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As a front end Dev I'll never fully ditch Chrome as its Dev tools are vastly superior. I've tried the Firefox inspect menu and I'm just immediately turned off and confused..

However Firefox has been, and always will be my daily driver for all Web browsing. It's eco system is richer, noscript and the fact that it's not a Google product is a huge selling point.




From a feature standpoint, I can't think of anything that Firefox devtools are lacking. This seems like a gripe about the UI, and my feeling is precisely the opposite of yours, but equally subjective.


Just testing out FF devtools, I do appreciate how similar they are to Chrome. The biggest differences seem to be geared towards PWAs, such as auditing w/ Lighthouse.


I kinda agree. A few key things missing in FF that I need:

* selecting CSS colors in other colorspace (eg. RGBA) as oppose to just hex

* throttling the network in desktop mode. I think the option just shows up in responsive design mode.

Although I dont think Chrome is "vastly" superior at this point as FF has certainly narrowed the gap.

> I've tried the Firefox inspect menu and I'm just immediately turned off and confused..

I remember feeling the same when I switched from Firebug to Chrome. It takes a few days to get used to a new UI.


> selecting CSS colors in other colorspace (eg. RGBA) as oppose to just hex

I'm not sure if this is what you mean, but you can go into the dev tools config and change the default color unit under Inspector. The eyedropper will show values using the selected unit and style rules will be converted to that unit.


Whoa. I love FF even more.


Their devtools have come a long way. And are almost caught up with Chrome. I've only noticed the following things missing: When an XHR response comes back as HTML, there is no "Preview" tab like in Chrome. Also, the responsive testing tool doesn't have the device frames (ie, iPhone, iPad, etc) and it also doesn't have the little touch circle cursor that let's you drag and swipe while testing.


Perhaps you're on an older version of FF, no? Because the things you mentioned are present, just not an exact UI/UX as that with Chrome.

Im on FF Quantum 57.0 (non dev, vanilla FF) and here are my observations:

> When an XHR response comes back as HTML, there is no "Preview" tab like in Chrome.

This is consolidated in the Response tab. You can view it as raw response, or JSON (with filtering options).

> Also, the responsive testing tool doesn't have the device frames (ie, iPhone, iPad, etc)

It does now! You can select and edit a list of device.

> and it also doesn't have the little touch circle cursor that let's you drag and swipe while testing.

They do have a touch simulation mode (pointing hand icon), but it doesnt appear to work at the moment. I cant drag the screen.


>> When an XHR response comes back as HTML, there is no "Preview" tab like in Chrome.

> This is consolidated in the Response tab. You can view it as raw response, or JSON (with filtering options).

Yeah, I can see the raw HTML or JSON response. But Chrome actually allows you to see the rendered HTML response in the "Preview" tab. Are you saying there is a way to see the rendered HTML from the XHR response? I'm not seeing it. To see the rendered HTML, I have to copy it, create an html file, paste the HTML, then open it in a browser. That's a lot of extra steps when debugging something.


Looks like this has been fixed now: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1353319

If you grab Nightly (I've been using it for a year now for frontend development and my normal browsing and it's just fine) you can test it.


Switched to nightly and there it is. Thank you!


Oh sorry I misread your comment. Youre right there is no HTML preview indeed


For XHR there's also an "edit and resend" button as well as "copy as cURL" which is amazing


copy as curl is so underrated


I don't feel this way. What are some neat features of Chrome Dev Tools that I might not be taking advantage of? One I know of is the ability to inspect WebSocket connections, I really wish Firefox had that.


This is the bug for this in case you are interested or want to follow progress: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=885508


Probably network throttling and responsiveness is the only reason I would switch to chrome for testing.

Today is the first day I spent my entire day in Firefox and didn’t get angry. I love it! Ditched chrome for default browser now.


Network throttling is present, but only in responsive design mode. And responsive design mode has the same features with Chrome, but its a bit wonky at the moment.


I think you should open a bug report about this at bugzilla.mozilla.org I did the same for several feature requests or ideas and the firefox developers and community is very nice and responsive (I'd say most of my bug reports were fixed within days/weeks whereas feature request usuallly takes longer - but is always consider).

They are very open to feedback!


Done!


Mind sharing the link to the bug? I'd like to follow it as I think it would be a good enhancement.


It is just a preference thing. I have always preferred FF tools over Chrome dev tools.


Have you tried the new devtools in the recent release? I've heard folks like them a lot more.


You are comparing FF Developer Edition to Chrome here?


Nope, stock to stock. Didn't know FF had that, I'll check it out.




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