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Browse Against the Machine

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Re: Browse Against the Machine

#121

Post by bzbarsky »

jwr wrote: post #98

Sorry, but until Firefox runs JavaScript code at least on par with Safari, it isn't a good option for some of us. I am the author of a reasonably large web app ( https://partsbox.io/ ), and in real-life performance on a Mac, Chrome is #1, Safari follows right behind it, and Firefox lags far behind. So, Firefox isn't "faster" and doesn't "lag less", quite the opposite.

Just out of curiosity, did Chrome get faster since https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13752024 or did Safari get slower?

In any case, I'd like to try to figure out what's going on here. Is the problem reproducible with the publicly available demo of partsbox? If so, what are the steps to reproduce? That is, what operations are you measuring?

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#122

Post by bzbarsky »

itaysk wrote: post #92

The main reason why I dislike ff is it's GUI. Chrome is beautifully minimal, and ff is the opposite. also - unify search and address bar already.

> unify search and address bar already

Do you prefer not having search suggest, or sending all your URLs to your search engine? Because with a unified bar, you have to pick one or the other.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#123

Post by mook »

lucb1e wrote: post #107
SolarNet wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The addons ( about:addons ) page will tell you on a per addon basis.

I don't see it. Each addon has its icon, title, description, a "more" link, and a disable, uninstall and preferences button. On the more page (trying a few) I don't see any indication either. Where does it show for you?

I believe you need to install the add-on compatibility reporter add-on to see the marking (since the add-on modifies the add-on listing). See https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/add-on-compat... .

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#124

Post by nnethercote »

alttab wrote: post #67
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…

That's the quote that jumped out to me too. I moved to Chrome about 5-6 years ago, and I'm utterly shocked that they haven't done this yet. I remember this being the reason I switched to Chrome. And they still haven't done it? In 6 years? No wonder I'm still using Chrome...

Adding multi-process support is the single biggest change ever made to Firefox. It was enormous. That's why it took so long.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#125

Post by UnrealIncident »

webwanderings wrote: post #84
hoschicz wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> there is no way for me to seamlessly carry bookmarks, history and everything else There is, Firefox Sync. It works pretty well and doesn't use your history to target ads. You can sync bookmarks, open tabs, history, password, add-ons, preferences. When you sign up on a new device, FF also remembers your settings of what you want to sync. Chrome, by default, syncs everything, including history, and uses it to target…

> There is, Firefox Sync. You didn't follow the real problem. Firefox Sync only wants you to use Firefox Sync. Your data is not liberated to be used where you want it to be used.

Actually you can run your own FF Sync server.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#127

Post by 1123581321 »

RandyRanderson wrote: post #126

Can someone explain to me why ppl think that splitting the browser application into separate processes will positively affect performance?

1. Separate processes for UI and tab rendering/computation. Same reason iOS is always smooth; in addition to allowing faster access to menus, inspector, extensions etc., it simply feels faster to experience an interface at a constant 60fps.

2. Can pass work off to more CPU cores. I'm not sure of the real world performance gain, but theoretically you could render three heavy tabs and the Firefox UI on a 4 processor CPU almost as fast as one heavy tab in single processor mode.

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#128

Post by cerberusss »

DavideNL wrote: post #8

...meanwhile we still can't use "pinch to zoom" (trackpad) in Firefox, which is available in Safari and Chrome for like 5 years now. Such a basic feature! It's the main reason i personally stopped using Firefox.

Get the extension pinch-to-zoom-firefox-osx

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pinch-to-zoom...

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#129

Post by therealidiot »

5ilv3r wrote: post #114
lucb1e wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There might be, but I doubt it's on purpose. At best it'd be gross negligence or something, but I'm not sure holding a monopoly by not actively supporting the opposition (i.e. negligence) is punishable. I experience the same issue and it's frustrating. Not that I use a lot of Google services, but when I do... yeah the effect is noticeable. So much as I like to point a finger, I expect it's just due to them not puttin…

Have you read google's website code guidelines? They actively encourage breaking the standards to save characters as long as it renders ok. It's kinda wrong, and I'm sure they have a little list of tricks they can pull to break one browser but not another. Example: Google search with firefox mobile has unclickable links if I change my user agent to IE8. Literally nothing happens when I tap a link. They are in too dee…

Google search on the desktop also has unclickable links if I change my UA to Chrome while running Firefox

Re: Browse Against the Machine

#130

Post by Raphael »

GlitchMr wrote: post #27

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).

Seems easy to blame bloated JavaScript, e.g. Dart, with Chrome having some edge for this kind of thing, or at least a bias for caching Google scripts.
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