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Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

areweslimyet.com

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Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#71

Post by dmbass »

joblessjunkie wrote: post #63
fl3tch wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an age when most computers come with 4+ GB of RAM, I think people focus too much on memory. Of course there are older computers, but their OS should be using comparably less RAM. WinXP takes up 100 MB at login, so if you only have 1 GB on an older computer, you should still have no problem running modern Firefox. And if you only have 512 MB, it's probably time to upgrade since the web experience that a modern brow…

But why do our computers have to come with 4GB+ of RAM, when 1GB might suffice? It's an circular argument to claim that it's OK to use lots of RAM simply because the computer comes with lots of RAM. After a manufacturer begrudgingly provides the RAM that developers refuse to conserve, we shouldn't then use the presence of this additional RAM to use even more. Your friend's anger at application waste is justified. Wit…

Are you kidding about the iPad? It definitely suffers from lack of RAM. Almost every time you change tabs, it has to reload the page.

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#72

Post by oddthink »

dchest wrote: post #66
morsch wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many articles about Safari's font rendering, here is one: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html I think it's more accurate to say that it's different , whether or not it is better seems to be a matter of preference and priorities.

I think the parent is talking about the difference in rendering between Firefox and Safari on OS X, not between Windows and OS X.

Yes, that was strictly on OS X. I would think that Firefox and Safari would be rendering fonts in the same way, but Safari somehow looks better.

I last compared only a few days ago. When I get back home, I can try again and see if I can get more analytic about what the difference is, but, as I said, part of the problem with this kind of aesthetic/design judgement is that I don't have the vocabulary to analyze it.

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#73

Post by enimodas »

Mavrik wrote: post #36

I'm just hoping slimming down memory usage won't go at the expense of speed... my systems have 16GB of RAM - I want Firefox to use as much memory as possible to speed up my experience. So if slimming down FF will make my disk trash more, that's the wrong direction to take.

Yes, one thing I notice is that when I have a tab with a lot of images in it, and I switch to another tab, browse a little and switch back, I have to wait for the images to 'reload'. I guess it stores them compressed in memory and they have to be decompressed again. I have memory to spare and sometimes it does this when I'm quickly switching tabs for comparing something for example. This is annoying.

I'm also one of those users that leaves 100's of tabs open in the background, and sometimes I think they, or javascript (userscripts?) in them keep using CPU somehow, and it slows down everything. It would be cool if firefox could set a low CPU priority to these tabs, or freeze them if possible, ala BarTab extension.

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#74

Post by dclowd9901 »

dchest wrote: post #66
morsch wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are many articles about Safari's font rendering, here is one: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2007/06/12.html I think it's more accurate to say that it's different , whether or not it is better seems to be a matter of preference and priorities.

I think the parent is talking about the difference in rendering between Firefox and Safari on OS X, not between Windows and OS X.

In Windows Safari, text still sees the anti-aliased rendering that its Mac brethren enjoy in all browsers. That's what the parent is referring to.

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#75

Post by getsat »

jlebar wrote: post #61
Teapot wrote: post #19

"Do i look fat?" It's a trap! If we say 'No' then the bloat continues. And if we say 'Yes you're fat' she runs away crying. And the bloat still continues. Honestly, Yes. You're still fat. But some progress has been made. Keep going. Stop when you hear the first complaint about too skinny.

You mean, like "my systems have 16GB of RAM - I want Firefox to use as much memory as possible to speed up my experience."?

That quote is one of the dumbest things I've ever read on this site.

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#76

Post by dchest »

oddthink wrote: post #72
dchest wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the parent is talking about the difference in rendering between Firefox and Safari on OS X, not between Windows and OS X.

Yes, that was strictly on OS X. I would think that Firefox and Safari would be rendering fonts in the same way, but Safari somehow looks better. I last compared only a few days ago. When I get back home, I can try again and see if I can get more analytic about what the difference is, but, as I said, part of the problem with this kind of aesthetic/design judgement is that I don't have the vocabulary to analyze it.

Here's a screenshot: http://i.imgur.com/eSZfc.png

The difference is more obvious in Cyrillic text on the bottom -- there's something wrong with hinting in Firefox.

And another one: http://i.imgur.com/op1bj.png

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#78

Post by dchest »

dclowd9901 wrote: post #74
dchest wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the parent is talking about the difference in rendering between Firefox and Safari on OS X, not between Windows and OS X.

In Windows Safari, text still sees the anti-aliased rendering that its Mac brethren enjoy in all browsers. That's what the parent is referring to.

No, the issue has nothing to do with differences between Windows and OS X rendering. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3798667

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#79

Post by nakkiel »

obtu wrote: post #48
Mavrik wrote: post #36

I'm just hoping slimming down memory usage won't go at the expense of speed... my systems have 16GB of RAM - I want Firefox to use as much memory as possible to speed up my experience. So if slimming down FF will make my disk trash more, that's the wrong direction to take.

On Linux at least, the rest of your RAM will be used by the page cache which does a lot to make disk access efficient, and as much as possible bypassed entirely.

Yep. In other words, using more memory in user space is a sure way of slowding down the system. Specifically PostgreSQL is easily impacted by that as it keeps as little memory for itself as possible and delegates everything it can to the OS.

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#80

Post by mburns »

joblessjunkie wrote: post #63
fl3tch wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In an age when most computers come with 4+ GB of RAM, I think people focus too much on memory. Of course there are older computers, but their OS should be using comparably less RAM. WinXP takes up 100 MB at login, so if you only have 1 GB on an older computer, you should still have no problem running modern Firefox. And if you only have 512 MB, it's probably time to upgrade since the web experience that a modern brow…

But why do our computers have to come with 4GB+ of RAM, when 1GB might suffice? It's an circular argument to claim that it's OK to use lots of RAM simply because the computer comes with lots of RAM. After a manufacturer begrudgingly provides the RAM that developers refuse to conserve, we shouldn't then use the presence of this additional RAM to use even more. Your friend's anger at application waste is justified. Wit…

We use that memory because we do more things faster. Of course we could page to disk whenever we want to use more than 1GB of memory, or render from CPU instead of keeping uncompressed versions in memory to lower footprint... Or we could have faster computers. Consumers prefer the faster computer option.
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