back to article Firefox engine outraces self after Jäger shot

Mozilla has announced that JägerMonkey — the still-gestating JavaScript engine extension set to arrive with Firefox 4.0 this fall — is now faster than the TraceMonkey extension used by the current Firefox 3.6. "JägerMonkey has crossed the streams," developer David Anderson said in a Tuesday blog post, boasting that the …

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  1. MarkOne
    FAIL

    Usual Mozilla half truths.

    "TraceMonkey speeds performance by detecting code loops and converting them into assembly language, a trick that Mozilla's competitors have yet to adopt."

    Opera already does this, which is why it spanks everything else at Mozilla Dromaeo test

    http://media.bestofmicro.com/Y/C/253956/original/wbgp2dromaeojs.jpg

    1. James Hughes 1

      But is Opera a Mozilla competitor?

      Given Mozilla market share, their real competitors are IE and Chrome, not Opera.

      So, you can weasel word your way out of the statement.....

    2. Jonte Monkey
      Joke

      @MarkOne ...half truths?

      It is only a half truth if you consider Opera to be a competitor.

      1. MarkOne
        FAIL

        Opera more than competes with Firefox on featues, quality, speed and security.

        It's only the marketshare that's the problem. More specifically it's dumb consumers that pick the products with the best marketing, rather than the best products.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          opera's problem

          Opera's problem is concentrating on saleable features that make the browser stand out and then *totally neglecting* making the thing work properly. Opera mini is an excellent example of this. You're always hearing about the on-paper capabilities of mini, but have you tried using it for more than five minutes at a time? Buggy is not the word. Broken is not the word. Shot to absolute fuck gets somewhere close. Yes, the thing loads pages fast, but it has about 6 distinct bugs relating to links alone, for example. Never mind support for TITS 3.7, just make the fucking links go to the page they're supposed to. Hygiene factors like this are called such because they're non-negotiable. Release shit this buggy and your entire business gets drowned in a bucket of shit - and no number of board trolls will reverse the damage to your reputation.

        2. heyrick Silver badge
          FAIL

          @ MarkOne

          Marketshare reflects the perceived usefulness of the product. We're not all sheep.

          Why don't you try giving me an Opera with NoScript functionality? No, I don't mean "turn off JavaScript" or little add-on hacks to nobble Flash. I mean actual interception of scripting, Flash, and PDFs which can be accepted or denied on a case-by-case basis; along with a simple whitelist/blacklist to automatically authorise/decline known sites.

          And that's just for starters.

          I tried Opera. I am still on 10.0.5 or whatever because the installer is broken, needed to use the Classic after deleting ALL registry keys and removing every single file. The browser installed, but would quit immediately upon trying to run it. And you think I'm going to have much confidence in a browser so fragile its own installer screws it up? And no message saying WHY it is bombing? Anyway, I tried Opera and got Flash adverts all over the place. Looked around online to discover that Opera doesn't really like the idea of plugins and add-ons. So you have some stuff available by "widgets" (that's like a add-on for people that don't try hard enough) and other stuff by patching in .js files here and there.

          Sure, Opera may have an ass kicking response time. But that moment of awesomeness is deflated by all the other things the browser cannot do. Given latency and response times and the fact that I am doing stuff like swapping around a dozen windows and preloading a few songs on YouTube as I write this, speed is relative. You might be able to kick Firefox up and down the aisles using Opera, but when it comes to the real world instead of controlled tests, Opera loses, epically.

          A browser that doesn't allow me to filter potentially risky content without it being an all/nothing decision is a security fail (don't even think of arguing PDFs are not Opera's problem - my browser can filter them, why can't yours?). A browser that does not allow *easy* user installed customisations due to a paranoid sense of keeping the browser pure is a feature fail. A browser with this number of quirks (oh, I have not even mentioned the number of times the bloody browser pops up an error telling me a page is no longer available only for me to hit refresh to retrieve said page) is a quality fail.

          That's three fails, hence Opera is an Epic Fail. But, you've got me on speed. Go pat yourself on the back. I will, however, carry on using my lethargic Firefox that is sooooooo slow I can feel myself aging because it is a browser that actually does what I want it to do. And it does it well.

  2. Si 1

    Firefox 4 benchmarks

    This is why everyone who downloaded the FF4 beta and declared it too slow should have waited. Mozilla like to incrementally add features to beta releases as and when they're finished. I look forward to seeing some benchmarks when the new JavaScript engine is in place!

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Alert

    "JägerMonkey has crossed the streams,"

    Noooooo!

    Don't cross the streams.

    Why?

    It would be bad.

    I'm a little fuzzy on the whole "good/bad" thing, here. What do you mean, "bad"?

    Try to imagine all life as you know it stopping instantaneously and every molecule in your body exploding at the speed of light.

    Total protonic reversal!

    That's bad. OK, all right, important safety tip. Thanks, Egon.

  4. Version 1.0 Silver badge
    FAIL

    "JägerMonkey will convert entire methods into assembly code"

    Had a guy working for us once and, looking of his shoulder one day as he exclaimed, "Great, it complied correctly" I came to the horrid realization that he believed that the compiler was actually checking his code was correct, not just looking at the syntax ... we fired him that afternoon.

    There's nothing magic about assembly code - crap code is still crap code.

  5. mhenriday
    Thumb Up

    Firefox 4.0b2, with its mimalistic Chrome and Opera-like GUI,

    does seem snappier than my default FF 3.6.8 on my 64-bit Ubuntu-Lucid setup. Sweet ! But I'm still using the latter as my default, as the vast majority of the add-ons which contribute so greatly to Firefox's usability, haven't caught up....

    Henri

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Stop

      @mhenriday

      " But I'm still using the latter as my default, as the vast majority of the add-ons which contribute so greatly to Firefox's usability, haven't caught up.."

      Which is whjy plugins are a bad idea.

      Opera does all the good ones built in anyway (AdBlock+, NoScript, GreaseMoney, BookmarkSync)

      1. Tom Maddox Silver badge
        Stop

        Um, no

        Unless this is a very new feature set, Opera doesn't incorporate AdBlock+ or NoScript. You can add AdBlock+-like functionality (albeit inferior to ABP), but NoScript pseudo-functionality required an add-on, last I checked, which was also inferior to NoScript on Firefox.

      2. L1feless

        I agree with this

        I think that FF and other browsers need to look at adopting this model. Take the good solid add-ons and integrate them as product features. This will allow for better integration and ensure that those add-ons which people use most will continue to be there in the future.

    2. Dan 55 Silver badge

      Download Add-on Compatibility Reporter

      ... as suggested on the 'Get Add-ons' tab. It enables all your add-ons even if they're not for FF 4.

  6. Greg J Preece

    One thing you can always count on in a Firefox thread

    OPERA! Hey, OPERA! Has anyone heard of OPERA?? Please pay attention to us!

    I assume it hasn't occurred to you that anyone who switched to Firefox in the first place is probably already willing to try Opera, already has, and already went back to Firefox? 'Cos I did. Twice.

    1. Steve Roper

      Tell me about it

      I have Opera (as well as Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and IE 5, 6, 7 and 8 (in VMs) all set up on my system because as a web developer I have to make sure our sites work in all browsers.

      To be honest I see nothing in Opera that particularly commends it over any of the other non-MS browsers (IE is shitty enough that anything is better than that!). Firefox is my default browser because of the web developer add-on functionality it provides. Opera is faster on Javascript than Firefox, but not as fast as Chrome, and Opera's AdBlock and NoScript equivalents are cludgy and require a lot of clicking and option-setting, compared to AdBlock on Firefox's automation and NoScript on Firefox's one-click allow/forbid mechanism. And Opera doesn't have the all-important web developer tools available that Firefox does. As a browser, it's not bad, but it doesn't really stand out from the crowd.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        FAIL

        @Steve Roper

        Almost everything you say there is utter horseshit.

        Opera's development tools (Called Dragonfly) are FAR superior to the ones in Firefox.

        NoScript has been in Opera for over 8 years, built right in. You can block all scripting either globally or per site, and run a scripting whitelist or blacklist.

        Opera 10.60 kills even Chrome on javascript speed. (10.50 was marginally faster).

        Adblock in Opera is actually more compehensive, it's a Content Blocker, by default it only blocks what you ask, but you can get lists that blanket block all ads (and you can have it autoupdate too).

        Have you actually TRIED Opera, as by the sounds of it, you haven't....

        1. Steve Roper
          FAIL

          @AC fanboy who replied to me.

          I have indeed used Opera, so allow me to point out a few things about it.

          Opera's AdBlock: Tools->Advanced->Blocked Content... you can MANUALLY add, edit, and delete blocked entries - and that's it. There appears to be no controls for subscribing to EasyList or any other regularly updated blocklist, so it looks like you have to build the list manually or copypaste it in here. I'd love to know how you get that to update automatically.

          Firefox's AdBlock: Install plug-in. Click EasyList, then Subscribe on the initial Subscription window. Then forget it exists. Never see another ad on the Internet again.

          Opera's NoScript: Really? Where? Let's see... Tools->Quick Preferences->Enable Javascript checkbox. I assume that globally switches Javascript on and off. Look further: Tools->Quick Preferences->Edit Site Preferences. Click Scripting tab. Enable/disable Javascript for this site. It's enabled by default so by the time you turn it off, the damage is already done. Or maybe (I'll assume this, since the browser doesn't seem to indicate whether it is the case or not) I can just turn Javascript off globally and then enable it by site. But it's still a lot of clicking around in menus and dialogues.

          Firefox's NoScript: Install plugin. Warning bar appears at bottom saying scripts are blocked. Click Options->Temporarily/Permanently Allow/Forbid <domainname.com>, for each domain trying to run a script. Blocked by default and can be enabled or permanently blocked with two clicks.

          Ok, look. Maybe you can get more out of it, but that's obviously because you've spent a lot of time getting to know the browser. I don't have time to piss around learning about a browser's foibles. I want something that just goes, without me having to figure out where in its guts all the options and controls are buried. Firefox is that for me.

          So much for me talking horseshit, since I've just described two features in Opera's menu system. I have used it. Maybe I don't know the browser all that well, but I shouldn't need to. I don't dig around in Firefox's menus either, everything I need is out on the toolbar or in the NoScript bar. Why would I want to have to dig around in Opera?

    2. L1feless

      Opera...

      @Greg J Preece

      It took you twice? You know the definition of insanity is to do the same thing twice and expect a different result right....

  7. mhenriday

    Anonymous coward, I have Opera 10.6

    installed on all my boxes, and sometimes use it, but not as often as I do FF, as I find the former doesn't provide the flexibility of the latter. I also use Chrome/Chromium. But as I understood it, the article on which we've been commenting dealt rather with improvements to the FF itself, which is why I confined myself to discussing my experience with them....

    Henri

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