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Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

> This is all, BTW, in reference to the desktop version (Linux specifically) not mobile.

Mobile is better, because you can install uBlock. As far as I'm aware Chrome mobile still doesn't allow addons.

As for FF on the main browser, they really shot themselves in the foot years ago and left a bad taste in any users' mouths. I see this same message in every HN FF update thread (since quantum). They really did fix most of the bugs and speed, but it is hard to build the brand back. The only performance/bug I sometimes get is if I'm doing a heavy research day and open a metric ton of tabs (>100) and things get pushed into swap and don't release, even after closing FF. But Chrome was always a memory hog as well so it isn't enough to cause me to switch over and this is a niche thing (and easy to resolve).

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Right now I have 376 tabs open in Firefox, on Windows laptop with 8 GB RAM. They were 600, but I did a purge a few months ago. 0

0 performance problems.

Just my 2 cents.

Can I ask you why do you leave all those tabs opened all the time? When I get to 20-25 I go mad and start frantically close almost all of them. I really depend on Awesome Bar to reopen sites though (but I like it)

They are things I want to revisit and I found that putting in a "To Sort" bookmark folder doesn't cause me to revisit. I am forced to eventually revisit and decide if I still need it or not. But I don't go to 300 tabs, I usually purge around 100 or less.

Research, trains of thought, read later

We have very different experiences in that case.

Once I go past ~100 open tabs on Firefox, on a 16GB RAM Linux laptop, my whole system freezes. I experienced these issues as late as in June, so it doesn't appear to have been recently fixed either. Note that I do use uBlock Origin so it doesn't just buckle under from ads, but I also make heavy use of Container Tabs, which may also be a factor.

Luckily, the extension "Auto Tab Discard" solved these issues for me.

You can go to about:performance and see which tab is problematic.

Thanks for the tip! I currently don't have many tabs open, but was surprised to see every one of my work Office365 tabs (mail, calendar, etc.) at 100+ MB each...

> Luckily, the extension "Auto Tab Discard" solved these issues for me.

This looks like a useful extension to me (I'd even love if this was a native FF feature). But I'm noticing it has full access to web pages. Does anyone know how Richard Neomy deals with this data?

Perhaps the contents of the pages in each tab could account for such differences in resource usage? A tab count is a very very rough measure. A JavaScript heavy page can have a massive footprint compared to a simple content page.

errrr... not sure I understand correctly what you mean with "bugs and speed", specifically "since quantum".

I remember that the day that Quantum released, I suddenly got DMs from my non-tech friends who announced that they had installed/updated FF, and were happy how incredibly fast it was. I remember that because those were people who would usually roll their eyes if I mentioned anything software related in a conversation.

> [since quantum] They really did fix most of the bugs and speed...

I mean that pre-quantum it was slow and buggy. Post quantum it is fast and not buggy.

Perhaps my experience or usage of the browser was different from most, but I would not characterize my experience with Firefox pre-Quantum as "slow and buggy". I rarely noticed bugs and it always seemed to be as fast as Chrome was. Granted, I did have ad-blockers installed and I never ran benchmarks but I never noticed much of a difference.

I have some issues with the mobile FF with typing (filling form elements on some sites). I still use it for browsing as having the addons gives a superior experience. I'd be happy if I could switch 100%, but I have not been able to figure what is causing this issue. Does anyone else have issues with Firefox entering the words "twice" when they try to type?

I don't have this issue but on mobile I switched to the nightly. Maybe that will help?

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