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How Firefox Got Fast Again

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Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#61

Post by Touche »

robin_reala wrote: post #41
Touche wrote: post #38

Am I the only one that is confused by Firefox's "fast again" narrative? I remember that they launched the https://arewefastyet.com/ site a few years ago to fight the idea that FF was slow. It feels like there's a new blog post that essentially says the same thing "we're fast now" every couple of months. So I find this all confusing. Am I just remembering incorrectly, or haven't they already declared "we're as fast as…

That wasn’t a marketing site, it was a tracker to measure the increase in performance over time due to the ongoing work the newly-spun-up performance team was doing.

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean to imply it was a marketing site. But there was marketing surrounded it, and I distinctly remember it being used to show that they were, indeed, as fast as the other browsers. I remember a narrative being that the problem wasn't Firefox being slow, but FF being slow in certain perceived-speed areas (like new tab speed).

That's why I find these sorts of announcements confusing, I can remember them saying that there are already as fast as Chrome several times in the past. But maybe my mind is playing tricks on me.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#62

Post by MaxBarraclough »

sillysaurus3 wrote: post #31
frostwhale wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox is about more than market share. A state of the art free non for profit browser makes the market much more competitive and better for the consumer. They are there to keep chrome/ other browsers honest. If chrome / google does something too corporate you don't like, there's an alternative.

That seems a dangerous line of thinking, like arguing that startups are about more than growth. Firefox is looking like Apple circa 1997. They can still recover, but they have to focus on what people want.

Your Apple analogy might be quite apt. Mac has a market-share of something like 14%, but that's not Apple failing, that's Apple succeeding in targeting the expensive end of the market.

Firefox has a chance at doing the same thing with privacy-aware users and/or power users.

To that end, they need to stop dumbing-down the browser and endlessly playing catch-up with Chrome.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#63

Post by konart »

seba_dos1 wrote: post #54
konart wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It's faster Faster than old fox? Yes. Faster than Chrome? Nope. Still long way to go.

Nothing can beat Chrome in being the fastest to become unusable when opening many tabs ;)

How many? I typically have 2 windows with ~30-50 tabs opened in each of them. No problem at all, never was.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#65

Post by lvh »

mariusmg wrote: post #5
theduality wrote: post #2

I have been using 57 in beta, and I have to say, I'm impressed. It is a huge improvement. Whether it keeps me off Chrome in the future remains to be seen though!

Why shouldn't it keep you away from Chrome ? It's faster, uses less memory, and the "maker", Mozilla is more trustworthy compared with Google. What's missing ?

So far, Chrome has better sandboxing support on most platforms (especially Linux), though Chrome's catching up quickly.

I'm generally optimistic about Rust code having fewer exploitable defects, although it's a reasonable argument to suggest that the previous C++ parts had a lot more public scrutiny.

Also, for me personally: I use a lot of different profiles and using multiple Firefox profiles simultaneously is a mess. The only UX that still works is about:profiles (all of the profile switcher extensions broke since the move to WebExtensions) and I've had Firefox beachball (hang -- I'm on macOS) on me twice while doing that.

Don't get me wrong! I love Firefox and I'm really excited about this change.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#67

Post by [deleted] »

konart wrote: post #10
mariusmg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't it keep you away from Chrome ? It's faster, uses less memory, and the "maker", Mozilla is more trustworthy compared with Google. What's missing ?

>It's faster Faster than old fox? Yes. Faster than Chrome? Nope. Still long way to go.

[deleted]

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#69

Post by shadowtree »

Been using FF consistently on OSX the last years, the improvements are really great - Kudos!

The various channels, like Quantum to stay on Beta, seem to have worked. Easy to understand as a user and hopefully helpful for the devs to gather important info. Plus a native dark theme, yay!

One thing that remains is performance of Youtube. For some reason HD videos start crushing the processor after a while. Chrome, Safari stay calm.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#70

Post by kristofferR »

aaronharder wrote: post #23
mariusmg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why shouldn't it keep you away from Chrome ? It's faster, uses less memory, and the "maker", Mozilla is more trustworthy compared with Google. What's missing ?

I find the absence of Smart Zoom on Mac Firefox to be very painful indeed. The "double right tap" gesture works in both Safari and Chrome, and zooms in exactly on the div/image you're interested in. I've searched for alternatives in FF, but even the half-working ones I found don't work in Quantum. Sad because I'm rooting for Mozilla, but just can't function in their browser without Smart Zoom.

Yeah, it's a shame that macOS support in Firefox is so bad. I hope Mozilla can start making Firefox feel like a first-grade browser in macOS, like Safari and Chrome, now that it's speedy.

Smart Zoom and Handoff is completely missing and Applescript scripting support is extremely poor.

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