Firefox Woes
5 CommentsI think I’m beginning to lose faith in the Firefox web browser. I still think it’s the best web browser out there, especially when it comes to web development, but it just feels like it’s slowly deteriorating with each new release. Does anyone else think that it’s lost sight of it’s original goals (lean mean browser) and has somehow morphed into something bloated… bringing back horrible memories of Netscape 4?
Case in point: At the end of the day, after working with various web sites, Firefox will eventually slow down to the point where it will freeze up and a mouse click could take up to 5 seconds to register. Granted this is on a Windows XP machine that’s a couple years old, but still… even IE doesn’t behave like this. Restarting Firefox will help clear things up for a bit, but I shouldn’t have to do that.
Safari 3 however, has been mostly rocking so far, I may start using it more regularly soon enough. The Web Clips feature is probably the single neatest feature ever. It’s so easy to use, and can be done in less then 10 seconds. Here’s a screenshot of web clips I’ve made for the next train and bus arrivals near where I live, and a web clip to keep track of how my favorite team is doing.
Parkside Services
South Shore Baptist
Parkside Youth
Military Ministry
Campus Ministry
Know H2O
IFCJ
China Aid
C3 Missions
Association of Related Churches
5 comments
Firefox is always crashing on me or slowing my computer down. At work, if I don’t shut Firefox down at lunch time my afternoon drags on like anything, and not just because it is the afternoon. It crashes a lot these days too.
But, Firefox 3 has just made it to beta (according to a friend who has been following it) and apparently the memory leaks have been part of the development for the new version. Hopefully, soon we will have Firefox running happily without restarts or any other restriction. I don’t know what I’d do without Firefox and its many extensions, so I look forward to version 3 solving its current problems.
The bloat of Firefox is why I use Camino on my Mac. I have the same issues with Firefox on my WinXP box, but I tolerate them merely because I only use IE if I have to… and the Safari 3 Beta for Win isn’t stable enough for me to use as my primary browser.
I don’t think Windows XP isn’t the primary culprit. The same thing happens to me as we run Firefox on our Linux box at home.
I hope Phil is right. I want my lean, mean and light Firefox back!
I agree… But it is a toss up of adding features that people want, and keeping the lean mean firefox machine.
It still is a billion times better than IE.
I don’t agree.
Maybe you just need to reformat XP - as a 3 month old Windows set up is as good as dead!
I use a 1 gb, 3ghz Toshiba laptop and can have 20+ FF windows open with lots of tabs (testing websites internally and externally) and it rarely crashes.
Even if it does - you auto load the same windows and tabs, unlike IE6 or 7 which just loses it all!
I use XP Pro on a clean install (not the factory set up)
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