Mozilla Firefox

A great browser that's lost it's way.

As of 8/6/17 Firefox has begun to collect user data in an attempt to collaborate with Online News Association (A VERY partisan organization,) in an attempt to collect data on "fake news" websites and prevent users from seeing them. There are also rumors that they have teamed up with Piere Omidyar and are providing the information to help with his "fake news" censoring agenda. Mozilla, however, has yet to comment on the supposed relationship as of 10/9/17.

[Edited by ryngak, October 10]

Mozilla's decisions will lower customizability/popularity

Firefox 57 will support only addons written via the WebExtensions API, which will mean that a great deal of well-loved Firefox functionality will disappear. This includes, e.g. Omnisidebar and Keefox. The community are furious (see here, here and here).

Still the most private for general browsing

Despite this, Firefox the best browser for customizability and privacy. It is the only browser able to give the user a huge range of options on everything from WebGL to WebRTC, changing how many closed tabs are remembered/can be re-opened, whether websites can ask for information about copy-pasting, battery status... If you don't know about this, you'll be surprised.

I recommend following the privacy guidelines set out for configuring Firefox on privacytools.io.

Firefox is open source and remains the best option for general online privacy, short of using Tor Browser (which is based on Firefox, btw.)

The main reason for many, if not most, people to use Firefox over other browsers such as Chrome or the new Opera, is customisation. No other browser comes close in the diversity and power of its extensions ecosystem, and it's really why I personally still use it as my main browser. While a number of developers do their best, Chrome's selection of extensions is, to put it bluntly, laughable. The average quality is terrible, many developers won't even try because they know already how ridiculously limited the possibilities are that Google gives developers.

Sadly, over the past few years, starting at around the time of Firefox's rapid release cycle, most extensions I installed were to restore some functionality that was removed. But thanks to the powerful possibilities given to extensions a good workaround could usually be found. For the benefit of anyone who might be interested, here is my short list of Firefox extensions that I find absolutely essential.

Category 1 consists of 4 extensions which, in my humble opinion, are essential to turn Firefox into a usable browser in the first place. To be frank, I think any browser should just come with this functionality by default. Note that this is not a criticism against Firefox per se – no other major browser offers these things, at least Firefox is one of the few (the only one?) that allow you to add them afterwards.

• NoScript: Browsing the web without this is just a liability. You're protected from most web-based vulnerabilities and exploits by default with NoScript, and the most annoying ads to boot. You will never go back to the usual "doors and windows unlocked and wide open" way of surfing the web. A slight inconvenience in the beginning by having to whitelist trusted servers, but it will very quickly pay off in a surfing experience that is about 1000× faster and 1000× safer and 1000000× less annoying. And websites that, without good reason, don't even work fully unless JavaScript is active? Ditch them, you don't need that poorly engineered mess in your life.
• Nuke Anything Enhanced: Remove annoying, broken, and unnecessary elements from web pages. Very useful for preparing pages for print, but not only.
• Textarea Cache: What the old, abandoned and now non-functional Lazarus extension used to do: store backup copies of whatever you write into webforms, so should anything undesirable happen – browser crash, accidentally navigating away from the page, or a failure to submit on a website that is so poorly written as to lose your data when it happens – you can restore it from the cache. Can save you massive amounts of time and frustration.
• Classic Theme Restorer: After the Australis redesign, UI customisability was severely restricted, if not eliminated. Most of its elements are also a massive waste of space, making Firefox almost impossible to use for power users. Do you sometimes open more than 10 tabs? Do you have more than 100 bookmarks? If so, then you can't really use Firefox unless you let CTR fix some of the damage done by Australis. Thanks to it, I have a title bar that actually shows me titles of pages I'm on, I have more space-efficient (and square!) tabs, prettier buttons and toolbars, and almost most importantly: so much less wasted screen real estate all around.

Category 2 is a more personal selection. These extensions I wouldn't consider essential, but using Firefox without them would just be endlessly frustrating to me. These are real time savers and effective grey hair preventers.

• Bookmark Favicon Changer: I use a bookmarks toolbar without names or text labels (easy one-click access to many essential sites!), so favicons are all I have to distinguish them. Sadly, some websites don't offer one, or a very much less than expressive one. This extension allows you to set custom ones. Because of differences of opinion with Mozilla, the extension has to be downloaded from the author's own website.
  
• DownThemAll! I thought the days of needing download managers are over, but this is a nifty little helper at times. Poor servers can make it very helpful to be able to resume downloads, and its bulk download options are very handy.
• Keybinder: Because Firefox doesn't allow customising keyboard shortcuts. I don't know what was the brilliant idea behind disabling the Escape key in Firefox (it used to cancel pending requests, including AJAX), but it was terribly idiotic, because now you're no longer able to just bash escape if something's happening that you don't want to – the most common use case being, of course, hitting a link by accident. Set up the Escape key to mean "Stop" again using Keybinder (as otherwise the key is completely non-functional) and you can prevent that stuff from happening again. I also use it to disable the F12 shortcut for the developer console, because I keep hitting it by accident.
• Keyword Search: Firefox always supported multiple search engines. It was completely incomprehensible why they would make the search bar completely superfluous by forcing users to always search with the one engine they currently set as a default, regardless of where they're searching from. In other words, searching from the search bar is now functionally equivalent to doing it from the URL bar, and I honestly don't know why the former is even still there. Since I don't want to have to constantly switch the default engine back and forth, I set Keyword Search up so that the URL bar searches my default engine, and the search bar searches whatever engine I select in it. Sorted, searching is usable again.
• Link Visitor: This is more of a personal choice; I often use unvisited/visited link colours to remember what I've already read. If I click something by accident, I can toggle the link colour back to Unvisited using this extensions.
• Tampermonkey: Customise the web.
• URL Flipper: Very handy to navigate paginated websites, galleries, and so on. Allows you to increment and decrement URL variables easily.
• Video DownloadHelper: Say no to media conglomerates trying to take away your consumer rights. You have a right to download private copies – exercise it! And disable those abominable EME DRM extensions in Firefox settings, while you're at it. Say no to media that is "defective by design".

"health" information is enabled by default. This is the opposite of user respect: it should be opt-in.

Mozilla continues to embrace protocols and systems that benefit third party ad networks which whore users' privacy for profit.

NO TRUST

Find a modified, open source, firefox that has the evil and cancer removed like cyberfox or even waterfox.

Mozilla is only a stones throw away from being as evil as chrome: mozilla is phasing out XUL.

Firefox used to be a good browser, but the stuff Mozilla's been doing the past few years (data collection, removing features) has ruined the browser for me. I think Firefox as we knew it died in November 2017, when the WebExtensions apocalypse took place. Firefox quantum itself isn't the worst browser I've ever used, but dropping legacy extensions was a terrible move.

Now some users will tell you to use Waterfox instead since they think it doesn't spy on you, but the truth is, Waterfox pretends to care about your privacy and spies on you almost as much as Firefox. Vivaldi and Pale Moon both offer the same level of customization Firefox used to have (before the apocalypse), but both of those browsers have problems of their own (still better than Waterfox).

Since privacy issues are becoming more of a problem and companies like Mozilla and Google are controlling the internet as we know it, the web browser is dead to me. But since we have to use browsers, it's best to use one that's fully functional and independent from "evil" corporations. This leaves us with Otter and Pale Moon, and neither of them have the same functionality as Firefox-based and Chrome-based browsers.

As for Firefox, I suggest you run away from Mozilla before they do something else that will make all their users want to scream at them.

I don't really like what Mozilla is doing with Firefox these last few years (Pocket, telemetry, data collection, the Looking Glass addon, the removal of individual cookie management recently and many other craps…) so I'd recommend to everyone to start using Waterfox instead.

It's fast, simple and it's more lightweight than chrome and chromium.
It doesn't insist on features I don't want, like some other browsers :/
Plus, Its size is a little smaller than other competing browsers.
It has all the features I need !

FF is everyones darling, yet I have a long list of unbearablities.

-FF used to have weave for syncing. My data on my server. This is no longer available. Don't be fooled: firefox sync server 1.5 does NOT substitute weave. Overall you need 7(!) servers (syncserver, oauth server, data server, fxa server etc.) of which none is fully documented. If you install this on your root server mozilla easily can load anything on to your machines.

-FF only allowes "signed" extensions claiming it is for security reasons. Yet the only places to get a certificate are US based and comply with US law. So surely no wikileaks Addons or other unwanted media.

-The code quality is not good. Yes, chrome is eating your RAM but FF destroys your HD. FFfanboys rage about this: https://www.servethehome.com/firefox-is-eating-your-ssd-here-is-how-to-fix-it/ stating that SSDs last so damn long these days you don't have to worry. If you pay attention to the article it clearly states that this is PER OPEN TAB. So the more tabs you use the more likely your SSD will die and your computer will slow down vastly with every new tab. While you can solve the chrome problem with more RAM -- mozilla offers NO solution but closing tabs. You can not run your FF profile folder on 2 HDs.

-The people behind Mozilla are going the exact same path most US based internet techs go: You start with "don't be evil" and like mozilla, sign really really bad contracts with the media in the USA, e.g. exfiltrating your empty startpage dials, implementing more DRM than necessary etc.

-The staff fiddles around with useless functions: Did you need Pocket in Firefox? Have you seen people use "Firefox Hello"? Me neither. Yet it wasted time and money to implement. And not to mention it is close to impossible to remove FF bloatware like Pocket.

There are alternatives and some are based on Firefox....starting with "Firefox Nightly" giving you back some of the freedom you had. Even better is PALE MOON ...it is essentially Firefox without the stupid ideas. And then there are so many new browsers like Vivaldi or Brave browser.

The only place I use Firefox is old computers with IE6. That's it.

Third time trying to swap over to this for security reasons and for the third time I find myself looking for something else.

I cannot understand how this is considered the "de-facto" web browser when it's just such a broken mess. I run into sites like my bank (Chase, you know that little unknown site) that won't let me log in. Solution? Well according to Firefox users just use another browser for that obviously! Not at all inconvenient.

Speaking of inconvenient do you know what I love to do? Have to confirm what I want to do with every download I have regardless if I have the "Remember to do this next time" checkbox checked. Again, look into the solution and.. Too bad! It's the websites fault not ours! Are you kidding me?

I feel like I am constantly running into little annoyances that there are no ways to fix, little annoyances I don't run into with a browser like Chrome. They all add together to make a tedious experience where I just wish I was using something else. Not that I can recommend Chrome for it's privacy issues, but at least they build a browser that "just works" as they say.

Mozilla Firefox uses too much CPU (or memory) on a computer. I do not recommend this browser for old computers.

After a couple of years of Mozilla "improving" the browser by bloating it with various silly features, they finally made a huge step forwards and went to make Firefox fast and efficient.

Firefox got a huge modernisation of both backend and UI in version 57 (Quantum), which will be released in November. Firefox now takes advantage of multiple processor cores, prioritises tabs, and perceived performance is also improved. When you try Firefox Beta, you actually feel the new speed.

I really recommend everyone who had become fed up with Firefox and switched to Chrome to give the new version another chance.

I REALLY liked Firefox back in the day. It was easy to basically have it automatically run many tasks and what not while still keeping things low-impact on the system. Lately though I find that it's almost bloated with other nonsense that it's just hogging bandwith.

its a bit of a memory hog as of the quantum update, but as much as chrome

It is very secure. And there are many options in it. That is why i like it. And it should be for windows phone