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

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

#82

Chrome's killer feature for me is still process separation. Slow pages kill my entire browsing experience in firefox, and when I have 20+ tabs open, that can be really annoying.

You know Mozilla's working on that, right?

I didn't, but that's really good news :)

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

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Chrome is very wasteful; only after many hours of operation in which you opened and closed dozens and dozens of tabs, it starts to be better than Firefox; as Firefox fragments memory and doesn't release it properly when closing a tab. But for my usage patterns; with many tabs opened after a few hours of operation, Firefox consumes less RAM for me. Also, don't confuse memory waist (coming from bloat and fragmentation)…

memory footprint or not, chrome is faster than firefox. both in terms of page loading, and raw operation. i might reconsider firefox when it doesn't take 4 times longer to boot up.

I am on Firefox 5 and I don't see visible differences between them anymore. Yes, Firefox 3.x used to be visibly slower.

I also don't see visible differences in boot time, but this depends a lot on how many extensions you have -- I only use Firebug and the Web Developer toolbar. And at least Firefox has plugins that aren't totally useless.

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

#84

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.

Reminds me an awful lot of the jump from DirectX 3.0 to 5.0.

Or DOS 3.3 to DOS 5. (but that was because of a bug in DOS 4)

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

#85
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, "will"? We are talking about Firefox 8 in the present tense (with "is"), and yet talking about 6 and 7 in the future (with "will")?!

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.

Apparently saurik and I are the only ones confused!

I found it very jarring to read that Firefox 6 isn't out yet, but the thread talks as if Firefox 8 is actually out, or very close to being released. In my mind I'm envisioning a weird, staggered, neither increasing nor decreasing of version number release cycle.

I think you're coming from a different angle where all of this is very familiar for you, so you can't relate to the confusion some of us other readers have had to deal with.

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

#86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Not anymore. Mozilla is dropping the version number everywhere, except where it matters. Notice how in the blog posts that there's no version numbers mentioned, anywhere: http://blog.mozilla.com/futurereleases/2011/07/07/firefoxaur... http://blog.mozilla.com/futurereleases/2011/05/27/firefoxaur...

I think this bolsters the criticism. Making a big deal about Firefox 3 did more to spread awareness of the browser than perhaps any other thing Mozilla has done. Version numbers used to be this well-articulated conceptual unit that got people to care about your browser.

Now, there's more count-downs to the big release date. No more Guinness World Records for downloads in a day. There is a gimmickiness about it, but I don't have a problem with that given how hard it already is to get laypeople to care about these things.

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

#87
post #54
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.

Most people don't use chrome—thus, most people aren't used to it. It's good Mozilla is moving forward at a rapid pace (particularly with the memory issues), but as long as the remainder of the software world is still in either the 90's slow release cycle or the 00's everything-is-a-beta-v0.x mindset, Firefox/Chrome will be aberrations. I may learn to tolerate it, but that doesn't mean I'll get used to it.

Chrome's market share is above 20% now (Firefox's is below 30%, and IE's is below 50%).

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

#88

20% sounds good, but unless versions 5, 6 and 7 also had 20% improvements, it would still be slower than the current version of Chrome on canvas stuff. For the relatively simple canvas rendering I'm doing, I can watch Firefox chugging along at 10fps struggling to render a few dozen filled rectangles, while Chrome is happily pegged at 60fps (via RequestAnimationFrame). It's just night and day.

Canvas on Firefox is hardware accelerated (at least on Windows), so it's really fast. I don't have Chrome installed, but I'm pretty sure it chokes on the FishIETank benchmark with 1000 fish: http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/Performance/FishIETank/Def.... Firefox on the other hand easily gets 60 fps with those many fish.

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

#89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

memory footprint or not, chrome is faster than firefox. both in terms of page loading, and raw operation. i might reconsider firefox when it doesn't take 4 times longer to boot up.

I am on Firefox 5 and I don't see visible differences between them anymore. Yes, Firefox 3.x used to be visibly slower. I also don't see visible differences in boot time, but this depends a lot on how many extensions you have -- I only use Firebug and the Web Developer toolbar. And at least Firefox has plugins that aren't totally useless.

I think it depends on what hardware you're running. On my laptop Chrome is so noticeably better I only keep Firefox around for testing. On my maxed out desktop I can't tell the difference.

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

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

memory footprint or not, chrome is faster than firefox. both in terms of page loading, and raw operation. i might reconsider firefox when it doesn't take 4 times longer to boot up.

I am on Firefox 5 and I don't see visible differences between them anymore. Yes, Firefox 3.x used to be visibly slower. I also don't see visible differences in boot time, but this depends a lot on how many extensions you have -- I only use Firebug and the Web Developer toolbar. And at least Firefox has plugins that aren't totally useless.

firefox 4 is visibly slower on a completely fresh install on my mbp. you may have a point about firefox 5, i haven't tried it. my firefox and chrome reference has only been the past to 2 years of major releases.
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