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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

#261

Post by sfortis »

windowsrookie wrote: post #107
sfortis wrote: post #67

In the Speedometer 2, Firefox is much slower than Chrome, which is a bit slower than Edge. But who cares! In real life, this makes no real difference. I respect and trust the privacy of Mozilla. Features like containers and the ability to run Ublock and Tampermonkey on mobile are priceless!

It does still matter for people using low-end computers. My MacBook's screen cracked while on vacation recently and I had to buy an emergency laptop. I picked up a device with a Celeron 6305 and 4GB of RAM. I loaded up Firefox like I normally do, and it was so slow and laggy to the point it was unusable. I then switched over to Edge and it performed significantly faster, and was using less of the 4GB of RAM. I was su…

Chromium (new) EDGE or OG?

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#262

Post by eviks »

kwanbix wrote: post #186
mftrhu wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could ask their users.

So how many users do you have to ask for it to be statistically relevant for a user base of 360 million users?

Hundreds? Increasing user base doesn't matter much for sample size

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#263

Post by LoganDark »

fomine3 wrote: post #259
LoganDark wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read up on Windows. Windows does not do overcommit whatsoever, unless swap is enabled, in which case it only allows overcommit up to the size of the swap file. Overcommit cannot be enabled without a swap file, whatsoever. This differs from Linux that can tend to have overcommit enabled without swap.

You're correct, that's why having pagefile is important for Windows even if there's enough RAM. Why don't you enable it?

It takes up disk space that I thought I could save. I have it enabled now, as a side effect of working with LLMs on my new computer that only has 16GB of memory (working on fixing that).

I still wouldn't be comfy letting Firefox fill it up, because no matter how large the page file is, your system will always crash when Firefox fills the entire thing. I do not know if my new computer will have this problem, though.

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#264

Post by mackrevinack »

diroussel wrote: post #204
mackrevinack wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I have a userChrome.css to hide the default tabs. What do you have in your user.js and have you automated the install of it? Here is a reference for the userChrome.css to hide the default tabs. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23268077

heres a few general ones. on my linux computers i have a bash script to install firefox, then it sets up symlink of the user.js file from my own config folder to the default .config folder. on windows i just manually add it

  user_pref("browser.aboutConfig.showWarning", "false");    // disable about:config warning
  user_pref("browser.startup.page", 3);    // restore previous session
  user_pref("browser.ctrlTab.sortByRecentlyUsed", "true");    // cycles tabs in recently used order
  user_pref("signon.rememberSignons", "false");    // dont ask to save passwords
  user_pref("browser.search.suggest.enabled", "false");    // disable address bar suggestions
  user_pref("toolkit.legacyUserProfileCustomizations.stylesheets", "true");    // enable custom css
this is the only css i could find that i like since it keeps the window controls as well, although since a recent update, theyre just showing as a white box now but they still works https://github.com/mbnuqw/sidebery/issues/458#issuecomment-9...

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#265

Post by mort96 »

LoganDark wrote: post #240
mort96 wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reasons browsers rely on overcommit has nothing to do with them failing to release memory back to the OS properly.

If the memory is never released back to the OS after it is done being used (or when it is not going to be used), then the browser has failed to release it back to the OS.

The memory is released back to the OS after it is done being used.

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#266

Post by ColonelPhantom »

LoganDark wrote: post #239
ColonelPhantom wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Overcommit != Swap. Overcommit is allocating virtual memory without any backing. Swap is allocating physical memory backed by disk. Overcommit is useful in some cases, for example to preallocate a large heap without immediately making it all resident. Or to allocate 'guard' pages to fight buffer overflows. On Linux, overcommit is commonly assumed and as such disabling it tends to break some programs, as it's not out…

Read up on Windows. Windows does not do overcommit whatsoever, unless swap is enabled, in which case it only allows overcommit up to the size of the swap file. Overcommit cannot be enabled without a swap file, whatsoever. This differs from Linux that can tend to have overcommit enabled without swap.

Yes, Windows doesn't have overcommit. (Also not with swap, since overcommit is unbacked virtual memory, which Windows still doesn't allow. The only thing it allows is disk-backed virtual memory).

But as a user, I don't care (except that I don't have to worry about an OOM killer because an allocation will just fail). The only real difference is that application developers need to be careful with allocating memory without using it, unlike on Unix-likes.

Because software on Linux runs on the assumption of overcommit, you shouldn't disable it, even though the lack of overcommit on Windows is not problematic.

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#267

Post by teo_zero »

sfink wrote: post #97
xxpor wrote: post #5

Only looking at the 95th percentile is pretty disappointing. Enough page loads happen that higher percentile experiences aren't exactly rare.

You mean only displaying and discussing the 95th percentile in a blog post? There's no reason to assume that what is brought up in a blog post is going to match what engineers are looking at. In this case, I'm a developer at Mozilla, and I would say that I agree that it's worthwhile to look at the 99th percentile as well. And the median (50th percentile). And other platforms. And segregate it by website, but we don't…

But what is the reason behind the choice to only show the 95th percentile and not the mean or median, that undoubtedly are more understandable by a vast audience?

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#268

Post by southernplaces7 »

hipadev23 wrote: post #43

I stopped using Firefox because every single time I opened the application it would pause while it forced a new update on me.

I dont understand why this was downvoted. Why should a person be forced to allow updates with no opt-out or pause option? Everyone complains about it with Windows and its bullshit but FF gets a free pass?

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#269

Post by Alifatisk »

xedrac wrote: post #33

I like seeing Mozilla actually improving Firefox instead of just shuffling UI components around. I've been a longtime user, and am happy to support the underdog here to try and keep some balance of power on the web. Having Mozilla focus more on their tech, and less on politics is a good thing. Regardless, Firefox is a good piece of software and I have no major qualms with it.

> I've been a longtime user, and am happy to support the underdog here to try and keep some balance of power on the web.

I am with you on this one, not only that but I am actually satisfied with the switch I did years ago.

Re: Firefox got faster for real users in 2023

#270

Post by kevincox »

post_break wrote: post #130

Has anyone at firefox used the iOS app? I want you to track what the workflow is to access a password in the app. Tap tap tap left side, right side, can't get out of the settings to check the website while doing so. It's maddening. Besides that... it's lovely.

Yeah, it is hidden away on Android too. They tried to mitigate this by adding an awkwardly named "Passwords shortcut" app action (long press the app or add it to your home screen) but this just opens the password settings, still another click to actually get to the passwords list.
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