4 ms·

Firefox is a case study in how performance really does matter. A lot. It used to be the best browser, and then something happened and it gradually became slow,

Firefox is a case study in how performance really does matter. A lot. It used to be the best browser, and then something happened and it gradually became slow, really slow, while Chrome became fast. Who was in charge over at Mozilla during all this? Any engineering director worth their salt would have noticed what was happening and installed metrics that didn't let engineers commit code that caused performance regressions and given an engineer (or multiple engineers) who loves optimizing things carte blanche. Really, I want to know what happened over there. Does anyone know?

icelancer 9y ago
I think multiprocess/multi-tab was a big separator for a long time, as well as plugin memory leakage being way worse on Firefox (initially because Chrome had nearly none to speak of). I very reluctantly switched to Chrome. I loved Firefox. I even know today that Firefox likely suits my needs better... but at this point I'm too old and too stuck to change. Chrome doesn't yet make me so angry that I have to switch. Horowitz is right (along with every other entrepreneur) when they say for someone to switch, the next product has to be an order of magnitude better than the currently adopted product. Anything less isn't enough.
- Sonicrida 9y ago
  I will check up on Firefox every couple of months to see if it's still slow. The moment at which I feel the performance matches my chrome experience, I'm going back.
  - starik36 9y ago
    You should check today then. The performance more than matches Chrome. In some area, it's straight up faster than Chrome (like closing tabs, for instance).
frik 9y ago
Mozilla turned to a big corp (even if non profit) and got too many new staff. The original staff that was part since early Mosaic and Netscape days left. When Firefox got this new rounded tabs and left the slower release cycle around Firefox 3 it was the tipping point. It changed from a community project back to a corp project, that again doesn't care.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
acdha 9y ago
> It used to be the best browser, and then something happened and it gradually became slow, really slow In many cases, it wasn't that Firefox became slow but that people installed extensions which made it slow. For years, you could solve 90% of those complaints by uninstalling AdBlock Plus.
- twobyfour 9y ago
  Except that Adblock Plus wasn't the problem when Firefox was slow with web apps or sites that used JavaScript to load content. Firefox's JavaScript engine lagged significantly behind Chrome (and Safari) for a few years. It still does in a few areas.
  - acdha 9y ago
    That's partially true but remember that you're generalizing from micro-benchmarks – which did not universally tilt Chrome – to the complex behavior of real sites, where networking, memory usage, and general de-optimization tended to cancel out many of those small wins. That's not saying that the browser teams haven't made big strides, only that it's not such a simple story. Chrome running a certain JavaScript function 15% faster isn't a game changer if a side is limited by layout or poorly structured DOM interactions.
    - twobyfour 9y ago
      Aren't micro-benchmarks kind of pointless if they don't reflect real-world behavior? The fact is that javascript execution (not networking behavior but javascript performance) on many web apps differs by orders of magnitude between Firefox and Chrome. There are a handful of sites that I find literally unusable in Firefox on a new Macbook Pro because even after loading, sitting in the background doing nothing, they make the entire computer unresponsive due to high CPU usage. These same sites work just fine in Chrome and Safari.
- moogly 9y ago
  Well, for years, uninstalling AdBlock Plus was unacceptable (at the time, now we have uBlock Origin). For many people, a browser without an ad blocker is an unusable browser.
a_imho 9y ago
Which timeframe are we talking about? Personally I have never had any problem with FF and considered this recurring slowness complaint ~fud. I dug up some old benchmarks just to see what was I missing out on not defaulting to Chrome [1][2]. Surprisingly both have FF in front. However I don't think benchmarks tell much about the browsing experience. Indeed sporting an adblocker makes a much bigger difference than a bit lower memory consumption for example. Imo both FF and Chrome are very capable browsers and Mozilla lost significant market share simply because Chrome had better promotion. [1] http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chrome-27-firefox-21-opera-next,3534-12.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chrome-27-firefox-21-ope... [2] http://download.cnet.com/blog/download-blog/benchmark-battle-chrome-vs-ie-vs-firefox/ http://download.cnet.com/blog/download-blog/benchmark-battle...
bigbugbag 9y ago
I don't remember firefox being the best browser anytime in history, I don't remember firefox becoming slow over time either. I do remember opera being years ahead of all major browsers and being copied right and left and I also remember most major browser (not IE) having similar performance. Maybe it's the web pages that have become more and more bloated with useless tracking, ads and scripting a.k.a. web 2.0

icelancer 9y ago

I think multiprocess/multi-tab was a big separator for a long time, as well as plugin memory leakage being way worse on Firefox (initially because Chrome had nearly none to speak of). I very reluctantly switched to Chrome. I loved Firefox. I even know today that Firefox likely suits my needs better... but at this point I'm too old and too stuck to change. Chrome doesn't yet make me so angry that I have to switch. Horowitz is right (along with every other entrepreneur) when they say for someone to switch, the next product has to be an order of magnitude better than the currently adopted product. Anything less isn't enough.

Sonicrida 9y ago
I will check up on Firefox every couple of months to see if it's still slow. The moment at which I feel the performance matches my chrome experience, I'm going back.
- starik36 9y ago
  You should check today then. The performance more than matches Chrome. In some area, it's straight up faster than Chrome (like closing tabs, for instance).

frik 9y ago

Mozilla turned to a big corp (even if non profit) and got too many new staff. The original staff that was part since early Mosaic and Netscape days left. When Firefox got this new rounded tabs and left the slower release cycle around Firefox 3 it was the tipping point. It changed from a community project back to a corp project, that again doesn't care.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

acdha 9y ago

> It used to be the best browser, and then something happened and it gradually became slow, really slow In many cases, it wasn't that Firefox became slow but that people installed extensions which made it slow. For years, you could solve 90% of those complaints by uninstalling AdBlock Plus.

twobyfour 9y ago
Except that Adblock Plus wasn't the problem when Firefox was slow with web apps or sites that used JavaScript to load content. Firefox's JavaScript engine lagged significantly behind Chrome (and Safari) for a few years. It still does in a few areas.
- acdha 9y ago
  That's partially true but remember that you're generalizing from micro-benchmarks – which did not universally tilt Chrome – to the complex behavior of real sites, where networking, memory usage, and general de-optimization tended to cancel out many of those small wins. That's not saying that the browser teams haven't made big strides, only that it's not such a simple story. Chrome running a certain JavaScript function 15% faster isn't a game changer if a side is limited by layout or poorly structured DOM interactions.
  - twobyfour 9y ago
    Aren't micro-benchmarks kind of pointless if they don't reflect real-world behavior? The fact is that javascript execution (not networking behavior but javascript performance) on many web apps differs by orders of magnitude between Firefox and Chrome. There are a handful of sites that I find literally unusable in Firefox on a new Macbook Pro because even after loading, sitting in the background doing nothing, they make the entire computer unresponsive due to high CPU usage. These same sites work just fine in Chrome and Safari.
moogly 9y ago
Well, for years, uninstalling AdBlock Plus was unacceptable (at the time, now we have uBlock Origin). For many people, a browser without an ad blocker is an unusable browser.

a_imho 9y ago

Which timeframe are we talking about? Personally I have never had any problem with FF and considered this recurring slowness complaint ~fud. I dug up some old benchmarks just to see what was I missing out on not defaulting to Chrome [1][2]. Surprisingly both have FF in front. However I don't think benchmarks tell much about the browsing experience. Indeed sporting an adblocker makes a much bigger difference than a bit lower memory consumption for example. Imo both FF and Chrome are very capable browsers and Mozilla lost significant market share simply because Chrome had better promotion. [1] http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chrome-27-firefox-21-opera-next,3534-12.html http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chrome-27-firefox-21-ope... [2] http://download.cnet.com/blog/download-blog/benchmark-battle-chrome-vs-ie-vs-firefox/ http://download.cnet.com/blog/download-blog/benchmark-battle...

bigbugbag 9y ago

I don't remember firefox being the best browser anytime in history, I don't remember firefox becoming slow over time either. I do remember opera being years ahead of all major browsers and being copied right and left and I also remember most major browser (not IE) having similar performance. Maybe it's the web pages that have become more and more bloated with useless tracking, ads and scripting a.k.a. web 2.0