Firefox vs IE

[+the pooks]

I have been using Firefox for a couple of months now, and I am going to do the unusual thing of reverting back to IE for a bit.

 

My main gripe with Firefox is that it seems to slow down when pictures are involved - scrolling down becomes jagged and slow. Also when you browse through picture that are part of a log the process also becomes sluggish: the log picture takes time to load - it takes time before the picture title and Next/Back buttons becomes available. Scrolling up and down with a log picture open is mighty sluggish. I have cleared history and cookies, and it improves a bit, but still not as smooth as IE.

 

After the latest GC website update the Greasemonkey scripts are not available and it seems as of GC plan to work the more useful scripts into their website, rendering the scripts obsolete.

 

Mrs Pooks is a Safari fan, but it might just be for Mac.

 

One of the more useful Firefox things that I will miss is the form recovery script, but I will just have to train myself to save form info before submitting.

 

I'm open to suggestions or convincing that I am taking a step backwards.

[+Jors]

I have been using Firefox for a couple of months now, and I am going to do the unusual thing of reverting back to IE for a bit.

 

My main gripe with Firefox is that it seems to slow down when pictures are involved - scrolling down becomes jagged and slow. Also when you browse through picture that are part of a log the process also becomes sluggish: the log picture takes time to load - it takes time before the picture title and Next/Back buttons becomes available. Scrolling up and down with a log picture open is mighty sluggish. I have cleared history and cookies, and it improves a bit, but still not as smooth as IE.

 

I'm open to suggestions or convincing that I am taking a step backwards.

 

Being on a slow line, Firefox just didn't do it for me either. I seems to hang while loading pages, and therefore cannot switch tabs, or do anything else for that matter. IE doesn't have that problem, it keeps working in the background without the frustration of a dead mouse.

 

I might also be missing something...

Edited January 20, 2010 by Jors

[+tomtwogates]

I have used Firefox exclusively now for over a year and maybe have got used to what the pooks is talking about - I did not find it any slower than IE and like the scripts, which some of have been updated for the new GC site. I seem to think I had more frozen screens with IE than the few I might have encountered with Firefox.

 

The only time I changed back to IE was to pay for the Garmin update (which I now regret doing as that story has still not been resolved.

[+Gr8Scot]

I must admit that I hadn't noticed any slowdown on FireFox. I gave up on IE some time back when it was markedly slower (and to try and avoid viruses), but every now and then have to use it as some banking sites just plain don't work with Firefox. I experimented this morning opening the same cache photo galleries with both and must admit that IE did tend to perform slightly faster, but it was really marginal. I didn't notice the extreme problems that you have seen though. I have a 4Mb ADSL line at work and 384k at home, but even at home the speed on Firefox is quite acceptable.

 

I agree with you on the form recovery issue. I use the Lazarus add-on as I found that quite often I used to lose connection to Geocaching.com - no fun if you've just typed a long log and suddenly it's just gone!

[+Midgleys_ZA]

Anyone tried Google Chrome? It's what I'm using at the moment and so far, it seems to have fewer hangups.

[+tomtwogates]

After my last post - the caching site is super super slow - is it Firefox or the site? Ditto for the forum, but not as slow?

[+cincol]

After my last post - the caching site is super super slow - is it Firefox or the site? Ditto for the forum, but not as slow?

 

Nah, not FF nor IE - gc.com is slow at the moment.

[+trevorh7000]

Read this - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/micr...-Explorer.html- an example why you should not use IE

 

Plus FF has just released 3.6 which is claimed to be 20% faster than 3.5.x

 

So there is no reason why you should not give it a go

 

mozilla.com is where you will find it.

 

Trev

[+t4e]

i've been using FF for the last 4 years or so and there is no doubt in my mind that is considerably faster than IE

once in a blue moon that i open IE, takes forever just to open the home page

 

photos loading slow and freezing the browser can be related to the site that hosts them

[+t4e]

Read this - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/micr...-Explorer.html- an example why you should not use IE

 

Plus FF has just released 3.6 which is claimed to be 20% faster than 3.5.x

 

So there is no reason why you should not give it a go

 

mozilla.com is where you will find it.

 

Trev

 

 

that link is totally broken

Edited January 24, 2010 by t4e

[+the pooks]

OK- I lost my nerve and succumbed to peer pressure and am back to Firefox. I did upgrade to V3.6. It is hard to really measure speed as the ADSL connection and host server also plays a part, but I will have to concede that FF is not any slower, and hopefully faster than IE.

[+tomtwogates]

Welcome back - and now for the second puzzle?

[+trevorh7000]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/micr...t-Explorer.html

 

http://is.gd/70ScF - the link using the is.gd shortening service

 

Here is the link - not sure how it was corrupted last time

 

Trev

Edited January 25, 2010 by trevorh7000

[+cincol]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/micr...t-Explorer.html

 

http://is.gd/70ScF - the link using the is.gd shortening service

 

Here is the link - not sure how it was corrupted last time

 

Trev

 

I use FF but whenever I want to do Internet banking with my SA bank I have to revert to IE otherwise it will not work.

[+steve p]

I won't use IE because every time I click to open a new tab it sits there for a really long time before I can use the new tab. In Firefox and Chrome the new tab is ready for use almost instantly.

 

I've been using Chrome for a couple of weeks and really like it. It's not cluttered up with toolbars like some other browsers. It has a very clean screen.

[+the pooks]

A Firefox question: Do all these extra scripts (Greasemonkey) and addons that one can get for Firefox not slow down the browsing process? Surely they must give the computer a whole lot of extra work (and possibly extra bandwidth demand) when a page is downloaded. I can imagine that the internet connection is the restricting factor, so if it only homework on the computer side, then it should not slow things down.

[+t4e]

add-on's don't slow down your browser and don't use more bandwidth, they just enhance and customize your browser

[+DamhuisClan]

I use FF but whenever I want to do Internet banking with my SA bank I have to revert to IE otherwise it will not work.

 

In the past I have been reluctant to use FF with internet banking to ABSA, since South Afica's corporate environment only thinks Windows and IE, and I really do not want some script optomised for IE to bomb when I do an internet transfer.

 

However two months ago I started using FF (at the time IE had some proxy problem), and to my surprise it all work well, with no hiccups on FF)

 

FF has a IE plug in which allows you to run IE from within FF. Very nice.