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Comment by wafriedemann | Hacker News Reader

I have been using FIrefox as my main browser on Mac for a couple of months now (again) and it really does feel like they've done a lot of performance enhancing under the hood.

It's really the only browser left that let's you do deep customization. With the right settings (not that many) you can basically strip it of all bloat. And of course it will be the last (big) browser with full Ubo support when Google introduces Manifest 3 (Ubo was also the reason I switched from Safari to Firefox).

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Hey, would you mind posting some tips (or an article/link) describing how you stripped the bloat from your Firefox config?

I'm in the same situation as a lot of others here, where I'm thinking about permanently migrating back to Firefox after Chrome takes their Manifest v3 + WebRequest API changes live, and I'd love to know how I can improve the performance of Firefox & ensure my configuration is as good as it can be.

I use these settings to clear all visual clutter. Basically looks like Librewolf then. For privacy related settings I check Arkenfox user.js and add the ones I find useful and don't cause breakage manually (but going thoroughly through settings already does most of it).

Remove FF sync:

identity.fxaccounts.enabled

Remove recommendations in Extensions:

extensions.htmlaboutaddons.recommendations.enabled

Remove recommendations Side panel in Extensions:

extensions.getAddons.showPane (add +set to false)

Remove VPN Promo and More from Mozilla in Settings:

browser.vpn_promo.enabled

browser.preferences.moreFromMozilla

Remove Pocket:

extensions.pocket.enabled

Remove Focus promo in private tabs:

browser.promo.focus.enabled

Remove persistent topsites (facebook, amazon, etc.):

browser.newtabpage.activity-stream.default.sites (clear)

Bonus:

Pinch to zoom only:

mousewheel.with_control.action (1)

Full screen video like Safari:

full-screen-api.macos-native-full-screen

Calculator in tab bar:

browser.urlbar.suggest.calculator

Thank you very much. This is quite useful and I appreciate the time and information.

In a more perfect world, all of your "Remove *" items would be implemented as extensions that come pre-installed, and this process would be as simple as opening the Add-ons Manager on a new install, doing a Select All, then hitting Delete.

If you start fresh, https://ffprofile.com makes it easy to create a profile file without the bloat.

No the OP, but for me the only bloat is Pocket. I also disable DoH but that isn't really bloat.

Out of curiosity, why are people so concerned about Pocket?

I personally use it to quickly bookmark things in a cross-platform "i'll look at this later" box (although not a fan of how it tries to show me pages in-app). Recommendations for alternatives would be equally accepted.

My main problem with Pocket is that when Mozilla acquired them in 2017, Mozilla promised to open source the Pocket back-end. That was a big fat lie, and they've never even owned up to it.

It has been "owned up" to: https://github.com/Pocket/extension-save-to-pocket/issues/75...

I don't have a problem with Pocket qua Pocket. I didn't even have an issue with the "recommended stories" that rolled out years ago. But when I just tried FF I was appalled by the spammy "stories" all over the recommended stories section.

I'm sorry, but credit card advertisements are not stories. For the first time ever, I turned off the Pocket section, which means that instead of generating some revenue from having clicked on stories in the past, I will now generate no revenue because I won't see this section at all.

I just don't need it. Firefox Sync allows you to sync bookmarks and pull open tabs from other systems.

Thanks for the info!

Tor Browser (without Tor) is Firefox with most of the crap removed.

My experience is that poor performance esp. memory use is often caused by bugs, and you can't predict the presence of bugs based on whether or not you think a feature is "bloat". Though you can simplify the UI I suppose.

Turning off random browser features only works if you accept that you'll break random websites and won't know why without debugging each one.

Always helpful to know how to go into troubleshoot mode.

I agree with most of what you said, except that you can't remap CMD+P and a few other keys used by FF itself whereas on Chrome you can. I made a patch to my FF to make this possible.

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