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

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

#251

Post by chlorion »

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.

Gaming on a mid-tier modern GPU probably uses around 50-100w, the Steam stats probably have a number of users to multiply with. I'm sure it's a massive amount of power.

I don't like video games and they are not-necessary so I propose that we ban them globally, or only allow gaming if using renewable energy. If you don't live in a place where this is an option, too bad!

Maybe instead of this we require all games to be limited in graphical effect (imagine early source games or something). We could save a lot of power globally if we enforced this.

This is why I strongly dislike this line of thinking. I don't think power plants work that way anyways, they probably make a constant-ish amount of power rather than taking exactly 50w worth of fuel every time someone opens up Call Of Duty.

There are also much lower hanging fruit to get upset about if you care about the planet, like cars with large motors or people with heated drive ways (yes thats a thing).

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

#252

Post by javaunsafe2019 »

ok_dad wrote: post #195
winter_blue wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I just bought a Macbook because my dedicated Linux laptop, made by a popular Linux-only manufacturer, had so many issues that I got tired of diagnosing. I love Linux, but it's not a panacea for every computer issue under the sun, just a few of them. I, personally, am stoked I no longer have to deal with issues with this new machine, and can just take it into a Genius bar appointment to let someone else deal with it,…

You are not sellout but just the average Joe. No problem with that I guess. Have fun with your Mac that uses a soldered ssd that when failing makes your whole Mac useless as well.

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

#253

Post by TeMPOraL »

hsbauauvhabzb wrote: post #247
Phiwise_ wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But then Google would be responsible for that one-time computation instead of making the clients do it billions of times.

They could do it on a few clients then ship the data back to the server. If they’re resourceful those clients don’t even need to be watching the video! (they could send it and compute the output in the background of another stream)

But that's a distributed problem now and those use up valuable developer time, which we know is the most important resource in the world...

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

#254

Post by erulabs »

Tagbert wrote: post #223
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…

Where is that setting? In YouTube Settings? I don't see it, there.

It's not in the general settings - instead it's in the setting menu in the video player itself, where you'd select the quality and playback speed, etc.

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

#255

Post by dbg31415 »

I have screamed about this like a crazy person and filed bugs and was always told, "Meh there's nothing there..."

But if you use Firefox to call yourself on Chrome... you'll see that Firefox takes up a TON more energy on an Intel MBP than Chrome does.

You can tell because Firefox literally heats your laptop up to do streaming videos. You hear the fans kick on, the laptop gets hotter to hold.

Anyway I'm sure there are more bugs like this! Glad Firefox is getting some of the people to fix their code... but look, Microsoft isn't the only culprit. Until Firefox takes as little power as Chrome in MacOS & Windows... I think we should all stay outraged! (=

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

#256

Post by LeoPanthera »

Karunamon wrote: post #188
LeoPanthera wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Is that because of the quality of Chrome or because Safari is a "blessed" application and probably gets to do things other applications do not? Entirely serious question. Apple is known to severely privilege their own applications over competitors.

It's not impossible, but I doubt it, if only because very few third party applications use as much as Chrome does. The only exceptions are things that actively use a lot of CPU, like compilers or compressors.

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

#257

Post by tmtvl »

asvitkine wrote: post #153
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…

To save a search: "Ambient mode uses a lighting effect to make watching videos in Dark theme more immersive, by casting gentle colors from the video, into your screen's background."

As I don't use edgelord mode I'm guessing I don't have to worry about it.

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

#258

Post by kortilla »

warent wrote: post #181
bee_rider wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neat idea, I bet the intern had fun implementing it, why was it on by default?

This seems unnecessarily passive aggressive. Everyone makes mistakes or bugs, intern or not. It makes no sense to get this salty about basic human error. Also there's nothing wrong with implementing minor UX enhancements. If anything redirect the frustration to the leadership that doesn't prioritize fixing these kinds of errors.

This is definitely worth getting salty about when you consider the cumulative electricity wasted for something so trivial. Google should be strictly monitoring performance and CPU consumption of their changes on youtube since a screwup there is the climate change equivalent of paying for 747s to fly in circles.

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

#259

Post by ericye16 »

chlorion wrote: post #251
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.

Gaming on a mid-tier modern GPU probably uses around 50-100w, the Steam stats probably have a number of users to multiply with. I'm sure it's a massive amount of power. I don't like video games and they are not-necessary so I propose that we ban them globally, or only allow gaming if using renewable energy. If you don't live in a place where this is an option, too bad! Maybe instead of this we require all games to be…

This is a bad comparison, gaming presumably brings utility to someone whereas this was a pure bug with no upside.

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

#260

Post by grugagag »

acomjean wrote: post #232
ok_dad wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just bought a Macbook because my dedicated Linux laptop, made by a popular Linux-only manufacturer, had so many issues that I got tired of diagnosing. I love Linux, but it's not a panacea for every computer issue under the sun, just a few of them. I, personally, am stoked I no longer have to deal with issues with this new machine, and can just take it into a Genius bar appointment to let someone else deal with it,…

I switched to linux. I like it and haven't really had any issues to speak of. Not with sound, video, wifi or any of the other things people complain about. My fan went, but likely it was a pet fur issue, and easy to fix... I'm not an admin. I know how to use the command line, and how to use it as a work machine. Really my experience over the past 3 years, its been as trouble free as my Mac used to be. It really is th…

Can you hybernate your system without issues?
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