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Browse Against the Machine

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Re: Browse Against the Machine

#21

Post by JD557 »

Certhas wrote: post #13
jbmorgado wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, using Google docs/sheets the difference is really big. I understand that Chrome should be heavily optimised to use other Google products like Google Sheets, but in the end, as a user it really makes a diference. On a Macbook Pro from 2015, entering a simple Google Sheets documents and have the page fully loaded and ready to work takes me ~8 seconds on Chromium, but ~17 seconds on Firefox. It's really a huge dif…

I use Firefox as my primary browser. Do you have another example outside of google docs that behaves that way? The difference for google docs on my machine (three year old Laptop) isn't as big as the one you describe and on ownclouds I don't actually see a difference. Obviously google targets Chrome with Docs. You could equally well say that Google needs to up their game there. Where they really have catching up to d…

I do have another example: Marathon UI.

If you access the marathon UI in Firefox, your browser will eventually slow down to a crawl and the job JSON description will be rendered incorrectly (it seems like a memory leak somewhere).

It works fine on Chrome.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#22

Post by SEMW »

xg15 wrote: post #15

> It’s faster, lags less, hogs much less memory than chrome, and in June we’ll release multi-process Firefox, putting us at performance parity with Chrome in most of the ways we mere humans can actually perceive. I'm rooting for them but I really​ hope they get this done quickly. On Firefox, I often have ~.5 second UI freezes throughout the use which lead to an impression of sluggishness. Chrome, with the same number…

> I really​ hope they get this done quickly

You don't have to wait for them to enable it for everyone. Enable it yourself by setting browser.tabs.remote.autostart to true in about:config (on ff48-53 this'll use one one process for ui and one for all tabs, I believe on 54+ it'll use more). (As long as you don't have any addons that don't support it, anyway -- after enabling it, check in about:support under "Multiprocess Windows", and if not, about:addons should show the offending addon. IIRC there's a staged rollout, so it may already be enabled for you even if you don't force it on, unless you have an addon that doesn't support it)

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#24

Post by karrotwaltz »

PeterStuer wrote: post #5

Firefox is still set as my default browser, but it feels like every month more and more sites just seem to QA only on Chrome :(.

On the other hand, I've seen a lot of internal websites (mostly HR tools) being "optimized for Internet Explorer 9", and indeed neither Chrome nor Firefox worked for theses.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#25

Post by xg15 »

> Firefox for work, Chrome for play

If the Marketing head for Firefox opens like this, I'm honestly not optimistic. So even he states that for some reason, using Firefox alone is not sufficient for him. I think unless they find out the reasons for that, they have little chance to become meaningful competition again - even though we really need it.

Slightly OT, that being said, my feeling is that Chrome played on an unfair playing field from the very beginning. I remember when Firefox was the newcomer. With enormous effort and help of a phenomenal community-driven grassroots campaign they managed to fight IE and, over 6 years, climb to ~30% market share. It was an enormous success.

Then came Chrome and went from completely unknown to beating IE in 2 years.

My feeling is that this can't be explained by better technology and features alone but the fact that e.g., Google was in a position to put a Chrome ad below the search field on the Google home page might have played a role.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#26

Post by dsr_ »

hartator wrote: post #10

> I head up Firefox marketing, but I use Chrome every day. This is one thing to use it privately, this is another to say it publicly. I think he should be fired. Not even considering the other contradictions of this article. I think he has no idea how to lead Firefox marketing.

You would rather he said "I don't know anything about Chrome because I rarely use it"? That would be incompetence.

I hope he tries out Opera and PaleMoon fairly often, too.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#27

Post by GlitchMr »

I use Firefox myself. It's really fast, until you get into Google websites, like YouTube - those websites work really slow (well, not that slow, just noticeably slower), while there are no issues in Google Chrome - as if that was intentional, even (like, Google detecting Firefox, and providing it slower code).

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#28

Post by pandatigox »

I'm going add a controversial opinion. I've been using Firefox my whole life but recently I'm finding Safari to be a more appealing option than both Firefox or Chrome.

Firefox, and Chrome to an extent, are powerhouses. They have a great community with awesome and really creative extensions. Safari only just started adding extensions and it shows: apart from the usual ad blocker stuff, there's not much out there.

But Safari is fast and is tied to the OS so well that it's great for just using the browser as a portal to the web. Safari has a menu option that allows me to save quickly to my Downloads folder. I can use the share sheet to send URLs, snippets of info straight to other apps. Also, if I'm crazy into automation, I can set up workflows via Automator for even more efficient text processing.

People champion Firefox as the sole defender of the web, but people often forget that Safari is quite unobtrusive too. Sure, it maybe lacking in pushing the frontiers of web standards, but for the most part, it stays out of your hair too (Firefox has this quirky default homepage that likes you to send these "witty" phrases)

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#29

Post by otalp »

rhaps0dy wrote: post #11

Unfortunately Firefox (Chrome too) use more CPU than Safari when browsing static pages or being unfocused. Which makes them a battery drain. Otherwise I'd use Firefox everywhere. EDIT: numbers on 2013 11-inch Macbook Air Firefox 3-10% vs. Safari 0.2-2% when idling Firefox 10-40% vs. Safari 5-10% when scrolling HN

Yup, Safari is far less taxing on the battery than Chrome or Firefox.

I'd consider Firefox for desktop, but it has to be Safari on mobile devices.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#30

Post by roblabla »

scandox wrote: post #20

Why did I move from Netscape to IE? Speed. Why did I move from IE to Firefox? Speed. Why did I move from Firefox to Chrome? Speed. Why did I move from Chrome to Firefox? Negative feelings about Google. So for myself the only things that work, hand on heart, are Speed or Repulsion. You can't really sell repulsion. Therefore, I think their only hope is Speed. Admittedly I may be a crap example.

Why did I move from chrome to firefox? Stability.

I don't know if it's just me, but nowadays, chrome just sucks so much firefox manages to be better. Chrome tab crashes occur more often than ever before and it uses a shitcrapton of memory. I remember the days where chrome was lean and small and fast. Those days are long gone.

I've been sailing firefox for a year now, and to my great surprise, it has gone from being an absolutely terrible memory hog and crash-o-meter to being fairly efficient and stable. Sure it is still a bit on the heavy side of memory, but in the meantime it doesn't lose my work every few days.

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