Why and why do you not use Firefox?

[xxray]

Safari is best for battery life and has easiest/best integration for me across my devices. The iCloud passwords + Apple Pay + 2FA verification codes from texts is also a huge plus for me.

Firefox is my second most used browser, and I go through periods where I try to use it exclusively. I love the privacy + extension ecosystem. I avoid Google Chrome like the plague. It's basically spyware and has grown to be so heavy and resource intensive, which is funny because it was so light and nimble (on Windows at least) when it first launched.

 

[adrianlondon]

I use Firefox (Nightly) instead of Safari for two main reasons:

1) Delete cookies, apart from those I whitelist, on exit.
2) Not reloading pages when swiping back on forums.

Bonus reasons:

1) uBlock Origin
2) Containers
3) Customisation of the UI. I dislike the Safari tab bar.
4) Speed. Yes, it's a shocker, but I find Firefox faster on my laptop than Safari. (Maybe because of uBlock Origin.)

I also use Firefox on my phone now that it can be set as the default browser. Pushing tabs between my macbook and the phone works well. To replace the keychain for passwords, I use Bitwarden. This also has the advantage that it's very customisable and can fill in all sorts of fields, including router passwords etc which keychain often can't.

Having said that, if Safari ever fixes the two main issues, I'd move back to it for simplicity.

 

[OldMacs4Me]

I use Firefox (Nightly) instead of Safari for two main reasons:

1) Delete cookies, apart from those I whitelist, on exit.
2) Not reloading pages when swiping back on forums.

Bonus reasons:

1) uBlock Origin
2) Containers
3) Customisation of the UI. I dislike the Safari tab bar.
4) Speed. Yes, it's a shocker, but I find Firefox faster on my laptop than Safari. (Maybe because of uBlock Origin.)

I also use Firefox on my phone now that it can be set as the default browser. Pushing tabs between my macbook and the phone works well. To replace the keychain for passwords, I use Bitwarden. This also has the advantage that it's very customisable and can fill in all sorts of fields, including router passwords etc which keychain often can't.

Having said that, if Safari ever fixes the two main issues, I'd move back to it for simplicity.

Pretty much what he said. Plus I am still running ElCap and often Snow Leopard. Safari is a completely lost cause if you're more than 1 OS behind the curve. El Cap is as far forward as my MacPro-4,1 will go, and I have seen nothing relating to either Sierra that would have me updating my 2011 MBP.

Tried Brave but was bombarded by ads including some for our old favourite; MacKeeper

 

[Sital]

I've used Firefox for years, but every now and then an update will break Netflix. I've been experiencing that since version 81.0 was released, hoping that an update will fix it. Until then, I've switched to Edge and have no complaints.

 

[bousozoku]

I use Firefox, Chrome, Edge, and Safari--in that order, except on iPhone where the browsers are less distinct.

Firefox still is a better browser for privacy and passwords than anything else. Chrome works but it's such a drain on resources sometimes. I must say that my mid-2012 with only 4GB of RAM did better with Chrome than with Firefox, though. With sufficient RAM, Chrome is worse than Firefox.

Safari is light, but it is light on privacy and compatibility. Sadly, Google used that Safari code years ago to develop Chrome and Chrome is more compatible with websites.

 

[tranceking26]

I use Safari as my main browser, though it's not perfect it does all I need it to.

That said Firefox is a good backup browser, there's times where a site won't load properly in Safari, yet works fine in Firefox.

 

[ericg301]

I’ve been a longtime chrome user on multiple platforms but made the switch back to Firefox just this week for the first time in probably ten years.

I’ve been quite surprised how versatile and fast it is now. I’m heavily invested in googles services but haven’t noticed any issues not using chrome.

Main reason i switched is that my company pushed out an update to where chrome and safari and now “managed” on my work issued MacBook Pro. I can’t even change the homepage. And since I used chrome for both personal and work purposes, I wasn’t comfortable with level of intrusion.

So I took the opportunity to now use chrome only for work (created a new profile) and Firefox for personal.

So far so good.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

I've never _really_ found any reasons to ditch Safari as my default browser, but as a teacher in web development I need to keep an eye on what Chrome and Firefox are up to every now and then.

Recently I've tried out Firefox Development Edition, which I kind of like... it's a bit unstable, but the features - for web development - seems a few steps ahead of the curve...


On my iPhone I've been testing out the DuckDuckGo browser as my default browser since upgrading to iOS 14, but the security seems to be a bit to tight, making logging in to certain web sites impossible... so I just reverted back to Safari there, too.

 

[cltd]

Hmmm...why did most people jump ship to Chrome then? It was fastest browser over FF and IE.

I don't care what "most people" do. I do what is best for me.

 

[MacBH928]

Pretty much what he said. Plus I am still running ElCap and often Snow Leopard. Safari is a completely lost cause if you're more than 1 OS behind the curve. El Cap is as far forward as my MacPro-4,1 will go, and I have seen nothing relating to either Sierra that would have me updating my 2011 MBP.

Tried Brave but was bombarded by ads including some for our old favourite; MacKeeper

This is ironically funny, 3rd party browsers works but Apple's own browser break between OS versions. I don't get why you had ads in Brave, it has a built in ad-blocker you can also instal ublock origin.

I use Safari as my main browser, though it's not perfect it does all I need it to.

That said Firefox is a good backup browser, there's times where a site won't load properly in Safari, yet works fine in Firefox.

I keep hearing this but I can be wrong, if things don't work on other browsers it works on FireFox. This can't be true since most developers are probably concentrating on developing for Chromium and its browsers(Edge, Vivaldi, Opera, Chrome)

I've never _really_ found any reasons to ditch Safari as my default browser, but as a teacher in web development I need to keep an eye on what Chrome and Firefox are up to every now and then.

Recently I've tried out Firefox Development Edition, which I kind of like... it's a bit unstable, but the features - for web development - seems a few steps ahead of the curve...


On my iPhone I've been testing out the DuckDuckGo browser as my default browser since upgrading to iOS 14, but the security seems to be a bit to tight, making logging in to certain web sites impossible... so I just reverted back to Safari there, too.

The DDG browser reason to use is:
1-It doesn't track, snoop, data collects
2-It blocks trackers from sites you have visited. It gives a mini report top left on every site and how many trackers were blocked.

I highly recommend an app called FireFox Focus and setting DDG as the default search engine. This app is great for doing quick searches or looking up things if you don't want your browser to track you or associate you with your other login's cookies. It has a trash icon top-right, if you click it, it will reset the browser with zero data about you-fresh. Its meant to be used this way. You can also turn on blocking for ad, analytics, and social trackers in the settings.

 

[Nermal]

I started with Firefox on Windows back when it was called Phoenix. I got my first Mac in 2003 and I don't think Firefox was available for OS X at the time, so I downloaded the Safari beta and have stuck with it since.

I continued to use Firefox on my work PC until a couple of years ago, when IT changed the firewall and broke Firefox compatibility. The betas of 'new Edge' had just become available at the time, and I'm now using Edge as my primary browser on Windows.

 

[topcat001]

I dislike Chrome's UI and the many background tasks it runs (performance is about the same to worse than FF in my testing but YMMV). I only have it installed on some of my machines. I have many machines running different OSs (feel free to skip this 😊):

macOS - Firefox as primary, Safari for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, etc. for efficiency. No Chrome installed.
Windows 10 Pro and Home (Surface Pro, and Alienware) - Firefox primary, Edge for videos, Chrome barely used except for some sites as a backup.
Windows 10 Server (several machines) - FF only.
OpenBSD - FF only.
FreeBSD - FF only.
Arch Linux (multiple desktops and a laptop) - FF primary, Chrome installed but barely used (from AUR).

I'm a very old school UNIX/C/C++ guy and have very specific preferences, haha.

 

[Mitthrawnuruodo]

I highly recommend an app called FireFox Focus and setting DDG as the default search engine.

DDG is my default search engine, across all devices.

And if their browser had let me log in to eg. Fantasy Football (using Apple ID) and a local newspaper online (using their 3rd party login), I'd still be using it on my iPhone, for the extra security.

That said the new Safari 14 - for Mac - has "appropriated" a lot of the same features as the DDG plugin provides, and I've found the default settings in Safari now is good enough for my needs.

Now, the newest Firefox also seems to have taken a queue from DDG, and seems to refuse 3rd party cookies and trackers by default. So that's progress.

 

[adrianlondon]

Now, the newest Firefox also seems to have taken a queue from DDG, and seems to refuse 3rd party cookies and trackers by default. So that's progress.

Yeah, FF has some pretty cool features. There's also "Containers" whereby you can allow a website to have access to create/read any third party cookie, but it can only access cookies that were created in that particular tab. In other words, it has no idea what's going on in all the other open tabs, even if those have created (separate) cookies from the same third parties.

There's also alnti-fingerprinting, but I don't use that as it does break some websites and I've kind of accepted that I'll be tracked to some degree.

 

[StellarVixen]

Because Safari does the job well for me.

 

[elexonica]

I use Safari 90% of the time. I was using Firefox until part way through last year (maybe early this year), but I realised I wanted something that could sync more easily between my phone and my laptop so I moved to Safari. I do still use Firefox a few times a week though, and it sits next to Safari in my dock. Blackboard's video conferencing tool (which is horrible) won't let me easily change mics in Safari, and occasionally Firefox will let me download things or open pages that Safari simply won't for some reason. Also, I like it for when I occasionally need to use Facebook messenger on the computer, cause I can use it in a container. It's also my day to day browser when I use Windows (and if I ever use Linux on a regular basis, probably on there).

 

[MacPeasant123]

I use Firefox as my main browser. Part of it is out of habit, as I've used it for years and it's always been good enough for me. Another reason is that I like the numerous add-ons / extensions that are available. A third reason is that I live in China, and some Chinese streaming sports sites use Adobe Flash (I know that it's a massive security hole), which Safari no longer even allows. Firefox, at least for now, still works with those sites.

Safari has become my second browser because it saves on battery usage, but it lacks Firefox's extensions, and I can't even chose to allow Flash.

I've used Chrome before, but it's been way too bloated in my experience and I don't use it now. These days I dabble with other browsers, like Opera, Vivaldi, Brave, but I'm still a Firefox guy.

 

[Phil A.]

I primarily use Safari on my macs and iOS devices and Edge (the chromium based one) on Windows and as a second browser on my macs (sometimes I need to be logged in to multiple Microsoft Azure accounts and Edge makes it easy to switch between them).
I don't use Firefox because, for me, it's irrelevant now: the browsers I do use work perfectly well and I'm used to them so don't see any benefit in trying to re-learn another browser (I did use years ago but then it started to go downhill and I haven't even thought about it until I saw this thread!)

 

[iMi]

I don’t use it. I have an irrational fear of fire and don’t trust foxes. One killed my pet chicken when I was little. Scarred for life.

 

[FaustsHausUK]

Safari syncs bookmarks and passwords across all my devices without any special effort, and generally leads the pack in tracking protection, so it’s my personal go-to. Chromium browsers have better dev tools (I use Brave, which is privacy-focused), so they’re my work go-to. Firefox performance fell behind, and by the time Firefox Quantum arrived, I’d moved on.

 

[jbachandouris]

For some odd reason, CBS All Access will NOT work for me on Safari nor Chrome, ONLY Firefox.

I've tried calling their tech 'support' and they were ZERO help. I even posted the issue in the Big Sur Beta thread and zero responses.

I'm not sure if the beta of Big Sur is the problem. I'm not going to uninstall the beta just to get CBS ALL Access to work.

 

[phillytim]

Another Firefox fan here!

Firefox is the only browser that has the containers feature - where you can isolate your browsing for specific purposes, such as keeping Facebook from searching through your other browsed sites, you can log in to a website with one account in one container while being logged into that same website with a different account in a different container!

Firefox is different than many other browsers, in that it doesn't use Google's Chromium closed-source engine - so it's a browser NOT based on Chrome (unlike Brave, Edge, Vivaldi, etc.). I prefer not to cede the browser market to Google, so I use the Firefox open source browser to contribute to the greater good.

I find Firefox responsiveness to be lighter & quicker than Chrome-based browsers.

Profile sync works great - for bookmarks, extensions, etc. wherever I have Firefox installed.

Firefox's Enhanced tracking protection provides a great layer of security while browsing; even though many of we security-minded geeks add extra extensions such as Ublock Origin, Privacy Badger, etc.

Firefox is a much better choice for privacy & security than any of those closed-source, Chrome-based browsers, by far.

You can customize the UI in great ways, I prefer the more compact, minimalist look than the heavy chrome that Chrome-based browsers tend have.

Firefox developer tools, including within the browser, are best of class; if you are a web developer, you'll fall in love with these tools, and the MDN web docs (administered by Mozilla).

Firefox is beautiful, and has apps available for iOS & Android.

 

[MacBH928]

I dislike Chrome's UI and the many background tasks it runs (performance is about the same to worse than FF in my testing but YMMV). I only have it installed on some of my machines. I have many machines running different OSs (feel free to skip this 😊):

macOS - Firefox as primary, Safari for Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, etc. for efficiency. No Chrome installed.
Windows 10 Pro and Home (Surface Pro, and Alienware) - Firefox primary, Edge for videos, Chrome barely used except for some sites as a backup.
Windows 10 Server (several machines) - FF only.
OpenBSD - FF only.
FreeBSD - FF only.
Arch Linux (multiple desktops and a laptop) - FF primary, Chrome installed but barely used (from AUR).

I'm a very old school UNIX/C/C++ guy and have very specific preferences, haha.

Why do you use MacOS Safari for Netflix/Prime Video and Edge for videos on Windows? Is it an issue with FF?

Yeah, FF has some pretty cool features. There's also "Containers" whereby you can allow a website to have access to create/read any third party cookie, but it can only access cookies that were created in that particular tab. In other words, it has no idea what's going on in all the other open tabs, even if those have created (separate) cookies from the same third parties.

Containers should be a feature of every browser although might be a little bit complicated for the average person. Private/Incognito should be treated as a temporary container but its not. Not even firefox use it that way AFAIK.

Does containers hinder the browser's performance? Myth has it the more plugins the slower the browser.

I use Safari 90% of the time. I was using Firefox until part way through last year (maybe early this year), but I realised I wanted something that could sync more easily between my phone and my laptop so I moved to Safari.

Whats wrong with FF sync?

I use Firefox as my main browser. Part of it is out of habit, as I've used it for years and it's always been good enough for me. Another reason is that I like the numerous add-ons / extensions that are available. A third reason is that I live in China, and some Chinese streaming sports sites use Adobe Flash (I know that it's a massive security hole), which Safari no longer even allows. Firefox, at least for now, still works with those sites.

Didn't Apple promise better extension support in the new Safari? Also I thought Flash was deprecated by Adobe itself.

For some odd reason, CBS All Access will NOT work for me on Safari nor Chrome, ONLY Firefox.

I've tried calling their tech 'support' and they were ZERO help. I even posted the issue in the Big Sur Beta thread and zero responses.

I'm not sure if the beta of Big Sur is the problem. I'm not going to uninstall the beta just to get CBS ALL Access to work.

Again this comes up, if things don't work in other browsers it works in FF. This is extremely awkward since like 95% of the market is webkit/Chromium browser.

Another Firefox fan here!

Firefox is the only browser that has the containers feature - where you can isolate your browsing for specific purposes, such as keeping Facebook from searching through your other browsed sites, you can log in to a website with one account in one container while being logged into that same website with a different account in a different container!

Firefox is different than many other browsers, in that it doesn't use Google's Chromium closed-source engine - so it's a browser NOT based on Chrome (unlike Brave, Edge, Vivaldi, etc.). I prefer not to cede the browser market to Google, so I use the Firefox open source browser to contribute to the greater good.

I find Firefox responsiveness to be lighter & quicker than Chrome-based browsers.

Profile sync works great - for bookmarks, extensions, etc. wherever I have Firefox installed.

Firefox's Enhanced tracking protection provides a great layer of security while browsing; even though many of we security-minded geeks add extra extensions such as Ublock Origin, Privacy Badger, etc.

Firefox is a much better choice for privacy & security than any of those closed-source, Chrome-based browsers, by far.

You can customize the UI in great ways, I prefer the more compact, minimalist look than the heavy chrome that Chrome-based browsers tend have.

Firefox developer tools, including within the browser, are best of class; if you are a web developer, you'll fall in love with these tools, and the MDN web docs (administered by Mozilla).

Firefox is beautiful, and has apps available for iOS & Android.

I completely agree. Unless you have some special need, FF seems to be the best browser out there as it ticks all the checkboxes out there. It baffles me that Chrome is like 68% of the browser market and FF is only 4%, although Chrome has nothing over FF and invades your privacy, collects, stores, and sells your data. Its like they are choosing to drink the poison. Its even worse when you think Chrome is made by for profit corporation and out of all Google, and FF is made by non-profit organization. They are literally feeding the monster that will eat them.

I can only understand Safari users since they like to stick to the Apple ecosystem+Safari really is quite, smooth, and light on battery usage on MacOS. I am not sure how they achieve that over other browsers.

 

[ThermalPad2020]

While I used to use Firefox back in the day, Edge worked faster for my work (PDF and ePub reading for classes), so I used Edge as the work/web browsing browser, Firefox as the "power" browser. Eventually Edge caught up and Firefox continued to get bloated, so I stuck with Edge on my Win10 machine, Firefox only being used for specific tasks like checking Steam bans. As soon as Edge Chromium came out, I got it. Now it's a mature browser, vastly more efficient than Chrome despite using similar engine base.

On my Apple stuff, I've always used Safari. iOS browsers are all just reskinned Safari anyways and the only one I've bothered with was Edge iOS due to Microsoft Account syncing and the Collections feature. Now I use Safari for general use, with Edge as my option in case I need a Chromium-based browser to do something. I always had negative feelings towards FF after a while, but especially stopped using it for good after reading this.

https://madaidans-insecurities.github.io/firefox-chromium.html. It turns out even Chrome beats Firefox in security (maybe even in privacy too technically... Firefox leaves a more unique fingerprint than Chrome does). FF forks are even worse since they use older versions of FF that don't have other necessary safeguards.

Everything has worked well for me on Edge nowadays, only very old websites that require something like IE6 ActiveX 🤣. And on my MacBook Air, where battery life is crucial while using Zoom for classes, I need all the battery I can get.

 

[topcat001]

Why do you use MacOS Safari for Netflix/Prime Video and Edge for videos on Windows? Is it an issue with FF?

I can only understand Safari users since they like to stick to the Apple ecosystem+Safari really is quite, smooth, and light on battery usage on MacOS. I am not sure how they achieve that over other browsers.

^ That's the reason. In order to get the lowest resource utilisation and the the best possible quality.