Tag: firefox

Posted on

Switched To Waterfox!

My browser journey started with internet explorer like most people back in windows 95 days. I continued to use it on my laptop until a teacher introduced us to Firefox and Opera. For some reason I thought that Opera was the better browser and used it for a short while. The problem was, it frequently displayed a lot for websites incorrectly mainly my favorite GameFAQs due to its using its own rendering engine. Getting fed up with this, I switched to Firefox and fell in love.

Firefox was light years ahead of both internet explorer and opera which was also had a paid pro version lol. Not only Firefox was open source, it had a lot of features like tabs and best of all extensions and themes. Years later and after a lot of updates, Firefox kinda fell down in terms of quality. Became slower with bad design choices and here is when Google stepped in. It was a new fresh minimalist browser and everyone including me loved it. Little did we know that this would result in Google taking over the browser wars and in terms destroy most of browser engines.

Many years later and everyone hate Chrome so I switched to Brave, the new privacy browser. I still use it as a second browser for websites not working in Firefox engine but the reason I switched back to Firefox was that Brave switched to Chromium engine (Goggle Chrome) after discontinuing their own. Only option was going back to Firefox which got a lot better over all those years but still had some issues like collecting little data and here is where Waterfox comes in.

Waterfox strips the data collection, has cool features such as using Chrome extensions, turning any tab into a private one without opening new window and support for old Firefox add-ons to name a few. Another big factor is that the browser is lighter than Firefox and Chrome which in turn gives me way more battery on my Macbook Pro. You need to change some settings to make it better in my option such as bigger status bar and removing the always show X on highlighting tabs which resulted in me closing a lot of tabs accidentally. I know am using Waterfox mainly on my computers (laptop and desktops) across all OSes even my Android s23.

Note that Waterfox is using the Firefox engine and gets updated frequently but not the same day as Firefox. Give Waterfox a try. Its free and open source, you cant go wrong.

Posted on

Why I’m back on Firefox browser

Not gonna lie, it felt good to be back on a browser that started it all. Privacy driven, customizable web browser that puts you first as the developers like to put it. But that’s not why I finally switched back after years of using Google Chrome.

Back in the day, I like most people used Intenet Explorer that came bundled with our Windows XP. A teacher at university suggested that we should try another web browser called Opera. It was a paid product with a free ad-supported version that I used. It was fast but full of ads and did not work great with some of the websites that I used to frequent namely Gamefaqs.com.

After getting fed up with incompatibility I decided to switch to Firefox. Greatest decision I have ever made. Browsing the web felt good and modern. I could customize it with themes and add-ons to enhance the experience even further. All was great until one day Google decided to make a web browser of their own and thus came Chrome.

I tried it and kinda like the minimalistic design but it was a barebones browser with nothing special to offer except a tiny increase in speed. Months passed and I kinda started using the browser more and more. Moila slowed down Firefox updates that mattered and the browser became old and dated.

By the time Mozila figured what was up Chrome overtook the marketshare. Firefox was refreshed a few times but made no significant splash. Until came Quantum. Suddenly the browser we all remember became fast and stylish again. Chrome, on the other hand, became bloated, slow to start and resource-heavy on old machines.

Firefox Quantum was great again but switching back wasn’t that simple. Chrome was the dominant browser and thus most of the websites were tailored to its engine. Evernote was running the old version on anything that was not using the Chromium engine. Opera and now Microsoft Edge abandoning their own engines did not help at all. Yes Vivaldi Browser is great and I even used Opera exclusively for a while but the engine itself felt heavy on my 2008 Macbook pro.

Firefox, on the other hand, is a very light browser but has everything I need including great themes and plugins. And while its not as light as Safari on Mac, its lightyears faster than Chrome. It is also thundering fast on new hardware. The Android version also looks and feels great. I know officially made the switch.

The data breach monitor is the icing on the cake. Yes, some websites may still prefer Chrome but if more people made the switchback this will quickly change. Firefox was the king of plugins and website preference and it can again. It is after all the last engine standing against Chrome. Competition is good and we all should support privacy driven products, especially great products like Firefox. Give it a try, you won’t regret it.

Download Firefox

Posted on

Using Firefox for one week: the results are in

As agreed, I made a promise of using Firefox for 1 week to test the web browser after all the years spent on Google Chrome and the results are in.

ffSPEED

No noticeable speed difference although some sites lagged and crashed a few times namely Facebook. Things got better after using it non stop and the lag went away.

Extensions

Same stuff as Google Chrome’s although I started to see ads on my own blog and the ad block plus asked me to remove it. Strange indeed. The Evernote web clipper is more polished on Chrome but that’s about it as far as my testing went.

Themes

One thing Chrome lakes is a theme. Although there are many themes available, non compares to Firefox.

Conclusion

Truth be told, I like Firefox more now although I cant say I will be switching back or no but one thing is for sure: I will be using both back and fourth, Testing different stuff is always good.

Will update with the new versions as they come.

 

 

Posted on

Using Firefox for a week

My browser history is not that different from the average dude, with one small exception. Unlikely most my first non IE browser was Opera and not Firefox. With the increase compatibility problems namely GameFAQs.com I got tiered of opera (It was paid product) and switched to Firefox.

Years later Google chrome came out and after a year or so I finally switched. Now I am perfectly happy with chrome but as a tech guy (mind if I call myself that?) I like to explore and learn so I will switch and use Firefox for one week starting tonight.

firefoxOne thing I noticed off the bat is that the spell check is not the same level of chrome’s version. Understandable with Google products to have the best spell and voice to text but Firefox need to catch.

I am starting with no addons except a theme and Adblock plus. Don’t mind the greasy monkey as its not used. Will report back after a week on the matter.