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Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

wiki.mozilla.org

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Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#41

Post by abrowne »

blueskin_ wrote: post #22
aen0 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be aware that Adblock Plus for Chrome increases significantly RAM usage for each open tab. uBlock author has extensive benchmarks about this issue. https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/%C2%B5Block-vs.-ABP:-...

Whichever one it is for chrome I have, it isn't ABP, it's a generic named Adblock. I don't use ABP due to the developer accepting money to whitelist google adverts.

If you don't like that behavior, you probably wouldn't like Ablock's either: https://palant.de/2014/07/29/which-is-better-adblock-or-adbl...

(Admittedly the author is biased towards ABP. My biases: former Adblock user, former ABP user, current Adblock Edge and µblock user.)

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#42

Post by icebraining »

taeric wrote: post #40
blinkingled wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes sandboxing possible which is a huge security win and the reason I still use Chrome where I can. RAM is cheap and browsers 64-bit so a bunch of extra memory in the name of security is not a big deal really. At least that's how I see it.

I'm curious how huge of a security win it really is. The vast majority of exploits that I hear about would still be possible. Especially since phishing is by far the weakest link in any model. I mean, sure, it sounds great to say things are sandboxed. But when the actual exploits either a) root the machine, or b) targeted the user directly, it seems that protecting tabs from each other really doesn't do much.

It's not about protecting the tabs from each other; when you separate the tasks into different containers, you can apply strong limits to what each can do, which makes it harder to "root the machine".

For example, see the Chromium docs: http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/multi-pr...

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#43

Post by blueskin_ »

abrowne wrote: post #41
blueskin_ wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Whichever one it is for chrome I have, it isn't ABP, it's a generic named Adblock. I don't use ABP due to the developer accepting money to whitelist google adverts.

If you don't like that behavior, you probably wouldn't like Ablock's either: https://palant.de/2014/07/29/which-is-better-adblock-or-adbl... (Admittedly the author is biased towards ABP. My biases: former Adblock user, former ABP user, current Adblock Edge and µblock user.)

Thanks. Probably going to evaluate http://alternativeto.net/software/ublock/ instead next time I have to use chrome.

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#44

Post by blueskin_ »

Igglyboo wrote: post #32
blueskin_ wrote: post #7

Yay, now firefox can waste just as much memory as Chrome. Guess 1GB for the whole browser wasn't enough; they had to go for ~100MB/tab. Got to keep up with Chrome after all. If I use chrome for normal browsing (I don't normally because its feature set is poor, customisability is a dirty words, and I don't like the privacy risk), it can rapidly slurp 4GB or more of memory (with perhaps two key addons, adblock and DoNo…

I have 16GB of ram in my machine, I'd rather use 4 of that for a responsive browser than 1.5 for something that is constantly locking up with more than a few tabs. FF might be better for older, low end machines but now a days low end machines are shipping with 4GB and modest machines will have 8.

In my main rig, I have 8 currently, and would need to replace it all to upgrade (4x 2GB DIMMs) and presently can't afford to build a new one for at least a few months. I do not want a browser to waste 4GB where it would be 1 with all the bloat stripped out.

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#45

Post by blueskin_ »

ck2 wrote: post #14
blueskin_ wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, now what happens when they do a google and stealth remove that feature? (cf: The option to have the tab close button on the right, the status bar, the option to disable javascript, the option to have tabs in a sane place instead of on top...) Somehow, I doubt disabling multiple processes will be within the scope of an addon.

You can switch to Palemoon, Waterfox, Cyberfox, or one of the other forks that still run all the extensions? Firefox is not for lack of options, I'd say it is the *nix of the browser world. ps. You can also solve all of the tab issues with TabMixPlus and the UI issues with ClassicThemeRestorer - my Firefox 33 looks virtually identical to Firefox 4

Yeah, I've already done that - Status4Evar, Classic Theme Restorer, Old Location Bar, Switch To Tab No More, Show Go!, etc. My point is I shouldn't need that many addons to get a normal browser out of the mess firefox is becoming.

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#46

Post by blinkingled »

taeric wrote: post #40
blinkingled wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes sandboxing possible which is a huge security win and the reason I still use Chrome where I can. RAM is cheap and browsers 64-bit so a bunch of extra memory in the name of security is not a big deal really. At least that's how I see it.

I'm curious how huge of a security win it really is. The vast majority of exploits that I hear about would still be possible. Especially since phishing is by far the weakest link in any model. I mean, sure, it sounds great to say things are sandboxed. But when the actual exploits either a) root the machine, or b) targeted the user directly, it seems that protecting tabs from each other really doesn't do much.

It is way harder to exploit a machine through a properly sandboxed process. Sandboxing restricts the process's access to filesystem and network. On Linux for example seccomp can restrict the number of system calls the process can make which further reduces the attack surface greatly. So to exploit a OS vulnerability through a sandboxed process you also need to exploit a vulnerability in sandboxing itself. That's significant.

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#47

Post by lern_too_spel »

blueskin_ wrote: post #12
taeric wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think performance is often overblown on this as well. However, I don't think the overhead from task switching will really enter into it. If you have hundreds of tabs open that are trying to do work, that is work that was having to be done regardless. Meaning they would already be thrashing. Now, that will just be in a different way. Otherwise, if you are idling most of those processes, they should be the same as be…

Firefox: Averages ~5MB/tab (200 tabs, 1GB memory) Chrome: Anywhere from 50MB/tab up. A much better performance fix would be to suspend javascript execution on tabs that aren't visible.

On Chrome, the OS can page all those other tabs to disk without affecting performance of the current tab. On Firefox, you're going to feel it.

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#49

Post by taeric »

icebraining wrote: post #42
taeric wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious how huge of a security win it really is. The vast majority of exploits that I hear about would still be possible. Especially since phishing is by far the weakest link in any model. I mean, sure, it sounds great to say things are sandboxed. But when the actual exploits either a) root the machine, or b) targeted the user directly, it seems that protecting tabs from each other really doesn't do much.

It's not about protecting the tabs from each other; when you separate the tasks into different containers, you can apply strong limits to what each can do, which makes it harder to "root the machine". For example, see the Chromium docs: http://www.chromium.org/developers/design-documents/multi-pr...

I see, this is more about sandboxing the renderer. Not necessarily sandboxing the tabs. Right? Curious if one really required the other.

And, still, kind of amusing that the entire point of the browser is that it is sandboxed from the whole computer. Seems if we just restricted what the browser was capable of as a whole, we'd be there.

Re: Electrolysis – run web content in a separate process from Firefox

#50

Post by tonyplee »

blueskin_ wrote: post #12
taeric wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think performance is often overblown on this as well. However, I don't think the overhead from task switching will really enter into it. If you have hundreds of tabs open that are trying to do work, that is work that was having to be done regardless. Meaning they would already be thrashing. Now, that will just be in a different way. Otherwise, if you are idling most of those processes, they should be the same as be…

Firefox: Averages ~5MB/tab (200 tabs, 1GB memory) Chrome: Anywhere from 50MB/tab up. A much better performance fix would be to suspend javascript execution on tabs that aren't visible.

Hmmm, I have 10 tabs now and Mac's "Activity Monitor" shows FF is using 571MB of RAM.

Not sure about the ~5MB/tab figure.... This is FF 32.0.

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