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Waterfox – A fast browser

waterfoxproject.org

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Re: Waterfox – A fast browser

#81

Post by alfalfasprout »

blinkingled wrote: post #38

I paused when I read Intel compiler - that thing is a steaming pile of crap, or at least was for godawful number of releases for a long time and I don't expect it to ever work in the real world with a non-trivial amount of C++ code base. And then I read about a Mozilla header causing it to ICE! Years ago, I was forced to make a company's product faster by "simply" recompiling it with ICC. It was losing in the benchma…

The problem is that expecting code to just be randomly faster by compiling it with ICC is a pointless endeavor.

For numerical code, ICC is amazing. But that's mainly because the automatic vectorization is far beyond anything clang can spit out (which is already better than gcc at automatic vectorization).

Even then, icc really benefits when you use its proprietary pragmas for hints.

The VTUNE profiler is amazing though

Re: Waterfox – A fast browser

#82

Post by yoklov »

MrAlex94 wrote: post #60
sjs382 wrote: post #5

Speed is your selling point, but I don't see any benchmarks!

I used to have them on the website but I just felt like if they were on there people would think they were biased. A user had some benchmarks a few versions back: https://www.reddit.com/r/waterfox/comments/2xle7k/browser_be...

You're much better off putting them up, even if people might think they're biased.

Without any benchmarks, it just seems like you want this to be faster, without providing any evidence that it is.

Re: Waterfox – A fast browser

#84

Post by nickpsecurity »

RussianCow wrote: post #65
rockdoe wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Such as? Looks for .js and .jsm in the source tree. Bookmarks, Tab management, all UX, PDF viewer, Search, Prefs, Sync, parts of SafeBrowsing, WebRTC, Update Handling, Login and Form manager, Devtools, Reader Mode, and uh I think I've proven my point.

But none of those things will ever really bottleneck the browser except for maybe the PDF viewer. The performance of bookmarks, tab management, search, and basically all your other examples doesn't matter. The parts of the browser that benefit from speed are written in C++. Not that I'm convinced simply compiling with ICC will actually have a noticeable impact on the day-to-day performance of the browser, but it migh…

Explains why it barely handles my hundreds of bookmarks, though. Maybe I need to rewrite that part in native code haha.

Re: Waterfox – A fast browser

#85

Post by PeCaN »

SixSigma wrote: post #31
jsizz wrote: post #19

"What makes Waterfox so fast? It's built with Intel's C++ compiler. One of the most powerful compilers out there. This enables us to make the fastest possible web browser for all the code changes we make. This potent combination makes for an unparalleled browsing experience." Mm-Hm. How's that working out? https://www.waterfoxproject.org/blog/ "Just a quick heads up why there hasn’t been any news from me in regards t…

You should try using something non-mainstream "Always a pleasure to count the number of clicks needed before you can establish that the only platforms are Linux, Mac and Windows."

Once you get obscure enough it becomes easy though. Generally anything that bothers to support Haiku and QNX mentions it.

I think FreeBSD is definitely the sweet spot for counting clicks.

Re: Waterfox – A fast browser

#87

Post by fungos »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #84
RussianCow wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But none of those things will ever really bottleneck the browser except for maybe the PDF viewer. The performance of bookmarks, tab management, search, and basically all your other examples doesn't matter. The parts of the browser that benefit from speed are written in C++. Not that I'm convinced simply compiling with ICC will actually have a noticeable impact on the day-to-day performance of the browser, but it migh…

Explains why it barely handles my hundreds of bookmarks, though. Maybe I need to rewrite that part in native code haha.

It seems a joke but is also, sadly, a fact. Chrome bookmarks manager is lightspeed if compared to Firefox, to not mention total lack of usability on Firefox's part, so 1995.

Re: Waterfox – A fast browser

#88

Post by dblohm7 »

anon1mous wrote: post #74
sjs382 wrote: post #5

Speed is your selling point, but I don't see any benchmarks!

I had a huge page that was killing Firefox with an out of memory exception (that was a few years ago). Googled for 64 bit Firefox and got Waterfox, which solved that problem. So that's another selling point.

As of version 42, 64-bit Firefox is available on all tier-1 desktop platforms (Linux+GTK, Mac, Windows).

Re: Waterfox – A fast browser

#89

Post by nickpsecurity »

fungos wrote: post #87
nickpsecurity wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Explains why it barely handles my hundreds of bookmarks, though. Maybe I need to rewrite that part in native code haha.

It seems a joke but is also, sadly, a fact. Chrome bookmarks manager is lightspeed if compared to Firefox, to not mention total lack of usability on Firefox's part, so 1995.

I was against them writing significant portions of Firefox in Javascript from the beginning. Maybe a generator from JS to native for templating interfaces or something. I could see some compromise to aid the web crowd in extending Firefox. Shouldn't be what's running, though, given the inefficiency.
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