Using Firefox (3 Weeks)

I’ve been using Firefox as my primary browser for 3 weeks now. Here’s a status update.

Things were really sluggish and slow at first compared to Chrome. After poking around at a handful of combinations, I’ve settled on some adjustments.

1. Changed my “Content processes” setting from 4 to 8, which is the max allowed in the drop-down. I have 16GB of memory on this laptop, which should be plenty. This made an immediate difference, so I may try hacking it to -1 at some point.
2. Went back to using Google Chrome for all Google products. At the risk of being overdramatic, Google products are almost unusable in Firefox.
3. Went back to using Google Chrome for development. The developer console in Chrome is just too good and fast.
4. Removed my userChrome.css. This seems to have improved performance, and I’m starting to get used to the look and feel of default Firefox.
5. Disabled Privacy Badger. It seems that having uBlock Origin enabled is enough to block the many annoying scripts of the internet.

There are a few things that I’m still getting used to or haven’t figured a way around yet.

This weird blackout effect happens pretty frequently in Feedly. If I restart the browser, it goes back to normal. I’m not able to fix it any other way. I thought this was due to my userChrome.css changes, but it has persisted. Every once in a while the blackout effect happens elsewhere—I’ve seen it in Github and just now it happened in some hover modal thing in Gutenberg. I dunno. 🤷🏼‍♂️

Firefox’s auto-complete in the address bar is not as good as Chrome’s. In Chrome, if I start typing “j”, I’m immediately shown the most common URL starting with “j” that I visit, which is this site’s admin dashboard. In Firefox, I get the domain – jeremyfelt.com – but not the wp-admin part. The dashboard requires a down arrow key press, where in Chrome I could rely on “j + Enter”. Small annoyance, but still an annoyance! 🙂

Every so often my screen locks up for 10 seconds or so. I think it’s happened most frequently when switching from Slack to Firefox, though I noted once that it happened when switching from iTerm to Firefox. Nothing has actually crashed, it just takes a break for a bit and then goes back to normal.

All small annoyances, but they’re starting to add up. I’ve thought once or twice a week about switching back to Chrome, but I’ve gotten more and more used to things, so I may be able to stick it out.

The balance between the Google internet and the open internet is a fine one!