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

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

#341

Post by nl » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 9:38 AM UTC

charlee wrote: post #149

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 this exact same problem, in fact I could have written your comment word-for-word. I also cannot reproduce it reliably, but it started in August. I also switched from Chrome, but for slightly different reasons...I got to thinking about Google, and Chrome,and ad-blocking, and it occurred to me that Chrome will probably never allow extensions on Android, not because it's technically not possible, but because ad-b…

Just an update - I did the "refresh profile" thing suggested here, and I've been 2 days without lock-ups.

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

#342

Post by smsm42 » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 5:28 PM UTC

dingo_bat wrote: post #340

smsm42 wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That you for your evaluation of my buying decisions! With absolutely no information except one data point about memory side you were able to conclude they were bad, this is remarkable. Has nothing to do with the point in question (that memory capabilities aren't nearly growing exponentially, not lately) but still very remarkable insight.

I assumed your workplace made the decision and not you. Sorry for appearing to criticize your decisions. I'm still curious why you downgraded to a machine with less memory.

Because they don't make Macbook Air with more memory. 8G is the maximum.

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

#343

Post by alexbecker » Thu, Sep 08, 2016, 6:50 PM UTC

bwat48 wrote: post #329

alexbecker wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've actually had the opposite experience. I work on Firefox support for a very heavy Angular2 app, and I usually see 2-3x faster reflows on OS X (and Windows) than on Linux, and faster paints too (although I haven't taken exact numbers, since reflows are the bottleneck). It seems that at least the graphics pipeline is much better optimized for OS X/Windows than Linux.

This is definitely true when it comes to graphics, linux is the redheaded step child when it comes to the graphics stack. Afaik firefox still doesn't have OpenGL accelerated compositing (at least not enabled in stable builds yet) on linux On OSX and Windows it has hardware accelerated compositing, video decoding, canvas etc...

I don't know whether it has accelerated compositing, but in my experience compositing is relatively cheap compared to painting the layers or especially layout. That may be an artifact of the app I work on being poorly composited, however.

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

#344

Post by dingo_bat » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 3:55 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #342

dingo_bat wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I assumed your workplace made the decision and not you. Sorry for appearing to criticize your decisions. I'm still curious why you downgraded to a machine with less memory.

Because they don't make Macbook Air with more memory. 8G is the maximum.

But this renders your original point moot. Memory is still growing, you just chose a lower end laptop. Obviously you would see it decrease. For me, my previous laptop had 8GB and the current one has 16GB. Exponential increase.

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

#345

Post by gareim » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 5:46 AM UTC

rasz_pl wrote: post #339

gareim wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree that I would rather my browser use more RAM than constantly suspend pages, I disagree with your notion that >A lot of the improvement in the reliability of consumer grade SSDs is due to OS improvements in how they manage their write operations to the hard drive. We're talking on the scale of writing 500gb to your SSD every single day for 10 years in order to reach their endurance limit (on average). Wri…

last time I checked most SSD come with ~72TB warranty. Go above that and you are sol.

And my $800 phone has a 1 year warranty. What's your point? That warranties should equal how long a device actually lasts on average?

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

#346

Post by brokenmachine » Wed, Sep 14, 2016, 12:52 AM UTC

smsm42 wrote: post #337

brokenmachine wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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".

I want a laptop of infinite memory, infinite disk space, battery size so big I have to charge it once a decade and that it's cost me $10. But clearly not all consumer wishes are possible. There are some tradeoffs, and one has to operate within the constraints of reality, not wishes. > Personally I wouldn't buy a laptop that is incapable of supporting the amount of ram that I need for my "work pattern". Clearly you've…

I just mean doing due diligence before you buy something that it will actually be able to do what you intend to use it for. I wouldn't buy a laptop with non-upgradeable and insufficient RAM. I don't think most consumers do that. They just buy a brand name because they can't be bothered learning how it works or what they actually need.

Of course I have tradeoffs to deal with... But yes, I do have it figured out. Thanks.