GA Russell Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 I've been using Firefox for a number of years, and I've found that I've been having a lot of problems the past few months with everything freezing up. I'm thinking about making a change. What do you think is currently the best-performing browser? Opera? Something else? Thanks! Quote
Scott Dolan Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 (edited) Well, I'll tell you… Chrome used to be the clear cut winner. It was as lean and mean as Opera, but heavily supported across these here intertubes. But, over the past year even it became problematic and buggy. Since I'm on a Mac, I've just been using Safari since I bailed on Chrome. But, at the end of the day it's no better either. My advice would be to download each browser you're considering, and take them out for some serious test drives. Because as I said, I don't think there is a clear cut winner amongst them anymore. I've even heard the new IE isn't all that bad. Edited March 9, 2015 by Scott Dolan Quote
ejp626 Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 Have you upgraded to the latest Firefox? There are a few things that definitely irritate me about it (no compatibility with some key extensions) but I haven't had any problems with core stability (yet anyway). Probably you should try out Chrome and see what you think, as Scott suggests. Quote
GA Russell Posted March 9, 2015 Author Report Posted March 9, 2015 Thanks, guys. I quit using IE many years ago because I read that there are far more viruses for it than other browsers. Quote
ejp626 Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 Thanks, guys. I quit using IE many years ago because I read that there are far more viruses for it than other browsers.Yeah, I hear you. Incredibly, the IT department at work is forced to use IE, which causes them (and us) no end of grief. I really don't understand why that order came from the top, whereas normally the IT folks make a ruling and that's pretty much it. Quote
Scott Dolan Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 So reports of IE 11 being vastly improved are incorrect? We still use IE at work as well, but our computers are ancient and we're stuck with version 8. And GA, no reasons are necessary for getting away from that dead, bloated pig of a browser. Same goes for Firefox, IMO. It's gotten as bad as the IE I used to use when I first got into computers. Definitely give Chrome and Opera a spin. You could also uninstall/reinstall Firefox to see if that takes care of the problem it's been giving you. Quote
JohnS Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 Chrome works well for me but I've not had any experience with any others except IE. Quote
GA Russell Posted March 9, 2015 Author Report Posted March 9, 2015 Well, I downloaded Opera. I clicked on the button to transfer my bookmarks, but it didn't happen as far as I can tell. Quote
BFrank Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 Well, I'll tell you… Chrome used to be the clear cut winner. It was as lean and mean as Opera, but heavily supported across these here intertubes. But, over the past year even it became problematic and buggy. What Dolan said. I still use Chrome, though. Quote
Scott Dolan Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 Well, I downloaded Opera. I clicked on the button to transfer my bookmarks, but it didn't happen as far as I can tell. Bookmark migration has become a nearly impossible act for all the browsers from what I've experienced in recent years. When I bailed on Chrome I couldn't get them to migrate to Safari. Later when I tried to get Opera up and running, I couldn't get my bookmarks from Safari to migrate... Perhaps I'm just missing a crucial step in both cases, but I've gotten to the point where I simply don't want the hassle of trying to beat these things into submission, so I just start over and make new bookmarks. Wish I had a better answer for you... Quote
JSngry Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 Have you upgraded to the latest Firefox? There are a few things that definitely irritate me about it (no compatibility with some key extensions) but I haven't had any problems with core stability (yet anyway). I was having some seriously pissed-off feelings about Firefox until a few days ago, when 31.0.1 came by. All the freezing/memory bugginess seem to have stopped, at least for a little while. Better the devil you know, etc. I really like that Firefox is not owned by Google. That's about it as far as what I really like about it, but that's enough! Quote
Scott Dolan Posted March 9, 2015 Report Posted March 9, 2015 I hear that, Jim. This thread made me do some homework, and I found out that Google Chrome discontinued support for the QuickTime plug-in. That was a major sticking point for me as I first realized I could no longer play movie trailers from the iTunes website. That's something I check out several times a week as trailers tend to be far better than the movies they're advertising. At the time I simply thought that I had some corrupted file in Chrome, but now I see that the days of Apple and Chrome playing nice together is simply a thing of the past. While I have nothing against either Google or Apple, both warring parties should be given a swift kick in the nuts for the crime of douchebaggery. Quote
Jazzjet Posted March 10, 2015 Report Posted March 10, 2015 You could always try SeaMonkey: http://www.seamonkey-project.org/ Quote
GA Russell Posted March 10, 2015 Author Report Posted March 10, 2015 I've never heard of that, Jazzjet. I'll take a look. Quote
Dave Garrett Posted March 11, 2015 Report Posted March 11, 2015 There are other browsers based on Mozilla source code in addition to SeaMonkey, such as Waterfox: https://www.waterfoxproject.org/ I haven't personally used it, but my dad has and liked it, plus it's supposed to be performance-focused. I can't get by with a single browser, and use both Firefox and Chrome heavily. I'll even use IE 11 on occasion for specific tasks, and think that the perception of it as risky is overblown if you keep your machine up to date with critical and recommended updates for Windows, IE, and other MS applications such as Office (for those that prefer not to have updates automatically downloaded and installed, Microsoft traditionally releases scheduled updates on the second Tuesday of every month, aka "Patch Tuesday", although they also release urgent non-scheduled security updates on other days as necessary). Quote
mjzee Posted March 11, 2015 Report Posted March 11, 2015 I downloaded both SeaMonkey and Waterfox, but my Mac said each of them "can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer." I know I can override that setting, but... Quote
Shawn Posted March 11, 2015 Report Posted March 11, 2015 I downloaded both SeaMonkey and Waterfox, but my Mac said each of them "can’t be opened because it is from an unidentified developer." I know I can override that setting, but... That just means they didn't pay Apple to add it to their safe list, you can just override the setting and install. Quote
BERIGAN Posted March 11, 2015 Report Posted March 11, 2015 (edited) Russell, how often do you shut down mozilla? I find if I have several tabs open and for a few hours, a ton of memory is being used... I usually keep windows task manager up all the time, and when I see what I see right now, ^^ there really is an image there to click on, honest! I click on the end process button (lower right hand corner) then click on the mozilla icon ...all the tabs come back that way. Or, if you don't care, close the browser and start truly fresh... I do this several times every day... Edited March 11, 2015 by BERIGAN Quote
Dave Garrett Posted March 13, 2015 Report Posted March 13, 2015 (edited) Russell, how often do you shut down mozilla? I find if I have several tabs open and for a few hours, a ton of memory is being used... I usually keep windows task manager up all the time, and when I see what I see right now, ^^ there really is an image there to click on, honest! I click on the end process button (lower right hand corner) then click on the mozilla icon ...all the tabs come back that way. Or, if you don't care, close the browser and start truly fresh... I do this several times every day... You might want to give Firemin a try: http://www.rizonesoft.com/software/firemin/ I tend to keep a *lot* of tabs open, and rarely reboot my machine, so Firefox winds up using between 500MB to well over 1GB of RAM if it runs for a day or two without a restart. With Firemin running, it's using anywhere from 2MB - 40MB. Note that some people have reported mixed results with Firemin, so it may or may not work well for you. I've noticed that it does seem to increase CPU load a bit, but not enough to be worrisome. Also note that when you start Firemin, it doesn't appear that anything is happening, but it should be running. You just have to look in the Processes tab in Task Manager to see that it's running. I still have to restart Firefox every couple of days as it seems to slow down eventually after a long period of uptime, but memory management has been vastly improved with Firemin in the interim. Edited March 13, 2015 by Dave Garrett Quote
BERIGAN Posted March 15, 2015 Report Posted March 15, 2015 (edited) Wow, thanks for the tip Dave! It's so odd to not see firefox at the bottom of the list of processes. Now it's right around 10 MB's or less, from an average of 500 MB's or so, regardless of how many tabs are open, amazing! Edited March 15, 2015 by BERIGAN Quote
GA Russell Posted May 15, 2016 Author Report Posted May 15, 2016 Last Sunday's weekly tech column gave high marks to a new browser called Vivaldi. I downloaded it, but haven't set it up yet. Has anyone tried it? https://vivaldi.com/ Quote
Scott Dolan Posted May 15, 2016 Report Posted May 15, 2016 Hmmm...this is the first I've heard of it. Thanks, GA. I'll certainly give it a spin. Quote
GA Russell Posted January 6, 2017 Author Report Posted January 6, 2017 Just to give you an update, I've been using Vivaldi for the past couple of months, and I like it. I have not had any apparent virus problems. Quote
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