Firefox Quantum - Beta and Developer releases available

[Portreve]

I've been clearing out email that's accumulated, and some of the stuff related to Mozilla. While there, I was poking around a bit on their web site and started looking at Firefox Quantum, which I've now downloaded and installed in my user home directory.

One of the nice things about Mozilla is at least they are honest. Their review of the present beta release vs the current release of Chrome shows that while Quantum does compete better against Chrome, it's not universally faster. They pull no punches and come right out and say where FF Quantum is faster and where Chrome is faster. Presumably, this is all with an eye to driving further improvements to Firefox.

Anyhow, my question, and really the point of this thread, is how many folks here have tried or are trying out Firefox Quantum right now, and what have your experiences been? I really can't comment myself as I only installed the thing less than five minutes ago.

Also, kind of off the topic, but how many of you here have an opinion on the Rust development environment (or whatever it is)?

[MintBean]

It's a much needed improvement in the performance stakes but their modification to the addons API breaks compatibility with a few addons I rely on and it's much more limited with regards to what it enables addons to do than the current system. A mixed bag for me really then.

[Fred Barclay]

Anyhow, my question, and really the point of this thread, is how many folks here have tried or are trying out Firefox Quantum right now, and what have your experiences been? I really can't comment myself as I only installed the thing less than five minutes ago.

I've been using it this past month. It's great, really! The extensions I want (Ublock Origin, NoScript, Privacy Badger, and HTTPS Everwhere) are either ready to go or in the process of being ported over. It's quite a bit faster than the old Firefox in my experience.
Using a single search bar took a little while to get used to, but it's not a significant drawback for me. Actually it makes a lot of sense. I use the address bar in firefox for all my searches anyways.

I just hope it can gain more market share. I'm going to try and convince a few people (current Chrome devotees) to give it a spin for a week when it comes out.

Chrome is nice but not what I want in a primary browser. "Old" firefox was good but needlessly laggy. Quantum is good and fast. I love it!

Also, kind of off the topic, but how many of you here have an opinion on the Rust development environment (or whatever it is)?

As a concept, I like it. I've not touched it as a programmer.
If I had more time it would be on my short list of languages to fiddle around with.

[aes2011]

I've been using Fx Quantum for a while as well. uBlock origin, Stylus, and Tampermonkey are working well. No complaints.

[lmintnewb2]

Thanks for posting this, played with Servo several months ago, it was in such a primitive state at the time, wasn't much of a user experience. Downloaded the beta and dorked with it for a bit after you mentioned this. Download page says it's due to go official on Nov 14th or so. Personally will wait until then to bother with it. Also until noscript is officially ported to it. I've gotten so used to using that extension ... just really want it available for use.

General impression after really brief usage, thing is faster, though not astronomically faster than latest current Firefox + noscript and some few about:config tweaks applied. Seemed much heavier on Cpu overhead to me. With several instances of Web-Extension processes spawning, no noscript extension running to block javascripts. Also ate up quite a bit more memory while I was using it. Nine or 10 tabs, was at like 1.1gbs-RAM. Would've been much less than that with my current Firefox setup even if it had several more tabs open and running.

Conclusion for me, I'll have to wait and see. When it goes stable and noscript makes it's way over to supporting it. Really have no choice and will have to learn to adapt to the changes. Hope it works out well because Firefox has been my preferred browser so long I really want to keep using it as the main web-browser( couple versions before it even went officially v 1.0.) Anyway OP, thanks again for keeping people posted on the topic.

[lmintnewb2]

Of course, after saying the above had to dork with it some more. So set up a new profile for it and a symlink + keybind to launch the sucker to play with it some more. Still finding myself way less than pleased and encountered the same situation. Much higher RAM usage, was at 1.4gbs with 10 random tabs open, hammering away at the Cpu (25% or even more vs latest Firefox, unusual to see it at 5% for any length of time), as a result the temperatures of the cores were also quite a bit higher (10-15deg C) compared to my standard Firefox browser which is installed and running exactly the same way. Speed comparison nowhere near enough to make any such added overhead justifiable( if any real gain compared to what I already have setup.)

Overall ... again, may try it when it goes official and noscript is finished getting ported to support it. Not a happy camper atm though, if it keeps showing such behavior when the above is complete then looks like I'll have to start searching for a replacement browser for Firefox and/or keep the latest version and continue using it until that becomes impractical for whatever reason. If I can't learn to tame/tweak Mozilla's new stuff.

So it's a holding pattern for me. Will just have to wait and see. Hopefully just the simple addition of a noscript extension that supports it will mitigate some of the problems I've encountered thus far.

[lmintnewb2]

Pointless afterthought: May've inadvertently clicked on some flash heavy website while dorking with Quantum too, thus accounting for the extremes seen in cpu/temp overhead. Believe (and generally do) at the very least someone has to conduct such testing side by side, under as close to the same circumstances as possible if they hope to get accurate and meaningful results.

Not interested enough in this atm to go through the trouble. Have done so comparing various browsers stats before. With Firefox + noscript always coming out the clear winner in terms of system overhead and in my experience completely equal in terms of browsing speed, once a tad of tweakage has been applied to it. Plus never experienced similar in any version up to the latest using Firefox, as I did recently dorking around with Firefox-beta.

Totally unscientific result of latest Firefox + noscript running with 14 random tabs open according to output of ps_mem

237.9 MiB + 46.4 MiB = 284.3 MiB firefox
328.9 MiB + 40.7 MiB = 369.5 MiB Web Content

So total RAM being 652.8mbs used by the browser.

Output of sensors:

Adapter: Virtual device
Processor Fan: 3000 RPM
CPU: +50.0°C
Other: +45.0°C
Other: +47.0°C

acpitz-virtual-0
Adapter: Virtual device
temp1: +50.5°C (crit = +100.0°C)

coretemp-isa-0000
Adapter: ISA adapter
Core 0: +55.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)
Core 1: +52.0°C (high = +100.0°C, crit = +100.0°C)

And top says, generally jumping around to a max of 5% of the cpu, with +/- 95% of it remaining idle. While watching the output of top do it's thing. All these were DRASTICALLY higher while using Firefox-beta and the thing is set to go stable fairly quickly, so don't anticipate there being major revisions to it in that short time. Arghhhhh !

[varum]

I'm using Quantum in the last few days and it's amazing! Can't wait for the alpha version!

[Portreve]

I haven't, as I said in my initial post, played with it enough to judge it fully.

I normally have no more than 2-3 tabs open at the same time, regardless of browser, simply because I have no need to. Also, I've historically used only one or two relatively mainstream plugins, like AdBlock+, and these days, due to politics related stuff, I also use B.S. Detector. Lately, I'm also using Privacy Badger. I just can't find a personal need for anything else.

As things presently stand, the plugins I use all seem to work, and frankly I'd love to see FF not slow to a crawl. It didn't used to do this way back when (say, early 2000s) but I had to stop using it for a range of different problems it has had during the course of the last ten years. Recent versions of Firefox have taken care of most of the usability and interface problems, but if you have multiple tabs open, it's been my experience that speed tanks. If Quantum finally addresses that, then I can conceivably see it becoming a browser I can use on a regular basis.

[Fred Barclay]

One thing to remember about Quantum is that, with the new multiprocess stuff, it presumably will require more cpu power and RAM, as lmintnewb2 is seeing. I'm not sure if they've compensated by reducing the memory requirements of other parts of the browser or not.

My work computer, which is what I have Quantum on, has 8 GB ram (soon to be 24 GB! ) so a bit more RAM usage doesn't bother me. Plus multiprocess means we get a more secure Firefox.

[lmintnewb2]

^ Yeah absolutely, definitely expected but to me only if the benefits account for an increase. For me it's not much faster than the version of Firefox I have now but was MASSIVELY more resource intensive. Security ... never had a problem with security using gnu/Linux and Firefox as it's been. Whereas always been plenty fast and ultra-light on resources. MUCH higher overhead means many things, less free resources on a system for the things I want to do, added heat and stress on components, draws more power so on a laptop means more frequent battery charge + discharge and thus reduced battery life, as that's how they work. Rated for xyz-number of charge/discharge cycles and then time to get a new one.

Will definitely be watching and at some point give it a more thorough tryout. Though if the characteristics I encountered during my brief experiments persist, I'll be going with one of the many alternatives and jumping ship on Mozilla. Oops: Also note that to a great extent Mozilla's target audience isn't gnu/nix users, it's window$ users. Added security/speed with comparable system overhead or even a bit less than they're used to with other browsers, for those people would definitely be welcomed, whereas for someone like myself ... not so much. Mozilla's gotta do, what Mozilla's gotta do. To hopefully improve and stay competitive. Same time though I gotta do, what I gotta do to find a browser that meets my likes/needs. Atm ... to me isn't looking like much of a step forward.

24gbs of RAM ?!!?!!?!? I hate you ! PLONK ! ... Kidding around.

[lmintnewb2]

Beats dead horse some more, WHAP, whap ... whap !!!

Hey though this(Firefox) is a subject near n dear, so have much to say about it. Plus there's a metric gazillion tweaks, many of which I haven't even bothered with to make Firefox as it is a TON faster. Stuff like moving it ... even fully onto a ramdisk or tmpfs. Not just it's cache or profile(s) or whatever. As well as so many about:config tweaks someone could take advantage of.

The stuff I've learned and tweaks applied, no doubt the Firefox I have setup is much faster and/or lighter than it comes out of the box. Though as per above, really do think with enough tweakage, Firefox as it is, in the hands of a person with some know how, could be made to be faster than Firefox as it's about to be. While still not using as many resources or at least getting higher returns on resources invested, shrugs.

Which is one of the bones (criticisms) I've long had to pick with Mozilla. Probably the MOST configurable browser on the planet but often they are so highly conservative in the way it comes config'ed out-of-box vs competitors like Chrome, with way more aggressive default config's, that they've been losing battle after battle in the browser war. When they should've been using and tweaking what they already have.

[Fred Barclay]

24gbs of RAM ?!!?!!?!? I hate you ! PLONK ! ... Kidding around.

Tell me about it. I can't even imagine what 24 GB will feel like. Here I am thinking that 8GB is huge (well, maybe not for Windows, which unfortunately is all we get at work - except for virtual machines) and out of the blue they offered me more RAM for free.
I do have a justifiable need for more RAM thanks to the VMs I have to run, but still...


Only three of us even took 'em up oh the offer.

[lmintnewb2]

Edit: Oops OT: Not pleased with the way Mozilla is choosing to go about the future of development-etc. As noted kind of understand their motivation and reasoning for choosing that path though.

Mentioned if worse comes to pass many options. Just one of those being keeping FF v 56 around for quite awhile. Not like it won't be up to running just fine for a long time to come. I can and have run multiple versions of FF on gnu/Linux, some of them ancient ones from Mozilla's archive. Just cause it was interesting to see how far things had come Firefox v. 4.0 vs v. 53.02 etc. Many of those even ancient versions still run fine. Side-by-side with latest.

@Fred Barclay.
And you're getting it for free too ! NOW i really do hatecha ! Yeah ... you know I'm kidding again. Cool ... and glad for you. Getting to the point where am even doubting I'll ever own a personal computer with anything like that amount. Not sure what I'd ever find to even use it for. Considering 8gbs for my next system(will be purchased used.)

Way M$ keeps designing their stuff to need/use more and more. Can see a time in the not too distant future when 8gbs is minimum requirement for a window$ system to run well out-of-box. Again without any real added or impressive features in the newer stuff to justify it. Unless someone considers spyware so M$ can know what you ate for breakfast a "feature" . Also not that matters, think they keep doing so on purpose. So people will have to keep upgrading to higher and higher spec hardware and pitch perfectly good hardware to buy newer.

Never let it be said, that I said M$ is stupid. Imo they are far from it. Corporate scumbags and low-lifes, absolutely ... stupid not at all. They know exactly what they're doing but as long as the money keeps rolling in, just flat-out don't care, shrugs. Not like that's new in terms of how any other major corporation behaves. Though for me, sad to think they could still stay filthy rich and do people better. Without resorting to all the sleaze.

For some personal computer users, when they list their hardware specs, can't help but involuntarily have my jaw drop. Oh yeah ... it's got 32gbs-RAM a 12-core water cooled processor and 3 2tb SSD's in it. Errrrr whaaaaaaaa ?

[lmintnewb2]

Couple other random-bits to add. I know everyone is sooooo pleased eh ?

1. Already disabled in Firefox's setting to automatically install updates, have long since done this anyway. Though way I run it on gnu/Linux, it will actually update like it does on window$ and I don't want that to happen, esp with this new-style Firefox coming out soon. Launch it and get that "applying update blahblahblah". Nope Mozilla atm, want to keep the version I have.

2. As noted above, the latest action by Mozilla is motivated to mainly take care of window$ users. Though yeah multi-process this and that (more speed out-of-box) will be met with much approval from gnu/Linux users too. Why wouldn't it ? Not saying it's so much a bad thing no matter what. Especially if folks are already used to a browser gobbling up RAM and Cpu like it's going out of style.

Even this going on 9yr old laptop CAN handle it ... dual-core @2.1ghz/4gbs-ddr2 ... I just don't want to have to drastically add to system overhead. Am willing to wait an extra .256secs for a webpage to load in order to avoid an added 15-20% of processor use and the same with RAM. Willing to take a bit of a performance hit, rather than having half a dozen tabs chowing down on 1.1gbs more memory ! Noooooooooo !

Or as mentioned if am going to deal with that, sheesh ... I'll set up Firefox in a ramdisk etc or other things to get optimized performance and speed out of da Fox. Sighs ... even upgrade hardware, small SSD's are getting pretty cheap nowadays.

Am kinda hoping, maybe there may be enough nixers who feel the way I do, that a decent development team steps out of the shadows n ashes to fork Firefox as it already is and take it in another direction. Would be awesome with the especial focus on gnu/Linux Firefox users ! If heard about it I'd join and offer some suggestions for sure.

Would be fricken hilarious to see a bunch resource misers and uber-tweaksters get together and apply various tweaks, resulting in what by then will be an outmoded Firefox version and having it come out faster and run much lighter than latest Firefox or Google Chrome.

[trytip]

don't get too comfy with FIREFOX even though it say they are not Chrome they still get telemetry and phone home data from you working in the background. this is where a good HOSTS file comes into play along with cookie controller, canvas blocker, referrer control and many other about:config tweaks

Firefox Privacy Notice Effective September 28, 2017
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/privacy/firefox/

: To help protect you from malicious downloads, Firefox sends basic information about unrecognized downloads to Google's SafeBrowsing Service, including the filename and the URL it was downloaded from.

the above statement is just a nice way of saying we know everything you do and we block you when you try to do something we don't like. clicking the Learn more sends you deeper down the rabbit hole and why would you need to learn how to opt-out of this data collection. but you need to do it

[lmintnewb2]

Ahhhhh, ever get the feeling, it's just so much easier to shut da hades up and just people watch ? Ya learn more listening, than talking etc etc ?

Everybody collects data, depending on who and for what reason, some of it is solely meant for a GOOD purpose and/or the stated purpose. That being the protection of xyz-software's user or to improve the software by collecting information from the userbase.

ie: Crash reports, they could very well be anonymous too. But the makers of the software collect this in the hopes of learning what went wrong and thus if it's a big enough issue to correct it or patch it.

Pointless note: I also uncheck this, not because am worried Mozilla is collecting info about me, actually doing them a favor. As many the time, I'll pop open a terminal for whatever reason and "sudo reboot" even with the browser open. I felt like rebooting for some reason and wonder if this would send off info to Mozilla that FF had crashed since it wasn't closed normally ?

Stuff like "Block malicious websites" kinda thing. Yeah websites a person is visiting are checked against a list of sites that are known to be malicious or tend to attack netizens who visit them, trying to infect them with BHO =browser helper objects, hijack scripts, phishing or any number of other such sites. Presumably yes, this list has to be periodically refreshed and kept up ... or what's the point.

Personally on gnu/Linux, I uncheck those boxes. Have NEVER had my browser, much less my operating system infected by any such sites and yeah, I've been known to visit some bottom of the barrel websites and resources too. Whether that be adult material or whatever else, shrugs. Not meaning to argue just think people are so hyper paranoid about much of this type of stuff. They can even tell people the who, the what ... the why and there'll still be an outcry from users so loud it shakes the heavens. Have them announce hey folks, we need funding though, *crickets chirping.

Another example IF you select Google Inc to be your search provider in Firefox, then yes information and searches done in the browser are almost certainly going to be sent to google. OMG ... google now knows I like snowboarding !?!?!? This is the end, my life's over ! In addition to my desire to learn how to make homemade dinner rolls from scratch !!!! WILL I NEVER KNOW PEACE !

Ok shutting it ... sorry.

[lmintnewb2]

Nope ... one more, sighs.

Also really wondering what effect this will have on existing Firefox forks ? ie: Pale Moon and others, one's that have supposedly truly forked and gone their own way. Will their ranks swell ? Have previously avoided them like the plague. Figuring why trust them or could they possibly have the same skills and resources in browser development as Mozilla etc ?

Ahhhh all this and changes involved is making my brain hurt ! That's it ... I'm going back to using Dillo a true specimen of everything a web-browser should be !

Btw: If you think I'm being serious and actually install Dillo, then I take no responsibility for your actions !

PS, Apologies to Portreve, am in no way meaning to hijack your thread. If you'd prefer I shut it, send me a PM and will do so fellow nixer.

I actually feel most of what I've posted is related. That being, in testing out Quantum have found out I'm not overly stoked about it. Thus people will be looking for alternatives. I also apologize to dear Firefox, as I'm kind of assuming the worst. Haven't even given it any type of fair chance, haven't as yet even seen what tweaks and work-around's can be applied to it or to what degree which may render all my sky is falling moot. Plus when it first comes on the scene, it's going to be new. As such ... might take some time for Mozilla to find and work out some kinks. So plan atm for me ... is likely will hold off until after a few versions have gone official.