It's easy people. Switch to Firefox today.
It's no wonder why people don't want to switch, really.
most firefox changes are actually to copy what chrome is doing.
like removing the search bar and forcing sending everything you type in the address bar to a search engine, having a logged in account in the browser, etc
Firefox is really not that different. Even the keyboard shortcuts are the same.
Disliking one browser's UI/UX over another is like trying to drive two different cars: one with a touch screen console and another one with an analog console. There are genuine reasons to want one over the other and it will color how you use it day to day.
So for me, i work with chrome, edge and Firefox (main) at the same time. Firefox is 3 Windows with 150 tabs each. Chrome for quick and dirty - when I visit or do something I know I won't need it later anymore - and edge is used for being chat and/or differential search with goog and bing and other search engines (I know, it's easier to use a meta search engine, but it's ok like I do)
So.. basically. Each window is a room space in my brain for me and I store knowledge in separated rooms, so I know exactly where the tabs are I'm searching for. It's like a library where I always can look up something. Using favorites within the browser is not possible for me, because I just forget about them. Not so if I work with all the thousands of tabs open :)
So, it's possible to use different browsers without saying "maehhh.. but, I .... "
Just got used to it and I fear notes will be the same like favorites in the browser :)
I have a similar thing.
Firefox as the main browser for everything. I don't like Electron apps and since Firefox doesn't do PWA anymore, Edge hosts all those. Chrome for all the Google apps I have to use and streaming services (Chrome has a media hub in toolbar which can control multiple streams/PiP windows).
I use this feature around 20 times a day, sometimes more. It's painstaking to do this in Firefox, even with extensions.
Once every year or two I try switching to Firefox, then I remember this is the reason why I don't use it and I go back to Chrome.
The day they add this feature is the day I will switch to Firefox.
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/website-translation
if you need a language they haven't developed a production model for yet, you can install the beta version of the add-on, which supports more languages
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-translations-ad...
Some of us handle sensitive content that must not be uploaded to Google.
I need Vietnamese. I guess I will have to wait another few years for that. But still, it's progress.
I wonder if they will add the option for cloud providers. While I love the idea of the added privacy of doing it locally, pretty much everything I'm translating is publically available so privacy is not important to make compared to the quality of the translation.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/traduzir-pagi...
I've tried quite a few firefix translation extensions and all of them either open a new tab or a popup, this is the first one I've seen that translates in place.
OK, sold. Switching to Firefox today :)
After working for a year in 3DSMax, back in the day, someone asked me to show them something in Lightwave. I couldn't find my way about anything.
There is also a far far bigger difference between IDEs than between browsers even if compare only the big names. Compare Visual Studio, IntelliJ and Eclipse.
All the browsers are same. They were all the same for 10 years. Single window or MDI. Then Opera came with tabs, then everyone got tabs. That's it.
Basically, if we accept the notion that it's hard for someone to switch from Chrome to Firefox we accept the notion that it's hard to move anyone from any ecosystem just on the grounds of them not wanting to touch their muscle memory even a bit. You get to the same option in three to four clicks through different menues. Is it that hard?
As an emacs user in large part to avoid this, yes it us that hard.
It pains me to say that though since I want people to switch to Firefox so it can win against these spyware-laden browsers.
Which really is a shame. Even worse, browsers (including Firefox) keep erasing whatever differences they do have in a vain attempt at attracting Chrome users while ignoring that their existing userbase chose them for not being Chrome.
plus ça change!
Use a browser for browsing, e.g. firefox with a tons of plus is, from ublock, noscript and a dozen others and use a main browser like chrome for banking and some other stuff. Don't use a minor browser (opera, vivaldi etc.) for banking.
Mullvad browser exists to advertise a VPN.
I would not recommend the latter in lieu of the former.
See this response from the mullvad-browser developer on exactly this:
> There are two main reasons, one which you preemptively answered:
> - the privacy model is about having a same fingerprint per platform for Mullvad Browser users, so you're not uniquely identifiable (which will be the case by following privacy hardening guides) > - it is much easier to recommend to user a browser pre-configured for an optimal privacy: some users will want to tinker, but if you don't have the time or knowledge, it's hard to do the right thing
> There are also more differences than "just a fork of Firefox", I encourage you to read the following page which goes more into the details: https://mullvad.net/en/browser/hard-facts
source: https://github.com/mullvad/mullvad-browser/issues/1
A librewolf contributor and arkenfox developer chimes in as well stating that it's no competition that mullvad-browser is more secure here:
https://github.com/mullvad/mullvad-browser/issues/1#issuecom...
So as much as I despise companies putting low effort into software rebrands that offer no value, all the facts point towards that very much not being the case here.
Edit: However https://privacytests.org/ shows mullvad-vpn and librewolf as being very similar wrt privacy.
I could never find a way to open in the correct profile from external applications.
The experience there isn’t perfect and requires some effort to setup but how is that different than getting certain sites to open in specific chrome profiles automatically?
Typically Google, when I click on a Google Doc I need to be able to decide to open it in my personal or pro account.
With Chrome it goes to the last focused window so it will usually match what I'm currently doing, otherwise all I have to do is focus the right Chrome window before going back to the external app and click the link.
Why not? Since Google's multiple-account handling is awful, I use Container Tabs for keeping my accounts separate. In this case I'm asked if I want to use the container profile I've explicitly set for Google (my work account), or the one I'm currently in.
I find it way more useful to have a completely unique profile rather than bash everything together in Firefox. Profile specific extensions, for instance, don't work with container tabs. It's a non-starter for me.
- I click on a Google Doc work link from Slack, I want it to open in my work profile
- I click on a Google Doc link from the WhatsApp desktop app, I want it to open in my home profile
With Chrome I just need to make sure that the last focused Chrome window is from the right profile.
I really want to switch back to Firefox but that's blocking me.
There's a setting to always open a tab in the same container profile you click on them from. So as long as you open the page with the link in the target profile, it will open in that profile too — same as what you're saying above, I think?
There's also an easy "open in new container tab" option when right clicking a tab, and "re-open this site in ..." option when clicking on the container tabs extension button.
On macos, the Google and Firefox home screens are virtually identical: Big "Firefox" or "Google" title, seach bar, short cuts / recently used. Google is actually less distracting since it never changes.
Also "Keep One Pin Tab" [3] on Chrome to prevent that closing the last tab closes the browser. The same on Firefox but there I don't know what setting I'm using to make it behave that way (update: browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab -> false).
[0] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/new-tab-redirect/ic...
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/new-tab-overr...
[3] https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/keep-one-pinned-tab...
btw in my case it adds two ads: Nike and Amazon. They come with tracking parameters that are unique to me (if I create a new browser profile, they change)
I am on Mac, however. It looks like from the other comments, windows builds somehow have ads.
I've had them as well (3 or 4, can't remember which ones. Amazon's search engine might have been one of them), removed them, done and done.
It's not a big deal, but it's still something.
Compared to the Google panopticon... I can live with it.
Yes, good users customize this but the default means it's pervasive in people's average experience.
Now you'll have me manage yet another thing, I just want stuff to require no management.
On being surprised, I suppose you're right, there are about as many ways of using a computer as there are users. It's easy to get lured into the feeling that anything you don't utilize yourself is weird and pointless. I never use the "home screen", nor do I really use bookmarks all that much. For bookmarks I get why they are there, I have maybe a hand full myself, but it's not something that I use enough to pay for, or even require, a bookmarking service. So seeing someone actively use one or even depend on it because a curiosity.
There's no point to the "new tab page", it would be better to have a popup to type the URL into and then hit "Go" and have that open a new tab. For me it's really just a distraction. Why would I open a new window/tab if I didn't know where I'm going?
You can have it blank or you can have Firefox recommendations. Those are your options.
https://i.imgur.com/U13r7pG.png
This resembles a dark pattern to push users toward Firefox recommendations, a moneymaker.
Correct. I am ignoring that fact because I don't want new tabs to display "Firefox Home" and I am not interested in customizing what it contains.
I want new tabs to display an HTML file that I made myself. Firefox previously allowed doing so.
The replies that suggest using extensions to re-enable the disabled functionality probably have not actually tried doing so. What those extensions do is load the "Firefox Home" content, then (as if on page load) redirect to whatever you set as your custom new tab. Which is just wretched. I could have typed the URL faster than that.
And on the subject of pushing core browser functionality into extensions: Why are things like Pocket, Firefox Sync, Hello, and the like integrated / bundled with Firefox but the ability to set a custom URL for new tabs requires users to install / trust a third party extension?
See also: The deplorable state of "Classic Theme Restorer", another case of "Users who miss the disabled functionality can just install an extension."