Why do you use Firefox? | Hacker News Reader

Why do you use Firefox?

agmweb.ca

61 pointse15ctr0n117 comments

- not owned by a corp

- I am used to the way the software feels (the way it hangs up or freezes... but at work I use Google Chrome because of the proxy and being used to it in that specific place it's firefox I can't stand... with the exception of the company issued laptop on which I installed firefox (no proxy)). Psychosomatic ? Very much, yes.

- free software

- I like the logo and the name (I am a minotaur and phoenix early adopter and moz before that)

- I think they are good people and were there when I (as a user) needed them. I know chrome or IE is there to suck out my soul and my data (yuck).

> I am a minotaur and phoenix early adopter and moz before that

Interesting, I had never heard of Mozilla Minotaur before. I can't find many details online, other than it was a new mail client before Phoenix was renamed Firefox. Was Minotaur an early version of Thunderbird?

Yes, Minotaur was the name of the project to make a stand alone mail client out of the Mozilla suite.

http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/2190891/Moz...

https://tech.slashdot.org/story/03/03/26/055232/new-mozilla-...

No processes. No hangouts. No index service started without asking. Chrome on Windows is a pig. Back when I was using it then nonstop then 25% of CPU usage was pegged to Chrome. I gave up trying to manage Chrome and switched to Firefox.

Recently Firefox said they were moving away from threads to processes. I think that's a mistake. Killing Chrome was a pain at times because when it does hang all the child processes had to be killed independently. It was possible to restart Chrome with orphaned processes. What a mess.

Also, I like the implementation of profiles in Firefox much better. I have a different profile for work, home and various side jobs. Very nice.

Chrome developers are crap developers and they hide behind processes because they don't have the chops to do threads. I hate to see Firefox move in that direction. Maybe Firefox needs to since Firefox is adopting Chrome extensions. But I refuse to use Chrome because it has crappy performance and usability. Hopefully Firefox doesn't move in the same direction.

I love Firefox because it's like the Emacs of browsers [1]. It's self-discoverable, it can be scripted and it has dozens of wonderful extensions.

To me, dropping their plugin architecture to achieve compatibility with Chrome is a bit absurd. Vimperator, GreaseMonkey and many others make Firefox unique.

[1] I know there's Conkeror, but the project seems to have stalled.

Not only has Conkeror stalled, but scrapping XUL is a surefire way to murder it in cold blood. The only option going forward would be to rewrite it as an alternate browser that uses Gecko and/or Servo as the engine.

My hope is that the move to WebExtensions will actually help here. Currently, Conkeror is theoretically compatible with Firefox extension-wise, but it often meant writing a bunch of glue code to expose Firefox extension functionality without Firefox' actual UI. Now that extensions are forced to be UI agnostic, it seems reasonable that a browser that's Firefox-compatible could have a much easier time with that. Hopefully a post-XUL Firefox will continue to support something along the basic lines of XULRunner (i.e. present a Firefox window without the actual UI) to make that easier than having to fork Firefox itself.

>No processes

From my understanding, the initial rollout of multi-process has a single render process (in addition to the main browser process). There are ongoing experiments to determine the optimal number of processes, so it's likely to increase soon. In the future you can force this to 1 by using the "dom.ipc.processCount" pref if you don't want your process manager to resemble Chrome.

That's correct. Firefox currently uses one main browser process, one content process (for all tabs), and a plugin sandbox process. Multiple content processes (aka "e10s-multi") are coming soon, currently two content processes are the default in Firefox Developer Edition (53) and Nightly (54). More content processes will be added, though the Firefox team is quite aware of the concerns about memory usage. The next step will probably be four content processes plus a ServiceWorker process.

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis/Multiple_content_proce...

I feel like that defeats the point of multiprocess; on Chrome at least, the one-process-per-tab model is intended to isolate tabs from one another without having to duplicate a bunch of work that the OS does already.

You're correct that it defeats one of the points of multiprocess, but you still get parallel performance gains trivially that will scale well as more cores are added as well as isolation of crashes where it doesn't kill your whole session.

> Chrome developers are crap developers and they hide behind processes because they don't have the chops to do threads.

This might undermine the rest of your argument. Chrome developers are pretty damn sharp, and they use processes so they can add features the fastest while maintaining the best security profile (and record).

But I agree with your overall point. I'm saddened by the need for the browser to suck up more and more of my computer's resources - more gigabytes of ram, more cores - in order to enable web developers to develop ever-flashier applications faster. The balance has swung way too far, web applications (and even static content sites) need to be less flashy, and spend more time on reasonably sane implementations and libraries.

I'm also sad that Firefox is pressured into just doing what Chrome does. But I can understand, they don't see an alternative, they have to "keep up" with websites and user bases that can't be trusted.

What does Firefox do with profiles that isn't supported by Chrome's "persons" or whatever they're called?

The extensions, histories, settings, etc. are separate in different Chrome profiles, I'm not sure what more I'd want them to do.

> Recently Firefox said they were moving away from threads to processes. I think that's a mistake. Killing Chrome was a pain at times because when it does hang all the child processes had to be killed independently. It was possible to restart Chrome with orphaned processes. What a mess.

Your argument against a multi-process architecture is you once encountered a process-reaping bug in chrome. Can't even.

> I refuse to use Chrome because it has crappy performance and usability.

I worked as a platform engineer at Mozilla for several years. I heard so many unfounded opinions about <browser>'s <performance/memory/whatever> consumption that ran contrary to every benchmark and defied every attempt to extract statistics from the user that you'd think I would be numb to it. But I still get chills.

The advice was always the same though. "Does this occur if you open a fresh profile without your 900 tabs or 50 addons?" -- "If I'm going to do that I might as well switch to Chrome!" -- Well, I mean, okay.

> Chrome developers are crap developers and they hide behind processes because they don't have the chops to do threads. I hate to see Firefox move in that direction. Maybe Firefox needs to since Firefox is adopting Chrome extensions. But I refuse to use Chrome because it has crappy performance and usability. Hopefully Firefox doesn't move in the same direction.

This is insulting to a lot of very smart people who spent an enormous amount of time working on these engines. You can't just infer two traits about random software, attribute it to the biggest technical difference you can see, and then state that as fact. A multi-process architecture is much more difficult to get right than a multi-threaded one, and every single modern browser is pursuing it because it is worthwhile on numerous axis. Citing nothing but a vague luddite sentiment, you assert the hundreds of engineers who have spent years working on chrome don't "have the chops" to "do threads". Wat.

> Recently Firefox said they were moving away from threads to processes. I think that's a mistake.

It's the only reason I'm still on Chrome/Chromium. I like my exploding processes to be in a sandbox, but that's just me. It's been 10 years since Vista RTM'd and Firefox lagging behind IE. Still a bigger wonder is that the same company is also behind Rust - if you care about security why not put your browser in a sandbox first?

Fortunately (at least for now), Firefox uses N:M process:thread model instead of 1:1 like chrome (I am typing this in Firefox with 40+ tabs but using only two processes and with a chrome with single OneTab's tab using 10+ processes....) and it allows you to turn off e10s in about:config.

> vast majority of users could switch to Chrome and get all the same extensions with almost identical functionality [4]

On desktop, maybe. On mobile, definitely not. Chrome for Android does not support extensions at all.

Firefox, on the other hand, does. If you want uBlock, Ghostery, whatever on your mobile browser, you don't have other choice than Firefox. And if you like your bookmarks synced between mobile and desktop, that makes Chrome on desktop no-go option too.

>And if you like your bookmarks synced between mobile and desktop, that makes Chrome on desktop no-go option too.

The extensions/ad blocker argument is 100% legit, but unless I misunderstand you, Chrome has had history and bookmark sync across signed-in platforms (mobile/desktop) for a very long time!

I think he means that since you can't use chrome on mobile because of lack of extensions, you can't use it on desktop unless you want out of sync bookmarks.

Exactly! Thank you.

> Chrome has had history and bookmark sync across signed-in platforms (mobile/desktop) for a very long time!

Yes it did, but the requirement above is AND, not OR - if I want 1) ad blocking in mobile browser AND 2) synced passwords/bookmarks/whatever, I cannot use Chrome at the desktop, because it sync only with mobile Chrome and mobile Chrome doesn't do 1).

- I've never felt coerced into creating an account to sign into or felt like I was tying myself to a system built around the goal of selling me ads.

- I can disable EME and choose not to install Flash, and that applies to most other features that I don't want to use.

- I started using it around Firebird because of its nature as a lightweight browser that provided extensions to let me pick and choose my functionality. I think of Firefox as a piece of software that says "yes" to the way that I want to do things more than it says "no".

Generally speaking, I use Firefox because I've always used Firefox. At no point have they ever done something that's made me upset enough with my browsing experience to jump platforms entirely.

It's familiar, it has the extensions I need and it hasn't buggered up in any significant way that I uninstalled it from frustration.

It's the same for me: I've used it since it was Netscape 2. I've used the single-digit Mozilla milestones (the ones that crashed if you opened more than one window, or if you looked at them funny). I've survived the "flamey bird renaming" era. I'm simply used to the way it works. Yes, it has changed, but any change has been gradual.

Also, on Android it has the uBlock Origin extension, which with its ability (in advanced mode) to block images and Javascript helps keep the data consumption low (and make the sites load faster).

It's a similar situation for me. I've used Firefox for a long time, and it currently gives me the least-worst experience of the major browsers. That's probably the only reason I still use it.

I wouldn't say I like using Firefox, though. In fact, I think the user experience has gotten a lot worse for me over time. On more than one occasion I've wanted to move away from it.

Really the only thing that keeps me using Firefox is that none of the other major browsers offer a significantly more compelling experience at this time. I find all of the major browsers to be mediocre at best.

If a better non-Firefox browser did come along, I'd likely switch away from Firefox as soon as I found out about the alternative. I have no real ties to Firefox itself.

Goodwill, as I like Mozilla much more than Google. I kind of dislike the Chrome UI, but that's a minor point.

A lot of FF is hare-brained, though. E10S solved the unresponsive UI for me, but for the life of me, I don't know how to enable it on my touchscreen Dell. There is no indicator in preferences that tells me whether it is on or off and no button to simply force it.

Javascript-heavy websites tend to burn through the CPU of my Macbook Air, but I don't know how to throttle background tabs. Or at least profile which tab gobbles my cycles. About:performance is not that helpful. Ideally, there would be some indicator if a background tab eats more than x% CPU.

`about:support` will tell you if the multiprocess windows are activated, depending on the add-ons you are using.

The E10S indication is probably not supposed to be user visible. You can check it though:

Go to about:support page and in the first page, check the Multiprocess Windows row.

And for those that look at about:support and see it's disabled for some reason (an add-on you use doesn't play nice with it is the common thing), you should install an add-on called Add-on Compatibility Reporter, to tell you which one is causing you issues.

I spoke with a Firefox dev, I was told that due to accessibility settings, multithreading with touchscreens wouldn't come until the current Beta build is released to stable. Technically it should already work on the beta build but it doesn't seem to work for me.

AFAIK, accessibility support, including touchscreens, should be enabled in Firefox Beta 52 now:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis#Schedule

In the meantime, you can force Firefox to enable multiprocess, even if you have a touchscreen by creating a new about:config pref "browser.tabs.remote.force-enable" = true.

I think the argument misses the point. Most of the people who are using Firefox without extensions are doing so because someone who likes the freedom of the browser -- including the ability to run all current extensions -- suggested it.

>> In fact it's insulting to all those contributors who work so hard on Firefox to say that extensions are the only thing keeping them from switching to Chrome.

The ability to run extensions is just the most popular manifestation of a browser that has always valued user freedom. So my question is, why are they stopping with that mentality? Why blame the victims of such a poor decision? Taking away my option to use extensions seems like the insulting choice to me.

> why are they stopping with that mentality?

Because, in practice, officially giving unfettered access to Firefox's internals to third-party developers makes changing anything in the Firefox codebase a potential quagmire. It's taken five or six years for electrolysis to begin seeing the light of day, and that's because such a drastic rearchitecture of the browser ended up breaking basically every popular addon in the wild. In the meantime, the inability to evolve the browser has hampered its ability to compete with Chrome, whose deliberately-specified addons API leaves it with no such baggage. Not to mention that the greater scope of Firefox addons has more severe implications for user security, which means that Mozilla has to spend resources to further vet every addon on AMO, which leads to even more complaints at the sluggishness of the apparent bureaucracy.

Addons were absolutely a great way to differentiate Firefox from IE back in the day, but in the context of modern web browsing having such a free-for-all addons interface is a lose-lose proposition. It's absolutely a shame, but the market of browser users has been inexorably making this decision for years now.

That was well said. But at the end of the day doesn't it remain an argument that users shouldn't be able to run the extensions that have been freely available, aka "we know better than you." Breaking Firefox to turn it into the browser they wished they had made will be disastrous, I'm afraid. It seems to me there are any number of "middle paths" (or dual paths) that Mozilla could take, but they don't want to do anything to jeopardize their consolidated user base.

> But at the end of the day doesn't it remain an argument that users shouldn't be able to run the extensions that have been freely available

I'm unsure what you're arguing here. Their goal is not to abandon addons for the sake of abandoning addons. On the contrary, Mozilla has been sweating blood for years to strike a balance between 1) making the vast architectural changes that will keep them competitive with other browsers and 2) keeping as few addons as possible from breaking with each release. And rarely do they ever get kudos for their efforts in keeping up this balancing act--instead they just get panned both for not being as fast as Chrome and then breaking some subset of addons anyway. So we've at last reached a breaking point: between electrolysis and project quantum, Mozilla is at last forced to choose between being a slow browser with powerful addons or being a fast browser with limited addons. I'm sure there are plenty of folks on HN who will wish they had taken the former path rather than the latter, but the problem is that Mozilla's mission of influencing web standards depends on having sufficient market share to afford a seat at the standards table, and I happen to agree with Mozilla that there are more people out there who want a fast and secure browser than who want an extensible browser (and I say that as someone who's been using Firefox with addons since version 1). (And for all that the point might still be moot: maybe Chrome with its marketing momentum and Safari and Edge with their platform advantage really are unassailable regardless of which path is taken here.)

In any case, as unhelpful as it may sound, the idea that users won't be able to "run the extensions that have been freely available" is false. Old versions of Firefox will always exist, and every component is thoroughly open source, so if a community (or company) sees a demand for a fork of Firefox with legacy addons support then the opportunity is ripe.

>> that will keep them competitive with other browsers

I understand that is the hope. In reality it does represent a step away from the approach that has made Firefox popular. I would say it's a guess, at best, that Firefox is suffering because it is not moving towards a Chrome-like model fast enough... versus that Firefox suffering because of the move towards a Chrome-like model.

As far as "striking a balance", no that would be something like allowing users who want to keep older extension models do so by agreeing to a dialog box, and then offering to turn such extensions off in case performance problems actually arise.

I still think you're underestimating the difficulty here. This would effectively involve keeping a fork of Firefox in-tree, and trying futilely to keep those two implementations bug-for-bug compatible.

Because it's not owned by Google. That's why!

For me it's a combination of extensions and philosophy.

Philosophy is pretty clear, but extensions that I find necessary are:

Tree Style Tabs (Chrome does not have a good replacement, I've tried them all) DownThemAll LastPass with better functionality Mouse gestures (this is HUGE for me, I want to be able to lazily browse with my mouse when I please, open/close and switch tabs with just a right-click and a flick)

The Tree Style Tabs author is quite active[1]. I knew, he had a really great, and funny, site[2] for XUL lovers out there.

I was about to make a snarky comment about how filthy rich should he be, based on how TST is always praised everywhere, so I went to look for a donation button to link to my planned snarky comment.

I didn't find any donations button, so I dug a bit more and found this[3]: 'I am an incumbent IT engineer, but apart from my company's work, I'm serializing articles in the manga format entitled "Cis Tube Girls" in the monthly magazine on Linux related technology called Nikkei Linux.'

Seriously, check this comic: http://system-admin-girl.com/about/

I love Firefox, Tree Style Tabs, Google Translate, and the Internetcetera. I love you Piro, thanks!!!

[1] https://github.com/piroor

[2] http://piro.sakura.ne.jp/xul/xul.html.en

[3] https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=y&pr...

1. Addons. Google has censored YouTube Center because it allows people to download youtube videos. Pentadactyl is also important and not really possible to such a depth in Chrome (though I will admit I haven't had it installed in a while due to constant breakage). Tab groups is another that is unlikely to be available in WebExtensions, at least for a while. Call it insulting if you will, but it is the reality.

2. Open Source, both in long-term direction and not just code. Recent moves have dampened this though (Hello, Pocket, blocking addons from outside AMO, unsigned extension blocking)

3. I don't trust Google. Once upon a time, this was not the case.

It's not owned by an advertising company, and it's the only full-featured browser I'm aware of that has great ad blocking on Android.

100% the same - Chrome might be the faster browser, but it doesn't matter when it's hobbled with ads. I imagine that's even more significant when you have an older phone.

> only about 38% of Firefox users have an extension

What? You can't describe 38% of your user base with the word "only". This should read "a whole 38% of Firefox users ..."

I use Firefox because I trust it better than chrome, but I need those extensions I am using.

Or just remove the adjectives, give me the percentage and let me decide for myself.

Yep. If you make a change that upsets nearly 40% of your userbase, can you really act surprised when you hear people complain about it? Even if you go with the comparatively tiny 5% estimate of users who are 'unable' to switch, that's still a number that's in the millions.

This is the sort of thing that Google does all the time - optimize for the 90% at the expense of the remaining 10%. I think a lot of the more extreme backlash is because of that vocal (but not insignificant!) minority which is disappointed by the perception that Mozilla is going down the same route as Google (and all the other tech behemoths before them).

I genuinely just like it better than Chrome or Edge. I think Chrome is an excellent browser, and for about a year I used Chrome instead of Firefox (due to Firefox really not working anymore, having to restart the thing several times a day -- I also tried Opera, but it didn't fare any better) but I never liked using it as much as I liked Firefox. So at some point I tried Firefox again, and it has stuck so far. It's probably still not the most stable browser, or the fastest per se, but I generally like Mozilla's design decisions a bit better than Google's, and, well, it's super subjective but between Google and Mozilla, I have a bit more sympathy towards the latter (without hating the former or anything). I also use Firefox on my Android phone. I like that it can synchronize my profile, and it's also quite usable. Frankly I'm reasonably happy about the state of browsers (there have been times where, in my role as web developer, I wasn't quite so happy ;)) overall: seems like everybody's made at least a decent browser. I'm glad I can pick whichever browser I like best, not whichever one sucks the least. :P Also, I've been using it since 0.4, the first browser that could replace IE6 well for me, at that time (compatibility was still an issue -- am I old?)

In approximately this order:

1. Trust and privacy issues (limited phoning home, separate search/address bars, etc. plus generally promoting a more open Web)

2. Stability and reliability (in the sense that things continue to work over time)

3. Gets updates (but doesn't force them unexpectedly)

4. Large and flexible add-ons ecosystem (and I'm already familiar with it)

5. Momentum/habit

In practice, 1-3 rule out Chrome as my everyday browser choice, while 1 and 3 rule out IE, so today Firefox basically wins by default on my Windows 7 PCs.

If Mozilla rearranges or breaks too many things and if it's then no longer possible to have a secure version of Firefox without getting those other changes, most of the above points will become deal-breakers for Firefox as well. In that event, I'll mostly likely switch to something like Pale Moon for my own use and just keep the big names around for testing.

Chrome feels invasive to me.

It's always wanting me to sign in to my Google accounts and sync everything. Why would I want to sign in to a browser?

It wants to run extensions as background processes (wtf?). Why would I want my browser to run "apps"?

It's like it wants to be an OS wrapped in an OS. Why wouldn't I just use my OS?

At this point, it just feels like bloat to me. I want a browser. That's all. I guess I use Firefox for what it doesn't try to do.

I use Chrome apps for long-running things that are actually like apps. Gmail and Hangouts for example. It's nice to have a separate icon for them too. But I still do all my regular browsing in Firefox.

Firefox's address bar is much more intelligent than Chrome. The moment i type a keyword it shows me the sites i visited from the past that has this keyword.

Firefox also supports flick gesture from my Wacom tablet on my Windows machine to scroll up/down webpages.

I thought I was the only one - chrome's address bar is unusable for me.

Chrome's address bar is almost obsessed with considering everything you type into the bar being a Google search.

Personally, I disliked the fact that Chrome would spawn so many processes. This has become less of an issue (as each process is no longer as heavy), but was a big deal previously as other people at work would constantly complain about their computers being slow.

Call me old school, but I actually like the fact that the URL bar and the search bar are two separate things and that I can actually have a menu bar. I find the way that Chrome handles its navigation a little annoying at time and I don't see a big deal about losing a few hundred pixels to FF's chrome.

I actually like the way that Mozilla communicates information about Firefox (less automated).

Aside from that, unabashed fanboyism.

I use Firefox because it works fine and doesn't appear to be trying to exploit me.

I don't know what "WebExtensions" are or how they differ from regular extensions, but if Firefox breaks all the adblockers and scriptblockers that I depend on to make the web tolerable, I'm going to have to downgrade that "works fine" rating.

WebExtensions are going to look a lot like Chrome's extensions, to the point that many addons will be compatible between the two. So, speaking loosely, anything Chrome addons can do now will be supported.

I've switched back and forth over the years.

I'll never switch again.

I prefer noscript to scriptsafe, I refuse to browse without a whitelister. I like the fact that the mobile version supports the extensions I see as vital.

Chrome has one thing going for it, market share. which is why I keep Chromium installed for when I can't log into citibank to pay a bill, etc.

Also, when I was a teenager without my own computer, my mother used to think Firefox was a virus. She'd tell me "uninstall that mozzarella foxfire virus IMMEDIATELY!"

that always makes me laugh.

I guess Mozzarella Foxfire hasn't burnt enough of their goodwill to scare me off for good the way Google has.

Firefox is fully open source, does what I want it to. Syncs where I want it to if I choose to sync it. Allows me to run extensions on my Android device (Chrome doesn't). Is more customizable. And it works better portably (not installed into ProgramFiles running from a USB device or synced cloud folder).

Chrome on Windows locks all your saved passwords, extensions, and extension settings to your current OS. If you upgrade to a new PC and copy your APPDATA over, Chrome will unceremoniously delete all your passwords and extension data with no warning.

Chrome on Windows also allows any website to download infected DLLs to the local machine's download directory without prompting. If you then download a trusted digitally signed installer and run it from that download directory, it'll use those infected DLLs unless it specifically hard codes their locations (newer versions of NSIS are safe from this, older versions of NSIS - which are much more common - are vulnerable).

IE and Edge... no thanks.

The main reason I use Firefox over Chrome is that the Chrome devs are very against users having a choice on how the browser operates. They also tend to over-engineer solutions to problems.

Here's an example. There has been a bug report asking that Chrome ask to overwrite files instead of silently adding a number to the filename. Instead of making Chrome operate like every other browser and every other program out there they instead came up with a scheme to track all file downloads in the download history and if etags and dates match to "snap" to the location where the file already exists on the user's drive.

Countless of users have said they don't want that. All they want is to be asked to overwrite. Nope, not going to happen. So give us an option in the settings. Nope. Apparently too many options is a bad thing to have.

That's why I don't use Chrome.

From habit, and to do my part keeping the Web from becoming a single-vendor standard.

I also use Edge on my Surface tablet, for the same reasons.

NoScript and uBlock Origin, both running at once, for an almost completely ad-free Web.

Is this not available under Chrome for some reason? Or was it not available when you made your switch (or original browser choice)?

NoScript is mentioned in the article as not being available on Chrome, and I've heard that Chrome ad-blockers still show ads. Google being an ad company, I wouldn't expect them to allow particularly thorough ad-blocking.

I'm not one to defend Chrome, but the functionality of uBlock Origin you get on Firefox is the exact same as what you get on Chrome. Same filters available and everything.

If you still see an ad in Chrome with uBlock Origin installed, it's likely that the filters haven't updated to block that particular ad yet. Moreover, you'd likely see the same ad when browsing with the equivalent Firefox.

That's true enough; but uBlock Origin is my second line of defense -- the main one is NoScript. It requires quite a bit of savvy to navigate modern websites that way, but if you can work it out it's pretty powerful.

I don't worry about the browser collecting usage information to sell to information brokers. I have a lose trust in the Mozilla foundation to do the right thing.

Tree Style Tabs is the only reason left for me at this point.

We may be the 1% or some other fringe but this is also my reason.

Except for the UI, Chrome is generally ahead. It's not insulting to Firefox contributors. Competing with Google is hard.

I came here to make sure that Tree Style Tabs was represented, and I see that it's already been mentioned several times. Why wouldn't Chrome build this in? It seems like they could grab a decent number of power users that way — and presumably make some of their other users happy along the way.

I will note, however, that because of TST on Firefox, I keep way more tabs open there than in Chrome (20x, I'd guess). Based on the few times when I've had more than 15 or 20 tabs open on Chrome, I could imagine that it would bog down most machines. Perhaps they're not building it in because it would encourage people to browse with many tabs open, which would suck up lots of memory?

I can imagine that's the case. Chrome with just moderate number of tabs open (under 100) already becomes unusable, both from UI and performance perspective, while Firefox many times worked fine for me with thousands.

Because Firefox Add-ons allow more browser-enhancement than Chrome.

An example - TileTabs. Not only can you show any number of tabs in a grid like layout one one screen (so helpful for work), but it can compress them all into just one tab.

Chrome's extensions are allowed an icon in one of two places.

Technically I feel Firefox is good enough, it supports the browsing I do.

From a non-technical PoV, I use it because I feel that Mozilla genuinely care about their users, their privacy and making a better WWW experience.

Chrome on the other hand gives the impression having one single purpose, harvest as much user-data they possibly can while protecting their business interests. Although I understand it, I don't agree with it and don't think it'll be good for an open and free internet in the long run.

For me, it really is the extensions. Specifically, it's Tree Style Tabs. Very few browsers seem to offer even just having tabs along the side of the window instead of at the top, let alone the actual tab tree. XUL also enables some neat Firefox-based browsers like Conkeror to exist.

Hopefully something can be worked out so that similar functionality can be implemented in Firefox even after the death of XUL. Else, hopefully there can be some Firefox equivalent to CEF so that I or someone else can build a Firefox-based browser with an alternative UI.

Else, I'll likely start browser hopping again - something I hoped to avoid by switching from Chrome to Firefox in the first place. I'll certainly still use Firefox on Android, since it's a fantastic little browser that has a somewhat-usable tab interface that doesn't become completely worthless beyond the 10-tab mark (I've got 52 open on this phone right now). For desktop, though, my hopes are on NetSurf to become reasonably usable (the recent Duktape integration is a nice start).

Basically: I just want a browser that's FOSS and that doesn't shove all my tabs into the top of the window end-to-end like a goddamn maniac. That's really all I ask.

Tree Style Tabs

https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/sidewise-tree-styl... or https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tabs-outliner/eggk...

Unfortunately those replacements just don't cut it. They're too separate. Tree Style Tabs is irreplaceable for me.

Unfortunately these are tree style tabs in a separate window. Bad UX in my opinion.

Thanks for the suggestions, and last year I dedicated a six month trial to using those "separate-window" implementations in Chrome, but I'm very sorry to say they remained clumsy.

I group my work into topics by desktop; one browser instance per desktop, with an average total of 200+ tabs across eight windows. Restarting Firefox means sorting eight browser instances, one hotkey to snap them to half-width. Restarting Chrome required sorting sixteen browser windows, then manually aligning each primary window plus its tab window using the mouse. I tried, I really did, but that never became less of a pain.

A bunch of people have already mentioned a few extensions, like Tree Style Tabs, that I consider important, but there is another big thing keeping me on Firefox: inertia. I have been a user since it was "Phoenix". If I wanted, I could change to another browser, but for now I would rather not have to go through the trouble. I have everything as I like it, more or less, so I will continue using FireFox ESR until it is impractical.

I use it because I don't want google to snoop on my browsing habits, and Firefox is the less shitty FOSS browser to my knowledge.

I don't feel like I am being data mined when I use Firefox.

> vast majority of users could switch to Chrome and get all the same extensions with almost identical functionality

I'm surprised this isn't a more worrying point!

> In fact it's insulting to all those contributors who work so hard on Firefox to say that extensions are the only thing keeping them from switching to Chrome.

But that's your most distinguishing feature. Ok, you have the stats to show that most people don't even notice. I think that's more insulting than us diehards who are actually using your product to its fullest. I love Firefox for the power it gives (extension) developers. Now you're telling me is that you're putting in a lot of work towards taking something away that I've used for over a decade. Don't expect those diehards to be happy about it.

While I long upgrade from Firefox, I imagine most don't change because people hate change. I remember back when I switched I noticed all the little tiny differences, and while there were different and in most cases better ways of doing that in Chrome, I was use to my current way and any change slowed my productivity down. In the long run, I knew Chrome would be a better solution when I finally dove two feet in. But for many they are happy with what they have and while Chrome would offer a superior experience, the change wouldn't be worth it for many. And the rest I imagine fall into the category of I hate company x, so don't want to use it and then end up sticking with company that they believe on the surface is more inline with their values.

what do you mean "on the surface"?

Tab Mix Plus for Multirow tabs

I guess I'm in the 5%.

I have been responsible for a lot more installs than just my own -- lots of those people with little to no extensions. But in the last year or so I've switched to giving people Chrome (it just makes more sense these days) and when I'm no longer using Firefox I will definitely have no reason to advocate for it.

But I understand, I'm on the losing side. The way that I've used the web for the last decade is going to be obsolete and I will have to suffer with whatever I can scrounge together to continue to work effectively. Whatever browser I can make that happen with will be the one that I use. If a lot more people had learned how awesome some of these add-on provided features are, they would have continued to be supported.

I use firefox because despite all the missteps that mozilla takes; I still like the company. I fell like mozilla have their heart in the right place and that they try (sometimes against all odds) to do the right thing. I want to support mozilla and that's why I use firefox.

- TreeStyleTabs - Vimperator

The Chrome alternatives for both of these do not compare well. Cvim, vimium, etc lack a lot of depth like .vimperatorrc (a config I can track in Git!).

The TreeStyleTabs alternatives in Chrome require a separate sidecar window in Chrome! This mikes window management a nightmare. Sigh.

cVim does have a cvimrc file. You have to use the `configpath` and `localconfig` settings.

It's not Chrome.

I don't understand Chrome's split personality (Chromium). While you could theoretically get a version that is disconnected from Google, does one actually exist?

There is also this issue [1] that's been open since 2011 that won't let me implement an extension similar to something like "Self destructing cookies". Looks like it doesn't align with Googles interests.

[1] https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=78093

Chrome is all about delivering web content to the user, as the web page developer designed it. Firefox moves the balance of power closer to the user. And not just with extensions, but by building in Readability mode and letting users pick fonts, sizes, colors etc. Even though Firefox is going to move away from their old addon model, they are constantly pushing to standardize more functionality in the new model. They really want users to experience the web on their own terms, even when that means putting a lot of extra work into the core framework of the browser.

I'm trying it out for a while, having mostly used Chrome in recent years. Perhaps oddly it's climate change that has prompted this. Where I live each summer is hotter than the last, and Chrome's persistent high cpu use this year has been making my macbook worryingly hot. Safari is more efficient but lacks many useful extensions.

Firefox is pleasing so far. The laptop is far quieter and cooler. I've found all the extensions I need. I like not being bound to an ad company's product. The one thing I do miss is good support for keyboard shortcuts.

Which keyboard shortcuts do you miss from Chrome?

Two which spring to mind:

(1) Email link. It has a menu item (File -> Email link) but no shortcut. Perhaps worse, the standard OSX means of adding a shortcut to a menu item (via System Prefs -> Keyboard) doesn't work with firefox. An assigned shortcut will very briefly flash the menu name, but doesn't then select the item.

(2) Chrome has a general dialogue for assinging keyboard shortcuts to extensions. As firefox doesn't, the user is at the mercy of extension developers, many of whom seem to be mousers.

Unfortunately, Firefox doesn't currently support OS X's custom keyboard shortcuts for menus other than the Firefox application menu.

I found a Firefox extension to customize keyboard shortcuts (ported from a Chrome extension). Unfortunately, the extension doesn't work in Firefox 51 or later (due to some unfortunate version checking logic in the extension itself). I left a message on the extension page, so perhaps the developer will update their extension.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/shortkeys-cus...

Thanks. I'll keep an eye on that extension.

Do you happen to know if there's a bug logged for the custom keyboard shortcut lacuna? And/or for there not being a preset shortcut for emailing links? (Yes I'm being lazy here and will look myself if you don't know).

The above two were top-of-mind examples, but, particularly with extensions, the lack of keyboard shortcuts does add quite a bit of friction to FF use for me. Perhaps not enough to send me back to Chrome (though today it cropped up often enough that I was tempted).

Another example is I haven't found a satisfactory way to add a link to Pinboard from the keyboard. There are a bunch of Pinboard extensions, but the one I like best so far (https://github.com/Cito/Pinboard-Pin) doesn't support shortcuts. In Chrome I would have been able to add my own.

> Do you happen to know if there's a bug logged for the custom keyboard shortcut lacuna? And/or for there not being a preset shortcut for emailing links?

This is Firefox Bug 429824 - User-defined (custom, System Preferences) shortcuts don't work

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=429824

I found this extension that lets you add or custom keyboard shortcuts for many Firefox menu items. It mentions the Email Link menu item, but I didn't dig much deeper.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/my-keyboard-n...

Unfortunately, I don't know of a way to assign shortcuts to extensions.

Thanks. I'll keep an eye out on 429824. Actually I'll need to as it turns out after a few hours more use that emailing links is something I use too much in the course of work to be willing to reach for the mouse (and the 'My Keyboard Navigator' doesn't work for this purpose on the mac). I wouldn't have known this without a few days experimentation, which in itself says something interesting about UX & (my) self-knowledge.

For now, it'll have to be back to Chrome, with Safari as a back up for hot days.

I use the official Pinboard extension, which overrides Firefox's bookmark keyboard shortcut (Cmd+D) to use Pinboard:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pinboard-exte...

Pentadactyl beats most of Chrome's vim-like keybinding extensions.

I use Pentadactyl, but cvim for Chrome, a relative newcomer, is also very good.

Does someone has also issues with heavy-loaded JavaScript pages, e. g. using React or Angular? It's a pain to use/scroll on those sites. The most awful website I know using it is Facebook. It is so damn laggy, even with uBlock and Disconnect enabled. When I start having more than one Facebook tab open (together with WhatsApp Web) I sometimes grow the will to switch to Chrome. I could resist yet because I don't like Google's approach for restrictive extension web store.

I used to use Firefox way back in the day before Chrome was a thing, then once Chrome existed and run pretty fast I moved to that for many years. Now I'm back to Firefox almost entirely due to the absurd 'Web Bluetooth' BS from Chrome's Update 56.

It's noticeably more sluggish than Chrome even with little or no addons and tabs, but I'm far more ready to put up with that after the last few Chrome updates.

You might want to read https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13577670 then ;)

Honestly, I just couldn't bear Chrome dev tools UI, thankfully firefox dev tools have a firebug ui option which I find just about perfect.

I could switch to Chrome but I have Firefox set up already and know how it works.

I sincerely hate the Firefox developers for breaking addons constantly and now making it so I can't even edit addons without a painful signing process.

Addons in Firefox seemed more powerful in the past but I'm confident WebExtensions will remove this advantage.

> I sincerely hate the Firefox developers for breaking addons constantly

Exhibit A for why it's a good idea to allow addons only through a specified addons API (i.e. how Chrome does it): your users won't hate you merely for daring to make normal changes to your codebase.

A browser that performs what I want rather than what some second or third party wants. A true user agent -- not some commercial agent increasingly modified to shovel corporate-ware and corporate spying at me.

Extensions currently being a central piece of this.

Kill my extensions, and I've a lot less reason to stay with you.

I would prefer to use Chrome because of the process per tab model, but the second time a Chrome update started the browser intermittently crashing, I ran out of patience and switched to Firefox as my primary browser.

I use it as my "IRC" browser because it supports whatever audio APIs Discord uses for chat. Slack goes on the same browser window because it's similar to Discord.

I use Safari as my main browser, though.

I use it because it's the only browser that supports my old computer.

In addition to things already mentioned: * Doesn't put all extension icons in menu or toolbar, without option to hide them. * Empty page on new tab.

Two reasons: There's a number of extensions I want to keep using. Those are not available on Chrome. And I fear for my privacy when using Chrome.

Might be worthwhile having a survey asking what browser HN users use most of the time (I use two, but one dominates quite a lot; neither are FF).

Need something other than Chrome and IE that has decent plugin support.

Because I can't have a browser consume all of my memory.

about:config

I enjoy having the ability to tweak some tiny little settings that help my workflow here and there.

Freedom.

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