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One thing that firefox does well is suspend pages you are not using and likely saving the state of the appllication to the disk. Another thing can be for when m

One thing that firefox does well is suspend pages you are not using and likely saving the state of the appllication to the disk. Another thing can be for when multiple pages use the same or similar javascript/css/external respurce files, they only need to be loaded once into memory. Another thing canbe that certain javascript globals would only be loaded when the getter asks for them. Something like AudioContext and RTCPeerConnection are not widely used, by changing the name in the global space to a getter that loads the libraries instead of providing them on start may reduce load. There are many things that can be done

dogma1138 10y ago
If that's that case I much rather my browser eat up more RAM than needlessly write to my SSD. 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. Windows is considerably more conservative in how it uses it's page file and what does it write off to the SSD, linux has also made a lot of improvements in how it uses the swap partition if it uses it at all, other things like having to be able to suspend the PC in "hibernation" mode without actually having to write a "hibernation" file to disk by keeping the CPU at pretty much an off state but refreshing the ram also saves a lot of day to day write operations especially on mobile devices. So overall I highly doubt that Firefox went with the suspend to disk route, because if it did it would be a pretty big step backwards. Also as power conservation goes writing to SSD/HDD is more expensive than writing to RAM and keeping it refreshed, so using the SSD as a storage device instead of the RAM can also have negative effects on the battery life of mobile devices.
- gareim 10y ago
  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). Writing a few more gb at worst from your browser is hardly going to affect that. It's even doubtful that OS improvements change it much, as Windows 7, which a lot of people are still on, doesn't come SSD optimized.
  - rasz_pl 10y ago
    last time I checked most SSD come with ~72TB warranty. Go above that and you are sol.
    - gareim 10y ago
      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?
- sushisource 10y ago
  Meh. SSD write amounts matter if you're running a datacenter. They don't matter to a normal user on a laptop/desktop using a browser. SSD lifetime simply isn't an issue, as the other commenter pointed out. Also, from a more philosophical standpoint - this isn't Mozilla's issue. They shouldn't have to worry about conserving SSD writes. That's not their problem. That's the OS / Disk firmware / manufacturer's problem. If I want to write files to the disk at a very reasonable rate, I should feel free to do that.
- kalleboo 10y ago
  > A lot of the improvement in the reliability of consumer grade SSDs is due to OS improvements in how they manage their write operations Do you have any references for this? I don't think I've ever heard a story of a consumer user running out their writes. Not saying it hasn't happened, but it's not enough of a common occurrence to be a major factor in reliability. In my experience the overwhelming improvement in reliability is in the firmware of these drivers coming out of the perpetual beta phase (and the death of OCZ)

dogma1138 10y ago

If that's that case I much rather my browser eat up more RAM than needlessly write to my SSD. 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. Windows is considerably more conservative in how it uses it's page file and what does it write off to the SSD, linux has also made a lot of improvements in how it uses the swap partition if it uses it at all, other things like having to be able to suspend the PC in "hibernation" mode without actually having to write a "hibernation" file to disk by keeping the CPU at pretty much an off state but refreshing the ram also saves a lot of day to day write operations especially on mobile devices. So overall I highly doubt that Firefox went with the suspend to disk route, because if it did it would be a pretty big step backwards. Also as power conservation goes writing to SSD/HDD is more expensive than writing to RAM and keeping it refreshed, so using the SSD as a storage device instead of the RAM can also have negative effects on the battery life of mobile devices.

gareim 10y ago
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). Writing a few more gb at worst from your browser is hardly going to affect that. It's even doubtful that OS improvements change it much, as Windows 7, which a lot of people are still on, doesn't come SSD optimized.
- rasz_pl 10y ago
  last time I checked most SSD come with ~72TB warranty. Go above that and you are sol.
  - gareim 10y ago
    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?
sushisource 10y ago
Meh. SSD write amounts matter if you're running a datacenter. They don't matter to a normal user on a laptop/desktop using a browser. SSD lifetime simply isn't an issue, as the other commenter pointed out. Also, from a more philosophical standpoint - this isn't Mozilla's issue. They shouldn't have to worry about conserving SSD writes. That's not their problem. That's the OS / Disk firmware / manufacturer's problem. If I want to write files to the disk at a very reasonable rate, I should feel free to do that.
kalleboo 10y ago
> A lot of the improvement in the reliability of consumer grade SSDs is due to OS improvements in how they manage their write operations Do you have any references for this? I don't think I've ever heard a story of a consumer user running out their writes. Not saying it hasn't happened, but it's not enough of a common occurrence to be a major factor in reliability. In my experience the overwhelming improvement in reliability is in the firmware of these drivers coming out of the perpetual beta phase (and the death of OCZ)