Ask HN: Have you lost your passion for Mozilla Firefox?

14 points by themechanic 14 years ago | 25 comments

I have been using Firefox since the early days but over time, there are some parts of it that I have grown to hate. I really hate their printing support on Linux and Mac. Firebug is a great tool but I feel it is beginning to suck compared to Chrome's developer tools. Have any of you noticed any other longstanding bugs with Firefox? Also, do you think Mozilla is still in line with its core values with the increased competition it is facing?

technomancy 14 years ago |

I was wooed away by Chrome's speed around a year ago, but after using it a few months I naturally was looking at extending it. It's night and day compared to Mozilla. All the interesting UI bits (tab switcher, menu, location bar) are hard-coded in C++; none of it's extensible via JS.

Once I realized this the magic was gone and Chrome held zero appeal to me. Luckily that was right around when the improved JIT in FF4 started getting usable with Conkeror, (http://conkeror.org) so I was able to switch back to the Moz without a noticeable speed hit. And what an amazing difference in flexibility... I don't know what I was thinking.

This is not so much about Firefox itself; as an application it's pretty meh, but as a platform it's excellent. It's the only thing I've ever seen that comes close to Emacs in terms of hackability.

beatpanda 14 years ago |

When I click on the Firefox icon in my dock, it may take up to 2 minutes for Firefox to load and be usable. Chrome feels almost instant. I want badly to use Firefox more, but I can't justify it when it's so slow (and I'm using 4.0).

epc 14 years ago |

Firefox was my core browser for years when I split my time working on a Windows laptop and a Mac desktop. When I switched over to a Mac for 99% of my work I started using Safari more and eventually stopped using Firefox (this was in the v2-v3 timeframe). I now mostly use Safari & Chrome but have been using Firefox more now since 4.0.1 came out.

I use almost no plugins/extensions on any of the browsers, found they just slowed down the browser too much.

So: less passion, yes. Lost interest previously but we've made up.

cstrouse 14 years ago |

I ditched Firefox for Camino three years ago and then upgraded to Chrome when I got a new MBP two months ago. I'll never switch back from Chrome.

Firefox on the Mac is brutally slow at times for me and the interface doesn't look nearly as nice as Chrome. I like software that gets outta my way and lets me work effectively. The developer tools in Chrome are way better than Firebug IMO anyway so no hangup for me there.

themechanic 14 years ago | |

can you please elaborate on what made you switch?

cstrouse 14 years ago | | |

The switch from FF to Camino was because I wanted something based on FF but that behaved like a native OS X application. The switch from Camino to Chrome was mainly due to curiosity/hype/etc and it turned out to be true what people said about Chrome being pretty great. Another main consideration was the fact that I want to get into WebGL and Chrome supports it well.

eiji 14 years ago |

I still believe Firefox is well on track on the desktop, however, I'm becoming frustrated with it's performance on mobile devices (in my case Android 2.2 Galaxy Tab). And I'm wondering if this is a strategic failure. Firefox is not available on all Android devices, and in my case, it does install, but is unusable. My none-tech opinion: I don't care what processor my phone or tablet has, when I go into the Android Marketplace, I expect to find Firefox, no matter what device and what Android version. There is a browser preinstalled (I guess some chrome/webkit thing), so it's not rocket science. I'm more and more tempted to play around with other browsers to share bookmarks and stuff between desktop and mobile, and Firefox is falling short.

trafficlight 14 years ago | |

I definitely agree with you on the speed issues. I really tried to use Firefox Mobile because I liked Sync, but it's just too slow. It takes forever to start. I'm back to the default Android browser now.

whichdan 14 years ago |

I switched to Chrome initially when I upgraded to Fx4 and had some stability issues - it was a good excuse to try it fulltime. I've been using it since then. The only feature I find myself missing is the AwesomeBar, but that's on the Chrome roadmap, so I can't complain just yet.

Chrome feels a little lighter/faster, and I also like that themes don't take over the entire browser. A lot of nice FireFox themes absolutely destroy readability in certain places like the page title, and FireFox's chrome by default doesn't look as nice as Chrome's.

For what it's worth, I'd love to give Opera a fair chance again, but it doesn't play nicely with inertial scrolling on Mac.

pokoleo 14 years ago |

I was about to report a bug that I noticed in Chrome today.

Then I switched to Canary, and realized that it was fixed.

Then looked back at the form:

Builds: 13.0.772.0 dev 13.0.775.0 canary

It's a great day for browsers.

fjabre 14 years ago |

Using the URL bar as search was F'ing brilliant! It single-handedly changed the way I browse the web in much the same way FF did when it released tabbed browsing.

godkira 14 years ago |

I switched from Firefox 3.6 to Chrome and I never looked back. I loved the fact that Chrome was fast, sleek looking, simple and once got extension support easily customizable. The only thing I currently don't like about Chrome is it's spell-checker.

Firefox 4 has been out for a while and it seems to be just as good as Chrome in most aspects, so I would recommend you use whichever one you prefer.

ameasure 14 years ago |

I started splitting my time between Chrome and Firefox maybe a year ago. After I read about how difficult Chrome is to hack I started using it more faithfully. My only complaint is that it tends to crash a lot more than Firefox. Not sure why that is.

c_t_montgomery 14 years ago |

Totally lost my passion for firefox. It's so clunky and slow now, and Chrome is just so fast & sexy. I used to use it solely because of FireBug, but now Chrome's Developer Tools are just as good, and in my opinion, better than FBug.

mapster 14 years ago |

I've installed and used Chrome but am staying with FF because I know it, it works, and it does everything The occasional crash is no problem as FF restores with no problem, and using Windows I am used to crashes :d

dpio 14 years ago |

I still use Mozilla. It's cool. If you're not a Mozilla fan how about Safari?

themechanic 14 years ago | |

what makes you keep using it? What do you like and what do you hate?

dfeng 14 years ago |

the only thing keeping me from moving completely from Firefox to Chrome is Pentadactyl (http://dactyl.sourceforge.net/pentadactyl/), and better greasemonkeyscript-ability. Firefox on Mac has always had memory hogging issues, but I really can't live without my vim overlay (I've tried the Chrome alternatives, like vimium, but they pale in comparison)

As people have said about Firefox's hackability, I don't think there will be a Chrome extension as good as Pentadactyl.

starfox64 14 years ago |

I've used Firefox since it was Phoenix/Firebird. It saved me from IE. You can pry it from my cold, dead hands.

stdcinout 14 years ago |

Firefox was definitely my favorite browser until Chrome came out.

themechanic 14 years ago | |

What made you switch?

rick888 14 years ago |

mine started crashing on me at least 3 or 4 times a day. I eventually completely switched to chrome.

The only thing really keeping me is firbug.

Geee 14 years ago | |

Firebug Lite is now available for Chrome. http://getfirebug.com/releases/lite/chrome/

TeHCrAzY 14 years ago | | |

The built in dev tools are comparable (and personally, better) than the full firebug plugin. firebug lite doesn't quite cut it.

pasbesoin 14 years ago |

Au contraire. The more ham-handed Chrome becomes with its UI decisions, the more I appreciate Firefox. I just hope Firefox doesn't follow the same route (give my my address bar, dammit).