Love Firefox but sorry it's slower!


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I love firefox.. my favorite browser.. and it's always been some what speedy to me.. but the 3.5 release just seems very slow and some what laggy(slow loading menu's, start up/exit). Has anyone else noticed things like this? Also I'm not running any Extensions.

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I've had this happen to me. It seems after a while, something happens, and the browser doesn't respond as quickly. I can close the browser and then continue on, and it'll be fine, but it's annoying when I've got windows open

Don't remember this happening before with 3.1

I've had no problems at all. It's sped up a little bit for me, but it was already bloody fast to begin with. On my computer and laptop, it's faster than Safari 4, and Google Chrome 3. Yes, I know the benchmarks say that Chrome is faster than Firefox, but not here! :p

I've had this happen to me. It seems after a while, something happens, and the browser doesn't respond as quickly. I can close the browser and then continue on, and it'll be fine, but it's annoying when I've got windows open

Don't remember this happening before with 3.1

I was on 3.0.11 and it was fine, never had an issue.

Firefox has suddenly hung for a second or two. However, I don't know what's causing it, and it's only happened twice so far, the first when it was still labeled RC3.

At all other times though, it's been much faster than Firefox 3, so I'm pretty sure whatever the next few patches bring will fix the minor hang issue. But in the meantime, I'm considering just starting over with a, "Clean" install anyway.

Firefox can get laggy when the Places database (all your history, bookmarks, etc.) get too big. Mine's close to 100MB (this isn't the cache--this is history, bookmarks, etc.!); there's a world of difference when I start Firefox with a fresh profile (but with the same settings, extensions, etc.) than with my existing profile. Making sure that the places db is defragged helps a bit (b/c it's accessed and written to every time you hit a URL of any sort).

If you cut all the nice features Firefox has and other browsers don't, it would be very fast. Sorry, but absolutely nothing is perfect for everyone. Get used to it and stop bashing this wonderful piece of software with silly milliseconds comparisons. This is purely childish behavior.

3.5 is slow here too. Not a lot slower but it is noticeable.

I certainly don't know why they're claiming all these performance improvements and IE8 seems faster than Firefox at this stage.

Because for many of us, Firefox 3.5 has been much faster than it used to. I'm really curious as to how it's actually noticeably slower than usual for you guys. I've experienced nothing but good results on the number of computers I've installed it on, including those crappy $300 Compaqs. :pinch:

I know it shouldn't matter at all either, considering I've upgraded from 3.0 -> 3.5 on a few of them as well, but have you tried a clean install?

Edit: Also, I run a number of addons, but that has never really slowed the performance at all.

I have to agree. Not only is the initial loading a little slower, but the browsing experience seems sluggish.

Also, I've been having trouble loading my usernames and passwords from FF3.0.11.

And a lot of extensions that I use still don't work (yes, I've done the maxVersion trick and installed Nightly Tester Tools, but they just force the extensions to install, but it doesn't mean they'll work properly).

3.5=epic f4il.

Firefox can get laggy when the Places database (all your history, bookmarks, etc.) get too big. Mine's close to 100MB (this isn't the cache--this is history, bookmarks, etc.!); there's a world of difference when I start Firefox with a fresh profile (but with the same settings, extensions, etc.) than with my existing profile. Making sure that the places db is defragged helps a bit (b/c it's accessed and written to every time you hit a URL of any sort).

Yeah, I've noticed. I was wondering why Firefox ran slowly... when I realized I had history entries dating back months ago :|

After going to Chrome, Firefox feels bloated! 3.5 fixed some issues but Chrome still beats it by far. Once it gets dedicated extension support (the process to install adsweep is lengthy and complicated for your average user), and gets the ability to manage filetypes, it will be the best browser out there!

Firefox could learn a thing or two from Google, especially the idea of making each tab its own process so you don't crash all your tabs, but rather you can close that one and keep the remainder running

3.5 is slow here too. Not a lot slower but it is noticeable.

I certainly don't know why they're claiming all these performance improvements and IE8 seems faster than Firefox at this stage.

Because it is faster, if you're having slow downs the only things I can suggest are trying safe mode or a new profile.

Performance hasn't gotten worse for me, but I notice that memory usage is still crazy.

Memory usage is pretty good for what it has to store, better than other browsers.

And if it doesn't use the memory, it's wasted.

...

Firefox could learn a thing or two from Google, especially the idea of making each tab its own process so you don't crash all your tabs, but rather you can close that one and keep the remainder running

You know IE also does the "process per tab" thing, right?

They are working on it though, sharing code with the Chrome guys (open source is nice that way)

Found this:

What finally produced a dramatic increase in speed of loading was erasing (just about) everything from my Users\AppData\Local\Temp folder that Richard suggested. Then Firefox loaded in about two seconds. I had something like 15,000 files in that Temp folder.

Also seems suggested to go to your IE options and clear your cache/temp files there too. Hope that helps.

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