Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster • Hacker News Board

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#121

Post by toyg » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

jonnytran wrote: post #90

butz wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would be great if Firefox set up monthly donations system on Patreon, OpenCollective or similar platform, and all donations would go directly to browser development.

I would totally pay a yearly subscription to support Firefox, ideally giving me access to hosted features like Firefox Send (end-to-end encrypted sending of files). I realize that people who would do so are a minority. But maybe that would help solidify the idea that, while Chrome is for Google, Firefox is for its users.

A bunch of random ideas:

- partner with Dropbox to offer an integrated web-based filesystem and other file-oriented stuff like Send.

- partner with bitwarden or 1Password to provide integrated authentication - the web desperately needs an open competitor to Google/Fb/Apple in this area, I’d definitely pay for this. They could probably just repurpose Persona.

- rebrand Pocket (which, let’s be honest, has pissed off too many people to ever succeed) and use it to build something like old del.icio.us, targeted to (web) developers.

- make containers more mainstream. The FB-container addon is wildly popular, surely there are other applications that could be baked in.

All these should be optional services that can be turned on, never again we should see the corrupted practices that gave us Pocket.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#122

Post by riffraff » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 7:32 PM UTC

foobiekr wrote: post #43

SubiculumCode wrote: post #25

I believe in Mozilla.and their products. as much as they need to get their admin/ceo pay down.as much as they need to adjust the new Android Firefox UI Unless there is another foundation with a browser promoting a free and open internet, my vote will always remain with them.

The problem with your view is that the purpose of most nonprofits, as revealed by their actual spending, is to act as a well-paying job for their administrators and a volunteer/exploitation scheme. They aren’t really about the mission. This is as clear as it could be for Mozilla.

don't the USA have regulations for non-profits to spend a significant part of their income on their mission?

Of course, this doesn't mean it's well spent, but it means some non insignificant part of the money benefits someone else.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#123

Post by squarefoot » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 7:38 PM UTC

ThePhysicist wrote: post #74

squarefoot wrote: post #66

They well deserve some donations, and I just sent some quid, but would also buy some merchandise for me and gifts for friends/relatives if shipping costs make it worth, but apparently there's no way to purchase from them. A search brought some sites selling Mozilla branded items, but I'd like to be sure the money, or most of it, goes to the Mozilla Foundation. Any suggestions? Thanks.

It seems the Mozilla foundation don't use donations for Firefox development though: https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/comments/a98gmi/donations_t...

That is bad, I hoped to be able to help in some way. They're underestimating how much their logo and a short description could help to boost the product adoption.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#124

Post by chrisseaton » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 7:53 PM UTC

antibland wrote: post #106

It's sad how these valuable optimizations are unknown to the average person. When I hear "the browser" discussed in almost any parlance, the implication is Chrome. It's rare to even hear someone say "Chrome," as it's the defacto choice for the non-mobile web. Convenience breeds ignorance.

> It's sad how these valuable optimizations are unknown to the average person.

Does the average person really need to understand JIT optimisations?

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#125

Post by openfuture » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 7:53 PM UTC

justaguy88 wrote: post #68

Is there any way to directly donate to firefox (and not other mozilla related things)?

Maybe some of those fired engineers could fork it. I'd pay 5$ a month for a non-google organization that is not lead by Marissa and is developing an open browser.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#126

Post by Nextgrid » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC

skybrian wrote: post #112

antibland wrote: post #106

It's sad how these valuable optimizations are unknown to the average person. When I hear "the browser" discussed in almost any parlance, the implication is Chrome. It's rare to even hear someone say "Chrome," as it's the defacto choice for the non-mobile web. Convenience breeds ignorance.

A 10-15% speed bump in CPU performance is certainly nice but in most cases it's not going to be something that users are consciously aware of. Web page performance varies a lot due to network performance, new versions of websites being deployed, different ads being served, and so on. This noise obscures things enough that it probably won't be easy to attribute a change in performance to the browser if you're not look…

If they want to actually improve user experience they can always include uBlock Origin by default - its permissive license should allow this just fine.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#127

Post by toyg » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 7:57 PM UTC

mumblemumble wrote: post #116

toyg wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is catastrophism. If Mozilla can make a browser that developers enjoy using as daily driver, developers will make stuff for it. If Mozilla can build bridges with framework makers, frameworks will work just fine. They just need to regain some of the focus that was squandered on too many moonshots and hazardous choices (FFOS, Pocket, etc).

I think that that may no longer be enough. The elephant in the room is the Web taking over non-Web apps. If Electron is part of your deployment surface, you can't escape Chromium. If Cordova is part of your deployment surface, it's Chromium or WebKit. A nice UI on the dev tools is nice, but I imagine most people would take an acceptable UI over a nice one if the acceptable one is how you get a development environment…

I’m old enough to remember a time when developers couldn’t “escape” Internet Explorer 5. It took years of guerrilla but slowly things changed (yeah yeah, MS dropped the ball, but even after they picked it up FF was doing just fine). Marketshare is just one element in a complex story, and Electron is just one platform - although I agree that producing an “Electron killer” should probably be very high on the list of priorities.

(And I still think FFOS was a silly move, because Mozilla will never be able to match the industrial muscle that FAANG can field. Mozilla on mobile can only succeed either by pushing harder to the court of public opinion (i.e. lobbying antitrust authorities to force Apple and Google to open up), or by partnering with another giant who wants to compete and can do the heavy lifting (Amazon, or FB, since Microsoft seems to have joined the monoculture for good).)

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#128

Post by hutzlibu » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 7:58 PM UTC

lewisjoe wrote: post #117

toyg wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is catastrophism. If Mozilla can make a browser that developers enjoy using as daily driver, developers will make stuff for it. If Mozilla can build bridges with framework makers, frameworks will work just fine. They just need to regain some of the focus that was squandered on too many moonshots and hazardous choices (FFOS, Pocket, etc).

This is exactly what bothered me when I heard parts of Mozilla Devtools team were let go in the recent layoffs. It's as if they don't get the equation at all. Better devtools = More developers = More testing = Smoother website = More market share.

I doubt they get it. Otherwise they would have seriously invested in firefox dev tools years ago, when allmost every web dev switched to chrome. Instead off Firefox with firebug before that.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#129

Post by Miraste » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 8:13 PM UTC

HashingtheCode wrote: post #102

danso wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The repo's members page [0] shows 9 users, and the first bullet point on its features page [1] is: LibreWolf is compiled directly from the latest build of Firefox Stable. You will have the the latest features, and security updates. . You believe a small group of well-intentioned volunteers can continue the work of building and iterating a modern web browser were Firefox development to end today? [0] https://gitlab.co…

It's possible, maybe not very likely but possible. Depends what happens to FF.

No, it's not. Mozilla has 750 employees (not all of whom work on the browser, but still) and hundreds of millions of dollars and they're constantly struggling to keep up with Chrome. 9 part-time devs cannot do this.

Re: Firefox's JIT is getting significantly faster

#130

Post by Miraste » Fri, Sep 25, 2020, 8:16 PM UTC

yjftsjthsd-h wrote: post #97

bambam24 wrote: post #71

The question for firefox was never been is it fast. The question for firefox was always “why its using 10GB RAM?”

I've literally seen people commenting that they don't use firefox because chrome seems faster. (...and also, how on earth did you get it to use that much memory? I'm sitting over 500 tabs, albeit mostly unloaded, and 6 extensions, on a system with only 6GB installed)

If you have the ram firefox will eat it, I've seen it use well over 10 before. Chromiums do the same thing, though.