5 ms·

57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine. Broay this is because quantum is much further along in nightly than on the other channels. S

57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine. Broay this is because quantum is much further along in nightly than on the other channels. Specifically, they're more aggressive with multithreaded settings, multiprocess is enabled, and the quantum css component is turned on, too. Is also helps that we compare to chrome. On Linux chrome doesn't even do GPU rendering. So the HN crowd probably has a disproportionately bad experience with it

alschwalm 9y ago
Wait, what? I know that hw accelerated video decoding is generally not available on linux chrome, but I'm pretty sure that lots of other things are. From my chrome://gpu Canvas: Hardware accelerated CheckerImaging: Disabled Flash: Hardware accelerated Flash Stage3D: Hardware accelerated Flash Stage3D Baseline profile: Hardware accelerated Compositing: Hardware accelerated Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled Native GpuMemoryBuffers: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled Rasterization: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled Video Decode: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable Video Encode: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable WebGL: Hardware accelerated WebGL2: Hardware accelerated But this is with an integrated GPU, so maybe things are different for discrete cards.
nvarsj 9y ago
Firefox has always been unbearably slow on Linux for me. It's the main reason I swapped to Chrome in the first place. I tried switching back to Firefox about 6 months ago, same problem of extremely slow and laggy UI. Interesting to hear 57 is faster now, it may be worth trying again.
- djsumdog 9y ago
  Same here, it's why I switched to Vivaldi. I had to restart Firefox every day or so and it still lagged. I've read the other recent post on here that shows 100+ tabs has almost no startup burden in FF57 compared to previous builds. I should try it again.
- ac29 9y ago
  Go to about:config and set layers.acceleration.force-enabled to true. Made a dramatic difference for me in Linux using a Intel iGPU. You can check the acceleration status in about:support, look at HW_COMPOSITING and OPENGL_COMPOSITING.
- JoshTriplett 9y ago
  Do you have any extensions installed? Have you tried using a fresh profile, just to narrow the possible variables? If you've checked both of those things, and you can characterize the slowness in the context of specific operations (e.g. what "laggy" means, precisely), then I'd recommend filing a bug and working with the developers to track down the problem. Because that is not normal.
  - fmoralesc 9y ago
    Also, current Firefox has `about:performance`, where you can diagnose what addons and tabs can be slowing down the browser. It's quite neat. I just refreshed my profile and performance improved immensely.
- cpeterso 9y ago
  Firefox 57 should be a much, much improved experience. e10s with multiple processes started rolling out to users in Firefox 54 and tons of small performance issues have been fixed in 55-57. On Linux, manually enabling GPU acceleration as user ac29 describes below can a big difference. Unfortunately, a lot of Linux GPU drivers have issues that prevent acceleration from being enabled by default for some users.
Barrin92 9y ago
> 57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine. I thought you were overstating it but I just tried it out and you're right, it's crazy fast.
saghm 9y ago
> 57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine As others have said here, I just installed Firefox Nightly after reading this, and you're 100% correct. I think it might even be faster than Chromium for me.

alschwalm 9y ago

Wait, what? I know that hw accelerated video decoding is generally not available on linux chrome, but I'm pretty sure that lots of other things are. From my chrome://gpu Canvas: Hardware accelerated CheckerImaging: Disabled Flash: Hardware accelerated Flash Stage3D: Hardware accelerated Flash Stage3D Baseline profile: Hardware accelerated Compositing: Hardware accelerated Multiple Raster Threads: Enabled Native GpuMemoryBuffers: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled Rasterization: Software only. Hardware acceleration disabled Video Decode: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable Video Encode: Software only, hardware acceleration unavailable WebGL: Hardware accelerated WebGL2: Hardware accelerated But this is with an integrated GPU, so maybe things are different for discrete cards.

nvarsj 9y ago

Firefox has always been unbearably slow on Linux for me. It's the main reason I swapped to Chrome in the first place. I tried switching back to Firefox about 6 months ago, same problem of extremely slow and laggy UI. Interesting to hear 57 is faster now, it may be worth trying again.

djsumdog 9y ago
Same here, it's why I switched to Vivaldi. I had to restart Firefox every day or so and it still lagged. I've read the other recent post on here that shows 100+ tabs has almost no startup burden in FF57 compared to previous builds. I should try it again.
ac29 9y ago
Go to about:config and set layers.acceleration.force-enabled to true. Made a dramatic difference for me in Linux using a Intel iGPU. You can check the acceleration status in about:support, look at HW_COMPOSITING and OPENGL_COMPOSITING.
JoshTriplett 9y ago
Do you have any extensions installed? Have you tried using a fresh profile, just to narrow the possible variables? If you've checked both of those things, and you can characterize the slowness in the context of specific operations (e.g. what "laggy" means, precisely), then I'd recommend filing a bug and working with the developers to track down the problem. Because that is not normal.
- fmoralesc 9y ago
  Also, current Firefox has `about:performance`, where you can diagnose what addons and tabs can be slowing down the browser. It's quite neat. I just refreshed my profile and performance improved immensely.
cpeterso 9y ago
Firefox 57 should be a much, much improved experience. e10s with multiple processes started rolling out to users in Firefox 54 and tons of small performance issues have been fixed in 55-57. On Linux, manually enabling GPU acceleration as user ac29 describes below can a big difference. Unfortunately, a lot of Linux GPU drivers have issues that prevent acceleration from being enabled by default for some users.

Barrin92 9y ago

> 57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine. I thought you were overstating it but I just tried it out and you're right, it's crazy fast.

saghm 9y ago

> 57 is lightning fast. Like, almost uncomfortably so on my machine As others have said here, I just installed Firefox Nightly after reading this, and you're 100% correct. I think it might even be faster than Chromium for me.