14 ms·

Does it come with Mac performance improvements?

by rerx 8y ago

vntok 8y ago
It does not.
- Forbo 8y ago
  The release notes state otherwise.
- neurobashing 8y ago
  So are you accusing the release notes of lying, or do you have actual facts to back up this assertion?
torstenvl 8y ago
The Release Notes say it does. I'm going to try it out later.
bpicolo 8y ago
> Improved performance for Mac and Linux users, by enabling link time optimization (Clang LTO). (Clang LTO was enabled for Windows users in Firefox 63.)
sioux77 8y ago
If this release makes it actually usable on MacOS I would be so happy. Everyone says to use FireFox here, but they don't realize that it runs horribly on machines that a lot of people use to develop on. Reading the release notes: Improved performance for Mac and Linux users, by enabling link time optimization (Clang LTO). (Clang LTO was enabled for Windows users in Firefox 63.) Doesn't seem like this fixes the high CPU issue on MacOS. Maybe in another few dozen releases they'll fix it. Doesn't Mozilla realize how many people develop on MacOS? Everyone I know develops on a Mac.
- nindalf 8y ago
  To be clear, this doesn't affect all macOS users. My battery reliably lasts a whole day with Firefox running throughout. That said, the subset of users who are affected, like you, suffer a lot - low prevalence, high impact.
  - jasin 8y ago
    In my case, CPU usage goes to the roof if I use a scaled resolution instead of the default one. If that is the case with all macOS users with non-default resolution, I wouldn't call it low prevalence.
    - lars_francke 8y ago
      You can work around this (not ideal I know) by enabling "Low Resolution" mode for Firefox only: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202471 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202471 (I have the same issue and I'd like to switch to Firefox)
    - jillesvangurp 8y ago
      Not an issue for me. I have a imac 5K and a retina mac book pro. Both with image scaling on by default. I think most recent macs have retina now. I use Firefox exclusively and have done so for the last 2 years or so. This sounds like it could be a driver issue for specific macs. Both my macs have AMD Radeon chipsets & quad core i7s. Anyway, I'm sure this issue is real. Bugzilla ticket numbers probably exist for it and might be more helpful than vague complaints about things being slow. Of course some web sites are a bit unreasonably javascript heavy these days. The downside of a large screen is that pushing a lot of pixels around is not free. Usually closing any offending tabs immediately restores any cpu usage I see. I'd suggest using the new task manager thingy (page menu->more->task manager)
      - cpmsmith 8y ago
        Anecdotal, but I've found it happens when image scaling by a factor other than 2. Affects my setup of a 4K display at 2650x1440 effective resolution, or 1.5x scaling.
mirsadm 8y ago
Not for me. CPU usage and perforamnce in general is signifanctly worse than Chrome or Safari.
- psteinweber 8y ago
  Same here. Had hope, but the fans of my RMBP state otherwise.
gnicholas 8y ago
I have used Firefox since the early 2000s, and it has been frustrating to see performance get worse even as my hardware gets better. I realize that this is mainly the fault of bloated websites, but I can also see that Chrome and Safari are faster than Firefox. I recently switched to Brave Developer Edition [1], which now supports Chrome extensions (which I need for work/pleasure). It runs circles around Firefox and Chrome, and maintains my privacy better. Previously it was a tradeoff of getting speed (Chrome) or maintaining privacy (Firefox). For me, Brave does better on both counts, and now that it supports extensions I'm completely sold. 1: https://brave.com/download-dev/ https://brave.com/download-dev/
- bzbarsky 8y ago
  If Brave is running circles around Chrome for you in general, that's likely a result of cognitive bias, since last I checked it's the same rendering engine. For pageloads Brave might do better if it blocks various stuff by default, of course.
  - gnicholas 8y ago
    > if it blocks various stuff by default This is one of the key differentiating factors of Brave. Maybe next time don’t lead with accusations of cognitive bias.
    - bzbarsky 8y ago
      I am quite aware of what Brave's value proposition is. Generally when people are only talking about pageload performance they say so, because there are many other performance metrics relevant to web browsers, some of which are arguably more important for most users...
- gnicholas 8y ago
  I'm curious about the downvotes — anyone care to enlighten?
leevlad 8y ago
Anecdotally, it seems to be flying through pages it used to struggle on when I last tried it (~version 60). Tab switching seems faster too, but I haven't had enough time to put it through its paces yet. Fairly promising so far, though!
- Flott 8y ago
  I does feel faster. I still can't watch a 1080p60 twitch stream without droping a ton of frames though. It's been like this for at least 2 years now on my MBP 2015.
epage 8y ago
I'm guessing this and power issues are due to the non-native compositer which pcwalton wants to fix in 2019 https://pcwalton.github.io/2018/12/07/plans-for-2019.html https://pcwalton.github.io/2018/12/07/plans-for-2019.html
stouset 8y ago
I've been suffering from these performance issues since I started trying Firefox again around version 57. I can say that this version finally feels like they've fixed the performance issues, at least for me. That said, I've thought this before and turned out to be wrong. But it looks like it might be real this time.

Does it come with Mac performance improvements?

by rerx 8y ago

Does it come with Mac performance improvements?

vntok 8y ago

It does not.

Forbo 8y ago
The release notes state otherwise.
neurobashing 8y ago
So are you accusing the release notes of lying, or do you have actual facts to back up this assertion?

torstenvl 8y ago

The Release Notes say it does. I'm going to try it out later.

bpicolo 8y ago

> Improved performance for Mac and Linux users, by enabling link time optimization (Clang LTO). (Clang LTO was enabled for Windows users in Firefox 63.)

sioux77 8y ago

If this release makes it actually usable on MacOS I would be so happy. Everyone says to use FireFox here, but they don't realize that it runs horribly on machines that a lot of people use to develop on. Reading the release notes: Improved performance for Mac and Linux users, by enabling link time optimization (Clang LTO). (Clang LTO was enabled for Windows users in Firefox 63.) Doesn't seem like this fixes the high CPU issue on MacOS. Maybe in another few dozen releases they'll fix it. Doesn't Mozilla realize how many people develop on MacOS? Everyone I know develops on a Mac.

nindalf 8y ago
To be clear, this doesn't affect all macOS users. My battery reliably lasts a whole day with Firefox running throughout. That said, the subset of users who are affected, like you, suffer a lot - low prevalence, high impact.
- jasin 8y ago
  In my case, CPU usage goes to the roof if I use a scaled resolution instead of the default one. If that is the case with all macOS users with non-default resolution, I wouldn't call it low prevalence.
  - lars_francke 8y ago
    You can work around this (not ideal I know) by enabling "Low Resolution" mode for Firefox only: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202471 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202471 (I have the same issue and I'd like to switch to Firefox)
  - jillesvangurp 8y ago
    Not an issue for me. I have a imac 5K and a retina mac book pro. Both with image scaling on by default. I think most recent macs have retina now. I use Firefox exclusively and have done so for the last 2 years or so. This sounds like it could be a driver issue for specific macs. Both my macs have AMD Radeon chipsets & quad core i7s. Anyway, I'm sure this issue is real. Bugzilla ticket numbers probably exist for it and might be more helpful than vague complaints about things being slow. Of course some web sites are a bit unreasonably javascript heavy these days. The downside of a large screen is that pushing a lot of pixels around is not free. Usually closing any offending tabs immediately restores any cpu usage I see. I'd suggest using the new task manager thingy (page menu->more->task manager)
    - cpmsmith 8y ago
      Anecdotal, but I've found it happens when image scaling by a factor other than 2. Affects my setup of a 4K display at 2650x1440 effective resolution, or 1.5x scaling.

mirsadm 8y ago

Not for me. CPU usage and perforamnce in general is signifanctly worse than Chrome or Safari.

psteinweber 8y ago
Same here. Had hope, but the fans of my RMBP state otherwise.

gnicholas 8y ago

I have used Firefox since the early 2000s, and it has been frustrating to see performance get worse even as my hardware gets better. I realize that this is mainly the fault of bloated websites, but I can also see that Chrome and Safari are faster than Firefox. I recently switched to Brave Developer Edition [1], which now supports Chrome extensions (which I need for work/pleasure). It runs circles around Firefox and Chrome, and maintains my privacy better. Previously it was a tradeoff of getting speed (Chrome) or maintaining privacy (Firefox). For me, Brave does better on both counts, and now that it supports extensions I'm completely sold. 1: https://brave.com/download-dev/ https://brave.com/download-dev/

bzbarsky 8y ago
If Brave is running circles around Chrome for you in general, that's likely a result of cognitive bias, since last I checked it's the same rendering engine. For pageloads Brave might do better if it blocks various stuff by default, of course.
- gnicholas 8y ago
  > if it blocks various stuff by default This is one of the key differentiating factors of Brave. Maybe next time don’t lead with accusations of cognitive bias.
  - bzbarsky 8y ago
    I am quite aware of what Brave's value proposition is. Generally when people are only talking about pageload performance they say so, because there are many other performance metrics relevant to web browsers, some of which are arguably more important for most users...
gnicholas 8y ago
I'm curious about the downvotes — anyone care to enlighten?

leevlad 8y ago

Anecdotally, it seems to be flying through pages it used to struggle on when I last tried it (~version 60). Tab switching seems faster too, but I haven't had enough time to put it through its paces yet. Fairly promising so far, though!

Flott 8y ago
I does feel faster. I still can't watch a 1080p60 twitch stream without droping a ton of frames though. It's been like this for at least 2 years now on my MBP 2015.

epage 8y ago

I'm guessing this and power issues are due to the non-native compositer which pcwalton wants to fix in 2019 https://pcwalton.github.io/2018/12/07/plans-for-2019.html https://pcwalton.github.io/2018/12/07/plans-for-2019.html

stouset 8y ago

I've been suffering from these performance issues since I started trying Firefox again around version 57. I can say that this version finally feels like they've fixed the performance issues, at least for me. That said, I've thought this before and turned out to be wrong. But it looks like it might be real this time.