11 ms·

I want Firefox to not be on the brink. I have had no problems with it on Linux over the last few years since I switched from Chrome. I do not wish to touch Chro

by nequo 3y ago

I want Firefox to not be on the brink. I have had no problems with it on Linux over the last few years since I switched from Chrome. I do not wish to touch Chrome with a ten-foot pole.

dartos 3y ago
Firefox regularly crashes for me on wayland. It slows down my whole system when it tries to load a page in first boot (but librewolf doesn’t for some reason) the HID and webgl/webgpu support is bad… It’s just not a very good browser compared to chrome forks or webkit based ones.
- resonious 3y ago
  Huh... I've exclusively used Firefox on Wayland for a long time now due to good fractional scaling support (unlike Chrome which took ages to stop using x11 by default). I agree that the webgl/webgpu support is bad but haven't seen the whole-system slowdown.
- BossingAround 3y ago
  Sounds like a configuration problem. Firefox on Fedora/Wayland is very fast, haven't had it crash in a long time.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    Same. About the only thing that's stable on F37. Updates to the kernel and other things have been giving me headaches, but FF and Steam are still solid.
- bryanlarsen 3y ago
  I had that problem, too. It went away when I replaced my Nvidia card with an AMD one.
  - dartos 3y ago
    I’m using an amd card :(
  - BossingAround 3y ago
    Ah, well, Nvidia still has a lot of problems with Wayland I hear, that might not be Firefox's (or Wayland's) error.
  - caution 3y ago
    That's strange. I use Nvidia, on Wayland and have 0 issues with Firefox
  - riskable 3y ago
    I was running Firefox in Wayland just fine with my AMD Radeon 6650 XT but recently switched to an Nvidia 4060 Ti (16GB) and suddenly I started having crashes. I don't blame Firefox for this since other applications started giving me issues too (e.g. Dolphin and Discord). I place the blame squarely on Nvidia. Nvidia's drivers suck but if you want to do AI stuff their cards are basically the only option until Intel and AMD complete ramping up their support for AI stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if two years from now AMD takes the crown with Intel being a close second (providing the best bang-for-the-buck) but for that to happen AMD needs to focus more on making actual implementations faster (e.g. PyTorch) and not just making minor incremental improvements to ROCm (and also make it so you don't need to use `amdgpu-install` to use it!).
- jacquesm 3y ago
  I haven't seen a FF crash in the last five years and I typically have a few hundred tabs open across multiple instances.
  - bildung 3y ago
    Can confirm, I currently have around 240 tabs open (yeah I know...), and most of those a running for at least multiple weeks now. I am on X though, perhaps a Wayland related bug or config thing?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- ParetoOptimal 3y ago
  Firefox on Wayland for me has 0 problems. Have you tried: - running with terminal to see errors - running with a new profile
- ravenstine 3y ago
  I haven't used it super extensively with Wayland, but so far I've not experienced any crashes. To clarify, I've been using Firefox on Debian virtualized with QEMU on aarch64, and the compositor is Weston, so maybe there are quirks on other setups. Overall, it runs impressively.
- TimeBearingDown 3y ago
  I also have crashes on sway, but there’s a rough workaround now which prevents the issue totally. I believe there’s a design issue with Firefox and GTK handling input events; some Wayland compositors have workarounds but others do not. https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/7645 https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/7645 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1743144 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1743144 Firefox is my preferred browser and I hope we can keep its engine alive in this era of Chrome dominance.
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    I have been using Sway and Firefox for the last three years at least, and have never experienced crashes. Sway and Firefox as packaged by Debian Stable. I really wish people on HN threads complaining about Firefox bugs clearly stated 1) their environment, and 2) who packaged the Firefox, because those are what could make all the difference.
    - the8472 3y ago
      The bug depends on a few factors that aren't really packaging-specific. A) the default socket buffer size B) the polling rate of your mouse C) whether there's anything on your system or in your firefox profile that can cause enough lag that the buffer overflows D) whether your compositor has any workarounds for that protocol limitation Well, I suppose a packager could have disabled wayland in firefox...
- ChubbyGlasses 3y ago
  I've had very similar experiences on Windows and Mac. I really wish Moz would fork WebKit or Blink and work on a browser for the modern age.
- jeroenhd 3y ago
  I had the same after forcing Firefox to do hardware acceleration on my Nvidia GPU. Firefox wanted to disable it, but I wanted to use my GPU anyway. Perhaps try resetting the GPU acceleration configuration? Firefox isn't as stable as I would like it to be, but it's much better than any Webkit alternative I can find on Linux.
- bshacklett 3y ago
  I can’t speak to the second point, but I’d look for OOM events in dmesg for the crashes.
deleted 3y ago
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jjoonathan 3y ago
Google finally beat my hands with a stick firmly enough to get me off Firefox. It was youtube. Not the ads -- I pay for premium -- but the fact that on FF they added an artificial 5s page load delay on firefox plus a bug has lingered for months where it always loads the last video, so you have to load every video twice. 12s/video is too much delay. Ah well, it was good while it lasted.
- Timshel 3y ago
  Sad when I had the 5s issue on FF I switched to Freetube. No surprise Google is doing those tactics if people react like you :( ...
  - jjoonathan 3y ago
    Thanks for the recommendation, I'll give freetube a spin!
- btreecat 3y ago
  12s of your time is the cost of compromised morals? That seems p cheap and unfortunately indicative.
  - taylodl 3y ago
    Compromised morals? WTF is the CEO of the Mozilla Foundation doing to earn $7M per year in salary? What about the Mozilla Foundation forcing out Brandon Eich because of a personal donation he made to a cause they didn't like? Morals my ass! I stopped using Firefox the day they kicked Brandon out and here's the kicker: I don't agree with the cause Brandon supported but I agree his employment shouldn't be affected by donations he made to support a ballot issue. So yeah, the Mozilla Foundation can go straight to hell with that shit. Good riddance!
    - theandrewbailey 3y ago
      What really moved me away from Firefox was using Brave search. I had been using DuckDuckGo since the Snowden leaks. When DuckDuckGo announced they would derank results if they thought it was Russian propaganda or disinformation, I moved to Brave search. A week or so later, I decided that Mozilla was too woke for my liking, and started using Brave's browser, too.
BossingAround 3y ago
The one thing I miss from Chrome is the `thisisunsafe` feature to ignore whatever misconfiguration the webpage you're trying to access uses. Recently, one of the dev servers that I tried to access misconfigured HSTS, which made it really difficult for Firefox to access the web UI. I fired up chromium, simply typed the magic word, and accessed it no problem. Of course, ideally, there'd be no misconfigurations, but sometimes, I just need to access whatever dev server and I don't want to waste time on learning how to disable that particular security feature in Firefox temporarily.
- elashri 3y ago
  While not recommended, and I would run firefox developer edition for that, you can disable (make the value false) `security.ssl.enable_ocsp_stapling` in `about:config`. You will be able to view sites with invalid certs/config. But will still prompt you that that something is invalid, and you have the choice to proceed forward. Again, I would not recommend doing that on vanilla Firefox, they have Firefox developer edition version for these reasons. And you can run both side by side.
  - BossingAround 3y ago
    That's exactly the problem though. I know it's somehow possible, but the fact that I have to search for what's the internal boolean name for whatever feature I want to disable is simply a bad dev UX. If there's a Firefox developer edition (I had no idea), they should enable all "I want to continue anyways" buttons by default. I mean, it's a developer edition!
    - jeroenhd 3y ago
      To be fair, "thisisunsafe" isn't exactly an advocated feature either. I would like a better way to bypass these TLS errors, but hidden booleans and secret phrases aren't that dissimilar.
      - BossingAround 3y ago
javier_e06 3y ago
Indeed, Chrome is bloated. Safari is, well Safari. Firefox is a good Open Source option.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

by nequo 3y ago

I want Firefox to not be on the brink. I have had no problems with it on Linux over the last few years since I switched from Chrome. I do not wish to touch Chrome with a ten-foot pole.

dartos 3y ago

Firefox regularly crashes for me on wayland. It slows down my whole system when it tries to load a page in first boot (but librewolf doesn’t for some reason) the HID and webgl/webgpu support is bad… It’s just not a very good browser compared to chrome forks or webkit based ones.

resonious 3y ago
Huh... I've exclusively used Firefox on Wayland for a long time now due to good fractional scaling support (unlike Chrome which took ages to stop using x11 by default). I agree that the webgl/webgpu support is bad but haven't seen the whole-system slowdown.
BossingAround 3y ago
Sounds like a configuration problem. Firefox on Fedora/Wayland is very fast, haven't had it crash in a long time.
- red-iron-pine 3y ago
  Same. About the only thing that's stable on F37. Updates to the kernel and other things have been giving me headaches, but FF and Steam are still solid.
bryanlarsen 3y ago
I had that problem, too. It went away when I replaced my Nvidia card with an AMD one.
- dartos 3y ago
  I’m using an amd card :(
- BossingAround 3y ago
  Ah, well, Nvidia still has a lot of problems with Wayland I hear, that might not be Firefox's (or Wayland's) error.
- caution 3y ago
  That's strange. I use Nvidia, on Wayland and have 0 issues with Firefox
- riskable 3y ago
  I was running Firefox in Wayland just fine with my AMD Radeon 6650 XT but recently switched to an Nvidia 4060 Ti (16GB) and suddenly I started having crashes. I don't blame Firefox for this since other applications started giving me issues too (e.g. Dolphin and Discord). I place the blame squarely on Nvidia. Nvidia's drivers suck but if you want to do AI stuff their cards are basically the only option until Intel and AMD complete ramping up their support for AI stuff. I wouldn't be surprised if two years from now AMD takes the crown with Intel being a close second (providing the best bang-for-the-buck) but for that to happen AMD needs to focus more on making actual implementations faster (e.g. PyTorch) and not just making minor incremental improvements to ROCm (and also make it so you don't need to use `amdgpu-install` to use it!).
jacquesm 3y ago
I haven't seen a FF crash in the last five years and I typically have a few hundred tabs open across multiple instances.
- bildung 3y ago
  Can confirm, I currently have around 240 tabs open (yeah I know...), and most of those a running for at least multiple weeks now. I am on X though, perhaps a Wayland related bug or config thing?
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
ParetoOptimal 3y ago
Firefox on Wayland for me has 0 problems. Have you tried: - running with terminal to see errors - running with a new profile
ravenstine 3y ago
I haven't used it super extensively with Wayland, but so far I've not experienced any crashes. To clarify, I've been using Firefox on Debian virtualized with QEMU on aarch64, and the compositor is Weston, so maybe there are quirks on other setups. Overall, it runs impressively.
TimeBearingDown 3y ago
I also have crashes on sway, but there’s a rough workaround now which prevents the issue totally. I believe there’s a design issue with Firefox and GTK handling input events; some Wayland compositors have workarounds but others do not. https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/7645 https://github.com/swaywm/sway/issues/7645 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1743144 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1743144 Firefox is my preferred browser and I hope we can keep its engine alive in this era of Chrome dominance.
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  I have been using Sway and Firefox for the last three years at least, and have never experienced crashes. Sway and Firefox as packaged by Debian Stable. I really wish people on HN threads complaining about Firefox bugs clearly stated 1) their environment, and 2) who packaged the Firefox, because those are what could make all the difference.
  - the8472 3y ago
    The bug depends on a few factors that aren't really packaging-specific. A) the default socket buffer size B) the polling rate of your mouse C) whether there's anything on your system or in your firefox profile that can cause enough lag that the buffer overflows D) whether your compositor has any workarounds for that protocol limitation Well, I suppose a packager could have disabled wayland in firefox...
ChubbyGlasses 3y ago
I've had very similar experiences on Windows and Mac. I really wish Moz would fork WebKit or Blink and work on a browser for the modern age.
jeroenhd 3y ago
I had the same after forcing Firefox to do hardware acceleration on my Nvidia GPU. Firefox wanted to disable it, but I wanted to use my GPU anyway. Perhaps try resetting the GPU acceleration configuration? Firefox isn't as stable as I would like it to be, but it's much better than any Webkit alternative I can find on Linux.
bshacklett 3y ago
I can’t speak to the second point, but I’d look for OOM events in dmesg for the crashes.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jjoonathan 3y ago

Google finally beat my hands with a stick firmly enough to get me off Firefox. It was youtube. Not the ads -- I pay for premium -- but the fact that on FF they added an artificial 5s page load delay on firefox plus a bug has lingered for months where it always loads the last video, so you have to load every video twice. 12s/video is too much delay. Ah well, it was good while it lasted.

Timshel 3y ago
Sad when I had the 5s issue on FF I switched to Freetube. No surprise Google is doing those tactics if people react like you :( ...
- jjoonathan 3y ago
  Thanks for the recommendation, I'll give freetube a spin!
btreecat 3y ago
12s of your time is the cost of compromised morals? That seems p cheap and unfortunately indicative.
- taylodl 3y ago
  Compromised morals? WTF is the CEO of the Mozilla Foundation doing to earn $7M per year in salary? What about the Mozilla Foundation forcing out Brandon Eich because of a personal donation he made to a cause they didn't like? Morals my ass! I stopped using Firefox the day they kicked Brandon out and here's the kicker: I don't agree with the cause Brandon supported but I agree his employment shouldn't be affected by donations he made to support a ballot issue. So yeah, the Mozilla Foundation can go straight to hell with that shit. Good riddance!
  - theandrewbailey 3y ago
    What really moved me away from Firefox was using Brave search. I had been using DuckDuckGo since the Snowden leaks. When DuckDuckGo announced they would derank results if they thought it was Russian propaganda or disinformation, I moved to Brave search. A week or so later, I decided that Mozilla was too woke for my liking, and started using Brave's browser, too.

BossingAround 3y ago

The one thing I miss from Chrome is the `thisisunsafe` feature to ignore whatever misconfiguration the webpage you're trying to access uses. Recently, one of the dev servers that I tried to access misconfigured HSTS, which made it really difficult for Firefox to access the web UI. I fired up chromium, simply typed the magic word, and accessed it no problem. Of course, ideally, there'd be no misconfigurations, but sometimes, I just need to access whatever dev server and I don't want to waste time on learning how to disable that particular security feature in Firefox temporarily.

elashri 3y ago
While not recommended, and I would run firefox developer edition for that, you can disable (make the value false) `security.ssl.enable_ocsp_stapling` in `about:config`. You will be able to view sites with invalid certs/config. But will still prompt you that that something is invalid, and you have the choice to proceed forward. Again, I would not recommend doing that on vanilla Firefox, they have Firefox developer edition version for these reasons. And you can run both side by side.
- BossingAround 3y ago
  That's exactly the problem though. I know it's somehow possible, but the fact that I have to search for what's the internal boolean name for whatever feature I want to disable is simply a bad dev UX. If there's a Firefox developer edition (I had no idea), they should enable all "I want to continue anyways" buttons by default. I mean, it's a developer edition!
  - jeroenhd 3y ago
    To be fair, "thisisunsafe" isn't exactly an advocated feature either. I would like a better way to bypass these TLS errors, but hidden booleans and secret phrases aren't that dissimilar.
    - BossingAround 3y ago

javier_e06 3y ago

Indeed, Chrome is bloated. Safari is, well Safari. Firefox is a good Open Source option.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]