4 ms·

Why don't they first produce near-Chrome performance for their browser? Every time I use Firefox, it slows down to a snail's pace and eventually crashes if ther

Why don't they first produce near-Chrome performance for their browser? Every time I use Firefox, it slows down to a snail's pace and eventually crashes if there are more than 4--6 tabs open.

ricardobeat 13y ago
Is your FF up to date? Since around v20 it feels way snappier than Chrome, at least on OSX.
- jackmaney 13y ago
  I switched to Chrome right around Firefox v3.6. I've tried it a few times since, but I don't remember which version Firefox was at at the time.
zw 13y ago
Exactly. I don't know how I'm supposed to trust them "making the web faster" when I can't scroll up and down a page.
- gkanai 13y ago
  You may have an addon that is leaking memory or your profile may be corrupted. Consider restarting without any Addons or try the Reset feature to start with a new profile but with your key user data migrated. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-most-problems https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fi...
  - pekk 13y ago
    My profile is apparently constantly being corrupted. If I have to wipe Firefox's data on me every other day because of profile corruption then what is the point? If addons are guaranteed to mess things up then why does Firefox have that feature? Let's be honest, this isn't meant to be helpful, it's just meant to shift blame back to the user.
    - jackmaney 13y ago
      s/(shift blame back to the user)/be passive agressive and \1/
pcwalton 13y ago
Your Firefox crashes with more than 4-6 tabs? That's definitely not normal. Check for misbehaving addons and malware and file a bug if it's reproducible.
- jackmaney 13y ago
  I didn't use a single addon.
Ygg2 13y ago
That might be true in your case, but I'm running Firefox 21 smoothly with over 11 tabs open as I type this. And I have a truckload of addons changing my addon bar approximately 12(of 24 installed). What you are experiencing is definitely abnormal. The only days I have that kind of performance issue is on my old laptop. In which case try switching to Aurora/Nightly, it might help.
Yoric 13y ago
I have about 300 tabs open on my Firefox, and the Gecko Profiler is active. Things are running very smoothly, thank you very much. So, my best guess is that you have an add-on killing your performance and stability.
- jackmaney 13y ago
  Nope, I ran no addons.
  - Ygg2 13y ago
    You seem to say "ran" which implies it was a some time in past. When exactly was this? Also FF is moving very rapidly, I remember FF 19(possibly 20) with no addons being way slower on my laptop than Chrome while its nightly at the time - FF 22 (or 23-24) ran blazingly fast (with same addons as FF 19) on par with Chrome.
    - jackmaney 13y ago
      I switched to Chrome shortly after FF 3.6 and have only looked back 3 or 4 times since.
      - BrendanEich 13y ago
        3.6 was a while ago, and I believe you didn't need add-ons to have the trouble you describe. I use Firefox and Chrome every day. My results line up with recent HN comments about how Firefox is competitive, uses less memory at scale (lots of tabs), still janks worse, but may be actually more stable at the moment. Flash is a big source of instability still, for both browsers. My bottom line: both Firefox and Chrome are competitive, leading-edge browsers. Firefox on desktops is pure open source, Chrome is not (if that matters to you; it does to me a bit, but I'm a realist). AwesomeBar wins for me over Omnibox. I hope you'll give Firefox a try again. /be
        jackmaney 13y ago

Why don't they first produce near-Chrome performance for their browser? Every time I use Firefox, it slows down to a snail's pace and eventually crashes if there are more than 4--6 tabs open.

ricardobeat 13y ago

Is your FF up to date? Since around v20 it feels way snappier than Chrome, at least on OSX.

jackmaney 13y ago
I switched to Chrome right around Firefox v3.6. I've tried it a few times since, but I don't remember which version Firefox was at at the time.

zw 13y ago

Exactly. I don't know how I'm supposed to trust them "making the web faster" when I can't scroll up and down a page.

gkanai 13y ago
You may have an addon that is leaking memory or your profile may be corrupted. Consider restarting without any Addons or try the Reset feature to start with a new profile but with your key user data migrated. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fix-most-problems https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-firefox-easily-fi...
- pekk 13y ago
  My profile is apparently constantly being corrupted. If I have to wipe Firefox's data on me every other day because of profile corruption then what is the point? If addons are guaranteed to mess things up then why does Firefox have that feature? Let's be honest, this isn't meant to be helpful, it's just meant to shift blame back to the user.
  - jackmaney 13y ago
    s/(shift blame back to the user)/be passive agressive and \1/

pcwalton 13y ago

Your Firefox crashes with more than 4-6 tabs? That's definitely not normal. Check for misbehaving addons and malware and file a bug if it's reproducible.

jackmaney 13y ago
I didn't use a single addon.

Ygg2 13y ago

That might be true in your case, but I'm running Firefox 21 smoothly with over 11 tabs open as I type this. And I have a truckload of addons changing my addon bar approximately 12(of 24 installed). What you are experiencing is definitely abnormal. The only days I have that kind of performance issue is on my old laptop. In which case try switching to Aurora/Nightly, it might help.

Yoric 13y ago

I have about 300 tabs open on my Firefox, and the Gecko Profiler is active. Things are running very smoothly, thank you very much. So, my best guess is that you have an add-on killing your performance and stability.

jackmaney 13y ago
Nope, I ran no addons.
- Ygg2 13y ago
  You seem to say "ran" which implies it was a some time in past. When exactly was this? Also FF is moving very rapidly, I remember FF 19(possibly 20) with no addons being way slower on my laptop than Chrome while its nightly at the time - FF 22 (or 23-24) ran blazingly fast (with same addons as FF 19) on par with Chrome.
  - jackmaney 13y ago
    I switched to Chrome shortly after FF 3.6 and have only looked back 3 or 4 times since.
    - BrendanEich 13y ago
      3.6 was a while ago, and I believe you didn't need add-ons to have the trouble you describe. I use Firefox and Chrome every day. My results line up with recent HN comments about how Firefox is competitive, uses less memory at scale (lots of tabs), still janks worse, but may be actually more stable at the moment. Flash is a big source of instability still, for both browsers. My bottom line: both Firefox and Chrome are competitive, leading-edge browsers. Firefox on desktops is pure open source, Chrome is not (if that matters to you; it does to me a bit, but I'm a realist). AwesomeBar wins for me over Omnibox. I hope you'll give Firefox a try again. /be
      - jackmaney 13y ago