cloudedsunny Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 Ok so I'm usually on a mac and use firefox but it's in for repair and I've been using a PC and HATE IE. So I decided to d/l a new browser BUT here is the thing: My computer literate friend has informed me that firefox sux...he said that when you close a window or tab, the program still keeps the memory for it there, so that by the end of the day with all the tabs you've opened and think you've shut down, it's slow and buggy as anything...or something like that, I'm sure I haven't got the terminology correct. ANNNNYway, so I want to know...is there another browser you can use on mac OR pc, that will block ads the way ad blocker on firefox does? Cos I HATE all these ads, using firefox for so long really spoilt me and I forgot most of them even existed!! But I do realise now that firefox was often slow and buggy for me, and I guess that must be the reason why...I downloaded Opera but want to know if there's any good alternatives? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Eagle Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 Ok so I'm usually on a mac and use firefox but it's in for repair and I've been using a PC and HATE IE. So I decided to d/l a new browser BUT here is the thing: My computer literate friend has informed me that firefox sux...he said that when you close a window or tab, the program still keeps the memory for it there, so that by the end of the day with all the tabs you've opened and think you've shut down, it's slow and buggy as anything...or something like that, I'm sure I haven't got the terminology correct. ANNNNYway, so I want to know...is there another browser you can use on mac OR pc, that will block ads the way ad blocker on firefox does? Cos I HATE all these ads, using firefox for so long really spoilt me and I forgot most of them even existed!! But I do realise now that firefox was often slow and buggy for me, and I guess that must be the reason why...I downloaded Opera but want to know if there's any good alternatives? IE is the main "hate" for nearly all Firefox fans, though version 7 (on Vista) acts just like Firefox. However, it's not that good as Firefox. Your friend stated his personal opinion, which can be based on so many different factors. He can have little RAM on his PC, making Firefox slow (naturally!), bad installation, too many programs in the background (anti-virus, spywares, etc.). You shouldn't take his personal opinion because it really isn't true. On my laptop, with 256 RAM, Kaspersky working in the background, Firefox works perfectly! I guess he's just an IE lover or something. People go to extremes to gain users to use their fav. browsers, and it's happening here. As I have said before, Firefox is the best browser available today. Opers is good, but it doesn't have that much speed as FF. And if nearly the whole world says Firefox is great, why shouldn't you use it? There is my opinion and facts too. Now, you choose. P.S. Firefox is the best for AD Blocking and TDN (we) entirely support it. :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloudedsunny Posted February 17, 2007 Author Share Posted February 17, 2007 I've been using IE version 7. That's the one I don't like :P and I don't really like opera too even though I've only been using it a few hours. It's not as user friendly as firefox was. But yeah I did have lots of probs with firefox...I'll probably go back to it once my mac comes back from the shop unless I find something better. And no, he hates IE too and was a HUGE fanboy of firefox, in fact he recommended to everyone as well!! I don't know about his computer, it may be quite cruddy I'm not sure. And yeah I know it's just an opinion, that's why I brought my problem to the forum to get all YOUR opinions too! Can't trust just one :) But ok I'll repeat what he wrote in one of his blogs for you (highly edited cos he is one foulmouthed IT guy hahaha) cos it shows all his reasons why he stopped using it: - memory holes. badly: firefox uses memory like any other application on your computer. however, firefox does not empty the memory it uses once it is done with it. imagine yor at your desk, writing a book. you suck at writing, so you need to keep changing things in the book. however instead of removing the extra pages of stuff from your book, you leave them there but you just colour the page black. edit a paragraph? leave the original in place, but again, just black over it and continue as opposed to deleting it and starting again. you get your book in the end, but instead of being 120 pages, its 17,000 pages. this is what firefox does to your RAM. you open a new link in a new tab, read it, but the memory that tab used remains allocated once the tab is closed. i have seen firefox use up to 600mb of my memory in this fashion. it does not purge old info out, meaning your computer gets slower and slower as firefox uses all the memory up. same happens (best as i can tell) for autoupdate sites. minor changes load in, but old info stays allocated in memory. all the "about:config" hax i have seen have been tried, memory usage is still through the roof. this has been a problem since v1.0 of firefox, we're up to 2.0.0.1, and the same. problem. exists. i have no idea why mozilla wont fix it, but thats 2 years of poor memory management. i shouldnt even need an about:config tweak to make it go away. its just poor coding. - PDF support: the afforementioned crash was caused by trying to open a PDF document in the browser. i have seen this happen on my win2k system here at home (and yes, i still use 2k, and the only problem this box got is cuz i failed to scan a file before running it. how many of you XP users can say the same?), and my XP system at work in firefox (where im rotinely downloading and opening mobile phone manuals and internal propaganda in PDF format). i have tried rolling all the way back to adobe 5 then back up trying to get around it, always happens, cant be adobe. when a PDF link is clicked it'll precache the document, but come render time firefox freezes unrecoverably (again, i was trying to open a PDF to reference the post i was making earlier). this happens maybe 40% of the time. unacceptable. - autoupdating sites make it break: gmail and most sites that auto update seem to break it after about 6 hours. i have often come back to my computer to find firefox grey screen and frozen. to compare this i opened gmail and smh.com.au side by side in opera and firefox. firefox (edited) itself after about 7 hours, opera is still ticking over merrily now, over 72 hours after i opened the window/sites. i can only assume this comes back to the memory hole mentioned up there. like some creeping death, every update fills that little bit more memory, no doubt its just falling over due to that. i have all installers from firefox 1.0 up to 2.0.0.1, some 7 files on my hdd. i would like to see if all these problems manifest across all releases (i have only been using gmail on 1.5 and 2.0, but the grey screens happen on both), but for such a now mature app i shouldnt need to. people have been screaming on the mozilla dev's forum about the first issue since release 1.0, but it still remains. intertubes exploiter (erm IE I think) and opera dont seem to fall to any of these, and interestingly seamonkey (based on firefox's engine) suffers the same issues, indicating serious base level flaws with the code. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Dan. Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 I haven't read everything posted, but Netscape is a good alternative browser. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Eagle Posted February 17, 2007 Share Posted February 17, 2007 I haven't read everything posted, but Netscape is a good alternative browser. Nope, it's too slow, but it has a wonderful GUI and features. Opera is good for the mainstream user, if you don't want to use FF. Although the memory usage is true, all browsers do this. I've tested this this afternoon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloudedsunny Posted February 18, 2007 Author Share Posted February 18, 2007 Woohoo! I'm back on the mac!!! And thank god for that. What a relief! ANYWAY, I have decided that I'm going to try the original Mozilla, as it can also have ad block on versions 1.4-1.8 apparently! So it's going okay so far, I'll update if any new information comes to light on if it's a suitable alternative to firefox or not. I'm still doing my research. Thanks for the suggestions too, all :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parshy Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 Opera is good cos it has 2 cookie pools Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cloudedsunny Posted February 18, 2007 Author Share Posted February 18, 2007 What does having 2 cookie pools do? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awesome_Paul Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 think it could be if your a victim of a cookie grabber it only looks in one pool, so if your going into a unknown site, then you go into the unued pool Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ellie_Penguin Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 On my pc IE and Firefox work very fast. Netscape works best when you don't have so much stuff on your pc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Lightning Strike Posted February 18, 2007 Share Posted February 18, 2007 think it could be if your a victim of a cookie grabber it only looks in one pool, so if your going into a unknown site, then you go into the unued pool Firefox and Opera are immune to cookie grabbers, IF YOU USE AD BLOCKING (it's enabled by default). :laughingsmiley: IE 7 is too, on Vista only though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EnlightenedOne Posted February 19, 2007 Share Posted February 19, 2007 buy a wii and use opera on that??? SUPER AWESUM FUN TIME!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Lightning Strike Posted February 20, 2007 Share Posted February 20, 2007 buy a wii and use opera on that??? SUPER AWESUM FUN TIME!!!! It's too slow for my taste. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Dan. Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 Surfing the internet on most non-PC electronics are slow, unless you have a decent PDA or phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Izzy ♥ Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 I just use IE7, and its fine *shrugs* Don't see much difference between that and Firefox, I'll admit IE6 was a pain though :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 True. IE7 is just fine now. Just a silly duel that's carried on since forever (Like Pirates and Ninjas. No debating that here, mind.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
.Dan. Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 There have been issues with IE7 somehow screwing up other programs, such as Adobe PDF thingy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Lightning Strike Posted February 21, 2007 Share Posted February 21, 2007 There have been issues with IE7 somehow screwing up other programs, such as Adobe PDF thingy. Firefox and IE 7 have both issues with Adobe Reader. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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