What's so great about Firefox?

[Sud0_x]

Yeah it's the open-source way of life for me too, it's just a feel-good thing, ya know?

I've used Aurora, Mozilla's Alpha browser builds, for months now as my default and I have had ZERO problems.

OP,
keep experimenting with your options and, in the end, just use whatever you prefer. Simple as that, my friend.
Whatever works for you is A-OK!

To answer your question, for whatever reasons, it's just what works best for me right now.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Add-ons, tho I am at this point not permitted to say which ones are the best to use.

 

[olicon]

I go with FF mainly because of customization and convention--mainly that I've been using before Chrome was released. Right now, I think Chrome definitely feels faster than Firefox, but I'm so used to it now that I don't see the need to change. I also don't have that many tabs (not 10+) opened, so performance is not a problem there.

 

[brunothepig]

As people have said, since Firefox is open source it's hugely customisable. Plus, it is a very reliable browser, or so I've found. Don't know why you're having those issues. Of course, if you just want a fast browser I'd advise you to use Chrome, but speed is all it's good at, which is kind of the point. Although I hear now IE9 is as good as Firefox, but I can't really speak either way, since I don't use IE.

 

[UBERfionn]

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.

Adblock Plus has a chrome extension that works very well.

 

[Hugga_Bear]

I have firefox as my backup for the (increasingly rare, in fact I haven't met one in some time) odd page with no support for chrome. Otherwise the speed of Chrome (compared to IE it's ridiculous), the extensions (add-ons) are pretty on par with FF for the most part, though FF is a lot faster at putting them out it's also slower and I dislike the clutter it comes with.

I've had a few crashes on FF and none on Chrome so that's another major reason I like it...but generally I'll take either over IE. Even 9 is just...so slow and weak.

 

[WilliamRLBaker]

nothing actually IE9 and Chrome have surpassed all that firefox used to be. I use IE9 and chrome exclusively now and Won't even touch firefox cause its so slow compared.
by the way you may have a memory leak that might be causing firefox not to work probably uninstall and reinstall.

 

[ascorbius]

Firefox is my browser of choice.. basically because it has some really good tools to help with web development (Firebug & Web Developer, as well as SQLite manager).
I run a small software company and My guys develop using Firefox then tweak the software to run on other browsers (for the most part only IE needs any tweaks at all). Even now IE is the poor cousin.

Firefox does crash sometimes, it uses memory when it's kept open for a long time (days) with many tabs/windows open. It's not perfect, but it's less imperfect than IE.

The Firefox devs break things from time to time (Java applet support was one.. which they fixed) but are really on the ball with updates.

 

[Quietus Legion]

I use Chrome for quick searches and Facebook (FB games do not seem to like my Firefox addons) and Firefox for everything else. I have tested all the major browsers and some of their spinoffs but I just keep on coming back to FF, the addons are simply so much better and more varied.

The memory void that is FF after it has been on too long is annoying as hell true, but I still keep to it. I'm sure part of it is simply emotional as suggested by prefectimo above.

Oh and at work I use IE for development since it's what all our customers use.

 

[LordDarkPhantom]

Firefox comes out top in customisation. It has a ridiculously large number of add-ons for all your needs. You can change the configuration and even the looks using .css

What many people don't know is that you can tweak some about:config settings to increase the speed further, and there is an option to change the time it takes for the page to load up on the screen. (Usually, there is a small delay - the shorter the delay, the longer it takes for the page to fully load, so you need some compromise.)

Chrome comes out top on speed, but this isn't that noticeable unless you have a really bad CPU and RAM. Also, I have noticed some failed rendering on webpages and some plugins (i.e. Flash Player) have seen some performance issues.

IE is just too crap to even consider. Even IE9 feels laggy. ;D

 

[Denamic]

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.

Searching through the URL bar has been around since the Mozilla browser.
Welcome to over a decade ago.

 

[Astoria]

Well up until a week ago I used Internet Explorer but I find that Firefox is quicker. I don't really care though.

 

[J-dog42]

I used to use Firefox and then I tried Chrome and I never went back. I love the minimalist style of Chrome. It just does what needs to be done. I can understand how people would like Firefox if they are into customisation and the like. The one thing I can't get used to on other computers is not having a Google search in the address bar, it throws me every time.

 

[Duruznik]

I used to use IE until recently. After the travesty that is Explorer 9, I just had to switch to Firefox. Its layout is just more convenient for me, and it allows me to customise the interface to my heart's content. Explorer 9's interface handled like a 3-legged dog for me. It felt like a poor attempt at copying Chrome, whose interface I hate (too minimalistic).

 

[saruman31]

Nothing. I use Opera since 2004 and no other browser can compare to it IMO.

 

[Zhadramekel]

I've never liked Firefox. Some people tell me it's the best browser out there but it always spontaneously closes without any obvious reason to.

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

Themes, tabs that can be manipulated easily, add-ons like Ad-Block Plus, the bookmark bar, it's quick and pretty much every page looks as it ought to. The only thing it's missing, which I found in Chrome, is an add-on that allows you to block sites from serach results. That's right, you can filter out those crappy web sites that always get to the top of google but are actually crap.

 

[Chubbadubs]

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.

Oh ok, this makes a lot of sense to me. I just see so many people recommend Firefox and I just wasn't really seeing anything that game-changing myself.

nothing actually IE9 and Chrome have surpassed all that firefox used to be. I use IE9 and chrome exclusively now and Won't even touch firefox cause its so slow compared.
by the way you may have a memory leak that might be causing firefox not to work probably uninstall and reinstall.

Thanks for the advice

Adblock Plus has a chrome extension that works very well.

I'll look into this, thanks for the heads up

 

[Hosker]

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.

You can do windowed browsing. Just make a new tab then drag it down.