4 ms·

Notably, it'll remain disabled by default if you're using extensions (pretty much everybody here who is running Firefox?): The groups that will have to wait a b

by morsch 10y ago

Notably, it'll remain disabled by default if you're using extensions (pretty much everybody here who is running Firefox?): The groups that will have to wait a bit for E10S account for about half of our release users and include Windows XP users, users with screen readers, RTL users, and the largest group, extension users. You can manually enable it, though[0]: However, if you want to permanently opt-in, you can do so with a simple pref change. Just go to about:config and toggle browser.tabs.remote.autostart to true. On your next restart, e10s should be active. To verify that it is active, go to about:support and look for a number higher than 0 in "Multiprocess Windows". I didn't realize they had this kind of fine-grained control over A/B-testing in their Firefox beta population, as Asa puts it: We have all the knobs. I understand where they are coming from, but it feels a bit weird to have a piece of software running on my computer checking in with a remote server to enable/disable functionality. [0] https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis

wjoe 10y ago
Any reason why it won't be enabled for people using extensions? This makes me worry that there's some significant incompatibility with extensions, and that when they do enable it for everyone, it'll break some of the extensions I use. I suspect that splitting the UI and content into multiple processes would make certain things very difficult.
- crc32 10y ago
  Extensions that access stuff that "lives" in the content process can be rewritten or shimmed; but this hasn't been finished yet for all extensions. There's a list of extension status here: https://www.arewee10syet.com/ https://www.arewee10syet.com/
- thristian 10y ago
  It is exactly that. Some extensions (it used to be "many extensions" before E10S was enabled on the Nightly and Aurora channels) assume that they can call back and forth between page content and browser chrome, which is easy when they're all JS objects in the same memory space, but which doesn't work nearly as well between processes. It might be worth downloading Firefox Developer Edition (which uses a separate profile) and installing your usual suite of extensions to check they all still work. The only extension I personally know is weird under E10S is "It's All Text", where the edit button doesn't appear on textareas until you switch to a different tab and back. Other extensions like uBlock Origin, Tree Style Tabs, Open In Browser, HTTPS Everywhere, Document Font Toggle all work fine.
  - yoklov 10y ago
    A big one that's problematic is LastPass. It can hang the browser for a long time, 10+ seconds or so. Very annoying.
    - johnp_ 10y ago
      Please try out the development version of lastpass, as most of the e10s compatibility work has gone into that: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/lastpass-password-manager/versions/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/lastpass-pass...
      - igravious 10y ago
        Is there an e10s_okay extension or should I just run ff dev ed. and see what happens? I'm running: Lastpass uBlock Zotero I have others but I'd ditch them. I'm not keen at all on giving up the three above.
  - Twirrim 10y ago
    > "It's All Text" I hope that gets fixed. That's one of the most useful extensions I have installed, and about the first thing I install when starting afresh in Firefox.
  - zeemonkee3 10y ago
    How about vimperator? Vimfx is OK as a stop-gap but that's one extension I wouldn't want to lose permanently.
    - cpeterso 10y ago
      Here is the Firefox bug report for Vimperator don't working with e10s: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1100918 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1100918 The Vimperator developers are working on it here: https://github.com/vimperator/vimperator-labs/issues/211 https://github.com/vimperator/vimperator-labs/issues/211
    - 10y ago
- mtgx 10y ago
  They've said that for a long time. It's why they are moving to WebExtensions. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/firefox-improves-security-new-extensions,29902.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/firefox-improves-security-n...
- chuckharmston 10y ago
  You can check the compatibility of popular add-ons here: https://www.arewee10syet.com/ https://www.arewee10syet.com/
- Steuard 10y ago
  Evidently there are still a few lingering problems with NoScript (which appears to be the most popular extension not currently marked as compatible, according to https://www.arewee10syet.com/ https://www.arewee10syet.com/). That one's a big deal for me, so I may hold off on enabling electrolysis for now.
- mariuolo 10y ago
  That's why Webextensions is coming out.
deprave 10y ago
That's the point of beta software. They're making it public, but it's still a release whose purpose is to investigate problems with the code before an official release. I wonder if they're isolating E10S to stock-Firefox as means to avoid too many interactions while debugging or some other reason. I don't even wanna ask why they're still supporting Windows XP...
- sametmax 10y ago
  Because in many countries, XP is the most used OS, and Firefox is the only well supported browser on it. Hence it's a significant market share they can get without any competition fighting for it.
  - cpeterso 10y ago
    About 15% of Firefox users run XP, a little more than Windows 10 or OS X. Even if Mozilla dropped support for XP, I doubt those users would switch to some other unsupported browser. Firefox wouldn't lose those users (in Statcounter metrics), but they would be stuck on the same Firefox version forever.
- ashmud 10y ago
  It let us switch our servers to SNI-only as we still have clients with users on XP. (IE on XP does not support SNI.)
chkuendig 10y ago
The way I understood it he was talking about the release channel population, not just beta. Here’s what that looks like. When we launch Firefox 48, approximately 1% of eligible Firefox users will get updated to E10S immediately. The 1% of release users should get us up to a population similar to what we have in Beta so we’ll be able compare the two. About ten days after launch, we’ll get another round of feedback and analysis related to the release users with and without E10S. Assuming all is well, we’ll turn the knobs so that the rest of the eligible Firefox users get updated to E10S over the following weeks. If we run into issues, we can slow the roll-out, pause it, or even disable E10sS for those who got it. We have all the knobs.

by morsch 10y ago

wjoe 10y ago

Any reason why it won't be enabled for people using extensions? This makes me worry that there's some significant incompatibility with extensions, and that when they do enable it for everyone, it'll break some of the extensions I use. I suspect that splitting the UI and content into multiple processes would make certain things very difficult.

crc32 10y ago
Extensions that access stuff that "lives" in the content process can be rewritten or shimmed; but this hasn't been finished yet for all extensions. There's a list of extension status here: https://www.arewee10syet.com/ https://www.arewee10syet.com/
thristian 10y ago
It is exactly that. Some extensions (it used to be "many extensions" before E10S was enabled on the Nightly and Aurora channels) assume that they can call back and forth between page content and browser chrome, which is easy when they're all JS objects in the same memory space, but which doesn't work nearly as well between processes. It might be worth downloading Firefox Developer Edition (which uses a separate profile) and installing your usual suite of extensions to check they all still work. The only extension I personally know is weird under E10S is "It's All Text", where the edit button doesn't appear on textareas until you switch to a different tab and back. Other extensions like uBlock Origin, Tree Style Tabs, Open In Browser, HTTPS Everywhere, Document Font Toggle all work fine.
- yoklov 10y ago
  A big one that's problematic is LastPass. It can hang the browser for a long time, 10+ seconds or so. Very annoying.
  - johnp_ 10y ago
    Please try out the development version of lastpass, as most of the e10s compatibility work has gone into that: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/lastpass-password-manager/versions/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-us/firefox/addon/lastpass-pass...
    - igravious 10y ago
      Is there an e10s_okay extension or should I just run ff dev ed. and see what happens? I'm running: Lastpass uBlock Zotero I have others but I'd ditch them. I'm not keen at all on giving up the three above.
- Twirrim 10y ago
  > "It's All Text" I hope that gets fixed. That's one of the most useful extensions I have installed, and about the first thing I install when starting afresh in Firefox.
- zeemonkee3 10y ago
  How about vimperator? Vimfx is OK as a stop-gap but that's one extension I wouldn't want to lose permanently.
  - cpeterso 10y ago
    Here is the Firefox bug report for Vimperator don't working with e10s: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1100918 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1100918 The Vimperator developers are working on it here: https://github.com/vimperator/vimperator-labs/issues/211 https://github.com/vimperator/vimperator-labs/issues/211
  - 10y ago
mtgx 10y ago
They've said that for a long time. It's why they are moving to WebExtensions. http://www.tomshardware.com/news/firefox-improves-security-new-extensions,29902.html http://www.tomshardware.com/news/firefox-improves-security-n...
chuckharmston 10y ago
You can check the compatibility of popular add-ons here: https://www.arewee10syet.com/ https://www.arewee10syet.com/
Steuard 10y ago
Evidently there are still a few lingering problems with NoScript (which appears to be the most popular extension not currently marked as compatible, according to https://www.arewee10syet.com/ https://www.arewee10syet.com/). That one's a big deal for me, so I may hold off on enabling electrolysis for now.
mariuolo 10y ago
That's why Webextensions is coming out.

deprave 10y ago

That's the point of beta software. They're making it public, but it's still a release whose purpose is to investigate problems with the code before an official release. I wonder if they're isolating E10S to stock-Firefox as means to avoid too many interactions while debugging or some other reason. I don't even wanna ask why they're still supporting Windows XP...

sametmax 10y ago
Because in many countries, XP is the most used OS, and Firefox is the only well supported browser on it. Hence it's a significant market share they can get without any competition fighting for it.
- cpeterso 10y ago
  About 15% of Firefox users run XP, a little more than Windows 10 or OS X. Even if Mozilla dropped support for XP, I doubt those users would switch to some other unsupported browser. Firefox wouldn't lose those users (in Statcounter metrics), but they would be stuck on the same Firefox version forever.
ashmud 10y ago
It let us switch our servers to SNI-only as we still have clients with users on XP. (IE on XP does not support SNI.)

chkuendig 10y ago

The way I understood it he was talking about the release channel population, not just beta. Here’s what that looks like. When we launch Firefox 48, approximately 1% of eligible Firefox users will get updated to E10S immediately. The 1% of release users should get us up to a population similar to what we have in Beta so we’ll be able compare the two. About ten days after launch, we’ll get another round of feedback and analysis related to the release users with and without E10S. Assuming all is well, we’ll turn the knobs so that the rest of the eligible Firefox users get updated to E10S over the following weeks. If we run into issues, we can slow the roll-out, pause it, or even disable E10sS for those who got it. We have all the knobs.