Firefox takes a Quantum leap forward with new developer edition

A new look, better dev tools, and up to twice the performance in key benchmarks.

Read the whole story

 

[Static and Noise]

Give me a way to limit FF RAM use to 1G

Our of interest how are you managing to use over a gig of ram? Is it add-ons or loads of heavy sites?

I routinely ran into the soft 2.5G limit up until FF 54 or 55; lots of tabs (ranging from 100+ to 300+, not all of which were loaded), several extensions that most likely leaked memory here and there, and a general difficulty with dealing with really DOM-heavy sites. Recently the memory consumption and the time I can use a given process has gone up enormously; it'll sometimes bog the CPU down after a few days, but the memory usage will be inconsequential.

I completely moved Facebook over to Edge and then Chrome months ago, where it STILL bogs down unless I close and reopen the tabs entirely. Facebook is a browser-killer, there's really no other way to see it; something about their constantly rotating ad code leaks memory and cpu all over. It's stuck on Chrome just so I can kill a tab and start a new one just to get my browsing back.

Hundreds of tabs, and complaining about FF memory usage?

Try 100s of tabs in Chrome and see what happens.

 

[foxyshadis]

Give me a way to limit FF RAM use to 1G

Our of interest how are you managing to use over a gig of ram? Is it add-ons or loads of heavy sites?

I routinely ran into the soft 2.5G limit up until FF 54 or 55; lots of tabs (ranging from 100+ to 300+, not all of which were loaded), several extensions that most likely leaked memory here and there, and a general difficulty with dealing with really DOM-heavy sites. Recently the memory consumption and the time I can use a given process has gone up enormously; it'll sometimes bog the CPU down after a few days, but the memory usage will be inconsequential.

I completely moved Facebook over to Edge and then Chrome months ago, where it STILL bogs down unless I close and reopen the tabs entirely. Facebook is a browser-killer, there's really no other way to see it; something about their constantly rotating ad code leaks memory and cpu all over. It's stuck on Chrome just so I can kill a tab and start a new one just to get my browsing back.

Hundreds of tabs, and complaining about FF memory usage?

Try 100s of tabs in Chrome and see what happens.

I'm not complaining, I just answered the question from my perspective. Why do you think Firefox is my browser of choice? No other browser lets me hoard tabs for years and still go back to them to look something up. Who needs bookmarks when you have lightweight tabs?

 

[not_a_misread]

127.0.0.1rules[/url]":23ln4kcs]

I haven't used Firefox in a long while because of performance issues. Most problematic was visiting ad heavy websites and maybe it's not all their fault but Firefox would crumble and freeze up while chrome would slug along but slug nonetheless.

Hopefully this would bring them back to more competitive situation.

For years, I've complained that Firefox happily locks up the UI while loading pages on slower machines/ad-ridden pages. Was constantly an issue on my old AMD E350 netbook (with ABP, because uBlock didn't exist yet). Chrome's always isolated everything and never had that issue. I won't notice if you take a few cycles away from loading the page; I WILL notice if you don't spend a few cycles keeping things responsive.

Never mind that I keep piles of tabs open nowadays, and you need multiprocess to keep that running smoothly...

On the other hand, Firefox is open source and not made by a company whose business model is to gather your data. Why would anyone use software and services from an advertising company? Their only reason for giving away their software and services is to get your personal data.

 

[Mr_B]

Unfortunately, it breaks every single extension I use (39 in all). Not a single extension now functions in the new, "improved" Firefox.

It's exactly like Chrome now, and completely worthless to anyone who wants control of their browser.

This is exactly why we need to get rid of browser extensions. Because it holds back browser advancement.

I found the Google employee!

I don't work for Google. I actually own a software startup that is hurt by browsers not being able to advance.

You don't realise it yet, but you will in a decade: this exact thing is what's going to cause you to give all of your money to apple against your will. So living without browser extensions is a small price to pay.

The "google employee" jab was more a joke poking at the fact that android chrome doesn't support extensions.

Regardless, the only thing remotely accurate about your added statement is that any money I gave Apple would be against my will.

The walled garden has its advantages, but its faults are insurmountable for many like myself. And the advantages Apple's entire paradigm offers ends when you stop blinding yourself with fanboi goggles and realize they're content to milk their customers for money rather than try and push their vertical integration advantage to actually become a too-dominant-to-ignore force.

Then I don't think you understand their long-term plan. I said "against your will".

 

[Kydaria]

Two most vital addons I use are currently "legacy" (lastpass and firegestures). I wonder whether they will be upgraded by developers or it is technically impossible to have them with the new versions.

It has been more than a decade, I don't want to quit using Firefox...

edit: Also, hopefully there is no more "unresponsive script".

Note FF 57 is still in development and Lastpass is in contact with mozilla to resolve bugs with thier web extension. Dashlane I think already works though so may be a good alternative. Also, you should be using ublock I don't see how anyone could consider that one not vital (which has a web extension in development... you just have to install from the development channel).

https://arewewebextensionsyet.com/

Ublock Origin has been a full-on webextension addon for a few weeks now, no need to use the development version anymore.

 

[sep332]

Under the version Chrome has yes, it is impossible. But Mozilla has been intending for its impl of WebExt to have Chrome's as a subset. The big issue is timetable rather than anything else; they let a bunch of suits make arbitrary declarations about when this was happening (and a number of other things; there's a security bug reltated to spoofing URLs by using punycode that got WONTFIX'd by a suit who should have been fired for even suggesting they WONTFIX it (Ars article at my comment on it)).

Their answer that it should be handled by registrars seems reasonable. Who exactly do you see as a "suit" making the decisions, and why?

I found the Google employee!

Efforts such as Electrolysis are essential for Firefox. Mozilla is already extremely late to adopt this kind of technology, and the idea that it should be held ransom by extension developers is ridiculous.

What I feel should have been done was picking a number of complex extensions in different categories (GM, NoScript, etc), working hard with those extensions' devs to get the needed APIs ready, and then basing the hard deadline on when those extensions are fully ready.

The deadline was never set in stone. Bugs were opened for popular addons over six months ago which you can see linked from https://arewewebextensionsyet.com/ Almost all of the extensions are on track to be ready for the deadline, so there's not much chance that it will be pushed out at this point, but it was always a possibility.

Never seemed like the plan was to push the deadline if it was necessary.... any source on that being the case?

Yeah, you're right. WebExtensions were in FF for over a year before they announced the deadline, which is why it felt wishy-washy in my memory. But once they set it they weren't going back. They plan to move Firefox internals away from XUL which would gradually break every extension anyway, so from their perspective it's better to have a set date for the carnage instead of stringing along addon devs with years of rolling update chaos.

 

[Bad Monkey!]

Give me a way to limit FF RAM use to 1G

Our of interest how are you managing to use over a gig of ram? Is it add-ons or loads of heavy sites?

I routinely ran into the soft 2.5G limit up until FF 54 or 55; lots of tabs (ranging from 100+ to 300+, not all of which were loaded), several extensions that most likely leaked memory here and there, and a general difficulty with dealing with really DOM-heavy sites. Recently the memory consumption and the time I can use a given process has gone up enormously; it'll sometimes bog the CPU down after a few days, but the memory usage will be inconsequential.

I completely moved Facebook over to Edge and then Chrome months ago, where it STILL bogs down unless I close and reopen the tabs entirely. Facebook is a browser-killer, there's really no other way to see it; something about their constantly rotating ad code leaks memory and cpu all over. It's stuck on Chrome just so I can kill a tab and start a new one just to get my browsing back.

Are you using FF 64-bit? If not you should be. Also make sure you have multi-process enabled, even if it's just 2 threads. Also, FF55 is much much much faster at restoring tabs after a restart, so it's not an exercise in saintly patience any longer to simply restart and restore a mammoth browsing session if things start lagging too badly.

 

[ABlueJelly]

Unfortunately, it breaks every single extension I use (39 in all). Not a single extension now functions in the new, "improved" Firefox.

It's exactly like Chrome now, and completely worthless to anyone who wants control of their browser.

This is exactly why we need to get rid of browser extensions. Because it holds back browser advancement.

I found the Google employee!

I don't work for Google. I actually own a software startup that is hurt by browsers not being able to advance.

You don't realise it yet, but you will in a decade: this exact thing is what's going to cause you to give all of your money to apple against your will. So living without browser extensions is a small price to pay.

The "google employee" jab was more a joke poking at the fact that android chrome doesn't support extensions.

Regardless, the only thing remotely accurate about your added statement is that any money I gave Apple would be against my will.

The walled garden has its advantages, but its faults are insurmountable for many like myself. And the advantages Apple's entire paradigm offers ends when you stop blinding yourself with fanboi goggles and realize they're content to milk their customers for money rather than try and push their vertical integration advantage to actually become a too-dominant-to-ignore force.

Then I don't think you understand their long-term plan. I said "against your will".

Mind letting us all in on the secret, oh enlightened one?
If it's something to do with them getting royalties on some ubiquitous tech, what tech is it?

Thunderwire didn't really catch on (in spite of being superior to USB2) *because* of the royalties.

Their new wireless audio spec hasn't seemed to catch on as most phone makers haven't jumped on the "ditch the 3.5mm" train (and thank fuck for that).



I don't follow Apple news closely due to largely not caring for their products, so I have to ask:
How are they going to force me to give them my money?

Under the version Chrome has yes, it is impossible. But Mozilla has been intending for its impl of WebExt to have Chrome's as a subset. The big issue is timetable rather than anything else; they let a bunch of suits make arbitrary declarations about when this was happening (and a number of other things; there's a security bug reltated to spoofing URLs by using punycode that got WONTFIX'd by a suit who should have been fired for even suggesting they WONTFIX it (Ars article at my comment on it)).

Their answer that it should be handled by registrars seems reasonable. Who exactly do you see as a "suit" making the decisions, and why?

I found the Google employee!

Efforts such as Electrolysis are essential for Firefox. Mozilla is already extremely late to adopt this kind of technology, and the idea that it should be held ransom by extension developers is ridiculous.

What I feel should have been done was picking a number of complex extensions in different categories (GM, NoScript, etc), working hard with those extensions' devs to get the needed APIs ready, and then basing the hard deadline on when those extensions are fully ready.

The deadline was never set in stone. Bugs were opened for popular addons over six months ago which you can see linked from https://arewewebextensionsyet.com/ Almost all of the extensions are on track to be ready for the deadline, so there's not much chance that it will be pushed out at this point, but it was always a possibility.

Never seemed like the plan was to push the deadline if it was necessary.... any source on that being the case?

Yeah, you're right. WebExtensions were in FF for over a year before they announced the deadline, which is why it felt wishy-washy in my memory. But once they set it they weren't going back. They plan to move Firefox internals away from XUL which would gradually break every extension anyway, so from their perspective it's better to have a set date for the carnage instead of stringing along addon devs with years of rolling update chaos.

Can agree on the bandaid rip being a bit better than a slow rollout with chaos. But they still should have declared they'd delay if necessary rather than saying it was final that far out. There were far too many unknowns to treat that date as an absolute rather than a target, and I feel they got lucky that we're actually on track for a non-catastrophic switch.


Looking back this will probably be the Windows Vista of Firefox- not actually bad and bringing a lot of necessary change, but widely regarded as horrid because of the scope of the changes and shitty communication.

 

[DoulosTrieste]

"A quantum leap"

So - a REALLY TINY leap?

No.

https://www.merriam-webster.com/diction ... tum%20leap

Definition of quantum leap
:an abrupt change, sudden increase, or dramatic advance

First Known Use: 1956



http://www.dictionary.com/browse/quantum--leap

noun
1. Physics. an abrupt transition of a system described by quantum mechanics from one of its discrete states to another, as the fall of an electron in an atom to an orbit of lower energy.
2. any sudden and significant change, advance, or increase.

Origin of quantum jump
First recorded in 1925-30

 

[DoulosTrieste]

Instead of merely talking about or commenting or waxing lyrical about Firefox, I actually am using Nightly now for the revamped CSS engine, and it IS smoother and faster. No more jank when websites are loading, and much less jank during startup.

Funny how empirical evidence works eh?

Many of my important addons were upgraded to the (for now) less featureful WebExt versions. Some of the legacy addons still work when the "allow legacy addons to run" option is turned on. Other than the inability to place tabs below the address bar and that WebRenderer is still buggy, things are really good with Firefox right now.

 

[foxyshadis]

Give me a way to limit FF RAM use to 1G

Our of interest how are you managing to use over a gig of ram? Is it add-ons or loads of heavy sites?

I routinely ran into the soft 2.5G limit up until FF 54 or 55; lots of tabs (ranging from 100+ to 300+, not all of which were loaded), several extensions that most likely leaked memory here and there, and a general difficulty with dealing with really DOM-heavy sites. Recently the memory consumption and the time I can use a given process has gone up enormously; it'll sometimes bog the CPU down after a few days, but the memory usage will be inconsequential.

I completely moved Facebook over to Edge and then Chrome months ago, where it STILL bogs down unless I close and reopen the tabs entirely. Facebook is a browser-killer, there's really no other way to see it; something about their constantly rotating ad code leaks memory and cpu all over. It's stuck on Chrome just so I can kill a tab and start a new one just to get my browsing back.

Are you using FF 64-bit? If not you should be. Also make sure you have multi-process enabled, even if it's just 2 threads. Also, FF55 is much much much faster at restoring tabs after a restart, so it's not an exercise in saintly patience any longer to simply restart and restore a mammoth browsing session if things start lagging too badly.

It was 32-bit, but I wasn't getting anywhere near the hard 4G limit at the time. Now it hardly matters, I don't run into memory limits at all anymore, it's more an internal bookkeeping issue where despite closing down lots of tabs it's still increasingly laggy and freezes up until restarted. Something or another was leaking handles or orphaned timers working on non-existent but cached DOMs, is my guess. Happened less on safe mode, but still eventually did.

It appears I was automatically switched to 64-bit in August, which proves how smoothly they managed that transition.

I'm certain that I'm the primary target group for all of this new optimization and internal replumbling. I just really want a few more extensions to make the transition before I restart.

 

[quantumbells]

Performance across every metric seems to have improved considerably, including dramatic reduction in the startup time.

Like EspressoMachine, I ditched Firefox for performance problems, but also because.. Chrome's inspector tool just feels more comfortable to me when I'm troubleshooting CSS/JS. With the latest enhancements, I'll give it a try, but I'm not expecting it to really pull me away from Chrome (and all my favorite extensions - NoCoffee, EyeDropper, etc).

Especially if they haven't improved load time on the browser at launch itself. I swear, that has been my biggest peeve lately; I hate testing in FF just because it takes at least 2x as long to open the browser as opposed to Chrome.

 

[psiclone]

Just tried 56 on a Windows machine. Doesn't seem any faster than before.

 

[ABlueJelly]

Just tried 56 on a Windows machine. Doesn't seem any faster than before.

Because this drops in 57?

 

[trashcanbin10]

I've tested it and it is amazing. Most of my existing list off addons are web extension-ready as well, and I swapped Lastpass for BitWarden.

I'm good to go.

 

[quantumbells]

We are talking about version 57 here which is in Beta, not 56.

Just tried 56 on a Windows machine. Doesn't seem any faster than before.

 

[quantumbells]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/tag/firefox57

Yes, and Firefox 57 isn't due to be released until April. Complaining that the new version breaks things now is a little silly. Especially given that a number of extensions are likely still in development on the web extensions version of their plugins. The fact that a number of developers waited until they had to move to the new platform isn't surprising.

Even then a lot of plugins are already using the new API's.

It isn't like this wasn't a necessary change. The old plugins are not compatible with a number of the things they are looking to more forward with like multi-threading and the like.

FF57 in April? This says November 14:
https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2017/02 ... ilestones/

90% of my extensions are labeled Legacy and the few I've looked into for new versions are no where near ready. Also the FF Addon website you cannot filter by "Compatible with FireFox 57+" which is baffling to me.

 

[hrlngrv]

I dread the breakage of extensions coming, and am contemplating moving to ESR but that will just delay things...

Pale Moon appears to be the successor (fork) for those unwilling to use Quantum.

The main reason I've been using Firefox is because I've been able to make it look the way I want it to look. No longer as of FF57.

 

[supercor]

This is the release that kills all extensions and plugins, making Firefox exactly like Chrome.

Why would anyone switch to a copycat Chrome when they're happy with the real thing? The strength of Firefox is the extensions, and without them it will be worthless.

Hopefully Waterfox can keep the torch lit.

 

[supercor]

Unfortunately, it breaks every single extension I use (39 in all). Not a single extension now functions in the new, "improved" Firefox.

It's exactly like Chrome now, and completely worthless to anyone who wants control of their browser.

Install Waterfox and uninstall Firefox. Waterfox dev has said he will keep extensions alive as long as possible. I have dozens of "Legacy" extensions and several of them are impossible to port to WebExtensions.

Sad day when Mozilla abandons the principles that made them king.

 

[supercor]

I dread the breakage of extensions coming, and am contemplating moving to ESR but that will just delay things...

Pale Moon appears to be the successor (fork) for those unwilling to use Quantum.

The main reason I've been using Firefox is because I've been able to make it look the way I want it to look. No longer as of FF57.

Pale Moon breaks extensions, too. Try Waterfox.

 

[Kommet]

I've tested it and it is amazing. Most of my existing list off addons are web extension-ready as well, and I swapped Lastpass for BitWarden.

I'm good to go.

It probably doesn't matter to you anymore, but if anyone else comes across this (and cares) there is now a LastPass WebExtension beta release available:

https://blog.lastpass.com/2017/10/lastp ... x-57.html/

 

[supercor]

It probably doesn't matter to you anymore, but if anyone else comes across this (and cares) there is now a LastPass WebExtension beta release available:

https://blog.lastpass.com/2017/10/lastp ... x-57.html/

Yeah I don't use LastPass, but I use dozens of other extensions that can't ever be converted to WebExtension format, so Mozilla is killing them.

 

[ApplePaladin]

I've tested it and it is amazing. Most of my existing list off addons are web extension-ready as well, and I swapped Lastpass for BitWarden.

I'm good to go.

It probably doesn't matter to you anymore, but if anyone else comes across this (and cares) there is now a LastPass WebExtension beta release available:

https://blog.lastpass.com/2017/10/lastp ... x-57.html/

Nice. As we get closer to the 11-14 release of Firefox 57 I expect to see more developers releasing last-minute beta or final release WebExtension versions. Extension developers are human, so it's no surprise to see most of them putting this off until it absolutely has to be done.

 

[Kommet]

It probably doesn't matter to you anymore, but if anyone else comes across this (and cares) there is now a LastPass WebExtension beta release available:

https://blog.lastpass.com/2017/10/lastp ... x-57.html/

Yeah I don't use LastPass, but I use dozens of other extensions that can't ever be converted to WebExtension format, so Mozilla is killing them.

Just so you don't have to repeat yourself a fifth time in the same page of the same thread, allow me to both assure you that your complaint has been seen and offer you a song of sympathy played on the world's tiniest violin:

Meanwhile, I'm going to get back to enjoying my fast-as-fuck Firefox 57, chock full of WebExtensions.

 

[supercor]

Just so you don't have to repeat yourself a fifth time in the same page of the same thread, allow me to both assure you that your complaint has been seen and offer you a song of sympathy played on the world's tiniest violin:

WTF is wrong with you, man?

 

[Don Reba]

Glad to have learned about Waterfox from these comments.