Review critical of Firefox 2.0

wxwax

Some snippets from this review on zdnet.

• The random freeze issue is apparent to me on two systems (both where Firefox 1.5 had previously been installed and behaved well).
  
• Memory leaks are also present, and actually seem worse under Firefox 2.0 than under 1.x.
  
• On a more serious note, complaints that the antiphishing filter is weak seem justified.
  
• The claim that Firefox 2.0 is incompatible with a lot of popular extensions also seems true, though it has to be remembered that the Mozilla team have nothing to do with most of the extensions out there.
  
• Do I believe that current Firefox users should not upgrade to the latest version? No way. If you stick with 1.5.x then you're going to be at risk from unpatched vulnerabilities. The only way to go is up to 2.0 and keep downloading updates as they become available.

The bit about the random crashes of the browser got my attention. That's what Opera does on my Macbook, and it sucks.

I think I'll wait a while before upgrading to Firefox 2.0.

ChrisJ

wxwax wrote:

Some snippets from this review on zdnet.




The bit about the random crashes of the browser got my attention. That's what Opera does on my Macbook, and it sucks.

I think I'll wait a while before upgrading to Firefox 2.0.

I read this same article... but I've been running it on 3-4 systems since launch, no crashes yet. All of my extensions work (I use between 2 and 6 depending on the system). I don't use the anti-phishing filter, since I don't like to phish.

I read a rebuttal of the memory leak issue which claims it is actually better than 1.5. But I haven't actually tested it yet. Right now I have about 20 tabs open, 170,780K of memory (lots of Dgrin images). I'll come back after I've closed all these tabs and see what I drop down to.

EDIT: Down to 3 tabs, memory down to 73,060K.

Just my experience... it seems fine to me. Slightly snappier especially going "back".

wxwax

What is "memory leak"?

ChrisJ

wxwax wrote:

What is "memory leak"?

It means that the memory used by the program will increase unintentionally. In Firefox, this usually happens when you open multiple tabs. When you close all of those tabs, more memory than you started with is being used by the program... so you've "leaked" some.

From what I've read, this is partially intentional by the Firefox development team. Since many people will re-open the same tab again, it makes the program snappier if some of that information is still in memory (cached) and doesn't have to be reloaded.

wxwax

Thanks. On a separate note, I hear that spider monekys are very computer literate.

Andy

Been using FF2 for a week now, no problems that I can see

Richard

wxwax wrote:

Some snippets from this review on zdnet.




The bit about the random crashes of the browser got my attention. That's what Opera does on my Macbook, and it sucks.

I think I'll wait a while before upgrading to Firefox 2.0.

I have been running 2.0 for a couple of days. No crashes so far. Actually I never had an out and out crash with any version of Firefox. What did happen once in a great while was that a page running Flash would run wild and take over the CPU, forcing me to kill Firefox. So far I have not seen that with 2.0, but in theory if that happens again, 2.0 will restore the state of all the pages I had open at the time I killed it. That sounds like an improvement, unless it is so faithful that it restores Flash running wild as well. We'll see about that at some point, I imagine.

I did notice the memory leak when many days went without restarting Firefox. It was easy enough to fix by simply restarting the browser. I have been running this instance of 2.0 for two days with 8 tabs open and memory consumption is 100 M, up from about 50 when it opened with no tab open. I can't say how that compares to 1.5 as I never paid much attention to the matter. I will keep an eye on it.

I have read several critical reviews and I must say I see nothing in any of them that suggests that 2.0 isn't worth the upgrade. The whole upgrade process took less than 5 minutes and was entirely hassle free. All my extensions work fine and once I learned how to get the spell check to work on Dgrin, that alone has made it worthwhile.

FWIW.

cmason

Andy wrote:

Been using FF2 for a week now, no problems that I can see

No probs for me with FF2.0 either. I had a really bad bought of crashing with FF1.5 for a while, and eventually traced it to a bad extension and a corrupted profile. Once I created a new profile, and cut some extensions, it is stable as a rock. FF2.0 seems so as well. FF2.0 is said to be able to recover your open tabs when you restart, so that is great, but I havent had to use the feature yet .

All of my extensions have been updated now.

Art Scott

Andy wrote:

Been using FF2 for a week now, no problems that I can see

with Andy....................

ChrisJ

rsinmadrid wrote:

What did happen once in a great while was that a page running Flash would run wild and take over the CPU, forcing me to kill Firefox.

One of my favorite extensions: Flashblock.

wxwax wrote:

Thanks. On a separate note, I hear that spider monekys are very computer literate.

Only if they're Super!

devbobo

That article appears to be a blatant rip off of this blog which I read a few days ago on slashdot.

What's interesting about this article is the reader comments from 'Critical Thinker'.

Cheers,

David

JenGrace

Hrrm...I haven't had any freezing issues with FF2.0, or any other issues for that matter. I do miss my old theme. I like them a bit dark and minimalistic...but I'm sure one will be on it's way soon.

Khaos

I think extensions may play a role and it definately is having issues with flash.
I am going to do a complete clean of it and reinstall though. At home I've not had one issue, but at work, many freezes and I did have issues before also with the copy\paste bug and occasional crashes. I definately think its machine specific.

The restore to what you had before definately works and is nice. You can update, click yes to restart firefox and it reopens to the exact same way, with all the tabs at the same place.

Awais Yaqub

Downloaded it 1hr ago and using it no problem i am enjoying it more fast then IE and NS

ChrisJ

Awais Yaqub wrote:

Downloaded it 1hr ago and using it no problem i am enjoying it more fast then IE and NS

Hey Awais... if you want Fast, try Opera... it's definitely the fastest browser I've used (and the most standards compliant). But I like Firefox extensions better.

Awais Yaqub

ChrisJ wrote:

Hey Awais... if you want Fast, try Opera... it's definitely the fastest browser I've used (and the most standards compliant). But I like Firefox extensions better.

Thanks Chris i really needed something really fast on my dialup ! i will download it thanks a lot

dcyphert

FF CSS preview problem with Web Dev tool 1.1 beta

Andy wrote:

Been using FF2 for a week now, no problems that I can see

Andy,

Have you ever experienced this issue:

I am using the Web Dev 1.1 from Chris Pedrick, when I am looking at my site in FF1.5 Beta 2 and then initiate the CSS preview (ctrl-shft-E) from the home page, it looks fine, but once I choose a gallery the information, images, etc. of the page gets all stacked vertically, and reloading the page in FF doesn't fix the problem, I then have to go back to my website's home page and then back into my print galleries so I can preview it the correct way. I didn't have this problem before I upgraded to the newer web dev 1.1...attached is a screen shot of what I described.

I thought that by installing FF 2.0 would fix this problem but it still persists.

Thanks.

**UPDATE**

I uninstalled/reinstalled the extensions and it seems to have fixed this problem.

Allen

dcyphert wrote:

Andy,

Have you ever experienced this issue:

I am using the Web Dev 1.1 from Chris Pedrick, when I am looking at my site in FF1.5 Beta 2 and then initiate the CSS preview (ctrl-shft-E) from the home page, it looks fine, but once I choose a gallery the information, images, etc. of the page gets all stacked vertically, and reloading the page in FF doesn't fix the problem, I then have to go back to my website's home page and then back into my print galleries so I can preview it the correct way. I didn't have this problem before I upgraded to the newer web dev 1.1...attached is a screen shot of what I described.

I thought that by installing FF 2.0 would fix this problem but it still persists.

Thanks.

**UPDATE**

I uninstalled/reinstalled the extensions and it seems to have fixed this problem.

I get this ever time I change pages. Just close and re-open. Cntl-Sh-e twice.
FF 2 WD 1.1
Al

StevenV

I'm using FF2.0 on OS X, just one extension (Web Development Toolbar) and it hangs 'randomly' with a spinning beach ball. Force Quit kills it eventually, and then it restarts & offers to reload the "session."

It also 'randomly' stops accepting input from the keyboard, both into web forms and into it's own search box.

I had neither of these problems with FF1.x.

I say 'randomly' in both of the above, though I suspect that there's some series of events and/or elements on page(s) that are really causing the problem, I've just not had enough time to note everything going on to determine what's up.

dcyphert

StevenV wrote:

I'm using FF2.0 on OS X, just one extension (Web Development Toolbar) and it hangs 'randomly' with a spinning beach ball. Force Quit kills it eventually, and then it restarts & offers to reload the "session."

It also 'randomly' stops accepting input from the keyboard, both into web forms and into it's own search box.

I had neither of these problems with FF1.x.

I say 'randomly' in both of the above, though I suspect that there's some series of events and/or elements on page(s) that are really causing the problem, I've just not had enough time to note everything going on to determine what's up.

I'm wondering if it's partly because of some of the CSS code on my pages, thinking that it may not be correctly formatted and causing this. I uninstalled WD 1.1 and went back to 1.0.2 and all is good again. I just can't expand the CSS editor window wider like you could in 1.1. Thanks for the info.

Allen

I find the biggest problem is sticking the changes and switching pages.
Have to do a quick copy all and paste in new page to see effects of
changes. But I do love having edit CSS & html tabs and changes stick
switching between them. Makes editing menus much easier.
Al

rutt

When I got my new MacBook Pro FF 2.0 would freeze pretty often, seemingly at random. Very annoying.

I did some google work and it turns that there is a fairly well documented issue with the googlebar and intel Macs. Uninstalled the googlebar and no freeze in weeks. This parallels the experience of many others I found in my google search.

Too bad. I liked the googlebar very much. However, FF 2.0 has completion in its ordinary search bar which is almost as good. The googlebar does leave the search terms for local finding, a feature I liked. So I'm keeping an eye out for a new googlebar.

My guess is that the googlebar code scratches the same bug (or whatever) that other interesting plugins do. The built in completion of the search bar does seem like it has the potential to conflict. But why intel macs only?

I do use FlashBlock. No problem.

wxwax

Thanks foir the feedback, Rutt. I've been delaying upgrading, waiting for bugs to be ID'd and dealt with. Losing the Google pane would suck, I use it an awful lot.

rutt

This now seems to be fixed. Go to http://www.google.com/toolbar and install from there. I've been using with firefox 2.x for more than a week with no issues.

wxwax

rutt wrote:

This now seems to be fixed. Go to http://www.google.com/toolbar and install from there. I've been using with firefox 2.x for more than a week with no issues.

Thanks Rutt.

HarveyMushman

wxwax wrote:

Some snippets from this review on zdnet.




The bit about the random crashes of the browser got my attention. That's what Opera does on my Macbook, and it sucks.

I think I'll wait a while before upgrading to Firefox 2.0.

The random freeze issue has been a problem for us. Never had a problem with 1.5. I'll try disabling the googlebar as mentioned above.

Ric Grupe

Been using Firefox 2.0 for weeks now. The only major problem that I've experienced is when I first start it up it, on occasion, will load but the GUI won't display itself. Of course' since there is no on screen display it is easy to think that you didn't actually start it and open another instance....which will not display itself either. So....just open (on windows) the task manager and close the program manually and you're good to go.