Is Firefox Burning Out? - Comments Page 1

Firefox has, of late, become fairly unstable; my wife is struggling with daily (almost hourly) errors with various plugins. I've abandoned Firefox in favor of an fork of Firefox called "Pale Moon" which is Windoze-only, but which seems far more stable.

For many years, I was a devoted FireFox user until just a few months' ago. It got to be so bloated, so slow and sluggish, I couldn't stand it anymore. I slowly moved to Chrome, and kept FireFox on my Taskbar just because I was so used to having it. I had to do a Recovery recently and sadly, did not bother to put FireFox back on. I don't know what happened to FireFox. It was my Default browser for years. I hope it evolves too because I do miss it. But not enough if it keeps grinding on as if it had one wheel in the ditch.

I hope that it doesn't die before I do. I have been using FF for years and I am quite fond of it. On rare occasions, I have been forced into using IE ecause that was the only browser that a particular website would work with. My sister has a Big Mac and Safari. I use it when I visit her. It weems to work fine. I have not tried Chrome, probably because I feel Google is becoming as instrusive and controlling as MS. (Pardon my schizophrenia, I use Google as my primary Search Engine.) My only real complaint is that the Flash plug-in stops working frquently (usually when I am on YouTube). I am not sure if FF is to blame for it. (And Bob, I am SO glad that my posts don't disappear when I submit them before adding my name and email. Thanx! :-)

I've been using Firefox for many years. It has been reliable, fast, and stable.

My biggest complaint is the constant move to make it look like IE! I like having my controls across the top of the screen and not expecting the URL entry to be a search box. Maybe I'm just backwards, but hunting for controls when I want them is a pain in the behind. The move to make the system outguess what I want just makes it harder for me to use.

So, please, Mozilla, give me at least an option to turn the clock back a bit and have better control instead! IE won't do it, Chrome and Safari are unlikely to. It seems more and more users are interested in letting the search engines make all the choices for them.

Oh and could someone please give me a better way to cancel all the web page pop-ups and ads that are no longer caught as pop-ups and ads?

Firefox is not my default browser but I don't want to see it go away.

I like it because it isn't tied to a company, enterprise, or operating system.
It is my go-to browser for questionable websites. Using the add-on NoScript keeps scripts from running unless I specifically allow them.

I switched about 6 months ago from Firefox to Chrome because my email interface (Yahoo.ca) ran so slowly under Firefox. I don't see that problem with Chrome.

Mind you I am still running XP on my older desktop system so maybe the problems are not all Firefox's. I still like Firefox in many ways...downloading and printing seem easier to me. Thanks for an interesting article on this.

Firefox is still a memory hog, but it is still faster than Chrome on my laptop. I use several privacy and security add-ons too. Also, I don't worry about Google snooping on my surfing habits.

For many years, I used Firefox and was very happy with its features and performance. Sadly, about 6-months ago after one of its updates, it started performing oddly and crashing frequently. I tried disabling extensions, but that didn't help. I switched to Chrome and although there are a few things I really don't like about it, the extensions I like can be used and I can open lots of tabs and not worry about it suddenly going *poof* or even stop responding.

Of the big 3 windows browsers, Firefox is by far the best in my opinion. I would HATE for it to disappear! It is quick, responsive, and works far better on any of my Windows computers than IE or Chrome.

I had switched to Chrome from Firefox as well but in the past couple of months I've gone back. Chrome of late seems much slower as it does all of it's statistics, loads cache, etc. I think they've "improved" it too much.

I use Firefox on my office computer to complement Internet Explorer which unfortunately sometimes behaves in a flakey manner, especially when attempting to view PDF documents. Firefox is better at emulating Internet Explorer than Chrome is, and therefore works better with various business related websites that I visit. Although Chrome is unique and refreshing, Firefox to me is more mature and evolved. It is my preferred go-to browser for those times when Internet Explorer just can't get the job done. It would be a shame if Firefox suddenly went away.

Hi, Bob! Thanks for a great newsletter!

I've used FFox for years & generally like it. Sometimes in my preferred photography forum, it refuses to open an image from a "remote server". But if I click on the link/icon, it loads fine. Sometimes it's because it "contains errors". This is BS. Other people can see them just fine.
So sometimes I switch to Chrome. Little things about it irritate me. No Menus. "Open link in a new tab" loads the tab, but doesn't open it for me.
I assume that some of these problems are caused by my computer. Win7 was reloaded but didn't fix the problems with images. Sometimes half the image is offset from the other half. Other times the same image is OK. "Gurus" (plural) have not found a problem. So I fumble around switching browsers & waiting for Win 10, which will probably mean that I'll AGAIN have to learn another piece of crap operating system.
Just sayin'. Thanks for listening! ; )
FC

I also use IE, Firefox, and Chrome on my PCs. Chrome is my default, but Firefox is a terrific product too. I would hate to see it go away. I like the fact that it's platform independent. because I use Chrome heavily, I have lots of extensions that ultimately affect performance. I use it for my heavy lifting, so I deal with it. When I want a browser that is fast or for a quick use need, I use Firefox. I never use Firefox to remember sign-ins or retain browser history. I have it set to delete everything on close. After discussing this with other tech people, it seems this is a common use for Firefox.

For what it's worth, a very significant contributor to my own decision to switch away from Firefox was the distasteful witch-hunt against Brendan Eich for daring to have a different view than the herd on something that had absolutely nothing to do with browsers.

I've used Firefox for years and am wholly satisfied with it. I won't change unless it goes away. Then I'll have to look for something that is not IE or Chrome--IE for the obvious reasons and Chrome because when I did try it out, I had the creepy feeling it was stalking me.

I continue to use firefox as my favorite browser. Perhaps if I used Chrome more, I might feel more comfortable with it. Firefox has many available add ons that improve my user experience.

Your comment "The problem seems to be marketing" I think hits the mark. Firefox is a great Browser, The problem, or is it blessing, would appear to be no aggressive marketing. Over the last number of years an increasing number of free software come bundled with Chrome if you dont uncheck it. Sure, calling Chrome crapware might be pushing it but it pretty much plays the same game, so how many of the uninitiated would blindly just accept it in the same way I.E. comes with Windows for the same reason many just use it because its there. A die hard Firefox fan.

As a long-time computer user, I DO remember the earliest dial-up days, when a modem was a cradle for your telephone receiver. Back then, we paid by the minute for online access (which mostly was limited to AOL), so we would sign on, download a document, then quickly sign off to print it and read it, then sign back on. Crazy days.

... And that's why your comment, "Netscape is a division of AOL now, so the browser is probably optimized for dial-up connections," had me howling with laughter.

Yeah, the snazzy blue-themed Netscape Navigator was king in my book. And we scooped up the ubiquitous AOL distribution diskettes to use as backup media.

Thanks for the chuckle tucked into your excellent article.

Mac (sent using Firefox, my browser of choice)

I started out using Netscape because I felt it was friendlier tha IE. I went thru a phase where my wife kept usinging Netscape, after it went away, because changing to IE was incompatible with her computer level. I added Firefox/Thunderbird several years ago, and that's all I can get her to use on a desktop (won't touch Windows Live Mail.) I use both Firefox and Windows, and the only problem I have is that when I run my daily AVG scan, AVG always finds more threats in Firefox than in Explorer. This leads me to believe that Firefox may be a virus magnet, or maybe AVG works better with Firefox. I hope Firefox stays around, because I definitely don't like Chrome as an alternative browser, or email.

Unless the Firefox masters have set themselves a low limit of users they want in order to continue, I doubt they'll get near Opera, which is still developed. I use the old Opera and Firefox as my main browsers, but I also use the new Opera, and sometimes Chrome and IE8 (still have XP). There are still problems with some sites on some browsers, and I have to use a different browser. I actually can't log in on some major sites with some browsers, including the current Firefox, or the screen is unusable, or a feature of the site does not work, or a site causes problems with a browser.