What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

samuele.mattiuzzo · 2010-02-06 15:39:41

Since last pacman -Syu firefox stopped working properly... it doesn't download anymore on click, i have to right-click then save as. it doesnt let me view what it's downloading. generally, everytime it needs to open a smaller window (like About Shiretoko or download window) it just does nothing.

well, it does something: it opens that small window you see in the screenshot. if i enlarge it, the window is blank, empty, nothing in, and can do nothing... that one also appears when i try to quicksearch from the box on the top right (i cannot even finish typing, that the window appears. and the search isnt working after all)

any of you experienced this? i think i have firefox 3.6.5 or similar. tried reinstalling, nothing... oh! it also doesn't let me interact with flash (i can launch videos or applications, it plays them, but i cannot stop forward or interact at all...)

n0dix · 2010-02-06 15:52:54

Try delete the configuration folder in your $HOME and reinstall. Be careful, because you will remove the bookmarks and other stuffs.
Btw, this version of firefox has much problems, i don't know why.

samuele.mattiuzzo · 2010-02-06 15:57:27

yeah i'll try bookmarks are essential for me, so i'll just backup then try "much problems" it has one problem, the whole version

Misfit138 · 2010-02-06 16:04:37

I abandoned Firefox a while back in favor of Chromium. Firefox seems to have become a big, bloated, buggy bore.

sHyLoCk · 2010-02-06 16:12:43

that's what I used to think but: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=90424

Berticus · 2010-02-06 16:21:28

I'm looking to switch to uzbl as my primary browser. I stumble though, so I'll keep firefox, unless I figure out a way to get SU to work with uzbl.

pyther · 2010-02-06 17:37:13

Have you completely closed out of firefox since the upgrade?

R00KIE · 2010-02-06 19:56:04

It works fine here, no problem after the update. If anything it got a little faster but I have to agree with Misfit138, chromium is way faster than firefox. I have my firefox profile in the ram and still it is slower than chromium without any mods.

Close firefox, rename your .mozilla directory and start firefox again, it may be some bad config or addon that is causing the problem.

graysky · 2010-02-06 20:14:57

@rookie - wow, chromium is much faster than firefox when loading pages. I am amazed.

barzam · 2010-02-06 20:17:15

Chromium also has plenty of addons.

davidm · 2010-02-06 20:23:17

Chromium takes advantage of dual/quad core processors being multi-threaded. While Firefox is just now working on this. For a while the latest minefield nightlies (3.7 preview/aplha 1) had limited SMP by using two separate plugins one for the firefox binary and another for the plugins but they recently reverted to disabling this by default. The plan from what I gather is to have a near (some things shared for memory optimization -- different than chromium currently) chromium like implementation for version 4.0.

This is where much of the speed difference likely is. If you're interested here is info on the current project to make Firefox SMP optimized like chromium: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Electrolysis

Last edited by davidm (2010-02-06 20:39:29)

graysky · 2010-02-06 20:56:10

@davidm - thanks for the link. Too bad adblockplus and noscript don't work on chromium.

samyazza · 2010-02-06 23:02:45

I'm pretty sure there was an adblock port for Chromium which supported the EasyLists. What do you want more?

graysky · 2010-02-06 23:15:21

@samyazza - there is but its functionality isn't native in the browser via a rightclick like it is in ff unfortunately. Plus, I can't find noscript ...

R00KIE · 2010-02-07 03:41:48

@davidm
I think the difference is not only in chromium making use of multiple cpus, it also is a bit faster to start.

I have used and still use firefox and chromium from a rescue flash drive and firefox can grind to a halt while chrome still keeps going nicely while performing similar tasks so there must be more going on than just SMP.

Misfit138 · 2010-02-07 03:50:35

R00KIE wrote:

@davidm
I think the difference is not only in chromium making use of multiple cpus, it also is a bit faster to start.
I have used and still use firefox and chromium from a rescue flash drive and firefox can grind to a halt while chrome still keeps going nicely while performing similar tasks so there must be more going on than just SMP.

Agreed.
Currently using a resurrected PIII 550MHz, 384MB RAM machine and Chromium runs circles around FF.
(It is also faster on my dual core machines)

sHyLoCk wrote:

that's what I used to think but: http://bbs.archlinux.org/viewtopic.php?id=90424

Yeah, but you solved it!

moljac024 · 2010-02-07 13:56:31

I switched to Opera because of the massive Firefox slowdown. I really can't put my finger on it either, but it seems like it just hogs the CPU eventually and doesn't give it up causing a system slowdown as well. Happens on both my computers at home and on my computer at work. And the one at work barely has any plugins and it was a fresh 3.6 install.

davidm · 2010-02-07 15:57:54

R00KIE wrote:

@davidm
I think the difference is not only in chromium making use of multiple cpus, it also is a bit faster to start.
I have used and still use firefox and chromium from a rescue flash drive and firefox can grind to a halt while chrome still keeps going nicely while performing similar tasks so there must be more going on than just SMP.

There is, of course, as is the difference between any browser - they are not the same. But I believe the difference in being multi-threaded is one of the main issues right now. Especially in regards to flash and other such plugins. Another issue to look into might be the firefox fsync problem, especially if on ext4fs...

Last edited by davidm (2010-02-07 16:04:45)

n0dix · 2010-02-07 16:21:03

davidm wrote:

There is, of course, as is the difference between any browser - they are not the same. But I believe the difference in being multi-threaded is one of the main issues right now. Especially in regards to flash and other such plugins. Another issue to look into might be the firefox fsync problem, especially if on ext4fs...

Specially today, that we have more complex web pages and flash stuff. Seems it is better have a Quad Core than 6 Gb of memory ram. In my case i don't have any of them.

Last edited by n0dix (2010-02-07 16:21:30)

R00KIE · 2010-02-08 01:34:59

Ok then, but the slowdown I'm talking about is about running arch from a not so fast usb flash disk in single core amd machines (Turion MT-30 and Athlon 64 3000+, both machines with 1G ram) and not even getting flash into the equation, I know that flash is slower than molasses and can slowdown powerful machines.

In this case firefox can grind to a halt and chromium flies, smp is not what's making chromium faster because both cpus are single core, single threaded. Maybe it really is/was the fsync problem. FF 3.6 seems to work better, but older versions could take a good while to open for the first time while chromium was much faster.

One curious thing is that firefox seems to run a bit better (from the same flash disk) in the amd notebook. I find it a little odd why it seems a little faster in the machine that should be slower (the notebook).

These slowdown problems can only be clearly seen if you have a slower/older machine or somehow create bottlenecks somewhere. I bet that if I was running arch from a proper HD both on my old notebook and desktop it would be much harder to tell the difference.

On Misfit138's case it's an even older machine with a slower cpu and less ram so differences are a lot more noticeable there and I bet there is no need to bring flash into the equation. Firefox is great for all the addons but it really is becoming a heavy beast.

n0dix · 2010-02-08 01:46:53

R00KIE wrote:

... Firefox is great for all the addons but it really is becoming a heavy beast.

Very truth, my main browser is google-chrome, basically because the fast it is to do things, but when i have a problem with, i run to Firefox, and i noticed the different only opening the browser. Very sad!

sand_man · 2010-02-08 02:17:08

Its webkit that is king. Firefox just fails me these days... Give me chromioum, uzbl, epiphany, safari, anything over firefox (except IE)

thayer · 2010-02-08 04:40:04

moljac024 wrote:

I switched to Opera because of the massive Firefox slowdown.

I did too, but after seeing some of the UI changes in the 10.5 alpha I got scared and found KeySnail for FF which is much faster than vimperator on my netbook. I'm just too paranoid to form a lasting relationship with a proprietary browser

I definitely have my eye on chromium developments though.

Cdh · 2010-02-08 08:28:51

Does really nobody have a problem with the font rendering in chrom* <5?
On the left it is chrome-dev 5, on the right current chromium from extra.
vM2d5Ng
Several bugs related I think
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issue … l?id=12179
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issue … l?id=18159
http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issue … l?id=26206
etc.

Makes it unusable for me because my eyes are bleeding when reading text.

Firefox just needs to make the gui a real binary program and use webkit.

Arch Linux

#1 2010-02-06 15:39:41

What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#2 2010-02-06 15:52:54

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#3 2010-02-06 15:57:27

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#4 2010-02-06 16:04:37

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#5 2010-02-06 16:12:43

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#6 2010-02-06 16:21:28

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#7 2010-02-06 17:37:13

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#8 2010-02-06 19:56:04

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#9 2010-02-06 20:14:57

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#10 2010-02-06 20:17:15

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#11 2010-02-06 20:23:17

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#12 2010-02-06 20:56:10

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#13 2010-02-06 23:02:45

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#14 2010-02-06 23:15:21

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#15 2010-02-07 03:41:48

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#16 2010-02-07 03:50:35

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#17 2010-02-07 13:56:31

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#18 2010-02-07 15:57:54

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#19 2010-02-07 16:21:03

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#20 2010-02-08 01:34:59

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#21 2010-02-08 01:46:53

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#22 2010-02-08 02:17:08

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#23 2010-02-08 04:40:04

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

#24 2010-02-08 08:28:51

Re: What happened to firefox since last upgrade? It works very badly

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