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Ask HN: What can Firefox do to get you to make the switch?

20 points by abbadadda ↗ HN
Over the past several months, due to privacy concerns, I have been working on making the switch to Firefox. Other browsers out there cough Chrome cough are great but the idea of their parent company reading every website I visit is unsettling. I am trying to break out of the Google ecosystem in general, but I'm having a hard time with my web browser. Overall I have been really impressed with some of Firefox's new features in addition to the dedication to privacy and security. But there are some things missing for me in Firefox that could be improved to encourage me to make the switch. The hardest part is porting over all my saved information such as usernames and passwords. But then there are little things like no ability to pull down a web page on Firefox mobile to refresh.

Whether big or small, what can Firefox do to encourage you to make the switch from your browser of choice?

34 comments

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smt88
1Password and other password managers can import from Chrome and integrate with Firefox.
ddingus
On Mobile:

Look at font rendering. Chrome is really good. FF is a mixed bag, and generally a slower experience. The speed is secondary though. Fitting things onto a page nicely is king.

Bonus points for more / better text flow on zoom no matter what the site specifies. Again, on mobile.

On desktop, I just need to migrate some more things and I'll switch back. Never really left, but Chrome did end up getting 90 percent of my browsing.

neilsimp1
> But then there are little things like no ability to pull down a web page on Firefox mobile to refresh.

This works for me with Firefox on Android. Not sure about Firefox Preview but definitely works on the normal FF app.

I've always been a FF user so there's nothing that would make me switch from Chrome. Extension support, speed, etc. are all exactly where I'd want them compared to Chrome, so really I don't feel like one has much of a leg up on the other.

bradstewart
> This works for me with Firefox on Android.

Really? Definitely does not work for me on a Pixel 2 XL.

mbdesign
Same here. And I do miss it as it saves me two taps (open menu -> refresh)
scrumper
Support pinch zoom in/out on Mac like Safari (and Chrome) does. That pretty much would seal it for me.
vulkd
This seemed like a trivial thing until I made the switch back to Firefox as a main browser after n years. It is difficult without this feature.

Safari displays an "all tabs" view when zooming out at 100% zoom (kinda mobile-esque), making Chrome's method is the smoothest in my experience. It's just done so well.

Firefox (dev edition, at least) contains some 'pinch' settings in it's about:config prefs that enable a somewhat usable pinch-to-zoom. It's a bit clunky, broken on some sites, reflows content sometimes, and clicking or selecting text almost never works when zoomed in. But it's usable, and great to see it make it into the browser without needing an extension, even with it's caveats.

I'd love if Sublime Text or VS Code had this feature, but iirc anything even similar would be far off even with plugins/extensions.

Other than gestures... Tree-Style tabs is the absolute killer 'feature' for me. Vertical tabs are amazing.

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waychukucha
I have always found Firefox to have a very ugly interface. I don’t know what exactly to point out. I also don’t like how it handles multiple profiles I wish they just ripped how chromium handles it. But despite those 2 things that I really hate about Firefox, I went on and switched to it 2 months ago. Simply creating a new profile and importing the data from the related chrome profile. Took a bit of getting used to but so far I don’t think I’ll switch back to chrome. On mobile though, its harder purely for lack of profiles.
new_here
I think what bothers me about the Firefox UI is all of the visible border lines used in the chrome (tabs, around address bar etc). I compared it to the Chrome UI which has tried to remove as many of these as possible and it makes the intereface much softer and more pleasant.
oca159
I prefer Firefox because omnibox is terrible
non-entity
Omnibox made me switch on Desktop, but I still prefer chrome on mobile
pdimitar
More widely supported Reading Mode. People piss on Safari and love to hate it on HN and Reddit but the Reading Mode has saved my eyes many, many times.

Additionally, something that will make me immediately switch to any browser: ability to style websites even if they don't have switches for light/dark mode. Put that in a browser and I'll switch right away. (Although this can be easily tackled if the Reading Mode works on the site, so it's related.)

Finally: built-in, harsh, and highly configurable ad-blocking.

lagilogi
Dark Reader for dark/light mode, ublock origin for ad blocking.

I understand you want these baked in, but if they baked every feature everyone wanted into the software, it would become an ugly monolith monster. This goes for Chrome as well as fx.

zeulhex
Last time I researched it, Chrome's design for sandboxing and multiprocessing was much more extensive and mature. Firefox is working on getting there, but it's an afterthought. I'm under the impression that Chrome is close to invulnerable against non-targeted attacks in which code escapes the browser or the tab, which is my main security concern.
sethammons
I switched just a couple of weeks ago. FF gave me the option to import bookmarks, saved passwords, and the like. Worked great. I think it took a bit to sync all up, but I'm logging into sites easily in FF. I like that you have to right click and choose which login to use. What I don't like is that FF has locked up several times. And I don't like that I apparently need to be more accurate in touch-clicking small kinks like upvotes or collapse thread on HN. One feature request is around highlighting text. I have to look practically under my finger or thumb. In Chrome, a zoomed in dialog box pops up letting me know what I have selected.
kh2ouija
Work with my Chromecast
Samon
This. And other Google services like Hangouts. I've tried a handful if times to switch from Chrome to Firefox but my company uses GSuite so having to have Chrome running for Hangouts anyway makes the point moot.
buboard
a way to support users directly. some version of what Brave does.
traK6Dcm
Easy account sandboxing and profiles would be the biggest for me. Both Chrome and Firefox have this in some way, but it's still rather primitive.

I think the bigger issue for most people are the switching costs. I don't even know if Firefox is better than Chrome, and honestly, I don't care, because I don't want to put the effort into switching. The only way to get me to switch was if Firefox had some absolutely huge advantage over Chrome that would make switching worth it. But I can't even think of what that would be.

Samon
The multi-profile functionality in Chrome is just so much more usable than Firefox. Yes you can hack things together with command line arguments and shortcuts, but its nowhere near as seamless.
runjake
Nothing. I switched when Firefox Quantum came out. Haven't regretted it since.
Vomzor
Using the default macOS scrolling instead of their own implementation which feels off.
hollerith
Firefox does its own text rendering, so it might have no choice but to implement its own scrolling (and e.g. window resizing) though they could pay closer attention to simulating native scrolling.
maverick74
I've always used Firefox (at least since i switched from IE6 LOL)

but my most important features can be summarized (mostly) here: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Security/Tor_Uplift/Tracking

86 little bugs... but this as a personal user.

As a business user there are others that need to be fixed (pwa features, i'm looking at you!!!).

but then again... I've already made the switch, so...

handoff
Better browser extension developing / debugging tooling. Or at least something that doesn’t freeze or crash as often as it does now
sansnomme
Raw speed and performance. Chrome still comes ahead in these aspects. Especially so on mobile where Firefox seems to be taking its own sweet time to beta test Firefox preview. Chrome gives the feeling of things being "slick". You don't get it with Firefox. It's a bit like the difference between Linux and Windows/OS X UIs. Often the actual drawing performance may be similar/indistinguishable but there is a significant difference in what the user ultimately perceives.
wj
Print to PDF. I print invoices and payment confirmations to PDF. In Chrome it is nice to get a preview and then to save without having to load a native PDF viewer. I also print coloring pages for my kids and being able to preview those before printing is helpful in cases of seeing how it looks in landscape or portrait and see if they would run over to a second page.
gyaru
Huh, Print to PDF has existed in a long time in Firefox.

In the printer list, the option "Print to File" should exist.

wj
It does but doesn't have the preview.
muzani
I already use Firefox but it's missing a few Chrome extensions and has poor performance on some sites, especially the Google ones.
mbrodersen
Make "Save as PDF" work well. I have tried to move to Firefox many times but I always return to Chrome because of how badly the "Save as PDF" work in Firefox. I use the "Save as PDF" feature ALL the time to read web articles on my iPad.