What browser(s) do you use?

[JulianRO]

(This thread is a great reminder to look for an alternative for OneDrive!)

Awesome ^^

Unfortunately PDFs were really bad in Firefox. So when I went to university and had to stand in line to print the course slides, it was simply too embarrassing to keep using Firefox. People in line would start sighing because I was so slow. I switched to Google Chrome basically immediately.

With the last updates, they optimized their PDF viewer, it should be faster to load PDF files now.

However, the Microsoft websites don't work properly on Firefox, in particular Microsoft OneDrive is horrendous in Firefox.

Indeed, however, it's mainly because Microsoft and Google intentionally slow them down on Firefox, in order to use either Microsoft Edge or Chrome. Which, are pretty much the same browser.

I switched back to Firefox in 2024 because Google Chrome was giving me notifications that uBlock Origin would stop working soon and I just don't think the internet is safe enough without it.

That addon is a must whenever I browse the internet.

 

[Red Arrow]

With the last updates, they optimized their PDF viewer, it should be faster to load PDF files now.

Well, it was terrible in 2015, when I made the switch.

Indeed, however, it's mainly because Microsoft and Google intentionally slow them down on Firefox, in order to use either Microsoft Edge or Chrome. Which, are pretty much the same browser.

Maybe? In any case, they don't check to see if their products work on Firefox.

Sometimes it takes a couple of minutes to add a row in Excel. OneDrive in Firefox is that bad.

 

[JulianRO]

Maybe? In any case, they don't check to see if their products work on Firefox.

Yes, of course. Even YouTube is slower on Firefox.

OneDrive in Firefox is that bad.

The Office apps you mean? In Excel I can confirm that it stays a lot to load the spreadsheets, but again, that's something Microsoft should address, it's mainly their issues.

Or use Office offline

 

[Red Arrow]

The Office apps you mean? In Excel I can confirm that it stays a lot to load the spreadsheets, but again, that's something Microsoft should address, it's mainly their issues.

Yes, sometimes random cells are black because they didn't load!

It doesn't make sense that OneDrive is this bad. It is mostly the same thing as Sharepoint but for private users and Sharepoint is a million times faster.

I am not a Microsoft expert but I do know that they fired their entire quality control team in 2014 because "the customer will just tell us when something doesn't work!" However, reading customer reviews was actually what the quality control team did, so now Microsoft is literally just launching unfinished products without changing anything about it.

Or use Office offline

I want to read and modify that one file on multiple devices.

 

[JulianRO]

I want to read and modify that one file on multiple devices.

I know, I was just joking ))

You can try using Chrome only for that site. I do the same, and also on Maps, Meet, Earth, and other apps that Google slows down on Firefox. Unfortunately there is not much you can do about that.

 

[Red Arrow]

Proton Sheets is pretty good, it seems. It works in Firefox

 

[RandomMe]

My previous laptop converted PDF files to a PDF viewer in early 2025

 

[themidnightlore]

Vivaldi here, can vouch for it, it's real legit! (And it still can use uBO with no issues! And it also has its own ad blocker, too!)

 

[RandomMe]

I barely touched other browsers. I barely use Edge.

Last time I used its predecessor quite a lot was back in 2019 on my MS Surface to play some Shockwave games and do gameplays. I installed the plugin to run on the laptop, but only for Internet Explorer, as Chrome support ceased in 2015.

 

[JulianRO]

Vivaldi here, can vouch for it, it's real legit! (And it still can use uBO with no issues! And it also has its own ad blocker, too!)

Vivaldi has a terrible sync, sadly. And at one point uBO will be gone as well, it wasn't completely removed yet from Chromium's code.

 

[themidnightlore]

Vivaldi has a terrible sync, sadly. And at one point uBO will be gone as well, it wasn't completely removed yet from Chromium's code.

I never had issues with the syncing (unless you talk of when the Vivaldi servers go off, happened at least one time)
And I think the in-house adblocker is also for when they'll have to drop uBO.

 

[JulianRO]

I never had issues with the syncing (unless you talk of when the Vivaldi servers go off, happened at least one time)

For me it does.

And I think the in-house adblocker is also for when they'll have to drop uBO.

Unfortunately it's not as good as uBO, but at least it's there and does a decent job, at least.

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

I barely touched other browsers. I barely use Edge.

Last time I used its predecessor quite a lot was back in 2019 on my MS Surface to play some Shockwave games and do gameplays. I installed the plugin to run on the laptop, but only for Internet Explorer, as Chrome support ceased in 2015.

Then what browser do you the most on your laptop? Just curious.

 

[RandomMe]

Then what browser do you the most on your laptop? Just curious.

Chrome

 

[JulianRO]

Google Chrome silently installs a 4 GB AI model on your device without consent. At a billion-device scale the climate costs are insane. — That Privacy Guy!

Google Chrome is downloading a 4 GB Gemini Nano model onto users' machines without consent, with no opt-in, no opt-out short of enterprise tooling, and an automatic re-download every time the user deletes it. The pattern is identical to the Anthropic Claude Desktop case I wrote about last month...

www.thatprivacyguy.com

One more reason to stay away from Chrome.

 

[AdrenalineRush1996]

Opera is quite bloated in my opinion, and besides that, it has a shady reputation considering it's owned by Chinese.

I mean there are people who do find Opera as a better alternative to Chrome as they have a built-in VPN and are popular with gamers but I get your point here.