

Firefox 4 beta's user input tracker - j_baker
http://input.mozilla.com/en-US/

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brianwillis
Restrict the platform to Mac OS X or Linux (in the sidebar on the left) and
the praise curve changes dramatically.

~~~
j_baker
That's incredible. I would expect OS X to be a bit neglected, but I'm
surprised that the Linux version has more complaints than the Windows version.
You would expect that to be a popular platform for people who would develop
Firefox.

Then again, perhaps Linux and OS X users are just more picky than Windows
users.

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samstokes
As I understand it, the Firefox project was started explicitly to develop a
better browser _for Windows_ (as opposed to the main Mozilla project at the
time, the cross-platform Mozilla Suite). The whole idea was to challenge
Internet Explorer's hegemony, and Linux users were (obviously) incidental to
that goal.

As far as I know, Windows is still the priority OS for Firefox. Certainly, for
a long time Firefox's Javascript performance has been noticeably worse on
Linux than on Windows. And the shiny new hardware-accelerated rendering in 4.0
is Windows-only. And let's not even start on Flash (not that the Firefox team
can be blamed for that, but it's a part of the browser experience).

~~~
sayrer
(disclosure: I work for Mozilla)

Is any JavaScript engine faster with GCC than with MSVC? Most of the
difference I've observed has come down to compiler quality on 32-bit Intel
systems. I don't think Linux vs Windows has much to do with JavaScript
performance.

~~~
samstokes
I have definitely perceived Firefox to be slower on Linux than on Windows,
particularly with Javascript-heavy apps. (Moreso in the days of 3.0 admittedly
- I barely use Windows now anyway so I can't compare.) I was also under the
impression that this was a common and widespread perception.

I don't know exactly what's the cause of the slowness I perceive - whether
it's the Javascript VM or the DOM implementation, or some interaction of those
with something more plausibly platform-specific. I'm afraid I haven't tried
recompiling Firefox with different compilers to test this!

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unicornporn
The first comment for Win XP I saw:

":( incompatible with farmville toolbar"

