Reasons to Switch from Chrome to Firefox | Hacker News Reader

Reasons to Switch from Chrome to Firefox

makeuseof.com

98 pointsnachtigall101 comments

One reason is missing. When Google has dominant market share, they use it to destroy the web and move to Google.

You may or may not like AMP (I don't) but they way it is implemented is to create a Google only parallel web, and as long as users are on Chrome they see that web only - and it becomes the standard.

They have suggested changes to what ads are acceptable and how they should be handled, and I don't trust them to set that standard either.

An example of this is the recent webassembly changes, where Google ceded to Mozilla's vision [1]. As they gain more of a monopoly with their platform, they will abuse that power more.

Keep FF around so that they can have a hand in what becomes standard on the web.

Also, as far as privacy, it is not stressed enough. Most people don't realize that all of your browsing on Chrome is sent to Google. What page, how long you visited, etc. I've read that Chrome has special handling of pages with Analytics installed. The privacy invasions of what should be called Google TrackingTool would make "browser toolbars" and viruses of past ages proud.

BTW, I have more than 600 tabs open now in FF [8GB ram] and it is browsing along fine. Now, I know that I am insane, but try just 60 tabs in Chrome and see all sorts of weird crashes.

[1] http://robert.ocallahan.org/2017/06/webassembly-mozilla-won....

To your last point, I literally just counted after reading your comment without changing anything. I have 68 tabs open in Chrome (over four windows, two each in two different profiles), and this is fairly representative of my usage since my laptop was last rebooted (19 days and change) and I have had zero issues.

Counterpoint: I have 16 GB of memory in this computer.

Counterpoint to my counterpoint: I have had Emacs running the entire time as well, and IntelliJ running most of the time (it periodically freezes after monitor connect/disconnect events and has to be restarted).

SSD swap stats?

Why does one need 600 tabs open in his browser though?

I've ditched that habit years ago (ironically by switching to chromium), and it has been a major improvement for me.

I regularly have 200+ FF tabs open, but FF steadily grows in memory usage.

Normally I have to restart around 3gb due to notably degraded performance (around every 4 days ). Do you use extensions to avoid this?

Different guy but I use tree tab which cures it because they naturally organise by topic and you canjust slam then into a nested bookmark folder or close en mass. I still end up with a lot but they're easier to browse and persist so it hovers around 50

More reasons for switching to Firefox include the ability to easily set up a self-hosted sync server allowing you to share your browser settings across several clients. While Chrome for Android does not support extensions, the mobile Firefox version does allow you to install ad blockers while being able to sync your mobile and desktop clients. AFAIK, Chrome for Android does not support a custom sync server at all.

I recently switched from Chromium to Firefox and am running Firefox on my Linux system as a different user than my main account for increased security. The only thing that bothers me is the missing magnification bubble which is used by Chrome for Android if it cannot reliably determine which link I clicked on.

If Chrome allowed to block ads on mobile devices and implemented a feature for easily setting up custom sync servers, I would happily switch back for security reasons.

Can you elaborate on what's currently stopping you from setting up a sync server for chromium?

Nothing is stopping me from hosting one but being able to use the custom sync server on my Android phone is essential to me. Setting up a sync server easily includes being able to use it easily in a sense of being able to enter its URL somewhere in the settings of the browser.

While I did not find any evidence that custom sync servers are supported on Chrome for Android, I have got the impression that the requirement of specifying the sync server URL as a command line argument for Chromium is a deliberate choice in order to decrease the usability of that option. Using a desktop environment, you need to edit the links to your browser application in order to specify a custom sync server. I guess the discussion on https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=181429 is what mainly caused my subjective sentiment.

Number 6 (more customization, highlighting complete themes) and number 8 (unique extensions, highlighting Tree Style Tabs) are shortly going to be things of the past. Neither of those features are fully set to make it past version 57 since they will be removing the ability for legacy extensions (those using binaries, XUL, or things of that nature; i.e. non-WebExtension extensions) to function.

Edit: I would like to add that both of those things will have some level of support, but the full range of features is just not there and providing the same kind of experience is just not part of Mozilla's scope, which is now strongly favoring keeping the UI as uniform as possible.

We have been developing a SaaS app for two years now and the most serious issue is that Firefox Nightly shares the profile with the stable build. Sounds harmless, but it is not if you have installed Nightly and stable and the website uses indexeddb! The indexeddb, once modified in the Nightly, cannot be opened in stable build anymore. So you are trapped in Nightly forever if you access websites with indexeddb. The only way back is to completly erase your profile. That's why we actively warn users not to install Nightly on their system.

I know you didn't ask this and that this doesn't solve the problems for your own users but you can run nightly or any Firefox version with different profiles by passing a command line argument or by installing one of the many profile switching add-ons available.

Personally, I have nightly with a nightly profile, Dev Edition has its own profile anyway, and stable with the default profile. They all sync with Firefox Sync.

At least for your personal usage, this may serve you.

Thanks for the information, this may help me a lot for testing against Nightly in future. But still I think having the standard installation of a Nightly mess with your stable build is just a no-go. Chrome's approach by simply maintaining a second profile for the canary build is how to do it.

I agree with you. As always, we can open an issue about it. Will try and see how it goes...

Perhaps you should use Developer Edition instead? It uses a separate profile.

Wow, thanks. Comments like yours are why I keep coming back to Hacker News.

You can also create new profiles by hand. See sibling answer.

I totally feel your pain. You might want to share your use case at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1255740 which is the bug for creating different profiles by default.

There's many people having the same problem, so here's the solution for doing it manually: https://superuser.com/questions/679797/how-to-run-firefox-ni...

Aside from clickbaity title, I would have rather liked a list of reasons to switch from Chrome to any other browser (including Firefox).

I am genuinely curious why Chrome is the default for most technical people? The only reason I hear over and over is its developer tools. However, there are other Chromium-based browsers, like Opera or even Chromium itself, with exactly same dev tools. Why then keep using Chrome considering it being developed by such a controversial company?

The most common reason I see is 'security'.

Just out of curiosity: How do you know Chrome is more secure compared to Chromium?

I don't, as I'm a total numpty. But a lot of the security-minded folks that I trust seem to think it is.

It's unfortunately in part because Google holds a monopoly on a couple of services. Geolocation as an example doesn't work in Chromium all of the time. It falls at the whim of Google. In terms of services and functionality Chrome has a monopoly, it's used by devs because they need to support it.

I tried to develop a map based application and I needed to code in a fallback for when geolocation fails just so that I could finish developing it. Where I had a short list of random locations.

Google needs to lose its browser monopoly, but I'm not even sure at this point how that can happen. The internet allows monopolies to flourish like no other industry or sector known before. Many politicians are pushing for more monopolies on the internet, things like net neutrality come to mind.

You are clearly doing something more advanced than the vast majority of developers who are coding interactive self-validating forms with React or Angular and are still swearing by Chrome, even though they do not even touch those edge cases where they would see something not working on other browsers.

And that makes me sad because they, and their family members and friends, are giving Google this market share which could be distributed to other browsers which are as good and better than Chrome.

>to other browser which are as good and better than Chrome

In which ways? I use Chrome because I'm used to it by now, and it doesn't seem to be lacking for features or extensions. I say this as a full stack engineer who spends plenty of time building React front-ends and using the dev tools. Can you tell me what I might gain by switching away from Chrome?

Can you tell me what I might gain by switching away from Chrome?

- Vertical, nested tabs

- A good feeling inside

What community would gain: competing browsers getting more traction due to larger share in the browser usage, better web standards support in the long run (remember Internet Explorer?).

What you would gain: be less dependent on Google, use open source (e.g. Firefox, Chromium, Iridium), better extensions as Chrome doesn't support third party, better performance.

Your argument about dev tools is the same as all others are saying. But everybody comfortably ignores the fact that dev tools are built into Chromium and Chrome just happens to use the same, so it is not special in that space.

>But everyone comfortably ignores the fact that the dev tools built into Chromium and Chrome are the same

I comfortably ignore it from ignorance and not convenience for my position, so feel free to help change my mind here.

Looking at an analysis[0], I see a few downsides to Chromium vs Chrome (presented as negatives when switching to Chromium from Chrome):

- not evergreen - worse media support - worse flash support (I watch a reasonable amount of MLB.tv, where this is for whatever reason still important)

So I am making a small amount of sacrifice for... the good of the community and, apparently, "better web standards support".

Can you flesh out your argument for this better web standards argument? I am but a child of the web development sphere and arrived at a time where "fuck IE" was an overwhelming sentiment, so I never cared to pay attention to it, nor why it was hated, and consequently I don't follow your implication there.

[0]: http://www.bloomtimes.com/chromium-vs-chrome/

Chrome is simply an amazing piece of software. We have a fairly large Javascript app and Chrome seems to be running circles around Firefox and Edge. Safari used to suck, but they caught up recently. So yes, if Firefox wants to stay in the game, for us performance is the key. They made great progress (for example flexbox layout has seen huge improvements recently), but there is still a long way to go.

There's security, integration etc, but I think Chrome guys really nailed the UX. I see the care taken at every turn and most things are very well designed for the average user.

Most don't browse enough to switch browsers based on performance, especially once they get used to something.

Can you give some examples of the UX? From my perspective, both browsers have a bar at the top to enter a URL, and a spot to click on next to a tab to open up a new tab. And a star at the top right side to bookmark a page. Not sure what else (other than configuration menus, perhaps?) where the UX really differs from one browser to another. And UX within a page (where I spend most of my time) is determined by the web site I'm visiting.

>From my perspective, both browsers have a bar at the top to enter a URL ... Not sure what else (other than configuration menus, perhaps?)

That's where the difference exactly lies. Firefox feels like it is designed by a programmer, Chrome feels like it was planned by a UX person then built by the programmer.

1. There's still a search bar alongside the omnibox. Unnecessary.

2. History is an important part which firefox allocates a measly sidebar. Chrome offers the whole page although with less powerful options to navigate compared to firefox (by time, by site, etc).

3. Bookmarking experience is a lot more thought out in Chrome. When I bookmark something, Firefox just puts the bookmark in Other bookmarks but Chrome remembers the last folder you used.

I really can't come up all the cases where Firefox frustrates me but Chrome doesn't, but that according to me is a sign of good design. Chrome has a lot less friction and minimal cognitive overload. Sure, Firefox has many features I would love to have in chrome, but I know that Chrome will present those options with a much smoother experience.

1. This is something the Mozilla suite got right, long before Firefox existed. I can't understand why they added and kept a seperate search box.

For me Chrome's killer feature is tab handling though. There are at least half a dozen browsers I could comfortably use if only the had decent tab handling.

Try neither: qutebrowser. It has built-in vim keybindings (configurable), a lot of opportunities for customization/hacking, and it's open source and maintained by a great developer who cares about the project and has run a number of successful kickstarters to support its development. It uses QtWebEngine, so it's hip with all the modern standards.

http://qutebrowser.org/

Thanks for sharing, keyboard-focused browsers are great.

Wanted to share another keyboard-focused browser, luakit (https://github.com/luakit/luakit) which is using lua instead of python, but is basically the same idea.

I've been using Chrome for years, but I'd love to switch to firefox. The last time I checked, 3 things were preventing me:

1) U2F support for Google. There was a U2F extension that worked for some other sites, but I could not get it to work for Gmail / drive /etc.

2) Support for Hangouts

3) All the random web passwords that are in google's password manager

3) Firefox will import passwords from Chrome automatically. Options -> Security -> Saved Logins -> Import.

Isn't that a bit scary that Firefox can simply import the passwords from Chrome?

There are single-off tools to dump password databases from all 3 major browsers instantly. Terrifying yes, easy to deal with, not so much.

It's not plaintext, but it looks like any program on the same computer and that knows your password can get the decryption key. https://superuser.com/questions/146742/how-does-google-chrom... Firefox stores its passwords as plaintext by default, but you can set a master password that prevents easy decryption. (You could probably sniff it out of a running instance, or keylog it as you type it at the beginning of a session, but it's enough that Chrome's password import fails.)

Edit: Firefox's is also encrypted I guess, but they say anyone with access to your computer can get them unless you set a master password. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/password-manager-rememb...

I do not see this option (Firefox on Linux). Does this exist only on Windows or Mac?

If you're using hangouts for google voice there's an option to have it use email instead which is incredibly nice.

There was also for a while a CLI hangouts client that I used in tmux, I heard google was shutting down the API though and moved everything away from hangouts since I personally wouldn't be able to stand having a browser open all the time just for chat.

Unfortunately, when certain (notably javascript-heavy) websites run so slow in Firefox, it's too frustrating to use given that Chrome runs them just fine. Even on a beast of a PC with more than enough RAM and a fast i7 processor, Firefox's Spidermonkey engine appears to just be far superior to Chrome's V8.

Seriously, why is the parent comment voted down? If you have ever compared Firefox with Chrome on a Javascript-heavy website, there is a clear winner at the moment, which is Chrome. I would love to see Firefox have larger market share, but it will not be achieved by buring your head in the sand.

Amen. I recently (like, in the last couple of weeks) gave Firefox a shot again and it's just objectively slower for my use cases. It sucks, but it is what it is.

You might want to give Nightly a try (upcoming Firefox 56) which improved a lot thanks to Quantom Flow project. I updated from Firefox Dev Edition (FF 55) to Nightly and the boast was obvious (there's also been a good boast recently in FF 54 thanks to multi-e10s).

e.g. see the SpeedometerV2 benchmark differences at https://ehsanakhgari.org/blog/2017-06-23/quantum-flow-engine... So there is progress and thanks to Quantum the best is hopefully yet to come with the integration of Servo components

Chrome profiles are the killer feature for me that prevent me from moving to another browser. I wasn't surprised to see profiles in the short list of reasons to stick with Chrome. Privacy implications be damned, I liked having separate simultaneous profiles running for multiple work and personal accounts.

You'd have to install the TestPilot extension first, and then the Containers addon. https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments

Thanks for the reminder. I remember checking that out when it first launched and then I drifted away from using it for reasons that I no longer recall. I'll check it out again.

> You'd have to install the TestPilot extension first, and then the Containers addon.

No you wouldn't …? Firefox has had support for profiles as long as I've been using it, which goes back to the Phoenix days. It tries to pretend that you can't run it with multiple profiles simultaneously, but you can (`firefox-bin -profilemanager`).

I'm unfamiliar with Chrome user profiles, but a quick look makes it appear that they are similar to Firefox's profiles: bundles of independent, isolated browser settings.

I used Firefox profiles all the time, and am quite fond of them. Maybe they are not as easy to use on Windows or Macs? I'm pure Linux on the desktop.

Yeah, Chrome makes it really easy to maintain and run multiple sandboxed profiles backed by completely separate Google accounts with their own settings, histories, extensions, etc.

Personally, I find the new Firefox containers feature more friendly and useful from a UX perspective than Chrome profiles. You can learn more about them at https://testpilot.firefox.com/experiments/containers

For me, it's the dinosaur game you can play when the internet is down.

Just to let you know, after reading your comment I switched off wlan and reloaded this page. The dinosaur appeared and after trying some keys the game started and I may already be addicted. Look what you have done!

You've never had the internet go down before this?

I had, but I thought the dino was just a static icon.

You don't have to disable the connection. Try navigating to about:dino

How are Chrome profiles different from the ones that Firefox has (and had for quite a few years, almost "always")?

I've switched to Firefox as well. For me, Chrome is slower but still has a killer feature that makes me fire it up once in a while.

The killer feature? Ability to fill in credit card information when I am paying for something. Makes checking out a breeze.

Hoping that Firefox adds the feature soon.

LastPass has an extension for each browser (including mobile), which allows you to fill in CC details.

Autoformfill is partly enabled already in Nightly and will hopefully ship sometime in the future. https://blog.nightly.mozilla.org/2017/05/23/preview-form-aut... So I guess credit card information (sensible) is maybe not in scope at the moment.

That blog post suggests that credit cards are in scope:

> Before release:

> * Support for credit cards

Things I miss from Firefox:

1. The search/URL bar was much better at predicting the page I wanted

2. When downloading a file I can just click "Open" rather than having to navigate to a temp directory, save it, then open it, then delete it later.

3. Password manager was in the toolbar. In Chrome it involves several mouse clicks and scrolls, and doesn't stand out at all.

4. When saving a file Firefox remembers the last directory used on a per website basis.

5. Delayed loading of tabs until they're clicked (as an option), as well as "reload all tabs"

6. All those extensions, but it looks like even Firefox is making most of the existing ones incompatible now.

My main gripe with Chrome is it takes too much time to load for me even if it has to load no tabs on opening. Comparing this with firefox, FF always beats chrome (and note that firefox will always have around 60+ tabs to load, it probably doesn't matter). I have had 3-4 machines (without SSDs) and this difference is always there.

I didn't even used to keep Chrome installed a couple years back , it took an astonishing ~60 seconds or so to start.

I like Firefox and I would switch, if it had a "duplicate tab" feature like Chrome. For readers who haven't used this sublime feature, when you duplicate a tab in chrome you get everything - history, tab contents, etc. A straight fort() of the current tab. I use it constantly - google something, click on first link, read a little, duplicate tab, hit 'back' on the duplicate tab and find another result I like.

How does that differ from what (I suppose) is the common way of doing it, i.e. go through the Google results page and open new tabs for each interesting result?

Because each duplicated tab has the full history. No need to preserve the original search tab.

Not sure how that's useful.

not sure if it's 'Tab Mix Plus' or Tree Style Tabs, but one of those appears to provide the exact functionality you describe.

Apparently it's a feature in the base version of firefox, just not one that's exposed prominently (I can't find a menu option - only mouse & keyboard shortcuts).

FWIW, when you middle-click the back button (to go back in a new tab) in Firefox, history is cloned, too. (At least on Nightly.)

Yeah, this has worked on all versions for a long time.

It does support that

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/762043

Oh hey! So it does. I'm not sure how I would discover it, but it works exactly the same. Very cool - thanks.

Does that mean we have anprjer happy hn Firefox-user now? :-)

It means I'll be trying it out and seeing how I like it.

Have your pick: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=duplicate...

Drag and drop a tab to another position on the tab bar while holding ctrl. (Might be command or whatever on Mac?). No idea why this functionality isn't exposed via a menu item.

I just tried it with this tab and not only did I get full back history but it also had my partially entered comment in this form.

Edit: holding ctrl while using back and refresh also duplicate a tab with predictable behaviour.

the sweet pool of extentions will dry up soon, when thy depricate the old api

I'd switch permanently if the Mac version was more adherent to the Mac platform w.r.t integration and HID. Last time I checked, I still can't highlight a word, CMD-CTRL-D to get a Dictionary definition.

People that like these benefits in Firefox should really check out Opera.

Opera isn't open source though.

I'd really love to switch back to Firefox from Chrome but it's just so sluggish on my Android phone and I had the same issue with an iPhone a few years back. Why is this, really?

Try Nightly. I've used it for a year now without problems. Also install ublock origin there for displaying all the js-heavy ads. I also sync it with Firefox for Desktop.

For me it's the opposite: Chrome on Android is not usable because of all these ads.

Sounds like a good solution, thank you. The ads are indeed awful. I tried Firefox Focus yesterday and now I'm swooshing through the web. Just wish I could use tabs.

Thank you. Will do. I tried Firefox Focus yesterday and now I'm swooshing through the web. Just wish I could use tabs.

Didn't think the first comment went through. Oh well.

Nightly on Android also has an option on to block Tracking (which effectively blocks also ads). That is, like Tracking Blocking in Private mode, but always "on". This option is not yet available in the non-Nightly releases.

If you do not want to use Nightly, then the normal Firefox together with the addons "ublock origin" and/or Privacy badger should not be much different than Firefox Focus, but still allow for tabs.

https://addons.mozilla.org/EN-US/android/addon/ublock-origin...

https://addons.mozilla.org/de/android/addon/privacy-badger17...

I really like Mozilla's work, however, it is difficult for me to recommend Firefox as long as it has a poor sandbox relative to Chrome. This is disappointing, especially as Firefox becomes better, but a casual user needs to be protected from malicious websites as much as possible. Until this situation changes, in good conscience I can only recommend Chrome with uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger.

It is my hope that adoption of Rust helps improve this, although more integration with OS sandboxing features would also be excellent in making the case for Firefox.

We've been working on a SaaS product for the last couple of years, and browser compatibility is very important to us. From a web development perspective, sometimes I wish I didn't have to deal with Firefox. I know mozilla and its FF helped shape and pioneer a lot of the tech and tools we use today for web development, but I find it to be the most finicky browser in terms of rendering.

We do development on Firefox, and we see very very few edge cases where those two browsers will behave differently. In the last 12 months I can only remember one issue we had with javascript and form submit where we deactivated the submit button.

If you have a lot of compatibility problems, you are probably using a lot of experimental features.

But Vimperator didn't survive the switch to Electrolysis, right?

VimFx actually supports electrolysis!

Electrolysis should auto-disable itself if you have a blacklisted extension installed. (I'm assuming Vimperator is on the blacklist.) You can also disable it manually in about:config by setting browser.tabs.remote.autostart to false.

If vimium on firefox didn't totally suck I would.

Have you tried vimfx?

Huh? If your vim add-on in Chrome is better than in Firefox, you're using the wrong add-on.

Try Vimperator in Firefox.

Meanwhile, `d` can't even close the New Tab page in any Chrome vim add-on. It's a bit pathetic. Vimium is the crappy Chrome plugin that was ported to Firefox.

I think it's pretty clear that Chrome won the battle and Firefox is going nowhere but down. Personally, I can't see it happen fast enough.

The security of Firefox is (and always has been) atrocious to say the least, and will get you owned. This is not just my personal assessment, but a widely held opinion amongst security experts.

On top of that the codebase is completely rotten (personal opinion). I can run Chrome for months, without crashes but Firefox can't stay running for more than a couple of days, not to mention leaking memory like no tomorrow.

The memory leaking is a legit issue. I've noticed the same thing. I can close a bunch of tabs and the memory usage will go down but not by anywhere near appropriate. After a long while (days), having just a small handful of tabs open will show a significant memory usage. At that point, the only solution is to close the browser and re-open it.

The problem seems to be mitigated in part by using private browsing mode. It doesn't really solve the problem but if I know I'm going to be browsing script heavy sites or opening a ton of tabs for research or something, I'll open up private browsing. When I'm done, I close that private browsing window and the memory is completely released because Firefox walls off everything in private mode.

Firefox's security suffered for a couple of years while attention was taken up by the move to multiprocess. A lot of the security effort in the near future will be adding more sandbox features to the multiprocess code. The situation has already improved over the last year, for example being added back into Pwn2Own 2017.

Also memory leaks have been aggressively fixed and new ones are treated as bugs. It even limits the amount of RAM that add-ons are allowed to hog. If you can reproduce it, please submit a bug report.

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