6 ms·

So much fluff. Long gone are the days when Mozilla wanted to build the best browser. You simply have to use the browser everyday to know where they are putting

So much fluff. Long gone are the days when Mozilla wanted to build the best browser. You simply have to use the browser everyday to know where they are putting in a their efforts.. it is certainly not in the browser. Rust and servo have noble visions but are irrelevant to the future of the web. UX is what drives browser market share and unless Mozilla refocuses on this, they will contjnue to lose maket share. TBH, it will take years if they start now to convince back all the people they lost.

jvehent 10y ago
> it will take years Yes. > if they start now We started last year with e10s, testpilot and dozens of other improvements.
- FullyFunctional 10y ago
  What's "e10s"?
sp332 10y ago
https://testpilot.firefox.com/ https://testpilot.firefox.com/ Looks like they're focusing on UX to me.
- nol13 10y ago
  Sweet, ty did not know about this. Will happily test pilot Containers and Tab Center! (and page shot prob useful too) Just enabled them instead of tab groups and tree style. So far fit my work flow very nicely, hope they make it into main. (unless you like tab nesting which i guess it cant do? personally just looking for the more readable left-side layout)
  - sp332 10y ago
    They'll eventually add Web Extension APIs that allow new-style addons to put tabs on the side. So even if they don't enable tab nesting in this first-party feature, it will be reasonably easy to add that in a future extension.
  - nol13 10y ago
    ((ok so containers isn't exactly a 1 to 1 comparison/replacement (yet( but i do like it))
- snowcrshd 10y ago
  Very nice, I didn't know about this.
colmvp 10y ago
I don't know if it's just my computer, but Firefox lags horribly on my Mac after a certain amount of usage whereby I always have to restart the browser because the experience after a certain amount of usage, even if there's only one or two tabs open, is unbearable. And right now, the only add-on I have on it as uBlock Origin. Whereas Chrome can have over a dozen tabs open and it still operates well. Which is a shame because I was hoping to switch over back to Firefox.
- decebalus1 10y ago
  Interesting. I have the exact opposite experience on Mac. Chrome becomes unusable after about 15 tabs and especially after leaving it open for more than 2-3 days. Firefox is the only decent browser I can use on my Macbook.
- bitshift955 10y ago
  What version are you running? My anecdotal counterpoint is that I find Firefox excellently performant these days despite heavy use. The upcoming Quantum work will improve speed generally and specifically for multiple core setups. Electrolysis in the latest versions will also help prevent "bad tabs" from slowing the whole browser.
- weaksauce 10y ago
  Try a new profile or a refresh.
rimantas 10y ago
I keep repeating this, but the days when Mozilla cared about Firefox are gone with Blake Ross.
bhauer 10y ago
I don't agree. In my opinion, even on my high-specification workstation, the performance of the modern web is below my expectation for 2017 (having been using the web since 1997). Browser and CPU performance have not kept pace with web site bloat. CPUs have gained more cores but they mostly sit idle when using a web browser. So focusing on more concurrency in the web browser is extremely compelling in my view. I don't believe we're going to see widespread trimming of bloat from the web at large. It's something a few conscientious companies think about, but the majority just keep throwing frameworks and third-party scripts at their sites with abandon. Web performance in 2017, even on high-capacity hardware, ranges from acceptable to bad. I'd prefer it ranged from superb to acceptable. If Servo moves us in that direction, I am a big fan. Perhaps to your point: UX includes performance. And in that sense, UX may help Mozilla market share.
- z0r 10y ago
  I am absolutely flabbergasted by how every fully featured browser is capable of bringing my modern workstation to its knees. Late last year I took a screenshot of a 32 kb text document running in a tab managed by chrome process with no other tabs to take care of occupying over 1 GB of ram. And when I say text document, I mean a file with a .txt extension with no javascript or anything else going on. The world is wrong!
  - bozonil 10y ago
    This sounds like a bug. If you can reliably reproduce 32kb txt file taking up 1GB, would you mind filing a bug at https://crbug.com https://crbug.com? Or I can file a bug if you let me know how to reproduce this.
  - tracker1 10y ago
    The management process, every tab, every extension, and a pool for registered offline workers are all running by firing up chrome... I'd presume there's similar overhead for FF, but not process isolated, that was work in progress iirc. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but can all add up, and it's hard to measuer/add up the separate processes.
- 10y ago
pcwalton 10y ago
> Long gone are the days when Mozilla wanted to build the best browser. Come on. Do you really think I come into the office on weekends just for fun? > Rust and servo have noble visions but are irrelevant to the future of the web. UX is what drives browser market share and unless Mozilla refocuses on this, they will contjnue to lose maket share. Fortunately, Servo is experimenting with UX as well, via browser.html!
- simplehuman 10y ago
  > Come on. Do you really think I come into the office on weekends just for fun? There is a difference between working hard and working smart. Working smart means to fix today's problems that all your users are complaining. People want to use Firefox everyday but cannot. The solution to today's Firefox performance problems is not Servo or Rust. It's basically engineers putting in time to fix it in the _current_ code base. To be more constructive: Why don't you do a "Ask HN" about what stops them from using Firefox every day and you will have the answer. In fact, just reply to this comment and I will do this for you (It just seemed for me to do this as an "outsider"). On a personal anecode: I don't use firefox everyday for "fun" either despite having so many performance issues. I believe in Mozilla's original vision and it's sadly now like a "religion" for me - I use it despite the pain it causes me.
  - tmccrmck 10y ago
    Oh boy. This type of rhetoric is so annoying to people who work at big companies. Do you know what pcwalton works on?
    - owlninja 10y ago
      He sort of implied that he works on the browser by what he quoted, and your post just sounds like you want to talk about yourself.
      - tmccrmck 10y ago
        He "sort of" implied that he works on Servo which is not Firefox. I brought up my own personal experience because I've also had people conflate where you work with what you do.

jvehent 10y ago

> it will take years Yes. > if they start now We started last year with e10s, testpilot and dozens of other improvements.

FullyFunctional 10y ago
What's "e10s"?

sp332 10y ago

https://testpilot.firefox.com/ https://testpilot.firefox.com/ Looks like they're focusing on UX to me.

nol13 10y ago
Sweet, ty did not know about this. Will happily test pilot Containers and Tab Center! (and page shot prob useful too) Just enabled them instead of tab groups and tree style. So far fit my work flow very nicely, hope they make it into main. (unless you like tab nesting which i guess it cant do? personally just looking for the more readable left-side layout)
- sp332 10y ago
  They'll eventually add Web Extension APIs that allow new-style addons to put tabs on the side. So even if they don't enable tab nesting in this first-party feature, it will be reasonably easy to add that in a future extension.
- nol13 10y ago
  ((ok so containers isn't exactly a 1 to 1 comparison/replacement (yet( but i do like it))
snowcrshd 10y ago
Very nice, I didn't know about this.

colmvp 10y ago

I don't know if it's just my computer, but Firefox lags horribly on my Mac after a certain amount of usage whereby I always have to restart the browser because the experience after a certain amount of usage, even if there's only one or two tabs open, is unbearable. And right now, the only add-on I have on it as uBlock Origin. Whereas Chrome can have over a dozen tabs open and it still operates well. Which is a shame because I was hoping to switch over back to Firefox.

decebalus1 10y ago
Interesting. I have the exact opposite experience on Mac. Chrome becomes unusable after about 15 tabs and especially after leaving it open for more than 2-3 days. Firefox is the only decent browser I can use on my Macbook.
bitshift955 10y ago
What version are you running? My anecdotal counterpoint is that I find Firefox excellently performant these days despite heavy use. The upcoming Quantum work will improve speed generally and specifically for multiple core setups. Electrolysis in the latest versions will also help prevent "bad tabs" from slowing the whole browser.
weaksauce 10y ago
Try a new profile or a refresh.

rimantas 10y ago

I keep repeating this, but the days when Mozilla cared about Firefox are gone with Blake Ross.

bhauer 10y ago

I don't agree. In my opinion, even on my high-specification workstation, the performance of the modern web is below my expectation for 2017 (having been using the web since 1997). Browser and CPU performance have not kept pace with web site bloat. CPUs have gained more cores but they mostly sit idle when using a web browser. So focusing on more concurrency in the web browser is extremely compelling in my view. I don't believe we're going to see widespread trimming of bloat from the web at large. It's something a few conscientious companies think about, but the majority just keep throwing frameworks and third-party scripts at their sites with abandon. Web performance in 2017, even on high-capacity hardware, ranges from acceptable to bad. I'd prefer it ranged from superb to acceptable. If Servo moves us in that direction, I am a big fan. Perhaps to your point: UX includes performance. And in that sense, UX may help Mozilla market share.

z0r 10y ago
I am absolutely flabbergasted by how every fully featured browser is capable of bringing my modern workstation to its knees. Late last year I took a screenshot of a 32 kb text document running in a tab managed by chrome process with no other tabs to take care of occupying over 1 GB of ram. And when I say text document, I mean a file with a .txt extension with no javascript or anything else going on. The world is wrong!
- bozonil 10y ago
  This sounds like a bug. If you can reliably reproduce 32kb txt file taking up 1GB, would you mind filing a bug at https://crbug.com https://crbug.com? Or I can file a bug if you let me know how to reproduce this.
- tracker1 10y ago
  The management process, every tab, every extension, and a pool for registered offline workers are all running by firing up chrome... I'd presume there's similar overhead for FF, but not process isolated, that was work in progress iirc. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but can all add up, and it's hard to measuer/add up the separate processes.
10y ago

pcwalton 10y ago

> Long gone are the days when Mozilla wanted to build the best browser. Come on. Do you really think I come into the office on weekends just for fun? > Rust and servo have noble visions but are irrelevant to the future of the web. UX is what drives browser market share and unless Mozilla refocuses on this, they will contjnue to lose maket share. Fortunately, Servo is experimenting with UX as well, via browser.html!

simplehuman 10y ago
> Come on. Do you really think I come into the office on weekends just for fun? There is a difference between working hard and working smart. Working smart means to fix today's problems that all your users are complaining. People want to use Firefox everyday but cannot. The solution to today's Firefox performance problems is not Servo or Rust. It's basically engineers putting in time to fix it in the _current_ code base. To be more constructive: Why don't you do a "Ask HN" about what stops them from using Firefox every day and you will have the answer. In fact, just reply to this comment and I will do this for you (It just seemed for me to do this as an "outsider"). On a personal anecode: I don't use firefox everyday for "fun" either despite having so many performance issues. I believe in Mozilla's original vision and it's sadly now like a "religion" for me - I use it despite the pain it causes me.
- tmccrmck 10y ago
  Oh boy. This type of rhetoric is so annoying to people who work at big companies. Do you know what pcwalton works on?
  - owlninja 10y ago
    He sort of implied that he works on the browser by what he quoted, and your post just sounds like you want to talk about yourself.
    - tmccrmck 10y ago
      He "sort of" implied that he works on Servo which is not Firefox. I brought up my own personal experience because I've also had people conflate where you work with what you do.