Firefox has surpassed Chrome on Speedometer • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox has surpassed Chrome on Speedometer

#351

Post by abdullahkhalids » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:06 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #259

beltsazar wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to Firefox from Chrome years ago because Chrome was slower. Specially, when there were many tabs opened, switching tabs in Chrome were usually prefaced with a blank white screen for about 2 seconds. I've been staying with Firefox not for the performance (today Chrome loads Google sites like YouTube faster), but mainly for Tree Style Tab extension. I couldn't imagine opening more than a dozen of tabs withou…

> I couldn't imagine opening more than a dozen of tabs without it. I can't imagine having more than a dozen tabs open, period. You tab hoarders will never make sense to me...

I use Simple Tab Groups in addition to Tree Style Tabs. Simple Tab Groups allows you to show tabs from only one group.

So, I have groups for casual browsing, work, volunteer work, etc. So I don't have to close tabs when switching from one to the other. I just switch and those tabs are still there when I want to next look at them.

Re: Firefox has surpassed Chrome on Speedometer

#352

Post by svl » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:07 PM UTC

justinclift wrote: post #73

wackget wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if I've done anything special but I've got history going back to 2021.

Interesting. That gives me hope that there might indeed be a setting to change the behaviour. Thanks. :)

browser.history.maxStateObjectSize and places.history.expiration.max_pages (both accessible through about:config) should be the settings to modify. Do a web search for those properties to get more information on how they interact.

Re: Firefox has surpassed Chrome on Speedometer

#353

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:08 PM UTC

beltsazar wrote: post #344

TeMPOraL wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've noticed since I started using Sideberry extension (a different/better take on Tree Style Tabs) is that after a day or two, the whole tab panel I separated specifically for HN tends to accumulate 100+ tabs. Having them laid out vertically in tiny font makes this apparent in a way that the regular tab bar doesn't. Fortunately, I also habituated the simple behavior of "If I realize I have a lot of HN tabs…

What makes Sidebery better than TST? I'm consider trying it, but I don't want to lose all of my TST tabs.

Honestly, I don't remember. A year ago when I was considering going back to vertical tabs, I read a bunch of discussion thread and articles, and got the impression Sideberry might be better. Tried it, and it resonates with me - unlike TST, which I tried and quickly abandoned several times over the year.

Can't really point to any concrete issue, other than I have a distinct feeling Sideberry is much faster/lighter, and feels more like part of Firefox vs. some bunch of JS faking an UI on top of it. Sorry I can't give you a more objective comparison. I did find this though:

https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/118ddge/tab_manage...

which is a recent(ish) discussion, and the points made there seem accurate.

Re: Firefox has surpassed Chrome on Speedometer

#354

Post by ddoolin » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:10 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #259

beltsazar wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to Firefox from Chrome years ago because Chrome was slower. Specially, when there were many tabs opened, switching tabs in Chrome were usually prefaced with a blank white screen for about 2 seconds. I've been staying with Firefox not for the performance (today Chrome loads Google sites like YouTube faster), but mainly for Tree Style Tab extension. I couldn't imagine opening more than a dozen of tabs withou…

> I couldn't imagine opening more than a dozen of tabs without it. I can't imagine having more than a dozen tabs open, period. You tab hoarders will never make sense to me...

Agreed, but once I switched to vertical tabs (via Sidebery with Firefox), it is WAY more manageable. Multiple tab spaces, named groupings, and a scrollable view that doesn't crowd and shorten names make it great for having many items in there with little downside.

Re: Firefox has surpassed Chrome on Speedometer

#355

Post by TeMPOraL » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:13 PM UTC

PaulDavisThe1st wrote: post #349

TeMPOraL wrote: post #325

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've noticed since I started using Sideberry extension (a different/better take on Tree Style Tabs) is that after a day or two, the whole tab panel I separated specifically for HN tends to accumulate 100+ tabs. Having them laid out vertically in tiny font makes this apparent in a way that the regular tab bar doesn't. Fortunately, I also habituated the simple behavior of "If I realize I have a lot of HN tabs…

Sideberry FTW. Sideberry tab panels FTWW. Except for the annoying interaction (I think) with "open new tabs next to current tab", which causes Sideberry to somehow leave behind lots of stupid empty tabs named after the page the real new tab had. I deal with it, but it's annoying.

Oh, I'm yet to hit that problem. My current annoyance is that sometimes it gets confused after Firefox restarts, and I end up with a flat dump of tabs + an unending spam of those tiny warning popups at the bottom of its UI. The few times that happened, I ended up restarting Firefox again to stop the warnings, and then rearranging the flat list of tabs into groups and panels I want them to be in. Fortunately, it's not that big of a chore.

Re: Firefox has surpassed Chrome on Speedometer

#356

Post by ddoolin » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:14 PM UTC

SomeHacker44 wrote: post #279

seba_dos1 wrote: post #17

There was a time when Firefox felt a lot slower than Chromium, but for a few years now it's been close enough (even if still somewhat slower) to not bother me, while Firefox clearly offers superior functionality and much better performance under high load. The last time Chromium has felt attractive compared to Firefox was a really long time ago. Glad to see it moving in the right direction still.

The thing that I really like in Chrome (which I use for work) is Tab Groups. There is nothing like it for Firefox. Even the "Simple Tab Groups" extension, which is well liked, cannot do the simple "grouping" of tabs in a larger window - it simply hides all the tabs that are not in current use (which defeats the purpose of tab groups, I can just use windows for that). Another thing that Chrome has is the ability to na…

Use Sidebery in Firefox for vertical tabs and it has not only better grouping but also entire "tab spaces" (workspaces) which you can switch between as well, if wanted.

Re: Firefox has surpassed Chrome on Speedometer

#357

Post by danShumway » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:20 PM UTC

dahfizz wrote: post #259

beltsazar wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I switched to Firefox from Chrome years ago because Chrome was slower. Specially, when there were many tabs opened, switching tabs in Chrome were usually prefaced with a blank white screen for about 2 seconds. I've been staying with Firefox not for the performance (today Chrome loads Google sites like YouTube faster), but mainly for Tree Style Tab extension. I couldn't imagine opening more than a dozen of tabs withou…

> I couldn't imagine opening more than a dozen of tabs without it. I can't imagine having more than a dozen tabs open, period. You tab hoarders will never make sense to me...

It's just ADHD, there's not really a workflow reason that I have 1000+ tabs open. It just kind of happens.

Firefox/Sideberry is useful for mitigating that. I also have workflows set up for mass-exporting my tabs from Firefox to a text file and reorganizing them in plain-text and re-opening just the tabs I care about[0].

Bookmarking on any browser is cumbersome and leads to disorganization over time. Tree-style tabs helps make that organization at least a little bit easier.

[0]: https://textmark.netlify.app/

Re: Firefox has surpassed Chrome on Speedometer

#358

Post by kstrauser » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

xd1936 wrote: post #8

I've used Firefox as my primary browser since the "Quantum" in 2017. Chrome still feels snappier, but Firefox's Container Tabs is hard for me to imagine losing.

I spend more than my fair share of time in AWS consoles. My company uses multiple accounts to segregate data and services were appropriate, and container tabs let me have several consoles open at once when I need them. That's such a wonderful productivity boost over having to have multiple browsers open.

Re: Firefox has surpassed Chrome on Speedometer

#359

Post by kyledrake » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:22 PM UTC

I use Firefox on my phone, it's the only one that allows me to block popups/ads/autoplay videos and disable javascript via add-ons when I need to, and the web is pretty much unusable without being able to do that now. Who cares if it's faster if you can't even load the content without it blocking your view with popups and trying to play videos without your consent before crashing?

Re: Firefox has surpassed Chrome on Speedometer

#360

Post by kstrauser » Tue, Jul 18, 2023, 5:27 PM UTC

austin-cheney wrote: post #283

e4m2 wrote: post #32

See also https://arewefastyet.com .

As a JavaScript developer my priorities are limited to visual render and DOM access. Going back 5+ years ago Chrome was able to access the DOM at about 45m ops/s on my desktop and Firefox was achieving about 850m ops/s on the same hardware. On my laptop (faster memory) Chrome was getting up to 55m ops/s while Firefox was around 1.4b ops/s. Now Firefox numbers have remained constant, but Chrome struggles to hit 20m op…

How many cores was laptop benchmark running on?