Archive for the 'Browser' Category

Firefox Could Not Get Domain for Worker

Mar 31 2012 Published by under Firefox,Python Fiddle

While wrapping up the Fiddle Salad project and doing cross browser testing, I found that Firefox wouldn’t run my project, at least on a local host.

This was one of the reasons I couldn’t get a stable release all in one shot. I initially thought it was caused by the IP address or the port number, but others report it’s just a problem with not having a domain. So one way is to add a domain mydomain.com in the Windows host file in C:\Windows\System32\drivers\etc.

# Copyright (c) 1993-2009 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a '#' symbol.
#
# For example:
#
#      102.54.94.97     rhino.acme.com          # source server
#       38.25.63.10     x.acme.com              # x client host

# localhost name resolution is handled within DNS itself.
    127.0.0.1       localhost
    127.0.0.1       myapp.com

The changes are applied immediately after saving, and I’m able to run the site locally in Firefox.

Another way is to use one of the Worker polyfills that bypasses the Firefox security checks. I suggest fakeworker, but in my case I would need to rewrite some code to be compatible with the old API to use it. Of course, this was only one of the many problems I found on the uploaded version, so I had to prioritize which problems to fix first. It’s always better to go for the efficiency gains at the start and visible results at the end. So I made a Django media sync javascript debug processor for future debug purposes on the production site.

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Opera 11.5 Minimalist Icons

Jul 10 2011 Published by under Opera

Minimalist design enables users to accomplish their tasks faster. The new version of Opera gets out of my way with non-distracting icons.

In Opera 11.5, the status icons are all the same color, allowing attention to be drawn to other areas of the browsing experience. Having one icon red, the other green uses the traffic light analogy, while these areas and the colors used as signals don’t require user action. So in this version, the Opera Unite red, which is Opera’s favorite color for branding, was dropped to opt for light blue for all icons.

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Benchmarking Browsers by Page Load Times

May 06 2010 Published by under Firefox,Linux,Windows

Recent comparisons of browsers focus on JavaScript speed. There are many ways to measure browser performance, including image load time, reloading from cache, start time, and css rendering speed. While Opera was in the lead a few years ago, it has been branded as the fastest browser again.

snapshot2
You should notice the ad on the left for Chrome. So which one is the fastest? I ran the tests on Linux and Windows.

Benchmark Method

There’s nothing special about using JavaScript to detect when onload is fired by the browser, as long as the browser follows the convention that it is fired after the page is loaded. This used to be an issue I noted to the point of just using Firefox and ignoring other browsers. According to this article, it was fixed 2 years ago. So I took the benchmark from the site and ran it. Not surprisingly, Firefox came out highest on the score. Actually, that’s a negative score. Ideally, the page takes no time to load.

Linux

Google Chrome for Linux is different from the one for Windows, as the benchmark would load the first site for the first time, but could not time it nor reload it. Opera got stuck on MySpace once and kept adding more elements to the page, possibly due to an ad that is not usually loaded locally. I ran these tests on Sabayon Linux with kernel 2.6.30 (I expect 2.6.33 to be faster, since it has been patched with Con Koliva’s kernel enhancements). An interesting note here, not seen in other parts of the result set, is that Arora took longer to load pages on the first time, but was faster on all subsequent reloads. The total score for Arora comes second to Opera. On another note, Firefox with the same extensions, ran faster on Linux than Windows.

Firefox 3.6.3 Arora 0.10.2
Beginning Benchmark Beginning Benchmark
baidu.com.htm baidu.com.htm
692 1461
356 47
348 37
338 49
352 25
345 26
1046 26
356 27
344 28
356 27
Site Average: 453.3 Site Average: 175.3
blogger.com.htm blogger.com.htm
445 2408
285 202
283 205
269 206
272 197
283 197
262 200
271 190
262 194
259 193
Site Average: 289.1 Site Average: 419.2
facebook.com.htm facebook.com.htm
472 515
450 315
447 305
628 304
463 309
476 314
469 319
579 316
459 318
453 319
Site Average: 489.6 Site Average: 333.4
google.com.htm google.com.htm
123 84
109 21
96 20
108 21
102 21
106 21
94 22
91 21
94 22
94 21
Site Average: 101.7 Site Average: 27.4
havenworks.com.htm havenworks.com.htm
3639 4103
2587 217
2793 202
2598 202
2635 203
2614 203
2612 203
2594 204
2585 207
2572 216
Site Average: 2722.9 Site Average: 596
live.com.htm live.com.htm
305 413
153 101
154 79
157 82
152 74
159 84
160 74
166 79
143 76
149 89
Site Average: 169.8 Site Average: 115.1
myspace.com.tom.htm myspace.com.tom.htm
1429 1965
1230 759
1233 778
1235 764
1243 818
1229 753
1227 766
1275 775
1269 774
1224 769
Site Average: 1259.4 Site Average: 892.1
reddit.com.htm reddit.com.htm
604 586
557 399
542 397
541 392
523 404
513 393
766 400
521 385
533 386
525 382
Site Average: 562.5 Site Average: 412.4
wikipedia.org.htm wikipedia.org.htm
670 4110
242 36
232 49
231 34
470 34
232 31
236 30
229 32
227 31
239 49
Site Average: 300.8 Site Average: 443.6
Benchmark Complete
Score 705.455555555556 379.388888888889
First Page Load Average 931 1738.33333333333
Website http://gentoo-portage.com/www-client/mozilla-firefox http://gentoo-portage.com/www-client/arora

Windows

Not surprisingly, the winners on Windows were 32 bit browsers. Aside from the small speed increase due to smaller pointer sizes in 32 bit applications, I think Opera and Chrome are faster browsers, as they advertise. A surprising result is that 64 bit IE ran faster than 64 bit Firefox. I noticed that a while ago, but decided to stick with Firefox because it has add-ons. Iron is a stripped down version of Chrome compiled from source. It should be slightly faster, with the slimmer binary and no personal tracking features. I ran this on Windows 7 Pro 64 bit Version 6.1 (Build 7600).

Firefox 3.6.3 Opera 10.52 Iron 4.0.280 Internet Explorer
Beginning Benchmark Beginning Benchmark Beginning Benchmark Beginning Benchmark
baidu.com.htm baidu.com.htm baidu.com.htm baidu.com.htm
863 720 783 835
409 12 9 42
402 12 7 44
407 11 8 44
385 12 9 38
391 11 8 42
407 12 9 38
403 11 8 41
401 12 9 36
405 11 11 42
Site Average: 447.3 Site Average: 82.4 Site Average: 86.1 Site Average: 120.2
blogger.com.htm blogger.com.htm blogger.com.htm blogger.com.htm
398 220 333 220
143 72 38 90
140 69 38 85
138 73 38 85
140 70 41 86
140 72 37 75
150 70 42 76
140 72 36 72
140 70 41 73
138 72 37 85
Site Average: 166.7 Site Average: 86 Site Average: 68.1 Site Average: 94.7
facebook.com.htm facebook.com.htm facebook.com.htm facebook.com.htm
476 267 273 356
397 289 128 275
368 224 133 282
489 222 129 283
359 223 127 280
356 222 127 287
353 223 125 280
453 232 126 281
363 227 125 288
352 222 128 277
Site Average: 396.6 Site Average: 235.1 Site Average: 142.1 Site Average: 288.9
google.com.htm google.com.htm google.com.htm google.com.htm
135 40 21 70
70 13 11 52
70 14 11 37
70 13 10 46
70 14 10 37
70 14 11 48
70 14 11 43
70 13 11 34
70 14 11 36
70 14 11 50
Site Average: 76.5 Site Average: 16.3 Site Average: 11.8 Site Average: 45.3
havenworks.com.htm havenworks.com.htm havenworks.com.htm havenworks.com.htm
4024 867 736 2325
2863 655 279 2232
2873 659 278 2231
2866 665 280 2259
2852 700 282 2291
2855 663 285 2480
2880 650 276 2297
2930 668 280 2251
2866 666 277 2225
2860 654 279 2233
Site Average: 2986.9 Site Average: 684.7 Site Average: 325.2 Site Average: 2282.4
live.com.htm live.com.htm live.com.htm live.com.htm
254 280 235 125
95 75 38 132
95 78 42 131
107 75 38 125
98 77 39 137
96 77 40 125
96 74 40 104
96 74 40 99
96 74 39 115
95 76 38 103
Site Average: 112.8 Site Average: 96 Site Average: 58.9 Site Average: 119.6
myspace.com.tom.htm myspace.com.tom.htm myspace.com.tom.htm myspace.com.tom.htm
1253 1489 1573 2032
927 1377 3451 1287
928 1541 1131 4756
1535 3978 1902 1749
958 1111 1710 1436
941 1080 1622 1152
928 1103 4948 1918
924 1081 2927 1222
952 1388 1713 1230
930 1049 3505 1260
Site Average: 1027.6 Site Average: 1519.7 Site Average: 2448.2 Site Average: 1804.2
reddit.com.htm reddit.com.htm reddit.com.htm reddit.com.htm
552 246 259 541
425 166 167 463
424 163 165 483
418 164 167 478
608 164 166 478
429 165 166 480
424 165 166 485
422 165 166 481
432 164 167 495
425 164 167 483
Site Average: 455.9 Site Average: 172.6 Site Average: 175.6 Site Average: 486.7
wikipedia.org.htm wikipedia.org.htm wikipedia.org.htm wikipedia.org.htm
1105 726 955 967
166 78 34 260
164 66 33 255
163 66 34 262
163 66 32 253
165 67 32 260
163 71 35 258
164 72 36 256
162 71 33 267
163 71 34 256
Site Average: 257.8 Site Average: 135.4 Site Average: 125.8 Site Average: 329.4
Benchmark Complete
Score 658.677777777778 336.466666666667 382.422222222222 619.044444444444
First Page Load Average 1006.66666666667 539.444444444445 574.222222222222 830.111111111111
Website www.mozilla-x86-64.com/ http://www.opera.com/ http://www.srware.net/en/software_srware_iron.php

Conclusion

Opera beat all other browsers, just with its default settings. A little more tuning of redraw rate and memory use could improve the score. I expect the real results when browsing to deviate. Chrome and Firefox has DNS prefetching, Firefox and Opera have pipelining. To improve that DNS fetch speed in Opera, you can set your system to use OpenDNS to resolve domain names.

Linux

Google Chrome for Linux is different from the one for Windows, as the benchmark would load the first site for the first time, but could not time it nor reload it. Opera got stuck on MySpace once and kept adding more elements to the page, possibly due to an ad that is not usually loaded locally. I ran these tests on Sabayon Linux with kernel 2.6.30 (I expect 2.6.33 to be faster, since it has been patched with Con Koliva’s kernel enhancements). An interesting note here, not seen in other parts of the result set, is that Arora took longer to load pages on the first time, but was faster on all subsequent reloads. The total score for Arora comes second to Opera. On another note, Firefox with the same extensions, ran faster on Linux than Windows.

After the Benchmark (you should decide which browser to use)

I measured the memory use!

mem

It looks Chrome and IE were designed for really cheap laptops. (They can’t run on old computers with Windows 2000.)

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Minimal SearchJump on Google Chrome

May 02 2010 Published by under SearchJump

I noticed that the icons for search jump had different sizes when I loaded it in Google Chrome.

screenshot.28

When I investigated the issue, I found the icons had 16×16, 32×32, 64×64 image sizes embedded. Chrome happened to load the larger image sizes.

screenshot.32

The final trick was to get Chrome to reload it. I tried restarting the browser and clearing the cache. It finally worked when I uninstalled it from the extensions menu and reinstalled it from the web site.

screenshot.35

Minimal SearchJump is available for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera.
screenshot.34

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SearchJump Updated with Embedded Favicons

Mar 28 2010 Published by under SearchJump

Now you will notice that the icons load a lot faster and all at the same time if you are using either the minimal version or the plain version.

Note: the new version has a new namespace, so the old version must be uninstalled manually from Greasemonkey

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SearchJump Fixes

Mar 25 2010 Published by under SearchJump

Capture

  • instead of clicking twice, the panel hides itself after a single click.
  • by default, the script is only active on Google
  • an icon has been added for Clusty
  • the event listener for toggling the panel is only applied to the hide link
  • visual aspects are more balanced

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Better Safari Books View

Mar 07 2010 Published by under Firefox

Before

screenshot.4

After

screenshot.7

Download it here.

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Broken Bing Query Fixed

Feb 13 2010 Published by under SearchJump

SearchJump has been updated with new link for bing. You can download it for Greasemonkey.

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Bad Karma and the Fox Chasing Its Tail

Dec 21 2009 Published by under Firefox,Linux

I’ve been using Windows 7 since May, when I started my first co-op term. It was definitely better than Vista and much better than XP in some ways. The only thing I don’t like about Windows 7 compared to XP is more hard drive grinding pre-loading programs before they are used into memory.

So this time I decided to install Kubuntu again, forgetting what caused me to abandon it last time. (I couldn’t recall the reason until I finished writing that last sentence) Just a quick overview of what whas karmic and the fox before I get into the root cause of this.

Karma is evolutionary garbage, literally. Some companies trying to make monkey dress it up and call it “good karma” or try to sell you “karma coins”. All garbage. I remember the story behind the game Alpha Centauri. There was only 1 in a million chance of the spaceship getting hit by a meteor, yet due to the karma carried by humans onboard, it was destined to be hit by a meteor. Same thing happens in real life. Things on an outer level never change without a change on an inner level.

So why is Kubuntu karmic? It still had the same problems from last time. When I loaded up my wireless card, I still had to apply the bug fix from Hardy, back 2 generations ago over a year. I expected it to be fixed by now. Second, the default firefox version from the repository was version 3.0.6. If Ubuntu updated its software every six months, then it should at least be 3.5 now. Karmic was released at the end of October. I go through several links on google to install 3.5. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the only bug I encountered installing firefox. There was a firefox installer included with Kubuntu. If I click on it, the installer exits saying firefox is already the latest version. As a result, I had to install it from the command line. After the installation finished, it gave an error message about kde. This should have been a clue about what would follow. Firefox ran smooth until I tried to restore a few things using Firefox Extension Backup Extension (FEBE). I was only able to restore 3 things until the dialog box just refused to show up (it was a GNOME dialog box). After that, I saw KDE desktop crash a few times, apt unable to resolve dependencies, wireless stop working, and several attempts to get wireless back (it’s a lot harder without an internet connection). NOW the Karma becomes obvious, though I still don’t know why.

So now we come to the fox chasing its tail. That’s what you get with a distribution that aims to be current built on top of Debian Linux. The fox will never escape its tail. Kubuntu is based on the KDE desktop, and many Ubuntu users won’t even care to try it for whatever reason (maybe for the same reson they’ve never tried other distributions). When I compare the Kubuntu/Ubuntu website with the Sabayon/Gentoo websites, I find that the Ubuntu side has far less activity and takes longer to solve problems. All because the distribution is based on Debian. In a source based distribution like Gentoo, there is a much greater flow of knowledge. Just look at Planet Gentoo, a Gentoo user blog. It’s not surprising that I remember the reason I abandoned Kubuntu last time, as my laptop is installing Sabayon and I’m writing this. Kubuntu didn’t have a community, it didn’t have people contributin knowledge. It’s just a buggy KDE desktop on top of Xorg and the rest of Ubuntu.

Update: I’ve come across another article mentioning the same problem with Ubuntu (I did get the Kubuntu broken Grub bug, forcing me to install another Linux distro). Also, there is a more technical article benchmarking Gentoo and Ubuntu. Gentoo won, of course. As far as speed goes, Gentoo is the fastest, followed by Fedora, Slackware, Mandriva, and almost last . . . Ubuntu (last goes to the outdated Debian stable).

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What Happened to Searchme?

Aug 09 2009 Published by under SearchJump

As far as searchme goes, it now redirects to google. It did a better job of showing search result previews than GooglePreview.

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