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Comment by datalist | Hacker News Reader

True, they kind of managed to semi-port that but it still rather is a crutch.

My point was though the claim Chrome fundamentally improved how we use tabs simply is nonfactual.

Chrome made tabs practical through multiprocess browsing. Firefox would happily let a backgrounded tab wedge the entire process and it took many years for them to rectify that.

First, this is an exaggeration in my opinion. Second, this is only peripherally related to tabs and how they are used.

It’s presumptive of you to call it an exaggeration and it’s wrong to say it’s “only peripherally related to tabs.” JavaScript-heavy web apps came along well before Firefox could deal with them well. Leaving Google Docs in a background tab while somebody else was editing the same document would faceplant Firefox for years. Making a tab-centric workflow viable with complex applications by isolating them in their own process space and minimizing their impact on the UI process was revolutionary.

Firefox is awesome now. We can celebrate that without rewriting the past.

So using a Google product on a non Google browser while they’re trying to gain marketshare for said browser didn’t work well (and presumably would push you towards using said browser)? Color me surprised.

I mean you get that Chrome exists because Google wanted to do more with a web page, yeah? And that Firefox wasn’t up for it at the time?

Chrome’s approach enabled new things and I knew somebody was mgoing to /r/iamverysmart about my example being a Google app—but Google Docs is my go-to example exactly because at the time nobody else really made a web app with some weight to it. Chrome enabled them to be mainstream and for that it deserves a lot of credit. But there is no super secret MakeFirefoxSlow.js in Google Docs. There never was. Firefox was slow and poorly designed by comparison.

Firefox has now improved. It’s great. I don’t even use Chrome anymore. But I’m really allergic to this kind of galaxy-braining.

> But there is no super secret MakeFirefoxSlow.js in Google Docs. There never was.

https://fortune.com/2018/07/25/youtube-slow-mozilla-firefox-...

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/12/18/google_monopoly_abu...

I still stand by my previous statements.

Mozilla certainly improved on overall performance with Quantum, but to say Firefox was unusuable is actually not even an exaggeration - I stand corrected on this - but plain wrong.

AFAIK, Chrome did introduce the multi-process approach but that touched tabs only peripherally. Tab management itself has not improved.

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