hello, mozilla is already putting lot's of engineering resources into making the browser faster and snappier & it also shows in recent benchmarks - see http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chrome-27-firefox-21-opera-next,3534-12.html for example. so i wouldn't support your sentiment that it's a given that competitive products are faster...

if you are noticing performance issues in firefox and want to try a fresh start, reset firefox and see if this can address the issue...

edit: ongoing work is tracked at https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance

This isn't the best site for general and up-to-date information on comparative browser performance and ongoing Firefox development.

Some users posting here said they switched to Firefox because they found that Chrome was too slow, so your configuration and usage could be important factors in your experience.

If you have noticed that particular kinds of pages or content are too slow in Firefox, volunteers can address whether a setting, add-on, or bug could be responsible for that specific issue. Give us a try.

I tried chrome but i couldn't get use to it, the thing that made me switch in the first place was because videos played and streamed alot smoother on chrome, but every now and then a video would load blurry on youtube using chrome so i switched straight back. And any element hider i used had alot less functionality than element hiding helper, even the one that came with adblock.

@philipp I already tried to reset Firefox, but the smoothness in Chrome is faster. No matter what you change on your current Firefox.

@jscher2000 I thought that it's not the perfect place here, but I didn't know where else I should ask. It's not that Firefox is slow, Chrome is just smoother. Having multiple tabs open & switch between them makes Firefox hang itself for a few miliseconds. In Chrome switching, loading and going trough sites is smoother :)

@stoneforth - I'd also be happier using Firefox if it just would run smoother. YouTube in Chrome runs with less "laggs" but somehow I can't play them on HD. On Firefox I can play videos @ 1080 without any issues, they are loading pretty fast.

Hi mike2033, Firefox shouldn't pause or glitch when switching tabs between ordinary HTML pages. They should appear as fast as you can press Ctrl+Tab to move between them. Do you notice any pattern to the problem, whether related to actively streaming media or especially long and complex pages like the Facebook news feed? Pages can set scripts to run when a page is activated (gets the focus) or when you navigate away from it (losing the focus), which could make some pages slow to start up, but it shouldn't be a global phenomenon. If there's a new bug here, it would be nice to get a good description of when it happens.

If you get in the mood to experiment, you might also test in Firefox's Safe Mode, That's a standard diagnostic tool to bypass interference by extensions (and some custom settings). More info: Diagnose Firefox issues using Troubleshoot Mode.

You can restart Firefox in Safe Mode using

Help > Restart with Add-ons Disabled (Flash and other plugins still work)

In the dialog, click "Start in Safe Mode" (not Reset)

Not sure whether you will notice any difference. Maybe an increase in ads will make it slower than it was in normal mode...

mike2033, as for Flash videos like on Youtube, well Chrome comes with its own Pepper-based Flash Player and uses it by default while Firefox uses the other browser Flash plugin from Adobe and IE uses a ActiveX version.

@jscher2000 Unfortunately it did not. I think being a fast worker describes what makes Firefox slower. If you start clicking around different pages, load stuff make requests etc. But thank you anyway for your try!

@James I see. Also I read that Chrome is more optimized at using Javascript (while I'm not sure if this enhances performance of all pages or makes it as smooth as it is

Hi mike2033, I completely agree that flipping around among multiple windows and tabs is essential to getting work done quickly.

I think part of what makes Firefox work quickly for me is using the NoScript extension. Although you spend several seconds allowing scripts when you visit new sites (or notice functionality problems on a site), it prevents a lot of (in my opinion) useless scripts from running so I think that more than compensates for the time invested in configuration.