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Multiprocess Firefox

developer.mozilla.org

161–170 of 171 posts

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#161
post #73
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…

> 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?

Ever since the dialup era, when all we had was "open in new window", I would browse by reading down a page and opening interesting-looking links in new windows and letting them load while carrying on with the original page.

Tabs are a good LIFO stack of things which are currently "live", or at least not dealt with yet. It's easier to navigate than history or bookmarks. You could argue that at some point tabs should "spill" into bookmarks, but that requires making a decision.

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#162

Now if I can only fix the wobbly address bar that changes size depending on Back/Forward availability.

Can you please post a bug (with screenshots, list of add-ons installed, and any custom browser css tweaks) to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ and CC :callahad in Bugzilla? Those sorts of fit-and-finish bugs really bother me, and I'd love to figure out how we can fix that one for you.

Thanks for the offer. But I believe that the decision to remove the Forward button when there is no 'Forward' history was a design decision. Unfortunately, it has the unpleasant effect of resizing the address bar as well. So as you click through tabs, or click links, the address bar keeps resiing depending on the state of the history in that tab.

These 'design' decisions are quite silly IMHO. But I will find the original bug report and CC you on it.

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#163

Now if I can only fix the wobbly address bar that changes size depending on Back/Forward availability.

Can you please post a bug (with screenshots, list of add-ons installed, and any custom browser css tweaks) to https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ and CC :callahad in Bugzilla? Those sorts of fit-and-finish bugs really bother me, and I'd love to figure out how we can fix that one for you.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=748291

Here is one of several you get when you search for 'Forward' button

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#164
I hope this doesn't lead to the overhead seen in Chrome. The overhead is constant and all the time; the browser is far from crashing all the time. I'm honestly very skeptic about the tradeoff here. And with the move to HTML5 and away from binaries ran by a browser engine, I'm unsure about the necessity due to current security issues in modern browsers too. The security nightmares in browsers always seem to have been related to ActiveX, NPAPI, running black boxes in general.

I actually think this was a far better idea (but ironically unthought of) during the days of ActiveX and a much less sensible idea today in 2015.

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(I'm a program manager on Mozilla's video team, so I'm definitely interested in your YouTube problems. :) YouTube playback is common user complaint, but it can be very configuration dependent.) When you say the browser freezes, is it permanently deadlocked or does the video eventually start playing? Firefox 38 on Linux does not support MSE (Media Source Extensions), so YouTube's HTML5 video player can't use adaptive…

Nope, it starts playing after a bit. I'm afraid I won't be at my desktop, where this is more egregious, for about a week, but I'll investigate and reply again when I'm back. It does sound like the problem is what you describe, although I think I'm running Aurora on the desktop.

Thanks for your help. Feel free to contact me at cpeterson at mozilla dot com if you have more details or questions.

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#168
I've been using Chrome since Paul Irish started working on the Dev Tools. I used to have crashes when i had 120 tabs, but with Flashblock and uBlock i've had none.

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#169
post #115
post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :/

It depends which process crashes. Usually and rare a sub-process crash which means a few tabs need a page reload. If your main process crash (which should be very very rare) then I would suspect you have a faulty memory module in your device or you have little free memory or your operating system has not optimal scheduler (e.g. server OS on a desktop).

"Little free memory" means that Chrome has eaten all my ram though.

Chrome is really lagging behind Firefox in this, as it has no backgrounding / unloading process that I'm aware of to maintain a reasonable memory footprint.

It also attempts to render every tab at once when restoring after a crash - another obvious problem.

Re: Multiprocess Firefox

#170

I hate FLASH when using with firefox. This is great news for all Flash-Hater :)

Why is it so? Flash is already in a separate process since '11 or '12 and I don't think electrolysis will bring any benefit in that regard.

Yes, but if there is a reason for Firefox to crash, it's due to the Flash Plugin.
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