Switching back to Firefox

You guys were friends with Chrome?

Seriously! Even back in 2007 I was all "chrome is faster? Great, now Firefox has some competition" I never switched to chrome. You couldn't pay me to use that privacy nightmare.
- I used it when it was new and google didn't seem so bad. Google even sent me one of the original Chromebook prototypes (CH-47) before they launched as a product for sale. i don’t know when it started to become clear that google was going evil, but around 10 years ago it was really obvious where things were headed.
I moved to Chrome after years of using Firefox when FireFox was having tons of issues that Chrome resolved.
Most of them are fixed now. Though it still has issues with selection boxes on some websites forcing me to use Chrome again for them. At least they're government sites, mostly, so there's no ads needing to be blocked... Yet.

i haven't used chrome in over ten years. i could never understand why anyone the least bit nerdy would use it, but that's autism for ya

Honestly? I'm lazy, my adblocker still works so that's enough for me
FF has been my daily driver for at least a decade, but I gotta test my web apps in everything :/
- I kinda prefer Vivaldi for testing chromium-based browsers. I guess MS Edge would be a similar experience too nowadays
I have run Ungoogled Chromium, Thorium, and Vivaldi, and all of them perform much faster and better than Librewolf.
And Librewolf is my daily driver.
Tab groups. I switched from Chrome to Firefox when all this Manifest V3 stuff started, and I'm still looking for a Firefox extension that works as well and looks as clean as the way Chrome handles tab grouping.
- Firefox has panorama and supports browser groups which swap the whole visble tab bar. Lots of options.
Chromium does have a clean UI. I still use Librewolf but the Firefox UI is a mess
- What UI? Both browsers render one line with tabs and the address bar below. They're almost identical.
- To me, the Chromium UI looks and feels like a toy...
- What exactly is "clean" about a ui that doesnt conform to the os ui standards..? The ui is basically bloated because of it.
- Could you be more specific? I've been using ff regularly for a long time now and never feel like the UI is getting in the way, though I do use a tab groups add-on to help manage my mess of open tabs. But I also haven't used Chrome for even longer than I've been using ff, so I'm curious about what specific ways you think the chrome ui is better.
so many webapps and logins dont work properly in ff. or lets call it AdFox for now while they're still selling us out to alphabet. so autism is when you just see black or white. chrome isnt bad overall...they have a UX, AdFox isnt good overall for too many reasons. i hope we'll get a real browser before the web is dead.
- When have you used Firefox the last time, 10 years ago?
- I've been using Firefox consistently since the beginning in 2004. And Netscape navigator before that. And I have never had these issues you speak of. I never made the switch to chrome when it was released because I always hated the look of it. Firefox does everything anyone needs to do. I don't understand how some people struggle so much.

Always has been.

If you haven't used Firefox in 3+ years, its improved a lot. For 99% of people its interchangeable with Chrome except for being in the Google ecosystem.

no. everytime its more shit. slap AI or autotranslate on it while no user hat that top prioritised. this shit stupid search in the middle that takes your cusor to magicbar or what that crap is called. pocket...fuck it. it takes longer to debloat firefox than finding an alternative. shit default search, shit ceo... moz has become 99% worse. TB was so good it had to go to keep the bar super low for future moz releases. devs are the worst in how they handled feature request while taking money from google.
- I don’t understand why translation is bad, could you please explain
- How come you don't have a usename? Or is it a bug on my side?
  BTW, I'm super happy with translation and AI in ff. I guess not every users wants the same, especially for those with english as first langage.

I though it is not supposed to be polished since it rather new?
I'm on Librewolf too. Recently its been fully signing me out of my extensions on every startup, so I can't just unlock bitwarden with my pin anymore. Anyone else run into this?
- That was a bug in the bw extension, it's not unique to LW
  E: I use LW and bw and had this issue a couple of months ago, but it's been back to normal for a month+
I love Librewolf too, and if you're looking to explore other options I do recommend giving the Mullvad Browser a go. It's another firefox fork but I believe it handles fingerprinting in a better manner. Similarly, it comes with uBlock Origin built in but also NoScript. I'd likely use it as my primary browser but I don't really care for NoScript and removing the extension would ultimately defeat the fingerprint resistance of Mullvad.
Brow-curious, lol. I'm gonna use that one

Ublock is building a manifest v3 compatible extension, in case you want to compare the effectiveness of v2 vs v3 Ublock.

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/ublock-origin-lite/ddkjiahejlhfcafbddmgiahcphecmpfh

https://github.com/uBlockOrigin/uBOL-home

It's sad that firefox only exists to keep chrome from becoming a monopoly, around 80% of Mozilla's income is from Google to keep google.com the default search engine.

I tried Vivaldi and honestly it looks and feel amazing, but the issue is that it's chromium based, but if mozilla put more effort in actually working on firefox, I would love it even more. Wish librewolf had a mobile app

Use Mull on mobile

There's only like one notable website I've had to use chromium for instead of Firefox.

The website for recalibrating a Google Pixel's fingerprint sensor. I've had to use that website twice, and I just used Microsoft Edge to do it since I can't uninstall it.

Which site?!? I like my pixel but the fingerprint sensor is like it was made by insane baboons
- https://pixelrepair.withgoogle.com/
  Worth noting that the calibration is for when you replace your phone screen, because often the phone screen comes with a new fingerprint scanner and for some reason the phone won't recognize it without a firmware update.
  IDK what pixel you have, but iirc some of them are just known for having kinda shitty scanners. I have a pixel six with a glass screen protector and I often have to try more than once.

You mean Librewolf, of course.

There is no Librewolf without Firefox.
- There is no Firefox without people's desire for privacy. There is no sufficient privacy without people removing the diseased fingerprint of multiple big companies.
  There is no possibility of a big browser surviving, without caving to big companies, in the artificially hostile web created by Google's monopoly.
  And that last one is fundamentally unfair, beyond any accusation of "Derivative!" anyone can make.
Hey let's not force the guy to move again privacy comes one step at a time.
- This tbh. I know Mozilla has been up to some questionable things lately but I only just got a bunch of my friends to finally ditch Chrome.

Really enjoying Zen browser this week, may be my new favorite. The tab handling is VERY weird at first though.

TIL, it is Gecko-based but more than just another Firefox clone.
https://news.itsfoss.com/zen-browser/
- Kinda neat, right? What do you think of it so far?

I need the quick and easy profile switching management in Firefox like I have in Chrome and I'll never look back.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/profile-switcher/
- That looks like something similar to what I'd find useful, but the requirement to download a separate binary to use the plugin feels like 100% malware and I will not touch it.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/
What I did for that is I made a second shortcut on my taskbar, so now it lets me open both instances or just one
- Yes, I've done that, but I don't want more icons on desktop and I'm out of room on the taskbar for even more goddamn icons. Unfortuantely the muti-account-containers isn't quite what I want, and the other suggested plugin hasn't been updated in 2 years and also requires a separate binary download to work, which just screams malware and if off the table entirely. Thanks for the suggestion any how. I'm still looking. Cheers!

It is a shame that Firefox won't support WebSerial. That is the only reason I have to use Chrome.

Is MV3 finally out?

Congratulations to a partnerships success coming from Google's payment being Firefox's main source of income.....

Chromium based. Has the same issues.
I don't like Brave because the CEO is a homophobe and it's basically an ad itself for the BAT scam.

You might want to keep looking for better friends. Firefox recently got busted tracking users without their consent

https://noyb.eu/en/firefox-tracks-you-privacy-preserving-feature

With a recent Firefox update, Mozilla seems to have taken a leaf out of Google’s playbook: without directly telling its users, the company has secretly enabled a so-called “Privacy Preserving Attribution” (PPA) feature. Similar to Google’s (failed) Privacy Sandbox, this turned the browser into a tracking tool for websites.

Edit: i am not saying that Firefox is bad. I just wouldn't call it a friend, let alone a best friend

Well, when there's only really 2 friends available, and the other options are just those guys in different hats...
- That's the definition of browser monopoly
- WebKit: TheyDontKnow.jpg
Y'all can downvote this person but they aren't necessarily wrong. Unfortunately, it seems you have to pick the poison you know in the browser space or take a risk with something else. And something else is usually just one of those original poisons wearing a different label. That said, there are some projects that tend to be of better form than others. Consider the Mullvad Browser and Librewolf. Those two are built on Firefox but are "fixed" enough to mitigate the crap Firefox has done. For Android, I believe Mull browser is the best one can get right now, it's like a mobile Arkenfox.
- The story is an overblown nothingburger and would make Firefox still the massively better choice. This is just agenda pushing at this point. But hey, keep using Chrome if you think they preserve your privacy and the web in a better way. No one is forcing you to use a Firefox based browser.
What else are you going to use honestly. I use Librewolf but that still is Firefox based.
It is funny to me that they call targeted advertising "privacy preserving"
- I'm not saying it is a bad choice. I just wouldn't call Firefox my best friend. That's all
Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz

The feature isn’t even mentioned in Mozilla’s data protection policies. The only way for users to turn it off is to find the opt-out function in a sub-menu of the browser’s settings.

Irritatingly, a Mozilla developer justifies the move by claiming that users can’t make an informed decision.

This is all IN ADDITION to them turning on DoH (DNS over HTTP) without permission which nullifies ad blockers.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
We have heard this a million times. The feature you're referencing is a net positive for privacy and yet the zealots just cannot accept that fact.
- First of all, every would is true. Nanana boo-boo is not a rebuttal.
  Second, if it is so awesome for people and not about tracking, why do you sneak in changes that circumvent anti tracking without telling people about it and burying the change in submenus?
  How many people regularly read submenus?
DNS over HTTPS is very good for privacy and security. Even Librewolf turns it on.
Putting ads in Firefox is bad in so many ways but encrypted DNS is good as it keeps DNS actually secure.
- Not if you leave it at default, which is cloudflare, and is the only option. Fuckers MITM-ed half the internet, and now they're after DNS. I'd rather trust my ISP and NSA more than them.

I would use firefox, but youtube is basically unusable on it. No idea why, but it is so much better on chrome

I find that interesting because I hear it a lot, yet I've never had a problem with it. I use all the usual adblocks and whatnot, but it runs fine.
- That's what I hear, but it's really bad for me.
Not true. I haven't used YouTube on anything but Firefox for a couple of years now. It's 100% fine.
- Don't know what to tell you. It's true for me.
When was the last time you tried it? There have been hiccups a few times where Ublock needed to push an update, but (at least on my end) those issues have tended to resolve quickly
If YouTube is your only issue you could also just keep chrome around as a YouTube player and use Firefox for everything else - unless space is exceptionally tight on your system, a second browser isn't the worst thing to have on hand :)
- I use YouTube daily, and it's been awful for a while now. I don't understand, my computer is very powerful, but youtube is unusable on Firefox. I tried to figure it out but no luck
This is super weird to hear. YouTube is way BETTER on FF for me. Videos load/play exactly as expected and my ad blocker still kills all the junk that I would have to put up with on Chrome.
I haven't figured out how to totally remove the stupid chat window on the right side of videos, but that's true regardless of browser.
This is definitely a "you" problem. Something is worng with your installation or OS
I don't know why the downvotes. Sadly some webpages are made only thinking in chromium, thus working worse in other browsers.
I have found the same issue with youtube. I still use firefox, but youtube under firefox works worse than under chrome or other chromium based browsers. Probably it's google fault this, I'm certain they do it on purpose.
Also clarify that I use an old computer that struggles a bit in general, so newer hardware may have not experience this, maybe?
- Sadly some webpages are made only thinking in chromium, thus working worse in other browsers.
  YT absolutely works in Firefox. I use it daily for many many years. The only thing that annoys me is that the fullscreen toggle is kinda sluggish but that's not anything I'd use Chrome for.
- Not sure why the downvotes, either. Can't imagine the downvotes once they find out I am using Windows 11.

Didn't Firefox sell to Google recently or something like that?

no. they do get money to put google as one of default search engine. but IMO that's fine for now, as they need money somehow. And librewolf, for those who take it seriously.
They get sponsored to be the default search engine. Firefox developers cost money and being non-profit relies on dontations and sponsorship
Of course not.