MetaChat - FireFox is infuriating!

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03 August 2006

FireFox is infuriating! Am I the only one that has come to really hate FireFox?→[More:]Its a pretty crappy program in a lot of ways and I'm just about done with it. It leaks memory until it eventually stops working, it will eventually just not function in that clicking links does nothing, clearing the cache works for about two minutes and then its back to doing nothing again, and then, when I go to quit, it refuses and just spins and spins and spins until its forced to quit and sometimes that doesn't work either and I have to reboot the machine to get the program to stop running.

Screw FireFox, I'm switching to Camino.

post by: fenriq at: 10:27 | 23 comments

Or Opera or Safari or something else entirely.

posted by fenriq 03 August | 10:30

Not since they started bundling Real Networks media player. !!! WooHoo !!!

posted by seanyboy 03 August | 10:33

Yeah, I've been having the same problems recently. But I can't give up tabbed browsing and that spellcheck plugin...

posted by muddgirl 03 August | 10:34

Safari totally sucks, I gave it up for Firefox (on my Mac) and have not looked back.

posted by ThePinkSuperhero 03 August | 10:38

I started actively loathing FireFox about a year ago for the same reasons. Granted, they started from an already bloated and buggy code base, but that's not much of an excuse for even considering releasing software that can puff itself up to using a goddamn gig of swap space if you accidently leave it open all night.

posted by cmonkey 03 August | 10:40

The only mac I have is my laptop so things don't usually get left on over night, but I absolutely adore Camino.

posted by chrisroberts 03 August | 10:45

I got sick of Firefox and switched to Camino months ago. I'm perfectly happy with it.

posted by interrobang 03 August | 10:47

I like FF but then again I don't use any plugins, so it's super quick and streamlined.

posted by iconomy 03 August | 10:47

Does Opera have the same memory leak issues as Firefox on the PC?

And Flock, for all of the neato bells & whistles, leaks memory like a busted sieve.

posted by grabbingsand 03 August | 10:47

Whoa, I just turned on the status bar in Safari, nice! I always hated not being able to see the URL I might be clicking through to.

And one more gripe about FireFox, I could download from YouSendIt on my old laptop but, with the exact same config, I couldn't on my new laptop and that was just aggravating.

posted by fenriq 03 August | 10:51

My firefox memory leak issues seemed diretly related to Adblock. When I turned that off, the leaks got much much better. But Adblock is just about the biggest reason to use Firefox, so..

posted by sohcahtoa 03 August | 10:54

Wow, I'm kind of a Luddite, and I never suspected that the memory problems I've been having might be related to Firefox. Huh. Yeah, the longer the browser runs the more draggy it gets.

posted by Miko 03 August | 10:59

Firefox is slower than Safari. I used to use Safari exclusively, but the stumbleupon website doesn't work on Safari, so I loaded FF just for stumbling, but now I just use Firefox, EXCEPT for one or two things. Like, opening certain files that FF doesn't seem to know how to open, or how to save them, it constantly asks what I want or how do you want that opened. Safari already knows what to do, it shouldn't be that hard to save an mp3 file. Isn't that like the most basic task in the world, opening and saving a file?

posted by getoffmylawn 03 August | 11:03

I use Flashblock instead of Adblock. Firefox is a quick as a snapdragon. Flashblock=bumblebee, Adblock=great white whale. Most of the really annoying adds are flash anyway.

Now for really, ultra, uber-annoying, install Acrobat 6. Adobe makes some of the worst most-popular software in the world.

posted by bonehead 03 August | 11:04

I second Flashblock, it's the single best extension for Firefox. Flash is particularly problematic on my Mac at home, with ads taking up 100% cpu, so Flashblock is essential. There are also Camino ad-ons that do Flash blocking so it remains my primary Mac browser. When I have to use Firefox at home I run one of the G4-optimized builds (there's also one for G5) that help a lot, performance-wise. I don't see the memory leak problem as an issue, since I frequently quit the browser, but the going dead one drives me nuts sometimes.

It seems to me that the Mozilla folks are experiencing some of the same issues you might see in a proprietary software product. We'll see if they can overcome their "adolescence" and mature into something different.

posted by tommasz 03 August | 11:30

I switched from Opera to FF about two years ago and haven't had any issues with it, but (A) I only use a few extensions, and (B) I rarely keep my web browser open for all that long.

posted by BoringPostcards 03 August | 11:30

I use Firefox (XP) with extensions (Adblock, Forecastfox, Chatzilla, Colorzilla and Sessionsaver) running and it's up almost all day without any problems.

I think it's weird that some people have problems and some don't.

[insert "It is a mystery" gif here]

posted by deborah 03 August | 12:05

How does one tell if one has memory leak problems?

I demand to the right to be infuriated also!

posted by danf 03 August | 12:31

Firefox has been really good to me since I started shutting it down each night. Even with SessionSaver running (so it remembers the next morning what tabs I had open).

posted by Eideteker 03 August | 13:08

danf, if you can't remember then that's a pretty good sign you've got a memory leak.

posted by fenriq 03 August | 13:08

Firefox has its faults, to be sure, but when it gets that bad, fenriq, you probably need to create a new profile. Do that, and I predict you'll be able to love Firefox again. (And yes, shut it down every night. XP may be able to go days without shutting down, but not Firefox.)

posted by stilicho 03 August | 13:55

erm...i still use IE. bad bad ramix

posted by ramix 03 August | 17:23

I have no problems with Firefox of the type mentioned. However, I shut down my home machine before going to bed each night and my laptop, which runs Portable Firefox, has been up with Firefox open for almost a week now, so maybe that is an option for you? The only extension I use is Gmail Notifier. Maybe it is Adblock that is actually the problem?

posted by dg 03 August | 17:39

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