Upcoming Firefox 57 ("Quantum") is twice as fast as Firefox 52

Soldato
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Duckduckgo privacy essentials.
thanks (need to review existing add-on before I finally take the Quantum jump)
I am not sure if script blockers or tracking/cookie blockers can cause access to web-sites to be slowed down ? whether javsacript can have counter-measures

I subsequently saw FF may have something built in too, need to understand the difference
https://www.reddit.com/r/duckduckgo/comments/6r0hgh/duckduckgo_plus_addon_for_ff_with_tracker_blocking/
head over to “about:preferences#privacy”
click the black-blue link that’s says “manage your Do Not Track settings.”
Tick “Always apply Do Not Track”
 
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Duckduckgo and firefox tracking protection use the same definition list.

Firefox tracking protection works on mobile, duckduckgo extension does not.

Duckduckgo also provides the same fuctionality as https everywhere.

Duckduckgo also displays a privacy rating.

So I have both on. Haven't noticed it being slow, if anything it feels faster.
 
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Still going strong, some more detail for ppl who want to make the switch:

Extensions:
- uBlock Origin (ad blocker, works on mobile)
- DuckDuckGo Privacy Essentials (visible privacy rating, https everywhere, tracking blocker, doesn't work on mobile)

Settings:
- Tracking Protection ON, with Strict blocklist (tracking blocker, works on mobile)

I've added an important setting, as follows:

- First Party Isolation ON

Basic description of what it is and how to enable it:
https://www.ghacks.net/2017/11/22/how-to-enable-first-party-isolation-in-firefox/

Discussion on the topic:
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16688681
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16862925
 
Soldato
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- First Party Isolation ON
so with this, everything is compartmentalised, no sites access cookies from other domains, if, that is, you permit a cookie to be created at all, for that domain, with DDG or FF whitelist.
The only con seems to be google where a google domain cookie enables utube logon too.
 
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so with this, everything is compartmentalised, no sites access cookies from other domains, if, that is, you permit a cookie to be created at all, for that domain, with DDG or FF whitelist.
The only con seems to be google where a google domain cookie enables utube logon too.
Yeah, but personally I haven't seen anything break yet, like.. at all.
 
Soldato
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I wonder if firefox has finally shaken of the garbage collection "hitches".

e.g. smooth scrolling a page would stutter every few seconds when GC code running, that made me jump to chrome.

Chrome weakness is for sure the insane memory usage, and to lesser degree the less power user friendliness (less tunables).

If firefox fixed their achiles heel I probably would move back, although a problem firefox now has also is they killed of legacy extensions which has left large gaps in functionality as many of the dev's abandoned firefox as a result.
 
Soldato
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I badly worded that -
with the draconian add-on signing with the newer ff versions, I suspect they may soon clear-out/delete these older add-ons, especially since they will no longer be compatible with >=57
so if I need to re-install pre-57 firefoxes, I will need to archive the compatible add-ons.

The older FF's, providing you have demand loading of tabs is already economic on memory, and the diet I recently gave chrome, 'The great Discarder' add-on, works well.

36670354644_15259410f3_o_d.jpg


there are a bout 40loaded tabs in Firefox, 20 in waterfox and 10 in chrome - but I am probably not typical.

I use the great suspender but this is interesting

Advantages over The Great Suspender:
- More memory savings
- Compatible with chrome tab syncing
- Super lightweight extension that uses no content scripts or persistent background scripts

Disadvantages over The Great Suspender:
- No visibility on which tabs have been suspended
- Unable to prevent a tab from reloading when it gains focus

I could probably live with the disadvantages.

I just asked this question, I dont know if you have the answer.

"Does this remember if tabs are discarded on shutdown so they stay discarded on startup? If no my chrome with over 150 tabs will use insane memory on startup and load slowly."
 
Soldato
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"Does this remember if tabs are discarded on shutdown so they stay discarded on startup? If no my chrome with over 150 tabs will use insane memory on startup and load slowly."
for me, in chrome, the great discarder, reloads all the tabs which then go to sleep after 30 minutes if not used.
in firefox I use the native capability, where session restore leaves all, bar the current tab, unloaded ... so ff solution is better
 
Soldato
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Redid some of my extensions at the weekend:

Switched from Lastpass to Bitwarden, so much quicker and the switch was pretty painless had to manually change some passwords that were exported due to a bug with Lastpass,
Decentraleyes,
Tested with privacy badger instead of DDG PE but I prefer DDG PE.
 
Man of Honour
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Is it me or is 59.0.3 more "snappy"? seems much more responsive when clicking links than 59.0.2 and smoother scrolling down large pages.

EDIT: Something has definitely changed though not sure what/where - my local news site is a cluster **** of a site and used to hang the browser for a second or so on first loading and very sluggish scrolling down the bloated page (with or without blocking ads and other elements) - now it fluidly scrolls with content popping in rather than stalling periodically.
 
Soldato
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Did you install the Spring Creators update for Windows 10? Only change for 59.0.3 is support for that, nothing else on the release notes: https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/59.0.3/releasenotes/

Although reading the bug report that the release notes links to it seems some code that's existed within FF for years has been doing the wrong thing but never did anything wrong until Microsoft "patched" it.

[Feature/Bug causing the regression]: MS changes broke this; our code's been doing the wrong thing, previously harmlessly, for years now, tho
 
Man of Honour
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Nope - only systems I've updated so far are Windows 7 - haven't got around to updating my Windows 10 tablets to 59.0.3 yet.
 
Soldato
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The youtube autoplay feature keeps turning itself back on everytime i close firefox. Any idea what could be causing this.
I'm running ghostery and ublock origin if that helps
 
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