
Firefox 15 arrives, supports compressed textures for impressive 3D gaming - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/08/firefox-15-arrives-supports-compressed-textures-for-impressive-3d-gaming/
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babuskov
I had to do some testing and installed latest versions of Firefox, Chrome, IE
and Opera. To my surprise, Firefox seems to have improved a lot in the last
few versions. It feels much snappier and more responsive than Chrome, which
was not the case for a long time. Looking at other stuff, like download page
experience, anti-aliased fonts on pages by default and overall look and feel,
one can see that Mozilla has put a lot of effort into fixing the problems and
trying to get back to #1 spot in terms of being the most advanced browser.

Competition from Chrome has awaken them from sleep and finally we are starting
to see a very fast, slick browser. Given all the plugin ecosystem, Firefox
could be back on top. The only problem is that they might be a little bit too
late with these improvements, and it would be hard to win back the users that
switched to Chrome. Most of my friends who switched won't even be bothered to
try new Firefox. They just discard it, the same way majority of ex-IE users
discards newer versions of IE without even trying once.

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TwoBit
I don't think Firefox was ever asleep. They just had different priorities
during the time when Chrome was advancing primarily in performance.

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nnethercote
I'm a Mozilla employeed, and I think it's fair to say that Chrome's presence
caused us to increase the focus on Firefox performance. E.g.
<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/MemShrink> and
<https://wiki.mozilla.org/Performance/Snappy>.

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dewiz
I switched back from chrome to FF few months ago, well I never left really due
to firebug and client certs, but now I really don't use chrome anymore. FF is
as fast as chrome to start, ie turning off tabs autoloading. I never lost my
history with FF while it happened too many times with Chrome. Extensions
integration is a lot better in FF, try LastPass for example. FF can have
multiple rows of tabs with an extension, I don't think that's possible in
Chrome. chrome text search is light years back from FF. And finally, Chrome
way of hiding privacy settings, ie delete cookies, is annoying, obviously
Google doesn't have any interests on my privacy. FF has been terrible and slow
for at least 4 years, but it's back!

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nnethercote
Try the "Tree Style Tab" extension. It puts tabs on the side, so you can fit
many more of them, and you can even collapse and expand sub-trees.

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kimmel
Yes Tree Style Tab is a must. Chrome and Chromium do not offer vertical tab
support on Linux.

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dimitar
I'm actually excited about the second part: The new version also significantly
reduces the memory overhead of leaky add-ons.

I'm going to download a bunch of downloads and see how it feels now.

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josephcooney
Don't they say that EVERY firefox release?

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PommeDeTerre
Yes, they do.

Whenever the topics of Firefox's memory leaks or performance problems come up,
there are always people who claim that it has none. They hold this position
even when presented with mountains of evidence to show that there are in fact
problems. Then the next version of Firefox is released, and the release notes
go on and on about how memory leaks and performance problems have been fixed.
Strange, how could they fix these problems that supposedly never existed in
the first place?

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tedmielczarek
The MemShrink project has been in progress for over a year now, with
measurable results shipping in many updates. The specific bullet point here is
a fix to a very common addon problem that has been shown to have real-world
benefits.

Nobody here is denying there's a problem, things are getting fixed.

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leeoniya
i have always stuck with FF for firebug and because of how much i can
customize every single aspect to my needs. i think opera fits the bill as
well, but something about its UI doesn't work for me. ff is plenty fast and i
dont need to deal with untweakable interface decisions as i do in chrome. i
have said for a long time that i would give chrome another try when they give
me an about:config equivalent and a fully customizable ui, but that's not in
the cards.

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mattparlane
Does anyone know what the status of the new Australis theme is? I think FF is
really in need of an update and the mockups of Australis that I saw looked
really nice to me.

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Hilyin
No HiDPI support yet. They are slacking!

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TazeTSchnitzel
Is it really a priority? The vast majority of Firefox users do not own the new
MBP.

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mikeash
More of them are being sold every day, and the pace is only set to increase as
it's pretty much inevitable that Apple will release more high-resolution
devices as time goes on. Might as well get it over with now before Firefox
gets labeled as "the ugly one on high-res devices".

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TwoBit
Are we ever going to see a high resolution Windows implementation?

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TazeTSchnitzel
Windows 8 will support multiple DPI values, at least for Metro.

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velodrome
I wish the gui interface was more like chrome. The tab management seems
clunky.

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Zirro
The way Chrome handles a large number of open tabs is one of the reasons I
don't use it. In fact, out of all the things that could possibly bother me
about Firefox, the interface isn't one.

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krzyk
The same for me. My wife uses Chrome and when I sometimes have to use it on
her laptop it really makes me mad when I have to find a tab when the only
thing I see is the favicon.

I tried Chrome on my linux and I much more prefer Firefox (aurora channel)

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zedzedzed
Mozilla is shining these days! Introducing awe techs (Not to mention,
servo!!).

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zedzedzed
Mozilla is shining these days! Not to mention servo!!

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elchief
can someone just email me when it's faster than chrome? thx

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Tyrannosaurs
Performance and stability wise based on some use today it's a step forward.

It's still fugly sadly.

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sliverstorm
Finally, someone who understands! Prettiness really is the most important
feature of any browser.

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Tyrannosaurs
You need to compete on all fronts and decent UI is one of them. Firefox, for
me at least, is still behind in this area (though I loved the Australis stuff
that was being put forward).

