11 mo. ago • 97%

In 2024, please switch to Firefox

roytanck.com In 2024, please switch to Firefox

This December, if there's one tech New Year's resolution I'd encourage you to have, it's switching to the only remaining ethical web browser, Firefox. According to recent posts on social media, Firefox's market share is slipping. We should not let that happen. There are two main reasons why switchin

There is a discussion on Hacker News, but feel free to comment here as well.

67 comments

I switched back to Firefox a few months ago due to the incoming Manifest v3 debacle and I'm glad I did, it's an excellent browser.

59
- It's really come a long way in the past few years. It used to be so slow when Chrome came in to take over
  
  9
  
  That perceived slowness comparison lasted less than a year!
  
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Agree compleatly. Been using firefox since it was called mosaic

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- I didn't know this was a phase of it's existence
  
  14
  
  Yeah it went Mosaic, Netscape, Firefox iirc.
  
  Edit: And I think Netscape was a full rewrite as mosaic was owned by the university it was originally coded in, again iirc. That was a LONG time ago.
  
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  It wasn't, this guy hasn't a clue... Its original name was Firebird and they changed it to Firefox at version 3's release. You could argue that it is somehow related to the Mozilla browser since it came from a related team but the Mozilla Foundation was also responsible for SeaMonkey as well.
  
  Mosaic was completely unrelated, same with netscape.
  
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That's a red panda isn't it?

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- From their "Firefox name FAQ":
  
  A "Firefox" is another name for the red panda.
  
  15
  
  Fuck me, I love learning, thanks for that.
  
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I'm mainly using Firefox on my devices and have zero regrets.

I also enjoyed Vivaldi over the other chromium browsers. Still sticking with FF for now. The only issues I've had are Ms teams not loading, though km assuming that's related to 3rd party cookies ( even though o365 outlook works fine ).

MSteams is a dumpster fire in and of itself though. Even on my Windows pc it crashes when sharing my screen.

14
- I switched mostly too. Cannot say that I have zero regrets, but FF is mostly up to what I need it to be. And where it isn't, there's Vivaldi.
  
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  Yeah Firefox on Android sometimes refuses to load tabs and I have to quit and reopen it, it also still feels slow to load search results as well. Even with those flaws, I'm not switching back to Chromium browsers
  
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I switched back to Firefox maybe 9 or 10 months ago after using opera gx for a while. Firefox had been great, and I love that they keep fighting the good fight, so to speak.

13
- Opera GX, just like anything related to Opera, is a massive pile of shit.
  
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These are pretty terrible arguments.

Google is a primarily advertising based company yes, but Apple and Microsoft aren't

You can't compare chromium to IE - chromium is open source, and also it's actually good
6
- Chromium being open source actually means jack shit. It's controlled by Google, one singular entity whose only desire is to maximise their iron grip on the internet to squeeze as much ad revenue as they can.
  
  This isn't hyperbole, look at the recent WEI stuff or manifest v3 crap. Time and again, these corporations have showed that they just don't give a shit about the free and open internet.
  
  Which leads to the first point, (Microsoft does seem to be moving pretty heavily into advertising though with all the bs in windows 11), you absolutely can not in good conscience use a big tech product with the argument that they're not an ad company. It's not just the ads which is the issue here. And the problem is sooner or later they'll realise they've a trove of monetisable data, so might as well do something with it. And then we'll have no choice because there will be no free and open alternatives left
  
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- The issue is the rendering engine monopoly. Apple and Microsoft browsers as well as chromium all use chrome rendering engine making them basically the same browser under the hood.
  
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  That's not true - Apple's browsers use WebKit. I wish they used chromium though, Safari is basically the new IE.
  
  Having all browsers use the same, open source, modern and powerful rendering engine has many benefits. It makes web development MUCH easier, improves user experience because websites work the same on all browsers (apart from any proprietary stuff the browser vendors might add on top of chromium, but that's not chromium's fault), and greatly speeds up adoption of new web standards.
  
  I don't want there to be a Chrome browser monopoly for obvious reasons but I don't see the downside of every browser using the same rendering engine as long as it's not controlled by any one entity
  
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I'm on firefox and I love it, but developing sites for chrome...

5
Any Alternative to Brave? I have FF as primary browser but for some websites which tends to break on FF, I would like to use something non-Chrome/Brave on Windows.

5
- Librewolf sounds like Brave, but built on top of Firefox. It also doesn't spam you with stupid ads like Brave does.
  
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  But my alt should be Chromium based for the weird cases.
  
  5
  
  Librewolf is better I think. It's pretty much a privacy hardened Firefox with the telemetry taken out. No odd crypto scheme like Brave either.
  
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- FF is primary but started using Vivaldi as my chromium based browser.. I'm definitely not nerd level privacy geek but it hits all my check boxes for configuration, customization, and ease of use.
  
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- I keep chromium as a secondary if something breaks on Firefox. It’s the foundation of chrome without all the silly Google shit.
  
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  I think you want ungoogled-chromium
  
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- ungoogled-chromium.
  
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- If the site breaks on Firefox, probably it only works in chrome based, so I’d say just use ungoogled-chromium.
  
  2
- As far as non-Chrome goes, there's only two other modern browser engines. Webkit which is Apple stuff, and Gecko which is Firefox. So I don't believe so, no.
  
  2
- What websites break on FF?
  
  1
- Which sites? I haven't had that in years.
  
  (And you can report them to Mozilla and they will fix it by either fixing a bug or creating a workaround for that site)
  
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  Top of my Head: Ms Teams.
  
  Also, on side note, FF on Desktop doesn't support PWAs while on Mobile they do.
  
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If you're reading this and not using Firefox, do yourself a favor and don't wait until 2024 to switch.

4
- I've had many problems with Firefox that always push me back to Chrome. It seems some web pages are only created with Chrome in mind. I really don't know about browser specs but I'm guessing a front-end app must have a lot of "if chrome, then; else if Mozilla then;" logic to handle specific browser interfaces or features.
  
  Apparently some apps don't care about Mozilla and they just don't work. It's also pretty hard to tell that the issue is Mozilla, it takes me like 15m to switch to chrome and then "ahhhh.... it was the browser".
  
  I really want to help Mozilla by using it, but I just can't under those conditions.
  
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  What sites are these? I've not had this in years and when there is problems the site normally says unsupported browser rather than leaving me to guess
  
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How do you switch to Firefox if you use Firefox?

4
Yes use Firefox but ugh Mozilla wyd https://lunduke.locals.com/post/5053290/mozilla-2023-annual-report-ceo-pay-skyrockets-while-firefox-marketshare-nosedives

4
- Trading the article, the CEO is meeting the assigned goals exceptionally well. The CEO does not give themselves the raise per se, but the board does, right?
  
  As it turns out, moving away from Firefox is exactly Mozilla's plan.
  
  Earlier this year, Mozilla laid out their vision for the future of their organization -- and it did not include Firefox. The focus for the future of Mozilla -- according to Mozilla -- is primarily based around Artificial Intelligence services.
  
  In fact, Mozilla leadership stated, quite plainly, that they intend to take Mozilla "in a different direction."
  
  When you consider the goals of Mozilla... the decreasing Firefox marketshare is no longer much of a concern. In fact, moving revenue away from Firefox, while investing in A.I. systems (and other subscription services) becomes the primary goal.
  
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oh cool my favorite thread again

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Also librewolf, a more open version of FF without the shit like Pocket

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Why wait until 2024 to switch when you can switch RIGHT NOW?

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81% of mozilla's revenue is from Google. "Firefox is the only major browser not built by a company that makes money from advertising and/or selling your personal data." They just make money from the company that makes money from advertising and/or selling your personal data.

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Ok don't shoot me in advance because this is an honest question. I use Safari as a daily browser. Where do theh rank on the pile?

On my android I actually use Opera and like it quite a bit.

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Opera works well with Twitch, but I haven’t done any detailed stat analysis on usage. The trade off between it and FF is (with my GPU focused browser settings) Firefox with higher CPU usage/temp(by maybe 1-2 degrees, negligible) and opera with higher GPU usage(but lower cpu temps/usage, as stated above). Since Opera is Chrome-built, it’s in a walled garden deal, when possible.

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- Opera is the biggest piece of shit in existence, as it sends all of your data to a weird Chinese company. They also make use of shady marketing practices and constantly lie to their users.
  
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  It sends those packets to 0.0.0.0 thanks to my HOSTS setup.
  
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