5 ms·

> it is impossible to recommend Firefox in any case, because it performs so poorly compared to Chrome ... I understand that this is your experience, but what i

> it is impossible to recommend Firefox in any case, because it performs so poorly compared to Chrome ... I understand that this is your experience, but what is the basis for saying this is generally true? It's not my experience; theoretically, can't I also say my experience is generally true?

throwanem 10y ago
The experience of Firefox getting slow over time is hardly unique to me. In any case, if it weren't a relatively common problem, it seems unlikely Mozilla would rearchitect the browser to alleviate it, especially given that some users are very distressed by the side effects of the change.
- beerbaron23 10y ago
  I'm betting it's your addon's/extensions/plugins causing the problem. A bad extension can bring Firefox down to it's knee's just like anything else programmed by Auntie Thelma. Download Firefox 51.0.1 then in the URL box type "about:support" then look for the line that says "Multiprocess Windows - 1/1 (Enabled by User)" that indicates whether electrolysis is enabled. If it says "0/1 disabled" you will have to manually enable it. Next you want to check to make sure your WebGL, WebGL2 and GPU rendering is accelerated under Graphics. If that's all good and your GPU is listed, go scroll up to the top right and click "Refresh Firefox" when you restart it, go back into "about:support" and make sure everything is loading fine. Then you can head over to test it out http://beta.unity3d.com/jonas/WebGLBenchmark/ http://beta.unity3d.com/jonas/WebGLBenchmark/ and then you should behold the power! Firefox should benchmark and run websites very noticeably faster than other browsers. The only exception is Firefox's inability to render forum list heavy sites (It chokes on them), so all other browsers will out perform it on Facebook, Flickr and 500px for the time being until that gets fixed. In fact if you are a heavy Facebook user, Safari performs the best with it, and if your on Windows then Opera gives the best Facebook performance. You can also type in "about:performance" to get a rundown if any plugins are fucking you around.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    I'm already well familiar with these tools and this advice, but I nonetheless appreciate you taking the time; perhaps someone else will benefit from their presence here. Extensions aren't the problem, and Firefox 51 with e10s enabled is amazingly snappy by comparison with the 45 ESR that I usually run. On the other hand, 51 on Windows also refuses to load or render content from files located in directories mounted via the admin shares (e.g. \\127.0.0.1\C$). Since I use this functionality very heavily (home directory mounted at H:, etc.), I can't really switch over until I've had the leisure to find and resolve the cause of the issue. I have to imagine it's some new security setting that I can modify in about:config, but no one else seems to have run into the same problem, and identifying the changes in config options between Firefox versions is not something I've yet found a way to make trivial.
    - beerbaron23 10y ago
      I guess the difference between Windows, Linux and OSX builds come with their own special quirks that break it for a percentage of people. Have you given the Developers edition of Firefox a go? https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/
beerbaron23 10y ago
> it is impossible to recommend Firefox in any case, because it performs so poorly compared to Chrome ... See that's some odd misinformation that's been spread around since Chrome first was released, it was the fastest browser at the time. Well since then, Chrome and Firefox have been going back and forth on which is the fastest. At this moment Firefox is a good margin faster than Chrome since their Electrolysis update. So yah, I'm not sure why all this "Firefox is super slow" keeps getting passed around without anything to back it up. In fact for WebGL Firefox is over 3 times faster than Chrome, so if anything Chrome is actually the old slow dog. Current benchmark for proof: https://www.dropbox.com/s/58doo8csebp9l62/Bench.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/58doo8csebp9l62/Bench.pdf?dl=0
- hutzlibu 10y ago
  "Well since then, Chrome and Firefox have been going back and forth on which is the fastest. At this moment Firefox is a good margin faster than Chrome since their Electrolysis update." In benchmarks, yes. But in the real world, with many different tabs open, where one badly designed website could screw up your whole surfing experience, not so much. Even thoug it is possible that they fied that behavior by now. I don't know, because since that repeatedly happened, I switched to chrome. edit: oh and about specific performance I know and care about at the moment, because I work with those technologies is that: http://kripken.github.io/box2d.js/webgl_demo/box2d.html?500 http://kripken.github.io/box2d.js/webgl_demo/box2d.html?500 On my system (Archlinux) chromium runs much faster than firefox.
  - beerbaron23 10y ago
    Yah and that's why I included 3 very real world heavy benchmarks that run random multiple real world usage patterns for extended periods of time. An those were the benchmarks that Firefox pulled a head of the pack by a large margin. The basic Java Benchmarks like Sunspider and Ocatane that useless tech sites use to compare the browsers test nothing more then the Java engines of the browsers, pushing numbers while omitting the browsers respected renderers completely. If we are comparing Chromiums V8 Java engine vs Firefox's Spidermonkey then Chromiums V8 is faster, but would you even be able to tell the difference? Now day to day usability I am forced to use Firefox because I'm a tab whore and constantly run 80 tabs at all times. When I try doing that with other browsers they choke within an hour to up-to 2 days. Firefox allows me to run ~80 tabs with up-times approaching 2 months regularly. But that's the way I use my browser, other people would care about other features more. Now of coarse different builds on different OS's you will run into different problems. On my Debian stable box, Firefox doesn't play nice and I'm forced to use Chromium, but on Ubuntu, Firefox performs solid. Now the main reason Firefox is running like ass on some systems is due to having old extensions installed, which forces Firefox to drop HW acceleration and fall back into compatibility mode. The Problem on my Debian box is that Firefox is not loading the WebGL2 drivers (gives me a bad driver error), thus HW acceleration is broken and it runs like ass. You can confirm this on your install by typing in "about:support" in the address bar. If you are running 51.0.1 you can see if Electrolysis is enabled by looking at the line "Multiprocess Windows 1/1 (Enabled by user)" if yours reports "0/1 (Disabled)" then a shitty extension is forcing it in compatibility mode. You can manually force it on and type "about:performance" to see what extension is the culprit. Also in "about:support" take a look at the Graphics table, your Compositing should be OpenGL and your WebGL renders should be the name of your GPU without a reported error. You can also "refresh" Firefox at the top right of the page, but if you can't get HW acceleration in FF then use Chromium of coarse, but if you can solve the problem quickly you will have another powerful tool to tackle the web and I'd like to know how it Performs in Arch. Plus, since you are working with WebGL content it would be great to get Firefox working, cause at the moment Firefox is almost 4x as fast as Chromium on WebGL2 Unity3D.

throwanem 10y ago

The experience of Firefox getting slow over time is hardly unique to me. In any case, if it weren't a relatively common problem, it seems unlikely Mozilla would rearchitect the browser to alleviate it, especially given that some users are very distressed by the side effects of the change.

beerbaron23 10y ago
I'm betting it's your addon's/extensions/plugins causing the problem. A bad extension can bring Firefox down to it's knee's just like anything else programmed by Auntie Thelma. Download Firefox 51.0.1 then in the URL box type "about:support" then look for the line that says "Multiprocess Windows - 1/1 (Enabled by User)" that indicates whether electrolysis is enabled. If it says "0/1 disabled" you will have to manually enable it. Next you want to check to make sure your WebGL, WebGL2 and GPU rendering is accelerated under Graphics. If that's all good and your GPU is listed, go scroll up to the top right and click "Refresh Firefox" when you restart it, go back into "about:support" and make sure everything is loading fine. Then you can head over to test it out http://beta.unity3d.com/jonas/WebGLBenchmark/ http://beta.unity3d.com/jonas/WebGLBenchmark/ and then you should behold the power! Firefox should benchmark and run websites very noticeably faster than other browsers. The only exception is Firefox's inability to render forum list heavy sites (It chokes on them), so all other browsers will out perform it on Facebook, Flickr and 500px for the time being until that gets fixed. In fact if you are a heavy Facebook user, Safari performs the best with it, and if your on Windows then Opera gives the best Facebook performance. You can also type in "about:performance" to get a rundown if any plugins are fucking you around.
- throwanem 10y ago
  I'm already well familiar with these tools and this advice, but I nonetheless appreciate you taking the time; perhaps someone else will benefit from their presence here. Extensions aren't the problem, and Firefox 51 with e10s enabled is amazingly snappy by comparison with the 45 ESR that I usually run. On the other hand, 51 on Windows also refuses to load or render content from files located in directories mounted via the admin shares (e.g. \\127.0.0.1\C$). Since I use this functionality very heavily (home directory mounted at H:, etc.), I can't really switch over until I've had the leisure to find and resolve the cause of the issue. I have to imagine it's some new security setting that I can modify in about:config, but no one else seems to have run into the same problem, and identifying the changes in config options between Firefox versions is not something I've yet found a way to make trivial.
  - beerbaron23 10y ago
    I guess the difference between Windows, Linux and OSX builds come with their own special quirks that break it for a percentage of people. Have you given the Developers edition of Firefox a go? https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/ https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/

beerbaron23 10y ago

> it is impossible to recommend Firefox in any case, because it performs so poorly compared to Chrome ... See that's some odd misinformation that's been spread around since Chrome first was released, it was the fastest browser at the time. Well since then, Chrome and Firefox have been going back and forth on which is the fastest. At this moment Firefox is a good margin faster than Chrome since their Electrolysis update. So yah, I'm not sure why all this "Firefox is super slow" keeps getting passed around without anything to back it up. In fact for WebGL Firefox is over 3 times faster than Chrome, so if anything Chrome is actually the old slow dog. Current benchmark for proof: https://www.dropbox.com/s/58doo8csebp9l62/Bench.pdf?dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/s/58doo8csebp9l62/Bench.pdf?dl=0

hutzlibu 10y ago
"Well since then, Chrome and Firefox have been going back and forth on which is the fastest. At this moment Firefox is a good margin faster than Chrome since their Electrolysis update." In benchmarks, yes. But in the real world, with many different tabs open, where one badly designed website could screw up your whole surfing experience, not so much. Even thoug it is possible that they fied that behavior by now. I don't know, because since that repeatedly happened, I switched to chrome. edit: oh and about specific performance I know and care about at the moment, because I work with those technologies is that: http://kripken.github.io/box2d.js/webgl_demo/box2d.html?500 http://kripken.github.io/box2d.js/webgl_demo/box2d.html?500 On my system (Archlinux) chromium runs much faster than firefox.
- beerbaron23 10y ago
  Yah and that's why I included 3 very real world heavy benchmarks that run random multiple real world usage patterns for extended periods of time. An those were the benchmarks that Firefox pulled a head of the pack by a large margin. The basic Java Benchmarks like Sunspider and Ocatane that useless tech sites use to compare the browsers test nothing more then the Java engines of the browsers, pushing numbers while omitting the browsers respected renderers completely. If we are comparing Chromiums V8 Java engine vs Firefox's Spidermonkey then Chromiums V8 is faster, but would you even be able to tell the difference? Now day to day usability I am forced to use Firefox because I'm a tab whore and constantly run 80 tabs at all times. When I try doing that with other browsers they choke within an hour to up-to 2 days. Firefox allows me to run ~80 tabs with up-times approaching 2 months regularly. But that's the way I use my browser, other people would care about other features more. Now of coarse different builds on different OS's you will run into different problems. On my Debian stable box, Firefox doesn't play nice and I'm forced to use Chromium, but on Ubuntu, Firefox performs solid. Now the main reason Firefox is running like ass on some systems is due to having old extensions installed, which forces Firefox to drop HW acceleration and fall back into compatibility mode. The Problem on my Debian box is that Firefox is not loading the WebGL2 drivers (gives me a bad driver error), thus HW acceleration is broken and it runs like ass. You can confirm this on your install by typing in "about:support" in the address bar. If you are running 51.0.1 you can see if Electrolysis is enabled by looking at the line "Multiprocess Windows 1/1 (Enabled by user)" if yours reports "0/1 (Disabled)" then a shitty extension is forcing it in compatibility mode. You can manually force it on and type "about:performance" to see what extension is the culprit. Also in "about:support" take a look at the Graphics table, your Compositing should be OpenGL and your WebGL renders should be the name of your GPU without a reported error. You can also "refresh" Firefox at the top right of the page, but if you can't get HW acceleration in FF then use Chromium of coarse, but if you can solve the problem quickly you will have another powerful tool to tackle the web and I'd like to know how it Performs in Arch. Plus, since you are working with WebGL content it would be great to get Firefox working, cause at the moment Firefox is almost 4x as fast as Chromium on WebGL2 Unity3D.