Firefox - More fire and fewer cancer warnings than California

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Firefox - More fire and fewer cancer warnings than California

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Mad Doctor Cthulhu: Mar 3, 2008

Prize Loser posted:

Just a shot in the dark, here, but try disabling hardware acceleration in Flash's settings. Right click a video, go to settings, untick the box. For some reason Flash's hardware acceleration and Firefox don't really cooperate for me.

I just did this and not only did video start working well, Firefox 10 started working faster as well. What the gently caress?

# ? Feb 8, 2012 00:15

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 19:03

ThermoPhysical: Dec 26, 2007

I just disabled hardware acceleration on Flash too on my copy of Firefox 10 and things are a LOT faster.

Also, it dropped from using 100MB of RAM to 78MB. Is Flash really THAT bad?

# ? Feb 8, 2012 00:56

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Mad Doctor Cthulhu posted:

I just did this and not only did video start working well, Firefox 10 started working faster as well. What the gently caress?

You probably have old/bad video drivers. Firefox uses GPU acceleration for compositing and layers (unlike other browsers that use the CPU), in addition to Flash using it for video decoding and display. Try updating to the latest drivers provided by your graphics manufacturer.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 00:57

ryanbruce: May 1, 2002; The "Dell Dude"

Alereon posted:

You probably have old/bad video drivers. Firefox uses GPU acceleration for compositing and layers (unlike other browsers that use the CPU), in addition to Flash using it for video decoding and display. Try updating to the latest drivers provided by your graphics manufacturer.

Is this only true for later gen cards? I'm running a 7950GT in my daily driver with the latest drivers from Nvidia (and dealing with a world of issues that I won't get into here)

# ? Feb 8, 2012 01:01

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

ryanbruce posted:

Is this only true for later gen cards? I'm running a 7950GT in my daily driver with the latest drivers from Nvidia (and dealing with a world of issues that I won't get into here)

I'm pretty sure they can still do hardware accelerated compositing of Layers using Direct3D/OpenGL (depending on platform) on older hardware assuming the driver isn't blocklisted. Hardware accelerated Direct2D rendering (where most of the performance and image quality gains come from) requires Vista SP2 or later and I THINK a DX9.0C videocard, but I'm not precisely sure where the cutoff is. I know it's blocked on some lower-end products (especially older Intel integrated graphics) that are capable of supporting it because the hardware is so crappy it's faster to just do it in software.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 01:16

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

I'm not sure this is a firefox-specific question, but as the problem doesn't happen in IE I'm pretty sure there must be some way to fix it (maybe someone knows an extension?) It's happened in every version of Firefox from 3 to 10.

Basically, I have a crappy ISP that likes to occasionally and randomly redirect me toward ads for upgrading my service to a higher tier. It happens a couple times per hour, and it's immediately identifiable to me because the page I wanted to load doesn't actually load and all I see is a screen with some code written out in plaintext and a popup ad (which I blocked). I just captured the source code of the redirect it's sending me. In this example I obviously clicked on SA's User Control Panel and instead of that page it gave me this:

code:

<html><head><meta http-equiv='pragma' content='no-cache'/><meta http-equiv='expires' content='-1'/><script>
var stat_path='http://121.15.207.198:80/stat.aspx?p=1328659423|1839260|16118|0|0|0';
var cnt_path='';
window.setInterval('window.status=location.href', 200);
</script></head><body scroll='no' style='border:0; margin:0; padding:0;' id='mainbody'><iframe src='about:blank' width='100%' height='100%' frameborder='0'></iframe><script language='JavaScript' src='http://121.15.207.29:1010/openV4.js'></script>
<script language='JavaScript'>
var content='http://gd.189.cn/AD/20120206/xinzheng_0206.htm?p=1328659423|1839260|16118|0|0|0&param=ABioyajZGekprCz8jKys/Pys7Oy83Kv87JzNGYm9mPkJOWnIaWm8LOyc7Ox9mMkIqNnJqKjZPCmZCNipKM0YyQkpqLl5aRmJ6ImYqT0ZyQ';
var old_url='http://forums.somethingawful.com/usercp.php?1328659423';
var param='600|400|9';
if(checkpop(stat_path))
{try{OpenWin(content,stat_path,cnt_path,old_url);}catch(e){}}
else{location.href = old_url;}
</script>
</body></html>

I have to click the page reload button for the page I wanted to actually load and appear, because it doesn't change the address shown in the address bar. Does anyone know a way I could prevent these redirects? Failing that, a good extension or something to just stop loading and automatically reload my intended address if this happens? In case anyone suggests it, I live in China and can't change my ISP.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 01:22

ryanbruce: May 1, 2002; The "Dell Dude"

Alereon posted:

I'm pretty sure they can still do hardware accelerated compositing of Layers using Direct3D/OpenGL (depending on platform) on older hardware assuming the driver isn't blocklisted. Hardware accelerated Direct2D rendering (where most of the performance and image quality gains come from) requires Vista SP2 or later and I THINK a DX9.0C videocard, but I'm not precisely sure where the cutoff is. I know it's blocked on some lower-end products (especially older Intel integrated graphics) that are capable of supporting it because the hardware is so crappy it's faster to just do it in software.

Hmm. Well, I disabled hardware acceleration in Flash and Youtube stopped sucking so until I figure out what's going on I'll just leave it alone.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 01:25

m2pt5: May 18, 2005; THAT GOD DAMN MOSQUITO JUST KEEPS COMING BACK

MeramJert posted:

I have to click the page reload button for the page I wanted to actually load and appear, because it doesn't change the address shown in the address bar. Does anyone know a way I could prevent these redirects? Failing that, a good extension or something to just stop loading and automatically reload my intended address if this happens? In case anyone suggests it, I live in China and can't change my ISP.

You could try changing your DNS servers to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 01:26

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

m2pt5 posted:

You could try changing your DNS servers to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4.

I did that and it didn't fix anything.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 01:26

Dice Dice Baby: Aug 30, 2004; I like "faggots"

ryanbruce posted:

Hmm. Well, I disabled hardware acceleration in Flash and Youtube stopped sucking so until I figure out what's going on I'll just leave it alone.

Could you list your hardware and operating system?

I'd like more information on this flash HW acceleration doowacky? Is it in any way related to DXVA?

# ? Feb 8, 2012 03:00

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Dice Dice Baby posted:

Could you list your hardware and operating system?

I'd like more information on this flash HW acceleration doowacky? Is it in any way related to DXVA?

Yes, the flash Hardware Acceleration checkbox enables both DXVA for video decoding and also hardware accelerated rendering of the decoded video and controls. It shouldn't interfere with anything else or cause problems, and it works fine on my system, but I've seen other people have issues.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 03:09

ryanbruce: May 1, 2002; The "Dell Dude"

Dice Dice Baby posted:

Could you list your hardware and operating system?

I'd like more information on this flash HW acceleration doowacky? Is it in any way related to DXVA?

E6300 (1.86GHz C2D)
Intel DG965WH
7950GT w/ Nvidia Drivers v285.62
6G BDDR2

Win7 x64

edit: I've had weird issues with VLC Player where I have to go into Device Manager and remove/re-add the Display adapter for video to play. It's annoying and happens every so often but since it's a nice excuse to finish building my i7 system I'm not spending a ton of time figuring it out.

ryanbruce fucked around with this message at 03:30 on Feb 8, 2012

# ? Feb 8, 2012 03:18

syscall girl: Nov 7, 2009; by FactsAreUseless; Fun Shoe

ThermoPhysical posted:

Is Flash really THAT bad?

It killed Steve Jobs.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 03:26

xamphear: Apr 9, 2002; SILK FOR CALDÉ!

Unchecking that hardware accel box in the Flash settings never seems to stick for me. I quit Firefox and the next time I open it, it's back on again.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 04:00

Oblivion590: Nov 23, 2010

MeramJert posted:

Does anyone know a way I could prevent these redirects?

If the redirects are being dealt with outside of the browser, then there's nothing you can do about receiving them. It sounds like something upstream of you is deciding to respond with a page other than the one you requested, rather than an HTTP redirect. You can confirm this with a tool like Wireshark (If it's legal in China? Check first.) if you want to be sure; your request/response stream will show a response of the text advertisement you see instead of an HTTP redirect.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 04:46

Dice Dice Baby: Aug 30, 2004; I like "faggots"

ryanbruce posted:

E6300 (1.86GHz C2D)
Intel DG965WH
7950GT w/ Nvidia Drivers v285.62
6G BDDR2

Win7 x64

edit: I've had weird issues with VLC Player where I have to go into Device Manager and remove/re-add the Display adapter for video to play. It's annoying and happens every so often but since it's a nice excuse to finish building my i7 system I'm not spending a ton of time figuring it out.

The GeForce 7 series doesn't really possess DXVA, so video decoding will be done on your processor, maybe you still have the Direct2D acceleration, but I can't vouch for that

You can check what your video card does accelerate with a DXVA Checker: http://bluesky23.yu-nagi.com/en/#DXVAChecker

# ? Feb 8, 2012 04:54

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

Oblivion590 posted:

If the redirects are being dealt with outside of the browser, then there's nothing you can do about receiving them. It sounds like something upstream of you is deciding to respond with a page other than the one you requested, rather than an HTTP redirect. You can confirm this with a tool like Wireshark (If it's legal in China? Check first.) if you want to be sure; your request/response stream will show a response of the text advertisement you see instead of an HTTP redirect.

Would it be possible to just mask the problem then, using something (maybe a Greasemonkey script?) to automatically redirect the page to 'old_url' if I get this ad?

# ? Feb 8, 2012 04:59

ryanbruce: May 1, 2002; The "Dell Dude"

Dice Dice Baby posted:

The GeForce 7 series doesn't really possess DXVA, so video decoding will be done on your processor, maybe you still have the Direct2D acceleration, but I can't vouch for that

Yeah, that's what I'd determined myself a while back because I can't take advantage of GPU decoding on HD video either.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 05:42

N.Z.'s Champion: Jun 8, 2003; Yam Slacker

MeramJert posted:

Would it be possible to just mask the problem then, using something (maybe a Greasemonkey script?) to automatically redirect the page to 'old_url' if I get this ad?

Yes, just check for a unique string in that page content and based on that reload/redirect. In your greasemonkey script try checking document.documentElement.innerHTML.match("gd\.189\.cn") or something. innerHTML will change whitespace so try to match a substring without spaces.

N.Z.'s Champion fucked around with this message at 09:22 on Feb 8, 2012

# ? Feb 8, 2012 06:11

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

There was a cluster of performance-related blog posts today on Planet Mozilla:

The Memshrink Project Week 34 Progress Notes are now available. The first major item is that part of Mozilla's review process before approving add-ons is now a check for zombie compartments, a kind of memory leak. They are finding and reporting leaks to authors, so this bodes well for a future where add-ons are less leaky. The second item is that stats are showing an increase in memory usage for Firefox 12, which is now on Aurora. The cause is a patch from early January, they are working to isolate and fix the issue.

Nicholas Nethercote also has a blog post about the benefits of reducing memory consumption.

Brian Bondy has a blog post about the Snappy Project's work to reduce Firefox startup time.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 07:36

TOOT BOOT: May 25, 2010

Mozilla just seems really slow to change that actually matter. It seems like they spend tons of time adding support for rendering edge cases instead of tweaking things that people actually care about, like having a new tab page, or really fast page rendering, or making it convenient to switch from other browsers.

Chrome is catching up on Firefox features faster than the reverse. As soon as the experimental ad-blocking APIs become a standard feature in Chrome that'll be one less reason for people to stick with Firefox.

It's kinda ironic because Firefox was sort of a reaction to IE development becoming stagnant and now it feels like Firefox has fallen into the same trap. You can't just remove UI buttons and add some obscure new tag every couple of months and call it progress.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 08:36

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

Those seems like odd criticisms, given that there is a new tab page in Firefox 12 (off by default until 13), I just posted links to their efforts to improve performance, and the import wizard supports everything but Chrome, with Chrome support in Firefox 11. The Firefox Feature page on the Mozilla Wiki shows a list of the features that are in progress and have been shipped in recent versions.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 08:59

TOOT BOOT: May 25, 2010

Alereon posted:

Those seems like odd criticisms, given that there is a new tab page in Firefox 12 (off by default until 13), I just posted links to their efforts to improve performance, and the import wizard supports everything but Chrome, with Chrome support in Firefox 11. The Firefox Feature page on the Mozilla Wiki shows a list of the features that are in progress and have been shipped in recent versions.

They've been talking about improving performance for a very long time time now without much to show for it other than on paper. Arewefastyet.com was registered two *years* ago, and the browser still feels slow compared to Safari, Opera, Chrome, even recent versions of IE.

As for adding a new tab soon, that's good, but adding a feature several years after every other browser is setting the bar pretty low. That's about how long it took Microsoft to add tabbed browsing after everyone else did it.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 09:55

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

I don't really think you're being fair regarding Firefox performance. All browsers have improved in performance, including Firefox. If you look at the AreWeFastYet graphs from two years ago, you can see how far Firefox has come (to the point where it's consistently beating V8 across the board). You're right that there's more to performance than just how fast JavaScript executes, but that's what the Snappy project is working on, making the browser "feel snappy." Some of the more important improvements related to Garbage Collection will probably land in Firefox 13. Add-ons also make a huge difference in how fast Firefox runs and feels, if you've got lots of add-ons (especially complicated ones like Firebug) or have been using the same profile for years you should probably look into making a change.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 10:32

ryanbruce: May 1, 2002; The "Dell Dude"

Alereon posted:

(especially complicated ones like Firebug)

If I click the little "power" button in Firebug when I'm not using it, is that good enough?

quote:

or have been using the same profile for years you should probably look into making a change.

Do you have suggestions for making a profile swap less painful?

Unfortunately I love the Awesome Bar too much to nuke my history, but I could easily transfer bookmarks/passwords. I ask because I'm pretty sure this profile is about 900 years old.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 11:05

Alereon: Feb 6, 2004; Dehumanize yourself and face to Trumpshed; College Slice

ryanbruce posted:

If I click the little "power" button in Firebug when I'm not using it, is that good enough?

I believe you have to disable the add-on through the Add-Ons Manager to remove its impact completely, though turning it off probably helps.

quote:

Do you have suggestions for making a profile swap less painful?

Unfortunately I love the Awesome Bar too much to nuke my history, but I could easily transfer bookmarks/passwords. I ask because I'm pretty sure this profile is about 900 years old.

Make a new profile and then copy over the .sqlite database files you want to keep from the old one, places.sqlite holds your bookmarks and history and such. There are cases where you'd get performance gains from creating the SQLite files from scratch, but running CCleaner and letting it compact your database files will help too. While you're at it I'd also recommend using MyDefrag, fragmentation can really affect Firefox responsiveness during use and the System Disk Weekly script does a great job of optimizing your disk. If you have a huge drive with lots of stuff on it then running the System Disk Daily script will finish a lot faster, it skips moving large files.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 11:13

Zhentar: Sep 28, 2003; Brilliant Master Genius

ryanbruce posted:

If I click the little "power" button in Firebug when I'm not using it, is that good enough?

Even with Firebug "suspended", everything still gets loaded into memory, so it will cause a pretty significant increase in Firefox memory usage. Worse, there's an issue that can cause it to leak a few MB of memory every time you close a window. After closing a few dozen windows and leaking, the Cycle Collector times can become pretty significant (I was able to get them to go over a second without much trouble).

The Firebug issue will go away with 1.10, and the cycle collector has a bunch of huge performance improvements coming in Firefox 12 and 13 (at least an order of magnitude better, from the try build I tested).

# ? Feb 8, 2012 16:15

fart simpson: Jul 2, 2005; DEATH TO AMERICA

N.Z.'s Champion posted:

Yes, just check for a unique string in that page content and based on that reload/redirect. In your greasemonkey script try checking document.documentElement.innerHTML.match("gd\.189\.cn") or something. innerHTML will change whitespace so try to match a substring without spaces.

By the way, this appears to have worked. Thanks!

# ? Feb 8, 2012 19:15

Zhentar: Sep 28, 2003; Brilliant Master Genius

TOOT BOOT posted:

They've been talking about improving performance for a very long time time now without much to show for it other than on paper. Arewefastyet.com was registered two *years* ago, and the browser still feels slow compared to Safari, Opera, Chrome, even recent versions of IE.

Arewefastyet was very successful. Firefox 4 brought vastly improved page rendering and javascript performance, to the vast majority of users in a vast majority of cases. A lot of the exceptions have been eliminated in the releases since then.

The problems, where Firefox has long suffered, lie in places that aren't so easily measured and reproduced as "this site is slow". The major focus of both Memshrink and Snappy has been in providing tools that make these things easy to measure, and pre-Snappy there was also the addition of telemetry to automatically collect real-world performance data from users. Once the tools are there, people start finding things left and right. Memshrink quickly returned some pretty dramatic results, and continues to make a lot more small improvements, and it looks safe to assume we'll be seeing the same from Snappy.

# ? Feb 8, 2012 20:39

nexus6: Sep 2, 2011; If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes

I find myself constantly switching back and forth between Firefox and Chrome and it's frustrating because it's tiny changes that make the difference for me.

Firefox:
+ Extensions are done better in my opinion. Lastpass and Stylish in Chrome are horrible and there's no Greasefire equivalent
+ I have more control over customising the appearance

Chrome:
+ New tabs open next to my current one, so I don't have to scroll all the way to the end to fnd it
+ Firebug is great, but I wish it had the 'Add new style' button like the webkit inspector

nexus6 fucked around with this message at 13:48 on Feb 10, 2012

# ? Feb 10, 2012 13:41

HalloKitty: Sep 30, 2005; Adjust the bass and let the Alpine blast

nexus6 posted:

Chrome:
+ New tabs open next to my current one, so I don't have to scroll all the way to the end to fnd it

I can see you've never used Tab Mix Plus for Firefox. It's probably one of the most popular addons there is, and fixes all tab related gripes.

# ? Feb 10, 2012 13:46

nexus6: Sep 2, 2011; If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes

HalloKitty posted:

I can see you've never used Tab Mix Plus for Firefox. It's probably one of the most popular addons there is, and fixes all tab related gripes.

No I haven't, but I would have hoped that it would be a browser feature by now, particularly if it is one of the most popular addons.

# ? Feb 10, 2012 13:49

zachol: Feb 13, 2009; Once per turn, you can Tribute 1 WATER monster you control (except this card) to Special Summon 1 WATER monster from your hand. The monster Special Summoned by this effect is destroyed if "Raging Eria" is removed from your side of the field.

Tab Mix Plus has a silly number of options. Like it has all the options. I usually say "more options are better," and personally I use and appreciate pretty much all of them, but this is definitely a case where having this level of customizability in the program would be bloat/confusing.
I'm surprised that something as simple as "tabs open next to the current one" isn't an option in vanilla Firefox, though.

e: To be clear, you should install TMP and then spend an hour messing with the settings to get it perfect. If you're even half as anal as me you'll never be able to use a different browser again.

zachol fucked around with this message at 14:18 on Feb 10, 2012

# ? Feb 10, 2012 14:14

nexus6: Sep 2, 2011; If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes

Yeah, I can certainly see why TMP is so popular. I'm now only one feature away from my perfect browser, having Firebug write new style rules for new selectors, not just exisiting ones, like the 'New Style Rule' button webkit inspectors have.

# ? Feb 10, 2012 14:42

unruly: May 12, 2002; YES!!!

nexus6 posted:

I find myself constantly switching back and forth between Firefox and Chrome and it's frustrating because it's tiny changes that make the difference for me.

Firefox:
+ Extensions are done better in my opinion. Lastpass and Stylish in Chrome are horrible and there's no Greasefire equivalent
+ I have more control over customising the appearance

Chrome:
+ New tabs open next to my current one, so I don't have to scroll all the way to the end to fnd it
+ Firebug is great, but I wish it had the 'Add new style' button like the webkit inspector

I'm not even sure why people use Firebug, the Webkit inspector is awesome all by itself. I often find being in Firebug is irritating and slow.

# ? Feb 10, 2012 16:40

nexus6: Sep 2, 2011; If only you could see what I've seen with your eyes

unruly posted:

I'm not even sure why people use Firebug, the Webkit inspector is awesome all by itself. I often find being in Firebug is irritating and slow.

Because then I wouldn't be using Firefox, but I do agree with you.

# ? Feb 10, 2012 17:04

unruly: May 12, 2002; YES!!!

nexus6 posted:

Because then I wouldn't be using Firefox, but I do agree with you.

Not to completely rag on Firebug. For the longest time it was the only game in town that mattered. When I'm using Firefox to test, I will absolutely use Firebug over the current iteration of the in-built web dev tools. I just find that WebKit's Web Inspector is far faster and more comprehensive. Though, occasionally, I miss having the various Firebug plugins (ala DrupalBug, FirePHP, FireQuery, etc)

# ? Feb 10, 2012 17:40

NihilCredo: Jun 6, 2011; iram omni possibili modo preme:
plus una illa te diffamabit, quam multæ virtutes commendabunt

HalloKitty posted:

I can see you've never used Tab Mix Plus for Firefox. It's probably one of the most popular addons there is, and fixes all tab related gripes.

TMP is cool, but frankly I think that in 2012 anyone who:

(a) uses a widescreen monitor

(b) often juggles between a LOT of tabs

needs to give Tree-style Tabs a try. It's a dramatically more efficient use of screen space, and having your tabs organises in a clear visual hierarchy is invaluable for keeping track of what you're doing. Basically it's the same benefits of that quirky Panorama poo poo introduced in FF4, except you have it all the time while still browsing.

Example:

# ? Feb 10, 2012 17:57

Bieeanshee: Aug 21, 2000; Not keen on keening.; Grimey Drawer

I've got both installed; I think TMP is coded to give control of certain things over to Tree-Style Tabs without a fuss. Sidebars are distracting to me, so instead I use the collapsible horizontal tabs, which still save a fair lot of screen real estate.

I'm not sure if it's possible, but I'd love to see a tab addon that can go from this:

to this:

...on the fly.

# ? Feb 10, 2012 18:17

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# ? Apr 19, 2024 19:03

Disgustipated: Jul 28, 2003; Black metal ist krieg

nexus6 posted:

+ New tabs open next to my current one, so I don't have to scroll all the way to the end to fnd it

If you don't need the myriad of features that TabMixPlus offers, you can use about :config to change this behavior. Set browser.tabs.insertRelatedAfterCurrent to False.

# ? Feb 10, 2012 18:26

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Serious Hardware/Software Crap > Firefox - More fire and fewer cancer warnings than California

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