Special Firefox 100 celebratory thread: Why do you choose Firefox?

[Jon]

Happy Firefox 100 Release Day! 

(Read the full Release Notes here)

(SPOILER ALERT: there’s a Mozilla Connect mention ❤️)

17 years. 100 versions. What a ride. A special thanks to everyone who has helped, supported, and collaborated with us along the way. We couldn’t have made it here without you…and we can’t wait to see what the future holds.  

This is also an especially exciting milestone for this community as some of the new features have come from ideas and discussions in this space. 

So to celebrate and keep the good vibes rolling along, let’s kick off a special discussion in the community. We’re inviting community members—aka YOU—to share the main reason(s) why you choose Firefox? Let us know in the comments ⬇️⬇️⬇️

Things to consider:

-What’s your favorite feature?

-How long have you been a Firefox user?

-For those who have been around a bit longer, what are the biggest advancements on Firefox (or the web in general) since Firefox 1 back in 2004? 

When participating in the conversation, please remember to:

-Follow the Community Guidelines 

Anything that violates the guidelines will be flagged and removed. 

-Stay on topic

Let’s keep this thread focused on the exciting theme. If you have additional feedback or ideas unrelated to the discussion topic, create a new post.

Thank you all so much! 

[Morass_radio]

Вы лучшие!!!!

Помню как начал путь с firefox в те трудные времена когда проект хотели остановить. Сколько помню себя в интерете, всегда с вами! Долгих и успешных дней в дальнейшем! VIVA FIREFOX!!!

You are best!!!!

I remember how I started my journey with firefox in those difficult times when they wanted to stop the project. As long as I remember myself on the Internet, always with you! Long and successful days ahead!

[marcusampe]

Congratulations to the team which makes surfing a workable experience.

After Mozilla did not present updates anymore, we came to Firefox (then the second best, but from the same family). Being the fastest browser with the most practical add-ons like Addblocker that works better in Firefox than in Edge or Google Chrome. For bloggers like me the best thing about Firefox is that it keeps remembering URL or references we placed in our texts = saving a lot of time enabling us to easily place important links in our texts, to make it our readers more easy to connect to other articles and other websites.

For researchers and writers, the ideal tool.

Thanks to all that make our work on the internet easier.

[Jon]

Thanks @marcusampe. Glad to hear Firefox is helping make your work on the internet easier!

[ali1234]

The reason I use Firefox: userChrome, because it still allows me to revert all the bad UI ideas you've copied from Chrome over the years, such as the mobile-mystery-meat-menu and the excessive animations on everything.

Biggest advancements since Firefox 1: ad-blocking extensions.

[Jon]

Thanks for the response!

[mikewon]

ad-blocking extensions. E X A X C T L Y ❣️😍 (ツ)

[firefoxy]

Well, it's not a chromium based browser and that's essentially it.

Most newer features are pa!n and I'm not sure how much longer I can keep on with this browser. It eats ram like crazy and often lags. I think firefox is far over the horizon and will soon end in a niche like opera.

[LinuxDev]

I agree fully on the "not-chrome" aspect of your comment, but firmly disagree with the coming "niche" portion. Firefox is more than a browser... it's the "Mozilla Community" where the people have a voice.

As for reducing RAM consumption, you can easily disable many features in settings as well as venturing into the depths of Firefox manual settings... which I humbly thank Mozilla for allowing, as this is not possible in proprietary browsers. If this isn't enough, Firefox is completely free and open source... so, just fork it 😉  ie. IceCat and LibreWolf.  - Peace

[DuxX]

Hi, I moved to Firefox from Microsoft Edge. With Edge I constantly had problems with bookmarks synchronization between desktop and mobile app. 

[Jon]

Welcome to the community! What's your favorite feature on Firefox?

[ConfusEdSay]

You’ve been an invaluable asset and I appreciate just how far down the rabbit hole I’ve been able to go. Thank You FireFox for Faithfully guiding me through all of life’s riddles. You’ve had me since 2017 and I hope I can count on you for many years to come. 

[Jon]

Thanks so much @ConfusEdSay! We're excited for the many years to come 🙌

[plwt]

Wow, version 100!

I have been using Fx since 3.5 and for me it was always about speed.  I had been using IE6 on a dial up connection and Fx was visibly faster.

Favourite feature?  The ones that are seamless and feel like magic.  I use Firefox on multiple devices and Firefox Sync and its ability to deliver bookmarks and user credentials is really good.  it is not online backup, but it means I can operate across devices.  Linked to this is "send tab" - being able to send a tab from my phone to my laptop is magical - it is so fast!

Alongside this, we have seen much more openness in the tools needed to build on the web - something that Mozilla has done much to support - and open source being much more normal.  People globally can build and collaborate on the platform that helps the world build and collaborate - the web.

I think that the biggest change to both Fx and the web more generally has been how seamless it has all got.  We have moved from pop-ups and the web being a challenge to access to being able to move between laptop, phone, tablet, VR headset and TV to securely access services.  Sure, it is not perfect, but we often forget just how painful life was. 

[Jon]

Thanks @plwt! And thanks for being such an active member across our community spaces 🙌

[mikewon]

 ️🌵 Aloha from heavenly Lake Havasu City, Arizona, USA❣️  Seems like 25 years ago we started Firefox and have yet to find a better mouse trap!  Happy 100th as we look forward to the next 25 years.  We VERY MUCH appreciate this vast & unique system❣️

[Jon]

Aloha @mikewon! Looking forward to the next 25 years too—some exciting stuff ahead 😃

[mikewon]

Hourly "Grandfather Clock" chime. Unfortunately the quarter, ½ or 3/4 hr chimes have yet to be offered. Oh well, happy computin [deez puterz iz HARD!]

[miroslavglavic]

I have been using Firefox for a long long time.

I remember Firefox affiliates, and I can't remember but something like college/university ambassadors and I even received a bunch of Firefox CDs.

It was fun converting people at College to change to Firefox.

It is convenient. I have tried Chrome, Brave, Edge and IE. I moved to Chrome but as updates came, it slowed down. You know when you turn your computer on, then click on the browser...it took 3-5 minutes to load. I couldn't load another page during that time. Firefox does not do that.

[mikewon]

We have "Edge", "Wave", "Opera", "Firefox" & probablely "I.E." installed here with each idiocincracy.  "Wave" allows a  "Hazel UK" announcement each hour, "Aloha Master!  It's 15 hundred hours!"  It's not available at "I.E.", "Edge", "Opera", or even "Firefox"!  But "Opera" does have a great "Speed Dial" animated splash page and of course our favorite browser is the "animated-AlienFoxware Lab" with "FoxClocks', "Chime" 15 minute announcements & hourly "Grandfather Clock" chime.  Unfortunately the quarter, ½ or 3/4 hr chimes have yet to be offered.  Oh well, happy computin [deez puterz iz HARD!]

[Jon]

Firefox CDs...what a throwback! Thanks for sharing and celebrating this milestone release with us. 

[plwt]

One of the magical things from the early days of Firefox is that given the speeds and availability of early web connections how people even heard about Firefox.  It was only through knowledgeable users supporting the idea of something better that helped Firefox spread across the world.

[Guest]

it's the shift+right click

and bugzilla being so open about all ongoing work

and searchfox and its precursors being so good

p.s. and the really technical release notes

[Anonymous]

I wrote poems dedicated to Firefox 100 (English, Japanese). I hope you will celebrate this milestone in your own way.

[Jon]

Thanks @Anonymous for these amazing poems!

[ACoding]

For me, Firefox's User Interface is better compared to every other browser out there. Firefox is also the most customizable web browser I've used. Security features are also better in Firefox. Protection Dashboard is also a helpful feature for me as I get to know all the trackers blocked by Firefox at the present week.

[LinuxDev]

Hello Firefox Users!

I celebrate with you guys Firefox v100. Foremost, I use Firefox because of the Mozilla community and what it stands for. (Mozilla Manifesto Addendum) Basically it's the same reason I use Debian GNU/Linux. Freedom. Sure, there are some very good Firefox forks out there that may be a little lighter and faster, but I can do the very same thing by a bit of tweaking in about:config, thus choosing to remain on Firefox stable and contribute to the community as I can...

I've been using Firefox since 2006, leaving the dread AOL browser, then IE6 and never looking back... first installing v1.5 on Windows XP. My longtime favorite was Firefox 3.6 ...which I still use occasionally as my gopher protocol client, running in Windows 7 (the last Microsoft OS worth using) ... W7 was a great system and still is... in Virtualbox on Linux.

(Side note: We petitioned Microsoft to release W7 as open source, but they never responded to the our request)

Oh yes, before I forget... I thank the devs for giving Debian users auto-updates for Firefox Stable in this current version. I have been installing from the .tar file in terminal for years now (ever since Debian took Firefox stable out of the Sid repo). A huge time saver... thank you guys for all the work you do! 🙂

dev @ alt-web

Ref: Firefox 3.6 in Windows 7 (vbox) directly accessing gopher://gopher.floodgap.com/ 🙂

[Jon]

Thanks for this and for highlighting the Mozilla Manifesto Addendum 😃

[SuperHacker]

For freedom and privacy.

[mmg]

>17 years. 100 versions. What a ride.

Don't take it personally or for dark Evil Malcolm of celebration. But there is the part of tranlsated mail about "the ride".

...web browsers of previous versions, because they are actually used on users' computers, and will be used for some time.

For example, Firefox the important version is "56.0.2", which is the latest update to the Gecko engine.

And the very taste follows:

2. The reason for this is the policy of web browser authors for:
- auto-update control;
- compatibility with previous web browser extensions;
- consumption of resources;
the conditions for which in new versions of web browsers are worse than in older ones.

The authors of web browsers ignore the interests of users even in the stability of the user interface of the web browser, and also ignore the freedom of the users to configure all the parameters of his browser related to the installation of any software on the computer at the user's ownership (management).

The authors of web browsers, in addition to violating user rights, also "play in web browser" as an independent goal, while users need a web browser simply as a tool for accessing network resources, and such a tool meets completely different criteria than "web browser game".

As a result, users do not respond by installing new versions of web browsers wherever they can.

Do not say "good luck" to proceed the same way.

[Roddand]

Wow, 17 years.  Has it really been that long?  I remember well before that when I got my first Mac book there was only Safari, Internet Explorer, and Netscape Navigator.  Later came the now ubiquitous Google Chrome.  In those days reliability and speed were the yardsticks that we judged web browsers by.

How things have changed since those days.  I was an early adopter of Firefox when it was first released but it was early days and it still had some shortfalls but being a Mac user the concept of an "open" code application appealed to me so I persisted and revisited the application periodically over the years.  I am particularly impressed by the concepts expressed in Mozilla's Mission Statement and agree wholeheartedly with the sentiments and ideas therein.

Today, with personal security and privacy at the forefront of internet use it's refreshng to see a company that also still focuses on inclusion and fair play. 

For the last few years I have been using Brave browser in conjunction with DuckDuck Go due to the constant privacy and security barrage we are subjected to these days.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m not ready to join the silver foil hat brigade just yet.  I browse wisely (I think) but freely and a cannot see why I should not take advantage of the best, safest browser available.  

I think that Firefox 100 has now turned that corner with its 3 optional security levels, anti tracking measures and now “containers” to seperate types of browsing and their links from nosey cookies.

I have now swapped all my devices over to Firefox as default and look forward to staying with this time tested, people centric not for profit organisation.

[Jon]

Thanks for this wonderful response! Yea, can't believe it's been 17 years! It's been great looking back while reading these responses, and it's also exciting looking forward to what's to come. Please continue sharing your feedback and ideas 🙌

[benlimanto]

Congrats on version 100.2

Tbf, I use firefox because it's ability to change the UI using userChrome, and more powerfull addons that can be added into it. 2nd is, it still has menu bar, classic menu bar tb exact. 3rd is ability to write cache only to RAM (saving a lifetime SSD is my priority, cache are meaningless if you have fast internet and no data cap). DoH built in (first, before chrome), every privacy protection, HTTPS only mode built in, powerfull download window confirmation, bookmark shortcut keyword tags and menu, url bar that has short code for search engine (sadly now we can't change tabs, history or bookmark shortcut).

Also a broader community, at leat there are moz regional, even now it's dead (uhuk, Indonesia), I just hope firefox and grow and back become the facto of the web browser standard, rather than chromium.

[Jon]

Thanks so much! We look forward to working closely with this community and collaborating towards future releases 😃

[Jon]

Thanks all for celebrating Firefox 100 with us and for the many thoughtful responses here! 

With the release of Firefox 101 (check out the Release Notes) we are officially closing this thread. But please continue sharing product feedback and ideas for new features you'd like to see added to our products—we look forward to connecting and collaborating with this wonderful community.

In fact, there is currently an active discussion on the topic of Private Windows hosted by a Firefox Product Manager. Join here --> Private Windows on Firefox 

Have a great day 😃