, everything is just a bit snappier now back in Chrome. I sure wish I would not have to depend on a mega monster corporation but I won't go out of my way to achieve that.
Of course, outside this one problem area all worked fine, apart from the bit where Chrome still feels a tiny bit snappier.
I only wish that their password manager allowed you to import passwords in standard formats from other password managers.
https://github.com/louisabraham/ffpass
And here are some hints about the CSV structure:
Now every time I see some new disastrous Chrome-related news I just nod and move on.
All other major browsers support Filesystem & FileWriter API: https://caniuse.com/#feat=filesystem
my biggest grows come from the omnibar, it still has a heck of a trouble guessing what's a search and what's a domain, the sorting out partial matches feels weird because bookmarks aren't prominent and there's no promotion of URLs entered Vs useless navigated toward and three default click action (append to bottom of the URL) might be fine if you are a developer but it's not for the most part what I want as a user.
edit: thanks all for the suggestions
edit2: imagine being so committed into a browser religion to downvote facts
Add ^ to search for matches in your browsing history.
Add * to search for matches in your bookmarks.
Add + to search for matches in pages you've tagged.
Add % to search for matches in your currently open tabs.
Add ~ to search for matches in pages you've typed.
Add # to search for matches in page titles.
Add @ to search for matches in web addresses (URLs).
Edit: it looks as if one can search for the input by prepending a ? to it. This will hide any other (local) results from the omnibar, giving easy keyboard access (by direction keys) to the list of search engines at the end of the list.
I found the complete list documented here:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/address-bar-autocomplet...
The address bar is where I can type in URLs and search through my bookmarks. The search bar is where I enter searches and can explore search history.
I've never liked the idea of an "omnibar", and the dual setup has been a much better experience.
I have short (mostly two letters, very few with three) search commands for Google, Bing, Amazon, en/de translation search, Duden (german dictionary) Wikipedia in german and english and gaming wikis for example.
So far so good, apart from battery usage on Android. I sometimes feel it spirals when too many tabs are left open. Desktop, no problem.
I have kept Chrome for my work stuff, because I want 100% efficiency / no delay due to my tech choices and I work on a SaaS tool primarily targeting Chrome. I still think Chrome is better when it comes to powering web apps, ahem, made by Google in particular.
The real question for me is, besides privacy, what is the killer feature that will / does make it obvious to switch to Firefox?
It seems that other browsers like Brave are also quite good at dealing with privacy, so why Firefox and not Brave?
Preventing the web from devolving into a closed garden. For this we need alternative browser engines and hence Brave does not make the cut.
Other than that, containers are a pretty useful tool that's so far Firefox only.
Chrome is amazing. Having most people switching away is a hard sell. I honestly think Brave has a more compelling selling point here, even if privacy is not something that sells as well as it should, meaning its adoption will be limited to early adopters / privacy-aware individuals only.
I agree with the other comments, it's our duty to ensure other browsers still exist, we can't let Chrome have it all, but we need more than obscure features to turn it around.
1. all web engines are open source
2. we had multiple engines. it didn't work out, at all. user experience was thrown out the window, technologies weren't implemented, the web was massively fragmented.
3. we're now trying to have a single open source engine that everyone contributes to since it's better for everyone's experience.
arr = new ArrayBuffer(4)
arrInt = new Uint32Array(arr)
t0 = performance.now(); for (; arrInt[0] <= 1000000000; ++arrInt[0]) {} ;
performance.now() - t0
Update - on my Android: Chrome: 7.5 secs, forever on FF. Weird. If I say a var is typed it should work faster.
I just tried running it in a web page, with the last line replaced by `console.log(performance.now() - t0);` and on my hardware it finishes in ~1.5 seconds in Firefox and ~2 seconds in Chrome.
Similar if I run it in a devtools console like so:
(function() {
var arr = new ArrayBuffer(4)
var arrInt = new Uint32Array(arr)
t0 = performance.now(); for (; arrInt[0] <= 1000000000; ++arrInt[0]) {} ;
})();
performance.now() - t0
The main moral is to not do performance testing in the console, because it's a _very_ different execution environment from actual web pages.
Wow, you are right, thanks. Lesson learned.
When I open a new tab, there is a ~50% chance that the URL i'm querying won't ever connect. As if there was no internet.
I tried to remove some open tabs (I have ~20 open tabs all the time) and it worked again.
When it happens, opening a new tab on Chrome always works, though. I wasn't using a proxy and my internet connexion is pretty stable and fast.
Restarting Firefox also helped, IIRC. But I never had such a problem with Chrome, when it was my main browser. Now, this happens every month or so with Firefox.
Drove me nuts enough that I switched to Brave for a bit as my main driver, but I've been experiencing some crashing from it recently and I miss my bookmark keywords, so I might go back.
What about chromecast support?
Also, applications tend to use RAM when it's available. Think of all the cache, typically that's why back is snappy (it doesn't re-render the page from scratch). Maybe it would make you feel good to see a lot of unused RAM, but since it's there, it's better to use it than not.
Open the cpu performance tab of task manager and set a page to reload every few seconds.
I don’t know why that happens or how to make it stop.
I wonder if it has to do with the scheduler? Desktop linux users sometimes install patchsets to their kernels like zen[1] or ck[2], which effectively enable soft-realtime in order to improve desktop responsiveness and latency, but reduce net throughput. iOS also generally feels more responsive than android, given comparable hardware, for similar reasons: more optimal scheduling algorithm.
I don’t want to have to debug this.. I just want it to work, so yet again Firefox gets put on the back burner for me. Maybe one day...
I remember that in order to get my passwords from Chrome to Firefox on macOS, I needed to install a virtual machine with Windows, and log in to Chrome and Firefox there.
Sure, a default has to be provided, but most of the people who will activate this option knows what they're doing, and which provider they want to use/avoid.
[1] https://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20190911113856
Better memory and usability of computer (Chrome lugs and lags and my iMac and Macbook). Normal tabs instead of vanishingly small tabs. All my tabs on restart (Chrome has several times been unable to recover tabs on a restart over the past few years) and quick restart.
And, though I don't use it, there is sidebar tabs for FF.
I have 4GB ram on laptop.
Curious why our experience differs. What platform are you on?
I think when people say they want a lot of tabs, they mean they want better bookmarking and history search. There's almost no reason to keep more than a few dozen tabs open in the background, wasting CPU and RAM.
1. Work spaces so that I can return to the same set of tabs with the same scroll positions as last time I worked on a certain project (e.g. one for work, one for leisure and one for my open source projects).
2. A better UI for bookmarks. The current bookmark UI is just too many clicks and too much manual management.
With Fx, that actually has a usable history search in theaaddress bar (Chrome wants you to google), I also really don't need to keep stuff open not to lose it.
There was a time about 3 months ago when that wasnt the case, and it needed a restart every few days to keep performance.
Speculatively, it sounds like there's something about your specific system configuration, i.e., other apps or hardware, that's interfering with proper functioning of FF.
I've been using Firefox as the primary browser extensively, every day for a few years, and have never seen it crash. A few times I was running code with an infinite loop and managed to crash a tab process, but the rest of the app continued to run fine.
That said, I can understand your frustration - but I hope you don't give up on Firefox. In my experience, the switch from Chrome didn't take much time/effort, and well worth it for the peace of mind, using software that respects the user.
They’ve also forced the integration with google sync. If you sign into google anywhere (including using google to sign in to a third party website), it will sign chrome in as well.
No complaints.
Seriously, why does this happen so much here? I'm not even talking about the merits of the argument (I switched to Firefox), I'm just talking about how much of an echo chamber this is.
You're free not to participate in a discussion you've come across ten times though.
As for browsers, I use 'Un-googled' Chromium.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-...
Also if you want to prompt what profile to use every time you use firefox just add -P like this "firefox.exe -P" in your shortcut/softlink or script that starts firefox.
I was a bit reluctant for a while because their branding is weird and there's too much focus on their crypto ad model. But if you switch the crypto stuff off, you have a fork of Chrome that performs just as well and also has a few additional privacy features and isn't linked to your Google account. Highly recommend.
Brave is bizarre and terrible. The idea of trying to replace ad-tech as it currently exists is great, and I welcome any experimentation thereunto. That said, brave does it wrong, and I don't think it's a good idea to support that; even without using their ad-tech feature, it still gives them mind- and market-share, and propagates their ad system elsewhere.
According to : https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=firefox-... firefox still has some work to do....
The other thing I dislike with new Firefox is the removal of the ability to change the size of the tabs and alter the window decorations so that they still take up valuable screen estate on smaller netbooks. Chromium isn't any better but does have the option to remove the window title bar.
Definition: Chrome is the visual design elements that give users information about or commands to operate on the screen's content (as opposed to being part of that content). These design elements are provided by the underlying system — whether it be an operating system, a website, or an application — and surround the user's data.