I tried Firefox just a few days ago, but it didn't work out. I just missed too many things out of the box. My main browser is Vivaldi (so all the chromium goodies + privacy + made in EU). Safari comes in as a close second, I tend to use it on the go because it syncs well with my Mac and Apple throttles any other browser on iOS.
I'm not sure making a list that's been done time and time again here would make a difference. But if you're truly interested, here are my top 3:
- Firefox comes packed with all kinds of telemetry and analytics turned on.
- No workspaces/profiles. I know there are extensions that can enable various flavours of this functionality, but it's just too much overhead to experiment and test every-single-one.
- Widgets! I love Vivaldi's Dashboard for when one needs more than just a homepage.
> No workspaces/profiles. I know there are extensions that can enable various flavours of this functionality, but it's just too much overhead to experiment and test every-single-one.
Most of it is built-in and these days there is generally only one recommended extension: Multi-Account Container. Containers (tabs in the same window with different cookie jars/etc) are built-in, the UI for working with them is not, and MAC is the generally agreed best UI. It lets you create as many named Containers as you want and assign them a color to gently stripe your tabs. You can right-click the new tab button and get a list of Containers to open the next tab in. You can right-click an existing tab and reopen it in a new Container. (TIL from this article there's an option to have left click on the new tab button always open the Container menu. I don't think I'd use that, but it's nice to know.)
If you want to go older school, Profiles (browser windows with different extensions/cookie jars/everything) have been around since the beginning of Firefox (and it shows in how old and ugly some of the UI still is, hah). `about:profiles` is a profile manager when you are already inside a Firefox browser. The `-ProfileManager` command line switch is the ancient startup option to manage profiles before opening a browser window at all. If you like to use side-by-side profiles often you want `-noremote -ProfileManager` and/or `-noremote -P $profileName` shortcuts. (`-noremote` says not to send it to any currently open Firefox window.)
I think the parent comment acknowledges that it's indeed possible but all that are so many steps one shouldn't have to perform just to get to the feature.
Firefox wants to be customisable, but instead of features, its out-of-box experience is focused on sharing activity with Google and giving you sponsored bookmarks... I agree that the priorities there are not exactly user-focused.
It's 1 (official from Mozilla) extension to install (easily, from a simple marketplace) or 1 url and/or 2 command line flags to learn just long enough to bookmark them/add them to a shortcut file somewhere.
I don't feel like that is "so many steps". Two choices, one easy thing to do whichever path you chose.
The one thing is an extension still because Mozilla still doesn't think the UX is right and doesn't want to include it out of the box until they think the UX is 100% solid, especially for general users, not just power users. The other thing has active improvements to its out-of-the-box UX already in beta testing/slow rollout.
The only activity Firefox shares with Google is if you leave Google the default search, which is a real easy to change at the top of the Settings page.
Sponsored bookmarks are dumb but easy to ignore. It is also easy to replace the New Tab page with a Blank Page (also right at the top of the Settings page) if you really don't want to see it, and there are extensions for other New Tab Page options.
Sure, making a bit of money by setting the default search to Google and showing a couple icons of brands isn't exactly "user-focused" but it's just business, and it doesn't seem to be getting in the way of prioritizing user features.
The MAC UI itself allows to assign a domain to always open in a specific container. If you need it more specific than an entire domain there are other extensions that can allow you to automate containers, but personally all I've needed are the domain-wide assignments.
Admittedly, I also tend to use unloaded tabs more than bookmarks, so if I need a very specific address in a specific container I am probably likely to just unload it but leave it open somewhere. (Sideberry "helps" me in this bad habit with multiple tab panels and tree grouping of tabs.)
For me the killer feature is tab stacking. It's crazy that no browser other than Presto-era Opera has this feature, that with workspaces is _so_ useful for tab organization.
I was looking at different chrome alternatives and most of them had ~something~ wrong with them. I have not tried vivaldi yet, but from a bit of research it seems just like the browser I was looking for. Thanks for sharing.
Any specific thing a first time user should know? Use build in ad blocker or install uBlock Origin?
