I prefer to always use fast-forwarding when pulling, either with `git pull --ff-only` or setting pull.ff to "only" in configuration. This way, if a merge conflict is encountered, it will refuse the pull and you can then do your preferred manual resolution flow of either merging or rebasing. This way I can get the majority of pulls done quickly, because more often than not, I don't have to resolve conflicts (of course YMMV). I also prefer the slightly more verbose output from `git pull --ff-only` vs plain `git pull`.

There's also `git pull --rebase` (mentioned in TFA but not really explained), which sort of combines `git pull --ff-only` followed by a `git rebase` if it failed.