Firefox 71 Doesn't Do Much For Performance

[Jabberwocky]

The should rewrite their code to C++ instead of rust, it doesn't seems to improve performance like they initially hoped

You do know that Servo CSS Style engine (rust) was released in version 57 of Firefox. These tests are not c/c++ vs rust!

[bachchain]

The should rewrite their code to C++ instead of rust, it doesn't seems to improve performance like they initially hoped

Yes, by all means. The fact that replacing two components in a project of millions of lines of code didn't make it leapfrog an industry leading browser backed by a multi-billion dollar company is a clear indication that the language is a failure.

[microcode]

Gotta say, Firefox has been really garbage for the last six years or so. They have half decade old standards compliance issues that make it generally painful to develop for. The UI is clunky, thoughtless, and changes regularly into yet more clunky, thoughtless iterations. They used to have an advantage in UI customization, but they made sure to ruin that too. It also performs noticeably worse than the competition, probably has more security flaws, and the organization is, bit by bit, becoming the ideological cumdumpster of selfish Marxist brainchildren more than an engineering firm. The cool things that make it in to a release seem to be drive-by or one-off contributions, or simply not enough to keep pace with entropy.

I generally find the argument that a diversity of browsers is a good thing, but it's not good enough a thing to warrant using Firefox when there are so many great Chromium-based browsers out there.

[Hibbelharry]

I'm at a loss for any genuine browser "performance" case that's mattered for, hmm, 5 years now, possibly more. Seriously, how many scenarios are about ANYTHING except giving fanboys something to argue about in forums?

A lot. Take an older and a newer browser and dry to open bigger files in Google Docs/Spreadsheets. Try to play agar.io. Scroll Facebook or Flicker. Seriously performance has gotten better over time, and I appreciate that. Performance does still matter.

*Atom* CPUs can play fullscreen video - and that's on platforms where WebRender doesn't work. How many people are playing Crysis in a web browser? Even crappy pseudo-app websites spend 99.9% of their time waiting for either human input or network IO.

This depends on the used codec. There are currently many highly compressed videocodecs available, used on multiple bigger platforms, which won't playback nicely without huge cpu hits or failing on older systems. We still need more performance work here (=gpu acceleration)

Browser performance just DOESN'T MATTER once you get above a certain threshold, and we passed that point long enough ago that nobody should even be paying attention to it any more.

Based on my explanations, I think you're wrong.

Privacy matters. Not leaking hundreds of MB a day matters. Fixing basic @#$%ing bugs matters, Firefox developers. (CTRL-Q, anyone?).

These matter, too. That's why mozilla invested in new anti tracking mechanisms, fixing memory leaks, and so on. They do all of that, in a balanced way.

But artificial benchmarks for contrived scenarios? It's hard to think of anything LESS important about a browser than that.

[/QUOTE]

You're right on that. These synthetic benchmarks don't present user experience, so they're mostly worthless.

[starshipeleven]

I'm at a loss for any genuine browser "performance" case that's mattered for, hmm, 5 years now, possibly more. Seriously, how many scenarios are about ANYTHING except giving fanboys something to argue about in forums?

Adblock user confirmed

*Atom* CPUs can play fullscreen video

Surely. Resolution may suck though. Golden years atoms were able to software-decode 480p youtube videos but were choking on 720p

[starshipeleven]

You do know that Servo CSS Style engine (rust) was released in version 57 of Firefox. These tests are not c/c++ vs rust!

And it showed significant advantage jumps afaik.

[edwaleni]

Gotta say, Firefox has been really garbage for the last six years or so. They have half decade old standards compliance issues that make it generally painful to develop for. The UI is clunky, thoughtless, and changes regularly into yet more clunky, thoughtless iterations. They used to have an advantage in UI customization, but they made sure to ruin that too. It also performs noticeably worse than the competition, probably has more security flaws, and the organization is, bit by bit, becoming the ideological cumdumpster of selfish Marxist brainchildren more than an engineering firm. The cool things that make it in to a release seem to be drive-by or one-off contributions, or simply not enough to keep pace with entropy.

I generally find the argument that a diversity of browsers is a good thing, but it's not good enough a thing to warrant using Firefox when there are so many great Chromium-based browsers out there.

Maybe Oracle should buy them out. Then they will be funded about as well as Virtual Box.

Maybe Verizon should buy them. They would be merged into the AOL/Oath unit. Then it gets more than just funded, it would simply be killed off.

Maybe VMWare should buy them. We know how much they love to fund FOSS. Put them under their Pivotal division. They are good at monetizing other peoples FOSS.

Maybe Citrix should buy them and turn it into some super ICA Client along with web browser. At least they know how to leverage FOSS.

Maybe Cisco could buy them. Then every release thereafter would say "Firefox by Cisco" and nag you to upgrade to a paid version which includes their VPN client.

Maybe Dell should buy them and put them under the EMC Sales Group. Then all of those storage salesmen with their pinkie rings can come in and convince you to buy a site license with your next flash storage buy.

I mean the opportunities for Mozilla are endless.

[smitty3268]

The should rewrite their code to C++ instead of rust, it doesn't seems to improve performance like they initially hoped

Benchmarks show the exact opposite, FWIW. There were significant speedups when they added the Rust code.

And the slow parts are still written in C++.

Of course, that's all related to algorithms more than language choice. The two options are on par performance-wise if you choose to put in the effort to make them so.

[betam4x]

A lot. Take an older and a newer browser and dry to open bigger files in Google Docs/Spreadsheets. Try to play agar.io. Scroll Facebook or Flicker. Seriously performance has gotten better over time, and I appreciate that. Performance does still matter.



This depends on the used codec. There are currently many highly compressed videocodecs available, used on multiple bigger platforms, which won't playback nicely without huge cpu hits or failing on older systems. We still need more performance work here (=gpu acceleration)



Based on my explanations, I think you're wrong.



These matter, too. That's why mozilla invested in new anti tracking mechanisms, fixing memory leaks, and so on. They do all of that, in a balanced way.

You're right on that. These synthetic benchmarks don't present user experience, so they're mostly worthless.[/QUOTE]

I've used both Firefox and Chromium on Linux, and I can definitely tell the difference in speed. Chromium is faster, more responsive, and less buggy.

[Hibbelharry]

So feel free to use Chromium. For me, it doesn't fit my usecase.

Chromium is way worse in memory consumption when many tabs are opened, I easily reach 200-300, which isn't any problem in Firefox. Chromium already eats up gigabytes of ram when there are 20 tabs. I also prefer the privacy options and developer Tools in Firefox. Ever tried to debug a lenghtly javascript in Chromium? Good Luck. Chromium also has a natsy habit of blurring images when scaling, and isn't even able to do nice hyphenation.... and so much more....

I also do like the controls and UI of Firefox just more than chromium, but thats really up to personal preference.