Let’s be honest: Everything that might be “worse” or “annoying” in Firefox for someone is not relevant in comparison to “no working adblocker available”. A browser without adblock is unusable
True, but if an adblocker no longer works on a specific browser, change your browser! I started using Netscape back in '94, and lost count on how many browsers I’ve tested and used in the past… Holy shit, 30+ years!!
It doesn’t sound right but it is. I think in ‘94 I was using Juno for email and internet. Shortly after that it was time to actually use one of the many AOL trial discs for service instead of a mini frisbee/ninja star.
Modem sounds, chat rooms, you’ve got mail. What a time to live!
Fuck. I got free internet for almost 5 years. So many AOL discs. 01, 02? Friend’s dad had a T1 connection put into their house for his work. The difference between T1 and the 56k I had at home? At home walk out the room, have a smoke, maybe ⅔ a boob loaded. At buddy’s house, that’s when I realised that the internet had the potential to change everything. Whole boob before you could even stand up.
Kids these days. No appreciation for how much struggle it used to be. Everything just. Just there. No bork the only computer in the house because boob.exe.
In the past 10 years it’s pretty much just been Firefox, Safari, Explorer/Edge, and Chrome. 99% of browsers are just skinned Chrome. Even Edge now. Opera’s engine died in 2013.
Man I haven’t been around that long but I feel like some of my knowledge is outdated and I have to start with “a long time ago in a galaxy far far away” because I stopped paying attention
That’s also hugely in part because Apple develops Webkit at a snails pace. Some say they gimp their own rendring engine so that it isn’t competitive with native applications from the App Store. This way, there’s less incentive for developers to make web-apps to avoid the 30% app store tax.
Mainly that Google intentionally makes its sites (like YouTube or Google Docs) slower and less useable when they detect you’re using Firefox, and/or ad blockers (which you need Firefox to use, so same difference).
It’s mostly fixable with add-ons and userscripts (and eventually, one hopes, with an antitrust lawsuit), but it’s still a hassle.
As for how to fix it, Mozilla tend to do a pretty good job of eventually working around Google’s bullshit, so keeping the browser updated is a good first step.
Since Google tends to roll this stuff out regionally and doing A/B testing, though, the best way is to identify what specific handicap they’re hassling you with (which specific features don’t work or don’t work right, when they work properly on chrome), and look for an updated add on or userscript to fix that particular issue.
Or you can just look for a generic YouTube or Google Docs “enhancer” add on and hope it fixes the issue without making the whole user experience too different from what you’re used to.
At one particular point it was, if I recall correctly, though Chrome also (mis)implements some standards its own way, so Google might also use that as a form of attack against anyone who implements them properly, much like Microsoft did in the bad old IE6 days…
It’s all a silly arms race, though, with Google coming up with new ways to enshittify the web for anyone not using Chrome or using ad blockers and Mozilla and ad blocker (and alternative YouTube frontend) developers trying to figure out what they broke this time and how to fix it, so what worked yesterday might not work today and work again tomorrow.
It’s all a profoundly stupid waste of everyone’s time and resources (all for a few more ad views) which will hopefully end up with Google losing their monopoly position on the web like the Internet Explorer bullshit did for Microsoft, but will keep being a major hassle for everyone until it does.
I very much dislike Mozilla’s direction over the last decade. They’re introducing user-hostile features that subtly break normal browsing experience, even when disabled[0]. Not like Google is better, but I’m also trying to get away from Mozilla.
[0] On Firefox Mobile, there’s a “feature” which makes the address bar auto-complete domains of companies paying Mozilla. I noticed this with Netflix - I never visit, but when I start writing a URL with n, roughly every 10th time Netflix was suggested. You can disable this feature, but this doesn’t actually disable it. The address bar no longer auto-completes with Netflix, instead it just doesn’t autocomplete! So 9/10 times I can write n and press Enter, but 1/10 times I press n and search for the letter n.
Mozilla doesn’t care whether they break features, as long as they can make more money. I strongly dislike this approach by the supposedly “good” browser manufacturer.
Do you have a good non chromium based alternative? To be clear I genuinely am asking those things make switching probably worth it considering how little of a hassle it is.
No, it’s still 100% owned and 100% controlled by Google.
The Linux Foundation is just making it easier for people outside of Google to submit work to it.
Cynically, you could say that Google is just trying to get free contributions while retaining all the control. Optimistically you could say this is the first step in Google giving up control of Chromium in the far future, although currently they’ve given zero verbal or written indicators that they plan to do that.
I still use the full screen tab groups feature that they removed from the core. I don’t like scrolling tabs, so I can just hit a button and click on the exact tab I want. I do probably have too many tabs open tbh.
Too many people complain about the UI and claim it’s “outdated, ugly, unusable”. I find that funny because you can make FF look almost like anything you want, and I personally hate chrome’s UI.
I’m one of those complaining about the UI. Used the TabMixPlus extension to adjust the UI to my liking. FF killed it. So, I started customizing the UI CSS. Every few versions, Mozilla changed the browser enough to invalidate my changes. After a while, I got tired of thiz and switched to Vivaldi, which is Chromium based.
Well, you USED to be able to, anyways, but they’ve slowly moved to a less customisable ui. Now you have to use extensions from outside websites to even do simple stuff like have a multi-row tab bar.
Not to mention Firefox seems to break them every year or so.
I have no idea either. Sure, chrome is a little faster but its a minor difference in my opinion. Been using it for a long time and have no idea why it’s so unpopular.
Also, keep in mind, google has been caught slowing Firefox down in YouTube before. So if you notice any slowness in their services, it’s fair to suspect it might not be Firefox’s fault.
I advocate Firefox, but I must admit I personally am affected by regular crashes on Firefox desktop. Mostly when I enter a page I haven’t visited before (randomly though).
I don’t know if others are affected by this, and I still recommend Firefox regardless, but every crash leaves a sour taste in my mouth. As it is not widespread, it might just be my setup, but still.
That’s not normal. You should go to the support pages and see if there is a fix. And it could be an addon causing the issue, not FF itself. I had that issue many years back.
Thats really weird. I have never personally had the issue but it is more and fair enough to have issues with FF after that. I would recommend brave then, still chromium based but is actively doing things to make sure their adblock still works.
I dont have issues with FF in general which would cause me to stop using it, while it is frustrating, not using something chromium based still outweighs that heavily. Its kinda of a matter of principle to me.
E: clarification
You could probably convince a third-party password storage program to store and auto-type details like that. Preferably one that doesn’t need internet access to work.
Just double-checked with the help manual of the one I use (PasswordSafe) and it looks like it can do it. Never actually tried it though, which is one of the reasons I didn’t mention it previously.
At the risk of sounding like an ad (I’m not affiliated, just a someone who found it in their Linux distro’s package manager), there are versions of it for pretty much any device. I definitely can’t vouch for the feature set(s) of the other versions, though.
Avoid Gecko-based browsers like Firefox as they’re currently much more vulnerable to exploitation and inherently add a huge amount of attack surface. Gecko doesn’t have a WebView implementation (GeckoView is not a WebView implementation), so it has to be used alongside the Chromium-based WebView rather than instead of Chromium, which means having the remote attack surface of two separate browser engines instead of only one. Firefox / Gecko also bypass or cripple a fair bit of the upstream and GrapheneOS hardening work for apps. Worst of all, Firefox does not have internal sandboxing on Android. This is despite the fact that Chromium semantic sandbox layer on Android is implemented via the OS isolatedProcess feature, which is a very easy to use boolean property for app service processes to provide strong isolation with only the ability to communicate with the app running them via the standard service API. Even in the desktop version, Firefox’s sandbox is still substantially weaker (especially on Linux) and lacks full support for isolating sites from each other rather than only containing content as a whole. The sandbox has been gradually improving on the desktop but it isn’t happening for their Android browser yet.
I use Firefox as my main browser on Android, and all apps that invoke a WebView do so using Firefox’s rendering engine, with uBlock Origin and Dark Reader working seamlessly. So, maybe this info about Firefox for Android lacking WebView support is outdated?
That’s not a webview, it’s a separate api with fewer abilities. Custom tabs I believe.
You can see for example that it always opens as a fullscreen overlay in your app and that it always has that bottom or in your case top bar.
If you’re still using Chrome, do yourself a favour and install Firefox.
Let’s be honest: Everything that might be “worse” or “annoying” in Firefox for someone is not relevant in comparison to “no working adblocker available”. A browser without adblock is unusable
True, but if an adblocker no longer works on a specific browser, change your browser! I started using Netscape back in '94, and lost count on how many browsers I’ve tested and used in the past… Holy shit, 30+ years!!
…fuck off, '94 wasn’t 30… counts on fingers several times
…Shit…
It doesn’t sound right but it is. I think in ‘94 I was using Juno for email and internet. Shortly after that it was time to actually use one of the many AOL trial discs for service instead of a mini frisbee/ninja star.
Modem sounds, chat rooms, you’ve got mail. What a time to live!
Fuck. I got free internet for almost 5 years. So many AOL discs. 01, 02? Friend’s dad had a T1 connection put into their house for his work. The difference between T1 and the 56k I had at home? At home walk out the room, have a smoke, maybe ⅔ a boob loaded. At buddy’s house, that’s when I realised that the internet had the potential to change everything. Whole boob before you could even stand up.
Kids these days. No appreciation for how much struggle it used to be. Everything just. Just there. No bork the only computer in the house because boob.exe.
I know… Jurassic Park is 33 years this year. It would be like watching a movie from the 60’ when it was released.
We’re old, friend.
I’ve never hated my life more than right now…
I use Palemoon for the nostalgia but also because of the best theme around, Moonscape
Netscape will forever be my number one.
In the past 10 years it’s pretty much just been Firefox, Safari, Explorer/Edge, and Chrome. 99% of browsers are just skinned Chrome. Even Edge now. Opera’s engine died in 2013.
Yup. Hence, the reason I originally suggested to use Firefox, only because it’s not built on Chromium.
Just FYI, the word “hence” literally means “for this reason”. So you just said “for this reason the reason” lol.
Chill dude, I’m just going to the ATM machine to put in my PIN number to take out some money. 🤙
nottheopbutok
Chrome uses WebKit, safaris engine.
Chrome forked Webkit in 2012 to create Blink. It is reasonable to assume they have somewhat diverged since.
Ahhh TIL
They’re developed separately. It’s a hard fork so I consider them different.
Man I haven’t been around that long but I feel like some of my knowledge is outdated and I have to start with “a long time ago in a galaxy far far away” because I stopped paying attention
That’s also hugely in part because Apple develops Webkit at a snails pace. Some say they gimp their own rendring engine so that it isn’t competitive with native applications from the App Store. This way, there’s less incentive for developers to make web-apps to avoid the 30% app store tax.
What issues do people even have with firefox? Its a browser, it seems fast enough. Isn’t that all most people need from a browser
Mainly that Google intentionally makes its sites (like YouTube or Google Docs) slower and less useable when they detect you’re using Firefox, and/or ad blockers (which you need Firefox to use, so same difference).
It’s mostly fixable with add-ons and userscripts (and eventually, one hopes, with an antitrust lawsuit), but it’s still a hassle.
Unfortunately, with the FTC rolling back net neutrality protections, I don’t see an antitrust lawsuit happening, or succeeding, anytime soon
how do I find out more about this and what scripts do I need to make the sites faster again on Firefox
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/youtube-responds-to-delayed-loading-in-rival-browser-complaints, for instance.
Or https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/, for an older one.
As for how to fix it, Mozilla tend to do a pretty good job of eventually working around Google’s bullshit, so keeping the browser updated is a good first step.
Since Google tends to roll this stuff out regionally and doing A/B testing, though, the best way is to identify what specific handicap they’re hassling you with (which specific features don’t work or don’t work right, when they work properly on chrome), and look for an updated add on or userscript to fix that particular issue.
Or you can just look for a generic YouTube or Google Docs “enhancer” add on and hope it fixes the issue without making the whole user experience too different from what you’re used to.
thanks. I keep Firefox updated. the fact that changing the user agent gets the delay is pretty damning evidence
Would you happen to know whether this is something that a UserAgent spoofer would suffice to get around?
At one particular point it was, if I recall correctly, though Chrome also (mis)implements some standards its own way, so Google might also use that as a form of attack against anyone who implements them properly, much like Microsoft did in the bad old IE6 days…
It’s all a silly arms race, though, with Google coming up with new ways to enshittify the web for anyone not using Chrome or using ad blockers and Mozilla and ad blocker (and alternative YouTube frontend) developers trying to figure out what they broke this time and how to fix it, so what worked yesterday might not work today and work again tomorrow.
It’s all a profoundly stupid waste of everyone’s time and resources (all for a few more ad views) which will hopefully end up with Google losing their monopoly position on the web like the Internet Explorer bullshit did for Microsoft, but will keep being a major hassle for everyone until it does.
I very much dislike Mozilla’s direction over the last decade. They’re introducing user-hostile features that subtly break normal browsing experience, even when disabled[0]. Not like Google is better, but I’m also trying to get away from Mozilla.
[0] On Firefox Mobile, there’s a “feature” which makes the address bar auto-complete domains of companies paying Mozilla. I noticed this with Netflix - I never visit, but when I start writing a URL with n, roughly every 10th time Netflix was suggested. You can disable this feature, but this doesn’t actually disable it. The address bar no longer auto-completes with Netflix, instead it just doesn’t autocomplete! So 9/10 times I can write n and press Enter, but 1/10 times I press n and search for the letter n.
Mozilla doesn’t care whether they break features, as long as they can make more money. I strongly dislike this approach by the supposedly “good” browser manufacturer.
Do you have a good non chromium based alternative? To be clear I genuinely am asking those things make switching probably worth it considering how little of a hassle it is.
Sadly not, I’d also be interested in one!
isn’t chromium under the Linux foundation now? Might look at the options on that side.
No, it’s still 100% owned and 100% controlled by Google.
The Linux Foundation is just making it easier for people outside of Google to submit work to it.
Cynically, you could say that Google is just trying to get free contributions while retaining all the control. Optimistically you could say this is the first step in Google giving up control of Chromium in the far future, although currently they’ve given zero verbal or written indicators that they plan to do that.
damn that sucks.
GNOME Web if on Linux
This comment made me look into if KDE has one and apparently they do it even has built in ad blocking.
Off to compile for 3 hours. /j
Makes me remember when I used Konqueror with FF as a fallback before Chrome existed.
Is that Falkon? I’d use it if it could integrate with bitwarden.
Download fennec it’s the fork of ff mobile with less of the cruft.
I don’t know if it has fixed that specific problem, but I can’t recall seeing it
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll give it a try!
See also Mull, No 120hz though.
Mull was part of the DIvestOS project, which has recently been discontinued.
For a similarly strengthened fork, I’ve been using IronFox after seeing it recommended on Lemmy.
Also, I don’t think one can export bookmarks from Android Firefox either.
No horizontal tab grouping. Tab groups on Chrome are perfect, and the Firefox tab extensions all suck in comparison.
That said, I’m still using Firefox today because the internet is unusable without a good ad blocker.
I still use the full screen tab groups feature that they removed from the core. I don’t like scrolling tabs, so I can just hit a button and click on the exact tab I want. I do probably have too many tabs open tbh.
Tab groups and vertical tabs are at least on Nightly now; you can enable them in settings.
Too many people complain about the UI and claim it’s “outdated, ugly, unusable”. I find that funny because you can make FF look almost like anything you want, and I personally hate chrome’s UI.
I’m one of those complaining about the UI. Used the TabMixPlus extension to adjust the UI to my liking. FF killed it. So, I started customizing the UI CSS. Every few versions, Mozilla changed the browser enough to invalidate my changes. After a while, I got tired of thiz and switched to Vivaldi, which is Chromium based.
Honestly I’m probably heading to Vivaldi after reading a lot of these things.
Well, you USED to be able to, anyways, but they’ve slowly moved to a less customisable ui. Now you have to use extensions from outside websites to even do simple stuff like have a multi-row tab bar.
Not to mention Firefox seems to break them every year or so.
Security and sandboxing are important, weak points on the android implementation.
would Vivaldi on android be better? I really like having extensions on my browser and that’s the only other android one I know of that has them.
Edit: I was wrong apparently Vivaldi does not support extensions on mobile which is a bummer.
Some js is a bit slower. I typically use chrome for self hosted apps, jupyter etc.
I think wasm performance is actually better in Firefox though.
I have no idea either. Sure, chrome is a little faster but its a minor difference in my opinion. Been using it for a long time and have no idea why it’s so unpopular.
Also, keep in mind, google has been caught slowing Firefox down in YouTube before. So if you notice any slowness in their services, it’s fair to suspect it might not be Firefox’s fault.
No way it stays that way after blocking ad-blocking. Some websites genuinely take over 30s without ad block.
I advocate Firefox, but I must admit I personally am affected by regular crashes on Firefox desktop. Mostly when I enter a page I haven’t visited before (randomly though).
I don’t know if others are affected by this, and I still recommend Firefox regardless, but every crash leaves a sour taste in my mouth. As it is not widespread, it might just be my setup, but still.
That’s not normal. You should go to the support pages and see if there is a fix. And it could be an addon causing the issue, not FF itself. I had that issue many years back.
I did check the about:crashes page and it showed me that it seems to be related to “speechd init” and the crash itself is being linked with https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1794057
Having said that, I just disabled narrate, so maybe it goes away now.
If you have the time try the troubleshoot mode to help figure it out - add ons are often the cause
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/troubleshoot-firefox-crashes-closing-or-quitting
Thats really weird. I have never personally had the issue but it is more and fair enough to have issues with FF after that. I would recommend brave then, still chromium based but is actively doing things to make sure their adblock still works.
I dont have issues with FF in general which would cause me to stop using it, while it is frustrating, not using something chromium based still outweighs that heavily. Its kinda of a matter of principle to me. E: clarification
In Australia it won’t save card details. And it can’t natively create app shortcuts for things like Gmail, keep, whatsapp etc.
I put up with it but it’s a pain compared to chrome and edge.
You could probably convince a third-party password storage program to store and auto-type details like that. Preferably one that doesn’t need internet access to work.
KeePass allows offline password management, though I am not sure if it supports card/ID autofill.
Bitwarden is mainly online only, but does support card/ID autofill and allows users to self-host their data if desired.
Not overly familiar with other password managers, but it would not surprise me if one of them out there has the best of both worlds.
Just double-checked with the help manual of the one I use (PasswordSafe) and it looks like it can do it. Never actually tried it though, which is one of the reasons I didn’t mention it previously.
At the risk of sounding like an ad (I’m not affiliated, just a someone who found it in their Linux distro’s package manager), there are versions of it for pretty much any device. I definitely can’t vouch for the feature set(s) of the other versions, though.
I know lastpass does but they lost my trust after the breach.
Main reason I don’t is cuz:
https://grapheneos.org/usage
This only applies to android, not desktop use, and you couldn’t use uBlock on mobile chrome anyway so it is simply not relevant.
Other security implications are stilp valid.
They’re completely irrelevant to the average person.
If you want absolute perfection then sure, stick with Chrome but implying Firefox on GrapheneOS is insecure is misinformation.
I use Firefox as my main browser on Android, and all apps that invoke a WebView do so using Firefox’s rendering engine, with uBlock Origin and Dark Reader working seamlessly. So, maybe this info about Firefox for Android lacking WebView support is outdated?
Exemple after clicking a link on Twitter/X:
That’s not a webview, it’s a separate api with fewer abilities. Custom tabs I believe.
You can see for example that it always opens as a fullscreen overlay in your app and that it always has that bottom or in your case top bar.