I hate FF

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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Wasn't that guy also listed among the other people whose images you ganked from that one web site? I can't remember it now, but I remember seeing a whole list of people's images on a site that you had linked to once before.
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

Since there is FF3 Beta1:
http://blog.codefront.net/2007/08/20/ho ... same-time/

How does it compare for stability on your system? Just downloading it now that I have a free moment or two.
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

Sweet. That seems like a cool little tutorial. I think I may give it a shot at work when I get in on Monday.
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

Firefox never has problems for me except for when dealing with Flash or Java applets, but even then, it doesn't crash... It only slows my computer to a crippling crawl. It only happens on Flash movies that use a lot of ActionScript, and Java applets that create multiple windows.
malcolmboston
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Post by malcolmboston »

although i use FF every day (currently 2.0.0.9) i last week tried FF3, and was not impressed to say the least.

As well, one thing that really <span style='color:blue' title='I'm naughty, are you naughty?'>smurf</span> me off is the well documented memory leak. This is no word of a lie, this morning, 5 tabs, 612mb of memory, and it wasnt even demanding web-sites with flash etc, it was pretty standard sites with no media.

I have demanding PC games that dont even use this.

Personally, and im inviting a flame war here, if it wasnt for IE's complete inability to follow standards and my need to develop standards compliants websites, i would dump FF entirely and switch back to IE because, in my opinion, it is the most lightweight of the popular browsers ive ever used.

Now seriously, Firefox is an open source system, and they still havent fixed the memory leaks, i mean i understand that its also due to the plugins but why not ensure all plugins are safe before releasing them, as sort of a quality control?

I couldnt live without my extensions (pagerank, web developer, compete, colorzilla, google preview, session manager) but seriously, the major ''selling' point of firefox is an absolute joke in terms of resources used.

my $0.02
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

malcolmboston wrote:Personally, and im inviting a flame war here, if it wasnt for IE's complete inability to follow standards and my need to develop standards compliants websites, i would dump FF entirely and switch back to IE because, in my opinion, it is the most lightweight of the popular browsers ive ever used.
How many have you used...? Internet Explorer isn't exactly light weight (except in comparison to Firefox) or fast, and each version only gets beefier.
malcolmboston wrote:Now seriously, Firefox is an open source system, and they still havent fixed the memory leaks, i mean i understand that its also due to the plugins but why not ensure all plugins are safe before releasing them, as sort of a quality control?
That's a risk of end-user development. We all know that we don't *have* to use the extensions, but we choose to anyway.


Grass is always greener on the other side, isn't it? :P
matthijs
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Post by matthijs »

The new safari is a great alternative as well, now that it has a better web dev extension. And it's blazingly fast.
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Kieran Huggins
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Post by Kieran Huggins »

malcolmboston wrote:Now seriously, Firefox is an open source system, and they still havent fixed the memory leaks, i mean i understand that its also due to the plugins but why not ensure all plugins are safe before releasing them, as sort of a quality control?
And as an open source project, you can actively help this become a reality! Isn't that something?
malcolmboston
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Post by malcolmboston »

Kieran Huggins wrote:
malcolmboston wrote:Now seriously, Firefox is an open source system, and they still havent fixed the memory leaks, i mean i understand that its also due to the plugins but why not ensure all plugins are safe before releasing them, as sort of a quality control?
And as an open source project, you can actively help this become a reality! Isn't that something?
I will leave that to more talented developers than myself thank you
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

malcolmboston wrote:I will leave that to more talented developers than myself thank you
That's what they all say... :P
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

There are alternatives. Opera and Safari for Windows both have a pretty lightweight memory footprint. But neither they, not IE, is as flexible as FF. I know there are add-ons and extensions for IE7, but they are not all open source and there still needs to be steady testing on them for compatibility. In fact, some of the IE extensions actually cost money.

FF is a memory hog. No doubt. The devs know about but have obviously found other items of higher priority to repair.

My biggest issue, as I have posted in this thread, is the seemingly unpredictable instability of FF. But as I test things out I am starting to become convinced that the instability is not within the browser but the extensions that are loaded. And specifically Firebug seems to be having the most problems. In fact, Google has a note on their Gmail help section that tells you to turn off Firbug for Google as a domain, or at the very least turn it off for Gmail as it is known to cause problems with Gmail.
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superdezign
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Post by superdezign »

Everah wrote:And specifically Firebug seems to be having the most problems.
But Firebug is the single most useful extension, IMO. ;_;
I always instinctively hit F12 regardless of what browser I'm in to pull it up for my everyday browsing.
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

I agree. But for some reason, as of late, it has been having problems.

I use it regularly because it is just that useful of a tool.
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Maugrim_The_Reaper
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Post by Maugrim_The_Reaper »

Just for a lark I opened up IE just now to load something. It's still horrifically slow. So back to FF, which is currently using 103.8MB of my RAM. To get to 600+ RAM usage, to me, is a telltale of an evil extension - I've never had FF come remotely close to that. Disable a few extensions and see what happens - it's a simple matter to isolate the one causing problems and selectively disable it (or complain to its developer).
Now seriously, Firefox is an open source system, and they still havent fixed the memory leaks, i mean i understand that its also due to the plugins but why not ensure all plugins are safe before releasing them, as sort of a quality control?
They're not Mozilla's extensions. They were written by other folk and you accept the risk of memory hogging, instability and other bugs outside the control of Mozilla by installing them. In other words if FF is falling apart it's all your own doing ;). If you don't want 600MB of RAM vanishing, then quit using the extension causing it.

It's like any open source system out there. In return for absolute freedom, the project gets all the blame for some third party twit who didn't test an extension/plugin properly prior to release. Almost like the good old PHPNuke days, eh?

As I've said before, I use FF with the minimum number of extension I find useful, and I test every one before keeping it around. Result? FF doesn't crash, it doesn't have more than the typical memory leakage, and I've never felt tempted to more than check out alternatives. The price of freedom is to guard it jealously - probably why I feel I have to keep defending FF here ;). Quit knocking my near perfect browser, ye horde!
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RobertGonzalez
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Post by RobertGonzalez »

<slightly off topic>
Ye horde. Can I use that or is there a license on it? That is good stuff. I can almost here it with an Irish accent. Awesome.
</slightly off topic>
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