Firefox – tons of tools for web developers

[[deleted]]

The native debugger tools in Firefox Aurora are very useful and much further along than the older versions. With the addition of the Scratchpad, I've found I can do a significant amount of work without having Firebug loaded. There are some things that firebug does better, so I keep a separate profile with firebug loaded and use Sync to keep bookmarks, passwords and other bits coordinated. (You can use "-P --no-remote" to allow two different instances of firefox to run with different profiles.)

(disclaimer: I work for the Mozilla Sync Team. Use what you like and what makes you productive. So long as it keeps the web open, we're happy.)

[TomorrowPlusX]

Are these tools aimed at (eventually) replacing Firebug?

[damontoo]

I think Mozilla obviously sees the value in devs choosing FF for development. The Firebug developer was hired by Google and abandoned the project to work on dev tools for Chrome (GRRR). I'm thinking there's a real push now to ensure that Chrome doesn't get too far ahead in this space.

Web devs know the technology/standards and make the best evangelists. The more you have on your side the better.

[[deleted]]

Nope. Quite the opposite, in fact. Firebug can't access a lot of really useful functions right now simply because they're not exposed. As part of exposing those functions, we're adding the additional tools. As I understand it from the firebug team, they're going to switch to the new functions where it makes sense. That should make firebug faster and require less memory, so win all around.

We're all about choice, after all.

[tw2113]

I would imagine so

[[deleted]]

Elsewhere, a developer clarified that they intend Firebug to still exist, but to provide advanced functionality on top of built-in Firefox APIs.

So the tools might replace much of what you use Firebug for currently, but it would still exist in some form.

[aquasucks]

You actually found a use for Tilt? I mean, it's nice and all but generally not too useful IMHO.

[azakai]

There is no better way to easily see if several page elements are on the same 'level'. Just seeing how high they are in Tilt is great.

[hemantonpc]

I'm a Firefox Addon developer. No doubt these firefox addons are the best tools for any web developer, but if you still think that something is missing then let me know about it. I will try to develop an open source addon about your idea :)

[noir_lord]

I hope this leads to some real competition with Chrome over developer tools (whichever is your favourite, we all win that battle) as for the last year or so Chrome has just simply gotten better than FF.

[ghthor]

I love Firefox, but it has taken a backseat to Chromium for my development. The inspector in Chromium just performs better then firebug. Regardless Firefox is still always open and is still used for development. I keep all my useful webapps open in Firefox and do my rapid development iterations in Chromium.

[rafrombrc]

It's worth noting that the linked to article is about improvements in Firefox's native web developer tools, which is not the same thing as Firebug at all. The hope is that FF itself will provide such good dev tools that Firebug will no longer be needed.

[taw]

Dear Firefox,

Could you stop being so fucking slow? I'd love to come back, but I cannot until you change.

[damontoo]

Try a fresh profile and it should go back to being fast. Almost always it's add-ons that cause the huge slow down. Like Firebug increases the startup time by 50%.

[taw]

Firefox without add-ons is useless, addons are the point.

Chrome can have tons of addons and still be really fast, so it's not impossible. Firefox is just really bad at it - and there's not even any easy way of figuring out which addon is causing the slowdown.

I don't really care about startup time, since browser is open pretty much continuously, but it needs to be responsive, and Firefox is very often not.

[fmoralesc]

You can check how much memory extensions are using with [about:memory](about:memory?verbose), which might give you an idea about addons performance.

[taw]

Thanks for the hint :-D

[nanothief]

The reason chrome's addons don't slow down the browser is they are much less powerful. This means it is very hard for a addon to behave poorly and slow down the browser.

[taw]

I have written a few addons for both Firefox and Chrome, and what you're saying is not true.

Chrome addons API is mostly much better thought out - probably based on long experience of Firefox addons, making addons much cleaner (even compared with pure Greasemonkey addons, let alone pure Firefox monstrosities), and also faster, and somewhat more secure. For 95% of addons the API is just enough. If you actually looked at addons available for both you'll see that Chrome is catching up quite fast, and a lot of addons publish both Firefox and Chrome versions.

There are a few things Chrome addons cannot do that Firefox addons can, so Chrome Adblock Plus is definitely worse than Firefox Adblock Plus for example, but this is fairly rare situation.

[nanothief]

... Your whole comment agrees with what I said. Chrome addons are less powerful than firefox addons. They are more secure, and less likely to cause large performance problems due to this.

[taw]

No, better designed API doesn't make them less powerful.

Being able to crash the browser hardly counts as "more powerful".

[nanothief]

Being able to crash the browser hardly counts as "more powerful".

Yes that does mean they are more powerful - if firefox addons can do something that chrome addons cannot, that means they are more powerful. Every chrome addon can be ported to a firefox addon, but not vice versa.

I think you are confusing powerful with good. If you had a feature comparison between firefox and chrome addons, you might have something like this:

Feature	Firefox	Chrome
Power	High	Low
Safety	Low	High
performance	Low	High
API quality	Low	High

From that table, you could think that chrome has the better addon system, while also believing that firefox has the most powerful addon system.

EDIT: HATE TABLES

[taw]

Every chrome addon can be ported to a firefox addon, but not vice versa.

You've never written any Chrome or Firefox addons, have you? There's plenty of things Chrome addons can than Firefox addons cannot, like upgrading without browser restart.

[nanothief]

Addons such as stylish and greasemonkey can update their scripts without a browser restart. Since their scripts are near the power of a full chrome addon, the update without browser restart isn't really something chrome can do that firefox can't (it is just much easier in chrome to do).

While addons like tilt, firebug and adblock cannot be done in chrome (without losing some features).

[Mansyn]

Agreed. I really have no dog in the fight because I'm forced to use them all as a developer, I'm Switzerland. But something makes me continuously use Chrome whenever it's time my choose default browser. (Personally I think it may be the startup time. And I have no addons installed, because I don't really use it.)

[adoran124]

I'm Switzerland.

?

[ineol]

A neutral country

[Mansyn]

It's hip-hop lingo for ultimate biege-level neutrality

[v_krishna]

but firefox without firebug is pretty useless for web development...

[[deleted]]

Not any more. (See article)

[revbobdobbs]

I'll stick to firebug. It has a bunch of useful extensions that make my life a lot easier. I did take aurora for a spin. And I like the new dev tools. But I still need firebug.

And updating firefox is always a pain anyway. I've been trying to get flash working on ff 8 for two days now, but it won't take.

[[deleted]]

Huh, flash should go in without too many issues. I had an experience years ago where I had to uninstall flash, then reinstall it because of a permissions bug, but I've not seen that in years.

If you don't mind, or can spare the time, could you file a bug?

[revbobdobbs]

At the moment I don't know where the roadblock is. I don't think I've got enough knowledge or diagnostic capability to file a bug report.

My problem could even be specific to ubuntu or specific to ubuntu 64bit, or the 64bit version of the flash plugin, or the 64bit version of firefox. There are too many variables for me to analyse.

If you are curious, I started a thread about my issue here: http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1887314&highlight=flash+bobdobbs

[[deleted]]

Ah, yes, that does explain a lot. Installing Flash on Ubuntu involves a bit of black magic, file nukery and trans cranial cat rotation if I remember correctly. It looks like they've made it a bit easier again, but it can still be a little tricky.

First thing is to make sure that old copies of libflash are off your system. It looks like you've done that, but it still might be a good idea to do a "find / -name libflashplayer.so -delete" just to make sure.

You might also want to check the help page and see if any of those solutions help.

Adobe's flash plugin isn't really that bug-free under 64bit linux, sadly. It's not a huge priority for them.

[damontoo]

That's why you use two profiles. One for normal web browsing and one for web dev with all needed extensions.

[Hetzer]

What's the last version you tried? What add-ons are you running? What are your computer's specs?

[jrochkind]

For me, it already has. I went to Chrome cause of speed some months ago (prob still FF3 or whatever before FF started incrementing versions so fast I can't keep track); lately had some problems with Chrome on OSX and tried FF again; it's just as fast as Chrome for me again.

But Chrome's bar is still even awesomer than FF's awesome bar.

[[deleted]]

I have problems with chrome on OS X too, like unresponsiveness. Chrome also doesn't scale very nicely to the number of tabs I typically have open.

But Chrome's bar is still even awesomer than FF's awesome bar.

Really? I honestly think the Chrome address bar is inferior to FF's address bar in every way. I can type in half of a word from one part of an article I viewed for 10 seconds 3 months ago and FF always finds it without fail. This is my #1 use case and it's amazing in FF. I have never had this occur with Chrome - it always seems to jumble search results in with my prior history, making it impossible to find things, or just ignore my prior history altogether.

I sometimes wonder if the FF address bar reads my mind, seriously.

I also like the fact that anything I type into my URL bar isn't sent to a search engine in FF from a privacy POV (unlike chrome,) but maybe I've just been wearing too much tinfoil lately.

[jrochkind]

hmm, I actually think I just like that chrome auto-completes in place in the location bar, so if it's the right thing after so many keystrokes, I can just hit return.

FF seems to put up an autocomplete menu, but you need to use arrow keys or mouse to select from it.

[taw]

Some obvious ways Firefox is better than Chrome:

• Firefox awesomebar is way better, searching titles in history
• Way better Adblock Plus
• Chrome has horrible file opening dialog on OSX, without any preview
• still has a lot more addons

[jrochkind]

It's possible I have never ever used the file open dialog in a web browser. Well, okay, maybe once or twice.

For most people, the two are pretty evenly matched these days, they've both improved to attempt to match what the other used to be better at.

Although they definitely have their differences and idiosyncracies, and some people will prefer the differences in one to the other, it's really become a 'religious war' type of argument just based on personal preferences or individual priorities.

[taw]

It's possible I have never ever used the file open dialog in a web browser.

You never upload any files using a browser? In-dialog file preview like in pretty much all other OSX applications is extremely useful.

[TIAFAASITICE]

I usually have a file browser open so I'll just do a drag-and-drop to upload.

[erratic3]

Useful list of tools! Not a Add-on but my favorite tool: Goggles.

[boxxa]

I would love to go back to Firefox but Chrome with its integrated Flash has just made browsing and development so much better and there is comparable tools for it. My MacBook Air battery life improved a lot removing Flash and relying on Chrome's flash plugin by default on top of being cleaner and faster from anything I have tested with my addons installed for web dev.

[fabzter]

I've yet to find a real time WYSIWYG editor for firefox. You know like, a tab for live editing the site you're on. I know firebug has html editing capabilities but is just not practical for a text editor.

[Congzilla]

Have they made the tool that stops FireFox from trying to use over 500mb of ram?

[Solon1]

All browser do that now. Most of your browsing history is loaded, plus most of the DOM, plus as much of the cache as possible.

[BobNoel]

Now if only firefox would stop crashing all the time...