Is Firefox 57 Faster Than Chrome? (mashable.com) 234
An anonymous reader quotes TechNewsWorld:
Firefox is not only fast on startup -- it remains zippy even when taxed by multitudes of tabs. "We have a better balance of memory to performance than all the other browsers," said Firefox Vice President for Product Nick Nguyen. "We use 30 percent less memory, and the reason for that is we can allocate the number of processes Firefox uses on your computer based on the hardware that you have," he told TechNewsWorld. The performance improvements in Quantum could be a drink from the fountain of youth for many Firefox users' systems. "A significant number of our users are on machines that are two cores or less, and less than 4 gigabytes of RAM," Nguyen explained.
Mashable ran JetStream 1.1 tests on the ability to run advanced web applications, and concluded that "Firefox comes out on top, but not by much. This means it's, according to JetStream, slightly better suited for 'advanced workloads and programming techniques.'" Firefox also performed better on "real-world speed tests" on Amazon.com and the New York Times' site, while Chrome performed better on National Geographic, CNN, and Mashable. Unfortunately for Mozilla, Chrome looks like it's keeping the top spot, at least for now. The only test that favors Quantum is JetStream, and that's by a hair. And in Ares-6 [which measures how quickly a browser can run new Javascript functions, including mathematical functions], Quantum gets eviscerated... Speedometer simulates user actions on web applications (specifically, adding items to a to-do list) and measures the time they take... When it comes to user interactions in web applications, Chrome takes the day...
In reality, however, Quantum is no slug. It's a capable, fast, and gorgeous browser with innovative bookmark functionality and a library full of creative add-ons. As Mozilla's developers fine-tune Quantum in the coming months, it's possible it could catch up to Chrome. In the meantime, the differences in page-load time are slight at best; you probably won't notice the difference.
Mashable ran JetStream 1.1 tests on the ability to run advanced web applications, and concluded that "Firefox comes out on top, but not by much. This means it's, according to JetStream, slightly better suited for 'advanced workloads and programming techniques.'" Firefox also performed better on "real-world speed tests" on Amazon.com and the New York Times' site, while Chrome performed better on National Geographic, CNN, and Mashable. Unfortunately for Mozilla, Chrome looks like it's keeping the top spot, at least for now. The only test that favors Quantum is JetStream, and that's by a hair. And in Ares-6 [which measures how quickly a browser can run new Javascript functions, including mathematical functions], Quantum gets eviscerated... Speedometer simulates user actions on web applications (specifically, adding items to a to-do list) and measures the time they take... When it comes to user interactions in web applications, Chrome takes the day...
In reality, however, Quantum is no slug. It's a capable, fast, and gorgeous browser with innovative bookmark functionality and a library full of creative add-ons. As Mozilla's developers fine-tune Quantum in the coming months, it's possible it could catch up to Chrome. In the meantime, the differences in page-load time are slight at best; you probably won't notice the difference.
Browser speed is not the issue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
This. I've had Chrome open for over a month with about 50 tabs and no process takes over 500MB or 1% of CPU time. Firefox overnight usually is pegged at 2GB and 1 CPU core @ 100% with *one* page open, with zero extensions installed. The only way to fix this unresponsive mess is to end task on the whole thing... Rendering pages in a *negative* amount of time (before they're even downloaded!) wouldn't make up for this basic flaw.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Browser speed is not the issue (Score:4, Informative)
I had the same problem. But FF has a fix for this. Find the Help tab in the menu, then click on Troubleshooting Information. This opens a new tab, which has a button in the upper right corner called Refresh Firefox... Click that. Then FF starts doing some magic and after a while it's finished and your problem is over. At least, it worked for me. You need to re-set a few settings but nothing spectacular as far as I could see.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It should be called something like Optimize my Firefox not "refresh."
Also all it probably does is delete urlsqlite (it's just the URL security checker, you automatically redownload it after) and vacuum all the other databases. Which means it remove all the holes in the database which can slow it down a lot. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Bleachbit can do this for you on just about every browser as well https://www.bleachbit.org/ [bleachbit.org]
Re: (Score:2)
Sure it makes stuff "better" - it removes (not deactivates, but REMOVES) all addons ...
Re: (Score:2)
Only the addons that wouldn't work anyway.
Re: (Score:2)
Chrome also has a fix for it. Close the tab, then fire it up again.
Serious
Re: (Score:2)
I think you hit the nail on the head with that. I read posts here from people who said they had hundreds of tabs open. No wonder their browser is slow and gobbles RAM. Just like you I never had problems like that.
Re:Browser speed is not the issue (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: Browser speed is not the issue (Score:2)
Where are you going for extensions? Everything used web extensions now, excepting the long term service release of Firefox.
Re: (Score:1)
The performance is awesome and noticeable for about 5 mins.... I didn't even know the upgrade went in and noticed. But. Using 4 cores on a 2 core laptop (hyperthreading), killing the battery, and then using 8gb of RAM on an 8gb machine... no thank you. Found an option to limit the cores, so at least my mouse works ok now (yes, it was bad enough my mouse was jerky / slow). But #1 I only want the ACTIVE tab to use resources.
Also, this version disabled whatever flash add-on I had, so now autoplay video all o
Re: Browser speed is not the issue (Score:2)
I didn't even notice when a program like Firefox was acting up, or how slow my PC was until I got a USB mouse in the 00's. Just figured it was the website or game.
Has chrome fixed its sandbox-running-as-root yet? (Score:5, Informative)
Last time I checked they hadn't, and while I'm sure googles coders think they're infallable and there won't be any exploitable bugs in their sandbox, I for one am not prepared to take that risk. There is ZERO reason for ANY part of a browser to strart up or run with root privs.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
There is ZERO reason for ANY part of a browser to strart up or run with root privs.
Would it be preferable to for a PC with five user accounts to have five copies of the browser executable installed, one for each user account? Because that's the only way you're going to have the browser update itself without root permissions on an operating system whose primary application repository forbids third-party browser engines.
Re:Has chrome fixed its sandbox-running-as-root ye (Score:5, Insightful)
No package should autoupdate its systemwide binaries. Especially if You have five user accounts on a machine, or on a production or development machine. Besides, why would anybody want applications to autoupdate in the first place?
The obvious answer to Your dilemma is this: application should run with user privileges, and only an admin can install an update to a binary provided with the system.
Re: (Score:2)
There is ZERO reason for ANY part of a browser to strart up or run with root privs.
[How else are you] going to have the browser update itself without root permissions[?]
application should run with user privileges, and only an admin can install an update to a binary provided with the system.
Then what process, if not part of the browser, downloads and installs said updates? Is it desirable to leave a security vulnerability unpatched for days or weeks until the admin returns to the machine to apply an update?
APT for Windows? (Score:2)
APT doesn't run natively on Windows. It runs in WSL, sure, but browsers are X apps, and WSL isn't intended to host X apps yet. For this reason, each browser on Windows must include its own update mechanism.
Re: (Score:3)
We're talking about unix/linux here, no one gives a shit about what happens about Windows where security is a joke anyway.
When the head of household is on vacation (Score:2)
If patching systems is taking weeks instead of a few days, you have a manpower problem, not a permissions problem. Any CIO worth a shit
...isn't necessarily going to have the money to hire someone to update the PCs on his home LAN while he is on vacation.
For work, I agree with your assessment. But at home, I've seen cases where the administrator is present only once every couple weeks.
Re: (Score:2)
No package should autoupdate its systemwide binaries.
This traces back to a failure on the part of the OS to provide an adequate package manager. Both Windows and MacOS suffer from this. I don't see any reason why every OS shouldn't have something like apt/yum that can update the OS and all applications via a system-wide updater and configurable repositories. Not only would it do away with the need for applications to update themselves, it would make mass deployment/updates much easier for IT departments.
But forget security, and forget making people's live
Are you serious? (Score:2)
Are you seriously suggesting a program should run with root privs just for the sake of ease of updating?? I hope you're never employed as a sys admin, your company would be owned within months.
Re: (Score:2)
Are you seriously suggesting a program should run with root privs just for the sake of ease of updating??
The application's main process should not. Only its updater process should. But on Windows, unless an application is obtained through Windows Store, the updater process has to ship as part of the application's installer.
Re: (Score:2)
My PC has several user accounts. Obviously, none of them can update the browser. Only root updates the browser
How long does it typically take from the day the browser publisher publishes an update addressing a security vulnerability to the day root arrives, such as from vacation, and installs said update?
Ops - you're talking about some system that forbids third party browsers.
I was referring to Windows. Windows has Windows Store, a mechanism to update EdgeHTML and wrappers around EdgeHTML. It can run Firefox or Chrome but doesn't have its own means to update Firefox or Chrome. It instead relies on means provided by each browser publisher.
Re: (Score:2)
No part of the browser runs as root unless your stupid enough to explicitly do so...
It runs as your user account, and then sandboxes things like javascript and plugins even further.
Re: (Score:2)
Its a shame you don't apparently understand how to use google search as well as you seem to think you understand google chrome.
Re: (Score:3)
If you use windows 10 try the edge browser that comes with it. It doesn't support all that FF and chrome supports but It has adblock plus for an extension. I find that it works on 90% of the sites that I go to, and all that I use regularly.
Re: Browser speed is not the issue (Score:3, Insightful)
Both Chrome and Edge have a fatal flaw - they are controlled by megacorpororation who have an agenda that will collide with user interests.
If we allow them to dominate VB the Internet we will suffer in the long run.
FF is a healthy antidote to that. As long as it runs good enough FF comes out on top for that alone. And it runs better than good enough.
People are short-sighted. And have bad memory. When we allowed MS to get almost 100% of the browser market with IE it ended up as an unsupported, unsafe mess.
Re: (Score:2)
Who is short sighted...
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I had hoped this new version would fix the memory issues but they seem even worse,
When I go to a photo site, say the Nasa Astronomy Picture of the Day, and right click to download a bunch of the photos the system gets already slow after some 20-30 pictures.
Note this is after closing each individual tab/picture, the memory consumption just keeps creeping up..
This is with a 4-core/ 8 threads i& and 8GB ram, the only working reset is to stop Firefox and restart it.
But all together I still fi
It's really only a problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Resources are limited. What's a better use of time, tracking down a few kilos worth of memory leaks that annoy the less than 1% of your user base who never close their browser down and keep 100+ tabs open or making your JavaScript engine 10% faster?
They're used to mission crit stuff (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Give it a try, search for say your favourite car, then take the google picture option and clicking on a picture will open it in a separate tab.
Closing this tab will not free any memory but will eventually slow down all other interactions with the browser.
Re:Browser speed is not the issue (Score:4, Informative)
When I browse with JS disabled the memory stays fixed, with JS enabled it increases.
Regretfully a lot of sites just don't work without JS...
Longtime FF user here (Score:1)
Switched to Chrome 6 months ago and never looked back. The Firefox bloat went from bad, to inexcusable, to infuriating.
Re:Longtime FF user here (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It doesn't matter much if Firefox 57 is faster than Chrome. What matters is that it is faster than Firefox 56.
Well, if FF 56 was slower than Chrome and FF 57 is faster than Chrome... I'm assuming you learned about the transitive property at some point and can deduce my point from there.
You might want to reread that. They're not saying it isn't true; they're just saying it doesn't matter if it is.
Re: (Score:2)
What matters is that it is faster than Firefox 56.
That's what they're really saying. In fact, they literally said that. And you literally quoted it. I was merely pointing out that FF 57 being faster than Chrome means it's also faster than FF 56...
...which they said matters.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is that FF 57 is still slower than Edge, Chrome, Safari, Opera, Brave, Vivaldi, Konqueror, and all of the other modern browsers out there.
Except that that's wrong. My main browser for the last two years has been Opera, on Linux, Mac and Windows desktops. Opera is faster than at least Chrome, Safari, Vivaldi and Edge. Firefox 57 is faster than Opera and is now my browser of choice again. With "faster" I mean subjective responsiveness, how fast it feels.
Betteridge's law of headlines (Score:2)
says NO, it's the law.
Tabs on bottom (Score:4, Interesting)
Does it have:
- Tabs on bottom option.
- Status bar option.
- Show title bar option.
Compatibility with:
- Imagezoom
- FireFTP
- Adblock Plus
Re: Tabs on bottom (Score:1)
*ublock
ftfy
Re: (Score:2)
Aye, as long as it does the job.
Re: (Score:2)
ImageZoom hasn't been updated, but there is ZoomImage [mozilla.org] which seems similar.
The developer behind Classic Theme Restorer has a set of custom CSS files [github.com] that can tweak a lot of the interface.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Does it have:
- Tabs on bottom option.
Technically, no. But you can get the tabs back on the bottom, where they belong, by adding this to your userchrome.css file: /* tabs on bottom */
#navigator-toolbox toolbar:not(#nav-bar):not(#toolbar-menubar) {-moz-box-ordinal-group:10}
#TabsToolbar {-moz-box-ordinal-group:1000!important}
- Status bar option -- Unfortunately no
- Show title bar option - Yes
- Adblock Plus - Yes. Although I noticed a couple of small glitches and switched to uBlock Origin which works just as well, maybe even a little better than
Re:AdBlock Plus (Score:2)
Yes, ABP is working just fine in Firefox 57.
Pointless question (Score:4, Insightful)
Without ad/tracking/script blockers installed by default the question is almost pointless.
NO browser is fast on the modern internet when you're not decrapifying everything first.
(Also, FF and Chromium don't send all your data and browsing history directly to google. Just throwing that out there).
Read Firefox's privacy policy. It mentions Google. (Score:2, Insightful)
It's really disturbing to see this nonsensical "Firefox doesn't send information to Google" myth being propagated again and again, especially here at Slashdot of all places.
READ FIREFOX'S PRIVACY POLICY! [mozilla.org]
The September 28, 2017 version of it states (with emphasis added):
Re:Read Firefox's privacy policy. It mentions Goog (Score:4, Informative)
Mozilla gets approximately $300 Million dollars a year from Google (Mozilla just recently terminated their contract with Yahoo and went back to their old girlfriend, Google.)
If you don't think Mozilla is giving Google anything and everything they want, in return for that money, you are insane.
Re: (Score:2)
Mozilla do other things too https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:1)
Webpage and technical data to Google’s SafeBrowsing service:
FWIW, safebrowsing works by downloading a blacklist of hashed URLs that are known bad. If a page's URL hash is not in that list, then it loads normally. If the hash is in the blacklist, then firefox sends the hash to google and gets back the full URL from the blacklist and compares it to the full URL of the page you are visiting in case there is a hashing collision.
Safebrowsing could be abused - google could put known good URLs on there and record when browsers do a full hash lookup of those hashes. But
Re:Read Firefox's privacy policy. It mentions Goog (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
I don't really like it (Score:1)
Don't get me wrong I have no issue with change but a lot seems like change for change sake without adding anything useful.
Top sites is relegated to a thing of the past bar some tiny thumbnail icons that you can't edit. Only way around it is hacky and doesn't work as well as the old one.
Tabs are much larger now they incorporate the loading progress bar for no real need.
Changed icons that are no better at describing their purpose than the old ones.
Moving refresh outside the URL bar.
Slower initial loading of p
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
For tabs: Hamburger > Customize > Density > Compact
Re: (Score:2)
BTW, you can double the size of that area for top sites. When hovering mouse, Click on Edit in upper right corner of the Top Sites area, and select Show More. Not as good as it used to be (thanks Pocket advertising), but at least you have ten sites up top instead of the default five.
Firefox Won Me Back (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Hopefully they can port over these improvements to FF on Android
Firefox on Android can be blazing fast and come with free blowjobs, but I still won't use it. It's ability to determine content of interest and zoom the screen to it with a readable text size in desktop mode is non-existent.
This is really saying something, but Chrome browser on Android doesn't have an adblocker, and I prefer it to Firefox.
Re: (Score:2)
57 appeared on my Android phone early this morning. And yes, it is noticeably better. I was very happy to see ublock survive the upgrade and function as intended.
you know how the top spot is (Score:2)
I don't care (Score:2)
It's broke, as far as I am concerned.
It's like a Mercedes that has no radio/xm/cd/etc..., no a/c, no adjustable seats, no side mirrors, no gps, plastic seat covers, etc...
They optimized for the one feature that didn't matter to me.
Usability down the drain (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
On the same note: I used to have 20 top sites to choose from when opening a new tab, instead of just 8 now. How do I get that back?
Re: (Score:2)
Thanks you so much, AC!
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
So someone moved your cheese?
When is "fast enough" not good enough? (Score:2)
Who cares if it's faster? (Score:3, Insightful)
The people who whine about slowness and memory leaks are the same ones who would leave their car running day in and day out then complain it's using too much fuel.
As to the "new" Firefox, it looks like something from Soviet Russia. Ugly squared edges, no logic as to why useful items are hidden and have to be sought out, doodads which serve no apparent purpose other than they can be done, and of course the in-your-face, blaring advertisements when you open a new, blank tab, though they can be turned off once you figure out how to do so.
57 is a case study in shiny for shiny's sake.
Re:Who cares if it's faster? (Score:4, Interesting)
The people who whine about slowness and memory leaks are the same ones who would leave their car running day in and day out then complain it's using too much fuel.
Err no. Like do you even analogy man? Fuel is an expendable resource. Your comparison would be more like a car that you start driving on a road trip, but about half way through it refuses to go more than 50km/h on the freeway, and you too would bitch about that.
Do I care which is faster Chrome or FF57? No. I'm just glad we finally got to a stage where we can genuinely ask that question without it being a foregone conclusion.
They still don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm so tempted to use profanity to describe the jackasses at Mozilla for what they've done to Firefox. Very few of the millions of people who now call themselves "former Firefox users" will come back. That includes me. I'm certainly not a spokesman for this group, but I bet my situation is very much like theirs.
'Way back at the beginning, I did not choose Firefox because it was the fastest browser out there. I chose it because it gave reasonable performance, used tabs, and offered all kinds of interesting add-ons that put me unambiguously in charge of my on-line experience. Before long, I had my browser configured exactly the way I wanted it. Life was good.
So did I stop visiting the Firefox add-ons site? Hell no! It was both fun and interesting to see what some clever person had come up with that I might want to try...often things I'd never have thought of on my own. Test driving was incredibly fast and easy, and if I didn't like an app or got tired of it, I could get rid of it in seconds.
This was what I loved: I had a core browser that was reliable and fast enough for my purposes, and that I used when I actually needed to be productive. And I had an endlessly-fascinating toy that let me try out interesting, fun things whenever I wanted. When Chrome came out, I gave it a try...why wouldn't I? It was fast, alright. And utterly soulless. I uninstalled it after only a week.
So then the a-holes at Firefox decided they wanted to be Chrome. Even worse, they started screwing around with my GUI, apparently for sport. Classic Theme Restorer could only do so much. But that was only the symptom, not the disease. The disease was the Chrome obsession. And look at them now. "Add-ons" is now a dirty word. But oh my, they're the fastest (maybe).
So here we are today. The people who ruined Firefox are proudly trumpeting that they've turned it into an even faster Chrome. Good luck with that. I didn't want Chrome in the first place. I don't want it now. And I especially don't want a Chrome wannabe that reminds me every time I launch it what I have lost.
So thanks, Firefox, but I think I'll stay with Pale Moon as my regular browser, and Epic as my main backup. If you ever manage to buy back your soul, give me a call.
Re: (Score:2)
Palemoon is not a moving target, it's basically the old Firefox. So extensions made for the old Firefox still work there.
a user report: Firefox on Linux (Score:5, Informative)
I use Firefox and Chrome regularly, leaning heavily towards Firefox because I was quite satisfied with the add-ons I had for it. Pretty much 100% of my recreational browsing is on Firefox.
1) Yes, Firefox IS much faster to load and navigate to my usual websites. However, sites heavy with the usual endless third party scripts, ads and so on remain occasionally frustratingly slow. However; I have always attributed that to poor design choices and lack of network optimization on the part of those third party content delivery networks. (I'm using Ghostery, but no other ad-blocking software on purpose.)
2) Page rendering is MUCH faster. I think this is the biggest factor in perceived browser speed. Easily matching Chrome and actually surpassing it on image heavy sites like imgur.
3) The add on ecosystem has a long way to go to catch up to what previous versions of Firefox had available. To preserve speed, function and reliability, Firefox 57 has a much more modular arrangement. That means ALL previous add-ons will not work in Firefox 57. In addition; what add-ons that do exist do not seem to be nearly as powerful as the add-ons I used previously. That may be due to the modular design not allowing as much control of Firefox by add-ons, it may be because there simply hasn't been time for third party developers to come up with equally powerful replacements.
4) Firefox has a pretty slick system for handling the deprecation of old add-ons. After updating, when you go to the about:addons page, you'll notice that none of your old addons are visible, but there is a link at the top you can click to view them. Clicking one of your greyed out addons takes you to the get more addons page and usually shows you a pretty good replacement. (9 of the 12 addons I love most had acceptable replacements, learning curve aside) The diversity of addons, as I said, just isn't there yet. So if you have one of the lessor known, less popular addons, you probably won't be able to replace it.
5) There are many very popular addons where the original developer is unavailable or as announced that their addon will not be, or cannot be, rewritten for the new Firefox.
6) The themes situation frankly sucks. Simple themes, ones that basically change the colour of the address and menu bar space are still there and old ones you have will still work. But "complex themes" (what I call REAL themes, ones that change the icons used for buttons, bookmark folders, shape and dimensionality of tabs and so on flat out do not exist. From checking out Mozillas pages on 57, it seems that, as it stands now, Firefox 57 is simply not capable of supporting them. Mozilla does say that complex themes are something they are working on and plan on making available later. Personally, I don't want to make the address/menu bar space simply some colour, or use some wide, narrow image as a simple background. I want themes that help visually distinguish tabs, themes that accentuate the skeuomorph effect. I find this makes it easier to see and mentally manipulate. For me a browser is a tool and a tool doesn't need to look pretty and should never never never try to look pretty at the cost of ergonomics. For now, this is a total loss in my book.
Overall, I do like Firefox 57 and have no plans on reverting to an older one. I am however, going to keep spending a lot of time working on it until I can regain the look and above all function I prefer.
Re:a user report: Firefox on Linux (Score:5, Informative)
In addition; what add-ons that do exist do not seem to be nearly as powerful as the add-ons I used previously. That may be due to the modular design not allowing as much control of Firefox by add-ons, it may be because there simply hasn't been time for third party developers to come up with equally powerful replacements.
The WebExtension API is significantly more limited than the old API. A lot of it is reasonable, but some of it is for no good reason.
For example, one of the extensions I use allows me to save images directly to one of several pre-configured directories. This is no longer possible, as all downloads have to in the main download directory or a sub-directory of it. Because Google says that's a good idea, and thus so it must be.
So, this extension cannot be ported in any reasonable way.
Yes yes, I could use symlinks or junction points, but that's a major PITA for no good reason except ineptitude and/or laziness.
Re: (Score:2)
I am happy that downloads can't be written wherever. Isn't that a good thing?
Sure, but that's no good reason to restrict downloads to a singular location. Allow extensions to select alternate download locations (tied in with a directory selector dialog), and allow only downloads to the predefined directories.
Re: (Score:2)
Concur on themes. It is not an issue of aesthetics, but form following function. Sophisticated themes, such as the ones produced by professional UI designers, enhanced the usability of the browser. Effective themes visually separate the container (the browser) from its content.
For example the author of the 'FT deep dark' complete theme is unable to update his themes now. This will exclude willing professionals from contributing to FF.
Doesn't work at a basic level (Score:2)
Elephant in the room (Score:3)
Chromecast brokent, and, most, importantly, 57 broke NoScript.
Now all ugly creatures crawled out out of giant Internet arsehole and torture me on screen.
Fast? What about memory usage? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Don't have to worry about the answer... (Score:5, Insightful)
...if you get people asking the wrong questions.
"Is Firefox 57 Faster Than Chrome?" doesn't matter. Firefox is free software (software users are free to run, inspect, share, and modify) and the basis for more free software browsers that do a better job respecting one's privacy than Firefox does by default. Google's Chrome, on the other hand, is nonfree (proprietary, user-subjugating) software published by a known spy agency and partner of the NSA (three cheers for Snowden for freeing the documents about what the American government and corporations are doing!). Using that program means literally handing Google as much control over your computer (including your browsing) as your computer account allows.
I don't care which browser is faster. It so happens that any recent revision of Firefox is fast enough to do the jobs I do. What's more important to me is software freedom; I care about retaining control over the computers I own and I think all other computer users deserve full control over their computers. So I recommend software freedom for its own sake even if that means an inconvenience on something as relatively unimportant as browser speed. Leave it to the corporate tech media, the corporate sycophants (readily found on /.), and people too naive about social issues to cultivate bad priorities like browser speed over software freedom.
Re: (Score:2)
All true, and now that both browsers are as good as equal in performance, nobody has an excuse anymore to run a non-free browser.
Can't open large select list without lag (Score:2)
Fast enough...FINALLY! (Score:2)
I don't know if the new Firefox is faster. But I don't care. It's now, finally, fast enough to be usable!
Previous versions struggled just to scroll down a Web page. This new version is fast enough that I can't really tell a performance difference between it and Chrome. That means that it's now a viable option for me. And I LOVE that it can block auto-play videos!
Who cares? (Score:2)
Who cares when it stutters when I scroll and it did not do that before. Go ahead and blame my extensions... oh, you can't. All of my extensions (only noscript) stopped working immediately. Meh.
Re:Notepad is faster. (Score:4, Insightful)
I thought it was faster than Chrome.
But honestly the huge amount of features FF has that Chrome doesn't makes the choice clear.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Instead, they were probably sending everything to Yahoo! and we all know how well they do security-wise.
Re: (Score:2)
Uhh, let's see, their search engine and advertising deal with Yahoo, and we all know about Yahoo's data breach, unless you've been living under a rock for years.
Re: (Score:2)
You'd have to be the kind of full-of-your-self "expert on using Internet" to actually think one is better, faster, and the other being "literally unusable".
QFT. None of these browsers are garbage, and it's pure silliness to say any of them are.
(Not you, Edge. You've still got some growing up to do. Put an end to those crashes, for a start.)
Re: (Score:2)
If you think you have any privacy on the internet then you're nuts. Nearly every site has a "like us on facebook" embedded piece of junk web button. Every single time you land on a page like this you're telling the img host where you've been... along with your cookies. It's not hard for the bigger ISPs to track you, regardless of your browser choice.
Re: (Score:2)
nonsense, all that can be rendered useless by the savvy user. Maybe *your* browser reaches to a facebook web beacon landing site, mine does not.