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Firefox 58 Gets Graphics Speed Boost, Web App Abilities (cnet.com)
Mozilla released on Tuesday a new version of its Firefox Quantum browser, boosting its graphics speed and improving a couple of new technologies designed to make the web more powerful. From a report: The browser, version 58, is the first major update since Mozilla's recovery plan hit full stride in November with the debut of Firefox Quantum. Speed is of the essence in Mozilla's recovery plan, and Firefox 58 does better than its predecessor in some graphics tasks by splitting work better across the multiple processor cores that computer chips have these days. The result should be scrolling that's smooth, uninterrupted by the stuttering that in computing circles goes by the disparaging term "jank." [...] Firefox 58 helps with two new web technologies. One, called WebAssembly, provides for dramatically faster web apps. Firefox 58 can get WebAssembly software running faster so you don't have to twiddle your thumbs waiting as long after clicking a link. Another is progressive web apps (PWAs), an initiative that came out of Google to help make the web a better match for the apps we all drop on our phones.
I'm very grateful to the Firefox project and its contributors for their dedication to bringing us a fast and modern browser to act not only as a useful product, but as an essential counterweight to corporate hegemony over the www. Switching to 57 was a bit of pain as I had to find replacements to many of my beloved extensions, but it was worth it for the speed upgrade and smaller memory footprint. I'm glad they are keeping on the path of optimization and bringing more technologies that I can use both as an end user and as a web developer.
Focusing on improving the core technology is the right decision IMHO. Recent performance improvements have been quite impressive, and the distance to Chrome has become really small.
Nevertheless I would really like to see a way to measure webworker performance. Sometimes I have the feeling that there is quite some fluctuation. For example when I work with iconfu.com, sometimes the icons get rendered blazingly fast, and sometimes it takes seconds. Not sure what is causing this, also since I cannot measure webworker performance, there is not really an easy way to find out.
Anyway, keep up the great work!
Signature deleted by lameness filter.
While I'm all for Firefox improving performance, it can't come at the expensive of reliably rendering websites. After the upgrade, I noticed various problems across several sites I used to access without issue.
Because of that, I've been forced to switch to Chrome for the time being as my primary browser because I have enough on my plate without having to worry about "Is the website broken or is it me?"
Maybe I'll try it again after it's had a couple versions to shake out bugs.
Palemoon / Waterfox is maintained by 1 person... ONE; and at most, 2.
Yes, there's been minor chip-ins from a few others, but look at the git commit history and it's basically a one-man show.
And seeing how fast tech is moving and standards are evolving, Palemoon/Waterfox/Variants are already far, far behind, especially in security fixes.
It's basically a dead project without some serious number of hands contributing to maintaining it! And that of course requires serious funding, or at least, some corporate sponsorship with lots of devs.
Web browsers are probably some of the most complex pieces of applications, perhaps more so than even Operating Systems, so it's unrealistic for any 1 person to maintain, let alone develop further.
In the run up to FF57's deadline came up last year, I bitterly posted on Slashdot about how I didn't want the speed upgrades as much as I wanted to keep the extensions that were not getting ported.
I was wrong - dead wrong. Why?
1) Speed: If you were an anti-Chrome guy like me but would be a little jealous of its speed when you had to use it, this has been resolved. FF57 has been much snappier to use than previous versions. It feels like Chrome or faster.
In the end, browser speed DOES matter.
2) Extensions: Not every extension I used before FF57 has been ported to Quantum, but the important extensions I used have been since the FF57 release that weren't ready initially. NoScript, FlagFox, etc. All working now. If the extensions weren't ready last November, look again. They may be ready now.
Just as importantly, I haven't missed the ones that haven't made it. You may not miss them either.
3) The native Web Development tools are better than Firebug was in the end, IMO. And it's been nice to not have Firebugginess to deal with anymore.
So - Take it from this OCD guy who's not a marketing shill for the Mozilla org: If you're still sitting at FF52 ESR or FF56.x over any form of FUD (especially the, "but extension X is indispensible", worry,) given FF57 another look now and test it out without those, "I've gotta have extension X," extensions and see. You may be surprised.
While people everywhere are telling us why we CAN'T do something we are out there proving them wrong. Alex isn't working alone he is simply taking the best parts of Firefox and stripping out the junk. Most of the improvements Quantum made are already incorporated into Waterfox. It just didn't implement the nanny state of removing things that many users find indispensable. Do you know how many Fortune 500 companies have JAVA front ends for their multi-million dollar enterprises? A LOT! You know what most of these companies are using for a browser? IE11!!! That is SCARY. At least with Waterfox you've got a modern browser that still allows legacy sites to work correctly.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
HTML5 is like C++. A massive, hard to implement standard that barely anyone fully understands, let alone uses. Supporting about 80% of it gives you 99% compatibility, so it's hard to justify the massive effort required to finish the last, really difficult 20% off.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC