firefox

When people say oh firefox performance is like so intolerably bad that they HAVE to use a chromium based browser, I always wonder what device people are using and how many things they got going on in the background. I don't understand why ANYONE would need to have like 200 tabs open at once and even if Firefox is slower loading source heavy stuff by like a second, I think that is a sacrifice worth making.

Personally Firefox has been perfectly fine for me even when Im running it on a Win 11 virtual machine on top of Linux that also has Firefox with 10 tabs open and like five other applications in the background on a very mid range laptop.

I do that (100+ tabs open at any given time) due to my work (research tends to take up a ton of windows) and because I'm too scatterbrained to focus on a single thing at once, but even then I find that Firefox is really good and arguably better than Chrome. Maybe Chrome has improved since I switched over, but Firefox uses significantly less resources than the Chrome that I remember
I have ~800 tabs open in Firefox, no real issues unless I flip through all of them or Tab Groups shuffles them all around. My desktop until recently was over a decade old and the new one is barely any faster.
- Jesus fucking christ I get uncomfortable having 30 tabs open at times I can not imagine 800
I have actually always found Firefox to perform better. Especially compared to the RAM whore, Chrome.
- Well unfortunately it's about double the CPU and RAM usage for equivalent tabs and extensions to Vivaldi, and V has more baked into it too.
People really got to learn how to use Bookmark All Tabs... properly.
If you're in the middle of something and you got to switch to something else, organize all the tabs to separate windows, and use Bookmark All Tabs... to Saved Sessions folder or whatever you want to name it. This will allow each window to be saved individually. Save it with a date and at topic name, like "20230625 Bread maker" then close the window.
I have a fear of crashing Firefox, restore failing, and losing all my tabs. This fixes most of that.
Using the Bookmark All Tabs... method has help me organize my tabs, makes syncing with devices easier, and has allowed me to keep browsing sessions completely off my mind until I need them again.
- Since when is that option a thing? Always thought I need an extension for that.
- I use One Tab and Auto Tab Discard.
  Firefox is super slow on my Galaxy S8 though.
- I can confirm, the problem is, when you have 500+ tabs, you dont know what you actually have opened.
You sound like someone that doesn't open 200+ tabs of furry adult imagery on e621 while playing processor intensive games.
I mean... I'm obviously not that person either, but it would be cool to have the RAM to support it or the correct web browser if I was that type of person. But I'm not. But having that capability would be nice (not because I need it).
...I don't look at furry porn.
- I run at 16GB of RAM and have 40+ tabs open 24/7. There are zero RAM issues, you need to plug your leaks.
- Thou art a saucy boy, Tybalt
- 32GB of RAM is less than $50, I just built a new PC, and it was the easiest upgrade I made to my build, regardless of what you put in your tabs
- No cap ong
For years Firefox on Windows had this weird random bug for me where audio just would not work at random times. I tried every fix imaginable. I spent hours crawling the internet trying to find a solution. Couldn't fix it. I've used it on Linux but not on Windows for a few years now; I'm going to be doing a fresh install of Windows on my computer soon, so we'll see if the bug finally disappears then.
- Windows audio issues are the most impossible shit to diagnose. So many programs fight over supremacy in order to control devices. It takes uninstalling vast swaths of shit to determine what the incongruity is. If you can't figure it out, link me to the most relevant post you got and I'll try to hack at it.
  Sorry, friend. Figuring that shit out is hell. I know.
I've had 5k+ tabs open at some points, because I just don't close any of them, and I often middle click as I want to navigate back to the page I was at. Additionally, a lot of sites break the back button, like collapsing comments re-expanding, or it loads slowly and I wanted to look at it quick. Organization is pretty nice with Tree-Style Tab for Firefox.
Every few months I purge all of my tabs, but for the most part, I just don't care when I have 32 GB of RAM.
Ever since firefox switched to quantum it's been great. I would say it outperforms chromium under typical circumstances.

Firefox supremacy! Keep the non-chromiuim branch alive forevermore, no centralization please.

non-chromium branch
There's a chromium branch‽
- That's just my werid phrasing, I mean the non-chromium branch that is Firefox and its backend.

What's with all these comments saying Firefox is slow!? I've never noticed FF slowing down? I also can't find anything online particularly damning (they all are pretty close in scores. No massive performance numbers for one or the other). I thought this was just a common misconception. Can anyone explain?

People complain about Firefox performance and site compatibility all the time and I have no idea what they are talking about. I use both it and other browsers all the time and Firefox for me is the better one.
It is a common misconception, they perform functionally identical across multiple PC's and updates. People are just slow to change their minds.
- Can you show me data showing that Firefox with dark theme, does a first load on a website just as fast as Chrome or edge? Same data point for with video buffer in frame? Pretty sure its noticeably slower in both scenarios with a dark theme.
Also browsing the web with the uBlock Origin installed, will signifiy improve the speed. Meanwhile protect you from various bad stuff, adds being nonexistent. :)
Check this app & also tick all the boxes within its Settings.
I used to to think the android mobile app was slow. It's gotten allot better though. Now that it supports uBlock I think it's the best browser for Android.
I think there were some bad releases many many years ago, but right now Firefox works great. But unfortunately that reputation lingers, and people don't like changing their browsers often.
It's not slow, people are slow in their heads. Chrome may feel a bit faster but it's not even what matters when picking a web browser. Will it protect your privacy online? Yes or no.
Firefox is slower on synthetic benchmarks compared to Chromium ones but I've never seen a noticeable difference while surfing sites.
@blotz @siriusmart I have like 32 gb of high speed ram and my browser would still run slow the last time I used firefox. This was a very very very very long time ago and I have like 400 tabs open but that's why I have a computer with 32gb of ram to browse the web.....
- I've actually started using Firefox more because Chrome has been causing me problems. Recently downloading more than 3 files from Google takeout at a time broke Chrome. With Firefox I hit 20 simultaneous files with no slowdown. Chrome actually hung until my downloads finished. Made it impossible to work at all while I downloads files. Same issue in incognito. Firefox was great.
  I recently built a PC and included 32GB of RAM specifically so I can have a hundred tabs open without any lag, never had a issue with Firefox.

first of all, this meme gets posted a lot. second, but more importantly, the format should be reversed. in this scene of the film, Peter Parker sees clearly without glasses, and blurred with glasses, coz he's been bitten and his eyesight is restored. /flies away

Didn't the memes sub on Reddit end up adding a rule that only allowed original memes (that people have "handmade" themselves), to avoid excessive reposts? Heh.
But the point is that they may seem different but really all are using the same engine. So the order is correct.

This is why I use Firefox. I honestly don't think that a browser engine monopoly is good for the world. Single point of failure for everyone with no alternatives is very bad if something nasty happens.

I think the creators of WINE said something similar about one of their reasons for creating WINE. Wish more browsers would use Gecko.

I just wish chrome wasnt so fucking useful by comparison. its integration into my android phone is equal to none. the firefox browser on android is ok but it does not integrate quite as well as the whole google platform. then there's the performance on linux. I hate to say it but chrome feels so much smoother and nicer to use on linux than even firefox does. I've tried making the full switch to firefox several times, last time I daily drove it for probably almost 3 months but eventually found my way back to chrome, it was just a more enjoyable experience.
then there is the fact that every website builds their code to ensure it works with chrome, that is one advantage of chrome being the vast majority of the browser user pool, web devs can focus on making sure the one thing works really well.
that all said, just like wine and linux, it is important that we have a completely separate alternative so we're not entirely reliant should the ship start to sink. I've already fully converted to linux and its been my daily driver for a few years now, not looking back. I know plenty of people are still on windows but with ever new release it feels like they're doing more and more to punch holes in the SS.Windows ship and i'll eventually be a sinking boat for enough people who see that an alternative exists. Same will need to be said for chrome vs firefox
- Chromium being so prevalent means that it's a monopoly (internet explorer anyone?) and it can control the web standards, which is something Google already does to some extent.
  They also push their agenda with extensions, manifest v3 being way less powerful for ad blocking extensions. All in all, the more people use Firefox, the less power Google has over web standards, and the more devs are forced to make sure that their site works on Firefox.
I actually use Edge as a daily, but I also use Firefox because I want to support them. Unfortunately, Edge and Chrome are superior to Firefox in performance. Edge especially is really really great at resource management, and it doesn't matter if I have 1 or 700 tabs and windows open. It'll manage it without any issues. Firefox however, won't. Sure, it's rich in features and it's very very flexible, but it's not as stable or fast as the former.
Still love Firefox, though!
- Well if you use Firefox Nightly with ad-blockers and the latest version of Windows Defender the performance will be comparable to edge and chrome, the only thing is that Firefox uses the RAM that you are not using and that means if you have something open it will run slower.

I still remember version 2 of Firefox. It was an awesome feeling to install. Even today, just using Firefox still feels like I'm doing to right thing.

I think there is nothing like it. It's not perfect but it's damn good still.

I love Firefox

Do you know of any vi extensions or configs I can look at for Nyxt. The OOB experience isn't great, but I see the potential. EDIT: Also tree tabs if possible

This the 97th time I am seeing this meme.

a little more work and you can make it to 100! keep going, you can do it!
Really, I feel like in Groundhog Day and click every time hopping something will be different.

Edge used to be unique,but then they just copied chromium.... It had much smaller scrolling which was great on touch screens. Now I have no reason to use it.

opera also used to maintain their own browser engine if i remembered correctly, but they all just dipped
- Opera did have its own engine; it was a proprietary one named Presto.
On the flipside, atm Edge seems to be the better Chromium choice (if you don’t have a Microsoft hate boner).
- Let's be clear: it's a very good browser, very HTML5 compliant, and perhaps one of the best browsers...
  ...Assuming you don't care about insane amounts of spyware - AND not having a lot of really cool browser add-ons (those having spyware and memory leaks is a separate topic, but I want to acknowledge these problems).
  Edge makes more calls home per second than any other piece of software on my computer. I looked at my live log and it was a literal stream. Nearly every single action you do is tracked and sent.... (waves hands confusingly up in the air in circles) ...somewhere. Likely Microsoft, but I really don't know.
  Almost all of Windows is like this too. I hate it so much. There's just no great way to have nice things right now.
- So I need to install Windows to use a “better Chromium choice” than Vivaldi?
Edge used to be unique, and sucked for it.
Only reason is free access to GPT 4 and Dall-e
- hey hi what do you mean? one can access gpt4 and dall e from ff?
- Except that GPT4 in Bing seems to suck every time I try it.
- The bing ai thing works on Firefox if you just change your user agent

“Wait, it’s all Chrome?”

“Always has been 🌏👨‍🚀🔫👨‍🚀🌌”

- I've been using TempleOS to fight back against the demons.
- Everyone is quick to shit on Apple and MS, but let’s be real, Google is also a piece of shit company that needs to be lumped into that group.
- I am not even sure Linux is thsat good.
  I've been using linux mint for a year or two now maybe. It's fine, and actually there are several things I prefer compared to Windows.
  One of the main issues with Linux as a PC OS is that you can't run as much different software as you can on Windows. This is largely due to the user base being smaller(IE, why develop an application for an OS when 99% of you userbase is not using that OS).
  Creating a new OS to compete with Windows would have the same issue, and would also struggle to compete.
  Also, there are so many different versions of Linux(distros), as in there are 600+ different distros so if you don't like one, there are many to choose from. Not liking Linux based on one distro is saying you don't like ice cream because you tried strawberry ice cream and didn't like the taste.

Unpopular opinion, brace yourselves.

As a web developer, I would love to root for Firefox but they've made some really odd decisions regarding the implementation of web standards (which are published on the Mozilla MDN site, oddly enough), async/defer script loading order for example. Firefox is also often multiple years late with implementing new tech, being surpassed by Chromium and even Safari most of the time.

While I love the non-profit style of Mozilla and think competition in the browser space is a good thing. The reality is just that their browser lags behind the other two. Firefox is a large part of the reason polyfills are still used in this world of evergreen browsers, and requires multi-browser testing/tweaking even though I exclusively follow the standards written on the MDN website...

Yeah it lags behind because Chromium is developed by Google, which is the 4th biggest company in the world. And Safari is obviously from Apple which is the largest company in the world. I don't think the fact that Mozilla lags behind should upset anyone. The fact they can compete at all is impressive I think.
- Or maybe, just maybe, it lags behind because Mozilla decided that their priorities are ruining the UI and to remove features.
I see it the other way around. I have a feeling that FireFox follows the specs while Chromium kind of has its own plan and directly introduce new behavior without much care for standards.
Since Chromium based browsers have the majority of the market share, you have the feeling that FireFox is awkward/lag behind. Now look back at Opera when they still have their own engine and you will see that while they try to introduce new behaviors just like Chromium, their limited market share means that people don't feel the need to make use of these "innovations".
- I miss old opera.
Firefox is behind in some areas, but ahead in others - eg. privacy/tracking.
- exactly, and that's what matters more than anything else. modern websites are insanely bloated anyway; i care more about blocking the 50MB of ads, trackers, third-party cookies and other garbage every site shoves down your throat, than shiny new stuff that arguably is often part of that overengineered bloat.
  look at this. it's fucking beautiful. as far as i'm concerned, websites like these put the modern web and web developers to shame.
- So not the things that benefit website owners
You want an even more unpopular opinion? I use WebKit based browsers for web developing because of the clarity of the devtools, performance and Interop.
You can go take a look at the web inspector documentation on WebKit.org to check the features.
So one and only thing I miss from Chrome is Lighthouse.

Librewolf, icecat, qutebrowser, iceraven, surf... are not chromium-based.

Qutebrowser is chromium-based, and barely anyone uses icecat since the modern web heavily relies on JS, iceraven is a Firefox for Android fork, which could maybe have like 50 users and librewolf is unusable for daily usage because of RFP (resist fingerprinting worsens a lot of sites that rely on canvas). (This is just my opinion)
- I use Librewolf on a daily basis. (With disabled FPR)

Firefox 🥰

Honest question. What's wrong with chromium? I understand why google/ms and other corpo flavours are bad, but why is base chromium bad

The problem is the lack of diversity. Google controls Chromium and almost all browsers are Chromium based so Google controlls the supported web features of almost all browsers, giving them the power to decide which web features are supported on the internet and which aren't. They use this for example to push their own file formats for the web instead of better alternatlives. Remember when everyone was mad that ublock origin wouldn't work on Chromium browsers anymore? Same thing. They get money from ads so they make it harder to block them. Google shouldn't have that much power over the web.
- No, Google no controls Chromium, despite Chromium as is use a lot or Google APIs. But Chromium is FOSS and because of this a lot of Chromiums are "degoogled" or parcial "degoogled" leaving some APIs as Option in the settings (Vivaldi permits even to quit the API for the Chrome Store in the settings page, if you don't want extension from there). The difference in Chrome itself, EDGE, Opera and others, is that they all use a lot of own tracking APIs above the default from Chromium.
One big life-changing thing will be something like Manifest V3, limiting ad-blockers capabilities. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/chrome-users-beware-manifest-v3-deceitful-and-threatening https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/12/googles-manifest-v3-still-hurts-privacy-security-innovation
Rules for thee and not for me kind of stance when it comes to who is collecting all the sweet data from its users, it wont be possible to block every tracker and ad from Google in the future because every add-on will have a limit of how many domains they are trying to block.
I mean what could possibly go wrong if the biggest data collector and ad provider has a monopoly on web browser?
Why is it bad to use chromium base browsers? If the market is essentially only Chromium and Safari, Firefox compatibility will be even less important and broken sites will only lead to a bigger monopoly because users will switch.
- And people still support and use Google search so the monster just continues growing.
  I guess we get what we deserve as a species.
Mostly having the centralized backbone of chromium makes people uncomfortable since it can do a lot from behind the scenes if it wanted to. But the raw base form is pretty much fine AFAIK, it's just very rare among browsers to do so.

I love when the meme is used correctly.

i literally saw it on discord a few seconds ago lol

I don't know why, but even on my machine which gets 40-60 FPS in FFXIV while simultaneously encoding a movie, Firefox was always slower than chromium browsers.

I truly don't understand it.

It's web builders deliberately building their sites and webapps for chromium based browsers only, because it has over 80% market share. They only test on firefox rudimentally. The experience is subpar and people use chromium instead because of it, cementing chromium as the most used browser. Some site builders do this because they don't have the time to extensively test a browser with low market share, others, like Google, do it deliberately.
- I mean everybody is free to block them trash scripts from these developers with uMatrix or NoScript.
- Are the ad block changes from the new manifest going to be opt-in?
Depends on what sites you are using, google sites are slower for me, others are faster.
Also looks like chrome is better at looking faster somehow, probably starts to render page sooner.
And of course: wgich extensions do you have in firefox and how old is your profile. Try it out with new, clean profile and than you will feel it.
- And of course: wgich extensions do you have in firefox and how old is your profile. Try it out with new, clean profile and than you will feel it.
  I mean this is fair, but eventually the profile ages and I may choose to add more extensions, no? Why would a selling point be "we're fast on a brand new install, but after a couple years and adding some extensions, we're gonna slow down like fuck"?
- Blink is somewhat faster than Gecko in most sites, but it use somewhat more resources, because render every tab independly. Because of this some Chromium hibernate tabs in background (Chrome itself don't)

SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO TRUE.👍

I've switched to Firefox 2 years ago and I never missed Chrome since. Out of curiosity I've tried Opera GX a week ago only to find out that it is basically another chromium skin. Honestly I'm quite worried by the lacking of alternatives. 🦊 Be Strong Foxy✊️

Ladybird should add another option at least, I'm curious to see it in action.

Meanwhile on iOS, bottom image is all Safari.

Hopefully not for much longer…

Arc and Orion are the best browsers I’ve used. GNOME Web looks nice, too.

Arc is real fun. I’ve been using it quite a bit lately
- I believe they’ve also mentioned that they developed the browser with the possibility of swapping engines later on. Would be the best if it had WebKit instead of Chromium
Gnome Web is neat but the lack of any extension support is a deal breaker.

Firefox is indeed amazing but since chrome is so widespread a lot of sites primarily focus on supporting that - and thus i cant always use firefox. its a bit annoying

Then there’s Safari on iOS….

Peter Parker saw more clearly when his glasses were off.

I didn’t see LibreWolf here anywhere. I’ve been going back and forth between that and Arc lately

Arc has been an experiment when I got a Mac for work and it really is super helpful managing information and contexts. It really helps. For my private stuff, I changed back to firefox recently. That thing was super slow but now works like a charm again.

I really wish firefox had HDR support. That’s the only reason I haven’t fully switched

Same. I just keep Brave around for that. I hope Firefox gets get support when Linux also starts supporting HDR.
- That will be a fantastic day for sure!

Another alternative: GNOME Web (a.k.a. Epiphany), which is based on the WebKit browser engine.

it's kinda lacking in features and unideal for the same reason I don't like safari
- it’s kinda lacking in features and unideal for the same reason I don’t like safari
  I hope they implement support for WebExtensions soon. That would probably give GNOME Web a huge boost in features.

deep fried meme

Multi-Account Container with proxy support is a killer feature for me. I keep Brave as fallback just in case for PWAs.

Same. Containers are what Firefox has and chrome just doesn't.

Oh, look, THAT meme. Again. For the100th time.

Folks, I don't care what under the hood. Brave serves me much better than Firefox did. And, frankly speaking, "not being chromium" isn't enough anymore. Mozilla has ruined Firefox for me when they started removing features (e.g., FTP support) and dumbing its UI/UX. So, goodbye FF, it's been a long ride, but I'm on Brave right now.

But, Brave doesn't do FTP either? And it's full of crypto nonsense.
- Crypto on Brave is disabled by default. The FTP support was just an example. The last straw for me was the idiotic UI "refreshement". I'm not touching that thing. And yes, I know UI on FF can be tuned using CSS, but I've no time, nor the will to fix Mozilla's fuckups. It's not like there's a shortage of browsers out there.
Brave is managed by Brendan Eich who had to leave Mozilla because he is a homophobe.
That and they have been doing some selfserving things with BAT to the point where I wouldn't trust them even if BAT became something worthwhile or maybe even especially then.
- Brave is managed by Brendan Eich who had to leave Mozilla because he is a homophobe.
  Eich was a cofounder of Mozilla. Wasn't him an homophobe back then? Did someone stopped using FF because Mozilla's cofounder was an homophobe?
  And, frankly speaking, I couldn't care less about him or his believing. I need a good browser. Brave is a good browser (better than Firefox, for me). The day I find something better, I'll migrate. Full stop.
  That and they have been doing some selfserving things with BAT to the point where I wouldn’t trust them even if BAT became something worthwhile or maybe even especially then.
  Again, the whole BAT thing is opt-in and it's not the point here.

Firefox is beautiful

What do you mean with hardened? Why beta for financial stuff?
- Beta is so it has its own profile and can run simultaneously.

I support Firefox by donating them quarterly.

YSK that donations to Mozilla don't go to FF developement (which is done by Mozilla Corp.), but are used by Mozilla Foundation for... other things:
https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/faq/
How will my donation be used? At Mozilla, our mission is to keep the Internet healthy, open, and accessible for all. To learn how your donation is put to use, click here.
You can find more details about Mozilla’s expenditures and governance here.
Don’t Mozilla products, like Firefox, earn income? Firefox is maintained by the Mozilla Corporation, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. While Firefox does produce revenue — chiefly through search partnerships — this earned income is largely reinvested back into the Corporation. The Mozilla Foundation’s education and advocacy efforts, which span several continents and reach millions of people, are supported by philanthropic donations.
It is funny to me how the first link doesn't actually tell you how you money is used, but just points to Mozilla Foundation home page.
In short, if you donate expecting that your money helps Firefox, you're doing it wrong.

Samsung browser is chromium based?

Yep

I really like Vivaldi. Their management even seems kinda ethical.

I don't know if it's just ethical or their unwillingness to improve but they have left a lot of issues open for several years.
Issues like -
Auto dark mode for web pages - they removed it when Chrome for Android dropped it, but never picked it back up. All other browsers have it now
Geolocation on Mac. Their argument is weird for this and the issue is still there for over 5 years
A lot of changes nobody asked, something like address bar auto complete, which they forcefully changed to top sites without even giving options
Slowdown because of bloat - while a lot cliam that it isn't the case, Vivaldi has brought my M1 Mac to its knees, even with brand new instace. Again only one to do so
absolutely proprietary
- Vivaldi.com/source

What happened to brave?

Nothing happened, it's just always been chromium
- So using chromium based browsers, even if privacy focused, still benefit Google?
- Wasn't always, it had it's own engine very early

Wake up, they made based into a post.

while this may be true, only 1 of those actually pays you to use it

I'm assuming you're talking about Firefox? When has it ever been paid???
- No, you misunderstand me. Brave pays you in cryptocurrency to view their version of ads.
crypto chrome Microsoft Edge also pays u for seeing ads, but that's just stupid

Vivaldi > All browsers

If only it was FOSS...
- Parts of it are. Vivaldi wants to retain its brand and doesn’t want people making forks and potentially tarnishing its reputation. And given how unpopular it is, they can’t really afford that to happen. I personally have no issues with Vivaldi wanting to keep things that way and I don’t mind it not being completely FOSS. Given how absolutely amazing the browser is and how customizable and feature-packed it is, it’s absolutely irresistible for me not to use it.
  Here's a blog post from Vivaldi about it not being completely FOSS and their reasoning
  They've also got a great privacy policy so I'm not concerned with privacy either.
  Fun fact: Vivaldi is the go to browser for car makers such as Lamborghini, Mercedes, Audi and other car manufacturers https://vivaldi.com/android/automotive/
absolutely proprietary
Isn't Vivaldi a bit overkill/bloated? It has so many utilities integrated (mail, calendar, …)
- @pingu, I've been using it for 7 years and it has never appeared overloaded. There are some of the functions that I do not use and because of that I have hidden, however there are many others that come in very handy. But this is handled differently for each user, depending on how they use the browser. You can use extensions from the Chrome Store, but most are redundant in Vivaldi and not needed. You can give it the simple look of an old IE or of an Eurofighter panel and everything in between.

Firefox all day every day!

I would love to use Firefox more regularly, but the shortcut keys built into the browser are a pain in the butt. I haven't found a way to turn off the onboard keybindings so my own system wide keybinds will work.

Any tips would be appreciated greatly!

"everything is Chrome in the future!"

Firefox ftw!

You can make Firefox crazy fast if you fiddle with the settings and with the ublock origin enough. There's no reason to be using Chromium unless you're daily driving a website that doesn't support the Gecko engine

Okay, now how does one share a meme to annoy ones friends?