Firefox Users

[Eric]

I have been using Firefox as my primary browser for almost twenty years. In the early years, it was a substantially better product than anything else available, although there were very few viable options to pick from back then. Internet Explorer was king back then and it sucked monumentally, but most people simply put up with it. There were a few great years as a Firefox user, but five or six years ago, the experience started going downhill for me. I work online and I demand a lot of a browser. Firefox began to fall short of my needs. It became more bloated and less capable.

Today, it is a huge resource hog and when I am doing a lot of multimedia or code work in the browser, it becomes unstable fairly quickly. The upgrade system is another sore point for me. I have automatic upgrades turned off, mostly because I hate to trip over a problem unexpectedly, only to find that the damned browser upgraded and broke something. This used to be IE's province, but Firefox has gotten almost as bad. Also, the automatic upgrades would often do an unannounced restart and interrupt my work, often causing me to lose progress.

The resource use is the biggest problem I face with it today though. I keep a LOT of stuff open on my computer. I like to be able to quickly jump between browser tabs & apps, without waiting for things to load or quit. I typically have four or five browser widows open, with 40 or 50 tabs open between them, at any given time. This isn't laziness. I usually leave content open in those tabs that I want to pick back up where I left it, without having to hunt it down again. The overhead of this much use on Firefox causes a substantial load on my Mac. It uses a ton of memory and generates a lot of heat. As small as it is, the computer gives off as much heat as a decent space heater.

Another huge issue is one of organization. Having so many tables open, even in multiple browser windows, makes it a PITA to find anything. I don't like having to scroll the tab bar back and forth to find what I'm looking for. It derails my train of thought. So, that is really the straw that broke the proverbial camel's back.

After a bit of research and experimentation, I have transferred over to Google Chrome, for a couple of reasons. First, they have a setting to suspend memory use on tabs that are not being used. I have everything running in Chrome now that I ran in Firefox. My computer's resource load is about half what it was. I am using almost 40% less memory and the computer is running more than 30 degrees cooler, on average. That is a huge difference. As good as this is though, the change in my ability to organize things was the clincher.

Google Chrome has the ability to create tab groups. These groups appear as tabs that can be named and color coded. They open horizontally when needed and can be minimized when not needed. Each group can have as many browser tabs open in it as I like. The closed browser Group tabs take up very little room and I can quickly open the tab to content I need to access it. I can have all the groups closed and work in browser tabs that aren't attached to groups and/or have one or more groups open, along with ungrouped tabs. It is slick as hell.

The pic below shows a browser window with all the websites I am working on in groups. Each group has a different color. The first group (The red one) is currently open. That is my brother's website, which I am doing some work on. Those other tabs are new website ventures that I am currently building. I hope some of them may be of interest to you guys, when they are ready.  When I get them a little further along, I could use some beta users to help kick the tires and get some content posted, so I can see what needs to be tweaked. It has been a long time since I did any development work for myself and the other day I thought, "What are you waiting for?" Lightning can't strike if you don't give it a target.

Anyway, the five group tabs contain 27 tabs between them, not including the three unattached tabs on the right. There are currently 2 tabs showing in the open TPP group.

 

[El Spicoli]

I am pretty low key on my surfing and it seems Firefox is always updating.  I use it on my desktop.  I think Microsoft Edge is jacking with it in the background because once it updates, I usually have to open and close it a few times before I can surf again.  Happened again today.

[Eric]

1 minute ago, El Spicoli said:

I am pretty low key on my surfing and it seems Firefox is always updating.  I use it on my desktop.  I think Microsoft Edge is jacking with it in the background because once it updates, I usually have to open and close it a few times before I can surf again.  Happened again today.

Something that I have been noticing for a couple of years but cannot prove is that Firefox starts running like crap or simply stops working until it has to be restarted and there is the upgrade notice, even before it loads. If they are doing that purposely, as I suspect, that is pretty underhanded of them.

[GT4494]

Eric, what is your opinion of Brave and a few other Linux non bloated based browsers?  I've yet to have an issue and their ad-block add-ons are great. Can't tell you the last time I had a youtube commercial.

I understand that Chrome is also a Linux app but still carries the google trackers and other stuff.

[Eric]

5 minutes ago, GT4494 said:

Eric, what is your opinion of Brave and a few other Linux non bloated based browsers?  I've yet to have an issue and their ad-block add-ons are great. Can't tell you the last time I had a youtube commercial.

I understand that Chrome is also a Linux app but still carries the google trackers and other stuff.

I haven't tried them. I usually use konqueror or Firefox, when I am on one of my Linux systems. When I am doing work on a Linux system, it is usually something I do remotely and/or from a terminal session. I'll check them out though. I am always on the lookout for a better mousetrap.

[Brad]

FF was my go-to browser for many years also. I dropped it in 2021 when they published this: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/

I switched to Brave for all but work usage. It works well enough for me.

At work, Brave's security or privacy settings require a lot more two-step authentications, so I use Chrome for that.

[Eric]

45 minutes ago, GT4494 said:

Eric, what is your opinion of Brave and a few other Linux non bloated based browsers?  I've yet to have an issue and their ad-block add-ons are great. Can't tell you the last time I had a youtube commercial.

I understand that Chrome is also a Linux app but still carries the google trackers and other stuff.

 

33 minutes ago, Brad said:

FF was my go-to browser for many years also. I dropped it in 2021 when they published this: https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/we-need-more-than-deplatforming/

I switched to Brave for all but work usage. It works well enough for me. At work, its security settings require a lot more two-step authentications, so I use Chrome for that.

When I work on websites, I like to test the pages in multiple browsers. I think I'll add Brave to the list.

[Eric]

This is cool. I just figured out that if I turned on the Bookmarks Toolbar at the top of the browser, it has a dropdown list of all the groups I've created. If I click on one, it jumps me to that group in whatever browser window it is in and opens it. That is slick as hell. I can also set up multiple profiles, each with their own history, cookie, etc data. I can have the same sites open under different profiles simultaneously and each can be logged in to a different account. If I am working on a site, for instance, I can be logged in as the admin in one profile and as a regular user in another, so I can work on and test the site from both perspectives. There is often a great deal of difference on what an admin, a logged in regular user and a visitor who is not logged in see on a site.

 

[Eric]

4 minutes ago, Eric said:

This is cool. I just figured out that if I turned on the Bookmarks Toolbar at the top of the browser, it has a dropdown list of all the groups I've created. If I click on one, it jumps me to that group in whatever browser window it is in and opens it. That is slick as hell. I can also set up multiple profiles, each with their own history, cookie, etc data. I can have the same sites open under different profiles simultaneously and each can be logged in to a different account. If I am working on a site, for instance, I can be logged in as the admin in one profile and as a regular user in another, so I can work on and test the site from both perspectives. There is often a great deal of difference on what an admin, a logged in regular user and a visitor who is not logged in see on a site.

 

FWIW, most of those group name abbreviations probably do not mean what you assume.  For instance, 'IRS' is Investment Recovery Services, an auction house. I'll let your imaginations run wild on the rest of them though.

[Paul53]

Odd man out I guess. Firefox is my first choice for most everything, runs well for me. Only exception is sometimes the security wont let me go where I want and, if I'm confident of the choice of sites, I go to Chrome. There may be better alternates but I've yet felt the need to switch. 

Now here's something you don't see everyday. 3 cows spliced together! And only in Texas.

 

[Eric]

10 minutes ago, Paul53 said:

Odd man out I guess. Firefox is my first choice for most everything, runs well for me. Only exception is sometimes the security wont let me go where I want and, if I'm confident of the choice of sites, I go to Chrome. There may be better alternates but I've yet felt the need to switch. 

Now here's something you don't see everyday. 3 cows spliced together! And only in Texas.

 

 

A cow with white meat and dark meat. Cool.

[railfancwb]

30 minutes ago, Paul53 said:

Now here's something you don't see everyday.

 

[Eric]

[LostinTexas]

I don't feel the need to keep dozens of tabs open. Chrome is a great browser, and as long as you understand it is a sieve for the data miners, and are OK with it, it is a fine a product as is out there.

IF you are interested, try Vivaldi. They have a process built in for dozens of multiple tabs, It is Chromium based.

If you really like FF, try LibreWolf. I can't say it will work for you and you certainly have some demanding needs, but if'n you have time to explore, try them.

I could care less for Chrome, but it satisfies a lot of needs, especially for business. I learned to hate it when working. It was about the best thing going though, after a year or so of major growing pains.

[gwalchmai]

I've used Brave for a while, and it works fine for me. I also use workspaces to organize projects.

[minderasr]

Long time Firefox user, recent LibreWolf convert.  No real issues here, but it's rare that I have 27+ tabs open at any given time.

Was using Brave, but they've been pulling some shady things lately.

If you've been updating the same install of Firefox for a long time, things may break.  The best solution is to do a refresh, similar to Windows.  Help: Troubleshooting Mode.  It will warn you about restarting, then give you the option to either open or refresh.  This will remove any about:config customization you may have.  It is recommended to perform this refresh on each major update (i.e. v99 to v100, but not v100 to v100.01).

From a privacy perspective Chrome is an absolute nightmare, especially if you remain logged in to your Google account.

Also, there have been rumors of Google pulling some shady **** on Firefox users.  For example, YouTube videos always take longer to start if on Firefox.

[GT4494]

Just like when Google bought DuckDuckgo.  They advertise they don't sell your data but.....  What do they do with it?  Besides give to any alphabet that wants it with no warrant or cause...

[LostinTexas]

1 hour ago, GT4494 said:

Just like when Google bought DuckDuckgo.  They advertise they don't sell your data but.....  What do they do with it?  Besides give to any alphabet that wants it with no warrant or cause...

I really liked DDG. They put out a statement that they had no obligation to your privacy, so I dropped the engine and browser on my phone. 

To be fair, I never had a problem or breech that I'm aware of, but when they come out and say they are not all that interested, well,,,,,,,,,,,, I lost my interest. I don't expect them to cover any tracks or use and that may have been what the statement was aiming at, but I also don't expect them to sell the use along with my info. After selling to Google, there is not a lot of trust value any more. Too bad, it is a great engine.

[TBO]

Like Eric said, FF was great until several years ago. That's when I switched to Chrome and have been satisfied.

I also use Brave but have yet to switch over.

#changeishard

[LostinTexas]

Ooops

[minderasr]

22 hours ago, GT4494 said:

Just like when Google bought DuckDuckgo.

I have not heard about this until now.  But a little Googling (pun intended) and I learned this is false.

https://www.distractify.com/p/does-google-own-duckduckgo

As far as I know, DDG piggybacks on Bing.

[GT4494]

3 hours ago, minderasr said:

I have not heard about this until now.  But a little Googling (pun intended) and I learned this is false.

https://www.distractify.com/p/does-google-own-duckduckgo

As far as I know, DDG piggybacks on Bing.

I stand corrected.

But DDG did not stop MS/Google trackers .  Policy would not allow until 2022 then policy changed and they started to block some.  MS does own the operating domain and sold the website name to DDG for an undisclosed amount.

[Paul53]

Just an old geezer ranting again, sorry to waste you're time, but I've reached the point of no concern!

We have tv, radio, multiple forms of transportation, weather and communications satellites orbit the planet, have walked on the moon long ago. So now I'm getting weather predictions from a rodent. Does anybody else see a problem here!

[Silentpoet]

On a related note:

[minderasr]

17 hours ago, GT4494 said:

I stand corrected.

But DDG did not stop MS/Google trackers .  Policy would not allow until 2022 then policy changed and they started to block some.  MS does own the operating domain and sold the website name to DDG for an undisclosed amount.

Not sure where you're getting your info from.  But DDG has no trackers.  If you click a link to a site you searched for, that site will have tracking cookies.  DDG is simply an anonymous, ad-free front end to Bing search engine.  Of course if you never clear your browser history/cache/cookies, then everything is on the table as fair game.

The site you referenced is Duck.com which was previously owned by Google and eventually sold to DDG.  It was explained in the article I linked in my last post.