Tell me the truth – Which is better, Chrome or Firefox?

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HA!

Thought that would get your attention.

I’m discussing browsers in the latest AskWoody Newsletter and, with IE and Edge out of the ring, that leaves a very simple question.

Personally, I use both. Cowardly, I know.

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ch100, Elly

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Well. At work, I typically have simultaneously active at least Firefox, Chrome and Vivaldi. Occasionally also Pale Moon, Midori, Opera, w3m, Lynx and Konqueror, and for some specific tasks
even IE…

The one thing I gain from that is insulation of the browser-kept data. I mean, since any “private / incognito mode” browser session still shares data between windows/tabs, the easiest way to get multiple such such sessions insulated from each other is to open them from different browsers.

(Sure I could do alternate profiles in Firefox but that’s a bit of a bother – and I believe technically not supported on Windows for simultaneous use, even if it usually works…)

And every now and then there’s something that just needs a specific compatibility bit. I did mention somewhere else the … unpleasantness… of having to use an insecure browser with plugins and whatever to access things like router/firewall or NAS/SAN configuration, with some devices.

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Edge out? It’s used by more than 77 million. Does it have any real disadvantages?

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Edge works for me! I try to remain blissfully unaware of any reasons I might “need” a different browser.

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b wrote:

Edge out? It’s used by more than 77 million. Does it have any real disadvantages?

Woody only says he uses both, not that either is better. Any reader here knows he is in love with Chrome. Not saying he pushes it, but he sure mentions it often enough

Microsoft’s browser, from reports is going to be based on Chrome in the future, maybe that’s why Woody cast them out of the “ring” …. connect the dots.

Answering Woody’s Q … I use 2 browsers, FireFox and Waterfox. Both have Startpage on the toolbar for searching. I use both foxes. Hoping I will never have to use Chrome, Edge or any of the others, find something you are comfortable with that doesn’t change a lot … relax.

Chrome IS google, I could never relax using it.
ymmv

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Microsoft is throwing up its hands all too frivolously in my opinion to slap on a undercarriage of Chrome, allegedly because YouTube is not loading fast enough for them. Seems like a very flawed reason, but maybe Microsoft are doing it because really think that Electron JavaScript application stuff is going to be “a good thing”?

My speculation for the disadvantage you seek is this: I’m not sure how all the tines of the Chrome forks will end up, but it seems there is possibility to have some amount of uniform common undiscovered flaws that maybe exploited in a future.

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@ b

Yes, Edge is very much lacking in extensions, similar to Win 10 Mobile very much lacking in apps = a death sentence.

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Edge has 239 extensions available. Which important ones are missing?

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I use both.

Firefox has better a better bookmark manager in my opinion. Google would probably prefer that you used their search engine rather than bookmarking.

I never install the Flash plugin in Firefox, so I use Chrome if I need Flash for anything. Plus Chrome keeps Flash up to date for me, so I never have to worry about running an out of date version.

Overall I don’t dislike Chrome, but I am a heavy bookmark user, so I stick with Firefox as my default browser.

Some Google sites seem to work better with Chrome for some reason.

Performance wise, they seem about equal on my system, so no edge there (no pun intended). And ever since I updated Firefox to 64-bit Quantum, it has been extremely stable.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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Chessie

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I have been using Firefox for a few years and love it. Don’t like Chrome or Google.

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I’ve been with Firefox since almost the beginning and they regularly update to address security issues.  I like the fact that Mozilla are independent of the bug corporate produced browsers.  That said, I do use Chrome on my Android phone and tablet.

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I’ve been a mozilla browser user from the Phoenix/ Firebird days on Windows and Linux, tried Chrome and more recently Brave (blink rendering; Brave is the fastest browser I’ve ever used).
I still, to this day, revert to using Firefox, it’s my safe haven for browsing, too much accrued tricks/knowledge to waste. It’s a personal choice YMMV

Edit: Our Firefoxes are sandboxed as a safeguard, in Linux I use firejail and Windows sandboxie.

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I’d replace chrome with Chromium and firefox with Waterfox or Pale moon
Go for the OPEN source!

back to fishing for better dreams

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I use both.  Portable Firefox ESR and the latest build of Chrome Beta.

I like Chrome better.

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Still on FF56.0.2 and haven’t gone to Quantum. I prefer it to Chrome and there’s no way I’m giving Google-hoover any more of my personal data.

Windows 10 Home 22H2, Acer Aspire TC-1660 desktop + LibreOffice, non-techie

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Firefox is the only browser you should use if you value privacy. Never use Google Chrome for anything. That includes the use of Chromebooks that may appear to be very convenient but pretty much sell your whole livelihood to the WWW corporate enterprises. Old style none Chromium Opera 12.18 was even better. But this browser was sold by the Norwegian company. The successor that uses Chromium Vivaldi can not be setup to block all content and then re enable the parts that you do want something that Firefox can do.

In the Firefox options disable all cookies and trackers and install the Firefox add on Privacy Badger. Then reenable only those cookies that you need for a specific website to function in the Firefox options. You can use Firefox website inspection menu to look into the website HTML code to try and figure out which cookie/address you need to enable. Some sites use multiple cookies and hide behind secondary WWW addresses. So depending on the website it may take quite some digging to figure out the correct address. Use Privacy Badger to block all third party connections in a way that Firefox ignores their calls completely. This is a very heavy handed way of surfing the web but it will block pretty much all nastiness without the need to install extra tools or programs. Apart from an add on for Firefox itself Privacy Badger. If you mostly use the same websites every day then it is basically a one time setup. If your like me and have a very long cookie exception list then be sure to make regular backups of your Firefox profile!

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doriel, Chessie, Charlie

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Better at what?

For me, Firefox is far better, and Waterfox is better still.  I want a browser that gives me the maximum power to wrest control away from the web developers and to put that power in my hands, to allow me to see the web as I wish to see it rather than how some stranger I never met and who has no idea about my needs wants me to see it.

That was the original view of what the web was supposed to be.  HTML stands for HyperText Markup Language, and the idea of markup was to mark up the various types of content so that the browser can render that content in the manner the user has chosen for that content type.  The idea was never to have an electronic version of typesetting, where the document will look identical on every user’s screen, an accurate reflection of how the designer meant it to be.  The idea was to have each person customize how he wants to see each content type, and to have the HTML document describe the content type of each bit of the page, but not the exact way it should be rendered.

Times have changed, and so have the HTML specifications.  While the original vision of HTML is still valid, somehow we’ve gotten to the point that the publisher of each page is now expected to have full control over how that page looks on every screen.  IThat’s how we’ve come to have some people complaining that the brown text links on the brownish-yellowish-reddish woodgrain panel on the right are hard to read.  On my display they’re very easy to read, and the design is aesthetically pleasing, but evidently that’s not the case for everyone.  As I say so often, one size does not fit all.  Every pair of eyes perceives color and text differently, and different monitors display things differently too.  Even a slight change in ICC color profile data can make a legible display very hard to read, or the reverse, and differences in display hardware make an even bigger difference.

I don’t just want that kind of control over sites, though.  I want the browser to look a certain way, and that way is apparently so out-of-date that it usually takes significant customization to achieve, if it can be achieved at all.  Chrome has always had a minimalist, wholly uncustomizable “take it or leave it” interface, where it’s not even possible to get back the classic “File Edit View” menu bar (which for me is an instant deal-breaker).

Firefox (in its Quantum form) is much more customizable than that, allowing one to restore the menu bar easily and make some other changes, but it doesn’t go far enough for me, and it doesn’t allow addons to significantly change its appearance.

Classic Firefox, Waterfox, Pale Moon, etc., have a lot more potential there, though Pale Moon is the one that requires the least effort to look right, as it was forked from the Firefox code base before the Australis makeover of Firefox.  Waterfox has Australis, but it also accepts the excellent “Classic Theme Restorer” addon, which adds hundreds of customization options to Waterfox, allowing a complete reversion of Australis if that’s desired (and it is, with me).

Of the Firefox vs. Chrome pair, Firefox is still far better than Chrome in its customizability, though it took a severe hit when Quantum arrived.  I’ve gotten on Mozilla’s case for trying to make Firefox into a Chrome clone, but it’s not there yet.  It’s had a lot of the original Firefox goodness stripped out, but not all of it, and it’s still well ahead… for now.  If things keep going as they have, it may eventually be stripped to the point of being Chrome, but for now, it’s still better, though less and less so with each coming release.  Waterfox tops them both, and I hope it continues to do so, but I’m nervous about that… backporting stuff from Firefox will get harder and harder as the code bases continue to diverge, and it may become untenable at some point.

Waterfox is the only truly excellent browser available now for Windows or Linux (and probably Mac), IMO; Pale Moon is decent, but without e10s, it is much jankier and not even close to the glassy smoothness I get with Waterfox scrolling around in pages, even on weaker hardware like that in my Apollo Lake (N4200 SoC, Atom-based quad core) based Acer Swift.  Firefox itself has been stripped of too much of its functionality for me to ever be happy with it in its current form, and it seems like it just keeps getting worse and worse with each release, which seems to be the norm in so much of the software world now!

Most recently (this was a few releases ago, but since I don’t use Firefox proper, I’m not aware of anything newer that they’ve done to harm Firefox), they took out something seemingly rather innocuous, the “unread” tab state, which I rely upon heavily in the way I browse (as I have for many years).  Poof, they took it out, another feature gone, another severe reduction in Firefox’s usability.

Mozilla’s strategy of making Firefox less useful hasn’t worked, as the market share continues to fall.

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wavy, SueW, Bill C., GoneToPlaid, Cybertooth

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I had been toying with the idea of switching to the Brave browser, a Chrome derivative. Its concept for funding websites via micro-contributions is interesting, although still difficult for normal people to put into action they way they had implemented it.

However, the latest version of Brave has also eliminated the menu bar (File/Edit/View, etc.) and I loathe having to go into a hamburger menu to start hunting for features. I haven’t performed a systematic comparison, but I have a hard time avoiding the sense that there are fewer options in there than there used to be.

Oh, and now the tabs in Brave are all the way at the top of the screen, instead of just above the page contents where I prefer them; and there appears to be no way to put them back there. So I don’t expect to be using Brave much after all, or by extension (so to speak) Chrome.

 

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Your last sentence says it all, yet Mozilla chose not to listen to their users.

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Ascaris

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You know? The answer to the question in the title of this thread, in my own experience, depends considerably on what machine you have. Firefox 65 and previous, all the way back to since it went “Quantum”, runs veeery slooow in my Windows 7 Pro, SP1, x64, with a I-7 “sandy bridge” CPU,  71/2 year-old laptop. Chrome, on the other hand, runs quite normally there. Waterfox (a fork of FF) takes its time getting started in that old PC, but after that, its speed doing things is pretty normal and satisfactory.

On the other hand, all three: FF, WF and Chrome run equally fast — and pretty well, as far as I can tell — in my new-ish, fully charged, Mac laptop ca. late 2015.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Wow… Firefox should not be that slow on a Sandy i7, even a mobile one.  It’s still quite a capable bit of hardware.  I’ve run Firefox on my Core 2 Duo laptop and my Swift laptop too (N4200), and it’s decent on them… both of them being significantly slower than a Sandy i7.

I’m thinking it’s a configuration issue on the Sandy.

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Bill C., GoneToPlaid

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Your FF install may have leftover, yet flawed older config settings, for some of Mozilla’s “experiments” which are known to cause slow browser behavior.

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Lars220

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There’s a workaround for that

disable-firefox-experiments-v60+

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Lars220, SueW

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Waterfox and FireFox both were mentioned as having recently discovered vulnerabilities in a rather scary Alert message I received from Woody’s a couple of days ago, and you probably have seen as well. That was the first and the last I’ve heard about it.

I prefer Waterfox to all the other browsers I run both on the PC and the Mac, although Chrome has not done anything really bad to me so far and I don’t mind it. Besides, my bank likes it, for whatever reason, so I use it to go there on line, see if it still have all my money where I last left it.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
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On Android devices, Chrome will bombard the users with unstoppable ads because no extensions are allowed in Chrome = better to use “extendable” Firefox for Android.

If the Android device users do not mind being interrupted by ads, then Chrome is better than Firefox, eg Chrome has the built-in feature for side-by-side windows/view from Android 7.0 or later.

On desktops/laptops, ads can be blocked in Chrome but not anonymous tracking and user-data collection = better to use Firefox, unless the users do not mind being anonymously tracked and user-data collected.

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SueW

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Is that only on cell phones? In my PC and in my Mac I have add blockers that keep all that away, unless I decide to white list the site of some deserving cause (Woody’s for example, while it  was still taking adds.) It also keeps them off the right side bar when I look for something on YouTube (mostly concerts: Bach, and how to get rich by doing this simple trick don’t mix too well, really; occasionally also watch YouTube videos on how to do something or other.)

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Yes, cell-phones/smartphones or tablets.

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I use neither.

I used Firefox last decade when I needed to test websites in it, but never warmed to it. Too many glitches with it and extensions.

I don’t use Chrome because I prefer to get my software from software companies rather than an advertising company. Not a big ideological thing—one of my main email accounts is Gmail, I used Google Apps until 365 became available, and I use Google search occasionally—just prefer to limit my exposure to a marketing company.

Opera is my main browser, and I use Edge and IE where Opera doesn’t provide what I need. Vivaldi will be my next whenever, to provide the old Opera experience before it went the Chrome route. The Chrome route is good of course, because it provides access to most of the Chrome extensions.

I’ll give MS’s replacement Chrome-based browser a run when it appears and people confirm it’s decent—since it’ll be from a software company.

Lugh.
~
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DrBonzo

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Finally, another Opera User! I use it almost exclusively. I like the user interface, I’ve never had any sort of problem with it, it’s rare to see a security advisory about it, and it’s easy for a non-tech like me to do some amount of tweaking without having to become a full-time expert on browsers.

A few other comments/questions:

What really is so bad about IE 11? It has a good user interface, can be tweaked somewhat relatively easily, and while I don’t compile statistics about this, it seems to me that there are far more security issues for FF and Chrome than there are for IE 11 (that’s what I conclude from the weekly NCAS(?) reports that @Kirsty posts here at AskWoody). It also seems that FF has a lot of other issues from what I read here. And, of course, Chrome has a bunch of privacy issues. I know there are telemetry issues with MS and some security holes in IE 11, but all things considered, IE 11 seems relatively good to me.

I should add here that I am NOT an MS fan boy and will likely abandon all things MS when EOS for Win 7 comes next January.

Some anecdotal evidence: I take care of a handful of Win 7 machines for other folks. Each machine has FF, Opera, Chrome, and IE 11 on it. I keep all the browsers updated weekly. There are few, if any, tweaks/modifications on any of the browsers; essentially, they’re all “right out of the box”. Among these folks IE 11 and Opera are used almost exclusively while FF and Chrome are not used at all. These folks are older/retired, non-techie, and all started out using FF and Chrome exclusively. When they started having usability issues with FF and learned more about privacy issues with Chrome they all switched to the other 2 browsers. I did not prod them in any way shape or form into that decision.

I’d welcome any feedback especially from those who think I need further education about IE 11 and/or Opera.

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Very happy to see other Opera users here.  I’ve been using mainly Opera from its very early days.  I’ve always liked that it was often the earliest adopter of the latest web standards (even though this sometimes broke sites that used non-compliant html practices).

I lost a little bit of enthusiasm for it when it adopted the Chrome engine, but not enough to switch to another browser.  I really like the built-in free VPN option (which I mostly use when I’m in the Private Browsing mode).  The user-agent switcher is also handy – many sites will tell me my browser is out of date (because they don’t understand Opera), so then I just have Opera tell them it is Chrome or Firefox, and they’re happy.

When Opera doesn’t work on a site, Edge is usually my next option.

Unfortunately, I can’t completely kill IE – the Chrysler Service Manual (no print versions these days) for my 2017 Chrysler will only run on IE with ActiveX enabled.  At least that is using the browser mostly locally, although I suspect it is still doing some internet connected background things.

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I don’t use Google (directly), I’ve never used Chrome, I stopped using Edge when Microsoft announced that they will gut Edge and wrap the skin around Chrome, and I started using Firefox.  For search I use Startpage, which anonymizes my search requests to Google.

I don’t use Bing.  On my Windows phone I still use Edge, but I use Startpage there instead of Bing.  I simply don’t like “targeted” ads.  I made Startpage my homepage a couple of years ago, and developed the habit of clicking on the Home button whenever I leave a site.  If I want to visit a link, I’ll copy the link, jump to Startpage, then use “Paste and go” in the address bar.

I’ve been doing this religiously for a couple of months now, and I no longer see any targeted ads on any site I visit.  My browsing history has to be at least 50% Startpage, which pretty much negates the use of my browsing history (if anyone can actually track through anonymization every other move through the internet) to target any ads toward me.

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Fred

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Use FF 100% of the time. Thanks for the tip off to use “Startpage”; am now using it for most all searches. Duckduckgo as an alternative, but can’t view YouTube or Google maps with it. Don’t like Google’s general snoopiness. BTW, can anyone answer, is FF 65.0.1 good to go? Notifications to update have been pushed at me for about a week. I know a few weeks back the FF update was causing some issues.

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Demeter: I got an update two days ago for 65.0.1, but that update was issued by Mozilla on the 12th, at about the time an alert was received and then resent to all of us with “Plus” from Woody’s, on security issues with FF. So I think those vulnerabilities, that looked serious (depending of what one does, I suppose), might not have been fixed yet, so it might be an idea to wait a while longer before using FF again. Or Waterfox, Pale Moon, etc. from the Mozilla family?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I don’t know of any ongoing issues with Firefox.

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Microfix, PKCano, Demeter, JohnW

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Sorry, my mistake. The alert was about a security problem with Mozilla, and I assumed would be affecting Firefox, etc. But I have not heard anything about it in this site since then.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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The Firefox security information was updated a day or two ago – no further update had been issued since the security update of Feb. 12th. The information remains current.

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Demeter

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Thanks, forgot to mention I’m running Win 7 Pro x64, SP1, i7-Core Haswell

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Demeter wrote:

BTW, can anyone answer, is FF 65.0.1 good to go? Notifications to update have been pushed at me for about a week. I know a few weeks back the FF update was causing some issues.

Yes, it’s ok to update, no problems here

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Demeter

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OscarCP wrote:

You know? The answer to the question in the title of this thread, in my own experience, depends considerably on what machine you have. Firefox 65 and previous, all the way back to since it went “Quantum”, runs veeery slooow in my Windows 7 Pro, SP1, x64, with a I-7 “sandy bridge” CPU, 71/2 year-old laptop. Chrome, on the other hand, runs quite normally there. Waterfox (a fork of FF) takes its time getting started in that old PC, but after that, its speed doing things is pretty normal and satisfactory. On the other hand, all three: FF, WF and Chrome run equally fast — and pretty well, as far as I can tell — in my new-ish, fully charged, Mac laptop ca. late 2015.

I have always found the best way to test Firefox for a possibly corrupt profile and/or problem add-ons, is to just create a brand new clean profile and launch Firefox with that one. You can keep your existing profile and roll back to that if you don’t see any improvement.

You could try a “safe mode” launch first, which only rules out add-ons. But it retains your existing profile.

I have cured several stubborn Firefox problem over the years with this method. A new profile gives your Firefox a total fresh start! But I would recommend exporting your bookmarks first, as those are only saved in your existing profile.

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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JohnW: Thanks for taking the time to explain how to get FF running faster in my old PC. Actually, I use Waterfox there, mostly; only occasionally, for a few things, Chrome, as I already mentioned, and have no particular reason for using anything else. In the Mac, which am using even more often than the Windows 7 PC these days, same story. I have not used Opera. I suspect that if, as DrBonzo wrote above, Opera has not have a lot of security problems, might be that is because it has relatively few users, and black-hat criminals rather go for the big ones, I would imagine. So, perhaps, using Opera is a case of [some] safety NOT in numbers, as in the case of macOS or LINUX.

As to IE11, I keep updating it, but now use it rarely, not because I don’t like it, but because it has become almost automatic for me to go and open Waterfox, as I can do that both in the Windows PC and on the Mac, while IE11 is Windows-only: so launching just WF has become an acquired habit for me, by now. I imagine that “leaning to browser X” might not be such a rare thing among computer users, at least those that do not have to choose browsers for some very technical reasons related to the work they do, and things like that.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Another reason I prefer FF to Chrome is due to ONE extension: NoScript
I am aware there are other blockers but, the fact noscript isn’t an extension in Google Chrome makes it all the more valueable and worthwhile to keep using

Think about it..

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Bill C.

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I used NoScript for years, but finally got tired of it breaking so many websites. uMatrix for me from now on!

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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bradam, Fred

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For me depends of the browser I installed  and which computer I am on at the time. I am the moment I am serious think of leaving the “Google” world and using either SlimJet, Opera, or Lunascape and replacing one or more Computer Browsers with one of the above. Google IMO has too many fingers in too many Privacy Pies. Add DuckduckGo as search engine and the way to “google” freedom is started.

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@ Ascaris

 

What is / are e10s??

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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E10s is Mozilla shorthand for “electrolysis,” in the common tech shorthand of using the first and last letter of a word plus a number that signifies the number of letters omitted.  It presumably refers to the process of applying electricity to water, splitting the water molecules into atoms of hydrogen and oxygen (though elemental oxygen very quickly will form O2 molecules).

In Firefox, it refers to the splitting of the single Firefox process into multiple processes, which is an undertaking that the Mozilla devs have been working on for years, and finally landed in the release version not that long ago.  The purpose was to improve responsiveness and reduce or eliminate “jank,” or the stuttering and lack of smoothness mostly noticeable when scrolling or moving things around.  At times, the single process Firefox will freeze for a short bit of time while it’s working on something that momentarily blocks the CPU core from being able to do anything else.  Splitting the program into multiple processes that can be scheduled on separate CPU cores allows these blocking operations to take place on one core while the core operating the UI can operate independently.

Firefox was originally developed back in the single-core CPU days, so it wasn’t engineered initially with features that work well with multiple-core CPUs, and it took Mozilla a considerable amount of effort to make it work.  They did make it work, though, and it works brilliantly, even with all of my legacy addons– not all of which were tagged as being compatible with e10s.

With e10s, I can scroll up and down and left and right with my slowish (and ironically named) Acer Swift laptop using two fingers on the touchpad.  It’s just gorgeously smooth, with no hint of stutter or other “jank.”  The single-process Firefox was always noticeably un-smooth and full of judder.

The Pale Moon/Basilisk dev has said that those projects will not be supporting e10s.  It’s simply too complex to try to backport that whole thing to the older code base of Pale Moon, and you’d have to ask him why it isn’t in Basilisk. I’m sure it’s a rational reason for what he intends for Basilisk, but I don’t know offhand what it is.  I had to choose between the customizability of PM/Basilisk or the smoothness of e10s, I’d take the customizability, but with Waterfox, you can have both, so that’s the choice for me.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

5 users thanked author for this post.

Lars220, Cybertooth, wavy, bradam, JohnW

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JohnW wrote:

#328285

Thanks for that. I saw your post at #328285 about troubleshooting Firefox. I am pleased with FF and do like Quantum, but since v65 have had some issues. For me, my first try to resolve any FF issues has involved disabling NoScript as it is frequently an issue. I have also had issues with HTTPS Everywhere, but mainly since v65. That issue was resolved with v65.0.1.

I will try uMatrix.

I avoid Chrome due to tracking, privacy, etc. I use DuckDuckGo as a default, but will resort to Google for some searches.

I have to research Startpage that was mentioend early in the thread.

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I use both DuckDuckGo and Startpage more recently. I believe I’m finding the results from Startpage to be a little better of the 2, i.e. more on target, relevant. On Firefox 80-90% of the time, though I like using Opera also.

Windows 8.1, Linux Mint 19.1, NEVER 10. Group B.

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I have one question, perhaps of interest here, but first an explanation:

I use Google all the time, while browsing looking for something, mostly technical information, very occasionally to find who is selling something I need. So far, nothing bad has happened to me that I can see. I do not get spammed with advertisements on: medicines I am prescribed and I google to find out what interactions and side-effects they may have (I am as trustful when it comes to sticking medicines inside of me as I am when patching my Windows 7 PC with the emanations from Redmond.) Or about where to buy DVDs of movies, or where to buy certain herbal medicine that, surprisingly enough, actually works for me and causes no obvious harm otherwise. Or where to buy the odd thing I have no idea who sells it or where. Before I turned on my add blocker on Google, I used to get adds in Google’s sidebars for GPS receivers because I am often looking for technical publications on the subject, although I’ve never bought or used one myself. I have a good sense of orientation, I guess. And the ad blocker put paid to all Google ads as well, except for a few, clearly recognizable “commercial” links at the bottom of the search page, to sites that would hope to sell me something usually totally unrelated to what I am looking for.

So, what am I doing wrong, even if I’ve never noticed something bad happening to me because I do searches with Google?

I used IE 11 exclusively for years, mostly Waterfox these days, as I’ve already explained here; could that be why? And how? Thanks.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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b wrote:

Edge out? It’s used by more than 77 million. Does it have any real disadvantages?

One that really annoys me is that I can’t drag URL’s from the address bar to the desktop or to another browser.  And I can’t drag URL’s from another browser into Edge and have the page open.

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I was using Firefox for a while, but when Edge came out I gave it a try but quit since it wouldn’t allow Roboform to work with a local password database. Had some trouble with Firefox so tried Opera and them moved to Vivaldi as I liked its interface more and the fact that it started up with the focus pre-set on the URL address field. I use DuckDuckGo for search and run HTTPSEverywhere and PrivacyBadger.

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I checked out PrivacyBadger and I like it! Thanks.

Windows 11 Pro
Version 23H2
OS build 22631.5039

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I use Firefox about 90% of the time. So far so good. An issue I have noticed, some web pages will not show with private browsing turned on so I just turn private browsing off til I’m done with that particular web page. I have a Lenovo laptop with Windows 10.  I seek out AskWoody everyday to help educate me about patch watch and the Microsoft update mess!! Thank You!!!

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Don’care! I use Opera! Main reason is that whilst nicely functional it’s less popular and so – I figure – less likely to be hacked or used to gather data.

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I too don’t really care much whether Chrome or Firefox is better.
Though Mozilla Firefox 63 and higher have removed the ability to “never check for Firefox updates” on Windows

I mostly use Opera as well as Seamonkey and Palemoon.

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ahem..firefox 63 onwards still has the ability to ‘never check for updates’ with a little tweak or two:
https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-stop-firefox-making-automatic-connections

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

1 user thanked author for this post.

Bill C.

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@Microfix –

Sorry, but the trick mentioned by the Mozilla support page you refer to is now obsolete, sort of. The choice to “Never check for updates (not recommended: security risk)” has been removed completely from the UI on the “about:preferences” page. Our best choice now is to “Check for updates but let you choose to install them” along with keeping the “Automatically update search engines” checkbox cleared. This was by their own design starting in, I believe, FF64.

However, perhaps there’s a tweak in about:config that can be set to not automatically so much as even check for updates.

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Looks like my err, I’m in FF ESR: I invoke the update, when I know there is one available instead of FF connecting to update servers. So FF63/64 update can’t be disabled? I must have missed that. I’m sure my prefs.js exported to FF 65.01 over-rides this..I’ll need to check later.

From the about:preferences Firefox Updates section.
Could it be that ESR is the way forward for FF users..opposed to normal FF quantum?

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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Perhaps this solution (actually a choice of several) will be of help?

https://www.ghacks.net/2018/07/28/mozilla-makes-it-more-difficult-to-block-firefox-updates/

Note that I have not tried any of the offered solutions as I am still on Firefox 61.0.1 Portable (and Waterfox). Firefox’s decision to eliminate Bookmark Descriptions beginning with ver 62 was a deal breaker for me.

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PaleMoon all day with Edge for the occasional problem site.

FF is now as ugly as heck and much less functional.

 

Just because you don't know where you are going doesn't mean any road will get you there.

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I use Opera, FireFox, and am playing with Vivaldi. Opera is getting a bit chunky, but it syncs well with my phone. Unfortunately, my bank’s new website doesn’t work on Chromium-based browsers and I can’t make it work well on FireFox yet, so I use IE for that. The website is a classic example of reinventing technology that is not in need of reinventing. When one reinvents the wheel, it should still be round.

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I’ve decided to place my faith in the augmented chromium browser market. Over the years I’ve run a few of these modified chrome clones. The idea being that some developer strips out the parts that “phone home” or capture browsing data leaving a less intrusive fully functional browser behind.

Currently I am using SRWare Iron browser and it does everything that the regular Chrome does but it doesn’t constantly talk to Google about what I am doing on the web.

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dph853: “The idea being that some developer strips out the parts that “phone home” or capture browsing data leaving a less intrusive fully functional browser behind.”

Same idea behind Waterfox, that is double-designed to avoid leaking personal information of its users, first, by its creator’s philosophy and, second, by being an agile, but fully-featured fork — as far as really useful things go — of FireFox and, thus, associated with Mozilla.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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I use Pale Moon as my primary browser, and have for years. I can set it up the way I want it to look, not like someone else thinks it is best for me. Pale Moon has changed over the years, but there are so many add-ons that my browser layout is basically the same as it was 5 years ago. And Pale Moon’s developers actually listen to, and make changes, based on user input. When was the last time Chrome did that?

Previous to Pale Moon, I used Opera, which thru version 12+, was also a very customizable browser. But then they went to the Chromium engine, and the flexibility was gone.

I do a website for a local nonprofit, so I also have IE 11, Chrome, and an older version of Firefox, which I use to make sure any changes I make on the website are compatible. And I use Chrome for those few instances when a website was created only for Chrome, with no regard to non-Chrome users.

 

Harry

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Elly

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I use Waterfox 100% of the time at home. My Ivy Bridge-based i7 laptop ran Firefox terribly, yet Waterfox is absolutely fine. Does everything I need.

In work, I have a Skylake machine so I use Firefox there. I don’t trust Chrome at all.

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woody wrote:

I don’t know of any ongoing issues with Firefox.

Same here. Firefox 65.0.1 running as well as ever on Windows 10 Pro 1803.

Release notes: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/65.0.1/releasenotes/

Security vulnerabilities fixed in Firefox 65.0.1: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/security/advisories/mfsa2019-04/

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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I have mentioned earlier in this thread that I received an alert, that I believe was emailed to me as a Plus member, on the 12th of this month, on some apparently serious security issues with Mozilla FF and perhaps other Mozilla software. Some people have posted more recently, also in this thread, that there are no problems (at least that they are aware of) with FireFox, and I have seen nothing more written about this alert either, alert which now I am copying below, so perhaps someone might be kind enough to finally comment on it and maybe also explain why nothing more has been said about it. With my thanks to those who do, because this has been worrying me for sometime now.

Edited to add: The FF browsers have been updated, as can be seen in the link provided in the email. Does it mean that the problems have been solved wit those updates? An explicit statement on the present situation as of today, February 20th, will be much appreciated. Thanks

BEGIN COPIED ALERT TEXT:

Microfix wrote:

REF: Bulletin (SB19-042) Vulnerability Summary for the Week of February 4, 2019: https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/bulletins/SB19-042

The US Cert Dept of Homeland Security is reporting various Critical and High vulnerabilities with Firefox and Thunderbird. Affected Versions: Firefox < 65; < 60.5 ESR and Thunderbird < 60.5

A use-after-free vulnerability can occur while parsing an HTML5 stream in concert with custom HTML elements. This results in the stream parser object being freed while still in use, leading to a potentially exploitable crash. This vulnerability affects Thunderbird < 60.5, Firefox ESR < 60.5, and Firefox < 65.

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-18500

Mozilla developers and community members reported memory safety bugs present in Firefox 64 and Firefox ESR 60.4. Some of these bugs showed evidence of memory corruption and we presume that with enough effort that some of these could be exploited to run arbitrary code. This vulnerability affects Thunderbird < 60.5, Firefox ESR < 60.5, and Firefox < 65.

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-18501

A crash and out-of-bounds read can occur when the buffer of a texture client is freed while it is still in use during graphic operations. This results is a potentially exploitable crash and the possibility of reading from the memory of the freed buffers. This vulnerability affects Firefox < 65.

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-18502

A crash and out-of-bounds read can occur when the buffer of a texture client is freed while it is still in use during graphic operations. This results is a potentially exploitable crash and the possibility of reading from the memory of the freed buffers. This vulnerability affects Firefox < 65.

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-18504

An earlier fix for an Inter-process Communication (IPC) vulnerability, CVE-2011-3079, added authentication to communication between IPC endpoints and server parents during IPC

process creation. This authentication is insufficient for channels created after the IPC process is started, leading to the authentication not being correctly applied to later channels.

This could allow for a sandbox escape through IPC channels due to lack of message validation in the listener process. This vulnerability affects Thunderbird < 60.5, Firefox ESR < 60.5, and Firefox < 65.

https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2018-18505

Topic Link: https://www.askwoody.com/forums/topic/various-vulnerablility-issues-in-firefox-firefox-esr-and-thunderbird/

———–

You are receiving this email because you subscribed to a forum.

Login and visit the topic to unsubscribe from these emails.

END COPIED ALERT TEXT

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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All those issues were with Firefox versions less than 65.0 which was released on January 29, 2019:

Security vulnerabilities fixed in Firefox 65

(Weekly summaries of vulnerabilities can include problems which have already been fixed, due to responsible disclosure meaning that a flaw is not publicized until the vendor has a fix available, and especially with automatic updates being enabled by default for browsers.)

By the way, it wasn’t a Plus Alert, so I imagine that must mean you’ve subscribed to the Code Red – Security/Privacy advisories Forum.

1 user thanked author for this post.

OscarCP

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You received that email as you are subscribed to the Code Red topic, and the reply to the (now edited) topic assures that the fixed had been issued.
It’s a pity you didn’t click the link to the topic! It would have given you the reassurance you needed 9 days ago

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Kirsty, Would you believe that I did not see that link? What I saw in that email was a lot of links, and the notes next to each of them looked all pretty hairy! But I also had other worries at the same time, what with the possible continuation sine die of the government shutdown after the 15th and all that… The whole country felt like it was about ready to start splitting at the seams.

I’m afraid it all just blurred together into one screaming worry inside my head.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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Take the time for a deep breath and some fresh air, on a regular basis

2 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, OscarCP

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Since I’m on a Mac, I use Safari most of the time.

However, there are times when I need FireFox, and times when I need Chrome.

Of the two, I like Chrome better but would likely use FireFox more if I were on a PC, just because I’ve learned more about Google’s data usage practices, and I don’t know if I want Google having my entire browsing history (although I have nothing to hide). FireFox does better with my school’s LMS. I use Chrome more for Google services I need to access (so I can keep Google services in a Google browser), plus one weather map website I use runs better in Chrome.

Nathan Parker

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As I mentioned already, I have Waterfox both in my Mac and my Windows PC, and use it practically all the time in both, with exclusion almost complete of all the other browsers I also have (Safari, Chrome, FF, IE 11) Why? Because I am a Waterfox addict. Is there a support group for someone like me?

Not really, I like its safety and anti-spying features, there because of the philosophy of his creator.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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b wrote:

Edge has 239 extensions available. Which important ones are missing?

I couldn’t find uBlock Origin, but Ghostery and AdBlock Plus are there.
However – for me – no uBlock Origin ==> no Edge!

BATcher

Plethora means a lot to me.

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I hear ya! But I’m betting that the upcoming Edge with the Chrome engine will be compatible!

Windows 10 Pro 22H2

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uBlock Origin for Edge is available in the Microsoft Store.  I’ve got it on my Edge browser.

On the other hand, when Microsoft guts Edge and wraps the skin around Chrome, I’ll probably be using Firefox exclusively.  Me and Google are not pals …

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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It’s been there for nearly two years:

https://github.com/nikrolls/uBlock-Edge/releases

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Firefox’s endless memory issues sent me to Pale Moon. Pale Moon’s issues with video playback sent me back to Firefox for videos. WA Post comment section will not open in Firefox, back to Pale Moon or Chrome. Wall Street Journal login won’t work in anything but Chrome. Will not use Chrome until I can mark all links as read (haven’t been able to find an extension to do that), get better control over tabs, and stop the ads (which still run in spite of installed blockers). This whole browser thing is getting tiresome…

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Give a try to Waterfox (same as Pale Moon, a fork of FF, but one I’ve found more convenient to use than FF). I do not have problems with it; of course, it all depends on what one uses the browser for, on which version of Windows, what other software is installed, and the PC model.

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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What were the video issues with Pale Moon?  At Satrow’s suggestion, I am currently evaluating Pale Moon (Linux, x86) for use on my RAM-limited Acer Swift, and it’s done everything I’ve thrown at it so far.  It’s fast and it is noticeably lighter on resources than Waterfox x64, with both of them set up with a host of addons to make the browser behave as I want them to.  So far, Pale Moon has impressed me more than it had in the past on my more powerful, RAM-laden PCs, and despite not having e10s, it’s not as janky as I remember it being either. It very well may be my new go-to on the Swift!

I haven’t used Firefox proper in a few years, but I never had any of the issues in Waterfox that you describe either.  Not from Waterfox itself, anyway… at times I have had to disable all my addons to make certain sites work (the most obvious suspects, NoScript and Adblock Origin, typically don’t fix it when disabled… it’s another one in there), but the bare browser worked fine.  If it was a site I care about, I could work out by trial and error what the offending addon is and maybe reconfigure it or even find a suitable replacement.  For now, the sites have been relatively unimportant to me, so after discovering that it was one of my addons, I can move on and find a site that works with my configuration.

Dell XPS 13/9310, i5-1135G7/16GB, KDE Neon 6.2
XPG Xenia 15, i7-9750H/32GB & GTX1660ti, Kubuntu 24.04
Acer Swift Go 14, i5-1335U/16GB, Kubuntu 24.04 (and Win 11)

2 users thanked author for this post.

Elly, satrow

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anonymous wrote:

Wall Street Journal login won’t work in anything but Chrome. …… This whole browser thing is getting tiresome…

I have Pale Moon 27.9.4 on one computer, and 28.4.0 on another. Both are 32 bit versions. My OS on both computers is Windows 7 Pro (64 bit) SP1. I don’t have a problem logging into the Wall Street Journal on either computer, and never have. What is the exact problem that you are experiencing?

We do agree on one point: This whole browser thing IS tiresome!

Harry

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Elly

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To keep Firefox open after the last tab —
in a tab – about:config
in the Search box [ lasttab ] (easiest; or) [ close ]
change (double-click on it) browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab from True to False
close the tab

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E Pericoloso Sporgersi

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I too use both.

But I mainly use Firefox Quantum because it remembers in which folders to put recurrent downloads like more or less frequent updates, bank statements, (edit for content) pictures  and such.

OTOH, I use Chrome through a VPN to visit websites that I don’t yet fully trust.

1 Desktop Win 11
1 Laptop Win 10
Both tweaked to look, behave and feel like Windows 95
(except for the marine blue desktop, rgb(0, 3, 98)

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I’m using Firefox at home, Chrome at work and Edge on my phone :).

Fractal Design Pop Air * Thermaltake Toughpower GF3 750W * ASUS TUF GAMING B560M-PLUS * Intel Core i9-11900K * 4 x 8 GB G.Skill Aegis DDR4 3600 MHz CL16 * ASRock RX 6800 XT Phantom Gaming 16GB OC * XPG GAMMIX S70 BLADE 1TB * SanDisk Ultra 3D 1TB * Samsung EVO 840 250GB * DVD RW Lite-ON iHAS 124 * Windows 10 Pro 22H2 64-bit Insider * Windows 11 Pro Beta Insider

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