Firefox is struggling - what am I doing wrong?

MacBook Pro with Sequoia 15.6.1

Firefox with Brave Search, AI turned off on both

Only 1 extension - Raindrop.io

It's taking several minutes to open sites, sometimes timing out. If I switch to chrome, the same sites open instantly. If I clear my cache in firefox, sites open instantly again, but the fix lasts for less than a day, sometimes for only a few hours.

My goal is to get away from chrome and google, so I'm open to other browser suggestions. I tried brave browser and it crashed multiple times a day.

TYIA!