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Comment by beat | Hacker News Reader

I'm posting this from Firefox. I think this article, on top of other recent efforts by Mozilla, is the final push to switch me from Chrome to Firefox. I trust Mozilla a lot more than I trust Google these days.

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The thing that tipped it over for me was the Multi-Container Tabs[0] Mozilla extension. Aside from being a fantastic privacy and security tool, it is also wonderful for development.

[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...

My favorite hidden feature in Firefox is having multiple profiles[0],[1]. Unlike containers, profiles have separate bookmarks, extensions, etc. I have found profiles even more useful than containers for development.

[0] about:profiles (paste into URL bar in Firefox)

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/profile-manager-create-...

This is a feature of Chrome as well, although it isn't very hidden. https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824

Try the Temporary Containers plug-in, it's even better. It will automatically remove all site cookies when you close the tab, and can be configured to open all links as a self contained container.

Basically every site you visit will be completely isolated - and fully cleaned up afterwards.

Why not just use private windows / incognito for this use case?

Not GP, but I use the add-on because:

1. I want my history saved locally (private browsing deletes history on close). 2. Private browsing requires a new window; I want to have a private tab. 3. All tabs in a private browsing window share the same cookies, so I can still be tracked* within a session; I want a new container with each new tab.

*trivially. I'm well aware that I can still be tracked by fingerprinting, etc, and I have other add-ons to help protect against that.

> private browsing window share the same cookies

Not in Safari, to my experience

In Safari each incognito tab has separate cookies but in Chrome the cookies are shared across the entire incognito session across multiple tabs and even multiple windows.

I stopped using them when I realized they can switch into a "Facebook" container when I visit Facebook, bit they can't switch back out of it when I subsequently visit another site.

This was a common feature request. Has it been implemented, yet?

Seems high-risk to me: All Facebook needs to do is set up a redirector that isn't at a domain considered "Facebook", and include a tracking ID in the redirector URL, and they'll be able to try and de-anonymize your non-"Facebook" container when your tracker-laden link opens in it.

The facebook extension by mozilla solves this: https://blog.mozilla.org/firefox/facebook-container-extensio...

That's not the current behavior, so I'd say it's been implemented.

There's an extension which does. https://github.com/stoically/temporary-containers

This looks similar to profile switcher / People menu in Chrome [1]. Chrome's implementation restricts the entire window to belonging to one person, but I use separate windows for this use case already anyway. I'm not sure that I see the use case for the in-between abstraction.

Can you selectively enable an add-on / extension for only one container but not others in Firefox with this extension?

[1]: https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824

Profiles have been a Firefox feature since before Chrome existed, though the UI is tucked away under the 'about:profiles' page.

Yep, I switched and use that every day.

Do the different contains each have their own bookmarks and history?

I made the switch soon after the Firefox improvements (Quantum?). Chrome was becoming so slow and unstable (OSX), and although there are many sites with Firefox compatibility issues (or at least I assume it's comparability) I haven't looked back. It kinda reminds me of the day way back in time when I first discovered Firefox and I was liberated from IE.

Thank you very much Firefox/Mozilla team!

edit: One of the "compatibility" issues I always have with Firefox are sites complaining about the adblocker I'm using. The thing is, I'm not. lol

You and me both. Have you noticed that "some" apps google has developed run like garbage when using firefox? Also, have you switched search engines as well?

Just today I noticed Google serves a different version of search to Firefox on Android when compared to Chrome. It is missing some features and harder to use. Apparently the fix is to change your useragent string so Google will give you the full version [1].

[1] https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1202615

It's a good enough reason to switch to DuckDuckGo or StartPage (if you don't mind that they still use Google in background, though in anonymous way).

FWIW, you call the version served to Fx "ugly", and I'd call it "bullshit-free". Nevertheless, it's still surprising.

The YouTube experience is way worse for me in Firefox than in Chrome. Many times, after seeking inside a video 3 or 4 times, it just stops working. This never happens in Chrome.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but seeing this so often...

I don't think there is a single malicious force making google products sucky on browsers other than Chrome. However, I'm sure they do poor testing (any at all?) in Firefox, and are quick to adopt extensions to HTML/CSS that they are trying to push as standards. 50k people not caring about a thing is a powerful force.

Why would it be a conspiracy theory? It makes sense for Google to make people use Chrome in any way possible.

They are not interested in user privacy for gods sake.

This might help: https://mobile.twitter.com/cpeterso/status/10216265102962851...

It seems very conspiracy theory'ish, but the speed and responsiveness difference is undeniable.

That's not a conspiracy theory; it can be explained without assuming nefarious anti-competitive intent. Google has a front-end framework called Polymer, which it is using to push certain new web standards ("Web Components"). It's also pushing those by implementing them early in Chrome. Since other browsers, Firefox among them, have not yet fully implemented those standards, Polymer reproduces them in Javascript, which is slower than the browser supporting them.

A YouTube developer once said on HN that YouTube uses Polymer for non-technical reasons. One could imagine serving as a testbed for Polymer could be that reason, with slower performance on Firefox as an accepted downside.

I’m not the only one!! It simply keeps on spinning (remember buffering?) At this day and age, I can deduce it that it’s not my internet speed. It has to be google intentionally slowing it down. When I switch on over to chrome, it works like a charm.

Don't forget that ISPs have been known (at least in the past) to slow traffic down to certain sites. You shouldn't assume your bandwidth is necessarily routed fairly or anonymously.

As a personal story, a few years ago I was having trouble accessing youtube videos, buffering, timeouts, etc. I couldn't figure out why, tried upgrading my hardware, software, router, everything. But eventually I started suspecting my ISP[1].

I eventually tried using a proxy service to access the youtube videos. I think I routed my traffic through Iceland or something. Low-and-behold, perfect video streams _through_ a proxy routing traffic from another country. I had plenty of bandwidth. My ISP was just throttling my traffic.

Try a VPN, see if your ISP is messing with your traffic.

I don't trust Google either, and they already own me. But I fear my ISP more and don't believe that Google would be intentionally slowing you down. It's probably more of a function that Google optimizes for Chrome, less that they are trying to force you to change browsers.

[1] I will refrain from naming directly, but whose name starts with a 'C' and ends with an 'omcast'

Google houses YouTube edge servers in some big ISPs. There could be problems with the ISP's YouTube boxes and the VPN bypasses them.

I had Centurylink and I ran into the same issues with Youtube. I changed everything I could, but the only thing that worked was using a VPN or proxy. I used a different ISP at work and whenever there were youtube issues I'd hop on that and it worked fine every time.

I know that it could be any number of issues not related to youtube or centurylink, but that's been my experience 100% of the time so far.

I use Firefox on Windows as my main browser. I haven't noticed any Youtube issues. I believe I did run into them running Firefox on Linux, but it's been a while.

Most recently for me it was Google Calendar that was crazy sluggish in FF. Another time it was search results that would drive my processor to 100 percent twice or more a minute, again if I used FF. This would happen even if tjey weren't active in any way.

> I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but seeing this so often...

I have similar problems in Chrome on the rare occasion I use it, so my theory is just a lack of quality control.

Well, there are a lot of thing slow in firefox, it takes 5 times longer to pretty-print a minified js in firefox devtools than in chrome.

While I wouldn't put it past Google to do something nefarious to make this happen, I have noticed they like to take super bleeding edge features and run with them before they're standard, simply because they can. Could be the result of that.

But Mozilla trusts Google more than any search engine provider. That would be the only explanation for Google being the default search engine.

A giant pile of cash is a pretty compelling reason to set Google as the default. I don't think trust has anything to do with it.

Mozilla trusts google to pay them.

well... yeah

the bills don't pay themselves you know

Mine do. Direct debit for those companies I trust, scheduled payments for those I don’t. Welcome to the 21st century where the coffee is great and financial automation is a thing.

I'm not sure I understand what you wrote nor why you're getting downvoted, can you expand?

Which part?

> But Mozilla trusts Google more than any search engine provider. That would be the only explanation for Google being the default search engine.

The real explanation doesn't have anything to do with trust: Google pays Mozilla a lot of money to be the default search engine on Firefox. Deals like that are Mozilla's main source of revenue.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/googles-back-its-firefoxs-defa...

I'm less concerned about the search engine than I am about tracking from within the browser. Feel free to mock me for that if you disagree.

The browser may not be tracking you, but it does default to a search engine that tracks and profiles you. It can't get any worse.

Sure it can! Google could be the only option in Firefox. But that's not the case. In any case, the vast majority of users simply do not care and will happily use whatever is given to them. The people that do care have the ability to change the defaults.

I'm not really sure why you're viewing this as the end of the world, especially since all the money that Google pays to Mozilla enables the development of Firefox in the first place.

What else are you gonna use? lynx?

Please don't challenge Google in that way.

Google just pays the most, I think that's where most of Firefox's income comes from.

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