The Mozilla/Firefox/Thunderbird discussion (Part 3)

[gonaads]

I haven't been impressed with 1.5 at all. Constant crashes, and for some reason it occassionally likes to eat up 50%+ of the CPU and like 200 MB of RAM :S

Add to that the fact that two of my favorite extentions don't work and I want to revert back to the last version. Is it possible to do that without losing any of my bookmarks and settings? What would be the easiest way to go about doing that?

I would check to see if nothing got corrupted when ya did the update. Also the one thing that will get Firefox to eat soooo much CPU and Mem is Java. Some sites will have malicious java shiit and will try to load it, causing the browser to slow to a crawl eat CPU/Mem and or crash. Do a virus scan of yer Java folder in yer root drive (C drive or where ever you have windows installed on) I had this happen to me on a few occasions. I also had to uninstall Firefox and then install an older version to clean up a corrupt install. I just went into add/remove programs and uninstalled it. I then reinstalled it and all my bookmarks and profile stuff was still there. You may want to export your bookmarks and backup any profiles first before you try... just in case it doesn't save anything. So if the browser comes out blank then you can import yer stuff.

Oh... which two extensions are not working?

 

[Xie]

Also the one thing that will get Firefox to eat soooo much CPU and Mem is Java. Some sites will have malicious java shiit and will try to load it, causing the browser to slow to a crawl eat CPU/Mem and or crash.

Also good idea to make sure your running the latest Java version at all times. Have been a few patchs lately (at least Mac side).

 

[tdinc]

Though I use firefox myself, for anyone who uses flock, mozilla has now added extensions on the mozilla add-on page >link

just a heads up

 

[Xie]

Though I seem to be the only user around here I'm going to post this anyways. Anyhoo, SeaMonkey committee have chosen a new logo the other day (Dec. 2nd).

SeaMonkey 1.0 Beta, the first testing release including that artwork, is planned for release within the next few weeks, with a final SeaMonkey 1.0 release soon after that.

Oh and always you can get more info here.

 

[Grandmaster]

It seems like a step backwards (the logo), to be honest. Why are you still using it?

 

[NetRyder]

Yeah, I'm not too fond of the new logo. Seems a bit too plain and 2D-ish compared to the Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird ones.

 

[Xie]

It seems like a step backwards (the logo), to be honest. Why are you still using it?

IMHO, it's the best browser currently available. On the topic of logo, which one are you talking about? They lost use of the "mozilla" logo and had to choose a new one. Have you seen the current (well old now) version? I would say the new one is a step up from that. It's not my number one pick but what you going to do.

 

[Grandmaster]

IMHO, it's the best browser currently available. On the topic of logo, which one are you talking about? They lost use of the "mozilla" logo and had to choose a new one. Have you seen the current (well old now) version? I would say the new one is a step up from that. It's not my number one pick but what you going to do.

I am talking about the blue "SeaMonkey" logo from the page you linked. Ah okay, I didn't know they lost use of the logo.

But it definitely is not as professional looking as Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.

 

[Xie]

I am talking about the blue "SeaMonkey" logo from the page you linked. Ah okay, I didn't know they lost use of the logo.

But it definitely is not as professional looking as Firefox, Thunderbird, etc.

Use it becuase it works, not for the logo though.

 

[Grandmaster]

Fair enough

 

[NetRyder]

Ok, I'm back to Firefox even on my Vista setup now. Will revert back to IE 7 when the December CTP is out to submit more feedback, bugs etc.

So anyway, got a chance to try out some nice extensions for tab management that I blogged about back in October. Excerpts from the blog post and links to the extensions below:

I really like the idea of having hover-over previews of taskbar tiles in the current Vista beta builds. It solves the taskbar clutter problem and lets users quickly identify which window they're switching focus to.

The same problem extends to the tab bar in all modern browsers, which is where the recently released Tab Preview extension comes in for Firefox. Like the Vista shell feature, this extension shows you a preview of the webpage loaded in the tab when the user hovers over it.

Tab Preview Extension: http://ted.mielczarek.org/code/mozilla/tabpreview/

IE 7 also has the nice Quick Tabs feature which gives you an at-a-glance preview of all your open tabs. Similar extension for Firefox called foXpose, available here: https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=1457

 

[tdinc]

foXpose is such a great extension...great post Net!

 

[NetRyder]

Yeah, I use a combination of those two. Works out nicely for me.

 

[tom9042]

Thanks Net!

The Tab Preview Extension is great.

 

[NetRyder]

Making unread tabs more prominent in Firefox:
http://blog.codefront.net/archives/2004/12/20/making-unread-tabs-obvious-in-firefox/

Neat trick.

 

[muzikool]

I'm noticing something that is similar to what Omar posted earlier (responded to by gonaads in post #721).

It seems like there is a memory leak or something in 1.5. If I run Firefox all day at work without closing it down, Firefox will be using 500MB+ of my memory (1GB installed) and then crash.

I haven't scanned my Java folder for anything malicious, but I'm not often on pages that (noticeably) load Java applets.

 

[Khayman]

Making unread tabs more prominent in Firefox:
http://blog.codefront.net/archives/2004/12/20/making-unread-tabs-obvious-in-firefox/

Neat trick.

The tab extention i use at home (Tab Mix) makes the titles in the unread tabs red and italic. its nifty, and more obvious than italics alone

 

[NetRyder]

I'm noticing something that is similar to what Omar posted earlier (responded to by gonaads in post #721).

It seems like there is a memory leak or something in 1.5. If I run Firefox all day at work without closing it down, Firefox will be using 500MB+ of my memory (1GB installed) and then crash.

I haven't scanned my Java folder for anything malicious, but I'm not often on pages that (noticeably) load Java applets.

Several people have been experiencing this, from what I can tell. I was reading a thread on C9 a few weeks ago about the same thing. I guess until the next minor version is released (which hopefully fixes the issue), the best thing to do is to close Fx when you're not using it.

 

[Evil Marge]

I'm noticing something that is similar to what Omar posted earlier (responded to by gonaads in post #721).

It seems like there is a memory leak or something in 1.5. If I run Firefox all day at work without closing it down, Firefox will be using 500MB+ of my memory (1GB installed) and then crash.

I haven't scanned my Java folder for anything malicious, but I'm not often on pages that (noticeably) load Java applets.

I've had the same problem and it seems to be quite common from what I read.I've gone back to 1.0.7 and not had any problem since.

 

[muzikool]

I've had the same problem and it seems to be quite common from what I read.I've gone back to 1.0.7 and not had any problem since.

Thanks for the info. I've been too lazy to look around Mozilla's forums to see how widespread it is.