Sunday, November 12, 2017

Tired of Firefox

I have been using Firefox as my web browser for almost as long as the internet has been around.  Back while I was still in college (20+ years ago), I preferred to use the Netscape browser, Navigator rather than the crappy one Microsoft included with the Windows operating system.  Then as time went by, for whatever reason, Netscape went away and what remained was Phoenix, which was created by the Mozilla Foundation as an alternative to the Mozilla Application Suite.  I could go on and on about the history of Mozilla and the Firefox browser, but I would just bore you.  The point being that I liked Firefox.  I liked the speed, the look, the layout, the add-ons that were available, and the ability to customize it for how I thought it worked best for me.  Well that is all gone now.

With the latest updates to Firefox, the majority of my add-ons have been disabled.  No more weather, my status bar is gone, my page loading meter, just to name a few are disabled.  When I looked it up, Mozilla gave some sort of reason for it having to do with cyber security or something, but a little warning to either the developers of the add-ons, or to the users of the browser would have been nice.  It still works, but I liked Firefox for the ability to customize it.  To layout where things were, such as the print button, and to have weather forecasts displayed unobtrusively on the add-on bar (both of which are gone now).  I have been using the Brave browser lately, though I don’t like the lack of add-ons.  It does run fast and eliminates/blocks trackers, though I have had some display problems when using it, such as my blog.  Chrome is nice too, but again, I am not happy with the lack of add-ons.  Maybe I am just not proficient enough with it, because both Sarah and Alison love using Chrome.  Though I do worry about Google and what they can and can’t see/track.  Sort of like Facebook before I found out that they lie and DO track everything you do online as well as sell your contact info. 

I have found a couple of other smaller web browsers that I may try out.  Something called Pale Moon, and Comodo IceDragon.  I remember using a Comodo firewall program a few years ago that I really liked, so maybe I’ll give that a try.  Of course there is always SeaMonkey, which is also built on the Mozilla platform.  Performance-wise, it is OK, but I am just not wild about the look.  Either way, unless I get my customization features back with Firefox, I may just be ready to throw in the towel.

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