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Why does Firefox lag so far behind?
- Thread starter Aaron11
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Define "performance."
Does Firefox in all present forms do what people require? Yes.
Does it get the job done adequately? Yes.
Does it do the job within acceptable time frames (meaning every major browser at this point in time can complete the "standard" Sunspider Javascript benchmark test in less than 1 second, one solitary second of time - and remember, those test results are stated in milliseconds)? Yes.
Does it work with all the major plugins for additional functionality as well as offer more addon/plugins than all the other browsers combined? Yes.
Is it a little slower than some of the competition? Yes.
Why do people focus so much on a few milliseconds difference instead of looking at the browser overall? When you figure it out, let me know.
Doesn't matter to me what others think: Firefox is the best browser overall for me because of not only everything it actually does but everything it's capable of because of the extensions, addons, and plugins.
How fast does this stuff actually need to be, anyway? Are people in that much of a hurry in their daily lives that milliseconds matter that much? If so... might wanna take a walk outside from time to time, and leave the technology behind.
Does Firefox in all present forms do what people require? Yes.
Does it get the job done adequately? Yes.
Does it do the job within acceptable time frames (meaning every major browser at this point in time can complete the "standard" Sunspider Javascript benchmark test in less than 1 second, one solitary second of time - and remember, those test results are stated in milliseconds)? Yes.
Does it work with all the major plugins for additional functionality as well as offer more addon/plugins than all the other browsers combined? Yes.
Is it a little slower than some of the competition? Yes.
Why do people focus so much on a few milliseconds difference instead of looking at the browser overall? When you figure it out, let me know.
Doesn't matter to me what others think: Firefox is the best browser overall for me because of not only everything it actually does but everything it's capable of because of the extensions, addons, and plugins.
How fast does this stuff actually need to be, anyway? Are people in that much of a hurry in their daily lives that milliseconds matter that much? If so... might wanna take a walk outside from time to time, and leave the technology behind.
I agree with your point entirely. I have many addons that I can't live without that are only available through Firefox. However, I think synthetics and javascript matter greatly since Firefox is slowly losing market-share to the people who want the fastest browser.Define "performance."
Does Firefox in all present forms do what people require? Yes.
Does it get the job done adequately? Yes.
Does it do the job within acceptable time frames (meaning every major browser at this point in time can complete the "standard" Sunspider Javascript benchmark test in less than 1 second, one solitary second of time - and remember, those test results are stated in milliseconds)? Yes.
Does it work with all the major plugins for additional functionality as well as offer more addon/plugins than all the other browsers combined? Yes.
Is it a little slower than some of the competition? Yes.
Why do people focus so much on a few milliseconds difference instead of looking at the browser overall? When you figure it out, let me know.
Doesn't matter to me what others think: Firefox is the best browser overall for me because of not only everything it actually does but everything it's capable of because of the extensions, addons, and plugins.
How fast does this stuff actually need to be, anyway? Are people in that much of a hurry in their daily lives that milliseconds matter that much? If so... might wanna take a walk outside from time to time, and leave the technology behind.
If Firefox actually charged for itself - meaning it was a commercial application - I could easily understand the situation where people give it "market-share" but it doesn't, so the concept just flies right out the window as far as I'm concerned.
The only ones losing anything - also in my opinion - are those that choose speed over everything else as the singular reason to not use Firefox. And I'm not saying the primary one, which implies there are other reasons, I mean they use specifically that statement and basis for not using Firefox: "I don't use Firefox because <insert competitive browser here> is faster." I keep FasterFox installed just to get some general idea of how fast most pages actually load and I rarely ever see more than 2-3 seconds tops - but please, before you get that "AHA! SEE, IT IS SLOWER!" moment, realize that accessing data across the Internet is not always the fastest it can be because of a variety of issues or potential routing problems.
I have a 50Mbps Internet connection - that typically pulls close to 60 - so whenever I encounter a slow website, and I mean a really slow one, I'll typically fire up Chromium (also a portable version) and check, and far more often than not it's not Firefox that's slow: it's the website I'm trying to access content on that's slow because it'll load just as slow if not slower using Chromium, or IE, or whatever. More often than not, my portable installation of Firefox is about equal in terms of page/site loading speed as Chromium - which is also portable - is (which I keep updated every few days with the latest build off the Chromium buildbot).
The speed of Firefox does not always lie with the browser itself - there are entirely too many variables involved hence benchmarks to test things without respect to the Internet connection, but even that's a bit false sometimes. I've yet to see a decent and true "offline" browser test so, if I ever do then I could do some testing there as well, but it still wouldn't influence my decision to continue using Firefox because speed isn't a top-priority for me. Nobody is in that much of a hurry...
I use Firefox because it just works. I use it because I've got 22 addons/extensions that have transformed how I access, use, save, and publish information not only from the Internet but back to it as well. Even if I tried with everything available for every other browser that exists as of me typing this sentence, every single addon, plugin, extension, modification, script, etc I would never ever be able to get any of them even remotely close to how Firefox is configured for me right at this same instant.
That's what being the best browser overall for me means...
The only ones losing anything - also in my opinion - are those that choose speed over everything else as the singular reason to not use Firefox. And I'm not saying the primary one, which implies there are other reasons, I mean they use specifically that statement and basis for not using Firefox: "I don't use Firefox because <insert competitive browser here> is faster." I keep FasterFox installed just to get some general idea of how fast most pages actually load and I rarely ever see more than 2-3 seconds tops - but please, before you get that "AHA! SEE, IT IS SLOWER!" moment, realize that accessing data across the Internet is not always the fastest it can be because of a variety of issues or potential routing problems.
I have a 50Mbps Internet connection - that typically pulls close to 60 - so whenever I encounter a slow website, and I mean a really slow one, I'll typically fire up Chromium (also a portable version) and check, and far more often than not it's not Firefox that's slow: it's the website I'm trying to access content on that's slow because it'll load just as slow if not slower using Chromium, or IE, or whatever. More often than not, my portable installation of Firefox is about equal in terms of page/site loading speed as Chromium - which is also portable - is (which I keep updated every few days with the latest build off the Chromium buildbot).
The speed of Firefox does not always lie with the browser itself - there are entirely too many variables involved hence benchmarks to test things without respect to the Internet connection, but even that's a bit false sometimes. I've yet to see a decent and true "offline" browser test so, if I ever do then I could do some testing there as well, but it still wouldn't influence my decision to continue using Firefox because speed isn't a top-priority for me. Nobody is in that much of a hurry...
I use Firefox because it just works. I use it because I've got 22 addons/extensions that have transformed how I access, use, save, and publish information not only from the Internet but back to it as well. Even if I tried with everything available for every other browser that exists as of me typing this sentence, every single addon, plugin, extension, modification, script, etc I would never ever be able to get any of them even remotely close to how Firefox is configured for me right at this same instant.
That's what being the best browser overall for me means...
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+1
Not sure what the OP is talking about- FF 4 beta 6 is very speedy and stable, both in Windows and OS X.
Dion
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I have found firefox browsers to get nothing but faster over there years.
DeathPrincess
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It was comercial, just called Netscape Navigator at the time
bigdogchris
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Yeah, and they are probably people who jump ship to whatever browser 'benchmarks' faster, but has no noticeable improvement. There's nothing you can do to stop those type of people except to not be like one.
The issue I see with Firefox is it's like Ubuntu. Ubuntu is trying so hard to be Windows, it's now starting to be more bloated and slower than Windows since they don't have Billions of dollars to spend on the best talent in the world to code their OS. FF is starting to get a little bloated as well because of features. I'm still going to use it though.
A lot of those people just go with what's new in open software. Firefox had it's day, now its Chrome, and a year or two from now when someone decides to fork webkit or whatever codebase is popular then they'll leave Chrome for the same reasons they left Firefox, the standard "bloated, slow, behind the times" responses people give.
dr.stevil
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I'm still on FF 3.6 (I believe) and I also don't get the 'slowdown' thing.
It seems plenty fast for me. It might take a few tenths of a second longer to render a page than other browsers, but I just don't seem to notice it outside of synthetic benchmarks. To each their own I suppose
It seems plenty fast for me. It might take a few tenths of a second longer to render a page than other browsers, but I just don't seem to notice it outside of synthetic benchmarks. To each their own I suppose
ITSTHINKING
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I think it really sucks that people are buying into the "this browser is so fast!" hype. Does .1234 seconds really matter that much? I agree that if firefox was somehow a little faster then it would help them keep the users they have and potentially gain more users, but not at the expense of my favorite browsers quality
Same here man, my wife has been using and swearing by Chrome but I never see (feel?) any speed difference between that and firefox. I even tried IE the other day (i finally got a 64 bit os and wanted to try it out) and IE feels about the same. I only use IE if/when I have to.
I wanted to say that but I wasn't sure if it was just my imagination
Same here man, my wife has been using and swearing by Chrome but I never see (feel?) any speed difference between that and firefox. I even tried IE the other day (i finally got a 64 bit os and wanted to try it out) and IE feels about the same. I only use IE if/when I have to.
I wanted to say that but I wasn't sure if it was just my imagination
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Vermillion
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I'm an avid FF user and have been for years. I don't see them "lagging" behind anybody. FF4 beta is pretty nice and I think it puts them right on par with IE9 and Chrome 6.
That said I've been using Chrome the last two days with extensions like NotScript. While the speed is nice (visibly faster then FF 3.6.10 although is one second that big a deal?) the half-assed extensions are a killer. I'll probably toss Chrome to the side yet again at the end of the day and I probably won't ever look back unless Google brings true API's to Chrome so that NoScript can have a true port.
That said I've been using Chrome the last two days with extensions like NotScript. While the speed is nice (visibly faster then FF 3.6.10 although is one second that big a deal?) the half-assed extensions are a killer. I'll probably toss Chrome to the side yet again at the end of the day and I probably won't ever look back unless Google brings true API's to Chrome so that NoScript can have a true port.
Red Squirrel
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IE has the advantage that it's built into the OS so it tends to load faster and have a lower footprint but yeah I do find over time FF has become bigger and slower. Mostly at starting up. Once it's running it's not so bad, but if you decide to open FF on a test VM or something that is on a slow server, forget it, may as well use IE. The ram usage is also astronomical. I don't care if ram is cheap, it's not an excuse. It's not that uncommon to have it in a VM that has low memory assigned to it because it's main function does not require much ram, and you just want to open it up real quick to open a management console or something.
bigdogchris
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This is more of a rant.
I've seen, yet another person "reviewing" browsers, yet are obviously totally bias towards Chrome. Everywhere you read "Chrome is the best", yet when I use it, all I feel is that it's a pile of shit. Of course, they claim that java script speed is 'incredibly important' on the web. I'm on the Internet every day and rarely use java script applications in a browser, let alone even see them as available.
I've seen, yet another person "reviewing" browsers, yet are obviously totally bias towards Chrome. Everywhere you read "Chrome is the best", yet when I use it, all I feel is that it's a pile of shit. Of course, they claim that java script speed is 'incredibly important' on the web. I'm on the Internet every day and rarely use java script applications in a browser, let alone even see them as available.
You can juice up the speed of firefox. I've done this myself and friends have all done it as well.
http://www.pctipsbox.com/how-to-double-firefox-speed/
http://www.pctipsbox.com/how-to-double-firefox-speed/
will give this a shot, thanks
bigdogchris
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Firefox isn't slow to me though, except launching on the one Win XP machine I use outside of home.
I compared scroll speed of [H] on both FF and Chrome and on Chrome it was obviously jerking down the page, where FF was perfectly smooth.
Loading pages in FF are near instant.
How much faster can you get than so fast there is zero complaints?
It's not just speed either. Where is the drop down list on Chrome to view recently typed URL's?
Anyways, all future dicsussions about how much faster Chrome is should be moved to the GPU section where they compare e-peens over 3d mark scores.
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zero2dash
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That right there should be the defacto first post in any browser vs browser threads.
I still don't get the "x faster than y" browser threads. Other than the "tests", does anyone really notice one being ridiculously faster than the other? I never have; maybe I'm in the minority. I did recently switch to Chrome (again) and ditch Fx, and I've been very happy with it. I still get pop-unders on 411mania, but otherwise I do prefer the look and space optimization that Chrome has vs. that of Fx 4 beta 6.
bigdogchris
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Exactly. To me it comes down to features and usability. For example, I use mouse wheel/click navigation for a ton of stuff. FF excels at this. Plus with the customization and extensions it can't be beat IMO. On top of that, FF 4 rocks. It's definitely looking good for this browser.
Red Squirrel
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Chrome being faster then Firefox is not really an argument, it's just a fact. As for features and usability I find Firefox is still better. I just wish they would bring back the old Firefox, when it first came out it was much faster and much lighter. You could easily run it on lower end systems, or VMs with low ram. Now for applications where 100's of MB of ram aren't easily available, I'm forced to use Chrome or IE.