What happened to FireFox?

For years, this was my go to browser, loved the customizations, skins and plugins.

But past 2 years I've been using Chrome and makes me feel icky. Not a fan of Google, pretending to be on some humanitarian mission in N. Korea but really it's to fill their coffers, just me makes me feel ill... This company is sickening. Pretending to be on the side of consumers...

Anyway, Everytime I see a new version number up, I give FireFox another spin and each time I'm disappointed. It's just so slow and sluggish.

I've now turned to Maxthon to rid myself of Chrome and FireFox. I'd love to use FireFox again. What happened?

 

Are you comparing apples to apples? Try all three without any customization and I think you will not find much difference, just a hair. The Flash plugin does seem to crash on rare occasions, my biggest beef.

 

Flash plugin crashes with all except for Maxthon for me. Especially for Chrome since Chrome insists on having two and now there is a bug if you disable the Chrome built in plugin, it re-enables auto, that bug been there for 4 months now, still not fixed.

Overall, without plugins etc, FireFox is leagues behind Chrome and Maxthon. It's still feels very laggy, and heavy and sluggish. I'm using FF 18 right now, the latest one. It's still slow, even after 2 years they can't catch up. Their gecko is just disappointing. I think they may need to just scrap Gecko and write a new browser engine from scratch that is aimed to be fast, light and snappy like Chrome.

Ok how about this. Between FireFox, Maxthon, Chrome and IE, just switching tabs is a huge difference. FireFox is majorly sluggish and slow compared to the rest. The other 3, it's about the same, can't tell. Try opening up lots of tabs, on FireFox is pathetic. Click a different tab, doesn't switch for a split second. The others are instantaneous. And when FF does switch, it feels heavy. Like it doesn't want to. I don't understand how the most simple things FF can't get right.

 

I don't have these issues with Firefox (or any browser really, for that matter). To be fair, I did away with Firefox recently in place of one of it's alternatives (still built on FF code): Pale Moon. Functions identically though - perhaps ever so slightly snappier due to a few features being removed (but hardly noticeable).

 

Firefox runs better on my laptop than Chrome

 

Same here. I have no issues with the latest Firefox. Seems pretty snappy to me. So there must be something else going on with the OP's configuration.

 

I have never had these issues with any build of Firefox, and that dates back to version 3.6. The only problem I've experienced was on the Mac side in version 18.0 where Flash sites would trigger automatic graphic switching instead of staying on the iGPU. This was promptly fixed in 18.0.1.

 

Flash itself causes a huge lag on Firefox. I disabled it and Java and then Firefox rocketed. I will be so glad when everything gets switched over to HTML5.

 

Been running Firefox for years, seems fine to me.

 

Same here but would be good to know what version of FF the OP is talking about and what O/S they are using it on? They are shouting but providing little info to even know what they are basing their dispute about???

 

All I want is a good ad blocker program and adblock plus seems to be the best and works great with Firefox.

Sent from my YP-G70 using Tapatalk 2

 

I found that editing your hosts file is way better then adblock program and that hosts block works alot better and doesn't block the wrong sites.

Couple examples of hosts edit file blocker I used:

Blocking Unwanted Connections with a Hosts File

Using a Hosts File To Make The Internet Not Suck (as much)

I combine the two hosts file into one edited: hosts file on the system32 and haven't looked back since. Only if I find a new site that tries to give me pop I edit the hosts file

127.0.0.1 xxxxx.xxx.xxx

And save and overwrite the old hosts file and reload and or restart Firefox and that site or pops are gone. I tell people the hosts file is where you want to use to block those pops or ads from appearing on the pages your visits as well. Also forgot to add that I made my "hosts" file read only to prevent any malware or virus attempting to make or change the hosts file itself. That just a added security to manager so that you know the site your visiting isn't trying to redirect your links.

 

Looks like too much work. Haven't had any issues with adblock plus at all.

 

I used to be a die hard Firefox user myself way back when it was fresh but then it started to bloat up for no real reason. Now im using Chrome and it is blazing fast for me on Windows 8.
For the people who dont like the "Google" part of Chrome you can always install the open source Chromium instead.

Earlier today i installed Ubuntu to claim that special Linux only item for Team Fortress 2 and i was once again reunited with Firefox, and i dont miss it at all.

 

I've used Chromium and been met with stability issues - rightly so, since Chromium is an open source, not stable release. Personally, I'm a fan of Opera, albeit the lack of market penetration (and therefore, some site compatibility issues, amongst other things). Great feature set out of the box though.

 

Love the customization(themes and start page-goo damn google apps on chrome), but Firefox can't handle what I throw at it.

 

Used to be 100%-FF, but recently I had an issue with it making clicking noises in Windows (like when you click on a link or something?), but that apparently went away (or maybe I keep my computer on mute a lot lol...). Now it has a problem of setting itself up to use a proxy with address 127.0.0.1 (which works great! /sarcasm). That's probably the fault of something else on the system, but MSE and Malwarebyte's comes up with nothing.

So I mostly use SRWare Iron on my Windows machines. Oddly enough, FF works just fine in Ubuntu 12.10. And whatever comes out of the box on Debian Squeeze works fine too (iirc, it's derived from FF).

 

Yeah that be so true but oh well I had better then good results using a combine hosts edit and every since doing that before that I always had pops or ads poping up at sites and pops that would come on at the worse time and you would click on it instead of what I was looking at or reading about. Got tired of closing those pops/ads and when I found the hosts edit be at it was work to use did help my surfing alot. And didn't have to use adblock-I was the adblock.

 

Not sure what problem exactly your talking about but Firefox has worked fine for me as primary broswer but not default broswer since it's releases. Would be good to know what version of FF and O/S your using as it might be more O/S related and outdated broswer causing the problem.

 

With Opera developing future browsers on KDE/WebKit, they may finally be a great contender to Chrome.

Opera's WebKit Move Isolates Mozilla - Software - Software

 

I have tried every Firefox version since FF 6 and they all are extremely slow compared to Chrome. I hate chrome's interface but am compelled to get used to it and its negatives just for the sake of its snapiness in loading websites

Firefox diead. End of story. they aren't gonna do any better by releasing a new release/beta every week.

 

i.e when I open a dozen of image/gif heavy tabs in dozen of windows , which is around 100+tab. If I open them 10-20 at a time, chrome will load the pages and be stable. Firefox just go swirling forever.

 

Wow! Are you saying that you open over 100 internet tabbed links, all at once? I barely open 3-4 tabs in any one session. I don't use any browser, for the GIF's on my hard drive. I use Irfanview for local GIFs. Don't get me wrong. I'm not questioning your need to open 100 tabs, if that's what you need to do. I'm only questioning your ability to keep track of keep that many screens.

I have IE, IE64, Chrome, and FireFox loaded on my laptop. I only use IE when I absolutely need to. My default is FireFox.
So, put me down for FF, because of the excellent Ad blocking. I guess I'm just too old to care if FF takes 3-4 ms longer to load, the 4 tabs I need. :laugh:

 

I just can't stand load time. Loading a new page take around 1 sec, but switch tab is almost simultaneous
.
It happens on forum/message board and using multilink(ff)/linkclump(chrome). I go through a page of threads, then open those I need. Same with youtube, I open all that I going to view, putting them in watch list annoys me .
Also apply on doing research school work ~~

 

It's in the way tabs are handled by each browser. Mozilla was getting a lot of flack for poor memory management in Firefox. The way FF functions is it treats a single window as an instance, regardless of how many tabs are open. Reduces memory load at the cost of performance.

If you look at your task manager and watch the memory usage under the performance tab, and you go opening up a ton of tabs within Chrome, the usage will probably increase with each tab. Chrome treats each tab as it's own instance. (Maybe they've worked on memory management since I last used it).

 

I did dig around that and read about it. There are option to make ff process behave like chrome or make everything combined into one process, but laziness get on me.
With default setting, ff cannot allocate cpu resource to run flash video properly with many tabs as well ~~

 

That's odd... I thought FF utilized hardware acceleration. So it shouldn't be allocating CPU resources unless there is no dedicated GPU and no iGPU, to my knowledge - where as Chrome does not support hardware acceleration (yet).

 

As of Firefox 19, the browser will not execute any code before the initial window is made visible, which means you click Firefox and you see an open window much faster.

Firefox 19 Brings Built-in PDF Viewer, Faster Startup Times | Webmonkey | Wired.com

 

So no version or O/S version? That makes it harder to even know what is going on? It's not that hard is it just to tell a version or O/S version?

 

Downloaded and update to FF19....

 

It was back with W7, so around few months ago.

Using multilink/linkclump , new browser window every 15-20 tabs. the board is this
http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kw=supergirls

it's in chinese with alot of girl pictures if that matters .

 

No issues with Firefox and I've been using it for over two years now.
The customization and plugins make it better than all the other browsers.

 

Use Iron if you don't like Chrome.

Once they get auto-update working Iron will be king!

 

Downloading Iron now. Took a look at FF 19, it's still feels bloated to me. Opera has the same feel for me and it has the slowest load times IMO. They claim to be the fastest, but the way Opera loads in pieces rather than top down like Chrome/IE/FF really annoys me. I agree feature rich and it's secure because no one uses it, so makes no sense for anyone to try and exploit their security vulnerabilities.

 

FYI.. I have no idea what version of FF broswer helps to inform or what W7 version your using. That just gives us more insight as to where your coming from and if others have the same problem with using that combination.

That would mean you need to expand your RAM to accomplish that task and not to slow your system down completely is from what it sounds like or upgrade the CPU or get a newer system to accomplish the things your doing.

 

How was that even determine? And what does one mean bloated? If one uses that analogy then Windows is Bloated as well - that's to simplistic reasoning doesn't have much logic behind it or empirical data to backup the claim.

 

I dumped FF recently - with Ubuntu 12.04 playing youtube videos would cause temps to spike up + 25 Degrees C on my dell D610
~~~~ ProStar --- Thanks for heads up on PaleMoon will give it a try under win 7 + 1 REP

 

It hardly use all my RAM, and doesn't slow down my system at all...
I am not bashing FF, just that chrome worked.

 

Don't have an issue with Chrome (I mentioned Chromium having problems - the open source project Chrome is built upon). Iron is the same thing - good browser, albeit the seemingly redundant privacy hysteria (see: SRWare Iron Browser - A Private Alternative To Chrome? » InsanityBit InsanityBit). Dragon has proved it's mettle too as a Chrome alternative.

 

Use chromium or iron if you don't trust google.

 

I found this thread because I'm looking to replace FF with something lighter and faster.
I'm soo disappointed with FF. I've used it since around ver 3 and loved it. But, yeah, for the last year or so, it's gotten swollen and bloated (bloated defined as being slow and lagging on the same hardware and OS setup as compared to a previous version or comparative software). I keep my toughbook neat and clean, and re-install the whole OS every six months or so, just to make sure it's tiptop. Its a 1.2ghz, 1.25g ram, 160gb hdd, touch, dvd, gps, bt running xp sp3, glary, ccleaner, norton 12', and I have it tweaked out with disabled services, removed trash components, disabled startup items, and a hosts file. My FF has adblock plus, download status bar 9, adobe flash 10, flashblock, and grab n drag.

 

I think people need to worry less about performance and more about what they're comfortable with. All the benchmarks (which can be argued as dubious already) display relatively comparable results, and each release yields different benchmarks results as it is.

The BIG browser benchmark (January 2013 edition) | ZDNet

Lunascape has my interest, but I'm not fond of the interface at the moment.

 

Yes, that is true as well just i.e. example polling can be written or asked to influence the outcome they want to have. So performance based on how ones' system is setup or what O/S is installed and customized. There so many variation and iterations that accounting for all the changes would never really answer the question.