Firefox whats the big deal

[unwashed potato!]

i'm shocked sometimes when people compare the speed of browsers as they are all fairly fast loading, we're not talking about 5 seconds difference but less then 1 second, unless of course the owner has an an extremely slow running pc.

the add ons are why firefox is the best browser. Just as the iphone is bog standard and boring without apps, so is firefox, but with apps is so fantastic. I use so many every single time i use firefox, going to a browser without is silly.

I always recommend firefox to people but say they must try the apps they think will actually serve to help them, not just the flashy ones. people get sucked into the pointless ones like cooliris, then months later stop using it and think firefox is no better then any other, forgetting that they only used apps that slow their pc down.

 

[EDDS]

Works fine here. You might need to update your version of Flash.

yea my mistake, first time i went on the website it just didnt work, second time it told me to update flash.

 

[Hoodlum]

So i've been using it for a few hours and it seems no faster at all compared to ie8, it seems like its trying to give the illusion of speed because most of the time i'll click a link and it won't do anything for about a second and then load up the page.

There is an intentional delay. You can go to about:config and set "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" to "0"

If you care a lot about speed you can make some other tweaks. I use these settings:

"network.http.max-connections" to "40"
"network.http.max-connections-per-server" to "16"
"network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy" to "12"
"network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to "6"

I believe there are addons available that provide similar tweaks.

Couple this with adblock plus (no ads to load) and it performs significantly better than most of the competition.

Unrelated but if you want bookmarks to open in the background, as I often do, reading something and queuing up tabs to read in background tabs. You can set "browser.tabs.loadBookmarksInBackground" to "true"

 

[V4NT0M]

Changing the paint delay to 0 is pointless and only leads to you getting half rendered pages a lot of the time.

 

[Hoodlum]

Changing the paint delay to 0 is pointless and only leads to you getting half rendered pages a lot of the time.

Doesn't happen here, there is absolutely no reason why it should fail to load. If you're experiencing that, it's a bug.

The point of it is to speed up the overall page rendering. The reality seems to be that often the entire page render will be delayed by one insignificant part.

 

[NathanE]

Reducing the paint delay will increase CPU usage.

As with all tweaks, there is a cost:benefit ratio that should be observed.

 

[NathanE]

1. It still doesn't render a lot of CSS sites correctly that work fine in Gecko and webkit based browsers. Said browsers also score much higher on the Acid tests. It's much better than previous IE browsers but still not good enough.
2. Possibly. It's a works dual core laptop with 2GB of RAM. They forced the IE8 upgrade out last week. Maybe I should phone the helpdesk.
3. Not everyone has loads of RAM. We've got loads of machine at work still on 512MB running XP.

IE8 passes Acid2. That's all that matters for today.

The browsers which have implemented HTML5/CSS3 have done it in a haphazard uncoordinated way. They will regret this soon. Just take a look at the IE blog to see an example of some of the truly shocking quality renderings these so-called "HTML5/CSS3" compliant browsers are producing. There is going to be a lot of rework needed by these browsers because they rushed their implementations. They did the absolute bare minimum to pass some arbitrary "Acid3" integration test. Big whoop. Anyone can do that.

512MB is more than enough for IE8. As I said, it actually requires less memory than a stock Firefox install so your point is mute anyway.

 

[alex24]

Another Chrome user here. It's fast, even on low end machines like my netbook, which I'm typing this from. I'd say it was pretty much as responsive at general browsing on my netbook as on my main machine (in sig).

Firefox has a better selection of add-ons, but it feels bloated to me now.

 

[Hoodlum]

1. It still doesn't render a lot of CSS sites correctly that work fine in Gecko and webkit based browsers. Said browsers also score much higher on the Acid tests. It's much better than previous IE browsers but still not good enough.

IE8 is actually more strict many other browsers in terms of standards compliance. This is especially true of Firefox. This is why some non-compliant CSS does not work in IE8 where it does elsewhere. This is essentially a complete reversal of their IE6 strategy.

It is true that it has fallen behind though, how could it not? It was out of development for years! Even the IE team freely admit this.

Reducing the paint delay will increase CPU usage.

As with all tweaks, there is a cost:benefit ratio that should be observed.

While true how often is the cpu usage -ignoring that abomination that is flash- an issue for web browsing on a modern PC? I would be surprised If many people on the forums were using old single-core machines.

IE8 passes Acid2. That's all that matters for today.

See the problem here is with this artificial limit still in place it will remain "all that matters" for a long time. You can't just shut out all IE users, they are still a large majority. The other, related, problem I see as detailed here is with the infrequent IE releases.

Taken from the article:

We don't know when IE9 will be finished—2011 seems the earliest possibility, and there's an outside chance that it won't be until 2012 that IE9 ships.

In the meantime, we get nothing from Redmond.

IE9 is a huge step forward, however by the time it is released to the general public it will likely be superseded by other browsers, as was the case with IE8.

The browsers which have implemented HTML5/CSS3 have done it in a haphazard uncoordinated way. They will regret this soon. Just take a look at the IE blog to see an example of some of the truly shocking quality renderings these so-called "HTML5/CSS3" compliant browsers are producing. There is going to be a lot of rework needed by these browsers because they rushed their implementations. They did the absolute bare minimum to pass some arbitrary "Acid3" integration test. Big whoop. Anyone can do that.

While I agree with most of this, Gecko is less guilty of this than Webkit / Presto afaik. Then again Gecko doesn't pass Acid3 either.

To further the point on good implementation of standards; something Microsoft should be commended for, in particular:

With IE8, Microsoft developed, and delivered to W3C, a huge library of CSS 2.1 tests. Systematic testing was the only way to ensure that the browser truly lived up to the demands of the specifications. So for IE9, the company is developing a new raft of tests, the first batch of which have already been submitted to W3C. Microsoft doesn't want IE9 to have the same kind of test results as other browsers presently do; a feature isn't done until all the tests pass.

A huge step forward.

 

[NathanE]

Correct, Microsoft developed approx. 8000 integration tests for IE9. But they were developed in a platform independant way so that third party browsers can use them as well.

Other vendors have started contributing to these tests now. I believe they're up to about 10,000 tests now.

It's confusing why this wasn't done years ago. Hell W3C should have done it themselves. Afterall what good is a specification without the corresponding acceptance/integration tests?

It just grates me when people talk about those crappy Acid integration tests as though they are the be-all end-all. They're nothing. In a few more years people will look back and laugh how rudimentary and pointless they were. The only thing they are good for is raising awareness of W3C standards - that's it.

By the time IE9 ships there will probably be approx 20-25,000 tests in total. Around 90% of which were submitted by Microsoft.

 

[Raumarik]

I don't mind IE8, I only use FF because of the addons and not for speed etc. Lets be honest if you're PC can't run FF or IE8 at a usable speed you shouldn't be on these forums!

 

[subbass]

I don't get why people say Firefox is slow....unless you have a pentium 2 or something. Even so, what is a second or two? Why is everyone so obsessed with how fast a browser loads up?

As for me personally, I simply use FF because of the addons and could care less if it is slower than chrome, IE etc

 

[V4NT0M]

Doesn't happen here, there is absolutely no reason why it should fail to load. If you're experiencing that, it's a bug.

The point of it is to speed up the overall page rendering. The reality seems to be that often the entire page render will be delayed by one insignificant part.

What I meant was you see a page 10-50% loaded straight away instead of waiting a second and seeing the full page, or the % of the page that would have loaded anyway within that second.

Changing the initial paint delay does not speed up your browsing, it just speeds up how fast you see a partially rendered page. There are extremely few page types where having an initial paint delay of 0 would improve performance. Most of the time giving the browser at least a second to load the page means you see pages jumping around less and get a more consistent browsing experience.

 

[Mr.Nick]

Opera

 

[_TubbZ_]

Just one thing to say on IE and FF:

CHROME!!!!!!

I have used it from the official release day and loved it. IE8 is much nicer to develop for tho and does seem like they have upped their game.

 

[theheyes]

The big deal is different for everyone. For some, it's the extensions they couldn't live without. For others, the simple fact it isn't IE.

For me, it offers a good alternative. I use FF over Safari on the Mac because I can easily block annoying Flash content that pegs the CPU. Horses for courses really in the browser wars.

 

[whitecrook]

Opera

As a massive opera fan, even i would not recommend 10.51 until they fix it.

 

[Hoodlum]

What I meant was you see a page 10-50% loaded straight away instead of waiting a second and seeing the full page, or the % of the page that would have loaded anyway within that second.

Changing the initial paint delay does not speed up your browsing, it just speeds up how fast you see a partially rendered page. There are extremely few page types where having an initial paint delay of 0 would improve performance. Most of the time giving the browser at least a second to load the page means you see pages jumping around less and get a more consistent browsing experience.

See this just isn't the experience I have with it. On my connection the delay exceeds the time required to render all the text and the layout correctly (0.25s). The page is essentially done, bar graphics, instantly. No half loaded pages, no screwed layout. The only difference on my connection is either:

A) No waiting, allowing me to click a link on the page immediately (a few graphics load in what is an empty space for the first 0.2 seconds) or

B) A delay preventing me from doing so for no particular reason.​

I'd rather have no delay.

 

[Margaret]

Personally I'm switching from Firefox because it likes to randomly crash, this has caused me to lose a lot of time because I've had to retype forum posts/messages/comments from scratch. Really grates me.

No idea why it crashes, it doesn't happen too often but it's enough that it's a nuisance. I've tried disabling all addons but nothing seems to help, no instability with any other apps.

Gonna give Opera a go I think.

 

[V4NT0M]

See this just isn't the experience I have with it. On my connection the delay exceeds the time required to render all the text and the layout correctly (0.25s). The page is essentially done, bar graphics, instantly. No half loaded pages, no screwed layout. The only difference on my connection is either:

A) No waiting, allowing me to click a link on the page immediately (a few graphics load in what is an empty space for the first 0.2 seconds) or

B) A delay preventing me from doing so for no particular reason.​

I'd rather have no delay.

God I can imagine you know leant squinting at your monitor clicking links, zipping the mouse around the screen at lighting speed and frantically navigating pages in < 1sec.

Are you on drugs?