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Comment by lmedinas | Hacker News Reader

i use Firefox @ work and @home for serious stuff. The only reason i don't use Firefox 100% is due to the Android app which is a lag fest.

Mozilla needs to put more resources on Android.

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I'm in the opposite boat from you.

Firefox on Android is nice, especially thanks to being able to install an ad blocker.

Firefox on my desktop literally brings my entire machine to its knees, and destroys performance in all other apps that are open.

Pulling that off while not even getting close to maxing out the CPU is rather impressive. :/

Same here. FB chokes FF every other time I open it. My CPU and RAM consumption spikes. I have to close FF and reopen. Sometimes that doesn't work either.

It's annoying and frustrating.

Are you using modern Firefox (v57+)?

Auto-updates are being applied, so whatever latest is, it just updated today in fact.

The only plugin I have installed is uBlock Origin.

Whatever lag FF has is negated 10-fold over Chrome if you install uBlock Origin since there's no more tracking or ads. I can't even imagine going back to mobile Chrome or Safari, I'd rather go back to a basic phone.

Have you tried Firefox Focus?

Firefox focus isn't firefox, though, it's a private-browsing-only browser, and it's built on an entirely different engine (chromium, iirc). There's no tabs, history, saved logins, or anything else. It's far from being a full-featured browser. Want to disable javascript or images for a while because you're on data? Too bad, you can't.

You're right that Focus is not a full fledged browser, though it is actively being revamped to use GeckoView instead of Chromium. I think the change is in beta right now.

Mozilla is also starting to put more resources into Android (GeckoView, etc). Hopefully we'll see some exciting things in this realm soon.

I'm using Firefox Klar (Firefox Focus for Germany): I have tabs (you can't open an empty tab, but you can open links in a new tab), the session history is enough for my needs, and I can disable JS under settings (and also web fonts, but not images (that's a pity)).

For logins I'm using Keepass Android Offline, Firefox Focus/Klar can use it as autofill service (neither normal FF nor Chrome can do this).

So for me FF Klar/Focus is the best Android browser at the moment, it superseded the normal FF (with ad blocker) on my phone.

Edited: bad autocorrects from Gboard.

Focus is so crippled, for no conceivable benefit (as a user), that I find it unusable. A nice concept, but it can't even switch tabs without causing a full page reload, which is like reverting back to the pre-tabbed-browsing stone-age.

And, as mentioned, it's not even Firefox. It's just a cache-less webkit wrapper.

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