Mozilla claims 25 per cent JavaScript speed boost with Firefox 18

Mozilla has released its latest Firefox build, version 18, and claims the new version offers a 25 per cent speed boost thanks to a new JavaScript compiler dubbed IonMonkey. "IonMonkey is a huge step forward for our JavaScript performance and our compiler architecture," said compiling engineer David Anderson. "But also, it's …

[Anonymous Coward]

AJAX

Now, if only they'd fix the AJAX issue, I'd be happy (Firefox pauses while an AJAX update is taking place, even in a different tab).

[n13ldo]

Personally, I'm looking forward to Firefox 26...

[JB]

You'll only have to wait a few days, then!

[rash.m2k]

Bollocks! Everytime I upgrade firefox it just gets slower and slower and just more bloated! I don't see ANY new features but it just seems to take longer to load up!

[Bush_rat]

I agree, but after upgrading I did notice a real speed boost of the last versions.

[Dan 55]

Try disabling the add ons. If it's faster, one of them is slowing it down.

[The BigYin]

I concur after trying Sunspider

Ubuntu 12.10 64bit, KDE 4.9, 4GB ram, Core 2 Duo 2.4Ghz

FF 17 - 293ms

FF 18 - 323ms

So based on the mighty evidence of one sample, I say that FF 18 is 10% slower and a regression.

I believe this comparison to be fair as the same add-ons were enabled in both runs.

[The BigYin]

Did a run in a Windows VM on a different PC (I had upgraded the host from FF 17 to FF 18 already). Host is almost the same as above, save it runs Windows 7 and has a 3.1GHz Core 2 Duo

FF 17 - 263ms

FF 18 - 312ms (18% slower)

So I don't know where Mozilla is getting their "25% JavaScript speed boost" from, guess I should have held-off on the upgrades and checked out the V8 benchmark. Can someone else run these before an after upgrade?

[itzman]

actually that was true up to about version 8 or so but it seems to be getting better now.

Still had - haven't checked this release - some stability issues that meant it went guru meditation occasionally.

[illiad]

I haven't bothered to update FF since V4, due to needed plugins... when they make it 'out of the box' as fully featured as Opera, BUT with the full FF functionality, I may think about it...

[JDX]

"super excited"

awesome.

[jason 7]

You know why this is......

...no one ever bothers to do any real testing anymore.

Why bother when version 19 will be out in a month promising it will be better.........

Rinse and repeat.

[nichomach]

Having left it running...

...with a few tabs open overnight and come back in to find it consuming over 900MB and choking when it attempted a page refresh, I'm less than thrilled. Maybe it's just my machine, though.