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How Firefox Got Fast Again

hacks.mozilla.org

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Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#141

Post by nerdwaller »

mapgrep wrote: post #52

I switched back to Firefox 54 from Chrome when multiprocess browsing ("Electrolysis") came out of beta. It's been absolutely great. It's fast and I trust and like the nonprofit behind it. And all the extensions I care about are available. My main issue with Chrome was the endless nags to sign in to a Google account, and just generally wanting less dependence on Google. I also like that Firefox has a built in tracking…

I've been on Firefox since I can remember it being out, but the latest versions, 56+, have me using it only intermittently due to battery drain issues on Mac[0] :(. I am really hoping they get this fixed shortly.

[0]https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#142

Post by Griffinsauce »

mtgx wrote: post #87
mapgrep wrote: post #52

I switched back to Firefox 54 from Chrome when multiprocess browsing ("Electrolysis") came out of beta. It's been absolutely great. It's fast and I trust and like the nonprofit behind it. And all the extensions I care about are available. My main issue with Chrome was the endless nags to sign in to a Google account, and just generally wanting less dependence on Google. I also like that Firefox has a built in tracking…

For those who don't know, if you sign in to your Google account in Chrome, Google will automatically save all the searches you've done in the omnibox. I don't remember Google ever warning me specifically that this was happening in the background, and after I checked https://myactivity.google.com/myactivity and noticed it was doing that, I was so furious that I deleted all the data Google kept on me there, and paused…

It's a Google box... did you not assume that this went to Google?

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#143

Post by weihanglo »

m_st wrote: post #16

I switched from Chrome to Firefox 57 beta and couldn't be happier. Only issue so far was the ugly black title bar on the Mac, but switching to the integrated 'Light' theme fixed that. Too bad 'Light' isn't the default on macOS. Also note their updated Firefox on iOS. It looks and works just fine now and comes with Firefox Sync which gives you access to your tabs, bookmarks and history.

I thought it is a translucent title bar. At least in Firefox Nightly 59 it is.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#144

Post by ArmandGrillet »

I just installed Firefox 57 (thanks jacek for the link) and the first things I noticed are:

- The cross to close a tab and the one to create a tab are aligned in a weird way.

- Opening a tab is laggy (I'm on a MBP with an Intel Iris chip and 16GB of RAM).

- The scrolling still does not feel native (I'm on macOS High Sierra).

I'm very impressed by the work that has been done for this release as a dev but this does not give me a great first impression as a user (I haven't used Firefox these past 5 years). Google Chrome since its Material UI redesign (https://medium.com/google-design/redesigning-chrome-desktop-...) is snappy and has a clean UI, I hope that Firefox will also reach this point.

Anyway, this release is a major achievement. Congrats to the contributors!

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#145

Post by mastax »

kuschku wrote: post #30
AznHisoka wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally think so. I also think their latest work on replacing Firebug and PhantomJS are way way late as well. I commend them on improving their tools, but man, Google has just eaten their lunch the past 10 years.

> but man, Google has just eaten their lunch the past 10 years. Maybe because Google actively pays people to install Chrome without the users knowledge, and force it as default. That’s pretty much the definition of malware already. It’s hard to win against someone that does such hostile behaviour.

Also because Mozilla wasted a lot of effort on FirefoxOS. That's when the browser really stagnated.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#146

Post by zamalek »

eitland wrote: post #72
mattmanser wrote: post #18

Serious question, is this too little too late? Firefox has taken a massive nosedive in the last few years, in the UK at least. My two big clients have them on less than 2% share. Just checked one, 5 years ago they had 9.55% share, today it's 1.8%. Even taking into account the growth of mobile, that's dire.

Depends a bit: if devs switch back I'd say definitely. If devs are ready to repeat the IE 6 story, this time with Chrome. Getting companies to do cross browser testing seems hard even if it it should be simpler than ever before.. :-/

I switched to Quantum as my daily driver a few weeks ago, I love it as a user. It has made me hate the Chrome dev tools with white hot passion. Firebug might be gone, but the new dev tools are a masterpiece of usability. I emphatically recommend developer edition as a development browser.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#147

Post by callahad »

robin_reala wrote: post #19
lightedman wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

" It's faster" FireFox 52 - BYOND game written by myself - 60FPS. FireFox 57 - 10FPS. Not even.

Sounds like an edge case the developers would be interested in. Have you got a reproducable testcase?

Can confirm. Would be very interested in a link that shows a regression of that degree.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#148

Post by symlinkk »

StavrosK wrote: post #103
symlinkk wrote: post #95

I'm still worried about how secure Firefox is in relation to Chrome. From what I understand, Firefox exploits only go for $30k at Pwn2Own, while Chrome exploits go for $80k. Should I be worried?

It depends, are you worth between $30k and $80k to someone? If yes, I would switch to Chrome.

It's not like someone would buy an exploit and only use it on one person.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#149

Post by staticassertion »

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 ?

I still trust Chrome's sandbox - I have less understanding of where Firefox does sandboxing, how it works across platforms, etc. Whereas I have a solid understanding of how Chrome uses seccomp on Linux.

While pieces of Firefox are moving to Rust the majority of attack surface is still in C++, so I want a strong sandbox if I'm going to run that browser.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#150

Post by myfonj »

aapjesverkoper wrote: post #94
ifdefdebug wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

firefox -p launches firefox into the profile manager. firefox -p work -new-instance launches your work profile. What are you missing? More options: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Command_Lin...

Thanks, this seems to work. I found the no-remote option when looking around, but accidentally lauching private_dot_com (nsfw) a couple of times at work instead of my private profile ended my testing with this last time.

Yup,

    c:\apps\firefox\firefox.exe -no-remote -profile "C:\profiles\some-clean-profile"
was my was-to-go method for testing various configurations.

Knowing about

    %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Mozilla\Firefox\profiles.ini
is also often helpful, eg. when you want to move certain profile folder.
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