what are the key things that could be improved in firefox?

[trytip]

The Librefox project is addressing some security improvements.
Someone mentioned this in another thread--I find it interesting and am experimenting with it.

From the project page:
"Librefox: Browse With Freedom

This project aims at enforcing privacy and security of Firefox without forking the project.

Librefox uses more than 500 privacy/security/performance settings, patches, Librefox-Addons (optional) and a cleaned bundle of Firefox (updater, crashreporter and Firefox's integrated addons that don't respect privacy are removed)."

https://github.com/intika/Librefox

LibreFox default settings are collecting your data. which is why i go with chrome. at least we all know chrome collects data but with the use of extensions and a etc/hosts file is more private than most of these profiles and privacy browsers.
seriously why do they advertise about 500 privacy/security/performance settings, patches when by default it's set to collect your data without telling you

[Kyowash]

Not to mention that in order to completely disable telemetry in Firefox you need to disable some toolkit.telemetry preferences in about:config. Even if you disable it from the GUI, some preferences are still set to true.

Mozilla seems to like users going to about:config despite the warning shown when typing it in the URL bar. Even to reduce the maximum cache size you have to go to about:config, something that was easily configurable from the GUI before.

[AZgl1800]

Hmmmm,

I use Showall Bookmarks many times a day, use it to find specific bookmarks pertaining to a topic search.....

life would be horrible without 'showall'

Edited for clarity..
I see now that the 'show all' at the bottom is/does the same thing as the second entry at the top of the bookmarks. I use that sometimes too but it seems redundant having it at the top and a big bar at the bottom. I think on Pale Moon I was used to 'organize bookmarks' toward the top?

I never, ever, scroll thru all of the bookmarks.... too tedious,
I have well over 5,000 bookmarks in FF....
that many just in my SubTopic of Motorcycles...
and a couple 1000 in OtherBookmarks....

so, I just hit Alt-B <enter> and go straight to Showall and search for what I want.

The first 15 bookmarks I keep sorted in a specific manner so that I can reach certain webpages w/o ever using the mouse.

Alt-B N
brings up New Posts for my motorcycle website.

[scoson]

I never, ever, scroll thru all of the bookmarks.... too tedious,
I have well over 5,000 bookmarks in FF....
that many just in my SubTopic of Motorcycles...
and a couple 1000 in OtherBookmarks....

so, I just hit Alt-B <enter> and go straight to Showall and search for what I want.

The first 15 bookmarks I keep sorted in a specific manner so that I can reach certain webpages w/o ever using the mouse.

Alt-B N
brings up New Posts for my motorcycle website.

It wasn't ever my intention to go into bookmark organization or use really, just the aesthetics of seeing a giant 'show all' or 'open all' at the bottom of the list/s.
Just out of curiosity though, is what you're saying that you only use a couple folders for you all your bookmarks? I have a lot of bookmarks also but I make use of a LOT of folders, with more under them. THat's what I would use the show all for is to basically move/organize/delete entries with. To me it would make more sense to just call it 'organize bookmarks' instead of 'show all bookmarks' anyway..

[AZgl1800]

I never, ever, scroll thru all of the bookmarks.... too tedious,
I have well over 5,000 bookmarks in FF....
that many just in my SubTopic of Motorcycles...
and a couple 1000 in OtherBookmarks....

so, I just hit Alt-B <enter> and go straight to Showall and search for what I want.

The first 15 bookmarks I keep sorted in a specific manner so that I can reach certain webpages w/o ever using the mouse.

Alt-B N
brings up New Posts for my motorcycle website.

It wasn't ever my intention to go into bookmark organization or use really, just the aesthetics of seeing a giant 'show all' or 'open all' at the bottom of the list/s.
Just out of curiosity though, is what you're saying that you only use a couple folders for you all your bookmarks? I have a lot of bookmarks also but I make use of a LOT of folders, with more under them. THat's what I would use the show all for is to basically move/organize/delete entries with. To me it would make more sense to just call it 'organize bookmarks' instead of 'show all bookmarks' anyway..

Now we are going to really deep into FF bookmarks

Read this thread https://www.goldwingfacts.com/forums/5- ... index.html

and then download the bookmarks here https://www.goldwingfacts.com/forums/5- ... orums.html

there are folders/more folders/more folders

it all is arrange like the military do, top down to deeper and deeper

[AZgl1800]

when I am replying to a user about "Cruise Control"

I go to bike model / Cruises issues in the left column

then in the right panel, I pick out the specific issue, or just do copy all and paste the results to the forum post for them.

sometimes, I click in the left panel, and use "Copy all"

the results of doing that in forums is a Sticky Wicket, as they tend to run together in one long sentence. Depends on what the forum's software is.

I use all of the features of Showall, to their best benefit to me at the time.

[vansloneker]

Pocket and some other crap are referred to as "features" and can be found in /usr/lib/firefox/browser/features/ (on my Mint 18.3 XFCE).
You can simply delete any "feature" that is bothering you. With a Firefox update it is likely that some or all will return however.

I don't see Pocket there...

Code: Select all

$ ls -l /usr/lib/firefox/browser/features/
total 1800
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root  619610 dic  9 19:14 formautofill@mozilla.org.xpi
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 1170884 dic  9 19:14 screenshots@mozilla.org.xpi
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   17770 dic  9 19:14 webcompat@mozilla.org.xpi
-rw-r--r-- 1 root root   25260 dic  9 19:14 webcompat-reporter@mozilla.org.xpi

Unless it's one of those files, but I can't really tell. I'm using 18.3 Cinnamon, is the path different depending on the desktop environment?

In my notes it's named "firefox @ getpocket".
On my systems there are always a bunch of them nagging "features" in there like:
activity-stream (new tab view of your activities)
aushelper (pushing of updates)
clicktoplay-rollout (click to play flash?)
firefox @ getpocket (pocket feature)
followonsearch (telemetry?)
formautofill (just that)
onboarding (something for FF57)
screenshots (take screenshots in browser)
shield-recipe-client (another updater)
webcompat (adds a button which allows users to report issues with any site on the web)

It could be that it is in the profile folder. If not I can't tell. On a new install I just empty the folder. My notes date from about FF55, so it could be things are different now. Maybe try catfish to find it.

[vansloneker]

I just started using FF again after using Pale Moon for several yrs. I like it again, doesn't take up too much screen space if you hide titlebar, and it just seems to work everywhere. I can use bitwarden which I switched to from lastpass. My issues would be pretty much aesthetic and pertaining to bookmarks. It seems even if I use default theme in FF it doesn't want to use the highlight color of whatever gtk theme I'm using at the time when I scroll bookmarks, just a dull gray or whatev. Also even though I'm using about the only decent (apparently) favicon extension 'checkmarks' it seems to only display or download like half of them even though I know darn well there should be many more (FF doesn't seem to grab any by itself, don't know why). Also, I don't want to see the 'show all bookmarks' and 'open all in tabs' (at the bottom), these are all minor things and, possibly there are fixes I could do, aboutconfig: or something else?

I very strongly dislike that with current FF you have to click repeatedly to actually get to the bookmarks. I mean, the whole purpose of a bookmark is to get to a url a.s.a.p. - and now they add extra clicks and obstacles to it.

Show All Bookmarks b.t.w. is the tool for organizing bookmarks, they should have named it different.

[scoson]

I very strongly dislike that with current FF you have to click repeatedly to actually get to the bookmarks. I mean, the whole purpose of a bookmark is to get to a url a.s.a.p. - and now they add extra clicks and obstacles to it.

Are you just navigating to the bookmarks using the main menu on the right? I'm like you and want quick access too, I just use the 'bookmarks menu' button that you drag into the toolbar from 'customize'.

[AZgl1800]

I very strongly dislike that with current FF you have to click repeatedly to actually get to the bookmarks. I mean, the whole purpose of a bookmark is to get to a url a.s.a.p. - and now they add extra clicks and obstacles to it.

Show All Bookmarks b.t.w. is the tool for organizing bookmarks, they should have named it different.

?? I don't have that kind of problem with FF,
Most of the current bookmarks you use daily can be placed at the top of the Bookmark list.
Use cut / paste to move a bookmark to where you want it.

use Alt-B from the keyboard and the list pops up, each time you press a key, that key will stop on the first bookmark that has a name starting with that character.

I have several 'new posts' setup like this:

• New Linux Mint
  New GoldwingFacts
  New GoldwingDocs

Alt-B brings up list, 'n' stops on the first one with 'n', hit 'n' again, and it goes to the next in line, and so forth.

I do the same for

• Google Maps
  Gmail
  Google Calendar

Alt-b and 'g' takes me to Maps, or Gmail, or Calendar in the order

I also use the 'Top Sites' feature so that a New Tab brings up a list of the Most Common sites that I use... and 3 lines more than handles 90% of my browsing.

So, either Control-T or click the + symbol to open new tabs and one click on the link I want.

For me, the Library ( Showall ) works perfectly just like it is.
Yes, it allows you to organize similar links into a folder, and I use that religiously.

[Portreve]

I started using Firefox before it got the 1.0 release, and for a long time there was no question it was the best browser available. Somewhere along the way, it started to suck. It would get bogged down, hog resources massively, crash with some greater frequency, and don't even get me started on Firefox Mobile.

Starting probably two years ago now, Firefox on both desktop and mobile suddenly seemed to be decent again. However, and I don't pretend to know anything of the behind-the-scenes, whether technical or organizational, Firefox has never gotten to the point of catching up to, much less passing, Chrome. At least it's deemed as serving as a good enough platform for the Tor folks to use as the basis for their browser, but no matter how often I try, I just can't keep using it for any real length of time.

I've lately been using Brave, but it's also not quite 100% good yet. The desktop version is ok, and I do like its focus on just privacy, but like right now in this thread, I couldn't use it to post. In fact, all I could do was navigate to this thread and read it, and then it wouldn't load anything else, instead just coming up with this message board's host's 502 error page. I had to go back to Chrome to even post this message.

I've also noticed this message board's host has had issues in the past on my desktop, so as much as I love Clem and Co. I think their choice of host basically sucks.

All of this is to say it looks to me like the state of affairs on the Internet is getting worse, not better. The U.S.'s FCC's killing off of Net Neutrality rules and recent defense in court that the Internet is not a telecommunications service simply shows the powers that be cannot be trusted to do the right thing, only to do things in the interests of their masters.

/rant

[MrGrimm]

I started using Firefox before it got the 1.0 release, and for a long time there was no question it was the best browser available. Somewhere along the way, it started to suck. It would get bogged down, hog resources massively, crash with some greater frequency, and don't even get me started on Firefox Mobile.

Starting probably two years ago now, Firefox on both desktop and mobile suddenly seemed to be decent again. However, and I don't pretend to know anything of the behind-the-scenes, whether technical or organizational, Firefox has never gotten to the point of catching up to, much less passing, Chrome. At least it's deemed as serving as a good enough platform for the Tor folks to use as the basis for their browser, but no matter how often I try, I just can't keep using it for any real length of time.

I've lately been using Brave, but it's also not quite 100% good yet. The desktop version is ok, and I do like its focus on just privacy, but like right now in this thread, I couldn't use it to post. In fact, all I could do was navigate to this thread and read it, and then it wouldn't load anything else, instead just coming up with this message board's host's 502 error page. I had to go back to Chrome to even post this message.

I've also noticed this message board's host has had issues in the past on my desktop, so as much as I love Clem and Co. I think their choice of host basically sucks.

All of this is to say it looks to me like the state of affairs on the Internet is getting worse, not better. The U.S.'s FCC's killing off of Net Neutrality rules and recent defense in court that the Internet is not a telecommunications service simply shows the powers that be cannot be trusted to do the right thing, only to do things in the interests of their masters.

/rant

vivaldi is your friend. brave is nowhere near ready for prime time. way too many issues, as far as i'm concerned brave browser is a pile of..........................

[Schultz]

Portreve wrote:
I started using Firefox before it got the 1.0 release, and for a long time there was no question it was the best browser available. Somewhere along the way, it started to suck.

I'd say it started to suck with version 4. Firefox 3.6 was FF at its best.

[MrGrimm]

Portreve wrote:
I started using Firefox before it got the 1.0 release, and for a long time there was no question it was the best browser available. Somewhere along the way, it started to suck.

I'd say it started to suck with version 4. Firefox 3.6 was FF at its best.

actually 57 was great it got back ff's old speed. was fantastic till they screwed things up with the addons. top be blunt a dead monkey could of handled things better as far as the addons went,