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Minefield Shows the (Really) Fast Future of Firefox
Posted by
timothy
on Tue Oct 28, 2008 09:20 AM
from the zipping-right-along dept.
from the zipping-right-along dept.
zootropole writes "If you are using Firefox 3 (or even Chrome) you should consider taking a look at Mozilla's Minefield. This browser (alpha version yet, but stable) would give a new meaning to 'fast browsing experience.' Some Firefox extensions aren't supported, but riding the fastest javascript engine on the planet definitely worth a try. Minefield's install won't affect your Firefox, so there's no risk trying it. It's fast. Really. And I'm loving it."
Reviews popping up around the web are overwhelmingly positive, calling the upcoming browser crazy fast, blisteringly fast, etc.
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Firefox 3.5RC2 Performance In Windows Vs. Linux 240 comments
pizzutz writes "Andy Lawrence has posted a Javascript speed comparison for the recently released Firefox 3.5RC2 between Linux (Ubuntu 9.04) and Windows(XP SP3) using the SunSpider benchmark test. Firefox 3.5 will include the new Tracemonkey Javascript engine. The Windows build edges out Linux by just under 15%, though the Linux build is still twice as fast as the current 3.0.11 version which ships with Jaunty."
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First Post! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:First Post! (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Suggesting nightlies to regular users?! (Score:5, Insightful)
Are you crazy? If you want to be a little risky, try the 3.1 beta. Nightlies shouldn't be used by those that want to use extensions or avoid crashes.
Re:Suggesting nightlies to regular users?! (Score:5, Insightful)
What's more, this is the same thing we hear every 2 years. "Browser X is really fast!" Then six months later you hear, "Browser X was lagging behind the pack because it didn't have support for A, B and C, but now it's getting them." After that you get, "Why is Browser X so slow these days?" And inevitably, "Browser Y is really fast!"
When are we going to realize that browser maturity and performance are going to be on opposing curves and jumping ship to an immature browser just sets you up to lose functionality for a short period of time until the performance can be gobbled up by it.
This is exactly why I'm not using Chrome. Chrome is very nice, but it doesn't have most of what I require of a browsing experience. Once it does, THEN I'll evaluate its competitiveness, not before.
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Re:Suggesting nightlies to regular users?! (Score:5, Funny)
You missed out the 'or' operator. The original statement was that IF (you want to use extensions OR you want to avoid crashes) THEN you shouldn't use nightlies. The followup said that he used the nightlies and avoided crashes just as well as with the stable release, although he didn't use extensions. So: wants to use extensions FALSE, wants to avoid crashes TRUE, and as it turns out nightlies work just fine. Hence OP's theorem is disproved by counterexample.
Really, this is basic Boolean logic. Anyone reading /. ought to understand this stuff...
Parent
Java v. Javascript (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, it's time for us to start educating users and the media of when to properly use the monikers Java and JavaScript.
The article linked to from the summary says "Handles Java Well" in the subtitle, but then never mentions it again - only JavaScript.
These are NOT THE SAME.
This is, of course, CBSNews.. but I have seen the same mistake in so-called "tech" media lately, too.
Oh goodie!!! (Score:5, Funny)
"Hey Rockie, watch me put a gun in my mouth!"
This is irresponsible (Score:5, Informative)
People. There is A REASON why Mozilla calls these builds "Minefield" rather than "Firefox".
It's because they're not ready for daily use.
They may be faster than the released version of Firefox, but they also may contain major, showstopping bugs, up to and including bugs that can cause data loss.
The only people who should be using them are people who understand this risk and are willing to accept it -- i.e. testers.
Anyone promoting these builds for use by the general public is being irresponsible and exposing anyone who takes their advice to risk.
TFA is bad enough, but it's worse to see major sites like Slashdot parroting this bad advice. You should be telling your friends to avoid Minefield, not to seek it out.
Re:This is irresponsible (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:This is irresponsible (Score:5, Informative)
You got lucky.
A nightly build is exactly what it says it is -- a snapshot of the codebase as of a given day.
Some nightly builds may be completely bug free. Others may be chock full of major dataloss bugs. It's a crapshoot.
Your friends may be fine today, but if they decide to "update Minefield" on the wrong day in the future, they're gonna get screwed.
That's why I call it irresponsible.
Parent
No thanks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Firefox Replacement (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Firefox Replacement (Score:5, Informative)
They will, it's an early beta and is therefore considered unstable...
Today's nightly for mac crashes on http://www.pentestmonkey.net/jsbm/index.html [pentestmonkey.net] which is a javascript benchmark, i was trying to see if it really is as fast as the article claims... Currently the webkit nightlies seem to be the fastest on this benchmark, by quite some considerable margin.
Parent
Re:Firefox Replacement (Score:5, Informative)
If it is that much better, why arent they just replacing Firefox with it??
They will, though it will be called Firefox when that happens. "Minefield" is just the code name for Firefox 3 nightlies, and it's called that for a reason: as a developer-intended build, it's prone to blowing up.
It will be released when it is ready. That time isn't yet.
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Re:Firefox Replacement (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:faster than Chrome (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:faster than Chrome (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, you have to enable the TraceMonkey JIT JavaScript compiler before you'll see any reasonable speed increase (in theory). Just go to about:config, search for the 2 items with "JIT" in their name, and enable them.
My stress tests have shown it to be 10-50% faster than Chrome *when* JIT works. However, it's still buggy as hell, it eats its own memory heap and grinds to inexplicable halts kinda randomly whenever my code does anything repetitive and strenuous, bringing the average execution speed down to almost FF2 levels, meaning it's faster for me to leave JIT disabled. It's a no-go for me until they fix that.
Parent
But Chrome wasn't the fastest! (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:But Chrome wasn't the fastest! (Score:5, Funny)
My ManBearPig smashes your SquirrelFish and your silly TraceMonkey.
Since I am not going to RTFA, I am going to speculate that Minefield is Mozilla's answer to Microsoft by way of having a faster, more modern version of Minesweeper.
Take that Evil Empire!
Parent
Re:Minefield? (Score:5, Informative)
What the hell kind of codename is that? Maybe an attempt at 'truth in advertising'?
That's exactly what it is. Minefield always refers to the current alpha-release of the upcoming "major" release.
Don't use it unless you know what you're doing. Suggesting end-users use this, without briefing them on why it will crash [frequently], is irresponsible at best and does a disservice to the alternate browser movement.
Parent
Re:This is a step up (Score:5, Insightful)
Seems pretty quick to me, but that's probably cause it's not running my 15+ extensions.
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Re:This is a step up (Score:5, Informative)
Please remember that if you messed with minefield "a few months back" then its been through dozens of iterations since then. It's a nightly build.
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Re:Hyperbole (Score:5, Funny)
Well... it's 10% faster than Chrome, not than Firefox 3. So, to use your analogy, it's like you're going down the road at 35MPH when Chrome blows by doing 80, and then Minefield blows past doing 88MPH.
(Just better watch that flux capacitor...)
Parent
Re:You can never call MS Evil again.. (Score:5, Informative)
Javascript was not created by the opensource community (it was created by Brendan Eich and ended up becoming part of Netscape, which was not open source at the time). Additionally, Javascript has reasonable structures that don't deteriorate when the software expands to large sizes.
Check out Synchronet [synchro.net], it has IRC servers, NNTP servers, Gopher servers etc. all written in javascript. The code is completely readable (generally not the case with VB when the code reaches that complexity) and cross-platform.
There is nothing fundamentally wrong with the Javascript language, like there is in visual basic.
Parent
Re:Competition and economics (Score:5, Informative)
The browser war heated up when Google (and others?) started paying out on ad revenue created by in-browser searches. Apple makes some nice change on Safari. So does the Mozilla Foundation, apparently [clickz.com].
There would be very little competition if there wasn't money to be made.
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