I've seen your name come up (well, I'm assuming it's you based on you Slashdot user)

Yep, same guy. You have me to thank for most of these changes. :)

You mention image.mem.min_discard_timeout_ms. I've already set that one pretty high (1 hour (which really means, 30-90 minutes, right?))

I think it ends up being 1-2hr.

but was wondering if it applies to closed tabs as well as background tabs

As of this bug being resolved, it does not.

Can you describe just briefly what image.mem.max_decoded_image_kb and image.mem.max_bytes_for_sync_decode control?

max_decoded_image_kb is the soft cap on number of bytes that decoded images can consume. We'll try to discard decoded images so we get under this value, with the unfortunate proviso that we'll never discard images on the current tab.

max_bytes_for_sync_decode affects our behavior when decoding previously discarded images. If the image's *compressed* size is less than this value, we'll decode it synchronously. Otherwise we'll decode async. From a practical standpoint, tab switches are blocked until all sync decodes complete, so if you set this too high, you'll observe slow tab switching. If you set this value too low some images may "flicker" into view when you switch tabs.

Fast tab switching is a key goal for us right now, so our plan is to set max_bytes_for_sync_decoded much lower in the near future. (It too is blocked on some stupid things.)

I haven't had much luck finding documentation for these options

Yeah, these prefs are intended to be internal knobs for us to tweak. You're welcome to modify them yourself, but if you notice that Firefox is acting up six months from now, it might be worth resetting them to their default values.

Why aren't they concentrating on just making a seriously good browser engine and then leaving the extra stuff to the extension developers

Believe it or not, 90% or more of our engineering effort goes into "the browser part" (that is, Gecko, our rendering engine, and SpiderMonkey, our JS engine). Have a look through the list of bugs fixed in FF13 to see what I mean.

It's just that these back-end improvements are not things most people can understand -- I work on Gecko and I don't understand most of the changes that go into it -- so PR and the press instead focus on highly visible UI stuff.

My biggest complaint with these memory "improvements" is in regard to image handling:

I agree we haven't done a good job tweaking image discarding parameters. We have a plan to fix it, but it's been stuck on some stupid stuff for a long time. I hope we'll get resolved for FF16.

In the meantime, you can make Firefox much less eager to throw away images. Open about:config and set
image.mem.min_discard_timeout_ms to some large value (e.g. 120 000, for 120s), and also bump up image.mem.max_decoded_image_kb (to e.g. 256 000, for 250mb).

Maybe I missed something there, but it adds to my experience that I couldn't hear a *good* explanation about why, and if it is "we think that's better because it's easier for us to handle if we just have one number to increment".

Does it occur to you that this is the tiniest nit of nits? It's a version number. Perspective.

I think it's unfair to say "they made this one change I don't understand, and it signals the end!". But it's even worse to do what you've done and say "they made this change, which is horrible" and mean "this change isn't such a big deal, but I fear what it portends." You admit that you don't say what you mean, and you wonder why we don't listen?

But if you want an explanation, here it is: In the new rapid release scheme, all releases are equal. There are no "major" and "minor" releases. There's just the next release.

If we labeled these releases as Firefox Major.Minor, that would be a lie. People would conclude incorrectly that an update from FF 5.1 to FF 5.2 is somehow smaller than an update from FF 5.2 to FF 6.

If there are no major and minor releases, it makes no sense to have major and minor version numbers.

Now, maybe you think we should have major and minor releases. I hope this is no longer a problem now that you can download ESR.

Maybe I should just write an extension that re-labels Firefox N as Firefox 3.6.(N + 24). I'm sure that would make me a hero to some.

I am frustrated with the latest development of things (Gnome3, Ubuntu/Unity, Android)...it feels like the developers of The Good Old TimesTM have been replaced with "We need more shiny and less configurable stuff!" developers which mainly orientate themselves at MacOS and friends. We all fear that Mozilla goes down that road, too...well, don't get me wrong and please excuse dragging that dead horse out here, but the change of the version-scheme was the start for many of us. It did not seem to follow anything except "Google does it, so we must do it, too", or at least it feels that way because we/I do not understand why you can't do more frequent releases with staying with the previous version scheme

This is the most cogent explanation I've ever heard for the anger over the version numbers thing. Thanks. :)

But here's the thing: We made one decision you didn't understand. It's a version number. Seriously, /. in particular made such a huge deal over this, you'd have thought we were adding mandatory a porn filter.

What I think is missing here is perspective. Believe it or not, more people use Firefox who don't read /. than who do. If you say "I don't care about new features; I care only about X", as an earlier poster did, and Mozilla adds new features despite your protestations, take a moment to try to see things from someone else's point of view.

The same goes for the status bar, the awesomebar, tabs on top, and the version numbers. Try and have perspective; try and empathize. Is it really the end of the world (or the beginning of the end)?

Mozilla is the only web browser developer fighting for you. We're responsible to no higher goal than keeping the Web open and free. Even if you think Mozilla is run by a bunch of idiots and Firefox will never approach the quality of v3.6 again, I think we deserve some credit for what we have done and continue to do on behalf of all those who use the Web.

But it does feel like it, "you don't need to know what version you're running, because if it is old you just need to push this button to get the newest". It feels like removing control from a users point of view.

So your argument is "If Mozilla removes the version number from the 'about' dialog, next thing you know, they'll force us all to run the latest version."? This is known as the slippery slope fallacy. You may wish to familiarize yourself with it.

Your larger argument is that "marketing" (of which Asa is not actually a member) runs the show at Mozilla, and engineering needs to take back the reigns. But notice that bug was WONTFIX'ed -- it didn't happen. Shot down. So this is a particularly poor example of your point; it in fact is evidence for the opposite.

I'm sorry that we've lost your confidence. I really am. I wish we hadn't, and I'm posting here in an effort to restore this community's confidence in us. But you and the rest of the people in this thread are not doing any good by repeating, apparently without thought, the same lines about "bloat" and "bugs" and "marketing" that have been floating around /. for years.

Specifically with respect to 3.6 being faster than current: That's a testable claim. I'd love to see a benchmark -- literally any repeatable benchmark -- which runs faster in Firefox 3.6 than in FF 12. I suspect we'd consider that to be a bug.

We have no interest in forcing users to run the latest version.

Well, that sounded differently just some time ago.

That bug is not titled "make it impossible for people to run old versions of Firefox". I know Asa is unanimously hated here, but you can't just pull a random bug and say he's advocating for something he's not.

On a more serious note: What is really going on over by you? I have the feeling marketing took over Mozilla...

For example, the bug you linked was landed in Firefox over the objections of those of us in engineering. Oh, wait...

Then why do I get a popup on a retgular basis saying that firefox is going to forcibly update itself automatically?

Just disable automatic updates, like I said. Maybe the menu is different in 3.6, but I bet there's an option somewhere.

But just to be clear, the reason we're wailing to you about 3.6 is that we've stopped supporting it. It no longer receives security updates.

You're welcome to run an insecure browser if you want, but that's serious shit.

It's fine to have options. But if they are hard to find them it kind of defeats the point of having them.

We have no interest in forcing you to run the newest version. But we do have a vested interest in most users running the latest version. Only the latest versions get security updates. Only the latest versions get performance and memory usage updates. Only the latest versions get new web features.

Maybe you don't care about some or all of these things. That's totally cool. But what benefit is to be gained by going out of our way to provide buggy, slow, insecure, unsupported, and out-of-date software to our users? Do you think most people could even give informed consent to run such a version of Firefox?

Like I said, we're not hiding these old versions. Even if you can't find them with Google (the FTP server is linked to from the fourth hit for "old firefox versions" for me; it's the first mozilla.org hit), post on any Mozilla mailing list, drop in on irc.mozilla.org at basically any time of day or night -- for goodness sake you can even post on a site like this one -- and I can almost guarantee one of us will see it and give you that link. I don't think we've set the bar particularly high here.

We don't design Firefox or our websites for the top 1% most computer-literate users. If we did, Firefox's options menu would look a lot more like Eclipse's, and we never would have gotten rid of the status bar. :)

Firefox is continuing to install in the protected system area, without the benefit of the UAC warnings, bypassing any Windows security.

On the other hand, we could install into the user's home directory, and then any unprivileged program could modify the Firefox binary, bypassing any Windows security.

You can disable auto-updates, regardless of whether or not you're running the extended support version.

Preferences -> Advanced -> Update.

You can also download every version of Firefox we've ever released here. We have no interest in forcing users to run the latest version.

http://i.imgur.com/RaZt7.png [imgur.com]

I suggest setting this setting. It will load the tab only when you click the tab itself

Indeed, this will soon be on by default (I think in FF 13).

That's why I'll probably stay with 9 for a while.

Just so you know, Firefox 9 stopped getting security updates once Firefox 10 was released. You're welcome to stay on FF 9 for as long as you'd like, but it's insecure.

If you continue seeing crashes, it would be helpful if you'd also test with the binaries Mozilla releases. I think the Ubuntu team usually does a good job packaging Firefox, but there are a lot of variables here...

FYI, if you go to about:crashes, you can see all your recent crash reports. These often have links to the relevant bugs.