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Firefox Announces New 'Quantum' Browser With 2X Faster Speeds, Coming November 14
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For me, it's because I don't only work on Macs. I use Windows and Linux PCs as well. I like the fact that I can run Firefox on them all and install the same add-ons on them all.
If I would use Safari on a Mac, then I would need something else (IE, Edge, Chrome) on Windows and something else on Linux. And I would need a different set of add-ons (ad-blocker, Google-bookmarks, Mail monitor, etc.) for each one. It wasn't so bad back when Apple was shipping a Windows version of Safari, but that hasn't been the case for a long time.
I suppose I could use Chrome and Chromium as an alternative cross-platform browser, but I'm getting increasingly bothered about Google's seeming desire to sell all my personal information to whoever will pay. And the fact that they seem to enjoy installing additional software without notice (or ability to refuse) whenever they feel like it. IMO, they're coming mighty close to acting like malware.
Used safari for a month or two when I first bought my 2014 15" rMBP. Ended up going with Chrome because it was faster for me, and also the tab interface is better. Then there's was this weird load bug where sometimes you have to hit enter twice before the URL actually submits and loads on Safari.
Will it break everything like Firefox 56 did on my system? Just rolled back to Firefox 55.03, but I'm seriously considering moving my bookmarks over to Safari and finding extensions equivalent to what I run now, instead. I have been using Firefox for many years (close to 10, I think) because I preferred it to just about every other browser available for the Mac - up until recently. Firefox has become a bloated mess that renders slowly and doesn't play video on half of the websites I frequent. Since "upgrading" to Firefox 56 is no longer an option for me, I think it might be about time for a major change.
That crappy Dock Download Process graphics from since forever is ever present in even this latest Firefox Beta.
I'm trying out various internet browsers for the Mac and iOS - but I soon realize that it's not that useful switching around because of Safari being so complete and offer what I use in an browser.
Due to sync services on either browser on the Mac except Vivaldi - it's quickly becoming a time robber importing bookmarks to each browser and often duplicates for each bookmark occur if you took the liberty to move around whole bookmark folders. Bookmacster has been doing these things for me up until now. It's tiresome. I wish them all the best; Mozilla and Google etc.
I'm trying out various internet browsers for the Mac and iOS - but I soon realize that it's not that useful switching around because of Safari being so complete and offer what I use in an browser.
Due to sync services on either browser on the Mac except Vivaldi - it's quickly becoming a time robber importing bookmarks to each browser and often duplicates for each bookmark occur if you took the liberty to move around whole bookmark folders. Bookmacster has been doing these things for me up until now. It's tiresome. I wish them all the best; Mozilla and Google etc.
Same here, on two different Macs with both Sierra and High Sierra (both running Safari 11).
To be fair, Firefox Quantum was much faster than Firefox 55 (which was only about half as fast as Safari), but still much slower than the other two.
I've been an alpha tester since the beginning of the year. F57 is lightening fast compared to previous versions. Versions 58, 59, 60 and so on will bring in more tuning to "Quantum," as well as refactoring the current JS engine to something new that will only improve performance. As of now, it uses less RAM with 30 tabs open compared to Chrome x64 61.0.3.
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Fast on a custom Windows workstation and a late 2016 (new) MBP. I suppose if you're running a 4-7 YO Mac, it might have issues.
Edit: Should note that the only GOLD version is Firefox 56. To get 57/Quantum, you must be on the Developer channel. To get 58, you must be on nightly. Developer can be loaded side-by-side with GOLD, however, Nightly installs over GOLD.
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If you're on nightly, you're getting updates as they're pushed through... You're effectively using an alpha grade version.
Fast on a custom Windows workstation and a late 2016 (new) MBP. I suppose if you're running a 4-7 YO Mac, it might have issues.
Edit: Should note that the only GOLD version is Firefox 56. To get 57/Quantum, you must be on the Developer channel. To get 58, you must be on nightly. Developer can be loaded side-by-side with GOLD, however, Nightly installs over GOLD.
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Have you tried the Extended Support Release (ESR) version of Firefox? https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/organizations/faq/
It still supports plugins.
I like Safari as much as the next guy (and probably more), but Firefox's UI for tabs is a thousand time superior to Safari's.
Just compare these two shots of literally the same set of tabs open in each browser:
Just compare these two shots of literally the same set of tabs open in each browser:
The case of a single tab seems to have a more noticeable difference (which seems to be in the included screenshots). Beyond that there's the placement of the address/search bar with respect to the tab bar. Also the favicon use. And the placement of 'x' to close the app.
The main point I thought the screenshots would make is that when you create a new window, OS X will position it on top of an existing one in a way that completely hides the tab titles in Safari. At most, you'll see the address (not even the title) for a single tab. With Firefox all of the tabs remain visible because they're part of the title bar area (the favicons are a nice bonus), making it much easier to stack windows on top of each other while keeping track of the tabs contained within. A long time ago, Safari used to do the same but that lasted only a very short while:
+1
The first three things that come to mind are Tab Groups, Vertical Tabs Reloaded and containers. I'm not aware of anything as good in, or for, Safari.
True, but in the most troublesome cases there are reasonable amounts of attention from developers and testers.
I estimate that my extension requirements will be met within a few months. Maybe before the 2018-05-01 release of Firefox 60.
For many power users, the update to 55 was more significant. See for example:
Whilst writing this, at home, I have 945 tabs in probably seventy-something groups across thirteen windows in two of twelve virtual desktops.
When at work, I habitually start another profile for two more Firefox windows in one of the other virtual desktops. One of those two windows is given to five instances of Outlook Web App – five separate accounts, a separate Firefox container for each of the five.
Consider Firefox with separate profiles.
+1
https://addons.mozilla.org/addon/privacy-badger17/ … Privacy Badger | Electronic Frontier Foundation
FreeBSD-CURRENT here.
I switched from OS X, began using Firefox solely for transition purposes (I loved Safari in Mavericks), disliked Firefox, grew to love Firefox in its extended form.
I find Chromium horribly unreliable on FreeBSD.
From Mozilla Discourse:
… stopped saving cookies and history in Firefox for any length of time mainly because it really only works well with a clean slate … history seems to boggle its mind.
No such problems here.
Did you find those problems consistently, with releases 55.0.3, 56.0 and pre-release 57?
Not quite.
– Browser Extensions - Mozilla | MDN
Those are my reasons for choosing Firefox.
For me, Safari lost its good looks during the run down to Yosemite.
For some reason every time I simply watch a youtube video with Firefox, something called plugin-container turn on the dGPU on my MPB '16. It just wastes battery so I can't use Firefox even if I wanted to. I think Chrome uses dGPU only for something like 360° 4K video which is justified of course. But for battery life reasons I still have to use Safari. Has anyone noticed this issue and is there anything I can do about it?
I have installed the latest FF yesterday and have been running it during a full morning working session (MacOS 10.12.6, browser loaded, alternating between using it and other tasks). My Macbook Pro's battery is draining MUCH faster than previously. As my workflow pattern hasn't changed, fingers are pointing at FF57 Quantum. Of course, it needs more testing and monitoring to confirm, but it does not look good for me so far on that front...
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I have it....and someone forget the idea of importing bookmarks for any other browser....what were they not thinking?