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Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

areweslimyet.com

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Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#91

Post by nnethercote »

fl3tch wrote: post #57
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.

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…

Memory consumption is important because it has a significant effect on performance and crash rate. The effects vary greatly depending on your hardware. You're right that people focus too much on raw memory measurements themselves. There are many time/space trade-offs.

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#92

Post by nnethercote »

Tichy wrote: post #68
ssheth wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nnethercote on the other hand is the "specialist" as he is in charge of the MemShrink project itself... I would trust him on this stuff.

OK, but the developers of Mozilla are specialists, too. Why not trust them? Or is nnethercote part of the Mozilla dev team? MemShrink will hopefully just be merged into the core?

I'm a Mozilla employee and started MemShrink. I also write about it regularly: http://blog.mozilla.com/nnethercote/category/memshrink/.

MemShrink has been running since June 2011 and there have been many improvements in Firefox's memory consumption since then; these have shown up in Firefox 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11.

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#93

Post by nnethercote »

dthunt wrote: post #83
hackermom wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Writing efficient programs requires complex tricks." Says who?

I think it's more accurate to say that writing efficient program requires some modicum of thought, foresight, or planning. In a rush to put in new features for the past few years they've become the new Winamp of web browsers, stealing the crown from IE. In fact, I think from now on I'm going to refer to mozilla as winamp - until they fix their problems. I'm sensitive to the challenges facing modern browsers. But this…

What problems? Memory consumption has been trending downwards for over a year now. Have you tried Firefox lately?

As for the linking issue, that's a shortcoming in MSVC. Chrome hit the same issue earlier than Firefox did, and switched to a 64-bit linker as a result. Web browsers contain enormous amounts of code because they support enormous amounts of functionality. The code size has only a moderate bearing on the amount of memory consumed at runtime.

If you're seeing Firefox using half a GB to display a couple of static pages something is wrong. Likely causes are a busted profile or leaky add-ons.

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#94

Post by nnethercote »

ticks wrote: post #11

I used to have loads of problems with Firefox, it was so slow... took several minutes to close, it would freeze regularly etc. I got so sick of having to clear the cache every few weeks. Then one day I noticed their hidden profile manager, created a new profile and used it instead. A few months on and everything is still working like it should. No need to clear caches, it quits within seconds, no crashes and so on. I…

I shudder to think how much of the Firefox's reputation for slowness comes from busted profiles :(

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#95

Post by [deleted] »

nnethercote wrote: post #53
rpearl wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, absolutely. These measurements in the linked article are just a complete and utter lie. Edit: The sentence above is sarcastic. Firefox has had better memory usage than its competitors for a while now, despite the belief that it is leaky.

Evidence, please.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#96

Post by LogicHoleFlaw »

JBiserkov wrote: post #89
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…

I don't think Win7 alone can account for 2 GB at login, even with SuperFetch. There were probably a few programs that run on startup (antivirus, IM, OEM-specific crapware if it's a laptop, "speed launchers" like adobe reader, updaters)

I installed a new Win7 partition last week. Yep, almost exactly 2GB memory usage at start. This was a clean Win7 Pro, no third-party crapware installed.

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#97

Post by dthunt »

nnethercote wrote: post #93
dthunt wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more accurate to say that writing efficient program requires some modicum of thought, foresight, or planning. In a rush to put in new features for the past few years they've become the new Winamp of web browsers, stealing the crown from IE. In fact, I think from now on I'm going to refer to mozilla as winamp - until they fix their problems. I'm sensitive to the challenges facing modern browsers. But this…

What problems? Memory consumption has been trending downwards for over a year now. Have you tried Firefox lately? As for the linking issue, that's a shortcoming in MSVC. Chrome hit the same issue earlier than Firefox did, and switched to a 64-bit linker as a result. Web browsers contain enormous amounts of code because they support enormous amounts of functionality. The code size has only a moderate bearing on the am…

It still takes a gig-plus with the usual linux toolchain (also, it takes HOURS, now). It's not just an issue with MSVC link.exe, even if the linux toolset hasn't hit the critical point yet that MSVC has. The point is that other programs manage to link without this sort of absurdity. Why the hell can't winamp? (making good on my promise, firefox is now winamp)

As for busted profiles and add-ons, I don't know what to say to that that's not blatantly offensive, so I'll just offend. Winamp is a fat, ugly, smelly cow. It didn't used to be. Either the web is now a pig-farm, and everybody is writing javascriptish-do-nothing-scripts that allocate hundreds of megs without purpose (in which case, winamp needs to take a leadership role in fixing the javascript problem), or winamp has other serious issues it needs to address.

Either way, it's not my problem. Winamp devs can deal with that stuff.

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#98

Post by peterhajas »

DHowett wrote: post #4

I'll admit that I was expecting a site more like http://hasthelhcdestroyedtheearth.com . It's really nice to see that Mozilla is still taking this stuff into consideration. After all, memory has been a point of contention in the community since Firefox 3 or so. I know the FF detractors are going to come out of the woodwork at any moment, but I feel that reports of Mozilla's death have been greatly exaggerated.

Read this last night, agreed. Only now noticed the username :)

Do you use it as your fulltime browser? Why is it better than Webkit-powered alternatives?

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#99

Post by ilaksh »

They are measuring and trying to fix the wrong things. I don't care if you think you are 'lean'.

The problem is that you have some stubborn devs or decisions that were made a long time ago that need to be reversed but for whatever reason are not being reversed or are hard to change.

What I care about is perceived start up time and perceived overall performance.

For perceived start up time to improve they have to stop doing some things that they normally wait to finish doing before showing the screen. Like waiting for all of the tabs to load, checking for updates to add-ons, etc.

For overall performance to improve I think they need an extra performance mode that will restrict what Addons can do.

Re: Mozilla: Are We Slim Yet?

#100

Post by jacobsenscott »

ilaksh wrote: post #99

They are measuring and trying to fix the wrong things. I don't care if you think you are 'lean'. The problem is that you have some stubborn devs or decisions that were made a long time ago that need to be reversed but for whatever reason are not being reversed or are hard to change. What I care about is perceived start up time and perceived overall performance. For perceived start up time to improve they have to stop…

There's a fix for one of those. Preferences -> General -> Don't load tabs until selected
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