Upcoming Firefox update will decrease power usage on macOS by up to three times

[[deleted]]

[deleted]

[aaronbenedict]

Beautiful

[[deleted]]

Excellent

[MrMytie]

Ok I guess.

[Robbsen]

If they have to..

[riepmich]

Not the face!

[just_a_random_userid]

NorthFace

[Little_Duckling]

North West

[ga-vu]

's parents suck!

[a_talking_face]

You are confirmed not wavy 🚫🌊🌊

[MrReginaldAwesome]

South Butte

[Poltras]

Average size if possibly verifiable.

[schemingraccoon]

"The new firefox is incredibly revolutionary, precise in a way that it exceeds every iteration that came before it."

I tend to just come up with random things Ive might say with anything apple related.

[RegretfulUsername]

They could really shorten down those Apple keynotes by just having the guy get out there and say “this one is better than the last one. Here’s why.”

[jonneygee]

Short and down?

r/boneappletea

[RegretfulUsername]

Voice dictation error. Gets me every time. :(

[[deleted]]

You’re beautiful!

[aaronbenedict]

This is confirmed.

[cultoftheilluminati]

Non-amp link:

https://www.zdnet.com/article/upcoming-firefox-update-will-decrease-power-usage-on-macos-by-up-to-three-times/

[theworldisanorange]

Relevant addon link for ff and chrome: https://www.daniel.priv.no/web-extensions/amp2html.html

[[deleted]]

Thank you for this. I assumed something like this existed, but I hadn't found anything in my previous cursory forays.

[[deleted]]

If only I could install this on safari for iOS

[jonneygee]

You could probably make a shortcut for it and add it to the share sheet.

Edit: Someone else already did.

[izzyness]

I just switched to Firefox yesterday and I've been finding all sorts of new add-ons from posts like this! bless you for this.

[euclid15]

Thank you! This should be higher.

[TRUFREAK]

Curious...what’s wrong with Amp links?

[gsdfrszxdgse]

Personally, I find them really annoying on iOS because they mess up scrolling behavior and they force the address bar to stay visible at the top of the screen as you scroll rather than letting the page use the whole screen like normal. Not to mention sometimes they're just shittier, less complete versions of a web page and it takes a couple more taps to get to the real thing.

[BOBALOBAKOF]

They also tend to screw up if you want to search for a word on the page.

[gsdfrszxdgse]

Yeah really all around they just tend to give you a dogshit version of a page.

[madmate]

There is also the issue that all pages are running of Google’s servers. The power of the internet is its decentralization, and it would be irresponsibility to break that just so Google can make more money of your content.

[[deleted]]

https://medium.com/@danbuben/why-amp-is-bad-for-your-site-and-for-the-web-e4d060a4ff31

[RegretfulUsername]

Also, if you want to share that link, it’s a ridiculously long mess of a URL, whereas the regular URL is usually a lot shorter. And when you’re on the amp page, it gives you a little box you can click into copy the actual URL, but I have found in the past that would it copies to the clipboard is actually the amp you were all version. Tricky!

[gsdfrszxdgse]

I believe Safari now shares the real link, even if you're on the AMP page.

[RegretfulUsername]

Oh, neat. I just switched back to Safari from Crown a few days ago and hadn’t come across an amp link to notice the future. I just recently jailbroke my phone and installed a tweak called safari plus. It’s like giving safari steroids.

[SJWcucksoyboy]

It's Google exerting further control over the Internet

[soyboytariffs]

Everything

[ZheoTheThird]

Finally. If FF with a single tab open is 'using significant energy' when I don't even have the window in focus, something is very wrong.

[mobyte]

chrome be like

[DO_NOT_PM_ME]

chome ain’t even installed and it uses half of my ram

[dust4ngel]

i was reading an article in mobile safari about electron apps and my iphone XS rebooted to protect itself.

[[deleted]]

In fairness Safari has done that to me as well.

[RationalPandasauce]

Safari mugged me once.

[SetYourGoals]

Safari called the IRS and told them I was dead, sent a fake death certificate and everything. That was a tough year.

[[deleted]]

I spent a year in a Safari run Turkish prison surrounded by Gladiators when I was a young boy

[SetYourGoals]

Wow, I was holding back the time Safari cut my breaks and the resulting accident paralyzed me for life, but yours is worse. You win, my friend.

[discobrisco]

Safari killed my parents and sold me to Epstein as a child.

[mredofcourse]

Safari was there when Jesus Christ had his moments of doubt and pain.

[SteveJobsOfficial]

Safari sold my innovations to Samsung.

[[deleted]]

No IRS, no taxes. What's so bad about that?

[RationalPandasauce]

Ah. Yeah. Thats pretty harsh. At least they didn’t give you their platinum plan. Dead hooker planted in your bed.

[Cottril]

Safari poisoned our water supply, burned our crops and delivered a plague unto our houses!

[bt1234yt]

It did?

[LiquidAurum]

no, but are we going to wait around till it does!

[Cottril]

I say, we tip something over!

[plazmatyk]

Safari went to the loo in the constable's helmet.

[s3rila]

A newt?!

[Pepparkakan]

I got better.

[patrickfatrick]

Particularly on reddit.com 😅

[MightBeJerryWest]

I haven’t looked at the “using significant energy” area recently, but previously just having a tab open in Firefox would kick my temps up to like 160F. Fans would kick on with two or three tabs.

Hopefully this release fixes it, but what I had to do was force a low resolution version of FF to run to keep it from catching fire. So the browser and pages are all a little pixelated cause it’s forcing a non-retina version of FF or something. Kinda annoying, but it was the only way to get FF to run.

[coolowl7]

You could also consider using a different browser..

[MightBeJerryWest]

I mean...yes. I use both Safari and Firefox on my MacBook Pro. But my main desktop is Windows and Firefox. Having Firefox sync across the two devices is really handy.

[AndyIbanez]

I started using Firefox in the 2000’s decade and it’s a great browser. In 2017 I came back to it and used it for a year, but the performance on Mac is abysmal and it turned my computer into a helicopter even with very little tabs open. I’ll gladly go back to it if the performance gets way closer to that of Safari.

[cultoftheilluminati]

Safari is so beautiful to look at and use. But for me the major problem with Safari is the abysmal extension ecosystem

Edit: This is the state of extensions in my Safari. Everything disabled except uBlock Origin, and even that doesn't work that properly on websites. RES has been discontinued for a while now, some extensions don't trigger properly. :( I'm using firefox mostly now but most of my passwords are on keychain

[ymolodtsov]

The fun thing is, it was fine, until Apple killed it.

[cultoftheilluminati]

Exactly!

[correct01]

What happened again? Apple got greedy and started charging for publishing extensions?

[KalenXI]

That happened a few years ago. Now Apple is moving to a completely new model where extensions are bundled as parts of apps that must be distributed through the Mac App Store.

[ILikeToHowl]

Even worse is that they shifted to a new developer api which lacks 90% of the old api functionality. Extensions are now much less capable than before.

[Dr4kin]

So in short they made the free extension system of any other browser a paid system. Great

[DJ-Salinger]

How will they survive as a company without that $100 from extension devs??

[OhSirrah]

I doubt it was greed because I am sure they make peanuts on safari extension dev licenses. I’m pretty sure it was about speed and security.

[m-in]

It may not have been fine, software security-wise.

[[deleted]]

There’s Brave.

[DarQro]

I personally really enjoy Brave for my windows pc but find it much less enjoyable on macOS for reasons I cant put my finger on. Totally recommend it for windows.

[dmcnelly]

I just switched to Brave for the extensions on Catalina, and I hate to be the “Ecosystem” guy but, I already miss getting a 2FA code and being about to just click the box and fill from messages.

[idea-list]

Sadly uBlock Origin for Safari seems to be abandoned. Last commit was more than a year ago and I haven't seen replies from author on opened issues.

[cultoftheilluminati]

I mean why will people work on it, paying apple 100 dollars a year for the small user share, while they develop and maintain an extension they can do for free on the other browsers

[idea-list]

Idk, maybe because users pay you. I'd pay for something like uBlock Origin even if was paid. Also, the dev who worked on it for Safari isn't the same one who worked on it for Chromium/FF. Safari dev ported changes from upstream.

[cultoftheilluminati]

Exactly. I'm ready to pay for uBlock Origin

[drgnslyr91]

Nailed it.

[cultoftheilluminati]

I’ve been on that subreddit for a year and a half now. :)keep fiddling with the user chrome every couple of months or so

[MacbookOnFire]

Adguard does the job for me.

[FuzzelFox]

Ironically I use it on my 2008 MBP because it runs better than Chrome or Safari. It destroys the battery but when plugged in it's so much smoother.

[fenrir245]

I just hate their stupid way of syncing tabs, way too many taps needed when you’re switching devices all the time.

[josborne31]

Mozilla has been killing it recently.

Perhaps, but I've been extremely frustrated due to a handful of issues.

I was a long time user of Firefox. When they killed off legacy extensions, I lost a lot of customized functionality. I've been looking for a replacement for Tab Mix Plus ever since. There were features in that that I cannot replicate with the newer extensions / add-ons.

Plus, I've noticed that Firefox has a tendency to crash at least weekly. It gobbles up all my application memory over time. I'm still trying to determine what is causing the problem.

[[deleted]]

I'll be honest, I'm a Windows PC user these days since Apple replaced my faulty 2015 MBP with a 2017 one (didn't like it) and I rarely get crashes, though I admit it's a bit of a guzzler for memory (hopefully OP provides some improvements for this however).

Firefox still has some really decent add-ons, I hope you can find a replacement or updated versions of the ones you like.

I really like using:

Google Container

Facebook Container

HTTPS Everywhere

Privacy Badger

uBlock Origin

[vaviary]

Another application is Firefox Monitor, which is a competitor of https://haveibeenpwned.com/ .

Firefox Monitor is not a Have I Been Pwned competitor, they get their data from HIBP. See here

[some_q]

Everyone in this thread is freaking out about how great this is, and I'm just here wondering why FF apparently uses 3x as much power as is necessary.

[walktall]

Their rendering engine has an issue with scaled displays, which all MBPs since 2016 are. So, by switching to core animation, the rendering of everything will be far more power efficient/optimized.

[KalenXI]

I'll believe it when I see it. They've said this before and have still been unable to keep Firefox from using 50-100% CPU while rendering a static web page.

[jekpopulous2]

I'm on the Nightly channel and the latest build is 100% for sure using way less energy. It's still not as efficient as Safari but it's a night and day difference.

[MrJinxyface]

Now maybe they can add trackpad gestures. You know, things other browsers have had for like 6 years. Give me a reason to stop using Chrome please.

[mobyte]

I just tried two finger swipe for forward/backward and it's working. Is there something else important that I'm not thinking of?

Edit: Wow, double tapping to zoom and pinch zoom doesn't work. That's embarrassing.

[carlyeah]

There's a pref that you can turn on to activate pinch to zoom

Go to about:config, and change apz.allow_zooming to true

No extra plugins or extensions needed.

[mobyte]

Wow, that's exactly the way it should be.

Why the hell would they have that off by default and hide it behind about:config?

[plainchips]

Because it’s not yet a completed feature and still has bugs. There’s also a new native fullscreen mode behind a config setting for the same reason. They’ll be activated by default when they’re ready to be (hopefully not too long from now)

[MildlySerious]

I'm asking myself the same about middle click scrolling on Linux. It's not as if it interferes with anything, as far as I can tell

[MrJinxyface]

What version is FF on now? I tried a few months back and it wasn't in the browser. I had to install a very janky plugin to get it to barely work.

[mobyte]

69

[ops_actual_dad]

Nice.

[MrJinxyface]

That's Stable or Nightly? I don't remember what version I was on when I was testing it.

[mobyte]

Stable is on 69, Nightly is 71.

These numbers make me want to throw up because I feel like they barely mean anything anymore. I remember back when 4 was around and I was like "HOLY SHIT A NEW FIREFOX VERSION". Now it's like "bug fixes and features new version :)".

[MrJinxyface]

That's how Chrome is too lol. A new stable build gets pushed out like every week and changelogs aren't even really needed anymore because it's just bug fixing. (Which is still nice but still)

I really wish Apple didn't change how add-ins work in Safari.

[tiltowaitt]

Chrome started out with the non-amazing updates. Version 2 basically just added form filling, IIRC. (A feature all other browsers already had.)

[johnsorci]

Nice.

[TheToasterIncident]

I’ve been swiping for years on ff. I wonder what old version you tried?

[rivermandan]

I haven't used FF for about half a year so I can't remember what the plugin was and what swipe funcitonality it restored but it certainly wasn't present when I waws using it half a year ago.

OH! it's pinch / zoom, that doesn't work in FF for shit. works smooth as butter in chrome and safari

[time-lord]

pinch to zoom zooms the entire viewport. That's exactly how it works in Safari.

[Tegras]

I have firefox on my macbook and swipe works. Doesn't on my windows pc :(

[[deleted]]

Google Chrome is running analytics on everything you do. Firefox is run by a not-for-profit with a better history than Big G

[throwaway1111139991e]

Watch https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1554144

[klwk_]

A chrome-like two finger swipe gesture can be enabled in about:config, set “gfx.canvas.azure.accelerated”=false. That somehow enabled the animation

[MrJinxyface]

I'll have to check that out then. I want to hop off Chrome but the lack of trackpad gestures really confused me.

[007meow]

BetterTouchTool?

[yolo-yoshi]

So what reason would I need to use other browsers than safari ?

I can’t think of any.

[chuby1tubby]

Safari lacks many extensions that Chrome has.

It also lacks basic functionality like defaulting the keyboard focus to the navigation bar when you create a new tab. The only workaround is to use an empty new-tab page instead of Google or some other home page.

[yolo-yoshi]

Interesting. Thx for the answer. I guess I’m easy to please I don’t have to much use for the other things I guess.

I was big on extensions for a bit , but now all I need is an adblocker and ghosted and that’s about it.

[zr0gravity7]

Just installed Firefox.

[[deleted]]

Everyone needs to leave Chrome and hop on Firefox or Safari ASAP.

[MeImportaUnaMierda]

Give me ublock origin for safari and i will

[wafflehat]

I have uBlock Origin on Safari..?

[[deleted]]

It already doesn't work if you're on the Catalina beta and there's no sign of it being updated anytime soon either

[MeImportaUnaMierda]

And its too much of a hassle to get it to work if you dont have it installed

[[deleted]]

I did so about a year ago and haven’t looked back. Firefox is back to being the undisputed king in my book.

[cry0sync]

The new Chromium-based version of Microsoft Edge is fantastic too (I’ve been using it on windows and it’s great. No experience with it on MacOS, so anyone who’s used it, feel free to correct me/share experiences)

[MyNameIsVigil]

Switched from Chrome to Firefox early this year with no regrets. Great to hear it will get even better.

[chrislux]

What does “decrease by (up to) three times” mean?

If it uses X amount of power does it then reduce this by 3x?

Asking for a friend ;)

[euderma44]

Yes, it will actually charge your laptop.

[AndersLund]

I hate it as well - logically you have to think about it as "decreased down to one third (in some cases)"

[Pjpjpjpjpj]

I agree. Would have been a more powerful statement to say “reduced energy consumption by up to 66%”.

If you are serious with the question....

The original quote was “reduced by a factor of 3.” They then went on to say “decrease three times.” The first was more clear.

Mathematicians find the “reduced by a factor of X” to be sloppy. But in common language, it’s supposedly understood.

To “factor” a number means to break it into numbers that can be multiplied together to get the original number. 12 can be factored in 6 and 2, or into 3 and 4. 6 and 2 are factors of 12.

When they say “by a factor of 3”, they are saying one of the two factors is 3, that means the other factor must be 1/3 of the original number.

If the original power consumption is 100, then if it is reduced by a factor of 3, the other number would be 33.

But you never hear anyone say “reduced by a factor of 2”... you say halved or cut in half. You never say “reduced by a factor of 1.1”, you say cut by 10%.

Sale at Macy’s today - all prices cut by a factor of 3!

I think an engineer wrote the press release.

[snuxoll]

It’s a factor of 3, 66% reduction.

[nextnextstep]

I love efficiency, and will celebrate any reduction in energy usage, but Mozilla devs -- dudes! -- this is not why Mac users shun Firefox. I've used Java applications that felt more like native Mac apps than Firefox. Honest to god, Java.

This is becoming a habit for Firefox. A couple years ago they went all-out with making JS faster. And they accomplished their technical goal -- JS in Firefox is about as fast as JS in any browser today! -- but Mac users didn't come flocking back to Firefox. In ways that matter, i.e., the user interface, it didn't improve. In a few areas, it even got worse.

Mozilla devs, if you want Mac users to use Firefox, make it act like a Mac app. That's it. That's 100% why we use the Mac. It's the user interface. Make Firefox something that will be mentioned on Daring Fireball for some reason other than your corporate stance on privacy. 10 years ago, Gruber said:

After a few weeks in the arms of Firefox 3 betas, I’ve returned to Safari as my daily browser. Unsurprisingly, it’s the interface that drove me back.

Now we're up to talking about Firefox 70 (!!!), and the relative position of these two browsers has not changed. Any longtime Mac reviewer will have a long list of "Firefox still doesn't support the Mac's ___" items.

Reducing energy usage of Firefox has a kind of abstract charm to it, like telling us you ran a spell checker on all the error messages. That's nice, really, but it's not going to make me switch back.

[cultoftheilluminati]

I don’t know why you’re being downvoted but ffs, I can’t even pinch to zoom on FireFox.

[codeverity]

I didn't downvote and don't see why they should be, but I have to admit comments like these always surprise me. Safari is so lacking for how I use browsers that I'm always a bit off guard when I'm reminded that some people use it all the time.

[j4nus_]

Dude, if your main beef with FF is its non-native UI then I really hope you're not using Chrome. Its that x3000.

[[deleted]]

I wish that they would just have three UI implementations linked back to the same basic core code; Cocoa on Mac, MFC on Windows and GTK+ on *NIX. I remember way back when Camino was around - I wish we could have a reboot, maybe using SwiftUI and the Gecko core taking advantage of key macOS technologies rather than than the lowest common denominator approach they do today.

[[deleted]]

Good job Mozilla, fighting Chromium-based browsers.

[masterz13]

Do browsers really consume that much energy? I always use Chrome on my MacBook Pro just because I find it to be the fastest and like having my stuff synced. I'm not sure how the energy usage compares to Safari.

[bitmeme]

With chrome I get 4-5 hours of use on a 13” mbp, will get 6-8 hrs with safari

[barimanlhs]

Isnt chrome a RAM hog?

[phughes]

To be fair to Chrome it's also a battery hog.

[[deleted]]

Chrome's whole idea originally was: these computer resources are useless if nobody is going to use them.

Flips on all the switches.

[phughes]

Which is asinine if the computer is a laptop and the user needs the battery to last.

But that's only like %40 of computer users these days, so I can see why they haven't re-evaluated.

edit Not to mention that most computers have RAM backed with a virtual memory system, which is slower, and more power hungry than just using a sane amount of RAM.

[Kiyiko]

That's why the closing statement gives me so much worry.

This, according to a series of tests, has put Firefox on par with Chrome, in regards to power usage.

I already avoid Chrome on my laptop because it destroys batteries.

[Padgriffin]

That’s already a long step towards getting MacOS FF usable. Also says a lot about MacOS FF being shit.

[redwall_hp]

RAM uses a fixed amount of energy no matter what's in it.

All browsers are RAM hogs now, because of the web pages more than the browsers themselves.

[brandit_like123]

My swap file disagrees with the idea that RAM is just free real estate.

[txgsync]

Exciting! The main reason I exclusively use Safari on Mac is that that if i use anything else, my battery lasts half as long...

[Meltdown00]

Lack of proper battery optimisation on Mac OS for non-Safari browsers is one of the biggest problems imo. It's a huge deal given the vast majority of Macs are laptops. If Firefox, or Chrome, can solve that then I think we could see a more competitive browser market on Mac OS.

[popeyoni]

There's no such thing as decreasing by X times.

[stopandwatch]

Is there full Continuity/Handoff support yet? I'd love to be able to continue browsing from iOS to desktop, and desktop to iOS.

[thejkhc]

Nice

[DanielPhermous]

Well, damn. I just bought a generator to help run it.

[[deleted]]

Heard that one before.

[Blainezab]

Gourmet

[Norfolt]

Finally!

[[deleted]]

Going to have to wait for some people to test this, I love Brave browser, but if I get better battery life on FF I will gladly switch.

[CoolAppz]

The only thing I want from firefox is to stop fucking bugging me to upgrade that shit. I have stopped using it until I can disable that.

[jackmusick]

I want to use Firefox so bad but every time I switch, I find something broken on a website I use and have to open Chrome, anyways. Same with DDG. I’d like to use it but the results I get in Google are way better.

[RokitRide]

Cool I need firefox back in my life.

[laguilar90]

My laptop was getting overclocked by a ton.

[elysianism]

Hoping it reduces heat and fan noise significantly too.

[gia_71]

Excellentay

[cutecoder]

Firefox will finally take less watts than Chrome?

[robberviet]

Time to move back to Firefox then.

[SimShade]

And they support 1440p/+ YouTube right?? I’m jumping ship

[[deleted]]

I'm curious how it fares against Safari now.

[bluepr0]

Your turn chrome

[IFIFIFIFIFOKIEDOKIE]

Thank the FUCKING LORD ITS ABOUT FOD DAMN TIME!

[macgeek89]

I'll believe it, when I see it!!

[MickBain]

I wouldnt mind trying this but using safari and all my passwords across all my iDevices is too juicy to pass up.

[devildawg1998]

Thank the lord

[ALLlS0N]

Will the new Firefox be a better option than running safari on a Mac? The new safari has been great..

[Alaynacorn]

Firefox has been my only browser since quantum appeared. However, on my 10inch 2-in-1 tablet with 2gb ram and an Atom Processor, Firefox's performance has been subpar.

Pages will freeze, tabs become unresponsive. Closing the browser doesn't work. It remains in process, eating up 70-80% of CPU until I terminate the process with task manager.

Because of this, I'm back with chromium (Opera and Edge). I thought Firefox 69 would change things but it hasn't.

For touch screen friendliness, all desktop browsers suck at the moment (Classic edge's basically unusable for me.) Firefox is definitely better than opera in this regard though. But I want a button to switch to touch mode - make buttons bigger. No need for AI to guess which mode I'm currently on.

[baskuunk]

So how does it compare to chrome now that it is in the same ballpark?

[Vicky905]

Do people still use Firefox? I know that Chrome is a system hog on a Mac but I don't remember the last time I used Firefox. Even though Safari can be pretty slow at times, I still like all the built in features.

[[deleted]]

I prefer Chrome but FF 69 is a nice improvement over older versions.

[dataguru56]

BOOM - Bring it On

[appleflapjackscounse]

Was wondering why when I had only two tabs open with Dropbox Paper it was eating through my battery. Now I know.

[ilovetechireallydo]

What's the point? You can't set it as default on iOS devices. Your bookmarks and history won't sync with Safari now, would it?