Upgrade to Firefox (desktop and mobile)

Image from blog.mozilla.com

I’m finally finishing the process of going back to Firefox. I left a few years ago because it was just too slow. With the release of Firefox Quantum, it’s time for me to (very happily) move back.

Here are a few major reasons I am switching:

• Speed. Firefox Quantum beats Chrome handily, and can handle multiple tabs without draining my computer’s resources. More info here.
• Google already owns too much of my data. Blockchain technology is going to enable me to get my share of the monetizing action someday soon, but for now Google just sells it. Moving away from Chrome is one way to start taking control of my data.
• Sweet mobile integration. Sometimes I find an article, often a tutorial on Hacker News, while sitting on a bus/matatu and can’t do anything with it until I’m back on my laptop. Easy instructions here, as well as for syncing bookmarks and history. I’m sure Chrome can do this too, but see the previous bullet for why not to use Chrome.

In order to get up to speed, I needed a few add-ons. There were often several options, but I chose one that had a high enough rating and recent developer activity:

• Know how many tabs are open. Tab Counter helps keep mental clutter down and lets me know how much progress I’m making at tab cleanup time.
• Handle multiple tabs. After opening 30 tabs in a single window, it often helps to reorganize (or close several at once). It’s also nice to be able to copy a bunch of tabs at once to send to someone, especially if we’re working on a project together. I’m using Multiple Tab Handler. You can create shortcuts for common actions in the add-on preferences as well.
• View tabs as a tree and manipulate groups of tabs visually. Often I end up with 40+ tabs in a window and groups of them will come from specific pages (anyone who’s been down a Wikipedia hole knows what I mean). Tree Style Tab lets me see those. It also works with Multiple Tab Handler to let me visually drag different tabs and manipulate them.
• Snooze tabs. If there’s something that I’ll want to look at later, Snooze Tabs allows me to send it effortlessly to my future self.
• Get under the hood of a site. “Wappalyzer is a cross-platform utility that uncovers the technologies used on websites. It detects content management systems, ecommerce platforms, web frameworks, server software, analytics tools and many more.” It’s great.

Bonus:

• Great cross-device reading experience. Firefox bought Pocket last year, and have promised to open source it eventually.

Know any other good add-ons or tips? Please comment! Now I’m off to read about 15 Power User Tips for Firefox Quantum to move my game up a level.

Also, Jordan Bowman wrote a good article on the topic, which I found after writing this one.