Hi Mozilla! After having spent the past seven years using Firefox, I’m now open to change. This is in spite of my love of everything that Mozilla has done for the web, my familiarity with Firebug, the AwesomeBar, a carefully curated set of extensions, and years of browser history which is a treasure trove of interesting reading or valuable resources on the web. The last straw for me was simply the performance hit taken by having Firebug enabled. Yes, I could disable it, but having to relaunch is a huge pain and this switch would have to happen multiple times each day. I know you’re working on a more-tightly integrated set of developer tools and I really do hope that these solve my problems: I have to use a different browser to view web video because of consistent stuttering and Firefox frequently hangs or pegs a core at 99% usage.
Hi Google! I’m in the market for a new browser. Though it isn’t particularly a knock against you, I don’t like the way Webkit seems to have adopted Microsoft’s “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” approach to web functionality. I’m unfamiliar with Chrome’s web developer tools and its importer tool is choking on the huge dataset that is my Firefox profile. Most of the extensions I rely upon for daily use now exist. As Chrome is a significantly smoother experience for me I’m willing to try new things in spite of my complaints.
However, there remain a couple of features whose lack really annoy me:
- Having the home button be able to open more than one page. According to reports around the web this used to be possible by using a javascript: protocol link. However, presumably due to work on reducing the surface area for self-XSS (a semi-bug I first reported in 2009), this is no longer possible. (Though it should be noted that javascript: protocol links work on *startup* pages… one of these is likely a bug which should be fixed.)
- I’d like to be able to sync my open tabs to my iPhone, like I can with Firefox Sync. I’ve heard rumor this might be happening, but it can’t happen soon enough.
- An option to not close the entire window when I close the last tab. (Doesn’t exist for OS X in the Chrome Toolbox extension, kinda feel like a second-class citizen.)
- You’re being obstinate about creating an option to remove the “X” (close button) on tabs? I’d much rather have more text when I’ve got a bunch of tabs open. This is a really stupid place to draw a line in the sand and pick a fight with your users. Anybody asking for this is already a power user so create and direct them to an about:config knockoff. Or put it in the Chrome Toolbox extension.
So I’m not switching. But can one of you please get your act together?