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A Quantum Leap for the Web

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Re: A Quantum Leap for the Web

#41

Post by metajack »

TekMol wrote: post #38

we’ll be rolling out the first stage of Electrolysis to 100% of Firefox desktop users over the next few months. From my experiments with it, this still does not fix the problem that the javascript in all windows shares one core. A script running in one browser window still slows down the other windows. A problem that Chrome has solved years ago. So I think this is not really a leap for the web. Just FireFox catching…

Parts of Quantum are addressing this, and also Electrolysis will also probably grow to fix this as well. You can already turn on multiple content processes in Firefox to get Chrome-like behavior (at the cost of some rough edges; there's a reason it's not currently the default). I think the setting is dom.ipc.process-count in about:config. I have mine set at 10.

Re: A Quantum Leap for the Web

#42

Post by bzbarsky »

bobajeff wrote: post #12

This sounds to me like Mozilla is getting impatient with Servo. Servo was more than just a parallel browser engine it was the only new web engine not based off of decade old codebase. It was a statement that it's feasible to hold off on monoculture because compatibility isn't impossible to achieve on new engines.

Compatibility in new engines is ... hard. Servo is basically going to need to spoof the WebKit UA and duplicate a bunch of WebKit bugs (the Edge approach) or spoof the Gecko UA and duplicate a bunch of Gecko bugs. Some specs now have an explicit "does your UA say you are Gecko, or does it say you are WebKit" switch with behavior specified for both branches. :(

Re: A Quantum Leap for the Web

#43

Post by bholley »

TekMol wrote: post #38

we’ll be rolling out the first stage of Electrolysis to 100% of Firefox desktop users over the next few months. From my experiments with it, this still does not fix the problem that the javascript in all windows shares one core. A script running in one browser window still slows down the other windows. A problem that Chrome has solved years ago. So I think this is not really a leap for the web. Just FireFox catching…

> So I think this is not really a leap for the web. Just FireFox catching up a bit.

To be clear, Project Quantum is the next phase of architecture, post-Electrolysis. We're also simultaneously working on multiple content processes (which is how Chrome often avoids inter-window jank), but not under the Quantum umbrella.

We think we can do better though, which is where Quantum comes in. The Quantum DOM project is designed to solve exactly the problem you're describing, while using fewer resources and scaling to more tabs. Stay tuned!

Re: A Quantum Leap for the Web

#44

Post by TekMol »

metajack wrote: post #41
TekMol wrote: post #38

we’ll be rolling out the first stage of Electrolysis to 100% of Firefox desktop users over the next few months. From my experiments with it, this still does not fix the problem that the javascript in all windows shares one core. A script running in one browser window still slows down the other windows. A problem that Chrome has solved years ago. So I think this is not really a leap for the web. Just FireFox catching…

Parts of Quantum are addressing this, and also Electrolysis will also probably grow to fix this as well. You can already turn on multiple content processes in Firefox to get Chrome-like behavior (at the cost of some rough edges; there's a reason it's not currently the default). I think the setting is dom.ipc.process-count in about:config. I have mine set at 10.

Yes, I heard about it. For now, I disabled Electrolysis completely again, because I had pages freeze sometimes when I had it on. Maybe because it is incompatible with some plugin I use. My current solution to tun multiple instances as different users works best for me so far.

Re: A Quantum Leap for the Web

#45

Post by bzbarsky »

TekMol wrote: post #38

we’ll be rolling out the first stage of Electrolysis to 100% of Firefox desktop users over the next few months. From my experiments with it, this still does not fix the problem that the javascript in all windows shares one core. A script running in one browser window still slows down the other windows. A problem that Chrome has solved years ago. So I think this is not really a leap for the web. Just FireFox catching…

> this still does not fix the problem that the javascript in all windows shares one core

Yes, that's what makes it the "first stage".

The "leap" part is not Electrolysis; as you note that's just table stakes. The "leap" part is what we can work on now that the Electrolysis first stage, which was very labor-intensive, is done.

Re: A Quantum Leap for the Web

#46

Post by zbraniecki »

Touche wrote: post #34
larsberg wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Project Quantum is an opportunity to ship some of the Servo components in Firefox and gain millions of users, real-world tests of the technology, and hopefully dramatically expand our contributor base. As we mention in a post to the Servo mailing list ( https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.servo/3b... ), Servo has a lot coming in 2017 unrelated to Project Quantum or Firefox.

Speaking for myself, I don't want "Servo components" in Firefox; I want Servo in Firefox. I want an engine as fast as the one they have shown of Servo as being; not pieces of it that make Firefox incrementally better; I want a browser that is miles ahead. That's always what I found interesting about Servo.

At the same time, you want a browser that keep working with the web at least on the same level as Firefox is right now.

Servo is getting us 80% there, the remaining 20% of quirks, non-standardized behavior and web sites coded with only Chrome/Fx/IE in mind are going to be increasingly difficult to cover.

On the other hand some pieces of servo are close to have "full" compatibility. That means that we can put them in Firefox already.

The result is that web coverage alignment between Servo and Firefox increases which is great for Servo, and the performance and safety between them improves as well which will benefit Firefox.

Re: A Quantum Leap for the Web

#47

Post by zbraniecki »

NoGravitas wrote: post #32
bobajeff wrote: post #12

This sounds to me like Mozilla is getting impatient with Servo. Servo was more than just a parallel browser engine it was the only new web engine not based off of decade old codebase. It was a statement that it's feasible to hold off on monoculture because compatibility isn't impossible to achieve on new engines.

Isn't this announcement basically just saying, though, that Servo is going to replace Gecko piece by piece, rather than all at once?

Servo components will replace Gecko components Where It Makes Sense (tm).

Servo will remain the place where the most radical experiments happen and once proven, will "stabilize" their way into Gecko.

Re: A Quantum Leap for the Web

#48

Post by markdog12 »

mtgx wrote: post #13

> A first version of our new engine will ship on Android, Windows, Mac, and Linux. Someday we hope to offer this new engine for iOS, too. More people need to put pressure on Apple to allow third-party browser engines on iOS. Fortunately, they're already getting sued over this, but just in case that doesn't succeed, there should also be bigger public pressure on Apple to allow them. http://www.recode.net/2016/10/7/132…

I did a sad LOL at that line

Re: A Quantum Leap for the Web

#50

Post by justusthane »

bandrami wrote: post #49

Pet peeve of mine: a "quantum leap" is literally the smallest change of state that is physically possible , but it's come to mean the opposite in popular use.

This was refuted by a physicist elsewhere in this thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12807384)
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