26 ms·

Firefox Keeps Getting Faster

303 points by goplayoutside 3y ago

gafage 3y ago
[flagged]
raybb 3y ago
My phone is a bit old (Pixel 4a) but it drives me crazy that so many times I type something into Firefox and it just shows a blank screen. Then I have to restart the app or open a new tap and type again. Feel it happens at least 20% of the time. No idea why and its not an internet issue. There is no loading. There is nothing.
- ptrrrrrrppr 3y ago
  Have the exact same issue on my 1+
- Sakos 3y ago
  Been getting that too. No idea why. Interestingly, I've experienced it a handful of times on desktop too. 99% of the time it's the Android app doing it though.
- skullone 3y ago
  My pixel5 is doing good with Firefox. I credit as blockers for keeping the browser performant
  - treetalker 3y ago
    Respectfully: doing well.
  - raybb 3y ago
    Yeah the blockers are awesome. Also having a few greasemonkey scripts to automate login on a few pages that require too many clicks.
    - SoKamil 3y ago
      Try clean install. Maybe extensions and userscripts are messing with you.
      - raybb 3y ago
        I've tried a few times and tried FF beta but no difference.
        Murfalo 3y ago
        I have the same issue quite frequently... If I knew any decent alternative with uBlock (or equivalent) I'd switch on the spot! On a Pixel 6.
        cycomanic 3y ago
        I used to have this issue on nightly (not annoying enough to make me consider switching though), but it dissappeared several months ago, haven't seen it since. Are you sure it's still happening
- dingusdew 3y ago
  In my experience, this only happens when I type in a new address in a tab that is already open with a different website. When I try to navigate somewhere else, it hangs, looks like it's loading, but gets... stuck? However, always works with new tab. Also on Pixel 4a. It's not that old, jesus.
- ivanjermakov 3y ago
  Is it possible to dump logs and about:support to create a bug ticket? I'm sure this will be looked at pretty quickly. Tracker: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/home https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/home
  - Borgz 3y ago
    How do you dump logs?
    - ivanjermakov 3y ago
      Looks like you can profile it with remote debugging: https://youtu.be/TxAlQBv6-yg?si=M3oqdmr9fitPnf9t https://youtu.be/TxAlQBv6-yg?si=M3oqdmr9fitPnf9t.
- neoromantique 3y ago
  Oddly enough I had same experience on an iPhone too, despite it only being an interface wrapper over safari
- sphars 3y ago
  I had the same problem on my 4a. I've since upgraded to a Pixel 8, and I still have the blank screen problem. Notably with a PWA, has to be killed and restarted. This is on Fennec (so FF dev basically). Annoys so much, chromium-based browsers don't have any issue.
- Jap2-0 3y ago
  I have not seen this problem on my 4a.
- andwaal 3y ago
  Same issue for years, fist on a huawai p30 and now in the Samsung s21. Been so long now that I have accepted it as a feature.
- dmacvicar 3y ago
  I haven't seen this problem on a Pixel 4a running Calyxos.
- JadeNB 3y ago
  I had this happen repeatedly but relatively rarely on a Galaxy A51, and now on a Galaxy A54. I don't browse on my phone much, but it felt like much less than 20% of the time. At least, it was rare enough that I'd always forget it happened until it smacked me in the face again.
- flas9sd 3y ago
  do you still actively see this or is it a behaviour that occured a few months ago? I remember https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1840665 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1840665
- fburnaby 3y ago
  This also happens to me in Chrome on Pixel 4a.
29athrowaway 3y ago
It regularly gets stuck on Linux for minutes at a time. Even if you disconnect your Internet connection.
- SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
  I’m using Linux Mint (Ubuntu based) and have never had anything remotely similar to that.
  - 29athrowaway 3y ago
    I am not making this up, and it's an issue reported by other users as well. Although I don't have the ticket URLs right now. For me, after restart, some websites hang for about 5 min and then load. The recommended solution is to "refresh firefox" or use "troubleshoot mode" which disables all extensions.
    - the8472 3y ago
      If this is a per-site issue then maybe just use the devtools to profile what's happening. If it's a whole-browser issue then use the firefox profiler and configure it to profile from startup: https://profiler.firefox.com/docs/#/./guide-startup-shutdown https://profiler.firefox.com/docs/#/./guide-startup-shutdown Maybe something obvious pops out.
      - 29athrowaway 3y ago
        It's not a per-site issue. It doesn't reproduce on other browsers such as Epiphany, Chromium/Chrome, etc.
    - gerdesj 3y ago
      Not many indications/contras to go on! A roughly five min timeout is not indicative to me but someone with more intimate knowledge of IP and FF may recall one or more. "Some" websites might help - examples please. OS and FF versions etc Get the dev tools out. You should be able to narrow it down somewhat.
grizzles 3y ago
I'm a firefox user on Ubuntu. They need to improve the cold start time badly. It currently takes me 4-5 minutes from launch to page load. Once loaded I have no issues with the performance but Chrome is vastly superior in this area. EDIT: I rely highly on the Restore Previous Session feature. That might be why.
- starttoaster 3y ago
  That's a local issue for sure. Not sure how, might be Firefox's fault in some way. But it's not just a combination of Firefox and Ubuntu. (I use Firefox on Ubuntu 22.04 and it's a couple seconds, maybe.)
  - b112 3y ago
    Probably firefox is ridiculously in a snap. Normally, it takes a second to load tops.
    - starttoaster 3y ago
      That's the default install method for Firefox on Ubuntu, last I checked. I think they only recently had an apt repo too. I don't think it's specifically an issue with Snap either, nor do I think Snap is a terrible tool besides it being a centralized package store that you can't create 3rd party repositories for, though I understand people also complain about the block devices Snap packages add to your system. Anyway, the intent of my original comment was just to say that they should do some more investigating on their issue because it's not as simple as Firefox in a Snap package on any Ubuntu installation.
- e-khadem 3y ago
  Maybe due to the snap situation there? Will you try firefox using flatpak or Mozilla's native builds?
- Ridj48dhsnsh 3y ago
  Have you tried deleting your profile and starting fresh? Something is clearly messed up. Launching takes a fraction of a second for me on NixOS with a years-old profile.
SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
Congrats Mozilla! You made improvements to a product you allow dwindle to 2-3% market share. Forest and trees… who cares that you made it faster if continually less and less people use it. The extreme majority do not care about tiny improvements to speed. If they were interested in growing market, they would be integrating ublockOrigin and other anti-ad software. They literally have nothing to lose anymore.
- b112 3y ago
  Don't worry! They'll continue to change the GUI for no reason each release, continue to remove features, customizability, and more as well. Then add on stupid things, so all their users, each release, have to fight to turn off dumbassery, and restore functionality. They've literally done everything they could to destroy market share.
  - russelg 3y ago
    I feel one issue is that the people who are Firefox power users are also disabling telemetry, so the developers aren't getting any usage data from the people who care the most about Firefox. So the only usage data they receive is from the normal user, who want different things and use the browser differently.
    - b112 3y ago
      It's not about telemetry, most people just use the data to support whatever they want. For example, firefox users of all sorts customized things. People loved it. Themes, plug-ins, add-ons. Firefox devs consistently fail to realize that "configurability" is a category, not "this tiny configurable thing". So they've removed configurable after configurable option, each option only having .1% market share usage or what not, not considering that overall... they've now alienated 20% of their user base. Telemetry shows them a tiny percentage for each feature, but it is the collective feature set which matters. And that has a cumulative effect. 20% upset users, all saying "Don't use firefox!", doesn't help. Then they add useless, in your face, obtrusive and annoying features, and people scramble to diaable them. "Oh so sorry, disable that?!". Sometimes years go by, and all the instantly closed bug reports add up, and they finally relent, fix it. Of course, everyone who cared is now gone, and will never come back, and now campaigns against firefox. Just like the infamous tab detach issue, which took half a decade to resolve, by finally adding an about:config option to turn that off. And who cares for telemetry, when hundreds of users complain, and bugs are ignored, or just hostile closed? Mozilla is broken. Firefox is on the wrong path. It is sad.
_8j50 3y ago
I love firefox but i don't have as much faith in mozilla as an org. IMHO, they should consider firefox a loss leader (despite search engine deals) and focus on unrelated projects that make money and attract users due to the firefox brand. Or...hear me out: Firefox gets into the adblocker business and lets the big boys paya fortune to be exempted by default. This includes using ML to block ads (i have ideas on how to implement unblockable ads using traditional means). I really wish they would invest more in servo. Imagine a memory safe browser! But beyond all that, EU and US govs mandating it as the only default browser would be huge for mozilla. They're catching up now in some areas like GPOs but mozilla has nothing on chrome enterprise. They don't realize that corporate types are eager to spend money or random shit so long as b2b marketing is done right (makes the buyer look good internally). And I cna sort of see the conflict because they are pro-privacy and chrome enterprise is very much about giving security/system admins control. For example, if a user clicks through a failing https warning or downloads a file despite safe browing (phishing/malware) warning you would know. So long as you make sure it is only sold to enterprise and gov customers, giving them such insights (and much more, even browsing history) can be a good money maker, help dominate the market share and maintain moral leadership (don't do personal stuff at work or shit where you eat).
- Cyberdog 3y ago
  > Or...hear me out: Firefox gets into the adblocker business and lets the big boys paya fortune to be exempted by default. That will make Firefox a very attractive browser to people who want to block as many ads as possible, and they will then install an add-on which also blocks the ads that Firefox whitelists, perhaps using Firefox's own whitelist as a source if it's easily available. Then if Firefox tries to pull a Google and be evil and lock down their add-on API so that ad blocker add-ons can no longer be made, these people will just switch to a fork with no such limitations. And in the first place I don't think Firefox has enough usage for them to be able to charge a "fortune" for such an ad blocking exemption in the first place. By "EU and US govs mandating it as the only default browser" I assume you mean for government employees and not for the entire populace (which would be straight up despotic), but either way it would probably be unenforceable.
  - 3y ago
PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago
[flagged]
jetrink 3y ago
I'd like to see better stability. My biggest issue with Firefox on Windows right now is that it hangs if I leave it open for several days. Mozilla does have a suggestion on their support site: don't do that[1]: > Firefox hangs after using it for a long time > Firefox may hang if left open for long periods of time. To fix the issue, restart Firefox. So I can choose between closing all of my open tabs at the end of each workday or randomly losing them during the workday. Since having my tabs open when I start work helps me jump back in, I've settled on randomly losing my tabs. They also suggest using their session restore feature after a hang, but with this type of crash, Firefox is never able to restore your tabs. It also doesn't record the crash report in about:crashes. Overall, not great and it has me thinking of trying Brave. 1. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-hangs-or-not-responding#w_firefox-hangs-after-using-it-for-a-long-time https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-hangs-or-not-re...
- TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
  I haven’t had it hang yet but it does slow down and become laggy after a week or so for me. You can use “Open previous Windows and tabs” to keep your tabs between restarts. It only works on the last window you have closed though.
  - simcop2387 3y ago
    It will work on all open windows if you close them at the same time. File->Quit, ctrl+q or cmd+q are all ways to do that.
  - magicalhippo 3y ago
    Same for me. I discovered it was Slack that had some live leak, one time it had eaten 33GB of RAM. An auto-reload extesion did the trick to prevent it from going too far, but I'd really wish Firefox would handle it more gracefully. Unless I say so, a normal web page shouldn't eat gigs of RAM or tons of CPU.
    - galangalalgol 3y ago
      So wouldn't chrome have the same issue?
gtirloni 3y ago
Firefox should be the obvious choice or at least a very close second to Chrome, considering the millions Mozilla gets. That or a browser is a billion dollar project nowadays and Mozilla doesn't have the resources to compete?
- binkHN 3y ago
  With the exception of Linux, Firefox is not installed by default anywhere. You have Edge on Windows, which is based on Chromium, and Chrome pushing its installation when you visit any Google property. So no wonder Firefox has the market share that has.
  - rc_mob 3y ago
    Us technology leaders should be sneakily installing it on all of our grandma's computers and swapping icons to make it look like Chrome
    - binkHN 3y ago
      Until something doesn't work, because it hasn't been tested on Firefox, and Grandma calls complaining. :(
      - paulryanrogers 3y ago
        This is the tyranny of the majority. Devs often won't even test Safari. They check one browser. Once that was IE. Now it's Chrome. I run into site quirks on Firefox from billion dollar companies and government sites at least weekly.
    - 0x073 3y ago
      Would always choose chrome for grandma's computer. Firefox is great but for a non technology person worse than chrome. Most sites work as expected. And I had more update issues with Firefox than chrome (chrome was never outdated, firefox sometimes was versions behind until I manually opened the about dialog)
    - 3y ago
jessehattabaugh 3y ago
Speedometer performance has improved; it's almost as fast as Chrome was last year! Chrome is still 13% faster. JetStream performance is still miserable though; 50% slower than Chrome. Worst of all Firefox doesn't support PWAs, so I'll be using Brave until it does.
- Jap2-0 3y ago
  No, actually it's as fast as Chrome is now,[0] and substantially faster than Chrome was two years ago.[1] - [0] https://arewefastyet.com/win10/benchmarks/overview https://arewefastyet.com/win10/benchmarks/overview [1] https://treeherder.mozilla.org/perfherder/graphs?series=autoland,3912818,1,13&series=mozilla-central,3735773,1,13&timerange=31536000 https://treeherder.mozilla.org/perfherder/graphs?series=auto...
  - lostmsu 3y ago
    I just run it on my Windows PC and it is 1.5x times slower on JetStream vs Edge.
- gausswho 3y ago
  While Mozilla deserves some heat for abandoning official support of PWAs, for my use this add-on has filled the role just as well: https://github.com/filips123/PWAsForFirefox https://github.com/filips123/PWAsForFirefox
  - binkHN 3y ago
    Thanks for this. It is pretty surprising that this is one of the most requested Firefox features and they haven't done anything here; all the world is moving to web apps and Firefox is not helping.
- noir_lord 3y ago
  Suspect that may vary based on host system and OS. ~455 on Chrome, ~452 on Firefox (fully patched windows 10, 7950X3D). 3 runs including a cold start for both, variance on FF was +/-9.6, Chrome was +/- 6.0. I'd say they are there (on that specific benchmark).
Almondsetat 3y ago
Firefox keeps competing on the wrong things. See ARC browser. It's developed by a minuscule team but what they do is turn the experience of browsing the web into pure smooth pleasure. They will never in a million years gather enough talent to outcompete the V8 engine, but what they can do is develop better user workflows to empower them. Firefox could be such a workhorse of a browser. They could add so many features to make the lives of academics, researchers, journalists and professionals in general better. Who cares if it's a bit slower than Chrome if it allows to efficently write my article or keep together the sources for my thesis?
- yardstick 3y ago
  I like the plugin approach for this. I don’t have a need to efficiently write an article in a browser - or code within a browser which is more my thing. I have a dedicated IDE for that, and leave browsing to browsing. Browsers imo should just be browsers and leave the end user applications to the web app developers, plugin developers, etc. So in that sense I’m happy with where they are, and very happy they are doing their own stuff rather than being another Chrome-based browser.
  - Almondsetat 3y ago
    Plugins are terrible though. If I truly want vertical tabs Edge allows me to use them. Firefox? Need a third party plugin that adds the vertical tabs but cannot remove the horizontal ones on top, creating an ugly and wasteful freak. Also I didn't say I should write in the browser, I said the browser should let me collect information from the internet in such a way to make my job easier
    - jwells89 3y ago
      Firefox also doesn’t let you hide the gigantic sidebar header without usercss hacks.
      - soraminazuki 3y ago
        How can Firefox possibly improve if every solution gets labeled a hack?
hesnuts 3y ago
Does anyone have a good way to auto export FF bookmarks on some cadence to a folder for backup purposes (e.g. a location in ones dropbox folder)? Thats one thing I like about Brave, the bookmarks are auto synced somewhere
- Vinnl 3y ago
  You can set up Firefox Sync in the main menu?
  - starkparker 3y ago
    Including self-hosting the sync server, if preferred: https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs
- pacifika 3y ago
  You can use SQLite utility to export it to csv
ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
Firefox is great! It is my daily driver. However a lot of small things irritate me. For example, make Firefox fullscreen and open a long page. Move your mouse to the far right of the page and drag down. The page will not scroll. You need to carefully put your mouse on the tiny scrollbar to make it work. Chrome, Safari on the other hand work as expected.
- gerdesj 3y ago
  I've tried that and its fine with or without F11 really full screen.
  - tempestn 3y ago
    Yeah, same here. Maximize the window, can scroll with mouse on far right. Though I've never tried to scroll that way before as I use three monitors and generally have the browser in the middle. (Which does make these trendy new thin scrollbars a bit irritating. But it seems everyone is doing that.)
  - ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
    Is this on a mac or windows?
rodlette 3y ago
Good to see the benefits of telemetry, which the FOSS is typically skeptical of: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/10/down-and-to-the-right-firefox-got-faster-for-real-users-in-2023/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/10/down-and-to-the-right-fire... . I'll make sure FF telemetry is enabled for me. I typically disable them because I don't trust vendors to not include something I consider sensitive.
Unfrozen0688 3y ago
Yup, I can tell. Now, I just want native vertical tabs. It's annoying that Edge and Brave and Vivaldi does it better. AND an F2 style command line like Vivaldi, PLEASE!! Copy this https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/shortcuts/quick-commands/ https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/shortcuts/quick-commands/
krackers 3y ago
Almost 2007+17 and Firefox still doesn't set a bit to prevent sleep while downloading files.
- binkHN 3y ago
  The last thing I want is any application preventing my computer from sleeping when I specifically told it to do so, even automatically.
  - lostmsu 3y ago
    The bit in question only prevents automatic sleep, not the explicit order to sleep AFAIK.
briantakita 3y ago
I enjoy using Firefox as my primary browser...but it's animation performance significantly lags Chrome
rpgbr 3y ago
I really wish Firefox were a better citizen on macOS. Its weird text treatment, basic stuff such ignoring snippets substitutions, text navigation conventions (Option + arrow, for instance), are deal breakers to me. I’d gladly use Firefox as main browser if all these little details worked as expected for any macOS app. For now, I’m sticking to Safari, which is fine as well, and (not surprisingly) works like every app should word on macOS
- clumsysmurf 3y ago
  My main peave using FF on macOS is full-screening it is a terrible experience - unlike Safari, etc, moving the mouse to the top of the screen causes all the chrome (tabs, URL bar, etc) to shift down (and reveal some useless gap). That's not normal behavior, and should have been fixed 5 years ago. Also, once you use Safari tab groups + tab preview its hard to go back to FF.
  - unloco 3y ago
    >full-screening it is a terrible experience The extra bar from the mouse-over is kind of silly but, a TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE? Yes, it should be fixed though.
    - clumsysmurf 3y ago
      Its very terrible, because the UI actually shifts away from your mouse when you are about to click on something.
  - squidbeak 3y ago
    You're still using Safari when you use Firefox on Mac. Mozilla could perhaps give more attention to bugs in the chrome, but it's understandable they allocate fewer resources to a platform that will never see Firefox's rendering.
    - weikju 3y ago
      > You're still using Safari when you use Firefox on Mac. That's true of iOS, not of macOS.
ghostpepper 3y ago
My biggest annoyances in Firefox are stuff like Pocket, VPN, Colorways etc. Also I don’t have specifics but get the sense the security sandboxing is not in the same league as chrome.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
sertbdfgbnfgsd 3y ago
Maybe I'm the crazy one here, but I can't remember last time firefox speed was an issue. You want your software to be really snappy, we all agree on that. But past some point, it's physically impossible for a human to tell the difference. I believe a human can't detect if a tab takes 10ms or 1ms to open. Firefox has been past the point where "fast" matters for a very long time (and that's a great thing!)
- weikju 3y ago
  Agreed -- however many people still remember Firefox from the days they switched to Chrome and have this perception that Firefox is slow. This blog post is probably for them, to let them know "hey we're not slow!".
- chongli 3y ago
  No, it still matters at the margins. When you get into extreme situations like having too many tabs open or a website with really inefficient JavaScript, it’s really nice to have a fast browser that can deal with that. Sure, there are always ways to design software better in order to preserve responsiveness in extreme situations, but better performance never hurts!
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
spiritplumber 3y ago
I've stuck with Firefox since 2008ish and .... it works well?
tux2bsd 3y ago
[dead]
anizan 3y ago
Strangely theres a huge speed difference using speedometer 2.1 benchmark on mac reporting from m2 pro. 467 on chrome vs 372 on firefox
notme43 3y ago
I've noticed that performance of Firefox on Linux can vary quite a bit from distro to distro. Mozilla uses aggressive compile, link time, and profile guided optimizations in the default Firefox binary they distribute, whereas distributions like Debian compile with very safe options and little optimizations enabled. You can see these with about:buildconfig. It's such a big difference sometimes that it makes sense why they previously branded unofficial releases as Pale Moon.
yc-kraln 3y ago
The only thing that keeps getting faster is the abandonment of Firefox. It doesn't matter how fast Firefox is, or how private it is, or any of the other garbage the Mozilla foundation has been wasting their time on. If Firefox continues to slip in usage, and eventually into obscurity, it is all for nothing. A technically superior, or safer, or more private, or whatever the current line of argumentation and marketing is, does not matter. Mozilla VPN does not matter.
- tristan957 3y ago
  The Mozilla Foundation doesn't develop Firefox, so I don't understand your point.
EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago
What use is 1 millisecond improvement in page load time, if every second page on today's internet requires me to click on cookie consent form, or to solve a difficult captcha, or to pay to continue reading, or turns out to be a 30-screens AI chez d'oeuvre? Enshittification of the web is real and painful.
czottmann 3y ago
Hi, macOS user here. I know Firefox is great, and I'd love to use it (again), but Mozilla's decision to remove all user-facing, OS-level scripting capabilities from it (i.e., AppleScript) made me drop it a few years ago. Getting anything out of FF on macOS, locally, is a major pain in the ass, actually. Try to grab the current URL from the active tab… Add to that the non-macOS text handling, macOS-unlike font rendering, its insistence to not use the system-wide spell checker provided by the OS etc. It feels a bit rude at times. I think it's a super-solid browser that unfortunately doesn't give a shit about the platform it's running on. Irritatingly, it's fine with being a black box, so much more than the Chromiums are (for all their various faults).

303 points by goplayoutside 3y ago

[flagged]

My phone is a bit old (Pixel 4a) but it drives me crazy that so many times I type something into Firefox and it just shows a blank screen. Then I have to restart the app or open a new tap and type again. Feel it happens at least 20% of the time. No idea why and its not an internet issue. There is no loading. There is nothing.

ptrrrrrrppr 3y ago
Have the exact same issue on my 1+
Sakos 3y ago
Been getting that too. No idea why. Interestingly, I've experienced it a handful of times on desktop too. 99% of the time it's the Android app doing it though.
skullone 3y ago
My pixel5 is doing good with Firefox. I credit as blockers for keeping the browser performant
- treetalker 3y ago
  Respectfully: doing well.
- raybb 3y ago
  Yeah the blockers are awesome. Also having a few greasemonkey scripts to automate login on a few pages that require too many clicks.
  - SoKamil 3y ago
    Try clean install. Maybe extensions and userscripts are messing with you.
    - raybb 3y ago
      I've tried a few times and tried FF beta but no difference.
      - Murfalo 3y ago
        I have the same issue quite frequently... If I knew any decent alternative with uBlock (or equivalent) I'd switch on the spot! On a Pixel 6.
      - cycomanic 3y ago
        I used to have this issue on nightly (not annoying enough to make me consider switching though), but it dissappeared several months ago, haven't seen it since. Are you sure it's still happening
dingusdew 3y ago
In my experience, this only happens when I type in a new address in a tab that is already open with a different website. When I try to navigate somewhere else, it hangs, looks like it's loading, but gets... stuck? However, always works with new tab. Also on Pixel 4a. It's not that old, jesus.
ivanjermakov 3y ago
Is it possible to dump logs and about:support to create a bug ticket? I'm sure this will be looked at pretty quickly. Tracker: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/home https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/home
- Borgz 3y ago
  How do you dump logs?
  - ivanjermakov 3y ago
    Looks like you can profile it with remote debugging: https://youtu.be/TxAlQBv6-yg?si=M3oqdmr9fitPnf9t https://youtu.be/TxAlQBv6-yg?si=M3oqdmr9fitPnf9t.
neoromantique 3y ago
Oddly enough I had same experience on an iPhone too, despite it only being an interface wrapper over safari
sphars 3y ago
I had the same problem on my 4a. I've since upgraded to a Pixel 8, and I still have the blank screen problem. Notably with a PWA, has to be killed and restarted. This is on Fennec (so FF dev basically). Annoys so much, chromium-based browsers don't have any issue.
Jap2-0 3y ago
I have not seen this problem on my 4a.
andwaal 3y ago
Same issue for years, fist on a huawai p30 and now in the Samsung s21. Been so long now that I have accepted it as a feature.
dmacvicar 3y ago
I haven't seen this problem on a Pixel 4a running Calyxos.
JadeNB 3y ago
I had this happen repeatedly but relatively rarely on a Galaxy A51, and now on a Galaxy A54. I don't browse on my phone much, but it felt like much less than 20% of the time. At least, it was rare enough that I'd always forget it happened until it smacked me in the face again.
flas9sd 3y ago
do you still actively see this or is it a behaviour that occured a few months ago? I remember https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1840665 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1840665
fburnaby 3y ago
This also happens to me in Chrome on Pixel 4a.

29athrowaway 3y ago

It regularly gets stuck on Linux for minutes at a time. Even if you disconnect your Internet connection.

SV_BubbleTime 3y ago
I’m using Linux Mint (Ubuntu based) and have never had anything remotely similar to that.
- 29athrowaway 3y ago
  I am not making this up, and it's an issue reported by other users as well. Although I don't have the ticket URLs right now. For me, after restart, some websites hang for about 5 min and then load. The recommended solution is to "refresh firefox" or use "troubleshoot mode" which disables all extensions.
  - the8472 3y ago
    If this is a per-site issue then maybe just use the devtools to profile what's happening. If it's a whole-browser issue then use the firefox profiler and configure it to profile from startup: https://profiler.firefox.com/docs/#/./guide-startup-shutdown https://profiler.firefox.com/docs/#/./guide-startup-shutdown Maybe something obvious pops out.
    - 29athrowaway 3y ago
      It's not a per-site issue. It doesn't reproduce on other browsers such as Epiphany, Chromium/Chrome, etc.
  - gerdesj 3y ago
    Not many indications/contras to go on! A roughly five min timeout is not indicative to me but someone with more intimate knowledge of IP and FF may recall one or more. "Some" websites might help - examples please. OS and FF versions etc Get the dev tools out. You should be able to narrow it down somewhat.

grizzles 3y ago

I'm a firefox user on Ubuntu. They need to improve the cold start time badly. It currently takes me 4-5 minutes from launch to page load. Once loaded I have no issues with the performance but Chrome is vastly superior in this area. EDIT: I rely highly on the Restore Previous Session feature. That might be why.

starttoaster 3y ago
That's a local issue for sure. Not sure how, might be Firefox's fault in some way. But it's not just a combination of Firefox and Ubuntu. (I use Firefox on Ubuntu 22.04 and it's a couple seconds, maybe.)
- b112 3y ago
  Probably firefox is ridiculously in a snap. Normally, it takes a second to load tops.
  - starttoaster 3y ago
    That's the default install method for Firefox on Ubuntu, last I checked. I think they only recently had an apt repo too. I don't think it's specifically an issue with Snap either, nor do I think Snap is a terrible tool besides it being a centralized package store that you can't create 3rd party repositories for, though I understand people also complain about the block devices Snap packages add to your system. Anyway, the intent of my original comment was just to say that they should do some more investigating on their issue because it's not as simple as Firefox in a Snap package on any Ubuntu installation.
e-khadem 3y ago
Maybe due to the snap situation there? Will you try firefox using flatpak or Mozilla's native builds?
Ridj48dhsnsh 3y ago
Have you tried deleting your profile and starting fresh? Something is clearly messed up. Launching takes a fraction of a second for me on NixOS with a years-old profile.

SV_BubbleTime 3y ago

Congrats Mozilla! You made improvements to a product you allow dwindle to 2-3% market share. Forest and trees… who cares that you made it faster if continually less and less people use it. The extreme majority do not care about tiny improvements to speed. If they were interested in growing market, they would be integrating ublockOrigin and other anti-ad software. They literally have nothing to lose anymore.

b112 3y ago
Don't worry! They'll continue to change the GUI for no reason each release, continue to remove features, customizability, and more as well. Then add on stupid things, so all their users, each release, have to fight to turn off dumbassery, and restore functionality. They've literally done everything they could to destroy market share.
- russelg 3y ago
  I feel one issue is that the people who are Firefox power users are also disabling telemetry, so the developers aren't getting any usage data from the people who care the most about Firefox. So the only usage data they receive is from the normal user, who want different things and use the browser differently.
  - b112 3y ago
    It's not about telemetry, most people just use the data to support whatever they want. For example, firefox users of all sorts customized things. People loved it. Themes, plug-ins, add-ons. Firefox devs consistently fail to realize that "configurability" is a category, not "this tiny configurable thing". So they've removed configurable after configurable option, each option only having .1% market share usage or what not, not considering that overall... they've now alienated 20% of their user base. Telemetry shows them a tiny percentage for each feature, but it is the collective feature set which matters. And that has a cumulative effect. 20% upset users, all saying "Don't use firefox!", doesn't help. Then they add useless, in your face, obtrusive and annoying features, and people scramble to diaable them. "Oh so sorry, disable that?!". Sometimes years go by, and all the instantly closed bug reports add up, and they finally relent, fix it. Of course, everyone who cared is now gone, and will never come back, and now campaigns against firefox. Just like the infamous tab detach issue, which took half a decade to resolve, by finally adding an about:config option to turn that off. And who cares for telemetry, when hundreds of users complain, and bugs are ignored, or just hostile closed? Mozilla is broken. Firefox is on the wrong path. It is sad.

_8j50 3y ago

I love firefox but i don't have as much faith in mozilla as an org. IMHO, they should consider firefox a loss leader (despite search engine deals) and focus on unrelated projects that make money and attract users due to the firefox brand. Or...hear me out: Firefox gets into the adblocker business and lets the big boys paya fortune to be exempted by default. This includes using ML to block ads (i have ideas on how to implement unblockable ads using traditional means). I really wish they would invest more in servo. Imagine a memory safe browser! But beyond all that, EU and US govs mandating it as the only default browser would be huge for mozilla. They're catching up now in some areas like GPOs but mozilla has nothing on chrome enterprise. They don't realize that corporate types are eager to spend money or random shit so long as b2b marketing is done right (makes the buyer look good internally). And I cna sort of see the conflict because they are pro-privacy and chrome enterprise is very much about giving security/system admins control. For example, if a user clicks through a failing https warning or downloads a file despite safe browing (phishing/malware) warning you would know. So long as you make sure it is only sold to enterprise and gov customers, giving them such insights (and much more, even browsing history) can be a good money maker, help dominate the market share and maintain moral leadership (don't do personal stuff at work or shit where you eat).

Cyberdog 3y ago
> Or...hear me out: Firefox gets into the adblocker business and lets the big boys paya fortune to be exempted by default. That will make Firefox a very attractive browser to people who want to block as many ads as possible, and they will then install an add-on which also blocks the ads that Firefox whitelists, perhaps using Firefox's own whitelist as a source if it's easily available. Then if Firefox tries to pull a Google and be evil and lock down their add-on API so that ad blocker add-ons can no longer be made, these people will just switch to a fork with no such limitations. And in the first place I don't think Firefox has enough usage for them to be able to charge a "fortune" for such an ad blocking exemption in the first place. By "EU and US govs mandating it as the only default browser" I assume you mean for government employees and not for the entire populace (which would be straight up despotic), but either way it would probably be unenforceable.
- 3y ago

PlutoIsAPlanet 3y ago

[flagged]

jetrink 3y ago

I'd like to see better stability. My biggest issue with Firefox on Windows right now is that it hangs if I leave it open for several days. Mozilla does have a suggestion on their support site: don't do that[1]: > Firefox hangs after using it for a long time > Firefox may hang if left open for long periods of time. To fix the issue, restart Firefox. So I can choose between closing all of my open tabs at the end of each workday or randomly losing them during the workday. Since having my tabs open when I start work helps me jump back in, I've settled on randomly losing my tabs. They also suggest using their session restore feature after a hang, but with this type of crash, Firefox is never able to restore your tabs. It also doesn't record the crash report in about:crashes. Overall, not great and it has me thinking of trying Brave. 1. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-hangs-or-not-responding#w_firefox-hangs-after-using-it-for-a-long-time https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-hangs-or-not-re...

TerrifiedMouse 3y ago
I haven’t had it hang yet but it does slow down and become laggy after a week or so for me. You can use “Open previous Windows and tabs” to keep your tabs between restarts. It only works on the last window you have closed though.
- simcop2387 3y ago
  It will work on all open windows if you close them at the same time. File->Quit, ctrl+q or cmd+q are all ways to do that.
- magicalhippo 3y ago
  Same for me. I discovered it was Slack that had some live leak, one time it had eaten 33GB of RAM. An auto-reload extesion did the trick to prevent it from going too far, but I'd really wish Firefox would handle it more gracefully. Unless I say so, a normal web page shouldn't eat gigs of RAM or tons of CPU.
  - galangalalgol 3y ago
    So wouldn't chrome have the same issue?

gtirloni 3y ago

Firefox should be the obvious choice or at least a very close second to Chrome, considering the millions Mozilla gets. That or a browser is a billion dollar project nowadays and Mozilla doesn't have the resources to compete?

binkHN 3y ago
With the exception of Linux, Firefox is not installed by default anywhere. You have Edge on Windows, which is based on Chromium, and Chrome pushing its installation when you visit any Google property. So no wonder Firefox has the market share that has.
- rc_mob 3y ago
  Us technology leaders should be sneakily installing it on all of our grandma's computers and swapping icons to make it look like Chrome
  - binkHN 3y ago
    Until something doesn't work, because it hasn't been tested on Firefox, and Grandma calls complaining. :(
    - paulryanrogers 3y ago
      This is the tyranny of the majority. Devs often won't even test Safari. They check one browser. Once that was IE. Now it's Chrome. I run into site quirks on Firefox from billion dollar companies and government sites at least weekly.
  - 0x073 3y ago
    Would always choose chrome for grandma's computer. Firefox is great but for a non technology person worse than chrome. Most sites work as expected. And I had more update issues with Firefox than chrome (chrome was never outdated, firefox sometimes was versions behind until I manually opened the about dialog)
  - 3y ago

jessehattabaugh 3y ago

Speedometer performance has improved; it's almost as fast as Chrome was last year! Chrome is still 13% faster. JetStream performance is still miserable though; 50% slower than Chrome. Worst of all Firefox doesn't support PWAs, so I'll be using Brave until it does.

Jap2-0 3y ago
No, actually it's as fast as Chrome is now,[0] and substantially faster than Chrome was two years ago.[1] - [0] https://arewefastyet.com/win10/benchmarks/overview https://arewefastyet.com/win10/benchmarks/overview [1] https://treeherder.mozilla.org/perfherder/graphs?series=autoland,3912818,1,13&series=mozilla-central,3735773,1,13&timerange=31536000 https://treeherder.mozilla.org/perfherder/graphs?series=auto...
- lostmsu 3y ago
  I just run it on my Windows PC and it is 1.5x times slower on JetStream vs Edge.
gausswho 3y ago
While Mozilla deserves some heat for abandoning official support of PWAs, for my use this add-on has filled the role just as well: https://github.com/filips123/PWAsForFirefox https://github.com/filips123/PWAsForFirefox
- binkHN 3y ago
  Thanks for this. It is pretty surprising that this is one of the most requested Firefox features and they haven't done anything here; all the world is moving to web apps and Firefox is not helping.
noir_lord 3y ago
Suspect that may vary based on host system and OS. ~455 on Chrome, ~452 on Firefox (fully patched windows 10, 7950X3D). 3 runs including a cold start for both, variance on FF was +/-9.6, Chrome was +/- 6.0. I'd say they are there (on that specific benchmark).

Almondsetat 3y ago

Firefox keeps competing on the wrong things. See ARC browser. It's developed by a minuscule team but what they do is turn the experience of browsing the web into pure smooth pleasure. They will never in a million years gather enough talent to outcompete the V8 engine, but what they can do is develop better user workflows to empower them. Firefox could be such a workhorse of a browser. They could add so many features to make the lives of academics, researchers, journalists and professionals in general better. Who cares if it's a bit slower than Chrome if it allows to efficently write my article or keep together the sources for my thesis?

yardstick 3y ago
I like the plugin approach for this. I don’t have a need to efficiently write an article in a browser - or code within a browser which is more my thing. I have a dedicated IDE for that, and leave browsing to browsing. Browsers imo should just be browsers and leave the end user applications to the web app developers, plugin developers, etc. So in that sense I’m happy with where they are, and very happy they are doing their own stuff rather than being another Chrome-based browser.
- Almondsetat 3y ago
  Plugins are terrible though. If I truly want vertical tabs Edge allows me to use them. Firefox? Need a third party plugin that adds the vertical tabs but cannot remove the horizontal ones on top, creating an ugly and wasteful freak. Also I didn't say I should write in the browser, I said the browser should let me collect information from the internet in such a way to make my job easier
  - jwells89 3y ago
    Firefox also doesn’t let you hide the gigantic sidebar header without usercss hacks.
    - soraminazuki 3y ago
      How can Firefox possibly improve if every solution gets labeled a hack?

hesnuts 3y ago

Does anyone have a good way to auto export FF bookmarks on some cadence to a folder for backup purposes (e.g. a location in ones dropbox folder)? Thats one thing I like about Brave, the bookmarks are auto synced somewhere

Vinnl 3y ago
You can set up Firefox Sync in the main menu?
- starkparker 3y ago
  Including self-hosting the sync server, if preferred: https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs https://github.com/mozilla-services/syncstorage-rs
pacifika 3y ago
You can use SQLite utility to export it to csv

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago

Firefox is great! It is my daily driver. However a lot of small things irritate me. For example, make Firefox fullscreen and open a long page. Move your mouse to the far right of the page and drag down. The page will not scroll. You need to carefully put your mouse on the tiny scrollbar to make it work. Chrome, Safari on the other hand work as expected.

gerdesj 3y ago
I've tried that and its fine with or without F11 really full screen.
- tempestn 3y ago
  Yeah, same here. Maximize the window, can scroll with mouse on far right. Though I've never tried to scroll that way before as I use three monitors and generally have the browser in the middle. (Which does make these trendy new thin scrollbars a bit irritating. But it seems everyone is doing that.)
- ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
  Is this on a mac or windows?

rodlette 3y ago

Good to see the benefits of telemetry, which the FOSS is typically skeptical of: https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/10/down-and-to-the-right-firefox-got-faster-for-real-users-in-2023/ https://hacks.mozilla.org/2023/10/down-and-to-the-right-fire... . I'll make sure FF telemetry is enabled for me. I typically disable them because I don't trust vendors to not include something I consider sensitive.

Unfrozen0688 3y ago

Yup, I can tell. Now, I just want native vertical tabs. It's annoying that Edge and Brave and Vivaldi does it better. AND an F2 style command line like Vivaldi, PLEASE!! Copy this https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/shortcuts/quick-commands/ https://help.vivaldi.com/desktop/shortcuts/quick-commands/

krackers 3y ago

Almost 2007+17 and Firefox still doesn't set a bit to prevent sleep while downloading files.

binkHN 3y ago
The last thing I want is any application preventing my computer from sleeping when I specifically told it to do so, even automatically.
- lostmsu 3y ago
  The bit in question only prevents automatic sleep, not the explicit order to sleep AFAIK.

briantakita 3y ago

I enjoy using Firefox as my primary browser...but it's animation performance significantly lags Chrome

rpgbr 3y ago

I really wish Firefox were a better citizen on macOS. Its weird text treatment, basic stuff such ignoring snippets substitutions, text navigation conventions (Option + arrow, for instance), are deal breakers to me. I’d gladly use Firefox as main browser if all these little details worked as expected for any macOS app. For now, I’m sticking to Safari, which is fine as well, and (not surprisingly) works like every app should word on macOS

clumsysmurf 3y ago
My main peave using FF on macOS is full-screening it is a terrible experience - unlike Safari, etc, moving the mouse to the top of the screen causes all the chrome (tabs, URL bar, etc) to shift down (and reveal some useless gap). That's not normal behavior, and should have been fixed 5 years ago. Also, once you use Safari tab groups + tab preview its hard to go back to FF.
- unloco 3y ago
  >full-screening it is a terrible experience The extra bar from the mouse-over is kind of silly but, a TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE? Yes, it should be fixed though.
  - clumsysmurf 3y ago
    Its very terrible, because the UI actually shifts away from your mouse when you are about to click on something.
- squidbeak 3y ago
  You're still using Safari when you use Firefox on Mac. Mozilla could perhaps give more attention to bugs in the chrome, but it's understandable they allocate fewer resources to a platform that will never see Firefox's rendering.
  - weikju 3y ago
    > You're still using Safari when you use Firefox on Mac. That's true of iOS, not of macOS.

ghostpepper 3y ago

My biggest annoyances in Firefox are stuff like Pocket, VPN, Colorways etc. Also I don’t have specifics but get the sense the security sandboxing is not in the same league as chrome.

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sertbdfgbnfgsd 3y ago

Maybe I'm the crazy one here, but I can't remember last time firefox speed was an issue. You want your software to be really snappy, we all agree on that. But past some point, it's physically impossible for a human to tell the difference. I believe a human can't detect if a tab takes 10ms or 1ms to open. Firefox has been past the point where "fast" matters for a very long time (and that's a great thing!)

weikju 3y ago
Agreed -- however many people still remember Firefox from the days they switched to Chrome and have this perception that Firefox is slow. This blog post is probably for them, to let them know "hey we're not slow!".
chongli 3y ago
No, it still matters at the margins. When you get into extreme situations like having too many tabs open or a website with really inefficient JavaScript, it’s really nice to have a fast browser that can deal with that. Sure, there are always ways to design software better in order to preserve responsiveness in extreme situations, but better performance never hurts!

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spiritplumber 3y ago

I've stuck with Firefox since 2008ish and .... it works well?

tux2bsd 3y ago

[dead]

anizan 3y ago

Strangely theres a huge speed difference using speedometer 2.1 benchmark on mac reporting from m2 pro. 467 on chrome vs 372 on firefox

notme43 3y ago

I've noticed that performance of Firefox on Linux can vary quite a bit from distro to distro. Mozilla uses aggressive compile, link time, and profile guided optimizations in the default Firefox binary they distribute, whereas distributions like Debian compile with very safe options and little optimizations enabled. You can see these with about:buildconfig. It's such a big difference sometimes that it makes sense why they previously branded unofficial releases as Pale Moon.

yc-kraln 3y ago

The only thing that keeps getting faster is the abandonment of Firefox. It doesn't matter how fast Firefox is, or how private it is, or any of the other garbage the Mozilla foundation has been wasting their time on. If Firefox continues to slip in usage, and eventually into obscurity, it is all for nothing. A technically superior, or safer, or more private, or whatever the current line of argumentation and marketing is, does not matter. Mozilla VPN does not matter.

tristan957 3y ago
The Mozilla Foundation doesn't develop Firefox, so I don't understand your point.

EVa5I7bHFq9mnYK 3y ago

What use is 1 millisecond improvement in page load time, if every second page on today's internet requires me to click on cookie consent form, or to solve a difficult captcha, or to pay to continue reading, or turns out to be a 30-screens AI chez d'oeuvre? Enshittification of the web is real and painful.

czottmann 3y ago

Hi, macOS user here. I know Firefox is great, and I'd love to use it (again), but Mozilla's decision to remove all user-facing, OS-level scripting capabilities from it (i.e., AppleScript) made me drop it a few years ago. Getting anything out of FF on macOS, locally, is a major pain in the ass, actually. Try to grab the current URL from the active tab… Add to that the non-macOS text handling, macOS-unlike font rendering, its insistence to not use the system-wide spell checker provided by the OS etc. It feels a bit rude at times. I think it's a super-solid browser that unfortunately doesn't give a shit about the platform it's running on. Irritatingly, it's fine with being a black box, so much more than the Chromiums are (for all their various faults).