Firefox fights Back

[Chiefcrowe]

Interesting read... definitely hoping for good things in the future and also hope that the new extension architecture changes aren't too painful...

https://www.cnet.com/special-reports/mozilla-firefox-fights-back-against-google-chrome

A blog about more of the changes coming up in more detail:
https://dolske.wordpress.com/category/photonupdate

 

[bigboxes]

I use Firefox and a desktop, but world has moved to smartphones and tablets that come with Chrome pre-installed. I use Firefox on all my devices. Love the sync feature.

 

[VirtualLarry]

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/channel/desktop/

You can get the nightly version there, which purports to be an early-release version of Firefox 57.

TBH, doesn't seem much faster. Then again, I've got 10 threads of BOINC going, and mining on my RX 470, so not a lot of resources left for Firefox. Still, Waterfox seemed slightly faster.

Edit:: A few versions later, and accidentally double-clicking on Waterfox - yeah, the Firefox 57 nightly (64-bit) IS way faster. At least, smoother too. We're talking, "Chrome-Killer" here. Nice.

Seems to work fairly well on some lower-spec Z3735F Atom machines too, the 32-bit version.

 

[lxskllr]

I use Firefox on all my devices. Love the sync feature.

I do too, but holy shit is it ever slow and crashy. It's /almost/ too much to deal with, but the features(via addons), and philosophy keep me using it. I'm pretty happy with the desktop, but I'd love to see the android client improve.

 

[bigboxes]

I do too, but holy shit is it ever slow and crashy. It's /almost/ too much to deal with, but the features(via addons), and philosophy keep me using it. I'm pretty happy with the desktop, but I'd love to see the android client improve.

It does have issues, as I keep up to 20 tabs open at a time. I also wish every add-on worked with multiprocess. But the ability to move seemlessly from one device to another is fantastic. I leave my desktop and only have mobile available and there is my open tabs. There is my bookmarks. There is my unfinished text that I started. Hope they improve it's stability.

 

[pcslookout]

I disagree with all of you. Firefox is very stable.

 

[mikeymikec]

I initially assumed that the stability concern was with regard to the sync feature, but maybe not?

I suspect that if I checked how many browser crashes I've had (IE, Chrome, Firefox) since I did my last platform upgrade (2015), it would be less than 5 occasions. That includes a year of using Chrome as my primary browser (previously FF, now back to FF).

IMO if someone says that a major browser is having regular stability issues, there's a problem at their end rather than anything actually wrong with the browser's design. A browser crashing about twice a year with daily use is within my expectations.

Since I made FF run in a fully multi-process fashion I'd place its performance on par with Chrome (the main test I ran was the same 32-tab job on both browsers), so no concerns there.

My only problem with FF is that I haven't found a way to reliably disable video autoplay in the browser (and by reliably I mean that it should be disabled when loading the page, then one click should play the clip without question: The latter is usually the issue).

 

[lxskllr]

I initially assumed that the stability concern was with regard to the sync feature, but maybe not?

I suspect that if I checked how many browser crashes I've had (IE, Chrome, Firefox) since I did my last platform upgrade (2015), it would be less than 5 occasions. That includes a year of using Chrome as my primary browser (previously FF, now back to FF).

IMO if someone says that a major browser is having regular stability issues, there's a problem at their end rather than anything actually wrong with the browser's design. A browser crashing about twice a year with daily use is within my expectations.

I'm talking about the android client. It crashes several times per day, and has on a few platforms. Desktop never crashes.

 

[mikeymikec]

I'm talking about the android client. It crashes several times per day, and has on a few platforms. Desktop never crashes.

Ah, no real idea. I've used the Android FF client and I've never had any problems with it, but a) my Android browser use is maybe a hundredth of the time I use the desktop client for and b) I've never consistently stuck with the FF Android client for an appreciable length of time. I had an FF build with an ad blocker in for a while.

 

[lxskllr]

Ah, no real idea. I've used the Android FF client and I've never had any problems with it, but a) my Android browser use is maybe a hundredth of the time I use the desktop client for and b) I've never consistently stuck with the FF Android client for an appreciable length of time. I had an FF build with an ad blocker in for a while.

It's getting ready to crash now. First sign is the graphics and text reflow get wonky. I'm on mobile at least a solid couple hours/day, so I'm at the higher end of use. If I was more typical, it probably wouldn't be as crasharific.

 

[jcwagers]

I tend to get a lot of tabs crashing for me on the latest firefox. It very well may be my system but I usually only have a couple of tabs open and everything else seems fine. I'll be surfing along and out of nowhere "oops, your tab crashed". Anybody else had trouble with that on their desktop? I'm probably in the minority. lol

 

[whm1974]

I was unaware that Firefox had lost market share to Google Chrome. I use both, but FF is my main browser.

 

[bigboxes]

I was unaware that Firefox had lost market share to Google Chrome. I use both, but FF is my main browser.

Well, more than anything, people moved away from desktops and towards tablets and smartphones. Android comes with loaded with Chrome. So, millions of devices all with Chrome vs. older folks with underpowered desktops. (and us geeks )

 

[whm1974]

Well, more than anything, people moved away from desktops and towards tablets and smartphones. Android comes with loaded with Chrome. So, millions of devices all with Chrome vs. older folks with underpowered desktops. (and us geeks )

My Android phone is really slow with webbrowsing, almost as slow as dial-up. So there is no way in Hell I'll replace my desktop with a smartphone.

And given that we can do so much more on a desktop/notebook anyway, why would anyone trash their computer for a smartphone?

 

[bigboxes]

My Android phone is really slow with webbrowsing, almost as slow as dial-up. So there is no way in Hell I'll replace my desktop with a smartphone.

And given that we can do so much more on a desktop/notebook anyway, why would anyone trash their computer for a smartphone?

Because they don't care about much other than email and surfing the web. My smartphone is pretty fast. I use WiFi whenever I can, but LTE seems to move the data fast enough to load web pages in a usable manner. Trust me, I've talked to even people my age that are starting to ditch desktops. I've got four working boxes in my home, but I'm a techie and, honestly, we don't count for much.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Trust me, I've talked to even people my age that are starting to ditch desktops. I've got four working boxes in my home, but I'm a techie and, honestly, we don't count for much.

It's a shame, and that's where things are going.
Pretty-much all of my friends still have desktops.
I'm using a Windows tablet at the moment.

Edit: Nearly a Haiku, of sorts.

Anyways, the Firefox 57a1 nightly really flies on this Z3735F Atom quad-core tablet.

 

[whm1974]

Because they don't care about much other than email and surfing the web. My smartphone is pretty fast. I use WiFi whenever I can, but LTE seems to move the data fast enough to load web pages in a usable manner. Trust me, I've talked to even people my age that are starting to ditch desktops. I've got four working boxes in my home, but I'm a techie and, honestly, we don't count for much.

It is easy to setup your desktop(well with Linux anyway) to protect your privacy and data then it is with your smartphone not to mention preventing malware infestations. And of course the doing other things with your PC.

 

[VirtualLarry]

https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/02/16/the-road-to-firefox-57-compatibility-milestones/

Firefox 57a1 Nightly 64-bit, after the last update, no longer shows my uBlock Origin icon on the toolbar, and it shows up as a "Legacy" extension, and is Disabled, due to lack of support for XUL-based extensions from here on out.

Sad.

But, strangely, the ads haven't come back on this site, for some reason. So either it's still functional, somehow, or the "Disable Tracking" feature of FF 57 and Privacy Badger is working.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Once you pile on the extensions, I find FF incredibly slow. Unfortunately my extensions are fairly nonnegotiable. Running Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin, GreaseMonkey w/ Reek AAK, Sticky Password, and Okta. Unfortunately Okta is a pos and is not mutli-cpu compatible, but I need it for work. I think Privacy badger is the key extension causing slow page loads.

 

[whm1974]

Once you pile on the extensions, I find FF incredibly slow. Unfortunately my extensions are fairly nonnegotiable. Running Privacy Badger, uBlock Origin, GreaseMonkey w/ Reek AAK, Sticky Password, and Okta. Unfortunately Okta is a pos and is not mutli-cpu compatible, but I need it for work. I think Privacy badger is the key extension causing slow page loads.

Funny you mention that, My web browsing speed up after I installed Privacy Badger.

 

[GoodRevrnd]

Funny you mention that, My web browsing speed up after I installed Privacy Badger.

See that makes sense to me because it blocks so many elements from loading, but what it feels like is happening is that when a page is loading it chugs a bit every time it's prevented from loading a tracking element. I should just find a particularly troublesome website and test it with one addon at a time.

 

[whm1974]

See that makes sense to me because it blocks so many elements from loading, but what it feels like is happening is that when a page is loading it chugs a bit every time it's prevented from loading a tracking element. I should just find a particularly troublesome website and test it with one addon at a time.

That would be best. Me myself I use very few addons, Privacy Badger, and the New ScrollBars addons.

 

[Carfax83]

I tried out Firefox 64 bit version 54 the other day to test its FFVP9 decoder on 4K60FPS YouTube content. While the CPU based decoder was fast as hell and way better than Google's VP9 decoder which has a tendency to drop frames even with hardware acceleration turned on, the actual browser itself was slow as hell compared to Edge and Chrome. I mean, Firefox to me performed like a last generation browser desperately in need of an overhaul.

Performance wise, Edge with the Creator update still ranks as the fastest and most performant browser of them all. The hardware acceleration is a cut above all the other browsers, and it's very noticeable.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I do too, but holy shit is it ever slow and crashy. It's /almost/ too much to deal with, but the features(via addons), and philosophy keep me using it. I'm pretty happy with the desktop, but I'd love to see the android client improve.

That's pretty much my thought too... It's so clunky and slow but yet I have trouble giving it up. I don't want to use anything Chrome, I hate that it's basically designed around the cloud. Yeah you can turn that stuff off but who knows if it's still calling to the mothership regardless.

Suppose Opera may be worth a shot, I always forget about that one, is it still relevant?

Mozilla needs to consider a full rewrite. Normally a major version number means a major revamp or rewrite but I doubt this is what they do for each release given they do a major release like every few months. I think that's part of the issue too, their releases are too often, and are probably too rushed. I have never seen a piece of software actually hit version 50+ before. It's kinda ridiculous actually. They need to slow down, maybe consider a major code revamp and cleanup all the crud and performance issues.

A browser should not be using 100's of MB of ram or pegging the CPU to 100 from just browsing the internet.

 

[PeterRoss]

Opera is still quite relevant. Surprisingly, it's been hammering very solid amount of features. Inbuilt VPN and Adblock both proven to be quite effective at their duties respectively. Although, it still pops up with issues once in a while.

Full rewrite of Mozilla would be crazy expensive..... Yeah sure, a revamp would probably bring a long a handful of users, but the way it is right now, they are trying to salvage and improve what they have right now to decent levels of functionality, to hopefully be able to do revamp later.

Also, on the topic of updates, they are releasing them way too fast and creating a ton of issues, recently password sync and bookmark issues emerged. A couple of weeks ago page loads and players had problems. It feels like they got hit by a wave of interns or impatience....