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Firefox 51.0 = bye chrome

I come from a Netscape background. Far superior to IE back in the late 90s. Then NS became open source as Mozilla in 2002. Immediately switched to that (pop-up blocker in 2002 FTW!) Then Firefox is just the browser part of the Mozilla suite. Switched to that in 2006 when Firefox 2 came out. IE7 was just around the corner, early 2007 when it finally came out with its own pop-up blocker. Like 5 years late wtffail.

Still with Firefox now.

1. I love being able to edit userChrome.css to remove horizontal / vertical scrollbars (more screen space) without needing an add-on. Also some cosmetic stuff like font / font sizes.

2. Bookmarklets e.g. being able to download Youtube videos, again without an add-on. It adds download buttons to the page that you're viewing.

3. about:config. A registry editor for Firefox :-) Turn off various animations, disable Pocket and social directories, increase HTTP pipelines, some privacy stuff and cosmetic tweeks being some of the examples.

4. Greasemonkey + scripts. e.g. viewing Pinterest without the constant "login with Facebook" nags, and anti-adblock killer etc.

5. Portable apps dot com. Get the portable (zip) version of FF! Extract it, run it from D: or whatever, then it'll survive a reformat without having to reinstall or reconfigure it. You can back it up as well as zip or 7s. The same applies to Chrome and Opera. Try it with non-browsers too e.g. GIMP, Notepad++, OpenOffice, 7-Zip, Foxit Reader, VLC, Media Player Classic and so on :-)

I might actually start a thread on what add-ons, bookmarkets people are using in due course.

What do people think of Edge btw? IE has always been pants throughout its life imo, especially given that I can't use any other browser at work :-( Edge might be better, but do people feel that Microsoft have missed the boat with this one? Surely there won't be any features that aren't already in Firefox, Chrome and Opera?
 
On a small screen windows touch tablet, with on screen keyboard, edge does not seem too bad ? are there alternatives ?
A few gestures off of bottom of screen and you can access carousel's for your bookmarks and other tabs.

I use FF on a real PC, per my earlier comments.
 
There does not seem to have been a thread about Vivaldi plusses vs ff
the attractive feature seems to be the multiple tabs viewable at the same time - so is this a game changer ?

Otherwise according to this review seems to be the chrome renderer plus a number of features (sesssions, tab-organization) that can also be had with FF add-ons.
The recent thread w/Vivaldi release message, does make it look as though it still has infancy teething bugs (lol - you click in URL bar and it does not select contents)
 
Why would multiple tabs viewable at once be game changer? I have never heard anyone anywhere say "I wish I could see multiple tabs at once on the same window" :P

Just open multiple tabs in individual windows and size them accordingly on the ultra rare occasion that needs to be done.

There is no room for alternative browsers in 2017 really.
 
A couple of things about multiple tabs viewable :
- browser will automatically partition/split the window uisng maximum screen real estate
versus doing it manually (as you suggest), iconize will shrink it all too, maybe need a >1440p monitor, with width, to really exploit it.
- when you want to follow a link can presumably send to other viewed tab and then close it without disturbing position/view of original.
- I guess it does not, however, make a mutli-column view of one web page (but could visit it in two tabs)

(have not tried to install it, since maybe as insidious as chrome, with its multiple update services that need to be euthanised to stop it taking over)
 
jpaul;30492977 said:
A couple of things about multiple tabs viewable :
- browser will automatically partition/split the window uisng maximum screen real estate
versus doing it manually (as you suggest), iconize will shrink it all too, maybe need a >1440p monitor, with width, to really exploit it.
- when you want to follow a link can presumably send to other viewed tab and then close it without disturbing position/view of original.
- I guess it does not, however, make a mutli-column view of one web page (but could visit it in two tabs)

(have not tried to install it, since maybe as insidious as chrome, with its multiple update services that need to be euthanised to stop it taking over)
Click to expand...

The more choices the better, Vivaldi is a very good browser.

Untitled1_zpsberwzw5c.png
 
Heads up that v53 is now out and brings greater video playback stability and other improvements. A new compact dark and light theme feature, and I have to say the dark one suits OcUK nicely :cool:

Firefox53.jpg
 
Really liking FF53, a lot of my addons are now e10s compatible and performance feels pretty good. Used it at work for the day and it is a lot more stable now, don't get those random freezes I sometimes got if it was stuck on a badly coded site any more.

Now they just need to improve FF for Android (which from a quick run still seems slow and still locks up on certain sites) but I suspect it won't be until Project Quantum hits in FF57.

EDIT: Seems FF53 has the Quantum Compositor, so Project Quantum is already being trickled in (for Windows): https://hacks.mozilla.org/2017/04/firefox-53-quantum-compositor-compact-themes-css-masks-and-more/
 
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The grey OC theme is nice, as you say - I need to get rid of this insomniacs blue;
I have not followed it , but thought OC themselves, offered another re-skin capability,
else had been contemplating changing colours with greasemonkey (if the FF app store still allows you to run that without having to jail-break/root FF )
 
jpaul said:
The grey OC theme is nice, as you say - I need to get rid of this insomniacs blue;
I have not followed it , but thought OC themselves, offered another re-skin capability,
else had been contemplating changing colours with greasemonkey (if the FF app store still allows you to run that without having to jail-break/root FF )
Click to expand...

translation
.. some blue frequencies are bad for sleep patterns
... I thought that there were other simpler ways of re-skinning OC's
..... with greasemonkey FF app, can modify the html, BUT FF has now become a locked down browser - you can use any app as long as it is blessed by apps store
does that make sense ?

edit - thanks for info on theme selector
 
As above, you can still use Stylish/Greasemonkey until FF57. They should be web extension compatible by then as well but obviously won't be able to do any deep changes like changing the FF UI. For tweaking webpages though, it should still work fine.

... I was actually using this FF theme previously to match the rest of W10, but dumping it now for the compact dark theme: https://userstyles.org/styles/135593/firefox-edge-light-dark
 
Ok I realise greasemonkey will still work just being melodramatic. ;)

Nonetheless I had to port an older an older app to FF49 and if you google 'BYPASS FIREFOX 48 DISABLING UNSIGNED EXTENSIONS' you will probably find the lock-down issue documented & outcry
workaround process starts
1. On a new tab, type about:config, press enter and pay no attention to the warning
2. Search for "xpinstall.signatures.required" and set it to false
3. Search for "xpinstall.whitelist.required" and set it to false
....
Click to expand...
 
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