Hi all, I made a small open-source Firefox add-on called **Let YT think Chrome**. It makes YouTube see your Firefox as Google Chrome by spoofing the User-Agent, Client Hints headers (Sec-CH-UA), navigator.userAgent / userAgentData, and a minimal window.chrome object. It only runs on YouTube domains.

**My question:** does this make videos load or start faster for anyone? I'm not claiming it does. Nothing in the add-on is designed to speed anything up, but YouTube sometimes serves different code paths or video formats depending on the browser it detects, so I'd like to know if people see a real difference, in either direction.

**How you can help me test:**

1. Install it (signed by Mozilla, works in regular Firefox): https://github.com/thisisshihan/let-yt-think-chrome/releases/tag/v0.0.2

2. Open YouTube, press F12, and run `navigator.userAgent` in the Console. It should show Chrome/154.

3. Compare a few videos with the add-on on and off. Notice how fast playback starts, which resolution and codec YouTube picks (right-click the video → Stats for nerds), and whether anything breaks.

**Please tell me:**

- Faster, slower, or no difference?

- Your Firefox version and OS (I've only tested on Firefox for Windows)

- Any errors or glitches

**Source (MIT):** https://github.com/thisisshihan/let-yt-think-chrome

Heads up: this isn't undetectable (Firefox and Chrome differ in many other ways, like canvas/WebGL fingerprints and codecs), and it may not fix every YouTube issue. Replies here or issues on GitHub are both very welcome. Thanks!

This I dont want to be a post interpreted with wrong intention, but just to explain why I think priorities need to be correct when developing the web browser.

We all know they have been concentrating recently on new marketable features, increased the release schedule to be more agressive to get these features out quicker, but I fear this is going to go in the direction of vivaldi where they just made features everything and the browser became like moving through slime.

The reasons I have downgraded back to 156.

• In 157, I have been noticing when accessing a menu, loading a settings page, whatever it may be it would randomly stall, so there would be some lag before the FF UI responded to what I wanted. I have never experienced before in FF, except only if I tried to that right after launching the browser whilst its restoring the session, and even then it was really slight micro lag.
  
• In 157, loading github web pages, caused the entire browser to stall, scrolling would momentarily freeze as an example, after downgrading back to 156, I can confirm the CPU spike still occurs, but it does not block the Firefox UI or scrolling, the browser does not stall.
  
• In 157, we all know nova was added to the UI, we know for the mean time, it can be disabled in about:config, however there is additional UI changes that were made, that do not get toggled when Nova is disabled, so e.g. the density of tabs in the list all tabs pull down menu, is now much lower, there has been considerable padding added, the text and icons are not bigger, so it isnt to make things easier to read, its simply extra empty space. Someone provided me CSS to fix it, I never got round to applying it though due to all the other issues I was fighting. The devs need to stop increasing padding everywhere.
  

I think fundamentally the problem here, amongst all the other bugs people report, and considering all the problem reports on the bugzilla that are basically just being ignored in favour of sponsored/marketing feature additions, I fear Firefox is losing its way. This happened to me in the past with Vivaldi, it started of with me downgrading the build, then not updating, and eventually led to me changing browser as inevitably the build becomes too old. I am now at the point where I have to back out of the latest build on Firefox, and if I dont see bug fixes for the issues, I will be looking at the Firefox forks to see if they are approaching these problems differently.

(Marked as Discussion since I didn't find any better flair)

I found a way to get the compact mode from nova to the old UI.

Requirements: A version of Firefox with Nova (157+) (Librewolf is also supported!)

What to do:

1. Enable Nova, if not done already (browser.nova.enabled in about:config set to true, For Librewolf: Settings > Appearance > Enable the Nova Redesign)
2. Go to Settings > Appearance and set "Window Density" to "Compact"
3. Disable Nova in about:config (Librewolf users can use the settings option mentioned above)

You now got compact mode in the old UI!

(Firefox devs, please don't 'fix' this, thank you!)

Why is there so much empty space? Why these pointless gradients? What the hell?

Hello, I saw that after upgrading to Nova, the compact sidebar has a solid purple in the background without extending the theme as it once did. Does anyone know if it's a bug that they're going to fix or that has already been fixed in later versions or if Alpenglow has been completely abandoned?

I have firefox as the default browser, but When I tap on a link, it opens firefox in normal tap, I want it to open in private tap instead

I don't want to leave the history of things I click on on the browser.

Thanks

With bottom bar is sometime hard to hide it or make it appear in some case, need option to hide it with pop up klik button or something better idea in option.

And pull to refresh is so sensitive too, is annoying often incidentally triggers it. Need some adjustment in there too.

I'll cut to chase. Both browsers i mentioned feels stable and clean AF. But one problem is random hiccups when searching for anything and occasionally browser gives up and gives me error like there's no internet. People who know depths of the technical side, please walk me through what settings to turn off or on. I want to have as fast experience close to chromium as possible. Thanks in advance

I use firefox mobile (android). There are a lot of AI sites to generate images from prompts or to animate pics or such things, which apparently can track you to count your daily credits (and often they even do that unfairily, i.e saying your daily credits are over even several days after last usage, or in case of network errors or stupidly rejected prompts etc).

So my question. Even if I open them in an anonymous tab, even if I clear all site data and cookies, even if I change my IP by disabling and later enabling mobile data again, they can still tell it's you and that your credits are over.

How is this possible ? Is perhaps firefox (or any other browser) still sending personal or phone data behind the scenes to allow sites to track you ? Should I believe that ? Is there any solution (even using 3rd party extensions) ?

Thx

Hi,

I am in the process of migrating between systems. I have my desktop with Firefox, I use some multi account containers, I clear cache and cookies on browser close and I have some exceptions to not clear cookies, as I want to stay logged into my accounts. It worked fine on my desktop.

Now, I tried to do the same for my laptop. I turned in account sync and add on sync, my browser settings and containers are indeed synced. But the exceptions are not synced, so I tried setting an exception for some of the sites like my desktop, logged in, closed browser, and I am not logged in anymore. Nevertheless, the exceptions are still remembered.

Some details:

1. On my PC, The exceptions are both in the Browsing Data section and in the History exceptions. So I tried setting the exceptions to both on my laptop too, still no success.
2. On my desktop (where it works), I don't use the "Always use private browsing mode" option, and on History->settings "Cookies and site data" are checked, and "Site settings" is not checked.

Can anyone please help me troubleshoot this? I really don't think it should be that hard, maybe as Firefox updated it became bugged or something?

Thanks in advance.

Since Firefox 157 introduced Nova, I’m finding container tabs much harder to distinguish.

With native vertical tabs, the prominent vertical container marker has been replaced by a thin horizontal line. The colours and icons also appear more subtle and less solid. As a colour-blind user, that makes it harder to tell at a glance which container I’m using.

This also happens on a PC without Tree Style Tab installed, so it isn’t specific to that extension.

Container identity matters when separating accounts and browsing contexts. I’d like to see:

• A supported option for a thicker, solid container marker.
• A visible container name or distinct symbol on each tab, so identification doesn’t depend on colour alone.
• Accessibility testing of selected and unselected tabs in both light and dark themes.

For now, setting browser.nova.enabled to false in about:config is a potential workaround, but it changes the broader interface and may not remain available.

Has anyone else, particularly other colour-blind users, found this harder to use? Have you found a supported way to improve the indicators while keeping Nova?

I requested an accessibility review in https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2077901.
If you’re affected, please add your Firefox version, theme, and specific difficulties to the report, especially if they provide new information.

Just made a custom css theme with more depth. It works best with the atbc add-on together but simple themes work too.

Hello everyone,

I use cookiebro extension to manage my cookies and somehow when I whitelist a site I get asked again for cookies allowance the next day or so.

How can I solve this ?

Thanks for the help

Basically the title says it, it doesn’t let me download anything at all, can someone help me with solution?

The bookmarks sidebar in Firefox has become too wide for my liking, and dragging the border to resize it doesn't let me make it narrow enough.

I've been having this issue since the latest update.

NOTE: I've already set the UI to "Compact" and disabled the "Nova UI" in about:config, but the Bookmarks sidebar is still way too wide.

What can I do?

This is how I felt Nova dark theme should have looked in default theme. My older themes were also struggling with this update so I felt we need a new one.

Link to the theme: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/novadark/

I have been using this for few days, I am satisfied with it. Clean, basic and comfortable. Do try!

What the fuck is htis captcha how am I supposed to do it??? I got all the obvious ones (mid and top left) but that was wrong???

Hi. Been having this issue where when I add a new shortcut to my new tab page, it does either of the three:

1. Defaults to a placeholder letter (like in Google Mail) picture
2. Has the correct image, but has a white background on it
3. Has the correct image and no white background

I like 3, 2 is annoying, but 1 is my main issue. Do y'all have any solutions/workarounds to this?

For some reason, my original post got deleted immediately.

Do note, I am following Privacy Guides' recommended configuration. I've posted a question on Mozilla Forums, and enabling Remember History seems to fix the Gmail icon (but not Messenger or Canva).

Thanks!

I swear it used to do this but something changed and you have to press the address bar normally to type.

Is there a setting that can change this???

Since the change to 157, the former setting for browser.download.lastDir.savePerSite doesn't appear to be used anymore, the setting was gone after the change, and this functionality no longer works. I've seen a few similar posts on here about that, but can anyone confirm they're seeing this issues consistantly with downloads, or is it an environment specific issue?

Hey, has anyone seen this over the last month or so? Example video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TDV-GuZO6Z8.

The video starts, then restarts on its own a few times (the frame counter in Stats for Nerds goes back to 0 each time and the video jumps back a few seconds). Then it ends up at 480p, even on my gigabit connection. If I have PiP open, it gets closed every time.

I use a script that forces 4K. With it off, the video drops to 480p after the reloads. With it on, it can't switch down anymore, so I get a playback error and the video stops.

If I disable AV1 in Firefox (media.av1.enabled = false) so YouTube serves VP9, there's no issue at all.

Fresh uBlock Origin install and wiped YouTube site data didn't change anything, and linux-firmware-amdgpu is current (20260916-1).

CachyOS KDE, Wayland, 7900 XTX.

Anyone else seeing this, or know a fix?

How to get back a past Picture Of The Day I had? Is there a list where I can search for Pictures Of The Day?

I'm probably just dumb but I don't understand what this little draggable bar is for. I can drag it up but it just creates a blank space and nothing can be placed in it. I assumed it would be a spot where you could add something into it but it doesn't seem to be the case? Thanks.