back to article Mozilla will emit 'first version' of Servo-based Rust browser in June

Mozilla is planning an initial release of its new Servo-based new web browser engine in June, according to a post on the developer mailing list by research engineer Paul Rouget. Communication diagram for Mozilla How Servo's parts link up inside "Release" in this context does not suggest a production-ready download, but …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    That sounds great. It's been clear to me for years that Firefox/Gecko has architectural problems which cause certain features to be a massive struggle to implent. Features which Chromium added easily.

    It's like a legacy debt which affects anything to do with concurrency.

  2. Peter X

    Even if it is just an early preview, it does represent (to me anyway) the most interesting this Mozilla has done in years. I'm particularly interested in seeing how it performs on low-end hardware such as a Raspberry Pi.

    They really need to change the name "browser.html" though because, to be blunt, its fucking stupid. Seriously.

    Also, they might want to think twice about calling anything Graphene, because that's just a name used for things that show promise but don't actually exist.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "think twice about calling anything Graphene"

      Or indeed "Rust" it makes it a pain to google for.

      1. Fungus Bob
        Coat

        Re: "think twice about calling anything Graphene"

        'Or indeed "Rust" it makes it a pain to google for.'

        Could be worse - they could have named it "Anal Sex".

        1. Havin_it
          Joke

          Re: "think twice about calling anything Graphene"

          Some former users might opine that Mozilla introduced the userbase to Anal Sex quite some time ago ;)

          [NB I'm not one of them, I'm all about the Fox]

      2. Mark Pawelek

        Re: "think twice about calling anything Graphene"

        And C, C#, F#, R, Go, ..., are really easy to google?

    2. Reginald Marshall

      I'm particularly interested in seeing how it performs on low-end hardware such as a Raspberry Pi.

      One especially interesting thing they're trying to do in Servo is implementing the bulk of rendering on the GPU, using game-engine-like techniques. See, e.g., this demo. This could make even RasPI perfectly capable of nice browsing performance (modulo atrocious JS multi-tentacled ad-serving and tracking dreck served on a lot of sites, natch. But there are adblockers for that.)

  3. x 7

    "The process of incorporating Rust-based components into Gecko is dubbed obscuration"

    they can't make their current browser work properly. What chance have they got with a new one?

    Totally delusional diversion from what should be the main job: make Firefox work, reliably

    1. JLV

      Oh, I dunno. Since Rust, the language, is all about low-level memory management, I could see that playing very well with my primary FF gripe - memory bloat.

      I agree that FF should aim to constrain its RAM usage ahead of adding new stuff, but Rust may help there. At least, I hope that's one of the goals.

      Also, FWIW, Chrome for example ain't exactly svelte once you add up all the various processes' RAM use.

      1. richardcox13

        > Also, FWIW, Chrome for example ain't exactly svelte once you add up all the various processes' RAM use.

        That will seriously over count on virtual memory based systems because on such systems there will be significant sharing.

        On contemporary OSs memory usage is a not a simple topic, there is no simple way to count the memory usage of even a single process. For a start what do you mean by "memory usage": working set, commit, private allocation, address space allocation, or …?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      That's what they're doing numbnuts. Making Firefox better by replacing bits of Gecko with better bits from Rust.

    3. Mark Pawelek

      .. Totally delusional diversion from what should be the main job: make Firefox work, reliably ...

      -- Admit it, sometimes it's easier to start again. Because it's C++, so maybe a mess, and good C++ coders probably hard to find. Q: Why would good C++ programmers be hard to find? A: Because good programmers will move on to a better language. Which they did.

      I'm excited to hear about new projects written in FP languages like Rust : O brave new world, that has such production code in it.

  4. Huns n Hoses

    Yaya yada yada

    ...but did they fix the megagig memory leaks at all?

    Thats mostly what we wanted.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Yaya yada yada

      Hopefully. One of the main advantages of Rust is better, secure memory management tech so it's a strong possibility.

    2. batfastad

      Re: Yaya yada yada

      > ...but did they fix the megagig memory leaks at all?

      If they let users install crap extensions from crap developers then I feel that might still be a no.

      What's a shame is so many of those crap extensions are needed to replace features that have been removed in their great quest of making it like Chrome.

      1. batfastad

        Re: Yaya yada yada

        > If they let users install crap extensions from crap developers then I feel that might still be a no.

        I should clarify that I'm not saying Firefox should bin support of extensions. Quite the reverse. I've always considered the memory issues as the trade-off for using a browser with massive extensibility. But I would say most memory issues with FF are most likely down to extensions rather than the core browser itself.

      2. Havin_it

        Re: Yaya yada yada

        >If they let users install crap extensions from crap developers then I feel that might still be a no.

        IIRC, the XUL extension system is part of Gecko and is for the chop as well. That'll likely mean a bonfire of the orphaned extensions and all those that are too much work to port to whatever the new extension architecture may be; I haven't heard much about this aspect of the transition and it worries me because I do use and value a few quite niche extensions.

        Even now there's another bit of newness called Electrolysis (e10s) which separates content and UI into separate processes or something (I guess this is a necessary part of the Servo roadmap as it features in the diagram in the article). It's present in nightlies already and I gather will break a lot of extensions too.

    3. phuzz Silver badge
      Boffin

      Re: Yaya yada yada

      I've not looked at how much memory Firefox uses in a while (but it has got a lot better in the last five years), so, a quick test:

      Firefox, with ten tabs open: 755Mb

      Chrome, with the same tabs: 54Mb, wait a minute?!

      Ah, so Chrome opens separate processes, so adding up all it's memory: 785Mb

      Both Firefox and Chrome are running Lastpass and uBlock Origin, Firefox also has a couple of other addons.

      Just for lulz:

      Edge, no plugins (also split into processes): 1207Mb

      Internet Explorer: 1107Mb

      So Firefox is the most memory efficient browser on my computer today, and Microsoft have a lot to be ashamed of (although adblocking might have had a hand in those results)

    4. Mark Pawelek

      Re: Yaya yada yada

      Fixing memory leaks is the least we wanted. I want a web browser that occupies no more than 100MB memory - ever.

      1. phuzz Silver badge

        Re: Yaya yada yada

        If you don't want a browser that ever takes more than 100Mb of memory then you're going to have to restrict what sites you visit.

        Maybe if you blocked all images, javascript, plugins etc. and only viewed one site at a time you'd stay under 100Mb?

  5. Anonymous C0ward
    Trollface

    Yo dawg

    I heard you like browsers.

  6. devanhoe

    "a language Mozilla says is poorly suited to preventing problems like memory bugs and data races."

    The poor craftsman blames their tools.

    1. Adam 1

      Some tools are sledgehammers though.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Some tools are sledgehammers though.

        My sledgehammer is a fine tool, I just don't use it for malleic nucifraction. Fence posts are another matter,

    2. Horridbloke

      The poor craftsman blames their tools."

      Mozilla is choosing some better tools.

    3. phuzz Silver badge

      Yes, a poor craftsman blames their tools, but sometimes good craftsmen blame their tools because they're shitty tools.

      In fact, part of getting better as a craftsman is learning to use the correct tool for the job.

    4. JLV

      Easy quip to make, from the safety of critic-dom, innit?

      A 2016 browser isn't quite your 1994 beastie, neither in terms of capability, expectations, nor its horrific tendency to be a magnet for all sorts of attacks.

      Maybe some more modern tools would help. I do hope the Rust language's feature set and maturity is up to the task. Incremental re-implementation is a fairly pragmatic way to mitigate that risk. Also a good way to jettison cruft.

      I like FF, even in its current state, and I hope this is a new focus on cutting on bloat. Well done, that would put them well ahead of their equally lardass, as phuzz pointed out, siblings.

      "if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail"

    5. Mark Pawelek

      RE: The poor craftsman blames their tools.

      A better craftsman uses the best tools.

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