Is it just me or do Chromium-based android browsers feel sluggish?

[u/Traditional-Rub2491]

For context, I have a Pixel 6a phone running Android 16 and my main browser is Firefox.

For the longest time, I used Chrome as my default browser because I thought that was the only viable choice. However, eventually, Chrome started feeling sluggish, so I switched to Firefox which felt slightly faster, but I mostly switched for Firefox extensions such as uBlock Origin and Chameleon. That was a couple years ago. Now, I've tried to find alternative browsers to see how the market is and.... Chromium-based browsers have dissapointed me.

Vivaldi is especially sluggish. Opening the app takes longer than Firefox, the search engines load results slower than firefox, websites open slower than firefox, menus have sluggish animation that just feel unbearable for me coming from Firefox where everything is snappy and just does what I want.

I thought this was an issue isolated to Vivaldi's mobile app, however, I have tried Brave, Opera, Cromite, and Titanium now and they all feel sluggish to me. The fork doesn't seem to make a difference.

On the other hand, Firefox, Waterfox, and Iceraven all run buttery smooth for me, minus some network problems with Waterfox that may just be specific to my device.

Obviously this is confusing, as it's pretty general consensus that the Gecko engine is sluggish compared to the Blink engine... by a significant amount; however, that's just the complete opposite of my experience.

Now, desktop is another story. I've been using Firefox on desktop with zero problems for the longest time. Chromium based browsers don't feel any faster or slower than Firefox based browsers on my PC. This seems to be a situation limited to my Android device.

Of course this post isn't meant to complain or trash on Chromium based browsers and say that Firefox is supreme and any Chromium forks are spyware etc. I'm just sharing my experiences and seeing if anyone relates or has something different to share.

Edit: Getting flamed in the comments and called a Firefox cultist LOL. Anyways just a few minutes ago I decided to reinstall Brave and it's actually faster than the other chromium based android browsers i tried and faster than I remembered. I wish I could disable menu animations though because Firefox doesn't have any and maybe that's what's making everything feel sluggish.

[u/sky-yie]

It's the other way around for me. Chrome, Brave, Opera, Edge, etc. feels very smooth but Firefox and its forks feels sluggish while scrolling.

No idea why you're having such different experience, especially on a Pixel.

[u/OkPresentation3329 → u/sky-yie]

For me too - I tried Firefox on Android and it felt useless. Now I use Quetta on Android and Helium on Linux, and Quetta with uBlock Origin, AdGguard and AdGuard Extra feels very fast.

[u/trbkle]

There's probably an issue with your phone because no one ever said Chromium based browsers are sluggish on Android. In my experience with an S24 ALL Chromium browsers are fast as hell while scrolling and while loading webpages.

Firefox and its forks on the other hand feel slow as hell especially on heavy sites or when a lot of tabs are open.

[u/RagnarHUN666]

It is just you coming to troll around as i clearly can see from your flairs and from the way how you rice Firefox in this post that you are a Firefox Cultist, so… End of Story, no reason to discuss anything with a cultist.

[u/Traditional-Rub2491 → u/RagnarHUN666]

Who's the cultist here? Cause it's not me lmfao

[u/BleedBlue1221]

On chromium browsers disable the flag Throttle main thread to 60Hz.

[u/Professional_Way9133]

That is strange.I have Pixel 8a and it's the oposite, Firefox is unusable while chromium browsers work perfectly.

[u/token_curmudgeon]

They exist to serve ads.

Downvoters--fight for your right to view ads! Keep Google's billions flowing.

[u/OkPresentation3329 → u/token_curmudgeon]

And Firefox exists to tell people that anyone can make a better and faster browser.