Firefox Has Turned Into An Unusable POS

...and I'm not really sure how or why it all went downhill.

It's by far my favorite browser, but recently started locking up. A ctrl-alt-del seemed to kick it back into gear, but it has problems with menus disappearing and not being able to open up certain windows right. I upgraded to the latest version, and it still seems to have issues.

What browser are you using now? Looking for recommendations.

My primary browser is Opera, after that, I use Google's Chrome, and then I use Firefox (since the adblocker on Firefox kills the commercials when watching South Park and TDS on the web).

Still using Firefox (up to 3.6.3) and I have never, ever, ever had a problem with it.

Firefox can destabilize if you overload it with plugins and extensions, or if you just use the wrong ones. Try turning off or uninstalling any of them that you don't really use.

I'm running 3.5.9 with four add-ons and a handful of extensions.

Works great. Loads a little slow but I figure that's just the dinosaur I call my computer.

Are you guys using the AVG toolbar? It is suppose to catch drive by installs. What do you think of it? I am thinking of uninstalling it, but am wondering how secure Firefox is now.

I rolled back to 3.0.13 because the later versions were such a pain. I'd have rolled back to 2.x, but I was having operability problems.

AVG sucks and is good at the same time.

Get rid of it. It literally slows your computer down. Not just the toolbar but everything else as well.

I use it but I simply just download it, scan the computer with it and then uninstall it. I use Malwarebytes Anti-Malware and Spy-Bot in between anti-virus scans.

Of course if you're one to visit odd corners of the internet you might want to keep such a thing.

I'm having problems here as well.

Might switch to Opera.

I switched to Chrome after I realized that:

1) Firefox has a huge memory leak, if you leave it open long enough it can take up several hundred megs of RAM
2) Flash performance just sucks out loud on it. I have no idea what causes it, but it eats up CPU cycles trying to run flash in firefox.

Yeah, the memory leak problem is ridiculous. I can never leave open pages overnight to look at the next day.

I heard somewhere that Windows comes equipped with it's own browser.

Well I just switched to Opera and its already 10x the browser.

Screw you Firefox.

Thanks for the recommendations. I really had no idea about the memory leak in Firefox. And it seems the problem might be AVG + Firefox more than anything.

Yeah, too bad it's Internet Explorer.

Am I the only one here who uses IE8?

For anti-virus, I run Microsoft Security Essentials.

IE6 at work, I think IE7 or 8 at home. Whichever came with Vista.

I've tried IE8 again, and it does seem to run really well. But it is the leading browser, so it's the most targeted due to widespread use.

I also downloaded Opera 10 and gave it a whirl today. Not bad. Not bad at all. The only thing I dislike about Chrome and Opera is there is no bookmarks menu at the top. I am used to just going up to the bar at the top, clicking bookmarks, and going to where I want. I don't want bookmarks on the side, or have to go thru several menus to get to it. I also don't like em in a bunch of squares on the home page.

Doh! Nevermind! I found the way to put the bookmarks at the top.

Now this is awesome!!

I've used IE8 with and without antivirus since it was made available. Since I do a bit of I make sure I run MSE antivirus all the time, though.

In any case, keeping backups of important data is a good idea.

To be fair, my 64 bit home system is running a full Etrust antivirus suite (which is a pig) behind a router and Windows firewall, and is backed frequently to another machine on the network using Norton Ghost. So my browser could be full of holes that I'm getting away with, and even if something infects me I've likely got a clean backup at the ready.

You offend the word browser when you pair it with Internet Explorer.

This has been around forever... not sure why they haven't been able to tackle it finally.

Chrome is my favorite right now... although I have to say, it seemed to be a lot faster back when it was version 1. Maybe I just got accustomed to it or something though.

Whatever happened to Netscape?

I just downloaded Opera. It's sooooo fast compared to FireFox.


It's a bit ridiculous.

AOL bought it, ruined it, buried it.

It got bloated and shitty. Eventually some kid took the basic engine, stripped out all the garbage and turned it into Firefox.

"All this has happened before..."

Agreed.

I downloaded it after you posted this and now that it is up and running the way I want (with everything at the top) it's freaking awesome.

I don't know where FireFox went wrong but it's never been as fast as Opera has been these last few hours. If it stays like this I've got a new browser and Fox will be relegated to just being there.

It's more or less Firefox.