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Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default

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Re: Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default

#31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe this is related to using scaled resolution in macOS. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042 I was able to achieve way better performance by changing this to `true` in `about:config`: gfx.compositor.glcontext.opaque Another note, performance seems way better when changing the following to `true`: gfx.webrender.all gfx.webrender.enabled If anyone with deeper understanding of these options has an…

The WebRender team seems to be rolling out very gradually and is, if I remember a recent blog post correctly, restricting based on specific GPUs and specific platforms that are proven to work without e.g. crashing or breaking out various things (like window toolbars). If you set these options, and then later on, you find that your Firefox is super buggy and won't render anything properly and has weird crashes, it cou…

I did definitely notice much better WebRender performance on Nvidia than on Intel, so I turned off WebRender on the Intel laptop.

Re: Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default

#32
post #29
post #7

I have two main computers. One has for continuity reasons the old version of Firefox, the other the new one. The old version is so much more usable that I find myself using that computer much more frequently. It is rock solid with 100's of tabs open, all my extensions work and without silly restrictions on what they can and can not do and it uses a lot less memory. It's measurably faster too. I'm all for progress and…

Just for my understanding, any special reason to have 100's of tabs open? Meaning: I basically have a mindset which as a programmer would say: "shall I spend effort trying to optimize my app for users that have 200 tabs open? Naaaa, I don't see a usecase for that to happen."

Optimize for the user who has 100s of tabs open or the user who has 10 tabs but one is Slack.

Re: Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default

#33
post #29
post #7

I have two main computers. One has for continuity reasons the old version of Firefox, the other the new one. The old version is so much more usable that I find myself using that computer much more frequently. It is rock solid with 100's of tabs open, all my extensions work and without silly restrictions on what they can and can not do and it uses a lot less memory. It's measurably faster too. I'm all for progress and…

Just for my understanding, any special reason to have 100's of tabs open? Meaning: I basically have a mindset which as a programmer would say: "shall I spend effort trying to optimize my app for users that have 200 tabs open? Naaaa, I don't see a usecase for that to happen."

Yes, sure. I do technical due diligence for a living and when researching a particular company every time I come across another interesting link that hasn't changed color yet I open another tab. Then I just keep reading until there are no more tabs open, and no more interesting notes to take. It's part of my workflow (and one of the reasons why the scrapbook add-on is essential to me, another reason I do my work on the older machine).

Re: Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default

#34
I've dumped Chrome altogether since FF 67 was released.

My only gripe is they still aren't blocking ALL ads, but regardless it's a way better user experience now than it ever was.

Firefox 67 feels like a whole new beast compared to their older versions.

If you haven't tried FF for a while I recommend doing so and I suggest trying it across multiple devices. The tab management, syncing, pinning and sending etc. across multiple devices is awesome.

Re: Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default

#35
post #7

I have two main computers. One has for continuity reasons the old version of Firefox, the other the new one. The old version is so much more usable that I find myself using that computer much more frequently. It is rock solid with 100's of tabs open, all my extensions work and without silly restrictions on what they can and can not do and it uses a lot less memory. It's measurably faster too. I'm all for progress and…

    It is rock solid with 100's of tabs open
Thanks for mentioning this right off of the bat. Often you see folks complaining about how "version XYZ of software ABC" is "too slow" or "buggy" and then 27 comments later they make it clear that they have a very nonstandard use case.

I want to be very, very clear: there is nothing "wrong" with having 100s of tabs open, and it certainly would be good if all browsers worked just as well with 500 tabs as a single tab. I'm on your side!

But, in general, people making sweeping statements about software in public have what I feel is a responsibility to be clear when they're using it in ways that are off the beaten path.

Like if I complained about "Windows being buggy", and it turned out I was using a copy of Windows 95 as a substitute for a proper realtime operating system for my spaceship's navigation computer, that's something I really ought to mention upfront.

(Not that having large numbers of tabs is that outlandish, or outlandish at all)

Re: Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default

#36
post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Setting aside possible hardware differences between the two, try doing a profile refresh, because that's messed up. I've also got a Firefox 52 installation lying around and the new version is noticably faster.

Interesting. Thanks for the tip, I'll give that a shot. Hardware differences are negligible, in fact the machine where FF is noticeably slower is the faster machine. Especially start-up is super slow, takes a couple of minutes at times.

> Especially start-up is super slow, takes a couple of minutes at times.

Something really unusual is happening then. I'd second trying with a new profile. You can get general troubleshooting advice at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-takes-long-time...

(disclaimer: i work for mozilla, but not on the browser)

Re: Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default

#37
post #7

I have two main computers. One has for continuity reasons the old version of Firefox, the other the new one. The old version is so much more usable that I find myself using that computer much more frequently. It is rock solid with 100's of tabs open, all my extensions work and without silly restrictions on what they can and can not do and it uses a lot less memory. It's measurably faster too. I'm all for progress and…

If I had to guess? Try disabling webrender on the new computer. Firefox is rolling this out by default but if your GPU sucks or has fucked up drivers for whatever reason it can cause severe performance issues.

goto about:config and search for gfx.webrender.enabled and make sure it's set to false.

EDIT: More info on the rollout https://www.ghacks.net/2019/05/20/firefox-webrender-rollout-...

Re: Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default

#38
post #7

I have two main computers. One has for continuity reasons the old version of Firefox, the other the new one. The old version is so much more usable that I find myself using that computer much more frequently. It is rock solid with 100's of tabs open, all my extensions work and without silly restrictions on what they can and can not do and it uses a lot less memory. It's measurably faster too. I'm all for progress and…

If I had to guess? Try disabling webrender on the new computer. Firefox is rolling this out by default but if your GPU sucks or has fucked up drivers for whatever reason it can cause severe performance issues. goto about:config and search for gfx.webrender.enabled and make sure it's set to false. EDIT: More info on the rollout https://www.ghacks.net/2019/05/20/firefox-webrender-rollout-...

Or update your GPU drivers to latest and see if that improves the situation, in many cases it does improve things. At least it did for me and a few people I know, it's not like there's a database out there where GPU bugs are tracked.

Re: Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default

#39
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most Google apps only just about "work" on Firefox. They're clearly optimised for Chromium and it shows. I use Firefox for all my browsing needs except for Google apps, for which I keep an install of Vivaldi around. I only really fire up Chrome if some stupid internal workplace app refuses to work on anything else. It truly is the new IE.

> It truly is the new IE Funny, and true at least in the company I'm working for (officially supported browsers are primarily IE11 and optionally Chrome). A colleague told me a few months ago that Firefox was not supported because it did not support some Windows "policies" (Windows or Active Directory? Not sure, no clue about that stuff) but that Firefox was going to support them soon... .

Likely they did indeed mean Group Policy in the Active Directory sense, although that's been supported in Firefox for over a year now

Re: Firefox Now Available with Enhanced Tracking Protection by Default

#40
post #4

It is funny how my browser preferences has changed over last 5 years. 2014 me as a developer had Chrome as number 1 browser for both development and all rest. Firefox once a month just to check cross browser compatibility. And Safari was just installed without me using it. 2019 me uses Safari for everything except development. Excellent power consumption and UX. Firefox for development. And lastly Chrome for all web…

Are there Chrome-only webapps you use that don't just work with a User-Agent switcher?

Not quite the same thing and I know it’s not fully rolled out yet, but I enable u2f support in Firefox and haven’t had any issues with my Yubikey... except when I try to add a new Yubikey To my gmail account in Firefox it makes me switch to Chrome because “u2f isn’t supported”.

At least let me try and if it fails I’ll file an issue with FF so they can fix it and improve instead of locking me out with half-truths.

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