# Firefox in WebAssembly

12 Hacker News commenters recommended Firefox in WebAssembly and 14 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 1 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** A free demo that runs Firefox inside WebAssembly in the browser, praised as fast and impressive for its tech; critics note it runs without multiprocess isolation and fails on some machines.

## Why people recommend it

- Fast performance for a browser demo (3 comments): "didn't expect this to be either possible or this perform so well" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48933317)) "seems it runs quite fast on my macmini m1" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48929266)) "Impressive and surprisingly performant" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48929719))
- Impressive demo of browser technology (2 comments): "This is a fun browser demo to show how far we've come in terms of browser technology" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48936588)) "this is really impressive !" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48948127))
- Works on Steam Deck and Macs (2 comments): "Worked in my Firefox on Steam Deck. I was amazed it could run YouTube." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48929432)) "seems it runs quite fast on my macmini m1" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48929266))

## What people warn about

- Rendering and GPU problems on Macs (2 comments): "This is amazing -- but there is something wrong with (maybe) the WebGL or color rendering." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48940577)) "Apple M5 and prior chips on tahoe, bad due to a known GPU regression" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48936528))
- Freezes, hangs or crashes (3 comments): "Sadly it seemed to hang out on my M4 Mac." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48928798)) "it does crash on Firefox mobile, (well first frame loads)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48928788)) "I couldn't get it to work. The whole thing froze." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932141))
- Needs specific browser setup or features (3 comments): "This browser doesn't support WebAssembly JSPI, which Firefox WASM needs to run." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48927853)) "Can’t get it running on Firefox 152.0.6 (aarch64), no extensions." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48928195)) "It worked for me but I had to enable something in about:config" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48929703))
- Weaker sandboxing, single-process mode (2 comments): "this 100% degrades firefox sandboxing since fission cant run and its running in singleprocess mode" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48928344)) "multiprocess isolation is disabled here" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48929664))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Firefox for Android](https://hackerapproved.com/p/firefox-for-android.md): 76 recommend
- [Opera browser](https://hackerapproved.com/p/opera-browser.md): 70 recommend
- [NetSurf](https://hackerapproved.com/p/netsurf.md): 17 recommend
- [Dia browser](https://hackerapproved.com/p/dia-browser.md): 14 recommend
- [Floorp Browser](https://hackerapproved.com/p/floorp.md): 13 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Firefox in WebAssembly", https://hackerapproved.com/p/firefox-in-webassembly/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).