How can you have different bookmarks, extensions, and maybe even a different theme (so you know you're using the right window) with containers?
The answer is: you can't. Because containers and profiles are different things.
That's the "sacrifice" you're asking users to make. To change the way they use browsers, to adapt to something that is useful, but not a complete replacement for the features they want. You're asking them to mix stuff and to be careful not to type personal stuff on a work container (or something like that).
Yes, changing from Chrome to Firefox (and vice-versa) means that you need to make some sacrifices. I moved to Firefox and lost good profile support, have a higher battery drain, and have to deal with Firefox's inconsistencies (UI, ctrl+click behaving differently on links vs bookmarks, etc). I'm okay with the trade-off, but PR talk and positive outlooks don't make these annoyances and downsides go away.
> The answer is: you can't. Because containers and profiles are different things.
If that's what you need then just use Firefox profiles then! The thing is, most people don't need that, and containers offert better ergonomics for the majority use-case (like the one described in the post). But if you still need the niche use-case, then go ahead and use a profile in Firefox too.
Then again, they have the problem that they think that it's appropriate to open the last used profile if you start Chrome again, which can lock out inexperienced users out of the other profile since they don't know how to get that one started.
For me the normal solution of creating separate profiles in Firefox is to use Firefox Portable and have each profile live in their own directory / installation.
That seems a bit overkill to me. Creating profiles can be done at about:profiles and starting a profile with a shortcut to firefox --profile $PROFILENAME. Not sure how that could be simpler
I'm not a fan of Chrome, by any means, but you can't be serious here. A Chrome-style built in profile switcher is how it could be simpler.
I've got Firefox, Opera and Chrome and each one has different logins :D gotta be honest, didn't even know Chrome and FF can also do that!
Additionnaly virtually everybody owns a smartphone which is used for the personnal stuff.
This will create a separate firefox instance running with that profile. It's not as nice as having a button in firefox to accomplish this, but if you use different shortcuts or keyboard commands to launch things it works quite well.
> Plus, it's definitely not going to get people to switch from Chrome.
Given that it's only enabling multiple profiles that require such a step (afterward you get a GUI prompt at start-up), you just Google “how to Firefox profiles” once, follow the steps and call it a day. In fact, most people would need to do the same googling if they wanted to use multiple chrome profiles as well…
In my linux setup, I removed the -no-remote option for some forgotten reason.
If more people understood this, we would be asking for better profile support on Firefox and for container support on Chromium, not suggesting containers to people who need profiles or trying to use profiles as if they were tab containers.
I want profiles because they provide exactly what you mentioned: separation. I need different extensions, bookmarks, history, etc. And inside each profile I can use containers if I want to.
So explain me:
1. How do I set up a new profile in Firefox. In Chrome creating a new Profile takes 3 clicks and entering a name.
2. How I open two instances/windows of Firefox at the same time each with a different profile. In Chrome opening a second profile is two clicks (when Chrome is already running)
They either get hinted by someone else about “some cool feature”, or do a Google search if they know what they're looking for.
Edge's multi-profile support blows them both out of the water though, with the ability to right click tabs and move them between profiles, automatically open links for certain domains in certain profiles, being able to set a default profile for external links, etc...
Okay, so what's the logical conclusion here? That the person is lying?
The font rendering is very much off, some people just don't notice or don't care. Denying something others see with their own eyes doesn't help anybody.
This is aesthetic preference, there's no such thing as "correct". It goes back to the old debate on Mac vs. Windows font rendering -- do you like pixel alignment or do you like letterform accuracy? There's no right answer.
Kind of enough, but...
> This is aesthetic preference, there's no such thing as "correct".
"Correct" for the purposes of this discussion could be the normal OS rendering, and deviation from that is what would be "off"-ness.
Something about chrome DIY’ing font rendering instead of using the platform’s when I last looked into this
Even Edge font rendering started looking way better — only after they switched away from chrome’s diy font rendering.
(Aside: IMO chrome on android is good but all others are bad at font rendering. Probably uses platform rendering on Android)
How?!
This is how example.com renders: https://i.imgur.com/MFo7ACg.png
Pay attention to how the word "illustrative" renders: https://i.imgur.com/lFJIEZG.png
See e.g. the boldness on e.g. the first "l"? Firefox's clearly has two very dark vertical strokes in adjacent pixels -- one black, one dark blue right next to it. Its rendering is substantially bolder than Windows's. I can understand if you personally prefer that, but how can you claim they look the same?!
I think the commentary is taking an issue with the suggestion that there's something "wrong" with Firefox's font rendering, when it's really Chrome who is the outlier.
As of right now there's substantially more browsers that use Blink (and comprise over half of the market share) though so Firefox and Safari will always be outliers.
Firefox uses my system defined default fonts (DejaVu Sans, DejaVu Serif, Hack) where Chrome completely ignores the system fonts.
IMO using the system defaults is the correct action here.
Anyway after manually configuring Chrome to use the system defaults they look identical to me:
Firefox: https://i.imgur.com/Zplpyiq.png
Chrome: https://i.imgur.com/YWkeZjh.png
So no, font rendering on FF seems fine to me...
Maybe I'm getting old and my eyes aren't seeing the differences but they look the same to me.
a) Don't hint/grid fit. b) Don't use cleartype color fringing.
That's reason enough to avoid Chrome for me. Compound that with Chrome's low quality image rescaling algorithms (and the absolute boneheadedness of their bug triaging, where any reports about it will invariably get filed under the wrong component and be closed before anyone who can actually understand the problem will look at it) and oh so many SVG rendering quality issues. I really hope Firefox can survive the current leadership and remain a strong alternative for decades more to come.
Except for those of us with profile specific extensions, which containers don't help with at all.
The profile interface for FF is archaic and hard to manage.
Separate profiles was always a better solution than contained tabs.
On the other hand containers allow me to specify which ones to open on automatically and so I can use lots of different containers for different uses that I want to separate, e.g. Facebook, Gmail, HN... Something lots of people want to do, but you can't really do with profiles (well you could but it would be super annoying). Moreover I can use temporary containers so I have isolated tabs for all the general browsing (all websites where I haven't specified a specific container) with all the tracking information being deleted as soon as I close the tab.
Actually password managers are very common, and immediately relevant to this conversation. I have a password manager for work, and one for personal. That puts us a bit higher than your pretty dismissive 0.00001% estimate.
Literally the first thing that came to mind and there are many more examples.
I use a tool called Junction which allows me to choose which browser opens up a link, which solves for your second issue.
Isolated browsers are much better than isolated tabs.
I use Chrome and Firefox interchangeably so I don't have a dog in this fight. Containers aka Personalities needs to be made a first class feature in Firefox and not require the above steps to make it useful to the less tech savy end user.
1. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/how-use-firefox-contain... 2. https://imgur.com/a/mX1P25J 3. https://imgur.com/a/fNyRnLk 4. https://imgur.com/a/GjxJwIP
Perhaps the documentation needs an update for the latest version if it's been moved elsewhere.
Edit: I just checked in 116; it appears to just be always enabled now.
Officially, you enable them through the MAC extension, which also adds some more UI.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
Other extensions (like Tree Style Tab) can also cause container tabs to be enabled.
If this problem is persona/identity isolation, then yes.
If you want multiple parallel settings and add-on combinations, then no.
Regardless, I don't care about profiles or any of this other stuff, but I don't begrudge the author for mentioning things that aren't up my alley. In my mind, when I read a list-based article, I don't expect everything to be relevant to me.
As for my information, I'm comparing the install base for TST with that of uBlock Origin (both only counting Firefox). It's not a perfect measurement, since not all Firefox users have uBO either, but it should if anything overestimate TST's relative popularity.
Tree-style tabs [0] has 163,716 users.
uBlock Origin [1] has 6,175,439 users (only counting Firefox).
That places TST at about 2% of the install base of uBO, which is plenty small to justify my saying that most Firefox users (and prospective users) don't care about TST.
[0] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...
[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin...
Your comment is roughly of the form “that detailed article lists poor solutions to the problems you’ll likely encounter when switching to Firefox, so please instead follow my detailed instructions about alternate ways to fix the problems you’ll likely encounter when switching to Firefox.” It hardly makes anything feel simpler or more enticing!
* Create new container "target"
* Open new Target container
* Go to target.com
* Click the container menu and choose "Always open in..." and if you have a lot of containers, scroll down to "Target"
And then, you still get asked "Hey, you told us to open this in the target container, is that correct?" even though I have *explicitly* said that's exactly what I want.
---
I would like a shortcut button for any site that isn't assigned to a container, where I could click the container menu and say "Create new container and assign this site to it" where it all happens at once. Boom, site isolated.
To add a new site to a new container, I manually edit the file (accessed through the pencil button) and add the line with the proper syntax:
!*.sketchy-website.tld , My Isolation Container
That keeps me from using macOS's built-in keybinding system to change tabs with the touch of a function key.
Every other program I use from Finder to my database manager allows me to switch tabs with one button. Firefox has no way to accomplish this, which would make it an interruption to my muscle memory and therefore my productivity.
Duck allows it, so that's what I use instead of Chrome.
Also they don't seem to care one bit about user experience (in the genuine sense). There's a long-standing bug open for > 10yrs that Firefox does not disable sleep when uploading or downloading files. The day that I started a long-running downloaded and came back to find that my laptop had gone to sleep before it even hit 5% was when I uninstalled Firefox in a rage.
I would do that if I could get separate history for a different containers.
> It paints a picture that you need to "sacrifice" something to use Fx and lists various "problems".
Well yes, that was apparently the OP's feeling, along with the belief that overall, the "sacrifices" are worth it. So whether or not the issues felt important (or real) to you, they evidently were for the OP - and possibly other people who are considering switching but as of now are used to Chrome's way of doing things.
> For instance it mentions how troublesome it is to use profiles as a "problem". Don't. Use containers.
If some issue arises because a user hasn't adapted their workflow to the new software and there is in fact a different way of doing things that will result in the same features, that's a legitimate thing to point out. But as the sibling comments make clear, that doesn't seem to be the case here, as containers are missing lots of features that profiles have.
> Never had problems with font rendering.
That's just "works on my machine". OP did have problems, they posted screenshots.
> The download manager being different isn't a "problem", and even Chrome is changing it to become more like Fx's [0]. So it's not like Fx's version is "bad", just different.
FF's download manager is missing a feature that OP actively used, which is drag and drop of downloaded files. So from that point of view, it's clearly a downgrade.
> I'd rather have an article on "Switching from Chrome to Firefox? Here are some tips on great features in Firefox".
Like how to use the multi-account containers I mentioned. Or how the address bar ("awesome bar") in Firefox is so much greater than Chrome's in finding stuff (probably because Google wants you to do a google search, not find stuff from your own history or bookmarks). On how Sidebery or other tree-style tabs can make the experience so nice. etc.
If users have issues with a software, I think it makes a better impression to pick them up from where they are than to do some "there are no problems, move along, citizen" approach.
It's the users who decide what the important issues of a software are, not the developers.
Well, it worked on their machine as well without their fixes. Chrome's font rendering is the one that's the most off from my system behavior, but the article makes it sound like Fx has broken fonts. While it's just a preference from the author.
> FF's download manager is missing a feature that OP actively used, which is drag and drop of downloaded files. So from that point of view, it's clearly a downgrade.
No, it supports that. I use it all the time.
> If users have issues with a software, I think it makes a better impression to pick them up from where they are than to do some "there are no problems, move along, citizen" approach.
My point was that this isn't issues so much as things just being slightly different. When framed as "problems" it however paints them negatively, as if Fx way of doing things are somehow "wrong". That's my issue with the article, not that it points these things out.
What exactly does Firefox do differently? I find that the Chrome bar learns very quickly which results to prioritize, based on my input.
You can type three characters from the middle of a word, and Firefox will match it, while Chrome will not.
For instance it mentions how troublesome it is to use profiles as a "problem". Don't. Use containers. Hundred times more smooth than profiles. Hence why no one cares about making profiles in Fx better, there is already a better solution to the problem profiles solve.
Never had problems with font rendering. The download manager being different isn't a "problem", and even Chrome is changing it to become more like Fx's [0]. So it's not like Fx's version is "bad", just different.
I'd rather have an article on "Switching from Chrome to Firefox? Here are some tips on great features in Firefox".
Like how to use the multi-account containers I mentioned. Or how the address bar ("awesome bar") in Firefox is so much greater than Chrome's in finding stuff (probably because Google wants you to do a google search, not find stuff from your own history or bookmarks). On how Sidebery or other tree-style tabs can make the experience so nice. etc.
[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36996287