Why I use Firefox

I don't see why I would want to use anything else. Even if Chrome is marginally faster in an arbitrary benchmark test, I doubt I'd notice. And so far, I have no interoperability issues between Firefox on my laptop (macOS) and my iPhone (iOS), which runs Safari + Firefox Focus (because it's all the same webkit underneath). The add-on and plug-in marketplace is quite healthy, too. At the end of the day, I care about open-source software that doesn't model its business around capturing and manufacturing my data for export -- just the opposite. Thank goodness for Mozilla and all its collaborators.

For me it's

Mozilla develops their own browser engine

This is key. Without Mozilla we are aproaching monopoly as Safari aproaches gradually Internet Explorer.

Sometimes I wonder where Firefox might be today if, in the last 10 years, it had competent leadership singularly focused on delivering the absolute best browser in existence.

It's a great browser for Android. You get superior ad blocking and background video playing, extensions like dark reader...

Mozilla says that they can’t (decrypt my data on their servers), and I trust them.

I don't. I still neuter Firefox (LibreWolf, mostly.) and disable all the sync nonsense.

xn--ime-zza.eu

šime.eu

Looks like HN needs Punycode support [1] when it displays the domain name after the article title.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punycode

I never used Chrome, so i don't know if it has a picture-in-picture player. But if it doesn't, you are really living in the past. It's so incredibly convenient.

p.s.: I googled, there is an extension that does the same for Chrome, but not natively.

Gecko is my least favorite feature of Firefox because it doesn't properly handle websites like github where it doesn't show the full page forcing you to reopen the page in a new tab and close the bugged one. If Firefox doesn't have the resources to properly handle common sites they should just I switch to Blink to leverage a better maintained browser engine. It would also let Firefox invest more resources into differentiating their browser instead of just doing duplicate work.

On desktop, FF supports the best vertical nested tab tree I have seen. What I’ve seen on chrome is laughably amateurish with huge chunks of wasted space due to unmodifiable(?) padding elements

How can we as users provide funding for open software like Firefox, in the same way that Wikipedia receives crowdfunding?

At the very least as a supplement to the money they receive from Google.

And even better, to fund more research projects, like their sponsorship of research into Rust and WebAssembly.

I'm glad to see posts like this. Some of my favorite features not mentioned in the article:

- User Styles: I can customize pretty much everything about the browser UI using CSS.

- Containers: Shared history, form data, bookmarks,etc. But containerized cookies.

- Separate search field next to the address bar.

Nobody uses Brave??

I've nearly completely switched to Brave - I still use Firefox occasionally but Edge is my second most used Browser.

I haven't used Chrome for over 5 years.

How does Firefox work with Google Meet? I'm finding Google Meet gets less and less reliable on Safari on my Mac. What's the point of a web app if it only works on one browser?

I'd love to use FIrefox but I haven't found how to get around Google's on-purpose slowing down of their products (which I have to use for work) when running inside Firefox.

The user’s data is stored on the browser vendor’s servers, and this data is of course encrypted. But can the browser vendor decrypt this data? Google can.

Can it? You can set an additional password for synchronization. I was under the impression this implies end-to-end encryption.

Of course, Chrome might send this data back to Google once synced and decrypted by the user. But Mozilla might do that just the same.

If only they properly supported PWAs, I would be all in. I like having certain websites in my taskbar and the future is looking like a lot of software is going to be web-based, with the OS becoming a "launcher" for websites if you will (cf. ChromeOS)

I use Firefox across all my devices, they are seamlessly synced. To be honest, the sole reason I use FF is because I don't want to be part of Googles monopoly, and because FF just works.

Mozilla keeps ad blockers useful on youtube. And is not a chromium based browser.

relevant xkcd https://xkcd.com/198

One of my main reasons for using firefox is Tridactyl [0].

It's the most comprehensive vi-mode addon for a mainstream browser. Support bookmarks, search engines, pagination, external text editing and colorschemes on top of the usual features something like vimium has. It is under active development [1] and written in TypeScript (which is also a plus for hackability in my book).

[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tridactyl-vim... [1] https://github.com/tridactyl/tridactyl

Firefox removed tab grouping for some reason. I think the only feature I miss in FF from Chrome. And Tab group saving.

    browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab = false
    prevents the entire browser window from closing when the user closes the last tab (I find this behavior annoying)

I use Firefox continuously since year ~2004, when it was called Firebird. The only time I invoke Chrome is to check if a web page is broken on just Firefox or broken for all. I love all the customization options that Firefox allows, unlike the bland and locked-down Chrome.

I also use Firefox because it allows more customization.

For example, every major browser nowadays not only supports tabbed browsing but enforces it.

I think tabbed browsing is misdevelopment of UX because I need to handle window management on the OS and browser level. I'm using the tabbing feature in sway/i3 so every application has tabs not only browsers and they all act in the same way.

I know that not many people think this way. But that's the whole point. We should be able to tailor software to our needs.

browser.chrome.guess_favicon = false

No more 404s in dev tools for local websites, thanks!

Does anyone have knowledge of whether we can expect Firefox to get HDR support in the near or distant future?

This article is decent, because at least it tries giving some technical pros of Firefox. Activism doesn't work folks.

To contribute, here's what Firefox does well, from my perspective:

    + History sync actually works — most Chromium browsers don't sync all history;
    + DNS-Over-HTTPS works in parallel to corporate DNS (fallback to system);
    + Tree-style-tabs;
    + Bookmarks management is better;
    + Very nice Reader View (Android & desktop);
    + Ctrl+Tab which actually works;
    + Non-admin upgrades, most of the time, making upgrades on managed laptops less annoying;
    + uBlock Origin, on both desktop and mobile;
    + Total Cookie Protection;
    + Multi-account containers (e.g., second Reddit user);
    + Android: accessibility zoom actually works;
    + Android: multiple search engines;
    + Android: Open in app;
    + Android: Dark reader / Cookie AutoDelete / other extensions;

    - They dropped the ball on PWA support — mobile has unfixed bugs, desktop dropped SSB, has trouble keeping up with features [1];
    - Poor performance on Android, known problems when scrolling (e.g., Mastodon, Twitter);
    - incompatibility with online services (e.g., Microsoft Teams), although, granted, they're working hard to remedy that;
    - No customizable keyboard shortcuts, which is surprising for a project that supposedly cares about accessibility;
    - Firefox is still funded almost entirely by Google's search ads, which means they can't actually compete with Chrome;
    - Mozilla has had poor and overpaid management, spending people's donations on political activism, while firing people working on next-gen improvements (e.g., Rust, Servo).

Again, Dear Mozilla, please release a paid-for version of Firefox. I have no problem paying for it.

I switched to Firefox and the main thing that made me stay is that I can actually find stuff in history. Chrome and Chomium based browsers are so bad at history search.

Yeah I love it too. I use it for everything even mobile. I block not only ads but also images on many news sites so they appear similar to hacker news. Just headlines and nothing else (no i don't like RSS very much for various reasons)

If you use android and haven't done so yet - install firefox and set it as default browser, then install ublock origin as a plugin. The ability to use "full power" desktop firefox plugins on a handheld device is incredibly useful. The mobile browsing experience without a shit flood of ads in everything is remarkably better.

There are a lot of reasons to be concerned about Mozilla and Firefox's revenue based (vastly overbalanced towards money coming in from Google for the default search deal). Without the firefox-google relationship, things would be in a very bad situation revenue wise.

Duckduckgo browser for Android was the only one I could run on an old Nexus after I lost my reg phone. I kept using it on the new replacement phone and it nicely blocks all embedded social media junk letting you individually select what you want to see like one of those lazy news stories where it's a dozen tweets embedded.

Through thick and thin I've always stuck it out with Firefox. Via godawful theme changes, customization and extensions being nerfed, etc... It would have to disappear from the face of the earth before I switch.

Pure frivolous anecdote about FF

Whenever I’ve been lucky enough to get Glastonbury tickets it has been on Firefox

When applying I run Chrome as well to cover that base. But for me the Firefox windows are the ones that make it through. YMMV

For me it's: about:mozilla

I have been mainlining firebox for the 2 to 3 years, mainly because i was concerned about privacy in chrome, and also because i do believe that we need a non chromium based browser for a healthy internet ecosystem. However, the number of website/webpage that do not work, or are worse on firefox is alarming. Especially when talking about internal/entriprise website. Or smaller website

Firefox 0days are cheap. Don't use Firefox if you care about security.

Moved over to Edge. Can turn any PDF into an audio book with its 'Read Aloud' feature and has copilot built in to ask for a summary of any page. Even Bing is good as it has copilot built into search.

Still, I like the idea of using a browser from a company that does not want to access my data on their own servers.

Mozilla's motives alone for creating a web browser are why I trust FF. I don't like the idea of Chrome subsisting (to the point it's their actual business model) on my personal info

Me too, it's my main browser, and the only alternative we have to Chromium/WebKit based browsers.

Many more people should be using it.

I like Firefox for being able to edit internal CSS stylesheets in the devtools.

Chrome never gained that ability for whatever reason.

Also, uBlock origin works on Android/Firefox

This days my response of why still use firefox is, because I`m old and stubborn.

This days my answer for that is "I`m old and stubborn".

Mozilla is one of the last names in the web business that I still have a modicum of trust in. Chrome is essentially spyware at this point. Google built up a fandom among the technorati by contributing to open source during the 00s and 10s, and by arguing that this meant they wouldn't be like 90s/00s Microsoft with coercion of standards and monopolistic practices. Well, they became that kind of company anyways, and too many people still buy into the old "don't be evil" line.

I use Firefox. (Specifically Librewolf.) That said...

Google can. Apple claims that they can’t, but they have disclosed user data to law enforcement in the past, so I don’t trust them. Mozilla says that they can’t, and I trust them.

Google does offer end-to-end encryption, with a separate "sync passphrase". I honestly suspect all of the major vendors actually do a good enough job here if you configure things right. Google's UX is crummy for it though, and I think iCloud has at least an optional account recovery feature that you can't really trust. So Firefox Sync is probably winning for user privacy, but it's not due to the lack of proper end-to-end encryption from the other vendors, it seems a bit more complicated than that.

Firefox is the only browser I know of that lets me hide the close X button from all tabs. Even on firefox it's a pain because you need to fiddle with the useChrome.css. Well, better than other browsers that won't even let you do that.

Firefox will win a lot of people over with the android addons now open. It certainly did for me. It seems not well adveritised outside of fans circles who were already following the project and anticipating it.

Firefox now has an edge. If they win mobile, desktop will follow.

I also use Firefox, as a secondary browser, but the only reason I share with the author is Mozilla's independant web engine. My main reasons for sticking with FF are that I'm distrustful of Google's policies and that I'm influenced by decades of free software lobbying at Mozilla. And the exclusive extension Tree-Style-Tabs, even if it's unstable.

I disagree with most of theirs arguments in favor of Firefox.

1. The about:config page

Even Mozilla does not recommend this. The settings on the about:config page are undocumented and can disappear or change their behavior with any new release.

I used to set a line in "about:config" so that FF always asked before quitting. It stopped working. I checked Firefox's wiki, nothing new. I had to read the source code to understand that the setting was now meaningless: its value was ignored when the setting "restore session" was enabled. The code had evolved, but it was not reflected in the UI. I don't understand why each setting in about:config doesn't have an embedded description.

2. Mozilla cannot decrypt my data on their servers

Same with other browsers, e.g. Vivaldi.

I agree with 4, but I don't care/use 3, 5, 6.

I've met a few sites where Firefox was not welcome (e.g. Jitsi meeting with screen sharing), so I would make it my primary browser only if there was a very strong incentive. But they're too similar to Chromium. Vivaldi with vertical tabs is more stable than Firefox with TST, so I won't switch any time soon.

A firefox thread

Lately I tell people about about:about because I had only recently learned of it. Maybe you’ll find some use there too

Apple claims that they can’t, but they have disclosed user data to law enforcement in the past, so I don’t trust them. Mozilla says that they can’t, and I trust them.

Ok, I guess?

Personally I don’t trust anybody, I just recognize I have to give my data to someone at some point (don’t have the time to setup everything needed in order not to…). I’ve chosen Apple (gougle is out of the question because I actively distrust them), but I don’t particularly trust them…

I have tried, oh how I've tried. But the vertical tab options on Firefox are just not very good compared to the disappointingly elegant Edge implementation (with something either identical or very similar used by Brave). And, for me, with the sheer amount of work I do in a browser, the base interface is a huge concern.

I've been a fan since the Firebird days--which I wish they'd been able to stick with because the antisocial fox still irritates me in a very low-key, unserious way--but the browsing experience is not modern, and the extension-based solutions are ... functional. Every few months I check again to see if one of them has improved, and I try them, and I switch back quickly. Which leaves me feeling disappointed in myself, but there you go.

If only Firefox on Android had keyboard shortcuts so that tablet + hardware keyboard would be a comfortable way to use Firefox. Argh.

Maybe I'm just fooling myself, but the main reason I use firefox and linux and a bunch of other FOSS tools is that they feel like a gift. There is no ulterior motive. Just honest to goodness software that makes your life better.

I also like paying for software and content. When people provide you with valuable tools, they should get compensated.

But, the middle ground of "free" but not free is not a happy place in my mind.

Containers for isolation between sites + treestyletabs (vertical tab bar) are the two features that makes me miss Firefox every time I try a different one. Other features are just a plus on top of that for me.

Picture-in-picture in Firefox is super useful when having a video call and sharing the screen at the same time, especially on a laptop screen.

Firefox lets you pop out the video feeds of call participants, so you can have them in a corner when sharing a full-screen window.

I love the reader view of Firefox; it's the best implementation and makes all the "web crap" go away to focus on content. Chrome had a good implementation of this hidden behind flags, but they recently neutered this "because ads" and, while Edge does a good job of this as well, Edge is too focused on helping me buy stuff or shoving Bing and related on me.

It works fine for me, and I figure that Mozilla will do less crappy stuff than Alphabet or MS.

Also, if you say you don't like this - corporate monopoly ==>> corporate abuse of monopoly - then how about a bit of action, to go with your words?

I use Firefox with the excellent https://github.com/black7375/Firefox-UI-Fix I discovered on HN.

I wish that Mozilla didn't bungle the UI for no reason, but here we are.

Ok that was always allowed.

We need an alternative to Chrome if nothing else to stop the full blown enshittification of the browser. Its more private, it has better extensions and its not treating its users like sources of data. More people should use Firefox there are lots of reasons not to use Chrome now.

I use it on Ubuntu coze it happens to be the default browser and there's nothing wrong with it.

On Windows I install Chrome, though. Android usually comes with Chrome as well so I stick with that. Only some apps seem to open the "built in" Xiaomi browser which is a piece of crap almost as stinky as Facebook app, which again absolutely must use it's terrible own browser implementation if I happen to click on some link (which I learned not to because of how terrible the experience is).

Also I use Firefox for web development tutorials because of the Mozilla docs: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Guid...

I've been using firefox for the last 3 years or so and its mostly been flawless. I can't complain.

OP reminded me to appreciate them, so I donated to mozilla. Mozilla, please don't spend my donation funding stupid shit. Your core product deserves the most love.

Why I use Vivaldi: workspaces and vertical tabs let me pretend I don't have a tab hoarding problem.

I know I could probably have this on Firefox with some extension, but I don't like the concept of extensions.