April 28, 2011
April 13, 2011
Hands On Firefox 4 in Linux
With the latest proclamation out of the Mozilla foundation announcing their aggressive 18 week development cycle, FF5 is already looming –expected to be released later this June. In the meantime FF4, which came out March 22nd (one week after Microsoft’s launch of Internet Explorer 9) has already seen widespread adoption among PC users. Less than four days after its official debut FF4 had already surpassed IE9 in downloads and continues today with 80 million and counting. While this can largely be attributed to the fact that FF4 is Windows XP-compatible and IE9 is not –these are still massive numbers.
Here’s the official repository for the release:
http://releases.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/4.0/
If you’re like me and you want bleeding-edge, head over to http://nightly.mozilla.org/ and grab the latest build for your platform. You may also want to download the latest copy of Adobe Flash “Square” (optimized for 64-bit systems).
Acid3/SunSpider0.9.1 Results
FF4 32-bit (standard)
============================================
RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals)
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Total: 508.3ms +/- 10.6%
--------------------------------------------
3d: 81.5ms +/- 2.4%
cube: 29.6ms +/- 5.0%
morph: 17.8ms +/- 3.2%
raytrace: 34.1ms +/- 1.5%
access: 54.4ms +/- 1.1%
binary-trees: 8.5ms +/- 8.2%
fannkuch: 22.1ms +/- 1.8%
nbody: 12.0ms +/- 6.3%
nsieve: 11.8ms +/- 6.3%
bitops: 25.3ms +/- 22.6%
3bit-bits-in-byte: 1.2ms +/- 25.1%
bits-in-byte: 11.5ms +/- 21.0%
bitwise-and: 2.7ms +/- 33.1%
nsieve-bits: 9.9ms +/- 23.4%
controlflow: 5.1ms +/- 29.9%
recursive: 5.1ms +/- 29.9%
crypto: 39.6ms +/- 24.8%
aes: 21.0ms +/- 25.3%
md5: 10.1ms +/- 23.7%
sha1: 8.5ms +/- 27.5%
date: 90.2ms +/- 21.7%
format-tofte: 65.3ms +/- 19.4%
format-xparb: 24.9ms +/- 28.7%
math: 54.5ms +/- 13.5%
cordic: 17.3ms +/- 22.0%
partial-sums: 21.2ms +/- 10.5%
spectral-norm: 16.0ms +/- 8.4%
regexp: 22.3ms +/- 6.9%
dna: 22.3ms +/- 6.9%
string: 135.4ms +/- 11.6%
base64: 9.0ms +/- 14.5%
fasta: 24.5ms +/- 13.8%
tagcloud: 39.4ms +/- 3.6%
unpack-code: 45.1ms +/- 33.9%
validate-input: 17.4ms +/- 4.4%
FF4 64-bit (standard)
============================================
RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals)
--------------------------------------------
Total: 456.7ms +/- 2.7%
--------------------------------------------
3d: 71.8ms +/- 1.6%
cube: 29.7ms +/- 3.0%
morph: 11.7ms +/- 3.0%
raytrace: 30.4ms +/- 1.2%
access: 63.3ms +/- 1.4%
binary-trees: 9.2ms +/- 10.2%
fannkuch: 28.8ms +/- 1.0%
nbody: 10.8ms +/- 2.8%
nsieve: 14.5ms +/- 4.8%
bitops: 25.0ms +/- 1.3%
3bit-bits-in-byte: 1.0ms +/- 0.0%
bits-in-byte: 13.6ms +/- 2.7%
bitwise-and: 2.6ms +/- 14.2%
nsieve-bits: 7.8ms +/- 3.9%
controlflow: 5.2ms +/- 5.8%
recursive: 5.2ms +/- 5.8%
crypto: 34.2ms +/- 2.8%
aes: 19.1ms +/- 4.1%
md5: 8.9ms +/- 4.6%
sha1: 6.2ms +/- 4.9%
date: 70.3ms +/- 10.4%
format-tofte: 52.1ms +/- 11.1%
format-xparb: 18.2ms +/- 9.2%
math: 51.6ms +/- 1.6%
cordic: 11.8ms +/- 3.8%
partial-sums: 26.7ms +/- 1.3%
spectral-norm: 13.1ms +/- 1.7%
regexp: 21.1ms +/- 2.5%
dna: 21.1ms +/- 2.5%
string: 114.2ms +/- 7.3%
base64: 7.8ms +/- 3.9%
fasta: 20.6ms +/- 2.4%
tagcloud: 37.5ms +/- 13.1%
unpack-code: 35.7ms +/- 9.4%
validate-input: 12.6ms +/- 6.1%
FF4 64-bit (minefield)
============================================
RESULTS (means and 95% confidence intervals)
--------------------------------------------
Total: 478.8ms +/- 4.2%
--------------------------------------------
3d: 82.4ms +/- 11.0%
cube: 35.7ms +/- 19.5%
morph: 13.7ms +/- 14.1%
raytrace: 33.0ms +/- 5.1%
access: 68.9ms +/- 8.7%
binary-trees: 9.8ms +/- 8.3%
fannkuch: 29.7ms +/- 3.4%
nbody: 11.2ms +/- 6.6%
nsieve: 18.2ms +/- 28.4%
bitops: 25.0ms +/- 5.6%
3bit-bits-in-byte: 1.0ms +/- 0.0%
bits-in-byte: 13.4ms +/- 3.7%
bitwise-and: 2.7ms +/- 17.9%
nsieve-bits: 7.9ms +/- 10.8%
controlflow: 5.4ms +/- 6.8%
recursive: 5.4ms +/- 6.8%
crypto: 36.5ms +/- 5.2%
aes: 20.7ms +/- 7.3%
md5: 9.4ms +/- 3.9%
sha1: 6.4ms +/- 7.8%
date: 69.5ms +/- 7.5%
format-tofte: 48.1ms +/- 3.0%
format-xparb: 21.4ms +/- 21.1%
math: 53.1ms +/- 3.8%
cordic: 12.7ms +/- 12.2%
partial-sums: 26.9ms +/- 2.0%
spectral-norm: 13.5ms +/- 2.8%
regexp: 21.5ms +/- 3.6%
dna: 21.5ms +/- 3.6%
string: 116.5ms +/- 3.2%
base64: 8.1ms +/- 5.0%
fasta: 20.9ms +/- 2.5%
tagcloud: 37.6ms +/- 4.1%
unpack-code: 35.9ms +/- 7.3%
validate-input: 14.0ms +/- 4.2%
Plugins
Once you’re done installing and configuring, you should see something similar to above.
Since all versions of FF after 3.6 run plugins in a sandbox (aka ‘plugins-container’), resource utilization is expressed by multiple processes: the firefox-binary, plugins-container-binary, and any auxiliary binaries which might be called (java, for example).
Flash
YouTube (Flash Test):
‘firefox-bin’ Binary: 119 MB
‘plugins-container’ Binary: 52 MB
Total: 171 MB
Java
Simple Applet (Java Test):
‘firefox-bin’ Binary: 113 MB
‘java’ Binary: 71 MB
Total: 184 MB
The first thing you notice right out of the gate is that the javascript engine is incredibly fast. Pages render almost instantly, but after 12 betas and 2 RCs Firefox 4.0 still can not pass Acid3 100%. And while FF4 outperforms both Opera and Google Chrome on SunSpider, it’s speed comes at a cost. Resource utilization is considerably higher than Chrome, especially with plugins onboard. And FF4’s Jagermonkey engine, while remarkably fast and efficient, is not as responsive as Chrome’s “V8” during actual browsing. So although these benchmarks are impressive, they don’t tell the whole story.
Despite being experimental software, the latest Intel 64-bit build of Minefield ran exceptionally well on my dual Intel Xeon workstation. I did not experience stability issues, responsiveness problems, or crashes. The only time I had any trouble was when I messed around with the 32-bit varieties or tried to run 32-bit plugins. Java worked flawlessly. The latest build of Adobe Flash 10 “Square” also runs very smoothly, though full screen mode is still quite buggy.
Fortunately, a crash of a plugin like flash or java doesn’t cause the whole browser to crash. This is a much welcomed improvement. Along with improved HTML5 support, a slick new simplified interface, lots of new privacy protections, plus all these incredible new features.
To “look at the big picture” this really continues to emphasize the larger trend of UI evolving on the web as a whole. The simplification of the interface, now similar to Chrome, Opera, and IE9 is all part of the convergence of the web site, web-application, and the web browser itself. The PC and mobile device experience are merging closer together. And as the platform-browser model continues to evolve; interoperability and device-independence are becoming increasingly more important concepts to bear in mind during the overall design. Along those lines, a handy tool also from Mozilla is called Fennec. It allows you to extend your cross-browser/platform testing to the ever-expanding mobile arena.
Find more info at:
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/4.0/releasenotes/
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Firefox_4_for_developers
http://www.squarefree.com/burningedge/