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Firefox 8 is 20% faster than Firefox 5, matches Chrome 14

extremetech.com

21–30 of 124 posts

Re: Firefox 8 is 20% faster than Firefox 5, matches Chrome 14

#21
What about type rendering?

If FF on OSX no longer uses quartz to perform drawing operations, what implications are there for type rendering? Will OSX users be subjected to the (IMO) ravages of freetype? Or will each platform continue to use native type rasterization?

Re: Firefox 8 is 20% faster than Firefox 5, matches Chrome 14

#23
You couldn't have a better demonstration of why competition is good.

I stick with FF because I prefer the interface, but there's no question that all web browsers have become much better since Chrome's introduction. And if you're willing to drop support for IE6, web development is really a pleasure compared to five years ago.

Re: Firefox 8 is 20% faster than Firefox 5, matches Chrome 14

#24

Firefox 8? What happened to 6 and 7? I see 7's mentioned in the article, but there's not hide nor hair of Firefox 6.

6 is in beta now. Nightlies were 7.0a a few days ago, but if you update.... yep, 8.0a1 PS. Nightly has been incredibly stable on my Mac. I actually use it in production, for no other reason than I was testing it and have no reason to get an old release since it's never crashed and is incredibly fast.

> Nightly has been incredibly stable on my Mac.

As stable as Chrome dev channel? I use Chrome dev channel (on Linux), but I'm still a bit hesitant about using the Firefox nightlies.

Re: Firefox 8 is 20% faster than Firefox 5, matches Chrome 14

#25

Firefox 8? What happened to 6 and 7? I see 7's mentioned in the article, but there's not hide nor hair of Firefox 6.

FF6 is in beta, should be out by the end of summer (or early autumn), FF7 is in alpha and should be released before end-of-year.

I guess FF8 (which just arrived on the nightly channel) will be up for release in late 2011-early 2012.

Re: Firefox 8 is 20% faster than Firefox 5, matches Chrome 14

#26
post #14
post #4

Mozilla needs to do something to de-dramatize what some people see as version inflation. A lot of people get anxious to see these very frequent bumps because major x releases are associated with add-ons not working, bloat, etc.

True, but on the other hand people will get used to it, just like they did with Chrome. The version number doesn't matter, all that matters is that it works. I like to see Mozilla responding. I don't know if development has speeded up, but it seems to have done. If they can keep this up without letting security slip I'll be impressed.

I don't think people were exposed to Chrome versions in the same way. I have no idea what version of Chrome I am running. I wasn't even aware that they had crept up major versions for a long time... in many ways this is ideal - I don't want or need to know 90% of the time :)

Re: Firefox 8 is 20% faster than Firefox 5, matches Chrome 14

#27
post #14
post #4

Mozilla needs to do something to de-dramatize what some people see as version inflation. A lot of people get anxious to see these very frequent bumps because major x releases are associated with add-ons not working, bloat, etc.

True, but on the other hand people will get used to it, just like they did with Chrome. The version number doesn't matter, all that matters is that it works. I like to see Mozilla responding. I don't know if development has speeded up, but it seems to have done. If they can keep this up without letting security slip I'll be impressed.

The problem with Mozilla is that they make the actual number an important part of their communication. With Chrome on the other hand, you rarely hear about version numbers - you just know they exist and that you don't need to care.

Re: Firefox 8 is 20% faster than Firefox 5, matches Chrome 14

#28

So then Firefox will still be behind Chrome? Firefox 7 will be the one launched in the same time with Chrome 14. Chrome 14 should be stable in about 8-10 weeks. Firefox 8 won't be stable until 14-16 weeks from now. That's around the time Chrome 15 will be out.

I continue to be confused be what I interpret as "version number envy". Are people really that impressed by version 14 vs version 7? If FF7 is awesome, Chrome 14 must be x2 awesome! Is Firefox development "behind" because of version numbers? I'm most surprised that Mozilla seems to take this so seriously. Are the numbers anything other than a marketing / PR game? Any reason either side couldn't arbitrarily jump to version 100 and TOTALLY CRUSH the competition?

Re: Firefox 8 is 20% faster than Firefox 5, matches Chrome 14

#29
post #7

This is pretty crappy. What is the rendering difference of 5 to 8? How many versions am I as a web developer going to have to support. short dev cycles and fast releases like this are stupid.

FF is now autoupdating, so once 5 was out 4 stopped being supported, and this will now continue. So you only have to support the latest version.

And 3.6, at least for a little while.
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