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Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

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Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#191

Post by hotnfresh »

kevingadd wrote: post #187
hotnfresh wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1) Ask 2) Conduct user studies How are companies that aren't software vendors and aren't able to spy on their customers able to do it? Did software companies not have good ways to do this before spying on their users?

1 and 2 are problematic because it's very hard to get representative data from either one. The people who have time for user studies or post on your forums are not representative users. Only listening to data from 1 & 2 results in the sort of angry posts you frequently see on HN complaining that devs aren't listening to "real users" or have the wrong priorities. You end up needing data from additional sources, teleme…

You do not need it. This is a really weird attitude. Until like the late '00s "telemetry" was, full stop, spyware (still is, for those of us who didn't shift our attitudes with the prevailing winds). I wouldn't say that responsiveness to user needs and desires has improved since then, in software design.

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#192

Post by sputr »

Great for them. The mobile app, at least for me, is getting unusuble. I have a crappy phone and reopening a page takes 3x the time opening a new tab and writing the url does.

Even then it's still significantly slower than chrome, even with ads.

I think it's time I find a different mobile browser with adblocking.

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#193

Post by jraph »

LoganDark wrote: post #152
padenot wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox developer here. There are a few ways to diagnose this, depending on your setup. If everything is frozen on Linux, it's probably the parent process that is having an issue. The "parent process" is the process that oversees all the tabs, it's the top process in a Firefox process tree, the one that has lots of children. If our crash reporter is enabled, you can also just kill the parent process with `SIGABRT`, t…

Holy crap, this is the most helpful answer I've ever seen from a Firefox developer on HN. When I was having a memory exhaustion issue, I was just told "enable the page file, running without overcommit is a recipe for disaster" (looks at my 40GB of memory). I should figure out if that issue still occurs.

> running without overcommit is a recipe for disaster

(but yes, it probably is, even with 40GB of memory. I bet many things are designed on Linux with overcommit as an assumption)

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#194

Post by sillyalbatross »

wodenokoto wrote: post #169
sillyalbatross wrote: post #166

Unfortunately Firefox still has a lot of issues when it comes to font rendering on macOS. For example, it's been two years and it still renders San Francisco incorrectly: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1721612 Not to mention all fonts appearing bolder than they should compared to Chrome and Safari. It might seem like a small thing but I'm a stickler for typography and it really stands out on a Mac. I ho…

> Not to mention all fonts appearing bolder than they should compared to Chrome and Safari. No they don't. https://imgur.com/a/p9V4GdN

Interesting, must be only happening on some native MBP displays. I'm on an M1 MBP and haven't tested it on an external display but it's definitely noticeable on mine, although not as big of a deal as the letter spacing thing

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#195

Post by rurp »

kwanbix wrote: post #173
StableAlkyne wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of telemetry in any browser (I love Lynx because of this), but Mozilla is definitely more trustworthy than Google or Microsoft. Edit: I'm not saying that Lynx should be a daily driver or that it's more secure, but it's a neat little project that avoids some of the bad patterns in modern browsers.

How do you expect companies to understand how their products are used for improvement purposes without telemetry? Honest question.

Taking stock of the connected devices and software that I am familiar with, I'd say there is a strong correlation between detailed user tracking and worse UX. It seems weird at first glance but I think there are some solid explanations for why that might be.

Data analysis is difficult to perform and understand well. It is easy to draw mistaken conclusions or to twist results to show the conclusion a person wants, and using detailed numbers can lead to a false sense of confidence in the results.

Companies are first and foremost optimizing for their benefit, not the user. Detailed tracking can uncover interesting ways for a company to make more money at the expense of the user.

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#196

Post by tester756 »

kwanbix wrote: post #173
StableAlkyne wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not a fan of telemetry in any browser (I love Lynx because of this), but Mozilla is definitely more trustworthy than Google or Microsoft. Edit: I'm not saying that Lynx should be a daily driver or that it's more secure, but it's a neat little project that avoids some of the bad patterns in modern browsers.

How do you expect companies to understand how their products are used for improvement purposes without telemetry? Honest question.

That's good question

I feel like people who are fully against telemetry never had to deal with such issues in big apps

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#197

Post by kwanbix »

hotnfresh wrote: post #191
kevingadd wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1 and 2 are problematic because it's very hard to get representative data from either one. The people who have time for user studies or post on your forums are not representative users. Only listening to data from 1 & 2 results in the sort of angry posts you frequently see on HN complaining that devs aren't listening to "real users" or have the wrong priorities. You end up needing data from additional sources, teleme…

You do not need it. This is a really weird attitude. Until like the late '00s "telemetry" was, full stop, spyware (still is, for those of us who didn't shift our attitudes with the prevailing winds). I wouldn't say that responsiveness to user needs and desires has improved since then, in software design.

But what is the problem? That I can know that you press the print button? That you chose the Edit menu? I really don't see the problem. Please, explain, I really want to understand.

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#198

Post by LoganDark »

jraph wrote: post #193
LoganDark wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Holy crap, this is the most helpful answer I've ever seen from a Firefox developer on HN. When I was having a memory exhaustion issue, I was just told "enable the page file, running without overcommit is a recipe for disaster" (looks at my 40GB of memory). I should figure out if that issue still occurs.

> running without overcommit is a recipe for disaster (but yes, it probably is, even with 40GB of memory. I bet many things are designed on Linux with overcommit as an assumption)

Well, that was just the wrong answer, since their software is supposed to be releasing memory back to the OS properly. Overcommit is just a coping mechanism, you should be addressing the root cause.

I have since enabled the page file for other reasons - LLMs demand up to 50GB of memory sometimes, and my new desktop only has 16.

The change of machine is why I should probably try Firefox again to see if it behaves.

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#200

Post by mackrevinack »

diroussel wrote: post #101
EMM_386 wrote: post #48

This is good news, and makes me want to start using it again. Was a user from the Phoenix/Firebird days with the "unzip it somewhere" fancy installation process, used it for almost 20 years, and then switched to a Chromium-based browser due to perceivable speed differences. I wasn't running benchmarks to confirm my suspicions or that performing some action was x milliseconds slower in Firefox or anything. But when yo…

Combine the good performance with great add-ons like Multi Account Containers, and Tree Style Tabs, and you have a great browser.

the user.js file is a very underrated feature as well. i have a few computers and some of them are dual boot which means i have a lot of firefox installs so its great just being able to drop in the user.js file and have everything set up the way i like it
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