1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.

News Mozilla launches speedy Firefox Quantum beta

Discussion in 'Article Discussion' started by bit-tech, 27 Sep 2017.

  1. bit-tech

    bit-tech Supreme Overlord Lover of bit-tech Administrator

    Joined:
    12 Mar 2001
    Posts:
    3,676
    Likes Received:
    138
    Read more
     
  2. Mr_Mistoffelees

    Mr_Mistoffelees The Bit-Tech Cat. New Improved Version.

    Joined:
    26 Aug 2014
    Posts:
    5,206
    Likes Received:
    2,446
    I'm a die-hard Opera fan (since Opera 7.5) but, I think I should give this one a try.
     
  3. yuusou

    yuusou Multimodder

    Joined:
    5 Nov 2006
    Posts:
    2,852
    Likes Received:
    916
    This may make me move back from Chrom(e/ium) to Firefox. How easy is it to sync Google bookmarks and history with your Firefox sync account? Is it easy to tie the two together?
     
  4. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

    Joined:
    9 May 2004
    Posts:
    7,548
    Likes Received:
    1,786
    I've grown more and more irritated with Chrome, both on PC and mobile, in recent months. Memory usage, or rather hogging, and especially on mobile degrading performance have begun to turn me away. Yet I never liked the mobile variant of Firefox, so I stuck with Chrome on both platforms to have access to that ease of use feature of synchronized tabs across platforms.

    If Mozilla deliver performance on both platforms with this release I guess it's time to move back to Firefox.
     
  5. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

    Joined:
    4 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    17,084
    Likes Received:
    6,635
    You are me. Just installing Firefox Quantum on my phone and desktop now, to see if it'll finally drag me back.
     
  6. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

    Joined:
    5 Dec 2010
    Posts:
    4,268
    Likes Received:
    875
    Agree with this, but I'd add that I moved from Firefox to Chrome in the first place because I was sick to death of FF's memory hogging and memory leak problem. That was a while back, to be fair.
     
  7. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

    Joined:
    4 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    17,084
    Likes Received:
    6,635
    Made the leap, and it certainly *feels* snappier. It'll take a bit of getting used to, mind, but so far so good.
     
  8. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

    Joined:
    5 Dec 2010
    Posts:
    4,268
    Likes Received:
    875
    I also dumped Firefox when they started making horrible, annoying and unnecessary changes to the UI every five minutes. How's the UI in the new one?
     
  9. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

    Joined:
    4 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    17,084
    Likes Received:
    6,635
    Not a million miles away from Chrome, if you merge the address and search bars, but a bit... chunkier.
     
  10. perplekks45

    perplekks45 LIKE AN ANIMAL!

    Joined:
    9 May 2004
    Posts:
    7,548
    Likes Received:
    1,786
    Yes.

    Will try it out tonight or more likely Friday when I find the time. @Gareth Halfacree you sound like the switch might be worth it...
     
  11. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

    Joined:
    4 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    17,084
    Likes Received:
    6,635
    Pros:
    • It's blinkin' fast.
    • The multithreading shizzle really works: just loaded one of the image-heavy threads 'ere and sure enough Firefox started loading all four cores - and scrolling remained responsive even as it was loading the images.
    • It shows you the size of an image when you load one in a tab! Sounds daft, but I missed that switching to Chrome: it means if I'm thinking "how big do I need to make this image again" I can just find an existing example, right-click-Open-in-New-Tab, and there's the answer.
    • Built-in Pocket support, no extension required.
    • Built-in 'Reader' mode which strips out extraneous crud, reformats the text, and shoves it on a black background (or white, or sepia - your choice).
    • "Send tab to device"
    • Awesome screenshotting stuff: lets you take a screenshot of an entire page without scrolling just by right-clicking and choosing 'Take screenshot.' That's going to come in handy!
    Cons:
    • The mobile version doesn't seem to like Tampermonkey.
    • The HTTPS Everywhere extension doesn't work yet.
    • The toolbars are bigger than Chrome's, which eats a few pixels of vertical screen space.
    • ...that's about it.
    If you're running Chrome now, I can't see a reason not to switch. Impressive stuff, considering I left Firefox for Chrome in the first place all those moons ago!
     
  12. RedFlames

    RedFlames ...is not a Belgian football team

    Joined:
    23 Apr 2009
    Posts:
    15,401
    Likes Received:
    2,996
  13. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

    Joined:
    4 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    17,084
    Likes Received:
    6,635
    Benchies:
    Sunspider Firefox: 364.5ms +/- 22.3%
    Sunspider Chrome: 349.7ms +/- 1.3%

    Peacekeeper Firefox: 3767, HTML5 Capabilities 7/7
    Peacekeeper Chrome: 3081, HTML5 Capabilities 7/7

    JetStream Firefox: 89.579 +/- 10.527
    JetStream Chrome : 100.12 +/- 1.7245

    In short: general performance is above Chrome, but JavaScript performance still lags behind.
    Aye, that works - ta!
     
  14. Ramble

    Ramble Ginger Nut

    Joined:
    5 Dec 2005
    Posts:
    5,596
    Likes Received:
    43
    It's worth noting that the last few versions of firefox have been slowly introducing features to fix old problems, the way firefox now handles large amount of tabs is superior to chrome. The current versions are pretty damn fast and easily keep up with any other modern browser. Version 57 is where it all comes together, I can't think of any reason people would want to use chrome unless you like google spying on you.

    Anyone running ubuntu should disable the ubuntu-specific firefox extension for recent versions, it disables some of the new multithreading for whatever reason.
     
  15. Big Elf

    Big Elf Oh no! Not another f----ing elf!

    Joined:
    23 Apr 2009
    Posts:
    3,937
    Likes Received:
    594
    I'll give this a try but I was getting annoyed with all the UI changes they were making to the Desktop version of FF. In fact I was starting to think of it as FFS every time I used it.

    For Android I'm using Samsung Internet Beta. Now it can sync Chrome bookmarks it's big improvement on previous versions.
     
  16. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

    Joined:
    4 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    17,084
    Likes Received:
    6,635
    It's disabled for me by default, as it's a 'legacy' extension.

    legacy.png
     
  17. Ice Tea

    Ice Tea Minimodder

    Joined:
    26 Jul 2009
    Posts:
    875
    Likes Received:
    54
    Customize firefox Option , Down the bottom next to themes is the density setting.
     
    goldstar0011 likes this.
  18. Gareth Halfacree

    Gareth Halfacree WIIGII! Lover of bit-tech Administrator Super Moderator Moderator

    Joined:
    4 Dec 2007
    Posts:
    17,084
    Likes Received:
    6,635
    Ooh, I didn't know that was there. Much better, ta!
     
  19. goldstar0011

    goldstar0011 Multimodder

    Joined:
    2 Sep 2007
    Posts:
    3,668
    Likes Received:
    486
    Despite most extensions not being compatible I like this loads!
    Thank you Mozilla
     
  20. bawjaws

    bawjaws Multimodder

    Joined:
    5 Dec 2010
    Posts:
    4,268
    Likes Received:
    875
    I'll be honest, I don't actually mind Chrome too much, but then again I'm not one of these people who seem to have two hundred tabs open simultaneously :D Tempted to give FF a whirl though based on the feedback here. How is it on Android? I hated the Android version of FF, so that could be a dealbreaker for me.
     
Tags: Add Tags

Share This Page