What's so great about Firefox?

[Chubbadubs]

I just want to preface this by saying that I'm not particularly browser savvy and I'm here to learn not to slander. So I recently had to download Firefox for the ad-block feature to watch videos on Channelfireball.com since their ads are insanely obnoxious and disruptive. So far I just don't understand what makes people think Firefox is so awesome. Every time I click on a link from Google it just gives me a "Server not found" message and I'm forced to click on try again to get to the webpage. Not a huge deal, but it's annoying. I listen to a lot of music via Youtube so I often have 10+ tabs open at a time. This was never a problem on Chrome but the last time I was online I tabbed back into Firefox after finishing something else and the browser froze up in that "program not responding" way and then closed half of my tabs. I dunno if that was a memory issue or something but it's never happened to me before. So Firefox users, what makes it your browser of choice? What are the great features I'm missing out on if I stick with Chrome?

 

[Vrach]

No clue on why you're having those issues, can't say that I am.

Anyway, Chrome is technically better and faster. I'm just not a fan of its minimalistic design and prefer Firefox. Nothing more to it, it serves me well enough. Oh and Chrome is being up its own arse about not allowing windowed browsing, forcing people onto tabs. I mix and match both so yeah... fuck em.

 

[Nouw]

Those extra things which I forgot the name of. Customization is pretty much Firefox's best aspect from what I hear.

 

[Mr. Eff_v1legacy]

I just downloaded it after Explorer crashed on me dozens of times. It's served me pretty well thus far. Never really tried another browser, but Firefox does me fine.

 

[varulfic]

Firefox was way superior back in the day, being the first (I think) with multiple tabs and costumization. But nowadays every browser has implemented the same features, so there's not much that makes it stand out. It's not worse, but it's not significantly better than the alternatives.

 

[JB1528]

I just switched to Chrome, Firefox was getting too laggy for me I also love the fact that Chrome has the google search engine built into my URL...awesome.

 

[similar.squirrel]

It's open-source and reasonably safe unless you're deliberately stupid. The customizability is another plus, and most people switch to Firefox from IE, which makes everything look better in comparison.
Having said that, I've migrated to Chromium since I started using Linux. It's less resource-heavy and the interface is great when you get used to it. Plus..open-source.

 

[thiosk]

I'd rather use internet explorer than firefox. I don't have [hyperbole]two hundred billion hours[/hyperbole] to spend every time I want to load a browser (i tend to have 30 of them open at once).

Luckily, there are snappy alternatives.

 

[kebab4you]

Greater customization[footnote]Favourite add on is Stylish which let´s you change the looks of sites

Spoiler

[/footnote] then the other browsers I have tried. And I don't like the mac feeling that chromes give you ._.

Only issue with firefox is that if I have one instant of it(not a tab but the whole firefox.exe) running for a long time it starts to eat A LOT of memory. Most I had it up in was ~5 000 000K after having it open for close to a week.

 

[chuckman1]

i just switched to it because i tired of explorer throwing up the "crashing now BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE IT!" message several times a day
thought just recently i've been getting this problem with firefox, when i close it, and then for some reason want to open it again, if it's within a few minutes of having closed it i get a message insisting that firefox is already open and than i must close it if i want to open a new browser. just gotta wait it out a few minutes but still.

Ya that really annoyed me it's one of the main reasons I stick with chrome.
I used to use Firefox but I just really liked the apps on chrome.
It also seems "easier" somehow

 

[Appleshampoo]

I'm a fan of them both, but since I've been using Chrome a while it's all set up to how I like it and all of my favourites and frequent sites are on my home page. I'm sure I could set firefox up to do this, but I'm not sure how to switch it all over.

The only problem I have with Chrome is the fact that it seems to just...go to sleep in the first hour of switching my computer on. Like I'll open it for the first time, and it'll just do nothing. Takes ages to wake itself up, then when I open a new tab it'll just display the URL and not load anything for like 5 minutes. After it's had it's morning coffee though it'll run fine for the rest of the day.

Probably more to do with my computer having like 900GB of pure crap on it than the actual browser though.

 

[SL33TBL1ND]

I used to use Chrome, but it started to hardlock my compy on closing, so I switched to firefox.

 

[VanQ]

Firefox has the best community support behind it.
Go to the firefox homepage and go to the add-ons section.
You will be blown away by the sheer amount of add-ons people have made for it, to do everything under the sun.

It also has a good collection of skins and styles that you can download. Firefox on it's own is nothing special, it only becomes something great when you take advantage of the huge amount of extras you can put into it.


To anybody complaining about Firefox being laggy or crashing, get more RAM or a better CPU. Or go for a more lightweight program like Firefox Lite or Chrome. Firefox is not designed for laptops or slower systems. There are better alternatives for that. Also, if Firefox does crash for whatever reason, it will remember all your tabs from the previous session and load them all up for you again when you start it up the next time. A really useful feature if you ask me.

 

[Griffolion]

Firefox is popular for the plug-ins (the main one being ad block pro). But it's slower than Chrome, Chrome has ad block pro too and has many extensions that can be gotten from the web store, Chrome is more W3C compliant than Firefox, Chrome supports cloud printing out of the box and it just has a simpler, more stripped down interface. I want to interact with the web, not with a complex UI that distracts and hinders me. And yes, I have used the latest Firefox, hence that opinion.

Also, as an Android phone user, there's many advantages to using Chrome, such as Chrome to Phone, Cloud Printing (as mentioned above) and bookmark synchronisation.

Google got it right with Chrome, it puts as little as possible between you and the web. In my opinion, Firefox has not gotten that concept, yet.

 

[prefectimo]

Let us rewind back to the year 1998, when it was Explorer vs Navigator.
Navigator was superior, and that's just how it was.
Navigator became Netscape, then it was Explorer vs Netscape.
Netscape was superior, and that's just how it was.
Netscape crashed and burned, from it's ashes rose a new browser, Phoenix/Firebird, then it was Explorer vs Phoenix/Firebird.
Firebird was superior (Phoenix was not), and that's just how it was.
Firebird became Firefox, then it was Explorer vs Firefox.
Firefox was superior, and that's just how it was.

Take all of the above in the context of mainstream browsers, those battles were the most important. Firefox was the victor, take note that it was the victor.

People hold onto those things near and dear to them, this is why Firefox is still seen as the best browser, it defeat Microsoft at their own game.

That is no longer the case, or one could argue that.

IE9 is incredibly useful and doesn't fall over itself constantly while being slower than a dead snail.

All browsers these days are quite good, it is all preference now. Before though, there was only one alternative, Netscape Navigator.

Lord God of Interwebs, be with us yet,
Lest we forget?lest we forget!

 

[Laveno]

Personally, I use it because of:

1. Synchronization between computers (I have several computers and this means I don't have to configure settings for each one, and I can open tabs that's open on another computer).

2. Saving tabs if I shut down Firefox (that way I can jump right back to when I were after a night's sleep).

I kind of like the layout and other minor reasons. I would speak fondly of the add-ons, but frankly I don't really use them. Sometimes, however, Firefox tends to 'not respond', which is kind of annoying but simply passes if I wait a short while (this might become a bigger problem if you have lots of add-ons, I know the mouseless browsing did that to me). Also, some settings are far more difficult to reach than with IE (for example, changing default search engine).