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Firefox Takes the Performance Crown From Chrome
diegocg writes "Recent browser benchmarks are showing surprising results: in 'a geometric mean of all four performance-based categories: Wait Times, JavaScript/DOM, HTML5/CSS3, and Hardware Acceleration,' Firefox 22 'pulls off an upset, replacing the long-time performance champion Google Chrome 27 as the new speed king.' (Other browsers benchmarked were IE10, Opera 12, and Opera Next.) With these results, and Firefox developers focusing in fixing the UI sluggishness, can this be the start of a Firefox comeback, after years of slow market share decline?"
Geometric mean? Colour me cynical but that sounds to me like "we lost under the arithmetic mean, so we selected a mean under which we won".
What is the mathematical justification for using the geometric mean?
Real adblock that stops unnecessary downloads makes more performance difference at this point, than any sort of rendering engine chances. It has the nice side effect of limiting how much tracking of you goes on too.
Firefox 21, at least, is one of the worst browsers I have ever used in terms of performance. It's basically unusable. IE 6 is better than Firefox 21.
I don't get the love for Chrome among geeks. Why would anyone willingly use a browser funded by a search giant who makes money off of scouring your privacy and already has a history of handing things over to the NSA?
Personally I like the direction Mozilla takes the product and dislike Google's, but it still won't change the fact that Mozilla managed to turn users away with their constant UI changes, sluggish performance on low end machines, and the memory leaks that were kept unchecked far too long. Nowadays the memory leaks are back to normal thanks to MemShrink, but I think Mozilla lost market share it might not gain back for a long time.
Neat test but I think the summary could at least clarify that the test system is Windows 8 64 Bit. It doesn't really mean a whole lot to me when I'm running a 64 bit distribution of GNU/Linux. Also the tests are selected by Tom's Hardware as a suite ... some of these tests are fairly meaningless to me and I feel like something like cold start time should be more heavily weighted than, say, hardware acceleration performance. The wait time on start up affects everyone and is unavoidable where hardware acceleration is nice but also not something I focus on. Also, why is a topic like "security" included in a "performance" test? I think standards compliance and security should be separated out to their own scores.
Is anyone reading this actually using Windows 8?
My work here is dung.
I don't care how "fast" it is. Flash crashes more in Firefox than any other browser (on my PC at least).
And I'll stop using Flash when websites stop requiring it to use them.
I use it because it respects my privacy and freedom, not that i ever complained about firefox being slow, but speed was never the main factor of my decision to use firefox instead of chrome.
The browser you use doesn't matter from the snooping end of things. If you think your safe from the eyes of big brother with any traditional security measure out there then you're a fool. The only thing normal security is going to save you from is third rate credit card frauds.
using 5gb of ram just so wait times are short is not acceptable!
I regularly see my Firefox cracking a gig of memory. Then after a few days use it often starts getting weird. Then when I try to quit it the damn thing won't go away so I have to do a "Force Quit". I primarily keep using it because firebug is so good.
They like it for the same reason non-geeks do: it is very fast and stable, and it doesn't seem to leak memory like Firefox.
That said, I abandoned it because they got rid of their support for vertical tabs.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I cut back on Firefox because it froze up on me too many times on sites with Flash - even with Flashblock enabled and all software updated. I do most of my surfing on Chrome now.
However, the reason why I typically run three browsers at a time at work is this: one for my corporate ID (IE), one for web surfing and personal sites (Chrome), and one for my alternate IDs (Firefox). I know Google Chrome is capable of split personalities (i.e. Incognito mode); if there was one feature that would get me to consolidate to a single browser it would be the ability to run multiple instances as different personalities at the same time.
Did anyone notice that Chrome has never been able to draw webpages correctly or basically use flash at all and the latest version of Firefox has had unusual stalling problems while loading quite a few pages? Like newegg for example. Maybe they should stop making "improvements" that cause it to become massively unstable. I do need to actually see the website I'm going it.
god-fucking-dammit how many freaking times do we have to tell you that firefox is not disabling that option, its simply hiding it from the options menu. You can still disable javascript through the about:config menu (javascript.enable) and addons like noscript.
Makes the browser just about unusable on older (but not that old) AMD/ATI hardware. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=812695
On all my systems I start the system when I boot up and it stays running pretty much indefinitely. When I am done with the system for the day I just hibernate the system. I just care how well the browser works over time and that it doesn't go nuts memory wise. Since my laptop has 16GB of ram I worry very little about the browser.
I do like hardware acceleration a lot though. What I find is that it translates to better battery usage and the system runs faster while also running longer.
Overall I care about performance, standard compliance, security, responsiveness, and to some extent memory usage. At this point though it doesn't really matter if you choose Firefox or Chrome.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
so firefox willl seize up faster? most people don't choose a browser by performance metrics (though doubtless some weirdos here will pipe up). The reality is that IE has 40% of market share, Chrome 30%, Firefox 20% and falling, Opera 10% and Safari 8%. the rest don't even matter
Interestingly, some of their "geometric means" are completely worthless. See http://media.bestofmicro.com/L/A/390862/original/RIAJS.png
It's averaging a combination of millisecond ( lower is better ) and FPS ( higher is better ) tests...
Firefox has addons, several of which will let you disable js if that is your thing. NoScript is a popular one.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Is anyone reading this actually using Windows 8?
Probably but maybe not. Asking for the opinions of Slashdot users like it's a fair comparison to the internet-at-large is pretty skewed, IMHO. In the wild more people are using Win8 on the desktop than Linux. Nearly as many as use OSX and that will probably fall in the next 6 months or so (I say this as a happy OSX user).
Like it or not Win8.1 will likely become a lion in the market once XP loses support. It may not take off as fast as Win7 did but it'll get enough marketshare that anyone producing Windows software for the masses will have to pay attention. Tell us about what Linux and OSX benchmarks say all you want but they're not going to hold Windows 8 numbers, even combined, in the next year or so.
First have Firefox open up 20 tabs
Then close them
Then run the test. It will bog down like a champ.
I cut back on Firefox because it froze up on me too many times on sites with Flash - even with Flashblock enabled and all software updated. I do most of my surfing on Chrome now.
However, the reason why I typically run three browsers at a time at work is this: one for my corporate ID (IE), one for web surfing and personal sites (Chrome), and one for my alternate IDs (Firefox). I know Google Chrome is capable of split personalities (i.e. Incognito mode); if there was one feature that would get me to consolidate to a single browser it would be the ability to run multiple instances as different personalities at the same time.
Chrome supports multiple "users". Each has their own set of cookies, bookmarks, sync settings, etc. I use it all the time to split my browsing between work and home.
There's nothing stopping you from sticking with Firefox 22. While later versions will have more support for more modern standards, if you're not going to run Javascript then it's not going to matter a whole lot what the new standards are.
In the meantime, understand too that while Firefox 23+ may not provide a UI to disable JS across the browser, it is still a low-level setting for now in about:config, and Firefox continues to be the only browser that supports extensions - meaning that options like YesScript, NoScript, and to a lesser extent Ad-block+ will always be available to provide the functionality you're after.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Chrome supports multiple "users". Each has their own set of cookies, bookmarks, sync settings, etc. I use it all the time to split my browsing between work and home.
That's what using the config option in the "about:config" is able to do. Or, you know, if you're going to do this properly rather than going and fiddling with the settings each time before you visit a page, using NoScript.
TLS 1.1 support that isn't wrapped up in Internet Explorer for one and the DEV versions now have support for TLS 1.2. Firefox needs to get with the program (Firefox 23 will have TLS 1.1 support)
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Start up speed? It seems to be fast enough on any browser with a laptop from 2009, so I don't see it as relevant thing to measure. Or how many times per week do you restart a browser?
Start up speed? It seems to be fast enough on any browser with a laptop from 2009, so I don't see it as relevant thing to measure. Or how many times per week do you restart a browser?
You never use a browser on your phone?
It doesn't matter that much if one is slightly faster in Javascript or rendering when Firefox will halt up for 5-10 seconds rendering a new tab. Maybe it's faster than Chrome, but if I have to wait for it, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how much Firefox devs work on "UI sluggishness" if it's a single thing can lock up all input to the browser.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
It's not perfect but Multifox provides the ability to use seperate environments within Firefox. As an alternative you can manually create launchers for Firefox with the -P flag.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
I still use FireFox as my browser but I agree, in the last two or three versions I've seen FireFox crashing and restarting much more than it ever did before and in the last six months it seems to me that FireFox is not as responsive as it once was.
Also I've seen at least once a day (most of the time 3 or more times) "the flash plugin has crashed" or "the flash plugin has stopped responding" and I have to click "Stop plugin" to continue. I'm not saying this is a FireFox problem as it could be a Flash plugin problem or a problem between Flash and the page I've looking at but all in all these problems just add up to an annoying user experience.
Hardware acceleration gives you nice smooth scrolling. It is also vital for Firefox because they changed the way images are decoded in a misguided attempt to reduce memory consumption. Instead of decoding images are as they are loaded they are now decoded as they are displayed, so unless you have top-notch hardware with full acceleration scrolling judders like mad on pages with medium sizes images.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
I have a quad core intel processor, 16 gigs of ram, a 2 gig video card, 50 megabit internet, and I can't even load slashdot without watching the page render before my eyes. Firefox is a piece of shit anymore.
You can already create multiple user profiles in Chrome. Each user has their own cookie space. You can run these side by side in different windows. I do the following: one for work credentials, one for personal credentials, and one for test credentials. Here's a link with instructions:
https://support.google.com/chrome/answer/2364824?hl=en
>> Chrome supports multiple "users".
The "switch to different user" isn't quite what I'm looking for. I want something that allows me to be signed on to Gmail and other services as three different users (day job, personal, side business, etc.) at the same time.
> "Recent BIASED browser benchmarks are showing surprising results"
Why was Safari left out ? This is Slashdot - we don't care about Windows-only tests.
Do the whole tests on all available browsers on Windows, OS X and Linux on the same hardware and only then would a story be slashdot-worthy.
1% APY, No fees, Online Bank https://captl1.co/2uIErYq Don't let your $$$ sit in a no-interest acct.
As always, you can disable it yourself within about:config. Or use an extension like NoScript, etc to disable it per-site. You likely knew this and were trolling as most folks who are whining about this setting change are. Mozilla is removing the disable JavaScript box from Options as a browser without JS turned on is pretty useless today. A ton of sites won't work right. Most web developers don't even bother to check for JS being disabled anymore, nor should they as JS exists everywhere and in every modern phone browser, too. And the 2m people running NoScript no enough to enable JS when a website doesn't work.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
That is the ENTIRE POINT of a geometric mean. Before you complain, try having some idea of what you are complaining about.
The Fx on my system has serious issues with start up time. I'm not sure what the problem is exactly, but it's gotten quite bad lately. I suspect that it has something to do with the large number of bookmarks I have as I don't have very many extensions installed and I'm carrying over bookmarks from years ago because I haven't bothered to go in and clean house.
The test with the biggest difference was memory usage, with Firefox using half the memory of Chrome. This matches comparisons I have done. If you ever have to use an older computer with 2GB of RAM Chrome is pretty much unusable while Firefox works fine. I have an SSD so I turned off virtual memory. With 8GB of RAM I would have to close Chrome if I want to play a game but have no problems with Firefox.
How many people used the "disable javascript" option? NoScript is so superior that most people that would use disable javascript have or should have switched to NoScript. An option that nobody uses or nobody should use is the very definition of an option that should be removed.
Unless it's using some windows 8 specific hook I don't think the performance is going to be much different than windows 7 64bit. (I don't think It's a "Metro" app)
I think windows 8 may have some improved tuning/fetching/caching/filesystem improvements specific to SSDs, so I guess that may improve performance on certain systems. (Particularly the cold start metric)
I agree, though, that testing on a lot of platforms would be nice. Everything from XP to win8.1 preview, plus a handful of the more popular distros.. Does anyone use anything other than safari on macos?
I find way more useful extensions in the Chrome web store than I do in the Firefox store nowadays. In fact, Chrome's addons are what keep me tied to the browser.
GNU/Linux
lol virgin
Just set gfx.direct2d.disabled=true and the problem is solved. That's what the fix for the bug is anyway (they'll do it automatically with a hardware blacklist). It isn't like Mozilla can force AMD to fix their broken, abandoned drivers.
Portable versions of Firefox, GIMP, LibreOffice, etc
Firefox may support a more robust extension model than other browsers, but it certainly isn't the only browser that supports extensions.
I use 8, and the only problem I've had with it is hybernation crashes. There's no noticeable difference between firefox and chrome; That said, chrome is a mem hog that simply spawns processes that eat up memory for the sake of a slightly faster execution. I'd take the few milliseconds hit from not having a crazy cache if it meant getting some resources back so that my computer isn't loading things in and out of main memory all of the time.
With these results, and Firefox developers focusing in fixing the UI sluggishness, can this be the start of a Firefox comeback, after years of slow market share decline?"
I see these sorts of "performance" comparisons all the time. As I type this I have both Chrome and Firefox open and in use and honestly I cannot see any meaningful difference in speed between them. I'm sure some benchmark suite could find a difference but in day to day usage it simply does not matter which I choose. Any difference in speed on my computers is basically insignificant.
I have had problems with Chrome's printing being flakey but it's not a speed issue.
I've been using Chrome for a couple of years now after being a Firefox user for several years. I may decide to go back to Firefox in the next several months since Firefox has agreed to render properly on high DPI screens on Windows 8.1 while the Chrome dev team has idiotically refused to handle scaling properly on Windows 8.1. So Chrome will look jagged and poor while Firefox and IE 11 will look very nice. Firefox my end up being my go to browser again.
Even Konqueror supports extensions.
There aren't any, but if there were it would support them.
How long ago was that change? I'm wondering if that might not be the cause of the clunkiness I've been seeing for a little while.
.
At this point, if you are deciding upon which browser to use, perhaps the browser with the marginally highest performance benchmark numbers may not be the browser for you. Here is a difference that matters more to me: when I change the http proxy settings in Firefox, only Firefox is affected. However, when i change the http proxy settings in Chrome, the proxy settings for Windows are changed, meaning that other applications are affected. For this reason I use Firefox instead of Chrome, even though Firefox is a lot slower on a web page I frequent a lot.
Uh, that's exactly what chromes profiles do. I've got 2 different chrome windows right now, both logged into their own gmail accounts. Now, if you want them in the same window, that's not possible. The only way to do that is with gmail's "switch user" feature, but that's gmail specific, and doesn't isolate all of your data (cookies, history, etc) the way chrome profiles do.
Maybe it's that javascript engines don't matter as much anymore? Chrome loads pages and responds so much faster than Firefox. I would like to use Firefox, but it's a dramatic difference in performance between the two browser. Can anyone explain why?
Only the worst of Java-script heavy pages slow down on modern hardware with any of the browsers. 99.999% of the time the "slow" is because of AJAX queries to an unresponsive website, and there is bugger all the browser can do about that.
I tweak code performance beyond reasonableness, too. It's a "hacker thing." But it's not something the user can really see or notice once the first rounds of tuning are done, though. But there's an ego involved in producing the best and fastest code possible, even if no one else can tell the difference without a nanosecond stopwatch.
I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
Why does it take 2 seconds to actually launch Firefox with a blank page on a fast Samsung SSD drive, on both Win7 and Win8? It certainly gives me a different impression.
... which is to say, best for porn.
Wow, talk about an instant gratification society. You can't wait a WHOLE 3 SECONDS for a program to start?
Maybe you need to get off Windows. I run FF on my Linux system where I usually keep it running for weeks/months at a time. It takes maybe 3 seconds to get running and no OOM and no crashes (the rare crash is usually due to a plugin, and performance issues are almost always due to Flash/Java sites). My current desktop has had FF open for 9 weeks now and is using ~250M in RAM.
The rendering speed has been more than adequate for me, most of the wait time is due to network latency or graphics intensive pages that take time to display on my system (no hardware GPU) regardless of the app displaying them.
Plus I trust the Mozilla foundation waaaaayyyy more than I would ever trust Google.
As always, YMMV
You can run several users at once. I do it every day. Different windows have different icons on the top-left (where you'd see the incognito guy), and all run happily together, with different profiles.
To the people responding "But other browsers support extensions! You're an idiot!", yes, technically you're right, but I'm referring to the specific type of extension that would allow something like NoScript/YesScript to be viable, and I'm talking about mainstream browsers (no, Konqueror is not mainstream.)
Yes, I'm technically wrong, but in terms of the point I was trying to make, not in any way that matters.
You are not alone. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Yes. Yes I am. But just not now.
You can already do multiple Gmail users. Try https://mail.google.com/mail/u/1 and see what you get. I know you can get to multiple logins through Gmail settings, but the link works quickly for me. Increment the final digit for more. Your "other services" would still be a problem, though.
Although I can believe this to be true in the Desktop - at least in Windows desktop.
The truth is that on the Android platform the situation is quite diferent. You can check this link: http://www.cactusinception.info/2013/06/android-browser-benckmark-june-2013.html
The comparison is from last month, and if you read the iOS post about the browsers, you can see the testing methodology changed a bit. But still, using the new tests, Firefox still comes out in the back, altough in that case Opera surpasses Chrome. That part will be updated very soon.
No, it doesn't work that way at all. If I log into gmail, it always logs me in as the first profile until I switch. If I suddenly go to google finance or youtube, it's back to the first profile until I switch it there. If I close the browser, and reopen it, it's all reset to the first profile.
I do the same as the previous poster:
Firefox for facebook and stuff under that name
MSIE for disqus/intensedebate
Chrome for regular gmail, with facebook completely blocked
Opera for testing dangerous things on, like 4chan
When Firefox can render the Netflix side-scrolling of the lists smoothly like Chrome, I'll agree that the performance is better
about:config is the browser equivalent of the Windows registry or /etc/ files. Unless you're actually doing something a computer professional would need to do, it's a failure of user interface to require the user to do it.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Firefox is funded by the same search giant.
Install and run NoScript.
Honestly, 90% of the websites out there are written by morons. Their javascript and flash are so convoluted and a mess that it even causes lockups on the browser.
Even slashdot has far too much JS in it for what the site is presenting.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It doesn't matter that much if one is slightly faster in Javascript or rendering when Firefox will halt up for 5-10 seconds rendering a new tab. Maybe it's faster than Chrome, but if I have to wait for it, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how much Firefox devs work on "UI sluggishness" if it's a single thing can lock up all input to the browser.
You do realize you quoted the part of the summary that is a link that leads to a page called, "Project Async & Responsive"? Here guys, I'll copy the link down here for you all, https://dutherenverseauborddelatable.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/announcing-project-async-responsive/ I can't believe how many mods didn't RTFA either judging from the mod points of your post...
How many sites have you visited with Javascript turned off completely? And do you toggle it on a regular basis or is it set once and forget? if 99.99% of the users don't ever touch it, then it's a good idea to reduce visibility and clutter.
Well, once you get past the tech savvy crowd which is like 1% of the browsing population, even if Firefox truly beats Chrome by a big margin, I don't think this is going to change things one bit for Firefox.
Chrome is bundled with Java, Acrobat and Flash updates, which ~98% of computers in the world have. Forget a checkbox in a hurry because you want to do something useful and Chrome is installed.
It is bundled with many PCs by the OEMs who get paid for it.
It is constantly advertised on TV and on Google properties like Google search engine and Youtube, especially to Opera and IE users.
Mozilla doesn't have the resources to do the above and,all this explains Chromes' growth among the nontech crowd more than just performance differences.
I have personally seen many folks for who I installed Firefox back in the day end up using Chrome. When I ask them, most of the time they don't have no idea how they got it. Google's been sinking a lot of money into Chrome over the years(even paying websites $1 per download they drive) and it makes sense because one more Chrome install they don't have to pay money to Firefox and Opera for being the default search for another user. Benchmarks are not going to change any of this.
How about a test for which you can have a few pages open for 10 or so days, browsing in one with Flash enabled and doesn't farking crash?
That'd be a good test. Just sayin.
I abandoned it over backspace = page back. Lost too many web app sessions that way.
But the firefox memory leaks really bother me. Every couple of days it's kill the process and restart.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
if there was one feature that would get me to consolidate to a single browser it would be the ability to run multiple instances as different personalities at the same time.
firefox -ProfileManager
firefox -P
Maybe i'm reading your request wrong, but that sounds like exactly what you are looking for. I do wish it was integrated into the firefox browser window menu's themselves though (ie. it'd be nice to hit: File->New Profile Window->Profile Name).
That said, I end up doing the same thing but I divide them up a little differently based on "long running stuff that I'm ok with restarting all at once but don't want to be interrupted by other stuff - ex. gmail, calendar, etc in chrome, and actual browsing in FF).
Firefox hardware acceleration doesn't work correctly with some diver-card combinations in Windows 8. Effectively, the individual users experience of various browsers varies as much as the underlying platform do.
Last year I think. Can't remember now.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
.. for market share loss. It's a development team that continues to make decisions which stimy and frustrate it's user base. I can't speak for anyone but myself, but when they changed to their aggressive and mostly-needless schedule of updates which had me having to install updates to machines every time that I restarted the browser, I changed all of my machines (and the many company machines in my care) to Chrome, which isn't half as intrusive about updates and much less generally hostile to it's userbase.
Firefox's team is in the throes of a developer meltdown, and has in my opinion been for quite some time, I only hope - quite sincerely - that they get passed it, because if you revert some of these silly changes (such as burying most of the helpful options like disabling javascript in about:config) - its the browser I preferred to use, and still would prefer to use if they hadn't gotten so loony with it.
The sad thing is Chrome USED to have this feature. Then they replaced it with this inferior crap we have now. I'm still pissed at them.
I actually used that other feature a lot for basically the same reasons you do, in my case: personal, public, work, financial.
Who the hell cares if a page renders .02 seconds faster?
Lynx will always be the fastest!
I really think the Firefox people think of it like hiding an option to make your feet a valid target on a hypothetical "smart" shotgun. It's an intentional user interface failure because they actually don't want you to shoot yourself in the foot. Of course, if you're a professional who "knows what you're doing", then you can easily change a text file or install No Script.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Nothing beats the native hosts file (less complexity) http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3929071&cid=44167507
APK
I don't think Firefox has leaked memory for some time, except for some add-ons. If you've read any of the last few Browser Grand Prix comparisons at Tom's Hardware, Firefox has become decent.
But there was a long stretch when Chrome was clearly superior, and even now Firefox occasionally has some pauses that I just don't see in Chrome. I just hope Firefox continues to succeed because I don't want "one browser to rule them all", even if that browser is built on an open source core.
How is it that all the other browsers can properly render text even with those "broken, abandoned drivers" on the exact same hardware?
A geometric mean has that effect (unit-independent figures of merit) only if its constituents "poijt in the same direction". If you multiply opposing figures, a browser can put out 25% less work over a fixed time (as in fps) and take 33% more time for a fixed-workload test, and both changes would cancel out..
This post contains no rudeness or derision of any kind. All arguments are friendly. Terms and exclusions may apply.
I guess rapidly increasing the Firefox version number to the point of meaninglessness actually did pay off. I await Chrome 20,000 any day now, and Firefox once again playing catch-up.
Liberty in your lifetime
I have never seen this problem with dozens of different setups. There must be something different about your case. May I suggest checking your update settings on AdBlock. It updates on runtime, if your browser is not used frequently, it will have to update every time you start your browser, preventing functionality until the plugin fully loads. That you listed using Chrome makes me strongly suspect this is the case. Turning off automatic updates and checking manually on occasion may resolve your problem. I have little insight as to exactly how Chrome updates things. Knowing google's software history it is likely that it is updating through some service in the background when you think it is not running.
Additionally, as unlikely as it may be, there could be some conflict with other plugins or add-ons. If you have many of them or use less common ones it could be the source of the problem, but I would turn off automatic updates first and see what the result is.
Firefox is a dreadful misbehaving app when it comes to its windows elements. Every decent programmer knows the UI should be given its own asynchronous thread, so that the windows elements stay responsive even if Firefox finds itself bogged down doing heavy processing/memory management under the hood.
Firefox has a threading system where EVERY thread can stall any other active thread, meaning that Firefox is constantly vulnerable to the 'weakest link' in its current processing queue. The cretins that program Firefox simply throw more resources at the application on their own development systems, to mitigate the problem. Put simply, Firefox programmers ONLY attempt to shore up the 'weakest link' by giving it more CPU power, more memory, faster memory, or a faster GPU.
This means Firefox appears to work extremely well on a massively over-specced PC, but performs dreadfully when Firefox is used on a older computer, especially if it can't splurge well over 1GB of memory. It is only because Firefox now needs to look towards running well on ARM platforms that the code base is getting some attention re: efficiency and responsiveness. Unfortunately, even ARM platforms are at 2GB and will soon be at 4, allowing Firefox to return to its bad old ways.
FF should concentrate on JIT (just-in-time) methods for web-page contents- caching for instant the JPG images, and NOT the decompressed bit-images. Modern computers are processing power rich (and many ARM devices have dedicated hardware units to decompress JPG data in real-time).
But do people other than computer professionals actually disable javascript? Since firefox receives statistics on every button clicked, I'm guessing the usage is so low that accidental clicks make up a good percentage. At that point it's a failure of a user interface to provide extra options that are never used.
And by "Mozilla's stats" I am referring to their internal benchmarking using Kraken (Mozilla/Firefox), Sunspider (Apple/Webkit), and Octane (Google/Chrome). Mozilla owns and operates Are We Fast Yet.com and has a nice JS performance over time comparing each JS engine.
Do note that this is just JavaScript and not the whole shebang, but these days, they're pretty close. The JS section of Tom's review uses one of these JS tests and has similar results (though they discard its findings). Tom's does conclude that Chrome beats FF handily here.
I'm pretty surprised to see Chrome beating Firefox handily in JS and HTML and memory efficiency and standards and security yet losing overall. Perhaps too much weight was put into the hardware acceleration piece? Perhaps Tom's forgot that FF startup isn't so good when you load lots of addons (as most do)? My reading of those is that Chrome is the clear winner ... and I'm a Firefox fan (for usability, security, and privacy, mostly via addons).
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
I have Win8 installed, though I don't boot into it often. If you look back on previous Tom's Hardware Browser Grand Prix comparisons, they don't always use Windows. e.g. http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/chrome-17-firefox-10-ubuntu,3129.html (Ubuntu), http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/macbook-air-chrome-16-firefox-9-benchmark,3108.html (Mac OS X), http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/android-web-browser-recommendation,3316.html (Android).
As the Anonymous Coward wrote, like it or not (and I definitely don't like it) Windows 8 probably already has a bigger share of the consumer desktop and laptop market than Linux. So it makes sense for Tom's Hardware to test on that platform.
As for the things that are tested, I think it makes sense to include all of their selected categories for two reasons. First, it can potentially show where the development team for a particular product is or is not expending resources. (e.g. If Internet Explorer 11 improves at the speed of DOM manipulation and nothing else, and DOM manipulation wasn't benchmarked, then it would look like Microsoft had done nothing for the new release.) Second, tracking and benchmarking the specific events that cause a slowdown or the impression of a slowdown in a browser is very hard to do. If Firefox and Chrome both take 7 seconds to load a page and Chrome loads it gradually while Firefox loads 90% in one second and then appears to freeze for 5 seconds and then finishes, most people who were not working with a stopwatch would report Chrome as being a dramatically faster browser.
I don't have a problem on Windows, but on the Mac it definitely leaks. Not only that, once it has leaked, it takes perhaps 10 minutes to shut down when you've decided to quit it. It could be the plugins or the extensions - but I don't really care because those are the only reason I use Firefox, so I'm not going to disable them.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Since you asked - yes, I am, and I use Firefox.
I saw this on Hackernews 4 hours ago!
Oh, wait...
I hate that backspace thing, too. They aped it from IE.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Opera has noscript, adblock, adblock+, ghostery extensions {plus other competing similar extensions} and it is mainstream enough that it was in this benchmark. So I'm not sure what you are getting at. Also I converted to Opera more than a decade ago for those features and tabbed browsing.
I can't work productively more than 36 hours continuously any more, so that's not a problem for me.
Firefox runs fine on all my systems with dozens of tabs open, no memory leaks that I've ever seen, even though I create and destroy tabs constantly.
You paraphrased the contents from the link located at "UI sluggishness" that you happened to quote from the summary.. The link that goes to "Project Async and Responsive." I'll copy the link below for you: https://dutherenverseauborddelatable.wordpress.com/2013/04/10/announcing-project-async-responsive/
The link talks all about how they are trying to offload things from the main thread, which causes things like the 5-10 second halt when rendering a new tab. It's all waiting there for you to read it....
>The wait time on start up affects everyone
It really does not. Majority of users these days never close their browser and put their computer/laptop to sleep rather than shut down. So they get "start up time" at most once a day and more likely once a week.
Downmod to *try* to "hide" your post = best they can do! Hilarious.
Unless you're actually doing something a computer professional would need to do, it's a failure of user interface to require the user to do it.
What? Mozilla is now requiring everyone to use about:config? I haven't had to do that yet, have they just not gotten to me yet? Will my family also be required to do it, or can I do it for them?
Oh, what's that? You only need to use it if you're disabling Javascript, or changing any of the other minutiae that only a super-user who isn't going to be angry or confused at seeing about:config would bother changing in the first place? Doesn't seem like such a problem to open about:config, type "javascript" into the search bar, and find the option to disable it, does it?
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
Got to admit... This isn't a big deal for me. IE is just terrible and no amount of Microsoft patching will fix that and Chome always tries to push sync on me when I have no intent of using and it's really rather pushy about it.
Firefox works. It's stable. It let's me know about it's sync feature. It doesn't beat me over the head with it constantly. These are the reasons I, and probably a great majority of people, use Firefox.
Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
And since blocking Javascript is something roughly on par, in terms of rarity, with a modification that'd require Windows registry tweaking or /etc/ editing, I'd say it's fair. I cannot fathom why anybody would entirely block JS when extensions like NoScript allow much finer grained and more flexible control over it all in a convenient UI.
I don't believe other browsers use DirectX acceleration for text rendering like Firefox does.
Actually, Firefox handily beats Chrome (and everything else) for memory efficiency everywhere except memory release after closing tabs. They've done a lot of work there in the past few years and it shows.
It's also interesting to look at the breakdown of the score for things like the HTML5 test. Firefox loses points for not supporting MPEG-4 videos, which probably has a lot to do with ideology as well as implementation. There's also points removed for iframes, which I sincerely think are a terrible blight that should be removed. The biggest black mark is the lack of support for a lot of "advanced" form types like datetime.
For the CSS3 test, I'm noticing a few bits and bobs which are still tagged as "-moz-" properties, usually because the standard wasn't finalized when implemented. These aren't a problem in practice since web developers always prepend vendor-specific attributes for such properties.
Finally, it's worth keeping in mind that Firefox's biggest strength is its addons. NoScript and AdBlock+ together make Firefox the most secure browser I have ever used, and also dramatically speed up loading times on a lot of otherwise junk-ridden sites. No other browser can match its feature level there right now.
Firefox does not receive statistics on every button clicked
Name it "JS" and put it in your bookmarks toolbar. Problem solved with no need type/search for anything.
Name it "JS" and put it in the bookmarks toolbar. Problem Solved.
Time for a new utility. Call it "Get The Farm Away From My Defaults". You specify what you want on (like Do Not Track), what you want off (like Javascript or Java) and it makes the changes in Firefox, Chrome, IE, Opera, etc. all at the same time. Have it as a standalone EXE that you can run directly. Give it a custom short URL like tinyurl.com/GTFAFMDefaults. Maybe have a config option to auto-run it every time you boot up, for us belt-and-suspenders types.
I come here for the love
I think you left the arrow of time out of your argument. Chrome developed a following within the geek community back before google was a known NSA collaborator. It did that by being a faster cleaner UI than the existing competition. You can't just stand here today and be like "Why does anyone like these guys?" They were the leader in UX, Perf and development velocity.
Your point is valid that we should re-evaluate our choice given the current state of the world, but pulling of information out of two temporal contexts to make that point is a bit disingenuous.
I've never understood the "memory leak" concept. Or rather, not since Firefox 7, if you happened to use a metric ton of bad addons. Chrome has always used more RAM on my boxes, and crashed just as often from out-of-memory errors.
I think some people just happened to make the claim that Chrome was "better with RAM" and nobody cared to actually check that claim. Firefox now positively destroys the competition in terms of memory usage, and people still think it's the worst option.
Geeks don't generally prefer Chrome. Sure, there's a good deal of chrome users amongst geeks, but I think we have a greater proporiton of firefox users than non-geeks have.
Neat test but I think the summary could at least clarify that the test system is Windows 8 64 Bit. It doesn't really mean a whole lot to me when I'm running a 64 bit distribution of GNU/Linux.
Why not? Are you assuming that either has lots of OS-specific tweaks that tilt that so much?
In any case, it's still relevant which is faster for average joe out there.
Also the tests are selected by Tom's Hardware as a suite ... some of these tests are fairly meaningless to me and I feel like something like cold start time should be more heavily weighted than, say, hardware acceleration performance. The wait time on start up affects everyone and is unavoidable
I only restart firefox after an upgrade, and that's the only time I close it. I'm sure as hell I'm not the only one.
Is anyone reading this actually using Windows 8?
Regrettable, yes, I've seen lots of people out there with shinny new laptops with win8 installed.
What browsers don't have backspace == back? I use it all the time (intentionally), and I've never noticed any browser not implementing it.
If you can't convince them, convict them.
IE and Firefox allow you to disable it without a whole lot of hassle.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
I have a feeling the market share decline is from Mozilla's UI nazi's^^^^^^ er... designers alienating technically minded people that jump quickly to other browsers when they don't like the way things are going, for example the redefinition of major versions and outright hiding of the version number fiasco and the fuck corporate users fiasco and the we won't support video plugins because h264 licensing is the suck fiasco and the we integrated video chat and built a mobile phone OS but still don't support secure variants of ssl or tls because our priorities are not vetted by software engineers fiasco, etc.
Most of them *work* for Google. Ahahah.
Users who don't know that will not disable it in the regular interface though, so this point is moot..
1 Gb seems high. I have 24 tabs open, run a bunch of plug-ins (Ghostery, Noscript, Adblock Plus, All-in-One Gestures, Nagios Checker, Session Manager, Download Helper, Brief, YouTube Rating Preview, Fiddler, Lastpass), add-ons (Java, Flash, VMWare Rconsole plug-in) and I'm hovering around 580 Mb.
It gripped her hand gently. 'Regret is for humans,' it said.
It's not the quantity, it's the behavior. I use so many tabs that I feel the need to run "Tree Style Tabs" (on Chrome there used to be a similar built-in, though hidden, feature). Every few days, Firefox bloats to such a large footprint that a quit takes about 10 minutes.
I could be using a "metric ton of bad addons". But the fact is, without the addons I'd be using Chrome. So whether it is Firefox's fault or not, Mozilla gets the blame.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
I also feel the need for this.
I think that the browser could also have a "personality" linked to each bookmark, so that it would switch personality automatically when I choose to go a specific site.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
Like a sounding in the deep, post #44166449 reveals the true depth of stupidity on Slashdot. Setting google search as default is one thing; tying in all user data and preferences with your omniaccount is another. By Bouchard's cane you must be dumb not to see that.
If your concern is privacy (or software freedom or web standards or just simply taste), then the choice should be clear. To most.
about:config is the browser equivalent of the Windows registry or /etc/ files. Unless you're actually doing something a computer professional would need to do, it's a failure of user interface to require the user to do it.
Which means its entirely the right place to put disabling core functionality, like a javascript engine.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean there isn't an invisible demon about to eat your face
I have been an avid Chrome user for the last few years because I HATED Firefox bloat. After reading this article, I decided to give Firefox another try. After 30 minutes of use, I can say that Firefox has taken back the crown from Chrome - noticeably.
Thanks to xmarks, it was easy for me to adjust back to Firefox. There are a couple of niggling issues like addons that just don't appear anywhere - and addons that appear in random places - but otherwise, I'm back to Firefox. Well done Firefox team!
If I know about an update happening, no deal. That's why I switched to Chrome - it just silently gets on with them and I never know it's even happened. It's not shoving "WOO NEW VERSION WOOHOO!" down my throat every 6 weeks.
If you are experiencing slowdowns please provide a profile of the issue. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Performance/Profiling_with_the_Built-in_Profiler
If you don't want to go through the details of that reset Firefox https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/reset-preferences-fix-problems it will keep bookmarks/history/passwords only.
Tech savvy enough to disable JavaScript (and deal with the consequences of doing so) but not tech savvy enough to figure out about:config doesn't seem like it would cover a large number of users.
Firefox does not get reports of every button clicked. There are/were opt-in studies that provided that data.
Hardware acceleration gives you nice smooth scrolling. It is also vital for Firefox because they changed the way images are decoded in a misguided attempt to reduce memory consumption.
Yes, because reducing memory usage by 1.5GiB (gibibytes/gigabytes) on image dense pages is misguided.
Chrome does the same thing, it's just got a smarter algorithm and the architecture doesn't jam the UI thread whilst the decode is happening.
I keep hearing this but I also keep noticing memory size increasing over time. I don't know if it's doing some kind of caching (and the behaviour is therefore considered a feature) but I hate it. I hate seeing that after a few days FF is eating up nearly a gig of RAM.
And Chrome uses less?
Firefox is funded by the same search giant.
Firefox getting revenue from Google is not the same. Certainly it's not helping anyone's privacy, but Mozilla isn't Google.
Long live the BSD license
But, crucially, not developed by them.
Ehm. You make it sound as if Google owns Mozilla, which is clearly not the case.
Like all browsers, Firefox has a default search engine. Having search traffic directed from Firefox' few hundred million users is very appealing to search companies, who are willing to pay good money for that. This does not mean that the paying customer in any way owns, runs or controls Mozilla. Just like I don't own, run or control the shop on the corner when I pay them for a pack of biscuits.
In the last bidding process Google was top bidder and Mozilla extended it's contract with Google. After this contract finishes the contract will go out to tender again and perhaps next time Bing, Yahoo or Baidu is the highest bidder, who knows?
It could even be, if Mozilla at some point decides that Google's practices are not compatible with their own principles, that Mozilla dumps Google and does business with the second highest bidder. It might not even make a massive financial difference.
Of course that's not the case. I was merely poking fun at his statement "why would anyone use a browser funded by a search giant who yadda yadda privacy yadda yadda" when the same could be said about Firefox, having received the majority of its development funding from Google as a result of their search deal.
We took a lighting strike at my daughter's school a few years back, that struck dirt less than ten feet from the building in the middle of the night.
The server room UPS was turned into a smoking pile of fused plastic and metal from the ground surge. The network switches were fried by the UPS and every single powered-on system connected to the network (including the servers) was toasted. The end user PCs were a total loss, but we salvaged the HDDs from the servers and put them in new chassis, and the printers only lost their (replaceable) network interface cards. User PCs on switched-off power strips were completely unaffected by this event, even though several of them were closer to the actual strike than the UPS was.
So,
7) powered down computers are less likely to be damaged by lightning strikes.
Humans generally sleep about a third of our lifetimes. So I turn off my computer while I'm asleep and reduce many of my computing risks and costs by 30% or more.
Truth told to the limited "hivemind" @ /. can expect a downmod (as your post evidences since it was downmodded).
Solve the 99% unpatched DNS servers out there vs. the Kaminsky flaw (especially considering they are MOSTLY out there @ the ISP level no less).
Solve the excessive moving parts that running a local DNS server entails vs. using a custom hosts file for MOST single computer home users (which is most of them) or even on a small home LAN.
Solve the excessive electrical usage of running a local DNS server system (or even as a separate service/daemon).
DNS = far from perfect & gets exploited by FastFlux botnets all day long too (and other malwares as well via redirection/dns-poisonings - how many evidences of this should I produce for you over time?).
(Want more? Ask!)
APK
P.S.=> Oh, lastly - Want to show us where you have "disproven" me before also? Please do (I wager you cannot)! Still, produce it... just so I can tear you in 1/2 yet again, and any "so-called 'points'" you may have made there too along with you! apk
Fact is this: 2013 - 5 years after major DNS flaw is discovered, few US companies have deployed long-term fix (DNS vs. Kaminsky Bug): -> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/012913-dnssec-266197.html?page=3
AND?
How the FUCK is a custom hosts file more "resource intensive" when it's a SINGLE FILE being run from a kernelmode driver in the IP stack's own built in resolver (tcpip.sys)?
Fact: DNS has more "moving parts" LAYERED ON over that... that, in & OF itself means DNS is more complex and thus more prone to breakdown as well (as if "fastflux" botnets don't prove that much for me, easily)!
More evasions on electrical usage being GREATER with more added moving parts, ala a DNS server, too I see? Sorry - there IS NO DISPROVING THAT MUCH from myself on your part either...
APK
P.S.=> You're so FULL of it, it's making me laugh... apk
You were asked to SOLVE a KNOWN PROBLEM in DNS:
"I told you how to do it with existing DNS infrastructure." - by Ash-Fox (726320) on Wednesday July 03, 2013 @03:22PM (#44180573)
LMAO: Ok - Then here's your "existing DNS infrastructure" (crumbling with unpatched bugs) -> 2013 - 5 years after major DNS flaw is discovered, few US companies have deployed long-term fix (DNS vs. Kaminsky Bug): -> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/012913-dnssec-266197.html?page=1
* :)
(So much for THAT outta you... like any other "evasions" you use typically!).
APK
P.S.=> Now, THIS "takes the cake" from you, the most:
"Should have read the thread I linked. If you did, your reading comprehension is pretty bad." - by Ash-Fox (726320) on Wednesday July 03, 2013 @04:32PM (#44181445)
Beg to differ - YOURS clearly is, especially since you had to concede points of mine (& I never have any of yours)!
Face facts, & now I am just using your "OWN medicine" against you?
From our last discussions - You RAN FROM THESE 3 SIMPLE QUESTIONS BEFORE:
---
1.) Does DNS have numerous issues?
2.) Can custom hosts files overcome some of those issues??
3.) Does running programs of ANY KIND consume CPU, Memory, &/or Other Forms of I/O???
---
* Just answer those 3 questions...
Better yet? I will!
(THIS apparently needs to be done, again!)
A.) Never denied #1 above
B.) Not admitted that #2 can solve parts of #1
C.) You have already ADMITTED that running a DNS server machine (separate from a client workstation) eats more power, as well as the fact that running programs of ANY KIND do the same (albeit, to a lesser degree than running another system to do so, instead electing to run a DNS service/daemon on said client workstation instead locally)... ... apk
You ARE doing something a pro would need to do. Not many people just flat-out disable Javascript. It belongs in about:config precisely for that reason - it should be something a novice can't find in the UI without knowing what they're looking for. Hence it's a UI win, not a UI failure.
DNS = clearly faulty (especially in security) & you use it, hosts overcome that! Hosts also get you past downed/redirect poisoned DNS servers also! Hosts remove the threat of "fastflux" designed malware online/botnets/malicious sites etc.-et al,by avoiding them, totally! Fastflux botnets are the prevalent design, 99% of the time for decades in fact! They are HARD to kill recycling host-domain names they use - Which is WHY more of that is used by botnets vs. IP addresses (easy to kill in the latter).
FastFlux botnets abuse a flaw in DNS to operate essentially.
( ... & it keeps me off DNS request logs, & outside of any puny DNSBL's (makes the servers work less too though, so "bonus for you too" dns admins)).
* All that, & more - from a SINGLE file part of the IP stack used by tcpip.sys @ kernelmode driver level (fastest possible), written in C (near fast as possible) with less moving parts with room for breakdown...
Especially THIS kind of "room for breakdown" -> 2013: 5 years after major DNS flaw is discovered, few US companies have deployed long-term fix (DNS vs. Kaminsky Bug): -> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/012913-dnssec-266197.html?page=1
APK
P.S.=> Anyone wonder WHY I built this, then?
http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74
Don't... & don't wonder WHY I released it publicly either:
See this discussion & only a partial list fragment of good results virtues a single file bestows on you running outta kernelmode in a multi-OS ported STABLE & FAST IP Stack as a driver using it as a filter (& since that's what it's really about, not the program, but the resulting output file's massive usefulness on many levels of versatility, nigh ubiquituous almost, in added/better speed, security, reliability, & even "anonymity" to an extent as well...)...
... apk
Thus - Your use of tcp vs. udp = you being less efficient & slower: Tcp != faster than udp & has literally twice as many operations + overheads. Newsflash: udp does no callback (tcp does). You just made your inferior by itself 'solution' less efficient considering it's riddled with security issues too, & you depend solely on it!. You continually avoid that "fastflux" botnets (the primarily used design using host-domain names vs. IP addresses (easily killed in the latter)) Abuse a security flaw in dns servers that allows them to operate - Period. You also avoid you add more complexity, cpu usage, memory usage, & other forms of added I/O as well as electricity usage that dns servers entail (not to mention their security issues). Fact: You also solely rely on something built on a known multiply faulty unpatched "foundation"/infrastructure as you called it -> 2013: 5 years after major dns flaw is discovered, few US companies have deployed long-term fix (dns vs. kaminsky bug): -> http://www.networkworld.com/news/2013/012913-dnssec-266197.html?page=1 A fault which hosts files can overcome by bypassing said faulty infrastructure ENTIRELY for favorite sites hardcoded into them which also resolves ip addresses faster too vs. remote dns servers, yielding added anonymity & added reliability (Vs. dns request logs tracking & dnsbl's too as well as blocking known malicious sites/servers/hosts-domains). Admins should thank me for it - their machines work less with guys like me around & it keeps users cleaner vs online attacks. Lastly Blocking speed doesn't matter on how fast it occurs since with blocked sites since you never intended to get to blocked sites in the 1st place, so so much for that from you..
APK
P.S.=> You have been "schooled", completely... apk
Since custom hosts gets me around DNS entirely & especially for my top 20 favorite sites which also exceeds the speed of DNS indexing (up to ~ 3++ million line records entries or so).
They're where I spend a GOOD 95% of my time online anyhow (I know this from firewall logs, router logs, & my browser histories) - Still: Don't get me wrong: I use DNS servers too!
Albeit NOT ones I run myself, but remote ones external to my home AND SECURED/FILTERED ones in:
A.) OpenDNS
B.) ScrubIT DNS
C.) Norton DNS
D.) Comodo DNS
Rotating them & yet using them all @ once in my NAT true stateful packet inspecting CISCO/LinkSys router-firewall, but also my IP stack settings in Windows too.
* HOWEVER: A fact, IS a fact - that fact? TCP is SLOWER than UDP... does double the ops, literally!
APK
P.S.=> Lameness filter did the same to me last post - made me have to "condense" everything... apk
Windows' dns clientside cache service "problem" w/ LARGE custom hosts files - After you disable that? The hassle you saw goes away, period/for good! In fact - read more about it, here (malwarebytes/hpHosts who also host my program there) -> http://hosts-file.net/?s=Download on the top left-hand side 2-3 paragraphs down, should you doubt me. You easily also make up for that since the hosts file is just a file, like any other, & the local kernelmode diskcaching subsystem will take care of keeping it in ram for you for greatest speed/performance! Performance that is just as good as the faulty with larger custom hosts files clientside dns cache service. (In fact, better, because it doesn't "lag you" like you saw in Windows, with the load/flush limited size structure the local clientside dns cache service uses in fact & it saves you resources allotted to a service with "issues" to put it lightly & yet to be blunt about it being faulty...) Fact: I reported it to Microsoft years ago - nothing was fixed. So, essentially, thus: I had to "fix it" myself! Its problem? It uses a fixed size 'buffer' cache (via loading into a C/C++ structure that is fixed size evidently), & FIFO queueing apparently as well, which causes the "lag" trying to load hosts that exceed its fixed size (should have been made dynamically resizeable). This is easily fixable in fact, but MS doesn't fix it. I did so by dispensing with that faulty service & instead relying on another subsystem for caching (saving the RAM, cpu cycles, & other forms of I/O the faulty dns clientside cache was using - "bonus").
APK
P.S.=> Performance is just as good, if not better, for caching hosts data, & simply because of saving resources used by that faulty with larger custom hosts files local dns clientside cache service in Windows - same as my last post also the "lameness filter" is being 'lame' to me too (forcing a few of my replies into a "block format" like this post too)... apk
So FF finally overtook Chrome, but does FF finally sandbox properly now? I'm betting not... Chrome being *slightly* slower, with proper sandboxing, still keeps it #1 in my book (plus I like the interface and addons better...)
4 getting SPANKED: You stated you know what you're talking about, & yet you're shown you really didn't here on TCP vs. UDP usaeg http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3929071&cid=44192751 and here also http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3929071&cid=44189817 especially, and pretty much in anything else you didn't state here but APK did, scorching you point by point. You show how LITTLE you know, and most especially about FastFlux botnets taking advantage of flaws in DNS you apparently didn't know about Mr. Know it all. That sunk your ship completely. Funniest part is hosts files do get you around them.
This has got to be the poorest reason to use any web browser over another. The only situation where this might be a valid reason is if both browsers are completely satisfactory, it's just this one browser has one default setting that I prefer over another. (Actually, I'm just assuming that Chrome allows you to adjust tab width too? It doesn't? Shame.)
In Windows, the DNS cache client IS broken (with larger hosts files) - fact. You didn't know that, obviously -> http://news.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3929071&cid=44192751
You also don't seem to realize that DNS is SO FLAWED, that "FastFlux" botnets take advantage of it (read up on that here so you DO know next time -> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_flux )
That's not all either: There's MORE FLAWS in DNS that botnets take advantage of as well -> http://labs.umbrella.com/2013/04/15/on-the-trail-of-malicious-dynamic-dns-domains/ that take advantage of its VERY NATURE also!
* How do I get around ALL of that? You guessed it:
Custom hosts files!
(They allow me to bypass the faulty DNS system entirely & especially for my top 20 fav. sites, which when placed @ the TOP of my custom hosts file, exceeds DNS indexing even, up to ~ 3++ million line records entries or so...)
Funniest part was seeing you avoid my last 2 posts above on those very self-same points & more...
APK
P.S.=> So, what was that YOU said here intially, about "schooling me" (getting the better of my on things tech DNS vs. HOSTS)? Seems to be the OTHER WAY AROUND here on several accounts... lol! apk
"Again, I was pretending" - by Ash-Fox (726320) on Tuesday July 09, 2013 @08:38AM (#44224161)
Per my subject-line above: I wasn't & showed your error there, & I also showed that dns has many faults:
1.) Unpatched vs. Kaminsky flaw for 5++ yrs. now
2.) Dynamic dns abusing dns nature
3.) Fastflux botnets abusing dns nature again too!
You didn't read up on "Fastflux" botnets or the Dynamic DNS issue - Clue: The VERY NATURE of DNS gets exploited then in both cases! Just as it does in the Kaminsky redirect flaw. You accused me of not reading - results here now show otherwise (especially on your initial comment here on "getting the better of me", lol - b.s.!)
The most efficient cure = what I do: Custom hosts files to get around that faulty known unpatched for 1/2 a decade dns infrastructure vs. a serious redirect flaw on 99% of DNS servers out there, worst of all @ the isp level! Hosts supplement dns in that case overcoming those flaws by bypassing faulty DNS! I use dns myself, albeit secured filtered external ones. This is how I 'secure' even those even more.
Your usage of tcp also slows you down/made you less efficient - tcp has 2x the overheads + operations udp does!
QUESTIONS:
Don't you depend on dns entirely? Yes. Is that system flawed?? Yes. Do you also mean the setup with more electrical power usage, cpu cycles, ram, and other forms of I/O usage also??? Yes. The setup with far more complexity than mine using a custom hosts file & secured/filtered external dns servers (maybe @ most 4-5% of the time tops)???? Again, yes. You mean the one with flaws galore in it using/being dependent on a known unpatched vs. Kaminsky redirect bug flawed dns system (fastflux/dyndns botnets abuse it galore)????? Still yet again, yes.
APK
P.S.=> Wildcarding: IF an entire domain is affected (rare) I block it with any subdomains affected. If not, what is the point? Face facts - you're outthought, outsmarted, and outnumbered by 3 facts on DNS security issues also... apk
http://slashdot.org/submission/2783319/adblock-getting-paid-by-google-to-allow-their-ads
* "REJECTED" & not only THAT, but it was utterly REMOVED from the "submissions" page within minutes!
(Truth != a "big thing" on /. - & certainly NOT when it affects "the personal agenda" of others, adversely, now is it? LOL - nope!)
On a guess: Why? Well, by golly, can't have THAT coming out, now can we?? Hell no - especially when so many "sheep" here on /. use that crippled tool & "Champion it"... lol, guess who gets the "last laugh" now on THAT account now, dolts?
APK
P.S.=> "Yours truly" - who has created a FAR better solution that isn't advertiser-owned (foxes guarding the henhouse) like Ghostery, or "paid off" crippled (AdBlock):
APK Hosts File Engine 9.0++ 32/64-bit:
http://start64.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5851:apk-hosts-file-engine-64bit-version&catid=26:64bit-security-software&Itemid=74
Take a read of what's enumerated there as to the good it does users of its resultant output file (a custom hosts file) in terms of better added speed, security, reliability, & even anonymity to an extent also...
... apk