I have been using Firefox (FF) since the days of FF1.0. Nothing has been worse than the current complete instability of the popular, easily personalised web browser. Admittedly, the FF1.5 is a tremendous leap froward and huge gains were made on the ability, even of a complete novice, to customise it with the numerous extensions. My favourite is the weather extension that enables one to get an up-to date weather info, built-in right into your browser. What's more, the availability of local city weather beats the Yahoo! Konfabulator widget to the tape with regard to some relatively unknown cities in continental China. Nonetheless, there have been wails and not-entirely-unfounded grouses about what are probably mislabelled as "memory leaks". Were it not for the ease with which FF is customisable and the fact that a Personalised Google Homepage with password access is comparatively easily available in FF than IE, I would have folded shop and high-tailed back to the latter. But each time I start IE (now I run IE 7 Beta 2), I have to sign into my Personalised Google Homepage. Besides, the favourites in IE 7 need to be opened individually whereas in FF 1.5, I have what I designated as the home tabs which I can open in one swoop. So what is the memory leak fuss and what causes it? In a blog, an engineer attempted to explain it but this did not molify the large number of disciples of FF. Personally, I have had to wade through quite a journey through a jungle brainstorming the possible causes. I haven't any definite answer but I have somehow identified the numerous, sometimes hastily designed extensions as a possible cause. I had a number of extensions which I have since uninstalled to make the browser leaner and although I have gone through half a dozen crashes today alone, the memory problem has definitely come down. In this light I only have the following extensions: Update Notifier, Gmail Manager (I have a dozen Gmail a/cs!), Forecastfox, NoScript, Google Web Accelerator, Google Safe Browsing, Flashblock, Blue Frog Anti-Spam, Tab Mix Plus, Google Toolbar and Talkback. I admit that when I had Fasterfox running with Google Web Accelerator the memory problem was more pronounced.
On a normal day, I have a streaming TV from BBC World, as well as 8 or so tabs, a pdf, powerpoint and a number of MS Word documents all open at the same time. Even as I compose this, Microsoft Windows Defender Beta 2 is running and now my 512MB RAM is not depletted (actually FF is running at between 8~38% CPU memeory). Before prunning out the other extensions FF was persistently and tenaciously stuck at 100%. Before I treamed the extensions in FF1.5, by this time I would be snailing through the pages and tabs. It seems therefore safe to point a finger of suspicion at one or more of the extensions as the possible memory guzzling culprits. Which ones they are, let's all get out shovels in hand to dig them out! In a nutshell, FF developers need to put in place a stringent quality control mechanism for the extensions engineers. Without this, the main purpose of FF will be defeated. Notwithstanding, some of the barrages of posts on Ben's blog may have included malicious individuals bent on nothing else but to discredit FF. We, who enjoy the services of the browser ought not lose sight of the fact that it is free. While we outdo each other in discrediting and rubbishing the efforts of FF army of volunteers, we should be ashamed that we haven't as much as suggested a way out of this quagmire.
On the same breathe, could Google consider assigning more resources to dedicated FF developers? The reason is simply because there seems to be some unique chemistry between the two as evidenced by the bundle called Google Pack. For whenever anybody grouses about the pitfalls in FF 1.5, surely Google will by default be taking a beating. It is therefore in the long-term global image of Google to help streamline this very addictive web-browser!
What is your take on these, guys?
No comments:
Post a Comment