[bad_user]

My love for Chrome ended and I switched back to Firefox about 3 months ago. The switch went well and I'm happy with my choice. Reasons:

1. First version of Chrome for the desktop supported extensions, because it was competing with a popular Firefox, and now on Android they don't give a shit about enabling users to customize the behavior of their browser, which pisses me off.

So I switched to Firefox on my Android because it allows me to use these plugins ... AdBlock Plus, HTTPS Everywhere + LastPass. Plus it has a handy Reader Mode, that's like Readability built into my Firefox. And I find the UI nicer on my 7-inch tablet. This naturally led to a decision to switch to Firefox on the desktop too, because Sync.

2. In Firefox on my desktop I like having Tab Groups + the Awesome Bar (which does a good job of doing full text searches in my history, much better than what other browsers are capable of) + a really cool tweak to the Australis theme called "The Fox, Only Better" which is awesome and will make it much harder for me to switch browsers again.

I also love it when Mozilla develops something, then everybody benefits, like Asm.js or PDF.js. Try using Chromium instead of Chrome, it's not the same experience.

3. I've been all hooked into Google's stuff, I even pay for a Google Apps account and everything, but I noticed that Google hasn't been aligned with my interests.

For example they killed Google Reader to promote Google+, they showed no interest in fixing Gmail's broken IMAP support, they showed no interest in fixing Google Calendar's broken CalDAV support, they discontinued the Exchange support from Gmail, they discontinued the XMPP support from Google Hangouts, they announced no interest in providing alternatives that I know of, certain features in their online products only work in Chrome. It seems to me that Google is only interested in standards as long as they are the underdog.

I also moved to Dropbox as my cloud storage, because Google Drive still does not have a Linux client. I mean, Google out of all companies should think that Linux support also means headless servers (like home servers or other appliances), so providing Linux support should be obvious. But no, 2 years later, the OS X client is still shitty and still no Linux support. I have to trust my data to a third-party if I want that, or suffer one of the shitty open-source alternatives and risk my data.

So there you have it - Firefox is a great browser and it also tries to make me happy. And yes, I would also like the one-process per tab model, but they are actively working on it.

Happy Birthday Firefox.

[nnethercote]

> the Awesome Bar (which does a good job of doing full text searches in my history, much better than what other browsers are capable of

I'm surprised that the other browsers are still so much worse on this front, and that this difference doesn't get more attention. Firefox's implementation is fantastic and has been for years and years.

[i_have_to_speak]

Probably because others are too eager to fill out the results via an online search than from your history, and I doubt if that is because they have your best interests at heart.

[bad_user]

A note here - this isn't just about privacy, but also about usability.

The problem is that many times I can remember an article I've read or a link I visited only vaguely, by a single word in the title or something like that. Well, try searching for a single word on Google.

For example, I tried typing "manifesto". Firefox's Awesome Bar suggested to me amongst others: a YouTube video called "Firefox Manifesto 2012" (watched it yesterday), a blog article on a website titled "The Social Customer Manifesto" and a link to ReactiveManifesto.org.

I typed the same in Chrome and note that I keep Chrome around and it has a very rich history. Guess what Chrome gave me? Nothing from my history. It only gave me search suggestions like "manifesto definition", "manifesto lyrics" and "manifesto of the communist party".

So that's a big problem. You remember a single word or two. You want something from your history. Firefox does a good job at suggesting from my history. Chrome expects me to do searches on Google. I wouldn't mind those searches, but they aren't solving my problem.

So yes, that's why Firefox is back again to being the browser I love most. Along with Tab Groups and efficient UI tweaks that I can do, I find it hard to use anything else.

[lern_too_spel]

Your memory of desktop Chrome doesn't match mine. Chrome added extensions more than a year after launch. http://chrome.blogspot.com/2009/12/google-chrome-for-holiday...

Its extension model remains superior to Firefox's, and I hope Mozilla fixes this. I shouldn't need Python and an SDK installed to develop a JavaScript browser extension. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/Add-ons/SDK/Tutorials/In...

[nnethercote]

I read bad_user's comment as saying "desktop Chrome supported extensions from the start, but mobile Chrome doesn't; so I switched to mobile Firefox for the extensions, and then subsequently to desktop Firefox for Sync."

[mnarayan01]

> I shouldn't need Python and an SDK installed to develop a JavaScript browser extension.

You don't. The only things you need are a text editor and a zip utility (and I'm not sure about the last; it's certainly not needed if you're not distributing the extension). You only need the SDK if you want to use the Add-on SDK.

[lern_too_spel]

Then it's a problem with the documentation (https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2014/06/05/how-to-develop-fi...), which is a little easier to fix.

[scrollaway]

> Try using Chromium instead of Chrome, it's not the same experience.

What's wrong with Chromium?

[hobarrera]

If you need a headless replacement for dropbox, syncthing might be of interest to you. Plus, it's FLOSS, in case you care.

[JetSpiegel]

What's the problem of Gmail's IMAP support? Genuine question.

And if you have a headless server, you can run BTSync

[namarkiv]

SEARCH command keeps on timing out, IDLE doesn't work most of the time, email takes longer time to show up in IMAP compared to the web interface.

[kapilkaisare]

> I also moved to Dropbox as my cloud storage, because Google Drive still does not have a Linux client.

For USD 15, Insync[1] can help you with that.

[1] https://www.insynchq.com/

[bad_user]

Well yes, I did that, but then I realized that means giving Insync access to my data and that was a tough pill to swallow given that trusting Google with my data was already pushing it. I mentioned this already without naming Insync, but yes, I have a license even before 1.0.