The new MV3 architecture reflects Google’s avowed desire to make browser extensions more performant, private, and secure. But the internet giant’s attempt to do so has been bitterly contested by makers of privacy-protecting and content-blocking extensions, who have argued that the Chocolate Factory’s new software architecture will lead to less effective privacy and content-filtering extensions.
For users of uBlock Origin, which runs on Manifest V2, “options” means using the less capable uBlock Origin Lite, which supports Manifest V3.
I don’t on mobile because it’s way too slow.
But I guess that isn’t applicable to this post because mobile Chromium doesn’t have ublock anyway…
And on linux, I have firefox issues with wayland because of some Nvidia thing. Chromium too, but its less severe and I can actually get GPU acceleration working.
How is Firefox slow? What exactly are you using Firefox for on mobile? These are honest question, I don’t understand.
They’re not wrong, benchmarks have been done on mobile firefox.
https://www.androidauthority.com/best-fastest-android-browsers-337802/
Firefox doesn’t lose every test, it even won one in the linked article, but chrome at least beats it in every other one and firefox comes in last several times.
Not to be the guy that deepthroats Mozilla or anything, but these benchmarks show it being at worst 1 second slower.
Like, Firefox really isn’t noticeably slower than other browsers in the vast majority of situations.
You’re not wrong, but it should be noted that ‘at worst 1 second slower’ means a lot more when the fastest time is under 2 seconds. Saving 1 second is kind of a big deal when you only have 3 to work with. Closing that much of a gap would be a huge win for Firefox.
Also worth noting that many of the linked tests are also not directly based on time, and the difference in benchmarking is still fairly substantial. With the exception of the singular test that it came out on top on, the best case among these benchmarks is that firefox mobile is 15-20% slower than Chrome. These benchmarks even include Mozilla’s own Kraken benchmark (where it still comes in last among these results).
Lastly, do want to say that I hope mobile firefox can catch up on these, but they’ve got a lot of work to do and the odds are stacked against them.
I imagine there is a bigger difference on older phones though. An imperceptable difference could easily become unbearable when the phone is a little outdated. I experience it at work using a slightly older PC on Windows 10.
It’s one thing to fail benchmarks, but another thing to be perceive so slow that you’d rather use chrome. Maybe I just have low standards in that regard.
An old Snapdragon 845 phone, lol. A razer phone 2.
It just feels sluggish. Pages render slower, especially larger ones, and it eats more battery, especially with extensions like adblockers running.
It’s especially apparent because the RP2 is like the oldest 120hz phone. Bromite (aka chromium) feels like butter in comparison.
Same story for me on a OnePlus 5T which is the even older Snapdragon 835. Firefox is genuinely unusable. I tried Mull and Iceraven too. For several months I tried to put up with it, but they were all a slow and buggy mess. Switched to Brave and it works fine.
I use Librewolf on my desktop for the record.
Firefox on mobile has extensions. You can have whatever ad blocker you want. You can automatically replace pictures of trump with kittens. I’m sure there are other extensions that are useful too. I’ll take that over some negligible purported speed increase any day.
Once Firefox on mobile got extension support, I switched over immediately to use a decent adblocker. Made sure every app that opens a browser opens in Firefox. Has made my mobile browsing experience so much better, of my goodness.
Kiwi browser on Android is Chromium based & has had the ability to add extensions such as uBlock for years
Indeed, though I prefer skipping extensions on mobile because (as said above) native implementations tend to be faster and more power efficient.
Ublock is probably an exception though. It’s quite fast.