Firefox, Pros + Cons

Zombienosh

After much hype and so forth I switched to Firefox a couple of months back, but tbh - It's annoying me big time, Im just wondering after all this hype about it, is it really all that good? has anyone else had problems with it?

Firstly,
1 Its way too slow for me, It takes longer than IE to me.
2 It crashes a lot, however IE does too so nothing new there.
3 The warning pop ups are annoyin as fcuk.

and although it appears to be safer now, how long before hijackers and hackers target Firefox?

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

MartMax

i would agree if sbody says Firefox is over publicist - but it works!... now i can't live without tab browsing (sthing IE doesn't do) and the RSS feed is just so kewl... back to basic, it never crashes on my machine... and the warning pop-up surely can be turnoff... have you got latest release of Firefox ie. 1.0.1... maybe it runs slow if you hv insufficient memory... about the threats, they are everywhere and anytime, so i can't be not too careful, hv decent antivirus, well-updated and firewall thingy runs... worst of the worst, ur data is lost and PC get reformatted...

Mr E

Its faster than IE, only crashes about twice a week for me (and thats usually a protection fault when closing it), and the only popup message I get is prompting to save passwords (which you only have to click once per site).

Easily better than IE.

CyberGhost

do stopwatch test to

http://www.boards.ie

http://www.numion.com/Stopwatch/index.html

FF took: 5.438
IE took: 6.907

Verdict: Firefox is faster

pickarooney

Opera is faster than either, in my experience. It also remembers your last session if it or the OS crashes so you can pick up browsing where you left off. It's not everyone's cup of tea, but might be worth checking out.

Zombienosh

I meant the pop ups if the site is down, it also seems to use a lot of memory on me......

granted it has its pros, like tabbed browsing, pop up blocker and password remembering.

Citizen_Erased

Tabulated Browsing <~~ A godsend - the single greatest reason to use any browser/explorer...

I'm running mozilla on a 56k and i find it faster than IE.

Basq

CyberGhost wrote:

do stopwatch test to

http://www.boards.ie

http://www.numion.com/Stopwatch/index.html

FF took: 5.438
IE took: 6.907

Verdict: Firefox is faster

I got:

Firefox: 2:15s
IE6: 6.156s

Verdict: Firefox is MUCH faster!

sound_wave

If you click on the getting started bookmark on the browser, it will take you through a step by step of how to configure FF to your preferences!

It easily kicks IE's arse.

jonny68

Ill agree that firefox is way better than IE one thing annoys me about it though,on occasions i might have several tabs open and the whole thing will disapear,ill open another browser and start working again,some time later the browser that disapeared on me suddendly reappears,it can be somewhat infuriating,im sure this must have happened to other firefox users,any tips/ideas on how tro prevent this from happening?

melekalikimaka

i like the skins and stuff

Ciaran500

If you do a search I posted a way to stop those pop up messages apearing.

Hobbes

AlcoholicA wrote:

I meant the pop ups if the site is down, it also seems to use a lot of memory on me......

granted it has its pros, like tabbed browsing, pop up blocker and password remembering.

There is a config setting to disable it in firefox.

type about:config in the address bar.

In the search part type browser.xul.error_pages.enabled then set that value to true (double click it). You can then test it. you should get something like below instead of a popup.

Address Not Found Error

www.aa.coom could not be found. Please check the name and try again.

The address (URL) does not correspond to a known site and could not be loaded. This could be due to a misspelling in the address or because the site does not exist. If the address is known to be valid, or if the problem occurs for many sites, it may be an issue with your proxy service (if you use one) or the directory name service lookup. In such cases you should consult your system documentation, administrator or Internet Service Provider (ISP) as appropriate for further assistance.

Try again

Ran that speed test.

FF: 4 seconds.
IE: 8 seconds.

FF is clearly faster on my machine.

FF rarely if ever crashes for me and generally its because I've just installed a plugin I am working on. clearly something is amiss with your machine and FF.

Dinner

I agree that the tabbed browsing is brilliant but I dont find the pop up blocker to be anything special. I already had the google toolbar and SP2 blockers on in IE so I never noticed more or less pop ups.

I've never had FF crash on me so far thank God.

Anyone know if you can get the Google toolbar for FF rather than the search thing in the corner.

EDIT:

FF, 1.922
IE: 7.63
FF Wins

qotsaman

i moved to firefox because IE had problems loading up so many sites, especially the ones which auto refresh-all hail firefox

Atlas_IRL

FF 3.4
IE 6.5


i really hate IE keep gettin annoying pop-ups if i ever have to use it..NEVER get a pop up in FF

garthv

i really hate IE keep gettin annoying pop-ups if i ever have to use it..NEVER get a pop up in FF

I wouldnt say never but a considerable amouint of pop-ups are blocked by firefox

Mutant_Fruit

Actually, i've been getting popups in FF recently, but only in a few sites (have to wait til i get to those again, can't remember which it was). I think they're being popped up with java. I can't remember now, but whatever was happening, FF wouldn't block em.

Snowbat

Arabel wrote:

Anyone know if you can get the Google toolbar for FF rather than the search thing in the corner.

There is Googlebar but it does not turn off the search box. In defence of the search box, it is useful for other stuff too... checking words at dictionary.com and searching for products on ebay.

Mimikyu

This post has been deleted.

Sully

Elllo I came across a very good site which lists recommended extensions for FireFox (Googlebar is one) but also shows a great way of tweaking FireFox to make it even faster. I would recommend you (and others perhaps) visit: http://users.tns.net/~skingery/firefox/Home_Page.html

The popups are no longer a thing of the past, a few sites get past the filter but with AdBlock you can block it from loading again which is great. FireFox is slower to load ill admit, but theres a fix for that listed on that site.

I love the extensions and skins for Firefox, the tabbed browser features and the sence of security. Wouldnt notice much of a difference in the speed to be honest. And compared to Opera, its not as bloated and you dont have to pay for it either (no ads on it either!).

I much prefer FireFox for those reasons. So much more can be done to it, to speed it up, make browsing easier and more secure and make browsing be done in style!!

- Sully

Hobbes

Mutant_Fruit wrote:

Actually, i've been getting popups in FF recently, but only in a few sites (have to wait til i get to those again, can't remember which it was). I think they're being popped up with java. I can't remember now, but whatever was happening, FF wouldn't block em.

It is not a problem of firefox and you will get the same popups on any browser.

They are not using javascript. Apprantly the good folks at macromedia thought it would be really great if you could spawn new windows in flash. This will bypass your browser settings.

A good example is Strongbads virus (dont worry its safe).
http://www.homestarrunner.com/sbemail118.html

The only way to stop it (in firefox) is to adblock the site that is spawning the adverts or get flashgot which will not allow flash to run on the page without your permission.

Cabaal

Snowbat wrote:

There is Googlebar but it does not turn off the search box. In defence of the search box, it is useful for other stuff too... checking words at dictionary.com and searching for products on ebay.

Adding on the IMDB add-on makes it even more usefull imho

Dinner

Snowbat wrote:

There is Googlebar but it does not turn off the search box. In defence of the search box, it is useful for other stuff too... checking words at dictionary.com and searching for products on ebay.

Yeah thats brilliant thanks ver much. The search box is brilliant since you can add on Wikipedia and IMDb and the like but I just like the handyness of having the bar there.

Mutant_Fruit

Just out of interest... did anyone remember to clear the cache in both firefox and IE before running the speedtest? I just cleared my cache in both, and got:

FF: 3.719
IE: 4.359.

Faster, but not twice as fast

Hobbes

yea I had my cache cleared in both. Still curious why it varies from machine to machine.

CyberGhost

Arabel wrote:

Yeah thats brilliant thanks ver much. The search box is brilliant since you can add on Wikipedia and IMDb and the like but I just like the handyness of having the bar there.

I think you guys forget that firefox has build in such feature, called QuickSearch

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Firefox_:_Tips_:_Quick_searches

IronMan

The one minor quibble I have, is that when I input an address incorrectly, e.g www.board.swww, it takes 5-10 seconds before it displays that this isn't a valid address, during which time you cannot press the stop button to stop the process.

The pro's would be tabbed browsing, and the StumbleUpon toolbar.

Nema

FF: 12.1
IE: 22


ok thats slow ! there is a problem

Ciaran500

IronMan wrote:

The one minor quibble I have, is that when I input an address incorrectly, e.g www.board.swww, it takes 5-10 seconds before it displays that this isn't a valid address, during which time you cannot press the stop button to stop the process.

Stop works for me in that case.

Töpher

I think Boards.ie is probably a bad choice of website to test, it still seems to have regular slow patches which would affect the socres.

We should all try www.asiangirlswithstrangethingsintheirnoses.com

Cathy

IE: 7.406
FF: 2.953

Töpher

FF: 3.31
IE: 6.125

Firefox is almost twice as fast.

QED.

Mutant_Fruit

Einst&#252 wrote: »

We should all try www.asiangirlswithstrangethingsintheirnoses.com

Dammit! I clicked it. My sarcas-o-metre must have broken. :rolleyes:

Btw, i tried firefox with no "speed" settings enabled to firefox with pipeling etc enable, but it made very little difference. Maybe .2 of a second. Looks like there ain't much improvement to be gained using em.