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Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

howtogeek.com

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Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mozilla invented asm.js, an open, backwards-compatible and fascinating alternative to Google's proprietary Chrome-only Native Client technology. Native Client isn't proprietary, its open -- no other browser vendor has adopted it, but that doesn't change the fact that its open. Backward compatible is a real issue with asm.js vs. NaCl, there is no reason to obscure the real issue by throwing a fake one in with it.

Oh, fair dos. But I think asm.js is so much of a better idea that there's no reason to support NaCl - asm.js does everything it's supposed to do but better. I think it was a pretty nice move from Mozilla.

> But I think asm.js is so much of a better idea that there's no reason to support NaCl - asm.js does everything it's supposed to do but better.

A key focus of NaCl and asm.js is performance, and IIRC most benchmarks are showing NaCl with somewhere between a 25%-33% additional overhead over native C, and asm.js with somewhere in the neighborhood of 100% additional overhead, so I don't think I can quite agree that asm.js does everything NaCl is supposed to do but better.

That said, the other advantages are there, and the performance gap may close.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#72
I love FF and use FF mainly because of the range of plugins available.

However I agree there are problems with it. One of them is disk access - if you have a machine (say a netbook) with a slow disk, firefox seems to stop responding for a few seconds every once in a while. This is exacerbated by an ever growing places.sqlite, but still happens even with that flushed regularly (or chattr +i'd)

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#73

...and if open source software is the future, the Firefox is lightyears ahead... I use Firefox - on Windows. I am not a Gnuist. I use Firefox because there are some areas where my interests and those of Microsoft and Google are not sufficiently aligned to justify using their software in lieu of convienent alternatives. The desktop browser is currently one of them. As an aside, I don't really want my browser sucking u…

Open source Chrome exists.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#75
post #15

With all the nice items recently implemented in Chrome and all the lagging behind and alleged slowness of Firefox, I still see "aw, snap! crash!" in Chrome an order of magnitude more frequently on my screen than Firefox crash reports. However the slowness of Firefox when Firebug is on when loading resource-heavy pages starts really bothering me.

I just switched back to Chrome again from Waterfox. It's crazy how even with only a few tabs open(Facebook, a few HN threads, some reddit and YouTube), Waterfox alone will bring my Core i7 with 8GB of RAM to a crawl. Even before I switched to Chrome, I was using IE 10 in tandem with Waterfox so that it wouldn't bog down my system so much. Edit: Maybe it's just me? I'll have a look at my settings. Thanks!!

Browse to about:memory in that bogged down Firefox and find out exactly what's bogging it down. As a web developer, Firefox is my main browser on an i7 8gb Win 8 machine and I can't remember any single time I've seen the browser bogged down.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#76
post #67

This article is, in my opinion, not very good. It documents areas where Firefox differs from Chrome, yes, but it fails to make the case why I should care. * I don't want a multi-process architecture, I want it so one tab can't kill my entire browser. If Firefox can get there in a different way than Chrome, so much the better. * I don't care whether or not my browser utilizes certain Windows features, since I run Linu…

To this list you can add the deal breaker - Firefox is not mining your data and then passing it on to the NSA.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#77
post #4

The first point is odd. I got one of the original Cr-48 Chromebooks, and the current tab would always stutter when other tabs were loading. I installed stock Ubuntu and Firefox on it and I never had that problem. Just lately, in the past year or so, I've noticed the same problem in FF. With all the optimizations they've been making, I can't think what would have changed that behavior.

That's probably just Atom being slow as hell.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#78
> many of its changes have simply been copying the way Google Chrome works

Yeah all car manufacturers copy each other as well. They all got steering wheels and other things that we expect of modern cars.

I don't think the fast release cycle nor the copied UI is an improvement, but they should take from Chrome whatever they think is an improvement. In fact, I believe Opera was the first to use this UI and you could just say that Chrome is lagging behind Opera, if you follow the twisted logic of howtogeek, but I might be mistaken on who was really the first.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#79
post #6

"No Multi-Process Architecture" This is a feature, and I like it. The rest is just flamebait.

The article was meant for very non-technical users, but I did find it hilarious that the task manager proving the superiority of chrome because each tab has a separate process so delays in one tab don't affect delays in other tabs showed... 0% CPU utilization on them all.

So whereas chrome has X number processes each using 0% for a total of 0*0=0% use, firefox would just have 0% cpu on its one process for a total of 0% use, obviously a substantial difference between FF and Chrome LOL.

I use both and the main thing I notice is they're so similar that you'll see articles from one or the other trying to differentiate themselves from the other to gain user share, as if the users can tell the difference. Even the addon / extension names are either the same or about the same.

Re: Here’s Why Firefox is Still Years Behind Google Chrome

#80
I like to use tabs and I usually have lots of tabs open. After getting used to Tree Style Tab [1], using any browser without vertical tab arrangement (in trees) is a PITA. There actually was a crippled vertical tabs feature (named "side tabs") in Chrome, but the developers eventually removed it [2]. One of the best things with Firefox for me is that it allows for these more low level changes of browser behavior and UI.

[1] https://addons.mozilla.org/sv-se/firefox/addon/tree-style-ta...

[2] http://www.techerator.com/2011/11/a-fond-farewell-to-vertica...

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