SeaMonkey VS FireFox - Do you think SeaMonkey is faster?

[USA_Webmaster]

I downloaded multiple versions of Firefox, from the 64 bit build, to Auroa and Waterfox and a few other popular builds like 43.

No matter the install, SeaMonkey is just plain faster. Do you notice that too? Even if I don't run them side by side (one on each monitor) it's definitely noticeable...I even replicate similar setups. I'll install just a single extension like Ublock and LastPass and play around with things.

[patrickjdempsey]

I don't know about faster, but it's certainly less of a pain in the behind to use and keep up-to-date. And the per-element plugin blocker is IMO better than Firefox's per-domain version.

[frg]

The backend is the same so there shouldn't be a difference. Maybe the telemetry upload? It's disabled in Seamonkey but still there. From what I see in the sources and changes there must be a ton of them in the FF ui code. And the sh*itty Australis interface doing everything differently from the operating system might be responsible too.

I am on 2.44 x64 now compiled with -O2 under Windows and Seamonkey feels even faster:)

FRG

[therube]

Don't typically use FF & even if I did I seriously doubt I'd notice any difference between FF versions (current vs beta vs aurora vs nightly) or against SeaMonkey.

(Now take some [much] older, much "lighter" version of any browser, & most likely I could say, yes, that feels faster then anything current.)

Maybe the telemetry upload?

My feeling is that that is correct.
Typically when I open FF, I want to open it, do something very specific, be done with it & close it.
Most often it is more like this; open FF, start to do something very specific, I hear all kinds of "crap" (thrashing & whatnot) going on, finally finish what I'm wanting to check out, then give a sigh of relief once I close FF.
My feeling is that it is all that telemetry crap (& the Safe Browsing crap too - sorry frg ) that gives the less then pleasant UX I see.

[Anonymosity]

You can disable the telemetry and the safe browsing stuff. I made sure that stuff was disabled with Firefox and SeaMonkey. I copy settings important to me into my user.js file to preserve them. If a newer version of the application changes the default, the setting will be changed right back.

[frg]

>> (& the Safe Browsing crap too - sorry frg )

I am not using it. Only repaired it:) But I think it's an ok solution for not so computer affinitive people.

>> You can disable the telemetry and the safe browsing stuff.

Actually you can't or not completely. The safebrowsing list updates will take place anyway.

>> I made sure that stuff was disabled with Firefox and SeaMonkey.

You can disable telemetry only via compile time switches and even this is not a 100% solution. Not much is enclosed in "if def" statements. I think there are a lot more telemetry points in the FF ui code and this might slow it down...

[rsx11m]

I've noticed that the location bar in recent Firefox versions ("Awesome Bar") is substantially slower with autocomplete suggestions than SeaMonkey, and they've also added some bloat for the search bar. Also, some dialogs invoked from the menus (like clearing recent history) open slower in Firefox than before (SeaMonkey's "Clear Private Data" opens instantly). Rendering-wise, they are about the same (which would make sense, as frg suggested, given the identical rendering engine).

[patrickjdempsey]

The *interface* in SeaMonkey is certainly faster, in some cases because for whatever genius reason, the Firefox developers think adding slow animations to things somehow tricks people into thinking they are faster. The Firefox UI has also become a monstrously bloated huge thing which could impact UI performance on some machines. For some users, the fact that they aren't using all of the same extensions in SM as in Fx will actually make the browser faster, but that's not the fault of the browser: it's the extensions.

[Anonymosity]

If toolkit.telemetry.enabled is set to false and toolkit.telemetry.server is blank, how can it happen?

[rsx11m]

The *interface* in SeaMonkey is certainly faster, in some cases because for whatever genius reason, the Firefox developers think adding slow animations to things somehow tricks people into thinking they are faster.

Yeah, that's kind of a paradox. In the age of slow graphics, you could watch the windows being created and filled with content. These days, you have fast graphics which could do that instantly, but for some incomprehensible reason, people think that you need to compensate for that by animations, thus an artificial slowdown, to convey to the user what's happening.

I'm talking though about general delays in Firefox, until something happens when you enter a partial URL or click on a menu. It's confusing why they would deliberately add a delay there.

[patrickjdempsey]

Considering that same delay now appears in the Google search bar, it's probably some stupid psychological thing. Like maybe make people think the computers are having to "think" about the answer before coming up with a solution? Alls I know is it makes trying to use the backspace to change a search query into a nightmare.

[Joe1962]

I think I have always found that SeaMonkey starts up and browses faster than Firefox. I recently tried a new-fangled version of Opera, just to check where thay are going, and find that it is really slow (as in very slow) to load pages through our company squid server, while Firefox is less slow and SeaMonkey is noticeably faster than Firefox.