You heard me right: Mozilla Firefox sucks. I do understand that it is a better browser than Internet Explorer and has much better support of the W3C standards. But it has the fatal Windows flaw: Like Microsoft Windows, Firefox has to be shut down at least once a day.
I am using Firefox 1.0.2 on my Windows XP Professional laptop. I surf the net by opening lots of tabs in Firefox and then closing them one by one as I finish reading a tab. This almost always results in Firefox eating up most of my computer’s 512MB of RAM. As Windows starts paging everything to disk, the computer starts getting slower and slower. The only solution then is to close Firefox and start it again.
The reason for this problem seems to be memory leaks. What sort of software has memory leaks? Unfortunately, it seems the answer is most software, though Firefox is the biggest memory hog I have seen. This is like Toyota or General Motors making cars whose gas tanks leaked all the time.
I totally agree! I never noticed the memory leaks but I never used it enough to pinpoint the reason I didn’t like it. I did notice that it takes about double the time as IE to open and was about responsive as a 1960’s truck. Who needs it anyway?!
Its really ugly too. And it doesn’t offer webskins to make it pretty.
I actually use Maxthon rather than Firefox because I found that it offered more of the features that I need than Firefox does without adding a bunch of extensions to Firefox.
Danny: Firefox is definitely slow to start.
Nida: I think you can skin it using themes.
Al-Muhajabah: Maxthon is based on the MSIE rendering engine, so there is probably no standards compliance in it as well.
Use these optimized builds. They are a lot faster than the ‘normal’ build. Make sure you download the appropriate build. Opera is faster than the ‘normal’ firefox build, but the optimized versions on this website are really fast.
Uninstall Flash and Firefox will leak almost nothing.
Slow to start,
not very good looking,
but can’t see why have to restart it ‘at least once a day’
It leaks memory but don’t think that rapidly…
I use it and use it alot. I do have to restart it due to memory leaks but only once or twice a week and as said I do use it every day.
There may be some other factor(s) contributing to the problem on your machine.
KO: Thanks, I’ll try those. How stable are they in your experience?
cooper: I have uninstalled flash. Let’s see whether that helps.
ayyaz: There are two related memory problems. One is that it leaks memory. The other is that it keeps memory that it needed before but no longer needs instead of returning it to Windows when some other program needs it. So after a while, my system is using all the physical memory on my machine.
My usage pattern might be different than yours. I open 20—25 tabs at a time. Then close them as I am done with them and open more and more.
Why should you have to uninstall Flash to use Firefox? And it’s pretty funny how IE is constantly criticized for having security flaws. People like to make themselves feel smart by criticizing Microsoft’s stuff haha. Hello? As Firefox becomes more popular, the losers will figure out ways to rape it too. I’ll stick with IE… at least it can process a frickin’ style sheet properly.
Case in point…
Security Holes Bite Firefox
[Full text of news item removed by site admin]
Robin: I agree with you that Microsoft does get some unfair criticism. However, despite the faults of Firefox, it is a much better browser than IE. IE’s support of stylesheet or HTML web standards really sucks.
Zack,
It is very simple, if you hit cntrl alt del you will see your process consumption and a detail of the resources taken up. You will notice that Firefox is listed (if its running) and the CPU usage is flunctuating which means that Firefox is “thinking”; its thinking about all those tabs you opened that contain flash content and (correct me if I’m wrong) gifs, which also place a burden on resources. What you need to do is not uninstall flash but block flash alltogether with the option to run them if you choose (on the fly). Currently I use Firefox with the flashblock extension and ADBlock (for ads, animation, etc..) and once my web pages finish loading the CPU consumption STOPS. I never have to restart Firefox because there is no need to. Hope this works for you.
here is the link:
http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?showtopic=45&hl=flashblock
O Zack,
One more thing I forgot to mention, IE also consumes CPU as its “thinking”, as a matter of opinion, IE will consume more than Firefox given the same environment (just from my own experience).
Good Luck
Charles33: CPU usage is not the problem, memory is. Firefox leaks memory in addition to not promptly returning memory it was using before but is now free.
Did you make this? LOL!
I’ve faced just one major problem in firefox. When I right click on a flash animation, the app crashes. But the same thing happens on epiphany, konqueror and mozilla. So I’m guessing it’s the linux flash plugin not firefox.
Apart from that everything works fine, I can have about 50 tabs open (just tried it) and run firefox for about 6 to 7 hours straight (never had to run it any longer).
Maybe this problem is windows specific. Who knows? :p
i fought the law: That’s an interesting website. 🙂
It could be true in the sense that Windows does not behave very well with memory leaks.
This is how you fix this “memory leak” problem. It’s not actually a leak, it just doesn’t flush the cache it has:
type about:config into the location bar, press enter, right click any line, choose “new”>”integer”, paste this into the dialogue that appears:
browser.cache.memory.capacity
click okay, specify the amount in kb (about 20000 should do) in the next dialogue that appears, restart firefox.
Happy browsing 😉
Uhmm, firefox hogs memory no matter what you load with it. You know your browser is a memory hog when it takes longer to load than Microsoft Word. THAT’s the problem.
Olivier: I have done that. It definitely helps and delays the day of reckoning but still doesn’t solve the problem.
Jinx: Firefox does take a long time to start. Only Photoshop takes longer.
I have the very same problem. I have a gig of memory on my machine, and I constantly browse with dozens of windows with dozens of tabs. Firefox will randomly go to 100% CPU sometime during the day. It makes no sense to me. Yesterday night, I left my computer working in perfect order, and this morning I saw Firefox hovering at 30% CPU, Norton Antivirus struggling and at 30% CPU itself. Then I saw the problem. Guess how much memory Firefox was consuming?
809 MB.
That’s a new record. After I laboriously (because the computer was so slow) shut down Firefox, everything went back to normal (including Norton).
Windows memory managment sucks. When the memory starts filling, system is totally irresponsive. I saw a CPU comparsion of Intel and PowerPC. One of the tests was Photoshop processing and as Intel on Windows won for 20Mb file, it runned twice as long as PowerPC on Mac for 100Mb.
It’s almost as people hesitate to say “Firefox sucks” .. i’m not afraid, to say it
If it wants to be user friendly, why does it need users to search and install extensions? And if they CAN install extensions (not all IE users are retards, although this is much disputed on forums), why does it look like IE ? —- beats the hell out of me, the great paradox.
Firefox is just a browser people, be happy with it, BROWSE dammit, and leave us, the non-ff users alone. NO, thanks, we don’t want to “give firefox a try”, we just want to check email, watch p0rn .. no, I don’t need an extension for p0rn thankyou.
Just use it for what it was made for, it isn’t so special that it needs a crusade to be spread accross. The only reason so many people use FF is because of the propaganda, they sell you the idea of “browser revolution” about a piece of software that’s nothing but OLD NEWS. Opera and other old-school browsers had everything FF had, but it wasn’t until your IRC friends told you you could be an ub3r h4x (w00t) if you switch to FF, that you quit IE. Stop your browser-wars bitching, there are no wars.
Searching for ANYONE who was having similar Firefox problems to mine because I felt like the only person on earth with them, I stumbled across this page. In my situation, Firefox for Win32 is incredibly stable and fast, only crashing perhaps once every few weeks if not months, and usually only when using video plugins. Under Slackware Linux 9.1, Firefox has been sucking worse and worse ever since it was called Firebird 0.6, to the point now where it runs for LESS THAN THREE HOURS before slowing to a stop and sucking up 100% CPU, requiring a restart. This is not a Slackware problem — a friend of mine with an identical Slack 9.1 setup has never had any problems like this with Firefox. This is not a Linux problem — no other application on the system does anything like this. This problem is still present even after upgrading all Mozilla libraries on the system, and it is incredibly frustrating for my Linux browser to suck so badly that it makes me feel like I’m using Windows. Unfortunately, at this time all the alternative browsers for Linux do not meet my needs.
Check out my blog entry. Those who say it’s more secure are hopers. Check out the image and you can see why.
Firefox rules. Where the hell do you get all shit ideas. Ive used firefox forever and it runs perfectly fine on my 1.1ghz computer and its uber fast, with 10 tabs and a hell of alot of extensions. And it looks awesome with a theme installed and its awesome customisation. Internet explorer just sucks. Man a bloody piece of software that comes with windows. Poop. Firefox is taking over the world and theres nothing anyone can do to stop it
YOU ARE ALL STUPID BASTARDS!!!
FireFox is an ugly, slow and dumb browser. It is more secure than I.E. there is no quesstion about that. Starting FireFox is quite the same as starting Jboss server where as I.E. starts in no time. The HTML list look dented inside the page
like A Java swing input. I pray to God that Microsoft fix their I.E and I will forget Firefox for good.
#1 solution to all your FireFox problem. Switch to Opera, which is now free from ads (free version.
Then you won’t have to worry about memory leaks from FireFox.
alyssa: Yeah I am going to try Opera now, though Firefox has gotten somewhat better with its memory usage.
You can make firefox take a lesser about of time to start in windows xp by using the prefetch feature. You add /prefetch:1 to the target field of the shortcut properties. So in summary, right click the shortcut> go to properties>and the target box should read: “C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” /prefetch:1. Or whatever that corresponds to on your system.
firefox is skinable with themes, yes, and i have a very nice one called Noia 2.0, leaps and bounds better than the default one, available directly from the mozilla page along with 115 more at this time.
The memory leak can be fixed. You type about:config into the address bar. Then you right-click and select new>integer and type browser.cache.memory.capacity, and set the value to 60000, or whatever fits you. The value is the maximum memory consumption allowed, and you wont have to get rid of flash.
Its also fairly easy to make firefox insanely fast, among other things, the “Tweak Network Settings” plugin available here http://www.bitstorm.org/extensions/tweak/ allows pipelining, which takes advantages of the resources provided by dsl and cable connections, by sending multiple requests for data at once, as opposed to waiting for the server to respond each time before sending another request. In this regard, firefox can be as fast, if not faster than opera, which it has been, in my experience.
In addition, 95% (I kid you not) of ads can be blocked,. with the chromedit extension, available from mozdev, and this bit of code http://www.i-hacked.com/freefiles/removeads.txt . Other nice extensions are adblock plus, which enable the removal of objects from your view simply by right clicking them.
Paul: Thanks for the tips. Recent versions of Firefox (I am running 1.0.7) have gotten better.
Opera is indeed faster than any browser
http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html
and more secure than Firefox
http://secunia.com/product/4932/ – 0 out of 8 Secunia advisories
http://secunia.com/product/4227/ – 3 out of 24 Secunia advisories
and comes in a small 3.7mb download with irc cliente and mail client, and all sorts of discreet features, while firefox comes in a 4.8mb download with only raw core features. You have to download packs of extensions to give it some needed functionality, plus downloading Thunderbird if you’re using the mail client for Mozilla.. and no Mozilla doesn’t have a irc client. In Opera all is well integrated, in a efficient way.
But it’s just a matter of preference, not quality. I ended up prefering Opera.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=309776
Goto Google. Search for ‘selinux’.
You now have a Cookie from NSA.gov, and your Firefox browser has downloaded http://www.NSA.gov. Nice implementations of privacy Firefox team. Good job.
mors: Interesting.
CIA: Is that really so? I tried it and didn’t find a cookie from NSA.
…just use Mozilla or Seamonkey.
yeah..firefox takes a lot of memory when opening a lot of tabs.and the start up is slow.but it is better that virus threats that could destroy your comp.firefox now days are the safest browser around.so, do you want a virus on your comp or slow start up.plus firefox browse extremely fast.
I love how people criticize FF’s ability to read bullshit MS only code, and stylesheets, while IE is unable to properly display iframes. WTF? If it won’t read the style correctly, you are using proprietary code, and need to redo the code to make it (gasp) compatible with non-MS products!. Also, I notice very little leakage. Granted I’m using 1.5…but I just opened a bunch of bookmarks in tabs, and no such leak it happening after a good 20 mins, everything is nice and flatline…just to check I opened 30 tabs from the “latest headlines” section, and whaddya know, no leak. Nice and flatline after 10 mins.
I also love how I have yet to have a problem with the so called security issues. I never ceased to have security problems when using IE, but my spyware problems have gone away since I switched, except for tracking cookies which are easy to remove…
Haha, MS code…what a bunch of crap. I mean, who gives a damn about what color your scroll bar is?
As for security, Spyware goes “POOF”.
Bill: Aren’t they all based on the same code?
fahmi: I still use Firefox. But memory leaks are annoying and signs of bad programming.
Pingachevsky: I don’t know what you are talking about since my whole website is standards-compliant.
mozilla just takes way too long to startup and needs to access the hard drive lots making it slower for slow computers. memory leaks always appear when i use java with it. internet explorer just uses up too much CPU when doing stuff like hovering over links etc, especially the ones which r fancy. firefox is also safer but IE could be as well as long as you disable everything, they need some mode which means it cant write stuff to the hard drive, only the temp internet files.
im trying opera and seeing if i like it crrently im using firefox and it’s been working for me i had so many problems with IE
Que acaso estan locos…. Firefox tiene sus problemitas…… Pero que sea malo eso es exjerar…..
Idiotas….quedense con Interner Explorer…
Acaso estan comprados por Microsoft…
rocatalaman: I don’t understand Spanish. This is the translation done by Babelfish of what you wrote:
I never said that Internet Explorer is better. In fact, I explicitly rejected Internet Explorer.
1.) Install Firefox…
2.) Observe Webcall each time browser is opened (fxfeeds.mozilla.com).
3.) Examine all options and perform Googlesearch “Disable Live Bookmarks”.
5.) No success; cannot disable Webcall (cannot control “option”).
6.) Given: ALL software that “calls out” — without an option to disable the action — sucks, i.e., if “user intervention” is prohibited, I don’t give a dam* about all other claims to greatness.
7.) Ergo: Firefox sucks.
It dosen’t leak for me.
I only have 127mb RAM. It would totally kill my compy.
Hey man!!!
You better download another version Like 1.5….
But if you don’t like firefox you always can pay Opera, or use the “Spyware Bars Friendly Internet Explorer”…. Why you better use linux instead of that piece of crap Windows XP… Using only XP that sucks a LOT OF MEMORY USING THAT STUPID VISUAL STYLE!!!
Firefox Defender: Why so aggressive? I am using Firefox 1.5.0.3 right now. While it behaves better than the earlier version I wrote about here, I still have Firefox hogging all memory by itself sometimes.
Firefox really sucks.. I hate the concept and the software… it’s slow and nasty.
I think Firefox is okay, but their tab feature is screwed up: The search with google doesn’t open up a new tab, just the one you were on so that is rather annoying.
I prefer using Netscape 8.1, due to its nice tab feature and style, however it sometimes crashes. Bottom line: Every browser has flaws.
I don’t have memory problems with Firefox. I open lots of tabs with heavy pages and theres no problem!!, Hasen’t crashed in a while, maybe is the user. Not the program nor the computer, and usually the Operating System(windows xp) have u guys tried firefox under linux??
Danny
I use Firefox 1.5 at my office on a PII 450 with Windows 98 and 128 RAM. I use to open more than 10 and I dont need to restart Firefox.. and I think my hardware SUCKS, but Firefox still works fine, also last week installed Firefox 2 beta and is fine. CHECK Your SYSTEM!
Why i have choose Firefox?
because I take care of my security and you can compare:
Firefox
http://secunia.com/product/4227/
and
Explorer
http://secunia.com/product/11/
😀
SAludos AMIGO!
By Tthe way … only to open your eyes
check this link:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/security_report_windows_vs_linux/
this research was printed on february 15 at INFOWORLD
open your eyes buddy u r playing risky sports.. when u use IE + Windows + Internet = Crackers paradise!!! 😀
Zack:
Danny: Firefox is definitely slow to start.
I Agree too, but Internet Explorer is linked to the kernel of Windows, so it can start faster than any other application, but at the same time it opens the doors of the “Virus Inferno”, so you can fight all viruses that use things like Active X to break your PC .. your can see how many vulnerabilities has IE right now at the level of risk of Explorer is “Higly critical” http://secunia.com/product/11/
by the way u can see your Windows XP : http://secunia.com/product/22/