Firefox 11.0 is out.

[CougTek]

Back to something more related to the original topic of the thread : anyone here ever used Waterfox? I'm browsing on it right now. It's a 64-bit version of Firefox. They supposedly added some optimizations instead of simply compiling Firefox's source code in 64-bit. Unfortunately, there's no translation, just english.

 

[MaxBurn]

Never heard of it. On pc I mostly moved over to chrome now, safari was very unstable with anything more than six tabs of salesforce open.

 

[sechs]

Have they figured out how to use 32-bit plugins on 64-bit Firefox? There's been 64-bit versions of Fx for as long as I can remember, but plugins were always a problem.

I figured that spinning the plugins off into their own process was the step needed to make this happen, but I haven't heard anything about the official 64-bit builds being ready for prime time.

 

[Handruin]

What are the needs and benefits of using a 64-bit browser?

 

[timwhit]

What are the needs and benefits of using a 64-bit browser?

The same as any other application. Mainly the availability of more general purpose registers.

 

[timwhit]

Have they figured out how to use 32-bit plugins on 64-bit Firefox? There's been 64-bit versions of Fx for as long as I can remember, but plugins were always a problem.

I figured that spinning the plugins off into their own process was the step needed to make this happen, but I haven't heard anything about the official 64-bit builds being ready for prime time.

They have on Linux, but I use all x86_64 plugins with Firefox on Linux. Both Flash and Java are available in 64-bit. What else do you need?

 

[sechs]

I would suspect in Firefox's case, it is the additional memory. I've never seen an optimized version of Fx noticeably faster than release binary from Mozilla.

 

[timwhit]

I would suspect in Firefox's case, it is the additional memory. I've never seen an optimized version of Fx noticeably faster than release binary from Mozilla.

Do you normally see Firefox consume more than 3GB of memory? I kill it if it does, because a crash is usually imminent.

 

[timwhit]

Do you normally see Firefox consume more than 3GB of memory? I kill it if it does, because a crash is usually imminent.

To expand on this, the last couple releases have reduced memory usage quite a bit. I don't normally see Firefox use over 2GB of memory anymore.

 

[sechs]

They have on Linux, but I use all x86_64 plugins with Firefox on Linux. Both Flash and Java are available in 64-bit. What else do you need?

Is there a 64-bit version of the Flash plugin for Windows? I can't find it.

 

[sechs]

Do you normally see Firefox consume more than 3GB of memory? I kill it if it does, because a crash is usually imminent.

No, because 3GB is the upper limit on the amount of memory it could address.

However, if the amount of addressable memory was larger, then the memory cache could be larger.

 

[sechs]

To expand on this, the last couple releases have reduced memory usage quite a bit. I don't normally see Firefox use over 2GB of memory anymore.

I've never seen it use more than 2GB; I don't think that the Windows compile has large addresses enabled.

Memory usage isn't of much concern for me, except that I wish that it could use more.

 

[timwhit]

Is there a 64-bit version of the Flash plugin for Windows? I can't find it.

There used to be a labs page where you could download it. I can't find it either anymore.

 

[timwhit]

I've never seen it use more than 2GB; I don't think that the Windows compile has large addresses enabled.

Memory usage isn't of much concern for me, except that I wish that it could use more.

It used to use more, you could grab an older release. I doubt this will help you though, it was doing a lot of things that were simply wasting memory in the past.

Here's an interesting presentation on the work they've done.

 

[Mercutio]

That was genuinely, legitimately fascinating.

 

[Mercutio]

45 open tabs, 277MB RAM used. That's pretty good. And it reloads all tabs super, super fast on my machines. Like under 10 seconds for all of them combined.
But on at least two of my machines Firefox 13 is now super, ridiculously crashy. I'm sure it's a javascript issue. Gawker sites cause it. So do Youtube, Vimeo and Liveleak but some other javascript intensive sites like Google Maps and OKCupid don't. Flash might be a point of commonality as well.

I'm disabling addons one at a time to see if I can isolate the problem, but everything I'm using on these boxes is marked as compatible. What fun.

 

[Mercutio]

Looks like uninstalling Flash fixes the crap out of it. But that can't be the general solution. Unfortunately, having disabled all the add-ons held in common by the two impacted machines didn't fix the problem and getting rid of flash did, so I guess I'll run like this until something-or-other updates.

 

[Stereodude]

Video card drivers / Flash's hardware acceleration?

 

[Mercutio]

One of the machines is my Thinkpad, which has Intel and nVidia drivers. My work desktop has ATI drivers. So... I'm thinking not?

 

[Handruin]

My work desktop has ATI drivers. So... I'm thinking not?

There would be your prime suspect. They are not known for having great drivers/software.

 

[Mercutio]

Yes. The overwhelming horribleness of ATI drivers on my work PC has undoubtedly infected my T420, which has absolutely no ATI hardware at all but both Intel and nVidia, and is exhibiting the same set of symptoms.

 

[Stereodude]

Seems plausible to me. :rotfl:

 

[sechs]

It used to use more, you could grab an older release. I doubt this will help you though, it was doing a lot of things that were simply wasting memory in the past.

I don't think that you understand what I said.

I wish that Firefox could address more memory. That would allow it to keep more information in RAM.

 

[sechs]

There would be your prime suspect. They are not known for having great drivers/software.

Neither is nVidia. Perhaps the problem is Windows.

 

[Chewy509]

Finally updated from FF6 to FF13... haven't noticed any difference? (memory usage is the same, and performance is on par - however it says some of my plugins are out of date, but they certainly are the latest versions on Solaris).
Also updated TB6 to TB12... now I've noticed some differences there... (The sync options with Google Contacts/Calendar is greatly improved).

 

[Mercutio]

Neither is nVidia. Perhaps the problem is Windows.

Since I got the latest Firefox update this morning, the problem went away. So that's awesome.

 

[time]

Also updated TB6 to TB12... now I've noticed some differences there... (The sync options with Google Contacts/Calendar is greatly improved).

AFAIK, they're add-ins and not part of Thunderbird. I use gContactSync for the former and Provider for Google Calendar for the latter.

Since I got the latest Firefox update this morning, the problem went away. So that's awesome.

Now I understand the rationale behind all of these apparently pointless version updates. If at first you don't succeed ...

 

[Mercutio]

Now I understand the rationale behind all of these apparently pointless version updates. If at first you don't succeed ...

Could be that there was some sort of weird edge-case bug that didn't show up in regular testing. I couldn't work out exactly which add-on was causing the problem, but I use so many of them that systematically testing all of them would have been a couple days' worth of work. Stuff happens. At least the Mozilla developers are responsive enough that a fix got pushed out.

Of course, that assumes that they fixed my issue on purpose.

 

[time]

At least the Mozilla developers are responsive enough that a fix got pushed out.

Good point.

Of course, that assumes that they fixed my issue on purpose.

Also a good point.

 

[Handruin]

Could be that there was some sort of weird edge-case bug that didn't show up in regular testing. I couldn't work out exactly which add-on was causing the problem, but I use so many of them that systematically testing all of them would have been a couple days' worth of work. Stuff happens. At least the Mozilla developers are responsive enough that a fix got pushed out.

Of course, that assumes that they fixed my issue on purpose.

Your fix was perhaps related to this:
http://www.majorgeeks.com/story.php?id=34810

 

[Mercutio]

I guess it could have been. Video Downloadhelper is an addon I keep installed, though it was also one of the first ones I disabled when I ran into issues.

 

[Handruin]

I guess it could have been. Video Downloadhelper is an addon I keep installed, though it was also one of the first ones I disabled when I ran into issues.

There was only one bug fix mention related to Flash, but the situation was different than yours. The bug identified a crash while closing the browser. That's not what you described. I can only image the complexity of making sure everything works together, but at the same time I hope they've been working on their unit test cases and use case testing over time.

 

[time]

[heresy]Unit tests are mostly useless, and especially so when you're looking at interaction with 3rd party products.[/heresy]

And it's doubtful that whatever use cases they have include a legally-suspect plugin. Once Adobe became involved, they would have felt pressured to can the plugin anyway.

 

[huluwa]

For those using a laptop computer users, a compact wireless mouse will make you a more convenient mobile office. At the same time, omitting the cable wireless mouse also provides better mobility in the mobile office

 

[LunarMist]

I wish wireless mice ate spambots.

 

[Mercutio]

I spoke too soon. I'm still having issues on this desktop, albeit they seem to happen in a more narrow set of circumstances.

 

[timwhit]

I spoke too soon. I'm still having issues on this desktop, albeit they seem to happen in a more narrow set of circumstances.

Have you tried a new profile?

 

[Mercutio]

I uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox just now, to no great effect. Haven't done a profile yet.

 

[Handruin]

[heresy]Unit tests are mostly useless, and especially so when you're looking at interaction with 3rd party products.[/heresy]

And it's doubtful that whatever use cases they have include a legally-suspect plugin. Once Adobe became involved, they would have felt pressured to can the plugin anyway.

Why do you feel they are useless? They're very useful for identifying problems when you're making changes to code on a regular basis. They keep a level of consistency especially when building APIs. They have saved me lots of headaches but are only good if you continue to expand on them as problems are missed/found.

 

[timwhit]

Why do you feel they are useless? They're very useful for identifying problems when you're making changes to code on a regular basis. They keep a level of consistency especially when building APIs. They have saved me lots of headaches but are only good if you continue to expand on them as problems are missed/found.

They certainly catch a lot of problems that would require a person to test manually. They also take a lot of time to write and keep up to date. Obviously unit tests are not a replacement for proper QA and regression testing.