Thought Firefox Was Fast? Try Mozilla Minefield, the Next Generation of Firefox

It installs it side by side

Also Minefield has been around for like ever. Pre-3.0 Minefield was still faster then 3.0 and it most likely will stay that way. You will always find that alphas and betas are faster becuase they lack features, thats the whole point of chrome, its got essentials and not a whole lot else, so its very simple and as a result very fast. Also, minefield will seem faster because some addons dont support it yet, so they dont load at all (without some tweaking) The whole reason I use firefox is because of extensions, most extensions arnt updated for minefield bacuase its just plain too much work for the developer. If I want pure speed, id go to chrome. But if the difference between speed is very noticeable between 2 browsers, then its prob safe to say that its not the browsers fault, internets are cheap and fast now-a-days, its all relative to your computer. If you have a fast computer, you can run extensions and stuff no problem, if u have a slower computer of course your going to notice a difference in speed. I persoannly dont notice a difference in speed between firefox, opera, chrome or minefield. Well i can notice like a second diffrence tops....which i can live with. I would be more worried about security, ad removal and functionality before browser speed, but thats just me

 

You certainly can. My only suggestion is that you create a separate profile for Minefield, but that is up to you.

 

Matt,
How do you create a separate profile?

I have been using firefox for years and want to keep it as my main (non beta) browser.
I thought that I had heard that installing the 3.1 beta would replace 3.03.

I am just interested to see how much faster it feels than FF3. I tried chrome and did not find it to really be any faster after about a week of use, it felt like it takes about the same amount of time to load a page as in FF3. Plus I don't like how the google updater runs in the background even when chrome is closed. I much prefer how firefox checks for updates when it starts up. I only run ad block and no script for ff3, so not a lot of add ons running either.

 

http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=23&t=613873

It's essentially the same process that can be applied for Firefox 3 and Minefield. This worked for me.

As for creating profiles:

Windows: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Creating_a_new_Firefox_profile_on_Windows

Linux: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager#Linux

OSX: http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manager#Mac_OS_X

 

How can it be faster than firefox when firefox is already "instant" I guess if you have a slower computer or internet connection you can make it faster but seriously there is no delay or need for more resources for me.

 

Yeah, it's pretty fast already. But to answer your question...

Firefox 3's slowest area is JavaScript. Minefield builds released after (and a few days before) Firefox 3.1b1 have a TraceMonkey, which optimizes JavaScript code making is quicker to execute. So this means that any JavaScript-heavy websites (such as Gmail, Google Docs, etc) run extremely fast. You will notice a difference. Guaranteed.

 

Hmm I may install it at work then, because half our work is done via google docs/apps.

 

So if I install Minefield it won't replace Firefox right? I've got Firefox 3 right now and I would like to keep it and compare with Minefield.

 

I'm pretty sure it overwrites Firefox actually.

 

I downloaded the .zip file and it didnt even install. It just runs from its extracted folder.

I created a shortcut to the .exe and put it on my desktop and it works fine, but my firefox shortcut still launches firefox.

 

Is the Minefield from zip file can be considered portable? As in it don't mess with the registry etc?

 

Well I have both Firefox and Minefield installed... So?

 

they're both linked together... anyway this is quite abit faster xD

 

And how did you accomplish that?

 

It will not replace it. Read this for assistance.

Wrong.

 

I'm liking this. Thanks for the tip.

 

I don't know that I did anything special? I just know that if I opened up one, my addons didn't work. If I opened up the other, they did. :]

Maybe I'm wrong. (It wouldn't be the first time.)

 

On my work computer I used the zip file, extracted it to a folder on the desktop and can launch the firefox.exe directly I never was prompted with any install dialogs and the taskbar shortcut for firefox still launches firefox.

On my HTPC that I just built I downloaded the .exe and it did launch an installer and installed mindfiled as a browser.

To me it looks and works just like firefox like an update to it so I do not see any reason thus far why you would not just replace firefox with it anyways.

 

Well, there is a very simple reason for this. Firefox developers, as I'm sure you've noticed, release a new build of Minefield every night (hence the term nightly builds). They release these new builds without any extensive testing whatsoever. They leave the testing up to the testers, i.e., you. Now, if you are using Minefield as your primary browser (as I do), you may find yourself in trouble if a particular nightly build has a bug in it, which nightly builds quite often do. In other words, these builds are not tested very well before being released. As I said before, you are the tester. So the risk in having it replace Firefox is that if a particular build affects you so much that it renders Minefield useless, you will be forced to use... IE or whatever else you have installed.

I would recommend keeping the latest stable build of Firefox installed in addition to Minefield for this reason.


Anyway... if you're bored, check this out. It's quite funny.

 

Have they introduced tabs multithreading like in chrome?

 

No, but I really don't see the point. I'll be honest, I haven't done the research, so I'm not exactly informed on why having separate threads for each tab is necessary or beneficial. That said, I see no reason why it is necessary or beneficial.

I mean, sure, if a tab stops responding, it'd be nice to have only that tab be affected. Sure. However, with how most modern browsers handle crashes (crash recovery), I don't think it's necessary. Plus, having ten million different threads isn't exactly a good thing, is it? Again, I'm not too informed in this area, but I don't see the point. Feel free to point it out to me, though.

 

Information about multithreads: http://thechromegoogler.com/2008/09/multithreading-technology-in-chrome/

(http://www.reviewfaq.com/Tools-|-Templates/Google-Chrome-Preview.html):

Multithreading - this is going to make a huge difference to page load speed. The loading of page elements in browsers is currently sequential and that can really slow things down, especially when there's a lot of script on the page (like, er, Adsense). It's a bit like comparing an old cassette tape with a CD - with the tape you have to start right at the beginning and fast forward to find what you want; with the CD you just go there. Multithreading is a really big step forward (like the first time I used GoFTP after a life time with Cute, but that's a whole other story) and I think is going to be the single biggest USP of this new browser.

Multiple Sessions and Process Isolation - you know that horrible feeling when you've got 20 Firefox tabs going and then you open THAT page, the one that never finishes loading, that just sits there and locks up the whole app. Well, say goodbye to those crap page blues with Chrome's new process isolation which means that each site loads in its own unique Chrome session - if one particular page gives you a problem you can just shut it down without affecting the others. No more hard crashes.

One other advantage of Process Isolation is that you no longer see the gradual memory bloat of Firefox the longer you leave it open. Keep Firefox open with a couple dozen tabs running for a few days and you'll see the memory usage inexorably rise over the period, to the point where the app will frequently lock up. That's due to memory fragmentation and is a direct result of having all the tabs running in a single session. Multiple Session processing means that as you close a tab, the whole of that particular session finishes, giving up the full amount of memory to the next process. The new Chrome Task Manager even shows you which tabs are the worst offenders, meaning you can ditch the real memory hogs as quickly as possible.

 

Oh, wow. Good to know. Thanks for the info!

And to answer your question, Ayle, no. This is not going to happen in Firefox 3.1. Maybe Firefox 4, though I'm not sure about that. It sounds like it would be a great idea, though.

 

Tried Minefield, but i still found Chrome Faster. It was faster than FF3 though.

 

Minefield IS Firefox.

Minefield is the codename for upcoming releases.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Firefox#Future_developments

 

We have completely and utterly discussed the topic of Minefield = Firefox already.

Anyway, Ahl means that Minefield was faster than Firefox 3. No need to shove it down his throat.

 

Thanks.

You are correct.

 

Cool beans. I can't wait to see if it's any good

 

Since we were talking about Fx4 briefly earlier... I was reading the MozillaZine forum and apparently Fx4 is still just a distant idea, even for the developers. Their focus is on Fx3.1 and possibly Fx3.2. On thing that I do know that is coming in Fx4 is 64-bit builds. (Firefox currently runs on 64-bit operating systems, but not as a native 64-bit application, meaning it doesn't take advantage of the OS being 64-bit.) Lastly, I think features such as Weave and Prism will surface in Fx4. (I find the former much more interesting than the latter, but that's just me.) There's actually extension forms of both features if you'd like a preview.