I know this is like heresy in the geek world but when I’m using a Windows PC increasingly I am finding myself switching back to Internet Exploder, and I’m not happy about it. The problem is that Firefox 1.5 appears to be getting slower, buggier and crashes more often. Initially I just assumed that it was my PC at work, it’s got all sorts of crap on it and is probably due for a rebuild, but I have also noticed the same on my home PC as well over the last couple of weeks. The recent upgrade to 1.5.0.1 doesn’t seemed to have helped much either.
This is not to say that I like IE, I don’t, it’s several years out of date in terms of functionality, has Microsoft’s unique take on "standards" and crashes a lot as well, but it has the advantage that it seems to reload a lot quicker than Firefox when it does go belly up.
So the plan is to downgrade Firefox back to 1.0.7 to see whether that makes any positive difference. Looking around t’internet there seem to be a small but significant minority of people who have had similar problems to me. Has anyone else noticed any similar issues or have I crossed a line here?
The only real problem I have noticed is when multiple windows are open. When I close one window… it takes a few seconds sometimes for the window underneath to become exposed and get focused.
Saw a blog entry by Ben Goodger yesterday that made me think this might be related to the HUGE increase in memory usage in 1.5 vs 1.0. This is not due to a leak but the way 1.5 caches pages across tabs… see here: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/009749.html“ rel=”nofollow”>http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/009749.html
If you want to get a real kick, surf using firefox for a while and then look at the memory and virtual memory that it has tied up. Both Firefox and IE are far worse than Notes 6.5, but Firefix is really bad cause it won’t release any memory it allocates until you restart the program.
Sean—
I’m still using 1.0.7 at work (with 3 tabbed home pages) & haven’t experienced any real problems. One annoyance – we had a power cut a couple of days ago which completely corrupted my profile & I lost all bookmarks http://www.11tmr.com/11tmr.nsf/emoticons/DLYH-5N3GHL/$FILE/sad.gif“ rel=”nofollow”>http://www.11tmr.com/11tmr.nsf/emoticons/DLYH-5N3GHL/$FILE/sad.gif
http://www.11tmr.com/11tmr.nsf/emoticons/DLYH-5N3GHL/$FILE/sad.gif“>
I know I should have had a backup (got one now!) but at least with IE I could have just copied them back from my favourites folder.
I’ve noticed the same thing using Firefox 1.5. It’s particularly bad with multiple tabs open, and is even doing weird things with the display of pages – sometimes they work, other times not.
I’m also toying with the idea of downgrading (1.07, not IE!), but haven’t yet – I’m giving them a chance.
It’s also possible that it’s an extension which is causing the problem, not core Firefox code – could be why not everyone is experiencing the problem.
I had thought it might be extensions so removed the few that I do use but no improvement unfortunately.
So for the moment I am using IE on my work PC. Luckily Firefox isn’t exhibiting any problems on my PowerBook so I can still use it there.
– I’m using FireFox 1.0.6 for that very reason … 1.5 is too flakey … and 1.0.6 is rock solid. In my case, PrefBar won’t install in 1.5, and I really like having that at my disposal. Sounds like I’ve avoided a whole rash of other issues as well.