Firefox is too slow...

[keyboard]

Salut everyone!
I recently switched to Firefox and downloaded a pile of cool Add-ons for it (Namely Youtube Enhancer, Ghostery, Firebug, gTranslate, App Button Color, Abduction, Flagfox and Stylish) (some of them are disabled).
But I'm finding that my browsing speeds are seriously reduced...
Is it the add-ons or just Firefox?
Any suggestions on what I should do?

[jscheuer1]

It's Firefox, and possibly the add ons.

[keyboard]

Any suggestions on what to do?

[djr33]

Firefox is a little slow and it can even stall once in a while and make me wait while it catches up to what I'm doing (clicking to a new tab, or maybe typing text). But I still use it (on a Mac). I like the add-ons for one thing. I don't have too many running and I don't think that's why it's slow. It's a fairly well known fact, that FF is slower than other browsers such as Chrome. On the other hand, IE is usually worse :) (Maybe not the newest version/s).

[jscheuer1]

I used to love Firefox for the add ons. I still use it for those for diagnosing scripts. But my regular everyday browser is now Opera. And the first browser I use to diagnose/view something is Chrome. As far as diagnostics go, Chrome has built in diagnostics that are just about as good as any add on you can get for the Fox. And since they're an integraded part of the browser, and well written into it, they're much faster and less prone to crashing.

Bottom line, unless you need it for some add on, use Chrome.

Chrome came out after Opera, otherwise it might be my main browser for the web. Now that I've established Opera in that role, it's nice to use a different browser for diagnostics/testing. That way my open tabs in Opera need not be interfered with when I'm designing/testing things.

IE 9 looks very good and has good diagnostics. I long ago abandoned all IE though because it's the primary target of hackers. I keep it and use it regularly for testing.

[djr33]

Hm, I've always had a strong aversion to Opera because it didn't seem to work well on my Mac the first few times I used it. (And certain software decided to install it as an add-on for viewing Help files.) Perhaps the newer versions are a big improvement.

I don't really have anything against Chrome, but I just haven't bothered to switch.

And IE is best avoided for that reason, even if (and that's a big "if") it starts doing everything else well.


I wish FF didn't slow down so much, but it doesn't really get in my way overall.

[keyboard]

Doesn't Opera cost money?
Also, in a survey run by some random people (can't remember who now) I think Safari ranked 1st Firefox 2nd and Opera and IE last....

[djr33]

I forgot about this above--
I actually really dislike Safari. I don't know why, exactly. It just seems like a not-so-good less-feature-full version of Firefox. It's installed by default on my computer so I use it as a second browser for that reason, but not for too much.
And it's as slow or slower than Firefox a lot of the time, especially when trying to get it to load a new page; gmail crashes fairly often, etc.

[bernie1227]

A with John, personally, I go for chrome, it's got some serious browsing speeds, good rendering of HTML and CSS as well as a plethora of add-ons (I personally find the chrome dev tools, as good, if not better than firebug), there's also a serious development community to do with add-ons, not to mention good customization as far as themes and appearance go.

[Beverleyh]

I'm for Chrome too, and - dare I say it - IE9, but mainly because its the default one on my work PC. Its got better, but still not perfect... Maybe IE10 will have us all singing its praises (*cough*)

[djr33]

Another thread reminded me of the FF version number insanity (from v4 to v15 in about a year).

I think Mozilla has serious organizational problems and FF is bound to die off at some point if it continues. There's no reason at all that Chrome should be better than FF, but I think I must admit that it is-- in terms of speed, etc. That doesn't mean I like its interface or want to use it; I like FF. But the technical quality of FF is really dropping, especially in relation to how other browsers are improving. FF used to be at the top, and now it's barely keeping up.

If Mozilla completely changes strategies, there's no reason FF can't be the best again. But for the moment I do feel like I'm using it while I can until I get tired of it and move to a more modern browser.

[jscheuer1]

Opera doesn't cost anything. The mobile version did, perhaps still does. I didn't recommend it. It's a good fit for me, plus it's already customized to hell and back for what I want it to do. It's a pretty geeky browser, and obscure, so that makes it pretty safe too. If that's what you want, go for it. I like it, it's solved problems (found errors in pages) other browsers were scratching their heads about.

That said, I recommended Chrome and still do. It's rapidly becoming if it hasn't already the most used browser. It's that good. Safari is a lot like Chrome, only way slower, at least Safari for Win is. IE was long the industry leader due in large part to bundling with Windows, but it's always had some things going for it. IE 9 is a really good browser, and pretty fast. If I had to have only one browser and couldn't have Chrome, I would pick IE 9, might anyway even with Chrome in the mix. Thankfully that's not the situation because it's potential security issues scare me. I need to have it for testing and accessing sites that are IE only though, and it's a good browser, so I'd live with the threat, try to minimize it. I'm just glad I can have multiple browsers. I have around 11 or more.

[bernie1227]

@Daniel, the problem for Firefox, is that there are more than two competitors now, there used to have just been ie and Firefox, Firefox is better, ergo, firefox wins. Now that there are more browsers , specifically ons which plan to be asthetically pleasing and fast, such as chrome, people don't care about Firefox anymore. The majority of people don't even know how to define a browser, sp when they see one that's kinda nice and is really fast, they don't go of the slower one with more fetus, simply because they don't need the features.

@John, opera mobile is free, however, it is my least favorite mobile browser, out of the twenty I have, including the default safari. The actual browser looks nice, however tabs are too hard to get to and the layout is just annoying.

[ajfmrf]

I have used firefox exclusively for the last 4 years.I use very few add ons and have had rare issues with it( that will probaly change now that I said that -lol).

I wonder how much different chrome would be.

I might try chrome this week.

Lets vote on it.

Should I try Chrome out?

yes or no?

[djr33]

@Daniel, the problem for Firefox, is that there are more than two competitors now, there used to have just been ie and Firefox, Firefox is better, ergo, firefox wins. Now that there are more browsers , specifically ons which plan to be asthetically pleasing and fast, such as chrome, people don't care about Firefox anymore.Aesthetically, I personally prefer FF. But the real question, the thing I don't understand, is why Chrome is better than FF. FF used to be better than IE, true. Now there's more competition, true. But that doesn't mean that FF can't be improved to be even better than Chrome. I just don't see why FF has to be behind like this.
On the other hand, perhaps there's a simple explanation: FF was designed to fix the "IE problem", and not that Chrome is doing a better job, there's simply less motivation to keep developing FF, meaning that eventually it will just dwindle as a project and get replaced (even for those who make FF) by Chrome.

[jscheuer1]

What might be getting lost in this is that IE 9 is a very good browser. So currently, if you're looking for the best browser on Windows, it's really between IE 9 and Chrome. Firefox was almost always a little klunky. There was a short period of time when it was becoming faster than IE on some things, but then it stopped moving in that direction. It was always more standards compliant, until IE 9.

Chrome has great developer and geek user resources. It looks simple and bare bones. That's for the masses. But anyone who wants to get under the hood can find a plethora of information and utilities. These are all native and integrated into the browser architecture in a good to very good manner so as to not slow it down much if at all when used. And, inferring from what someone else said in this thread, if you need even more functionality, there are apparently add ons for it.

On that subject, I find that with Firefox, as the version numbers rise and the add on developers adapt and improve their code's look and feel as well as add features, it results in more overhead. That wouldn't be so bad if the basics you needed for developer needs were integrated into it and fast like with Chrome.

IE 9 has very good integrated developer tools rivaling Chrome's. They're a little less stable though. Opera has these as well, about as stable as Chrome's but a little buggier/klunkier/less intuitive.

I don't know if this is truly the case or not, but Chrome looks like they're not trying to imitate anything nor caught up in a legacy of old code. It looks like they took a good look at the features that go into making up a great browser, and found ways to include them. Everybody else it seems are either trying to imitate something and/or appear to be laboring at least to some degree under a legacy of old code that it would be so much trouble to completely abandon.

[djr33]

Good post, John.

I don't know if this is truly the case or not, but Chrome looks like they're not trying to imitate anything nor caught up in a legacy of old code. It looks like they took a good look at the features that go into making up a great browser, and found ways to include them. Everybody else it seems are either trying to imitate something and/or appear to be laboring at least to some degree under a legacy of old code that it would be so much trouble to completely abandon.Well, to be fair we'll have to see how that works with the next couple versions-- I doubt any program doesn't rely on old code, at least for many of the versions.

[bernie1227]

I have used firefox exclusively for the last 4 years.I use very few add ons and have had rare issues with it( that will probaly change now that I said that -lol).

I wonder how much different chrome would be.

I might try chrome this week.

Lets vote on it.

Should I try Chrome out?

yes or no?


I'd say yes, take a look at the addons and them's while you are using.

[james438]

I love Opera. I can relate to jscheuer1's comment about customizing Opera as much as he does. No other browser comes anywhere close to giving me the amount of control over how my browser operates. It is also a very advanced browser as far as web standards go and interactivity between the user and the browser. Chrome seems to be faster though, but it is also my least favorite of the browsers. It feels too dumbed down. It feels like an Apple product.

As far as browser popularity goes I like w3school's page (http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp) on browser popularity. I don't really know of any site that can accurately keep track of actual browser usage (for example the site only tracks the browser usage of those who visit their site), but that one seems fairly accurate.

[jscheuer1]

I like W3Counter:

http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php

Especially their trends graphs:

http://www.w3counter.com/trends

I guess they're not 100% accurate, it's like any poll. But they do try to gather stats from as many sites as possible.

[bernie1227]

It feels too dumbed down. It feels like an Apple product.


Ooh, burn

[keyboard]

http://cdn.memegenerator.net/instances/400x/24169826.jpg

[djr33]

Useful links, John. Interestingly it looks like Chrome is the first browser since IE to really have a clear majority (well, clear lead-- it's still under 45%, not yet a majority). FF never really got there-- at the top just slightly (a couple percentage points) and then slipped back down because of Chromoe.


It feels too dumbed down. It feels like an Apple product.I think that's why I don't like Safari. Despite being a serious Mac user (for specific reasons) I am completely against the dumbing down trend in their more recent stuff.
I like the older approach. For example, plug in a printer to a PC and then search for drivers; on a Mac, it just works. (If that's "dumbed down" I'm happy.)
But everything newer (including never versions of what used to be decent software, like Final Cut Pro, or iMovie) is really getting too simplified.

[bernie1227]

the whole out-of-the-box-non-customisable thing can be quite annoying sometimes, as really all they are doing is catering for those who don't actually know the difference between a browser and a search engine, which is one of my main problems with ios, and why so many people jailbreak (although many just use it for free apps), but as I've been saying, chrome has a good array of addons, and the dev tools are pretty hardcore.

[djr33]

I like how Macs "just work". I don't like how you can't customize them. There's no reason those two have to go together. (And Mac OS is fine. iOS is awful. I like what my iPhone can do, but I hate that I can't, for example, actually access any files except through the silly "apps".)

[Beverleyh]

I really do like the dumb-as-you-like, no fluff setup of Chrome - Firefox gets bogged down all too quickly with addons if you let it and then the lag set in... Urgh, its so frustrating.

I should forward the browser stats page to some of the IT guys I know - one of them recently insisted that IE was still the most widely used browser and he said it with such unwavering belief that I didn't have the inclination to argue. I just smiled sweetly and left him so his hardware ;)

[bernie1227]

The most dangerous things in the world are:
A programmer with a hardware component
A technician with a software patch
And a user with an idea

[keyboard]

^So old

[bernie1227]

says the guy using my old signature.

[keyboard]

1: If it's anyones signature, it's Daniels...
2: I'm pretty sure I actually had it before you, then removed it, then put it back... maybe I'm going CRAZY!!!!
3: You had it for like a day
4: Mine is a cooler font face than yours was
5: Sue me
6: Mine also has a rather amusing joke about floppy discs

As you can see in the points stated above, the signature is clearly different from the one that Bernie puts his claim to.
Also, seeing as it was never Bernie's signature in the first place, I move that this be thrown out of court.
That will be all your honnor.

[keyboard]

Oh, and I have more languages than you did :D

[keyboard]

p.s. Thankyou Daniel!

[djr33]

Thanks for what?
And if you're wondering I don't actually speak all of those-- I can get by somewhat in most of them. I've studied them, so if someone here happens to not speak English, I'll try to translate (at least a little).

[keyboard]

I practically stole your signature; thankyou :D
How many can you speak fluently?

[djr33]

English. And my Spanish is maybe getting close to where I'd call it fluent. I can have a conversation in about 5, depending on the day, maybe not all on the same day...

[mlegg]

Have you tried this yet?
http://waytobliss.blogspot.com/2012/08/speed-up-mozilla-firefox-about-3-30x.html

[djr33]

That sounds promising. But... is that considered bad behavior for a browser? Could a website or ISP or network object to that?
Is that asking for the same page multiple times (overwhelming the server with requests) or asking for different requests (eg, images, css, and HTML) at the same time?

[james438]

I don't really mean what I said as a burn to Chrome users. I happen to like getting software to do exactly what I want and be able to make it better. I believe that is why most of us like web design. There are a good number of users out there including people I know that I consider acquaintances who are very intelligent, but can not understand why I can't delete google reviews or why a website looks different on different monitors. When I explain why to them all I get is a blank expression. For these people Chrome is almost a breath of fresh air.

[djr33]

On a related topic... which browser is most stable for having a lot of tabs/windows open? That's when Firefox really slows down for me. (Sometimes I have up to 20+ tabs open, for example.)
Is Chrome really faster in that sense too, or just requesting a new page? I don't really mind waiting the 3 seconds for a page to load.

[Beverleyh]

20+ tabs!!!! ha, ha - how wide is your monitor?

I can say that Chrome is pretty nippy with 5-10 (my usual tab quota) - Firefox and IE have sometimes gone non responsive on me at that point but Chrome always seems to hold up fine.

[djr33]

I'm not looking at all of them at once. It has to do with my browsing habits-- I usually open up every link on a forum at one time, then close the tabs as I get through them. That's one example. (I also have a bad habit of leaving tabs open, often for weeks a time, when I'm too busy to get to something but want to look at it or reply later.)
Well, at some point I should probably try Chrome.

[jscheuer1]

I've got 16 tabs in Opera right now, and that's fine.

[djr33]

Yeah, I'm not sure what it is. I have 18 open in FF, and it's fast.
But sometimes (I don't know why) it can slow things down, especially any sort of structural items, like opening a select in a form, or opening a new window.

[bernie1227]

I'm for Chrome too, and - dare I say it - IE9, but mainly because its the default one on my work PC. Its got better, but still not perfect... Maybe IE10 will have us all singing its praises (*cough*)
actually, ie10 is kinda nice

[james438]

From what I have heard ie10 has improved a lot with 9 and going into 10 as they become more standards compliant.

[bernie1227]

I have ie10

[Beverleyh]

I only have IE10 dev plugged into IETester but I don't really see a great deal of difference between it and 9. I wonder how it will fare once its out in the real world - guess we'll find out later this year. Or maybe the middle of next year will be a better indicator once its been filtered out in the mainstream auto-updates? Can't beat everyday users for 'inventive' bug-discovery.

[jscheuer1]

Well, they really broke the mold to a great extent before making IE 9, resulting in a very much improved browser. I anticipate 10 to be more of the same. Too bad they can't update 8 with some of the common sense standards of 9. I mean, for XP users, they can't use 9, so they really need to use Chrome, Opera, or the Fox, etc. Perhaps an IE 9 for XP . . . But I doubt that will happen.

And it's really not all that important to me. I think it would be a smart move on MS's part. But the longer they wait, the less value it will have to them or to anyone.

[djr33]

Have you tried this yet?
http://waytobliss.blogspot.com/2012/08/speed-up-mozilla-firefox-about-3-30x.html

Y'know... that actually works really well. I finally had a little time to try this without worrying about whether the browser would be stable, but luckily nothing bad happened so I didn't need to reinstall it or anything (I've been using it for about an hour now without trouble, but I'll post back here if something does come up).

Now FF is going as fast as I could expect. It still seems to have slight delays for processing reasons (eg, opening a new window), but the pages load must faster-- basically it makes the requests simultaneous instead of in a sequence.

Interestingly, I think this basically fixes FF for those who don't like it because it's slow. I'd guess Chrome (and other "fast" browsers) use similar methods.

[molendijk]

I even prefer FF without the enhancement, see this (http://www.dynamicdrive.com/forums/showthread.php?71594-Several-reasons-for-not-loving-Google-Chrome-and-Opera).
Arie.

[djr33]

I've always preferred FF. But speeding it up a bit is just another reason to like it and perhaps eliminate one major complaint others have had.
(On the other hand, I do admit that FF seems to be going in weird directions at the moment, such as having a new full version number-- apparently now I'm at v15 or v16-- every couple weeks. And the more it starts to become like the other browsers and do weird things, the less I like it. But having the option to override these things is good and overall I'm not planning to switch from it.)

I did install Chrome and Opera the other day to do some testing though. So maybe that's my first step away from Firefox. Not for the moment though :)

[keyboard]

Does the workaround for firefox increase bandwidth significantly?
I'm on a fairly limited bandwidth per month...

[molendijk]

Everyone has his/her own specific reasons for preferring one browser over another, of course.
My specific reasons for preferring a given browser over another are:
- there should not be flicker (white flash) when we go from one page to the other, or when we load flash elements;
- clearing the cache (f5) shoud be easy;
- the pages of any website should load; they should not have NSL (never stops loading) problems (Opera and Chrome have a problem here, see also this (http://my.opera.com/community/forums/topic.dml?id=1438922)).
So I choose FF, and don't trust Opera and Google Chrome.
IE9 is OK, but it's a target for hackers having bad intentions.
Arie.

[djr33]

Does the workaround for firefox increase bandwidth significantly?
I'm on a fairly limited bandwidth per month... That's an interesting and important question. I really don't know.

I was originally suspicious of it and also the fact that it might be frowned upon by ISPs if you're overloading the system. But after looking into it, I think it's ok. I'd like someone to confirm it.

The workaround increases the number of simultaneous requests. That's certain. But it's also ambiguous. There are two possibilities:

1) The browser sends a lot of requests and hopes that one goes through quickly; it's excessively bothering the server (and ISP?) and might increase bandwidth (just for the requests? does the data come through eventually for each and then get ignored?). And it seems like a bad idea just in general-- a hack, not a solution.

2) The browser sends all requests at the same time rather than waiting to send them later; so if there are 5 images, 2 scripts, 1 stylesheet, 1 movie and 1 flash object on a page, then you end up with a total of 10 requests (including the HTML page itself). Normally, this takes the time of 10 requests (each one in sequence), but now it takes the time of one request-- whichever of those 10 is the longest, because they're all going simultaneously.


If (2) is the case, it makes sense and I like it. I think that's right. I hope it's not (1). The first link (in this thread) makes it sound like it might be (1). But in fact, from doing a bit more research I think it does end up as (2), where it's just doing parallel processing rather than serial processing, a good idea, not a bad idea.


If anyone else has some thoughts on it, I'd love to hear them though!

[traq]

I haven't tested (or even tried it out), but from reading that article, I would suspect it's #2 that's going on: not "extra" requests, just making all of the requests asynchronously.

[keyboard]

I just did what the tutorial suggested and there is definetely an increase in speed!!!
I'll keep an eye on the bandwidth meter though...

[djr33]

Ok, let me know if you see something different. If traq and I are right, then this will just speed things up (basically multitasking) rather than increasing the amount of transfer.

Technically, there is an increase in "bandwidth" in some sense-- the actual speed of transfer will increase.

So if you have 5 images that are each 20kb, and we assume that it takes one second to transfer 20kb, then:
--Total amount ("bandwidth" in some sense): 100kb.
--Speed/time with normal FF: 5sec
--Speed/time with faster FF: 1sec
--Transfer rate with normal FF: 20kb/s
--Transfer rate with faster FF: 100kb/s


As on most webhosts and for most ISPs, I assume "bandwidth" refers to the amount of actual transfer (eg, over one month), so that won't change anything-- it's always 100kb.

But if you have any limits on the other type, the actual speed (which is really what "broadband" refers to and there's another kind of "high bandwidth" related to that), then that might be an issue. My guess, though, is that it would simply slow things down so that the transfer is, let's say, 50kb/s, and that would take you 2sec to load everything.



But... I don't have any evidence to back this up. It just makes sense.

[keyboard]

But if there are no downsides to doing this, then why wouldn't firefox make it the default setting?
One of the main downsides of firefox is the speed, why not use the solution?

[traq]

I suppose something weird might happen, once in a while, if requests -particularly scripts- come back in random (i.e., fastest) order.

[djr33]

What timing!! I was just convinced by FF to update to 16.0.2. And now my "Firefox 3 theme" addon is disabled. And I'm very upset with FF. It's so bad looking now. Why can't they allow the user to choose how it looks, or better yet just not make these odd changes? I've tried a couple other options (various addons) and they're no better. Maybe I'll get used to it. There are about 70,000 people complaining now, that is the group of everyone who was using "Firefox 3 theme"... hmm...

[keyboard]

That's the version I already have... What's wrong with it?
As a new comer to firefox, it's the only look I've ever seen.

You can also make some changes to firefox like changing the colour of the button and editing the homepage (about:home)

[djr33]

It's hard to say exactly what is different. I liked the simplicity of the previous version without the gradients, roundedness, etc. Now a few of my addons also look really weird (for example, odd outlines showing up, strangely sized icons), etc. It's not awful-- but it's far from an improvement in my opinion, so why change it? And why not let it stay the same?

Everyone seems to be complaining that FF is trying to emulate Chrome, and I agree-- that's not why I use FF. In fact, if that's why I used FF, I'd just use Chrome. The developers seem to have really missed the point.

I'll check out modifying it a bit myself. Thanks for the idea. I'd just rather not do it manually (and it might still not allow all options to be modified).

[keyboard]

Hmmm... since doing the speed mod, sometimes when visiting websites (noteably facebook and this site) aren't loading properly... some of the page loads and is all positioned wrong and then it just stops loading...

[djr33]

Hm. I haven't had much happen although a couple times things have jumped around a little bit when it loads, but almost too fast to see-- certainly too fast to be bothered by it.

I have, however, had FF getting stuck a little more than usual and then having to wait for it to catch up (basically almost freezing for a few seconds, maybe a minute). It has done that before, but I think it may be due to the speed change. I'll keep an eye on it.

[djr33]

I've decided to set an initial delay of "30" instead of "0" to see what happens.
http://waytobliss.blogspot.com/2012/08/speed-up-mozilla-firefox-about-3-30x.html

My computer has recently been incredibly sluggish, especially when Firefox has had a number of tabs open. Let's see it that helps. I'm a bit worried that speeding up Firefox means taking a lot of ram/processing power.

[jscheuer1]

My solution has been, reluctantly to no longer use the Fox as my primary browser. I never really did even when it was set as the primary. That setting governs which browser is used for preview in my editor, in general which browser is used when the OS sees a call to open a web page. For a long time now I've used Opera for most browsing. Anyways, I've set Chrome now as the default because it's less of a problem and its developer tools are better integrated than Opera or Firefox. It's also usually very good and fast should the OS decide it needs to launch a web page. One thing I don't like about it, and this might not be its fault, it makes updating Adobe products less automated. That has pluses and minuses though and might be a new approach on Adobe's part in general, but I think it's just how the Adobe update process reacts when Chrome is the primary.

[djr33]

For the moment, my computer is running faster. Admittedly, I have less open today. So, we'll see.

But if it keeps being this difficult to continue with FF, I probably will end up using Chrome. I'm disappointed in Mozilla for not producing a better browser, however. It might not be easy to make FF faster, but it should be possible-- after all, Chrome has done it. And FF has always seemed to have some sluggishness issues-- overusing RAM in various versions, etc. And, beyond that, I just don't like the current direction of development for FF. Each new update seems worse than the last, although it's important to upgrade for security (and functionality sometimes).

My suggestions to Mozilla:
1. Improve the speed of Firefox. Really. Actually do it-- it must be possible. (Even if that's by version 20, or 30, whatever, just do it.) And not as a workaround, or in a way that uses too much system power-- RAM, CPU, whatever.
2. Stop making the browser worse. It was fine as of v3-4. So keep that. Don't keep messing with the UI, and don't make it a Chrome look-alike. The whole reason people use FF is to NOT use Chrome. If FF is becoming Chrome, we may as well all switch over anyway. At his point FF is sort of like a broken/outdated version of Chrome.
(3. Stop coming up with a new "version" every 1-2 months! Who thought this was a good idea?)

[bernie1227]

This article (http://www.zdnet.com/firefox-can-this-web-browser-be-saved-7000000624/) basically sums up your words.

[djr33]

Wow, it does. And it makes it clear that I'm not alone in this. I've seen a few other people out there complaining, but that article makes it pretty clear that FF/Mozilla is seriously misguided. I guess they don't want to be a good browser any more.

Is it entirely open source? Can a group of programmers just take it and fix it, leaving Mozilla behind? Or would that violate something? Mozilla shouldn't be in charge of FF any more (or perhaps their other products, from what that article says).

[jscheuer1]

This article (http://www.zdnet.com/firefox-can-this-web-browser-be-saved-7000000624/) basically sums up your words.

I'm surprised at you Daniel. I would have thought that you'd point out that your remarks sum up the article, not the other way around.

Don't they? They came after it and a more brief, so isn't that the proper meaning of the term?

[djr33]

Haha. I suppose I could also ramble on about it for a while, though. It's an easy topic to complain about, especially when my complaining takes place inside the program I'm complaining about... if I get lucky, it'll freeze while typing and pause the cursor so I get to wait for the text to show up ;)

[keyboard]

I still prefer firefox over chrome, not because of it's rendering or speed or anything like that, of its ui. I find it much easier to use compared to chrome...
What do you guys think of the ui's of each of them?

[djr33]

I like the FF3 UI. I don't like the newer one. But now I must use it because my "FF3-look" plugin was disabled with the latest version update.
I don't like the Chrome UI. I don't like the Safari UI. IE is overall ok but seems either outdated (earlier versions with bad graphics) or childish (new versions). Thus, Firefox. But now that it's moving toward Chrome, I may as well switch over at some point.


For the record, FF is now better without the speed enhancement. Not much freezing.

[keyboard]

I'm still using the speed enhancement... Still the same problems I mentioned earlier... but I deal with it.
IMHO Safari should be destroyed.... It is the worst browser out of the big 5 (In my opinion).
<= IE8 were pretty bad. IE9 is actually pretty good!
I only recently got Opera and I haven't used it enough to value it against the rest of the 5.

I actually kind of like Firefox's UI asthetically...

[djr33]

I don't hate Safari. But it seems kinda like a fake browser. It's like a lesser version of FF. On the other hand, it always is stable when I (rarely) use it. That's a plus, I guess. The UI is what I don't like; as a browser I guess it's fine.

[keyboard]

For me, I find that it's just incredibly slow.

[djr33]

I have no idea about Safari on a PC and I see no reason to bother installing it (except for web developers to check compatibility). It's always pretty slow on the iPhone but that's just the iPhone compared to a computer. On my Mac, it's around as fast as FF I'd say.

[bernie1227]

In answer to the ui question, I far prefer the ui of chrome.

@daniel, they discontinued safari in windows, and in my opinion, it's pretty bad on both platforms.

[jscheuer1]

I used to prefer the UI of Firefox. But after all of its problems these days more or less forced me to get familiar with Chrome, I now prefer Chrome. That and the fact that the Firefox UI has in my opinion gone downhill lately, becoming more cumbersome with little or no added benefit.

[djr33]

I completely agree, John, except that I haven't used Chrome enough to adjust to it. Would you still prefer the FF3 UI to Chrome's UI, or have you now been completely converted?

[jscheuer1]

It's hard for me to remember that far back with any real clarity. At that time it was the best in my opinion. It was set as my primary browser and was my goto browser for diagnostics. However, that browser had some serious problems following standards. So I would probably put its best version a little later than 3, maybe at 7. But then again, at the time the problems of 3 weren't so apparent, other browsers weren't much better.

So maybe. I don't think I was using Chrome much, if at all back then. Was it even around? If it was, it was probably not a lot like what it is now as far as developer tools go. If the choice were between a standards compliant FX 3 and today's Chrome, that would be a tough call.

[djr33]

No, FF3 was well before Chrome. And it may explain why it was a better UI-- no attempts to immitate it. By FF4 the UI was worse (that was a relatively big change) and from then it has been downhill (quickly) seeming to increase with the new versions in a race to match Chrome. As I recall, FF3 to FF4 was the last real update to the browser before the flood of new versions every 2 weeks. Maybe FF5 too. I can't remember precisely.

I don't think I ever used FF1, at least not much. FF2 was fine and basically like FF3, just improved features (similar UI). FF4 was a significant change in the UI and since then each version has been on a continuous path toward the current UI. So 3-4 is a cutoff and the rest is just a trajectory after.


I don't really care about the features of FF3. You're right about that. What I don't see is why they can't bring back that UI with improved speed, features, and standards.

If the choice were between a standards compliant FX 3 and today's Chrome, that would be a tough call.Exactly. I'd say FF3, no question.




Another way to look at this is the following: why are there around 60,000 people using an add-on that reverts version 15 back to version 3??? (Just the UI.) That's crazy. And those are just the people who went out of their way to revert back. Now many of them are upset that updates haven't been done to make it compatible with v17 and any more in the future.