6 ms·

The fastest Firefox ever with Photon UI and better tooling

110 points by bpierre 9y ago

bonsai80 9y ago
I've been using this on the nightly channel since 57 became available there and it has been an amazing improvement. Excellent work by the fine folks at Mozilla! I starting using nightly expecting to have stability problems and then just drop it, but can't remember it crashing or having any issues at all. The speed improvement has been nicer than expected, but it's particularly impressive that they've done it while also keeping things so stable and working all this into such a large complex piece of existing software. This kind of work and their freedom focused goals will probably make a donor out of me.
- lvoudour 9y ago
  Same here, using it for a month both in desktop and mobile, not a single crash. On the desktop the performance improvement is really noticeable
  - bonsai80 9y ago
    I recall reading about the mobile version of 57 not yet having the changes that made the desktop version so much faster. I think they're coming in mobile 58.
mweibel 9y ago
I use it already since a few days and it's a huge improvement. It's just way faster than before. The new slimmer UI is also great IMO, because it goes out of the way better than before. Be aware that some extensions might not work yet. E.g. refind is one of those which need to be updated.
ckluis 9y ago
I love the built-in widgets for date/time. It would be great if every browser had built-in widgets like this for all form fields (including complex ones) and styling became options vs mandatory.
shmerl 9y ago
Nice. When will it come to Firefox beta?
- ReverseCold 9y ago
  It's already been in Nightly for a while, which I was using specifically so I could take advantage of the things in this article.
- metajack 9y ago
  Beta for 57 rolls out today I believe.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - jweathersby 9y ago
    57 Release will roll out on Nov 14. https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar
  - shmerl 9y ago
    But will it include these updates, or they are limited to developer edition only?
    - Aaronn 9y ago
      Firefox 57 includes these updates so yes Quantum is included in the Beta branch right now.
      - shmerl 9y ago
        Great, thanks! UPDATE: Just updated my beta, and tabs UI looks rather ugly IMHO. Bigger elements than older design, more bulky. Sharp rectangular shapes of each tab UI element are also very standing out. It looks like a touchscreen UI to me. It also completely disabled all common add-ons like Adblock Plus and Stylish. That's a BIG problem. Looks like Adblock Plus has a compatible beta version at least. It does feel much snapper though.
ashark 9y ago
> The fastest Firefox ever I dunno, 0.x and 1.x Firefoxes (Firefoxen?) were pretty fast.
- ExactActuation 9y ago
  Surely you mean Phoenix. Man those were better days. https://blog.mozilla.org/community/files/2013/05/2002_phoenix.png https://blog.mozilla.org/community/files/2013/05/2002_phoeni...
- lambda 9y ago
  At rendering the content available at the time.
- sp332 9y ago
  I just loaded up Netscape 9 (the oldest one I could get to run without too much digging) and while it is quite quick for average pages, a stress test like jsfiddle.net/4dpGz froze it up for several minutes. (It also doesn't render correctly, but I think that's a separate issue.) FF57beta finished in 10 seconds. Firefox 0.6 just says "connection refused" to most sites, so that's pretty fast :p
goatlover 9y ago
Looks awesome. This might convince me to switch back to FF as my default browser.
EGreg 9y ago
Is this going to find its way into Firefox mobile as well?
- bonsai80 9y ago
  Not for the mobile 57 release, but I think it is supposed to be mobile 58.
vorticalbox 9y ago
It's faster and nicer looking but still, doesn't highlight the URL box when you click on it like in chrome. So still a pass for me, might seem stupid but its a major thing for easy of use.
- blauditore 9y ago
  Use Ctrl+L or F6, you'll need to touch the keyboard anyway for typing the URL. Otherwise, you might want to set "browser.urlbar.doubleClickSelectsAll" to "true", so you can at least get it with double-clicks.
  - oblio 9y ago
    Alt-D is another shortcut.
- wlesieutre 9y ago
  I don't know if this is a difference between Beta and Developer or what, but I'm running Developer Edition and clicking once in the URL bar selects all the text.
- kasabali 9y ago
  I'm pretty sure there is a setting for that
megamindbrian 9y ago
Crying wolf much?
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
alanfranzoni 9y ago
Still no live javascript editing, like Chrome scripts tab? This is a major setdown that prevents me from using Firefox. Chrome has that since so many years that I can't believe Firefox still hasn't got it. I think the latest Firefox releases are fast and good as browsers.. but as a developer, that's a showstopper.
pier25 9y ago
It's really fast, although for some reason it keeps consuming CPU steadily in the background. This makes my MBP temp go to 70ºC and the fan becomes audible.

110 points by bpierre 9y ago

I've been using this on the nightly channel since 57 became available there and it has been an amazing improvement. Excellent work by the fine folks at Mozilla! I starting using nightly expecting to have stability problems and then just drop it, but can't remember it crashing or having any issues at all. The speed improvement has been nicer than expected, but it's particularly impressive that they've done it while also keeping things so stable and working all this into such a large complex piece of existing software. This kind of work and their freedom focused goals will probably make a donor out of me.

lvoudour 9y ago
Same here, using it for a month both in desktop and mobile, not a single crash. On the desktop the performance improvement is really noticeable
- bonsai80 9y ago
  I recall reading about the mobile version of 57 not yet having the changes that made the desktop version so much faster. I think they're coming in mobile 58.

mweibel 9y ago

I use it already since a few days and it's a huge improvement. It's just way faster than before. The new slimmer UI is also great IMO, because it goes out of the way better than before. Be aware that some extensions might not work yet. E.g. refind is one of those which need to be updated.

ckluis 9y ago

I love the built-in widgets for date/time. It would be great if every browser had built-in widgets like this for all form fields (including complex ones) and styling became options vs mandatory.

shmerl 9y ago

Nice. When will it come to Firefox beta?

ReverseCold 9y ago
It's already been in Nightly for a while, which I was using specifically so I could take advantage of the things in this article.
metajack 9y ago
Beta for 57 rolls out today I believe.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- jweathersby 9y ago
  57 Release will roll out on Nov 14. https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar https://wiki.mozilla.org/RapidRelease/Calendar
- shmerl 9y ago
  But will it include these updates, or they are limited to developer edition only?
  - Aaronn 9y ago
    Firefox 57 includes these updates so yes Quantum is included in the Beta branch right now.
    - shmerl 9y ago
      Great, thanks! UPDATE: Just updated my beta, and tabs UI looks rather ugly IMHO. Bigger elements than older design, more bulky. Sharp rectangular shapes of each tab UI element are also very standing out. It looks like a touchscreen UI to me. It also completely disabled all common add-ons like Adblock Plus and Stylish. That's a BIG problem. Looks like Adblock Plus has a compatible beta version at least. It does feel much snapper though.

ashark 9y ago

> The fastest Firefox ever I dunno, 0.x and 1.x Firefoxes (Firefoxen?) were pretty fast.

ExactActuation 9y ago
Surely you mean Phoenix. Man those were better days. https://blog.mozilla.org/community/files/2013/05/2002_phoenix.png https://blog.mozilla.org/community/files/2013/05/2002_phoeni...
lambda 9y ago
At rendering the content available at the time.
sp332 9y ago
I just loaded up Netscape 9 (the oldest one I could get to run without too much digging) and while it is quite quick for average pages, a stress test like jsfiddle.net/4dpGz froze it up for several minutes. (It also doesn't render correctly, but I think that's a separate issue.) FF57beta finished in 10 seconds. Firefox 0.6 just says "connection refused" to most sites, so that's pretty fast :p

goatlover 9y ago

Looks awesome. This might convince me to switch back to FF as my default browser.

EGreg 9y ago

Is this going to find its way into Firefox mobile as well?

bonsai80 9y ago
Not for the mobile 57 release, but I think it is supposed to be mobile 58.

vorticalbox 9y ago

It's faster and nicer looking but still, doesn't highlight the URL box when you click on it like in chrome. So still a pass for me, might seem stupid but its a major thing for easy of use.

blauditore 9y ago
Use Ctrl+L or F6, you'll need to touch the keyboard anyway for typing the URL. Otherwise, you might want to set "browser.urlbar.doubleClickSelectsAll" to "true", so you can at least get it with double-clicks.
- oblio 9y ago
  Alt-D is another shortcut.
wlesieutre 9y ago
I don't know if this is a difference between Beta and Developer or what, but I'm running Developer Edition and clicking once in the URL bar selects all the text.
kasabali 9y ago
I'm pretty sure there is a setting for that

megamindbrian 9y ago

Crying wolf much?

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

alanfranzoni 9y ago

Still no live javascript editing, like Chrome scripts tab? This is a major setdown that prevents me from using Firefox. Chrome has that since so many years that I can't believe Firefox still hasn't got it. I think the latest Firefox releases are fast and good as browsers.. but as a developer, that's a showstopper.

pier25 9y ago

It's really fast, although for some reason it keeps consuming CPU steadily in the background. This makes my MBP temp go to 70ºC and the fan becomes audible.