Firefox's massive overhaul moves to beta

Discussion in 'other software & services' started by lotuseclat79, Mar 21, 2014.

  1. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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    FYI. Firefox 55 Beta 9 released July 14, 2017. Available via Internal Updater (7.6 MB).

    The Firefox Beta page's Free Download button downloads Firefox Setup Stub 55.0b9.exe (240 KB).

    The Download Firefox Beta in your language page downloads 55.0b9.exe's 32-bit & 64-bit versions.
     
  2. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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    FYI. Firefox 55 Beta 10 released July 18, 2017. Available via Internal Updater (7.6 MB).

    The Firefox Beta page's Free Download button downloads Firefox Setup Stub 55.0b10.exe (240 KB).

    The Download Firefox Beta in your language page downloads 55.0b10.exe's 32-bit & 64-bit versions.
     
  3. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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    FYI. Firefox 55 Beta 11 released July 21, 2017. Available via Internal Updater (7.5 MB).

    The Firefox Beta page's Free Download button downloads Firefox Setup Stub 55.0b11.exe (240 KB).

    The Download Firefox Beta in your language page now downloads 55.0b11.exe's 32-bit & 64-bit versions.
     
    Last edited: Jul 21, 2017
  4. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    An interesting post which demonstrates the huge progress achieved in newer Firefox versions.

     
  5. Victek

    Victek Registered Member

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    I notice that when Firefox opens a session with multiple tabs it only loads the page with focus; all of the other tabs are inactive. It obviously makes a big difference that all of the tabs are not immediately active and loading. I don't know if there are additional reasons for the improved performance.
     
  6. Brummelchen

    Brummelchen Registered Member

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    1691 tabs to load from index - was offline, no content. did not loughed like this.

    but IMO that wont help falling down further:
    http://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share
    https://clicky.com/marketshare/global/web-browsers/firefox/

    only netmarketshare shows upgoing - who believes
    https://www.netmarketshare.com/
    was upcoming huh since version -forgot- to improve foreground loading. there exist an extension for that to load only 3 tabs same time - mozilla implemented that code. similar to code which sets tabs inactive after certain time, this is also not new. when starting up with 100>> tabs here it takes only few minutes to get all tabs and favicons, but the pages itselves are not loaded until i click them. after clicking tab firefox load the page again, page from online - rest from cache if available.
    in times with fast internet it makes a difference if browser on startup waits for a complete page loading or if he loads its basics only. behavior changed in the last 2-3 years. and in times were SSD basic loading _is_ fast. nothing is more annoying for a user to wait a programs start and fully loaded.
     
  7. Victek

    Victek Registered Member

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    Last edited: Jul 23, 2017
  8. Brummelchen

    Brummelchen Registered Member

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    somestimes i see the offer to install chrome when testing software, whether or not i have chromium or firefox. it is user choice to read carefully and accept/deny. if some click like an idiot on yes - fail. the power of marketing. btw firefox for android dont contain firefox, its an UI set on top to android webview which is developed by google - oops.
     
  9. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    Wrong. Firefox Focus (or Firefox Klar in Germany) uses WebView, the "real" Firefox uses Gecko (and is extendable by add-ons like uB0 etc., of course). Oops.
     
  10. Rasheed187

    Rasheed187 Registered Member

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    Sounds good to me. I often have 30 to 50 tabs open, and I was afraid that the new multi-process feature would drain RAM. But what they really need to do is launch a new and way faster browser engine.
     
  11. stapp

    stapp Global Moderator

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  12. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    The work on Servo which is aimed to become the next engine in Firefox (and which will be faster and more secure) is going on. Besides, I don't notice much difference performance-wise between Firefox and Chrome nowadays. If you do, specific settings and/or add-ons can be the culprit (example). I suggest to start Firefox with the -p switch and create a new profile. Check if it improves the situation. You can always go back to your old profile by using the -p switch again.
     
  13. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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    FYI. Firefox 55 Beta 12 released July 25, 2017. Available via Internal Updater (7.4 MB).

    The Firefox Beta page's Free Download button downloads Firefox Installer.exe (240 KB). This is a change from the old Setup Stub version.exe

    The Download Firefox Beta in your language page now downloads 55.0b12.exe's 32-bit & 64-bit versions.
     
  14. Rasheed187

    Rasheed187 Registered Member

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    To clarify, FF is fast enough, but I'm very sensitive to these things. Overall, Vivaldi/Chrome are faster in loading heavy websites. You will hardly feel the difference when loading less bloated sites, but hopefully Servo will be even faster. I don't see myself switching to a Chrome based browser anymore, so I'm sticking with FF. I use FF for most websites, and I only use Opera 12 and Vivaldi for specific sites.
     
  15. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    Well, you ignored the second half of my post. Since you don't bother about creating a new profile (which takes only a few seconds) and test it, nobody - including yourself - can tell if there is a problem in your current profile. As long as that isn't done comparing the speed of browsers doesn't make much sense, IMHO. I pointed to the example of an add-on that was causing problems, and another one is the popular Noscript whose XSS filters causes massive problems on specific sites (although this seems to be fixed in the latest development version). Without excluding such things any speed discussion is void.
     
  16. Brummelchen

    Brummelchen Registered Member

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    @summerheat - i think you are more right than me. the first though - webview? extensions? cant be.
    the behind here was that mozilla themselves recommend to compile for webview and not gecko, i dont know what they use
    from may: http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/05/10/hands-firefox-focus-ported-android-shows-promise/

    the "geckoview" was stuck 2015. the comment i read and this information lead to -> webview. sorry, seems wrong.


    concerning servo - currently totally crap, loaded the build yesterday. absolutely no comparison to the firefox 55/56 photon part which is only the ui and some webex-api behind. see the image on servo.org - thats all, nothing else.

    i might be wrong (again) if this only a technical preview it is very lousy.
     
  17. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    Firefox Focus is based on WebView and does not support add-ons. However, Firefox - based on Gecko - does. I had been using it for years on Android with several add-ons like uB0, Decentraleyes, Cookie Autodelete etc. I'm not quite sure but AFAIR (I've recently switched to an iPhone) Firefox is the only Android browser that supports add-ons.
     
  18. Victek

    Victek Registered Member

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    Actually Dolphin for Android supports various add-ons, though IIRC they are proprietary and don't add much in the way of security.
     
  19. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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    FYI. Firefox 55 Beta 13 released July 28, 2017. Available via Internal Updater (7.4 MB).

    The Firefox Beta page's Free Download button downloads Firefox Installer.exe (240 KB). This is a change from the old Setup Stub version.exe

    The Download Firefox Beta in your language page now downloads 55.0b13.exe's 32-bit & 64-bit versions.
     
  20. Rasheed187

    Rasheed187 Registered Member

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    What I was trying to say is that there isn't a problem with my profile, because FF is pretty fast. But it's widely known that the Blink engine is faster than Gecko, especially when loading complex and bloated websites. BTW, another thing that really gets on my nerves is the ridiculously bad bookmarks manager. It should be tab based and you should be able to easily assign a URL Alias to sites. Also, you should be able to bookmark all tabs via the bookmarks manager like in Opera 12.
     
  21. Brummelchen

    Brummelchen Registered Member

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    you surely speak about chrome, for firefox it makes no sense. there is no better BMM than firefox, or did you see keywords, comments and more in chrome, or (current) opera/vivaldi? who cares about opera 12 here, presto sux and is much outdated.
     
  22. JRViejo

    JRViejo Super Moderator

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    FYI. The Firefox 55.0beta version Release Notes stated an upcoming new feature called Firefox Screenshots.

    My Beta 13 version still does not have that feature enabled, and according to the latest Schedule Update, only 50% of Beta version users are now able to use it.

    Firefox 55 stable is due for release on August 8th.
     
  23. Brummelchen

    Brummelchen Registered Member

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    if some is missing the icon:
    Code:
    about:config
    Check pref:
    extensions.screenshots.system-disabled
    
    If its set to 'true' it will disable and remove the icon.
     
  24. summerheat

    summerheat Registered Member

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    That might be true - although I'm not sure as the performance of the Firefox rendering machine has improved a lot (see these benchmarks). Anyways, my point is that legacy add-ons can modify any settings in about:config. This has often been a reason for incompatibilities in the past (and is also a security risk - both aspects are important arguments pro webextensions). Add to this that Firefox is much more configurable than Chrome. I guess that many Firefox power users (not only) in this forum have modified the Firefox settings more or less seriously (often for privacy reasons via manual modifications or by using, e.g., the gHacks user.js or whatever) with wide-ranging consequences (and possibly modifications done by add-ons years ago although they might no longer be installed). Hence, any reliable performance comparison makes only sense if clean profiles are used.

    Unfortunately, hardly any users are doing this. Some time ago a user in another forum badmouthed Firefox for its bad performance and for hangs on several websites. I pointed him to the above mentioned problems caused by Noscript. He deactivated it - and all was well, and he apologized for his rant. That's so typical.

    To cut a long story short: Problems with Firefox are often caused by legacy add-ons not being confined at all. That's why it's high time that webextensions will be mandatory from FF v. 57.
     
  25. Rasheed187

    Rasheed187 Registered Member

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    Yes, it's good to point this out, I didn't realize that extensions or problems with the profile can also cause issues. But I'm not having any serious performance issues, I just hope that Servo will be as fast or even faster as Blink.
     
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