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> Firefox is slow (especially on Linux) when compared with Chromium. People tell me this, but I genuinely can't tell the difference between Chrome and FF's spe

> Firefox is slow (especially on Linux) when compared with Chromium. People tell me this, but I genuinely can't tell the difference between Chrome and FF's speed on linux. Both feel equally fast to me. My only real complaint about FF on linux is a lack of hardware video decoding. > Mozilla's power move would be to base Firefox on Chromium (or at least fork Chromium) You can't be serious.

ReverseCold 7y ago
> People tell me this, but I genuinely can't tell the difference between Chrome and FF's speed on linux. It's pretty apparent in "web apps" - plenty of SPAs grind Firefox to a halt and not Chrome. The other major win for Chrome is battery life on laptops. I know it's getting better for FF, but it's still not that close. Safari actually does the best on (nearly) any hardware you can convince MacOS to run on, but they broke extensions recently so it's not viable for me anymore. (I still run FF Nightly as my main browser.)
- kick 7y ago
  It's pretty apparent in "web apps" - plenty of SPAs grind Firefox to a halt and not Chrome. The other major win for Chrome is battery life on laptops. I know it's getting better for FF, but it's still not that close. Is this because you're on Mac OS? Firefox has always had Mac as a third-class OS, especially since they started pushing Metal. I can't remember the last time I had Firefox crash, grind to a halt, or even stutter.
- saagarjha 7y ago
  > It's pretty apparent in "web apps" - plenty of SPAs grind Firefox to a halt and not Chrome. Perhaps they’re just “optimized” for Chrome?
microcolonel 7y ago
> People tell me this, but I genuinely can't tell the difference between Chrome and FF's speed on Linux. It's a bit hard to compare, and part of the difference in perception is Firefox's weird animation function for smooth scrolling on stepped scroll wheels (it takes longer, and feels unnatural). Firefox regularly hitches on webpages that never miss a frame in Chromium-based browsers for me (and several other people share this experience, anecdotally, as you mention). When looking at most decent benchmarks, there is a clear quantitative difference, if anecdotes are not your jam. I've never gathered metrics or frame timings for both Firefox and Chromium, but I don't see why it would disagree with my experience. In my experience, slightly interesting CSS on documents, or scripts and layout on SPA-style applications, can cause Firefox to miss hundreds of milliseconds of frames. I've become accustomed to 144/165Hz with few or no missed frames, while I noticed Firefox missing frames even when I was on 60Hz monitors. > My only real complaint about FF on linux is a lack of hardware video decoding. Generally speaking, this is of little to no importance on a laptop or desktop. But yeah, that is a bit of a bummer. > You can't be serious. I'm fully serious; you won't convince me they wouldn't come out ahead, without some hard reason.
seabrookmx 7y ago
Last I checked, Chrome/Chromium didn't have hardware video decoding on Linux by default either. Has this changed?
- thenewnewguy 7y ago
  There's an unstable and unofficial patch some people use, but no upstream Chromium does not. This isn't a "Chromium is better than FF" complaint, just a complaint about FF on linux in general.

ReverseCold 7y ago

> People tell me this, but I genuinely can't tell the difference between Chrome and FF's speed on linux. It's pretty apparent in "web apps" - plenty of SPAs grind Firefox to a halt and not Chrome. The other major win for Chrome is battery life on laptops. I know it's getting better for FF, but it's still not that close. Safari actually does the best on (nearly) any hardware you can convince MacOS to run on, but they broke extensions recently so it's not viable for me anymore. (I still run FF Nightly as my main browser.)

kick 7y ago
It's pretty apparent in "web apps" - plenty of SPAs grind Firefox to a halt and not Chrome. The other major win for Chrome is battery life on laptops. I know it's getting better for FF, but it's still not that close. Is this because you're on Mac OS? Firefox has always had Mac as a third-class OS, especially since they started pushing Metal. I can't remember the last time I had Firefox crash, grind to a halt, or even stutter.
saagarjha 7y ago
> It's pretty apparent in "web apps" - plenty of SPAs grind Firefox to a halt and not Chrome. Perhaps they’re just “optimized” for Chrome?

microcolonel 7y ago

> People tell me this, but I genuinely can't tell the difference between Chrome and FF's speed on Linux. It's a bit hard to compare, and part of the difference in perception is Firefox's weird animation function for smooth scrolling on stepped scroll wheels (it takes longer, and feels unnatural). Firefox regularly hitches on webpages that never miss a frame in Chromium-based browsers for me (and several other people share this experience, anecdotally, as you mention). When looking at most decent benchmarks, there is a clear quantitative difference, if anecdotes are not your jam. I've never gathered metrics or frame timings for both Firefox and Chromium, but I don't see why it would disagree with my experience. In my experience, slightly interesting CSS on documents, or scripts and layout on SPA-style applications, can cause Firefox to miss hundreds of milliseconds of frames. I've become accustomed to 144/165Hz with few or no missed frames, while I noticed Firefox missing frames even when I was on 60Hz monitors. > My only real complaint about FF on linux is a lack of hardware video decoding. Generally speaking, this is of little to no importance on a laptop or desktop. But yeah, that is a bit of a bummer. > You can't be serious. I'm fully serious; you won't convince me they wouldn't come out ahead, without some hard reason.

seabrookmx 7y ago

Last I checked, Chrome/Chromium didn't have hardware video decoding on Linux by default either. Has this changed?

thenewnewguy 7y ago
There's an unstable and unofficial patch some people use, but no upstream Chromium does not. This isn't a "Chromium is better than FF" complaint, just a complaint about FF on linux in general.