Mozilla Developers Testing Mobile OS

MojoKid writes "Mozilla has been experimenting with an interesting idea called Boot 2 Gecko. Essentially, B2G (as it's called) is a mobile operating system based on the Web, as opposed to what the project's wiki calls 'proprietary, single-vendor stacks.' Mozilla has something here. Open Web technologies provide an intriguing platform for lots of things, mobile and otherwise. The B2G project is still pretty new, but according to the project roadmap, testing has already begun and will continue through the rest of 2011. Messaging, telephony, and battery management aspects of the OS are underway, and contacts, screen/power management, and settings are scheduled. A product demo is scheduled for sometime in the first quarter of 2012."

Comments

Memory footprint should be first priority

[Vandil X]

The more memory in use, the more energy Mobile devices burn. Mozilla's Firefox is a huge memory hog on personal computers. If they want a shot on the mobile market, they'll need to keep the memory footprint to a minimum.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[jlebar]

Right now, b2g uses considerably less memory than Android. The difference is about 200mb on the phone I tested on.

Of course, b2g doesn't currently do much, and our memory usage will probably increase as we add more features. But we're paying close attention.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[n4t3]

Firefox is slower than chrome, but generally uses less memory. There were a couple versions of FF that had a memory leak problm if I recall.
See http://www.dotnetperls.com/chrome-memory too

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[gman003]

Listen - I have to restart my browser about once a day, because it gradually loses performance until it runs worse (Firefox 7.0.1 on a C2D w/ 4GB of memory) than my old craptop's copy (Firefox 2 on an Athlon 900 w/ 512MB RAM). And that it takes about 2 minutes to restart Firefox when it gets like that.

That's pathetic. That's the kind of stuff I'd expect from Internet Explorer, not Firefox.

I don't know precisely if it's a memory leak, nor do I care. It could be some renderer bug, or some problem interfacing with the OS, or whatever. All I know is that Firefox has severe performance degradation issues, and that the only reason I haven't switched to Chrome permanently is Live Bookmarks (I was primarily Chrome user for all of FF3, using Firefox only to check webcomics once a day).

Memory usage itself isn't necessarily the problem - I'm using half a gig right now, and I've got another two gigs free. But whatever the problem is, it acts a lot like a memory leak, so most people are going to just assume that's it.

I don't care if it uses a LOT of memory, as long as it uses it well. I don't expect to be able to alt-tab between Firefox, Crysis and Blender without delay. I do, however, expect Firefox to run properly when all the machine is running is Firefox, Notepad++ and MPC.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[brentrad]

I beg to differ - my original Motorola Droid with 256 MB RAM runs like ass with 2.2 Froyo. It can take 20 seconds to re-draw my home screen after running even a semi-large app, and sometimes it just gets so unresponsive I can't do anything on it.

It just doesn't have enough free RAM to run very fast with newer versions of Android. When it's really lagging, I run a task killer and free up a bit of RAM, and it runs much better - but not what you could call fast at all.

It ran much faster with 2.1, but I do love all the new features 2.2 came with so I grin and bear it for now until I can get a new phone.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[flimflammer]

Just because "most people" don't see it, does not mean it's FUD. We don't know how many people actually see it. 51% not seeing it could be considered "most people". Not that I'm suggesting it's anywhere near that bad, but I'm also not pretending that the problem isn't there.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[Shoe Puppet]

Firefox uses about as much as Chrome or any other browser

That doesn't mean it's not a memory hog.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[corychristison]

I have never, ever seen Firefox consume more than 300MB of RAM on any machine I've ever used it on. My workstation has 6GB RAM, AMD Athlon X2 5200+. On a regular basis I have upto 3-4 Windows with upto 2-10 tabs open at any given time.

Every system is different, there are too many factors to try to figure out what is causing the problem. You're talking about a piece of software that runs on virtually any x86-based machine, as well as few other architectures. Not to mention most operating systems, Win/Mac/Linux/BSD and a few others.. there are bound to be configurations that cause issues... as with any piece of software.

GP is right though, submit some information to the bug tracker. Complaining on slashdot is not going to get you anywhere.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[gman003]

OK, then, how about this:

Configuration:
Firefox 7.0.1 (fully up-to-date)

Hardware:
Core 2 Duo, 2.26gHz
GeForce 9600
4GB memory

OS:
Windows 6.0.6002, exhibits absolutely no problems with any other programs (ie. even if it's a problem with Windows, it's one that every single other developer has worked around).

Only plugin is:
Shockwave Flash (10.3.183.10)

Addons:
AdBlock Plus
Colorzilla
DownloadHelper
DownloadThemAll
Greasemonkey
Menu Editor (small thing that lets you remove useless context menu items like "set as background image")
Restart Firefox (adds a button to restart the browser)
SkipScreen
TinEye Reverse Image Search
User Agent Switcher

Oh, and I usually have 1-4 tabs open. Sometimes 30 or so, mainly images. I don't think I've ever had 200 tabs open.

And in case you didn't notice, I didn't complain about the memory. It's using half a gig, and I wouldn't mind at all if it used four times as much, as long as it actually put the memory to good use.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[SquareVoid]

I took it when I replied. And so what if it was 50 pictures of Pamela Anderson? It appears that is a non-fringe use case for which Firefox hogs up a lot of memory instead of just caching it to my HDD.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[jlebar]

We'd love it if you filed a bug on this issue. A slashdot thread isn't the ideal place to try and figure this out.

http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ Please cc ":jlebar" on the bug you file and I'll follow up.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[Lennie]

I did a test a short while ago.

Just open the browser, disable anything that could run automatically (no updates, a fresh profile, no addons and no extensions) and only have one page open and occasionally refresh it: about:memory

I had it setup like that for a few days.

The results:

- Firefox 7 leaks a lot less than older version
- Firefox 8 beta leaks even less.

So, they are working on it and I think they've almost cracked it.

Luckily with the fast release cycle we might even get it soon. ;-)

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[versificator]

in all fairness, your lag is likely due to MotoBlur, and nothing inherently to do with Android itself.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[syousef]

The more memory in use, the more energy Mobile devices burn. Mozilla's Firefox is a huge memory hog on personal computers. If they want a shot on the mobile market, they'll need to keep the memory footprint to a minimum.

This is true, despite what the naysayers try to argue, and truer still if you use addons BUT that isn't why I don't care about Mozilla Firefox on mobile. The real reason is that after all the changes forced on to me on the PC, the recent version and update extension hell, and the arrogance displayed by the developers I would rather poke my eye out than rely on another piece of gear from Mozilla. There is no hope memory leaks and the like will be fixed when the attitude is to deny and force "improvements" on the user. I use to be a fan but now I only begrudgingly use Firefox for the extensions....and I hope something better comes along soon.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[brentrad]

The original Motorola Droid doesn't have Motoblur, it's vanilla Android.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[hairyfeet]

Just so you know you aren't alone and so someone doesn't say its a Win 7 issue, i've run into the same thing on XP Home SP3, Sempron 1.8Ghz, 1.5Gb of RAM, and I have even replaced the Windows shell with AstonShell. my addons are only flash, adblock plus, downloadhelper, and forecast fox, the same add ons I have in Dragon with the exception of downloadhelper. I have seen the same behavior on a customers Win2K pro machine, 2Ghz P4 with 2gb of RAM, and a customers Vista SP2 with an Athlon 7550 dual with 2gb of RAM.

In all of the cases including my XP sempron if left alone with NO activity FF will eventually make the entire machine unresponsive. Not a programmer so don't ask me why, I'm just telling what i saw with my own peepers. The same machines with Dragon, Chrome, or Opera? NO problems. In fact the gal with Vista switched to Opera full time and hasn't had a single issue with performance or the machine lagging since. Most of my other customers have either joined me in using Dragon or switched to Chrome, and these folks aren't the type to switch on a whim, it has to be REALLY slowing them down or causing them problems for them to switch. I only have a single customer that hasn't given me a single complaint since FF started spinning up in numbers and that is a guy on a tri-core AMD with 8Gb of RAM and Win 7 X64. Maybe FF can't see the third core and therefor doesn't slam it?

All I know was I was a die HARD Mozilla fan and didn't think anybody would get me to switch ever. I was using FF before it was even called that and the suite before that. But since FF 4 I've seen the performance and responsiveness of FF go right in the shitter, it got bad enough that I started trying other browsers just to see if it WAS an OS issue and found it was FF giving me the trouble. i have the same extensions in Dragon, no hangs or CPU slams.

But by FF 6 it got so bad on both my Sempron and my netbook that I went out and bought a third party video download program just so I wouldn't need FF for downloading videos anymore. After that I removed ALL extensions but frankly i couldn't see that it helped, in fact removing ABP made it that much slower since it now had to load ads.

This isn't some "yay chrome, boo FF" thing I still miss Moz sometimes, enough I downloaded Pale Moon hoping they may have been able to fix the problems in FF. It helped a little but sadly not enough. i truly hope they fix FF, I really do, as I do miss it sometimes. But ATM on anything short of my quad it just sucks too much CPU, is too slow to load pages, seems to become unresponsive WAY too easily, I don't know what they did but its a real shame as it just killed any love I had for FF as a day to day browser. I still keep it installed and updated though, and with each new version I fire it up and try it for an hour hoping its gotten better, but it just ain't.

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[bemymonkey]

Unfortunately, Motorola's ineptitude isn't limited to Motoblur. Their stock ROMs on the Droid/Milestone were similarly slow-as-molasses... other devices with slower processors and less RAM are snappier than my old stock Milestone :(

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[DuckDodgers]

Tom's Hardware latest web browser Grand Prix says Firefox 7 now has lower memory use than the competing browsers, so unless you have your own documentation to dispute theirs, I think you're incorrect. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/firefox-7-web-browser,3037.html

Re:Memory footprint should be first priority

[DuckDodgers]

I'm not affiliated with Mozilla in any way, but I'll take a stab at your "why" question. First, Boot2Gecko is aimed at any mobile device but specifically includes phones. That drops ChromeOS and Windows 8 from the list of competitors since as yet they do not plan to support mobile phones. Second, the Mozilla Foundation was founded for the purpose of public benefit through promoting the use of open source software. Out of of Android, iOS, Windows Phone, Rim, and WebOS, only Android is open source. So that narrows the field of competition down to one other project, Android. Maybe RIM or WebOS will become open source, but you can't bank on that.

On top of that Android is under attack for patent violations and lawsuits for improper use of code that is owned by Oracle. Because of lawsuits and out-of-court settlements, Android handset and device manufacturers are paying no licensing fees per unit to Google but undisclosed amounts to Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle. A mobile operating system that is fully open source and uses only open web standards is free as in free speech (just like Android) but also, as far as I can tell, more likely to be totally free for companies to use (no license fees, so free as in free beer too). And even if the Android lawsuits all get handled in Google's favor and the licensing fees go away, competition is good for everyone.

I think Boot2Gecko has a hell of an uphill fight, but it's a very worthwhile project.

Well now

[Anonymous Coward]

Glad to see the Mozilla developers are working on something that's REALLY important, rather than trifling things such as memory footprint and MSI installers.

Re:Well now

[BZ]

Except they _are_ working on memory footprint.

As for MSI installers, those may be important for _Firefox_. Whether they're more important for the _Web_ than having an alternative to locked-down app stacks is a good question.

Recall that Mozilla's mission is "choice and innovation on the web", not "build a web browser".

Yet another version ticker....

[unixisc]

So one more player in the market - iOS, Android, WebOS, Windows 8,,,? Can they whip out a new rev every month, so that by Christmas next year, we'll be on version 12?

Re:WebOS All Over Again?

[rtfa-troll]

What advantages does this have over WebOS?

How about a) properly open source so it's likely to survive and b) hasn't just been cancelled?

What advantages does it have over running Android with FireFox mobile as the default browser?

How about a) controlled by an organisation which has a history of developing in the open and b) doesn't require all software to be written in Java?

Re:Versions

[Hentes]

The more versions out, the more difficult it becomes to build an app that works on every single one.

Re:Web OS Returns - all new and improved!

[migla]

I don't think the point is that it's a novel idea. The point is that mozilla is in it for your freedom. And while webos didn't slaghter the marketplace, it's not like everyone else is saying this web thing is not the shit. They're all saying it's the shit, aren't they.

Hence we might need for there to be a b2g, lest control of the information and communication technology is yoinked away fro us.

Oh Look!!! A Bandwagon!!!

[Colin Smith]

Must get on!