Switching back to Firefox

Since January, or even a little before, I went from Firefox to Chrome and then to Brave/Chrome hybrid mix. Now I am back to Firefox. I switched because I was sick of the new UI that is so out of touch with what people want. Honestly, if you don’t think people are leaving because of what it looks like, you have to remember sex sells and there is nothing sexy about giant, fugly buttab hybrids that no one knows what they are.

Stolen from r/firefox and u/nuf_si_redrum because I have already “fixed” the issue on my install

I mean seriously – there is a reason why usage numbers continue to tank after this montrosity launched last summer.

People want a UI that is both functional and pleasant to the eyes.

Mozilla’s asinine reasoning is “sO pEoPlE kNoW tHeY CaN mOvE tHe TaBs!” just like their asinine reasoning for making the awesomebar (or whatever they call it now) grow by 3 pixels when you put your mouse in it was to “draw attention to it”.

I mean seriously. Mozilla does this stuff that literally NO ONE asks for and then scratches their heads with why their numbers are tanking, and when they do get push back on these stupid decisions, they double down on it even harder.

But anyways, I digress. I will still use Firefox.

Reasons for switching back

So now actually what I wanted to discuss. Switching back and why.

First, not only are Chrome-based browsers bloated, they do some really odd things and I don’t know why. One thing is that on the NodeSpace home page, for a while all the text was bold. Why? Who knows. Open it in literally any other browser, it was fine.

Chrome-based browsers are slow. Seriously, Google is trying to see how quickly Chromium can become their iTunes. It’s all bloat. Even when others (like Brave) rip out all of Google’s nonsense, it’s still so slow.

I really noticed this the more I work on the NodeSpace website. I would edit pages, and then I’d notice that it was just taking forever to load. So I invested in some caching plugins. It made things better. But it was still slow feeling. And before you say, “you were logged in and so you weren’t getting the cached version!” Well, armchair technical engineer, I also used private browsing in Chrome and Brave. And then I opened Firefox and DuckDuckGo’s Safari-based browser. My site was fxcking fast. Like unbelieveably fast. Was that the caching plugin? Was it Cloudflare also caching? Maybe. But faster is better.

Another thing is that Firefox is privacy-focused. You can really lock Firefox down to not leak any of your info and protect you from fingerprinting, etc. Lot’s of boring stuff, but if you care about your online persona, Firefox is the way to go.

And then the one killer feature: CONTAINERS! Why does no one else have containers? Firefox containers are a great way to use one window but multiple personas. Multiple Office 365 tenants? Put one in its own container! Want to keep work away from personal? Put them in their own containers!

Fixing Firefox’s Flaws

If you hate the new UI like me, but want a browser that is palatable, use the Firefox-UI-Fix script to make Firefox great again!

On Mac and Linux, it’s a simple bash script. Run it and select Photon style, select your profile (or all of them as what I do), restart Firefox, and you’r ready to go!

The one thing that can’t be fixed is the logo, but I found this banner from peak-design. Go ahead, click it! Download Firefox!

Another flaw is Mozilla itself. I have no idea what is going on with the organization, but it needs an etnire reboot. As an example, I’m going to use the Mozilla Wiki. At first glance, you think that this is the right wiki, right?