Firefox slow - what have I done wrong?
Discussion
Having read lots about how much better a browser Firefox is, I loaded it up this morning. But is it supposed to be so slow? I've done a back-to-back test and it is definitely slower. I usually run IE6, and have Norton Antivirus so have I introduced some form of protocol problem? Is there a proper way to set up, or is just letting it load and run good enough?
Cheers in advance for any advice.
Cheers in advance for any advice.
Norton Antivirus
IE is partially loaded by Windows during boot. So it will be memory resident and already scanned.
FF is comming up from cold and will be completley scanned as it loads.
Combine that with an inefficient scanning engine and it will seem quite slow and sluggish.
To minimise this you could try one of the "FasterFox" utilities to optimise it to your computer and internet connection.
IE is partially loaded by Windows during boot. So it will be memory resident and already scanned.
FF is comming up from cold and will be completley scanned as it loads.
Combine that with an inefficient scanning engine and it will seem quite slow and sluggish.
To minimise this you could try one of the "FasterFox" utilities to optimise it to your computer and internet connection.
agent006 said:
Firefox is just slow, it's what it does. I run it at work because i have to, and even on a dual core machine with 2gig of ram it really struggles, with firefox often holding onto well over a gig of ram. I wouldn't even attempt to run it on a machine with less than 512mb.
Until fairly recently my work PC was limping along trying to run XP with 256MB, and although FF would struggle on that from time to time, it didn't seem any more susceptible to low memory induced problems than any of the other apps (or even XP itself) I was using. FF is also the browser of choice on all 3 PCs at home and doesn't give me any cause for concern there. Task Manager currently says FF memory usage is hovering around the 93MB mark, that's with 10 tabs open and FF having been in use for the last couple of hours.
I do recall some problems with excessive memory usage in at least one version of FF1.x, though even then I can't say I ever had any issues with sluggishness, and I honestly haven't noticed any problems with speed or memory usage with the last few versions of 1.x or 2.x.
Firefox is slow to start because its an independent program.
IE is built into the operating system and half (or more) of it is loaded before you even click the icon. When you do its not got so much to load to fire up.
Frankly IE7 absolutely rocks. Firefox 2.0 is perfectly OK...but for both of these browsers you need a modern fast PC. An old PC will not do justice to what these browsers are doing for you.
Incidentally I just spent a day writing cross-browser code because I was doing a website for some friends. At work we write applications that run in IE. I had NO IDEA just how FANTASTIC a browser IE is in comparison to FF for writing client side JavaScript code in. Basic stuff just doesn't work in FF. Amazing!
Mind you - after a day at it was getting easier to write stuff that would work on both with a few days I'm sure I wouldn't feel so aggrieved. But, hey, no wonder we stuck with IE for our app stuff...
IE is built into the operating system and half (or more) of it is loaded before you even click the icon. When you do its not got so much to load to fire up.
Frankly IE7 absolutely rocks. Firefox 2.0 is perfectly OK...but for both of these browsers you need a modern fast PC. An old PC will not do justice to what these browsers are doing for you.
Incidentally I just spent a day writing cross-browser code because I was doing a website for some friends. At work we write applications that run in IE. I had NO IDEA just how FANTASTIC a browser IE is in comparison to FF for writing client side JavaScript code in. Basic stuff just doesn't work in FF. Amazing!
Mind you - after a day at it was getting easier to write stuff that would work on both with a few days I'm sure I wouldn't feel so aggrieved. But, hey, no wonder we stuck with IE for our app stuff...
Don said:
Firefox is slow to start because its an independent program.
IE is built into the operating system and half (or more) of it is loaded before you even click the icon. When you do its not got so much to load to fire up.
Frankly IE7 absolutely rocks. Firefox 2.0 is perfectly OK...but for both of these browsers you need a modern fast PC. An old PC will not do justice to what these browsers are doing for you.
Incidentally I just spent a day writing cross-browser code because I was doing a website for some friends. At work we write applications that run in IE. I had NO IDEA just how FANTASTIC a browser IE is in comparison to FF for writing client side JavaScript code in. Basic stuff just doesn't work in FF. Amazing!
Mind you - after a day at it was getting easier to write stuff that would work on both with a few days I'm sure I wouldn't feel so aggrieved. But, hey, no wonder we stuck with IE for our app stuff...
IE is built into the operating system and half (or more) of it is loaded before you even click the icon. When you do its not got so much to load to fire up.
Frankly IE7 absolutely rocks. Firefox 2.0 is perfectly OK...but for both of these browsers you need a modern fast PC. An old PC will not do justice to what these browsers are doing for you.
Incidentally I just spent a day writing cross-browser code because I was doing a website for some friends. At work we write applications that run in IE. I had NO IDEA just how FANTASTIC a browser IE is in comparison to FF for writing client side JavaScript code in. Basic stuff just doesn't work in FF. Amazing!
Mind you - after a day at it was getting easier to write stuff that would work on both with a few days I'm sure I wouldn't feel so aggrieved. But, hey, no wonder we stuck with IE for our app stuff...
Unfortunately, I don't have much choice about the old PC. What I can say though is that older apps simply rock on modern PC's.
IE7 seems OK from a usability perspective on my old computer, but I hate that they've done what they have with the tool strip. I think it's the FF parser that is letting things down. Equally I am aware that IE is doing a whole pile of "quick and dirty" stuff to achieve the performance that it does. I suppose that's the kind of thing that leads to the IE {/td} problem with spaces in rendered tables.
I'm going to have to get a better PC at some point though. Much of the Java and Flash dynamic/animated content is getting to be too heavy whatever browser I use.
PII 450!!!
agent006 said:
Firefox is just slow, it's what it does. I run it at work because i have to, and even on a dual core machine with 2gig of ram it really struggles, with firefox often holding onto well over a gig of ram. I wouldn't even attempt to run it on a machine with less than 512mb.
Firefox is very fast on my three year old computer though.
using ff2 but with minimal extensions, ie only the ones i find useful and no more, suiffers less from crashes than before (recent system format), rarely use ie7 
266 mb of ram on xp ? thing xp takes up most of that, do ursefl a favour and get at least 512, currently on 2gb and it really helps
266 mb of ram on xp ? thing xp takes up most of that, do ursefl a favour and get at least 512, currently on 2gb and it really helps
agent006 said:
Firefox is just slow, it's what it does. I run it at work because i have to, and even on a dual core machine with 2gig of ram it really struggles, with firefox often holding onto well over a gig of ram. I wouldn't even attempt to run it on a machine with less than 512mb.
Then your machine has problems! FF2 is currently using 81MB here with 6 tabs open. With dual core and 2GB here you can't even tell it is there. Yes, FF has a memory leak problem, but I have never seen it go anywhere near 1GB.
In that case our entire department of 9 all have the same problem. I don't mind a few hundred meg, but we're all regularly having our machines crippled by firefox holding onto 1200 or so.
All in all it's a good bit of kit, but it lacks the smoothness of IE7 and Opera's tab behaviour has it beaten too.
All in all it's a good bit of kit, but it lacks the smoothness of IE7 and Opera's tab behaviour has it beaten too.
agent006 said:
In that case our entire department of 9 all have the same problem. I don't mind a few hundred meg, but we're all regularly having our machines crippled by firefox holding onto 1200 or so.
All in all it's a good bit of kit, but it lacks the smoothness of IE7 and Opera's tab behaviour has it beaten too.
All in all it's a good bit of kit, but it lacks the smoothness of IE7 and Opera's tab behaviour has it beaten too.
WHAT? Seriously, 1.2Gb of RAM??? Highest I've ever seen on my system is 800Mb and that was with like 10 - 15 tabs open. What extensions are you lot running?
A couple of people said:
Scraggles: 266 mb of ram on xp ? thing xp takes up most of that, do ursefl a favour and get at least 512, currently on 2gb and it really helps
That Daddy: I would always recommend 768megs or higher with XP really speeds things up 1gb is a real bonus.
That Daddy: I would always recommend 768megs or higher with XP really speeds things up 1gb is a real bonus.
*I* know that (it must be a good 4-5 years since I had less than a gig on my home PCs - writing this on a 2GB Core2Duo box, yum!), *you* both know that, but try telling the beancounters in charge of IT procurement that... I did get a 1 gig upgrade out of them eventually (and without any real difficulty) but it'd be nice if they'd just stop false economising and provide half-decent spec equipment from the start instead of poverty-spec gear they know full well will only end up being upgraded as soon as possible.
Thanks for the input - maybe my PC just ain't up to it. Its currently running XP on a 512MB Pentium 4. I'll keep using it for a while and see if its a blip or similar.
As for the cache, I usually run CCleaner after every internet session - sure I might need to reload stuff, but it does seem to keep the machine moving as swift as it ever has.
As for the cache, I usually run CCleaner after every internet session - sure I might need to reload stuff, but it does seem to keep the machine moving as swift as it ever has.
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