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Mozilla Unleashes JaegerMonkey Enabled Firefox 4
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla has published the first Firefox 4 build that integrates a new JavaScript engine that aims to match the performance in IE9 and reduces the gap to Safari, Opera and Chrome. This is really the big news we have been waiting for all along with Firefox 4 and it appears that the JavaScript performance is pretty dramatic and seems to beat IE9 at least as far as ConceivablyTech shows. Good to see Mozilla back in the game." The Mozilla blog gives a good overview of the improvements this brings; Tom's Hardware also covers the release.
What I want most in my browser's javascript engine is the ability to block ads, popups, and to prevent outbound connections to domains other than the one I initially visited. The ability to shut javascript off altogether is also nice.
I would rather they focus on making things other than JavaShit faster, i try to leave it switched off when I can. I don't use Slashdot 2.0 or Web 2.0 apps so JavaShit speed is pretty much irrelevant to me.
anyone else not really care about Java performance? it works for me, thats all I care about. Until the other browsers have adblock and Noscript they are all dead to me.
So, they introduce a faster Javascript engine. Good for them; they've got a working prototype/alpha of 1/4th of the necessary features to catch up with everyone else, at this point:
* multiprocess functionality
* security mechanisms resulting from said multiprocess functionality
* better thread/tab/etc. management
At this point, the only thing Firefox has going for it is adblock and the huge extension repository. Even then, its debatable: Chrome, for instance, seems to implement most of the extensions I used natively, and does it better than Firefox extensions did, to boot. (Most of which were only necessary to make up for FF shortcomings, like crashing.)
Honestly, the very first thing FF should be working on is multiprocess shit. It's big, bloated, and at this point, somewhat archaic in architecture - the code base is over 12 years old, isn't it?
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
They have a new engine, which hasn't been released yet, which still won't make them as fast as Safari or Opera, and we're supposed to be wowed by this?
How about they make a browser that doesn't crash daily and consume 2GB of memory after 12 hours? Then, I'll be wowed.
"You'll now have good old classic /., the way God intended."
Impossible since /. sold out repeatedly over the years.
Sorry, on the real good old classic /., there was no moderation, we could post regularly and have in-depth discussions, and I sure as hell didn't have to log in to set stupid preferences in order to view all the comments easily. Despite the rampant spam, you could read all sorts of interesting things, and people of all age groups and backgrounds participated with ease, even the spammers (which were easy to ignore).
Then /. capitulated, and kept up fixing their messes caused by them tripping over themselves. Yes, I'm one of those holdouts without an account despite reading this site since 1997. I can post, but half the time, I have to wait 30 minutes or into the next day because of the 3 post limit or whatever it is now. I find the moderation system insanely stupid, and made worse by the bad scripting, and the horrid nesting, esp. those articles with lots of comments since the next pages reiterates the nesting from the prior page, which is insane.
Yeah, I did build a little scraper to organize posts, then I gave up, since the current /. system punishes good posts anyways that are late. Or if you read /. a couple of days left and want to point out nice little resources on some of the stories (due to the posting limitation, which never existed). Anyways, nearly all those people have left the site, and there is a clear lack of depth of information, which made the point of the scraper useless (grab, download, organize by post or thread). Most threads turn into little fests of argument and counterpoints, versus actual discussions of the past.
Anyways, I've disgressed into a rant. My point is that there is no way to return the current /. back to the old classic /. Unless you meant only for account holders. And even then, well, there were many ACs that didn't have accounts but still had very cool information to share. Those days are gone.
Try defragging your hard drive. Browser cache by its very design, seeks to fragment the crap out of your filesystem.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!