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Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

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Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#171

Post by notriddle »

toyg wrote: post #127
mumblemumble wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that that may no longer be enough. The elephant in the room is the Web taking over non-Web apps. If Electron is part of your deployment surface, you can't escape Chromium. If Cordova is part of your deployment surface, it's Chromium or WebKit. A nice UI on the dev tools is nice, but I imagine most people would take an acceptable UI over a nice one if the acceptable one is how you get a development environment…

I’m old enough to remember a time when developers couldn’t “escape” Internet Explorer 5. It took years of guerrilla but slowly things changed (yeah yeah, MS dropped the ball, but even after they picked it up FF was doing just fine). Marketshare is just one element in a complex story, and Electron is just one platform - although I agree that producing an “Electron killer” should probably be very high on the list of pr…

> I’m old enough to remember a time when developers couldn’t “escape” Internet Explorer 5. It took years of guerrilla but slowly things changed (yeah yeah, MS dropped the ball, but even after they picked it up FF was doing just fine).

Google also advertised Firefox on their home page.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#172

Post by pseudalopex »

toyg wrote: post #121
jonnytran wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would totally pay a yearly subscription to support Firefox, ideally giving me access to hosted features like Firefox Send (end-to-end encrypted sending of files). I realize that people who would do so are a minority. But maybe that would help solidify the idea that, while Chrome is for Google, Firefox is for its users.

A bunch of random ideas: - partner with Dropbox to offer an integrated web-based filesystem and other file-oriented stuff like Send. - partner with bitwarden or 1Password to provide integrated authentication - the web desperately needs an open competitor to Google/Fb/Apple in this area, I’d definitely pay for this. They could probably just repurpose Persona. - rebrand Pocket (which, let’s be honest, has pissed off to…

They already have Lockwise.

Pocket had millions of users already when Mozilla integrated it. A lot of people seem to like the recommended articles. The minority who know and care Mozilla was dishonest about why it was integrated 5 years ago would just keep criticizing Mozilla for not removing it.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#173

Post by Kiro »

kevingadd wrote: post #152
Kiro wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm dealing with a Firefox issue where painting on canvas with a CSS filter is magnitudes slower than Chrome. It makes my app almost unusable for Firefox users. Improving the performance would certainly make users notice since it's one of the most common complaints.

Stuff like CSS filters is generally going to be down to lack of GPU acceleration or video driver shenanigans, though some obscure filters still run on the CPU. If you run a filter on the entire page for example (some addons do this) it pessimizes rendering in a bad, noticeable way.

In this link about a similar (or same?) issue it sounds like filters are done on the CPU in Firefox unless you enable a flag but it may be outdated: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=925025

> Safari and Chrome both do blur on the GPU Firefox does it in software unless WebRender is turned on. You could try turning on the gfx.webrender.all pref and that should improve things.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#174

Post by notriddle »

squarefoot wrote: post #123
ThePhysicist wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems the Mozilla foundation don't use donations for Firefox development though: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/a98gmi/donations_t...

That is bad, I hoped to be able to help in some way. They're underestimating how much their logo and a short description could help to boost the product adoption.

In order for the two-company Foundation/Corporation system to be even remotely legal, they must actually operate as distinct entities. That means the Foundation and the Corporation have separate bank accounts, separate employee rosters, and, as a result, they can legally be taxed differently.

If the Foundation started employing Firefox developers, they would have to convince the tax man that those developers were not de-facto employees of the Corporation. This would be very hard, because there would inevitably be chat logs where Corporation employees tell the Foundation employees what to do, because that's how code review works.

What would be the point, anyway? The Google Search deal gives the Mozilla Corporation far more money than the Mozilla Foundation gets from donations.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#175

Post by mceachen »

btilly wrote: post #114
mceachen wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope, email via arpanet (1973) preceeded usenet (1980).

The fact that email preceded usenet does not mean that things cannot have been invented in Usenet before they were invented in email. As a concrete example, :-) was invented on a bulletin board. See http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~sef/sefSmiley.htm for the details.

You're absolutely correct.

I'm not ancient enough to say first-hand. I know that threaded replies in BBSes in the early 80s at least coincided with usenet threaded replies.

I didn't have a proper email address until years later via my university.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#176

Post by lkbm »

Dahoon wrote: post #149
Miraste wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have the ram firefox will eat it, I've seen it use well over 10 before. Chromiums do the same thing, though.

BS. Currently browsing HN, Google groups, Gitlab x2. Extensions enabled: Bypass paywall, Decentraleyes, Youtube enhancer, Facebook containers, Flagfox, Google container, HTTPS everywhere, Location guard, Sponsorblock and Ublock Origin Only using a few hundred MB atm: https://imgur.com/i6DYG69

That's nice. Here's 9GB resident[0] per htop. (Dev edition, four windows -- just under 50 tabs.)

Interestingly, about:performance informs me that the highest single process is a Facebook tab taking 174MB[1], followed by Gmail at 166MB, and only shows total memory usage maybe 3GB. Activity Monitor output looks closer to htop, but shows, e.g., that pid 13691 (top one) as 2.52GB rather than 1.3GB.

Web browsers are complicated, and when someone says "[browser] is using xxx memory on my computer", pointing out that it isn't on yours is in no way a refutation.

At any rate, I've got a lot of memory, and Firefox uses a bunch of it. Sometimes this causes issues, but I also had similar issues in Chrome. (And with vscode. And with Docker. And, to a lesser extent, Slack.) I welcome perf gains on cpu, memory, and subjective responsiveness. All of these matter to me.

[0] https://i.imgur.com/qYnkQuX.png

[1] Note: In the few minutes while I was writing this post, that FB tab rose to 215MB on about:performance, without me switching to it.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#177

Post by coliveira »

stjohnswarts wrote: post #140
coliveira wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people are badmouthing Mozilla because they disbanded the group working on their pet language, Rust, as if this was synonym for Firefox technology. There are many things that Mozilla does beyond working on Rust.

No, just no. they were badmouthing Mozilla because they didn't like mozilla firing their rust resources while they continue to pay enormous amounts for a CEO and other higher ups while Firefox's market share is in a death spiral currently. The only thing that can save it is better branding and "gotta have it features" which Rust can bring, along with stability.

I'm not trying to defend their management, but my opinion here is that they concluded that investing in a new language wouldn't be the best/fastest way to evolve Firefox. Google may have money to invest in a new language, but Mozilla probably needs to be more focused.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#178

Post by toyg »

pseudalopex wrote: post #172
toyg wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A bunch of random ideas: - partner with Dropbox to offer an integrated web-based filesystem and other file-oriented stuff like Send. - partner with bitwarden or 1Password to provide integrated authentication - the web desperately needs an open competitor to Google/Fb/Apple in this area, I’d definitely pay for this. They could probably just repurpose Persona. - rebrand Pocket (which, let’s be honest, has pissed off to…

They already have Lockwise. Pocket had millions of users already when Mozilla integrated it. A lot of people seem to like the recommended articles. The minority who know and care Mozilla was dishonest about why it was integrated 5 years ago would just keep criticizing Mozilla for not removing it.

Lockwise is just another password manager. It’s also free, which means it’s never going to generate revenue.

We need something that can rival “Log on with Facebook” and can generate enough money to self-sustain. I would happily pay to have Mozilla act as an independent super-secure auth provider for me, in a way I’d never do with any small startup.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#179

Post by boogies »

avery42 wrote: post #160
Nextgrid wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If they want to actually improve user experience they can always include uBlock Origin by default - its permissive license should allow this just fine.

I wonder if blocking Google Analytics by default would affect their default search engine deal with Google...

Their Tracking Protection doesn’t do that? I’d hope at least the Private Browsing protection does.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#180

Post by ripdog »

Kiro wrote: post #173
kevingadd wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stuff like CSS filters is generally going to be down to lack of GPU acceleration or video driver shenanigans, though some obscure filters still run on the CPU. If you run a filter on the entire page for example (some addons do this) it pessimizes rendering in a bad, noticeable way.

In this link about a similar (or same?) issue it sounds like filters are done on the CPU in Firefox unless you enable a flag but it may be outdated: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=925025 > Safari and Chrome both do blur on the GPU Firefox does it in software unless WebRender is turned on. You could try turning on the gfx.webrender.all pref and that should improve things.

webrender is on by default for Windows 10, but Mozilla is still struggling with mac and Linux drivers, so it's still off by default there.

See https://wiki.mozilla.org/Platform/GFX/WebRender_Where

To check if you're using webrender, check about:support. Check the graphics>compositing section.

(Edited to correct first paragraph.)

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