Firefox Is Much Better than Any Other Browser and Here's Why

We often read about comparative tests between browsers and we see that Google Chrome or Opera are extremely fast, or that some other browser gets really good scores in rendering, and so on. The truth is that none of that really matters when you are using browsers in the real world, and in the real world Firefox shines and it's head and shoulders above everything else.

Before you start with the swearing and say that I'm wrong, I want to get one thing clear. I hate Firefox with a passion. I resent the fact that I need to use it every day, but I'm using it because it's the only one that can help me get things done in a timely manner. All the other browsers feel like kids trying to imitate an adult when it comes to features and community support, and I'll explain why in just a little bit.

For this comparison, I'll use Google Chrome and Opera, which are among the most popular solution on Linux platforms. The distribution I'm using is quite irrelevant to the discussion and I'm not going to bring up Internet Explorer or the Microsoft Edge since I don't use them at all, although I have a distinct feeling that they won't match up either. So let's get to the facts.

Firefox is better and here are the facts

Instead of performing rather useless rendering tests or whatnot, I'll go through some of the things that I use every day and that are completely missing or are poorly implemented, and that also includes some add-ons available on all the platforms or at least the same functions.

Let's start with some of the easier stuff. I usually have about 20-30 tabs opened and I like to see the title of each of them. If you do the same thing on Opera or Google Chrome, you need to get used to not seeing the title. Which also brings us to another aspect, closing tabs by mistake. This happens on Google Chrome all the time, especially when I have a lot of tabs opened.

Sure, I could use tab stacking or something like that, but multiple tabs are much more convenient, not to mention the fact that in Firefox I have access to a lot of other options, like the number of tabs on each row, or I can actually disable the close button on tabs. No more closing tabs by mistake.

Another issue I have is with the add-on / extension system, which is a lot more permissive on Firefox. I have a ton of add-ons in the sidebar, stuff that's really complex and that works extremely well. Update Scanner and iMacros are just a couple of examples. Then we can also take a look in the Google Chrome store, and we'll see that there are millions of extensions, but the vast majority of them are utter crap. By contrast, the vast majority of add-ons for Firefox actually do something.

Customization is an important part

Users need to be able to rearrange the elements in the browser as they see fit. Firefox is a master at this. I can do pretty much what I want, like moving the address bar above the tabs. Also, Firefox supports real themes, stuff that actually modifies the way the browser looks, not just apply a different background. That's not a theme. For example, I'm using an Arc theme that makes the browser better integrate with the current theme of the system. You can't do that with other applications.

Also, let's get through a number of small problems. In Firefox, I can clear the right click menu to fit my needs. If I right-click right now in an empty part of a webpage, there is nothing in the menu. If I click on a picture, I have only "save image" and "copy image" location. I don't really need anything else. I also need to see the size of a file before I download it. Firefox uses its own save file menu, and it's highly configurable by add-ons. Can't do that with any other browser.

Another interesting feature has to do with how I migrate my browser after an OS installation. I just copy the profile and save it somewhere else. After I install the new OS, I put the profile back, and I can resume work like nothing happened, with everything in place, including all the opened tabs. What's interesting about it is that it's platform agnostic. I can take the profile from a Linux distro and copy it in a Windows OS.

I'm going to have to stop here, although there are lots of other smaller features that I can't do without, like for example making the browser open a new tab near the currently active one. You would think this should be standard, but no.

Conclusion