10 Reasons You Should Switch From Chrome to Firefox.::The best browser sync out there.

  • FiskFisk33@startrek.website
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    7 months ago

    11: It’s the only browser on the market that is not either apple webkit or google chrome based. And it’s in our best interest to keep said market healthy, with as many competing actors as possible.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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      7 months ago

      At some point there were more than 1 relevant browsers using Gecko, though. Somebody at Mozilla decided to gloriously triumph over allies by killing XULRunner and not offering a replacement.

      Not sure if WebKit is such a bad choice in that context.

      • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
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        7 months ago

        The Tor browser is still Firefox based. Not a large niche, but being THE preferred way to browse with Tor makes it on its own imho

          • fruitycoder@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            As it should be. But honestly unless there needs to be a change there is no reason to fork.

            Most of the chromium forks are just branding and proprietary features they want built in, with brave being the only one that feels a little more aggressive in changes from the base.

            • goldsoul@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Tbf someone else mentioned arc browser which is chromium and seems to be pretty…different from base

      • cmhe@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Well, there are also the mobile variants of Firefox, which are more of their own thing.

        IMO Mozilla limited itself a bit too much on Firefox. Which results it their web engine not attracting many developers for it outside Mozilla.

        Embedding gecko in your own app was much easier in the past. This is now mostly taken over by CEF and WPE for Blink and WebKit respectively.

        Also stuff like B2G (Boot 2 Gecko) or FirefoxOS are dead as well.

        A goal of open source should be to be hacker friendly as well, were currently Blink/WebKit is leading. There are so many more projects around those engines than Gecko, which is sad.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.zip
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          7 months ago

          Yes, I’m talking about that. I was using conkeror (Gecko-based browser with emacs-like controls, which is funny since for editing I’ve never learned emacs and use vi/vim) until it stopped being practical.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      7 months ago

      It really is telling that even Microsoft don’t find it viable to maintain a browser engine.

      The “standards” are an absolute fucking nonsense, and boil down to “just do what Chrome does because nobody can stop them”.

      • MimicJar@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        To be fair to Chrome.

        Microsoft had the vast majority with Trident. Mozilla/Firefox slowly gained market share with Gecko. Chrome/Webkit* then took market share from both.

        It’s not like Chrome just appeared one day and demanded everyone use them, they gained market share by being a good browser.

        *(Chrome now uses a fork of Webkit called Blink.)

        That being said I do think Firefox provides the best browser experience, and Chrome users should look into switching.

        Which is a long way of saying Microsoft fucked up bad. Real bad.

        • ilinamorato@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          Microsoft is the king of blowing a massive, industry-defining market lead in the fourth quarter due to unforced errors. Especially in the 21st century:

          • They were the default office suite, to the point where their trademark became the category name, and they even had SharePoint; but their stubborn refusal to get into the cloud document game handed off the top spot to Google Docs.

          • They were the king of K12 education by default, since Apple was so expensive and essentially the only factor that matters in K12 is price. Then they completely ignored Google offering really good deals on Chromebooks for a decade or more, and now Chrome OS is the dominant K12 platform.

          • They owned Skype, which was genericized as the popular verb meaning “to make a video call.” But they ignored the opportunity that was the pandemic, and Zoom not only ate their lunch but took the genericized trademark crown.

          • They had Lync, which was the de facto messaging app that every Enterprise deployment used. But then they didn’t update the app for a decade except to change the name to Skype for Business and then to Teams, while Slack ate their lunch.

          • And, as you mentioned, they had the top browser for both users and developers, but did nothing with it until Chrome got unattainably faster, easier to use, and more standards-compliant.

          • Xbox was never the singular market leader like these other things—they’ve always played ping-pong with PlayStation—but Microsoft owns Rare, an industry defining studio, and they’ve completely wasted them for years.

          • They never had dominance in the smartphone world, but they were poised for it with a well-liked and visually distinct platform in Windows Phone which they just abandoned.

          • To a certain extent, they had a sort of “goodwill dominance” in their operating system, which they frittered away on automatic updates and design overhauls and (more recently) AI that nobody was asking for.

          They lost all these massive leads while they were chasing dominance in search, or video game livestreaming, or AI, or whatever. They always seem to be focusing on the thing that doesn’t matter while their dominance just flutters away in the wind.

          • limelight79@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            It’s in their DNA. They completely missed the internet boat when it first took off in the early 2000s and played catch-up for years thereafter. You would think they would have learned and not made the same mistakes again that you have in your list, but nope. Maybe they were too busy fighting Linux.

      • douglasg14b@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        I feel like I’m going crazy since we kept preaching for years that this is the end goal and that this is what will happen with Google’s anti-competitive practices. Just get shit on in the comment threads until recently.

        It’s not even a feel good I told you so because this just sucks.

      • laughterlaughter@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Sigh. Every fucking thread.

        This is not true. Firefox is not the only browser that’s not based on Webkit.

        There’s Iceweasel, Waterfox, Pale Moon, Seamonkey and Librewolf. That they have a negligible portion of the market is one thing. But they’re on the market, dammit!

    • theneverfox@pawb.social
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      7 months ago

      I’ve heard this over and over…

      But people still aren’t getting it (despite increasingly obvious signs this is already causing problems that will soon get much worse), so I guess we need to keep saying it

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
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          7 months ago

          I definitely get less sneers these days when I talk about things like this

          Hell, you know what - I’m going to double down on your bright side - if the enshitification wasn’t so public and rapid, it might’ve been too late before normal people started noticing

    • M500@lemmy.ml
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      7 months ago

      I just had to install chrome to book plane tickets. Kept getting an error on Firefox.

      • dustyData@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        There’s a new feature inside Firefox that allows you to report webpages that are broken on Firefox but work in other browsers. Please use it. It’s a great way to push for universal compatibility within browsers. It’s usually the webpage developer’s fault for using a non-orthodox technique that works exclusively on Chrome, but shouldn’t be done for any sort of reasons, like compliance with web standards. But, it’s possible for Firefox to derive intelligence from the reports and write workarounds.

        • M500@lemmy.ml
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          7 months ago

          When I was choosing a return site it kept saying, “oops there was a mistake. It was not your fault. Try again later”.

          Their mobile app sucked too, so I installed chrome to see if it would work and it did right away.

          • GregorTacTac@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            If websites don’t work on Firefox even if the user agent was changed to Chrome I recommend you to use a privacy preserving browser like ungoogled chromium.

              • ililiililiililiilili@lemm.ee
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                7 months ago

                Easiest would be to install a plugin such as “User-Agent Switcher.” This is the string of text that identifies what browser, version, and platform you’re running to the server you’re accessing.

              • TheRedSpade@lemmy.world
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                7 months ago

                It’s a string that your browser sends to websites with information about the browser itself and your OS. Sometimes that info will be used to block functionality.

                Years ago I tried to use TurboTax from Firefox on Ubuntu. It wouldn’t work because only Internet Explorer on Windows was supported. I changed the user agent to make it appear as though I was using a supported setup, and it worked flawlessly.

                I haven’t actually needed to use one in a long time, but an extension search for “user agent switcher” should turn up something that can do it.

            • M500@lemmy.ml
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              7 months ago

              Thanks! I just downloaded chrome to use for this one off instance. I’m pretty degoogled, but needed to book a flight so I just needed to get it done.

    • Aermis@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Hi. I’m on lemmy. I haven’t switched. Why? Because there an insane amount of incorporation into Google. Email, my phone communicating to pc, passwords, auto fill, saved cookies, credit cards.

      I want to switch. I want to get off chrome from what I’ve been reading regarding it’s practices. But I’m so engraved and the undertaking of switching is not something I’ve committed to yet. Or might never. I already have a Google Home in my kitchen. I feel like privacy isn’t something I have a privilege of anymore.

      They’ve got me.

          • Jojo@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            Honestly for me it has much better synching. It took a little work to move everything over, but far less than I anticipated.

          • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
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            7 months ago

            My Firefox experience is seamless between my work station, laptop and Android phone. Syncing happens immediately when I open my session on either of them. I don’t use the Google ecosystem much though (I mean Google pay, etc) so transitioning may be harder than I imagine from where I sit

            • Aermis@lemmy.world
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              7 months ago

              Man I don’t really use anything Google except my Gmail when logging into misc accounts

          • Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
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            7 months ago

            Oh man! Download KeePassXC, put your passwords on there, install the browser extension to use it in your browsers. You can back it up any way you want, including using Google Drive because the file is encrypted.

              • Eezyville@sh.itjust.works
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                7 months ago

                Some people don’t want to sign up to a cloud provider or manage their own instance. KeePassXC offers a simple file that can be stored on your devices. It’s easy to sync using your existing cloud accounts and encrypted.

                • PersonalDevKit@aussie.zone
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                  7 months ago

                  The overlap of the community that don’t want to sign up to cloud providers and those that save their passwords to chrome is a very small overlap.

                  Poco a poco, little by little. Jumping into the deepend is not for everyone

  • ensignrolaren@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    There’s like… no downside: all upside.

    Edit: I exaggerated, of course. Below this are some downsides that individuals have experienced. But personally, my experience using Firefox on desktop for Mac has been all upside. If everybody who can just tries it out, you might be surprised at how friction-free the change is.

    • SapphironZA@lemmings.world
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      7 months ago

      Not strictly true. Firefox gets inferior support from cloud services, like Microsoft. Newer versions of their Web apps are not available on Firefox.

      But there should be no downside. It’s all artificial.

      • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        The big services purposely degrade their sites when users connect with Firefox. It’s well documented.

        Unfortunately nothing is being done about it so far.

    • sonovebitch@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      One thing I miss in Firefox is tab grouping. Yes there are 3rd party extensions that do that. But Chromium based browsers support that natively.

          • candyman337@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            Agreed, and it seems like Firefox has recently made an effort to accommodate the extension more, as it seems to run even better than it used to and is now a recommended extension

        • CALIGVLA@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          7 months ago

          You haven’t tried Vivaldi then. It has the best tab management features of any browser by leaps and bounds, it saddens me they chose Chromium over Gecko given that manifest v3 is coming.

        • theneverfox@pawb.social
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          7 months ago

          Oh hell yeah… Thank you friend. I immediately downloaded it, and it took me all of 30 seconds to realize this is it

          This is what I’ve been looking for, for years now. I even took a crack at it myself several years ago, but then I realized it wasn’t possible without doing an extension (rather than a plug-in) if I wanted to do it right

          You have mitigated one of most inconvenient recurring problems in my life. I’m working on a lemmy app right now, and I’m so grateful I’m going to move up the “mark user as friend” feature.

          How would you like me to guild your username so I might recognize you in the future? Lit up border? Tiny crown on your avatar? A little lemmy gold symbol next to the score? I’m open to suggestion

        • dustyData@lemmy.world
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          7 months ago

          It gives me anxiety, it’s way too overcrowded and cluttered. I use Tree Style Tab. It does one thing, it does it well, it doesn’t overcomplicate it, it works with me.

          • candyman337@lemmy.world
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            7 months ago

            I will say it took me some time to get used to it, but it also is a lot easier to use than it used to, they made a lot of things better in the last update

            I think it’s one of those things that you have to sit down and test out and really figure out. Tree style tabs are also good though. I definitely think it’s where sideberry got their inspiration

    • aluminium@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      No, in my experience especially the Android version of Firefox is less smooth when playing animations or scrolling on older or lower end devices.

      I really hope with the new Focus on Firefox mobile, that they will iron that out.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      7 months ago

      I have to use Chrome for…

      1. Logging into PSN, since something in Firefox hard locks when I try it. I think it’s to do with Firefox’s password manager.

      2. VR porn.

      3. Some videos. Firefox doesn’t support certain video types (namely HEVC/H.265) due to patent issues.

  • Kedly@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    I feel like anyone on Lemmy who isnt yet using Firefox is the kind of person who isnt going switch now because an article told them they should

    edit: it seems I had a stroke (not seriously) while writing this message, and have since edited it so it makes sense

    • viking@infosec.pub
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      7 months ago

      I prefer Fennec, Mull is too restrictive. I get the appeal, but I want some of the comforts.

        • viking@infosec.pub
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          7 months ago

          My biggest pet peeve is the system color scheme detection. Mull always runs websites in white.

          • mox@lemmy.sdf.org
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            7 months ago

            Ah. That’s part of Resist Fingerprinting mode, which (after checking about:config) I see Mull enables by default. Desktop Firefox does the same thing in that mode. You could always turn it off if you don’t value that protection.

  • MSids@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    I wish the password autofill feature was more robust for Firefox on Android. Using it as my default password provider but it regularly does not pick up on password fields.

    • bcgm3@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Dunno if this helps you at all, but I’ve been using BitWarden to manage my passwords since I made the switch from Chrome to Firefox (both on PC and my Android phone). It doesn’t fill passwords automatically in either case, but it’s not much extra work to invoke BitWarden to fill those fields as-needed on either device, and it works very consistently. It’s also (I’m told) much more secure. Just thought I’d share that here!