I used Phoenix, then Firebird, then Firefox. When Chrome came out, it was when Google was still young, and it was a breath of fresh air. Then it became bloated, and I went back to FF... until things would stop working.
I have largely given up on Chrome, but I've often used Chrome-based browsers, as so much of the web refuses to work outside that engine. Brave was my daily driver for the past few years, but the crypto BS and my aversion to Eich had me try others recently. 1/x
As I often tend to work on legacy apps, I also work with clients that have old or broken OSes and browsers, some that block certain features, etc., and so far Firefox has been really helpful in this regard: it works on old machines.
What you say is true, and I'd even add this:
People (and company directors, for hype) want more features, but over time, backwards compatibility is way more important, because tech grows too fast for people and machines.
I've tried Vivaldi in the past, when it was relatively new, and tried it again recently. It was great! I had to do a few weird things to get it setup the way I wanted, but it largely worked. But I've been curious to see where FF is again, so I tried that out again this week.
One thing I had not expected: it uses more RAM than Vivaldi or Brave. This shocked me.
Profiles now are a thing, which is great; I have two different ones I use for work, and one for personal, and being able to have windows open in different profiles is great. BUT... the process for managing it sanely is highly convoluted, requiring additional software. I had to actually document it so I can reproduce it. Chrome-based profiles are simple and painless.
Surprisingly, for being a champion of the open web... PWAs are not supported by FF, and they have publicly stated they will not be working on them due to staffing shortages.
I have been using Outlook via a PWA for years.
You CAN make them work... but it requires (1) an extension, and (2) system software. On top of that, PWAs installed using this system cannot run in an existing profile, which means you have to install extensions if you need them, and links will not open in another window. 4/x
I have a number of weird work apps I need to use, and most of these "just work" in Chrome-based browsers.
One I occasionally need to use is Teams. Yesterday, I joined a meeting... and while it was capturing my video and audio, (a) it wasn't transmitting it, and (b) I wasn't receiving audio or video from others.
MS officially only ships Teams on Linux via web or a PWA. They SAY they've done extensive FF support... but I'm not seeing it.
I know a lot of folks get dogmatic about browser choice.
But when I'm working... I can't be dogmatic. If I can't access things I need to for work, I can't do my job.
Some folks would say: make noise at your IT dept. Sure, I can do that. But an organization the size of the one I work for is slow to change, and typically will not optimize for a small minority of users.
@sephster Is that the one on flathub? Considered it, but wasn't sure since it was 3rd party. May give it a whirl; teams was only one of several problematic apps, though.
I've tried containers in the past, but the way I use a browser, they tended to be more complicated and harder to understand than user profiles. This extension operates more similarly to the way Chrome-based browsers work, while still using the native profile support in FF.
@mwop I've been using Vivaldi for years. Hard to switch right now, even though I don't like the feature bloat added lately.
I've used Opera back in the Linux days for years, mostly because of mouse gestures. That didn't work properly in Firefox back then. When Vivaldi appeared, I migrated to it and use it daily because it just works. Have a separate FF instance and use that for testing mostly.
@shochdoerfer@mwop it will be solved when we are at the end of the chrome period. Remember how much fun it was back in the days with internet explorer? I refuse to use any chrome based browser. Happy with firefox.
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