Renegade — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 08:31:35 +0000

Ok, spend a few minutes "tweaking" my new FF installation. However, it still doesn't explain why FF became slower...

A1SiteNames.com — Sun, 16 Jul 2006 23:46:02 +0000

I hate resorting to analogies, but... If you could choose between a car that goes really really fast and has some nice features, or a car that goes mid-speed but comes with options of CD player, air-con, airbags, GPS navigation, power steering, power brakes, sunroof, cruise control, etc, etc. - and with only 10 minutes work, it goes almost as fast as the fast car!

Firefox is built around the idea of complete customization, so 10 minutes of speed tweaking is not a big deal for most users. I think the 3rd party extensions are the main reason that most people use Firefox, customization and tweaking is all part of the experience. Of course it should as fast as possible out of the box, but the developers are working very hard, and if it's not fast enough then you could become a contributor to get things better faster I've been using Opera for almost 10 years, and it's great software - but Firefox's extendability has completely changed and bettered my browsing experience. If you spend a lot of time browsing, it's surely worth the time and effort to fine-tune your browser, no matter how long it takes - even if it took 10 hours, it would be worth it in the long run, IMHO. This is from the perspective of webmasters of course, for end-users I'm not at all sure that Firefox out of the box is the best choice. But for people whose career or income depend on browsing, I think Firefox's extendability means there is no competition.

Renegade — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 23:50:22 +0000

If FF needs that much tweaking to get it to work properly then it isn't good enough IMHO. It should already be running that fast out of the box.

A1SiteNames.com — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 23:45:30 +0000

I think you can definitely improve both load time and page rendering, it's just a matter of tweaking. For a start, try the program and the extension that I mentioned before. Using both of them, you should notice an immediate improvement.

Also here's instructions that may help to speed up load time (although probably won't work until after a reboot) :

[INDENT]Right-click on the Firefox icon you use to start the browser, and add the text /Prefetch:1 to the end of the line in the target field.
The whole line should look something like the following:
“C:\Program Files\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe” /Prefetch:1[/INDENT]

Opera work fast and has a lot of features 'out of the box', and Firefox may require more work to get it to the same level, but ultimately I think it's worth the extra effort because Firefox will only get stronger over time, and since it's open source there are continually more and better extensions available, including many that offer niche features that will never be in Opera, and are great for suiting your individual working needs.

Renegade — Sat, 15 Jul 2006 06:48:14 +0000

Sorry, I was talking about program load time and page rendering time. Either way, I have noticed a pretty big dip in speed when compared to versions mentioned before.

If this keeps up, I may have to move over to Opera...

JeevesBond — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 21:21:32 +0000

Firegirl wrote: Thanks! Will check it out. I'm just now moving past IE to experience more browsers, so sometimes I have no idea what you guys are talking about!

Glad to hear you're moving away from the dredgery of IE! Other browsers have far more to offer, not only better features but better web standards support.

If the whole world moved over to Opera or Firefox Web Designers would have a much easier job.

Go2DirectAds — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 17:03:05 +0000

Im a firefox fan so this is good

Firegirl — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 14:52:06 +0000

Thanks! Will check it out. I'm just now moving past IE to experience more browsers, so sometimes I have no idea what you guys are talking about!

Megan — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 13:23:35 +0000

Roo - there's a web developer extension for Opera now too There's a thread about it here in Webmaster Corner. I was excited It's quite different from the other two though.

Firegirl - Cocoa is the name of a skin for Opera. Do check out the skin installation interface in Opera. If you have it installed, you can go to tools > appearance. Click the "find more skins" button. When you click on a skin it installs instantly so you can get a preview of it before you decide to keep it or not.

Roo — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 02:09:30 +0000

I'm still running FF 1.05. I had installed a newer version quite some time ago, and felt the newer version was slower, so I went back to and have stayed with this version.

I did just do that 'broadband speed boost' thing and am impressed by what it did for Firefox.

The 'new' Netscape 8 has been out for a bit, it's based on FF, but you can also toggle it to render like IE (God knows why anyone would want to though..), anyway to me it's the fastest browser of all of them. The thing is that there are no extentions for it and I love my web developer extention.

I have installed the most recent Opera but haven't had a chance to check it out well yet, what with moving, living out of boxes and babysitting my almost two year old nephew 10 hours a day.