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Cindy

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 5, 2003
249
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I was using FireFox (the newest download) and it sucked. Lately, for the past couple of days, lots of crashes and this am it won't even load anything.
I'm using Explorer 5.2 right now and it seems fine.
What's the deal with Firefox?? Anyone else have problems with it?
Problem with explorer is that some sites won't load with it - they want Netscape.
Anything out there better than Mozilla Firefox?
Cindy
 
I use Netscape 7.1 without issue. I find it is compatible for most things.

Why do people experiment with other browsers if one browser is more compatible and stable?
 
Originally posted by tomf87
I use Netscape 7.1 without issue. I find it is compatible for most things.

Why do people experiment with other browsers if one browser is more compatible and stable?
Click to expand...

Good question - I don't know! I'm done experimenting with different browsers. I'm going to download the Netscape and keep Explorer and call it good.
Thanks-
Cindy
 
Firefox works fine for me. There is a display issue now and then, but that's shared among Firefox, Camino, Mozilla, and Netscape browsers.

Safari and Internet Exploder work also but I don't use them much.
 
Originally posted by tomf87
I use Netscape 7.1 without issue. I find it is compatible for most things.

Why do people experiment with other browsers if one browser is more compatible and stable?
Click to expand...
because some are more bloated than others, some give the user more flexibility, some are better at that than this, some have bugs that the other doesnt...

firefox is pretty good, so is safari. both are better than a lot of other browsers (imho), but...YMMV.
 
Originally posted by tomf87
Why do people experiment with other browsers
Click to expand...
why do people use macs? people experiment with browsers to find out which one is more compatible and more stable. i do it because i'm a nerd and i think its fun. also, if you do web design work, you need to test your content in several browsers to make sure it displays correctly.

as for firefox, this is the first of the fire-line that's actually impressed me (on osx that is). i prefer it to camino now and have had no stability/rendering problems. in fact, firefox renders some things better than camino.
 
Re: browsers

Originally posted by Cindy
I was using FireFox (the newest download) and it sucked. Lately, for the past couple of days, lots of crashes and this am it won't even load anything.
Click to expand...


If you're using 0.8 and it's not stable, then I'm surprised. I've used it and didn't have any problems whatsoever. I generally have my browser window open for the whole work day (no surprise since I'm a Web developer).

But if by "the newest download" you mean you grabbed one of the nightly builds, then ... forgive me for this, but ... why are you complaining? 🙄 Nightly builds are for bug fix tracking and cutting edge development. I use them personally, but their stability is hit or miss (although some are quite solid, like the 2/26 build I'm running right now). Since they're built from the latest development code, it's amazing to me that so often they're as stable as they are!
 
Re: Re: browsers

Originally posted by Westside guy
If you're using 0.8 and it's not stable, then I'm surprised. I've used it and didn't have any problems whatsoever. I generally have my browser window open for the whole work day (no surprise since I'm a Web developer).

But if by "the newest download" you mean you grabbed one of the nightly builds, then ... forgive me for this, but ... why are you complaining? 🙄 Nightly builds are for bug fix tracking and cutting edge development. I use them personally, but their stability is hit or miss (although some are quite solid, like the 2/26 build I'm running right now). Since they're built from the latest development code, it's amazing to me that so often they're as stable as they are!
Click to expand...

No, I have the 0.8 and it's crap. Which really surprised me since it got such great reviews. I'll keep it on for certain sites that won't take Explorer. I went to go download Netscape but it would take a while to download - so maybe when I have more time.
I don't need to experiment with anything new and different. As I only use my mac for emails, surfing the net, and I have a few message boards that I frequent. Nothing fancy.
I'm on the computer all the time when I'm home and so far today using Explorer, everything is fine and dandy 🙂
I was just curious if anyone else was having problems with Firefox...
Cindy
 
It's possible that the trouble you're having with Firefox isn't directly related to the browser, but to bad preferences, perhaps from an older version of Mozilla/Netscape you ran at some point.

Before you completely give up on it, I'd try going into the Library/Preferences folder, finding where Firefox (and other Netscape/Mozilla browser versions, just in case) store their stuff (it's documented on the Mozilla website, among other places, or you could just look for folders with Mozilla/Firefox/Netscape in the title), and delete it. You shouldn't have to worry about loosing anything, since you usually use IE.

In my experience, most new versions of Mozilla based browsers, including Firefox, are quite stable; problems with them usually come from bad preferences. You might also try out Camino, if you haven't already--it's lightweight, but that was the first browser that moved me away from IE on OSX, since it just works better.

As far as why to switch, if you're happy with IE there's no reason to, but the truth is less and less sites are displaying properly in IE5 for Mac, and it's only going to get worse--it's standards support was good for the era, but it's been so long since it's been updated that it's fallen well behind even the newer versions of IE for Windows, and nobody checks on it anyway, since even among Mac users only a tiny fraction use it these days.
 
Originally posted by Makosuke
Before you completely give up on it, I'd try going into the Library/Preferences folder, finding where Firefox (and other Netscape/Mozilla browser versions, just in case) store their stuff (it's documented on the Mozilla website, among other places, or you could just look for folders with Mozilla/Firefox/Netscape in the title), and delete it.
Click to expand...

Oh, that's good advice. I'd forgotten that they recommended that (I've been pretty inconsistent about removing my old profiles).

This is important ESPECIALLY if you've got a profile from the old days - when it was called "Phoenix" and was at version 0.4 or 0.5.
 
Look into Omniweb 5 as well, it's in Beta2 status rigtht now but is very good (imo) and has seemingly limitless options for customization (if you like that kind of thing).

It'll be my primary browser once they get a few of the minor bugs worked out.
 
I only use firefox now. its faster at everything. its not perfectly stable but in the month I have used it has crashed maybe 3 times so thats not too bad at all. it scrolls pages twice as fast as safari, menus are faster, loads pages faster. I love it!
 
blue&whiteman said:
I only use firefox now. its faster at everything. its not perfectly stable but in the month I have used it has crashed maybe 3 times so thats not too bad at all. it scrolls pages twice as fast as safari, menus are faster, loads pages faster. I love it!
Click to expand...

I have kept the Firefox because I'm too lazy to download something else. I have both Explorer and Firefox on my dock.
It's rather strange and it might be my server's problem. sometimes it loads real fast and other times, it is SOOOO slow or it just won't load. It has been only crashing with one certain message board. For that board I just use Explorer.
The day I got so mad at it was its "bad" day.
Cindy
 
Cindy said:
It has been only crashing with one certain message board. For that board I just use Explorer.
Click to expand...

Aah, this makes much more sense. I've had a similar problem on occasion with a particular site that uses flash advertisements - not all sites that use flash, just one specific site. I am guessing it's a problem related to the flash plugin, but I haven't been motivated enough to contact Macromedia and report it.

(Note that I'm not 100% sure it's a Flash crash, but am just speculating cuz it seems to crash right when this particular ad window loads and starts)
 
woah weird. For me, the following browsers crashed or failed to load the Community Discussions page on these forums:
Safari, Opera, Mozilla, Camino, Firefox, MSIE, Netscape, Omniweb, iCab, Amaya (all latest versions)
Mind you, this was all on the same computer and I think it might have been something else.

Lynx was the only one that loaded it properly, but since it was text-only and really annoying to browse long threads, I gave up and tried Safari and MSIE again, which is the reason why i'm using IE to reply right now 😛
 
I used to use Netscape but then I started to use Firefox and it has worked fine for me. I stopped using netscape because it took a very long time to launch and before that I used safari and then went to netcape because It went slow on dial up and I didn't know how to enlarge the cache.
 
Netscape is hopless slow, I don't see how people can use and say it renders better when infact its based off the same engine as Mozilla/Firebird/Camino . The latests Ghecko rendering engine (1.5 and up) is incredibly fast renders things wonderfully. I rarely see a problem with it
 
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