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Why We Love Firefox, and Why We Hate It
An anonymous reader sends this quote from Conceivably Tech:
"Admit it. You are in a love-hate relationship with Firefox. Either Mozilla gets Firefox right and you are jumping up and down, or Mozilla screws up and you threaten to ditch the browser in favor Chrome. Mozilla's passionate user base keeps Firefox dangling between constant ups and downs, which is a good thing, as long as Mozilla is going up. Unfortunately, that is not the case right now. Mozilla's market share has been slipping again at a significant pace. There has been some discussion and finger-pointing, and it seems that the rapid release process has to take the blame this time. Are we right to blame the rapid release process?"
What do you find most annoying or gratifying about Firefox these days?
After years of running Firefox on Linux I finally got a job and upgraded to Internet Eplorer running on Windows.
It's so much better! Thank you Bill!
The problem is not rapid release unless Mozilla is forcing upgrades upon users.
Get separate processes already.
I know it's Adobe's fail, but Flash is still everywhere. When the browser locks up on Flash sites, it is annoying.
There may be no "I" in team, but there's also no "F" in way.
What I find annoying about Firefox is that it has massive memory leaks and needs to be force-killed every few hours of use because it balloons to such a size that it starts killing the system it's running on. And that's pretty much a show stopper right there. There's no reason for a web browser to eat up 2GB of memory during regular use.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
I used Mozilla back when Mozilla was a browser.
Then Phoenix came along, and I started using that. Much more lightweight. At some point it got renamed to Firebird. Later on, it became Firefox. All was well. It was a great browser.
Then at some point in the past, I dunno, 3 years, these UI people (who probably know fuckall about software engineering) got their grubby fingers into the project and started rearranging the entire user interface. A user interface that had looked THE EXACT SAME FOR THE BETTER PART OF A DECADE.
Then I entered this painful stage of Firefox use, where every time I'd upgrade it, I'd have to fuck around trying to get it to look and act like the browser I'd been using for years. Eventually I realized that they were trying to make it look like Chrome. Then it started wanting me to upgrade it every week. Fuck that. I use a browser to do work, I know for a lot of people the browser is mostly a toy. But I need my tools to be stable, reliable, and behave consistently and predictably.
So I switched to Chrome. Haven't looked back.
I don't love or hate Firefox. I just appreciate it for what it's done, what it's represented, and the fact that it's STILL relevant and sharping the web, even in the face of gigantic corporations like Google, Apple, and Microsoft trying to wring the web in their own directions.
As a browser, it's just one of the good ones.. which is exactly the way I like it. I like having multiple good browsers available, in case one of them can't do something. And Firefox is the all-rounder that does what I need it to when all the cooler new browsers fail.
Love: It can browse the web (yeah!). It's multiplatform. It's well maintained. It's up to date with the latest standards. The "3D View" feature in Inspect Element. The many good plugins.
Hate: A single tab can hang the whole browser. No convenient way to view an image with the wrong MIME type in the browser anyway. Too little and dumbed down settings. No more status bar. Still no good debugging tools, and the plugin Firebug is unhandy and annoying. The weird branding thing they do that caused Archlinux to not call it Firefox but various other lame names in the past (are they for open source or what?). No more innovation (why not try things like multiple tab groups or so instead of "innovating" by removing stuff from the interface?). The Android version sometimes crashes and once made the whole phone reboot after a crash.
I'm probably missing many things :)
This article states that Firefox's user base is shrinking by "significant" numbers and that there are more Chrome users than Firefox users.
The following article claims Firefox's user base is growing and that there are more Firefox users than Chrome users:
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/08/firefox-continues-to-gain-as-internet-explorer-chrome-slide/
How can both be right?
Compared to chrome, it's slower (on my laptop), and it takes more ram. Which is automatic turn off for me. Like playing fps game at 15 frames per second. Screw that.
On the other hand, when site is bringing my chrome down, i fire up firefox... and it works. Softlayers virtual server order page was the latest to cause problems for my chrome.
I don't use it.
I was using NCSA Mosaic on Unix machines and loving it.
Later, I was using Netscape.
Then I was using IE when it was the only stable browser around.
At about that time, I started using the Firefox alphas (wasn't called Firefox then). It crashed early and often.
Later, when it became stable, it was really stable. It was the only browser I used on XP, other than testing in IE.
Of course, I'll always continue to love it. But these days, it's just too slow. It "greys" out all the time. Chrome never does that. And launching a new window is instantaneous in Chrome. Not so for FF. Not to mention always show "Well, this is a little embarrassing, we can't load all your tabs" when it restarts.
This is on the latest Ubuntu on a late-model laptop. YMMV esp. on Windows.
The point being Chrome is the most used browser (for me), and Firefox is the browser emeritus.
I'm not a lawyer, but I play one on the Internet. Blog
Plenty of upgrades have had pure windows-centric upgrades. For example, background updating of the user profile, an update service for windows, windows-specific UI, a plenty of others.
I find it annoying that there's some versions bring almost no changes to the browser itself, but bring plenty to windows-integrations, sometimes even to compensate for the OS's lackings. Meanwhile, I have an OS that has already solved many of those issues, and to me, firefox X.Y has not a single change.
Admit it... you hate when articles start with "admit it", as if all potential readers are of one mind. I frankly don't love Firefox, or hate it, or even think about it. Browser's are about as valuable to me as a hammer or a chair. One is pretty much like another. I'll use the one that feels most comfortable to me, and waste no further thought on it.
firefox is facing the same challenge as netscape faced when microsoft introduced internet explorer. It is not that firefox users are deflecting, the faithfuls are still here. However the market size is increasing and the share left with firefox is shrinking due to this. Firefox is not getting fast enough onto the tablets, ipads, androids with quality. Instead firefox is trying to woo mass market by mediocre like changing version numbers so fast that it makes an average developers head spin.
I've been a local Mozilla user forever.
I used Mozilla years before Firefox existed. Eventually Phoenix was spawned and it was renamed and eventually became Firefox.
I used Firefox up until version 6, and the rapid release schedule turned me off.
So a 10+ year firefox user gone... and I imagine it will continue to lose users with this stupid crap they pulled.
You can tell how powerful someone is by the magnitude of the crime they can commit and be able to get away with.
Between work and home, I almost never have a reason to fire Firefox up. Usually I use Chrome. There are a few websites that I need to access at work that are pretty much IE only. Every now and then I need a second browser running to troubleshoot something so I'll launch Safari.
This trend started about 2009 or so. Firefox just kept running more and more slowly whether I used it on my Mac or at work on my Dell laptop. Once my PowerPC Mac was stolen and I bought an Intel powered replacement, I started using Chrome at home in addition to work. I've never had any desire to look back.
Its rendering engine is out of date, but its user interface, low memory usage and corporate support makes it unbeatable. Still no 1 in China.
"Admit it. You are in a love-hate relationship with Firefox"
Uh... no. What a strange idea. It's an inanimate non-object. I don't waste hate on it and I don't love it either. It's a tool that works for what it does. I don't tend to use it unless my usual browser, Safari, has trouble with a web site. But there is no love or hate lost.
I still love FF. Every once in a while I've tried other browser (back in the day: Opera; more recently Chrome) but I always end up going back to Firefox. The add-ons are the make-or-break for me. I'm currently running 15 add-ons and they provide exactly the functionality I want. I wouldn't want to give up on Zotero, Ghostery, Stealthy, Forecastfox, and many others. YMMobviouslyV.
I use the all inclusive Seamonkey. It's a browser AND an email program. Take that!
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I don't get it. Restart Firefox every few hours?
I run mine for weeks at a stretch with seven or eight windows each with a bunch of tabs. Currently using about 840 MB.
I have my complaints (the idiot release cycle being high on the list) but memory hogging isn't anywhere near the top.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Every once in a while, I try the other browsers and I usually stick with FF.
FF comes up faster - even loaded with all the plugins and add-ons I got in the thing. I don't notice any speed difference when running. It's memory foot print is now comparable to the others - if not better. And the most important thing for me is that their bookmarks work best for me. I do a lot of research of various topics and the fact that I can go on a google binge and store the sites that look promising in an organized way - and easy to get to - is perfect for my working habits. I don't like Chrome's or Opera's way of doing. Chrome's bookmarking is actually kind of a pain.
I'll have dozens of bookmarks. While I'm bingeing, I'm also weeding the ads, the ad websites in disguize, finding those really hard to find pages that are buried behing a websites own search/article database, and other crazy things.
Also, Firefox is multiplatform. It's real nice to go from Windows to Linux to Apple OS and have everything work the same way.
Oh, Safari - that's the only browser I actually dislike. Apple gets so much right but when it comes to their browser - do they have their interns work on it?
You're still speaking English. There's a reason for that shit head.
A big country like yours and a tiny little one like yours, By proportion of population you should be way further ahead than you are.
It's just hate - we have switched back to IE cause Mozilla is implementing "features" that keep's us from doing our job: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=435013
Dear Mozilla,
I tried to keep the love alive. I really did. Always waiting around for you--one can only take your "Not Responding" so many times before my eye begins to wander to the younger, hotter browsers that appreciate me for who I am and still make me feel special. The last straw was when out on the road and you just wouldn't pull up any pages while Dolphin was happily flip-flopping around. Sorry--but I am leaving you and not coming back. You are a great browser and I'm sure you'll find that someone that makes you feel as special as we used to make each other feel. Best of luck--I'll always cherish our time together.
I find that Firefox, when it updates, invariably breaks my automated testing process with Selenium/WATIR. I always have to keep current release -1 on hand. :-(
I've long been a Firefox fan and advocate. I'm using it now as I post this. But one thing that has really turned me off about Firefox is that over the years I've seen big performance hits with some releases.
Yea, I know that I run the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon who thinks that everything should run just fine on his old 8088 based PC, but I have several older Athlon based WinXP laptops that I still try to get some use out of. The one that I keep on the night stand by my bed was just fine for the things that I was using it for, until a couple of years ago when I accepted a FireFox update (you still had a choice at that time). Suddenly the system that I used to keep a lot of open tabs on started bogging down with only a handful of open tabs. I had already expanded the modest memory of the laptop from what it was when I bought it, it wasn't reasonable or practical to do it again. I removed all but one very needed plug-in and have been limping along since, but I don't dare upgrade it again or upgrade a couple of other older laptops that I own. And even on my desktop I'm stuck at 11.0, because I saw the warnings about no longer having upgrades be optional after that and can't risk having the same happen to my main desktop system.
I realize that they design the software for the current generation of systems, not older computers. But FireFox, after all, promoted itself as "lean and mean" with optional plug-ins to add many features. It is a shame to see it bloat beyond where it will run well on the same computer that used to fly with it. It is disturbing that FireFox wants to start forcing updates that might cause the same for other computers. The one thing that I would wish of them but am completely unlikely to get is an option to safely and cleanly "roll back" and update when this happens again and then lock the FireFox version on the last one that operated properly on the hardware.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Firefox I remember that.
Firefox is the greatest browser, with advanced features to benefit every user at a profound spiritual level:
* Its memory bloat teaches us to be mindful of our resources, both within the computer, and our use of our resources in everyday outer life.
* Its slowness helps teach us patience.
* When the whole browser freezes up from a bit of incompetent CPU-thrashing javascript code running in one tab, it teaches us to be responsible for our own coding decisions and how they affect others.
* Its slow startup teaches us that wonderful things don't happen instantly, and that we need to lose our attachment to time
Stay away from Chrome - it feeds the ego by promoting our addiction to instant gratification
-- In the beginning was the WORD, and the WORD was UNSIGNED, and the main(){} was without form and void...
I've been using Firefox for years and I've seen it steadily improve. Sure, there's been some odd UI decisions (FF2 had the URL bar on SSL-secured sites colored yellow which made it obvious when one was visiting a secured site. The next version didn't. Up until recently, SSL-secured sites had a blue "secured" indicator to the left of the URL bar while EV sites had a green indicator. The blue indicator has been removed in FF14 and the green one is less distinct.), but overall the browser has improved.
At first, the rapid release cycle was annoying but that was mostly because the browser required admin rights on Windows to update. Chrome avoids this by having the update process run under the system account in the background. Newer versions of FF do this as well so updates are considerably less obnoxious and my concerns with the rapid release cycle are eliminated (though I still think the numbering scheme is a bit annoying).
I've found Firefox to be the most consistently-good browser out there. Recent improvements in JavaScript processing have made Firefox just as fast (if not faster) than Chrome on my system, plug-ins work consistently better than Chrome, and memory usage has gone down significantly in more recent versions.
Sure, the other browsers (Chrome, Opera, etc.) are pretty good and I really don't have any major complaints about them (though the lack of x.509 client certificate generation in Chrome is problematic; Firefox/NSS has supported this for eons.), but I continue to use Firefox as my primary browser and don't really see any reason to change at this point.
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Sounds familiar?
"Firefox is already running, but is not responding. To open a new window, you must first close the existing Firefox process, or restart your system."
I'm just too fast for this FF!
I have a friend who had a 2009 desktop just like yours. It slowed down to the point where he bought a new computer. It wasn't because of a browser; a full OS reinstall *DIDN'T* help it.
It's probably the computer or an update you applied to the computer.
12 million in-your-face updates that requires you to restart your browser and breaks your extensions every time.
The most annoying thing about Firefox is the introduction of new "useless eye candy" in an attempt to keep up with the joneses -- a continuous stream of useless garbage that you have to turn off.
Examples include turning on "dazzling animations" and that "new tab page" crap. And before that we have "features" like default magical hiding of the current URL by obfuscating the actual URL in favour of a "URL for stupid people", obfuscation of error messages, and all sorts of magical horrid behaviour that operates in a non-useful fashion.
There are lots of others.
I suspect a lot of people use Firefox because it works and because it DOES NOT have all the useless frivolity and useless crashing flak and insecure crud invading other browsers. If you want gleeful animations, majically changing and flish-flashy background colours mutating at ever turn or majical shit happening without your knowledge or consent, including things like "hiding" information and magically "transforming" things to be "friendly", you probably already run one of the Queens of Insecurity, Blathering Magical Behaviour, Flashy useless animation and gaudy colours: Internet Exploder or Chrome.
When Firefox adopts the same scourge like piles of useless (and ill-concieved, nay brain-deadisms) as exist in TOG, there is no point in using Firefox anymore.
The most stunning example is Firefox for Android. It has all the same misfeatures that cannot be disabled and gaudy useless crap (that cannot be disabled) as every other browser for Android. As such, there is absolutely no point in using Firefox on Android. In fact, there are definite disadvantages -- it is far worse than the default browser on that platform in the gaudy useless non-configurable non-disableable useless mis-feature department.
On X11, you can run only one instance of Firefox (also happens with Thunderbird). When you want to have multiple windows from various X servers, you can't.
The "Ask Where to Save Downloaded Files" feature has been broken for some time. It remembers the last directory (which is what it IMO should do), but in a strange way: It seems that it remembers multiple directories for multiple tabs, and if you manipulate the tabs (close some, open new ones), the whole thing gets broken and when saving something, you're presented with a remembered directory, only it's not the one you expected. Or at least that's been my experience recently.I really like the globally remembered last saving directory the way that Opera and Chrome work. So I use Opera.
Ezekiel 23:20
Better title: "I don't like forced upgrades".
To each his own. I've been happy with Firefox and use it and Chrome at about 80/20. Use what you like and move on. At the end of the day, it's just a web browser.
Secondary point: Usage metrics are unreliable at best - just last week I saw one that said FF usage was gaining over everything else.
Hate the rapid release cycle of Firefox... but I like having No Script... which Chrome does not have...
in addition I do not trust Google overly much especially since they seem to want to strip away anonymity. While I am certain Google can figure out who I am, I prefer the ability to walk down a digital street without being assailed by them or their government minions all of the time. Firefox does not have that problem in that it is the product of a software developer and not gateway to the revenue stream of a commercial tyrant pretending to be the friendly giant.
If Google does not want to be evil then it would not love its revenue stream so much and let their browser development team become a true open source project... that is not likely...
Chrome installs invisible shit whenever it wants, watches and records my every move and reports its finding back to the mother ship. Anybody who accepts that kind of thing has had a virtual lobotomy.
Internet Explorer is and always will be for people who don't mind being manipulated by a giant mega-corp currently run by a fat retard who throws chairs when he doesn't get his way.
Opera may be great, but I've never needed to bother to try it out, and aren't you supposed to pay for it?
Firefox runs well, it's free, it has lots of cool bits I can add to personalize it and it's not watching me. What else is there? I don't love it or hate it, but I sure do find it useful without feeling like I'm being used.
So try this:
"Admit it, anybody using Chrome or IE has given up thinking or having any self-respect and just does what the machine says like good little bovines."
I am a long time FF user, and have done a few extensions as well, and its not really the rapid release cycle that annoys me.
No, the constant change of the user interface, and decisions chosen by people who don't know anything about me or how I like to use my browser.
I cannot fathom why, when they change UI, they don't keep the "old" look in, and let existing users change to it, if they like, or stay in the old look, if they like that.
One of the largest bullet points in FireFox is that you can tailor the browser to your needs, via extensions, but somehow this doesn't extend to the most important part of the browser, or, any program for that sake, namely the UI.
THIS annoys me to no end.
I love Firefox because I like its interface better than Chrome and I can configure it to avoid the blurry text that IE9/IE10 suffer from. What has driven me nuts about it since Firefox 4, though, is the disk I/O thrashing, at least on the Windows build. They've been slowly improving it over time and notably fixed problems with scanning cache and font directories, but the current versions still have a problem with periodically rampaging all over the disk for upwards of a minute while updating one of the SQLite databases, bringing the system to a crawl. I would rather it just rewrite the 57MB urlclassifier3.sqlite file in one big I/O instead of doing a zillion incremental update I/Os that monopolize the disk.
Firefox, IE<whatever>, Chrome, Konqueror ...
The IT crew at work insist that IE is the only browser they support. Except, of course, when their own official sites don't work with it. Then they point users at Chrome. Which doesn't work with other of their sites, not to mention doing a bad job of rendering XHTML content uploaded by users. Not enough Safari users to say, FWIW.
Meanwhile, FF renders them all reliably. IT can suck LN2.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Currently, FF is my 3rd most-often used browser. The reasons are numerous:
1) Non-native UI - UI is cross-platorm (XUL) which means it doesn't behave like the UI of native apps. I use FF on a Mac and FF doesn't behave like a native Mac app. XUL is jut not pleasant to use and I have no time to learn all of its idiosyncrasies.
2) UI is slow - not only is the UI non-native, but it's also painfully slow. When creating tabs, I can sometimes see browser chrome being drawn. Ridiculous.
3) No support for H.264 and Mozilla cares more about open source principles than about its users. Mozilla is opposed to H.264 and they've been pushing for a dead format (WebM). They seem to think that they can tell creators which format to use. Well, creators have chosen H.264 in overwhelming numbers and Mozilla is still pushing their head deeper into the sand. So when their users visit a site with H.264 video, they can do jack squat. They went full-retard on this issue.
4) Crappy/horrible/antiquated layout engine. Gecko, Mozilla's layout engine, is the biggest pile of crap I've ever worked with. It's so old and crusty that it's impossible to reliably get new stuff added to it. This is why FF still has layout issues and is slower than any other rendering engine out there. They should just scrap that pile of crap and replace it with WebKit. It also doesn't help that a single tab can kill the whole browser.
So these are my issues with FF. It's the reason why I never use it for browsing and only use it to check my web pages in it. Mozilla has a ton of issues to work through and unless they can tackle these issues their marketshare will continue slipping until they become irrelevant.
Who is "we"?
We, the indigenous inhabitants aka Amerindians? Who you US citizens have stolen the land from and committed a genocide?
We, the immigrants from dozens of different countries?
The modern US citizenship is an artificial construction and an illusion.
Sincerely,
the adult, matured world that laughs about the United Stated of Assholeness.
having the NoScript add-on in firefox makes it amazing
As a midsize company, (100+).
The missing support to easily configure the certificate db in firefox (from active directory), and the fact that it does not support using the windows store. (which may be controlled by active directory). Is forcing us to kick the browser out. Sadly but true...
FF was a great browser and it was perfect to set up for those who weren't technologically savvy. But the constant failure of the Flash plugins have detracted from its usefulness. The occasional profile failure without any simple method of restoring settings is aggravating as well.
Memory hog? Not really...and if it is, so what? Buck up and get yourself enough memory to run everything efficiently.
It's just not ready for prime time any more. Almost, but not quite.
Mozilla screws up and you threaten to ditch the browser in favor Chrome.
It wasn't a threat.
Browsers are about as interchangeable as Legos. I wasn't using Firefox because it was "better". I was using it because it is open source and because of Adblock and NoScript. During the FF 4 beta, I decided Chromium's plugins were "good enough" and jumped ship.
The last two months Firefox's browser share has increased according to netmarketshare.com. Now this article uses StatCounter stats and eyeballing the chart it looks like Firefox's share has been mostly flat since January according to StatCounter. The point being is the slide I believe has stopped or at the worse lessened to next to nothing. The article talks blames the slide on communication and execution. The author likely has a point there, but I think things are no longer as dire as he makes them out to be. Another reason for the slide is Google advertising the Chrome Browser. I think that also has hurt Firefox and there is not much they can do about it. I believe the slide has ended or is ending.
It totally depends on the plugins you use. I have routinely over 300 tabs open and have several plugins that appear to be leaking. The end result is that even typing this comment gives me frequent 2 second lag in screen updates and flash movies aren't watchable.
It's not possible to tell firefox to run each tab/window as a separate process, or each tab/pages plugins as a separate container. That way, it'd be easy to find out which plugin and which tab is giving you crap and you could work around it or file meaningful bugreports.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
Or I already did switch to chrome.
1) Rapid releases... Firefox should have just done rapid releases, or not. Their half-assed approach to "transitioning" towards rapid releases pissed off a lot of their user bases. And they still make a big show about the fact they're updating. Chrome has a simple little indicator that goes away as soon as you restart the browser.
2) Memory... FF memory bloat was a big deal for a long time. At least where Chrome had memory bloat and windows crashed, it didn't take down the whole browser. Again, FF waited too long to try to implement this.
3) Dev tools.... Firebug is great. Chrome's built-in tool is just as good. FF's new native inspector is a PITA and it fights with Firebug.
4) Synchronized Profiles.... Yes FF had it first, but Chrome makes it damn easy to setup and manage.
5) Security.... Why can't I temporarily accept an a self-signed ssl cert? Why do I have to go through multiple steps to "permanently allow this acception"? Compare this to Chrome's red warning screen with a single click for "I understand the risks".
6) HTML5 video..... FF's insistance on not doing any video other than Ogg was stupid and shortsided. If you're not going to bundle the codecs, offload the rendering to the OS. That's what the OS is there for after all. Most web video player packages out there will now auto-switch, giving Webkit HTML5 videos whereas FF still gets Flash players.
7) Retina Display..... I was seriously considering dropping Chrome as my primary browser on my new Mac because of this. The beta channel of Chrome did support it (but that brought other problems). However, the latest release of Chrome stable brings Retina Display support for my everyday browsing. Too bad FF.
8) Integrated search/address bar...... I know most /.ers hate this, but truthfully I've gotten very very used to it and as a result, I get pissed when I use a mobile browser and forget to use the correct input field to conduct a web search. You're telling the browser to go somewhere. Why do you need multiple always-on inputs to do that? Do you really need the extra input field just so you can specify which underlying destination identification process gets used to handle your request? No. The computer's smarter than that, and simpler UI is better here. This is why so many people type URLs into the Google homepage search field. They don't know why they would use the multiple input fields they're being presented with. Give them 1 field that's smart enough to do both use cases and you make it an easier experience.
9) Tabs..... Contrary to what /.ers moaned about... if the content of the field changes with the click of a tab, then the field should be within the tab, not outside of it. This is UI 101. FF fought against this and /.ers screamed bloody murder when they finally switched behaviors. Safari "solves" this by drawing their tabs inverted so that the address bar is within the tab and the viewing window is sperate. IE puts a tiny address bar next to the tab strip. Chrome is by far the right UI here.
10) Speaking of tabs.... And the dragging tabs off into new windows is still kludgy from a UI standpoint. Look at how Chrome does this compared to FF. As soon as my cursor moves the tab away from the strip, I get a new window. FF waits until I drop the tab, giving me a preview instead that looks like I'm dragging an image out of the browser, not moving a tab to a window.
Firefox was great. Mozilla offered a superior product for quite some time. They reminded everyone that there was still a lot of room for growth and improvement in the browser market. They forced MS to begin seriously developing IE again. Competition is a good thing in that it challenges all players to do better. But today? Meh... the Mozilla team is no longer top
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
I've ditched Firefox before. I started using it at 2.0, and loved it, switching from Opera. The entire 3.x series, however, had a bug that was unnoticed or minor to most users, but absolutely crippling to a few, myself included. Live Bookmarks (RSS feeds) were refreshed in the main thread, which meant that every time I started it up, it would stagger and sputter for over five minutes while trying to update all my feeds, and it would repeat the process every few hours.
For the entire 3.x series, I was primarily a Chrome user, starting Firefox once a day only to check all my feeds (I have yet to find an RSS reader I like more than FFLB). Very annoying.
The bug was fixed in 4.0, and I switched back. Chrome remains a bit faster than Firefox, but I find the performance hit is barely noticeable on my machines (I'm a gamer, so I tend to have more processing power than most users). And even a small performance hit would be acceptable if it means my RSS feeds are always in my browser.
Firefox suffers from an antiquated code base. It's single-thread, and the project to make it multi-thread failed. There are two interpretive systems inside - Javascript and XUL - and they aren't on good speaking terms. There are two plug-in systems, "classic" and "Jetpack", and the teams for those sometimes don't seem to be on speaking terms. The number of open bugs keeps creeping up, and much bug-closing is "developer in denial", not an actual fix. Startup is slow, and, at times, shutdown is even slower.
Then came the frantic release cycle, which didn't help.
There is a long-term-support version 10 available. It's not bad and will last you at least another year. That being said: I recently switched my main computer to 14 from 10, once I found out that 14 was way easier on memory than 10.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
It's the only reason i still use FF. I loved it for years, now it's just a web development tool, namely a window where I can hit F12 and firebug, the eighth wonder of the world, can do its magic.
When debugging a web page, there's nothing I like better than the Firebug plugin.
annoying: redraw failures with my nvidia driver. Whose fault is that anyway?
gratifying: everything else. Seriously, Firefox is my favorite piece of software.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Features like automatically centering single images on a dark grey background. I realize that's a photography thing, but it looks like shit when I'm fiddling with transparent images. And yes, I did find means to get rid of it (fucking with the browser's CSS defaults, or installing one of several addons) but it's still a Dilbert Knows Best addition.
More recently, a download button that can't be removed from the top bar, that automatically spawns a balloon listing of recent downloads. I wouldn't have given a damn but for that 'couldn't be removed' bit-- the widget actually vanished as soon as I opened the customization dialogue. Thank god they yanked it an update or two after it went in. Hopefully it will be easier to turn off the next time they trot it out.
Dev tools man... these are dev tools.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
on pages quite often, with the swirly circle turning eternally.
I miss the individual tab processes and fast flash, but otherwise, I'm happier using firefox now.
D
I use what works when I need it.
IE for certain ERM reports that dictate it. Also for accessing OWA when I need more than the basic features of work e-mail while away.
At Work Firefox the plug ins help me do my job.
Chrome when I'm at home and just want to quickly browse something and want a quick starting browser.
Beware of those who profit off the docile and persecute the unbelievers.
I've been using Firefox for many years and I've found it much better than anything else. Every time this discussion comes up, I take a look at the alternatives... usually Chrome. In the past, Chrome lacked plug-ins for many basic things so I went back to Firefox. I just checked Chrome again and it does appear to have more plug-ins but it doesn't have side tabs which I have been using in Firefox for years (Tree Style Tabs). Like most people, I have monitors which are much wider than tall so vertical space is at a premium and I have too much horizontal space. Side tabs helps by moving the tabs from the top to the side giving more vertical space and using some of my "wasted" horizontal space.
I checked the forums on this feature and it seemed it was removed from Chrome a while ago due to "bugs" and there are no plans to put it back... what a shame.
As usual, back to Firefox which does everything I want and need.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
On Mac OS X 10.6 if you download a large file the CPU utilisation for FireFox goes through the roof (70-80% for an extneded period on my 2Ghz Core 2 duo macbook - which makes the fan run loudly).
There has been a bug open for it for years and it has never been fixed :(
It's not just about features, it's just that it feels like Google properly thought about every aspect of functionality of their chrome for the browser. For example, it took ages for Firefox to implement that tabs don't resize themselves after closing until after you move the mouse away. And even now, the drag handle for the Firefox window is only on the window title area and you still can't use the unused tab area as a window drag handle, where on Chrome it works fine. It's these tiny little details that I really appreciate about Chrome.
That being said, I still love Firefox's awesome bar, works better than Chrome's default address bar by a long shot, if I recall there is a Chrome extension which works the same, I may look into that, but it's not a deal breaker for me.
Firefox is striving for open web and more choices. That is a noble goal. But what means giving users more choices? It means that people will start choosing other alternatives. Firefox' market share declines? Don't call it failure but rather celebrate that their goal came true. There is no monopoly anymore. And that they may fall victim to their own vision should not be surprising.
They decided to get stick with limited set of standard technologies. And that is a hard game to play when all "sellers" sell the very same stuff and there is no much of a differentiation (proprietary things... XUL is gone :-( ...). Then the "buyers" choice is rather impulsive then rational...
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
The OSX support is begrudging at best. It took them a YEAR to implement Lion full-screen mode and the way they did it is ugly as shit to boot. Chrome is just as cross-platform, more so with its admittedly crippled iOS support, and actually implements these new OS features in a timely fashion. Yeah, sure, I could use Aurora or Nightly to get these features quicker but I can't be fucked with the daily updates and bugs on those channels. It's not worth it.
I used Mozilla for a decade and change, but I pretty much never fire it up these days,
Firefox has sucked since the introduction of the awful bar !!!!
Let me use the computer the way I wish, not the way some marketing survey of noobs decrees.
I resisted moving to Chrome for years. I was used to the user interface, and I had a lot of plugins that I didn't want to give up. This did gradually become less of an issue over the years, as more Chrome plugins appeared and Firefox started copying Chrome features (even when they didn't work with the rest of Firefox's design!). But what finally did it was the nasty resource leaks that I could never seem to get rid of, no matter how much I culled my plugin set. After multiple lockups in just a few hours, I realized it was time to bite the bullet.
I still don't care for Google's UI paradigm, and I desperately want a Chrome version of Google Toolbar Lite. But always getting my web pages in a reasonable time has made my life much less tense.
We'd beat you at baseball, but you're too scared to let us compete in the "World Series".
They need to stop trying to make it look shiney and do a small update and call it a new version. People who have been using firefox since it's 3.x days are used to the old update system and DO NOT CARE about having a new version every few weeks. I think they first need to figure out why flash +firefox = massive headaches because ever since 11.3 flash I've had nothing but issues with firefox loading flash applets and I'm getting sick and tried of them making 'improvments' and saying they fixes stuff when all they are doing is making it worse. They either need to do their update cycle sliently like google chrome and really fix issues with it or go back to the old method and only apply updates that really do something. I've been happy with firefox for years, but now I can't stand it. some people I'm sure like this setup but I don't think it works for them.
This is a Mac, what you have there is an embarrassment to your fellow computer users.
... The many good plugins.
I already know this isn't starting out well, given you've called the extensions plugins.
Hate: A single tab can hang the whole browser.
A phenomenal amount of work is going into improving this.
No convenient way to view an image with the wrong MIME type in the browser anyway.
that took 2 seconds to find
Too little and dumbed down settings.
about:config
No more status bar.
It's now the add-ons bar
Still no good debugging tools
You're right with this one. Fortunately it'll be in Firefox 15 releasing at the end of this month, play with it in the beta right now
The weird branding thing they do that caused Archlinux to not call it Firefox but various other lame names in the past (are they for open source or what?).
Trademarks have nothing to do with the code being open sourced. Users are safer because Mozilla can defend the trademarks.
No more innovation (why not try things like multiple tab groups or so
You mean like Panorama that's been there since Firefox 4? (Ctrl Shift E)
The Android version sometimes crashes and once made the whole phone reboot after a crash.
In about:crashes there are links to each crash report, perhaps you can visit irc://irc.mozilla.org/mobile and share those links to help improve it.
its slowness.
If you meant responsiveness, see my first linked answer. If you just mean javascript speed, the Ionmonkey js engine is coming along nicely.
I'm probably missing many things :)
Just one. Firefox.
I'm always confused by the Firefox hate. I've used Firefox since 1.5 and it's been great. A few addons have broken here and there (most recently, Pentadactyl broke on Firefox 15), but it's rare, and other than that I have no problems with Firefox. It rarely crashes, it starts up quickly and it isn't slow. Firefox only uses about ~250 MB of RAM right now (though I only have three tabs open), and I have HTTPS Everywhere, Greasemonkey, NoScript, Adblock Plus, Flagfox, Beef Taco, Reddit Enhancement Suite, SPDY indicator and Test Pilot installed. Yes, I do not have 50 tabs open like the rest of you apparently do, but I usually have between two and five tabs open and Firefox doesn't eat that much memory. Even if Firefox used a gigabyte of memory, I wouldn't mind. It's probably the application I use the most and I have 12 GB of RAM in this box. Yes, I usually use quite powerful boxes, but even on less powerful boxes I do not have any problems either.
In the beginning I thought the rapid release schedule was stupid, but now I really like it. Frequent updates are nice, as opposed to having to wait half a year (or longer) for some minor feature. The version number inflation doesn't even bug me anymore. If the current Firefox releases are as big as they're ever going to get, then there is no reason for being stuck on version four forever.
I know I will probably be accused of being a Firefox fanboy, and I probably am. I love Firefox because it's fast (at least it is for me), it has good addons and it doesn't cause any problems for me. Like with Windows Vista, hating Firefox seems to have become trendy (not that I like Windows Vista, but that's mostly because it's still Windows).
"Are we right to blame the rapid release process?"
Yes.
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
MacOS 10.4.11 (two PPC machines still on that one) FF 3.6.26 (most recent available compatible), says, "Some plug-ins used by this page are out of date" in a ribbon at the top of the browser window all the time now ever since some plug-ins stopped being updated. I get that. But this alert never goes away and even after being "dismissed" it reappears on each new tab or window. Forever.
I always complain Apple does not make sure old hardware is supported. I even have an iPhone 1 with data captured forever because iTunes updates on the older PPC unit deprecated it. Apple doesn't even do this for windblows!
That said to make the point Mozilla should make sure computers being deprecated at least have a stable final release that does not become broken later because of exegent events of updates.
The one area that Firefox really failed to capitalise on, is in the enterprise. They've never progressed any centralised management tools (the ones that exist really aren't usable). The move to rapid updates only compounded the problem further. As a result, there's a huge number of companies who simply cannot use it because it will go against IT policy.
People would care a lot less about rapid updates if they had easy control over them.
"Mozilla's market share has been slipping again at a significant pace." http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/08/firefox-continues-to-gain-as-internet-explorer-chrome-slide/
I still use Firefox primarily because of NoScript. Chrome has nothing comparable. (And yes, I know about NotScript.) Also, Chrome doesn't give me the option to keep using an outdated version of Flash. It just disables it. Fuck you too, Chrome.
Chrome has really good debugging tools built in. I don't particularly care for FireBug, nor do I want to deal with updating it when Firefox updates. Maybe it updates itself now, I don't know. I stopped using Firefox out of annoyance at having to deal with updates.
Chrome works, and the built-in debugging tools are pretty solid.
Sure, Chrome is recording every drunken conversation I have with X-girlfriends, but nowadays that's expected behavior.
Firefox broke all the useful URL bar shortcuts and replaced them with text replacers.
.com to whatever is in the location bar. If someone wanted those they would type it, or the built in system would add those if what they typed was not a proper domain. .net.
For example:
control-enter used to open the URL in a new tab, with control-shift-enter opening it in a new tab in the background, now it adds www. and
shift-enter used to automatically download an URL, whatever it was, a file, a webpage, whatever. now it adds www and
alt enter used to do something useful too I just don't remember, now it opens a webpage in a new tab, albeit without being able to use the shift modifier to not automatically switch to the tab.
Worse, you used to be able to use these modifiers with bookmarks or on any link you clicked. Now you can't even middle click a bookmark and have it open in the background even while middle clicking links does. A lot of functionality that used to exist doesn't, and when it is there, It's totally inconsistent.
And if you go and report these issues it won't even let you do that. http://i.imgur.com/S8D8t.png
Cookie management is a pain too, in seamonkey, if you want to change a sites cookie permissions, you go to a menu->sub menu->allow/deny cookies. In firefox you have to right click, open page info, select the privacy tab, click allow/deny cookies, then close the window, which is 3x as long, for a browser that's supposed to care about your privacy.
</end rant>
With each new point release of Safari, it would run faster. With each new point release of Firefox, it would run slower. Other apps were pretty much unchanged. Although, I'm not quite sure how you measure speed in LaTeX. If I used my laptop for 3D rendering or some such thing, I guess that I would have a better metric.
Likewise at work, my Dell would run Chrome pretty quickly, Firefox not so much. And at work there was certainly no slowdown for other apps.
So I'm fairly confident that Firefox was the problem back then. And if you look at comments about Firefox from those years, you'll see that my complaint was not uncommon. IMO, one of the chief reasons that Chrome took off like it did was that many, if not most, Firefox users were unhappy with Firefox at the time when Chrome was released.
They're what's wrong with Firefox. What made Firefox great was that it was light weight and snappy and got everything mozilla got, as far as rendering web pages. Then they killed mozilla and turned Firefox into its bloated busted replacement by encouraging people to use poorly coded extensions for all their weird desires.
Now chrome is what Firefox was when it was last good (around 1.0, 1.5 was the beginning of them ruining it). Except that Chrome is stable.
The worst is when you have to use a co-workers firefox installation. It will be so locked down with terrible ideas (they call them extensions) that you can't view a webpage without a javascript debugger...
Adblock and Noscript are the only things that make the web usable
basically what I like about Firefox is .. Firebug.
the lastest FF releases have started being all screwed up with scrolling, esp. over YouTube videos & etc.
also noticed performance is just .. slow, esp compared to chrome.
also things like jquery transitions just look a lot better in chrome.
anyways i just switched to chrome yesterday, FF user for years.
General usability issue affecting apparently all browsers: Why the fuck does the backspace key mean 'go back to the previous page' if pressed in a selection (combo) field in a form (losing of course all data) or delete a character if pressed in a text field? It's absolutely stupid.
The backspace key *needs to be ignored* if pressed in a selection field.
Who to blame?
Whoever was the idiot that entered update-berserk.
Should we be surprised?
I use Firefox because for me, it's extremely stable and secure. Until Chrome can support plugins that do the exact things as addons like NoScript, CookieSafe, AdBlock, etc, I can't see myself ever using Chrome as my primary browser. On the other hand, it'd be awesome if Mozilla could add sandboxing and tabs in separate processes to firefox to make an already secure and stable browser that much more secure and stable.
Had been using Opera for years. Was trying a few LiveCD Linux Distros one day when one of them came bundled with Firefox and a superior speed-dial plugin. I installed Firefox on my Windows 7 Laptop (useless on an old netbook I recently sold) and loaded it with tons of security and privacy plug-ins, as well as the speed-dial plug-in.
Firefox still has its' quirks (like it doesn't seem to remember where I last downloaded a file), it's download manager remains dated, the menu system needs the same overhaul it's needed for years and lastly... usability. Sheesh!! Getting Firefox to recognized an external editor for viewing source, for example, required a web search!!
Why am I sticking with Firefox now when Chrome may have similar plug-ins (despite the fact that Google remains my overall fav tech company)? Because it seems like the only main browser (not including 3rd-company forks) that's written for the end-user. I can live with a few minor usability issues when a company is covering my 'six'. No one else even pretends to do so. So... thanks Mozilla! Keep on fighting the good fight.
Firefox ESR!
Most people are unaware it exists! You don't need to be running the latest stable or beta versions of Firefox and if you're tired of instability, please give Firefox ESR a try! Even The Tor Project stable releases of the Tor Browser Bundle have switched to Firefox ESR.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/
"What is Mozilla Firefox ESR?
"Mozilla will offer an Extended Support Release (ESR) based on an official release of Firefox for desktop for use by organizations including schools, universities, businesses and others who need extended support for mass deployments. You can read more about the plan here":
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Enterprise/Firefox/ExtendedSupport:Proposal
Downloads for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux:
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/all.html
Who is it for?
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/
"....and you threaten to ditch the browser in favor [of] Chrome." No I don't, ever; not since etherape & I watched Chrome (and Chromium) phoning home to google while I was completely idle, with nothing but a blank page before me. I'll stick with a browser that isn't sentient, at least until AI makes a few more advances. It's also hard to beat about:config, unless you're pretty savvy. Here's a car analogy, sort of: There are two tool sets. Chrome gives you some armorall, windex, a little swiss army knife, and an air-freshener. Firefox gives you steel tools and a hammer.
Forward! -- Emperor Norton, 2012
Mostly I don't like the fact that it isn't Chrome.
- "Scientia non habet inimicum nisp ignorantem"
...the tools whining about plugins.
I ditched Firefox, specifically because I kept running into the same problem as you.
On every operating system imaginable.
Windows XP? Memleak. Vista? Memleak. 7? Memleak.
OS X Snow Leopard? Memleak. Lion? Memleak.
Various Linux distributions? Memleak.
Pointing out the fact that Firefox is leakier than... uh, something that leaks, a lot... however, has always been met with "But, but, plugins!" from deranged fanboys.
Here's a curious fact: I've never used plugins with Firefox. It's not plugins, you fools. Firefox has (or at least had - admittedly, I haven't used it in some time and have no desire to return to it) deep issues with memory management that have existed since its inception.
Whey they got to version 13 and it was still leaking 1GB/day of memory, that was it for me.
Switched to another browser and haven't looked back.
I'm not in a love-hate relationship with any piece of software and Firefox works just fine for me. Then again, Netscape worked just fine for me, too. What I don't understand is why people constantly confuse feature-bloat with real progress.
I finally gave up on it and switched to seamonkey, most firefox plugins work fine with it
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Firefox crashes CONSTANTLY on my pc! Sometimes I have 10 windows open with 10-20 tabs in each and then it crashes, it's so annoying. This is my main problem with Firefox, plus, I got like 20 extensions and one of them might be the culprit, but how is it my job to find out which one??. My second biggest problem is that youtube works very bad compared to chrome.
Chrome simply doesn't crash all the fucking time.
Lo and behold, for I am a sig!
If someone knows why it happened, please let me know, I will go back to FireFox.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
* Give me back my menu bar
* Give me back my status bar
* Stop dicking around with fancy visual effects in the browser window that cause bugs like this: http://i.stack.imgur.com/WPXGe.png
* Switch to a multi-process model so flash and browser bugs don't take down everything in a crash
* Build a proper download feature with the ability to do such basic things as resume http downloads (this should be a core feature, not a plugin)
1984 was not supposed to be an instruction manual.
Put management in the backroom and let software engineers do their damn job!!!
years ago, Firefox had memory bloat and lock-up problems on my Macs (I dont use windows ever) Later on Ubuntu Linux things seemed better - I was browsing less, too though. Then came Chromium with the Google minimalist charm. Faster performance and clean interface made me forget Firefox completely, both Mac and Debian-based Linux.
I will never lose Firefox because of Firebug and Chatzilla, but, I am typing this in Chrome right now. ps- I am American, I never tried Opera much at all.
I upgraded to the Firefox 15 beta, really hoping the new memory management work would reduce the bloat problems. My FF grows to 1.9 GB in a couple days, and then crashes. I run Debian Squeeze. FF15 seems to leak even faster than 13.
I can close every window and tab except for one, and that does not free the memory. It still leaks with plugins disabled.
I'm glad they are giving the memory leak issues more attention, but it isn't fixed yet. FF15 leaks faster than FF13.
I love Firefox for what it is, for its essence, not for this stupid chromification Mozilla is trying to do. Heck, if I wanted a browser to look like Chrome... I'd just go Chrome!!
I write software myself. But the web browser is too much like an operating system. I use it too much. It should do what it does and do it well. I felt like I was drowning in version numbers. What broke the camels back is when they defaulted to a chrome style UI. Too much change in the primary interface. I don't remember there being a choice on the installation screen or there being a couple year transition. It actually motivated me to use chrome since it seemed to change less. I already had it installed, I just felt more motivated to move on.
The problem with Mozilla is that they are focusing on one product "Firefox" for web browsing too much. I liked it when they started gutting Firefox and putting things into extensions and addons. But that was mostly behind the scenes. When it came to changing the UI they should have forked the product.
My opinion is the Mozilla foundation should be developing multiple backends and multiple frontends and half a dozen browsers. They should have competing visions. It's open source and there is no one right answer for everyone. Some people like lots of change and a faster pace and others just want it to work and to get work done. It shouldn't be one product. The reality is they can do both and people can install both. And let me be specific, I don't want "stable" releases, I want actual different products. I don't want versions, I want vision, direction, and philosophy. And then I want to choose what works for me.
Firefox is the last of the major four browsers to have a separate address bar and search bar. This seems a bit backwards until you realise that Firefox is the *only* browser with advanced instant search of the history. It's a great feature when you get used to it, and it is the reason that I use Firefox. For example, if I want to go back to this page tomorrow, I can write "slash fire" into the address bar, and this page shows up as the top result. Using any other browser, it would take multiple clicks and/or more typing to get back to this page. If I need to access the docs for some specialist library all the time at work , it will show up high, and I can just type "class" to get the list of classes. Or even type the name of a class that I use frequently. This includes my home computer too, where I installed some docs locally because the online version was having trouble. So Firefox brings up results for file:///usr/share/doc/whatever/.... when I type in an appropriate keyword. I have to admit that it's a bit of paranoia too, that it's better to store my history locally, but I think the usefulness is enough by itself, without the fear of the cloud.
Firefox itself seems pretty decent these days. The biggest and ugliest problem is the extreme sluggishness of its most popular add-ons. I don't think I'd want to live without Firebug and AdBlock, but these two are huge performance hogs and I almost think they should be absorbed into the main codebase, rather than being sandboxed and crippled in their current incarnation.
A clean install of Firefox loads instantly, just like Chrome and IE9. As soon as I load those two add-ons, it starts taking 2-3 seconds to launch, pages often freeze up due to the repetitive and redundant DOM swizzling. This over-reliance on Javascript-based functionality leads to really sloppy performance and sometimes massive memory leaks. Right this second, with only two tabs open, Firefox is guzzling 450mb of memory. Chrome uses 1/10th of that to display the same content, with the same add-on functionality.
I've been holding out for a long time, but Chrome is starting to lure me over. I don't like being at the mercy of Google's totalitarian whims, but Firefox' idealism is wearing thin unless some real programmers get in there and clean things up. For the average user, Chrome is a clear winner simply because it's faster.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
I'm using Firefox and I've tried Chrome but there is zero customization with Chrome. The last time I used Chrome (about 3 months ago) there wasn't even any fine grained history settings (where is the keep cookies but don't keep a history option?) let alone all the settings found in about:config.
Safari really isn't much of an option since I use Linux, and I really just couldn't get used to Opera. Give me a fully customizable version of Chrome and I'd switch in a heartbeat, but I don't want a browser with zero customization like Chrome.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
after many years of using it for development + firebug, i'm unable to use it anymore for development (linux and windows). because it's slow as hell compared to chrome, what's going on?
I believe you mistakenly posted an article from a long time ago (ie 2010) -- it says "August 03", but doesn't state the year.
What I love most about FF is that most websites work well with FF, and it's got some great plugins.
What I hate about it is the constant "updates for your plugins found," or the risk of plugins not working with new versions. What a hassle.
What I love the most is that it consistently copies great features from my all-time favorite browser, Opera. Boo ya.
Greets all. So our company creates a browser toolbar for VoIP customers to allow them to use click-to-call features, show presence, etc. We gave up on trying to work with mozilla because of the fact that once a week, the browser would be outdated and all of our build work would be for naught. It's annoying to try and keep up with it when other browsers at least keep a fairly stable platform to build on.
Chrome is terrible. It varies in terribility from release to release but it's just terrible all around. Yes, it browses much faster. It also uses 10x the memory of Firefox or IE or even Opera or Safari.
The only reason I don't use Firefox (though i admittedly have the love hate and haven't used it regularly in more than 2 years) is because I use chrome and I never close my browser. There's no reason to. So, were my browser closed, I might open firefox (other than times when sites screw up in chrome) - but that's rare.
Where the f*** are all of my menus?
It's the same problem with the newer Microsoft Office releases. They've messed around with all of the menus.
After 20 years of using their products and knowing where everything is, now I know where nothing is.
So now I need to spend significant time learning how to use their software and how to get something done.
Same problem with Firefox.
All of my past knowledge about how to navigate its menus is of no use and I now need to spend time learning how to make everything happen again. Or does this depend on which version I'm using as 14.0 menu layout looks more normal than I've seen it in some of the other releases.
WTF are they doing there?
I am super grateful to Mozilla and Firefox for allowing me some control of my own privacy and protection. I won't go to Google's Chrome because my privacy means something and Google is the great enemy of privacy. Going to Opera or IE isn't much of an option, either, if you value privacy and freedom. Firefox sets the standard for true choice. If Chrome were to seriously try to match Firefox in this department they could technically do so, I have no doubt, but their success would destroy their own ad revenue, so I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that.
Those who think Google is really okay ought to try Firefox for a while just so they can run the Mozilla-sponsored Collusion extension and can see for themselves the "Sexually Transmitted Diseases" they are being infected with as they traverse the web. MORE IMPORTANTLY THEY WILL SEE THAT GOOGLE IS THE SOURCE AND NEXUS OF MOST OF THE STDs. I have discontinued using Google search and Gmail and pretty nearly all Google services. But Google is pretty much everywhere and has deals with super-majority of websites and web services to infect you and report you to Google, without your knowledge, anyway. You really ought to try Collusion and see for yourself.
Firefox has heart and soul, but chrome just loads things so damn quick.
AdBlock for Firefox has no equal.
Except for AdBlock on Chrome or AdBlock on Safari.
Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
There's only a few small things keeping me with firefox now. I've already found adequate replacements for noscript and adblock on chrome, and it natively supports my greasemonkey scripts.
1. Web Developer -> Inspect -> 3d view.
This is an INCREDIBLY useful tool for me. Since i prefer to write my own filters for adblock it makes finding and writing filters for DIV adverts so much easier.
It also shows the code AFTER javascript manipulation which is so useful for debugging my poorly written greasemonkey scripts.
2. Drop down address bar.
Why oh why does it seem like firefox is the LAST browser to have a drop down list in the address bar? I want easy access to my most used sites by just clicking a single item and clicking. My bookmarks folder is insanely huge and i don't want to have to start typing www.whatever... to get to it.
The integration between Flash and Firefox on the Mac is buggy. When playing music on Pandora I frequently get "skips" when launching Virtual Box, firing up Eclipse, and/or loading pages in other Firefox tabs that have embedded Flash videos (that don't actually start playing- they just load). Don't have the same issues in Chrome. Could always be Adobe's fault. But, if so, Mozilla needs to help them figure out how to make their plugin's integration w/ Firefox (on the Mac) not suck.
no you wouldnt, hell you cant even get the shape of the bat right
Firefox was gradually annoying me with the forced updates, the ensuing extension incompatibility, and memory bloat due to run away processes, slowing everything down over time. However, the one reason I always stuck with it is because I absolutely LOVE "Tree Style Tabs" which is an amazing extension for people like me who browse with 20+ tabs open at any given time. There is no suitable equivalent option in Chrome/IE, but finally I just gave up and decided to switch to Chrome.
Chrome was a breath of fresh air (I still use it for JS heavy sites and for Netflix, etc), but very soon, I realized that Chrome isn't as great as people make it out to be. Sure, it is snappy and fast, but only if you have 5-6 tabs open. If you have 10+ tabs it starts getting a lot slower. Opening new tabs, or bringing up Chrome when Chrome specific caches are in the pagefile rather than RAM brings Chrome to it's knees and responsiveness is just atrocious. FF started looking amazing and after a week of frustration, I realized that there just isn't any other browser that works as well for "power users" such as myself. I'd happily recommend Chrome to my parents or casual web browsers, but FF still rules the roost when it comes to people with tons of open tabs, and lots of extensions running. (imho, Chrome really gets bogged down once you have 4+ plugins running simultaneously such as Adblock plus, script block, etc)
If many of the events weren't limited to the number of participants we might. not that the GP was at all relevant, but your rejoinder of proportionate medal count is statistically flawed.
Teetering on the fence...and falling.
Loved it, told everyone I knew about, got served a few re-iterations, didn't tell as many people, found out any application on my computer can throw a plug-in into the works without so much as a hello, stopped telling anyone about it except to point out last "feature".
So what's this Waterfox thing and who the hell is Mr. Alex?
I've been using Firefox for years ever since it was called Phoenix and I love Firefox. Essential addons that I feel no one can absolutely live without such as Adblock Plus and Noscript along with Easylist and Fanboy filters for adblock ensure you have a much safer and faster browsing experience.
Whereas chrome only has an addon similiar to adblock but nowhere near as good.
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
The things I value most Mozilla respects. I can't say that about Google, Microsoft, Apple, or Opera. I would not switch to Chrome, Safari (even if I could), Opera, or Internet Explorer (even if I could).
I'll tell you why I keep using Chrome:
1. no 64bit version, I use the 64bit nightly version, but despite there being x64bit nightly versions for 4, Firefox 4 was not released in 64bit on Windows. Chrome has no 64bit version, so I'm only using it because Firefox is "still an alpha or beta product" until 64bit is available.
2. Pressing F12 on Firefox doesn't bring up a developer console, and even with firebug installed, is enormously slower than chrome.
3. Chrome's web audio API is what I currently am currently working with, it's not on Firefox.
4. The rapid release version inflation is screwing up all my statistic monitoring software. Just take the version number off and call it Firefox. Since it auto-updates, it doesn't matter what version it is.
Stuff I hate about chrome, that I could switch back to Firefox for:
1. Chrome's rapid-release version inflation is just as bad, if not worse than firefox, but it's less intrusive. It downloads the update in the background, and is updated the next time the browser is restarted. Firefox, on the other hand does this when it first loads, in the foreground, which should only be done for security fixes, not version bloat. I prefer Chrome's method.
2. Chrome's sandboxing is crap. They run all the tabs in separate processes, so 16 tabs ends up being 24 separate processes. What takes 256MB on Firefox takes nearly 1GB on Chrome. One tab (with flash) crashes everything, so this is just stupid engineering, and needs to go back to one tab per thread.
3. Chrome doesn't have a 64bit version for Windows, and spawns all sorts of unnecessary processes, wasting memory and CPU time. For example
right now I have 17 tabs open: 25 Chrome.exe processes, two over 320MB, most are 50MB. Plus 5 Nacl64 processes taking 20MB a piece Plus GoogleCrashHandler.exe, and GoogleCrashHandler64.exe , So there's 32 processes for 17 tabs. Meanwhile, firefox.exe 64bit Nightly is sitting there at 300MB for the entire process with 8 tabs.
The entire "prefork" model is a horrible 1980's design that needs to die. It should have stopped being used when the Pentium 2 Xeon came out, since that's when the possibility of having two CPU's in one system was doable. Or even when the HT Pentium 4's were widespread.
in Chrome it just works
Did you know that Firefox has a LTS-esque version? More distros (debian stable and ubuntu LTS) should use this. http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/
Why should I care so much about a second rated piece of trash? Its only justification for existing is that IE is far worse. Personally, I use FF only for the very few pages that Opera has problems with. Which are not many. Here is a company that actually cares to deliver a good product.
The FF people have lost their way a while back. I suspect the usual: Stupidity and arrogance. Their only saving grace is that the IE folks never had a way in the first place. But as it is, I expect FF will become unusable in the near future.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Ask them which one the do their financial stuff in.
Fugue for Aaron Swartz
I don't like Firefox because they try to take Windows-isms and force them on Mac users. My user experience is one thing in 99% of the programs on my computer - why should how I select text be different for Firefox? Or why can't I launch Firefox normally by holding command-option and hitting the down arrow like I do for every other program but which sends Firefox into some special "safe" mode?
Firefox shouldn't proselytize specific OS behavior.
Not a love hate relationship for me; it just works very well. I've been using it as my sole browser [on openSUSE 11.x then 12.x] every day, pretty much all day, for years. It just works. Very well. Reliably. I'm happy with both the performance and the features.
Only time it bombs is when I try to view a 500MB XML file - it doesn't like that.
Using "Common Sense" is being either to arrogant or to ignorant to ask people who know more about something than you.
I assume most people use firefox for the same reason I do. The AddOns. If the browser would check for AddOn compatibility and updates before updating firefox and let you delay the firefox update until the AddOns showed compatibility, then people would be happier about the update sequence.
The plugins are no longer broken by updates and memory wastage is going down, those were my two big complaints...
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
memory use second. And can we finally get tabs in individual procs? It is not just plugins that cause it to hang. But really, focus on speed and leave all the other BS where it belongs, in the garbage. It still renders pages slower than opera and chrome but I tolerate it as I can't get my (few) favorite plugins for the others. I've been using the ion monkey build and honestly, I see no improvements at all so am not holding out much hope for the future.
I don't like how Firefox (and Chrome) no longer expire session cookies. So now, if you log in to get your email, it doesn't matter if you check the 'keep me logged in' button. Firefox has decided that you will stay logged in.
It's choosing convenience over security and that's rarely a decision I'm going to agree with.
The cons first:
* The plugin container sucks. It can still slow Firefox (the whole app, not just one tab) to a crawl, especially on sites with Flash. Other browsers seem unaffected.
The pros:
* The UI and extensions make Firefox for me. If it weren't for the extensions I'd have been using Chrome for a while now.
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
is still crap,
Mozilla is trying to please eveyrone, pleasing no one.
so much im gonna make my own browser for me the rest of you i no longer care what you do, you deserve what happens to you
I dont hate or love it. It's simply alright. Chrome is better.
What do you find most annoying or gratifying about Firefox these days?
Everything. right now I have 31 FF tabs and windows open (I am writing papers and doing research). Last night in the middle of what I was doing I accidentally hit the keyboard combination that put me into private browsing mode, and basically shit myself saying #$@% FF. I found the option to go back into normal browser mode and everything back but I'd already cursed the program unfairly. So I think it's just me pushing the browser and finding it's limits, it get slow, functions like moving tabs between windows stop working and the general responsiveness of the browser starts to deteriorate.
That said I think it's impossible to do that in any other browser, they just aren't as capable. The only thing that stuffs FF up is flash. urrrrh Flash must die, and even that I don't think is FF fault but adobe's, Flash never seems to work properly under linux. For me it's becoming close to impossible to only run one browser anymore. I find flash works fine under Chrome so I use it for that, but I don't trust either of them for online transactions so I use Opera for that.
I like FF and use it almost exclusively for browsing but recently, whilst implementing Fowlers "Application Controller" in Javascript I, as usual, found that I have to use another browser whilst doing any form of browser based code work, in step Konquer (don't laugh!) to take over. To me FF simply has the best browser based dev tools (Firebug - Whoo!) so it's easy for me to make sure that the things I write work properly in firefox. Of course I use IE for testing when I am in that mode.
Things get complicated in the IE space also, where you have to have different version of IE to test and use a backend system, for example where a system only works properly in IE7 and another only works in IE8, hello virtual machine under Win 7. But even at home that's five browsers to do stuff with at different times (with safari being the only browser I haven't flogged). I know I am not a typical user (I'm not even a web developer - so they're probably more demanding), but I think we are all probably starting to push our chosen browsers to their limits so a single browser choice is really just a limitation on doing things. Personally, I find these browser wars to be idiotic (actually OS wars too) I want the capability to do what I need to do to the limits of the hardware without some moronic restrictions.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
It was probably destined to happen anyway but I left after reading this thread. It left a bad taste in my mouth.
https://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.usability/browse_thread/thread/fe75ec92c02be934?hl=en-GB&noredirect=true&pli=1
I moved to Chrome for the Javascript speed up last year. This month I've moved back to Firefox.
Chrome was faster and I still think it's better for less educated users even with the lack of privacy. I'd still suggest it for friends.
However, this year I see little advantages to Chrome. Chrome has a few very annoying bugs and features. In particular there's a few things I like to do with Firefox that I can't do with Chrome:
1) Install an addon quicker without signing in to anything. Quick searching
2) Turn on and off images with img like opera. There are also other plugins for this
3) Generally I much prefer the diag stuff including web dev
4) Just much more chance of getting below the hood and knowing what's going on with Firefox
5) addons... I know Chrome is a bit more reliable on this, but I prefer the whole cmomunity feeling around Firefox
Also, the latest version of Firefox right now feels lighter and I'm more familiar with running multiple addons yet keeping it stable. On Chrome I kept running nito brick walls trying to get what I wanted working. With Firefox you've a much better chance of finding it documented and with community support. The Chrome support forums are full of users trying to do certain things.
I usually have at least a few browsers anyway on any one OS, sometimes a portable install. There's still times where I find different browsers do things differently I find myself wanting an alternative if only to confirm that it's not just a unique problem
A blog I run for the wealth
wtf firefox..
Compared to other OPEN SOURCE, MULTIPLATFORM browsers (to me, there is no point in comparing to IE, which is neither open nor multiplatform). Firefox is-
Most annoying:
* Trying to hide everything all the time.
* Adding unnecessary crap all the time. Things that should be in addons. Example- the annoying new "blank page" helper. Goes completely against the foundations of Firefox.
* Changing long-held defaults. For example, turning on smooth scrolling, changing to "tabs on top". STOP TRYING TO LOOK LIKE CHROME.
* Still using too much memory. I know there are studies that show it is both less and that it is more than other browsers, but damn it still seems like a lot.
Most gratifying:
* Most like what I am used to.
* Less likely to have spyware/trackware and Google hooks in it.
* About:config has LOTS of options. I like having options (although more stuff should be in Preferences).
* Best Addon environment, period.
Most important feature request:
* Give users intelligent control over javascript to lessen or prevent animation and tight-loops. Sites have already started to destroy sane browsing behavior, put up lots of distracting s*** on the screen constantly, and eat up tons of CPU and battery. No addon is really able to address this, unless you spent forever trying to tweak for each site (and constantly update it)- and normal users don't have a chance. It is rapidly getting out of control as websites are turning into marketing-spree TV-like presentations. (And things like "noscript" don't even begin to address what I am talking about.)
I use Firefox over Chrome now for a few reasons: ..." and it will open the results in a BACKGROUND tab. I found an extension in Chrome that allows this but it's a bit of a pain with having to traverse a few layers of menus.
1) I can install a rocker gestures add-on in Linux. That never worked well in Chrome and now doesn't appear to even work at all.
2) I can install it on my work Linux box without having root access, in my home directory.
3) Oddly enough, I had intermittent but distinct problems with Chrome not working with gmail...of all things! The site would sometimes not load at all in Chrome. Then I'd go to Firefox and it always works perfectly.
4) Context menu open in background. In Firefox I can change a setting in about:config that allows me to "Search Google for
5) Session manager in Firefox is simple and defaults to just saving my tabs and re-opening them. I imagine it's possible in Chrome but after trying one or two I couldn't set up that default behavior without more interaction.
I imagine I could fix a few of these things in Chrome if I put in some time and research. But why bother if Firefox gives me what I need?
"Either Mozilla gets Firefox right .. or Mozilla screws up and you threaten to ditch the browser in favor Chrome .. There has been some discussion and finger-pointing, and it seems that the rapid release process has to take the blame this time. Are we right to blame the rapid release process?"
...
No, we are not right to blame the 'rapid release process`, nobody forces you to upgrade. The only time such would be the case was if some web site broke on changing your browser. But that's not the case with Mozilla as they wouldn't have a financial stake in doing so. Besides which it is possible to run two versions of Firefox at the same time. This whole 'issue' was thought up in some PR department and is totally bogus, a bit like the Android fragmentation 'issue'
AccountKiller
Well, then try Palemoon: http://www.palemoon.org. Unlike some linux people said about this project this is not "compiled with extra flags" but a way to create a Firefox that is really useful. Palemoon is not bloated with useless things (Personas, ActiveX, Messy UI that want to mimic Chrome), it support modern processors so it's faster than Firefox (has a real x64 mode), it's fully customizable, and in the forums users post what they want for next versions to developers instead to get forced changes like Firefox.
I'm one of "you people". Glad to meet you!
Reloading with my previous 50 (more like 200) tabs instantly but being able to select which ones to read with only a short delay is magical.
I didn't realise I liked the Mozilla people until right now. Thanks for helping!
Regardless, Firefix is STILL too memory hungry. It needs to go on a serious diet, like just celery sticks for a decade. I'm tired of adding memory to workstations JUST for firefox to squander.
On my Windows machines I use SeaMonkey. It is written by developers who are actually competent and know what they are doing.
On my Linux machines, I use a custom build of Firefox. It is currently Version 14 and it will stay Version 14 as I have decided to just backport the security and rendering changes without all of the UI nonsense that the idiotic fashion designers running Mozilla seem to want to do. I also patched in KDE integration from the SuSE build for good measure.
The problem with Mozilla is that they've put a bunch of "user-experience designers" in charge of Firefox rather than programmers who actually know what they are doing. "User-experience designers" are just glorified fashion designers who keep changing around the interface to go with whatever happens to be en vogue at the time. I may dislike Chrome (the final straw for me was an arrogant reply, GNOME style, from a developer in reference to a feature request for movable toolbars) but at least they are consistent and Chrome updates don't break everything.
I neither love nor hate Firefox these days. For me it just has become somewhat irrelevant in the past years. Sure Firefox/Mozilla was instrumental in ending the dominance of Internet Explorer, but somewhere along the path it just ceased in general to have momentum of being awesome.
For me it was somewhere around Firefox 3.5-3.6 I stopped using Firefox as my main browser. I got fed of the entire browser freezing with multiple tabs open just because one of the tabs had content that started acting up, usually some heavy Javascript or Flash. So I tried out Chrome and really liked it, even though at the time there wasn't any ad blocking extension available for it.
while true; do eject; eject -t; done
Use a good browser like Opera and you won't have to worry about a shit browser like Chrome or Chrome Jr.^W^W^WFirefox ruining your day.
As someone who can code reluctantly, I think that Firefox is a godsend to people who like to tweak their browsers to no end...
As someone who still has to install shit that works right out of the box (for clients), I avoid Mozilla like the plague. Its too fractionalized to be used as a standalone idiot browser, and of course the /. crowd will disagree...set-up 'commuters' for olds that have trouble changing the channel on their cable box, and you're running back to Chrome or IE instantly and changing your tune to fit to mine. I say whatever works for personal usage...
inb4 olds on internet...I work at a rest home.
In my own experience Chromium is a great browser but its bad performance with flash really sucks and it's a deal breaker for me at least until the web switches to other technology. Firefox's addons suck too but you don't have to use them.
I grew up with Netscape (until its Communicator v4.x) and still love Mozilla's suites, SeaMonkey (used to be called Mozilla).
In the middle of last month, I finally installed to the latest v2.10.1 after v2.0.14 had problems with some web site with serious slowdowns (cbs2.com's links, icanhascheezburger.com's sites, etc.) even with brand new clean installs on all updated platforms (Mac OS X 10.7.4, Windows XP Pro. SP3, and Linux/Debian stable). v2.10.1+ had some issues. I lost some extensions (NoSquint and BugMeNot) even after waiting over a year for them to keep up. There are a few minor annoying bugs, but mostly stable unlike earlier versions because of Flash player plugins! Ugh!
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
With a few exceptions, I love Firefox.
A user needs to keep a history for sync ability breaks; this is sub optimal for anyone on the go. The data needs to live elsewhere.
In Windows, the user still cannot uninstall plugins and all extensions. Disabled is not enough.
A few minor peeves are the length of time before restart, and the psudo random folder names. I believe in using meaningful names.
On the positive, I use quite a few extension: scrapbook, youtube downloaders, grab page to drag, a translator, flashblockers, and cookie managment.
On the odd side, the home screen page; I do not use it. I do not need it.
Thanks for working on Firefox,
BrendaEM
https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendaEM
What we need is a fork called "Firefox Classic", which combines the up-to-date internals of the current Firefox codebase with the user interface of Firefox 3.6 (with at least the option to use the standard URL bar from Firefox 2 instead of the "Awesome Bar"). Most of the recent complaints I've heard have been about the UI "experts" screwing things up right and left, not about the core browser. (There used to be a lot of issues with memory leaks, but those are largely fixed now. And the recent Flash issues are Adobe's fault, not Mozilla's.)
No, it's not weed. It's a fucking memory hog, that's why I hate it.
Love it? 'Cause it really sets the standard, right? It just works on every site.
Main difference between the BSD license and the GPL license: one is from California and the other is from Massachusetts
I like Firefox have have been using it since the beta days.
The update cycle doesn't bother me one way or the other. It 's not too often, or often enough.
Memory usage - I don,t know how much it uses or doesn't use. It's never been an issue for me.
Breaking plugins - not a problem for me also.
But you know what I'd like to see changed? I'd like a productivity enhancement. That's right, I'd like an option that allows me to specify "USE WORDS INSTEAD OF STUPID ICONS THAT NOBODY UNDERSTANDS" for navigation.
IE is popular because it's per-installed with windows & people are lazy. Chrome is popular because it's pushed on every Google site. Plus everyone wants a bit of that Google magic on their computer to no? Firefox market share is increasing because it's advertised on.... & pre-installed on....... lol you get the point. Blaming any feature itself for firefox's decreasing market share is simply just a lazy mental model, mixed with a bit of he-said, she-said & anyone but me is to blame.
Firefox is the one for me, by far. It actually feels like it's designed to try to help me browse the web as effortlessly as possible. Opera is the only other browser that is about as feature-rich, and feels like a fully-developed product.
I'm also willing to put up with Firefox's designers and engineers tinkering around because every browser tends to do that from time to time, but only Firefox lets ME control what features I want, and how they behave.. from reverting UI changes to disabling odd new features until I want them.
And finally, though not necessarily all that relevant, I have come to trust Mozilla somewhat as that company who wants the web to be something for everybody, and not something to grease corporate wheels first, and ask questions later.
Got one upgrade to IE, another one upgrade to Safari - what about Netscape ?
Remember Netscape, the original IE buster ?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
I REALLY hate the sync function. If it was closer to how Chrome does it, I would switch back in a heart beat. The whole "have one browser open to type in a code from another" is such a pain. I understand the security idea behind it. But I still do not like it.
I forgot to mention it in my earlier post but there is a Firefox version compiled for 64 bit Windows systems called Waterfox. I have been using Waterfox since last year and I can definetly notice a speed difference in general browsing performance compared to regular Firefox.
http://waterfoxproject.org/
You must master your joystick like a fisherman masters bait! - Gimpy
I've actually gotten bug reports from several irate users at work who use our webapps. The company updated from 3.5 to 9 last year. Firefox folks decided to make the cursor go to the end of an input box instead of the beginning. It's been that way forever! Users now want us to move the cursor position as if there's some easy javascript function to control that on focus.
I told them to use chrome for now as a workaround because the cursor is in the place they expect. Firefox can't even position a cursor right anymore.
"What do you find most annoying or gratifying about Firefox these days?"
The most annoying thing is that I'm stuck with a yellow "Some plugins used by this page are out of date" warning bar at the top of Firefox at all times. Reason: I've got Flash 10.1, which is identified as out-of-date, but I'm running Firefox on Windows 2000, for which no newer version of Flash exists. There is no way to just shut off these warnings that I've been able to find. So, that's quite annoying.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
I just keep using seamonkey, so am basically still using netscape 3.05 or so. I actually bought it, still have the t-shirt.
The latest problem has been Flash.
Adobe released a version of flash that managed to freeze firefox. Except everyone will think "its a firefox issue". They took forever to fix it.
In a way, they're right - this happens ONLY with firefox. IE and Chrome gets "special versions". I'd almost go with a conspiracy theory here sometimes.
Unfortunate.
Yes it does... I've been running notscripts for quite some time. Works great. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NotScripts
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I need it to stop hanging for 10-20 seconds 2-3 minutes after I log into my workstation in the morning. For years I've put up with this.
I need to stop deleting lock files and parentlock files when it crashes. What year is this again?
I'd like it to run a little snappier.
I need it to understand the system "no proxy for" setting and actually use it properly.
I am a long-time Opera user, and I can only say, Firefox is at most a feebly attempt at a browser ... also Chrome and IE get that wrong ... it's getting better, but still feels snappier for me in Opera and also Chrome ... so if stuff is slow there I sure as hell don't open it in Firefox, but Chrome (another nice feature I miss in other browsers ... right-click -> open page in ... [browser])
- popups still open in new windows (duh, what do we have tabs for?)
- back/forwards was abominably slow in the beginning
- I miss the tons of useful tiny usability features (like back/forward = left-mb -> right-mb / right-mb -> left-mb) and so on
- doesn't offer me any performance advantage over Opera as does Chrome
So, jeah, Fx is pretty lame to me as it neither tries to be minimal like Chrome (which I really like), nor does it really satisfy my usability needs (like Opera) without getting in my way with 50 extensions.
I honestly don't know why nobody has forked Firefox 3.6.whatever. It seems like there's a huge demand for the way things used to be. There's even a fork project of GNOME 2, but as far as I can tell, there's no FF3 fork anywhere.
A while ago there was an article here suggesting that Mozilla should abandon the browser and start focusing on an open source productivity suite. I thought (and still think) that that was an excellent idea.
The Internet is pretty much fixed - mission accomplished, thanks Mozilla! The office productivity world needs your help now.
If firefox fixed its cooperation with Flash, then I would use it. I was a FF user for many years, but since last month I just couldnt take the Flash fails anymore and moved to Chrome. I can take the upgrades/plugin updates, but I just will not tolerate the way Flash works with FF.
Open all bookmarks and links in a new tab, except those linking to the current domain.
It's a feature of Tab Mix Plus, FF-only extension. Amazing for auto-generating tabs usefully. Impossible on Chrome.
If Tab Mix Plus comes to Chrome, I'll be strongly tempted to move... only a feeling of loyalty of having used it as Mozilla as my browser for a decade will stop me from moving.
Firefox has a nasty habbit of crashing on webpages with javascript scroll-downs such as are often found on popular websites like Tumblr.com.
You mean that plain and simple stick you tend to use in our colony that a caveman already used?
I don't think you are in a position to tell everyone else what's right and what's wrong.
Is it just me or does someone else here hate the fact that in Firefox, you have to close all your tabs before opening it in 'Private Browsing' mode, whereas in Chrome, you can just right click open a link in a new 'Incognito Window'?
I couldn't have said it better myself. Beautiful put! You read my mind.
It used to be able to be named and it helps me flatten out some folder hierarchy. But ever since it moves to SQLite management, that's gone.
What Mozilla - and a couple others - are doing wrong is to break with the principle of least surprise. Another prime example were our friends from Redmond with Vista - pretty much everybody who had used Windows before absolutely hated it, and for good reason. Or take Ubuntu with Unity for similar stupidity.
This has been a huge problem for their userbase before their "rapid releases", but now it's much more obvious, because it breaks your workflow every couple weeks instead of once a year.
Then there's the completely ignorant "update first, THEN check if there's compatible addon-updates". Some people (me included) rely on those addons, and the decision to upgrade (and have those addons not working) or to stay with the old version a couple more days (thus keeping the addons functional) should be left in the hands of the user.
Plus (warning: pet peeve) not everyone thinks that all the world should look and behave like a fscking smartphone - I got a huge monitor here, a keyboard with 100+ physical keys and a real pointer device, and I want to use them.
And, last not least, there's the whole thing about FF being just a freaking TOOL, not a lifestyle - I understand that this might be hard for the developers to fathom, but for the userbase all those forced UI changes are about as interesting as having the gearlever in your car suddenly controlling your audio stuff, and the volume control being responsible for opening/closing the windows. We're not interested in having to google for a couple hours to be able to get going again just because the shop changed the oil.
After a upgrade I had firefox 14.0.1, which freeze solid on youtube and several other sites. Not funny.
So that is what I hates most with it. They let out an "upgrade" causing major instability. Before, firefox was merely a memory pig - and slowly getting better. Whenever it freezes, I open the same site in opera instead. If this goes on for a while, I'll eventually quit trying firefox first.
That thing had to go. I miss my plugs, but, that fucker had to go....
I do have a love/hate relationship with Firefox. It was only recently that it became too much for me, and I switched to Chrome (well, that is a pilot). See, I like using Firefox. I like many many things about Firefox.
Alas, after reaching a certain amount of MB's of RAM (or GB's, rather), it becomes unusable. It'll hang for maybe 3 seconds on each tab no matter where I click. If I'm especially unlucky that day, it'll actually crash. Usually though, it doesn't, because I feel myself forced to restart it. The reason I abandoned it that day is because it completely forgot my app tabs AGAIN for absolutely not reason at all and that was after I had to kill the process because the whole thing wouldn't respond anymore. That pissed me off enough to say my goodbyes.
I wouldn't have stuck with Chrome as long as I have (a few weeks now) were it not for the fact that it is always snappy, it loads the exact same pages much faster than Firefox does and... well it just never really seems to slow down. Not just loading pages, but switching tabs and such: the interface is MUCH MUCH faster. It's by no means perfect: I think the options "page" is a usability nightmare (come on, everything on ONE page?) and I do have to get used to it but it's not the biggest transition in the world. I'm also not sure if I trust Google so maybe I should install SRWare Iron instead.
Anyway, I'll probably try it again in a few releases.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
The abandonment of Thunderbird, in particular, as well as the wholesale discarding of plugins, is a major peeve.
... but I like having No Script... which Chrome does not have...
There's a Noscript equivalent for Chrome/Chromium called NotScripts.
I make hardware RNGs, which give 2.5849625 bits of entropy per use in theory (actual performance dependent on usage).
Well, let's see... Something that tons of the hardcore user base are complaining about at every opportunity... slipping market share... Nah, there could not possibly be any relation, totally unlikely...
It's not the rapid release nonsense, it's alienating your userbase that kills you. Chrome doesn't have the same problem because it was on rapid release from day one. Its users don't expect anything else. But Firefox users do. That's why it was stupid to copy it.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Why must I have a love-hate relationship with Firefox? It's my primary browser, but it's just a browser.
I find the recent firefoxes to be more likely to crash; after my computer wakes up firefox might take a couple minutes to start responding (much longer than other programs and browsers), and the constant plugin incompatability drives me up the wall!
I have an 8core macro and firefox is slow as heck. Safari is superfast. But I am committed to using firefox because of their pro feedom stance on Internet freedom and freedom of speech.
Google = NSA and that's a fact. They may feign being pro freedom but they help the Chinese keep their population censored - don't think they won't gladly do it everywhere else too. They wrote the book on how to censor the Internet and the sold it to governments. And Google is nothing but an NSA front company anyway with research out of the evil DARPA program both of which are massively funded to target average citizens in the name of " terrorism"(a total fraud). Eric Schmidt even attends Bilderberg and now has gone to work for DARPA (or maybe, has gone *back* to work there). Google assuredly is evil.
So thanks Forefox for being a great alternative but please do something about speed on the mac.
I used Chrome for a while, but couldn't keep it. was faster at times than firefox, but one process per tab means that with many tabs memory use really goes through the roof, so the browser is actually even more hungry than firefox! now I'm back to firefox, which keeps improving - version 13 added the feature of keeping your old tabs on start up, but not reloading them until you visit them. which makes a totally huge difference.
Chrome was good, barring the spartan UI at times. but to use it I would need to change my motherboard so I can upgrade from 2GB ddr2 to 8GB ddr3.
I switched to Chrome well over a year ago and haven't looked back.
- Faster Javascript engine
- Way smoother CSS3 and Javascript animations
- Sandboxed Flash, I don't have it installed in the OS anymore. Really saves battery
- Don't need to restart to install an extension. Even though this is every few months at most, its very very annoying.
- Built in developer tools
Firefox had a good run, it helped put an end to IE so I respect them for that. But, Chrome has taken the crown. Who knows, maybe someday Firefox can make a come back.
I hate Firefox for how much like Chrome it's trying to be. When I search using the context menu FF switches to the new tab and they got rid of the favicon in the address bar.
What's bugging me is the UI changes with every release, and the fact that the major version number keeps changing.
For the UI, it's fucking fine, and has been fine. You don't need to make minor graphical tweaks every time you release a new version, it just makes it a little harder on the user because they have to adjust to the new UI every couple of months.
For the version number, it's actually a giant PIA for providing tech support. In my state, performing updates (as outside IT) is not taxable, but performing upgrades is taxable. The state's general guidelines say, if it's a major number release, it's an upgrade, if it's a minor numbered release, it's an update. That means I need to charge my client tax for clicking a button to bring firefox up-to-date, when there are no real major changes being made (for various reason we suppress all auto-updating for most of our clients.)
I'm close to some mozilla people and they don't see any issue with abandoning the industry standard notion of minor releases, and they also claim the plugin issue is solved. However, my last (and final) update caused 2 important plugins to break even though they supposedly upgraded fine. I know this is the plugin vendors responsibility but dumping responsibility onto them only ensures a bad user upgrade experience. If they want to blame their developers rather than owning the result they just will have fewer supporters as time goes on. This is bad for an org that makes a lot of money from the FF home page / google page views.
So for now I have uninstalled FF as I simply can't handle sometimes backwards-incompatible MAJOR releases every month. Once or twice a year is acceptable. It seems like they are just trying to keep up with Chrome release numbers for marketing value. 'Oh ya well our browser is major version 15 so there..."
The Awesomebar sucks. Tired of most updates invalidating one add-on or another. Sick of things being changed, not because of a serious problem but mostly Just Because they can. Tired of the attempt to do away with the "home" button. Making it more difficult to clear the cache or set my own options that I like instead of having to deal with a "you take what we give you" approach.
Firefox 3.6 was great. I don't like FF 11-12-13, but was forced to upgrade if I didn't want to run an unpatched, vulnerable browser. Unfortunately, all of these recent releases just silently crash on my system -- I load a site, and within a few seconds, the app just vanishes from the screen without explanation or error. It's just gone.
I don't care for Chrome either, in addition to not trusting Google. So, in desperation, I downloaded Opera. I haven't looked back since.
At least for a Windows system, the best alternative to the love-hate relationship with Firefox is not Chrome, it is Opera.
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
I'm a Firefox user. Why? There's a few different reasons.
I started using Firefox about four years ago. Previously I'd been a dedicated I.E. user (and worse yet, a Microsoft fanboy). I didn't immediately switch to Chrome when it came out because I saw no real reason to. Minor performance improvements was NOT a valid reason to switch to a new browser.
The awesomebar stuff mildly annoyed me, but checking Menu Bar and unchecking Tabs On Top (I like being able to get to them quickly; putting them above the navigation bar makes it take longer to get to them) took me maybe a few seconds. When they made Firefox stop automatically restoring its last session.. that annoyed me. That said, learned to click History>Restore Previous Session did not take long. (and for some reason, on this installation of Firefox, it still automatically restores its last session. Maybe they undid their terrible mistake in a recent release?)
The arguments about 'Chrome is faster' or 'Firefox is faster' are meaningless, with stock versions of both. You see, memory usage and speed scale differently between the two. With a few tabs on Chrome, you're not using much memory, and you get speed and stability benefits thanks to the process-per-tab system. The same number of tabs on Firefox is probably a bit slower, but I think it also takes less memory per tab. Notably, when Flash crashes in Chrome, a tab crashes. When Flash crashes in Firefox (I don't know where these 'whole browser locks up' stories come from, because I've never seen it except on experimental releases) it crashes all the stuff currently relying on the flash plugin, but the browser and all your tabs remain intact. As you increase the number of tabs, I theorize that the amount of memory Chrome uses starts to gain a substantial lead on the amount of memory Firefox uses, thanks to the overhead of each process. The minor speed benefits that Chrome has do come at a cost. Also, thanks to NoScript and RequestPolicy, I've been able to noticeably increase the responsiveness of Firefox beyond what stock Chrome has over Firefox... and Chrome can't have 'real' NoScript or RequestPolicy.
As of right now, I have one thousand, two hundred, and fifty-one tabs split across nine windows. A number of these are youtube videos. I run both NoScript and RequestPolicy, and use them properly. I only have four gigabytes of RAM. Not all of these tabs are loaded, because when you start Firefox, it doesn't actually load all the tabs from the previous session (they sit there with their URL marked and their content cached somewhere, but they don't load until you click on them. They do load from cache when you load them, however, so they look just as they did before you closed Firefox). Firefox used to load them all when I started Firefox, back when I only had like two hundred tabs. If anyone wants, I could hit 'reload all tabs' and see what happens. It's currently using 926,176K.
Why do I need all these tabs? I use my web browser as a sort of persistent brain-extension, allowing me to work on large numbers of things and recall older stuff with minor effort. With Chrome, I likely couldn't have this many tabs open. I'm reasonably certain that it would always try to load all the tabs, or that if it didn't, it would take longer to load a tab when I clicked on one that hadn't loaded yet.
P.S.
I also get significant use out of Firefox Profiles, using different profiles for entirely different things. I'm considering splitting out a new profile for 'Projects' (ideas I'm working on, and relevant research or purchasing) and one for 'Webcomics' so I can keep those separate from everything else. I also have one on this computer called 'Lightweight' which is plugin free and I never save the session for.
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I concur. I dread the next update. I never ask myself, "Ooh, what's going to get better ...?" but instead it's "OMG what's not going to work now?"
Programs are NOT getting better. They're getting worse. More unstable, more user-unfriendly, forgetting what their original idea was in the first place, cluttered with features I don't need or want, just annoying.
And Firefox is a typical example of this trend.
Go back ten versions. Try and remember the original idea behind the program. Go back to basics, make 'em work, make me happy.
SFX
Love without logic is insanity. And vice versa.
I took your advice and installed NoScript. Been using it for a day now so I could get a feeling for what it does.
All I can say is a big "thank you" for posting your reply.
This is something I should have done long, long ago. I have to plead ignorance.
People like you, taking the time to advise problem-ridden folks like me, showing us the solution to our grievances, is what makes this forum a worthwhile read - and believe me - it was well worth the read yesterday!
Again, thanks for the advice.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
I switched from firefox to chromium(less google spyware) just this week. The straw that broke the camel's back was firefox running at 99% cpu and nothing else was able to do anything. Sure, I could restart firefox and get back my system for a while but way too quickly firefox was back at 99%. I looked around and found the multi-paged help page on mozilla on the 63 things that may be causing the problem and how to address each one. I have better things to do with my time. Debugging a web browser is not an enjoyable "web experience"
I'm very happy using an old version as that way I'm not plagued by the idiot developers who keep fucking about with the interface.
I dunno, the frequent major version changes make me cringe a bit. If I did that with my customer, they would think I don't know what I'm doing. I realize business software development is supposed to be more conservative, but tell that to the guys who tried selling Firefox to their workplace only to watch in horror as it's become questionable to support.
I upgraded from 13.0.1 to 14.0.1 (automatically in Ubuntu, as it was a security update, fixing many vulnerabilities). Suddenly I couldn't use right-click or drop-down menus anywhere in the browser anymore--they vanish as soon as they appear. I downgraded to 13.0.1 and it worked fine. I upgraded again, and it was broken again. Downgraded again, worked again.
Ignored by Mozilla. No choice but to use outdated versions with critical security holes.
Firefox's decline is evident, but Chrome's extension model pales in comparison. Besides, Chrome still doesn't support bookmark tags or resuming downloads!
It's time for a new community-oriented, user-focused browser--Mozilla has gone the way of corporations. But forking Firefox is not a good option--it's an enormously complex piece of software. And another problem is that every browser is a security nightmare, and requires a team of active, skilled developers to constantly fix bugs.
We're between a rock and a hard place. Computers and software are missing their potential so badly.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
The Awesome Bar is the best thing about Firefox. I've been using Firefox since Phoenix 0.6, and it was a huge upgrade. I can type a few words, or even just a few characters, of any part of a URL or page title, and if I've been there before or bookmarked it, it will come up in the first few hits. If it's a page I visit every day, just one or two letters is all it takes. No messing around in 12-level hierarchical bookmark menus, no wasting screen space on a "bookmarks bar", no messy "home pages" full of links, no wading through a Google search.
I can't fathom why some people hate it so.
"Those who consume the bulk of goods are those who make them. We must never forget this secret of our prosperity."
Am I really the only one seeing all the complaints about Firefox UI changes and thinking about people trying to get back to the "old Facebook"?
I regularly have hundreds (yes hundreds) of tabs open; Firefox is the only browser that can handle it relatively elegantly.
Jesus, I haven't seen a porn storm since 1999. I'm sure there is a plugin that could stop that.
Seriously though, why do you ever need hundreds of tabs open and how is that in anyway useful, let alone usable?
Oh, yeah. That's the browser I dumped two or three years ago for Chrome and Opera.
Circle the wagons and fire inward. Entropy increases without bounds.
Because of all my linux versions (I do software development), I use FF everywhere. I also do development on W7 so I have it there too.
My add-ons are the USA spell checker (you will not find it under spell checker, or language,) You must use the keyword United.
I also have French and Spanish spell checkers (I work in 3 languages).
I also use xmarks
Until 14.x Xmarks worked well with FF, but now it wont work do sync the toolbar. Xmarks people were not helpful. So I have uninstalled xmarks, and am using a FF option to backup the folders, I email the backup to myself, and when I go to the other FF, I restore that file.
I discovered I no longer need xmarks for FF, but I will continue to use it for explorer on W7.
Internet explorer is fast, and surprisingly good, Xmarks works well with it. So, Xmarks, check out FF 14.0.1 (linux or w7 versions). Something is broken.
Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
call me when it stops crashing constantly.
No comment necessary .... read the article people.
http://www.techsupportalert.com/freeware-forum/internet-web-apps-and-networking/2121-k-meleon-firefox-comparison-and-history.html
Peter Wills
Peter Wills
Yep, I know it's a pain in the ass to rewrite the API 'n stuff to work with Google's Pepper flash plugin, but Flash is practically required to enjoy the Internet. So many DRM'd things, like TV shows, movies, music videos, online games (think faceb00k, not that I use it), etc., etc. use Flash.. and they need the newest Flash for the best experience. By shunning the Google Pepper Flash plugin, Mozilla Firefox is forcing GNU/Linux to be a second-class citizen on the Internet. People can just use Chrome Browser on GNU/Linux instead, but that misses the point.
Pleez Mozilla - Do the Pepper Flash Plugin for Firefox.
FREE YOURSELF, Use GNU+LINUX+FOSS! gnu.org | fsf.org | linux.com | getgnulinux.org | ubuntuguide.org | whylinuxisbetter.