Firefox back-button speed issues

October 21, 2005 6:57 PM

So I downloaded Flock and became instantly indifferent, until I noticed it's near Opera-like rendering speed via the back-button. Sluggish back button (again, compared to Opera) action is my least favorite thing about Firefox. Given that Flock is based on Firefox, can I mimic Flock's speedy rendering on already visited pages in Firefox sans digging into code?

I so miss this from my Opera days. I'm also too attached to my customized Firefox setup to abandon it, and Flock didn't really do enough for me to justify another browser switch. tia

posted by jikel_morten to computers & internet (13 comments total)

It's based on Firefox 1.5 (beta 2 I think), and this feature is part of Firefox, not Flock. Try upgrading to 1.5 if you haven't already?

(And if you do, and as most extensions havent upgraded, Nightly Tester Tools will force compatibility and let you use them.)
posted by Boobus Tuber at 7:20 PM on October 21, 2005

It's based on Firefox 1.5 (beta 2 I think)

According to the source code I downloaded, it's 1.5b1. But yes, Boobus Tuber is right: the forward/backward memory caching is a Firefox 1.5 feature.
posted by sbutler at 7:26 PM on October 21, 2005

Ok thanks guys, I just downloaded it and am blown away. Thanks - this totally rocks.
posted by jikel_morten at 7:38 PM on October 21, 2005

I have always thought that this should have been built into browsers from the early days. What the hell is the point of caching pages and graphics if the browser is going to retrieve the damn things again from the internet ten seconds after you left the page instead of loading them from the cache?
posted by yclipse at 7:45 PM on October 21, 2005

I have always thought that this should have been built into browsers from the early days. What the hell is the point of caching pages and graphics if the browser is going to retrieve the damn things again from the internet ten seconds after you left the page instead of loading them from the cache?

I'm not sure about earlier browsers, but Firefox 1.0 did load from the local cache. The reason is was slow is because even loaded from the local cache the document needs to be reparsed, laid out, and JS events need to be fired.

The reason Firefox 1.5 back/forward is much quicker is because they started storing the entire page, as is, in memory. You'd think this would be an obvious move, but doing it right is much harder than you imagine.
posted by sbutler at 7:51 PM on October 21, 2005

damn, i downloaded 1.5 and now none of my extensions work. back to 1.07 or whatever i was at... why couldn't they have added an option to move tabs to the bottom of the screen??
posted by yonation at 10:00 PM on October 21, 2005

It's the difference between storing the individual files, and storing the rendered page. yclipse, the original purpose of local storage was to have files available when bandwidth was limited and download times for e.g. individual graphics would be intolerable. Also, at that time RAM was limited -- you can't imagine, really -- and storing a rendered page would have been more costly than today.

No, you should not expect your extensions to work with the beta. If this beta is good enough, the next step is a "developer preview" which is intended for extension authors, among others, to have time to make necessary changes.

yonation, that's an extension-type option. I believe one or more of the tab-related extensions allows you to do that.
posted by dhartung at 12:23 AM on October 22, 2005

The reason Firefox 1.5 back/forward is much quicker is because they started storing the entire page, as is, in memory.

Eh? As far as I can tell, 1.0 does this.

In any case, it can't be that complicated, as IE for Mac was doing it like five years ago.
posted by kindall at 1:20 AM on October 22, 2005

Never mind, I guess a dual G5 is just fast enough I couldn't tell it was re-rendering. ;)
posted by kindall at 1:21 AM on October 22, 2005

Move the Tab bar to the bottom of the screen.

Kindall: is your version 1 rendering as fast as 1.5? 1 is quick to begin with, but 1.5 kills the delay.
posted by jikel_morten at 7:27 AM on October 22, 2005

yonation: [A]s most extensions havent upgraded, Nightly Tester Tools will force compatibility and let you use them.
posted by S.C. at 10:18 AM on October 22, 2005

It was rendering fast enough on simple pages (like MetaFilter) that I didn't notice it was rerendering, but when I tried some more complicated pages, I could tell.

OmniWeb does this and it's my main browser already. Having it on Firefox will be nice at the office though.
posted by kindall at 2:12 PM on October 22, 2005

Eh? As far as I can tell, 1.0 does this.

Google "fastback".
posted by dhartung at 11:48 PM on October 24, 2005