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by TremendousJudge 1372 days ago
I don't get it, Firefox already exists and is a complete OSS reimplementation of everything Chrome does (and works better imo). Only thing to do is convince sites to test more on Firefox. This strategy worked last time around.
3 comments

I've been using Firefox forever but the problem is - it's now too big. Because it's - like you mention - following Chrome. To stay relevant, FF implements all the bloat Chrome churns out. Even worse, it's tempted to follow Chromes' extension manifest to stay compatible.

So I meant it looks like a lost battle. And it may be better to reboot to a smaller, nifter browser that a small team/community can handle.

edit: and of course cut all ties with Google financing.

Firefox may work great for many people, but it certainly doesn't for me. I finally gave up completely on it late last year.
Firefox gives up 40-60% of the performance of Chrome on my platform, using common browser benchmarks. I don't see Firefox as a substitute good for Chrome. It has much worse performance, worse security, and lacks features I want. Its performance is equivalent to using Chrome on an 8-year-old CPU. The only thing it has going for it is being perceived as counter-cultural, despite the fact that it is 100% funded by Google.
Your claim is that you suffer a _40 to 60_% performance impact by using Firefox from Chrome? Would you like to try that again? I see egregious comments like this of Firefox every so often and I always have to wonder if the last time people making these remarks actually used Firefox was in the pre-Quantum era (assuming one charitable interpretation). To claim that its performance is equivalent to using Chrome on a CPU from 2013 is disingenuous at best.

Firefox is not just perceived as 'counter-cultural', its importance lies in the fact that not using Chrome and similar browsers is also a vote not to support a browser monoculture online.

I invite you to try Safari, Chrome, and Firefox on an Apple Silicon CPU right now. Firefox is the slowest of these by a HUGE margin.
Not only the slowest, it also uses the most energy of all browsers on Mac. Scrolling the old Reddit spikes the CPU to 10x more than Brave.