Mozilla... I didn't last very long...
| 4 min read
So I gave it a go, going the full Mozilla. On my Macbook I moved over to Firefox, replacing Chrome or Safari, and Thunderbird instead of Apple Mail. What happened? Well I did try them both and I tried them for a while, but sadly I didn't last very long...
First Firefox. The install was easy, and I could import all of my bookmarks from Chrome, which, by habit I used more than Safari. I did like the huge collection of themes and extensions available for Firefox, but sometimes that kind of 'tinkering' can be a bit of a distraction. You think that you have it looking right, and have all the right extensions, but for me I found myself not leaving it alone. Every other day Iād be fiddling with different themes and installing and uninstalling from the many extensions. I also found that while some extensions worked, there were quite a few that didn't. Saying that, I did find all the extensions that I needed, and they worked so I guess that's what counts.
I did have a few issues with Firefox not rendering and serving up pages correctly. Most websites are now optimised for Google Chrome, (that memory hogging, spyware browser...!). I also found that some sites wouldn't load at all using Firefox. I like the ethic of the Mozilla project, but I think that they need to do a better job on the browser. I'm not saying that it's a bad browser, and I think that I'll give it another go, as I've left it on my machine. It just didn't feel right. We shall see.
Instead of going back to Chrome, I've gone back to Brave. It's Google Chrome I know, but with better privacy and security. So far I do like it very much, so at the moment Iām sticking with it.
What about Thunderbird ? I liked Thunderbird, but I didn't like it enough to stick with it. The thing I found with it, compared the Apple Mail was the interface, I found the Thunderbird interface to be a bit too crowded for my taste, very busy to look at and to navigate. I'm a simple person, and I like things to be uncluttered and easy to find.
I self host my email on my own server and Thunderbird was fantastic at setting up a new mail account, very quick and it worked straight away. Again there are lots of themes and extensions for this app, so again I found myself constantly tinkering with the look of the app. There are some excellent extensions though, I loved the extension that grabs all your mail attachments with just one click. I absolutely hated the adding of signatures, not smart and not straightforward, far to messy and geeky...!
I did give both apps a fair go, I used them for a good few weeks to a month, but unfortunately they didn't quite do it for me. I like things to be quick, uncluttered and easy to use. Will I use them again? Probably. They are permanently installed on my Mac, so I will probably dip in, update them and give them both another go soon, but for now I'm sticking with what I'm used to, Apple Mail and Brave, yes its Google chrome, I know, but I can make it as private and secure as I like, and at the moment it works well for me.