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Microsoft fixes 5-year-old Defender bug, reducing Firefox-related CPU use by 75%

bugzilla.mozilla.org

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Re: Microsoft fixes 5-year-old Defender bug, reducing Firefox-related CPU use by 75%

#141

Post by omneity »

dist-epoch wrote: post #120
arnaudsm wrote: post #40

Quick napkin math of the wasted power : Firefox has ~300e6 users, let's assume the bug wasted 5 extra watts 4 hours a day. That's 250 megawatts saved, the equivalent of an average coal power plant. Because some Microsoft engineer missed a bug.

> That's 250 megawatts saved, the equivalent of an average coal power plant. Because some Microsoft engineer missed a bug. Are you sure you want to invoke this logic? Because following it through imagine the energy savings if Firefox users switched to Chrome.

It's not too bad an analogy. Think of it this way:

- Switching from Firefox to Chrome might be similar to switching between two car models, one consuming less energy than the other.

- Fixing this bug is more like going to a car workshop to fix an injector issue in your car that was causing higher fuel consumption and more pollutants.

The first one is really a matter of tradeoffs and personal choices. The second one is less of a choice and more of an actual issue that was left due to negligence. Hardly similar.

Re: Microsoft fixes 5-year-old Defender bug, reducing Firefox-related CPU use by 75%

#142

Post by hgsgm »

thfuran wrote: post #124
jupp0r wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you read the bug report? This is literally about writing to files in a temp folder. Surely you can optimize that but you should also be able to assume that this does not use excessive amounts of CPU on a modern operating system.

I usually assume that even vaguely considering looking in the same direction as a file on windows will melt my CPU.

Windows Search Indexer automates that for me. CPU keeps burning even when monitor is off and I'm working on another computer.

Re: Microsoft fixes 5-year-old Defender bug, reducing Firefox-related CPU use by 75%

#143

Post by cronix »

If you're on a Mac and using FF (probably not FF specific), turning off "ambient mode" in youtube can save 30% cpu. I just found this out while searching why FF was taking 90% of my cpu while watching youtube videos in normal mode, but went down to 40% use if viewing in full screen. Turns out that this youtube "ambient mode" was the culprit. My lap is now cooler and the fan doesn't turn on anymore. I wonder how much power I've wasted due to this new "feature" they added 6 months ago that I didn't know about.

Re: Microsoft fixes 5-year-old Defender bug, reducing Firefox-related CPU use by 75%

#144

Post by dalmo3 »

neilv wrote: post #75

When I've heard people speak of changing Web browsers in recent years, I think the two most common reasons given are performance and privacy. I wonder whether this situation with Microsoft Defender cost Firefox some market share.

I can count at least one user that Firefox lost to this bug. Pretty happy with Brave now, won't even bother trying FF again.

Re: Microsoft fixes 5-year-old Defender bug, reducing Firefox-related CPU use by 75%

#145

Post by wtallis »

thfuran wrote: post #128
jupp0r wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure what your job is, but in my job: - we implement a feature, test it thoroughly for functional and non-functional requirements - when we are happy, we release it I don't see myself being responsible for a third party software company coming along years later and introducing a bug in code that injects itself between my software and the operating system that users of the software I wrote happens to install at so…

The OS isn't some random third party software, it's one of your dependencies. Your software doesn't work without the OS and if it also doesn't work with the OS, it just plain doesn't work.

That's really not a tenable mindset to be taking these days. With how much Windows has become a constantly-moving target rather than a stable platform, you need to regard it first and foremost as your adversary, whether you are developing against it or are simply an end user. And the days of being able to thoroughly test against every relevant version of the OS are long gone; Microsoft has ensured your QA will be Sisyphean.

Re: Microsoft fixes 5-year-old Defender bug, reducing Firefox-related CPU use by 75%

#146

Post by ChuckNorris89 »

LeoPanthera wrote: post #134
dist-epoch wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's 250 megawatts saved, the equivalent of an average coal power plant. Because some Microsoft engineer missed a bug. Are you sure you want to invoke this logic? Because following it through imagine the energy savings if Firefox users switched to Chrome.

> Are you sure you want to invoke this logic? Because following it through imagine the energy savings if Firefox users switched to Chrome. Ironically, Mac users routinely complain about how power-hungry Chrome is on the Mac. Safari is significantly more efficient.

>Safari is significantly more efficient.

Based on the increased laptop battery life I notice, so is using Edge on Windows.

It makes sense that both Apple and Microsoft can extract the best out of their OS + browser. There's no way Firefox can compete on such OS specific optimizations.

Re: Microsoft fixes 5-year-old Defender bug, reducing Firefox-related CPU use by 75%

#147

Post by emoII »

cronix wrote: post #143

If you're on a Mac and using FF (probably not FF specific), turning off "ambient mode" in youtube can save 30% cpu. I just found this out while searching why FF was taking 90% of my cpu while watching youtube videos in normal mode, but went down to 40% use if viewing in full screen. Turns out that this youtube "ambient mode" was the culprit. My lap is now cooler and the fan doesn't turn on anymore. I wonder how much…

Same behaviour for me using Safari.

Re: Microsoft fixes 5-year-old Defender bug, reducing Firefox-related CPU use by 75%

#148

Post by lotsofpulp »

dist-epoch wrote: post #120
arnaudsm wrote: post #40

Quick napkin math of the wasted power : Firefox has ~300e6 users, let's assume the bug wasted 5 extra watts 4 hours a day. That's 250 megawatts saved, the equivalent of an average coal power plant. Because some Microsoft engineer missed a bug.

> That's 250 megawatts saved, the equivalent of an average coal power plant. Because some Microsoft engineer missed a bug. Are you sure you want to invoke this logic? Because following it through imagine the energy savings if Firefox users switched to Chrome.

The cause and effect exists whether or not some commenter on HN writes about it.

The reason it is not “invoked” is because energy prices are sufficiently low (due to not pricing in externalities) that there exists little incentive for end users to optimize for power usage.

Re: Microsoft fixes 5-year-old Defender bug, reducing Firefox-related CPU use by 75%

#149

Post by anonymousiam »

sterlind wrote: post #119
dylan604 wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also have to assume that at least one Microsoft employee has Firefox installed. There's no bug if there's no users

I work at MS, tried to use Firefox but couldn't because FF doesn't integrate with the Windows cert store. Crucially, this keeps Windows Hello (TPM auth) from working, which makes it useless for any internal websites. For a while I used a hand-compiled PKCS#12 plugin that bridged to the cert store, but that was extremely fragile and eventually I gave up. I think this is probably a major blocker for many enterprise use…

Firefox not integrating with the Windows cert store is actually a good thing in many use cases. The ability to have an alternate browser that's not integrated has saved my butt more than once.

Re: Microsoft fixes 5-year-old Defender bug, reducing Firefox-related CPU use by 75%

#150

Post by winter_blue »

cronix wrote: post #143

If you're on a Mac and using FF (probably not FF specific), turning off "ambient mode" in youtube can save 30% cpu. I just found this out while searching why FF was taking 90% of my cpu while watching youtube videos in normal mode, but went down to 40% use if viewing in full screen. Turns out that this youtube "ambient mode" was the culprit. My lap is now cooler and the fan doesn't turn on anymore. I wonder how much…

This is one of the myriad reasons why I have a strong preference for Linux.
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