Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

extremetech.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 124 posts

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

#41

Post by TorKlingberg »

nodata wrote: post #14
arkitaip wrote: 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.

Chrome users in general do not use as many extensions as Firefox users, so they have less reason to worry about them breaking.

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

#42

Post by w1ntermute »

mikemaccana wrote: post #32
w1ntermute wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Zero crashes, zero manual restarts, zero lag.

And addon support?

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

#43

Post by joshuacc »

melling wrote: post #37
nextparadigms wrote: post #2

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.

The release number should just be the date. That way geeks can stop worrying about the number, and get back to work.

That is a brilliant idea. Not just for the reason you mentioned, but also in communicating with non-geeks.

"Oh, you're using IE from August 27, 2001? That's a little bit out of date. Because browsers update so fast, we can only support browsers released within the last 2 years." :-)

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

#45

Post by nhebb »

saurik wrote: post #38
jlongster wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you seriously going to over-analyze specific tenses of words? Each major version will include different features. Stop just trying to distract the conversation.

The "conversation" of this thread started with someone commenting on the fact, seemingly surprised and even bothered, that we are already talking about Firefox 8 when seemingly Firefox 6 and 7 went by so quickly we didn't notice it happening. In this context, it is incredibly relevant that Firefox 6 and 7 are still being described in the future tense, as that would imply that they haven't actually been released yet.

Versions 6 and 7 haven't been released yet, but the feature sets are locked in due to the faster major version release cycle. The recently discovered memory fragmentation issues (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=666058) and more efficient garbage collection are being addressed in version 8.

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

#46

Post by nextparadigms »

masklinn wrote: post #25
w1ntermute wrote: post #6

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.

They are employing 6 weeks for each version number, like Chrome, so they'll be out much sooner.

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

#48

Post by nhebb »

macavity23 wrote: post #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.

I switched to Chrome because of all the memory issues and crashing. But there are so many little details as well as add-ons that I miss from FF that I'm pretty excited about version 8. If it proves out, I'll switch back.

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

#49

Post by asymmetric »

TorKlingberg wrote: post #41
nodata wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Chrome users in general do not use as many extensions as Firefox users, so they have less reason to worry about them breaking.

Do you have any proof of that? I'm genuinely interested.

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

#50

Post by jbk »

idan wrote: post #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?

Could you detail what you call the "ravages of freetype"?
Post reply on HN