this post was submitted on 22 Feb 2025
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Let's be honest: Everything that might be "worse" or "annoying" in Firefox for someone is not relevant in comparison to "no working adblocker available". A browser without adblock is unusable
True, but if an adblocker no longer works on a specific browser, change your browser! I started using Netscape back in '94, and lost count on how many browsers I've tested and used in the past... Holy shit, 30+ years!!
.....fuck off, '94 wasn't 30.... counts on fingers several times
.....Shit.....
It doesn’t sound right but it is. I think in ‘94 I was using Juno for email and internet. Shortly after that it was time to actually use one of the many AOL trial discs for service instead of a mini frisbee/ninja star.
Modem sounds, chat rooms, you’ve got mail. What a time to live!
I know... Jurassic Park is 33 years this year. It would be like watching a movie from the 60' when it was released.
We're old, friend.
I've never hated my life more than right now...
I use Palemoon for the nostalgia but also because of the best theme around, Moonscape
Netscape will forever be my number one.
In the past 10 years it's pretty much just been Firefox, Safari, Explorer/Edge, and Chrome. 99% of browsers are just skinned Chrome. Even Edge now. Opera's engine died in 2013.
Yup. Hence, the reason I originally suggested to use Firefox, only because it's not built on Chromium.
Just FYI, the word "hence" literally means "for this reason". So you just said "for this reason the reason" lol.
Chill dude, I’m just going to the ATM machine to put in my PIN number to take out some money. 🤙
nottheopbutok
What issues do people even have with firefox? Its a browser, it seems fast enough. Isn't that all most people need from a browser
Security and sandboxing are important, weak points on the android implementation.
would Vivaldi on android be better? I really like having extensions on my browser and that's the only other android one I know of that has them.
Edit: I was wrong apparently Vivaldi does not support extensions on mobile which is a bummer.
Mainly that Google intentionally makes its sites (like YouTube or Google Docs) slower and less useable when they detect you're using Firefox, and/or ad blockers (which you need Firefox to use, so same difference).
It's mostly fixable with add-ons and userscripts (and eventually, one hopes, with an antitrust lawsuit), but it's still a hassle.
Unfortunately, with the FTC rolling back net neutrality protections, I don’t see an antitrust lawsuit happening, or succeeding, anytime soon
how do I find out more about this and what scripts do I need to make the sites faster again on Firefox
https://www.tomshardware.com/news/youtube-responds-to-delayed-loading-in-rival-browser-complaints, for instance.
Or https://www.zdnet.com/article/former-mozilla-exec-google-has-sabotaged-firefox-for-years/, for an older one.
As for how to fix it, Mozilla tend to do a pretty good job of eventually working around Google's bullshit, so keeping the browser updated is a good first step.
Since Google tends to roll this stuff out regionally and doing A/B testing, though, the best way is to identify what specific handicap they're hassling you with (which specific features don't work or don't work right, when they work properly on chrome), and look for an updated add on or userscript to fix that particular issue.
Or you can just look for a generic YouTube or Google Docs "enhancer" add on and hope it fixes the issue without making the whole user experience too different from what you're used to.
thanks. I keep Firefox updated. the fact that changing the user agent gets the delay is pretty damning evidence
Would you happen to know whether this is something that a UserAgent spoofer would suffice to get around?
At one particular point it was, if I recall correctly, though Chrome also (mis)implements some standards its own way, so Google might also use that as a form of attack against anyone who implements them properly, much like Microsoft did in the bad old IE6 days...
It's all a silly arms race, though, with Google coming up with new ways to enshittify the web for anyone not using Chrome or using ad blockers and Mozilla and ad blocker (and alternative YouTube frontend) developers trying to figure out what they broke this time and how to fix it, so what worked yesterday might not work today and work again tomorrow.
It's all a profoundly stupid waste of everyone's time and resources (all for a few more ad views) which will hopefully end up with Google losing their monopoly position on the web like the Internet Explorer bullshit did for Microsoft, but will keep being a major hassle for everyone until it does.
No horizontal tab grouping. Tab groups on Chrome are perfect, and the Firefox tab extensions all suck in comparison.
That said, I'm still using Firefox today because the internet is unusable without a good ad blocker.
I still use the full screen tab groups feature that they removed from the core. I don't like scrolling tabs, so I can just hit a button and click on the exact tab I want. I do probably have too many tabs open tbh.
Tab groups and vertical tabs are at least on Nightly now; you can enable them in settings.
I very much dislike Mozilla's direction over the last decade. They're introducing user-hostile features that subtly break normal browsing experience, even when disabled[0]. Not like Google is better, but I'm also trying to get away from Mozilla.
[0] On Firefox Mobile, there's a "feature" which makes the address bar auto-complete domains of companies paying Mozilla. I noticed this with Netflix - I never visit, but when I start writing a URL with n, roughly every 10th time Netflix was suggested. You can disable this feature, but this doesn't actually disable it. The address bar no longer auto-completes with Netflix, instead it just doesn't autocomplete! So 9/10 times I can write n and press Enter, but 1/10 times I press n and search for the letter n.
Mozilla doesn't care whether they break features, as long as they can make more money. I strongly dislike this approach by the supposedly "good" browser manufacturer.
Do you have a good non chromium based alternative? To be clear I genuinely am asking those things make switching probably worth it considering how little of a hassle it is.
Download fennec it's the fork of ff mobile with less of the cruft.
I don't know if it has fixed that specific problem, but I can't recall seeing it
Thanks for the recommendation, I'll give it a try!
Too many people complain about the UI and claim it's "outdated, ugly, unusable". I find that funny because you can make FF look almost like anything you want, and I personally hate chrome's UI.
I'm one of those complaining about the UI. Used the TabMixPlus extension to adjust the UI to my liking. FF killed it. So, I started customizing the UI CSS. Every few versions, Mozilla changed the browser enough to invalidate my changes. After a while, I got tired of thiz and switched to Vivaldi, which is Chromium based.
Honestly I'm probably heading to Vivaldi after reading a lot of these things.
Well, you USED to be able to, anyways, but they've slowly moved to a less customisable ui. Now you have to use extensions from outside websites to even do simple stuff like have a multi-row tab bar.
Not to mention Firefox seems to break them every year or so.
Some js is a bit slower. I typically use chrome for self hosted apps, jupyter etc.
I think wasm performance is actually better in Firefox though.