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I really want Mozilla to succeed. But I just can't bring myself to use Firefox as a daily driver. Just open a few tabs on a top of the line macbook, and a twitc

I really want Mozilla to succeed. But I just can't bring myself to use Firefox as a daily driver. Just open a few tabs on a top of the line macbook, and a twitch stream and things get very laggy. I've seen numerous people craving for better container support, which is definitely a killer feature for people going forward towards a more private web. Why isn't Mozilla more actively developing this? Developers were the primary driver behind adopting Firefox during it's hayday - no reason why it can't be again if we have the resources to make a compelling case for it.

guerrilla 6y ago
> better container support What's wrong with the support it has? [1] [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...
- drdaeman 6y ago
  At least one thing: containers don't have separate settings. I.e. one can't disable adblocking for the shopping container. Or, the very contrary, have a special no-cookies casual browsing container for very limited tracking.
  - lorenzhs 6y ago
    It sounds like you want separate profiles, not containers. The point of containers is that all the settings and addons and saved passwords are still there. If you don't want that, you can create a second profile with different settings and a different set of addons, etc.
    - drdaeman 6y ago
      Yes, that's what I use (and what I have used before containers). I have simply assumed that containers are - supposedly - a take on modernizing profiles and making them convenient to use. TBH, those days I tend to use separate browsers, because profile management is significantly less convenient than just running a different program.
- deanclatworthy 6y ago
  Read any HN thread here talking about containers. People love it, but want more features and flexibility - which is only available through third-party extensions at moment (which aren't always easy to find).
abiogenesis 6y ago
Not sure about the twitch stream but I routinely open 30+ tabs on my 5 year old 16GB Macbook and I don't feel a lag
- kbenson 6y ago
  I have definitely seen something make the browser extremely laggy, but only the last few weeks. It does seem to be related to certain tabs/sites though, but I haven't figured out which.
  - magicalhippo 6y ago
    For me it is Slack. Slack's JS leaks memory. Several times I notice Firefox really bogging down, I check about:memory and the Slack tab is eating 4GB of memory or more. Once it was nearly 7GB. So I've had to install an auto-reload extension[1] which simply reloads the Slack tab once an hour, and that contains Slacks stupidity. Now Firefox is nice and fast, even with hundreds of tabs across many windows. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reloadmatic/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reloadmatic/
mtgx 6y ago
I tried really hard to make FF my main browser. I really did. But I was disappointed by their "hybrid" approach to memory use, and I think that continues to make the difference between FF and Chromium-based browsers (to FF's detriment). And now they switched back to shared memory again, and the moment they did, the browser started hanging again, like it used to do pre-Quantum days. Chromium's "per process memory isolation" is the right approach, despite all the cries about memory use. I'd rather have that than have the browser hang on me, or have more security issues. If anything, I think even the future of operating systems is complete process isolation and separation by virtualization tech and encrypting each process in RAM with a different key. The hardware is coming, but it may take another 10-15 years for this to be fully realized.
yourapostasy 6y ago
What version of Firefox are you running, and what Add-Ons do you have installed? n=1 anecdote: I'm on a 2016-vintage Macbook Pro, Firefox 81.0, 64-bit, with >1100 tabs spread across 6 windows. I'm pushing the limits trying to establish whether to commit to Firefox or Chrome, and so far while lots of people seem to like Chrome, I'm strongly preferring Firefox. I could not get Chrome to stay stable enough with that much resource utilization, and the most important part I've learned is that Firefox's profiles storage formats are open enough that I've been able to recover from some pretty bad kernel panics (due to the graphics card switching on my laptop; disabling that fixed the panics). Probably next Macbook Pro refresh cycle from Apple I'll upgrade to the latest they introduce, but Firefox-as-daily-driver has been able to take a lot of abuse from me.
nicolas_t 6y ago
Weird, in my experience on my mbp, Firefox handles the average 120 tabs I have opened much better than Safari. It didn't use to be that way, but they have improved a lot in the past 2-3 years.
jacquesm 6y ago
I routinely have 100[+]'s of tabs open when working on a project and it has never been a problem so I suspect that this is due to one of the websites you are using or a plug-in. [+] as in 500 or more. I use my browser windows to keep my 'state' of what I need to read and where I've left off, by the time they are all closed again I'm done preparing for an interview.
laumars 6y ago
Better container support would be ace but dismissing FF because of that complaint when no other browser even has that feature is a little like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Regarding performance on macOS, Firefox runs fine for me and I very very rarely have below 50 tabs open. Have you tried it recently? I had read there were some bugs with macOS but most of those were resolved a couple of years ago.
beaker52 6y ago
I feel bad because I've been using Firefox as a daily on both my desktop and mobile for a few months. I've just this week decided to ditch Firefox and accept Chrome, despite it's questionable Google-ness. Firefox Mobile is generally fine, though I occasionally end up in a state where tabs refuse to load and I need to kill the whole app. Minor annoyance. Desktop though, when I've got a bunch of tabs open and I close a bunch down by clicking the 'x's, I definitely notice how much Firefox speeds up as I close each tab. What drove the knife in was on the odd occasion that I needed Chrome, opening it up was like a breath of fresh air that was hard to ignore. Pages just seem to load faster and the Chrome seems more responsive under lots-of-tab situations. Another part is peer pressure - the frontend guys all just use chrome, so pairing is a little bit more frictious. Though there is benefit to having someone in the team who uses something different to Chrome. I just don't want to be that guy.
shmerl 6y ago
I'm using Firefox on Linux as a daily driver and it's very snappy even with very many tabs opened, playing videos, multiple complex chat UIs and so on. Never really cared to use Chrome even when it was all hyped in the past and Firefox was indeed slower. Today it's a non issue, at least on Linux.
admg 6y ago
Don't experience the lag but my fans and energy usage goes haywire on my top of the line 2018 15" pro.

guerrilla 6y ago

> better container support What's wrong with the support it has? [1] [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account-containers/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/multi-account...

drdaeman 6y ago
At least one thing: containers don't have separate settings. I.e. one can't disable adblocking for the shopping container. Or, the very contrary, have a special no-cookies casual browsing container for very limited tracking.
- lorenzhs 6y ago
  It sounds like you want separate profiles, not containers. The point of containers is that all the settings and addons and saved passwords are still there. If you don't want that, you can create a second profile with different settings and a different set of addons, etc.
  - drdaeman 6y ago
    Yes, that's what I use (and what I have used before containers). I have simply assumed that containers are - supposedly - a take on modernizing profiles and making them convenient to use. TBH, those days I tend to use separate browsers, because profile management is significantly less convenient than just running a different program.
deanclatworthy 6y ago
Read any HN thread here talking about containers. People love it, but want more features and flexibility - which is only available through third-party extensions at moment (which aren't always easy to find).

abiogenesis 6y ago

Not sure about the twitch stream but I routinely open 30+ tabs on my 5 year old 16GB Macbook and I don't feel a lag

kbenson 6y ago
I have definitely seen something make the browser extremely laggy, but only the last few weeks. It does seem to be related to certain tabs/sites though, but I haven't figured out which.
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  For me it is Slack. Slack's JS leaks memory. Several times I notice Firefox really bogging down, I check about:memory and the Slack tab is eating 4GB of memory or more. Once it was nearly 7GB. So I've had to install an auto-reload extension[1] which simply reloads the Slack tab once an hour, and that contains Slacks stupidity. Now Firefox is nice and fast, even with hundreds of tabs across many windows. [1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reloadmatic/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/reloadmatic/

mtgx 6y ago

I tried really hard to make FF my main browser. I really did. But I was disappointed by their "hybrid" approach to memory use, and I think that continues to make the difference between FF and Chromium-based browsers (to FF's detriment). And now they switched back to shared memory again, and the moment they did, the browser started hanging again, like it used to do pre-Quantum days. Chromium's "per process memory isolation" is the right approach, despite all the cries about memory use. I'd rather have that than have the browser hang on me, or have more security issues. If anything, I think even the future of operating systems is complete process isolation and separation by virtualization tech and encrypting each process in RAM with a different key. The hardware is coming, but it may take another 10-15 years for this to be fully realized.

yourapostasy 6y ago

What version of Firefox are you running, and what Add-Ons do you have installed? n=1 anecdote: I'm on a 2016-vintage Macbook Pro, Firefox 81.0, 64-bit, with >1100 tabs spread across 6 windows. I'm pushing the limits trying to establish whether to commit to Firefox or Chrome, and so far while lots of people seem to like Chrome, I'm strongly preferring Firefox. I could not get Chrome to stay stable enough with that much resource utilization, and the most important part I've learned is that Firefox's profiles storage formats are open enough that I've been able to recover from some pretty bad kernel panics (due to the graphics card switching on my laptop; disabling that fixed the panics). Probably next Macbook Pro refresh cycle from Apple I'll upgrade to the latest they introduce, but Firefox-as-daily-driver has been able to take a lot of abuse from me.

nicolas_t 6y ago

Weird, in my experience on my mbp, Firefox handles the average 120 tabs I have opened much better than Safari. It didn't use to be that way, but they have improved a lot in the past 2-3 years.

jacquesm 6y ago

I routinely have 100[+]'s of tabs open when working on a project and it has never been a problem so I suspect that this is due to one of the websites you are using or a plug-in. [+] as in 500 or more. I use my browser windows to keep my 'state' of what I need to read and where I've left off, by the time they are all closed again I'm done preparing for an interview.

laumars 6y ago

Better container support would be ace but dismissing FF because of that complaint when no other browser even has that feature is a little like cutting off your nose to spite your face. Regarding performance on macOS, Firefox runs fine for me and I very very rarely have below 50 tabs open. Have you tried it recently? I had read there were some bugs with macOS but most of those were resolved a couple of years ago.

beaker52 6y ago

I feel bad because I've been using Firefox as a daily on both my desktop and mobile for a few months. I've just this week decided to ditch Firefox and accept Chrome, despite it's questionable Google-ness. Firefox Mobile is generally fine, though I occasionally end up in a state where tabs refuse to load and I need to kill the whole app. Minor annoyance. Desktop though, when I've got a bunch of tabs open and I close a bunch down by clicking the 'x's, I definitely notice how much Firefox speeds up as I close each tab. What drove the knife in was on the odd occasion that I needed Chrome, opening it up was like a breath of fresh air that was hard to ignore. Pages just seem to load faster and the Chrome seems more responsive under lots-of-tab situations. Another part is peer pressure - the frontend guys all just use chrome, so pairing is a little bit more frictious. Though there is benefit to having someone in the team who uses something different to Chrome. I just don't want to be that guy.

shmerl 6y ago

I'm using Firefox on Linux as a daily driver and it's very snappy even with very many tabs opened, playing videos, multiple complex chat UIs and so on. Never really cared to use Chrome even when it was all hyped in the past and Firefox was indeed slower. Today it's a non issue, at least on Linux.

admg 6y ago

Don't experience the lag but my fans and energy usage goes haywire on my top of the line 2018 15" pro.