Firefox - the Aurora and beta channels

There are great graphics performance improvements for Firefox ahead - see http://blog.mozilla.com/joe/2011/04/26/introducing-the-azure-project/ and http://www.basschouten.com/blog1.php/comparing-performance-azure-vs-cairo. The image on that site shows how much faster Azure is compared to Cairo. Amazing!

EDIT: Sorry - just saw that there is already another thread covering this.

 

I didn't notice the thread so thank you for posting. It's good to see they are making improvements, they were lagging behind competitors in this area. If I use the latest nightly, does that include these improvements?

 

I don't think so. Its not included in nightly builds yet.

Here is the link to it azure build -
http://people.mozilla.org/~bschouten/firefox-7.0a1.en-US.win32.zip

more about direct2D enable/disable part -

Thanks,
Harsha

 

Thanks harsha_mic, I'll wait until it's merged into nightly.

 

There's a problem currently in updating nightly and Aurora builds. The workaround is to do a manual install but I'll wait and try later in the hope that things are fixed.

Edit: it's fixed at least for Aurora.

 

One simmering issue is somewhat confirmed in the vision statement and that is the preference being shown to personas over themes. Some themes had quite a cult following and there's a fair bit of bitterness over the side-lining of themes.

"Personas" figure twice:

and

"Theme" doesn't get a mention and I don't think it's accidental.

(I don't use personas or themes. I mix my own poison using Stylish.)

 

I use Personas nowadays, because it's easier to test/install, and causes less visual issues (especially compared to darker themes). Also have userstyles and Stratiform.

Add-ons include extensions, plugins, and themes by the way. I'm not doubting you though.

 

Doesn't bother me anymore

 

That's good news for Mozilla. I'm sure they may have been a little anxious.
The major "shock" for "average" users was the 3.6 > 4 transition. Subsequent updates should be smoother and hardly disruptive (apart from add-ons whose developers abandon them).

 

I just updated to Fx 7. This time was a bit tricky for me in that it appeared that I had to edit the install.rdf files of some extensions to change the max version.

For Fx 7, Mozilla asks permission to use telemetry to understand how users use the browser. (I had posted about it here (-http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showpost.php?p=1872629&postcount=1-) in this totally neglected topic.)

I understand that one other browser records usage without asking.

 

Yesterday I compared memory usage of FF 5.0 with Trunk 8.01a1 under Kubuntu 11.04. After some surfing I closed all tabs except one in both browsers containing the same website (with a lot of javascript going on). Then I sat back and observed memory usage.

Result: After about 20 minutes memory usage of FF 5 climbed from 260 MB to about 350 MB while memory usage of 8.0a1 remained rather stable at 265 MB. It seems that the new garbage collection really works.

 

from: http://groups.google.com/group/mozilla.dev.planning/browse_thread/thread/3bda6e22dbbe3262#

[1]: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=650258

 

Check out this bug only if you have time to waste:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=661075

 

"Firefox 7 is lean and fast" : https://blog.mozilla.com/nnethercote/2011/08/09/firefox-7-is-lean-and-fast-2/

"Firefox 7 uses less memory than Firefox 6 (and 5 and 4): often 20% to 30% less, and sometimes as much as 50% less. In particular, Firefox 7′s memory usage will stay steady if you leave it running overnight, and it will free up more memory when you close many tabs."

 

Freeing up more memory when closing tabs: Well, file that under "Duh!".

Uses less memory than previous versions: Hmm, not so much, actually. I see very little difference thus far, and I say all this using build 7.0a2 of the Aurora channel.

Staying steady overnight: I can't comment on that yet as I don't leave it running overnight. However, that's a good test to do.

To me, FF7 is so far about the same as FF5. That includes the, though rather, small issues of slowness when typing text, and the habit of the scroll bar to stutter often and just become overall not very responsive.

 

Currently, 7.0a2 = Aurora. The build changes on a nightly basis and is the nerdy part, I guess.

Sorry to know that Aurora doesn't go down too well for you. I love it. Guess there are real world[//i] differences since I've lightened up things a bit with my content-blocking extensions?

 

Well, I can see a significant difference - see post #64. I had used FF 8 though. However, according to https://blog.mozilla.com/nnethercote/2011/08/09/firefox-7-is-lean-and-fast-2/ most improvements should also be built-in in FF 7.

 

I thought Firefox users didn't care about speed? =p

Joke aside Firefox 8 looks very nice. I wonder how it stacks up against Chrome 15.

 

What parameters? Speed?

I don't mind staying with Fx since I'm of the opinion that my weak link is my net speed. So having the indisputably fastest browser in the world becomes slightly irrelevant if I can't customize it the way I want.