Firefox/Content Performance Program/Observations

Windows Desktop

Reference system

• HP Pavilion 15" laptop
• Touchscreen
• CPU: i3-5010u
• GPU: (integrated): HD5500

Experiments

Windows 8 vs Windows 10 (Firefox)

• Performed by: aklotz, avih

TBD

GFX and e10s configurations (Firefox and others)

• Performed by: aklotz, avih
• Reproduced partially: vladan

TBD

Navigation from search results (between browsers)

• performed by: vladan, avih

TBD

Two monitors configurations (between browsers)

• performed by: avih
• Test how well browsers use the correct refresh rate in a two monitors configuration.
• tested using: http://www.vsynctester.com/index.html
• Procedure - with a single browser window, check all combinations of the following variables:
  • Browser: Firefox release / nightly / Chrome / IE / Edge (win10 only)
  • OS: Windows 8.1 / Windows 10
  • Windows "main" display: laptop's built-in / external monitor
  • The browser window is at: laptop's built-in / external monitor
  • Laptop's built in display refresh rate: lower/identical/higher than that of the external monitor
• Observe both the reported animation rate and the smoothness on screen - on all cases the reported value matched the visual observation.
• Observations:
  • When both monitors have the same rate - all browsers behave optimally.
  • Firefox is the best, with only a single suboptimal case (and not worse than other browsers in this case):
    • When the Windows "main" display has lower rate than the extended-to display (regardless if the main is the built-in/external, or windows 8.1/10), then the animation rate on the extended-to display is the refresh rate of the "main" display (therefore lower than it should be). I suspect this to be an inherent Windows issue (need quote).
  • Chrome comes second:
    • Same issue as Firefox, plus few other cases where it incorrectly uses the rate of the "other" monitor.
  • IE/Edge are last:
    • Same issues as Firefox and Chrome, plus when the main display is the laptop, and it has a lower rate than the external display, on both win8/10 -> it uses weird rAF rate (67hz, 64hz) which doesn’t match any monitor.

Memory usage of e10s, non e10s (Firefox and others)

• Performed by: vladan, avih

TBD

Google maps zoom in/out animation (between browsers)

• Performed by: vladan, avih
• Test how well the google maps zoom in/out animation is (using mouse wheel scroll over the map).
• We tested this zoom animation since vladan thought Firefox might perform worse than chrome.
• Procedure:
  • System:
    • vladan: Lenovo W520 laptop + NVidia GPU + 3 monitors (1 built in, two external), Windows 7.
    • avih: Reference HP laptop, Windows 10.
  • Tested browsers: Firefox release / Nightly / Chrome / IE / Edge
  • Load maps.google.com, cue it to a city (e.g. Toronto), then use mouse-wheel to zoom in and out (stayed zoomed in within city limits at all times).
• Observations (avih):
  • TL;DR: Firefox is not worse than others and all browsers are quite similar.
  • All browsers initially zoom in/out in discrete steps, but once enough data has loaded, the zoom change switches to smooth.
  • While in discrete steps: Edge and IE update slightly slower than nightly/release/chrome.
  • _maybe_ Firefox release and Edge/IE take longer to load the data than nightly/chrome.
  • While in smooth zoom mode, all browsers behave pretty much the same, and very nicely at that.
• TODO:
  • Settle the disagreement: vladan: Firefox is worse, avih: all browsers are similar enough.

Fennec

Reference Device

• Samsung Galaxy S4
• Android Lollipop 5.0.1 (official update)
• Not rooted

Experiments

Alexa top 20 - Navigation and manual scroll (between browsers)

• Performed by: avih
• Reproduced partially: vladan
• Tested using:
  • Fennec Aurora 43 API11 2015-09-30 (chosen together with :kats)
  • Chrome
  • The device default "Internet" browser
• Procedure:
  • Visit the top 20 alexa sites
  • On each site scroll manually and observe the behavior
  • Visit some internal links and observe the navigation behavior
  • Take notes of the relative performance diffs between browsers
• Observations:
  • "Internet" and Chrome are similar, but between them Chrome is slightly better. We'll focus on Fennec vs Chrome.
  • Page load is similar between browsers
  • Bug 1217415 Page navigation is faster in Chrome on some sites (e.g. Wikipedia, ebay) but similar on other sites.
  • Bug 1217372 Fennec has text input lag in autocomplete boxes (google, bing) which Chrome doesn't.
  • In general, scroll is better in chrome, but on "light" pages Fennec gets pretty close.
  • Scroll _while_ the page is loading is more responsive in Fennec (but still not very good)
  • Bug 1217370 On fast scroll swipes, sometimes the momentum is less than expected.
  • Scroll on some pages (e.g. yahoo.com) is considerably worse in Fennec:
    • Bug 1217364 Inconsistent progression (momentum) without user inputs.
    • Bug 1217366 Visible low resolution rendering, especially for fast swipes.