Firefox 8 ! : with 'improvements' :rolleyes: .

free4440273

Firefox 8 ! : with 'improvements' :rolleyes: .

http://arstechnica.com/open-source/news/2011/11/firefox-8-released-with-integrated-twitter-search-other-improvements.ars

flashg67

Have updated - not seen a difference yet - am I about to....?

[Deleted User]

Hi,

yup, updated yesterday and don't notice any difference.

mart44

The only extensions that became disabled for me were the Norton Toolbar and 'Norton Vulnerability Protection'. (The Norton Toolbar is kept turned off anyway but it still works in the background to provide site ratings in Google and Bing search results ..if wanted). Norton quickly issued updates for both that work with the Firefox 8, although they had to be enabled manually in 'Add-ons > Extensions'.

Andrew1472

Updated yesterday. I don't see any improvement at all.
It's still running like a pig on my low spec Windows 7 laptop. Every time I think I've got it sorted it reverts to choppy scrolling, and tabs taking an age to close for no reason I can see.
I can't understand why a browser can't run well on even the lowest spec machine. Chrome does, even IE9 does, why not Firefox?

I'm just sad to see what was my favourite browser end up like this. It has beaten me into giving up. I just open Chrome every time now. :sad:

CHR15

Opera used to be my browser of choice until it underwent so many improvements, it became pretty much unusable.

Pages not rendering correctly, non compatibility with too many website functions and general "running-like-a-dog" ness.

mart44

Do you mean that Firefox's start-up time is slow, or is it that browsing/page opening times are slow as well? I find that Firefox can take quite a long time to start compared to Chrome but once up and running, browsing speeds are about the same.

Have you tried starting Firefox in Firefox's Safe Mode (not Windows Safe Mode) to see if speed improves? If it does, then it points to an extension causing the problem. Do you have many installed? There is a list of problematic extensions that's worth looking at. It was last updated on the 11th of October, so still looks to apply.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problematic_extensions

Emptying the cache might help. If that doesn't do any good then consider creating an additional Profile to see how Firefox runs when using it.

Another utility that might do some good is Speedyfox. It optimises Firefox's databases and could make a difference to start-up time.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Other-Internet-Related/SpeedyFox.shtml

Andrew1472

mart44 wrote: »

Do you mean that Firefox's start-up time is slow, or is it that browsing/page opening times are slow as well? I find that Firefox can take quite a long time to start compared to Chrome but once up and running, browsing speeds are about the same.

Have you tried starting Firefox in Firefox's Safe Mode (not Windows Safe Mode) to see if speed improves? If it does, then it points to an extension causing the problem. Do you have many installed? There is a list of problematic extensions that's worth looking at. It was last updated on the 11th of October, so still looks to apply.

http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problematic_extensions

Emptying the cache might help. If that doesn't do any good then consider creating an additional Profile to see how Firefox runs when using it.

Another utility that might do some good is Speedyfox. It optimises Firefox's databases and could make a difference to start-up time.

http://www.softpedia.com/get/Internet/Other-Internet-Related/SpeedyFox.shtml

Assuming your replying to me, I don't have a problem with it's speed at all. Chrome may be a bit quicker, but it's a close run thing.

The big problem is the way it scrolls down pages. It jumps, hesitates and stutters. Even hitting page down causes it to go down in a series of jumps. It's very unpleasant! Tabs are a minor problem by comparison.

I have had it scroll smoothly, though I don't know what I did to cause it. I certainly can't reproduce it. Then mid session it changes back to the horrible scrolling for no reason at all.
I've tried all the fixes you suggest and more, and failed.
I'm sure I can't be alone with this. Perhaps people don't notice it, I don't know.

I've put it down to Toshiba not supporting the graphics driver Firefox demands. To be fair Firefox does tell me to update it, but I can't.
If I'm right, then I need a better PC to run Firefox or somehow install an unsupported driver. Neither of those is going to happen just to run a browser.
Incidentally all varieties of Firefox 3.x.x. were perfect. FF4 started the problem and it hasn't gone away.

Seeing that Chrome does everything smoothly and quickly, it is easier and cheaper to use that instead, so I updated Firefox not expecting much and I wasn't disappointed. I think uninstallng will be the next step.

savemoney

Firefox works fine on my OH netbook and not exactly a powerful machine Intel Atom. Admittedly she is using 7.01. One thing to watch out of you use Roboform is that you need latest version

Andrew1472

savemoney wrote: »

Firefox works fine on my OH netbook and not exactly a powerful machine Intel Atom. Admittedly she is using 7.01. One thing to watch out of you use Roboform is that you need latest version

I've never used Roboform, just Adblock+ and noscript, and uninstalling those 2 makes no difference.

If it works well on a netbook, then I'm at a complete loss.......!

Firefox obviously doesn't like me:D

mart44

Andrew1472 wrote: »

Assuming your replying to me, ...

Yes I was. Sorry I should have quoted. Only one more thing comes to mind but it sounds like you might have tried it already. Just a possibility but I'm just wondering if it could be anything to do with the hardware acceleration introduced in recent Firefox versions? I don't know if you might have tried turning it off.

This caused text rendering problems for me and it was reckoned some graphics cards were the cause. The problem has gone since further Firefox releases and a graphics card driver update. Probably totally off-track but maybe worth a shot if not already tried. 'Options > Advanced > General (tab) > Use hardware acceleration when available'

Hard to describe how scrolling looks for me. Not exactly very smooth I'd say but not jumpy enough to be annoying.