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charlieg
August 16th, 2007, 11:03 PM
I installed Opera today. It may be closed source, but it's a breath of fresh air - fast, snappy, simple. Innovative features (speed dial, notes) and a clean, minimal UI. In general it just works and is a lovely UI experience.

Firefox... what happened to you? Consuming gross amounts of memory, slower and slower as releases go by. You were supposed to be a slim browser (http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/009698.html) usurping Mozilla by virtue of simplicity, shedding the feature creep and lack of engineering that had convoluted the Mozilla suite. Now you have become the very thing you were created to kill: a bloated browser.

Lord Illidan
August 16th, 2007, 11:06 PM
I don't like Opera that much, dunno why, I seem to be attached to FF too much, but you're right..it has become one of the most bloated apps on Linux right now..pity.

picpak
August 16th, 2007, 11:33 PM
Firefox has been added to my list of programs that make me cringe when opening them. The other two are OpenOffice.org and GIMP, because these programs take too long to open and can be generally slow when using them. OpenOffice and GIMP have had significant speed increases lately; Firefox, however, gets slower each release.

kiddo
August 16th, 2007, 11:51 PM
Firefox has been added to my list of programs that make me cringe when opening them. The other two are OpenOffice.org and GIMP, because these programs take too long to open and can be generally slow when using them. OpenOffice and GIMP have had significant speed increases lately; Firefox, however, gets slower each release.

Try Epiphany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany_%28browser%29), it's gnome's official browser and it is available in synaptic. And it's fast. I am curious to see if, in some near future, they would switch from the xulrunner/gecko backend to webkit and if it would enhance performance.

rocknrolf77
August 16th, 2007, 11:57 PM
Then maybe use seamonkey/iceape, it's compatible with some of the firefox addons like adblock etc. And it's A LOT faster. It has integrated mail, httml composer and irc. (It's the new (old) mozilla suite)

ThinkBuntu
August 17th, 2007, 12:12 AM
I still love using Firefox :^)

Yes, it could use some improvement, and yes, I'd gladly switch to Epiphany if:


I could use FireFTP in it
I could get the Google search bar and Web Dev. toolbar for it
it had easier keyboard shortcuts
It let me edit said shortcuts
It were to let me edit any settings! Very few options...

picpak
August 17th, 2007, 01:06 AM
Epiphany feels weird to me every time I use it. I think it's all that Gnomeness, lol.

I use Opera, and I love it.

tdrusk
August 17th, 2007, 01:12 AM
I've been using FF for about 3 years. It only takes about 2 seconds to open and it runs great for me.

I'm attached to it too.

PrimoTurbo
August 17th, 2007, 01:32 AM
I use firefox because I cannot stand anything else, I don't have speed issues with firefox either.

kerry_s
August 17th, 2007, 02:13 AM
I was thinking the exact same thing, it just keeps getting more & more bloated. I finally said screw it & grabbed firefox from DSL, they still use the good'ol 1.0.6 version, tweaked for low end comp's like mine.

crimesaucer
August 17th, 2007, 02:20 AM
I use Swiftfox and Swiftweasel....and lately I think Swiftfox is the faster of the two...and I have both of them configured in about:config using the same exact settings, as well as the same amount of extensions, and NO installed themes.

I also have Firefox 3 on my Windows Xp, and I think it is way faster then Firefox 2.0.0.6...so as soon as Swiftfox 3 comes out, it hopefully will be even faster than now.

Opera is good/fast, Epiphany is fast...but Opera lacks gtk-2.0 for my themes, and Epiphany does feel weird as picpak stated. I also hate how the tabbed browsing and search engine is in Epiphany and Opera...and I hate those Opera widgets.

Opera might be pretty cool to use if you use QT themes? But I don't use KDE so I wouldn't know.

sumguy231
August 17th, 2007, 02:39 AM
Priorities change. This thread makes me glad my computer isn't such a piece of crap that it can't run Firefox. Nor are any of the desktop computers in my house, some of which are pretty old to still be in use as desktop machines. In fact, I've seen Firefox run on PIIs. The trick is to not install too many extensions until it keels over. My computer's Firefox profile is kinda loaded down because my computer can handle that. But on an older system, it's wise to remember that extensions use memory and other resources too. Some of them, even the better ones, can be resource hogs. (FoxyTunes, ForecastFox, Adblock Plus...)

crimesaucer
August 17th, 2007, 02:55 AM
Speaking of Opera, did anyone see this Opera theme from the Lifehacker thread:
http://lifehacker.com/software/screenshot-tour/show-us-your-non+firefox-browser-285063.php


I like the tabs and tab-bar of that theme, the two themes that have transparent tabs:
1): http://lifehacker.com/photogallery/Show-Us-Your-Non_Firefox-Browser/2293557?viewSize=thumb800x800
2): http://lifehacker.com/photogallery/Show-Us-Your-Non_Firefox-Browser/2293677?viewSize=thumb800x800

ThinkBuntu
August 17th, 2007, 03:20 AM
What I would love are tabs that are transparent over the webpage...save 10-20px of vertical space. Just a thin line around them (translucent) and shadow around transparent text. The very top of a page seldom has anything of use (very rarely it will have a couple links, but these, just like in this forum, are far enough down to not be covered) and there could be an easy way to hide the tabs if that top part needed to be accessed.

Dimitriid
August 17th, 2007, 03:46 AM
Epiphany works great, no memory leaks that ive noticed so far. If I could only get bookmarks in order other than alphabetical, annoys the heck out of me to try to search my bookmarks some of em years old and I know their place by memory on firefox but cant set em right.

Basically the only thing keeping me from switching completely to epiphany ( I think extensions are overrated )

Xanatos Craven
August 17th, 2007, 04:09 AM
Opera is good/fast, Epiphany is fast...but Opera lacks gtk-2.0 for my themes, and Epiphany does feel weird as picpak stated. I also hate how the tabbed browsing and search engine is in Epiphany and Opera...and I hate those Opera widgets.

Opera might be pretty cool to use if you use QT themes? But I don't use KDE so I wouldn't know.
Actually, Opera 9.5 (which should be released soon, AFAIK) will be based on Qt 4, which should give it a more native look and feel in GNOME, even if it is just the Clearlooks theme. Dunno why Trolltech can't just have Qt adapt to GTK themes completely like it already does for OS X and Windows... but it's better than nothing, I guess.

Currently a Firefox user here (it's the lesser of evils for me and not too slow), but I might switch to Opera 9.5 or any decent WebKit-based browser that appears.

crimesaucer
August 17th, 2007, 04:30 AM
Epiphany works great, no memory leaks that ive noticed so far. If I could only get bookmarks in order other than alphabetical, annoys the heck out of me to try to search my bookmarks some of em years old and I know their place by memory on firefox but cant set em right.

Basically the only thing keeping me from switching completely to epiphany ( I think extensions are overrated )

I only have useful extensions...as for me, I only have 22 extension installed, and 5 disabled out of a possible 27 extensions.

I won't name all of my add-ons, but the ones I use are all very useful like: Tabs Mix Plus, Adblock Plus, Adblock Filterset, Fasterfox, Cute Menus, BetterSearch, ForecastFox Enhanced, Gmail Manager, Gmail Space, GreaseMonkey, Stylish, Ubuntu Forums Menu, StumbleUpon, and MediaPlayerConnectivity...etc.

sstusick
August 17th, 2007, 04:47 AM
I personally think Firefox has gotten better. It use to crash on me quite often, but now, since 2.0+, not so much at all.

I agree, Firefox is a memory hog, but it hasn't been an issue for me. The plug-ins/add-on's are great tools, which I find very useful.

As for Opera... in my experience, you're lucky if it ever displays web pages right...and it has crashed on me more than Firefox and IE combined.
I am too used to Firefox, and I'll be damned if I'm going to change now.

crimesaucer
August 17th, 2007, 05:00 AM
I personally think Firefox has gotten better. It use to crash on me quite often, but now, since 2.0+, not so much at all.

I agree, Firefox is a memory hog, but it hasn't been an issue for me. The plug-ins/add-on's are great tools, which I find very useful.

As for Opera... in my experience, you're lucky if it ever displays web pages right...and it has crashed on me more than Firefox and IE combined.
I am too used to Firefox, and I'll be damned if I'm going to change now.

Using the Tabs Mix Plus extension, I just keep my Cache empty so it can load pages faster...all I have to do is hit shift+ctrl+delete-->--then "enter", and my /home/blah/.mozilla/firefox/th11a80d.default/Cache is cleared...that way it seems faster when loading new pages. (just make sure you have "browser.cache.disk.parent_directory" set to the correct path in your about config.)

I also restart my machine if I dip into my Linux SWAP file because that slows my Swiftfox down a lot...like if I view all of 50 pages of my Photobucket pictures at once, that large of a page dips into my Linux SWAP file and then my Browser starts to feel much slower. I found restarting the computer is the only thing that helps...

K.Mandla
August 17th, 2007, 05:34 AM
Kazehakase (http://packages.ubuntu.com/feisty/web/kazehakase) is worth looking at, although the version in the Feisty repos is mired at 0.4.2, and there have been considerable changes since then.

I use it in Arch (v0.4.7), and it's a dream compared to Firefox the slug.

maniacmusician
August 17th, 2007, 06:21 AM
Actually, Opera 9.5 (which should be released soon, AFAIK) will be based on Qt 4, which should give it a more native look and feel in GNOME, even if it is just the Clearlooks theme. Dunno why Trolltech can't just have Qt adapt to GTK themes completely like it already does for OS X and Windows... but it's better than nothing, I guess.

Currently a Firefox user here (it's the lesser of evils for me and not too slow), but I might switch to Opera 9.5 or any decent WebKit-based browser that appears.
Sorry, but that's not Qt's fault; rather, it's Gnome's, for not giving its users any tools to make Qt apps look better in Gnome. Someone did this for KDE (creating a tool to make GTK apps look decent in KDE), but it hasn't been done for Gnome, unfortunately.

In Windows and Mac environments, I don't think it's Qt that does the native-style rendering...I think that in Macs, Aqua just takes over the rendering from Qt, and the Windows environment must do the same. Maybe I'm mistaken, but I always thought that this is the way it was.

A-Sylum
August 17th, 2007, 06:36 AM
the only thing i miss from windows is internet explorer. Ah that was so great! it was so fast! but you could try konqueror, epiphany, and even swiftfox is good (its a lighter version of firefox)

does anybody know if wine can run the newest ie?

Polygon
August 17th, 2007, 06:38 AM
firefox 3 is supposed to address the speed problem.

opera is fine, except opera + flash = bad, and its closed source, no extensions.... looks ugly... the file browsing window sucks

and the opera themes are fewer and less nice looking then the firefox themes.

treis
August 17th, 2007, 06:45 AM
Three things keep me hooked on firefox:

(1) StumbleUpon

(2) BugMeNot

(3) UndoCloseTab

Those are the three things that I can't find in any other browser.

KoRnholio
August 17th, 2007, 06:56 AM
Swiftfox runs much faster than Firefox (at least as fast as Epiphany on my system), and its completely interchangeable, so I use that. I honestly don't know why anyone on Linux uses regular Firefox - Swiftfox is just an optimized build of Firefox for Linux, and it runs so much faster - it starts in half the time of Firefox on my laptop.

aysiu
August 17th, 2007, 03:36 PM
I honestly don't know why anyone on Linux uses regular Firefox - Swiftfox is just an optimized build of Firefox for Linux, and it runs so much faster - it starts in half the time of Firefox on my laptop. On your laptop--exactly.

On my laptop and on my desktop, I see no speed advantage in "Swift"fox. It operates exactly the same way Firefox does.

Not everyone gets the same results. So in answer to your wonderings "I honestly don't know why anyone..." it's because we do not all see a speed difference with Swiftfox.

LaRoza
August 17th, 2007, 03:44 PM
the only thing i miss from windows is internet explorer.

I never heard that before, I never use IE except when testing my pages.

Ozor Mox
August 17th, 2007, 03:58 PM
I don't have any real problems with Firefox. It launches quite fast. It's currently using 61.5 MB of memory, which is the highest for any application open at the moment but not a problem with 512 MB of RAM (which is hardly high-end). Flash and Java plugins work reasonably well. I only have a couple of other plugins installed (namely MediaPlayerConnectivity and British English spell checker) and they work fine. It crashes maybe a couple of times a week, presumably because of the Flash plugin, but thanks to restore previous session, this sets me back by all of about 10 seconds.

I still think I might give Opera or Epiphany a go though, just to see what they're like, but I'll almost certainly stick with Firefox.

juxtaposed
August 17th, 2007, 03:59 PM
Iceweasel is the only program on my linux installation to cause problems often. It freezes for like a minute often when going to a new page, opening a new tab, etc, and sometimes it crashes. It's annoying, but heh.

Nexus...
August 17th, 2007, 04:03 PM
I have no problems with speed on FF or anything, people might be experiencing speed deficiances because of all of the add-ons they are using...

adityakavoor
August 17th, 2007, 04:11 PM
i love firefox:popcorn:

picpak
August 17th, 2007, 04:39 PM
Opera might be pretty cool to use if you use QT themes? But I don't use KDE so I wouldn't know.

Opera is easy to theme: I made one that matches the Carbonit theme and nuoveXT icons (http://my.opera.com/community/customize/skins/info/?id=6946).

Sunflower1970
August 17th, 2007, 05:27 PM
firefox 3 is supposed to address the speed problem.

I use Firefox 3 pre alpha 8 and IMHO it does feel faster than 2.0...

starcraft.man
August 17th, 2007, 06:23 PM
LOL! Another Firefox bashing thread... can't all you guys wait until 3?

charlieg
August 18th, 2007, 12:10 AM
(3) UndoCloseTab

Those are the three things that I can't find in any other browser.
Opera has a trashcan in the topright - it's a dropdown of the latest tabs that you closed.

Another thing... why does Firefox obscure tabs initially? No 'new tab' button in the default UI and hides 1 tab by default. First thing I do when ever I install Firefox is add that new tab button and set tabs to always show. The way Opera presents tabs by default is much better.

There are things that suck about Opera -- the file browsing UI and some pages don't work so well but the vast majority do. And it being closed source.

HermanAB
August 18th, 2007, 12:14 AM
The first law of thermodynamics: Entropy always increases.

I think FF is great and use it every day, but it can do with a rewrite yet again.

capink
August 18th, 2007, 12:33 AM
All my problems with firefox are gone after getting rid of ubuntu firefox and installing the binaries form mozilla website. I used to have a lot of crashes with ubuntu firefox, but now, with mozilla firefox I have not experienced any crash for months. Just Don't forget to delete the extensions that come with the mozilla binaries and it will be fine.

Frak
August 18th, 2007, 12:40 AM
Anybody even tried 3.0 (Deer Park) version of Fx, its just like 2.0.0.x but its much faster.
Its not a release because its alpha.

P.S. I've been able to get all extensions to work with it via a simple edit of the config script within the extension installer files.

EDIT
Also as you can see, I'm a Firefox (Fx) fan. :)

proalan
August 18th, 2007, 01:22 AM
Is there a way of using Firefox plugins on seamonkey?

Its the closest thing to firefox when it was in its prime being fast and less resource hungry. Feels kind of quirky using a web developing tool for web browsing.

Time for firefox to be rewritten from scratch i think, the memory leak problem probably stems all the way from the original releases. And from my experience with C++ its difficult to solve memory leak problems by patching and it is more effective starting over.

Frak
August 18th, 2007, 01:36 AM
I thought all Fx extensions ran natively on Seamonkey?

Frenezo
August 18th, 2007, 01:50 AM
Epiphany works great, no memory leaks that ive noticed so far. If I could only get bookmarks in order other than alphabetical, annoys the heck out of me to try to search my bookmarks some of em years old and I know their place by memory on firefox but cant set em right.

Basically the only thing keeping me from switching completely to epiphany ( I think extensions are overrated )


Epiphany is really fast - but why dont they allow me to switch on the download speed display? Thats really absurd imho! :lolflag:

picpak
August 18th, 2007, 02:07 AM
There are things that suck about Opera -- the file browsing UI and some pages don't work so well but the vast majority do. And it being closed source.

I vastly prefer Opera's file browsing UI. At least I can rename and delete files...

proalan
August 18th, 2007, 02:08 AM
I thought all Fx extensions ran natively on Seamonkey?

I suppose I should have given it a try before my previous posting. Just installed a few extensions and all works nicely. I'm not sure how much the plugins affect the performance overall but seamonkey is definitely more resource friendly and starts up faster than Firefox.

ErikTheRed
August 18th, 2007, 02:24 AM
I'm in agreement with most of the other posts in here, I switched to Opera recently and am loving the speed and simplicity. The only thing I really miss is the extensive amount of extensions and plugins that are available for Firefox.

picpak
August 18th, 2007, 02:45 AM
The only thing I really miss is the extensive amount of extensions and plugins that are available for Firefox.

You get used to it.

Flash is there, and you can use Mozplugger and MPlayer for music and video. For Java, go to Preferences > Advanced > Content, check "Enable Java", click on "Java Options" and put in /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-sun-1.6.0.00/jre/lib/i386/ (replace 1.6.0.00 with your version of Java; you can find out which in /usr/lib/jvm).

For Adblock, there's urlfilter.ini (http://my.opera.com/Tamil/blog/ad-block).

I find myself replicating Opera in Firefox, not the other way around.

Mr. Picklesworth
August 18th, 2007, 05:56 AM
+1 for Epiphany. Really hoping for that WebKit back-end soon, though.

All sorts of Firefox / XUL junk leaks over to Epiphany somehow, resulting in horrible stuff like the Firefox "download this file?" window appearing in some cases, or messages saying things such as "Firefox doesn't know how to open this address." I am still unsure who I can blame that one on, but it is fugly and it consumes precious resources.

EdThaSlayer
August 18th, 2007, 07:49 AM
When firefox starts, it may be slow, but when it actually is running its fast and snappy. Personally, I can't imagine using a browser other than firefox.

mrgnash
August 18th, 2007, 08:35 AM
As much as I'd love to love Firefox, it really has been too unstable and slow for me of late, so I've been using Epiphany... which is great, except for the way it handles tabs (usually opens link in a new window, and tabs also disappear at either end of the window and you have to use the cumbersome arrow things in order to find them again). On the suggestion of one of the posters in this thread I'm going to try Iceape -- I've tried just about everything else, after all.

kperkins
August 18th, 2007, 12:59 PM
Three things keep me hooked on firefox:

(1) StumbleUpon

(2) BugMeNot

(3) UndoCloseTab

Those are the three things that I can't find in any other browser.
there's a bugmenot widget for Opera:
http://widgets.opera.com/widget/4172
you can undo a closed tab by clicking on the trash icon on the right side of the browser (depends on theme I suppose) and choosing which tab to reopen.
and there is a stumbleupon in the works for Opera.

angryfirelord
August 18th, 2007, 01:25 PM
Kazehakase (http://packages.ubuntu.com/feisty/web/kazehakase) is worth looking at, although the version in the Feisty repos is mired at 0.4.2, and there have been considerable changes since then.

I use it in Arch (v0.4.7), and it's a dream compared to Firefox the slug.
I can't even pronounce it!

Very snappy indeed.

Hairy_Palms
August 18th, 2007, 06:02 PM
anyone use galeon? its like epiphany but better imo, but firefox is still my main browser, i really like opera, but imo the linux version of opera sucks, but on windows i use opera no questions.

darksong
August 18th, 2007, 06:15 PM
last time i used opera i kept getting add banners which are intergrated into the top of the browser and i hear there is a lack of flash support which i need.

Untill they get rid of the adverts (if they are still in) and get flash support i will not use it. Firefox on this PC loads instantly and is not slow so i see no reason to switch to opera.

miggols99
August 18th, 2007, 06:29 PM
Opera has removed the ads. I never saw it with ads, but I'm happy they're not there anymore. About flash...well I think it works ok...

EDIT: I use Firefox in Gnome/Xfce and Konqueror in KDE

Andrewie
August 18th, 2007, 08:32 PM
wouldn't opera be the same on all operating systems. I thought QT was fully portable. I'm on opera now and I don't see any ads

Happy_Man
August 18th, 2007, 08:36 PM
I installed Opera today. It may be closed source, but it's a breath of fresh air - fast, snappy, simple. Innovative features (speed dial, notes) and a clean, minimal UI. In general it just works and is a lovely UI experience.

Firefox... what happened to you? Consuming gross amounts of memory, slower and slower as releases go by. You were supposed to be a slim browser (http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/009698.html) usurping Mozilla by virtue of simplicity, shedding the feature creep and lack of engineering that had convoluted the Mozilla suite. Now you have become the very thing you were created to kill: a bloated browser.
Of course. Opera is hands-down the best browser out there. I used to use Firefox, but ever since 2.0, it has gotten really slow. And there are things I can't live without, such as Speed Dial, that I really need. So those are my reasons.

Although, Firefox 3 has gotten much better. Still not on par, though, and as I use KDE, Opera loads up faster. Go figure.

ronak
August 18th, 2007, 08:42 PM
I love firefox and even though it does have a memory problem, there are some config tweaks (Google: "Firefox Memory Tweaks") that can be made to make the experience more tolerable.

charlieg
August 19th, 2007, 03:14 PM
I love firefox and even though it does have a memory problem, there are some config tweaks (Google: "Firefox Memory Tweaks") that can be made to make the experience more tolerable.
You shouldn't have to tweak something for it to become more usable. Sane defaults... e.g. why is the 'new tab' button not there by default in Firefox? To somebody alien to the concept of tabs, Firefox is wierd because it hides tabs when there is only 1 tab (i.e. the UI changes, which confuses new users) and then when you do start using tabs you have to tweak the UI yourself to add this button. It took my dad a few months to really understand tabs in Firefox - it wasn't until I "corrected" the Firefox defaults that he truly got the concept.

Many people have busy lives and don't have time to learn things and tweak them. They want their PCs to "just work" and will simply use the way they know works for them if a different way seems confusing or intimidating.

BeardlessForeigner
September 20th, 2007, 02:35 AM
I do get annoyed when firefox takes up to 5 sec or so to load, but that is the only time i see any slowness, only happens usually at the beginning of my x session. And the reason I notice it is because I seem to remember instant FF loading when I first installed Ubuntu. But I had no extensions then, and now I have around 8, so that could be it. And as far as I understand, a simple adjustment to a setting in about:config can limit the memory FF takes up, which can be huge because it contains every page from your current session for fast re-accessing.
I am considering trying epiphany or opera, but I don't know what I would do without the Colorful Tabs ext, seriously.

Frak
September 20th, 2007, 04:14 AM
I do have to say though, Fx runs like lightning on all my Mac's. (But I do think its coded slightly differently, i.e. Aqua, not X11)

lisati
September 20th, 2007, 04:25 AM
I like Firefox & Open Office because there are versions for Linux & Windows....I might even get back to thunderbird one day, for similar reasons, now that the plug has been pulled for Eudora.

Rupertronco
September 20th, 2007, 04:34 AM
Firefox is a dog when compared to the new Opera beta (9.5). This computer is about 2 weeks old and I spent way too much money on it (college loans are sweet), and I still feel a noticable difference between Opera and Firefox. It's borderline ridiculous how much faster Opera is.

I can't stand the inability to have multiple homepages in tabs, but speed dial has me getting over it pretty quickly.

multifaceted
September 20th, 2007, 04:34 AM
Yes, I would have to agree.... FF has fattened up since I first started using it in it's infancy. However, some of the extensions like NoScript (http://noscript.net/) for example, are essential for safe browsing.

I did try Opera for a while as an auxiliary in lieu of the blase IE. It was fast and had some neat-o features however, it renders pages uniquely and I never quite got used to it. You can load Opera up with a ton of add-ons like FF and possibly, even make it just as cumbersome.

I'll stick with Firefox... at least until I see how the third rendition will behave!

lupin492
September 20th, 2007, 08:24 PM
I usually run FF and Opera on my Athlon @750MHz (may be it is the granny of your PCs :-) )
I feel Opera is a bit faster than FF, but to my sad I found that some web pages do not render very well when they have flash video players embedded, for example) . It just happens with many of these pages, but not all.
So, I sometimes find myself "jumping" between browsers.
Regards :)