But my biggest issue is Firefox performance on MacOS. The only reason it's not my primary browser is because Safari is just so much better.
What I wonder is, is this just me, or does everyone have this problem?
The only thing that kept me away all of these years is the lack of extensions and because I’m used to Chrome’s developer tools.
Firefox is the worst browser in literally every way except for the containers. Everything else feels hacked on compared to other browsers. Just compare Firefox’ reader mode to Safari. It’s night and day. Firefox’ feels hacked on.
As a developer I hate Safari, but as a user it’s everything a browser should be. With Translations coming in Big Sur it doesn’t have much to envy Chrome.
I use Chrome for Google apps. Gmail, GCal, etc.
I use Firefox for work and isolation. So I use containers to keep all my AWS logins/consoles separate, I use it for Github, I use it for my own internal apps and dev (and all the dev tools). If for some reason I need to do Facebook or Insta I do it in FF, and it's isolated into its own container.
Firefox is also my default browser, so if I click a link in another app, it'll open in a container in Firefox.
But yes, overall it is such an inferior browser, kept forcefully relevant by the iPhone alone.
What performance issues specifically do you notice?
Some websites basically crash the computer on Firefox but run fine on Safari. Mostly JS heavy sites.
The energy usage of Firefox is way higher than Safari, which in turns makes my fans spin a lot harder. Basically some sites will peg the CPU and hit max fan speed, but the same site just sips energy on Safari.
Video streaming is a prime example of this. I can use twitch on Safari and it uses maybe 30% CPU. Twitch on Firefox uses 150% CPU.
I concur - Firefox consistently uses higher CPU than Safari in my experience too. "Idle page" CPU when nothing is apparently happening but it's draining the battery anyway is higher with Firefox and annoying.
With the exception of LinkedIn, oddly.
Safari uses 105% CPU consistently when a LinkedIn tab is in the foreground.
What does "crash the computer" mean? Do you get the MacOS equivalent of a BSOD?
Open the Activity Monitor, switch to the Memory tab, and watch the Memory Pressure graph as well as Memory Used. If memory pressure isn't green, or memory used is close to Physical Memory, you're using too much. In that state, the whole MacOS GUI can become rather unresponsive, fitting your description.