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Not a rhetorical question; what is so great about Firefox?

In all honesty, Firefox really sucks now. It's over. it used to be great and I had been using continually the past two or three years. But the good old days are gone
Cause yeh, nobody can deny that it has tremendous memory leak that over use the CPU to +100%, should you be on Mac, Windows or Linux
This is as unacceptable as IE's lack of security

Now i'm using Webkit in Safari UI.

I used to miss the extensions, but for some reasons, I realized it was not that hard to live without them
 
GuillaumeB said:
In all honesty, Firefox really sucks now. It's over. it used to be great and I had been using continually the past two or three years. But the good old days are gone
Cause yeh, nobody can deny that it has tremendous memory leak that over use the CPU to +100%, should you be on Mac, Windows or Linux
This is as unacceptable as IE's lack of security
Click to expand...
its a mistake to assume OSS will not change whats behind and nothing will improve.

what if I told you that firefox 3's memory management is best among all browsers, and uses 10-40% less real memory than safari, or IE, or Opera?

And guess what, its true, firefox 3 plugged major memory leaks in previous version, and stress test shows it uses much less memory than any other browsers for long term use.

Try it, you will see then :)
 
Well, obviously that's not true for me. I have the last build and it is still very much memory consuming... way more than webkit and Safari.

In fact I do wish I could use Firefox for it's great extendability and for the greasemonkey script that are nice.

I always keep an eye on it though so it might change.

BTW do you know how to get rid of this new address bar... it's so confusing to have URL + their name (utterly useless IMO)
 
I prefer Safari just because of the "look and feel" of a Mac app. It's functionality, shortcuts, it's all just natural. Though, I prefer Firefox on my dev machines for obvious reasons.
 
GuillaumeB said:
Well, obviously that's not true for me. I have the last build and it is still very much memory consuming... way more than webkit and Safari.

In fact I do wish I could use Firefox for it's great extendability and for the greasemonkey script that are nice.

I always keep an eye on it though so it might change.

BTW do you know how to get rid of this new address bar... it's so confusing to have URL + their name (utterly useless IMO)
Click to expand...
ok, how much memory do you have and how much does firefox use when starts, and when you use it for two hours?

firefox is using latest memory management tech in from BSD called jemalloc. It does consume more memory (~70-80MB) at start, but will peak at about 120-150MB and can effectively release memory dynamically. So long tern use can show quite substantial differences.

for the urlbar
try https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/6227

urlbar searching function is one of the bright spot IMHO tho. But I guess everybody has different taste, good thing is firefox is open enough that you can change it... :)
 
mogzieee said:
There is only really a big difference with Firefox when you use it on a PC.

On a Mac, Firefox has Safari to live up to - a BIG challenge.
On a PC, Firefox has IE to live up to - not very hard at all, judging that IE is so crap.
Click to expand...

We all have our opinions, but after being somewhat of a "power user" of both IE and Firefox, and now in the process of ramping up on Safari, I'd say that both IE and Safari have a LOT of work ahead to try to live up to Firefox. I don't say that as a fanatic, or to slam either IE or Safari ... a tool is a tool ... whichever gets the job done best. I'm not a cheerleader for any of them. But while forcing myself to use Safari, I've already started missing all my Firefox add-ons and numerous subtle conveniences, like being able to right-click and sort bookmarks, have custom icons on the bookmarks toolbar, etc.

I know it's all personal preferences and what you get used to, but I find Safari quite lacking in many respects, compared to Firefox. Since I'm in the process of mastering it, the jury is still out. I have a feeling that once I've fully explored all that Safari has to offer, I'll be moving back to Firefox. I'd welcome any compelling factual arguments to the contrary.
 
kavika411 said:
If someone wouldn't mind telling me (preferably in non-tech savvy terms) some specific examples of the plug-ins they use. I guess I know about flash and reader, but what are the ones that Firefox does that makes everyone so excited. Thanks.
Click to expand...

Just a few that I used frequently:

ResearchWord: Allows me to right-click on any word or phrase on a webpage and look up that selection in any number of user-defined sources, such as Wikipedia, iMDb, Flickr, etc.

SplitLink: Allows me to right-click on a link and see the multiple URLs it could direct me to, allowing me to avoid advertising sites.

Flashblock: Allows me to selectively right-click and block Flash objects on web pages, including the frames. It remembers what I've blocked, so when I return to those sites, the Flash objects (ads or not) that I want blocked are automatically blocked.

Adblock Plus: As described by others, a very robust and customizable ad blocker. I've already noticed Safari allows ads that Firefox with Adblock Plus would successfully block.

Download Helper: Allows me to download video and image content from sites such as YouTube and many others, including Flash movies.
 
alphaod said:
No Opera love here?
Click to expand...

opera 9.5 is destinated to be a great browser on windows and linux. I hope they put more effort on mac, mac version of opera is lag behind currently. performance wise.

Its fast, but speed nowadays isn't a deciding factor anymore

Its very light, I just tested 9.5's memory management got significant improvement compare to 9.27 as well.

I just hope it implements a better fullpage zoom options and stop trying to download bt for me.

Still, a great browser, especially on low end machines (like EEE I have... :)
 
I used to use Firefox, but I find myself using IE on Windows now. I don't navigate to questionable sites, so the security is not a problem. Plus, IE's start time runs circles around Firefox. In fact, I can open FF, and then afterwards open 4 or 5 instances of IE before the FF windows opens.

Safari suits my needs nicely on my Mac. It is horrid on windows though.
 
kavika411 said:
I like Firefox. It helps me navigate the web. It does a good job with my history, passwords, etc. So does Safari. So does IE.

I occasionally go to digg.com and look at its top ten articles on the right side. More times than not lately there is a top ten article raving about Firefox. I read the articles. I don't see them saying anything warranting the praise it seems to get.

Not bashing Firefox. Just curious if I'm missing something that makes it so amazing, or if it is the tech equivalent of Obama articles being dug on Digg.

Any thoughts are appreciated.
Click to expand...

Firefox (the new one: 3.0RC) is faster than Safari in actual use.
 
GSMiller said:
That's because Fx is the browser of choice for geeks and geeks use Digg :D
Click to expand...
I guess you missed the part where the OP was actually asking *why* that was so. :rolleyes:

You just filled up a lot of space with a quote of his question and then didn't even answer it.

I guess we could consider your foolish non-answer to be an answer in that it indicates the reasons are ones of fashion and popularity rather than any real, technical differences between browsers.

Now we know at least a portion of FireFox users are semi-illiterate Digg frequenters who use it because they think it's "cool."

.
 
nick9191 said:
...If your looking at porn.

If your browsing the web in IE, you don't just get suddenly shafted with millions of cookies and spyware, it happens when you visit either porn sites, or sites by people trying to make an easy buck by filling there sites with adverts (see above). And most of it is just cookies and the like, do a Clear Browsing history and its gone.

I don't like Firefox, never have done. It looks bad, it has terrible memory leaks under Windows, and its slow http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/FirefoxMyths.html
Click to expand...

You forgot about warez sites. Besides, who really wants to switch browsers just to visit another site?

Firefox's look is quite customizable; you can even make it look like IE, Opera, or Safari. And in case you didn't notice, most memory leaks are rapidly disappearing with each new test version of FF3. Actually, some developers and bloggers claim the "leaks" are the result of caching more pages than the user probably wants.

Your reference for "myths" is hopelessly out of date and inaccurate. For one thing, no one who is knowledgeable (to my knowledge) has every claimed that FF has no bugs. The claim is that it has fewer bugs, and whatever bugs it has are being fixed rapidly.

Of course, I or anyone else could go on and on about exactly what the truth is behind the supposed myths and the supposed realities behind those myths as listed on that page. It's really up to the OP to decide based on fair and balanced information.
 
I prefer Webkit myself, using it for my main browser on my macbook and iMac . Guess I'm kinda a nerd, I like checking out the the new stuff that is added to it. I do have Firefox 3 rc 2 installed and use it some too. Used to be a big fan of firefox in my windows days and still am, a successful Internet explorer isn't any good for anybody other then Microsoft. As for the for mentioned Opera browser never really like it much, and never understood why all the hubbub about it.
 
uaaerospace said:
[...]I don't navigate to questionable sites, so the security is not a problem. [...]
Click to expand...

Famous last words.

If you visit Slashdot regularly you may notice recurring news about how advert-serving companies are being pwnd (that is a technical term :) ), causing questionable content to be injected (another one) in clients' banners. You may be looking at a banner for something interesting and apparently harmless on a favourite site of yours, and when you click the banner you're redirected to a spoof site, or better, you run a script that you are not aware of (and get pwnd!) and a fraction of a second later your browser proceeds to the intended destination.

http://blog.trendmicro.com/even-trusted-websites-can-get-compromised/

I wish all software was so convenient and effective as malware is these days!

I understand that IE has improved a lot in recent versions, but without flashblock, adblockplus and noscript the potential danger is there as it was before just because of the sheer number of clueless users that are potential targets.
 
clevin said:
2. single window mode, even with safaristand, safari is unable to open some links in a new tab, (try protopage.com)
Click to expand...

Open up a terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

:)
 
Diaresi said:
Open up a terminal and type:

defaults write com.apple.Safari TargetedClicksCreateTabs -bool true

:)
Click to expand...
thanks for the tip.

for the sake of OP's spirit

Firefox has way more settings that are way more easier to access than terminal.

Also, how do windows users do this?
 
I'm using Opera 9.5 at the moment due to the fact FireFox 3.0 doesn't support the eBay listing designer. I have to exit out of FF3 and open FF2 just so I can edit my listing in the little white box. This is a pain since normally I have quite a few tabs open on other sites doing things. Safari 3 doesn't have support either though so both of them are in the same boat. Opera 9.5 works just fine.
 
Ok I've got a question for you Safari users. How do you get the rest of your bookmarks to show up in the Bookmarks drop down? I click the Bookmarks tab and nothing is there except the Bookmarks Bar folder. I have to click on Show All Bookmarks to get to bookmarks I've made.
 
burningrave101 said:
I'm using Opera 9.5 at the moment due to the fact .... I have to exit out of FF3 and open FF2 just so ....
Click to expand...

Create separate profile, and you'll be able to use FF2 simultaneously with FF3.
In fact you had to, because FF3 changes/converts a lot of stuff, when it takes over profile from FF2.
 
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