Improving your Firefox web browser

[eurovol 126]

Got a new laptop and have installed the current FF version (significant improvement over this time last year).

 

Firefox question, How do I enable it to accept my touch pad scrolling?

[Small Town Boy 6,672]

Did you know you can add Toytown to the list of search engines in the top-right corner of the browser? Click on this link, which can also be reached by clicking on 'Add Engines...' from the bottom of the drop-down list. Then do a search for Toytown.

 

[YorkshireLad6 7,152]

Or even "Install the TT search plugin" on the TT Search Page

[don_riina 7,406]

I really love the tabbed approach in Firefox, but thats about it really. I do find alot of websites not working "properly" in Firefox though, and sometimes, my CPU usage suddenly gets HUGE using firefox. No idea why.

[Timmeh 828]

Firefox lacks the aqua interface on the mac, makes it look very unpolished and windows like

[Darkknight 2,305]

The best way to Improve FF is to remove it and Install Opera :D

[YorkshireLad6 7,152]

Additional FF tabs hogs memory. If you start using a lot then your system will begin to page and slow down dramatically.

IE7 has very similar (and more attractive) tabs and doesn't seem anything like as memory intensive...

Most things I like about Firefox aren't even Firefox, but the extensions available - easy cross-searching, bookmark and history management, translation, RSS integration, proxy management, content management and manipulation, etc

[don_riina 7,406]

The tabs are gonna nick memory, sure, and I've seen that, but CPU?

 

Whats this aqua thing on the MAC? I have some weird thing called aqua dock on my puter here, is it related?

[Timmeh 828]

 

The best way to Improve FF is to remove it and Install Opera

Too slow, and takes too long to startup. Safari & Shiira are the two best browsers on any platform I reckon

[Timmeh 828]

 

Whats this aqua thing on the MAC? I have some weird thing called aqua dock on my puter here, is it related?

It's basically the Mac (OS X) look, the pretty curves, buttons and colours etc

Aquadock is just something to give a windows taskbar that OS X dock look I think. Not really related

[Hutcho 2,227]

I'm with what YorkshireLad says.. I'm a bit pissed at this latest version of Firefox..

 

What is does apparently is store the last 5 pages in memory so that it can access them quicker. However, if you're like me and have about 50 tabs open (not very hard to do really) you suddenly have firefox using about 200 meg of memory. On my new PC this is fine, but on my old one it was not.

 

This feature is good for fast PC's, but for slow ones its terrible and will give Firefox a bad name. Its meant to be a nice lightweight browser and the latest isn't. It should be a feature that is automatically off and can be turned on, not the other way around.

[BadDoggie 1,575]

You can limit the amount of memory used for the cache by adding this to the user.js file:

 

user_pref("browser.cache.memory.capacity", XX);

 

where XX=

-1: dynamic (default)

0: none

any other number: number of kilobytes to use; i.e., 20000 for a 20MB cache.

 

Diable the disk cache with:

 

user_pref("browser.cache.disk.enable",false);

 

No more grinding away.

 

woof.

[YorkshireLad6 7,152]

Or if that is too complicated, simply enter "about:config" in the address bar, then look for BDs parameters to change (browser.cache.memory.capacity and browser.cache.disk.enable). Right click on each and modify accordingly.

[Small Town Boy 6,672]

When I crank up my laptop again after it's been in stand-by, I have to close and reopen the Firefox browser, otherwise new pages won't load. Anyone else have this problem or know a way around it?

[YorkshireLad6 7,152]

Need more information:

- stand-by or hibernate?

- Firefox version?

- wired or wireless internet?

- proxy?

- internet accelerator?

- problems with other internet apps following re-start?

[Timmeh 828]

Also:

-what's your favourite colour?

-what are you wearing right now?

-does my ass look fat in this?

-how many miles to the gallon does a 1994 Toyota Corona get?

[Small Town Boy 6,672]

more information:

- stand-by or hibernate?

Stand-by

- Firefox version?

1.5.0.1

- wired or wireless internet?

Wireless

- proxy?

I did attempt to find out what this is, but I'm not sure, unless it's the wireless card, which is a Netgear MA521.

- internet accelerator?

Not knowingly

- problems with other internet apps following re-start?

No, IE works fine following restart.

[Darkknight 2,305]

FF Is a Pain in the Ass Piece of Slow bloatware.. Forget all these changes to make it better, and get something that IS BETTER...

Opera is only 2.5MB to download, is much better built and maintained than FF is and is backed by a real company that does nothing but improve on it and fix problems..

 

The Current Prod Ver. 8.53 is super fast and stable (Dont What kinda POS computer Timmeh has ) and the soon to be released Ver. 9.0

is even smaller and faster... Give it a go and download it Here

[Timmeh 828]

 

The Current Prod Ver. 8.53 is super fast and stable (Dont What kinda POS computer Timmeh has ) and the soon to be released Ver. 9.0

is even smaller and faster... Give it a go and download it Here

Opera dawdles compared to Safari, unfortunately if you don't own a Mac, you don't get the opportunity to run the worlds fastest browser.

[Darkknight 2,305]

Actually, you can as Safari also has a windows ver. but it is the bastard stepchild and is not as well maintained as the OSX ver. and as such is full of problems. Opera on the otherhand is a verywell maintained

mature product and is avail. for over 8 Desktop/Laptop OS's, 3 PDA Platforms and Many Mobile phones..

 

So you dont need a MAC to use the worlds fastest (Tested and Proven) Browser.. Opera

 

Me thinks Timmeh is a over active Mac Zelot... :D