firefox 4 slow?

Discussion of general topics about Mozilla Firefox
gudulkaman
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firefox 4 slow?

Post by gudulkaman »

i upgraded to firefox 4 the other day. on my speedy iMac, i have
seen the spinning ball and have experienced very slow response.
today, i finally gave up and reverted to firefox 3.6.16. suddenly,
everything is back to the blazing speed that i have come to expect.

anyone know what is up with the new version? i sure don't want to
install it again and experience that poor performance of the last
few days.
Gilgamesch
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by Gilgamesch »

Same problem here and I have to say I am very disappointed. It runs fine when I first start the program and over time just seems to get slower and more unresponsive. I have not run it in safe mode yet, but that is my next step to see if a add-on might be causing the problem. I have noticed that if I have a tab open with a page that automatically refreshes Firefox 4 will grind to halt until the page refreshes including not being able to type any text into an input box. I have also noticed a message in the top left of the browser that will say "Firefox not responding" and after a short period of time this will go away and the browser will respond. I really want to like this version since it has new features I really like.
dutchputch
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by dutchputch »

When I saw Firefox 4 advertised as "Blazing Speeds" I downloaded it. OMG, my dial up from 10 years ago was much faster than this. This is the slowest of all versions. What happened to Firefox? When they first started they really did have blazing speeds and proceeded to get slower and slower and slower with each update.
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malliz
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by malliz »

Have any of you tried
A: Firefox Safe mode?
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Safe_mode
B: A new clean profile to test for possible profile corruption
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_Manag ... ew_profile
C:The Standard Diagnostics
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Standard_diag ... Firefox%29
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Frank Lion
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by Frank Lion »

dutchputch wrote:When I saw Firefox 4 advertised as "Blazing Speeds" I downloaded it. OMG, my dial up from 10 years ago was much faster than this. This is the slowest of all versions.

Do you guys not have any friends who use Firefox? Any friends? Anyone? ...doctor, priest or someone? Just stop and think about it, when Firefox advertises that Firefox 4 is fast, do you think they're lying? You think they made a big decision to bring out a really slow version?

The point is, if you ask around then you'll find that it is really fast for most people (that's where the friends come in useful). When it's not, as in, not fast for you, then that's because you have a problem that needs fixing, not because Firefox was designed that way.

How about I paint with an even bigger brush? Imagine you owned a BMW and it crashed into a tree......would you then trawl the BMW forums posting 'WTF!!!!! BMW are bringing out cars that are totally wrecked now! WTF?' messages?
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dutchputch
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by dutchputch »

If so many people are having problems with Firefox being slow (and not just ver. 4) than it's a problem. helllllllllo. I have done everything that I was instructed to do, i.e., new profile, testing all extensions, etc. and still FAIL. Your analogy is way off the mark. You were doing fine up to that point. If Firefox is so good there wouldn't be so many people jumping ship and going over to Chrome and Safari.
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Omega X
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by Omega X »

Don't feed the trolls.
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LoudNoise
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by LoudNoise »

Yes. Well. What happened when you tried safe mode?
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Frank Lion
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by Frank Lion »

If so many people are having problems with Firefox being slow (and not just ver. 4) than it's a problem. helllllllllo.

Well, I count just 3 on this thread. ;)

dutchputch wrote: If Firefox is so good there wouldn't be so many people jumping ship and going over to Chrome and Safari.

This isn't a school playground with kids shouting at each other with whatever just springs into their heads, you know.

The question was about speed, remember? Not about how good or otherwise Firefox is.

I have done everything that I was instructed to do, i.e., new profile, testing all extensions, etc. and still FAIL

...and you're still using Firefox? Damned if I would.
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malliz
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by malliz »

So you tried a new clean profile and tested it before installing anything?
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gudulkaman
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by gudulkaman »

i am wondering if part of the issue that i am seeing is with the add-ons?
i don't have that many, but some are crucial ~ adblock and Web Developr
come quickly to mind. i only use 8 add-on, 6 of which i had enabled.

but, i can't put a lot of time into trying to figure out why the dramatic
slowdown ~ btw, i see this slowdown as OS X's spinning icon, when i
try to scroll, click a link, among many other normal activities. the browser
is simply non-responsive while i have the spinning icon, which can last
for up to 2-5 seconds.
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Frank Lion
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by Frank Lion »

gudulkaman wrote:i am wondering if part of the issue that i am seeing is with the add-ons?
i don't have that many, but some are crucial ~ adblock and Web Developr
come quickly to mind. i only use 8 add-on, 6 of which i had enabled.

but, i can't put a lot of time into trying to figure out why the dramatic
slowdown...

Well, it takes only one extension to mess things up.

But, as you cannot spend a lot of time on this, and I don't blame you, this is the quickest way to proceed -

#1. Create a new, additional, profile just for testing - http://kb.mozillazine.org/Profile_manager and put no extensions or themes on it and just test the speed side.

Testing on a new profile eliminates many other possible problematic variables, like prefs.js, localstore.rdf, etc, etc but we can cover that side later, if required.

#2. On that new profile, go to the Addons Manager and disable all the plugins there (these are auto detected by Firefox and so will be detected by the new profile) and restest. Sometimes, Flash can cause problems.

#3. Depending on what you find, you then have a choice. If all is fixed, you then re-introduce your extensions one-by-one and if the problem is one of them, you have to decide how vital it is.

If doing the above doesn't fix the speed side, you can re-install the Firefox app itself (your original profile will remain untouched, but you can back it up to be safe) but, I have to tell you, this move rarely fixes much.

Btw making that new testing profile will take you about 5 minutes.
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Daifne
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by Daifne »

BTW, the download stats (updating live) don't indicate very many people "jumping ship"... http://glow.mozilla.org/
gudulkaman
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by gudulkaman »

:) not sure that the download stats can indicate anything different.
and from a marketing standpoint, who would want to show those
backing out?

btw ~ love seeing the Terry Pratchett quotes!
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mightyglydd
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Re: firefox 4 slow?

Post by mightyglydd »

gudulkaman wrote:i am wondering if part of the issue that i am seeing is with the add-ons?


Assuming it was still there when you tried 4.0, this one perhaps? (in red)

Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; Intel Mac OS X 10.6; en-US; rv:1.9.2.16) Gecko/20110319 AlexaToolbar/alxf-2.01 Firefox/3.6.16
#KeepFightingMichael and Alex.
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