I recently switched from Google Chrome to Mozilla Firefox as my main desktop browser. Here’s what I did to improve upon Firefox’ sometimes not ideal defaults.

There are a couple of reasons why I considered the switch from Chrome to Firefox: A growing uneasy feeling about Google’s approach to user privacy, Manifest v3, Googles’s WebDRM plans, their rejection of JPEG XL and the omnipresence of Chromium-based browsers nowadays – Chrome, Edge, Brave, Vivaldi, Opera and some others are basically the same programs in different clothes.

Having used Firefox on Android for some time now, I knew Firefox Desktop is in a really good state and even faster than Chrome in some benchmarks. I decided to take that leap and switch to Firefox on my desktop devices. So far it’s been… good. The browser indeed feels a bit snappier than Chrome. It is light years ahead of the Firefox I stopped using 15 years ago.

There are some things that I miss in Firefox or that I find that Chrome does better. For future me and other people considering the switch, here are the problems I had and solutions or workarounds that I found.

Problem 1: Browser Sync and Profile Switching

I have used Chrome with a personal and a work profile, both of them tied to different Google accounts. Once logged in, Chrome syncs passwords, bookmarks, extensions etc. automatically across different PCs and my phone (except extensions). Both features, syncing and switching profiles, work reliably in Chrome.

Firefox has cross device syncing, too. It’s not that comfortable, but you only have to set it up on each device once. You can even self-host the sync-server, but as far as I know it is difficult to set up, so I didn’t try that.

Firefox’ built-in profile switcher is far worse than Chrome’s. To open it, you need to start Firefox with the -p parameter. Here’s how to add it to the taskbar in Windows:

Right-click on your Firefox Icon in the taskbar (or any other shortcut to Firefox in your system). → Right click on “Firefox”. → Choose “Properties” → In the “Target” field, add -p at the end (after the quotation marks).

For switching to another account while the browser is running, I found the “Profile Switcher for Firefox” extension that mimics the Profile switcher in Chrome’s menu bar. I highly recommend it!

Things to know:

• You need to install an additional external helper application after activating the extension.
• On Windows, you can install the helper app even on a PC without admin rights. It may trigger a virus alert, because it is unsigned. I checked the helper app against Virustotal, installed it and had no problems.
• The extension initially did not work correctly when using virtual desktops on Windows 10. To fix this, open Profile Switcher → Manage profiles → ⚙ (Gear Icon) → Activate “Window Focus workaround”
• Unfortunately, Chrome’s Ctrl + Shift ⇑ + M shortcut for fast switching profiles does not work, as this is Firefox’ global shortcut for mobile view.

Apart from the last aspect, everything went smoothly. The Profile Switcher is a drastic QoL improvement if you need to handle different browser contexts.

Problem 2: Font Rendering

Font rendering on Firefox right after install seemed “off” to me, compared to Chrome on my main system (Windows 10, 32″ 2560×1440 VA screen, 100% font scaling, ClearType enabled). Fonts are smaller on Firefox than on Chrome and single letters are narrower, so legibility is noticeably worse.

Some Screenshots: This is Vanilla Firefox.

This is Chrome.

This is Firefox with my optimized font rendering values (Don’t worry, we’ll get to that).

I scoured through the Internet and found that I was not the only person who did not like the default font rendering. To be entirely honest, I found it baffling how much worse Firefox’ defaults are in this quite important regard.

So I tried to improve on the defaults, I looked for tweaks online, and after many comparisons settled on the following:

Enter about:config in your address bar, confirm that you know what you’re doing. Search for the variables, double-click on them and change them to my values:

gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.force_gdi_classic_for_families = "" (delete the whole string)
gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.enhanced_contrast = "100"
gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.pixel_structure = "5"
gfx.font_rendering.cleartype_params.rendering_mode = "5"
gfx.font_rendering.directwrite.bold_simulation = "2"
browser.display.auto_quality_min_