It is essential to stop using Chrome. Under the pretense of saving users from third-party spyware, Google is creating an ecosystem in which Chrome itself is the spyware.
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I work at a small company - absolutely everything from work macros, accounts and shortcuts are all intertwined in Chrome, they've been using it like that for ten years - it'd be faster for me to find a new job then to unclog that mess from the entire office. I still installed firefox for personal use though.
in my previous job we were allowed to install some old version of firefox through the companys own portal. but we couldn't access internet with it because "firefox is vulnerable". they use google suite so chrome was the default browser, but edge worked too and even IE...
Most companies now are being shepherded into Microsoft 365's walled garden by their security teams. Edge is the only "secure" browser now, Teams the only "secure" chat app, Microsoft Authenticator (specifically Microsoft's app, not DUO or anything else) is the only "secure" way to implement MFA, etc.
It's genuinely sad how many security professionals have been shanghaied into Microsoft salesmen.
By secure they mean "the only way we can easily see everything you do"
We had IT people in at our shop to migrate us over to 365. They wanted me to install Microsoft Authenticator on my personal phone, so I said no. They were able to bypass MFA to sign me up.
I asked them what would happen if someone didn't own a smartphone (crazy I know), they had no answer for me. They basically just looked at me like I asked them the square root of pi.
That's actually a problem where I work. There are people who carry a flip phone because they don't want a smart phone. IT gives them a hard token for 2FA.
I was in the same boat. Selenium with gecko driver was a pretty simple swap, just needed to Ctrl f replace a few things.
I keep going back and forth with Firefox and Vivaldi. The chrome based browsers just tend to run better. I love firefox on mobile but on desktop it's tougher for me to stick with. Also Mozilla seems to have a different goal for the future with all the other products and ai weirdness they recently announced.
All chromium browsers are supporting Google’s grip on the internet.
This is true. Which is why Mozilla needs to focus on making a better browser instead of adding their own ai bullshit.
Mozilla has frequently pointed their efforts into the wrong direction. We need to politely encourage them to focus on the things that matter.
I'm in the exact same boat. Vivaldi devs are so open about everything they do that they've honestly earned my trust in their browser.
No nonsense and very clear options to disable data collection despite being a chromium based browser. I love firefox mobile's extensions but it just doesn't have the same consistency between desktop and mobile. For example, Vivaldi mobile let's you control site permissions to the level of controlling if they're allowed to play sound or not
Are those fractions of a second really worth your privacy?
I once commented saying something like, except for work, all Linux users should be using Firefox. And this was the reply. Some people are just fucking hopeless:
"Firefox has only ever been a sometime back-up browser for me.....ever since Chrome appeared in 2007. Prior to that, I used it because it was the sole usable alternative to Internet Exploder....
The Mozilla devs, for far too long, spent more time stabbing each other in the back than they did writing code and fixing the tons of problems that were always inherent in the code. It's the only browser I've ever used that used to regularly crash & burn at least a dozen times a day. And ya wonder why people flocked to Chrome?"
But it's true.
Serious question. Is it actually better for the typical user? I don’t mean people commenting here. I’m thinking about the majority that don’t care about privacy, blocking ads, quality technology, etc. for those people, I’m guessing that Firefox is equivalent. Just another browser that works fine. So why switch??
I run into compatibility issues and weird bugs with firefox a lot. I'm still using it as my primary browser, but I have to keep a chromium based browser ready for times when a website won't work in firefox. I can put up with that personally, but I wouldn't want to set up firefox on family/friend computers because I don't want to get a call whenever something doesn't work and they don't know why.
Chrome based browsers also have some super useful features (like tab groups) that firefox doesn't have a good alternative for.
Interesting. I’ve heard this many times from people here on Lemmy. I’ve been running Firefox for ~6 months now (previously Brave) and haven’t seen these issues yet. I don’t even have a chromium based browser available on any of my devices.
Regardless, I hear you about not wanting to be personal support for friends and family. That’s annoying
People inevitably bring up compatibility issues in Firefox when this subject comes up, and nobody ever has specific examples.
Proxmox virtual machine server, v8.x the UI is funky and the console doesn't display properly.
That’s.. an example for sure. Maybe an example a regular person would run into?
Got any specific examples you don't mind sharing? I can't remember the last time I ran into this.
Most recent one was visiting https://www.lifetime.com/playsets on Firefox mobile. After going back and forth between the list of playsets and individual playset pages, Firefox stopped loading the list of playsets. I would load in most of the page, but the actual product list wouldn't load. Refreshing and restarting Firefox wouldn't fix it, but the page loaded fine in brave browser so it didn't appear to be a server issue.
Before that one, I had a time where Firefox mobile was completely broken by an update for like a week. Wouldn't load any web pages, reinstalling/resetting user data/etc wouldn't fix it.
I've had websites break on Firefox desktop too, but I don't have any specific examples I can recall right now. I definitely run into more issues with Firefox mobile than desktop though.
Ah, mobile. I don't use Firefox mobile due to its insecure status, particularly lack of sandboxing:
Source: https://grapheneos.org/usage#web-browsing
This was the case back when Chrome was starting out too. Everything was made for IE and you'd have to keep it around for the odd time you needed it.
Eventually those old sites were replaced and now Chrome is the new de facto standard.
For the overwhelming majority of users, they won't know the difference between using the two. People here are on a high inhaling the air in this echo chamber.
I've used Chrome on every device imaginable since Chrome was a thing. I've had a negligible amount of problems, in all my years. I absolutely hate that Google shuts services down when they get bored. And I absolutely hate what they did with Google Music and Google Chats, and Domains.
I move off Google services when they shut down. Besides that, I've no problems with the ones I use (minus nitpicks and the above products).
So to anyone here feeling bad and are afraid to comment on here because they don't want to lose Internet points, fret not. There are millions of us perfectly satisfied using Google, PAYING for their services where we see fit, and generally not worrying at all about any of this.
What about the ad blocker changes they’re making? That’s pretty much the line for me. I use chrome everywhere but when ublock stops working well that’ll be me jumping ship. The web is a fucking unreadable cesspool without a solid adblocker running.
The adblock changes is a shit stain, absolutely agree with you there.
For my household, personally, it won't make a difference because I have a pihole blocking everything from all devices. So that change isn't enough to persuade me to make a move.
But yes, anyone who doesn't have pihole of and uses adblockers, it will be 100% understandable for them to jump ship.
To be fair, chromebooks are great devices for kids, and the family link platform makes keeping them "secure", easier... a lot easier!!!
It grinds me a bit, as I did have a Linux version if Firefox installed on my Chromebook, but because the book is just a sofa device and doesn't get any love (especially from the little shits), it runs dog slow, so I end up just using chrome on it, and suffer the pain of not having things synced between devices. Thankfully the most important thing, bitwarden is syncing, so I can manage the suffering.
Even on Chromebooks you can install Firefox.
some small problems i face is that
while i use youtube it runs slower.
and the quick image search feature using google lens is not present.
and telegram voice call does not work.
Where as,
youtube = googlie
google lens = googlie
and
telegram via web requires chromium api, so = googlie
Hmm, proprietary things that are totally under the control of the corpo in question run slower or not at all on the corpo's competitor's browser. I wonder if that isn't exactly what avoid a monoculture is all about preventing?
Ah yes, google nerfing its own services under another browser for its own gain definitely isn’t the issue here.
You can use a different frontend for YouTube. You’ve got Freetube for pc, Yattee for MacOS and iOS and piped on any platform. These solutions also protect your privacy and block ads.
If only they actually worked. Never understand how they get recommended constantly and yet repeatedly I try to use them and they don't work.
I’m using Freetube on Windows, it works like a charm. Feel free to dm me if you need help.
Is that one a desktop app? I primarily use pop_OS and would prefer a web solution. I've tried piped, invidious, peertube, and libretube iirc
Yeah invidious (different instance) worked for me a couple weeks and then went down for days. I tried some other mirrors after that and they did not work.
If they were reliable, I could put up with the worse UX, but so far they haven't been reliable for me
Thanks. I'll give it a shot
My problem with these is that the quality is always bad. Usually 720p max and only H.264 instead of VP9. YouTube quality is already bad enough as it is and nerfing it even more feels awful.
That's because YouTube detects the browser you are using, and slows it down for browsers that aren't their own.
Would changing the user_agent be helpful here?
I've seen mixed reviews on whether or not that's effective.
There's an addon that not only adds that back into the right click menu but also adds support for other image searching services!
Its called "search by image" and it works very well ime
You use TG in a browser?
Chrome is great at multi-user switching. FF in comparison is @$$ in that respect... I went back to FF around a month ago after a decade long hiatus.
Horses and water
Some websites load faster in Chrome. But the reason why Chrome is so ubiquitous is because for normal people, Google is still the plucky user friendly company they were in the early 00s.
Firefox is better on desktop, but on mobile it still sucks, sometimes it is even refusing to load websites.
No lie, I actually had to shift to Chrome from Firefox today. Some websites are straight-up broken on Firefox, while others load painfully slow (e.g. try arc.net on Firefox vs any Chromium-based browser). Not to mention the massive shame of Mozilla leadership treating its own flagship product as a second-class citizen in favour of "AI initiatives" or whatever the fuck those C-suites want to stud into their resumes.
Because normies were using IE, then enough of them had their "tech enthusiast" grandson show them Chrome in 2010 and now that's all they use.
I used to use mozilla by Mozilla, too. THAT's why.
Okay I'm happy to switch, I used to use Firefox years ago until Chrome came along and it's a great browser, but can I integrate my Google accounts with it?
I want it to sync all my stuff to my Google accounts, and so far I've not found another browser that can do this :-(
I'm also not sure if all the plugins I have would have Firefox implementations, maybe they do. I use Darkreader, some password vault stuff, uBlock, SponsorBlock and the other YouTube one they make (I forget the name) are an absolute must, too.
What do you want to integrate with your Google account? Imo that's something to specifically avoid, not something to seek out. But I may be not understanding what you mean
All my bookmarks, search history, browsing history (so I can type a portion of a URL into my address bar, say a word or so, and have it find the page I want even though my own memory fails me), that sort of thing. Plus it works across all my devices.
And casting pages or my desktop or such to my Chromecast is really handy too, and so is the Chrome Remote Desktop feature that I use sometimes to remote in to my PC. I don't know how many of those things Firefox has, maybe it casts and stuff too.
But yeah I use all that kinda stuff, and of course it keeps me logged in to all the Google services I use, like my emails, YouTube, Drive, Docs, Maps, etc, and facilitates using that stuff seamlessly without issues, which is great.
I'm deep in the Google ecosystem basically, and I'd be happy to switch browsers just so long as that deep functionality remained, know what I mean?
Some people here really hate Google (like, specifically on Lemmy people seem unusually angry about them existing), but they seem no worse (or better) than any of the other companies that offer all this stuff, so I might as well pick my poison as it were. They're all evil at the end of the day, haha.
Sure, I could run 20 different individual open source services on a server to do everything I use Google for, albeit without integrations and likely a bit more muddled and less feature complete, requiring ongoing care and upkeep, and that IS kinda appealing, I do get why, I used to do the homelab/home-sysadmin stuff for fun, but I just don't have the time or patience to do that stuff these days, you know?
I got older, and now I just want a functioning service that I don't need to fiddle around with these days, and that way of life extends to my browser too. Give me a good browser that lets me do what I want with all the integrations I like, and I'm happy.
Right now I'm not happy with Chrome because of their ad blocker policy, and how locked down plugins are in general. And I want to theme it! Firefox used to let you change everything in a themed all the colours, icons, element sizes and so on, it was dope. I assume they still do that, I'd love that.
Anyway, I hope that answers your question :-) Sorry if it is a bit muddled, I blame ADHD brain :-P
Damn, no replies. I'm in the same boat. I'm kinda waiting for Google to break adblock so I finally have the push to make the switch.
Firefox sync will do the same without spying on you.
Firefox has Firefox Accounts which will do just the same. All those extensions are also available. You may find the odd extension is missing but there is usually a decent replacement about.
All work on Firefox.
While you can't use Google password-manager easily on Firefox (probably there is a plugin for that) the Firefox password-manager is better in my opinion.
The Google account stuff works mostly, but I don't know what you exactly want to do. You should try it out.
Firefox is not the better browser in anything but privacy. Maybe it could win in customisability, but that's something only a few percent of users care about.
It has longer load times and sometimes breaks sites entirely while using about the same resources. Yes, the reason for that is that website creators don't deliberately support it, but the normal user only cares about functionality.
I still use it and recommend it to anyone that asks, but saying that it's the better browser is just delusional.
Chrome’s developer tools are better, and having two browsers open at the same time while programming is a strain on RAM resources, especially since Visual Studio Code needs to run in its own Chromium.
Have you checked recently? Chrome devtools have been getting steadily worse the last few years, and Firefox's keeps getting better.
I haven’t seen anything getting worse, but I agree that the Firefox dev tools are now barely usable. They weren’t before.
FF dev tools haven't been shitty for like more than 10 years
I honestly have no idea what this guy is talking about. I use dev tools in Firefox all the time and they're pretty much the same as Chrome.
Right, they're great. They were a little janky in 2012 and before or something but yeah Chrome only enjoyed maybe 1-2 years even back then of being better
... strain on RAM resources? What year is it?
Idk, twenty twenty-something. But Chromium with the YouTube homepage takes less RAM than GNOME Software and GNOME Shell, which either says I should move to Xfce or that Chromium has improved. Can't speak on VS Code though since I run that in a distrobox and podman is broken for me rn.
The year where a browser can easily eat up 10GB of RAM.
On my Mac mini with 8GB, just having Visual Studio Code open is enough to fill up the RAM. No other programs necessary.
A Mac mini with 8Gb of ram is sadly not an appropriate config for programming anymore.
I just use it for building and deploying to macOS/iOS. I don't want to spend four digit prices just for that (I'm a freelancer).
8gb of RAM? What year is this?
yeah, but thats not an development environment (at least not an acceptable one for anything serious)
Your WORKstation is for working. Budget devices are not for working.
The new MacBook Pro Apple just released a few days ago comes with 8GB in the lower two tiers.
It’s 2024. 32GB is a min requirement. I roll with 128GB because it’s a couple hundred bucks to never have to worry about RAM.
Yeah well, I can see how you don't run into RAM issues with 128GBs of it.
Exactly. If you’re a dev, you should too.
"But Chrome is slightly more convenient! Why would I suffer tiny inconvenience today in order to save me from way greater inconvenience later? Who am I? Some reasonable person?" - typical Chrome user.
As a former chrome user it's so real. Chrome connects every device for you and once you ARE in the loop it's hard to leave it. Wanna switch to Firefox? Oops suddenly your authentication doesn't work anymore. Oh what about those useful Google logins tied to everything now? Good luck with that.
It took me huge effort to switch off chromium based browsers because the longer you use chrome, the more it worms it's way into all your services making it harder and harder to switch. I still can't figure out how to seperate my Yahoo account from my Gmail account
A huge reason I left is realising that if google decided I broke their TOS on something like say, YouTube ad blocking, they can just terminate by Google account and every service attached to it suddenly becomes unusable. I'd rather not be taken hostage like that
Edit: for all the wise people in the comments. I was trying to decouple entirely from Google products, not just chrome
What you're describing sounds more like over-reliance on Google services than the browser. I don't use gmail or google logins anywhere, I just have Bitwarder plugin to manage my authentication and use masked emails to create accounts. I did the same in all the different browsers I used over the years and never had any issues with it or with switching between browsers.
You're right, but that's still a valid concern. Many people are much more ingrained in the Google ecosystem, especially through Android.
We're seeing this issue with Microsoft in the buisness space, too.
And if course we've been seeing it with Apple for decades.
These massive corporations have a great deal of people so ingrained in their interconnected services, it's next to impossible to convince them to extract themselves.
This is why the EU regulations focus on "gatekeepers". Because users will not make the necessary changes in their habits to combat the abhorrent practices in the industry. There is no true free market here. So the solution is to regulate the shit out of these gatekeepers to make them open up and play fair.
IMHO unfortunately most people will always go for what's more convenient, don't care about their privacy and don't mind ads and there's not much we can do about it. Eventually all the content on the web will be locked up behind a paywall and/or accompanied by nu-blockable ads. Most users won't mind that. We'll be left with what we can host/support ourselves like lemmy or mastodon.
Yeah that was exactly the issue. When I wanna "Degoogle" I mean not just the browser, I mean step out of the entire ecosystem
Firefox syncs across devices as well, if you sign up for a Firefox account and enable sync. This works for bookmarks, logins, history, and you can even access remote tabs if you want. It's also easy to send a single page from one device to another.
On desktop, Firefox has an import feature that will pull your bookmarks and logins m other browsers (like Chrome) into your Firefox profile.
Even if you're neck-deep in Google services, Chrome doesn't do anything special.
Yeee I'm using Firefox. It's just difficult to desynch the Google services with all my accounts tied to it I had to one by one change em or even make new accounts entirely.
The worst is the fucking Google authentication app and how it's tied into stuff like Discord...At least I'm out of the Google ouroboros now but it was still intensely painful.
I don't understand the problem. Google services work in Firefox pretty much the same way, yeah? Does Chrome integrate an authenticator app? If som you might want change your 2FA settings at https://myaccount.google.com/security . If you have an Android phone you can get push notifications on it, or you can also use third-party authenticator apps.
...the problem is that I wanna get rid of Google services lol.
Oh, gotcha. I misunderstood and thought you were describing a Chrome-vs-Firefox difference specifically. Yeah, I can relate. I'm de-googling my life but I'm not sure I'll ever be 100% de-googled. I'm taking it bit by bit. I sign up for new things with different email addresses now and occasionally I'll change existing services if it's possible. But there's no way I'm going to go through my bajillion web site accounts and move them all.
The one that implements the open standard TOTP that has a bunch of open source implementations?
Now I'm really happy that all the way back in the late 90s I learned as a software professional that depending on a 3rd party for anything essential is highly likely to eventually come around and bit you.
So when the whole Single Sign-On (via Google, Facebook and so on) bollocks started becoming fashionable over a decade ago I just saw it as a single-point-of-failure dependency on a provider and avoided it.
Ditto with Gmail - I've been renting my own domain with e-mail service included for almost two decades exactly because my ultimate dependency on that service is a national DNS Registar (not even the provider as I can just move over my domain and e-mail archive to another one) which can't just turn around and screw customers because they're the very same one on which massive companies depend for the proper working of everything linked to the domain names (thinks banks depending on them for customers reaching their website and e-mailing them).
I highly recommend the practice on thinking "how critical is this for me" and "what would happen if these people went bankrupt or changed their minds" when you're considering getting into a situation were there is a continuous dependency on some external 3rd party provider (this is also why Software As A Service can be a really bad idea versus just buying the bloody software if you're using it regularly and data that you might need for years is stuck in their system with no chance of exporting it).
Absolutelly: need to use something once or twice, it's fine, but for everyday life or as a requirement for your business operations, depending on an external actor from which you can't easilly switch and who doesn't have some kind of iron-clad tight legal contract with you that includes stiff monetary penalties for non compliance (and, even then, they might just go bankrupt) is a pretty risky choice.
You don't have to use the Google Authentication app for 2FA/MFA.
Actually, being able to cast to other devices is very easy to do with Chrome, but extremely hard to impossible to do with Firefox, unfortunately.
What? Besides debugging things on mobile devices, I've never sought to connect any device to chrome. Btw this exact same process works in FF too. You're talking about chrome like it's an operating system.
What? You can still use your Google account without Chrome...
Unless you're not talking about OAuth. Is it Chrome's password manager? Because I'm pretty sure that's easily exportable...
That's exactly the issue I mean. I wanted to not just move away from Google and Google Chrome
I wanted to move away from the entire Google ecosystem including the accounts
I didn't have this experience at all. I switch browsers all the time just so I can know how they are, it's painless every time. I've used non-chromium edge, chromium Edge, Brave, Chrome, Firefox, OperaGX, and probably something else. Chrome is probably my least favorite, as it just doesn't have any bells and whistles.
Oh I was way deeper than just browser
I unfortunately had an account, my entire phone linked to it, my Microsoft account linked to it and even my authenticator app linked to it which was responsible for 2FA on most of my non Google accounts.
It was all interlinked in a way that made removing it from the root hard
I can't say I relate to that at all. I'm not sure what you mean by having your MS account linked to chrome, and stuff like my authenticator is on my phone, I didn't even know you could use chrome as an authenticator.
For me it was as easy as download > export bookmarks and passwords. Nothing broke. I even still use my google account to login to some services. It just brings up the google popup and I'm in.
What authentication doesn't work anymore in FF...?
We can't forget that a lot of people have absolutely no idea that this is happening or what it means. Many folks just think the Chrome icon is how you access the internet and have no idea that there are other options. Helping to educate those folks is going to be a significant part of minimizing Chrome's dominance.
This comment is 20 years old if you replace the word Chrome with Internet Explorer.
As true now as it was then.
It was literally in the chrome "manifesto" when it launched.
I use Edge. Seems to be working out for me pretty good.
Edge is chromium btw
with microsoft's crapware added instead.
the vertical tabs are fantastic but can’t stand using MS. then i discovered Arc and never looked back. lots of super cool novel ideas coming out of that team. it is based on chromium though. but it’s sooo niiiice :/
I've been removing Google services from my life bit by bit over the past year, and I have to say it is crazy how hard it actually is! They have inserted themselves into so many digital workflows, securing monopoly positions and preventing the rise of competitors and open ecosystems. In many areas the only alternatives are other tech giants, or accepting feature downgrades and having to set things up manually.
I'm really glad that the browser is one area where the transition is actually very simple and straightforward!
Yeah, I'll never use Chrome again. Google has always been shady, but this latest round of anti-features is unbelievable. I'm shocked there's been no anti-trust suits related to what they're doing with Chrome. Firefox is just a better browser with way more security options and extension support. That alone is enough for me to stick with it.
Firefox has always been great to use for me.
Chrome: First-party spyware.
If Firefox goes away, I'll use Epiphany or Konquerer before I subject myself to anything that makes me view ads.
I've used Firefox for years. It's always been the underdog imo.
If it ever becomes the top dog, I'll switch! To the next privacy underdog. More competition is good.
I've read so many bs paid-off articles recently how chrome is so much better than firefox, or firefox has nothing left to give to its users
Made the switch to Firefox last year. Love, love, love the freshness and versatility of the browser! Also add-ons for mobile!!!!
Chrome is the new reddit
Lots of people can't just straight up ditch it. I have had multiple websites just don't work with Firefox regardless of whatever add-ons I put. For me I just go into a Windows sandbox, but there's people who are not that tech savvy and it's often forced on them. Also iirc most schools have chrome books they let students use. So it's basically forced onto people.
Do you have any examples? I have used Firefox for years and never experienced this, nor heard of anyone I know who uses Firefox experiencing this.
Not the commenter, but...
I play tabletop RPGs (Pathfinder 2e for those care) online with some friends, and we use a website which hosts the program (forge-vtt.com).
For the life of me, I cannot get it to behave on Firefox. Maps will be pitch black while on Chrome they render perfectly. I've tried every permutation of browser setting and extension toggling I can think of to no avail.
Tried switching off hardware acceleration?
Yup, that was the common suggestion I was finding, but no luck with it on or off.
I've hit the odd site where a menu doesn't work the way it should, the payment form doesn't work, overall form validation is wonky, or the captcha doesn't work. I attribute most of these to slight nuances in javascript between browsers.
I'm a (old, grey) dev, and I've had to shame colleagues into testing in mobile browsers other than Chrome and Safari.
I love iOS, but I gotta bring up that other browsers on iOS are all Safari with a skin.
Sonys website immediately comes to mind
Trying to get my account back for my PS5 forced me to use edge for it to work at all
And then to use edge on my wife's PC because something I have installed REALLY pisses Sony off
Oftentimes, when I use Firefox (Main browser on my phone) things just don't render/show up. One thing I noticed was when I input my area code to find a package distribution center, and it straight up didn't show. Iirc it relied on Google maps for showing these places.
It worked in Chrome. Not pointing any fingers, it's just odd, is what I'm saying.
I use Firefox except for one thing: web serial. Chrome is the only browser that supports it. Luckily you only need it the when setting up an ESP32 for the first time and can do updates wirelessly.
Today there was a page on my bank that just would not load in Firefox even though the rest of the site was fine. Switched to Chrome and it worked fine. I only use Chrome in these situations.
This is the Proxmox console on any of my VMs or LXCs in Firefox. Works just peachy in any Chromium-based browser.
This is fixable. Firefox is blocking HTML5 canvas stuff. I found a screenshot that shows you what to do: https://imgur.com/a/hdvyBtx
Thanks mate. Fixed it right up.
If a website or app doesn't test in Firefox, I avoid it. That's something I run into like once a year, and I just use edge once if I need to, and avoid that website or app in the future. It's not hard to support Firefox, it's just a shitty ass business decision not to
Use a Chromium fork instead if you're having so much trouble. Thorium is a decent alternative.
The exact reason why we encurage to ditch Chrome.
Just another reason to avoid it as much as possible.
Have you tried to change the browser's user agent ?
We really need more browser engines floating around.
As of now we really only have 3, Webkit,
FirefoxGecko, andChromiumBlink.Everything is based on these 3. And I know, technically chromium and firefox are both based on webkit, but they're so far gone from webkit they function as their own engines.
Firefox isn't based on WebKit. Maybe you're thinking Safari.
tbh i think it would be better if there was a single collaborative engine instead, owned by a non-profit company like The Linux Foundation
maybe the W3C could establish their own but idk if they even do anything these days
https://xkcd.com/927
Relevant xkcd
Webkit is the only browser engine in that list; the other 2 are browsers, not engines. Firefox uses the Gecko engine. Chrome/chromium use Blink engine.
Gecko came from Netscape. Webkit came from KHTML. Pretty sure Gecko/Firefox are not Webkit based. Blink is though.
No don't
I think their point is that it's going to fragment things for web developers and make stuff more difficult to manage.
Not if things are written to standards.
Well of course. Now all your traffic goes through proxies to Google's servers for analytics.
100℅ data harvesting.
Genius move by Google. Even calls it a security/privacy measure!
They will succeed too. Most of the human race are Neanderthals anyway. Couldn't care less.
Don't Be Evil!
Way ahead of you. Been using Firefox since it was called Phoenix.
If I'm forced to use a Chrome browser, I use a deGoogled version of chromium. I can't think of the last time I've had to use it though. Firefox support is a priority for my company's IT dept.
since netscape navigator here. even used netscape during the dark ages (when aol controlled it).
I was so happy when Netscape 4.0 released for OS/2.
Ironically, in the past year, one of my employers specifically disallowed Firefox due to a CVE, saying that we were to use Chrome. A Cybersecurity professional once told me that Firefox is frowned upon because of CVEs.
The new McAfee.
My main problem is that I prefer other frontends to Firefox. I mostly use Vivaldi and think it's great, but of course it's Chromium based. I read somewhere that it's just way easier to base a browser on Chrome than it is to base one on Firefox. It would be great if the frontend and backend were separated with a unified API and you could simply choose a frontend/interface (Vivaldi) with whatever backend/engine (Gecko). That's not how it (currently) works though.
There are Firefox forks, but they're just that: forks with slight modifications. Vivaldi and Arc are basically completely different browsers. Even Orion isn't based on Gecko, it's based on WebKit.
Add to that small compatibility issues with certain websites/web apps that aren't Firefox' fault, but rather developers targeting Chrome instead of "100 % web standards". Still, as a user you'll likely into (small) issues from time to time.
People saying "just use Firefox" have a very narrow view on how any of this works and I sometimes feel like it's some form of elitism where the cool kids use Firefox and everybody using anything else are "lesser people". In reality, people have different requirements and priorities. It's similar to people posting "just use Linux" under every article talking about problems with Windows.
Yes, Chrome and Google sucks, I agree, but there isn't a single universal solution to this problem.
No, not at all. I understand perfectly. Your concerns are valid.
Our point is not supporting Chrome is more important in the long run.
There is no front end in the world that will make up for the loss of true ad blocking and everything else Google pushes down the line.
Let's be clear about this:
I don't want to tell you to use Firefox. I want to tell you to use whatever you like. I wish we lived in a world where the choice didn't matter.
But we don't
When I'm telling people to use firefox, I'm telling them if you have a problem with the direction the internet is going in, you actually have to do something about it beyond just complaining. Support the competition, the only non-profit in the space, and the only true alternative browser left. Because everything is going to get exponentially worse without competition, and we really really need to preserve the one remaining safe refuge.
Well, you're not saying just use Firefox, you actually bring up valid points and reasoning. Just look at the top comment of this post stating "Not using Chrome is so easy" when it's not.
Let me clarify that I don't hate Firefox, it's my second most used browser on the desktop after Vivaldi, I just don't think it's a great browser with its current feature set. Mind you, as soon as ad blocking becomes infeasible with Chrome and forks I'll instantly bite the bullet and fully switch to Firefox. But as it stands right now, Firefox is lacking features (some of them almost essential if you ask me, see my comment about passkeys) and compatibility (rarely Firefox' fault, but rather a result of the Chrome semi-monopoly).
The main problem is that Firefox is the only alternative to a Chromium browser on non-Apple platforms, but it's not the solution to everyone's problems. Let's see if and when Orion is going to get ported to Windows/Linux.
super excited about the future of Orion!!
What features does Vivaldi have that don't exist in a FF extension?
And using a WebKit based browser is still better than using a chromium fork.
I don't know. I still prefer having vertical tabs, tab grouping, workspaces, web panels, proper loading information, full page screenshots and way more integrated in my browser instead of having to rely on possibly dozens of different extensions that in my testing never provided nearly as good of an experience.
Implementation details matter.
Also mouse gestures and tab tiling. Vivaldi has so many useful features baked in that I don't want to give up.
Vertical tabs: Sidebery. It might actually be better than the Vivaldi native. I havent used vivaldi with vertical tabs that much, its just a work/secondary browser for me.
Gestures: Gesturify. This is just better than the vivaldi native one.
Tab tiling: well you got me on this one. This is actually pretty neat.
To be clear, I like vivaldi as well, it is my chromium of choice but with the above two extensions firefox is chefs kiss.
I'll take a look, thanks. I'm not thrilled with the idea of using a dozen extensions that could break or become incompatible, but I would prefer to get off of chrome!
For me it is only 5 extensions really which are essential. uBlock Origin, Dark reader, Sidebery & Gesturify & User agent switcher (it can come in handy every once in a while).
P.S. There is a little caveat to vertical tabs which i forgot. You have to follow an easy 5 step guide on how to hide horizontal tabs when sidebery is active.
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You can get vertical tabs on firefox with custom userChrome.css but it is a nightmare to setup and mozilla is only interested on breaking userChrome with every update lol.
tell me about it! literally the ONE thing keeping me from FF at the moment. vertical tabs are too vital to my workflow at this point to sacrifice.
I don't know exactly how to do it, I know you can because when I was in the firefoxcss subreddit there were many posts on how people came up with their own solutions for vertical tabs.
I wanted vertical tabs to save on screenspace, for some reason the default firefox has the biggest top bar of all browsers and it is horrible, this is the userChrome.css that I use, it does what I wanted but it is not vertical tabs:
https://imgur.com/h39dsHL.png
https://pastebin.com/r54QRbKx
It is also keyboard centric, I also had to install an extension because firefox (and this only happens on linux) uses alt+number to switch between tabs instead of control+number.
i just remembered this project: https://floorp.app/en/
japanese fork of firefox with lots of features and proper vertical tabs apparently. i’m looking forward to trying it.
check out Floorp: https://floorp.app/en/
Why is using WebKit-based browser “better” than Chromium-based one? Neither supports Google’s monopoly. Vivaldi is not just a skin for Google Chrome, it continues to support manifest v2 extensions and proper adblockers. And the company is owned by the workers, which is super cool
Because they foster a web monoculture where the only thing that works are Chromium based browsers. For better or worse Google controls Chromium which means that they will continue to keep pushing it in the direction they want.
I could never get hardware accelerated video working with Firefox on my Linux laptop, and Google Meet (used for work) doesn't work well ( but I guess I blame Google for that).
Google meet sucks hard on every browser and piece of hardware I've thrown at it.
Arc has floated this idea. Currently Arc is Chromium-based, but they say they've designed it to allow for swapping engines in the future.
IIRC, Edge had a similar feature for a while, allowing you to run legacy Internet Explorer tabs if a site required it. Not sure if that still exists.
I tried really hard to use Floorp which fixes most of my problems with stock Firefox but even that just showed me how excellent Vivaldi is compared to other browsers.
Let me add that support for passkeys is becoming more and more important and Firefox doesn't support passkeys. Yes, it supports forms of WebAuthn (YubiKey and the likes), but not "scan this QR code with your smartphone and use biometric authentication to sign in".
You admit in the opening of your comment that your issue is preference and then go on to say there's no single universal solution.
There absolutely is a single universal solution. Either adapt your preference and use a different browser until you're familiar enough with it to prefer it, or adapt your preference to admitting that you don't care that Google is getting your data more than you care about being ever-so-slightly inconvenienced. It's pretty simple.
Writing a new ff UI is pretty easy. The entire UI is written in html at this point. I'm not sure why people would say it's "hard" to change.
Embedding gecko into something requires work (even that isn't that hard really, you just have to hand it a gl surface and pass through inputs)
I’m glad I’m in a position to basically never have to touch a chrome or chrome derivative for my work. It was a necessary evil to finally kill internet explorer, but these days it’s just hostile to its users.
I've been using Firefox since somewhere around 2008, it's been a dream the whole time.
Highly recommended
Tiny devils advocate, IF we can make it so ONLY Google can spy on us and
malwareadware can NOT spy on us would be an “improvement”. Google is a lot easier to target with regulation and stuff.That said, I wouldn’t touch Google with a 10 foot pole.
Thanks for the reminder. I've switched to Firefox on my mac and iphone for personal use. I just need to move some web development stuff around so I can switch to Firefox on that too. I may even uninstall google chrome, but for now I've just taken it off the task bar.
I came back to firefox after vivaldi and edge when google announced manifestv3, decided to do it already since they would at best delay it instead of canceling it, and that's exactly what they did.
Yeah yeah, Mozilla pays its clueless CEO and other execs way too much, mismanages its finances in general, fired the wrong people, fell for the hype about AI, has a board full of former Facebook and Twitter execs, relies excessively on telemetry to justify their worst UI design decisions, and occasionally has delusions about someday becoming an ad platform.
If it weren't for all that we'd all be better off. But sometimes you gotta vote for the lesser evil, and at least they don't do all this shit.
The one feature that I really liked that's still in chromium other than Google cast is still Web Apps.
I like to be able to make a desktop application out of a web page. Firefox has this feature with PRISM a while back. Did it ever come back?
Firefox main since 2020. Love it.
While I agree on this, I think Ungoogled Chromium could be a soft way to degoogle yourself while maybe looking for complete replacements. It took me almost 2 weeks to degoogle me almost totally, at the beginning having a minimum of compatibility is nice
I have switched to Firefox but I'm having a hard time. Firefox feels sluggish compared to Chrome and uses an insane amount of memory. And I really miss tab groups as Chrome had them. There are some add-ons for Firefox that try to imitate this feature but none of them has everything I want (e.g. the ability to collapse a group in the top tab bar). And most of them build on top of Firefox tab groups which come with an isolation feature I don't want (and haven't found a way to disable for tab groups).
Vivaldi user since 2015. Never looked back.
Ok so I really wanna switch, but I need to have multiple Gmail accounts active at the same time for work, as we have various logins tied to various profiles. From what I can tell Firefox doesn't yet support multiple profiles being active at the same time. Do I have any options here? I need to be able to access the support inbox and login to our platform, while simultaneously being logged in to my own email and my platform login. Chrome profiles makes this easy, annoyingly.
I use Chrome on the rare occasion when I have no choice but to use FB. Always with VPN. Otherwise it's FF.
What are you using that makes it crash, virtually never happens to me.
For me Firefox crashes all the time in normal use. I am talking minimum twice a day. It also has this weird problem where it will pin one thread to 100% and lock up the whole browser when downloading files. I also had to disable video hardware acceleration or else Twitch crashes every 5-10 minutes but luckily my CPU is so strong that it's not too big of a deal to do software decoding.
I still use it out of principle but it has been a way worse experience than Chromium ever was for me.
Yeah…I’m gonna say you have something that isn’t playing well with Firefox. Extensions, hardware…. I’ve been using Firefox for years now across multiple OS’s and hardware and I’ve never had anything like this happen to me
Yeah, more often than not Ublock or others ad blocks are the culprit for me.
And it’s not immediately obvious that such is the case when it happens.
Good luck
what os/hardware? I too never have an issue but im talking a pc. Is your experience with android?
I am talking about on desktop but actually the Android version of Firefox was such a laggy buggy mess I switched to Brave on mobile.
On my desktop I use Arch btw with a 7950X and a 6900 XT. Honestly after using it for over a year I kind of hate it. I am so fed up with how many small annoying problems it has. Someone else mentioned Thorium in this thread and I might give that a try.
If Firefox works great for you that's awesome but it is BY FAR the buggiest piece of software on my entire computer.
I have different hardware, but I am running arch with firefox daily. I have had maybe 2 freezes in the last two years. Other than that it works as I would expect. Are you keeping your system updated?
For me I had to disable video hardware acceleration (just video, not all acceleration) for Twitch to stop crashing all the time.
hardly any issues here, either. and we abuse tf out of firefox.. 300+ tabs? stay open for days on end? multiple addons? on c2d-era desktops? no problem.
I haven't seen that happen in possibly two years, let alone regularly.
I use Firefox all day on both Mac and Windows and this rarely happens. It does seem to happen on Linux for me sometimes though.
Tab crashes with ublock enabled or without?
If without, it's probably ads/trackers crashing the tab.
I am going to be downvoted to hell for this. I use Mullvad Browser/LibreWolf on desktop but on Android I prefer Chromium. I was using Firefox until a couple months ago when I switched back to Vanadium/Cromite. Chromium on Android is very nice. First it has Material You support so it looks much better than Firefox. Second, it loads website faster and it scrolls buttery smooth unlike the noticeably choppier Firefox. Plus it has 120hz on the privacy preserving forks unlike Firefox which is stuck on 60hz with RFP on. Third, Chromium has per-site process isolation on Android so it has better security. I probably won't be switching back until Firefox catches up on those fronts.
You seem to have very high requirements for a mobile browser. None of this have been an issue for me in years of Firefox mobile. Maybe philosophy is worth a little bit of discomfort.
Write it in the fucking sky, my friend.
People need to rediscover what the word "principle" means and why they need to be fought for.
If you care about them, you'll tolerate a little inconvenience and you'll put a little time into adapting, maybe even learning.
If you can't muster any desire to stick to principles, you'll be in threads like this forever, helpless, and complaining over and over as things continue to shift further in a direction you don't wanna go in.
For real, people often give the weakest excuses for not trying or changing something. "But, but... I will have to..." like they have never had to do anything hard before.
It's okay. They can make up for it by wanking about some glorious revolution that they can't even define much less bring about.
Yeah, maybe. Felt kinda like betraying my faith or something at first when I switched back lol but I got used to it.
Counterpoint: uBlock origins.
Good point. But I have DNS adblocking so that doesn't bother me much.
Works but I always found using both is better.
Feels like an ad...
With Firefox you can put the search bar on the bottom. Checkmate.
Also how long till google doesn't let you use an ad blocker. Ublock origin on Firefox is king.
Cromite can do that too actually.
I checked and some article said you need to enable advances options and set some bs flag. Sounds like work but at least it's possible now.
Does chrome mobile have extension support? Firefox got ublocker these days.
I think people would let every company watch them take a shit if it meant they got dark mode on their app...
honestly I heavily agree, Firefox on android is just a worse and choppier experience and I'd love for it to get a major overhaul to bring it back up to modern standards
I couldn't care less about 120Hz when my privacy is at stake. Even if chrome has per tab isolation, I'm sure Google's got its mittens in there somewhere.
A second load time difference, meh. Not a big deal to me. Same with materialU
I use Firefox at home and on my phone. I still use chrome at work because of habit and because that's what most users use. Some of the other guys use Firefox anyway. Its dev tools seem fine.
I switched to Firefox and using DDG as my search engine about 2m ago and I'll be honest I really don't care for it. I'm trying my best but I use my phone for 100% of my browsing and not being able to set a home page sucks and with DDG searching for stuff takes significantly longer to get answers with. I search for a ton of stuff that I just need a quick answer to that when searching for Google would just show the answer instead of needing to open links and such. I'm giving it a bit more time but I'll probably end up back with chrome.
IMHO, people in corporations should acknowledge that there is a growing user base for Firefox and give it as much priority as chrome. That way people in an organization can at least explore a different browser than chrome (especially the non-tech folks).
The reality is that companies test all their websites in Chrome. Any automation testing will also be focused on Chrome and Safari. Also majority of the developers use Chrome dev tools for debugging. I don't see that changing anytime soon. I feel that Firefox is like a second class citizen in their book.
But hey, that might be a good thing too. All the tracking B.S will be developed for chrome and We can continue to enjoy privacy with good old firefox.
Always has been.
Google in general is ass. That also includes your googled phones.
Hoping someone can help explain this to me.
I understand Google is making some fairly sweeping changes to chrome that negatively affect the free internet. To what extent does that filter down into.the chromium based browsers? I have been struggling to find any relevant information on this, everyone just talks about it like they are all unique browsers
I have been using Vivaldi and really enjoying it, but it is chromium based, so of course it could be helping to support these changes, indirectly.
Thanks in advance
I have been using the same web browser, in terms of codebase, ideology, and heritage, since 1993.
That’s almost a third of a century.
i just switched to firefox with ublock origin, it took a bit of getting used to but no real issue. Also started using thunderbird because microsoft pushing outlook (pay or have ads at the top of your inbox) and getting rid of their free mail app pisses me off, seems like big software companies are just getting bolder with their anti consumer practices.
This is a post from a user who runs Google Android spyware 24/7…
still waiting for anything that isnt mozilla or google based.
Thorium, oh good another chrome browser librewolf, oh good another firefox browser
PLEASE I BEG OF YOU, GIVE ME SOMETHING THAT ISN'T TAINTED.
So my gut instinct is to go to Firefox (again), but how can it compete? It’s down to like 2% market share, there’s a serious portion of the web that Firefox just can’t render anymore, and there’s all this press about the CEO getting this monsterous golden parachute.
So realistically what can anyone do but continue to use the only browser people ever really test sites for anymore, or swear allegiance to either Microsoft or Apple?
Seems to me that Lemmy is nothing but a Firefox promo platform these days. For weeks this is the one and only trending topic.
what are the other options
firefox is still not there in terms of language support and translating like chrome has etcetera
not bashing firefox or chrome honestly asking what else is there?
epiphany browser is even further behind
Let people use whatever they feel like, ffs.
but see, they wont. thats the problem.
google/microsoft are circling the wagons and are about to prevent anything but chrome and edge to be 'official browsers'
so, to your point, yes we want everyone to use what they want. but continuing to use chrome will kill the very ecosystem that allows the choice you want to have.
Those of us that lived through the active X nightmare are well aware of the danger monoculture creates. Shame educating others is considered offensive to the sheep.
Don't you play Star Citizen?
MS would love to be a third option. Instead they admitted that they couldn't keep up with Google's constant change and proprietary extensions of Web standards that allow Google services to work with Chrome.
So Microsoft gave up and adopted Chromium.
MS isn't circling the wagons. They already surrendered to Google's monopoly.
Nobody's stopping you. Just saying it's either ignorant or stupid to, and actively makes the internet a worse place.
The internet will do fine, don't worry. And no, I don't use Chrome.
What makes you so confident? It's not as though the internet's "fine" right now compared to where it was 20 years ago.
EDIT: I see your entire personality is hating Mozilla, and apparently that means people can't hate Chrome too. Gonna just block this google shill.
20 years ago the Internet was pretty broken if you didn't use IE.
I've noticed a significant uptick in the number of users here who actively hate on Mozilla. Granted, Mozilla makes some baffling design choices (let me disable the QR code reader in the address bar on mobile FFS), but it's never about that. It's always about Mozilla being too "woke" or whatever.
Just the exact caliber of person you'd expect to use a browser such as Chrome, in spite of knowing better, and then to gloat about it.
Are you talking about me? I've been on FF for about 20 years, until Mozilla keept pushing crappy changes (despite unfavorable feedback from beta and nightly users). I ditched it in 2021 for something that works better for me. That, plus a bunch of controversies about Mozilla's (mis)management, made me stop supporting them and advocating for FF. FYI, I don't use Chrome, even if I use a chromium-based browser. And no, I don't feel guilty because of this. Whay should I?
Does google listen to your feedback?
I don't use Chrome
I guess it was more of a general statement. I didn't intend to target you specifically, just a trend I've seen. I've seen people link to statements made by Mozilla about things like supporting LGBT+ rights, and taking issue with that sort of thing, or who say they don't care if the Brave CEO is actively disseminating bigotry. Y'know, the type of person who watches the Quartering and complains that we've become too "woke" and too sensitive.
I don't think you should feel guilty. Even if you're one of the people I'm describing above, I don't think you should feel guilty. I just think you should opt to change. According to every therapist I've seen, guilt is pretty counterproductive for everyone involved.
I'm all for LGBT+ people rights and whatever. Eich is not my friend and I don't agree with his personal views. Still, the "tool" they make is more appealing for me than competing "tools", so...
I don't actually feel guilty, of course. That was just an overstatement.
LOL, who cares about Google. Take your meds, dude.
People using it, however, won't.
Your statement means nothing.
let people burn tires in their backyard if they feel like it, ffs
One thing is illegal, the other is not. Try a different analogy.
Everything the Nazis did in the Third Reich was legal. People who resisted them were breaking the law. Maybe we should evaluate things by their impact (pollution/invasion of privacy) rather than their legality.
Fine. People, stop buying stuff on Amazon, then.
I like how you say that as if its impossible.
I stopped buying things off of Amazon many years ago because they don't respect privacy and are unethical.
Well done. Same here.
Now, please actively bother other people (IRL family and friend, not strangers on the internet) they must do the same.
People here on the Fedi seem so eager to teach others what is best for them.
If your morals and ethics hinge on legality, then I've got some bad news for you...
I'm not the one making absurd comparison.
You said, "One thing is illegal, the other is not," which is directly equating legality with ethics/morality.
Edit: If I'm somehow misinterpreting this statement, then perhaps you can explain how legality is relevant here? Everything we do is ultimately an ethical and moral choice. It's up to us to determine what the responsible choice is. Here I think the choice is pretty clear.
Don't like Mozilla? Great, then use one of its many forks, such as Librewolf, Waterfox, Mull, Fennec, etc.
I fail to see the lack of morality on chosing a browser over another. People use what works best for them. If for most people what works best is Chrome, well, I don't feel there's anything wrong in their choice. Buring tires "is wrong" regardlessly.
And that is why soon there shall be a monoculture of browser and all control shall be ceded to massive corpo.
Thank Mozilla's (mis)managemet for that.
So you are supporting the even greater evil to spite Mozilla? It's not mozilla pushing manifest v3 that will cripple ublock origin.
Yes. Mozilla doesn't deserve it's reputation or its status. And I don't need Ublock Origin. Stopped using it years ago.
Nope, it is ignorant users misleading other users as the subject is firefox's behavior and not the corporate behavior just as the reason to avoid chromium crap is the behavior of chromium crap and the actions of googliebet are an entirely different issue just as Mozillas are.
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No one ever remotely gave mozilla a pass by warning that firefox is the last bastion against a return to the proprietary web we barely fought off with IE6.
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That's what I have noticed as well. Mozilla always gets a free pass.
Off topic remains off topic.
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Which is all also irrelevant to the browser behavior.
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This is the reason why we encurage more people to ditch Chrome, because sites starts to only support this one browser?
We don't force anyone to everything, we just want more usage so we cannot be forced.
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If I cared about upvotes (scores are disabled on my end, btw), I'd simply write "use Firefox" over and over, which is what most people on the fediverse like to do (as if Mozilla was any better, nowadays).