I tested Firefox, and it was no good! What gives?

I tested Firefox, and it was no good! What gives?

I was testing Firefox as a possible browser replacement for a department in my company. Man alive, was it slow and did it eat up resources! It took up more memory than IE. Am I doing something wrong, or is this the way Firefox is?

    Requires Free Membership to View

    Login

    When you register, my team of editors will also send you resources covering Linux administration and management; integration and interoperability between Linux, Windows and Unix; securing Linux and mixed-platform environments; and migrating to Linux.

    Cathleen A. Gagne, Senior Editorial Director

    By submitting your registration information to SearchEnterpriseLinux.com you agree to receive email communications from TechTarget and TechTarget partners. We encourage you to read our Privacy Policy which contains important disclosures about how we collect and use your registration and other information. If you reside outside of the United States, by submitting this registration information you consent to having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States. Your use of SearchEnterpriseLinux.com is governed by our Terms of Use. You may contact us at webmaster@TechTarget.com.

Which version did you try? It's a mistake to try a nightly build or a debug version -- they're for developers. Stick to the major releases, which are radically more efficient. They're also the ones properly advertised. It's not meaningful to try an experimental nightly build unless you're enthusiastic about contributing to Firefox.

I doubt Firefox will ever take up as much memory as IE. You forget that most of IE doesn't appear in the list of system processes. Lots of it is embedded in Windows, where it's hard to count. The tiny iexplore.exe "program" that starts IE is just a tugboat that's pulling a huge battleship.

Firefox does have a memory cache, though, and it can be big. That's for dial-up users who want to squeeze out every drop of performance. If you're on a corporate intranet you can turn that off. Type in this URL: "about:config" and search for "memory". Right click on a likely item, change it, and restart.

This was first published in December 2004