Author Topic: FireFox 3 (Read 14727 times)

patio · « **on:** March 30, 2008, 11:01:31 AM »

Thought i'd review this since i DLoaded and tested BETA 4 starting about a month ago...

Plus Side
The memory issues seem to be addressed nicely. If leaving a browser session open before for any length of time (over 5 hours ) i would have to re-boot or re-start FireFox2 to get it to stop hiccups.
Overall response is from my estimates about a third faster.
The profile i had from my older ver. imported seamlessly and all bookmarks, themes and extensions were intact.
My initial tests were done on the Portable version running off a flash drive...no issues at all. I have since installed the full ver. to the Desktop.
Both load times and shutdown appear to be quicker as well.

Minus Side
A new Google bar at the upper right is larger but can be resized.
They automatically added new features which you may or may not like including Smart Bookmarks; a new Home bar; and a new default theme which is too Vista-like for my tastes. Fortunately as with all FireFox releases all of the above can be individually tweaked or removed.

Overall Grade
I'd have to give it between an A- and a B+ mostly for the performance issues that have been addressed. The browser itself as i stated is still as customisable as before. I have had zero issues and ran this so i could provide feedback to Mozilla on the BETA release to help the development but i'd say it's safe to run on most machines for now...just keep ver.2 installed as well as a backup of your profile and you should be good to go.

patio.

FireFox3 BETA4

Dias de verano · « **Reply #1 on:** March 30, 2008, 12:46:45 PM »

Just a small thing... the only capital F in the word "Firefox" is the first one

(I really don't like embedded capitals even when they are meant to be there!)

evilfantasy · « **Reply #2 on:** March 30, 2008, 01:06:55 PM »

Does it launch any faster?

Broni · « **Reply #3 on:** March 30, 2008, 01:16:48 PM »

Cold start on XP gives me 9-10 sec (only 1 add-on).

evilfantasy · « **Reply #4 on:** March 30, 2008, 01:18:30 PM »

That's really my only complaint with FF. Takes way too long to start.

Dias de verano · « **Reply #5 on:** March 30, 2008, 01:43:06 PM »

I have tried a couple of ways of speeding up Firefox loading. I am currently on 2.0.0.13 with quite a few addons.

1. The upx executable compresser

http://www.techsupportalert.com/how_to_make_firefox_faster.htm

With everything compressed it takes about 8 seconds from clicking the icon to homepage showing.

You have to remember to redo your Firefox program file folder after an update. I did mine 3 months ago and i did it again today and 5 dlls needed redoing.

2. Firefox preloader.

https://sourceforge.net/projects/ffpreloader/

This works by loading portions of Firefox into memory at startup, but if you use fast user switching to change users and the new user loads Firefox there can be problems.

Used as well as the previous thing, this brought it down to about 3 seconds on my Shuttle ST62K, (3 GHZ Pentium 4 Prescott 1 GB RAM, 4 GB Eboostr flash cache)

evilfantasy · « **Reply #6 on:** March 30, 2008, 01:47:09 PM »

I've looked at the Firefox preloader but decided against it.

Quote

This feature does come at a cost though. When the preloader first started up on my computer it used about 4MB of memory itself, and Firefox was using about 10MB.

http://cybernetnews.com/2008/02/06/make-firefox-start-faster-with-a-preloader/

I would rather wait the extra few seconds.

Broni · « **Reply #7 on:** March 30, 2008, 01:47:09 PM »

Preloader is problematic, because, if you have any add-on update, it won't install, if you have Preloader running.
IMHO. I really don't care about 3 seconds with Opera, or 15 seconds with Firefox. Afterall, I open it it only ONCE a day, IF I turn my computer off for the night.

Dias de verano · « **Reply #8 on:** March 30, 2008, 02:02:11 PM »

Quote from: evilfantasy on March 30, 2008, 01:47:09 PM

I've looked at the Firefox preloader but decided against it.

Quote
This feature does come at a cost though. When the preloader first started up on my computer it used about 4MB of memory itself, and Firefox was using about 10MB.
http://cybernetnews.com/2008/02/06/make-firefox-start-faster-with-a-preloader/

I would rather wait the extra few seconds.

My figures are somewhat different, Preloader is using 1.8 Mb, and Firefox itself is using 59 Mb (!) Since

1. I have 1024 Mb of RAM
2. Web surfing is the thing I use my PC for most of all,

that isn't really an issue for me. I completely agree that it isn't worth saving 10 seconds if you are going to be using Firefox for several hours.

Computer Hope Admin · « **Reply #9 on:** March 30, 2008, 02:48:03 PM »

Nice review and comments. Great to hear about the Firefox memory issue being addressed. There's been several occasions where Firefox has been using 400+MB of memory, which is ludicrous. As far as the Google search being bigger, I actually wouldn't mind that because I don't use it. I use Google Lite.

patio · « **Reply #10 on:** March 30, 2008, 03:39:52 PM »

As i mentioned to EF if you want to take it for a test drive without installing it on your machine you can grab the portable version @ Portable Apps...
Install it to a flash drive and run it from there.
Load times will not be indicitave from the flash drive however.
You can then import your profile and take your FireFox anywhere you go.
Handy for Thunderbird as well ! !

evilfantasy · « **Reply #11 on:** April 02, 2008, 03:09:02 PM »

Beta 5

http://developer.mozilla.org/devnews/index.php/2008/04/02/firefox-3-beta-5-now-available-for-download/

Broni · « **Reply #12 on:** April 02, 2008, 06:26:17 PM »

How many more betas???

evilfantasy · « **Reply #13 on:** April 02, 2008, 06:34:51 PM »

No telling. We should see at least one RC before it goes to the full though.

Aegis · « **Reply #14 on:** April 02, 2008, 06:35:35 PM »

I'm gonna have to try GoogleLite...I've been using iGoogle, and starting to wonder if it's just too much...

Broni · « **Reply #15 on:** April 02, 2008, 06:46:46 PM »

I found this:
http://blog.wired.com/monkeybites/2008/04/firefox-3-beta.html

Quote

Wednesday's release should be the final beta release for the open-source browser -- it comes six days before the code freeze date (April 8th) for the first release candidate.

Once Firefox 3 reaches the RC1 stage later this month, we should expect to see all of the major add-on creators update their code to run in the new browser. The RC1 stage is considered stable and feature complete, so independent developers often wait until that point to work on their updates.

The final version of Firefox 3 is expected in June.

hyperhedron · « **Reply #16 on:** April 03, 2008, 02:32:44 AM »

pretty unrelated, but with the talk of startup times, is there another (open source) faster browser out there?
it'd have to be low memory, i think.

Deerpark · « **Reply #17 on:** April 03, 2008, 10:20:46 AM »

No browser I've ever tried is a fast as IE when it comes to startup times... my guess is that IE have access to undocumented features in Windows that no 3rd party developer can access.

Broni · « **Reply #18 on:** April 03, 2008, 04:16:33 PM »

According to this site: http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html, Opera beats all competitors.

hyperhedron · « **Reply #19 on:** April 03, 2008, 11:56:57 PM »

i always assumed that windows preloaded IE on startup, or at least parts of it, and that was why it was so fast. Opera is annoyingly closed source, however.

dairyman · « **Reply #20 on:** April 06, 2008, 08:01:09 PM »

I'm going to upgrade to FF 3 Beta 5 now.

Quote from: Broni on April 03, 2008, 04:16:33 PM

According to this site: http://www.howtocreate.co.uk/browserSpeed.html, Opera beats all competitors.

I agree. But whenever some website loads Java or Flash, it crashes. Everything else is fine.

Broni · « **Reply #21 on:** April 06, 2008, 08:03:56 PM »

Quote

But whenever some website loads Java or Flash

Never happened to me. Even IE works for me (not that I use it a lot).

dairyman · « **Reply #22 on:** April 06, 2008, 08:13:10 PM »

Just installed FF 3 Beta 5. Bloody terrific.

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Author Topic: FireFox 3 (Read 14727 times)

patio

Dias de verano

evilfantasy

Broni

evilfantasy

Dias de verano

evilfantasy

Broni

Dias de verano

Computer Hope Admin

patio

evilfantasy

Broni

evilfantasy

Aegis

Broni

hyperhedron

Deerpark

Broni

hyperhedron

dairyman

Broni

dairyman