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How Firefox Got Fast Again

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Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#291

Post by FireBeyond »

mywittyname wrote: post #37

I love Firefox and I'm glad to see they are doing what it takes to stay relevant. That being said, the "quantum" branding here is completely ridiculous. Quantum already had a definite meaning in computing and Firefox's "quantum era" has absolutely nothing to do with it. It's like Ford making a "hybrid" Mustang, that has zero electrification, it's just faster than all previous Mustangs. I was honestly expecting a Fire…

You were downvoted, but I rather agree. I saw the picture of the turbofan diagram, with pointers to arbitrary parts of the engine and naming them as parts of the "Quantum Engine", DOM, CSS, etc.

Tufte referred to chartjunk - that was graphicjunk.

However... I love the browser again.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#292

Post by cannam »

pjmlp wrote: post #189
zach43 wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Firefox is right now truly the best browser, at least for my usage patterns and needs, but even if it weren't, I would still use it, because when web standards are endangered due to a monopoly, then I consider it my duty to support the underdog. I just love that the web community actually thinks about this, and actively works to avoid monopolization and nonstandard behavior on the different browsers. Recently, I ha…

As someone that has been doing desktop development since the MS-DOS/Amiga days, and is quite happy to only touch Web development when obliged to do so, I wonder what those problems are.

Without knowing what the parent really intended, I assumed they were talking about the difficulty of deploying the same application across platforms rather than with desktop development on any single platform.

Different system libraries, different window management environments and user expectations for layout and interaction, different handling of hi-dpi displays, different filesystems with different filename restrictions and different handling of filename encodings, different application packaging, different code signing and sandboxing requirements, different package distribution mechanisms. I've probably missed a few, but those cover some memorable enough annoyances for me in recent years.

I don't enjoy web development, but I do enjoy web publication and distribution.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#293

Post by snikeris »

snikeris wrote: post #288
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…

Didn't Djikstra write about this? I wasn't able to pull anything up, but maybe this will jog someone's memory.

Found it:

http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/EWD/transcriptions/EWD10xx/EW...

Section beginning, "My next linguistical suggestion is more rigorous"...

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#294

Post by jonnytran »

jasonkostempski wrote: post #126
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think most users don't care how fast the browser is at the level they're boasting about. They've been fast enough for many years for most use cases. They should do a commercial showing they can run uBlock Origin on Android, how fast sites load compared to without it, and jump on the "annoying ad" train Apple and Google seem to be bragging about fixing latley by "solving" a few problems uO had solved, the right way,…

I completely disagree. I care a lot about privacy, but I've been unable to use Firefox for a long time now because of speed. Up until now, Chrome has just been significantly faster, to the point where I couldn't justify Firefox for everyday usage. I think a lot of people feel the same, especially those who know less about privacy. I hope the situation changes. If they were in the same ballpark in terms of speed, then my choice would be clear, but they haven't been.

It would be like using Tor all the time. You know it's better, but the difference in speed is so great, that you have to make a conscious choice. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that I want the benefits _without_ compromising speed.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#295

Post by callahad »

CmdrKrool wrote: post #286

I'm hoping these developments might eventually clear the way to a somewhat supported Firefox browser core sans UI to embed in our own applications (ala WebKit and Chromium via QtWebEngine), and then I might switch back. I'm tired of being pushed around by UI churn in the applications I use.

There's been some renewed interest in this direction, at least on Android, in the form of GeckoView: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1322573

Servo, Mozilla Research's next-generation parallel browser engine, also has embedding as an explicit top-level goal: https://servo.org/

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#296

Post by voidmain »

I wonder if better use of multiple cores by a single webpage (what they are calling "fine grained parallelism") is actually a good idea. It seems like web developers can and probably will eat up any improvement in performance by building slower sites. So in the long run equilibrium, your computer's performance and energy consumption suffer, while the web remains just barely fast enough to tolerate.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#297

Post by seba_dos1 »

frik wrote: post #279
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…

Firefox 56 is actually pretty good. It's now fast again. I am using a fresh new profile. Please let me increase "content process count" higher than 7. Chrome opens hundreds of child-processes (no problem at all on my PC). And I am still keeping an older Firefox 48 around, as it's the last version that runs Firebug and other good but now unsupported addons. Firebug had this "DOM" panel which showed the non-default DOM…

dom.ipc.processCount in about:config

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#298

Post by infogulch »

r3bl wrote: post #152
infogulch wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, without the UI it's 80% useless.

`about:profiles` is the UI. It allows you to create new profiles, restart Firefox with a specific profile, and manage profiles. Starting Firefox with `-p` (and no passed argument) starts a window which allows you to do the same.

Sorry I wasn't clear. Chrome profiles is a usable UI. Easy to find, switch, manage, create, delete, all with just a couple clicks, never very far away.

about:profiles is not discoverable (obviously), easily usable (you have to restart), or easily switchable (you have to open about:profiles or the terminal).

By the technical definition of "UI", the raw filesystem and terminal counts, sure. Opaque and unknown about: pages count, sure. But that doesn't make it good.

For features like this the UI is the feature. about:profiles is not a good UI, so the feature is 80% useless.

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#299

Post by agumonkey »

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.

I think it just got pushed for the fresh 59.0a release (memories of changelog)

Re: How Firefox Got Fast Again

#300

Post by serveboy »

I tried making the switch from Chrome but ran into three issues :

1) Firefox does not import Chrome logins and passwords. Major pain.

2) Firefox freezes when importing Chrome history and bookmarks. I get a "script is taking too long" message. If I force close and reopen, then try to delete the partially imported content, it freezes as well with the same message. Tried deleting profile and restarting restarting to no avail.

3) (more of a nuisance than a real issue) I need to use the same browser on all devices so that everything is in sync. Google Search in Firefox Android looks like a page from the 90s and is missing Search Tools. Maybe Google isn't playing nice?

Did people migrating from Chrome experience issues 1) and 2)? Tried the initial import on Linux and macOS, same issue.

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