Why you SHOULD be using Firefox

Murphy · 6 Oct 2023 at 18:39

Maybe dumb question, but without getting the calculator out how do you *know how much RAM FF is using because when i look the main process is using 230MB but the 5 odd background processes are using 125MB, 60MB, 4, 5, 3, etc, etc.

Are you guys just measuring the main thread when reporting RAM usage?

*Without depending on FF's internal reporting as i find that even more confusing to look at.

mrk · 6 Oct 2023 at 18:46

Murphy said:
Maybe dumb question, but without getting the calculator out how do you *know how much RAM FF is using because when i look the main process is using 230MB but the 5 odd background processes are using 125MB, 60MB, 4, 5, 3, etc, etc.

Are you guys just measuring the main thread when reporting RAM usage?

*Without depending on FF's internal reporting as i find that even more confusing to look at.

For a breakdown of individual tabs etc, you can use about:performance in the address bar and sort by the memory column. It should total what's reported by task manager. Task Manager's RAM usage for Firefox is accurate every time I have checked it.

Hades · 7 Oct 2023 at 14:19

V F said:
Phoenix.

Netscape dies and open sources it's code
-->
Mozilla spawned from the open source codebase
-->
Phoenix developed by Mozilla
-->
Phoenix renamed to Firefox due to a name conflict

Threepwood · 7 Oct 2023 at 15:04

I've used FF for years, I've actively killed edge from my current system, which was not easy, but doable!
I use Avast AV too

wiiija · 7 Oct 2023 at 18:42

I go back to it now and again as I enjoy customising it with css but I always go back to Chrome, I just dont see the draw of it over Chrome, unless you dislike Google of course, Chrome just feels nippier to me.

Grim5 · 10 Oct 2023 at 10:19

Its almost 2024 and firefox still doesnt support HDR. Pathetic

mrk · 10 Oct 2023 at 10:25

It's coming apparently.

It's not mainstream enough to matter yet anyway, and Windows doesn't handle HDR properly still for SDR content, which is 99% of the internet. Expect that to change with Windows 12.

Short of testing that HDR works through test videos on YouTube, how often do you watch HDR content in your web browser?

For me it's zero.

It's not really important right now because of these underlying notes.

Grim5 · 10 Oct 2023 at 10:31

mrk said:
It's coming apparently.

It's not mainstream enough to matter yet anyway, and Windows doesn't handle HDR properly still for SDR content, which is 99% of the internet. Expect that to change with Windows 12.

Short of testing that HDR works through test videos on YouTube, how often do you watch HDR content in your web browser?

For me it's zero.

It's not really important right now because of these underlying notes.

That's true, its near zero for me too. But I watch a ton of HDR content on my TV because the TV automatically switches between HDR and SDR by itself, so I never even think about it.
If windows knew to keep itself in SDR on desktop and change to HDR when a compatiable HDR youtube video is played then we wouldn't have this problem

mrk · 10 Oct 2023 at 10:35

Yep and monitors currently take a couple of seconds to switch between HDR and SDR which creates an annoying bit of lag that's unwanted when you just want to view stuff quickly or even load a game etc.

TVs do the switch instantly but monitors are still playing catch-up it seems.

I'm hoping the next gen of QD-OLED solves that too.

Pawnless Endgame · 13 Oct 2023 at 00:08

Here's a fun fact. If you made a web page back in 1998 like I did using Netscape Composer, it would say Mozilla in the meta tags.

Code:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> 
<meta name="GENERATOR" content="Mozilla/4.51 [en] (Win95; I) [Netscape]">

I did toy with IE and Opera as well and Opera was the best of the bunch, but it was paid software back then. Because I was a cheapskate (student!), Netscape it was for me. In 2002, Netscape got open-sourced and renamed itself to Mozilla, as in the organisation's own name. Pretty sure it was August 2002, so it might have been out for a couple of months by then, but otherwise I jumped straight in. Then after a few name changes (for legal reasons), it finally settled on Firefox. So basically, I have been using the same browser for 25 years :-)

rumple9 · 13 Oct 2023 at 00:17

Pawnless Endgame said:
I did toy with IE and Opera as well and Opera was the best of the bunch, but it was paid software back then. Because I was a cheapskate (student!), Netscape it was for me. In 2002, Netscape got open-sourced and renamed itself to Mozilla, as in the organisation's own name. Pretty sure it was August 2002, so it might have been out for a couple of months by then, but otherwise I jumped straight in. Then after a few name changes (for legal reasons), it finally settled on Firefox. So basically, I have been using the same browser for 25 years

Do you realise that what you say is exactly the same as this?

Pawnless Endgame · 13 Oct 2023 at 00:22

rumple9 said:
Do you realise that what you say is exactly the same as this?

LOL very good. I do look after my Mozilla / Firefox

Off-topic - I was in Leeds earlier on today :-)

gooseuk · 13 Oct 2023 at 04:44

Anyone now finding ublock not fully working on YouTube ? A message now pops up telling me I have an adblock lol. Is there a script to use in FF to help this now, I wonder ?

m4rmite · 13 Oct 2023 at 05:33

gooseuk said:
Anyone now finding ublock not fully working on YouTube ? A message now pops up telling me I have an adblock lol. Is there a script to use in FF to help this now, I wonder ?

My ublock works but ghostery gives me the ad blocker message, on chrome.
You got ghostery running on FF?

mrk · 13 Oct 2023 at 08:36

Google have started to rollout a system that detects adblocking on youtube and blocks you after some warnings. Nothing you can do about it now really , there may be temp workarounds, but premium whether via VPNG signup or £££ is the only way.

My Firefox has been installed since day 1 too, my Windows is the same base install since Windows Vista, so both OS and browser are trigger's broom

gooseuk · 13 Oct 2023 at 10:27

m4rmite said:
My ublock works but ghostery gives me the ad blocker message, on chrome.
You got ghostery running on FF?

Just installed that, see how it goes, I have installed tampermonkey also to get twitch ads off, lol. Is there something you can do with a Raspberry Pi to get rid of ads also ?

m4rmite · 13 Oct 2023 at 12:32

gooseuk said:
Just installed that, see how it goes, I have installed tampermonkey also to get twitch ads off, lol. Is there something you can do with a Raspberry Pi to get rid of ads also ?

Pihole?

Murphy · 13 Oct 2023 at 13:03

gooseuk said:
Anyone now finding ublock not fully working on YouTube ? A message now pops up telling me I have an adblock lol. Is there a script to use in FF to help this now, I wonder ?

If you have greasemonkey or similar installed there's a script for that, if not just updating your filters should get it working again.

Open uBlock settings > Filters list tab > Purge all caches > Update now. From what i can tell YouTube are currently updating the ID of the detection script regularly, as in multiple times a day, but uBlock filters update less regularly.

Orcvader · 13 Oct 2023 at 13:38

gooseuk said:
Anyone now finding ublock not fully working on YouTube ? A message now pops up telling me I have an adblock lol. Is there a script to use in FF to help this now, I wonder ?

Keep an eye on this pinned Reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/uBlockOrigin/comments/173jmog/youtube_antiadblock_and_ads_october_09_2023/

They do create a new post every week with new solutions, it's now become a cat and mouse chase against Google. So far it doesn't seem as bad as Twitch (also aggressively getting around adblockers).

Murphy · 13 Oct 2023 at 13:47

That's where i got the info about the ID changing but boy it's wordy, it took me a good few reads to workout all it was saying was to update your filter rules.

The rest is basically if you're still having problems after updating your filters do this before making a post so we known if it's a problem with our filters, an extension your running, or your own personal filter rules.