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I've been using Firefox as my primary browser from before it was called that, so rapidly approaching fifteen years.
The two things that have kept me using it rather than a Chromium-based browser are:
a) It can cope with having many hundreds of tabs open. Unlike Chromium-based ones, opening a new tab does not lead to creating a whole new instance of the code and so greatly increasing the memory footprint.
b) The add-ons library, some of which - like Tab Mix Plus - are essential for having hundreds of tabs open.
Most other browsers have add-ons, so you can run the essential uBlock Origin* in them, but they're still way way behind in terms of the size of the Firefox library.
And Mozilla are about to piss that advantage away by, from v57 due in November, not loading the large majority of them any more. All add-ons will have to use a relatively new API. This will make it easier to port them between browsers, but while I know that Mozilla don't care about being #1 in browser usage, this is ensuring that more people will move away.
For example, I do not like the layout that Firefox moved to a few years ago. It's less efficient in terms of screen space and speed, and while there are some people who think it looks a bit prettier, I don't want my browser distracting from the content.
I am not the only one who thinks this way and, fortunately, one of them wrote an addon to use the classic layout (or twiddle in about a hundred ways with it). You could probably do the same by playing with about:config, but this makes it easy. And it's not down as having been ported to the new API.
There is at least one browser that is based on the free Firefox source and isn't going to do this, but relying on a browser with a very small developer base is.. risky, both in terms of getting caught by a security issue because of a delay in patching, and in having it still maintained long-term.
Grrr.
* The ad blocker of choice ever since AdBlock Plus sold out.
The two things that have kept me using it rather than a Chromium-based browser are:
a) It can cope with having many hundreds of tabs open. Unlike Chromium-based ones, opening a new tab does not lead to creating a whole new instance of the code and so greatly increasing the memory footprint.
b) The add-ons library, some of which - like Tab Mix Plus - are essential for having hundreds of tabs open.
Most other browsers have add-ons, so you can run the essential uBlock Origin* in them, but they're still way way behind in terms of the size of the Firefox library.
And Mozilla are about to piss that advantage away by, from v57 due in November, not loading the large majority of them any more. All add-ons will have to use a relatively new API. This will make it easier to port them between browsers, but while I know that Mozilla don't care about being #1 in browser usage, this is ensuring that more people will move away.
For example, I do not like the layout that Firefox moved to a few years ago. It's less efficient in terms of screen space and speed, and while there are some people who think it looks a bit prettier, I don't want my browser distracting from the content.
I am not the only one who thinks this way and, fortunately, one of them wrote an addon to use the classic layout (or twiddle in about a hundred ways with it). You could probably do the same by playing with about:config, but this makes it easy. And it's not down as having been ported to the new API.
There is at least one browser that is based on the free Firefox source and isn't going to do this, but relying on a browser with a very small developer base is.. risky, both in terms of getting caught by a security issue because of a delay in patching, and in having it still maintained long-term.
Grrr.
* The ad blocker of choice ever since AdBlock Plus sold out.