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Firefox fixes save gigabytes of memory on image-heavy pages

blog.mozilla.org

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Re: Firefox fixes save gigabytes of memory on image-heavy pages

#191

Post by sergiosgc »

Peaker wrote: post #146
jimmaswell wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox's UI is the most customizable of any browser that I know of. You can really make it into almost anything you want. My example: http://i.imgur.com/aMgQBgW.png very clean and functional.

I couldn't find any customization that removed window decorations in Linux. I found ones for Windows only. Also, I got the (subjective) feeling that Firefox was becoming sluggish as I had 6-7 addons. I might be wrong, but that would mean Firefox is sluggish in general.

If you can't do it through extensions, you may be able to remove window decorations using the window manager. The configuration is dependent on the specific window manager that you are using, but it should be possible.

Re: Firefox fixes save gigabytes of memory on image-heavy pages

#192

Post by sergiosgc »

jeltz wrote: post #106
culshaw wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

really? I have about 20 tabs open on Chrome now with no lag, with one tab open in Firefox my whole system grinds to a halt.

I am addicted to tabs and have 260 tabs (yes, I have a problem) open and running smoothly in Firefox. That was not possible in Chromium last time I used it. Firefox currently uses about 3GB memory, which means I have plenty of memory left on my computer. So I do not think memory usage in the general case is so bad for Firefox and neither is scalability or performance. The problem Firefox historically has had and stil…

What kind of usage pattern leads to 260 tabs? It's a genuine question, don't take it the wrong way.

You can't possibly have your attention spread over a hundred sites at a time. Are you using them as bookmarks?

Re: Firefox fixes save gigabytes of memory on image-heavy pages

#193

Post by option_greek »

sliverstorm wrote: post #185
option_greek wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Threads can use multiple cores as well. No need to launch separate process for it.

Ah yes, of course. I should have remembered that. So Firefox is multi-threaded now?

As far as I know, it has always been. Unlike javascript which usually runs in a single thread, the browser itself is free to use as many background threads as it wants to load resources, render graphics etc. Only javascript is usually run as single thread per tab (unless the webpage uses web workers).

Re: Firefox fixes save gigabytes of memory on image-heavy pages

#194

Post by halviti »

velodrome wrote: post #159
vectorjohn wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has been a myth floating around since the early days of Chrome. I am and have for a long time been a big fan of Chrome, but it has never been light weight. It's just fast so people think of it that way. But you've always been able to check on the memory usage of tabs and see it just eating up your memory.

I agree. Chrome has NEVER been lightweight in terms of memory. Each tab is in its own sandbox environment. It will need to load resources separately for each sandbox and that chews up memory. Chrome may be inefficient with memory but I could manage this by closing the tab. Firefox would retain the memory even after the tab has been closed for some time. Firefox is a lot better these days.

Just closing the tab isn't enough to release that memory though.

Lets say you have 200 tabs open, check your computers memory usage, close all of the tabs but one and see how much your memory usage drops. Then close that last tab (or fully quit the program on a mac), and see how much memory you get back.

I typically get about 1/4-1/2 of my total RAM back after closing the program entirely.

Re: Firefox fixes save gigabytes of memory on image-heavy pages

#195

Post by Derbasti »

cpeterso wrote: post #166
Derbasti wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, it is time. I switched back about a year ago, when Firefox started to not be painful any more, but still was a step back from Chrome. Some tabs would still cause stuttering in the whole app and sometimes scrolling was less than smooth. These days however, I have not noticed any of these things for months in Firefox. Really I can't recommend it enough!

> For me, it is time. I switched back about a year ago, when Firefox started to not be painful any more, but still was a step back from Chrome. What was the tipping point that prompted you to switch back to Firefox? Was Firefox able to import your Chrome history and bookmarks without losing anything?

I regularly compared browsing performance. I looked at how fast websites were loading and how fluidly they scrolled. Initially, I switched from FF to Chrome because it was so much faster. But then FF improved, while Chrome got worse and worse. So at some point, I switched back.

I never accrued much state in any browser. A handful of bookmarks is all I keep. All the rest is in several services that are independent of the browser. So I don't know about syncing, really. That said, I have since learned to love FF sync, which not only syncs bookmarks and plugins, but also the history and passwords. I even use it with Firefox Mobile on my Android.

Re: Firefox fixes save gigabytes of memory on image-heavy pages

#196

Post by bosie »

Peaker wrote: post #143
ahoge wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Bad use of screen-space Slightly customized Firefox 24: 54 [1] Chrome 31: 61 IE10: 55 [2] Opera 12: 61 [1] http://i.imgur.com/eBiIZHc.png (Also, no close button on tabs and they shrink down to the size of pinned tabs. All other browsers do that shrinking stuff by default. There used to be a property for that, but one developer decided to remove it. Now you need a custom userChrome.css and other voodoo.) [2] Sounds…

The customizations that allow disappearing the window decorations work only on Windows, as far as I could find. Also, Firefox requires losing the bookmarks tab completely, whereas Chrome has a saner default of having it appear in new/empty tabs.

I am not sure what you are talking about. what does 'window decorations' mean?

Here is a screenshot of how my firefox23 window looks like under Ubuntu/KDE4.

http://i.imgur.com/KnLTDZJ.jpg

Re: Firefox fixes save gigabytes of memory on image-heavy pages

#197

Post by vacri »

culshaw wrote: post #36
dbaupp wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends how you use it: e.g. I normally have many many tabs open, and Firefox handles that much better on my system than Chromium.

really? I have about 20 tabs open on Chrome now with no lag, with one tab open in Firefox my whole system grinds to a halt.

20 represents an extreme slimming down for me. I usually run somewhere between 80 and 200 spread across a couple of windows, but can often go above. I installed a tab counter in FF just for fun. I'm not sure what site you have open in your one FF tab, but it must be a very specific one.

Re: Firefox fixes save gigabytes of memory on image-heavy pages

#198

Post by Peaker »

sergiosgc wrote: post #191
Peaker wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't find any customization that removed window decorations in Linux. I found ones for Windows only. Also, I got the (subjective) feeling that Firefox was becoming sluggish as I had 6-7 addons. I might be wrong, but that would mean Firefox is sluggish in general.

If you can't do it through extensions, you may be able to remove window decorations using the window manager. The configuration is dependent on the specific window manager that you are using, but it should be possible.

In Chrome it Just Works...

Firefox has had years to catch up to Chrome with these issues, why haven't they?

Re: Firefox fixes save gigabytes of memory on image-heavy pages

#199

Post by eevee »

Peaker wrote: post #146
jimmaswell wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox's UI is the most customizable of any browser that I know of. You can really make it into almost anything you want. My example: http://i.imgur.com/aMgQBgW.png very clean and functional.

I couldn't find any customization that removed window decorations in Linux. I found ones for Windows only. Also, I got the (subjective) feeling that Firefox was becoming sluggish as I had 6-7 addons. I might be wrong, but that would mean Firefox is sluggish in general.

As I understand it, windows are responsible for drawing their own window decorations on Windows and OS X, but on X they're drawn by the window manager. So it's harder to mess with the title bar because you're starting from nothing and don't even know which of a dozen decoration engines is actually being used. Upside is that decorations are remarkably consistent under X.

Wayland matches the Windows/OS X behavior (probably because it's easier to just accelerate one big rectangular canvas the process draws on), so who knows what will happen as that catches on.

Re: Firefox fixes save gigabytes of memory on image-heavy pages

#200

Post by jimmaswell »

antimatter wrote: post #121
jimmaswell wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firefox's UI is the most customizable of any browser that I know of. You can really make it into almost anything you want. My example: http://i.imgur.com/aMgQBgW.png very clean and functional.

This is great. Mind sharing any extensions used?

Sorry I took a while, but here: App Button Remove the RSS reader in the top-right is Digest The rest is just moving stuff around/removing stuff with the built-in customization reachable by right-clicking blank space at the top. An even more vertical-space saving configuration I use is putting the URL bar up with the tabs - in that case I remove the extra stuff from it like that star with another extension I forget the name of, but it's easy to find.
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