Battery drain on MacBook

[Metalstream]

Hello guys,

Have anyone had issues with firefox running on MacBook Pro draining the battery?

I've tried a clean install and the battery performance hasn't got any better while using firefox.

[kerft]

If you have a retina or other high DPI display, the problem is well known. Here is a semi-official reply and workarounds https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/commen ... splay_use/
Here is some general information https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/search ... ance&t=all

If you like:
https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/commen ... tina_macs/
https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/commen ... a_display/
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/commen ... me=firefox

[Metalstream]

If you have a retina or other high DPI display, the problem is well known. Here is a semi-official reply and workarounds https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/commen ... splay_use/
Here is some general information https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/search ... ance&t=all

If you like:
https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/commen ... tina_macs/
https://old.reddit.com/r/firefox/commen ... a_display/
https://www.reddit.com/r/firefox/commen ... me=firefox

Thank you buddy for this information!... and yes I have a retina display...

(I don't know why I didn't search over Reddit... )

It's sad to read there isn't a fix yet for an issue that has been around for more than a year.

[tomatoshadow2]

I believe it is always being worked on, it's hard for the developers to pin point the problem. Here are the two bugs, you can follow on Bugzilla, on the issue, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522

[Metalstream]

I believe it is always being worked on, it's hard for the developers to pin point the problem. Here are the two bugs, you can follow on Bugzilla, on the issue, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1404042 and https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1429522

They know what it is happening, the main problem and reason is the lack of more hands working over it. If I had the time I would help like some years ago.

[tomatoshadow2]

I agree with that, also seems to be very technical, might be quit a while, until its fixed.

[Metalstream]

I agree with that, also seems to be very technical, might be quit a while, until its fixed.

Yes, it is very technical, but people testing is needed as well.

[tomatoshadow2]

Absolutely agree, hope the focus will be on the issue soon again for Mac testers.

[malliz]

Used to be a fair percentage of devs were using Macs

[Metalstream]

Used to be a fair percentage of devs were using Macs

I think there are plenty, even more than before. But let's see some statistics:

What's the OS's market share (more or less, it doesn't include OS for mobiles):

- Windows 87,56%
- MacOS 9,65%
- GNU/Linux (All distros) 2,14%

Now let's check how is the actual Browser market share overall OS's:
- Chrome 66,77%
- Firefox 9,39%
- IE 8,55%
- Edge 4,83%
- Safari 3,62%

As you can see, Firefox participation has decreased to a 9,39%, from a 35% once had (idk like 9-10 years ago). Finally, what's the browser share in MacOS:
- Chrome 56,15%
- Safari 36,58%
- Firefox 6,20%

Actually Firefox has around 240M of active users, therefore 15M uses Firefox on MacOS (it's obvious that Firefox isn't even the second choice), obviously a number that doesn't justify resources investment for the browser in the platform.

P.D. Developers that use MacOS are around 30%, 25% for GNU/Linux and 45% for Windows.

[therube]

In Nightly, at this point, https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.c ... 429522#c32, so look for it in your friendly FF Release - some time in the future. Perhaps.

Related, I'm guessing, Bug 1574538 Enable CoreAnimation by default (gfx.core-animation.enabled).

[mightyglydd]

Hey Metal, dunno if it's related ?? I see this in 70b3 "what's new".

[therube]

FF 69.0 Release

For our users on macOS, battery life and download UI are both improved:

macOS users on dual-graphics-card machines (like MacBook Pro) will switch back to the low-power GPU more aggressively, saving battery life.
Finder on macOS now displays download progress for files being downloaded.

https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/6 ... easenotes/

[tomatoshadow2]

Huge Improvement on Nightly 71 for Mac, its amazing.

[Metalstream]

Hey mighty! Long time!

Hey Metal, dunno if it's related ?? I see this in 70b3 "what's new".

Yes, I saw it over Reddit, people were talking about a Nightly build with a significant improvement. I haven't tested it myself but resources performance matches Chrome according some users.

This must be the phase I, Markus Stange was talking about https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.c ... 429522#c26 :

Renaming this bug because it's tracking more than just the elimination of the transparent surface.

Here's my current three-phase plan.

Phase I was the project to make Firefox use CoreAnimation at all. This phase is now concluding with bug 1491442 landing and the pref soon being turned on by default in bug 1574538. It does not improve power usage but lays the ground work.
Phase II is the project to improve Firefox power usage on macOS for the non-WebRender configuration. This phase is starting now.
Phase III will be about improving WebRender's power usage, so that WebRender can be turned on by default for Mac users.

The planned fixes will each help different browsing work loads:

Some fixes, such as bug 1491448 and bug 1574586, eliminate general overhead.
Some fixes, such as bug 1571551, will only help on web pages with expensive layer structures.
Some fixes, such as bug 1491451 and bug 1491456, will help whenever only small parts of the window change.

There are also improvements we could make specifically to scrolling, and to video. But those changes are invasive enough that it's only worth implementing them for WebRender. So those will come in phase III.