Ask HN: What can Firefox do to get you to make the switch?
34 comments
More widely supported Reading Mode. People piss on Safari and love to hate it on HN and Reddit but the Reading Mode has saved my eyes many, many times.
Additionally, something that will make me immediately switch to any browser: ability to style websites even if they don't have switches for light/dark mode. Put that in a browser and I'll switch right away. (Although this can be easily tackled if the Reading Mode works on the site, so it's related.)
Finally: built-in, harsh, and highly configurable ad-blocking.
Additionally, something that will make me immediately switch to any browser: ability to style websites even if they don't have switches for light/dark mode. Put that in a browser and I'll switch right away. (Although this can be easily tackled if the Reading Mode works on the site, so it's related.)
Finally: built-in, harsh, and highly configurable ad-blocking.
If you have examples of sites where Firefox's reading mode doesn't work, you can file bugs here: https://github.com/mozilla/readability
Didn't know. Thanks!
Dark Reader for dark/light mode, ublock origin for ad blocking.
I understand you want these baked in, but if they baked every feature everyone wanted into the software, it would become an ugly monolith monster. This goes for Chrome as well as fx.
I understand you want these baked in, but if they baked every feature everyone wanted into the software, it would become an ugly monolith monster. This goes for Chrome as well as fx.
On Mobile:
Look at font rendering. Chrome is really good. FF is a mixed bag, and generally a slower experience. The speed is secondary though. Fitting things onto a page nicely is king.
Bonus points for more / better text flow on zoom no matter what the site specifies. Again, on mobile.
On desktop, I just need to migrate some more things and I'll switch back. Never really left, but Chrome did end up getting 90 percent of my browsing.
Look at font rendering. Chrome is really good. FF is a mixed bag, and generally a slower experience. The speed is secondary though. Fitting things onto a page nicely is king.
Bonus points for more / better text flow on zoom no matter what the site specifies. Again, on mobile.
On desktop, I just need to migrate some more things and I'll switch back. Never really left, but Chrome did end up getting 90 percent of my browsing.
I have always found Firefox to have a very ugly interface. I don’t know what exactly to point out. I also don’t like how it handles multiple profiles I wish they just ripped how chromium handles it. But despite those 2 things that I really hate about Firefox, I went on and switched to it 2 months ago. Simply creating a new profile and importing the data from the related chrome profile. Took a bit of getting used to but so far I don’t think I’ll switch back to chrome. On mobile though, its harder purely for lack of profiles.
I think what bothers me about the Firefox UI is all of the visible border lines used in the chrome (tabs, around address bar etc). I compared it to the Chrome UI which has tried to remove as many of these as possible and it makes the intereface much softer and more pleasant.
Support pinch zoom in/out on Mac like Safari (and Chrome) does. That pretty much would seal it for me.
This seemed like a trivial thing until I made the switch back to Firefox as a main browser after n years. It is difficult without this feature.
Safari displays an "all tabs" view when zooming out at 100% zoom (kinda mobile-esque), making Chrome's method is the smoothest in my experience. It's just done so well.
Firefox (dev edition, at least) contains some 'pinch' settings in it's about:config prefs that enable a somewhat usable pinch-to-zoom. It's a bit clunky, broken on some sites, reflows content sometimes, and clicking or selecting text almost never works when zoomed in. But it's usable, and great to see it make it into the browser without needing an extension, even with it's caveats.
I'd love if Sublime Text or VS Code had this feature, but iirc anything even similar would be far off even with plugins/extensions.
Other than gestures... Tree-Style tabs is the absolute killer 'feature' for me. Vertical tabs are amazing.
Safari displays an "all tabs" view when zooming out at 100% zoom (kinda mobile-esque), making Chrome's method is the smoothest in my experience. It's just done so well.
Firefox (dev edition, at least) contains some 'pinch' settings in it's about:config prefs that enable a somewhat usable pinch-to-zoom. It's a bit clunky, broken on some sites, reflows content sometimes, and clicking or selecting text almost never works when zoomed in. But it's usable, and great to see it make it into the browser without needing an extension, even with it's caveats.
I'd love if Sublime Text or VS Code had this feature, but iirc anything even similar would be far off even with plugins/extensions.
Other than gestures... Tree-Style tabs is the absolute killer 'feature' for me. Vertical tabs are amazing.
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Print to PDF. I print invoices and payment confirmations to PDF. In Chrome it is nice to get a preview and then to save without having to load a native PDF viewer. I also print coloring pages for my kids and being able to preview those before printing is helpful in cases of seeing how it looks in landscape or portrait and see if they would run over to a second page.
Nothing. I switched when Firefox Quantum came out. Haven't regretted it since.
I switched just a couple of weeks ago. FF gave me the option to import bookmarks, saved passwords, and the like. Worked great. I think it took a bit to sync all up, but I'm logging into sites easily in FF. I like that you have to right click and choose which login to use. What I don't like is that FF has locked up several times. And I don't like that I apparently need to be more accurate in touch-clicking small kinks like upvotes or collapse thread on HN. One feature request is around highlighting text. I have to look practically under my finger or thumb. In Chrome, a zoomed in dialog box pops up letting me know what I have selected.
Raw speed and performance. Chrome still comes ahead in these aspects. Especially so on mobile where Firefox seems to be taking its own sweet time to beta test Firefox preview. Chrome gives the feeling of things being "slick". You don't get it with Firefox. It's a bit like the difference between Linux and Windows/OS X UIs. Often the actual drawing performance may be similar/indistinguishable but there is a significant difference in what the user ultimately perceives.
Easy account sandboxing and profiles would be the biggest for me. Both Chrome and Firefox have this in some way, but it's still rather primitive.
I think the bigger issue for most people are the switching costs. I don't even know if Firefox is better than Chrome, and honestly, I don't care, because I don't want to put the effort into switching. The only way to get me to switch was if Firefox had some absolutely huge advantage over Chrome that would make switching worth it. But I can't even think of what that would be.
I think the bigger issue for most people are the switching costs. I don't even know if Firefox is better than Chrome, and honestly, I don't care, because I don't want to put the effort into switching. The only way to get me to switch was if Firefox had some absolutely huge advantage over Chrome that would make switching worth it. But I can't even think of what that would be.
The multi-profile functionality in Chrome is just so much more usable than Firefox. Yes you can hack things together with command line arguments and shortcuts, but its nowhere near as seamless.
I've always used Firefox (at least since i switched from IE6 LOL)
but my most important features can be summarized (mostly) here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Tor_Uplift/Tracking
86 little bugs... but this as a personal user.
As a business user there are others that need to be fixed (pwa features, i'm looking at you!!!).
but then again... I've already made the switch, so...
but my most important features can be summarized (mostly) here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Tor_Uplift/Tracking
86 little bugs... but this as a personal user.
As a business user there are others that need to be fixed (pwa features, i'm looking at you!!!).
but then again... I've already made the switch, so...
> But then there are little things like no ability to pull down a web page on Firefox mobile to refresh.
This works for me with Firefox on Android. Not sure about Firefox Preview but definitely works on the normal FF app.
I've always been a FF user so there's nothing that would make me switch from Chrome. Extension support, speed, etc. are all exactly where I'd want them compared to Chrome, so really I don't feel like one has much of a leg up on the other.
This works for me with Firefox on Android. Not sure about Firefox Preview but definitely works on the normal FF app.
I've always been a FF user so there's nothing that would make me switch from Chrome. Extension support, speed, etc. are all exactly where I'd want them compared to Chrome, so really I don't feel like one has much of a leg up on the other.
> This works for me with Firefox on Android.
Really? Definitely does not work for me on a Pixel 2 XL.
Really? Definitely does not work for me on a Pixel 2 XL.
Same here. And I do miss it as it saves me two taps (open menu -> refresh)
Last time I researched it, Chrome's design for sandboxing and multiprocessing was much more extensive and mature. Firefox is working on getting there, but it's an afterthought. I'm under the impression that Chrome is close to invulnerable against non-targeted attacks in which code escapes the browser or the tab, which is my main security concern.
Make "Save as PDF" work well. I have tried to move to Firefox many times but I always return to Chrome because of how badly the "Save as PDF" work in Firefox. I use the "Save as PDF" feature ALL the time to read web articles on my iPad.
1Password and other password managers can import from Chrome and integrate with Firefox.
I already use Firefox but it's missing a few Chrome extensions and has poor performance on some sites, especially the Google ones.
Better browser extension developing / debugging tooling. Or at least something that doesn’t freeze or crash as often as it does now
I prefer Firefox because omnibox is terrible
Omnibox made me switch on Desktop, but I still prefer chrome on mobile
a way to support users directly. some version of what Brave does.
Whether big or small, what can Firefox do to encourage you to make the switch from your browser of choice?