this post was submitted on 22 Jul 2023
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[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 179 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (14 children)

In every comment thread about the importance of supporting Firefox, there's always at least one comment claiming Firefox is slow, even while I repeatedly see the data say otherwise.

Anecdotally, I've used Firefox, Waterfox, and Librewolf on PC, and none have been slow.

I've used Firefox, Firefox Beta, and Fennec on Android, and if anything they seem faster and easier to use than Chrome (and they actually tend to work like an actual internet browser).

I'm not saying these commenters are all Google sockpuppets, but maybe they're parroting misinformation, or maybe they're using ~~an Apple OS~~ iOS, where Firefox is basically Safari.

It's just really perplexing to me.

[–] uthredii@programming.dev 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I think it depends on the website. There are some websites where chrome will work better either because chrome works better with certain libraries/technologies or because the developers put more time into optimizing for chrome.

On the other hand Firefox might have less bloat around telemetry that gives it an advantage too.

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Oh absolutely true, and one would probably notice it more if one uses a lot of Google's services (though Microsoft is even worse in my experience, with nerfing its services if you don't use Edge), but this still doesn't explain why just a normal user would proclaim Firefox is "slow as fuck" without anything to support this, and that's what I'm seeing in nearly every thread that mentions Firefox.

[–] metaStatic@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago

because being faster is what got chrome it's market share in the first place even though it hasn't been true for a very long time if it ever was.

I never switched to chrome because my 50tb of ram wasn't enough to open 2 tabs.

[–] esty@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 year ago

because that's google bot replying

[–] spare_muppet@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you want to online shop or research something to buy, or spend money in some way, Chrome and Google search is superior. If you are looking for information, news, anything not requiring payment, Firehox and duck duck go are the best

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 8 points 1 year ago

I'm going to have to strongly disagree here. Trying to research a potential purchase on Google or Bing will net you page after page of Amazaon Affiliate sites peddling junk. I'm into longboarding, and most of the results you'll find trying to Google a decent longboard would result in wasting your money at best, severe injury or death at worst.

It's not just longboards, either. I've noticed these promoted results trying to search PC parts, appliances, dog food, tools, and anything else you might be looking to buy.

There's a reason people started appending searches with "reddit," but honestly it's better just to use a search engine that doesn't net you these results, or ask somewhere else entirely like a community forum. Sadly, most people rely on results from search engines and will end up spending money on junk.

I'm also not sure why using Chrome would make online shopping easier. I literally make all my online purchases through either Firefox proper or Fennec, and I've never had a problem.

[–] dan@lemm.ee 24 points 1 year ago

Yeah I’ve noticed the same thing. I’ve been deliberately trying to do a bit of Firefox advocacy for a while (cos I honestly believe increasing its userbase is our only chance to avoid google ruining the internet). But yes every time there’s a bunch of people confidently complaining about how bad/slow Firefox is and advocating for brave or chrome.

Initially I thought it was just a bit of historical baggage but it happens very consistently and aggressively so I’ve had the same thought.

[–] HorseFD@lemm.ee 21 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Firefox is not “basically Safari” on macOS, that is only true on mobile.

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 3 points 1 year ago

I did not know this, so thanks for the correction

[–] carlytm@lemm.ee 19 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think some people also just haven't used Firefox in a while, and it's gotten better since the last time they used it. I've never had issues on Firefox, however I only became a Firefox user a few years ago. Meanwhile my girlfriend insists it's buggy and slow, but she hasn't used it in many years.

[–] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've noticed a lot of people not wanting to ever revisit older paradigms. Like when the Reddit protests started a lot of people were adament that going back to forum type software would be a disaster and I felt taken aback. I loved that shit. The only reason I saw to do that with Reddit instead of a dedicated forum was because Reddit already had users that could wander into your community and slowly onramp. Here on the fediverse we get the best of both worlds, but there are people who hate the idea that !news@ttrpg.net and !news@lemmy.world don't aggregate together even though they might actually be about completely different subject matter because "we don't want to go back to the phpbb days"

Well y know what? Maybe there are parts of the phpbb days that were worthwhile and good. Maybe hosting dedicated servers that are specifically about something is a positive thing as it makes there be more people excited to host a small part of the internet that people can make use of. Maybe what we needed was the easier on ramping, not the centralizes forums.

[–] anon_water@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

Maybe that’s like, just your opinion man.

[–] hellfire103@sopuli.xyz 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

On top of that, Firefox was recently found to be faster than Chrome.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, Google.

[–] XiELEd@kbin.social 13 points 1 year ago

Chrome is a memory hog compared to Firefox lol

[–] takeda@kbin.social 10 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

This was true when Chrome first came up, they even made those ridiculous ads, which Opera (before they stopped developing their own engine) was ridiculing: https://youtu.be/zaT7thTxyq8

Firefox after they they rewrote their engine to be multithreaded (I think it was called project electron?) is faster than chrome that is currently very bloated.

What saddens me the most that, while there are ignorant people who don't know better and use what are they familiar with, there are also self proclaimed techno geeks, who are equally ignorant and don't seem to remember the times of Internet Explorer.

Edit: here are the chrome ads: https://youtu.be/nCgQDjiotG0

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Tbf we're in a new generation of techno geeks who weren't around for a lot of things and lack the full context. I think about that every time a young person chides me for "stealing" from YouTubers or even Google itself by blocking ads.

[–] Trapping5341@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

I(31/m) have a buddy(25/m) who gives me shit for pirating stuff sometimes because he says I'm stealing from the creators. But I'm not because I wasn't gonna pay for it in the first place 😂 I'm more than happy to pay for things and do all the time. I just cancelled my audible sub a couple days ago because I got an email that my credits were going to expire and I needed to use them soon. Like what? I paid you for those. So I just used them on the series I'm currently listening to and spent the rest of the night figuring out how to host my own audible 😂

[–] PopOfAfrica@lemmy.one 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I wish to were simply ads. The big issue is that its targeted ads. I don't want to pay them if it means deleting any sense of privacy from my life.

[–] LinkOpensChest_wav@lemmy.one 5 points 1 year ago

Targeted ads that are also intrusive. To be honest, I'm not sure I'd even be too much aware of the issues surrounding advertising if they weren't so hellbent on encroaching on the very usability of a site. When YouTube ran banner ads, I didn't really bat an eye. It wasn't until they inserted ads into the videos themselves that I took notice. On top of that, every news outlet started looking like those malware sites people warned you about in the 90s. In a way, I guess I'm thankful that ad agencies became so awful that we had no choice but to become concerned about their impact on our privacy. I can't even imagine using the internet without an adblocker and alternate apps or frontends for the worst offenders.

[–] PipedLinkBot@feddit.rocks 8 points 1 year ago

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[–] sab@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Worth mentioning that, as much as it pains me to back Apple, Safari is also a good alternative for those it's available for (at least in this regard). It's one of the only browsers other than Firefox not using Chromium. And WebKit, it's renderer, is a pretty badass project.

[–] TenorTheHusky@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Chromium and its forks actually all use WebKit as well: https://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/displaying-a-web-page-in-chrome/

WebKit: Rendering engine shared between Safari, Chromium, and all other WebKit-based browsers.

[–] chameleon@kbin.social 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Blink and WebKit completely diverged in 2013 after the fork. That document is virtually identical to its 2012 version and is marked as outdated in several places.

[–] TenorTheHusky@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Oh huh, TIL. I had always assumed they were all webkit just due to the amount of compatibility code I've had to implement in CSS with -webkit styles. It makes sense that a fork like Blink would be backwards compatible with those though

[–] sab@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Is this up to date? I thought they forked from WebKit ten years ago.

[–] DrQuint@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

We just need to respond with "objectively wrong: " and copy paste it again if the same person replies.

[–] Voli@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

Also slow compared to what ? I mostly think its just the UI that makes people think it’s slow. Cause I think most browsers load sites at an equal space, or prioritize different kind of caches.

[–] Trapping5341@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Switch from chrome to Firefox about a year ago. Firefox certainly opens faster on my PC but I don't notice much difference on my android phone.

[–] CrypticCoffee@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

I have suspected for a while it is astroturfing. Same as with GIMP and Libre Office where inevitably someone will trash the UI as it's "soooo bad". If you say a lie, and repeat it enough, people start to believe it.

[–] Vexz@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I switched back and forth between Firefox and Chromium based browsers like Brave and Vivaldi. To be fair Firefox felt slow in comparison for a long time but that changed in the last few months. I think since about Firefox v114 I don't feel a difference anymore and that's why I'm using Firefox now. Best is to tell those people to try Firefox again because it recently became faster (in my experience).