Things are complicated. As a policy, I wouldn’t want to encourage grandma to be going to any web site to download software. Grandma should probably stick to the App Store. And personally, I would way rather install github builds than downloads from ‘official’/independently maintained web sites. Especially in the case of free / open source projects, sometimes cash constrained. Security is hard.
I’m not super knowledgeable about modern video players- I do like Infuse, which is in the App Store.
For me, Firefox really lacks in handling of very large amounts of tabs and a lot of features that I specifically use Vivaldi for. Does that mean Vivaldi is the best? Yes and No, it depends on what you care about.
Is Firefox still a good browser? As far as I know, yes. But I don't use it much at all because it doesn't give _me_ what I want and need.
And yes, I do actually need a large amount of tabs open at the same time very regularly due to the depth of references I work against in my line of work. That's on top of saving lots of bookmarks and syncing them via nextCloud.
You like Firefox? Great, keep at it.
You want to see features that aren't necessarily elsewhere? Consider trying Vivaldi and seeing if it's great for you or not.
Let's not act like browser selection is binary, because it isn't, and it really hasn't been since netscape navigator was new. And even then it's up for debate.
> Chromium is superior in every way. Rendering, features, speed, memory management
Being faster, prettier and using less memory[1] is pointless if the browser won't let me block all ads.
I mean, it's like comparing a turd sandwich made with expensive exotic bread, and a cheese sandwich made with cheap grocery store break.
Sure, the one has great exotic bread, but I don't want the turd it comes with.
So, yeah, it actually doesn't matter how much prettier, faster or smaller web pages are with Chrome, at least FF lets me (currently) block almost anything.
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[1] Chrome beats out FF in exactly one of those, and it's not the memory or speed. Turns out ads take up a lot of RAM, and slow down pages considerably.
Chromium based browsers have non-google sync. Vivaldi implements their own encrypted sync service and I believe Brave does as well.
But I am talking about browser feature support, not stuff that can supplemented with an extension like a password manager.
Firefox has poor support for modern web features including video processing and encoding which makes it very bad at web conferencing/video calls or in-page streaming.
Firefox's developer tools and console is also much worse and missing important features.
Other features Firefox is missing or has poor support for compared to Chromium are WebGPU, WebTransport, Periodic Background Sync, and parts of WebRTC. Plus various APIs for web serial, badging, and Web Share are missing partial or full support.
Firefox still doesn't have functional HDR for images and videos including AV1.
Also, for context: ’Some truth here, but it’s overstated.
Firefox does WebRTC fine. AV1 works, simulcast works, calls and streaming work. Chrome still leads on performance tweaks and extra APIs, but “very bad” is just wrong.
DevTools aren’t “much worse.” Different, less popular, sometimes better (CSS, network). Chrome wins mainly because everyone targets it first.
API gaps are real but the list is sloppy. WebGPU and WebTransport exist in Firefox now, just behind on advanced bits. Periodic Background Sync barely matters. WebRTC support keeps closing the gap.
Missing stuff like Web Serial, Badging, fuller Web Share? True, and mostly intentional.
HDR is the weakest claim that actually holds. AV1 decode exists, but HDR support still feels half-done.
TL;DR: Firefox lags Chromium in breadth and polish, not in core modern web capability. Calling it bad for video or modern apps doesn’t match reality.” ’
So... the better option?