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is firefox the new internet explorer?

bledd. said:
I find most issues with Chrome/Firefox can be sorted by creating a new profile.

Found an issue that you can re-produce with a fresh profile? Report it and it'll get fixed.
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I also see people who are having malware/hijacks get them embedded in the profile that must be saved online. One disadvantage of Chrome I have come across.
 
No Firefox isn't the new Internet Explorer, but Safari is shaping up to be. :)

It is true that both have been going downhill, Firefox faster than Chrome mind you.

I think most the of the problems with Firefox stems from poor multicore architecture support, of which Chrome seems to have nailed. Flash isn't helping things either but that won't be sorted until we can go full blown HTML5, which shouldn't be too long now with IE7-8 and 9 dropping off the face of the planet.

I'd keep an eye on Microsoft Edge, and i wouldn't be surprised if it turns out better than Chrome & Firefox. IE has been making lots and lots of progress since version 10, but people disregard it due to the stigma around IE.
 
Not been that impressed with Edge so far.

I think it might grow on me with a bit of polish and without the horrid bland, ugly Windows 10 UI.

Sometimes though I just feel like its trying to treat me like someone of low intelligence - a bit too much aimed at the general consumer and a bit wanting for power users.
 
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JimAroo said:
No Firefox isn't the new Internet Explorer, but Safari is shaping up to be. :)

It is true that both have been going downhill, Firefox faster than Chrome mind you.

I think most the of the problems with Firefox stems from poor multicore architecture support, of which Chrome seems to have nailed. Flash isn't helping things either but that won't be sorted until we can go full blown HTML5, which shouldn't be too long now with IE7-8 and 9 dropping off the face of the planet.

I'd keep an eye on Microsoft Edge, and i wouldn't be surprised if it turns out better than Chrome & Firefox. IE has been making lots and lots of progress since version 10, but people disregard it due to the stigma around IE.
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Agree with Jim here. Chrome is faster but for me is becoming increasingly flakey and definitely being targeted by the crims due to its popularity.
 
Has there been any updates to Electrolysis?

Also noticed 39 is out but as far as I can tell from the release notes most of the noticable improvements is for OSX.

Also... just noticed the Pocket icon... another useless feature... Pushbullet works so much better :p.
 
Orcvader said:
Has there been any updates to Electrolysis?

Also noticed 39 is out but as far as I can tell from the release notes most of the noticable improvements is for OSX.

Also... just noticed the Pocket icon... another useless feature... Pushbullet works so much better :p.
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As far as I know, first iteration of it is due by end of the year. It will be a simple first step. I'm a bit drunk right now and can't remember the details, but it will boi down to ONE extra process....

Chrome is already one process per tab. Firefox is miles and miles away from this. I suspect it won't be until the summer next year we see a proper implementation.

It's a HUGE problem. I work in IT and where I work we deploy Thunderbird and Firefox. The machines range from Pentium DS to Has well i3s. They have SSDS and 4Gb of ram. Running win 7 32bit however.

These machines can't really handle the software. Too slow. Firefox is like a plondering dinosaur, regularly freezing up and crashing. (Single process to blame) and Thunderbird again due to its single process is horrible to use when the user has many lightning calendars.

It's just horrible. The one thing Mozilla should have prioritised is a multi core architecture. They are so late the software is almost not fit for use.

And its frustrating for me in IT having to deal with this issues over and over again, firefox and Thunderbird freezing up when your trying to do something unrelated and busy people telling you "how long is this going to take?"....
 
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Yeah threading in FF is dire - even electrolysis just hands off the backend to an extra process and is still vulnerable to bottlenecks/stalls elsewhere in the program. IIRC at the moment all it does is hand off some of the content pre-processors to another thread and thats it.
 
It's a shame then, I remember it being promised a lot earlier (like v35 or something) but then got delayed due to problems. You can really feel the difference with stability between Chrome and Firefox, especially when you have a tab loaded with a heavy site. That was one of the major reasons why I left Firefox.
 
Just found this.

Seems there might be a little optimization in 39 with regards to stability.

Scroll down to Asynchronous Plugin Initialization.

From the patch notes: Changed: NPAPI Plug-in performance improved via asynchronous initialization.

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As a test I downloaded and installed Firefox 39.

I then browsed to this website and with no other tabs open, it feels heavy and jerky in Firefox.

Try it in Chrome and the difference is remarkable.

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I've only been using Chrome now over the last two weeks so have been a little bit blind over the last 8 years as how far Firefox has actually fallen behind.

I would say it's no coincidence that they have declined in the last 2-3 years since Google pulled their funding.

I don't understand why Mozilla are bundling seemingly useless features with the browser and ignoring some very basic and quite important ones which chrome has.

I think things will only get worse still, when Win 10 launches. If Edge is any good, both Chrome and Firefox will lose market share. But Chrome's market share is a lot more than Firefox's , so the effects will be felt more by Firefox!

Plus Google has the resources to adapt to changes in the market, Mozilla don't.
 
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opethdisciple said:
As a test I downloaded and installed Firefox 39.

I then browsed to this website and with no other tabs open, it feels heavy and jerky in Firefox.

Try it in Chrome and the difference is remarkable.
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The problem there is that's a badly made site and is taking forever to load the content.
Once it is loaded in FF, it runs as smooth as any other browser though.
Clearly Chrome is the better one for loading times, IE is still the worst.
 
stopper said:
The problem there is that's a badly made site and is taking forever to load the content.
Once it is loaded in FF, it runs as smooth as any other browser though.
Clearly Chrome is the better one for loading times, IE is still the worst.
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Even once the page is loaded, it feels heavy and jerks when you scroll the page in FF.

I have a suspicion that Chrome is leveraging GPU resources better resulting in a smother experience.
 
I've found FF has got a lot worse for loading/rendering content heavy pages - few sites 2 years back which have a lot of rubbish crammed in that used to load fairly quickly (under 10 seconds with no browser lockups, etc.) and were responsive once loaded now load for about 10 seconds, then lock the browser for about 20 seconds then are done loading but scrolling down goes in fits and starts - the sites themselves haven't change that much or in some cases not even at all and its not related to plugins, etc. tried over multiple systems with various states from clean install of both OS and FF with no plugins through to systems that have been running 5+ years.
 
opethdisciple said:
Even once the page is loaded, it feels heavy and jerks when you scroll the page in FF.

I have a suspicion that Chrome is leveraging GPU resources better resulting in a smother experience.
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I remember testing how well both players handled HTML5 Youtube 2160p. While CPU usage was pretty similar between the two, Chrome had my GPU on it's idle speed with steady usage, while Firefox seemed to ramp up the GPU up to max speed every now and then, and the usage levels was constantly jumping about. So I suppose that does support that Chrome may be better with the GPU.
 
my FF is fine, with no script + adblock plus and some other random plug ins, just seems youtube slows down occasionally but a page refresh sorts it right out, also a sucker for leaving meny tabs open but it doesn't seem to use much ram to be fair
 
opethdisciple said:
Some big changes a foot it seems for firefox. How long it's gonna take them to implement this stuff is the big issue.

Article.

Mozilla Letter

Now there is supposedly a Win 10 version in the works.
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Sound promising, let's hope this gets Firefox back on track and that they focus on what really matters, and not useless features (coughhellocough). Hopefully it will speed up Electrolysis development as well.
 
I used to say firefox was amazing and would have never touched anything else,
but in the last year all i have been doing is falling out with it because of crashing.

I now use chrome and have no issues, okay i know it likes using memory but i haven't had issues, its not like i'm going to exceed my 8GB just browsing the web.

my point is .... yes firefox seems to have gone downhill
 
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