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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?
It's Firefox, and possibly the add ons.
Any suggestions on what to do?
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).
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.
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.
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....
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.
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.
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*)