Chrome, Firefox, Palemoon comparison

[wiak]

Running XenialDog 64 bit system on HP Elitebook 2530P laptop with 2GB RAM and zram swap of size 1GB, 2GHz Intel Core II duo, Intel GM54 graphics video.

Comparing Google Chrome version 63.0.3239.108; Firefox 57.0.4 and Palemoon 27.7.0 to see how reliable they are with multi-tabs open...

First and for some perhaps most important discovery first (which could well apply also to XenialPup users though I haven't tried that):

My initial XenialDog64 install uses kernel inbuilt modesetting driver and I didn't have xserver-xorg-video-intel installed.

1. With that setup, Palemoon seemed to run fine until I tried to open facebook.com whereupon it immediately crashed out of X with a /var/log/Xorg.0.org AIGLX error message. I have often had such problems with earlier Palemoon browser versions on this Intel graphics-based system.

*** However, I then installed xserver-xorg-video-intel and Palemoon seems to now open facebook.com without crashing, which may be an important discovery for Intel graphics machine users of Palemoon (e.g. with XenialPup).

2. Now for the quick/simple_but_practical browser test itself:

Method was to load relatively heavy gmail page into a tab and then open further gmail pages in tabs until my system ran out of memory. Doing this separately, one browser at a time only.

Results:

Chrome and Firefox results pretty much identical. Both performed equally fast and took up similar resources and managed 11 (eleven) such tabs open. On opening 12th tab with another gmail page the browser froze such that I had to press power button to close down my system...

Palemoon, however, managed 17 such gmail page tabs before it suddenly slowed to a crawl and froze. However, big bonus was that after a relatively short time the browser itself crashed out so I didn't need to hit the power button to continue. But then I discovered the facebook.com crash out of X issue... what a pity I thought. But then I discovered installing xserver-xorg-video-intel possible video driver fix...

Of course this possible Palemoon crash fix needs lots more testing, so may or may not prove stable, but working for me so far... Also I have no idea why the kernel modesetting driver isn't enough for Palemoon use (needing xserver-xorg-video-intel loaded instead) since it works fine on my HP Elitebook system with Chrome and Firefox whether opening facebook.com or not...

Hope all of the above info is useful to someone.

wiak

[Sailor Enceladus]

I'm using the Palemoon builds by Walter Dnes in Slacko 5.7, they have been more stable than the Xenialpup versions for me.

[wiak]

I'm using the Palemoon builds by Walter Dnes in Slacko 5.7, they have been more stable than the Xenialpup versions for me.

You haven't said if the machine you are using this on uses Intel graphics chip, which is the what my report concerns. I will try one of these Walter Dries builds and report back if they have the same issue.

wiak

[wiak]

I'm using the Palemoon builds by Walter Dnes in Slacko 5.7, they have been more stable than the Xenialpup versions for me.

That SSE Walter Dries Palemoon is a 32bit version. My post was about Palemoon 64bit version. However, I do also have XenialDog 32bit on my Intel graphics based laptop so downloaded the Walter Dries Palemoon and gave it a spin:

My XenialDog 32 bit system already contains xserver-xorg-video-intel so I wasn't too surprised the Walter Dries Palemoon logged into Facebook without crashing. I then removed xserver-xorg-video-intel, rebooted and tried again using the inbuilt kernel modesetting driver arrangement. Like my above report a few posts ago, this 32bit Palemoon also immediately crashed out of X when trying to go to facebook.com page. Once again installing xserver-xorg-video-intel fixed it.

Note that I am using XenialDogs not XenialPups. I do not know if the Puppies XenialPup (32 or 64bits), or TahrPup for that matter, come with xserver-xorg-video-intel pre-installed. If they do not I would not be surprised if users of some (if not all) Intel graphics based video machines crash on attempts to visit facebook.com page (and no doubt some other websites). Solution, as I say, seems to be to install xserver-xorg-video-intel rather than to rely on the inbuilt kernel driver.

EDIT: I do have slacko64 (6.9.9) on that same laptop so I gave official Palemoon 64bit version a try on that. It worked fine going to the facebook.com page and logging into that. I note that it already contains the appropriate video-intel graphics driver so that result is not therefore unexpected (Note that the xserver-xorg-video-intel package name I gave is Debian name for the driver). You can check if your distribution has that Xorg video-intel driver installed by default (assuming you are on intel graphics machine) by checking text log file /var/log/Xlog.0.log and search for 'intel'. On my slacko64 machine the result is:

Code: Select all

[    17.358] (II) LoadModule: "intel"
[    17.359] (II) Loading /usr/lib64/xorg/modules/drivers/intel_drv.so

Otherwise, it will say 'not found'.

EDIT2: For sake of completion I temporarily renamed that Slacko64 intel_drv.so file and rebooted (so it wouldn't be found). Interestingly, official 64-bit Palemoon was still able to visit facebook.com page. That suggests to me that it is one of the dependencies of xserver-xorg-video-intel that fixes the problem rather than intel_drv.so itself.

wiak

[benali72]

wiak, thanks for posting this. I've been comparing different browsers lately to see which appears more responsive. So far Chromium seems faster than Firefox Quantum, with Palemoon maybe in between.

I've been lucky with Palemoon. No crashes on several different boxes.

Thanks for sharing your experiences.

[mostly_lurking]

To me it sounds like the crash problem might be caused by the lack of a suitable (hardware- or software-based) OpenGL renderer, which the xserver-xorg-video-intel package probably adds.

I don't have an Intel graphics card, so I can't test it - but Palemoon has an option on the "advanced" tab of its settings dialog to use hardware acceleration, which is usually enabled by default. Does it still crash when you turn that off? I'm not sure if you have to restart the browser to make the change come into effect. (For websites that have Flash content - the Flashplayer also has a hardware acceleration option; right-click on any Flash window to open the settings dialog.)

[Gyle]

Author mgolden wrote two days ago:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic.php?t=113053

If you are running the relatively new XenialPup 7.5 you'll probably want to update the Pale Moon browser. The 27.8.3 release appears to fix a problem that I would describe as a "memory leak" where, if the browser is left running, processor utilization over the course of several hours approaches 100% and the machine becomes unresponsive.
http://www.palemoon.org/releasenotes.shtml

[...] In 7.5 the option to update Pale Moon is under Menu -> Internet.

It works for me. Thanks mgolden.

[hamoudoudou]

Chrome, Firefox, Palemoon comparison
Firefox addons for downloading videos
What a choice !
You Tube, and You tube again.. I need dailymotion. Firefox has it available.