I really want to use Firefox, but feels a bit odd

Don't get me wrong, I like Firefox a lot, but needs polishing.

I like -impopular opinion- the Proton UI (aka rounded tabs), containers are great, but has some flaws:

No PWA support
Bookmarks and history panels are unpractical (menus for both options are almost unusable)
A separate window for downloads, managing bookmarks? Really?
Pocket by default?

We need alternatives to Chromium, and Firefox is the "go to" option, but sometimes is disappointing to use it.

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Things feel "weird" when you aren't used to it. For me, using Chrome is weird. Not a legit argument here.

Eh to each their own, I see almost all those as positives. No problems with bookmark manager. Agreed on pocket though.
- I only wish the would bring back the ability to have notes for bookmarks.

Your choice.
PWA's aren't really a thing. Linux, we has a nice 'Progressive Webapp' manager - so I can create PWA's with launchers for any website, using any browser. I think I have about 4 (Shopee/Lazada/Translate/PlexWeb).
9/10 times I just open the bookmarks in Firefox...
Not sure what your issue is with Bookmarks or History - but they're perfectly usable. Perhaps you're just fixed in your ways.
You can turn off Pocket. Even when it's on, it's not a problem - but Firefox has to have some revenue channels and many folks don't have any problem with Pocket. I use RSS, so I don't.

The only real problem you mentioned is no PWA which is easy solvable by: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pwas-for-firefox/
same like pocket and downloads window.
Yeah, other people use Firefox too, it is not made just for you and your preferences. But what is different than in Chrome - you can easily change it. It would take you less time than writing this post.
Firefox comes with easy to disable Pocket, Chrome comes with impossible to disable Google. And Pocket is a problem? Lol :D

Two of the main features I need from my browser (apart from rendering pages) are the ability to run adblocker and being able to sync my tabs between desktop and mobile. The future of the first seems very uncertain with Chrome and the second never really works when I try it. On Firefox it's 100% every time.
So easy choice. And I don't have to deal with Google's shadyness.
But each to their own really - the "browser wars" seem so far in the past.

I don't get a lot of the negative sentiment here. To me Firefox is vastly superior to Chrome. Mozilla refactored and optimized performance years ago, which fixed many issues I had back then. It's open source, not driven by the interest of gathering data for the purpose of selling ads. I've set it up in exactly the way I like with some extensions and customizations that aren't possible in the Google browser. I can have hundreds and hundreds of tabs open without my computer grinding down to a halt. Is it perfect and aren't there things that can be improved? No. But it's pretty near to me.
- It has been locking up on me but that's not gonna stop me from using it. It's honestly probably my fault with the dumb decision to install win11. I'll probably wipe and go back to win10 while I still can but it has been buggier than usual on win11. Still love it though, fuck chrome.

Yeah. From what I have read, it seems Firefox has progressively gotten worse over the years. I am fine with using it, especially being able to get away from the other horrible choices.
I use Librewolf on my main computer, but on any other I disable some about:config settings.

I give Mozilla a pass for a lot of stuff that’s… how do I put it?.. let’s say, “quirky” in Firefox. And I’m willing to experience minor inconveniences every now and then knowing that I’m not using a Chromium-based browser.
With this being said, I really (and I mean really) like FF Developer Edition.
- Can you expand on what do you like in Developer Edition? Or maybe you have some link with differences?

I don't understand what could possibly be worse about bookmarks in Firefox? You have every option, you can put a bookmark bar, bookmark sidebar (great to bring up any time with control-B), or the full manager (which I pretty much never use), or just a bookmark menu (which I also never use, but it's like any other bookmark menu IMO).

Hey, I also did not like the separate window for downloads and preferred a tab, there is an easy trick to avoid it, just add a bookmark with the URL about:downloads and it's done (been using it for years)

I'm in the same boat! I have tried, really tried, the only things I like are the extensions support on mobile browser, and the sync with the Wolvic on the Quest VR, but it feels old and some websites render weirdly on it, plus the lack of support for PWAs really make it tough.
I like Brave best, with Edge as a second choice, as weird as that sounds. I miss Firefox when it was the modern and most secure browser.
- I want to use Firefox. Firefox used to have really cool tab groups, then they removed it, and the extensions that do it can sometimes lose your work. It’s a shame since pretty much every other browser has tab groups now.
  Vertical tabs are another thing that other browsers are adding and doing right, and Firefox is not. I don’t like the way they make stuff like tree style tabs use a sidebar and want something more native (which again, they used to have, or at least extensions could do, but now everything is worse and limited).
  I end up using Brave too, and I like Edge except Microsoft keeps doing shady things with it like uploading images to their servers and removing the ability to delete your sync data - so it ends up being a neat browser that I won’t touch.

I dont know what you feel that need to be polished but Firefox looks great to me. ¯(ツ)_/¯

While Firefox doesn't natively have PWA support there is an addon that I use to add PWA support to Firefox. You have to install a helper program on your computer for it to work though so follow the installation instructions.

I don't see Pocket anymore on FF. It irritated me, so I eradicated it through the settings somehow. Took a bit of time to figure it out. FF has been fine for me except for a few edge cases where I need to use Chrome.
- Same here, looks like I done it long time ago and never forgot what pocket is.
  For others here is the official support page with detailed explanation how to disable it: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/disable-or-re-enable-pocket-for-firefox
- I've been using Firefox for the past 20ish(?) years now, I never had an issue with Pocket. Isn't that a service you have to sign up for anyway? If you don't, then it's just an inactive icon on the toolbar. I don't see how people can be bothered by that so what am I missing?
  P.S: I just noticed that there isn't even an icon now unless you manually sign up for pocket
  
  it's just an inactive icon on the toolbar
  I got rid of my icon ages ago - one of the great strengths to me is the ability to customise the taskbar as you see fit, you can remove literally any icon you don't want there. Even the URL/search box if you want.
  About the only time I see anything pocket related is when FF updates and there's some blurb about it in the 'new features' page. Otherwise I pretty much forget it exists.

IMHO the Power of chromium Is that alone is very spartan. Starting from there you can achieve a ton of flavors from the ultra polished chrome to the overloaded (imho obv.) brave. If Firefox could split the "core" from the "UI" we would have more flavors and more core-centric devs.

I make heavy use of the side bar, I have bookmarks, history, downloads, notepad (unfortunately only local) and even tabs there (would love to get rid of the tab bar), which works pretty well for me. What's PWA?
- @MrPhibb @ravnswood PWA stands for progressive web apps. Know that little popup you sometimes get when you navigate to sites, saying 'Add to Home Screen'? That's PWA. It's basically accessing the website without navigating to it every time, but its made with HTML, CSS, JS and WebAssembly.
  Better explained here
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressivewebapp
  
  Ah, Ok, thanks, should've known there was a proper name for those

On Mobile it supports PWA.But there's no advantage of them on Desktops

If you're referring to the Android app, PWAs are in nightly at least.

I just want a tab grouping sustem that works EXACTLY as it does on Edge, together with the vertical tabs.
I'd rather be using Firefox, but that Edge feature alone made me switch back to it.
- @Amongog @ravnswood I'd rather use those Java based browsers from candy bar phones back in the day than use Edge.

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