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How Firefox Got Fast Again

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Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#221

Post by dogprez »

mxuribe wrote: post #197
dogprez wrote: post #100

Somewhat tangentially, I really like the cartoons Lin has made. I’ve found I’ve naturally anthropomorphized code. Often when I start working with someone new they get confused when I start talking about constructs like people. I think it’s given me a different perspective on encapsulation and concurrency than most people. I don’t know if I’ve ever worked with someone that thinks the same way. When I work on code that…

You are not alone in your way of thinking! Also, I had never previously seen the code cartoons produced by @linclark...but now seeing them (and digging a little deeper), count myself a fan!

If I had to guess why, I'd say that I am mostly self taught and more of an extrovert. It's probably the only way my brain could trick me into sitting in front of a computer all day instead of talking with other people. I also played with action figures late, until I was 12... around the same time I started programming... I think I'm having a psychological breakthrough, haha.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#222

Post by freeone3000 »

remedan wrote: post #220
e40 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The signing into an account in chrome is the killer feature for me. I have work and a couple of personal accounts that I have signed in in different browser windows. That allows me to keep things separate (extensions, mail, browsing, bookmarks, etc). How do FF users do this?

Firefox has supported multiple profiles for ages. Just run it with -P. It allows you to have separate history, extensions, bookmarks, everything. The new panel containers are also handy. They allow you to have shared history and bookmarks but separate cookies and sessions. You can be logged into the same site on different accounts in two tabs in the same window.

There's no easy way of switching between them, starting a new firefox instance requires running from a command interpreter with -P specified, even the selection window isn't great. The containers feature is the alternative you want to propose here.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#223

Post by GuB-42 »

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…

Isn't it the same thing no matter the browser?

If you are logged in you Google account, every Google search will end up in your Google history. It doesn't matter if you search from Chrome's omnibox, google.com or Firefox's search bar.

Does Chrome also uploads search made with other search engines? That would be a bit more worrisome. Though considering that Firefox saves your history in your "Firefox Sync" account, I wouldn't be surprised if Google did the same.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#224

Post by a_imho »

have_faith wrote: post #171

I can't remember the last time I thought about how "fast" a browser is except for edge cases like complex WebGL stuff. I don't think focusing on speed will plug the gap of users leaving for other browsers except for the minority of us on HN. I can't remember the last time a non-technical person I know complained about browser speed beyond a website itself being slow.

Are you using a vanilla browser or do you have a content blocker installed perhaps? There is a very noticeable difference in load times and I would definitely consider the former 'slow'.

I agree though, that rendering performance is not the bottleneck of the browsing experience.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#225

Post by nindalf »

gfodor wrote: post #153
iterati wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is sadly true. I switched off Chrome 5+ years ago due to the "vim-like" plugins being much better on FF than Chrome (specifically, my keybindings not working on built-in pages) and since FF56, vimperator and pentadactly no longer function. There have been months of back-and-forth between some developers and the FF team, but the functionality required for these plugins has never been prioritized and I had to disa…

Saka keys on Firefox has been a suitable replacement for me.

Not me personally, but there will always be a vocal minority who will complain about having their workflow broken. Any replacement will be missing some critical feature. For a person affected by this, it is a painful experience having their entire workflow broken so they resort to dire warnings on forums such as this one ('Firefox is finished without ').

In this case, I think Firefox made a good choice in modernising the codebase and the extension APIs. In 2 years we'll find out if the vim people were right or they were indulging in hyperbole.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#226

Post by adregan »

weihanglo wrote: post #143
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.

Well how about that?! I always run "reduce transparency" and "increase contrast" as I never really like the translucent items (System Preferences > Accessibility > Display), and I too thought the new UI was a black bar with a light colored window. I have been enjoying the dark theme in both the developer edition (work) and nightly (home).

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#227

Post by taway12340x0 »

e40 wrote: post #193
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…

The signing into an account in chrome is the killer feature for me. I have work and a couple of personal accounts that I have signed in in different browser windows. That allows me to keep things separate (extensions, mail, browsing, bookmarks, etc). How do FF users do this?

> I have work and a couple of personal accounts that I have signed in in different browser windows.

Don't do that. On one hand you mix work and personal related issues (not recommended) on the other hand it makes it easier to track you (as your accounts can be correlated). As a dev I have my own (personal, work, ...) users/accounts even at home (if I do remote) to separate the stuff - maybe that's paranoid, but for me it was great to improve work-life balance.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#228

Post by catamorphismic »

tgb wrote: post #214
mtgx wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I hate that it saves it enough that I often perform 'dumb' googles in an incognito window just so it'll never suggest "how do I parallel park" again. But how is this unexpected behavior? It also saves every URL you visit - in your browser history. And those URLs encode the search terms. If you want it to not save what you do, then you use incognito mode.

How is it not unexpected that a piece of software uploads and saves everything you search for on a remote corporate server? When did this become so commonplace that users don't even blink an eye to it? And more importantly, why would anyone find this acceptable?

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#229

Post by fabrice_d »

pcwalton wrote: post #215
fabrice_d wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are totally wrong on the wasted effort. FirefoxOS actually pushed a lot of the performance improvements that are seen as wonderful in this release. I kind of LOLed when people re-discovered things like how sync layout was bad. So much knowledge was lost in Moz when they killed FxOS that it's a showcase of bad leadership. The desktop browser was stagnating because the browser owners had no idea where to drive it,…

Well, in general, I don't see Quantum as elevating the concerns of desktop over mobile. Moving to parallel implementations of functionality can help even more on mobile than on desktop, since Android phones have tended to embrace multicore faster than desktop has. (Apple phones are a different story, but Gecko obviously can't be relevant there, and even Apple is finally moving to high core counts in the past year.)

Patrick, you know that the MoCo has focused 110% on desktop the last 1.5 year. Or if you don't, you should ask the Android platform team (eg. snorp).

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#230

Post by remedan »

freeone3000 wrote: post #222
remedan wrote: post #220

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox has supported multiple profiles for ages. Just run it with -P. It allows you to have separate history, extensions, bookmarks, everything. The new panel containers are also handy. They allow you to have shared history and bookmarks but separate cookies and sessions. You can be logged into the same site on different accounts in two tabs in the same window.

There's no easy way of switching between them, starting a new firefox instance requires running from a command interpreter with -P specified, even the selection window isn't great. The containers feature is the alternative you want to propose here.

Well, you could add about:profiles to your bookmarks. But I agree that the UX around profiles in FF is a bit clunky.

But containers don't have separate extensions, bookmarks and history so they can't completely replace profiles.

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