Recommended Posts

Sorry that you're still living in 2007.

Chrome uses around 1.5GB on my computer.

Firefox uses 300MB.

And yes, Firefox loads pages faster for me.

 

 

 

For Firefox HTML5 YouTube videos, I would recommend this addon: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-all-html5/

I used that just to experiment and it did not do anything differently.  But Thanks

One thing I have noticed, when everything is working correctly, many videos on youtube would show "an error occurred" for a split second then the video started - its gone before I could click on the "find out more"

Firefox is better at standards.

Chrome is... just a tool for Google to be evil.

Also Firefox is massively slower than IE/Chrome. It crawls on a quad core Xeon with only Ablock Edge and Firebug.

What does everyone mean by one browser is slower than the other ?

When someone says one browser "crawls" - what specifically are you referring to ?

My first question would be if you're referring to pages coming up - what is your connxn speed and what are you using as a DNS server ?

I cant say that any browser is faster or slower - I have 80/80 connection - everything is instant

Also Firefox is massively slower than IE/Chrome. It crawls on a quad core Xeon with only Ablock Edge and Firebug.

Error: you are using Adblock Edge. It is a resource hog. Try using uBlock (https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock).

I used that just to experiment and it did not do anything differently.  But Thanks

One thing I have noticed, when everything is working correctly, many videos on youtube would show "an error occurred" for a split second then the video started - its gone before I could click on the "find out more"

What version of firefox are you using? I believe the developer version has support for more media types than the current one.

What does everyone mean by one browser is slower than the other ?

For me it's rendering speed in general, but mostly sites that are script heavy will really show off just how fast your browser isn't. Firefox used to be pretty bad with that a year+ ago but it's near Chrome's speed now, and with the stuff Mozilla has in development it's just going to get even faster still.  Using beta 37 now with a fairly large number of addons (even something bloated like ABP), and most sites are more or less instant to load now.  Massively slower was true a few years ago.. now that's nonsense.

For me it's rendering speed in general, but mostly sites that are script heavy will really show off just how fast your browser isn't. Firefox used to be pretty bad with that a year+ ago but it's near Chrome's speed now, and with the stuff Mozilla has in development it's just going to get even faster still.  Using beta 37 now with a fairly large number of addons (even something bloated like ABP), and most sites are more or less instant to load now.  Massively slower was true a few years ago.. now that's nonsense.

Yeah I find firefox has improved a lot and is getting close enough to chrome these days speed wise.

 

I have to echo the above statements about switching from APB/ABE to ublock. This helps a lot *especially* on extremely heavy pages in firefox. For example I have a seedbox with an rutorrent webui and many seeding torrents.

 

With firefox + APB loading it totally locks up firefox for nearly a minute, the interface goes completely unresponsive.

 

Firefox + ublock (or no adblock extension) it comes up almost right away, just a hair slower than chrome.

 

APB kills performance on rendering heavy pages in firefox.

Error: you are using Adblock Edge. It is a resource hog. Try using uBlock (https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock).

What version of firefox are you using? I believe the developer version has support for more media types than the current one.

normal release version - 36

Checking out ublock now

normal release version - 36

If I wanted to switch to ublock to check it out - what do I click on ?  I went to the link above and only saw a bunch of java script stuff

There's a link to the .xpi here: https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/releases

 

also available on AMO: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock/

Former Firefox user here. I started using Firefox when it was Firebird 0.9.2. I thought Chrome was silly for not having a search box and didn't take it seriously for years.

 

Main reason I stuck with Firefox was the extensions. Chrome doesn't have Tab Mix Plus or TextArea Cache. For the latter, Lazarus just isn't as good. For the former, there are a handful of extensions that patch it over but it still falls short.

 

I switched to Chrome because Firefox was being a laggy monster on my home computer (AMD Phenom II dual core rig) whenever I used Facebook. At work it was fine, but my work computer is an i5 3570 quad core. Don't ask me why I have that much power, I certainly don't need it. Firefox does Facebook fine there, when I get time to make my rounds online. On both machines, Chrome performs admirably. So I started using it.

 

Plus, if you have a smartphone, Chrome syncs its bookmarks with Chrome on the phone. That's pretty cool. Firefox sync is garbage. And Firefox for Android is just bad.

 

I still kind of like Firefox, but I don't like their changes to search.

 

Now that I'm a Chrome user, I think either Firefox has to do something big to win me back, or Chrome has to do something wrong to push me back. But I keep both up to date. Especially since my wife prefers Firefox. And I don't hate Firefox or any of that crap... They're both tools and one works better for me, simple as that.

Firefox (on my hardware) more often than not renders pages faster than Chrome.. pretty much the only time Chrome beats it (again on my hardware) is on benchmark sites, and lately that's getting really close.   Extensions are 1000% better than the Chrome variants and usually provides more functionality as well.  Performance is almost as fast as Chrome and getting better with each release. Doesn't take up over a gig of memory just for a couple of tabs.  I can make the interface look how I want and not locked into what Google says.. no matter how crazy I want it I can do it, but with Chrome you're locked into that one layout, period.  I've used Chrome off and on but it just really doesn't give me anything that Firefox can't.  I do think their Android version's a bit better than the Android version of Firefox though, but I use Firefox there too for the syncing.  Getting really disappointed with Google in general lately as a whole. 

 

But that's just me, Chrome's a good browser too.

 

 

It's completely open source.

Mozilla's values are in the right place, and they are a non-profit.

It's faster than Chrome.

It's more lightweight than Chrome.

Gecko is awesome. I love it! (I develop for the web). It is very representative of how your site will look like in any modern browser. It conforms to the standards exactly.

Addons.

 

 

Firefox is much more customizable than Chrome. Chrome's extension are nothing compared to Firefox's add-ons. Chrome extensions can add a little functionality, but really doesn't change the experience. On the other hand, Firefox add-ons can change the browser completely. I feel like Chrome is becoming the 'new IE' as they're moving away from the idea of an open web to an idea that Google should be in charge of what the web is. 

 

I've been using Cyberfox, a 64-bit variant of Firefox as my secondary browser and it's feels snappier than Chrome.

 

I'll simply use those 3 replies as my answer. Can't spell it out any better than that!

 

Besides, Chromes bookmark menu is just absolutely ridiculous! It's to stupid to even alphabetize them, or, at least it used to be. Haven't tried it again in quite some time, except on my tablet, and then I still prefer Firefox.

I used Chrome for quite a while. But it kept breaking, whenever they updated stuff. They sneaked in App-shortcuts, added icons to my toolbar, broke some webpages (and fixed them again the next update) etc.

 

Simply put, Chrome was unreliable, so I switched back to Firefox.

Chrome on Windows > Firefox on Windows

 

Firefox on GNU plus Linux > Chrome on GNU plus Linux 

 

/thread

 

Any further discussion should be about my above statements. It will now forever be known as the "Johns browser principle." People will remember it in 50 years from now. They will misspell it as "John's browser principle" only to be corrected by a more knowledgeable peer that it is actually "Johns" without an apostrophe. That peer will have 15 seconds of pure, well-earned and well-deserved fame.

I recently tried to switch from Chrome to Firefox and had the following 2 issues that made me switch back.

 

1) Sites would "randomly" give me a "This Connection is Untrusted."  I say randomly because sometimes sites would work and other times they wouldn't.  The #1 response for a fix was that the time on my computer was wrong.  I had tried the browser on my work computer and my home computer.  Work PC has time managed by domain, home PC is wit time.windows.com.  Both would give me the error.  The #2 response was to whitelist the site.  I thought that would work for a site then it would go back to Untrusted.  Very frustrating.

2) Sites (e.g. Neowin) would be logged out when I revisited them after a day.  It was annoying having to continuously log into sites that would stay logged in with Chrome.

 

I really like to try change every so often to see if other choices have improved vs what I'm using.

On a modern machine if you can tell a difference in "browser speed" on Windows between IE, FF or Chrome then I'd argue you have much greater issues or are in a lab-benchmarking environment. I personally couldn't fault either (excluding Adobe ActiveX vs Adobe Plug-in performance/stability for Flash).

 

Feature wise, I do like Firefox Sync as it's a great multi-platform tool enabling me to take my browser favourites & settings with me to any desktop based OS I use - including my current Android phone. For that reason, I use Firefox more often than the others.

I recently tried to switch from Chrome to Firefox and had the following 2 issues that made me switch back.

 

1) Sites would "randomly" give me a "This Connection is Untrusted."  I say randomly because sometimes sites would work and other times they wouldn't.  The #1 response for a fix was that the time on my computer was wrong.  I had tried the browser on my work computer and my home computer.  Work PC has time managed by domain, home PC is wit time.windows.com.  Both would give me the error.  The #2 response was to whitelist the site.  I thought that would work for a site then it would go back to Untrusted.  Very frustrating.

2) Sites (e.g. Neowin) would be logged out when I revisited them after a day.  It was annoying having to continuously log into sites that would stay logged in with Chrome.

 

I really like to try change every so often to see if other choices have improved vs what I'm using.

I've never had either of these problems with firefox.

 

the connection untrusted thing usually means either something wrong with the site's ssl cert...

I've never had either of these problems with firefox.

 

the connection untrusted thing usually means either something wrong with the site's ssl cert...

Firefox does not use system proxy settings on Windows whereas Chrome / IE does.

Firefox does not use system proxy settings on Windows whereas Chrome / IE does.

I forget how it is in the older versions (not something I ever really look at), but in 37 beta it does.

proxy.png

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • I hear you on browser password manager, in my case I have two Google profiles, one was created when Google decided to grandfather us out of Workspace for Domains (with the replacement being too expensive for 25 users) resulting in my domain email address no longer being able to be registered to a new Workspace I created (for myself and another co-owner) so I could use Takeout and sync over some stuff to the new Workspace. Then I have my personal Google profile which I could be logged into on my desktop or Mobile, so I am saving passwords on one or the other, and when an URL changes another password for the same service gets added, it basically ends up being a giant mess. Unless I missed something is there a local decent password manager that can override the browser password managers for Chrome, Edge, Firefox (profiles) so that there is only one vault, and does that also support Passkeys (which to me are still confusing because sometimes it will ask for a Passkey on a phone I am no longer using!) Microsofts implementation of Passkeys is the worst!
    • It's utterly baffling that we have no idea when we'll get new features even well after they've been released. Why Microsoft thinks this is a good rollout strategy is beyond me.
    • If it makes anybody happy, others will need to be bitter about it. (apologies to Yogi Berra)
    • I owned a lot of Soundblaster cards over the years all the way back to the ISA slot era. I use a Soundblaster X3 external now because I'm able to run it through a KVM and have it follow the machine I happen to be using. It drives a set of JBL 305 powered monitors wonderfully. I'm not gaming or doing home theater through it, so rear channels aren't a consideration for me, though it does have side / rear / sub outputs.
    • I disagree that using browser based password managers is a bad idea, your passwords are encrypted by the OS password, but they also be synchronized to make them helpful. I would also use a password manager extension that supports MFA TOTP and Passkeys to manage the account that synchronizes the data. Ente is 100% free and allows you to vault important information, has password vault support, and supports 2FA TOTP support, I just don’t believe, it has a browser extension.
  • Recent Achievements

    • First Post
      DrWankel earned a badge
      First Post
    • Reacting Well
      DrWankel earned a badge
      Reacting Well
    • Week One Done
      Supreme Spray LV earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      Genuinetonerink- Dubai earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      Genuinetonerink- Dubai earned a badge
      Week One Done
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      505
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      163
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      91
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      75
    5. 5
      Michael Scrip
      72
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!