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Multiprocess Firefox

developer.mozilla.org

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Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#101

Post by grimman »

xixixao wrote: post #98
rexf wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of UI stuff, how do you find a tab among a thousand? When the tab page title shrinks and all I see is favicon, I feel lost.

You can of course search open tabs from the address bar. But at least my workflow is to browse through the old tabs and read / close one by one. Also in Firefox the tabs never shrink to just favicon, the tab heads become a scrollable list. Much better than Chrome imo.

Unless you specifically tweak the UI to enable really small tabs, which is among the first things I do on a fresh install. Favicon + a small number of pixels for padding, way way less than Google allows me to get away with! Slap on a bunch of tab groups and I'm set.

I'm quite comfortable with a tab group filled to the point where the tab bar only displays favicons, but hasn't gotten to the point where it lets me scroll yet. That way I can rely on spatial memory to get to the right tab, without necessarily seeing the title!

Of course, searching for the right tab is an option, just like you said. I love the fact that Firefox also activates the correct tab group automatically.

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#102

Post by jc123 »

frik wrote: post #96
pllbnk wrote: post #71

From the experience I've had with Chrome, I would say that process per tab is overhead. Sure, there are some benefits from having a few processes that are managing different parts of the system, but not hundreds of processes just for browsing. The way I use Firefox is that having 50 or more tabs open is normal for me, sometimes there are even hundreds of them. Currently Firefox works great and although there are some…

"There are multiple competing factors when it comes to choosing the right number of processes. - For security, more processes is better; one per tab is probably ideal. - For crash protection, ditto. - For responsiveness, one process per CPU core is probably best. - For memory usage, one process is probably best." as a dev wrote in the mailing list: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/mozilla.dev.platform... For v…

With crashes, though rare in Chrome, when one does happen it usually kills all my Chrome windows instead of a single tab as is touted :/

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#103

Post by barnacs »

PythonicAlpha wrote: post #13

The multiprocess feature was one of the main reasons, I switched to Chrome in the first place. I think, it is just a good idea to keep the things separated, so one tab can not stop the whole browser. Today, the browser more and more becomes that, which was called "operating system" some years ago. Many applications today run just from the browser and instead of switching apps, you switch the tabs.... So, it is just a…

I don't think they've solved it.

I also switched to Chromium a few years ago because it felt way more responsive at the time. Then slowly over time it grew into this beast using over 7GB of memory for my ~50 reasonable tabs (nothing extreme, mostly articles) and it started thrashing my system.

I've just recently switched back to Firefox and opened the exact same tabs: it's using 1.25GB. It feels a little slower at times but well within my requirements of usability. I refuse to waste all my memory for some text in a browser.

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#104

Post by vegedor »

_wmd wrote: post #45
forrestthewoods wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Exactly like that. Firefox is damn near a full decade behind the curve.

Multiprocess isn't some magical panacea, its use is essentially to contain buggy code which shouldn't exist in the first place (this is true for its use as introducing extra security context for page content as well as its improvements to robustness against hangs). In both instances, a safer implementation language, or moving rendering and JS interpretation off the UI thread could be said to be far more elegant solut…

servo is a research project and will not necessarily replace gecko anytime soon.

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#105

Post by nicolasp »

scottjad wrote: post #89
sebcat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way I use Firefox is that having 50 or more tabs open is normal for me I've never understood this. Isn't that what bookmarks are for?

I currently have 2014 tabs in my session (almost all unloaded, using around 2GB of ram that I wouldn't use otherwise). I had 1600 tabs a few days ago. They are links I clicked on in other apps or browsed to over the past few months. When I get a chance to plow through a few dozen/hundred of these tabs I can read/view them and close them very quickly. Notice all the UI stuff I don't have to do: I never had to perform…

How do you find out the number of open tabs?

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#106

Post by revenz »

barnacs wrote: post #100
rexf wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In terms of UI stuff, how do you find a tab among a thousand? When the tab page title shrinks and all I see is favicon, I feel lost.

I don't quite have that many tabs open but I find that grouping tabs into separate browser windows and taking advantage of your window manager goes a long way.

ctrl-shift-e should open a canvas like area where you can group tabs. Similar to a file folder, I prefer it to bookmarks

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#107

Post by Gmo »

scottjad wrote: post #89
sebcat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way I use Firefox is that having 50 or more tabs open is normal for me I've never understood this. Isn't that what bookmarks are for?

I currently have 2014 tabs in my session (almost all unloaded, using around 2GB of ram that I wouldn't use otherwise). I had 1600 tabs a few days ago. They are links I clicked on in other apps or browsed to over the past few months. When I get a chance to plow through a few dozen/hundred of these tabs I can read/view them and close them very quickly. Notice all the UI stuff I don't have to do: I never had to perform…

Wow, I thought I was in the top "tabbers" with my 300 tabs or so (well, 300 at work and 300 at home), but I see I am far from that !

Nonetheless, that's why I like firefox, I can do that, not so possible with Chrome. So like other said, I really really hope that they take into account this use case.

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#108

Post by kasabali »

hil wrote: post #82
sebcat wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The way I use Firefox is that having 50 or more tabs open is normal for me I've never understood this. Isn't that what bookmarks are for?

It's called tab hoarding and it's a mental disorder, I have it too.

I'm also a very heavy tab user but I refuse to call it a mental disorder. It is simply an aspect of a workflow among another dime dozen. Web page hoarding may be a disorder though, but in this case it'll be disorder regardless of you're piling them on tabs, bookmarks or Pocket.

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#109

Post by tete »

monk_e_boy wrote: post #95
Caelish wrote: post #17

In between e10s, Servo, and the new developer theme in the current Nightly, I feel like Firefox is finally starting to become more competitive to other browsers again. I switched to Chrome because it seemed like Firefox was becoming more and more dated in comparison, both in terms of technology and UI. I still have some gripes with Firefox at the moment, but I'm beginning to seriously consider switching back. This is…

The chrome dev tools are way better than in Firefox. It was a reluctant change for me, but my productivity in chrome is way higher.

I had the same experience though I have to admit that some things in Firefox are better these days, like checking where an event comes from, going really deep into objects, referencing other objects, comparing rather big objects.

The only thing I really miss is a view WebSocket frames. In many other cases I ended up preferring Firefox Dev Tools which I think while a bit harder to get into are more powerful.

But that might really relate to what precisely one is doing. I am not a web designer.

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#110

Post by barnacs »

revenz wrote: post #106
barnacs wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't quite have that many tabs open but I find that grouping tabs into separate browser windows and taking advantage of your window manager goes a long way.

ctrl-shift-e should open a canvas like area where you can group tabs. Similar to a file folder, I prefer it to bookmarks

Interesting, but seems to be very basic. I still prefer using a wm. I can use different layouts, group windows into hierarchies, display them side by side, take advantage of tiling, use workspaces and have configurable keys for each of these actions. You know, functions that a wm is built for.

And I can always switch to a different wm altogether if I'm not comfortable.

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