Firefox 120 to Firefox 141 Web Browser Benchmarks

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Browser performance in practice

  • Many say mainstream desktop browsers now feel similar in speed; hardware and network are usually the bottleneck, not the engine.
  • Several note mobile is different: some sites are painfully slow in mobile browsers, but this is blamed on site design, not engines.
  • The benchmark result (~12% speedup from Firefox 120 → 141) is appreciated as evidence of continued optimization, not bloat.

Chromium-by-default mindset

  • Multiple comments report sites that run poorly or refuse to load on Firefox despite working fine if Firefox pretends to be Chrome via User-Agent spoofing.
  • Blocking Firefox based on UA is criticized as lazy and brittle; capability/feature detection is promoted as the correct pattern.
  • Some blame outdated/polyfill-heavy frontends and frameworks that were only ever tested on Chromium.
  • Others argue this behavior is timeless: in the IE era devs assumed IE; now they assume Chrome; the deeper issue is developer shortcuts, not a specific browser.

Real-world performance anecdotes

  • Mixed reports: one user says multiple Twitch streams make Firefox unusable; others can run many streams fine and suggest addons, config, hardware, or drivers as variables.
  • Another notes large GitHub reviews used to be faster on Firefox than Chrome, illustrating that bottlenecks can flip between engines.
  • A WebRTC-in-background bug (linked Bugzilla ticket) is described as breaking Salesforce/CRM calling popouts in Firefox; others find the use case unclear or niche.

Firefox updates and workflow disruption

  • Some complain Firefox’s update process is intrusive: “restart to finish update” can appear mid-work, sometimes blocking new tabs and losing page state.
  • Others report worse experiences with Chromium, where updated-but-not-restarted instances behave unpredictably (broken audio, tabs).
  • Several clarify that most of the “restart page” pain is on Linux when package managers overwrite Firefox under a running instance.
  • Workarounds discussed: disabling automatic updates, letting Firefox update only when not running, using the upstream tarball, or carefully managing updates on corporate machines.
  • On macOS, some report a smoother flow: optional background download and apply-on-restart.

Ad blocking, battery, and web bloat

  • Commenters say battery life differences between modern browsers have largely converged.
  • Many insist the biggest performance win is still installing an ad blocker; web “snappiness” hasn’t improved much in 20 years due to ads, heavy frameworks, and auth walls consuming hardware gains.
  • Phoronix’s own site is criticized as ad-bloated and unpleasant without reader mode.

Browser choice, forks, and ethics

  • Several praise Firefox as a solid, improving browser and a critical counterweight to Chromium dominance; keeping Manifest V2 (and thus strong ad blockers) is seen as a key differentiator.
  • Some recommend Firefox-based variants: privacy-tuned builds (e.g., with hardened defaults) and “featureful” forks combined with tab/containers extensions.
  • A few users switched away (e.g., to Edge) over removed Firefox features or perceived instability, while others emphasize the benefits of sticking with the native/system browser.
  • A long subthread revisits Mozilla’s handling of a past CEO controversy, debating whether it shows Mozilla as “evil,” intolerance of certain views, or simply responding to external pressure and employee concerns. Opinions are sharply divided; moderators mark parts as off-topic.