I mainly use Chrome but switch to Firefox every once in a while, just to check how it’s doing. This time I thought I’d write down my opinion, in no particular order.

Pros

Addons on mobile

This is really. Particularly for adblocking.

Directly opening a file without saving it to downloads

I’ve noticed that in the past two weeks of Firefox I’ve needed to save I think less than five files. Everything else could be just opened.

Network panel is better

I’m not sure exactly what it is, but the network panel in Firefox feels better.

JSON is automatically nicely presented

When opening a page that’s just JSON response it’s directly parsed and nicely presented.

Cons

Newsletter

This really left a sour taste in my mouth. Not only did I have to create a separate account but I was signed up to a newsletter automatically and it was quite frequent – I think I got something for three days in a row before unsubbing.

The service also sends some intro emails that I was also not asked about.

Doesn’t pick up site search

This is quite annoying but it didn’t automatically pick up search boxes for sites that are visited. The user needs to “Add keyword for this search” for each individual one. Choice is appreciated but perhaps it could be automatically added for frequently visited sites.

Tabs randomly pop out

I think this might be a bug on Ubuntu. Occasionally while clicking on tabs the selected one would just pop out into a new window for no reason.

No calculator in address bar

I didn’t realize just how often I used it till it was gone.

Bookmarks bar either shown or hidden

Whereas in Chrome its shown on new tab but hidden otherwise.

Developer tools responsiveness toggle doesn’t remember last setting

A nitpick to be sure, but the responsiveness toggle always starts from the default. In Chrome the selected device is remembered from last time the console was open.

Feels slower

In general I’ve felt that things are slower on Firefox. This is entirely a feeling, I’ve not done any benchmarks or anything.

All in all, as much as I’d like to switch to Firefox I think it’s still behind.