What is your current browser for personal use? Pro and cons?

Publish Date: Aug 14 '20

25 36

A couple years ago I switched (from Chrome) to Firefox as main option for personal use (and, more recently, Firefox Nightly on mobile). I can say that, despite some quirks, I am happy with the browser and the general Mozilla products ecosystem (often the true differential).

The features I use the most are sync (mostly because of some settings and extensions as I am lazy to configure it manually), Bookmark Tags and Firefox Multi-Account Containers

I sometime try other (available for Linux) browsers from time to time but recently decided to o have a second option ready to go because, never knows :)

I did the homework and found the almost one year old What is your Favorite Browser? (among a few more resources), but I'd like to ask:

what is your current browser for personal use? Can you point pro and cons out?

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Comments 36 total

Franco ScarpaAug 14, 2020
Brave on smartphone, Firefox on PC. Brave is amazing against ads, while Firefox enables synchronization of bookmarks.
- maxdevjsAug 14, 2020
  Thank you for your reply. One of the reasons that I do not prefer Brave is the lack of in-depth sync... not sure if it is still the case.
  - Elliot DerhayAug 14, 2020
    Sync has been broken for a while. They tried fixing it recently. I think Mobile needs to be updated to catch up with Desktop before it starts working properly again though...maybe. It's only the newest version of the Desktop browser that had a notification to try setting up Sync again.
David OjedaAug 15, 2020
I use Brave for desktop and mobile. A couple of sites don't work properly if you don't stop shields, but other than that it's the perfect browser for me.

I don't care about bookmark sync. I never check my bookmarks to be honest. If I find something really important I put it to use right away or store it in Notion.
maxdevjsAug 15, 2020
Can you expand the where to put my stuff concept?
maxdevjsAug 15, 2020
Thank you, I actually did overlook the Web Panels feature. Seems to me that the dials implementation in Firefox is more flexible (I can be missing something on Vivaldi side), but panels are very neat. If you have more tips/hints to share, please do it :)
Shubham VermaAug 15, 2020
Brave and Tor on mobile
Firefox, Brave and Tor on PC.
AbdisalanAug 15, 2020
My browser of choice is firefox! The reason being that I don't like being tracked by google (maybe overblown because they get my data anyways)

The name is cooler, I mean, its FIRE FOX vs chrome, like who likes chrome anyway.
Also, chrome takes up way too much ram and I like my ram being spent on other programs
Otso KurkelaAug 15, 2020
I use mainly firefox for personal work and school. It is good for web development because of the great developer tools it has, and there is lots of features that don't exist in Chrome or other browser. In mobile, I sometimes like to use Firefox-based browser called Firefox Focus, it prevents sites tracking you or collecting data.
- maxdevjsAug 16, 2020
  On which OS do you use it (desktop version)?
G33kNoobAug 15, 2020
Forcing my self to use firefox due some people recomended it to front end developer, but this month i back to google chrome, what i love in google chrome is built in translate, i can translate easily just by block the "word" , and the killer feature is syncing history and bookmark between my android chrome and desktop
- maxdevjsAug 15, 2020
  How that translation feature works? I guess is different from translating the whole page. Yes, Google sync is handy even if not infallible.By the way, what did you miss about Firefox sync?
Nicolas QuijanoAug 15, 2020
Opera on Android Till Mozilla fixes social media sign in on beta and nightly Firefox.
Firefox for devs on PC
Michiel HendriksAug 15, 2020
I've been a Firefox user since 0.5 or something. Before that it was the Mozilla suite. And before that Netscape.
- maxdevjsAug 16, 2020
  On which OS do you use it (desktop version)?
CentAug 15, 2020
I have most browsers, but I'm prefer firefox on web and mobile. I like the pocket extension and how it looks. As for cons, it can be a bit slow at times.
WickedAug 15, 2020
I'm surprised by the lack of mention of chrome. I personally use Chrome due to it being the standard browser for work and the amount of integrated tools for a web developer are pretty great. (Chrome Dev tools and it's related extensions are awesome)

I use brave on Android as it's probably the best browsing experiance on mobile. As it's hard to get a adblocker/ tracking blocker on mobile without it.
- Nazmus SakibAug 16, 2020
  Firefox supports most web-extensions on Android. including uBlock Origin.
  - WickedAug 16, 2020
    Ah nice never really gave it a shot, usually just defaulted to brave because it essentially had them installed by default. Might have to give it a go!
Nazmus SakibAug 16, 2020
Firefox for both web & android.

I do believe chromium browsers are more mature and got better UX than firefox. But I have trust issues.

Good thing about firefox mobile is the extension support. I can't live without an ad-blocker. I also use the built-in password manager across devices. I trust it more than it's chromium counterpart. I haven’t found a minimal, free and trustworthy third party password manager yet.

Now that firefox is quickly losing market share. I feel worried about the future of my browser-choice!
- maxdevjsAug 16, 2020
  I hope FF will be healthy for a long time to come. On which OS do you use it (desktop version)?
- Nicolas QuijanoAug 19, 2020
  Firefox has been chromium based for a while in case you didn't know : all the major browsers are, be it Chrome, Firefox, Edge or Opera.
  All Chromium all the time ;)
  - maxdevjsAug 19, 2020
    Any source about it? :O
    - Nicolas QuijanoSep 29, 2020
      There are parts of chromium in current Firefox for the new extensions standard no believe.
      Firefox Focus is chromium based
      They mention it in odd places but didn't find a big announcement and the html renderer is still Gecko AFAIK
      - maxdevjsSep 29, 2020
        Oh, I can believe it. Almost all "modern" browsers now implement the same extension API, it even makes sense to copy/paste that code
Giorgos SarigiannidisAug 18, 2020
Firefox, since version 0.9.
From time to time I tried to switch to Chrome and, more recently to the new Edge, but I always end up back to Firefox. Currently, the most important things that keep me here are better customizability of the interface and, probably the main reason, the Multi-account Containers.

Also, I find it to be the most "likable" browser, as I would trust Mozilla more than Google, Microsoft, or Apple.
- maxdevjsAug 19, 2020
  Multi-account Containers is a nice spot. Nonetheless, some times the extension get a bit crazy and memory usage spikes, like crazy. This happens to you too?
  - Giorgos SarigiannidisAug 19, 2020
    Actually, no, memory is fine most of the time. In fact, I've seen that Chrome is much more memory intensive compared to Firefox (as a web developer I have them both open most of the time). Also, I've seen that it can be a better choice for less powerful PCs. During the years there were a few times that it became clunky, but it was fixed with a full reset.
    
    I guess it depends on the number and quality of the addons that one uses, of course. I don't use too many anyway, which I believe that it helps.
    - maxdevjsAug 20, 2020
      Do you use it on Windows, right?
      - Giorgos SarigiannidisAug 20, 2020
        Yes, I am using it on Windows.
nuh yurdusevenAug 19, 2020
Brave. Based on chromium because of that it's fast but has a low consumption of system resource. Therefore, it provide efficient use. It also has many different options and extension but my first priorities are low consumption and high speed.
Nathaniel PalmerAug 19, 2020
Firefox on my work machine and Safari on my personal Mac. The dev tools aren't great on Safari so I use Firefox or Chrome when I'm developing on my personal Mac. I think I prefer Chrome to Firefox as a developer but I believe browser-engine diversity is important for the health of the open web so I'm trying to support that however I can. Plus Google as a company is sketchy so the more I can avoid supporting them the better.

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maxdevjs @maxdevjs

What is your current browser for personal use? Pro and cons?

Comments 36 total