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Firefox has really turned a corner with version 89. The UI looks great out of the box for the first time in a long while. Native context menus on macOS. Perform

Firefox has really turned a corner with version 89. The UI looks great out of the box for the first time in a long while. Native context menus on macOS. Performance is absolutely on par with Chrome. Dev tools are fantastic. Even the Android build is totally competitive now. Never been a better time to make the jump!

dmd 5y ago
Literally every version for the last 5 years people say "Firefox has really gotten better for real now with version N", and every single time, I try it and immediately find it's still an order of magnitude slower and more power hungry than Chrome.
- easton 5y ago
  What OS and sites are you talking about? Firefox is as fast (if not maybe a smidge faster every once in a while) as Chrome on macOS.
- ashneo76 5y ago
  Seriously, genuinely don't know what you're talking about. I have like 500 tabs open any given time. It is blazing fast, always
- jonny_eh 5y ago
  Maybe every new version converts more people?
- mxxx 5y ago
  that was my experience a couple of times, but the last time i gave it a shot it was permanent, haven't looked back.
- squarefoot 5y ago
  That was true several years ago, when Firefox was essentially the only player and optimization seemed a concept unheard of in web browsers. Then came Chrome, which in its earlier versions was really fast compared to Firefox, this paired with pervasive advertising by Google made many users jump ship to Chrome (including myself, for a brief while before caring about privacy became more important than speed). Years passed with Chrome totally deserving the prize for speed, although it was just like today a nightmare privacy-wise, but hey, it comes from the #1 targeted advertising company in the world, what should I expect? Fast forward a few years (iirc it was roughly in 2018) and Mozilla devs show they learned the lessons: the next Firefox release runs on par with Chrome, then following versions get some further improvements in speed too. So yeah, Chrome was indeed faster than Firefox, but that is a thing of the past. Speaking personally here, but I value privacy a lot more than bells and whistles or speed, so Chrome is a no-no here regardless of its performance.
- stevekemp 5y ago
  I've never used chrome, but have had a linux desktop for the past 20+ years and have run firefox for at least the past five years (whenever that full-page advert about firefox in the new york times came out, that's when I switched. I remember paying for my name to be included). I've never ever thought "Firefox is slow", instead I think sometimes "the network is slow", or "this wifi is terrible". I imagine if people are using heavy web-applications maybe this is visible, but using gmail, slack, and similar sites everything works just fine. Sure it might be nicer if things were even faster, but the speed of my browser is not something I've ever thought about. I often wonder why people have some different opinions of their browsers..
- hu3 5y ago
  As an exercise, if you open https://github.com https://github.com on anonymous mode. What do you see on Chrome and Firefox? This is what I see on my Windows machine: Chrome ~2.5% CPU https://streamable.com/flb8rh https://streamable.com/flb8rh Firefox ~3.5% CPU https://streamable.com/dkrp0w https://streamable.com/dkrp0w
jdlyga 5y ago
It's different this time. Firefox really caught up in terms of speed. But it was always held back by its clunky ui. I'm very happy with the new version, and I'm definitely not a regular Firefox user. Give it another shot.
decremental 5y ago
I've used Firefox as my primary browser basically forever it seems like. I never really liked Chrome. But Firefox still has some annoying rendering issues. For some reason text which should be aligned vertically center will look fine in Chrome but be slightly offset in Firefox (Windows). Or colors appear as they should in Chrome but not in Firefox (MacOS). Just little things that get under my skin.
- FractalHQ 5y ago
  As a web developer and designer, rendering inconsistencies like this cost me hours every month. I dream of world with a single standard rendering library that all browsers share. The current system seems ridiculous- multiple parties implementing their own engine, aligned by a single spec, with the ultimate goal of rendering the same content identical to one another- is silly, wasteful, and bound to result in a shitshow. I don’t get it.
  - emptyparadise 5y ago
    It wouldn't be so bad if that single spec wasn't whatever Google wants to be. Even if we give up and adopt Chromium as the One True Engine, it should be taken away from Google and maintained by some kind of an independent foundation.
waste_monk 5y ago
I find the new UI to be far worse; luckily there are (for now, but it only needs to stick around long enough for a UI replacement add-on to be developed) about:config options you can use to disable the new UI (that is, set the following to false: browser.proton.enabled, browser.proton.modals.enabled, browser.proton.doorhangers.enabled, and browser.proton.contextmenus.enable). It seems the FF devs are following "cargo cult" development, blindly imitating the Chrome UI without seeming to understand that Google's monopolistic practices that allows them to force Chrome on people rather than because Chrome is fundamentally good or user-friendly. Given Firefox has such small (~3.36%) market share, they should probably focus on avoiding alienating the user base they have.
- MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
  Or attracting the userbase they need
- coldtea 5y ago
  >I find the new UI to be far worse Is that about e.g. the tabs looking different, and similar design dislike, or something substantial that affects usability?
  - burning_hamster 5y ago
    The tabs icon seems narrower, such that it is now impossible to read more than 4 letters of the title. I don't remember how many letters where visible before but it feels a little bit harder to find the correct tab again if I switch away.
  - kd913 5y ago
    They changed the order of the burger menu and removed the icons. Something that could immediately be used to find things like settings. Now i have to read the entire thing to know where to go. The menu is redone to be larger, and not follow theming rules. I'm ok with the new changes, but the removal of icons and rejigging the order seems to be the antithesis of human centered design.
  - demi_alucard 5y ago
cout 5y ago
Performance for me has been awful since a few releases ago. I have eight cores, and I often find that Firefox is using 100% of all eight cores when I'm not even using the browser. I ran perf on the processes and what it's doing is beyond me (something with futexes and the DOM). (And before anyone asks, no I have not submitted a bug report, because I don't know how to reproduce the problem. I have seen other users complaining on reddit, and I so I know I'm not the only one, and I expect a proper bug will eventually get filed by someone who knows how to diagnose and communicate this better than me. I've searched the bug tracker every few weeks and haven't seen one yet, though. It's just frustrating to have a release with so many frivolous changes when the browser's performance is already abysmal).
unknown_error 5y ago
Firefox is the only major browser left that doesn't use Webkit/Blink, and its market share is constantly shrinking (<4% now?). Its funding is unstable, Mozilla keeps losing staff and failing to gain traction with their experimental projects/partnerships (Pocket, Send, etc.), all while Chrome becomes the new de facto standard, iterating features that only Chromium based browsers fully implement. It's a losing game... Firefox is treading water, just waiting to drown. It's sad because it's the last significant open source browser, but I guess the world just doesn't care. Google and Apple are taking over everything.
Black101 5y ago
> Even the Android build is totally competitive now. Are they still blocking most extensions?

dmd 5y ago

Literally every version for the last 5 years people say "Firefox has really gotten better for real now with version N", and every single time, I try it and immediately find it's still an order of magnitude slower and more power hungry than Chrome.

easton 5y ago
What OS and sites are you talking about? Firefox is as fast (if not maybe a smidge faster every once in a while) as Chrome on macOS.
ashneo76 5y ago
Seriously, genuinely don't know what you're talking about. I have like 500 tabs open any given time. It is blazing fast, always
jonny_eh 5y ago
Maybe every new version converts more people?
mxxx 5y ago
that was my experience a couple of times, but the last time i gave it a shot it was permanent, haven't looked back.
squarefoot 5y ago
That was true several years ago, when Firefox was essentially the only player and optimization seemed a concept unheard of in web browsers. Then came Chrome, which in its earlier versions was really fast compared to Firefox, this paired with pervasive advertising by Google made many users jump ship to Chrome (including myself, for a brief while before caring about privacy became more important than speed). Years passed with Chrome totally deserving the prize for speed, although it was just like today a nightmare privacy-wise, but hey, it comes from the #1 targeted advertising company in the world, what should I expect? Fast forward a few years (iirc it was roughly in 2018) and Mozilla devs show they learned the lessons: the next Firefox release runs on par with Chrome, then following versions get some further improvements in speed too. So yeah, Chrome was indeed faster than Firefox, but that is a thing of the past. Speaking personally here, but I value privacy a lot more than bells and whistles or speed, so Chrome is a no-no here regardless of its performance.
stevekemp 5y ago
I've never used chrome, but have had a linux desktop for the past 20+ years and have run firefox for at least the past five years (whenever that full-page advert about firefox in the new york times came out, that's when I switched. I remember paying for my name to be included). I've never ever thought "Firefox is slow", instead I think sometimes "the network is slow", or "this wifi is terrible". I imagine if people are using heavy web-applications maybe this is visible, but using gmail, slack, and similar sites everything works just fine. Sure it might be nicer if things were even faster, but the speed of my browser is not something I've ever thought about. I often wonder why people have some different opinions of their browsers..
hu3 5y ago
As an exercise, if you open https://github.com https://github.com on anonymous mode. What do you see on Chrome and Firefox? This is what I see on my Windows machine: Chrome ~2.5% CPU https://streamable.com/flb8rh https://streamable.com/flb8rh Firefox ~3.5% CPU https://streamable.com/dkrp0w https://streamable.com/dkrp0w

jdlyga 5y ago

It's different this time. Firefox really caught up in terms of speed. But it was always held back by its clunky ui. I'm very happy with the new version, and I'm definitely not a regular Firefox user. Give it another shot.

decremental 5y ago

I've used Firefox as my primary browser basically forever it seems like. I never really liked Chrome. But Firefox still has some annoying rendering issues. For some reason text which should be aligned vertically center will look fine in Chrome but be slightly offset in Firefox (Windows). Or colors appear as they should in Chrome but not in Firefox (MacOS). Just little things that get under my skin.

FractalHQ 5y ago
As a web developer and designer, rendering inconsistencies like this cost me hours every month. I dream of world with a single standard rendering library that all browsers share. The current system seems ridiculous- multiple parties implementing their own engine, aligned by a single spec, with the ultimate goal of rendering the same content identical to one another- is silly, wasteful, and bound to result in a shitshow. I don’t get it.
- emptyparadise 5y ago
  It wouldn't be so bad if that single spec wasn't whatever Google wants to be. Even if we give up and adopt Chromium as the One True Engine, it should be taken away from Google and maintained by some kind of an independent foundation.

waste_monk 5y ago

I find the new UI to be far worse; luckily there are (for now, but it only needs to stick around long enough for a UI replacement add-on to be developed) about:config options you can use to disable the new UI (that is, set the following to false: browser.proton.enabled, browser.proton.modals.enabled, browser.proton.doorhangers.enabled, and browser.proton.contextmenus.enable). It seems the FF devs are following "cargo cult" development, blindly imitating the Chrome UI without seeming to understand that Google's monopolistic practices that allows them to force Chrome on people rather than because Chrome is fundamentally good or user-friendly. Given Firefox has such small (~3.36%) market share, they should probably focus on avoiding alienating the user base they have.

MeinBlutIstBlau 5y ago
Or attracting the userbase they need
coldtea 5y ago
>I find the new UI to be far worse Is that about e.g. the tabs looking different, and similar design dislike, or something substantial that affects usability?
- burning_hamster 5y ago
  The tabs icon seems narrower, such that it is now impossible to read more than 4 letters of the title. I don't remember how many letters where visible before but it feels a little bit harder to find the correct tab again if I switch away.
- kd913 5y ago
  They changed the order of the burger menu and removed the icons. Something that could immediately be used to find things like settings. Now i have to read the entire thing to know where to go. The menu is redone to be larger, and not follow theming rules. I'm ok with the new changes, but the removal of icons and rejigging the order seems to be the antithesis of human centered design.
- demi_alucard 5y ago

cout 5y ago

Performance for me has been awful since a few releases ago. I have eight cores, and I often find that Firefox is using 100% of all eight cores when I'm not even using the browser. I ran perf on the processes and what it's doing is beyond me (something with futexes and the DOM). (And before anyone asks, no I have not submitted a bug report, because I don't know how to reproduce the problem. I have seen other users complaining on reddit, and I so I know I'm not the only one, and I expect a proper bug will eventually get filed by someone who knows how to diagnose and communicate this better than me. I've searched the bug tracker every few weeks and haven't seen one yet, though. It's just frustrating to have a release with so many frivolous changes when the browser's performance is already abysmal).

unknown_error 5y ago

Firefox is the only major browser left that doesn't use Webkit/Blink, and its market share is constantly shrinking (<4% now?). Its funding is unstable, Mozilla keeps losing staff and failing to gain traction with their experimental projects/partnerships (Pocket, Send, etc.), all while Chrome becomes the new de facto standard, iterating features that only Chromium based browsers fully implement. It's a losing game... Firefox is treading water, just waiting to drown. It's sad because it's the last significant open source browser, but I guess the world just doesn't care. Google and Apple are taking over everything.

Black101 5y ago

> Even the Android build is totally competitive now. Are they still blocking most extensions?