4 ms·

At this point I think I should just switch to Firefox. It's just that Firefox still (unfairly) lags behind in performance because it's a Mac.

gabrielvincent 6y ago
I think this is a worthy trade-off. The difference in performance is not that big.
- Synaesthesia 6y ago
  I still much prefer Safari so I spent like $2 on an ad-blocker, not as good as ublock but my overall experience is still the best IMO.
  - philistine 6y ago
    I did the same. It’s strange to buy a Safari extension on the App Store, but I bought stopthemadness and 1Blocker and I’ve been satisfied for years.
    - balladeer 6y ago
      I don't know about the other one but 1Blocker is now a subscription.
kgermino 6y ago
Why is Firefox slower on a Mac? I know Safari is (supposedly) faster than a lot of the other options, but I haven’t seen anything about Apple slowing down other browsers on Macs[0]. [0] I know they force all browsers to use the same webkit engine as Safari on mobile devices, and used to limit competitors to an older slower version for “security reasons” but AFAIK they don’t slow down competitors on mobile anymore and never have on Macs
- quantummkv 6y ago
  It's not Apple that slows down Firefox on Mac. It's just that Firefox cannot match the resources that apple and google throw around on their browsers. Firefox has to be economical on where their resources are directed towards. And understandingly Macos specific optimizations not the top priority.
  - MintelIE 6y ago
    They didn't have to rewrite everything in Rust thereby harming performance to a large degree.
    - saagarjha 6y ago
      That's not how Rust works.
      - MintelIE 6y ago
        >checks benchmarks And that's why I disagree. Also old-school Firefox and Seamonkey run great on my P3 450.
- est31 6y ago
  One component was Safari using unofficial APIs. But some of these unofficial APIs have since been used by both Chrome and Firefox as well.
ebg13 6y ago
Forget about performance. Firefox still lags horribly behind in battery life.
- fauigerzigerk 6y ago
  Not for me, because Firefox's reader view stops the entire battery sucking JavaScript madness on the page I'm visiting whereas Safari doesn't.
- dmix 6y ago
  Firefox natively suspends unused tabs which dramatically improved my memory usage and battery life. Chrome has a similar extension but it's nice having it built in to the browser natively. If anything you could argue that FF is behind Chrome security-wise with their more limited sandboxing and some other memory protections. But performance is largely a non-issue.
- toyg 6y ago
  Everyone "lags behind" Safari in battery life on mac, unsurprisingly: a mono-platform app can pull tricks that multi-platform ones cannot. When comparing apples to apples, Firefox imho is actually lighter than Chrome on battery, at least on Macs.
  - npunt 6y ago
    Understandable from perspective of how apps are developed, but from the user perspective comparing Firefox on Mac to Safari on Mac is literally comparing software on Apples to software on Apples.
asimilator 6y ago
> At this point I think I should just switch to Firefox. I use Firefox on Mac, but it is definitely a compromise. Still no multitouch support, which is crazy in 2020.
- pehtis 6y ago
  Try setting apz.allow_zooming to true and restarting Firefox. No idea why this isn't true by default..
miohtama 6y ago
With Firefox ad blockers you get that performance back in reduced download and CPU time spent in ad JavaScript.
Uupis 6y ago
I switched to Firefox in the end of 2019, and I don't think it's entirely clear cut, slowness-wise. In my experience, Safari slows down to a crawl if I open more than 5 or 6 tabs at once, especially something sadness inducing (think new reddit); and it's very eager to.. dump things from memory? I am not sure what happens, but as I switch these gargantuan tabs, it seems to re-draw things a lot. Firefox handles that kind of thing like a champ. Add uBlock origin, and I have my almost ultimate browsing experience: JavaScript off default, enabled as I see fit. There is one nasty oddity where I often found myself having to slow down for Safari: when I edit URL query parameters. If I hit return before some indecipherable arbitrary time, which I guesstimate by the auto completions showing up, Safari will throw away my changes and merely reload the current page. I have unchecked and toggled all possible autofill or search checkboxes in Safari settings, and it still happens. This and the extension apocalypse are what drove me away from Safari. In contrast, I've got all the extensions I want, and never ever have to slow down for Firefox. Well worth giving it a shot for a few weeks. Container tabs are also awesome.

gabrielvincent 6y ago

I think this is a worthy trade-off. The difference in performance is not that big.

Synaesthesia 6y ago
I still much prefer Safari so I spent like $2 on an ad-blocker, not as good as ublock but my overall experience is still the best IMO.
- philistine 6y ago
  I did the same. It’s strange to buy a Safari extension on the App Store, but I bought stopthemadness and 1Blocker and I’ve been satisfied for years.
  - balladeer 6y ago
    I don't know about the other one but 1Blocker is now a subscription.

kgermino 6y ago

Why is Firefox slower on a Mac? I know Safari is (supposedly) faster than a lot of the other options, but I haven’t seen anything about Apple slowing down other browsers on Macs[0]. [0] I know they force all browsers to use the same webkit engine as Safari on mobile devices, and used to limit competitors to an older slower version for “security reasons” but AFAIK they don’t slow down competitors on mobile anymore and never have on Macs

quantummkv 6y ago
It's not Apple that slows down Firefox on Mac. It's just that Firefox cannot match the resources that apple and google throw around on their browsers. Firefox has to be economical on where their resources are directed towards. And understandingly Macos specific optimizations not the top priority.
- MintelIE 6y ago
  They didn't have to rewrite everything in Rust thereby harming performance to a large degree.
  - saagarjha 6y ago
    That's not how Rust works.
    - MintelIE 6y ago
      >checks benchmarks And that's why I disagree. Also old-school Firefox and Seamonkey run great on my P3 450.
est31 6y ago
One component was Safari using unofficial APIs. But some of these unofficial APIs have since been used by both Chrome and Firefox as well.

ebg13 6y ago

Forget about performance. Firefox still lags horribly behind in battery life.

fauigerzigerk 6y ago
Not for me, because Firefox's reader view stops the entire battery sucking JavaScript madness on the page I'm visiting whereas Safari doesn't.
dmix 6y ago
Firefox natively suspends unused tabs which dramatically improved my memory usage and battery life. Chrome has a similar extension but it's nice having it built in to the browser natively. If anything you could argue that FF is behind Chrome security-wise with their more limited sandboxing and some other memory protections. But performance is largely a non-issue.
toyg 6y ago
Everyone "lags behind" Safari in battery life on mac, unsurprisingly: a mono-platform app can pull tricks that multi-platform ones cannot. When comparing apples to apples, Firefox imho is actually lighter than Chrome on battery, at least on Macs.
- npunt 6y ago
  Understandable from perspective of how apps are developed, but from the user perspective comparing Firefox on Mac to Safari on Mac is literally comparing software on Apples to software on Apples.

asimilator 6y ago

> At this point I think I should just switch to Firefox. I use Firefox on Mac, but it is definitely a compromise. Still no multitouch support, which is crazy in 2020.

pehtis 6y ago
Try setting apz.allow_zooming to true and restarting Firefox. No idea why this isn't true by default..

miohtama 6y ago

With Firefox ad blockers you get that performance back in reduced download and CPU time spent in ad JavaScript.

Uupis 6y ago

I switched to Firefox in the end of 2019, and I don't think it's entirely clear cut, slowness-wise. In my experience, Safari slows down to a crawl if I open more than 5 or 6 tabs at once, especially something sadness inducing (think new reddit); and it's very eager to.. dump things from memory? I am not sure what happens, but as I switch these gargantuan tabs, it seems to re-draw things a lot. Firefox handles that kind of thing like a champ. Add uBlock origin, and I have my almost ultimate browsing experience: JavaScript off default, enabled as I see fit. There is one nasty oddity where I often found myself having to slow down for Safari: when I edit URL query parameters. If I hit return before some indecipherable arbitrary time, which I guesstimate by the auto completions showing up, Safari will throw away my changes and merely reload the current page. I have unchecked and toggled all possible autofill or search checkboxes in Safari settings, and it still happens. This and the extension apocalypse are what drove me away from Safari. In contrast, I've got all the extensions I want, and never ever have to slow down for Firefox. Well worth giving it a shot for a few weeks. Container tabs are also awesome.