Is Firefox Dead Already?

In latest and upcoming releases Firefox took more existing addons and shipped it natively.

One example is showing some kind of bookmarks or most used pages when opening a blank new tab. This will be integrated in Firefox 3.5 and can now be used taking the addon speeddial. Chrome does this already.

This is a good way, but I agree with you, that it could ship more of those useful (for everyone) addons.

I also totally agree with those performance issues, but this is something developers work on and I hope they will be successful.

Additionally I want to say that I believe in Open Source Software and therefore find it very important to have an open browser as a “big player”.

I will continue using firefox and encouraging people to do it.

I agree - a Chrome release on Ubuntu would be brilliant, but when should we expect it? They apparently started work on it just before the BETA release on Windows, so, where’s our BETA.

Firefox is disgusting me on 9.04 at the minute - I actually think IE runs faster in XP on the same machine…

I have no performance problems with FF on Windows, and this without much tweaking.
FF is dear to my heart for mainly one reason : with the about 50 extensions I’ve installed, I can do just exactly what I want, the way I want.
I’m not going to have these extensions in Chrome now, am I ?

Recommend to upgrade the memory on your Linux Box.

I must say that Firefox works great on my Ubuntu 8.04 install…. so far it’s the best Linux browser to hit my box. Chrome has not overly impressed me on Windows, and I don’t see it killing Firefox on Linux.

JFK: You are right, 3 gigs on a Dual-Core Intel CPU with Verizon FiOS broadband 20/20 is just too slow, what was I smoking? Oh, wait….I have a pretty decent system.

As I said clear as day - GOOGLE IT. ;)

Matt: Try 1 more Gig for a total of 4Gig and test. I’m serious. A Gig of DDR mem. costs less than a pack of cigs. today. One more Gig never hurt no computer. -JFK

JFK: More RAM does not fix the caching/backlinking that is creating the resource bleed Firefox 3.x and up.

Considering the tweaks linked above solve the problem, it seems apparent to me that 4Gigs of RAM to run a browser is beyond silly, it is unneeded.

Thanks for the input, but I wholeheartedly disagree.

Matt: My suggestion assumed that you were loading Linux into RAM and not a hdd. Otherwise on my 1Gig machine, WIN XP and 1.8ghz AMD TBird - Firefox runs just great. I’d clear the cache and test to see if that improves things. If it does, than increase your cache size. Caching/backlinking goes into memory so your primary resource (memory) is the thing that’s bleeding and Firefox is the knife that is causing the wound. Those memory leaks were fixed in F3.0 in WIN XP. The biggest announcement for F3.0 was fixing the memory leak and addressing it’s cache size. But Linux has yet to see the day that it is the most reliable O/S around. Still most businesses don’t use Linux for compatibility reasons. It’s just too risky and fair to say, buggy.

As long as Google sucks the “where I’ve Been” and “Where I’m going” out of Chrome, it will never be my default browser. And at this point, they DO use Chrome to track web activity and have no intent to stop.

I really hope people used chrome before commenting. Firefox was great and out performed IE extremely well. However if you just compare load times, as well as javascript capabilities, chrome is easily faster. Memory or no memory, chrome is much faster… The only problem is that chrome has some bugs, some to developers that could cause many hours wasted if not aware of chrome bugs. While firefox has been out so long many of its bugs are fixed or aware… however I am almost certain there is still a memory leak somewhere.

Chrome has a LONG way to go before it gets the market share of Firefox. On any platform.

I have used Chrome for a good week now, and I must say, I have never used FF again in my Windows Machine.

I find the slow startup time of FF on my machine a bit annoying. And I already have a dual core 3GB system.

Chrome on the other hand is really snappy.

I think Chrome is going to do to the browser market what it did for email, i.e. dominate.

http://dmiessler.com/blog/why-i-think-google-chrome-will-be-highly-successful

ok. i use ubuntu 8.10 with firefox at times, and it works well. it works better than in vista. specs: 4 GB of DDR2 800Mhz, Pentium Dual-Core at 2.5 Ghz, and a 320 GB HDD 7200 RPM. i never have to tweak my firefox beyond moving the back/forward icons and such to where i like them. sorry matt, but it works well for me.

the real question should be who is really pushing the need for more ram? MS or FF or any other programs?

We know that one point gaming on you PC wa waht made foe better video cards but not sure that is so true these days with game boxes now. I can go to 8gigs of ram if I could get my OS to see it ..why? I don;t run Vista never will
I not sure if Linux would supported it but again doe this help with cashing of the browser? It you have your system set up with a good CPU and good size video card and ram on the MB and Video you are good to go.
You biggest set back is how your OS manages your memory and cashing of files and that can such if you have too many running in the background. I clean so much junk out of systems that kill your memory or slow things down. FF is great i use it as I did Netscape and I don’t use IE is any version.

CC

I tried Google Chrome for about 5 minutes. I hated it, and uninstalled it.

Chrome is NOT Chrome, so why do they call it that?!

Chrome reminded me of a flat version of IE… I hate IE.

I use Firefox on my Macintosh and PCs.

JFK: Actually, some distros are buggy while others are rock solid. Ubuntu is a cutting edge distro, hence, can be buggy.

Debian among others however, are hardly unstable. All of this being said, managed, I have seen over and over Ubuntu used in businesses and entire segments of individual governments (Canada, France, the UK, etc). The key, is the right modifications post installation. Rather than paying a single software vendor to do our thinking for us. :)

I use Ubuntu full time, exclusively.

Anything one does on Windows, I am willing to bet I can duplicate easily with /very/ few exceptions. I have surprised other Linux users with how much I can do with hardly any effort on an Ubuntu box. I am by definition, a total Linux user. My wife is the Mac user in the house, though. :P

As far as I am concerned, the Firefox leak issues are not truly “fixed” for Linux, as I am able to fix my own slow down and then the browser works fine with great stability. Oddly, when using Firefox in WINE, it runs faster than the unmodified Firefox natively. But again, if I do the tweaks listed above, it runs just fine in Linux.

Just would be nice to the see the Mozilla team that does the Linux version making these tweaks out of the box as clearly, I am not the only one with these experiences and they yield no speed increase, either.

Yes, clearly having massive RAM is neat, but hardly practical or realistic for an OS that does not need a hardware upgrade with each release. ;)

Just my own experiences though. But a great discussion nonetheless.

I’m really impressed with Chrome it’s interface and usability!
I agree, firefox has to be tweaked before it matches the other browsers, but for my linux ubuntu, it works fine!

I prefer Chrome within Windows above safari, IE (*ffcourse), firefox, …)

I hope it comes out for linux, i think it would fit within it.

I don’t think the entire FF development community is going to sit back and watch Chrome take over? FF adjusts to meet the needs of its users and I don’t think the speed issues or RAM issues are any different. Everyone loved Firefox until Chrome came out with something a little different. Firefox’s features still beat out Chrome tenfold for me. I prefer to have my browser the way I want it and the increased functionality saves me so much more time than “faster speeds” would any day. I’d rather buy a $25 stick of RAM, upgrade my hard drive or get FIOS to get faster speeds while browsing.

The only thing Chrome will have over FF is Privacy Issues and seamless integration with Google services…

As Alan Bleiweiss said Google uses Chrome to track web activity. It’s one of the main reasons I don’t use it personally. There is no disputing the fact that Chrome is fast, but it lacks customization. On top of that it is far less secure than Firefox. It uses an older version of webkit which has more holes than a sieve. Even if it did use the newer webkit that has these holes fixed Firefox can be customized for greater security through add-ons. Plus firefox can be made to make using the web a better experience.

I use Firefox on my Linux partition and XP partition and am willing to deal with a few bugs for a better experience. This is a preference issue and everyone is entitled t use what they wish. Experiences vary based on what you expect from a browser. Some will prefer Chromes lighter weight and speed; others will enjoy Firefoxs customization.