Firefox 9 Released, JavaScript Performance Greatly Improved

MrSeb writes "Firefox 9 is now available — but unlike its previous rapid release forebears where not a lot changed, a huge feature has landed with the new version: the JavaScript engine now has type inference enabled. This simple switch has resulted in a 20-30% JS execution speed increase (PDF), putting JaegerMonkey back in line with Chrome's V8 engine, and even pulling ahead in some cases. If you switched away from Firefox to IE or Chrome for improved JS performance, now is probably the time to give Firefox another shot."

Comments

Re:Memory leaks?

[Lennie]

Actually the last 3 releases all had some improvements in the memory department (I think 8 had the most improvements) and it looks to me like, there is more to come.

Re:Just because of speed?

[Lennie]

Actually 3.6 currently still gets security updates, but don't count on that remaining true for long.

Beta?

[Pierre]

Looks like its actually just a Beta for Firefox 9?

"firefox 9 released" No it isn't

[Ginger Unicorn]

Firefox > help > about> "firefox 8.0 checking for updates... firefox is up to date"

www.getfirefox.com

good news your firefox is up to date

tfa

Firefox Beta Release Notes

Re:"firefox 9 released" No it isn't

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, switch channels or wait 24 hours. Also,quit acting like a spoiled bitch.

Re:"firefox 9 released" No it isn't

[ojintoad]

Parent is almost exactly right.

When you have the headline "Firefox 9 Released" it is implied that the release is official and current. You expect that if you try to update your software through the normal update process, it will work. So they are right to expect the update to work.

The fact is that Firefox is getting released today and yesterday was an unofficial release, and as of me trying at 8:25AM Eastern Time is not available through normal update channels (i.e. help > about). The linked Extremetech article was in fact titled Firefox 9 unofficially released and states:

Ahead of an official release tomorrow, Firefox 9 has winged its way to various mirrors across the web and is now available to download from the official Firefox website — no messing around with a hammered Nightly FTP server this time, oh no!

The fact that the summary writer neglected the word "unofficial" or this very important detail that it is rolling out isn't the fault of anyone reading the article and speaks to the grand tradition of poor summary writing that Slashdot readers have grown to love/hate.

Re:Memory leaks?

[Dagger2]

This particular behaviour at least is configurable: set image.mem.discardable to false. (Or, if you decide you prefer a trade-off, lengthen image.mem.min_discard_timeout_ms.)

Re:Firefox - Too little, too late

[Lennie]

Most people which install Chrome just install it because Google is a known brandname to them. And Google pretty much is the Internet to them, so they might as well install the Google sanctioned browser.

Re:Memory leaks?

[revealingheart]

That's because of the memshrink project (earlier report on /.). You can read a weekly status report on Nicholas Nethercote's blog.

Another project that's recently started is called 'Snappy', which aims to increase the responsiveness of users' interactions with Firefox. There's a thread on Mozillazine tracking updates on Snappy.

Re:Firefox - Too little, too late

[cbhacking]

Yep. IE9 with the tracking protection / privacy filter lists from AdBlockPlus, and it works nearly as well as on Firefox (a little harder to configure, though still easy to turn on or off for a given site).

The fact that people are willing to put up with severely ad-laden sites always amazes me.

Re:Firefox - Too little, too late

[FooBarWidget]

I agree that Chrome is more responsive that Firefox. (Note that I didn't say "faster"...) But to say that it uses less resources is bollocks. Chrome consumes vastly more memory than Firefox and I have less than 10 tabs open. Go ahead, browse for a day and measure it; the total memory usage of Chrome tops Firefox by quite a bit. The UI responsiveness is the only reason why I use Chrome over Firefox.

Re:Firefox - Too little, too late

[Skuto]

I don't use windows so it probably isn't available to me

I don't get what you mean here. Firefox is most certainly not a "Windows-only" product.

but Nightly is broken

It breaks often. That's why there's an Aurora and Beta in between before you even get to a release.

Re:Firefox - Too little, too late

[TrekkieGod]

Sure, then leave it open overnight. Firefox leaks like a sieve.

I never close firefox on my living room computer. It's been up for two weeks since I last did a reboot, and it's currently using up 256.6 mb of RAM. Doesn't seem like it's leaking.

I am seeing that it spawned 26 threads, which looks excessive. I assume it's a thread pool for when they actually need it, and that they're not really active right now.