Firefox 4 Will Be One Generation Ahead

An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla's Chris Blizzard talks about the rising competition by Google Chrome, the evolution of the web platform and the prospects for WebM. He also promises that Firefox 4 will be 'one generation ahead' of other browsers in relation to Javascript speed."

Comments

...And one generation behind on HTML5

[elrous0]

Look, I *love* Firefox. I use it pretty much exclusively myself. Nothing can touch add-ons like NoScript, AdBlock, etc. (and most of my add-ons and their associated functionality can't be found on Chrome, Opera, etc.). But if they think that Google, who provides about 85% of Mozilla's total revenue, is going to sit back and let them take the technical lead over Chrome, they're nuts. And speed has always been one of Chrome's few positive qualities over Firefox.

Not only that, but Mozilla can't afford to license h264. And that already puts them behind on HTML5. I am hoping that either html5 never catches on, the other browsers all agree to an open format (like WebM), or there is some kind of flash-player type add-on made for Firefox to support h264. But without one of those, Firefox is (sadly) already in a rough spot for the next gen.

And I say all that as someone who hates the idea of giving up my Firefox and having to get my browser from an increasingly-evil Google, an already evil Microsoft, or a closed-off Opera. If I wanted evil and closed, I would have bought an iPad, not a netbook.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Ethanol-fueled]

From the summary:

He also promises that Firefox 4 will be "one generation ahead" of other browsers in relation to Javascript speed."

The browser vendors' fetishistic obsession with Javascript speed is most irritating.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[al3k]

there's always elinks!

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[betterunixthanunix]

if they think that Google, who provides about 85% of Mozilla's total revenue, is going to sit back and let them take the technical lead over Chrome, they're nuts.

Except that Google benefits from faster Javascript engines in any browser, not just Chrome. Firefox is a popular browser, and if Firefox can execute Javascript faster, that means that Google's web apps (which I am just going to guess account for more revenue than Chrome) will perform better. It also means that Google could potentially do more, i.e. have heavier Javascript programs, without worrying that people are going to get annoyed at how slow their applications are. How does Google lose here?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[garcia]

The browser vendors' fetishistic obsession with Javascript speed is most irritating.

I have mod points but I decided to respond instead... I agree with you, it is irritating especially when the browser's speeds themselves are miserable. Yay great, Chrome loads faster but I have random issues with plugins which affect my work (one of the plugins is disabling me from reading GMail messages) and AdBlock still doesn't work nearly as well as it does on Firefox for the sites I use most often.

I wish Firefox would stop trying to compete in Javascript and go back to one of the biggest reasons they started the project: speed of the browser itself. That means it should open instantaneously and have low overhead--even with the usual plugins installed (AdBlock, NoScript, etc).

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Haedrian]

That's because most 'web applications' (such as google docs) or stuff like Facebook is chock full of Javascript.

In ye olde days when java script was just used to pull up a popup or block your right clicks it wasn't so important, but nowadays most popular sites are full of it. Whenever you need 'dynamic' content on a web page - that's Javascript.

Even /. by the way.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[The MAZZTer]

I found your comments suspect and a quick Google pretty much confirmed my suspicions.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[DarkKnightRadick]

100% agreed.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Sitting here, with firefox open and attempting to reply to your message... I notice that the "hidden" bar is glitched as usual. I cannot adjust the threshold. I'm not sure if this is thanks to the poor programming at Slashdot, or the poor standards over at Mozilla.

Regardless, speed means nothing if the markup isn't correct.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Mr. Spontaneous]

Show me where h264 is a requirement in the HTML5 spec.

kthx.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[pushing-robot]

Nothing can touch add-ons like NoScript, AdBlock, etc.

You mean like Adblock for Chrome and NotScripts for Chrome?

Chrome and Safari got a nice extension makeover recently that puts them on par with Firefox IMHO.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

That should be modded up. I've about had it with lag and eventual shutdown of FF. After using for a few days with only a few windows open, FF eventually becomes so unresponsive that I've got to restart it. I mean, click a link and it's takes 4-5 seconds for FF to even start to do anything. Pages load fast, but then the cycle starts again. As an early adopter of FF, I'm now considering a switch to Chrome. Ugh.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[sd.fhasldff]

h264 isn't going to be a practical problem for the vast majority of users, since Firefox can just use a system codec (non-Windows-users would have to make sure they have one, of course).

As for JS speed, Mozilla are very ardent in their speed claims, so it's hard not to believe they have something to back it up. It's difficult for users and external testers to figure out exactly how fast they are, despite being open source, because the Moz team is pursuing several parallel tracks to increase JS speed. There's "fat-val", "tracer JIT" and "method JIT". Each is currently significantly faster than the "normal" versions, but there hasn't been any public testing on a build that combines all three.

Mozilla claim they'll be faster than everyone else and while they may be scuppered by new advances from Google and Opera, it seems reasonable that they will at least be faster at launch than where everyone else is now. That alone would ensure "next-generation JS performance".

Where they trail Chrome is in "use speed". Chrome starts and shuts down a lot faster -- and I think that's going to be a problem for Firefox moving forward (more than it already is).

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[VGPowerlord]

if they think that Google, who provides about 85% of Mozilla's total revenue, is going to sit back and let them take the technical lead over Chrome, they're nuts.

Except that Google benefits from faster Javascript engines in any browser, not just Chrome. Firefox is a popular browser, and if Firefox can execute Javascript faster, that means that Google's web apps (which I am just going to guess account for more revenue than Chrome) will perform better. It also means that Google could potentially do more, i.e. have heavier Javascript programs, without worrying that people are going to get annoyed at how slow their applications are. How does Google lose here?

Who said Google would lose?

No, Google will still win, but not as big. And that is why Chrome won't just sit there and languish.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[RevRagnarok]

You can always spot the poseurs. :)

Seriously, elinks? elinks is the NEW version of links, which is the NEW lynx!

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[NegativeK]

Quite. But Google won't let Firefox simply beat them; they'll continue to make Chrome faster in an effort to drive performance with competition.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[drinkypoo]

H.264 will be solved on Firefox with a plugin whether it's official or not.

The real claim I have a problem with is is this "generation ahead" nonsense. How are they magically going to go from a generation behind to a generation ahead? Are they planning to milk a unicorn and pour the results into the codebase? So far each and every Firefox claim of improved javascript has fallen short of the competition.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[elrous0]

Nowhere. But right now it's the most widely adopted and implemented (pretty much everyone but Firefox either does or is planning to support it). Until there is an alternative that all the major browsers support, Firefox is going to continue to lag behind. WebM is promising. But without MS onboard, it's going nowhere.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Lunix Nutcase]

It isn't but that doesn't mean much if most people are going to use H.264 for HTML5 video, no?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Calinous]

Also, the magic bar performance is very susceptible to hard drive slow downs (address bar takes forever to suggest history/bookmarks/... when a virus scan is in progress). Time to load might be long, but I only start Firefox once a day, so I don't really care.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[maxwell demon]

Don't the extensions (at least the cross-platform ones) implement their functionality mostly in JavaScript? If so, then improving JavaScript speed would do very much to fulfil your wish.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[IANAAC]

Nowhere. But right now it's the most widely adopted and implemented

For what? Actual video content? I don't think so. Would some of us like to see it more popular than, say, Flash to serve up video? Sure. But that's not the way it is now.

To suggest it's the most adopted is wishful thinking.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Show me where h264 is a requirement in the HTML5 spec.

kthx.

Show me where GIF, PNG, JPG, BMP and ICO are required for the IMG tag in the HTML 1/2/3/4/5 spec.

Now tell me what you'd think about browsing without support for these in anything, but lynx.

kthx.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

A flash-player type add-on that plays h264 video? I hear Adobe makes one of those. They call it Flash Player.

Seriously, what video format did you think it was using?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

You can always spot the poseurs. :)

Seriously, elinks? elinks is the NEW version of links, which is the NEW lynx!

OMG! elinks is the new lynx!!!

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

You'd think that a geeky tech site, where the predominant position is that web developers aren't 'real' developers and that web development is 'easy', would get basic things right, but alas, Slashdot's HTML and Javascript is gimpy as fuck. Its possibly the only 'mainstream' website that contains more JS-fail than Facebook.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Sancho]

Exactly. The main problem I have with Firefox is that by the time I've customized it to my liking, it's unusably slow. What good is all of that extensibility if it kills the main function of the browser?

The focus on Javascript may well be what makes Firefox usable for me again.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[chomsky68]

exactly my sentiments!

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

If they have a 5-10% speed boost... So what. Even with a 50% or 100% increase, it will still have problems. They need multithreaded javascript. Possible, yes, but it would break many add-ons and require major rewrites of the shitty xul layer.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[mini me]

Not yet. However, unlike previous HTML specifications, HTML5 is attempting to define which formats are required to be supported by media tags. Microsoft and Apple want it to be H.264. Mozilla says they won't support it leaving the specification at a standstill.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[TheLink]

> There's "fat-val", "tracer JIT" and "method JIT".

Just curious, given all these advances in JS speed, are there technical reasons why stuff like Python, Ruby and Perl aren't getting similar improvements in speed?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Xest]

It's not just that, since version 3 inclusive Firefox has just got ever slower, ever more buggy and less stable with each release.

If Firefox 4 continues this trend and does not reverse it then it will be the last version of FireFox I use.

Mozilla seems to be a long way away from where they were when they were running campaign after campaign to get people to switch to their browser from IE some years ago, because they really did have a better browser and were simply fighting against the inherent advantage IE had being distributed with Windows. They don't really have that upperhand now, I don't find Firefox any faster and in fact find it less stable than IE7 and IE8 which is a sad place to be.

The only reason I haven't switch to Chrome is because I don't actually like it's minimalist UI, it's just too minimalist for my liking.

I really hope Mozilla get it right this time and that the browser really is faster and more stable, and that they've concentrated on getting those basics back to an acceptable standard rather than screwing around with crap like themes which make your browser look like some god awful 1990s AOL homepage or some "l33t" kid's first ever project in Visual Basic.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[DrXym]

I wish Firefox would stop trying to compete in Javascript and go back to one of the biggest reasons they started the project: speed of the browser itself. That means it should open instantaneously and have low overhead--even with the usual plugins installed (AdBlock, NoScript, etc).

Most of the application level behaviour (windows, buttons, menus etc.) *is* written in JS, CSS and XML. Improving the speed of JS (and the DOM / CSS / layout) has a direct impact on the speed of the browser.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[drinkypoo]

Except that Google benefits from faster Javascript engines in any browser, not just Chrome. Firefox is a popular browser, and if Firefox can execute Javascript faster, that means that Google's web apps (which I am just going to guess account for more revenue than Chrome)

guess you forgot Android and Chrome OS

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[minasoko]

Nowhere. But right now it's the most widely adopted and implemented

For what? Actual video content? I don't think so. Would some of us like to see it more popular than, say, Flash to serve up video? Sure. But that's not the way it is now.

To suggest it's the most adopted is wishful thinking.

This doesn't make much sense. h264 is a codec and Flash is a container. Using one does preclude you from using the other. Most of the 'flash' video you watch is encoded by h.264.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Who care.. moz just need to pass the video to the os/desktop(eg: gstreamer on gnome). Let the desktop handle the video plugin. It of no use for mozilla to fork every codec inside it tree. Same with images, all the image decoding should be linked dynamicly. Do you belive IE will bundle h264 anyway? They will loop the data thru directshow or what ever micro-soft marketing made up now. Same for Safari.

The whole "firefox wont suport h264" fud is pure bullshit. Once html5 get fully suported you will just apt-get upgrade and all the dependency will be solved. It is already as no video faild to play on curent ubuntu.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[diegocg]

Not just extensions, the Firefox UI is written in javascript.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[CeruleanDragon]

What do elinks have to do with the defunct Atari handheld portable gaming system?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[diegocg]

MS is onboard - they just won't ship it by default. But you will able to install a plugin for it (something that I think you won't be able to do with other formats)

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Fnkmaster]

Yes, yes, and double yes! Firefox *IS* faster than most other browsers in every part of browser performance that matters *except* Javascript speed. But yeah, browser load time and overhead, as well as initial rendering and scroll-rendering speed are all critical to the browser experience for me.

I have tried Chrome 3 times now and every time I give up on it - mostly because I find scrolling performance on complex HTML pages to be distractingly bad. Firefox does not have this problem - it is zippy and smooth, at least on modern Core 2 Duo or better hardware. I gather that for lower end hardware, Webkit seems to do better.

I know that on the 10% of websites with intensive Javascript code, Chrome will blow the pants off of Firefox right now, but this is not the primary use case of the web for me.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[backwardMechanic]

Agreed. Also, as the man says,

Firefox is a browser platform which is extremely extensible across a broad range of interfaces, you can touch a lot of things inside the browser.

Extremely extensible - but do we need it? I'm not sure XUL buys us all that much, in common usage, but it certainly slows things down. It would be nice to go back to a small, lightweght, fast browser. I'm sure I've heard that before somewhere...

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Jahava]

Nowhere. But right now it's the most widely adopted and implemented (pretty much everyone but Firefox either does or is planning to support it). Until there is an alternative that all the major browsers support, Firefox is going to continue to lag behind. WebM is promising. But without MS onboard, it's going nowhere.

Really, there are two options:

1. MS chooses to adopt WebM. This is not unreasonable, especially as it starts to get rolled out more across the web. Part of MS's reluctance is probably due to the novelty of the technology.
2. MS doesn't ever adopt WebM. In that case, a FOSS plugin to IE will certainly end up being made (probably by Google, a la Chrome Frame) that adds WebM support, and any sites that use WebM will direct IE users to that plugin.

Either way, I don't see MS's explicit WebM support as a serious hurdle.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Per Wigren]

Just curious, given all these advances in JS speed, are there technical reasons why stuff like Python, Ruby and Perl aren't getting similar improvements in speed?

Not really. They ARE getting major speed improvements (especially Ruby), but there isn't as much money put into it. The techniques used to make JavaScript so fast are finding their way into other VM implementations also.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[TeXMaster]

Exactly. The main problem I have with Firefox is that by the time I've customized it to my liking, it's unusably slow.

Maybe you should consider a browser that doesn't need to be bogged down to death to be useable. One of the reasons why I use Opera, for example, it's precisely that it does all the stuff I want it to do without me needing to scrape around the web to get extensions that kill it.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Mr. Spontaneous]

Conversely, Mozilla, Opera and Google want to support Theora and WebM, but Apple refuses.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[marsu_k]

Regarding the "awesome bar" (I really like the functionality, but loathe the name), the sqlite database can get fragmented over time. You might want to try this ever now and then. Can make a world of difference, especially with slower computers/disks.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[LWATCDR]

Mozilla doesn't have to license h.264. If you are Windows use the windows codecs. If you are on Mac you use Quicktime. If you are on Linux us the mplayer frame work.
There you now have support for h.264.
If Mozilla doesn't do that somebody in the EU will just fork it and add it. Or we will get a plug in that will do it unless Mozilla blocks it.
So no I am not worried about H.264 support and firefox.
I will admit that I have started to use Chrome a lot. It is really fast and I do like it. Firefox is still very good good but Chrome has become my default Windows browser.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Colonel Korn]

Yes, yes, and double yes! Firefox *IS* faster than most other browsers in every part of browser performance that matters *except* Javascript speed. But yeah, browser load time and overhead, as well as initial rendering and scroll-rendering speed are all critical to the browser experience for me.

I have tried Chrome 3 times now and every time I give up on it - mostly because I find scrolling performance on complex HTML pages to be distractingly bad. Firefox does not have this problem - it is zippy and smooth, at least on modern Core 2 Duo or better hardware. I gather that for lower end hardware, Webkit seems to do better.

I know that on the 10% of websites with intensive Javascript code, Chrome will blow the pants off of Firefox right now, but this is not the primary use case of the web for me.

Agreed. Chrome and Safari have the worst scroll-rendering performance of any browser. Safari is the slower of those two. Even on a lot of Javascript-heavy pages where certain functions are much faster in Chrome, the experience is often better in Firefox if any scrolling is required. Opera excels in rendering/scroll rendering speeds and even IE is refreshingly fast compared to the Webkit browsers. JS speed is okay, but I won't use a fast JS browser that isn't fit to render html.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[cyfer2000]

I hope you realized that the UI and extensions of firefox are written in Javascript, when you complain those speed issues, most of them are somewhat related with speed of javascript.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[VGPowerlord]

Nowhere. But right now it's the most widely adopted and implemented (pretty much everyone but Firefox either does or is planning to support it). Until there is an alternative that all the major browsers support, Firefox is going to continue to lag behind. WebM is promising. But without MS onboard, it's going nowhere.

Really, there are two options:

      1. MS chooses to adopt WebM. This is not unreasonable, especially as it starts to get rolled out more across the web. Part of MS's reluctance is probably due to the novelty of the technology.
      2. MS doesn't ever adopt WebM. In that case, a FOSS plugin to IE will certainly end up being made (probably by Google, a la Chrome Frame) that adds WebM support, and any sites that use WebM will direct IE users to that plugin.

Either way, I don't see MS's explicit WebM support as a serious hurdle.

Microsoft has already stated that IE9 will support VP8, but will not be bundling the codec with the OS or browser. I would think this would include WebM as well.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Henriok]

Show med where JPEG, GIF or PNG is a requirement in _any_ HTML spec. Just like your point, it's nowhere to be found. Yet, all browsers implement them.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

HTML5 is a lot, LOT more than just . I really wish the whole myth HTML5=Video (and in some other cases followed by "= death of flash") would stop. It's gotten the point where it's a buzzword.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Enderandrew]

Mozilla has different groups working on different projects. Firefox had some bloat and memory leak issues and even since then, they've worked hard to address those.

Firefox uses less memory than Chrome. It's UI will never be quite as fast because of XUL but it isn't like the only thing they are working on is JS.

And JS is important because so many web apps depend on it. I have to use IE at work, and Gmail is painfully slow in it.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[socrplayr813]

Not a unicorn, a narwhal:

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2010/08/ubuntu-1104-dubbed-natty-narwhal-will-impale-users-in-2011.ars

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[beelsebob]

I love that browser vendors are obsessed with javascript speed. The bottom line is that rich internet applications that don't use flash depend entirely on javascript being fast. The reason flash even got a foothold was because we had no alternative runtime because most implementations of javascript were abysmal. Javascript is important in html 5, deal with it.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Qzukk]

The awesome bar is one of two things I miss after switching to Chrome. Chrome tries to pack too much into the URL dropdown (search history, suggestions, etc) without doing any of it well. For instance on Firefox, I can type Q[tab] and have my comments page up. sl[tab] is slashdot. c[tab] is my bank site. f[tab] is the firehose journal search I use. Just about any site I go to is four keystrokes max counting hitting enter to load the site. On chrome, I have to type sl[right arrow]/[down arrow][right arrow] to get to my comments page. Note that moving the hand between the arrow keys and the main keyboard adds extra effort. If I don't add the /, Chrome lists only list two options: slashdot.org and search google for slashdot.org.

The other thing is Nuke Anything, which I can't find anything like it for Chrome. Useful for removing that floating div blocking the bottom right corner of every slashdot comments page.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Robert Zenz]

And? That's a good thing. Free Market competition...wish we'd have more of that.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Lunix Nutcase]

For what? Actual video content? I don't think so.

Then you would be wrong. Youtube, for one, has been using H.264 for more than a couple of years. Other sites like Vimeo, etc also use it. In fact they use x264 for encoding their videos.

Would some of us like to see it more popular than, say, Flash to serve up video? Sure. But that's not the way it is now.

"Flash" isn't a video codec. Flash has supported H.264 video since 2007.

To suggest it's the most adopted is wishful thinking.

No, it just shows that your ignorant of what you speak.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe slashdot could do some datamining on page load speed vs. browser. :)

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[swilver]

Luckily, Slashdot functions just fine with javascript off. Better I would say even.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Nowhere. But right now it's the most widely adopted and implemented

For what? Actual video content? I don't think so. Would some of us like to see it more popular than, say, Flash to serve up video? Sure. But that's not the way it is now.

To suggest it's the most adopted is wishful thinking.

Except that IE, Chrome, and Safari all support it. Doesn't this mean that it's the most widely adopted and implemented codec supported for use with HTML5? GP didn't say it was the most widely *used* codec, only the most widely *supported*.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

No, simply steal the unicorn's kidney: Charlie the Unicorn

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[elrous0]

But it's not really a competition. As I pointed out in my post, Google basically owns Mozilla. After all, if someone provided 85% of your income, wouldn't you be inclined to do what they told you?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

Still not quite up to par, as shown on the home page itself:

New in version 2.0: Ads are actually BLOCKED FROM DOWNLOADING now, instead of just being removed after the fact! Note that Chrome doesn't actually support this all the way, so a few resources might still load before AdBlock can get to them, in which case we'll remove those as usual.

Which means that while most content is blocked, some gets loaded -- and any content that gets loaded is great for those who like to aggregate your usage data across multiple sites.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[thePowerOfGrayskull]

without support for these in anything, but lynx.

Lawn. Mine. You - off.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[SimonTheSoundMan]

Mozilla are working hard with browser performance. From startup performance, I/O reduction to speed up some things, even a new caching system. I could name more, but you get the idea.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Not entirely true. I use no script, and have never allowed any exceptions for slashdot. The page loads, looks, and browses fine. I think most peoples frustration lies in the fact that a lot of pages don't "need" the javascript to work at all, it is just used for eye-candy.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Urza9814]

Yea, isn't the whole point behind Chrome that Google needed to improve Javascript speed and browser efficiency? I mean, they certainly aren't making money off it. Gaining information, maybe, but if _that_ was the goal, why open source it? My bet is they finally decided that they'd get more for their money by launching their own browser rather than spending that money on Mozilla. But still, improving browser speed is nothing but good for Google.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Chibinium]

I use Google Chrome and Firefox concurrently, using the other when my primary doesn't work. Firefox has random issues with plugins as well. Sometimes it'll freeze for a site like Mangafox, as if trying to think through the javascript in the background. Chrome has serious Flash issues though. Sometimes either they won't show up, or there'll be some infinite loop that'll force you to kill it. If Firefox wasn't a resource hog, I'd go back in a heartbeat.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Now tell me what you'd think about browsing without support for these in anything, but lynx.

Sure I would (though I generally use elinks :).

I look for information when I'm online, and that information usually held in text (e.g., Google search results). Graphics and icons are generally secondary (unless you count pr0n).

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[hedwards]

They weren't a generation behind. I've tried the competition and quite frankly the competition isn't presently as advanced as you're suggesting. Chrome's fast, but it's basically pure spyware and the extensions don't really have anywhere near the reliability or variety of what's available for Firefox. There've been gripes, but as far as I can tell it's mostly just a squeaky wheel minority of trolls that seems to be having huge problems.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[SirMasterboy]

Thats pretty strange. I switched from Firefox to Chrome and Chrome scrolls smother for me. The whole browser just feels faster and more lightweight.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah. I like faster javascript because it means Slashdot is bearable. On IE I don't get to enjoy this.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[ljw1004]

Agreed. I have only one plugin installed (Adblock). But even so, when I Ctrl+Click to open my six daily comic strips in quick succession, it still misses a few of the clicks. I wish it were more responsive.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Phleg]

However, unlike previous HTML specifications, HTML5 is attempting to define which formats are required to be supported by media tags.

No, it is not.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[anti11es]

> There's "fat-val", "tracer JIT" and "method JIT". Just curious, given all these advances in JS speed, are there technical reasons why stuff like Python, Ruby and Perl aren't getting similar improvements in speed?

Python, Ruby, and Perl are all server side scripts as opposed to Javascript which is run inside the client's browser. I'm sure the run speed of the other languages is improving over time, it just isn't in the spotlight that the browsers get.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[slim]

Not yet. However, unlike previous HTML specifications, HTML5 is attempting to define which formats are required to be supported by media tags.

The HTML5 spec is done. Big players could not agree on a video codec, so the W3C regretfully had the standard leave the choice of codec as an implementation detail. Tsk.

Microsoft and Apple want it to be H.264. Mozilla says they won't support it leaving the specification at a standstill.

To paraphrase the other responder. "Mozilla, Opera and Google want it to be Theora. Apple and MS say they won't support it leaving the specification at a standstill."

Why are you furious at Mozilla for impeding progress, yet happy about Apple doing so?

Both parties are at deadlock. The difference is that Mozilla's position comes from a pragmatic desire to keep the Web open. (And Apple's from a pragmatic desire to profit from their software patent licensing).

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Maskull]

Not just the UI (and extensions), but much of FF internals, too. Firefox is essentially a collection of libraries, written in C++, tied together with a lot of Javascript.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[A Big Gnu Thrush]

Yeah, but if they fixed it, what would we bitch about? Slashdot produces crap HTML and JavaScript to engender sophisticated discussion about web standards and coding practices. Also, the developers are not beaten with enough frequency or severity.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[mAriuZ]

it's very important to have almost realtime javascript
this is needed so i can play chess 3d

http://html5games.com/2010/08/html5-chess/
or quake 2 in the browser

http://www.osnews.com/story/23097/Quake_II_Ported_to_HTML5

there is only one thing they shuold scrap from the browser to make it speedier svg and all that is xml related, all the interface should be painted in opengl with data residing in json format, something like QML

http://labs.trolltech.com/blogs/2010/08/12/a-guide-to-writing-games-with-qml/

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[eulernet]

I think using several browsers is necessary now.

For example, I didn't install Flash on my computer (to avoid the endless updates), so I use Chrome whenever I need to see a Flash video.

For anything else, I use Firefox with NoScript and AdBlock.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Kvasio]

In recent years I use Opera, FF and Chrome at the same time, for different sites.

Your statement about NoScript and AdBlock is not well founded. Yes, you will not find plugins with such names for Opera. That is because this functionality in bundled within Opera - just works a bit differently (it happened to be in Opera way before Mozilla provided it).

To turn off scripts of plugins just press F12 and check needed options.

To block execution of scripts on selected site, right click on the page (page itself, not on flash content or other plugins) and go into site preferences. you could set whether use javascript, plugins, sounds and cookies for that page.

As for blocking ads - right click on the page and go into "block content".

(excuse me it the labels are named differently, I use localised version).

The functionality that I miss in Opera is FF plugin called Foxtrick used for Hattick game.

I'm not advocate for Opera, as there are things that irritate me: memory use like hog, 10.X works actually slower than 7.X and 8.X.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[smash]

I moved to chrome a year or more ago and never looked back. When Safari 4 came out I've started using that as well (i also have a mac and various idevices too, which is nice to sync with, and i'm a sucker for the full page preview coverflow history).

Firefox's UI just doesn't seem as snappy and responsive as Chrome, which i have not yet had crash on me, ever - even since v1.0 or earlier.

The only time i ever use firefox any more is when i'm using Linux and haven't been bothered to install anything else (browsing is not typically what is spend the majority of my linux OS time doing).

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[elrous0]

That Noscripts knockoff sucks. I tried it out and it barely blocked anything and didn't have a UI that was even built into the page. Not even close to the real NoScripts. I'll stick with Firefox and its add-ons, thanks. Maybe someone Chrome will get a real NoScripts add-on and I'll consider it.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[smash]

With the increasing prevelance of web-apps, I'd argue that Javascript performance is critical.

I've not experienced any slow scrolling problems in chrome, used it on everything from a core2 1.8 duo mac mini, an old pentium D 930 win7 box, and a variety of Core2/i5/i7 laptops...

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[morgan_greywolf]

The problem you are experiencing is likely related to memory usage. The longer you use it and the more tabs/windows you open, the more memory it consumers. Eventually your OS starts swapping stuff out. Chrome is a bit better in regards to memory management; it's eventually sucks up as much memory -- actually, usually more since each tab runs in its own thread -- but one advantage is that if you close a tab, the memory it is consuming is released.

Opera is a little bit better than both Firefox and Chrome in terms of memory management, but it seriously lags behind both Chrome and Firefox in terms of extensibility. And I refuse to comment on Safari on the grounds that rabid Apple fans will hunt me down and kill me.

The real problem? All browsers suck.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Thinboy00]

Also, the developers are not beaten with enough frequency or severity.

+1 Cigar.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Abcd1234]

Not only that, but Mozilla can't afford [osnews.com] to license h264.

Err, why the hell would they? Tie into a generic video backend and move the fuck on, already!

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[morgan_greywolf]

Yep. JavaScript :: Firefox as Lisp :: Emacs

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Vektuz]

The browser vendors' fetishistic obsession with Javascript speed is most irritating.

I'd love to see them concentrate on startup speed and memory usage and rendering speed instead. On the windows machine I use at work, I have to run a third party service which runs in the background and keeps most of it resident, just so that it takes a couple seconds to start up instead of half a minute.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[DragonWriter]

Just curious, given all these advances in JS speed, are there technical reasons why stuff like Python, Ruby and Perl aren't getting similar improvements in speed?

Python, IIRC, got "similar improvements in speed" before JavaScript. Ruby is getting improvements in speed in newer implementations, but because it isn't as widely used as JavaScript (Ruby isn't built into every browser) not as many resources are being poured into it. I would assume the same is true of Perl, though I don't follow it as closely.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[b4dc0d3r]

Look in a mirror and try to smile... I think you're having a stroke.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[mini me]

I'm not furious at anyone. Apple needed H.264 because of hardware constraints. Mozilla needed anything but H.264 because of licensing restrictions. I understand both points of view, and neither are wrong. It is still unfortunate that no one standard satisfies everyone's needs.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[jorgevillalobos]

Not if you can easily receive the same income from somebody else if necessary.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

> the W3C regretfully had the standard leave the choice of codec as an implementation detail

As they should. They don't specify what fonts you have to have or image formats you have to support either. We have mime types for a reason.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[elrous0]

Sorry, but I periodically try out different browsers, and unless something has changed in the last few months, I can say that Opera's script blocking capabilities do not even BEGIN to compare with NoScript. Opera's built-on functions are more akin to the built-in script blocking functions of Firefox and a lot of browsers. Everything has to be set by hand, there is no easy UI to control individual blocked elements, blocking by default is all-or-nothing. To paraphrase the great Samuel Jackson, Opera's built in features are not only not playing in the same league as NoScript, they're not even playing the same sport. NoScript is still one of the reasons I keep coming back to Firefox. I've yet to see an add-on or set of built-in features to compare. And I've tried a lot of them (tried "NotScript" for Chrome just today, which also fell way short, though not as short as Opera's built-in blocking).

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[DragonWriter]

No, Google will still win, but not as big. And that is why Chrome won't just sit there and languish.

Chrome doesn't compete directly with Firefox anywhere that Google derives revenue from it, so Google doesn't win any less if Firefox gets near Chrome.

Nevertheless, I agree that Chrome won't sit there and languish simply because Chrome exists largely for the purpose of creating pressure on browser manufacturers to make better browsers for the kind of apps Google wants to deliver over the web, so for it to do that well, its got to actually create pressure.

OTOH, JavaScript speed may not be the area where Chrome continues to push forward in now, because with the latest rounds of improvements made by browser manufacturers on that front, it may no longer be the biggest deficiency they see.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

the part where you kill yourself.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post is obviously pushing a product and should be modded troll or -5 advertisement.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[pushing-robot]

To be fair, the first version was released yesterday so it's still a bit rough around the edges. But it already seems more polished to me than NoScript, and the features it lacks are ones which I never used anyway. NoScript's "UI built into the page" you describe just annoyed me; If I wanted more banners eating my browser space I'd download some useless toolbars.

So for my purposes, Chrome and Safari are already as functional as Firefox. YMMV.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[PerfectionLost]

+1 Hilarious.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[MrFurious5150]

where the predominant position is that web developers aren't 'real' developers and that web development is 'easy'

Dude, don't flame me for this, but the only people I ever hear say this are web developers. This is how this usually goes:

Me: So what are you working on?

Them: Doing a project for work. ASP is a PITA.

Me: Ah, cool. How long have you been doing web development?

Them: GAH! I AM A PROGRAMMER!!!

This has happened more than once. Look, I've worked with everything from assembly language to BASIC to C to C++. Lately I've been working in C#. They're all just tools, and what tool you're currently working with has no bearing on your worth or intelligence. Many C++ coders I've met can't code for shit, and many web developers I've met are freakin' geniuses.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Ok. You should use FireFox. There, Im ready to be modded -5.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[interval1066]

The Mozilla team should just bite the bullet and fold Adblock and NoScript into ff's code stream already. Once that's done they can get back to streamlining the performance. Probably the #1 reason I run ff is for NoScript. If you're running any other browser without that same functionality you're playing with dynamite. If Chrome had NoScript functionality I'd probably run it.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[AvitarX]

They ARE making money.

They payed Mozilla $61 million in 2006 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Foundation)
for 16% market share (http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0&qptimeframe=Y&qpsp=2006&qpnp=1)

this means the value of 1% of market share for default search (homepage and search bar) is:
3.8 milling per %.

every 1% of market share from IE they take gets them $3.8 million plus some extra (if they pay Mozilla that much, more money is in it).

Every 1% they take from Mozilla is $3.8 million in savings.

at 6.5% market share now, that's a lot of money. maybe not huge relative to their size, but a lot.

Opera at 2.3% share is making a good chunk of money too

current share from:
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=0&qptimeframe=Y

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Bert64]

The trouble is, a small lightweight browser isn't terribly useful for most people...
Most people will need additional features, different people will need different features, and you can either build these features in (meaning bloat as there will be features there you never use and its unlikely the default set of features would suit every niche) or you make the base extensible so people can install the extensions they need.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently someone missed the reason for Google making a web browser.

Google didn't want to spy on users as it is commonly put (that is only in the Chrome build, not Chromium source), they built it in order to force others to update their browsers.
Just look at that, every single browser is now competing with it in order to improve speed and UI. (except MS, they never do shit, they still think we are in the 90s, "DAMNED NETSCAPES!")
Google benefit hugely from this since they wanted exactly this kind of thing to happen, they encourage other browser vendors to re-use code and improve on it.
Browsers have been notoriously awful for a while, including most of the lifetime of Firefox sadly. (1.0 to 1.5 was the last decent versions before they went on a feature-binge)

As for the plugin, it might be made by someone willing to pay for it. Who is another question.
I'd rather just see it be crushed in to the ground by Steve Ballmer doing a monkey dance on it.
WebM will almost certainly take over anyway. Google are backing it. It already won.

Personally (feel free to ignore this paragraph), i cannot stand Firefox anymore. Mozilla have filled it with so much ungodly awful crapware, exactly the opposite as to what the original goal was for Firefox: a lightweight browser with expansion through extensions.
And with each and every new feature, a billion other leaks popped in to party. How bloody hard is it to do some cleanup?!
Not only that, the UI locks up whenever it does anything even remotely CPU intense. Even now. Even with Flash being separated.
I switched from FF 1.5 as soon as possible to Chrome. New FFs just annoy the hell out of me, they destroyed the browser.
The only thing that annoys me with Chromium is the lack of UI customization found in other browsers because they want to keep the chrome more-or-less the same across all installs of it.
It was only just recently some of them finally decided to go ahead and experiment with a sidebar for tabs, hallelujah, at last! Sidetabs > tabbar.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[farble1670]

Nothing can touch add-ons like NoScript, AdBlock, etc. (and most of my add-ons and their associated functionality can't be found on Chrome

"notscript" and adblock are available for chrome. agreed, in general there are more add ons for FF but the significant ones are there for chrome.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[cgenman]

Chrome has actually had quite a bit of movement on the plug-in front since December. AdBlock, for example, is now on Chrome. The functionality of NoScript, further, can be enabled / disabled / exceptions added under Options -> Under The Hood -> Content Settings -> Javascript.

Personally, I've been surprised. A lot of major Firefox extensions have been ported over to Chrome recently. While it seems like the target platform for most is still Firefox, with Chrome getting the port, lots of people seem to be porting a lot of things.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Unequivocal]

Can someone hit with me a cluestick:

If Firefox and Chrome are both compatibly licensed OSS (they are right?), why can't firefox just use Chrome's JS engine?

What am I missing?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Unequivocal]

Help me out on this (really) -- I've seen a lot peeps on /. make the point you make.

After hearing it 15 or 20 times, I downloaded NoScript and installed it. And just about every site I tried to visit became totally or substantially unusable, so I uninstalled it again. What's the advantage of the thing if it prevents me from doing day-to-day basic stuff on the internet (from reading blogs, to online banking to whatever else)?

This isn't flamebait - I'm actually asking b/c I want to know.. Was I using it wrong (it was a scratch install, no config)? Any input?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[shutdown -p now]

I love that browser vendors are obsessed with javascript speed. The bottom line is that rich internet applications that don't use flash depend entirely on javascript being fast.

Well, no, not "entirely". They also depend on DOM layout & rendering being fast. And on canvas being fast. And on SVG being fast.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Nobody likes firefox. They like firefox's addons.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Requiem18th]

He said usable, as defined by his standards not yours.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[romania]

The Firefox team is probably the OSS group generating the most hot air in a close lead in front of the de Icaza dude. Take a look of their statements over the years and how they changed objectives as soon as they realised it's waaay over their might. Remember how they started with the smallest pack and quickest? By the next (they call it major) upgrade they turned back and bloated the code as with Mozilla, this time with the inconvenience of the add ons. Which add ons nobody seems to remark that they are not brought in a safe way and memory leaks are still an issue, well, for the Firefox developers it's something with no connection with their browser. So their marketing tool, already proven to be very effective, is lie lie lie than forget.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[AusIV]

Last I checked Firefox was adamantly opposed to even using the system codecs for h264. Have they changed from this position?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

It's painful for the first couple of days, maybe a week. After that, you'll have all of your routine sites whitelisted, and you'll spend a lot less time managing .js permissions. Mostly that will mean enabling javascript on new sites you visit (a depressing number of sites rely on javascript for basic page layout -- ugh).

On the bright side, you'll have a modicum of protection against javascript vulnerabilities. There's no guarantee that your whitelisted sites will always be clear, but it's better to have exposure from 100 specific domains than from every domain on the Internet.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[bberens]

I think that's because people really under-estimate the potential of the browser. Take a look at what Google did, porting Quake 2 to HTML 5. https://code.google.com/p/quake2-gwt-port/

Sure, we're probably 3-4 browser (and 1-2 bandwidth) generations away from really getting to the "good" stuff, but these foundation layers are important. Javascript performance is meaningless now, but when "real-time" first person shooters are available in 3-d in the browser things like javascript performance become incredibly important. After all, why bother with DRM when you can offer your game in-browser only?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[VGPowerlord]

No, Google will still win, but not as big. And that is why Chrome won't just sit there and languish.

Chrome doesn't compete directly with Firefox anywhere that Google derives revenue from it, so Google doesn't win any less if Firefox gets near Chrome.

Google gets let opportunities to collect data from you if you use Firefox than if you use Chrome, hence they don't win as big.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

The first round of "improved" Javascript engines like Squirrelfish (June 2008) switched from directly interpreting the AST, to generating virtual machine bytecodes and then interpreting them, which is something that Python and Perl have been doing for over a decade

That roughly doubled Javascript performance. Newer Ruby VMs also switched to a bytecode interpreter, which provided a similar boost. Basically, this brought Javascript from "double dog slow" to merely "dog slow".

A mere months later (September 2008), Squirrelfish Extreme and V8 came out, and Tracemonkey a month later. Each engine has simple Just-in-Time compilers which translate Javascript into native x86/ARM machine code (although there's some big differences between how they do it). This again doubled performance.

This already could beat Python/Perl/Ruby in performance on simple math-oriented code. Python has an drop-in JIT called Psyco (which you can run without any changes to standard Python), but it's not really being developed any more. There are however some next-gen VMs for Python/Perl/Ruby that will use JITs.

Finally, these big jumps in JS performance came a whole *two years* ago and were relatively unoptimized, so there's still room for improvement; for example, right now they're mostly aimed at loading the page and Javascript as fast as possible, but they could re-optimize code that's run frequently in a long-running session.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Ease of use and flexibility. Getting at the hosts file requires more expertise than installing a browser plugin and choosing a command from the context menu. Plus, adblock lets you selectively block content from a given server rather than blanket-killing the entire domain.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[rockNme2349]

When you are so far from being efficient, there is plenty of room for advancement.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[aztracker1]

I have a vacuum plugin installed, would be nice if FF just did it once every couple of weeks, though on my personal systems (SSDs for both) I rarely notice any performance impact... I also don't tend to leavy it open for days at a time, and have more than enough RAM... when I had been using my netbook as my main computer for personal (email/web) use, it made a much larger difference.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

So should we start in with the "Firefox would be a good OS if it had a decent web browser" jokes?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Banners? Noscript's UI is just a handy icon in the status bar (which I use) and a context menu entry (which I do not use).

'course, Chrome's lack of a status bar complicates things. There isn't much room to add control icons to the existing toolbar before it gets unusable.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Surt]

Where are the genius web developers working? I ask because it seems like everything on the web sucks.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[darrylo]

but one advantage is that if you close a tab, the memory it is consuming is released.

That's the one big reason why I'm still using chrome. As attractive as FF is, some extension or something eats and eats and eats memory, and the only way to reclaim it is via a full restart. With chrome, you just kill the offending tab. I want to continue using FF, but the memory growth is driving me crazy.

I hear the occasional rumor that some upcoming FF release will support chrome-like multiprocess handling, but I'll believe it when I see it.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[ProfessionalCookie]

I think you're confused.

What additional features will people need?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[aztracker1]

However, what one person considers an absolutely needed piece of functionality another will find useless... I find that greasemonkey, and firebug + yslow are invaluable. I don't really get that with Opera... also, Opera has had a few UI annoyances that really irked me in the past... The 10.x versions not so much though... I do have to test in Safari, Opera, Chrome, Firefox and IE6-8 currently, but my main browser for dev at work is Firefox. I use IE at work (because it's friendlier with the firewall), and Firefox at home... I've used Opera and Chrome as my main browser each for two weeks about once a year, but keep going back to Firefox.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[macshit]

As an early adopter of FF, I'm now considering a switch to Chrome. Ugh.

I know chrome is very hyped right now, and by all means you should try it out, but don't think it's some cure-all that will solve all your problems with FF and have none of its own. It's not, and won't.

Maybe on average it will prove the best for you, but chrome isn't a magic bullet.

[I use both FF and chrome; both manage to annoy me on a daily basis...]

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[aztracker1]

The issue comes down to the fact that, with well mannered JavaScript, the JS isn't the biggest speed impediment.. I think that "High Performance JavaScript" and "Even Faster Websites" should both be required reading for any web application developer. Even if all the advice isn't practical for internal applications, for externally facing applications/sites it can be very handy. The site I'm currently working on has way too many includes from the same domain as it stands now, and will likely be some time before that changes.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, Opera has everything I want, including Adblock, NoScript, Mail, RSS, Usenet, IRC all built right in. It's also faster and more standards complaint than Firefox or Chrome.

Americans need to open their eyes to the Norwegian browser, as it's the benchmark ALL other browsers should be looking at. It's unfortunate that Americans still measure success on sales figures and marketshare, rather than technical excellence.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[macshit]

The awesome bar is one of two things I miss after switching to Chrome. Chrome tries to pack too much into the URL dropdown (search history, suggestions, etc) without doing any of it well. For instance on Firefox, I can type Q[tab] and have my comments page up. sl[tab] is slashdot. c[tab] is my bank site. f[tab] is the firehose journal search I use. Just about any site I go to is four keystrokes max counting hitting enter to load the site. On chrome, I have to type sl[right arrow]/[down arrow][right arrow] to get to my comments page. Note that moving the hand between the arrow keys and the main keyboard adds extra effort.

Yeah I agree about those annoyances. What I find even more irritating about chrome's "awesome bar" variant is the delays -- when you type something into the address bar, it will immediately show you some possible completions ... and then will add others over time, often taking as long as 3-4 seconds to really generate the whole list; almost always I find the most-used completions are the last ones added! With FF, you don't get this sort of delay at all, it basically generates everything almost immediately, which together with its better keyboard handling (compared to chrome) and better search algorithms (like you, I find one or two letters is usually enough with FF; chrome often takes multiple words), makes FF's AB far more usable than chrome's.

[And this is not a minor issue -- despite the stupid name, the AB is a hugely important feature: it basically can replace bookmarks for most uses, and is far faster and more convenient.]

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Local ID10T]

Exactly. The main problem I have with Firefox is that by the time I've customized it to my liking, it's unusably slow.

Do you also have trouble with your PC running slow once you get Comet Curser and Webshots and McAfee and Java Quick Start and Office Quick Start and iTunes Helper and Bonjour, and all those other little "must haves" installed?

It's the same thing. You don't need all that cruft. If its fast without add-ons, but slow with the add-ons, maybe you don't want those add-ons...

Poorly coded add-ons, no matter how useful they may be, are still poorly coded.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[the_hellspawn]

I leave FF open for a couple days and I loose my sound if I have watch any videos. Some how it just creeps in and messes with my sound device. I have to close every time I am done. Thank goodness for the save tabs feature and then restart the computer. Oh, what fun it is in my land. I have dropped FF in Windows for Opera and I am slow to commit to Opera in Ubuntu. Some day I will have to see if it is FF that is messing with my sound device. Anyways...

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Flash video = h.264

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Because host files are checked for everything network related, and as such should not be strained too hard with a 10MB file. Also, I'd like to see you selectively block Javascript only from a hosts file.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[marsu_k]

Don't quote me on this - I can't be arsed to google it, and might remember wrong - but I seem to recall a discussion that this feature (automatic vacuuming of the databases, when they're either fragmented over a certain threshold, or when the last vacuuming was n days ago) was to be implemented into a next version of FF, 3.5? 3.6? Can't remember. From what I can tell, it still hasn't been implemented. Yes, it definitely should be built-in.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Sancho]

And yet similar functionality either through the base browser or through its extensions is fast under e.g. Chrome, Opera. It doesn't really matter if the fault lies with the extensions or with the browser itself (though through an understanding of the extension implementation in Firefox, I'm guessing it's the latter.)

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[westlake]

Show me where h264 is a requirement in the HTML5 spec.

H.264 is deeply - deeply - entrenched outside the browser.

The list of H.264 licensors and licensees reads like a Fortune 500 list of the global giants in OEM manufacturing, consumer and industrial electronics.

A search of Google Shopping for "H.264" returns 42,000 hits. 125 pages of relevant results.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[commodore64_love]

>>>Nothing can touch add-ons like NoScript, AdBlock, etc. (and most of my add-ons and their associated functionality can't be found on Chrome, Opera, etc.).

Really? Opera doesn't have add-ons equivalent to NoScript or Web of Trust or NetVideoHunter? I thought Opera was supposed to be just as good as Firefox (in terms of customization).

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Enderandrew]

In theory they can. However, Mozilla has spent a lot of developer time and money on making their own engine, which they believe in.

These benchmarks showed Chrome's JS engine is TWICE as fast as Firefox 4's engine.

http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/benchmarks/SunSpider/Default.html

That being said, Firefox's JS engine is getting faster and faster all the time. I assume they don't want to walk away from what they know.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Even /. by the way.

But even that isn't usually computation-heavy stuff. Have you ever checked out what the Sunspider benchmark (for instance) actually measures? It's not things like AJAX performance (which would be difficult to quantify, anyway) but rather algorithmic, mathematical stuff. It's like the SPECint/SPECfp for browsers.

Not that there's anything wrong with that, but I'm not sure it has much bearing on AJAX-heavy websites like GMail... much less Slashdot.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[macshit]

Just curious, given all these advances in JS speed, are there technical reasons why stuff like Python, Ruby and Perl aren't getting similar improvements in speed?

Just needs someone to do the work...

One non-JS language that has seen some excellent tracing JIT development is Lua, in the form of Mike Pall's LuaJIT project.

Even though the standard Lua interpreter is already amazingly fast (far faster than the standard python/ruby/perl implementations), LuaJIT makes many programs run much faster yet.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[msclrhd]

Is the sound issue running Flash videos on Firefox on Ubuntu/other Linux distro using pulseaudio? I had that issue in the past (read: pre-10.04), but it is working fine now (I suspect some pulseaudio fix introduced in 10.04 fixed it -- either that or the out-of-process plugin feature in FF 3.6).

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[UnknownSoldier]

> I wish Firefox would stop trying to compete in Javascript and go back to one of the biggest reasons they started the project: speed of the browser itself.

It was/is more then that -- FF was about giving power back to the user. For example, FF 3.6.4 Windows build

- removes the native ability to resize the bookmark dialog - so now I have to use a 3rd party plugin??

- in Tools, Page Info, Media, you used to be able to use the arrow keys to scroll down the list of assets on the web page (so you could find that favorite pic/swf etc), now it switches the dialog tabs ??

- the devs constantly ignored users complaining about the memory usage, even when tabs were closed, for 3 versions. At least memory usage seems to be _finaly_ much saner.

FF is in the process of jumping the shark with personas... it's like 2 steps forward, 1.5 steps back.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Robert Zenz]

The Mozilla Foundation can survive without Google, they made this clear in a statement a half year back or so. Also, we're talking about two FLOSS browsers, the moment something gets fishy the community will jump in.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Snaller]

Firefox HAS the technical lead over chrome - chrome is a pathetically primitive browser. Who cares about page rendering speed - a few seconds more or less is irrelevant - when we all have terabyte connections then it might matter. You can't even adjust the font size in Chrome! Those discriminative idiots at google apparently don't understand that some of us need to make fonts larger to read them - yeah sure you can zoom into the page as A PICTURE - but that you have a little square open to a huge line and you have to scroll left and right for each line -totally pathetic.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[msclrhd]

Why do they need multi-threaded javascript? What benefit is it providing?

There are some things written in javascript -- e.g. a snes and a gameboy emulator -- that are pathologically slow (10-15 frames per second) using the FF 3.6 javascript engine. With the jaegermonkey engine, they are seeing performance that is matching, and in some cases edging over, Chrome (~60 frames per second).

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Snaller]

"I wish Firefox would stop trying to compete in Javascript and go back to one of the biggest reasons they started the project: speed of the browser itself. That means it should open instantaneously and have low overhead--even with the usual plugins installed (AdBlock, NoScript, etc)."

Oh how I agree with you! Its such an insult they can render some game fast when the browser it self is slow and sluggish.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Your.Master]

Aside from local search engines that serve one nationality, like Yandex, really the only reasonable alternative is Bing (whether directly from Microsoft or via Yahoo, whose search engine is Bing, as of this week http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1906048/yahoo_and_bing_partner_up_to_combat_google/index.html?source=r_technology).

What makes you so confident that Mozilla could easily receive the same income from Yahoo or Microsoft? I mean, maybe. But I didn't think either company made as much profit per ad as Google does, which would mean that even with the same revenue sharing agreement, you would predict a drop in Mozilla income.

(And if you're alluding to a source outside of search, then why aren't they tapping it today?)

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Quick FYI: Nuke Anything is built in with Chrome - Inspect element->right-click on dom tree->remove
Not quite so easy, but still there and useful enough for the odd time you need it.

hth

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[commodore64_love]

>>>After using for a few days with only a few windows open, FF eventually becomes so unresponsive that I've got to restart it.

For me it's only a few hours. Firefox has a memory leak, so that it starts at ~100,000 kilobytes but gradually grows larger and larger. Even if I close all my tabs, the memory is not released. This memory leak was fixed in 3.0 but now it seems to have opened-up again.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[FireXtol]

Opera has site preferences that include content blocking and script preferences. You don't need add-ons for these. Dragonfly is also built in, so you don't need a FireBug. For instance, right click any web page, choose Block Content... click that annoying advertisement. Click 'Done', and you're done. There are also files available that automatically populate the content blocking with known advertisement servers. Or right-click a page and choose site preferences, and there are options for things such as enabling/disabling of JS, etc.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[commodore64_love]

>>>Opera is a little bit better than both Firefox and Chrome in terms of memory management

I must be doing something wrong then, because my Opera install (10.6) uses about twice as much memory as Firefox (3.5). Maybe if I turned-off the memory caching?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Snaller]

"Maybe you should consider a browser that doesn't need to be bogged down to death to be useable."

Doesn't exist.

"One of the reasons why I use Opera, for example, it's precisely that it does all the stuff I want it to do without me needing to scrape around the web to get extensions that kill it."

Good for you - one of the reasons I don't use Opera is that its a piece of badly designed crap - which for one thing doesn't allow you to change font sizes on the fly (to make pages actually readable) but only allows you to zoom into them as a picture. And the way you can expand it is a joke and lamely designed. Good luck to you.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Snaller]

"In ye olde days when java script was just used to pull up a popup or block your right clicks it wasn't so important, but nowadays most popular sites are full of it. Whenever you need 'dynamic' content on a web page - that's Javascript.

Even /. by the way."

And all of it makes the browsing "experience" worse.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[sexconker]

If you have the shortcuts enabled, you can adjust the bar with , and . (or whatever the shortcut is).

Personally, I turned them on, adjusted it (to show everything, as it should be), then turned the shortcuts off.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[msclrhd]

In the old days, JavaScript was interpreted. This means that the JavaScript engine is evaluating the program as it runs, instead of the CPU evaluating the program. This is what the Firefox SpiderMonkey engine does and it is slow.

When Chrome was released and there was a push to make things faster, Mozilla wrote an engine called TraceMonkey. This engine supports tracing jit, which is to say that the engine watches what javascript code gets executed (the tracing part) and uses that to produce optimised code that the CPU will execute (the jit -- or just-in-time compilation -- part).

Chrome's V8 engine, Apple's Nitro engine and others use what is called method jit. This means that the javascript code for a method (function) is compiled to code the CPU can execute when that method is called.

Mozilla are currently working on a similar method jit engine called JaegerMonkey. This engine is taking the nitro assembler (the code that generates the CPU instructions) and writing everything else on top of this. In addition, they are also taking the Yarr! regular expression engine that IIR, Chrome is using to speed up their regular expression handling.

Mozilla are looking to blend the method jit and tracing jit together -- hence the "one generation ahead" comment.

Mozilla are also optimising various javascript calls (a contrived example would be replacing calls to Math.sin with the sin CPU instruction) to provide "fast paths" that speed up code that uses those calls.

http://arewefastyet.com/ shows the performance of these over time.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[sexconker]

There is absolutely no question that Opera is the best modern browser of them all.

(I don't use it, but I can see and state the plainly obvious, unlike the fanboys.)

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't know what jump the shark means, do you? Don't fucking use it. Asshole.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[xiong.chiamiov]

if they think that Google, who provides about 85% of Mozilla's total revenue, is going to sit back and let them take the technical lead over Chrome, they're nuts.

Except that Google benefits from faster Javascript engines in any browser, not just Chrome. Firefox is a popular browser, and if Firefox can execute Javascript faster, that means that Google's web apps (which I am just going to guess account for more revenue than Chrome) will perform better. It also means that Google could potentially do more, i.e. have heavier Javascript programs, without worrying that people are going to get annoyed at how slow their applications are. How does Google lose here?

It was my impression that Google created Chrome primarily to push browser speeds (in particular, javascript) forward. Mozilla wouldn't be nearly so concerned with it now if it weren't for V8.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[jorgevillalobos]

Yes, I'm referring to alternatives like Yahoo and Bing. When the search agreement renewal came up on the news a few months ago (maybe more?), and lot of people were asking the same question, and several people from Mozilla answered it very thoroughly (don't have reference handy, sorry). Mozilla has plenty of money saved for the future, and Google is not the only one capable and willing to fill that search engine spot.

Of course, you're free to be skeptic about claims coming from within Mozilla. (Full disclosure: I work for them)

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[xiong.chiamiov]

Nowhere. But right now it's the most widely adopted and implemented (pretty much everyone but Firefox either does or is planning to support it).

And pretty much everyone except Apple is planning on supporting WebM (or is, currently). Sure, IE will only support it if a vp8 codec is installed on the machine, but that counts enough for me.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[msclrhd]

> - in Tools, Page Info, Media, you used to be able to use the arrow keys to scroll down the list of assets on the web page (so you could find that favorite pic/swf etc), now it switches the dialog tabs ??

That's a keyboard focus issue/misunderstanding.

If you go to the `Tools > Page Info` dialog (via mouse, `Alt+T, I` or `Ctrl+I`) the keyboard focus is on the dialog tab panel at the top -- left/right arrow keys move between tabs.

If you click on the `Media` tab with the mouse, the keyboard focus is still on that tab strip -- left/right arrow keys move between tabs.

If you press the `Tab` key or press the mouse button inside the asset list, the keyboard focus is now on the asset list -- left/right arrow keys move between assets.

At least this is the case with latest FF.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Snaller]

"But if they think that Google, who provides [techcrunch.com] about 85% of Mozilla's total revenue, is going to sit back and let them take the technical lead over Chrome, they're nuts."

And if you think google gives a shit which browser is fastest you are nuts. They want browsers to be "fast enough" and javascript, and once they reach that bar it doesn't matter anymore. They might as well just discontinue chrome. Chrome is an expensive, not an income source.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[xiong.chiamiov]

> There's "fat-val", "tracer JIT" and "method JIT". Just curious, given all these advances in JS speed, are there technical reasons why stuff like Python, Ruby and Perl aren't getting similar improvements in speed?

Perl... well, it's either dead or incredibly alive, depending on who you ask, but all development seems to be focused on Perl6.

Ruby doesn't have an "official" interpreter. The standard C implementation uses YARV for 1.9, which is considerably better than MRI (which was in 1.8). Rubinius is supposed to be faster, but isn't quite ready yet. Ruby Enterprise Edition seems to be fairly popular, but doesn't have 1.9 compatability yet. I believe JRuby is fairly widely-used, and it seems that it can perform better than YARV sometimes (and consistently better than MRI).

On the Python front, Unladen Swallow seems to be chugging along, although I'm not sure what we'll get out of it. PyPy is quite promising, and is faster than CPython in many benchmarks.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[clone53421]

, to adjust the Hidden threshold (-1 Raw and Uncut, thank you!)
] to adjust the Full threshold (abbreviated until I want to read it)

But I leave the shortcut keys on, because I like to read through the discussions with F.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[ljgshkg]

When discussing about Chrome vs Firefox vs etc. etc., people always forget Google's actual business is in search and web apps, but not browser.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[TheLink]

So in summary they haven't been getting similar improvements in speed.

After all, Javascript is now faster (except for pi and reverse-complement).

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=v8&lang2=yarv

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=v8&lang2=python3

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[msclrhd]

What, so you don't want to find out how to lose 40lb overnight, or see the pretty logo/site design that takes up 50% of the viewing area? Are you actually saying that you want to read the *content* of the web page?

Shocking!

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[clone53421]

I finally bit the bullet and today I installed...

YesScript.

I just don’t believe in a whitelist-based Javascript policy. Javascript is there to make the internet better. Generally speaking, it does. Beyond that, a good set of AdBlock Plus rules usually takes care of the unruly sites.

The only reason I finally installed YesScript is because Snopes’ anti-copying script is directly inline in the HTML source and I couldn’t block it with AdBlock Plus (I tried ##script – it still didn’t seem to work). So Snopes is now on my JavaScript blacklist. I don’t anticipate many more sites getting put onto it.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[hedleyroos]

Extensions are mostly Javascript and XUL, but they can also be in XPCOM and C++ if you need lots of privileges and hardware access.

As an aside how about making it possible to sell extensions through an App Store? Firefox will attract a *lot* of new devs.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[xiong.chiamiov]

So in summary they haven't been getting similar improvements in speed.

Perhaps that's because they didn't suck so much in the first place (with the possible exception of MRI)?

After all, Javascript is now faster (except for pi and reverse-complement).

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=v8&lang2=yarv

http://shootout.alioth.debian.org/u64/benchmark.php?test=all&lang=v8&lang2=python3

Because everyone chooses a language based on raw execution speed, amirite?

You were comparing relative increases between different implementations of one language before; now you're comparing the fastest implementation of one language to the not-fastest implementations of others. =_=

Even if they look vaguely similar on the surface, all of the languages you've mentioned are quite different internally. Some performance changes that would take too much effort to change, some won't happen for philosophical reasons, and a great deal more are not applicable to anything other than the language they were written for.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[paimin]

Will someone with mod points please mod parent down? People around here are prone to believing things like Flash is a video format instead of a container format.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

I have tried Chrome 3 times now and every time I give up on it.

Maybe that there is your problem. We're now up to Chrome 5 (at least on Linux), with Chrome 6 waiting in the wings.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[masmullin]

I like firefox, or rather I like Minefield. might be psychological, but it seems faster than chrome/safari to me. Im not running any plugins. Im not going to use a closed source browser so opera is out.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[bartok]

"or there is some kind of flash-player type add-on made for Firefox to support h264"

Flash already uses the h.264 codec for video so there is no need for anything more. And you won't have to switch to another browser because as long as there is no universal codec standard accross browsers, sites like YouTube will continue to use Flash, at least as a fallback method.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[IANAAC]

People around here are prone to believing things like Flash is a video format instead of a container format.

Just as people around here are prone to believing that HTML5 is a video format.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with respect to Linux. The open source Chromium build uses native GTK widgets. That makes it way better than Firefox. I think that he was correct though when he said that Firefox has the better developer tools.

Also they will never be able to pry Firefox out of my fathers hands. He holds onto it like a 85 year old attorney and his ie6.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[paimin]

Who said anything about that? Your comment above is completely incorrect, that's the issue here. H.264 is in fact the dominant video format on the web right now, so your post is just blatantly misleading and/or ignorant.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

There you go again, Troll64.

Sure, this post alone doesn't seem like a troll, but when you consider it along side a post from Monday...

It's like you're intentionally making life difficult for yourself, and then complaining that life is hard.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Snaller]

I watch video on the TV not in the browser.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[bigNuns]

"Would some of us like to see it more popular than, say, Flash to serve up video?"

Read what you are responding to. They don't say flash is the codec used, they say that flash is what is used to serve up the video content. What they are saying is embed and object tags containing flash files, which may or may not contain H.264 encoded video, are used to deliver the video content instead of a straight video tag. Firefox can handle this just fine. While youtube briefly attempted to switch to the straight video tag they have gone back to serving up their videos in flash files. If the world were using the video tag to serve up video, then, and only then, would Firefox have an issue with not being able to render H.264 encoded videos.

"To suggest it's the most adopted is wishful thinking."

Is absolutely correct. Please notice, again the word codec is not in this statement. They are simply stating that the internet at large is serving its video files with flash, not with html5 video tags.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[SanityInAnarchy]

For instance on Firefox, I can type Q[tab] and have my comments page up. sl[tab] is slashdot....

On Chrome, s[enter] is Slashdot. What's your point?

I have to type sl[right arrow]/[down arrow][right arrow] to get to my comments page.

Or you could just hit the down arrow a few times...

If I don't add the /, Chrome lists only list two options: slashdot.org and search google for slashdot.org.

Not my Chrome -- how do you have it configured?

The other thing is Nuke Anything, which I can't find anything like it for Chrome.

Well, there's adblock...

Or, for the temporary effect, right-click anything, inspect. From there, you can arbitrarily edit the source of the current page (though mostly as a tree, to keep it sane), including right-click -> delete node.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[SanityInAnarchy]

Any examples of pages which scroll that badly? I honestly haven't run into this problem.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[beelsebob]

They also depend on DOM layout & rendering being fast

But browsers have already had fast DOM layout and rendering engines for a long time.

And on canvas being fast.

Canvas being nothing more than a javascript library ;)

And on SVG being fast.

Not relevant to html5, but certainly something that would be very very nice.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Simetrical]

I hope you realized that the UI and extensions of firefox are written in Javascript, when you complain those speed issues, most of them are somewhat related with speed of javascript.

Unlikely. Interface lag is going to be caused by too much stuff being done on the thread that renders the interface. IIRC, Chrome was written from the beginning with a dedicated interface thread that did no blocking syscalls or other real work. Thus it usually responds instantly to input, no matter what you're doing. One of the performance improvements they're doing in Firefox 4 is moving stuff off the interface thread, so that the interface feels snappier. The kinds of computations that are sped up by the JaegerMonkey work are almost certain to be irrelevant to Firefox's responsiveness.

(Disclaimer: I'm not a browser implementer, so possibly I don't know what I'm talking about.)

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Simetrical]

H.264 will be solved on Firefox with a plugin whether it's official or not.

The list of supported codecs in Firefox for <video> is hardcoded and can't be changed by plugins, by design. (Maybe if they were invasive enough they could do some horrible hack, I don't know, but I wouldn't bet on it.)

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[shutdown -p now]

But browsers have already had fast DOM layout and rendering engines for a long time.

I see you haven't used IE for a while :)

Canvas being nothing more than a javascript library

Uh, no, it's not. It provides a JS-callable API, but it's implemented by browsers in native code (I'm specifically talking about various drawing and blitting operations).

Not relevant to html5, but certainly something that would be very very nice.

It's relevant to HTML5 insofar as the latter hopes to become a replacement for Flash (which is the context of this discussion as set by TFA).

Furthermore, so far as I know, all browsers working on HTML5 support are also working on SVG support (even IE9), so it seems that the combo is what will become a de facto standard.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[SEE]

If people use h.264 exclusively instead of WebM for HTML5, yeah, it'll be a problem. Of course, only the stupid will do that stupid enough to do that, since Firefox and Opera are a third of the whole browser share, while the no-VP8/WebM holdout is Safari with about five percent.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[drinkypoo]

They weren't a generation behind. I've tried the competition and quite frankly the competition isn't presently as advanced as you're suggesting. Chrome's fast, but it's basically pure spyware and the extensions don't really have anywhere near the reliability or variety of what's available for Firefox.

chrome renders pages faster AND processes javascript faster. By default Firefox provides search suggestions so as a result Firefox spies on you every time you type into the address bar. And indeed, it sends the information to google. You can disable all that shit in chrome, although the google spying enables a lot of the nice functionality.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I hope it is stable. For one thing, every other Firefox patch update seems to break and fix pdf file associations on my computer and the problem doesn't seem fixable under their setup pane. It was enough for me to try the alternatives.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[drinkypoo]

The list of supported codecs in Firefox for is hardcoded and can't be changed by plugins, by design. (Maybe if they were invasive enough they could do some horrible hack, I don't know, but I wouldn't bet on it.)

On chrome it might be difficult to change but Firefox lets you rewrite the page before it renders. Further, since it's HTML, you can rewrite it with userjs through the DOM even AFTER it renders. Consequently you ought to be able to simply turn video tags into embed tags and pass them off to a plugin.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Look, I *love* Firefox. I use it pretty much exclusively myself. Nothing can touch add-ons like NoScript, AdBlock, etc. (and most of my add-ons and their associated functionality can't be found on Chrome, Opera, etc.). But if they think that Google, who provides about 85% of Mozilla's total revenue, is going to sit back and let them take the technical lead over Chrome, they're nuts. And speed has always been one of Chrome's few positive qualities over Firefox.

Firefox already has the technical lead over Chrome in a number of areas. Here's one such example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIZUdZdFzOo

Safari can also best Chrome: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ap-UmnHXPFw

Not only that, but Mozilla can't afford to license h264. And that already puts them behind on HTML5. I am hoping that either html5 never catches on, the other browsers all agree to an open format (like WebM)

YouTube is rolling out WebM encodes at a steady pace. Both of the videos I linked to above are available in WebM. I no longer have Flash installed as I've found I already don't need it. Firefox 4, Opera, Chrome 6 all support WebM natively. Safari and IE9 can both use it if the codec is installed. Support for WebM is broad. Now it's up to the mobile devices to catch up. My phone is capable of hardware accelerated WebM playback. It just needs the software to do it.

or there is some kind of flash-player type add-on made for Firefox to support h264. But without one of those, Firefox is (sadly) already in a rough spot for the next gen.

You mean, a player like Adobe Flash? ;-)

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

is Opera still as buggy as last year?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[DarkEmpath]

Why is it that all Opera users assume they've discovered some grand secret, some golden app that trumps everything else and only they know about - and they must proselytise!

Look, this is Slashdot, we all know about Opera, we've all tried it, yet we don't use it. Get over it. Opera isn't "the shit", it's just shit.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Bazouel]

Please, install Opera and press F12 while inside a page. Thanks. It's getting old talking about Opera without actually knowing about it.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

If Firefox and Chrome are both compatibly licensed OSS (they are right?), why can't firefox just use Chrome's JS engine?

In a way, they are. They're taking good ideas from both Nitro and V8 and incorporating them into the new JaegerMonkey engine. JaegerMonkey uses, for example, Nitro's assembler and has just recently integrated a port of Nitro's regular expression compiler which resulted in a gain of ~600 milliseconds on the V8 benchmark.

From the outside looking in it seems to me they're building on existing implementations when it makes sense to do so and building from scratch when they think they've got a better way to do it.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

You can do this in Chrome and it was only when I discovered that, that I moved to using Chrome as my prime browser.

In Chrome, select the Tools menu -> Options, Basic tab and look for the "Manage" button. You can add shortcuts in this list in the way you describe (I for example simply type "weather" into the address bar to bring up the local weather report), but you can also shortcut searches (I have "g %s" for google, "imdb %s" when looking for movies on imdb, "acro %s" to search acronyms, etc).

It's slightly tedious to set up and these settings don't sync across Chrome installations, unlike your bookmarks, but it is possible.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Randle_Revar]

LOL, Windows.
Even with many more dev-hours aimed at the Windows version, the Linux version is still just naturally better.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Randle_Revar]

AFAIK, SpiderMonkey has advantages over all other JS engines, just not in speed (but JägerMonkey aims to fix that).

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Randle_Revar]

Perl doesn't get into that stuff until Perl 6... or Perl 5.x is fully ported to Parrot.
Ruby 1.9/2.0 is also stuck in development hell.

Python... just doesn't seem to be interested, although Google's Unladen Swallow should improve perf a lot without any JITting

Some scripting languages, like Lua, have done JIT for some time. And things like IronRuby, IronPython, JPython, etc. allow for JIT via the JVM or CLR

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[TheLink]

> Because everyone chooses a language based on raw execution speed, amirite?

Of course not. That's why I'm not using Javascript for most of my stuff.

> you're comparing the fastest implementation of one language to the not-fastest implementations of others.

So which are the fastest implementations of python or ruby? Seriously.

If they're only half-complete they aren't going to be very useful either- after all most people wouldn't bother with fast javascript that doesn't work on half of the webpages out there.

Basically if there are better and faster python/ruby/perl implementations out there, I might start using them instead of the mainstream implementations.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Calinous]

This was great, thank you. I haven't tried it with a virus search on, but it certainly seem much faster
      Thanks

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[evanspw]

What chrome needs is the the thing I like about firefox the most - mandating font usage. With firefox, I can tick a settings box and all pages will be rendered with the fonts I choose, not the often shitty fonts some web designer hack wants me to use. It is possible to get chrome to do this but it requires dicking around with style sheets and it's also not 100% effective (ditto for safari). While only firfox has this feature it will be my #1 browser.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Ed Avis]

Of all the things to fetishize, I'm glad they concentrate on extra speed (which, at worst, never hurts) rather than on which browser can support the most elaborate BLINK tag, the most DRM-ed movie format, the crappiest new scripting language (VBScript?) or any of the other much worse things they could be focusing on.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[zwarte piet]

I've been using Chrome and it's no better in that respect. It seems to do al kinds of tasks on the background. I like the minimalistic interface though. For now Opera is the one that keeps amazing me......

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[lucian1900]

They are in fact, and have been even before everyone became obsessed with JS. Look at PyPy for example. There's simply a lot less money involved.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Anonymous Coward]

Though so, too, but now I'm working on a huge Web project based on YUI 3 and containing lots of stuff like editarea (a javascript code editor) in the backend. Even without many animations and stuff there are several spots where javascript speed is critical, two examples:

- the code editor is barely usable on firefox, but fast enogh on chrome. It does lots of stuff and looks really nice, autocompletion, syntax highlighting and stuff just takes its toll on the cpu

- ie7 recently could not even load our yui 3 stuff because some of its routines were too slow to parse the dependencies in under 5 seconds, after that the "stop script" popup appears.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Bert64]

To give one example...

Extensions like web developer and firebug are extremely useful for me, but most people have no use for them...

Foxyproxy also saves me a lot of time since i frequently have to switch between multiple sets of proxy settings on my laptop, most people never need to change their proxy settings.

Your needs must be extremely simplistic if a basic lightweight browser would suit your needs.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[clone53421]

As an aside how about making it possible to sell extensions through an App Store? Firefox will attract a *lot* of new devs.

It’s trivially easy to create a fresh .xpi from an installed addon... there is no DRM whatsoever.

P.S. I like it that way.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Simetrical]

The list of supported codecs in Firefox for is hardcoded and can't be changed by plugins, by design. (Maybe if they were invasive enough they could do some horrible hack, I don't know, but I wouldn't bet on it.)

On chrome it might be difficult to change but Firefox lets you rewrite the page before it renders. Further, since it's HTML, you can rewrite it with userjs through the DOM even AFTER it renders. Consequently you ought to be able to simply turn video tags into embed tags and pass them off to a plugin.

True, but you're not going to get the same experience as an actual native <video> implementation. You might be able to implement the HTML5 video APIs, but that would take work. You'd also have a hard time making it work correctly with CSS, etc. You could only do an ugly hack this way, not a proper implementation. So I think it's more likely that sites will just encode to both VP8 and H.264 rather than try to hack something like this up for Firefox.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Galestar]

I think what we are getting at here is that Google's goals with Chrome is to raise the bar for all browsers. Ultimately they would love to see the native app die - this would leave them a single platform from which to launch all of their hundreds of products.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[gig]

There already are FlashPlayer type add-ons made for Firefox to support h264:

- Adobe FlashPlayer plug-in v9.0.115 or later
- Apple QuickTime Player plug-in v7 or later

That is how you have been watching H.264 in Firefox for years now. H.264 is not new. The only new thing is video playback moving from plug-ins to native in the browser. This caused Mozilla to rouse from its video coma and notice something new was happening other than JPEG images (1994).

> Not only that, but Mozilla can't afford to license h264.

Yes, they can. They are refusing to do so for religious reasons. They have failed to understand that the Web has changed from being PC-centric to being CE-centric (Consumer Electronics) therefore you have to support actual ISO standards like in CE, not monopolistic de facto standards as on the PC. The irony is, as noted above, the CE standard for video is MPEG-4 H.264, but the PC standard is also MPEG-4 H.264, just wrapped in a proprietary FlashPlayer instance to close it down! So the argument Mozilla is making is that H.264 is not open enough for us, so we're going to keep playing H.264 in closed FlashPlayer. It makes no sense. Their second argument is to close their eyes and pretend MPEG-4 never happened, to pretend that online video is new instead of 10 years old, and pretend that Ogg or WebM will have any impact at all.

> all agree to an open format (like WebM

We all agreed to an open format for a multimedia container in 1998. It's called MPEG-4. It's based on Apple QuickTime for the same reason that HTML5 is based on HTML4, so that it's easy for existing content and associated technologies to be updated. And since 1998, everyone involved in video has done just that, and today, support for MPEG-4 is universal in video capture, editing, and playback devices. You are not, I repeat *not* going to convince content creators or the makers of content creation tools to convert their MPEG-4 into something else that is untested and unproven and not standardized. Not only would that take 10 years but there is no guarantee it will work. This is not the PC where we make shit up as we go along to support whatever the current monopoly is.

We all agreed to an open format for video codec in 2003, it's called AVC and was standardized by ISO as H.264. Support for H.264 is also universal today in video capture, editing, and playback. It's in the hardware of every post-DVD video player, including smartphones, and all the video cameras and still cameras, including smartphones. It's even in PC GPU's. You're not going to change that without a time machine, and we're so far into it that the patents will expire before anything else arrives to take its place.

WebM and VP-8 are not open formats, they are Google formats. They are not vendor-neutral, Google has an advantage over everyone else. They are not standardized, so they will not be used by anyone with any investment in video. They have no protection from patent liability. You, I, or any manufacturer of video players or tools or creator or producer or consumer of video content can be sued for using WebM or VP-8 and Google is not going to help us in any way. Confusion over video standards simply drives everyone to YouTube as de facto video standard, which is exactly what Google intends with WebM. You have to be a Google fanboy to think otherwise. YouTube is the one and only entity that is essentially codec-agnostic because they have a huge back-end where they transcode everything into multiple formats before offering it for playback. A smartphone cannot do that, a video camera cannot do that, a video editing workstation cannot do that.

The complaint about MPEG-4 from some quarters is it has a patent pool. But the patent pool is a feature because it removes all patent liabilities from all MPEG-4 users. Only the patent pool can be sued, not the users. For the few people who have to pay for it (basically, Apple and anyone engaged in selling video as in iTunes or making video tools as in Final Cut Pro like Apple) it is a bar

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Qzukk]

Not my Chrome -- how do you have it configured?

I disabled the "suggestion service", and that's about the only setting in this thing that I can see would have any effect.

BTW, today it finally started listing the firehose as a third option in the dropdown (perhaps it needs a certain number of visits to be a candidate for completion?), and now that other poster mentioned that it takes time for some options to show up, my user page will show up if I wait 2-3 seconds. About 2-3 seconds more and some random slashdot pages show up along with an option to "see all pages in history containing sl". (If I type just s, slashdot does come up first, followed by any recent google searches starting with s).

I suspect the issue is that firefox didn't show the awesomebar until it was good and ready, so if the browser was stalling out on rendering some page you could type and nothing at all would happen for 2-3 seconds (that was a frustration of its own for me, since half the time once firefox was done rendering it still wouldn't show the awesomebar). Chrome seems to throw up a dropdown as soon as possible, then get around to filling it with options whenever it feels like it.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[Kvasio]

Opera's script blocking capabilities do not even BEGIN to compare with NoScript

perhaps you went to different opera ;-)

In my browset when I check "do not run scripts", browser does not run scripts. That's it. I don't know what more do you expect from the script blocking function? A free blowjob?

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[AmiMoJo]

If you want low memory overhead that means keeping less data in memory, so when you press the back button the data has to be re-loaded from disk or the network and the page re-rendered. If you want it to open instantly then you are going to have to ditch some of those add-ons and plug-ins because they all take time to load, as do SQLite databases of bookmarks, history, ad-block blacklists, anti-phishing URLs etc.

Javascript optimisation not only makes web sites faster but it speeds up Firefox itself because a lot of the UI and most add-ons use it. You also get lower CPU overhead and might even reduce memory use a little bit.

I don't think aiming for performance on old systems with 256MB RAM is very useful. Even cheap netbooks ship with 1GB these days. I bet many computer uses spend 90% of their time in a web browser too, so using a bit more RAM to speed things up is acceptable. Sure, there is outright bloat, but I think FF has made a lot of progress in that area.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[TeXMaster]

However, what one person considers an absolutely needed piece of functionality another will find useless... I find that greasemonkey, and firebug + yslow are invaluable. I don't really get that with Opera...

What is it you don't get with Opera? Opera has UserJS, which is more sophisticated than GreaseMonkey and can in fact support most GreaseMonkey scripts as long as they are written cross-browser (I tend to write my userjs scripts in such a fashion). Opera also has DragonFly, which at least for the usage I have matches firebug (no idea what yslow is).

(And of course, they come with the browser and need not be installed, as opposed to the FF extensions.)

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[aztracker1]

I mean Opera's UI, not how opera renders the page... In the past, the mail client was kind of pushed on you, and the old sidebar was annoying... the new version is interesting, and the reduced UI is kind of being copied by Firefox 4. Firefox has always just fit my usage a bit better.. the fact that firefox itself is XUL based, and really customizable has been a big feature in my book, though I rarely do much with it, it does allow for a lot of nice integration with plugins that I do use that opera, and even chrome don't match at this point.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[ProfessionalCookie]

Haha...I think you gave TWO examples. Any you mentioned that most people would use neither of them. Of course extensions have value, but for most people they just bloat the browser. How many toolbars do you see on the average non-techie windows browser. And how many actually get used. Yuck.

Re:...And one generation behind on HTML5

[ConceptJunkie]

(Disclaimer: I'm not a browser implementer, so possibly I don't know what I'm talking about.)

Why are you admitting this on /.?

You should simply act as if you are an expert and everyone who disagrees without is an ignorant dolt.

Oh, wait, you're trying to _improve_ the /. environment, not imitate it. Never mind.

Big ;-)

I was using Minefield for quite a while until so many things started breaking a couple weeks ago and I reverted back to 3.6.x.

I'm looking forward to going back, though. I've been a Firefox user since about Phoenix 0.4.

In Before...

[Kc_spot]

Flamewar

Slowest news day?

[Kanel]

A guy at Mozilla says Firefox will sometime in the future be better than all other browsers at one of several aspects of browsing?

The really interesting question here is why 18th of August appears to be one of the slowest news days on slashdot. Are people busy starting the semester and getting back to work after the holiday?

One generation ahead?

[hcs_$reboot]

FF4 will be one generation ahead in November (according to Wikipedia). Aren't 3 months enough for the competition to catch up?

Re:One generation ahead?

[witherstaff]

And don't forget that IE is up to version 9, so FF4 will be 5 generations behind!

What would be better than faster JavaScript...

[Phillibuster]

I'd prefer it not hang and use 99% of the CPU when I close it.

Re:What would be better than faster JavaScript...

[hcs_$reboot]

I use FF 3.6.8 daily on Ubuntu 10.4 and it is pretty stable. Their new "Plugin crash isolator" works well (e.g. Flash).

Re:What would be better than faster JavaScript...

[sd.fhasldff]

This is probably due to sqlite and a severely fragmented / huge / whatever history+bookmarks.

Try a clean profile. If that does the trick, try backing them up and importing in a clean profile. Probably "prune" them a bit while you're at it.

Re:What would be better than faster JavaScript...

[Shikaku]

Install Bleachbit, uncheck everything but check Vacuum in firefox, make sure firefox is closed and run it. Done.

leakage

[burris]

I'd like to see Firefox move up to at least a generation behind the other browsers with respect to memory leakage.

Re:leakage

[Mr. Spontaneous]

You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

Re:leakage

[DIplomatic]

Memory leakage? I respectfully suggest your brain may be leaking memory, as Firefox has been good and stable since the Bush administration.

Re:leakage

[cyfer2000]

Chrome is the new memory usage king. Firefox has been dethroned long time ago.

Re:leakage

[koiransuklaa]

Maybe it leaks, it's possible... but do the math once if you haven't before: count your open tabs, estimate number of pixels on each bitmap (window pixels times number of pages), find out number of colors, and calculate the number of bits required to just store the rendered bitmaps in memory. You will end up with a surprisingly large number. Screens have grown and web pages have become larger and more complex and that has a direct effect on memory use.

But...

[dispatch]

...my company insists on remaining one generation behind!

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

-- IE6 is that way.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

One! You lucky SOB.

Re:But...

[Anonymous Coward]

Informative? It's not informative, it's mildly amusing!

Re:But...

[Robert Zenz]

He said one generation...not a freaking century.

Re:But...

[Fri13]

At least you made clear you are not working for Microsoft, because they are two generations behind.

Re:But...

[AlgorithMan]

I bet you don't have to work with COBOL... ;o)

GPU Graphics Acceleration

[Anonymous Coward]

If Firefox for doesn't have GPU graphics acceleration it will be a generation behind Microsoft Internet Explorer.

All the Javascript speed in the world won't make up for last generation webpage rendering that nails the CPU while the GPU sits idle.

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[VGPowerlord]

If Firefox for doesn't have GPU graphics acceleration it will be a generation behind Microsoft Internet Explorer.

All the Javascript speed in the world won't make up for last generation webpage rendering that nails the CPU while the GPU sits idle.

RTFA

Specifically:

derStandard.at: Firefox 4 is going to use hardware acceleration through Direct2D and DirectWrite on Windows, are similar things coming up for Linux and Mac OS X?

Chris Blizzard: Within what's provided: Yes. We're trying to give the best experience possible on each platform. So for Windows Vista and 7 we see huge improvements when doing certain graphically intensive stuff. On OS X for example we have support for OpenGL for doing compositing, on Linux we do the same. But generally the Windows APIs that we have are better and more rich than what we have on other platforms. To give you an example: On Linux Cairo and Pixman were supposed to be fast, but unfortunately the underlying infrastructure never really got fast. On OS X we are actually pretty fast but Direct2D gives the performance advantage to Windows at the moment.

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[game kid]

Indeed, after enabling the Direct2D stuff in the current Firefox nightly, MS's Psychedelic demo runs nice and zippy, slightly faster than on IE9 but without sound. (Without the configs set, it runs nice and not-so-zippy: 162, versus 1774 on zippy mode,* for the color wheel on mine.)

So yeah, render speed won't be a problem for FF, especially if they iron out remaining bugs and move the settings out of The Config Page That Might Void Your Warranty.

*If private browsing is porn mode, I say GPU'd browsing is zippy mode. Whoever manages to port The Guardian Legend to canvas or SVG better assume zippy mode unless they want to make a slideshow of those scrolling corridors...

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[Henriok]

If they use platform specific APIs to accelerate stuff, WHY THE HELL don't they use platform specific APIs for rendering video? They don't have to pay MPEG-LA anything since Apple and Microsoft are doing it for them (and everyone else that uses their OS wide media frameworks). If they want WebM capabilities, just make a plugin for the frameworks.

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[Anonymous Coward]

It runs at a glacial 2 Revolutions Per Minute in FF 4.0b3 on MacOS (C2D 2.4GHz, nvidia 8600).

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[Abcd1234]

If they use platform specific APIs to accelerate stuff, WHY THE HELL don't they use platform specific APIs for rendering video?

Because they're ideological blowhards who are more interested in pushing an agenda than doing what the users actually want.

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[Anonymous Coward]

If they use platform specific APIs to accelerate stuff, WHY THE HELL don't they use platform specific APIs for rendering video?

Because they're ideological blowhards who are more interested in pushing an agenda than doing what the users actually want.

Or here's a thought: Maybe they don't want to write specific code for each platform when the libraries they used for the video codecs they support already have platform specific code.

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[Abcd1234]

Maybe they don't want to write specific code for each platform when the libraries

Go read the original post. Then maybe you'll see how this point has already been invalidated by their own actions (I'll give you a hint: DirectShow and OpenGL).

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that actually any easier? You're taking a bunch of software dependencies on libraries you did not otherwise have to support, instead of platform dependencies on platforms that you have to support anyway, and as already mentioned it's more forward-compatible to use platform APIs because new codecs are supported trivially.

Anyway, Mozilla keeps saying their reasons are ideological so I'm inclined to believe them. I would also buy the argument that it's attack surface reduction to support only a minimum number of possible codecs.

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[Anonymous Coward]

You write that like it's a bad thing...

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[aztracker1]

There you go, throwing facts into the argument... and anything showing Windows to be faster is automatically wrong... you must be new here. ;)

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[Anonymous Coward]

Go read the original post. Then maybe you'll see how this point has already been invalidated by their own actions (I'll give you a hint: DirectShow and OpenGL).

First of all, they don't use DirectShow. They use Cairo with a Direct2D backend that can be used by any application that uses Cairo on Windows. On other platforms, you'd simply use a Cairo backend that utilizes a platform-specific API. Thus, this is an platform-specific optimization in the library, not the browser.

With regard to OpenGL, not only is that not a platform-specific API, but Mozilla is even moving towards using EGL instead of platform-specific native windowing APIs like WGL or GLX. Furthermore, WebGL is based on OpenGL ES 2.0, which is a subset of OpenGL 4.1, so they need to use the OpenGL API for that as well.

Granted, though, Chris Blizzard could have been a bit more accurate in his description of how the various APIs fit into the picture, but he doesn't necessarily do active development on those systems himself.

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[msclrhd]

1739 here on Ubuntu 10.04 with the latest NVidia driver. Hallucinogenic mode results in 599.

I don't know how this compares with IE9, though.

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[Anonymous Coward]

Is that actually any easier? You're taking a bunch of software dependencies on libraries you did not otherwise have to support, instead of platform dependencies on platforms that you have to support anyway, and as already mentioned it's more forward-compatible to use platform APIs because new codecs are supported trivially.

You're assuming that each codec is supported on all platforms in an equal fashion. That is not the case. In many situations, the codec may not be supported on a platform at all. In those cases, they have to use a library anyways, so why not just write the code once and be done with it. Also, they get consistent behavior on all platforms rather than having to chase platform-specific API bugs.

Anyway, Mozilla keeps saying their reasons are ideological so I'm inclined to believe them. I would also buy the argument that it's attack surface reduction to support only a minimum number of possible codecs.

You're confusing the implementation with licensing issues surrounding the codec itself. MPEG-LA requires everyone to pay a licensing fee to distribute an H.264 decoder. (Not to be confused with their grant that allows you to freely distribute non-commercial content, which is probably something akin to paying to do something you could legally do for free.) Unless Mozilla pretty much buys an H.264 license for every Gecko-derived browser that will ever exist until the patents run out, it is impossible for them to have H.264 support in Firefox without violating US patent law. Either they'd have to buy every patent in the H.264 portfolio, or they'd need to relicense all the code in Firefox to a Chrome-like model where you'd have separate open and closed source release, which pretty much screws over Ice Weasel for H.264 support.

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[game kid]

I tried it again. (Windows 7 btw)

• IE9 preview: 1830 (color), 603 (hallucinogenic).
• Firefox nightly, zippy: 1774 (color), 599 (hallucinogenic).
• Firefox nightly, normal: 47 (color), DNF.

So IE9 was (very slightly) faster this time, actually.

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[Abcd1234]

First of all, they don't use DirectShow. They use Cairo with a Direct2D backend that can be used by any application that uses Cairo on Windows. On other platforms, you'd simply use a Cairo backend that utilizes a platform-specific API. Thus, this is an platform-specific optimization in the library, not the browser.

Let me introduce you to a magical technology called "gstreamer".

Re:GPU Graphics Acceleration

[Anonymous Coward]

If they use platform specific APIs to accelerate stuff, WHY THE HELL don't they use platform specific APIs for rendering video?

Because if those platform specific acceleration APIs don't exist, they can fall back to the regular path, and still provide consistency across platforms.

If platform specific APIs for video don't exist, they have nothing to fall back on, and a video which works on one configuration may not work elsewhere.

Re:Javascript is dead

[armanox]

Java and Javascript are related in name only. Whatever convoluted scheme Oracle comes up with for Java has no bearing on Javascript.

Do these guy get paid?

[Spy Handler]

"Mozilla's Chris Blizzard talks about...."

Do these guys get paid a salary? Or do they work for free?

Re:Do these guy get paid?

[cyfer2000]

I think he is a Red Hat employee. I am not sure now.

Re:Do these guy get paid?

[multipartmixed]

Christopher Blizzard is an Open Source Evangelist working for the Mozilla Corporation and a long-time contributor to Open Source projects, notably with Mozilla, Red Hat, and One Laptop Per Child.

whoop-de-doo

[PJ6]

Saying you're the fastest at running JavaScript is like celebrating that you came in 1st place in the Special Olympics. Sure you won, but you're still a retard. Using JavaScript and HTML for the UIs of real applications remains fundamentally flawed. It was never meant for what we're doing with it now. Millions of developer hours have been wasted in inefficiency and hair-pulling because we're still trying shove a square peg into a round hole. We need something better, and better is almost certainly not another weakly-typed, prototype-based scripting language. Seriously. Fuck JavaScript.

Re:whoop-de-doo

[PJ6]

My apologies for the rant, it's just really heartfelt. Business all shifted to the web years ago, and web app development still completely sucks compared to thick client development. All the problems that were already well solved-for in user interfaces, feature-wise and programming... web just threw those all right out the window for little reason other than momentum. And they will never return until we leave HTML and JavaScript behind.

Re:whoop-de-doo

[mini me]

Javascript is okay. Cappuccino has shown us you can have a full desktop-class GUI toolkit implemented in Javascript. The question to me is why does the browser not allow Javascript to access lower level system resources (such as drawing routines) so that one does not need to implement those systems on top of HTML and CSS? Granted, browsers should implement byte code interpreters, not just Javascript interpreters.

Re:whoop-de-doo

[multipartmixed]

> Saying you're the fastest at running JavaScript is like celebrating that you came in 1st place in the Special Olympics.

No, it's more like saying you came in first in one event in a triathlon.

Doesn't mean you won, doesn't even mean you finished mid-pack. But it does mean you're really good at at least one thing, meaning maybe you can concentrate a bit more on the others for the next event.

Re:whoop-de-doo

[mcgrew]

It was never meant for what we're doing with it now.

That's the old-school definition of "hacking", and it's what nerds DO. Hell, when I was in high school I'd hack cheap $10 transistor radios into guitar fuzzboxes and sell them to friends for $50, because real guitar fuzzboxes cost four times that much back then.

Millions of developer hours have been wasted in inefficiency and hair-pulling because we're still trying shove a square peg into a round hole.

Did you ever see Apollo 13? When disaster struck that planned moon landing, NASA engineers had to literally figure out a way of putting a square filter into a round hole. That's what nerds do! We take ordinary desktop computers and turn them into TIVOs, for another example.

Seriously. Fuck JavaScript.

I'm thinking about writing a javascript program that convert a BASIC program into javascript; years back I used a Clipper compiler to make a dBase interpreter, so I should be able to do it (if I find the time, lately I've been too busy drinking and chasing women to start any new nerdy projects).

Re:whoop-de-doo

[marsu_k]

Using JavaScript and HTML for the UIs of real applications remains fundamentally flawed.

Yeah, no one would seriously implement an application with the UI written with HTML, CSS and Javascript... like Firefox itself...

But in all seriousness, would you care to elaborate why Javascript (for the pedants out there, yes, I really mean ECMAScript) is so bad? I think in itself it's a fine language in itself, especially given its original purpose. Sure, it's dynamically and weakly typed, but as long as you're aware of it and its implications it's not really an issue. And being a prototype-based language is a plus in my opinion, class-based OOP wouldn't really offer any advantages in web programming, and you can emulate it if you're so inclined. Having first-class functions and closures is great, and makes up for many of the shortcomings IMHO.

No, the issues with Javascript aren't really issues of the language itself:

• Books/websites about it are in many cases outdated and/or simply wrong. As a simple example, quoting from here: If you assign values to variables that have not yet been declared, the variables will automatically be declared. (that is, omitting the var keyword) ...sure. Although you end up creating, or worse, overwriting, a global variable. But hey, same difference, right? If you really want to know the language, and not just learn some web 2.0 tricks du jour, get this book. You won't regret it.
• DOM implementations have some huge differencies. But DOM is not part of the ECMA spec, and I guess although MS has improved their CSS support, they don't want to make my job too easy. Although it's unlikely you'll notice the differences if you use one of the available frameworks (just do yourself a favor and don't use prototype.js).
• It can be used to do horrible things. And I'm not just talking about malware, Javascript is probably one of the most abused languages, in the sense what kind of websites have been created with it. Thankfully web developers seem lately to be getting the point that "even though you can, doesn't mean you should".

But again, none of those are issues with Javascript, the language, so I'd very much like for you to enlighten me.

Re:whoop-de-doo

[muridae]

It was never meant for what we're doing with it now.

That's the old-school definition of "hacking", and it's what nerds DO. Hell, when I was in high school I'd hack cheap $10 transistor radios into guitar fuzzboxes and sell them to friends for $50, because real guitar fuzzboxes cost four times that much back then.

They still do. Only now it's an arduino doing some lo-fi ADC number crunching to sound like a fuzz box. And a few extra dials for selecting different wave models.

Re:whoop-de-doo

[Anonymous Coward]

That's cool and all, but this isn't Apollo 13. This is writing a program in your comfortable house, with a nice paycheck on your door and a couple friends on IRC. You have libraries and libraries at your disposal, and you've shown you aren't afraid to use them. Just sit back and think.

Re:whoop-de-doo

[SanityInAnarchy]

why does the browser not allow Javascript to access lower level system resources (such as drawing routines)

HTML5 Canvas?

But there are decided advantages for not doing everything that way.

Years Behind

[Carebears]

Our work computers still use IE6, I however prefer Chrome. Cause I have to have my butterflies theme!

Re:Javascript is dead

[The MAZZTer]

Sun marketing is rumored to have been responsible for the similar names (they wanted JavaScript to leech off of Java's success) but they have nothing in common with each other.

SQLite database vacuum

[Sami Lehtinen]

It would be really nice if Firefox would learn to vacuum SQLite3 bases at times. I had huge databases full off junk. After manually vacuuming db size dropped over 90%. So there are many issues to fix.

Re:SQLite database vacuum

[emurphy42]

At least there's an addon for it.

Re:SQLite database vacuum

[Sami Lehtinen]

There are a few alternatives to yet another plugin:
1) You can use standalone SQLite3 installation to open bases and vacuum those.
2) Use Python script for vacuuming.
3) You can use Error Console with following string to vacuum bases:
Components.classes["@mozilla.org/browser/nav-history-service;1"].getService(Components.interfaces.nsPIPlacesDatabase).DBConnection.executeSimpleSQL("VACUUM");
I personally prefer last option, beacuse no additional software is required.

Re:SQLite database vacuum

[condition-label-red]

The Crap Cleaner app can vacuum Firefox SQLite databases during its cleanup phase. It also works on Chrome databases too. It also does lots of nice Windows cleanup tasks; makes a nice addition to your standard toolkit.

Re:SQLite database vacuum

[noesckey]

You can use SQLite Database Browser http://sourceforge.net/projects/sqlitebrowser/files/sqlitebrowser/1.3/sqlitebrowser-1.3-win.zip/download to compact sqlite databases.

Re:SQLite database vacuum

[jameson71]

Yeah, but it would be nice if a *web browser* didn't require DBA level maintenance to keep it working right.

Re:SQLite database vacuum

[aztracker1]

There's a few plugins that will do this for you, or remind you regularly to do so. You can also put it into a greasemonkey script. :)

Re:Javascript is dead

[Mr. Spontaneous]

How about ECMAScript? ;-)

So it will be able run Slashdot then?

[Anonymous Coward]

That will be impressive indeed.

Re:Javascript is dead

[Arancaytar]

or patent eclipsed ?

Man, don't get me started on Eclipse. :P

Um, I Think You Mean Videos in That Format

[eldavojohn]

Nowhere. But right now it's the most widely adopted and implemented (pretty much everyone but Firefox either does or is planning to support it).

Huh, that's really confusing. Because according to Wikipedia, Ogg Theora looks more supported in browsers than H.264. Perhaps you meant that there are more videos online in H.264 than Ogg Theora -- that goes without dispute.

On top of that, IE's H.264 is only implemented so far in a nightly build and not released.

But, come on, big players like Apple and Google have been pushing HTML 5 and if Ogg Theora gets accepted in the HTML 5 spec and H.264 doesn't ... well, guess how long people would use IE if it suddenly didn't work with YouTube and currently Firefox, Chrome and Opera do support Ogg Theora. You want to see people migrate from IE to Chrome? Put up a big tutorial to install and use Chrome right in the little YouTube window for every video that won't load because it's in Ogg Theora.

Someone's going to lose users and I don't think it'll be Google.

Re:Um, I Think You Mean Videos in That Format

[ThrowAwaySociety]

Nowhere. But right now it's the most widely adopted and implemented (pretty much everyone but Firefox either does or is planning to support it).

Huh, that's really confusing. Because according to Wikipedia, Ogg Theora looks more supported in browsers than H.264.

No, he means exactly what he said. Pretty much everyone but Firefox either does or is planning to support it.

Yes, there are lots of no-name browsers with zero user base that don't do h.264. But IE, Chrome, and Safari all do h.264. Which leaves Firefox and Opera as the WebM holdouts.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

Re:Um, I Think You Mean Videos in That Format

[Anonymous Coward]

... But IE, Chrome, and Safari all do h.264. Which leaves Firefox and Opera as the WebM holdouts.

Yeah. Good luck with that.

So you say IE, Chrome, and Safari all do h.264, and Firefox, Opera, Chrome and IE (if you install the codec) suports WebM and Ogg Theora?

Yeah. Good luck with that Safari....

so it supports html6 and css4?

[circletimessquare]

(i am joking)

Re:Javascript is dead

[AnonymousClown]

Oracle has destroyed reputation of any "Java" derived effort, also read Stallman's "The Javascript trap". Could we just move on to something better, more free and less trademark or patent eclipsed ?

It's worse than that - I'm so sick of Java this - Java that - that I've stopped drinking coffee! No more java for me!

Wait...

[CeruleanDragon]

Now Blizzard makes Firefox too? Geez, what can't they do??

Re:Wait...

[VGPowerlord]

Now Blizzard makes Firefox too? Geez, what can't they do??

Make StarCraft: Ghost apparently.

Re:Javascript is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes it does. Ever since Microsoft pissed off Sun, they lost their right to the Java trademark and have used "JScript" for the scripting language.

"Other browsers"

[Anonymous Coward]

He also promises that Firefox 4 will be 'one generation ahead' of other browsers in relation to Javascript speed.

He didn't say which other browsers, did he? If not, this statement is essentially meaningless; he can just as well claim later on that by "other browsers", he meant "Firefox 3", or even "Firefox 0.6", or "Netscape Navigator 3.0".

Zealotry Debate

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you call that when you give someone hard numbers and they still say you're wrong? Religion?

Re:Zealotry Debate

[elrous0]

What do you say to someone who thinks that any web technology not supported by IE is even remotely "mainstream"?

Re:Zealotry Debate

[Anonymous Coward]

Next time when you mean "implemented by IE", just say so. There's no need to use euphemisms that confuse normal people.

Good, but don't forget other browser parts

[amn108]

It's certainly nice they are improving the JavaScript engine code - it will lead to less CPU cycles spent on JS intensive pages (most of the stuff published today), but I feel there are other areas as well that should always stay a priority on par or above the JS engine code: startup time and removing cruft that slows this down, possibly having a lightweight firefox "starter" process, so that some important cache is always in memory (i know the OS caches a lot of stuff, but I can't help but notice the delay still). Some Gecko rendering tweaks would help too - I am sure there are lots of room for optimizations there. Anyway, the Firefox code is large enough to be worked on for loong time, making it better and better. I still applaud Mozilla for trying and delivering what we currently have.

"one generation ahead"

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep.
My father uses Firefox. I use Chrome.

Stop obsessing over JS performance

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it just me or does anyone really care if a browsers JS interpreter is a few percent better performing than another? I can understand the huge gaps with performance measured in hundreds of percentage points such as between IE8 and firefox but all of the nextgen browsers IE9 included are within a few percent of each other and frankly I don't care. Noone will notice the results of any further optimizations.

I have 8 GB of ram on my machine and I'm continually amused to see every web browser I have used push >2GB memory usage after only a few days usage. Certainly more people especailly those without several GB of system ram would care much much more about the memory footprint of the software than the JS interpreter.

Or heck even the performance of basic tasks like rendering a table. Why should it have to peg the CPU for what seems like an eternity just to show a simple html table with 50k rows?

Re:Stop obsessing over JS performance

[0123456]

I have 8 GB of ram on my machine and I'm continually amused to see every web browser I have used push >2GB memory usage after only a few days usage.

I don't know what you're doing, but Firefox has been running on my PC for several days and is using 260MB with 20-30 tabs open.

Re:Javascript is dead

[maxwell demon]

Why not just drink non-Java coffee?

javascript speed?

[hobo sapiens]

These guys are starting to sound like MSFT when they released IE7.

What's with the fight over javascript speed? It's as ludicruous as MSFT touting tabbed browsing on an aging and stodgy codebase. People aren't leaving for Chrome en masse due to javascript speed. How about making the browser move faster and use less memory? So long as I don't have to WAIT an appreciable length of time for javascript to run, I don't care if it takes 3 milliseconds or 3 picoseconds.

What do my old-as-dirt dell latitude running XP, my old dell running xubuntu, and my shiny new macbook have in common? Firefox is the slowest browser of Chrome, Safari, IE, and Opera in terms of opening up, opening tabs, rendering pages. In other words, Firefox is still the slowest browser in most things that matter and save for safari on the Mac, uses the most memory.

I hate to see this happen to firefox. It's like watching and old friend slowly grow insane.

Re:javascript speed?

[Tim C]

A lot of very popular websites make very heavy use of JavaScript, including most of Google's apps and Facebook. That is only going to increase.

People might not be leaving Firefox in droves for Chrome because of JS speed now, but it may well become an issue in the future.

Re:javascript speed?

[stoanhart]

Fast JavaScript is necessary to move the web forward to advanced, desktop-like web apps. Also, Firefox uses less memory than Chrome, due to Chrome's one process per tab model. The reason people go to Chrome, IMHO, is the minimal interface and fast JavaScript.

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Re:Javascript is dead

[Tim C]

No, that's because JScript is not JavaScript, not exactly. JavaScript is an implementation of ECMAScript, as is JScript.

"One generation ahead"

[gmuslera]

The end of the world is near. Repent, sinners!

I Think He Should Read....

[mlauzon]

I think Chris Blizzard should read the following article: http://digitizor.com/2010/08/12/how-much-faster-is-konqueror-with-webkit/ As WebKit is proving to be faster than Firefox, et al.

Now Modify Your Criteria to Win the Argument!

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you say to someone who thinks that any web technology not supported by IE is even remotely "mainstream"?

And where did you say "mainstream" in your post? You modify the criteria to fit your statement because your statement said "most widely adopted and implemented" not mainstream. Or do Chrome and Opera not exist? Is this really just a two browser discussion here like the US's political system?

Re:Now Modify Your Criteria to Win the Argument!

[elrous0]

If it's not supported by IE, there is no "most." End of story. You can pretend that all browsers are created equal if you like. But most of the rest of us have to live in the real world, where 70%+ of the eyes on a given website are going to be using IE.

Re:Now Modify Your Criteria to Win the Argument!

[Anonymous Coward]

But most of the rest of us have to live in the real world, where 70%+ of the eyes on a given website are going to be using IE.

So you'r living in the past?

Re: NotScripts?

[jginspace]

Nothing can touch add-ons like NoScript, AdBlock, etc. (and most of my add-ons and their associated functionality can't be found on Chrome, Opera, etc.).

Well, as far as I know NoScript hasn't found it's way into the gallery of Chrome's extensions yet ...

Don't know about any gallery*, but could I interest you in NotScripts? http://optimalcycling.com/other-projects/notscripts/ * There's a download link pointing to chrome.google.com/extensions/ there so I guess it must be sort of official ...

Re:Javascript is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong. It has nothing to do with the technical lineage. It was a trademark dispute over "Java".

Essentially every browser manufacturer is subject to the whims of Oracle unless they want to rebrand their scripting language. It would be nice if there was another name for javascript that was held in common and sounded sexier than "ECMAScript".

ff goes to 11

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbVKWCpNFhY

question...

[smash]

... is chris blizzard a KDE 4 dev by any chance??

Re: NotScripts?

[elrous0]

Tried it and it sucked. Real amateur hour stuff (should have been a tip off when it required a manual edit or one of its own installation files to work properly). I wish the real NoScript people would make an Chrome version.

Sooo... what about more important features....

[cjjjer]

He also promises that Firefox 4 will be 'one generation ahead' of other browsers in relation to JavaScript speed.

I would rather have 100% support of htmlX and cssX. than making js 2% faster. If you have that much js on your page where it affects the speed of rendering and or user UI experience rethink your web site design.

Re:Javascript is dead

[koiransuklaa]

Nothing to do with java really. Oracle/Sun simply owns the "javascript" trademark.

Re:Javascript is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

Sun is innocent on this one; it was Netscape's marketing.
(yes, JavaScript is as similar to Java as a watermelon is to a pi-meson)

Speed is irrelevant

[hcdejong]

IMO, multithreading (or any other method to isolate tabs from each other so the browser won't hang when one tab is busy) is a more urgent need than any speed increase.

They only need to do one thing to be one gen ahead

[microbee]

Rename Firefox to "Firefox NG".

As soon as they do that, they won't need to worry about crap like 'Chrome is version 7 already' any more.

I was *GOING* to post, "well, I run linux"...

[gosand]

But I went out and checked, and Chrome is now available for Linux. Sweet. Downloaded the 64-bit version and it is pretty fast.

I think I'll still keep FF as my default, but it's always good to have other browser options. (now I have Konq, Opera, and Chrome as 'backups')

Re:I was *GOING* to post, "well, I run linux"...

[Omestes]

Go for Chromium instead. It's Chrome, but missing the Google tracking and branding, but other than that it is just as functional as Chrome. Perhaps more so at time, since its a nightly.

If your using Ubuntu it's already in your repos.

Re:I was *GOING* to post, "well, I run linux"...

[gosand]

Great, thanks ! So much stuff in the repositories... not sure how I missed this. But it's now installed.

Thank you!

[Max_W]

I would like to thank Stuart Parmenter, director of Firefox development Mike Beltzner, manager of Firefox's front-end-features team Johnathan Nightingale and Firefox principal engineer Vladimir Vukievi. Here is the photo: http://www.webmonkey.com/2009/11/after_five_years_on_the_web__firefox_preps_for_the_next_round/

and certainly the Mozilla Foundation chairwoman, the great Mitchell Baker. Here is the photo: http://www.linux-magazine.com/Online/News/Firefox-and-Codecs-Face-of-Mozilla-at-Will-of-Community

A Russian poet Nikolay Nekrasov wrote about such people. Something like: "Mother Nature, if from time to time you have not sent such people to the world, the field of Life would be exhausted."

The new IE6

[Ant P.]

Being "one generation ahead" means nothing if your feature releases are 2 years apart while the competition pumps them out fortnightly.

Re:Javascript is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be nice if there was another name for javascript that was held in common and sounded sexier than "ECMAScript".

I say we go with an anagram.

How about SMECitcrAp?

Am I the only one?

[gilesjuk]

I can't be the only person who doesn't give a toss about Javascript speed.

I want less bloat and better security.

Re:Am I the only one?

[SanityInAnarchy]

Since Firefox and its addons are mostly written in Javascript, that should contribute to a faster browser. Depending on your definition of "bloat", it might qualify.

Re:Am I the only one?

[neminem]

It *would* contribute to a faster browser... if it weren't for the fact that it eats all your memory, and then craps itself when it doesn't have any memory left to eat, and runs like a snail. Seriously, I love Firefox, except that it just keeps getting worse and worse at garbage collection.

I'm getting *close* to giving up and using Chrome for everything except the couple places I really do need a working Greasemonkey. I'm not quite there, but it's close.

Re:Am I the only one?

[SanityInAnarchy]

if it weren't for the fact that it eats all your memory, and then craps itself when it doesn't have any memory left to eat, and runs like a snail. Seriously, I love Firefox, except that it just keeps getting worse and worse at garbage collection....

Which is, again, a property of the Javascript runtime.

Of course, it could be that there's crap coding going on elsewhere, but again, this is a speed boost for the entire browser.

I'd also ask what version you're running, but I don't really care, haven't really run Firefox seriously for awhile.

couple places I really do need a working Greasemonkey.

Are these places where Chrome's user script support doesn't work?

If so, have you tried Chrome's extension support? It took me about an afternoon from knowing nothing about Chrome extensions (but having a working knowledge of web development) to having a working adblocker.

Who cares ?

[obarthelemy]

When is the last time you even noticed javascript speed ? I don't, never have, probably never will.

There's a bunch of things I want from a browser, and a bunch of improvements I'd like. Speed isn't one of them, and it's kinda sad that, as always, the simplicity of a be-all end-all perf number overshadows everything else and dumbs down the debate. I would have hoped that Apple's success would have transferred over to Software in general, and open-source in particular: performance doesn't really count, features neither, what we want is the right features (not more of them), and above all, usability.

Get a clue, and stop wanking over numbers.

Read: we suck in JS, but we will get better.

[Nicolay77]

Really, even IE 9 is faster in JS than Firefox.

They HAVE to increase performance.

Currently the leaders are Opera and Chrome.

Memory is pissing its pants

[systematical]

When will mozilla fix the damn memory leaks? I'm now using Chrome exclusively for my web browsing. The only time I use firefox anymore is for web application development. However, even firebug has started to get worse and I'm eagerly waiting for Chrome to improve on their developer tools.

Speed vs usable

[jmorris42]

> The browser vendors' fetishistic obsession with Javascript speed is most irritating.

Amen. Don't know 'bout everyone else but I'm about to ditch FF as primary browser and it isn't because of speed. Just running into too many damned websites that FF won't work with. Used to be I'd just bitch and moan about web developers testing on IE and calling it done but I don't have IE (Fedora) and do have Konq and Chromium and when they can render the pages FF can't it tells me the problem is with FF.

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