Multi-process Firefox brings 400-700% improvement in responsiveness • Hacker News Board

Re: Multi-process Firefox brings 400-700% improvement in responsiveness

#281

Post by newscracker » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:15 AM UTC

Angostura wrote: post #72

rsp1984 wrote: post #19

“We can learn from the competition,” said Dotzler. “The way they implemented multi-process is RAM-intensive, it can get out of hand. We are learning from them and building an architecture that doesn’t eat all your RAM.” That's the money quote here. I've been waiting for this for a long time actually. Every browser I've tried except Firefox just basically eats all my RAM and other app performance (e.g. compiling stuff…

If you're on Mac, Safari is good in terms of both memory and cpu.

Safari is my favorite on the Mac since it's quite lean (memory wise, CPU wise and energy consumption wise) and responsive. But I miss extensions from Firefox and don't use Safari if I have to work with several tabs and windows. There are several little things that make using Firefox much better for my experience.

Firefox is my favorite browser overall (especially on other OSes), considering its smaller memory footprint and lack of sluggishness with tons of tabs (compared to Chrome) and the fact that it's from Mozilla, a company I hugely respect and admire (even with some of the missteps that have happened in some aspects in the past few years).

Re: Multi-process Firefox brings 400-700% improvement in responsiveness

#282

Post by newscracker » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:23 AM UTC

mnarayan01 wrote: post #161

mintplant wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you given the built-in Firefox dev tools a try? If so, what did you feel was missing?

Really just that I've used Firebug for so long that using anything else is painful . I've tried switching but always ended up going back. Much of it is interface differences, but some of it is actual differences in functionality: if Firebug has something which another inspector does not, then it's super-frustrating. If another inspector has something that Firebug lacks, then I don't even notice. Edit: I should emphas…

Though you're used to Firebug and find it convenient, it might be worth looking at something else once in a while to see what else is out there (especially if you're not using addons on top of Firebug to enhance it). Perhaps you could have a look at Firefox Developer Edition and try it. [1]

[1]: https://developer.mozilla.org/Firefox/Developer_Edition

Re: Multi-process Firefox brings 400-700% improvement in responsiveness

#283

Post by nirvdrum » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:24 AM UTC

brokenmachine wrote: post #277

nirvdrum wrote: post #250

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've reached a point where a lot of consumer hardware simply can't be upgraded. The ideal of just adding more RAM isn't possible (or perhaps practical in many cases). MBPs can't be upgraded at all these days. My Lenovo laptop can, but going 16 GB -> 32 GB requires far more than $30 since I'd need to buy 16 GB SODIMMs. That's also a bit beside the point. I have a workstation with 48 GB RAM. I left a browser running i…

The scenario you describe with one tab using 20Gb is "beside the point" and certainly an exceptional situation. I've never seen that happen... I think I've had one Firefox crash this year, and that time it wasn't using all the RAM - it was hogging 100% CPU instead. Of course the extra 2Gb might help for someone with less than 48Gb in their machine (most of us!).

Well, my point more was apps/sites that go sideways will eat as much RAM as they're allowed to. The 20 GB case was only special in that the leak rate was much higher than most. On a smaller scale, whenever my laptop fan kicked on, I knew I left a Travis tab open in the background somewhere. That was the CPU going into an aggressive GC loop due to the relatively huge amount of memory being used (2 - 4 GB).

But my original point is really that dismissing gross memory usage by saying you can buy more RAM for cheap is no longer accurate. In many cases, your machine's configuration is unchangeable. Getting an extra 2 GB RAM isn't $30, it's the cost of a brand new device. In other cases, where you might have configurable hardware, you often have to buy the largest capacity chip available and the economics get skewed. For SODIMMS, going 8 GB -> 16 GB is reasonably cheap, 16 GB -> 32 GB is fairly expensive.

I'd argue having to do a hardware upgrade for a web app in the first place is a bit silly. There's often very little reason for these apps to be so large in the first place.

Re: Multi-process Firefox brings 400-700% improvement in responsiveness

#284

Post by waterhouse » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:27 AM UTC

Lagged2Death wrote: post #101

azinman2 wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe I'm misreading things but it looks like it's been constantly getting worse since 2012?

The FAQ says: TP5 loads 100 popular webpages, served from a local webserver. I don't know if that means the test pages are up-to-date copies of real-world pages or not. On one hand, real-world pages have certainly been getting heavier, and it would bear mentioning if that fact was not reflected in this test. On the other hand the graph becomes really hard to interpret if the test suite isn't a constant.

It seems like it would be a really good idea if they also displayed a line for a baseline version of Firefox, holding the version constant so you can see how the webpages have changed.

Re: Multi-process Firefox brings 400-700% improvement in responsiveness

#285

Post by brokenmachine » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:36 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #202

chakalakasp wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is, workstation and laptop RAM is so cheap. If your browser is eating an appreciable chunk of your 16 or 32GB of RAM, you need to close some tabs.

No, it's not cheap at all, because buying the physical chips is not the end of it. For some laptops - like macbook air - there is a limit of how much they support, and it's not that high. Some models are not even upgradable - they just have soldered-in 8G and that's it. > you need to close some tabs This comment is really not contributing anything to the matter. Obviously everybody could think of closing tabs without…

If the available laptops don't support enough ram, then the consumer has spoken, and what they said was that they don't want more ram or 1000 tabs open on their laptop.

Personally I wouldn't buy a laptop that is incapable of supporting the amount of ram that I need for my "work pattern".

Re: Multi-process Firefox brings 400-700% improvement in responsiveness

#286

Post by newscracker » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:36 AM UTC

aluhut wrote: post #153

wvenable wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been a long time Firefox user (due to multi-row tab extension -- can't live without it). I can easily have 120 tabs open when doing research. Firefox has always been relatively performant even with that huge number of tabs visible and I almost never have to close it. However, something recently has changed. Firefox will work fine and then something will cause it use a large amount of CPU that it doesn't let go o…

> I've been a long time Firefox user (due to multi-row tab extension -- can't live without it). Which one do you use? There are several.

I can suggest a few for tab management:

Tab Mix Plus [1]

TooManyTabs [2]

Tree Style Tab [3]

Use one or more of these with the Session Manager [4] extension and life becomes a lot easier with several hundreds of tabs. I highly recommend looking at the configuration options provided by each of these extensions and adapting them to how you'd like them to behave. Some of these are also developed with compatibility with the other extensions in mind.

[1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tab-mix-plus/

[2]: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/toomanytabs-saves-y...

[3]: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/tree-style-tab/

[4]: https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/addon/session-manager/

Re: Multi-process Firefox brings 400-700% improvement in responsiveness

#287

Post by pvdebbe » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:44 AM UTC

nextos wrote: post #230

zobzu wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

honestly its been years now that FF is one of - if not the - browser which uses the least amount of RAM. Its also one of the most energy efficient on most platforms.. (edge is more efficient on Windows, though it does not take into account that the engine is always running even if another browser is in use)

I can second the energy efficient thing, at least in Linux. I've been tracking lots of programs with powertop, including many browsers, in the quest of an efficient desktop and Firefox is pretty good. I also appreciate its great plugins. With vimperator I can configure Firefox using a dotfile, and setup lots of neat things like: 1. A ssh proxy mode that also routes DNS queries set! network.proxy.socks=localhost set!…

On the other hand, all the inner refactorings happening to Firefox may threaten the addon ecosystem by constraining them Chrome-like. There's no telling if there'll be a vimperator for firefox 50, 55, 60. The way vi emulator addons work for Chrome, it might be a potential travesty.

Re: Multi-process Firefox brings 400-700% improvement in responsiveness

#288

Post by kuu » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:53 AM UTC

nl wrote: post #7

I switched to Firefox from Chrome about 12 months ago. It isn't as good as Chrome, but I was trying to reduce my Google dependencies. It has been mostly fine (except for an annoying OS-X multi-screen bug where it screws up the sizing). I was really looking forward to this feature to help close the gap on Chrome performance. Until August (I think Firefox 48.x), when it became unusable on any site with... something. I'…

I have the same problem in Windows 10, since a month or two (I think since v48) something seems to be broken... Sometimes the browser will freeze or some sites take too long to load properly...

Re: Multi-process Firefox brings 400-700% improvement in responsiveness

#289

Post by hueving » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:56 AM UTC

wongarsu wrote: post #179

1ris wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hardware does not get exponetially better. Maybe it did in 90ties and 00ers. Right now hardwardware gets slimmer, less power consuming and cheaper. But not better. My 12 year old (then mid-end gaming pc) is pretty much exactly as fast as my current, 2(?) year old office machine. (x264 and other mulit-threaed cpu benchbmarks) But it costs a fraction and uses next to no energy. /edit: Yes this is wrong. I made a mistak…

An extremely low-energy atom, that runs at half the frequency might have about the same performance as a top-of the line 12-year old Pentium 4, but that's not a meaningful comparison in my eyes, considering that we still have high-end gaming PCs today. A 11 year old Pentium 4 @3.4GHz has a passmark score of 401. A modern 2-core $40 Celeron G1840 @2.80GHz has a passmark score of 2984. And that's among the cheapest pro…

>that's not a meaningful comparison in my eyes, considering that we still have high-end gaming PCs today.

It is meaningful when you consider what the average user is purchasing. Back then you had to purchase good stuff to run the latest office apps, etc. It was common that the only thing needed to get a friend into the gaming world was the purchase of a graphics card. Now most casual users do not have anything close to what is offered in high-end gaming PCs.

Re: Multi-process Firefox brings 400-700% improvement in responsiveness

#290

Post by zaynetro » Wed, Sep 07, 2016, 5:58 AM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #100

alyandon wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm currently at a little over 1 GB with 8 tabs open. I really wish I had the option to trade off responsiveness for memory usage by being able to mark tabs as "no background activity allowed" so FF could serialize that content to disk when the tab isn't in focus.

There are several addons that do this. I think Suspend Tab is the most popular. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/suspend-tab/

There is also Auto Unload Tab https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/auto-unload-t...