this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Firefox

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[–] [email protected] 105 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 134 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I'm switching today. Right now. Because of this post.

^^maybe
EDIT: okay. I think I've done it. I'm currently editing this comment from Firefox. I already had Firefox installed. But now I have pinned it to my taskbar. I went to import my bookmarks from chrome, and found that I also had the option of importing other stuff from chrome, too (bookmarks, passwords, history and autofill data). That's sweet. My bookmark bar has the same bookmarks in the same position. I also installed ublock origin, like someone recommended. And I am going to give it a go. If it all goes smoothly, I will unpin Chrome from the taskbar.

Thanks everyone for the encouragement!

[–] [email protected] 82 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Install ublock origin and open YouTube.

You won't regret it.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 year ago (1 children)

fantastic. Also, just so you don't have all that "YoU hAvE tHrEe ViDeOs LeFt" BS copy paste this to the "my filters" tab (go to about:addons, click on uBlock, there dots, "preferences", then "my filters") and you should be good to go:

youtube.com##+js(set, yt.config_.openPopupConfig.supportedPopups.adBlockMessageViewModel, false)

youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.adBlocksFound, 0)

youtube.com##+js(set, ytplayer.config.args.raw_player_response.adPlacements, [])

youtube.com##+js(set, Object.prototype.hasAllowedInstreamAd, true)

Also here is another that blocks shorts entirely:

www.youtube.com##ytd-guide-renderer a.yt-simple-endpoint path[d^="M10 14.65v-5.3L15 12l-5 2.65zm7.77-4.33"]:upward(ytd-guide-entry-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-mini-guide-renderer a.yt-simple-endpoint path[d^="M10 14.65v-5.3L15 12l-5 2.65zm7.77-4.33"]:upward(ytd-mini-guide-entry-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="home"] .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-rich-item-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="subscriptions"] .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-grid-video-renderer,ytd-rich-item-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-search .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-video-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="subscriptions"] ytd-video-renderer .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-item-section-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-browse[page-subtype="trending"] .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-video-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-search .ytd-thumbnail[href^="/shorts/"]:upward(ytd-video-renderer)
www.youtube.com##ytd-rich-shelf-renderer[is-shorts]
www.youtube.com##ytd-reel-shelf-renderer
m.youtube.com##ytm-reel-shelf-renderer
m.youtube.com##ytm-pivot-bar-renderer div.pivot-shorts:upward(ytm-pivot-bar-item-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-browse ytm-item-section-renderer ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"]:upward(ytm-video-with-context-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-browse ytm-item-section-renderer ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"]:upward(ytm-compact-video-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-search ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer[data-style="SHORTS"]:upward(ytm-compact-video-renderer,ytm-video-with-context-renderer)
m.youtube.com##ytm-single-column-watch-next-results-renderer ytm-thumbnail-overlay-time-status-renderer span:has-text(/^(0:\d\d|1:0\d)$/):upward(ytm-video-with-context-renderer)
youtube.com##ytd-rich-grid-row, #contents.ytd-rich-grid-row:style(display:contents !important;)

AND REMEMBER TO CLICK "APPLY CHANGES" BEFORE LEAVING!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

And I'm just gonna drop this right here for those who use Twitch

For the first step: Click the Extensions button (puzzle piece icon) on the right side of the toolbar next to the main hamburger menu > right-click uBlock Origin from the drop-down > "Manage extension"

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It'll cost you nothing at all.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 year ago (2 children)

And in fact will save you CPU cycles. For a bit, Chrome had a slight performance edge over Firefox. But once Google got the market share, Firefox caught up and got ahead, and Chrome didn't invest in keeping up, so Firefox is generally faster. The only exception is a few sites (especially Google ones) seem to be heavily optimised for Chrome, but not necessarily as much for Firefox. If you stay away from those sites, Firefox is generally faster.

Plus Chromium is increasingly becoming more hostile to efficient ad blocking add-on implementations - so if you want to block ads (generally recommended due to ad networks doubling as paid malware distribution networks), Firefox or other Gecko-based browsers are generally the best bet.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wait can you elaborate on that a little bit? Back in the days, Chrome was a resource hog which made me switch to Firefox for a few years. Then I tried a bunch of different browsers and found that my Firefox couldn't keep up with the performance of Chromium-based browsers, which made me switch to Edge. But now, Firefox has better performance again?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

It ebbs and flows over time. All browsers will be attempting to improve performance, but at the same time adding features. More features often impact performance negatively.

Most normal pages are apparently faster in Firefox right now, but Google might make an optimisation effort in chromium that might make Firefox comparatively slower.

The main pages that are still slower in Firefox are Google sites. Google has repeatedly made things on their pages that unfairly favor Chrome. For example at one point they added an invisible frame that had no functionality over the video player on YouTube. They obviously made optimisations in chrome at the same time so they wouldn't be affected, but Firefox' hardware acceleration of videos broke, because the video now had additional items over top that it needed to custom handle. This gave chrome a massive performance edge on YouTube, until Firefox started ignoring completely invisible overlays of videos, just like Chrome did

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Linux user here, at least on my platform there are chromium alternatives that are far faster, like Brave. uBlock (and now this) are the only reason im still in firefox

[–] [email protected] 17 points 1 year ago

No maybes. Do it.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If it would help with the transition, Firefox has a first time install option to move over all of your bookmarks. A super cool reason to have a firefox account is the ability to transfer a tab from one device to another. Best part is that Firefox isn't profit motivated like Chrome so there's much less bullshit to deal with

[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago

Thanks, I've done it!

I found out you can import not only bookmarks from Chrome, but also passwords, history and autofill data!

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago