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Solve : Is Firefox 2.0 a dud?? |
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Answer» Is Firefox 2.0 a dud? Are users better avoiding it and waiting until a future build? Are too many of the new features buggy and incomplete and is the browser overall more unstable that previous versions? What about Firefox on Vista? IE7 had just been released and that was such a huge evolutionary step for Internet Uhm, since when is lagging behind an 'evolutionary' step? Everything featured in IE 7 was allready featured in many other browsers way before.. How do you all know it leaks memory? What the *censored*? Is everyone suddenly a programmer? Just what the *censored* is a memory leak and can you describe to me how Firefox 'leaks' memory? Quote I can't help but feel that Firefox is a victim of its own success. The more users they have, the more masters they have to satisfy. More and more Firefox users see it as just another browser and feel that they are owed something. Too many of them don't see the work that goes into the product behind the scenes and instead choose to nitpick and It's just a friggin' upgrade, they added some features and removed some people didn't need. It's not a whole new browser.. Quote I do think it's a bit cheeky how they seem to have stolen some of the best extensions made for Firefox previosuly and incorporated them into the browser, but I must admit it's useful to have the functionality "out of the box" rather than downloading quite so many extensions How can you 'steal' open source SOFTWARE? The authors of all those extensions would probably love to see their extensions incorporated, that tells 'm they had good ideas and I am very certain that is why they made those extensions. Quote 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. They are third-party applications and require the developer to offer support for newer versions. However, extensions are one of Firefox's most compelling features and seeing a whole raft of disabled extensions, especially those that are well-used and loved, is going to put off a lot of existing users from upgrading. What a load of unproven crap, all my extensions worked fine and when I downloaded the browser a day after the release updates were immediatly available. I use popular extensions and less popular extensions. Including, but not limited to, Noscript, Mouse Gestures, DictionarySearch, Tab preferences and Flashblock. The theme is fine, it's a bit more flashy than it used to be, but not much has changed. Besides, who the *censored* gives a *censored* about the theme anyway? Only hippies do. And you are sounding like one to me right now! The theme has had some minor changes, nothing big. It still functions the same it just looks different. Big deal. Does that make it a bad browser? Shallow thinking. Quote However, some of the complaints are very valid indeed. The random freeze issue is apparent to me on two systems (both where Firefox 1.5 had previously been installed and behaved well). Session restore helps to save the day, but that's no excuse. The crashing is such a problem that it's just easier for me to use IE7. I had a random freeze or two, but it resolved it self real soon and I'm still not sure whether that was due to Firefox or due to my Windows XP installation having screwed up all my TCP/IP settings for no obvious reason. I also like session restore, even when you keep the browser open and restart the PC it gently puts back everything. Tabbed history is BRILLIANT and I was looking for such a feature. Anyhow, all in all, I've had some random freezes, but like I said, don't know whether this was due to Windows screwing up as I was experimenting with my router/modem and I noticed that it just shut down when I tried to open a word document on a PC, however, that could also be Windows screwing up as that PC is never in use by me. So, anymore IE fan boys that need proving wrong or are we all going to become real masculine in the next few seconds? By the way, the added spell-checker is another excellent innovative feature.. Quote How can you 'steal' open source software? The authors of all those extensions would probably love to see their extensions incorporated, that tells 'm they had good ideas and I am very certain that is why they made those extensions.Perhaps stealing wasn't the right word, what I meant was that the extensions have been incorporated I didn't mean to give the impression I thought it was bad or wrong, only that FF2 now has several useful features that were previously only available via extensions Re-reading my post, I agree it doesn't really say what I wanted it to say, sorry Hopefully this clarifies my meaning a bitCalum, my child, you have seen the light. You are spared ten years in purgatory.You i have to say, i do prefer the one i had before 2.0. I also find that wit the 2.0 version it has to end it self alot, it comes acorss 'errors' and has to be shut down. Also can i ask what a memory leak is, i never have asked but its something i see a fair bit. Thanks ChrisMemory leak is typically used to indicate that a process is gobbling up memory indiscriminately. Firefox does sometimes seem to go through RAM like there's no tomorrow.[highlight]Elephants.[/highlight]OK, I've got a lot of extensions. Let's see how many make it across. Will edit this post in a minute... \ EDIT: The following extensions were not compatible (with the versions I had): Modern Pinball (Theme) SpiderZilla Smiley Xtra ImageBot HTML Validator Page Title Eraser CSS Validator The following could be updated for 2.0: All of them, though I had to manually reinstall my theme. I know what Raptor said about themes, but I like my theme. Ahhhh ok, thanks for that Rob. Chris Quote Memory leak is typically used to indicate that a process is gobbling up memory indiscriminately. Firefox does sometimes seem to go through RAM like there's no tomorrow. Not true. Well I guess it's true that the term is used to indicate that, but not quite what the term should mean. [highlight]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_leak[/highlight] Programs request memory from the system to store their junk, then they have to release the memory once it has finished using it (not necessarily only at program end). A memory leak occurs when the program "forgets" to release memory when it is no longer needed. (pun - sorry couldn't resist). The Wikipedia article shows a good simpe example of a memory leak. Here's a simple, bit more relevent example I made up. (OK disclaimer, I'm not a browser programmer so don't complain if this isn't right - it's for example purposes only!) You tell your browser to view a webpage. The browser requests enough memory from the operating system to display the page. Now you click a link for a new page. But the browser was poorly programmed and does not free up the memory already used by the old page, but forgets it is there. So basically the old webpage is stilled loaded in your memory, but it can no longer be used! The program has lost its references to it, so it can no longer access it anymore, and the operating system cannot reallocate the memory to another program or indeed the browser because it is still marked as in use. If you were to close the browser, assuming that was the only program running, your available memory would be less afterwards than before. On the other hand, the amount of free memory you had before running a program should be the exact same after closing down the program. (Of course this seldom happens on modern computers because of all the junk running in the background). If you continue looking through websites, the amount of claimed but no longer usable memory will increase. If you go back to a previously visited website, then the browser will simple store again that website in memory again! If you frequent that page regularly, you'll basically end up with lots of clones in your memory. Eventually the computer will run out of memory and crash. Boom. The important concept is to realise memory [highlight]inefficiency[/highlight] is not the same as memory [highlight]leaks[/highlight]. I could, for example, make a program that requests 1024MB of memory from the computer, and doesn't do anything with it. As long as my program keeps track of the memory, and frees it after the program has ended for reusage by the system, then this is not considered a memory leak. It's considered a stupid waste of memory, but not a leak! When people hear memory leak, they often think "that program uses up too much memory", or to reword it more technically, they could think "that program requests too much memory from the system". In reality the oppersite is true! The correct thing to think is in fact: "that program does not free all of its memory back to the system after usage." So memory leaks are to do with memory freeing, not requesting Whether or not Firefox 2 has memory leaks I have no idea. But the point is simply using a lot of memory inefficiently is not in itself a memory leak. Bad programming, but not memory leak As long as Firefox 2 frees up all of its requested memory after it has finished with it, then it lives in Leak-Free-Ville. (Not to be confused with Leek-Free-Ville). Phew. My wrists deserve a rest. PS. Elephants. Quote QuoteBite me, whippersnapper.Memory leak is typically used to indicate that a process is gobbling up memory indiscriminately. Firefox does sometimes seem to go through RAM like there's no tomorrow. I tend to choose my words quite carefully. Quote QuoteMemory leak is typically used to indicate that a process is gobbling up memory indiscriminately. Firefox does sometimes seem to go through RAM like there's no tomorrow. Did you somehow think that "gobbling up memory indiscriminately" was intended to be a precise technical definition? That said, I still fail to see which part of my statement is "not true"... But, whatever... |
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