31 ms·

I want to use Firefox (OS X), and with almost every release I give it a go but it's simply too slow in comparison to Chrome. I'm talking about actions you do m

I want to use Firefox (OS X), and with almost every release I give it a go but it's simply too slow in comparison to Chrome. I'm talking about actions you do multiple times an hour - opening a new tab, closing a tab, rearranging tabs etc. This is with no extensions in use, on a mid-2011 fully specced out macbook air. It's unfortunate but the lag is clear and I can't use it as my primary when I know a better solution is right in front of me, that being Chrome.

amatera 12y ago
This seams to be a problem with your machine. I also use a macbook air (End 2013) and dont have this problem (or feel any Lag on Tab-Actions). Even on my old Ubuntu-rig it doesnt have this problem. Either in Firefox or Chrome.
- richardwhiuk 12y ago
  If it works fine for him in Chrome, how can it be a problem with his machine.
- Pacabel 12y ago
  Your response is the kind that has given the Firefox community a rather bad reputation when it comes to addressing problems reported by users. Instead of accepting that Firefox may indeed have performance problem, you immediately discount this possibility, instead blaming it on mr_november's computer. It's irrelevant that it isn't happening on your laptop that's over 2 years newer than his is. It's irrelevant that it isn't happening on your Ubuntu system. None of that matters. I don't doubt for a second that he is in fact running into performance problems with Firefox. He isn't alone. Many people report Firefox having worse performance than Chrome does on the same system. I've experienced this, too. Yet instead of addressing and fixing these very real performance problems that have been brought up time and time again by many users, the Firefox community and developers seem content to deny that they exist, or refuse to consider that it may be a problem with Firefox (like you've done), or point to useless and totally unrealistic benchmarks to suggest it isn't a problem. But worst of all is how mr_november's comment has been voted down. It's one thing to deny that the problem exists, but it's much worse to try to actively censor those who have merely pointed out a very legitimate and troubling issue. Firefox has been losing market share for some time now, and this trend will only continue as long as Firefox's performance problems go unaddressed, and the Firefox community mistreats anyone who dares mention that such problems still exist.
  - dblohm7 12y ago
    I work on the desktop performance team and my job is to address performance issues. It is mistaken to suggest that we don't care about performance and responsiveness.
    - Pacabel 12y ago
      Can you please address why we haven't seen much progress, even after so many years? You and others involved with Firefox may choose to deny it, but a lot of people still find recent versions of Firefox to be slow and/or to suffer from stability problems. For example, just look at the discussion at Slashdot today about the Firefox 31 release: http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/07/22/1918237/firefox-31-released http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/07/22/1918237/firefox-31-r... Here are some comments that specifically mention Firefox being slow and/or unstable: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=47511053 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=4751105... http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=47510773 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=4751077... http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=47510915 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=4751091... http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=47511271 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=4751127... http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=47511441 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=4751144... Whenever Firefox is discussed, those kinds of comments seem to be quite common. While some may choose to brush them off, to me it indicates that Firefox has some real problems, and these problems just aren't being fixed. We wouldn't see people continually bringing up these problems if they truly had been fixed.
      - dblohm7 12y ago
        I have never denied anything and I do not appreciate you making such accusations toward me. Having said that, I have a few remarks about this post: 1) People making vague complaints on discussion forums or social media is not going to get the right information to the right people. We can't fix problems by spending all our time scavenging (HN|reddit|slashdot|whatever) for complaints. Even if we could, they wouldn't contain enough information to act on them. It's super important for the community to help us out: If you are having performance problems, you absolutely need to be filing them at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=guided https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=guided 2) Just like any other type of bug, we cannot do anything about people's problems unless we know what is wrong. Ideally we would have information about the user's hardware and OS, which extensions they have installed (and better yet, is it reproducible with no extensions at all), steps to reproduce and diagnostic information to help us. about:memory and the Gecko profiler (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Performance/Profiling_with_the_Built-in_Profiler https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Performance...) are essential tools that we provide for diagnosing this stuff. If you're savvy enough to be reading HN, you're savvy enough to use those, and you should attach output from those tools to the memory/perf bugs that you file. 3) For people who are not tech savvy, we try our best to analyze telemetry information on their behalf, but for privacy reasons we only do so on the release channel if users opt in. The more users that opt in to telemetry, the better the data that we receive. 4) Finally, IMHO many people need to come to grips with the fact that modern web browsers are much more complex and capable than their pioneers were. I see lots of complaining from people who want their browser to have the same memory footprint as Netscape 2.0 and that just isn't reasonable.
jasonlotito 12y ago
I had the opposite experience, with the same machine (Mid-2011 MBA). Firefox, even with plugins, was superior to Chrome for some time now. Anecdote and data and all that jazz.
- lipoicacid 12y ago
  4.8ghz quad core, 8gb ram, gtx 580. Firefox is consistently slower on my machine sadly (I've also got 3 script blockers/whitelists in chrome with tons of extensions and still outperforms.)
  - jasonlotito 12y ago
    I recently (this past week) got a brand new MBPr, 16G RAM, etc. FF provides a better experience Chrome, still. So, once again, anecdote and data and all that jazz.
    - Pacabel 12y ago
      Maybe you and others in the Firefox community don't realize this, but this isn't about counting "anecdotes" or anything like that. This is about users having bad experiences when using Firefox. Your positive experience in no way negates these bad experiences.
      - jasonlotito 12y ago
        > Maybe you and others in the Firefox community don't realize this... We do. > This is about users having bad experiences when using Firefox. Every company creates bad experiences for some users. Hell, I've had bad experiences with Apple technical support, the apparent gold-standard of customer support. > Your positive experience in no way negates these bad experiences. And vice-versa. So what? What's the point? If I can't share my positive experience, they can't share their negative ones? Maybe you think comments like "My experience was bad" is helpful and worthwhile. Maybe. But only if the inverse is true. So, don't complain when people share anecdotes you don't like. Either accept them, or don't.
acomjean 12y ago
I run it on a macbook white plastic (old). Firefox runs well. It does get tired sometimes (around 3pm). I usually go to about:memory and clean up. That or restart it.
- cerberusss 12y ago
  > runs well. It does get tired sometimes Haha, that really brightened up my morning :)
thristian 12y ago
Have you tried going to the special "about:support" URL and clicking the "Reset Firefox" button at the top right? This creates a new profile and imports all your existing bookmarks, history, saved passwords, etc. but resets preferences back to defaults and recreates all the databases from scratch. If there's any settings from old version of Firefox that are confusing the new version, or poorly-laid-out database files that can't be efficiently updated, this should clean them up.
- mr_november 12y ago
  Just did this, thanks for the tip, hopefully this has some effect.

amatera 12y ago

This seams to be a problem with your machine. I also use a macbook air (End 2013) and dont have this problem (or feel any Lag on Tab-Actions). Even on my old Ubuntu-rig it doesnt have this problem. Either in Firefox or Chrome.

richardwhiuk 12y ago
If it works fine for him in Chrome, how can it be a problem with his machine.
Pacabel 12y ago
Your response is the kind that has given the Firefox community a rather bad reputation when it comes to addressing problems reported by users. Instead of accepting that Firefox may indeed have performance problem, you immediately discount this possibility, instead blaming it on mr_november's computer. It's irrelevant that it isn't happening on your laptop that's over 2 years newer than his is. It's irrelevant that it isn't happening on your Ubuntu system. None of that matters. I don't doubt for a second that he is in fact running into performance problems with Firefox. He isn't alone. Many people report Firefox having worse performance than Chrome does on the same system. I've experienced this, too. Yet instead of addressing and fixing these very real performance problems that have been brought up time and time again by many users, the Firefox community and developers seem content to deny that they exist, or refuse to consider that it may be a problem with Firefox (like you've done), or point to useless and totally unrealistic benchmarks to suggest it isn't a problem. But worst of all is how mr_november's comment has been voted down. It's one thing to deny that the problem exists, but it's much worse to try to actively censor those who have merely pointed out a very legitimate and troubling issue. Firefox has been losing market share for some time now, and this trend will only continue as long as Firefox's performance problems go unaddressed, and the Firefox community mistreats anyone who dares mention that such problems still exist.
- dblohm7 12y ago
  I work on the desktop performance team and my job is to address performance issues. It is mistaken to suggest that we don't care about performance and responsiveness.
  - Pacabel 12y ago
    Can you please address why we haven't seen much progress, even after so many years? You and others involved with Firefox may choose to deny it, but a lot of people still find recent versions of Firefox to be slow and/or to suffer from stability problems. For example, just look at the discussion at Slashdot today about the Firefox 31 release: http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/07/22/1918237/firefox-31-released http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/07/22/1918237/firefox-31-r... Here are some comments that specifically mention Firefox being slow and/or unstable: http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=47511053 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=4751105... http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=47510773 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=4751077... http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=47510915 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=4751091... http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=47511271 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=4751127... http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=47511441 http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=5438731&cid=4751144... Whenever Firefox is discussed, those kinds of comments seem to be quite common. While some may choose to brush them off, to me it indicates that Firefox has some real problems, and these problems just aren't being fixed. We wouldn't see people continually bringing up these problems if they truly had been fixed.
    - dblohm7 12y ago
      I have never denied anything and I do not appreciate you making such accusations toward me. Having said that, I have a few remarks about this post: 1) People making vague complaints on discussion forums or social media is not going to get the right information to the right people. We can't fix problems by spending all our time scavenging (HN|reddit|slashdot|whatever) for complaints. Even if we could, they wouldn't contain enough information to act on them. It's super important for the community to help us out: If you are having performance problems, you absolutely need to be filing them at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=guided https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/enter_bug.cgi?format=guided 2) Just like any other type of bug, we cannot do anything about people's problems unless we know what is wrong. Ideally we would have information about the user's hardware and OS, which extensions they have installed (and better yet, is it reproducible with no extensions at all), steps to reproduce and diagnostic information to help us. about:memory and the Gecko profiler (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Performance/Profiling_with_the_Built-in_Profiler https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Mozilla/Performance...) are essential tools that we provide for diagnosing this stuff. If you're savvy enough to be reading HN, you're savvy enough to use those, and you should attach output from those tools to the memory/perf bugs that you file. 3) For people who are not tech savvy, we try our best to analyze telemetry information on their behalf, but for privacy reasons we only do so on the release channel if users opt in. The more users that opt in to telemetry, the better the data that we receive. 4) Finally, IMHO many people need to come to grips with the fact that modern web browsers are much more complex and capable than their pioneers were. I see lots of complaining from people who want their browser to have the same memory footprint as Netscape 2.0 and that just isn't reasonable.

jasonlotito 12y ago

I had the opposite experience, with the same machine (Mid-2011 MBA). Firefox, even with plugins, was superior to Chrome for some time now. Anecdote and data and all that jazz.

lipoicacid 12y ago
4.8ghz quad core, 8gb ram, gtx 580. Firefox is consistently slower on my machine sadly (I've also got 3 script blockers/whitelists in chrome with tons of extensions and still outperforms.)
- jasonlotito 12y ago
  I recently (this past week) got a brand new MBPr, 16G RAM, etc. FF provides a better experience Chrome, still. So, once again, anecdote and data and all that jazz.
  - Pacabel 12y ago
    Maybe you and others in the Firefox community don't realize this, but this isn't about counting "anecdotes" or anything like that. This is about users having bad experiences when using Firefox. Your positive experience in no way negates these bad experiences.
    - jasonlotito 12y ago
      > Maybe you and others in the Firefox community don't realize this... We do. > This is about users having bad experiences when using Firefox. Every company creates bad experiences for some users. Hell, I've had bad experiences with Apple technical support, the apparent gold-standard of customer support. > Your positive experience in no way negates these bad experiences. And vice-versa. So what? What's the point? If I can't share my positive experience, they can't share their negative ones? Maybe you think comments like "My experience was bad" is helpful and worthwhile. Maybe. But only if the inverse is true. So, don't complain when people share anecdotes you don't like. Either accept them, or don't.

acomjean 12y ago

I run it on a macbook white plastic (old). Firefox runs well. It does get tired sometimes (around 3pm). I usually go to about:memory and clean up. That or restart it.

cerberusss 12y ago
> runs well. It does get tired sometimes Haha, that really brightened up my morning :)

thristian 12y ago

Have you tried going to the special "about:support" URL and clicking the "Reset Firefox" button at the top right? This creates a new profile and imports all your existing bookmarks, history, saved passwords, etc. but resets preferences back to defaults and recreates all the databases from scratch. If there's any settings from old version of Firefox that are confusing the new version, or poorly-laid-out database files that can't be efficiently updated, this should clean them up.

mr_november 12y ago
Just did this, thanks for the tip, hopefully this has some effect.