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Comment by jklinger410 | Hacker News Reader

> as far as I can see there is really no downside to Firefox.

Profiles suck. Performance (specifically around video) has been ass for years. Many useful Chrome extensions don't have FF versions. Just off the top of my head.

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I use Firefox containers as a replacement for Chrome profiles and I find them to be quite good. The Sidebery addon adds sidebar tab groups where each group can have a different default container, I use it to maintain different sets of sessions for personal and work stuff (GitHub, etc)

Containers are really great. Even my non-technical spouse uses them (She isn't quite ready for the temporary containers add on yet though). However, there are some downsides to containers vs profiles, mainly that you can't have different settings.

She is in grad school, and the online learning platform requires 3rd party cookies to work. With containers, this means enabling 3rd party cookies every where, which isn't good.

I set her up a separate school profile that has a different theme. Only that profile has 3rd party cookies enabled, and she knows to only do school stuff in that profile. It is clunky to say the least, even with the profile extension.

I'd really like to see better support for profile management!

I have profile specific extensions for work and personal. Containers is a half solution.

I have a unique profile directory for each project -- in both Chrome and Firefox. I use a python script to wrap it -- so when I click links in a non-browser context that will launch the python wrapper, which prompts for the browser/profile combination. It's a extra click on launch -- and each profile needs to get configured (add uBO, etc). But I've got full isolation on those things.

Performance has been even or better than Chrome for roughly half a decade every time I’ve tested, especially if you consider much lower memory and energy usage.

Extensions are complicated because they’re also one of the top sources of compatibility and performance problems. Every time in the last decade or so that I’ve known someone to complain that their browser was broken or slow / using too much memory, uninstalling extensions fixed it. It annoys me because I like the concept but I’m not sure it’s really something developers can be trusted with.

Profiles are amazing. I have a personal Firefox profile and a work one, and keep a browser open for each, with no account mixing. It's great.

I can also make the opposite argument for extensions. One of my most-used extensions, tree-style-tabs, has no Chrome alternative.

Blame extension devs not Firefox. I agree on the video performance though.

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