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Minefield Shows the (Really) Fast Future of Firefox

Posted by timothy on from the zipping-right-along dept.

zootropole writes "If you are using Firefox 3 (or even Chrome) you should consider taking a look at Mozilla's Minefield. This browser (alpha version yet, but stable) would give a new meaning to 'fast browsing experience.' Some Firefox extensions aren't supported, but riding the fastest javascript engine on the planet definitely worth a try. Minefield's install won't affect your Firefox, so there's no risk trying it. It's fast. Really. And I'm loving it." Reviews popping up around the web are overwhelmingly positive, calling the upcoming browser crazy fast, blisteringly fast, etc.

18 of 412 comments (clear)

  1. Suggesting nightlies to regular users?! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Are you crazy? If you want to be a little risky, try the 3.1 beta. Nightlies shouldn't be used by those that want to use extensions or avoid crashes.

    1. Re:Suggesting nightlies to regular users?! by ajs · · Score: 5, Insightful

      What's more, this is the same thing we hear every 2 years. "Browser X is really fast!" Then six months later you hear, "Browser X was lagging behind the pack because it didn't have support for A, B and C, but now it's getting them." After that you get, "Why is Browser X so slow these days?" And inevitably, "Browser Y is really fast!"

      When are we going to realize that browser maturity and performance are going to be on opposing curves and jumping ship to an immature browser just sets you up to lose functionality for a short period of time until the performance can be gobbled up by it.

      This is exactly why I'm not using Chrome. Chrome is very nice, but it doesn't have most of what I require of a browsing experience. Once it does, THEN I'll evaluate its competitiveness, not before.

    2. Re:Suggesting nightlies to regular users?! by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Funny

      Nightlies shouldn't be used by those that want to use extensions or avoid crashes

      I dunno. I use the nightlies at work... I don't use any extensions though.

      +1 Missed the point but still sounded vaguely insightful?

      You missed out the 'or' operator. The original statement was that IF (you want to use extensions OR you want to avoid crashes) THEN you shouldn't use nightlies. The followup said that he used the nightlies and avoided crashes just as well as with the stable release, although he didn't use extensions. So: wants to use extensions FALSE, wants to avoid crashes TRUE, and as it turns out nightlies work just fine. Hence OP's theorem is disproved by counterexample.

      Really, this is basic Boolean logic. Anyone reading /. ought to understand this stuff...

      --
      Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
    3. Re:Suggesting nightlies to regular users?! by JTorres176 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Speed seems to be determined by a lack of bloat... and by bloat, I mean features. Firefox, back in the days it was referred to as phoenix, was exceedingly fast. Since then, fancy bookmarking, spellchecking, rss feeds, etc, etc has been added to it, causing slow startup and loading times. With the addition of a few thousand lines of code, not surprisingly, anything will take a bit longer to start up and go.

      Chrome doesn't have many features, so it runs amazingly fast. Minefield doesn't have many features, so it runs amazingly fast. If either of them are weighted down with features (code bloat) then they will slowly grind to a halt much along the lines of IE or current FF.

      --
      Evil Walrus >83=
    4. Re:Suggesting nightlies to regular users?! by DMUTPeregrine · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Except that, you know, Minefield is the Firefox trunk. The same thing FF 3.0 branched from, and what 3.1 will be taken from as well. The minefield in the article is simply the current nightly for FF 3.1. So it still has the features, AND is fast.

      --
      Not a sentence!
    5. Re:Suggesting nightlies to regular users?! by beelsebob · · Score: 5, Informative

      I don't even understand the hype about it being fast. It's *really* slow compared to for example the latest WebKit nightly, here's the benchmarks on my machine:

      Sunspider:
      FF3.0.3: 2697.2ms
      Minefield (jit enabled): 1412.4ms
      WebKit: 680.6ms

      V8 bench:
      FF3.0.3 - 199 runs
      Minefield (jit enabled): FAIL (brings up printer dialog rather than actually running javascript)
      WebKit: 2342 runs

      ACID 3:
      FF3.0.3 - 71 and significant laggyness
      Minefield (jit enabled): 89 with only a little jitteryness
      WebKit: 100 totally smooth.

  2. Re:Firefox Replacement by PenguinBob · · Score: 5, Informative

    These are the nightly builds, once they like how the nightly builds work, they will release them as a "Firefox" update.

  3. Re:faster than Chrome by Joe+Tie. · · Score: 5, Informative

    It has the potential to be, at least for interpreting javascript. The gui still feels a lot more sluggish though, and general rendering still seems quite a bit slower as well. Just remember to do the about:config thing, then search for jit, and turn the two options on to get the speed boost.

    --
    Everything will be taken away from you.
  4. Re:First Post! by paintballer1087 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Hmmm. It looks like there's still some speed issues that need worked out. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be able to get first post by Beta 2.

  5. Re:faster than Chrome by LSD-OBS · · Score: 5, Informative

    Of course, you have to enable the TraceMonkey JIT JavaScript compiler before you'll see any reasonable speed increase (in theory). Just go to about:config, search for the 2 items with "JIT" in their name, and enable them.

    My stress tests have shown it to be 10-50% faster than Chrome *when* JIT works. However, it's still buggy as hell, it eats its own memory heap and grinds to inexplicable halts kinda randomly whenever my code does anything repetitive and strenuous, bringing the average execution speed down to almost FF2 levels, meaning it's faster for me to leave JIT disabled. It's a no-go for me until they fix that.

    --
    Today's weirdness is tomorrow's reason why. -- Hunter S. Thompson
  6. But Chrome wasn't the fastest! by Shin-LaC · · Score: 5, Informative

    People are talking as if Chrome's V8 was the fastest JavaScript engine around, but it wasn't - WebKit's SquirrelFish Extreme was faster. Is Minefield's engine even faster? Ars Technica's tests show that TraceMonkey runs the SunSpider benchmark in between 78% and 84% of V8's time. However, according to earlier tests, SquirelFish Extreme completes the benchmark in 74% of V8's time, making it even faster than the newest TraceMonkey. So it looks like Minefield, though fast, is not the fastest browser in JavaScript.

    1. Re:But Chrome wasn't the fastest! by tnk1 · · Score: 5, Funny

      My ManBearPig smashes your SquirrelFish and your silly TraceMonkey.

      Since I am not going to RTFA, I am going to speculate that Minefield is Mozilla's answer to Microsoft by way of having a faster, more modern version of Minesweeper.

      Take that Evil Empire!

  7. This is irresponsible by jalefkowit · · Score: 5, Informative

    People. There is A REASON why Mozilla calls these builds "Minefield" rather than "Firefox".

    It's because they're not ready for daily use.

    They may be faster than the released version of Firefox, but they also may contain major, showstopping bugs, up to and including bugs that can cause data loss.

    The only people who should be using them are people who understand this risk and are willing to accept it -- i.e. testers.

    Anyone promoting these builds for use by the general public is being irresponsible and exposing anyone who takes their advice to risk.

    TFA is bad enough, but it's worse to see major sites like Slashdot parroting this bad advice. You should be telling your friends to avoid Minefield, not to seek it out.

    --

    Read my blog.

    1. Re:This is irresponsible by SkankinMonkey · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I don't think anyone is encouraging the masses to use a nightly. However, slashdot is "News For Nerds" right? Nerds should be able to use a nightly without destroying their computers beyond recognition, if not they need to give their badges back.

  8. Re:This is a step up by Jaysyn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Seems pretty quick to me, but that's probably cause it's not running my 15+ extensions.

    --
    There is a war going on for your mind.
  9. Re:This is a step up by happyDave · · Score: 5, Informative

    Please remember that if you messed with minefield "a few months back" then its been through dozens of iterations since then. It's a nightly build.

  10. Re:Competition and economics by hraefn · · Score: 5, Informative

    The browser war heated up when Google (and others?) started paying out on ad revenue created by in-browser searches. Apple makes some nice change on Safari. So does the Mozilla Foundation, apparently.

    There would be very little competition if there wasn't money to be made.

  11. Re:Competition and economics by argStyopa · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "DISCLAIMER: Use of this advanced computing technology does not imply an endorsement of Western industrial civilization."

    Actually, yes, it does. You're just too much of a hypocrite to recognize it.

    --
    -Styopa