Firefox has a long way to go

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#1

This is a little mini rant. Since I heard that ad-blockers may be eliminated from Chrome next year, I decided to try out Firefox. I have to say that from UI and functionality perspective, Firefox is way behind Chrome and I will probably be switching back to Chrome.

  1. Issues started when I imported logins from Chrome to FF. It worked on the Desktop, but wouldn’t sync on my phone. That’s basic functionality. I found forum posts people complaining about it and ended up finding a specific way to do it that worked. BUT I found that newly created logins do not sync to other devices, which is a major pain.

  2. I was shopping on Home Depot site and when I went to check out, i kept getting an API error. When I spoke to customer service they suggested using something other than FF, so I tried it in Chrome and it worked without any issues.

  3. Logins for domain.com vs sub.domain.com are saved differently. So, if I visit sub site, FF won’t recognize that I have a login saved from domain.com.

  4. I can access FF saved logins without entering my Windows password. Major security flaw, which Chrome has

  5. I was using glideapps.com and it was super slow. I went to complain on their forum, and I was told to switch to Chrome, which actually solved the problem.

  6. Payments info. Chrome always recognized that I am about to enter payment info and prepulated it for me. FF works 50% of the time.

  7. In Canada, there an payment system that allows to send money to your friends. When receiving a transfer, you click on the link that takes you to a webpage, where you choose either launch the app or continue using the webpage. Chrome launched the app, FF doesn’t. So, every time I receive a transfer, I have to on Desktop to process it.

  8. Just overall, I spent too much time on forums trying to figure out how to do things in FF, which should be super easy to begin with.

FF dev, please download Chrome and copy whatever they have done. They figured it out!

Rant end.

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#2

Completely agree with the OP and made an account to say so.

Long time FF user (since 1.5 on desktop). Desktop FF still a respectable offering. Tried FF on mobile many moons ago, but it was slow and felt half-baked, so I went back to Chrome and later Edge. But, like the OP, I want to switch away from Edge on mobile because of the Manifest v3 issue. So I installed FF 107 for Android on my tablet and phone to test it.

  1. UX doesn’t look very modern. Kinda has an Android 4.4 feel to it.
  2. Unclear language in menu options. (“Jump back in”?) Apparently that means “Restore recent tab”. FF is a web browser, not a secret society, so plain language would be more helpful.
  3. Lack of tabs bar at top. I can understand on a phone that a tabs bar might be a problem, but on my 7" tablet there’s plenty of space. Endless tapping required to swap tabs. Tiresome. Edge auto switches to tabbed view if there’s space.
  4. Block autoplay doesn’t work.
  5. Can’t add plugins beyond a handful of ‘curated’ plugins.
  6. No option to always enforce desktop version. Edge for Android defaults to desktop version if the viewport is large enough. This kind of flexibility is what FF used to be famous for. And if the stance had been “We are looking into this feature” or “We don’t plan to add it yet.”, that would have been fine. But the response from a moderator (Paul) on the support page came across as dismissive: (https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/1286164). I lost interest immediately after I read that, and uninstalled 107. Go tell someone else what’s good for them, I just want to use my browser the way I want to use it.

Mobile is now a mature platform and quirky apps aren’t charming any more; they’re annoying. FF for Android has felt like a Beta release both times I’ve tried it, and to further agree with the OP, I’ve never had to search for “how do I do X in Edge?” It all just works…

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