Comment by SimonPStevens | Hacker News Reader

Comment by SimonPStevens | Hacker News Reader

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I say this all the time when this kind of thing comes up.

Please use Firefox!

Even if it's worse. Even if its slower[1]. Even if it doesn't have that one feature or bug fix that you personally consider really important. Just use Firefox anyway. Find a workaround. Suffer whatever it is you dislike about Firefox because in the end if we don't act as individuals against the chrome monopoly then google are going to own the web and we'll suffer a far worse period of monoculture than the IE6 ever was.

If you can't go all the way, going part of the way is still valuable. I personally have chrome installed still because there are a couple if internal sites at my work that have problems on Firefox, so I use Chrome for those but Firefox for everything else.

Firefox for Android is also solid browser, and as a bonus you don't see any AMP stuff.

If you're a website/app maintainer, check for compatibility in Firefox.

It's worth supporting Firefox to keep the web the way it should be. I know they make mistakes sometimes, but we need a viable alternative or it will be too late.

([1] I don't think it is, it's made soild improvements in recent years, but lots of people seem to have their own specific issue they hold dear against it)

I switched to FireFox I think about a year ago.

I prefer Chrome for sure. It full screens video properly (which I need to automatically trigger turning off f.lux), it seemed faster, it does spell checking of form fields.

I'm sticking with Firefox though as these features aren't much of a hindrance compared to the increasingly shitty behaviour of Google, and one benefit is that my Macbook Pro (2014, max spec), doesn't run out of resources and stop responding anywhere near as often as it used to do.

> it does spell checking of form fields.

So does FireFox, other than Form Fields where else would one need/use spellcheck? I wonder what's been done to yours so that it doesn't.

Firefox dsoe nto spel chcek fomr feilds. This comment didn't get any spell checking whatsoever. Last time I investigated this the suggestion was to install a plugin, a hoop I think is unreasonable to make people jump through. I'm using a vanilla Firefox install on a Mac. I've not fiddled with it in any way.

update It seems there is a preference:

https://dl.sendcat.com/8BEOaD0qwKgHhIizbRLif8G572x4RgKGGLvcp...

It was selected already but I still don't get spell checking.

https://i.imgur.com/SZP9n3b.png

That's what I see in Firefox on Mac.

US user? Apparently you have to install an add-on to get non en-US spell checking.

I switched from Vivaldi back to Firefox within the last year for the same reason. I'm growing tired of Google and have been moving away from them piece by piece for the past year.

I prefer the customizability of Vivaldi but Firefox has been fine. I can't think of anything that is a thorn in my side at all. In fact, 99% of the time I can't tell a difference functionally, but I'm not a typical web browser (I disable JS except on trusted sites).

I think for the general population they wouldn't notice much difference between chrome and firefox.

I switched to Firefox on Android just to avoid AMP and it turns out I like it more than Chrome.

Firefox just runs so slowly compared to Chrome on my 2015 MBP. I have zero extensions and it's a default install. Such a bummer too. ( I use Firefox on my desktop PC though. )

what do you think about the new Edge browser from Microsoft, its based on Chromium. So you would get most benefits of chrome but its from Microsoft, which personally, I trust more than I trust Google.

> but its from Microsoft, which personally, I trust more than I trust Google.

Wow, how the worm turns.

I installed the beta for macOS and I'm not happy about it.

It installed a daemon that updates Edge even when the browser is closed. Even if you delete the .app the daemon keeps running and when there is a new update it downloads it and installs it.

There are no settings to change this intrusive behavior.

I sent feedback and complained on Twitter. Apparently the team is looking on it.

> It installed a daemon that updates Edge even when the browser is closed.

They learned that trick from Google and Chrome; search for `com.google.keystone.agent.plist` -- they install a Launch Agent for you.

Do we know how much the new Edge will phone home to Google? What about raw chromium? Alternatively, are there settings you can change in Chrome to prohibit it talking back to G?

I think, this situation is the same as when you tell people to "vote with your wallet" as to not spend money on the inferior product when the issue is clearly far beyond where people can freely decide this.

Edit to add: Not defending Chrome. I've used IE and Edge since IE9 came out because I saw this thing coming. And I promoted other browsers all the way. Didn't help. I am not moving to Chrome ever and will try and avoid the Chromium Edge as long as I can as I'm not a stranger to sticking with a strange browser choice :)

I'm just saying that maybe something else should be done about Google's browser market share.

Except there's absolutely nothing inferior about Firefox nowadays. I switched about a year ago, and I don't miss a single thing from Chrome.

> Except there's absolutely nothing inferior about Firefox nowadays.

I mean, maybe for you. But for me, with the add-on that I use, and the computer that I am on, FF is not the most optimal, Chrome is. FF is slower for me and my set-up.

EDIT: I'm not joshing here or trying to trash on others. FF may be faster for you, that's fine. But in my own personal little corner of the world, FF is slower than Chrome. I've no idea why, maybe I could spend a few days trying to figure this out and then optimize FF to make it faster. But, for me, out of the box, FF really is slower.

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