Sidebar for Favorites is a step in the right direction!

Iron Contributor

I'm glad Edge Team finally made a sidebar for Favorites! Please make this available for History and Downloads and Edge will FINALLY be on the direction to become a good browser! Sidebars are great for keeping you in your workflow instead of being as obtrusive as fullscreen menus.

 

And please let us pin the Downloads and History buttons to the toolbar too! As of now, you can only do so with Favorites, but there's not much of a point since the Favorites bar exists.

 

Looking forward to the possibility of Edge maybe even being as good as Firefox sometime within the next five years!

26 Replies
Yes, but it's also worse in many aspects ;)

Such as?

 

I'm asking because Firefox has been my default browser for a long time before switching to Edge, now it's my 2nd one. 

@HotCakeX 

I'm mainly going to talk about Firefox for Windows and iOS because I'm more familiar with them.

 

And I know that Edge will supposedly get some of these features at some point, but I'm talking about what's better now.

 

Firefox desktop:

  • unintrusive sidebars instead of fullscreen menus
    • The sidebar can also be accessed by extensions
  • much much better customization
    • This not only allows for personalization through themes, but also faster web browsing by pinning commonly used commands to the toolbar!
  • Send webpages to iOS
  • history sync
  • tab sync
  • screenshot tool (including screenshotting only a specific region of the page or the entire page)
  • page selector in PDF viewer
  • outline in PDF viewer
  • touchscreen support (it's like Microsoft forgets that they make touchscreen devices)
  • Ctrl+tab switcher that takes you to your last used tab (if you want it--I'm personally not a fan, but the more options the better!)
  • Firefox Monitor
  • container tabs
  • tab scrolling to be able to manage more than 10 tabs in one window
  • One common "Library" for history/downloads/bookmarks/synced tabs (the way Classic Edge had)

 

Firefox for iOS has:

  • Easily search other websites
  • Type in part of a URL and it autofills the rest, from which you can quickly add on to it—e.g. I can type “r” and Firefox will complete the url for “reddit.com” and then I can tap the end to add “/r/microsoftedge”
Edge has customization using Chrome themes. also toolbar is very customizable. ability to pin/unpin Edge feature buttons and also using drag/drop to customize extension icons or pin them to the menu.

Firefox monitor? Edge has it too for passwords, currently in Dev/Can channels.

Edge has ability to switch between each tab using task view which is built into Windows 10.
Windows 10 20H2 update which is in RP and Beta rings right now. coming in Otcober 2020.

History and tab sync are coming soon.
that also brings the ability to access tabs from other devices such as Android and IOS.
Edge also has ability to share pages via QR code.

PDF feature? Edge has 200% more features than Firefox and Chrome, there is no arguing about that.
https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/articles/roadmap-for-pdf-reader-in-microsoft-edge/m-p/1467667


container tabs. ehh..I don't know about that, it's not useful for me, I prefer the robust tracking prevention inside Edge. Or, I can just create as many offline profiles as I want in Edge, name them whatever and open each of my social network sites in them.

common library? I don't see any correlation between history, downloads and favorites, they are separate types of data, Firefox puts them all together, fine that's their style, it doesn't make it good and an example for other browsers to follow.

Easily search for other websites? what?
the URL auto completion is also on Edge (Android that I use) and desktop/Mac.

@HotCakeX

 

I don't think you read the part where I said "And I know that Edge will supposedly get some of these features at some point, but I'm talking about what's better now."

 

Edge's toolbar isn't very customizable at all. The only things you can pin to Edge's toolbar are Favorites (which is redundant because of the Favorites toolbar), Collections, Feedback, and Share. Firefox lets you pin things like Downloads, History, Edit controls, New Window, New Private Window, Synced Tabs, Print, Zoom Controls, etc. And they aren't limited to only being to the right of the URL bar. I have, for example, put "new window" buttons in the topmost toolbar (next to the tabs) because that's where it makes sense for me--a great way to browse the web faster.

 

Integrating Edge tabs into Alt+Tab will show tabs alongside open windows. This clutters the Alt+Tab view and therefore makes it inefficient. Keeping tabs and windows separate makes much more sense.

 

History sync isn't coming "soon." It's been "planned for summer" for months now and summer is over. (Again, you didn't seem to read the part where I said "And I know that Edge will supposedly get some of these features at some point, but I'm talking about what's better now.")

 

Container tabs are more efficient for privacy than using multiple windows. Extensions like Firefox's own Facebook Container (which I think they have now integrated within Firefox and included by default) will open Facebook-owned sites within its own container automatically.

 

Downloads/history/favorites make perfect sense to group together for me as all of them are menus for accessing features of the browser. Especially since they all use sidebars in Firefox, and Firefox uses a common toolbar for any commands (or extensions) that can access it.

 

Firefox for iOS has buttons above the keyboard that, with one tap, let you search that specific website for whatever you typed in the URL bar. For example, if I use Google as my default search, I can type "Microsoft Edge" in the URL bar and then click the Wikipedia icon above the keyboard to automatically search Wikipedia for Microsoft Edge (and because of the way Wikipedia's search works, I will automatically be taken to the article for Edge).

 

URL autocompletion isn't a feature in Edge for iOS.

And might I remind you that the question was simply about what advantages Firefox has over Edge. Firefox has many things that Edge doesn't have yet and a few things Edge is probably never going to get (like the iOS features, better customization, touchscreen support, and unintrusive sidebars). All I was saying was that Firefox does these things better--and I was saying no more than that.
Edge is a new browser so I consider upcoming features as well.

there is no clutter in task view, there is granular settings to control number of tabs shown in there,

Firefox has a lot of redundant features, not all of Firefox features are "advantages". maybe for you personally they are, but not generally. if Firefox was that good, Chrome wouldn't have that much market share.

again about the library thingy it's your personal opinion. in terms of data, they have no correlation. history is web history, bookmarks/favorites are things that user saves and so on.
when I wanna open a site i added to favorite, i don't need to see my web history, or downloads history.

I don't talk about IOS.
I can say all of that about Edge as well. so let me remind you of that as well.
Firefox is slower than Edge and Edge because of using Chromium is more compatible.

if Firefox was that good, they would keep their userbase instead of losing them to Chrome.

Edge's features were the reason I don't use Firefox as my main browser anymore.

I suggest you to see the whole picture, try insider Edge channels, explore the flags and upcoming features. many of them are missing in Firefox.

@HotCakeX 

 

Let's take take away the upcoming features then.

 

Firefox desktop:

  • unintrusive sidebars instead of fullscreen menus
    • The sidebar can also be accessed by extensions
  • much much better customization
    • This not only allows for personalization through themes, but also faster web browsing by pinning commonly used commands to the toolbar!
  • Send webpages to iOS
  • touchscreen support (it's like Microsoft forgets that they make touchscreen devices)
  • Ctrl+tab switcher that takes you to your last used tab (if you want it--I'm personally not a fan, but the more options the better!)
  • container tabs
  • tab scrolling to be able to manage more than 10 tabs in one window
  • One common "Library" for history/downloads/bookmarks/synced tabs (the way Classic Edge had)

 

Firefox for iOS has:

  • Easily search other websites
  • Type in part of a URL and it autofills the rest, from which you can quickly add on to it—e.g. I can type “r” and Firefox will complete the url for “reddit.com” and then I can tap the end to add “/r/microsoftedge”

The question was about what advantages Firefox has, and here they are. This is the answer you wanted!

 

What Firefox features are redundant?

 

Even if you don't talk about iOS, there are people who use it. Both browsers have iOS apps, and there is a clear winner.

Again, the question you asked was what advantages Firefox has over Edge. I never said that Firefox has more or better advantages over Edge. I don't know why trying the insider channels would be relevant to the conversation--I'm not here to talk about what Edge has that Firefox doesn't because you asked about it the other way around. And I answered that question. That's all I was doing.
Plus, it doesn't matter whether Firefox is "slower" or not. Nobody has ever noticed a real difference in browsing speed based solely on the browser engine. The only thing that impacts how quickly a page loads is your internet speed and tracker blocking (which both browsers offer).

I would argue that Firefox has overall faster browsing because higher customization lets you pin commonly used commands to the toolbar to access them more quickly.
I need to mention those features because you appear not to be aware of them and as a result count them as features/advantages that Firefox has over Edge, while Edge has them too, maybe not the exact thing but similar.
Firefox's javascript engine is the main source of slowness. they are working on warp to improve it but that's for the future.

so yeah of course the slowness is noticeable, with the same Internet speed.

@HotCakeX 

I guess that's fair. Let's remove ones where Edge has similar, if not equivalent, features. And also the Library, since you're not a fan of that.

 

Firefox desktop:

  • unintrusive sidebars instead of fullscreen menus
    • The sidebar can also be accessed by extensions
  • much much better customization
    • This not only allows for personalization through themes, but also faster web browsing by pinning commonly used commands to the toolbar!
  • Send webpages to iOS
  • touchscreen support (it's like Microsoft forgets that they make touchscreen devices)

Firefox for iOS:

  • Easily search other websites
  • Type in part of a URL and it autofills the rest, from which you can quickly add on to it—e.g. I can type “r” and Firefox will complete the url for “reddit.com” and then I can tap the end to add “/r/microsoftedge”
I've never noticed a difference between the browsers. I have an old video here: https://www.reddit.com/r/MicrosoftEdge/comments/fhsdh4/everyone_says_chromium_edge_is_better_because...

I also had (and still have) pretty much equal tracker blocking between browsers.

Plus, if we're counting future features of Edge, shouldn't we be counting future speed increases for Firefox?
I don't see any element in Edge UI being intrusive to be honest. if you prefer sidebars, fine, but that's personal opinion.

faster web browsing? by putting new tab and new window buttons on the toolbar doesn't make browsing faster. pressing the plus sign + on Edge does the same thing. with 2 clicks you can have a lot more options than Firefox offers on the toolbar, from Edge's ellipsis menu.

send web pages to IOS. Edge has it. QR sharing and also using Your Phone app to open web page on mobile devices. yup, not 1 but 2 method.

I can't speak much for touch support, don't own one.

Edge for Android, try it.
We could if try Firefox nightly and Edge canary. lets see how warp performs against V8 engine
Edge does not have sending web pages to iOS. The Your Phone app only lets you send pages from iOS to desktop, not the other way around. I know the Your Phone app says you can do it both ways before you pair a phone, but it's a lie that they included for some reason. After pairing a phone, you can only do it one way.

Using a QR code is less convenient and is not equivalent.

I can assure you touch support is terrible, especially considering that every other Microsoft app for Windows is optimized for it.

Not everybody owns an Android device.