Multi-Process Comes To Firefox Nightly, 64-bit Firefox For Windows 'Soon' 181
An anonymous reader writes with word that the Mozilla project has made two announcements that should make hardcore Firefox users very happy. The first is that multi-process support is landing in Firefox Nightly, and the second is that 64-bit Firefox is finally coming to Windows. The features are a big deal on their own, but together they show Mozilla's commitment to the desktop version of Firefox as they both improve performance and security. The news is part of a slew of unveilings from the company on the browser's 10th anniversary — including new Firefox features and the debut of Firefox Developer Edition.
now if Firefox would support Chrome extensions (Score:2)
it would be exactly like Chrome :)
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Waterfox (Score:2)
Waterfox 64 bit seems to work fine, have been using it for a while now as Firefox memory limits were just too annoying.
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What did you do to exceed 4 GB of memory with Firefox?
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Probably loaded G+. That's the only explanation I can think of (high memory use) why it should be one of the slowest sites on the internet.
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I use all the google services on chrome and everything else in waterfox as google is just so bad at programming that their products are just too annoying to use on other things.
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I use all the google services on chrome and everything else in waterfox as google is just so bad at programming that their products are just too annoying to use on other things.
I'm not sure it's all their fault. G+ exposes a bug in FF where it craps itself on form input, even after closing the G+ tab the problem persists while I'm typing into other forms until I close the browser completely and reopen it. Typing just goes straight to hell, it substitutes some buffer for the keystrokes. It only happens if I start typing too soon, while G+ is still loading. Why does G+ have such a stupidly-long page load time? Ugh.
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I use all the google services on chrome ... their products are just too annoying to use on other things,/i>
Google... the new Microsoft :-)
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Well, I currently have 11 windows open with a total of about 230 tabs, Firefox was fine until it went over 3 gigs and then it just stopped, with every action taking 30+ seconds to do.
Waterfox runs fine now at about 4.5 gigs total memory use.
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Surely you can't be serious. You've heard about bookmarks, right?
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Bookmarks are just such a clumsy interface overall and in many cases cause multiple extra actions to get to the thing you need like logins or such. A lot of websites are programmed by idiots.
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Indeed, the GUIs for bookmarks always has been crap, it's a dump of links, you end up scrolling a drop down menu without a scroll bar, and it's not clear why would I want to bookmark everything I read then spend time cleaning it up.
Having 220 tabs is not really special. It's like asking "who ever reads a book or magazine with 220 pages? no one ever reads that much".
Some people use laptops offline (Score:2)
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Ummm, just because AT&T aren't doing inflight internet doesn't mean that the companies currently offering inflight internet like Gogo, OnAir and Panasonic are suddenly going to stop providing it.
Bizarre usage habits (Score:2)
Well, I currently have 11 windows open with a total of about 230 tabs, Firefox was fine until it went over 3 gigs and then it just stopped, with every action taking 30+ seconds to do.
Umm, why in $diety's name do you need 230 tabs open? You cannot possibly use that many efficiently. It's a scientific fact that you cannot multitask worth anything (no one can). Hell you cannot even find a particular tab efficiently with that many open. That's one of the most baffling work "flows" I've ever heard of. Just because a few tabs are good doesn't mean a huge number is better.
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Well, research would be an obvious candidate. You want to keep all related pages open until you're done, in case you need to reference them in light of new information.
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if you had read the original text including "and the second is that 64-bit Firefox is finally coming to Windows" you might have gotten the context.
Firefox is not available on Windows as 64 bit except as nighty build of questionable stability. Waterfox is a stable 64bit Firefox based browser for Windows.
Might just get me back (Score:2)
Multi-process is the major reason I use Chrome. One tab freezing up the entire app, or even just making other tabs slower, is unacceptable.
Then this hits general availability I'll definitely be re-evaluating Firefox.
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Great. One reason I don't use Chrome/ium is there are two many processes, eventually consuming all available RAM + swap (even on a 32bit OS). I once counted 39 processes and every one of them allocate tens of megabytes, eventually hundreds for managing resources such as graphics, running bad javascript code etc.
When even swap is exhausted, every action such as moving the mouse cursor takes 5-10 seconds or more . I have to ctrl-alt-f1 to a text console (if the computer still responds to that and the screen i
Multiprocess was introduced a while ago (Score:2, Informative)
Awesome (Score:3)
We prefer Firefox, but I was about to switch my wife over to using Chrome as it has become impossible to figure out which of the dozens of tabs she has open was slowing everything down, even with ad-blocking enabled. It will be interesting to see how the multi-process support impacts memory overhead, though, as Firefox has had the lead on Chrome in that area.
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Never thought I'd see that sentence. Man, how far Firefox has come! (or how far Chrome has fallen?)
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It depends a lot on how you use things. If you just open one tab and browse in it, then Firefox is likely to use more memory.
But as you open more and more tabs the overhead of the extra processes in chrome make it use way more memory fast.
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Just look for the tab which is running the Flash plugin and close it.
e10s printing is not implemented yet. Bug 927188. (Score:2)
Too late. (Score:3)
Pale Moon has been available in x64 for a long time now, and doesn't have advertisements bundled into it.
I'll just stay put.
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Palemoon crashes a lot on my machine, Firefox doesn't ... which is weird, given that Palemoon is essentially a rebranded Firefox.
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The advertising features will be stripped out, much like the Social plug crap was removed.
If Firefox dies because of "righteous indignation" then why does that mean Pale Moon has to go? It's open source. Pale Moon will simply become a fork/continuation of Firefox, much like Firefox was originally a continuation of the end of Netscape Navigator.
Good (Score:3)
I've been using Firefox for the past six months or so because I don't like Chrome, but Chrome still has the technology edge in several cases. This looks to be bridging at least some of that gap. It would have been better if it happened three years ago, but late is better than never.
Re:Good (Score:5, Interesting)
Chrome still has the technology edge in several cases
Some, maybe. It's getting harder to name them. Firefox is a smaller download, uses less RAM, starts faster, and (if arewefastyet is to be believed) has a faster JavaScript engine now. And the mobile version supports plugins. And I can run my own sync server if I want to.
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Firefox takes longer to start for me, especially when restoring a session with multiple tabs open. It doesn't enough enough memory without tweaks, resulting in choppy scrolling and lag switching tabs as it has to load and decode images from disk. I've got 16GB of RAM, I'd prefer to use it rather than wait around just for the sake of seeing a lower number in Task Manager.
Subject need not apply or exist... (Score:4, Interesting)
I switched to Chrome a while back when it came out. It supported most of the then new HTML5 features, most importantly, playing youtube videos without flash. At first I used chrome sparingly, it took a bit to get used to. Then, after a few vulnerabilities were found in FF which could allow attackers to read the memory of other tabs, I switched. The internet is a dangerous place, multiprocess sandboxing of tabs made perfect sense. I also really liked its UI which was much more simple: tabs, URL bar and a few controls like forward, back and reload along with a settings button.
But it came with a cost. I connected it to my google account and it also integrated with my phone and tablet bringing my bookmarks, passwords and other credentials across all of my devices. So I am hooked on the convenience of Google integration, for better or worse. Worse most likely. Plus logging into sites that use Google is very convenient. I'm addicted.
So going back to FF for me will be difficult.
My only concern with multi process is memory footprint. FF is great for low memory systems like virtual machines and older systems. Chrome is a memory hog and easily uses a gigabyte or more. Right now with 8 tabs open I have 12 chrome processes, two are close to consuming nearly 300 megs each, one nearly 200 and the remaining are anywhere from 12-87 megs. I assume the three large processes are the ones running the show (windows, IPC, etc). The largest being the parent process that spawns the others. The smaller 8 processes are the actual tabs. That is pretty much 1 gig of RAM for 8 tabs. I have computers and VM's with less running various test systems. FF on those machines clocks in at 250-300 megs under heavy use.
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I am surprised Chrome uses more RAM than Firefox. I like the addons and customizations in Firefox and SeaMonkey. I still can't stand Chrome. :(
Been using Nightly for a while. (Score:4, Interesting)
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RequestPolicy, likely all UserScripts (e.g. Greasemonkey and kin), LastPass (last I tested a week ago, was still non-functional).
Although Nightly with e10s enabled does at least appear to be working (better) with addons that only need to have input/listeners/control of the GUI.
Firefox 36? (Score:2)
Catching up to Chrome 1.0 ... eventually! :)
Ooo! Here comes the carrot! (Score:4, Informative)
Notice they add the new advertising features yesterday and then make the things people want (official 64-bit support, better performance) a future version feature.
Gotta take your medicine before you get candy.
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That's what happens when your browser is funded by an advertising company.
Bug fix announcement please (Score:2)
All very nice to hear about shiny new features, but I would be even happier to hear Mozilla foundatation announce that they plan to fix the longstanding bug where 200 open tabs causes firefox to crash [google.ca] every two days or so.
Oh, also announce that the bug where keystrokes go to the wrong window [google.com] will be fixed. Thxbai.
Java (Score:2)
Waterfox (Score:2)
Big Deal (Score:2)
If 36.0a1 is any indication of what to expect in the future, we should all just switch to IE and burn in hell. It'll be a better experience and it won't hurt as much.
Now with Multi-threaded memory leaks! (Score:2)
Bad news on thin clients (Score:2)
A move to multi-process in Firefox can be bad news for anyone using multiuser thin client environments (uncommon but still used). On a shared system, you generally want to have control over which applications can use multiple processes, lest they can go runaway and eat up all cores and resources on a system. Traditional tools such as "nice" don't scale well with single applications that can throw off dozens of threads. As an example- JAVA is *extremely* hostile in a a thin client environment (not just CP
Re:only thing I care about (Score:4, Funny)
I'm hoping for a return to the Netscape Navigator v3 interface, myself.
Sea Monkey (Score:5, Informative)
Use Sea Monkey - Netscape Communicator theme and related extras supported forever without change.
http://www.seamonkey-project.o... [seamonkey-project.org]
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Yes, it is too bad that developers often want to do new shiny things instead of usable things.
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Or one who doesn't have to release saleable products to pay their wages.
Maintenance programming: boring, tedious, difficul (Score:2)
Mozilla needs better management. (Score:2)
Firefox is becoming less and less stable. It's so unstable that it often doesn't report crashes, so the crash reports aren't reliable, they show far fewer crashes [mozilla.com] than actually occurred.
The underlying problem is that Mozilla Foundation needs better management. At present, Mozilla Foundation management is sometimes excellent and sometimes very unreliable.
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I haven't had Firefox crash on MacOS or Linux in ages, and I use it all day every day. For me, it seems a lot more reliable than it used to be.
I'm not going to say I agree with all of Mozilla's decisions, but implying they lack "adult supervision" shows you know nothing about how they work. They are a very dedicated - if sometimes misguided - group. As for Mozilla Foundation, I couldn't tell you.
Haven't Looked Forward to Anything in a While (Score:2)
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So it can busy loop on multiple cores at the same time? Yippee.
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Firefox is already multithreaded. It can busy loop on as many cores as you want.
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Quite some time ago they added a nice feature, opening plain text links such as http://this.is.a.link.com without needing to mess with copy paste or add an extension to get the same feature.
Before that there was the time when the search in the URL bar became "smart".. I hated the change at first but now I find it much better than the old way (simple left-to-right alphabetical completion)
Or there are a lot of small things like scrolling with the middle mouse button, alt-d to reach the URL bar not only ctrl-L
Re: Haven't Looked Forward to Anything in a While (Score:2)
I would donate to MoFo much more frequently if I could direct those donations to specific projects. Electrolysis has been on the list for years, but things like FirefoxOS get the funding. And yes, I realize electrolysis got its legs on Fennec, but it could have been completed work a decade ago with the right funding allocation (bugs date from 2001 at least). There would have been less room for Chrome if it had been done, so it really does rise to the level of misallocation.
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I'd add two things onto that:
1: The ability to click-to-play for add-ons. Chrome has this, and it does a great job at dealing with the loud ads that autoplay. This also adds security so that malware from a compromised or dodgy ad server doesn't get free reign to execute.
2: A VM-like structure similar to Chrome, so that a compromised window or tab is limited to just that context and can't take down the whole browser, or even worse, the user context it runs in. Chrome's VM is a big security plus. Not 10
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Re:only thing I care about (Score:5, Informative)
Firefox has had the ask-to-activate for flash for some time. Go to about:addons, select plugins from the menu on the left, and next to each plugins there is a menu where you can select ask to activate.
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1: I use Flashblock for that. There's probably some equivalent for Java, but I don't even have the Java plugin installed.
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I don't use the new interface either, but still I can arrange myself without addons. When I need to access one of the menus, I simply press alt, and get the old menu bar. I only hope that they won't remove this in future.
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Or you might right-click anywhere outside of the tabs and URL bar, and click on "Menu bar", then the menu is shown permanently. No add-on, no options editing and you get a Windows 2.0 compliant / Motif compliant application already.
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Yeah, you're right. Why should users complain just because they've made the standard interface unusuable, so you have to install random extensions to use their product?
What other extensions? (Score:2)
What other extensions restore Firefox to the previous usability? Most people don't have the time to search.
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It is too bad that chrome is unusable due to the multi process architecture causing so much overhead.
I tried opening all the windows and tabs I have open in waterfox at 4.5 gigs used memory for fun in chrome and had to stop when the total memory use went over 50 gigs as everything was kind of slow at that point...
So I am hoping that same problem will not happen in firefox 64 bit when it comes out.
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this is true. I can;t see how following the bandwagon of Chrome actually makes things better with Firefox. Multi-process architecture... I've not really noticed a problem with the threaded one, and Firefox already sticks flash objects in a separate process. So what's the real draw... except "well the guy down the road has one so we have to have one too".
64bit... again, bragging points about how many bits you use, no functional difference to anyone. Its like when I gave the 32 bit version of Visual Studio t
64-bit compiler (Score:2)
Its like when I gave the 32 bit version of Visual Studio to a colleague and he complained that he wanted the 64 bit version.... there is no 64 bit version because it isn't needed.
A lot of developers want to make use of runtime speed benefits of whole-program optimization, which can perform inlining, nonstandard fast method call conventions, and other optimizations despite the caller and callee being in separate source code files. And with a program as big as Firefox, this has taken more than 4 GB for three years [slashdot.org]. Or is Visual Studio just a 32-bit GUI for a 64-bit compiler that does the actual compilation and linking of such large programs?
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Or is Visual Studio just a 32-bit GUI for a 64-bit compiler that does the actual compilation and linking of such large programs?"
Yes, it is. It would be unusable otherwise. Of course then the problem is with the introspection databases. There are C++ projects that have introspection databases larger than 2.5GB and they flat out kill the Visual Studio. VS IDE really needs to be a 64 bit application.
Functional difference (Score:2)
64bit... again, bragging points about how many bits you use, no functional difference to anyone.
Unless of course you want to address more than 4GB of memory.
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Except me. Switching to 64bit would likely solve the problem Firefox becoming unstable and crashing after using 2GB of memory.
Nothing really requires 64 bits, but more and more programs would benefit from it.
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Well, it is mostly needed for three things:
1) Addressable memory in 32-bit browsers. The threading approach means all tabs must not take more than a total of 4GB of memory, and this is quickly becoming a problem.
2) One tab crashing them all. Yes, firefox crashes on me often enough that it is annoying. Yes, the tabs come back when you relaunch, but then I get bombarded with login requests to all the sites I have open that require logins to view.
3) There is something shared between the threads that the fir
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Multi-process architecture... I've not really noticed a problem with the threaded one, and Firefox already sticks flash objects in a separate process. So what's the real draw
Isolation. The same reason you want different apps to have their own processes instead of having the whole of userspace in one big blob. You can give processes reduced privileges to reduce the scope of exploits, hangs and crashes don't take down more than they have to, and leaks don't force you to restart the entire system to recover resources.
Plus it makes for simpler concurrency. Kind of handy when you've got a stop-the-world garbage collector if you can just split the world into many smaller independen
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64bit... again, bragging points about how many bits you use, no functional difference to anyone. Its like when I gave the 32 bit version of Visual Studio to a colleague and he complained that he wanted the 64 bit version.... there is no 64 bit version because it isn't needed. Its just the typical knee-jerk reaction that 64 bits is somehow essential for everything, not just those programs that really do require it.
Not entirely true, x86 was famously register starved meaning you had to spend a lot of time swapping things into and out of the general purpose registers. When AMD designed the 64 bit extensions, they doubled the number of registers to 16 total, meaning software could spend less time moving things around and more time actually doing something useful.
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Unfortunately, as threads context switch the CPU has to copy the register data to memory and back again for the new thread. This means architectures with more registers switch slower. Some RISC CPUs with lots of registers switch even slower.
So more registers give with one hand, and take away with the other. I guess javascript doesn't get optimised as much as it could to take advantage of those extra registers like a C program will, and the benefit of properly filled caches will have an even bigger impact to
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Except that on windows you get the 32 bit baggage whether you want or need it. It's not like Linux where you can install a 64 bit pure distro. So in the Windows world, moving to 64 bits just for the sake of 64 bits doesn't make as much sense. It doesn't save much.
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saving one the headache of installing two different Java runtimes
there is an optimal solution to this...... sucks if you *have* to run a java program though.
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Damn right.
Would a 'friendly community' welcome a new boss who supported banning inter-racial marriage? No, and the oh but it's just a personal view nonsense wouldn't fly there either.
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Would a 'friendly community' welcome a new boss who supported banning inter-racial marriage? No, and the oh but it's just a personal view nonsense wouldn't fly there either.
What you're overlooking is that Proposition 8 passed. You're not talking about blacklisting people for views way outside the Overton Window. You're talking about blacklisting people for taking part in an active political controversy where you don't like their position.
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Because that's irrelevant? Eich is a homophobe who gave money to support discrimination - Prop 8's passage or failure is a non sequitur in that context.
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Thank you. My thoughts exactly. (Except for the minor point that "non sequitur" does not mean "irrelevant").
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Non-sequitur? He gave money to support a proposition that upheld society's longest existing institution against an onslaught of hyper-liberal hand-wringing. Your ad hominem of homophobe is applied to anyone who happens to agree with the current gay agenda of establishing a protected class with special rights and accommodations.
It is only through the flooding of the airwaves with propaganda and brainwashing of ignorant youth that same sex marriage has gotten the marginal support that it has. Surely it wil
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Apples and oranges and the fact you can't see the difference is what makes you the new bigot. Congrats
No, I don't see a difference. Opposing gay marriage is bigotry. Opposing inter-racial marriage is bigotry.
If there's a fundamental difference that I'm missing, I honestly welcome an explanation.
Re:Tempting (Score:4, Insightful)
You're welcome to hang on to your logical fallacy, though. Have fun with it.
The Paradox of Tolerance (Score:5, Interesting)
The so-called paradox of freedom is the argument that freedom in the sense of absence of any constraining control must lead to very great restraint, since it makes the bully free to enslave the meek. The idea is, in a slightly different form, and with very different tendency, clearly expressed in Plato.
Less well known is the paradox of tolerance: Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them. — In this formulation, I do not imply, for instance, that we should always suppress the utterance of intolerant philosophies; as long as we can counter them by rational argument and keep them in check by public opinion, suppression would certainly be unwise. But we should claim the right to suppress them if necessary even by force; for it may easily turn out that they are not prepared to meet us on the level of rational argument, but begin by denouncing all argument; they may forbid their followers to listen to rational argument, because it is deceptive, and teach them to answer arguments by the use of their fists or pistols. We should therefore claim, in the name of tolerance, the right not to tolerate the intolerant. We should claim that any movement preaching intolerance places itself outside the law, and we should consider incitement to intolerance and persecution as criminal, in the same way as we should consider incitement to murder, or to kidnapping, or to the revival of the slave trade, as criminal.
Karl Popper, Vol. 1, Notes to the Chapters: Ch. 7, Note 4
Paradox is not necessarily a fallacy, [wikipedia.org] and blind moral relativism [rationalwiki.org] is not a good thing. There is no need to be tolerant of the views of murderous dictators, rabid extremists, or any other group which opposes freedom and tolerance. Resisting bigots results in more tolerance, not less (although if you're a bigot you might think the distribution is unfair).
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Wow, I think less of RationalWiki after reading that.
There's a big difference between tolerating intolerant actions and tolerating intolerant words and ideas. If you want to say, "All the Jews deserve to die," that's just your opinion. It's not a very nice opinion. Most people don't share it. But, in a free society, you should be free to express it, because that's what it means to have a free society.
If you start killing or planning to kill specific people, Jews or otherwise, well, then, we have a probl
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Remind me again who has lost their right to hold opinions here?
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I didn't say he didn't have a right to hold his opinion. I didn't throw him in jail or get him fired for it. I just said he's wrong.
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Well, it's illegal to hire a hit man, so, no, that would be unacceptable.
Contributing to the American Nazi Party, though? That's none of anyone else's business, no more than who or what someone votes for.
Also: do you honestly not see the difference between saying, "I don't think the state should recognize gay marriages" and "I hate and want to kill all gay people"? Sheesh. Godwin's Law indeed.
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There is no need to be tolerant of the views of murderous dictators, rabid extremists, or any other group which opposes freedom and tolerance.
Their views, actually, yes; their actions, no. There's no need to adopt their views, yourself, but by what course of action do you make your intolerance known? Are you any better than them for taking that action? Their views are hurting nobody. But go ahead and stand up against their actions, I think we can both agree that is only right.
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Victims should just stand there quietly and let the bully beat them up, otherwise they're just as bad, dammit!
There is nothing hypocritical of being intolerant of intolerance. Rejecting someone else's claim to authority over how you live is not the sam
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Victims should just stand there quietly and let the bully beat them up, otherwise they're just as bad, dammit!
Really? That's what you got out of my post? You just go looking for fights, don't you? There's a far cry from intolerance, which is an opinion, and beating someone up, which is an action. Getting up and leaving the room, and peacefully protesting are also actions which arise from intolerance. I have the right to do both of those and I'd love to see you stop me from doing either.
There is nothing hypocritical of being intolerant of intolerance. Rejecting someone else's claim to authority over how you live is not the same as claiming authority over them.
It's amusing that you conflate authority with intolerance while, at the same time, implying that those are the only two things one
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Marriage isnt a right. Straight or gay. You do not have the right to get married. We aren't assigned partners at birth. Your entire juvenile argument is pathetic and wrong at its very foundation. You are the delusional ones.
Now, I'm no fan of gay marriage, but marriage is a social institution, i.e. something practiced by a society according to its cultural values; and the American civil philosophy of individual rights and personal liberty is generally understood to mean the government shouldn't prohibit something unless there's some overriding state or societal interest in doing so. At least I think that's how it used to be.
What I believe this means is that although you do not have a right to be guaranteed a marriage, nor to
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Yea, its sad that the development world has turned to multi-process instead of fixing their damn code
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But then what would they do? If they didn't rewrite the interface every week, they might have to fix bugs.
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If the web was still made for dial up users on Netscape it would never crash.
It's possible Firefox 0.x were the worst versions and the less crashy ones.