Is Firefox 5.0.1 super slow on your computer? Are you Mac users getting the spinning beach ball?

13 replies
  • OFF TOPIC
  • |
Firefox 5.0.1 is brutally slow on my Macbook Pro. Its so slow that I often get the spinning beach ball which breaks my focus and hinders my productivity. I also find that I'm automatically getting logged out of sites like I did when I was typing this.

This is what I've tried to make FF work better on my Mac...

- When the first pretty version of FF came out (maybe v5?), I discovered quickly that it was too slow so I reverted back to an earlier uglier version, but then came another update and many of the addons I use stopped working, and thats when I was forced to update to 5.0.1.

- I tweaked the config according to a video on Youtube. That briefly made FF lightning fast, but then it starting sucking again.

- I have FF set to automatically clear History whenever I close it and then I even tried disabling the History.


Questions please...


1) Are you having the same issue?

2) Have you figured out a way to speed up FF 5.0.1?

3) If you downgraded to a previous version of FF, did all your current addons still work? And if so, which version do you revert to?

Any information will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks.
Steve

Firefox: Latest version - Firefox (5.0.1).
Computer: Macbook Pro 17 - OSX 10.5.8 - 6 GB of RAM.
Internet Speed: Cable, from 10mbps to 20mbps.
  • Profile picture of the author Jeremy_AM
    I don't have a Mac but FF5 is a disaster. Crashes constantly and very very slow a lot of times. It often decides to use 800+MB of ram for no good reason. I'm not sure that you can tweak your way to a fix because it seems to be an underlying issue with the software.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4432018].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author magentawave
      So what are you using now? Did you go with Safari or Chrome? If so, do you miss having the FF addons?

      Thanks
      Steve



      Originally Posted by Jeremy_AM View Post

      I don't have a Mac but FF5 is a disaster. Crashes constantly and very very slow a lot of times. It often decides to use 800+MB of ram for no good reason. I'm not sure that you can tweak your way to a fix because it seems to be an underlying issue with the software.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4439866].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author QuickSurf
        Chrome is still the best, I do use FF but mainly for downloading vids as for some reason there's a lot of sites that Safari and Chrome don't work correctly with like uploading.com. Firefox years ago was great, simple and fast, now it's bloated and the huge memory leaks have gotten worse and worse, watch just open one tab and do a few things or let it be and check how much ram it's eating up, ridiculous. They've known about that issue for a few years now and have done nothing to fix it.

        Chrome is still the fastest, most stable, and can customize like FF. I only use Safari on my Mac for one car forum I'm on b/c for some reason it glitches on any other browser.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4441338].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Jeremy_AM
        Originally Posted by magentawave View Post

        So what are you using now? Did you go with Safari or Chrome? If so, do you miss having the FF addons?

        Thanks
        Steve
        Still using FF5 lol. Waiting for a fix. I only switched to FF (from Maxthon) a couple months ago so I don't really want to switch to something else again. Took a while to get used to FF and get everything how I wanted it with a bunch of addons and such.

        FF4 was more stable for sure.
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4447149].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author blueonblue
    A friend of mine on FB complained that his FF 5 was a dog. I told him to go and see if anyone was still offering 4.x as a download. He found it, downloaded and solved his problems.

    Try it. If you lose plugins, be prepared. Write down the ones you have and if they vanish, contact the websites and see if they have older plugins.

    Stay away from new Safari! Slow as molasses and Opera is awful (only advantage is you can open raw html and edit in there. Did it for a class once). Go with Chrome!
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4441414].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author design2convert
    Yes no doubt they were slow on some system, try to use 3.6 which will give you really good speed and also its best for seo purposes. I have also used 4 and 5 version but still prefer to 3.6
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4443009].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author magentawave
      Specifically which version of FF 3.6 are you using?

      Steve


      Originally Posted by design2convert View Post

      Yes no doubt they were slow on some system, try to use 3.6 which will give you really good speed and also its best for seo purposes. I have also used 4 and 5 version but still prefer to 3.6
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4448568].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author fatlols
    I'm using a mac and it works fine for me.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4447726].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author magentawave
      I downgraded from FF 5.0.1 to FF 3.6.1.9 a couple days ago. 3.6.1.9 was a lot faster but I'm still getting the spinning beach ball (its a Mac) sometimes. I noticed I had a couple addons enabled that I knew had stopped working with the latest versions of FF but left them there and forgot about them because I was hoping they'd start working again. So I deleted those and FF seemed to work better. Since I'm now using 3.6.1.9, I don't know if it was those abandoned and still enabled addons that were messing up 5.0.1, or 5.0.1 just plain sucks. I've read good things about 3.6.1.2 so I might try that version next.

      Its really easy to upgrade or downgrade FF and only takes about two minutes. You just download the older version and it will replace the newer version and all your previous addons and bookmarks will remain intact. However, its possible that some of your existing addons will no longer work, but you'll know that because they will be dimmed in the list of addons.

      Here is a complete list of all browsers with links to older versions and the latest versions...

      - Mac: Old Versions Browsers for Mac
      - Windows: Old Web Browsers Software - OldApps.com
      - Linux: Old Version of Ubuntu Download - OldApps for Linux
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4448563].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author garyv
    My FF 5.0.1 is blazing fast. You may have to just be willing to get rid of any incompatible plugins until the vendors update them.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4448649].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author magentawave
      I tried Chrome when it first came out but it didn't have any addons then so I dismissed it as being my default browser. I still use it and Safari occasionally when I need to use 3 different browsers at one time.

      Does Chrome have addons now for stuff like showing Google PR, Alexa Traffic Rank, Tiny URL creator, LastPass, Screengrab, Download Helper, Gmail Checker, Session Manager, WiseStamp?

      Also, I read somewhere that Chrome had slowed down too. Is there a "best" version of Chrome to use?

      Originally Posted by Iwannaseeyou View Post

      Don't use firefox, use google chrome


      FF6 is out now in beta and is supposed to launch any day. Heard any good stuff about it from beta testers?

      Originally Posted by garyv View Post

      My FF 5.0.1 is blazing fast. You may have to just be willing to get rid of any incompatible plugins until the vendors update them.
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[4448756].message }}

Trending Topics