Lichess latency and stuttering issues under Firefox web browsers!

Hello, I recently tried Mozilla Firefox, Pale Moon and now I am using Waterfox Web Browser.

Others have reported this issue some months ago but they are of-course archived messages. The problem I have noticed is that in some games there is lag and stuttering issues particularly when moving chess pieces and in the history game analyzes where scrolling through will result in huge lag spikes.

This does not happen every game, but tends to be an occurrence more noticeable when the clock is at the very end. For example in Bullet and Blitz games this is very noticeable and can cause you to lose games due to latency handicap.

Switching to Google Chrome instantly resolves the problem. Not to mention when comparing the latency ping and server there is a big difference in server lag!

Here are my screenshots and

As we can see in Firefox I get a Ping of 62 ms vs 25 ms Ping in Google Chrome. I'm guessing this ping latency has something to do with it. This problem is observed in non chrome browsers.

There is certainly a delay in response when moving chess pieces and it is not a placebo effect or an internet performance issue. My computer is relatively strong, 8 GB RAM, AMD FX 8370 8 Core Processor, GTX 960 4GB VRAM, Windows 10 64-Bit Pro.

Obviously there is no shortage of memory or CPU power. This is not some high-end PC game, which hence points to Lichess not being properly optimized for Firefox web browsers.

Any solution or acknowledgement to this issue will be much appreciated.

I have the same problem with firefox. Mostly when the clock is almost at 0:00.

Yes, I have done several experiments, including turning off "Use hardware acceleration when available"

And also selecting Content process limit 7, etc. None of this works. The lag spikes and pings are quite noticeable especially in Bullet and Blitz games. If you actually check your pings with Firefox and Google Chrome side-by-side comparison, you will see that with Google Chrome the pings are lower in their 20s whereas with Firefox it goes to 60+ ms ping.

This is a serious optimisation fault, not deemed acceptable when LiChess claim Firefox as one of their officially supported web browsers for LiChess Version 2.
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What I have done for now is basically create a desktop short-cut icon using Google Chrome. From tools--->More tools create Create shortcut. That way I can have Waterfox/Firefox as default web browser but when clicking on the lichess.org it will open using Google Chrome directly.

Now this is basically the best solution I have for now, not ideal. Although it can be a bit of a nuisance to have to use 2 separate web browsers.
Most people seemed to have not reported this issue as most people use Google Chrome. It is quite evidenced as statistics show here tech.co/news/google-chrome-more-popular-rival-browsers-2018-07

59% of users use Google Chrome while only 5.1% use Firefox. No wonder LiChess have not taken the matter seriously yet. I know this is fixable because in Chess.com and ChessKing.com this lag/stuttering does not occur.

Hopefully other Lichess developers can comment on this; in USA I can't get a latency of 25ms:
royal.pingdom.com/theoretical-vs-real-world-speed-limit-of-ping/

Is your Firefox browser updated? I observed the same issue, with a pending update to Firefox (~50 ms higher ping). After I updated Firefox my ping is the same (identical) for both browsers.

@TBest I have just installed the latest 64-bit version of Mozilla Firefox and yes you are right this has improved the ms ping. Now it is more or a less identical to Chrome. Although I still feel that I can see Chrome having 1-3 ms ping lower, though this is very negligible.

However, the real problem is that, that dreaded stuttering still exists when moves are being made and it is still very noticeable in games, particularly when you view game history although it is a lot better compared to the Waterfox Classic Browser, it still stutters way more compared to Google Chrome! It is as if there is a drop in frames per second, in fact I do believe that is the case. This is despite the fact that my ms ping is roaming around 25 ms on average.

This concludes that the stuttering in animation piece movements are not related to the high ms pings in Waterfox as the same behaviour is occurring with latest Firefox Web Browser. And if only the problem was related to the animations only, I can see a general delay in responsiveness when making moves, either by clicking or dragging, this directly affects player performance! This is no placebo effect.

I have made some further testings. With 3D chess pieces this stuttering is a little bit less noticeable. But with 2D pieces it is very noticeable.

As I am typing this, I have done the same test with Microsoft Edge Browser that is part of Windows 10 and the exact same stuttering behaviour can be seen when viewing games. This is an indication that the same problems carry forward in Blitz and Bullet games.

Google Chrome is 100% smooth in all scenarios, hands down! If it wasn't for Google Chrome, Lichess as a website would be totally unusable for playing online chess.