5 ms·

I'm about the same, I don't even know what the loading speeds issue is about, I still remember Firefox Quantum beating the daylights out of Chrome, and I don't

I'm about the same, I don't even know what the loading speeds issue is about, I still remember Firefox Quantum beating the daylights out of Chrome, and I don't know if Chrome ever fully caught up to Quantum? What's really funny is for ages Chrome would load the browser window even if the whole browser UI wasn't done loading, and sometime after Quantum, Firefox started doing the same trick to make you feel as though it instantly runs. I've been using Firefox for about 20 years or so, and I don't regret it, but also I have not noticed a degrade in performance. I'm using it on Linux so I don't know if that's drastically different on a Mac these days.

voxic11 1y ago
Do you use Firefox for Android? I use it for the extension support but its noticeably slower than Chrome on Android.
- glenstein 1y ago
  I use Firefox on Android and I don't think (?) I notice a speed difference. At least not a big one.
- giancarlostoro 1y ago
  I'm on iOS, I guess I mainly use Firefox on Desktop, on iOS there's no point in me using Firefox since its forced to use Webkit under the covers.
  - grimgrin 1y ago
    firefox on all my devices for the simple pleasure of sending tabs between devices sometimes i'm reading something on phone and i "send to all devices", i'll sure as shit see it again this way (even librewolf allows you to continue doing this)
  - godelski 1y ago
    I browse with Orion (for ad blocking) but still have Firefox installed because I can click Share -> Firefox -> Send Tab. Maybe I stumble upon a video I want to watch but not now. Maybe I stumble upon a long form article or reference or something that just is shitty on a mobile interface and I push it to the computer I'm literally sitting next to while having my phone in hand too.
- VHRanger 1y ago
  With ublock origin enabled on an android device I'd argue it's rather much faster
  - efreak 1y ago
    The app itself is insanely slow to start up, and it always has been. Try killing Firefox and Chrome, open the browser via a link from another app and see how long it takes for the page to start rendering. I suggest a page with a different color background and nothing else. Chrome is always fast, while Firefox is almost always very slow (pinning the app to my recent list helps on Samsung devices, but isn't available elsewhere)
    - godelski 1y ago
      Is Chrome being cached? This is actually not a good test because there are a lot of tricky and subtle things that can make the comparison highly unfair. Smartphones will cache apps so that they don't fully close. Then, if you do actually force kill them they will start up in the background. Are we surprised a Google phone caches the Google browser which is considered to be a high priority app, commonly used, and even the backbone of other apps?
      - charcircuit 1y ago
        >This is actually not a good test It is a realistic user scenario, which in my opinion makes it a good test. The real world performance is what matters here. The user doesn't care if technically there is some trick that is being used to "cheat."
        godelski 1y ago
        > The user doesn't care if technically there is some trick that is being used to "cheat." You framed the "benchmark" around performance, not perceived performance. Those are two very different things. We're on HN, so don't be surprised when people correct you or nitpick. Either accept the clarification (if it is correct), clarify what you originally intended to say (without being overly defensive), or move on. Besides, if we're talking about average user, they're not force closing apps and the phone should be caching the most frequently used apps. So even then the test won't mimic real world experience even if it's about perception. Maybe initially, but not after sustained usage. People usually normalize to whatever they're using
lillecarl 1y ago
I don't have anything but anecdotal experience here, but I think Google Chrome was gaming Windows Defender better for awhile, when Windows Defender treats you poorly IO grinds to a halt and then some. I've never had Firefox issues on Linux.
- nextos 1y ago
  > I've never had Firefox issues on Linux. My experience on Linux running on very old hardware (4th Gen Intel) is also good. Firefox feels quick and snappy. It uses a reasonable amount of resources, and has a relatively modest memory footprint by modern browser standards. In comparison, Chromium makes my fans spin on every site and eats several GB of memory. The annoying part of Firefox is that development seems a bit stagnant in some areas, especially taking into consideration the amount of resources Mozilla has. For example, bookmarks and history still rely on a very old native UI that is quite clunky. Customization via user.js is too imperative and most options are largely undocumented.
  - lillecarl 1y ago
    And no standard way to configure extensions is something I feel they could spearhead. Ofc extensions can store state however it wants, but more often than not I'm quite fond of my extension settings.
  - horseradish7k 1y ago
    eh, i prefer the bookmark and history library window over the sidebar
- porphyra 1y ago
  I've had various Firefox issues on Linux such as mysterious bad frame rate that I wasn't able to track down (despite toggling every feature related to gpu acceleration in about:flags), slow startup (which I found was due to some dbus configuration), and inability to print (apparmor blocked cups).
  - lillecarl 1y ago
moffkalast 1y ago
What I've found recently is that Linux is surprisingly Firefox's achilles' heel. Canvas and WebGL run easily an order of magnitude slower than Chromium. Check with https://webglsamples.org https://webglsamples.org if you don't believe it. All of it runs capped at 60 fps on Chrome for me, Firefox struggles to break 30 on mid tier settings in aquarium and stutters horribly throughout most of them. I'm sure it's fast at loading static sites, but I wouldn't ever use it to run any web app. On Windows they're both the same though, which is weird to me.
- giancarlostoro 1y ago
  I'll test it when I get home, I'm really curious, I've not noticed a slowdown, I am using Arch so I'm not sure if that makes a meaningful difference.
- h3lp 1y ago
  thanks for the benchmark tip. FWIW, firefox 140.0.4 on Fedora 42 runs pretty much all tests at 60 fps or therebouts.
- mook 1y ago
  I note that the GitHub org has two public members, one of which is from Google: https://github.com/orgs/WebGLSamples/people https://github.com/orgs/WebGLSamples/people Google's been doing advocacy where they do things that either only work on Chrome or just magically works faster there, for a very long time.
- doph 1y ago
  I didn't believe it and after trying those samples, I still don't. All of them run flawlessly for me on FF 104.0.4 on an up-to-date Arch install on my laptop.
  - moffkalast 1y ago
    Wayland or X11? I'm on Kubuntu and from what I remember reading a while back it may be Firefox using something native on X11 that Chrome rolls its own thing for, but I may be misremembering.
zamadatix 1y ago
Displaying the window early is more than a trick, it's a properly better user experience.

voxic11 1y ago

Do you use Firefox for Android? I use it for the extension support but its noticeably slower than Chrome on Android.

glenstein 1y ago
I use Firefox on Android and I don't think (?) I notice a speed difference. At least not a big one.
giancarlostoro 1y ago
I'm on iOS, I guess I mainly use Firefox on Desktop, on iOS there's no point in me using Firefox since its forced to use Webkit under the covers.
- grimgrin 1y ago
  firefox on all my devices for the simple pleasure of sending tabs between devices sometimes i'm reading something on phone and i "send to all devices", i'll sure as shit see it again this way (even librewolf allows you to continue doing this)
- godelski 1y ago
  I browse with Orion (for ad blocking) but still have Firefox installed because I can click Share -> Firefox -> Send Tab. Maybe I stumble upon a video I want to watch but not now. Maybe I stumble upon a long form article or reference or something that just is shitty on a mobile interface and I push it to the computer I'm literally sitting next to while having my phone in hand too.
VHRanger 1y ago
With ublock origin enabled on an android device I'd argue it's rather much faster
- efreak 1y ago
  The app itself is insanely slow to start up, and it always has been. Try killing Firefox and Chrome, open the browser via a link from another app and see how long it takes for the page to start rendering. I suggest a page with a different color background and nothing else. Chrome is always fast, while Firefox is almost always very slow (pinning the app to my recent list helps on Samsung devices, but isn't available elsewhere)
  - godelski 1y ago
    Is Chrome being cached? This is actually not a good test because there are a lot of tricky and subtle things that can make the comparison highly unfair. Smartphones will cache apps so that they don't fully close. Then, if you do actually force kill them they will start up in the background. Are we surprised a Google phone caches the Google browser which is considered to be a high priority app, commonly used, and even the backbone of other apps?
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      >This is actually not a good test It is a realistic user scenario, which in my opinion makes it a good test. The real world performance is what matters here. The user doesn't care if technically there is some trick that is being used to "cheat."
      - godelski 1y ago
        > The user doesn't care if technically there is some trick that is being used to "cheat." You framed the "benchmark" around performance, not perceived performance. Those are two very different things. We're on HN, so don't be surprised when people correct you or nitpick. Either accept the clarification (if it is correct), clarify what you originally intended to say (without being overly defensive), or move on. Besides, if we're talking about average user, they're not force closing apps and the phone should be caching the most frequently used apps. So even then the test won't mimic real world experience even if it's about perception. Maybe initially, but not after sustained usage. People usually normalize to whatever they're using

lillecarl 1y ago

I don't have anything but anecdotal experience here, but I think Google Chrome was gaming Windows Defender better for awhile, when Windows Defender treats you poorly IO grinds to a halt and then some. I've never had Firefox issues on Linux.

nextos 1y ago
> I've never had Firefox issues on Linux. My experience on Linux running on very old hardware (4th Gen Intel) is also good. Firefox feels quick and snappy. It uses a reasonable amount of resources, and has a relatively modest memory footprint by modern browser standards. In comparison, Chromium makes my fans spin on every site and eats several GB of memory. The annoying part of Firefox is that development seems a bit stagnant in some areas, especially taking into consideration the amount of resources Mozilla has. For example, bookmarks and history still rely on a very old native UI that is quite clunky. Customization via user.js is too imperative and most options are largely undocumented.
- lillecarl 1y ago
  And no standard way to configure extensions is something I feel they could spearhead. Ofc extensions can store state however it wants, but more often than not I'm quite fond of my extension settings.
- horseradish7k 1y ago
  eh, i prefer the bookmark and history library window over the sidebar
porphyra 1y ago
I've had various Firefox issues on Linux such as mysterious bad frame rate that I wasn't able to track down (despite toggling every feature related to gpu acceleration in about:flags), slow startup (which I found was due to some dbus configuration), and inability to print (apparmor blocked cups).
- lillecarl 1y ago

moffkalast 1y ago

What I've found recently is that Linux is surprisingly Firefox's achilles' heel. Canvas and WebGL run easily an order of magnitude slower than Chromium. Check with https://webglsamples.org https://webglsamples.org if you don't believe it. All of it runs capped at 60 fps on Chrome for me, Firefox struggles to break 30 on mid tier settings in aquarium and stutters horribly throughout most of them. I'm sure it's fast at loading static sites, but I wouldn't ever use it to run any web app. On Windows they're both the same though, which is weird to me.

giancarlostoro 1y ago
I'll test it when I get home, I'm really curious, I've not noticed a slowdown, I am using Arch so I'm not sure if that makes a meaningful difference.
h3lp 1y ago
thanks for the benchmark tip. FWIW, firefox 140.0.4 on Fedora 42 runs pretty much all tests at 60 fps or therebouts.
mook 1y ago
I note that the GitHub org has two public members, one of which is from Google: https://github.com/orgs/WebGLSamples/people https://github.com/orgs/WebGLSamples/people Google's been doing advocacy where they do things that either only work on Chrome or just magically works faster there, for a very long time.
doph 1y ago
I didn't believe it and after trying those samples, I still don't. All of them run flawlessly for me on FF 104.0.4 on an up-to-date Arch install on my laptop.
- moffkalast 1y ago
  Wayland or X11? I'm on Kubuntu and from what I remember reading a while back it may be Firefox using something native on X11 that Chrome rolls its own thing for, but I may be misremembering.

zamadatix 1y ago

Displaying the window early is more than a trick, it's a properly better user experience.