Ask me about Firefox

[SleepWalkerX]

How come firefox seems much slower in Suse than Windows? I'm running Suse 10.0. In windows it was much more responsive and I could cycle through tabs in an instant. In Suse, cyling tabs seems more sluggish as well as surfing. I'm thinking it might have to do with my hard drive, but DMA is enabled.

 

[kamper]

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Originally posted by: kamper
Why doesn't ctrl-tab work for cycling between tabs as of 1.5 on os x? How else do I cycle through without the mouse?

Because apparently it's not normal for OS X apps to use ctrl+tab, so they disabled that feature on OS X.

Well did they leave an option to turn it back on? Did they at least leave me with an alternative, even if it's the assinine apple-}/apple-{ from Safari? I know you can still do apple-number to hop to a specific tab, but I want to cycle and I don't see why they should disable it unless os x people kept using it thinking it would do something else. Sorry to be all acusing and stuff, it just annoys me that it's that arbitrary

 

[igowerf]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
How come firefox seems much slower in Suse than Windows? I'm running Suse 10.0. In windows it was much more responsive and I could cycle through tabs in an instant. In Suse, cyling tabs seems more sluggish as well as surfing. I'm thinking it might have to do with my hard drive, but DMA is enabled.

Maybe it's your video card or video drivers.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: kamper

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Originally posted by: kamper
Why doesn't ctrl-tab work for cycling between tabs as of 1.5 on os x? How else do I cycle through without the mouse?

Because apparently it's not normal for OS X apps to use ctrl+tab, so they disabled that feature on OS X.

Well did they leave an option to turn it back on? Did they at least leave me with an alternative, even if it's the assinine apple-}/apple-{ from Safari? I know you can still do apple-number to hop to a specific tab, but I want to cycle and I don't see why they should disable it unless os x people kept using it thinking it would do something else. Sorry to be all acusing and stuff, it just annoys me that it's that arbitrary

Ben Goodger ("lead Firefox developer") is against having many options. I like SeaMonkey because we have more options so you don't need as many extensions.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Originally posted by: Atheus
Why does it use so much memory? Why is memory usage reported in the task manager lower than actual usage? Why does memory usage often go up when I close a tab rather than down? Why does it not call free() until I minimise it?

It uses so much memory for one of two reasons 1) you're viewing big pages / pages with lots of images. If so, it has to hold the image data somewhere (memory).

4 tabs - 1 AT front page, 3 AT forums, 91MB and steadily rising...

2) It leaks. Developers know it leaks, and are trying to get people to help them track the leaks down (though people seem to prefer to just complain).

Sorry, that must be annoying... OK I'll help, but I've never made a windows GUI in C++ before, so I may get lost in the win32 API stuff... Is it well commented? Does the linux version leak in the same way? Are there any docs for new devs?

The "memory usage" column in task manager is a largely irrelevant number. The one that matters is "VM Size".

I don't have a "VM size" column. So the "mem usage" only counts 'real' memory (RAM) and not swap? I never noticed that.

The "memory usage" goes down when you minimize it because Windows moves programs onto the swapfile and out of RAM when you minimize them. The VM size column won't change when you minimize.

"Memory usage" going up when you close a tab is likely related - if some Firefox code was on the swap file (e.g. the code related to closing documents & tabs), when you make it do something that needs that code, it gets pulled back into RAM, and "memory usage" goes up.

It "calls free()" when it's done with data or when garbage collection is running. The problem is, sometimes it doesn't free data it's done with (leaks, mentioned above).

So can I run the garbage collector manually somehow? That would be useful. Thanks.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: igowerf

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
How come firefox seems much slower in Suse than Windows? I'm running Suse 10.0. In windows it was much more responsive and I could cycle through tabs in an instant. In Suse, cyling tabs seems more sluggish as well as surfing. I'm thinking it might have to do with my hard drive, but DMA is enabled.

Maybe it's your video card or video drivers.

I'm running a 6800GS with the latest proprietary nvidia driver. Its running at 1280x1024 with a 59Hz refresh rate. It still ran the same at 1024x768.

edit: Do you think it'd be any faster if I compiled firefox from source? I tried this once, but during the ./configure script I ran into an error.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: Atheus

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Originally posted by: Atheus
Why does it use so much memory? Why is memory usage reported in the task manager lower than actual usage? Why does memory usage often go up when I close a tab rather than down? Why does it not call free() until I minimise it?

It uses so much memory for one of two reasons 1) you're viewing big pages / pages with lots of images. If so, it has to hold the image data somewhere (memory).

4 tabs - 1 AT front page, 3 AT forums, 91MB and steadily rising...

Leaks / broken extensions.

2) It leaks. Developers know it leaks, and are trying to get people to help them track the leaks down (though people seem to prefer to just complain).

Sorry, that must be annoying... OK I'll help, but I've never made a windows GUI in C++ before, so I may get lost in the win32 API stuff... Is it well commented? Does the linux version leak in the same way? Are there any docs for new devs?

You don't need programming skills - dbaron's blog has some environment variables to set (just use "set VAR=value" in cmd.exe, then run the browser from that cmd window, and see his "part 2" that gives an easy way to analyze the log). All platforms probably leak about the same amounts.

The "memory usage" column in task manager is a largely irrelevant number. The one that matters is "VM Size".

I don't have a "VM size" column. So the "mem usage" only counts 'real' memory (RAM) and not swap? I never noticed that.

View->Select Columns

The "memory usage" goes down when you minimize it because Windows moves programs onto the swapfile and out of RAM when you minimize them. The VM size column won't change when you minimize.

"Memory usage" going up when you close a tab is likely related - if some Firefox code was on the swap file (e.g. the code related to closing documents & tabs), when you make it do something that needs that code, it gets pulled back into RAM, and "memory usage" goes up.

It "calls free()" when it's done with data or when garbage collection is running. The problem is, sometimes it doesn't free data it's done with (leaks, mentioned above).

So can I run the garbage collector manually somehow? That would be useful. Thanks.

Opening a new window and closing it apparently forces a GC, but that won't magically fix leaks. I'm not sure what else causes GCs - they may happen periodically anyway(?).

edit: Do you think it'd be any faster if I compiled firefox from source? I tried this once, but during the ./configure script I ran into an error.

No, don't bother. Gains with machine-specific optimizations are generally negligible to non-existent.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman

Originally posted by: Busie23
How do you open a new tab with whatever is on the current tab, like in IE when you do a new window?

ctrl + n for a completely new window
ctrl + t for a new tab


yes, ive also got the memory questions just like atheus posted too.

Clone Window. It has settings that allow cloning for either new windows, tabs, or both.

 

[Atheus]

Originally posted by: CTho9305
View->Select Columns

Woah, funtionality++. Almost as good as ps.

 

[EpsiIon]

Originally posted by: secretanchitman

Originally posted by: Busie23
How do you open a new tab with whatever is on the current tab, like in IE when you do a new window?

ctrl + n for a completely new window
ctrl + t for a new tab


yes, ive also got the memory questions just like atheus posted too.

How can you configure the browser so that openeing a new tab or window loads the current page in the new tab or window?

Examples:
------------

Currently:

ATOT | No window open
Press ctrl + n or ctrl + t
ATOT | blank window

What I want:
ATOT | No window open
Press ctrl + n or ctrl + t
ATOT | ATOT

This is one the features of IE that I love and WILL NOT be without.

 

[IlllI]

thanks for all the help everyone. looks like the "Tab Clicking Options" extension is what i was looking for

 

[Muadib]

Originally posted by: clandren
thanks for all the help everyone. looks like the "Tab Clicking Options" extension is what i was looking for

I like Tab Mix Plus better.

My question is what spell checker works with the new version?

 

[IlllI]

Originally posted by: Muadib

I like Tab Mix Plus better.


[/quote]



i saw that one as well, but it really didnt give a very detailed description of what it did.. so i wasnt sure if it would have been useful for what i was looking for.

 

[Busie23]

Originally posted by: EpsiIon

Originally posted by: secretanchitman

Originally posted by: Busie23
How do you open a new tab with whatever is on the current tab, like in IE when you do a new window?

ctrl + n for a completely new window
ctrl + t for a new tab


yes, ive also got the memory questions just like atheus posted too.

How can you configure the browser so that openeing a new tab or window loads the current page in the new tab or window?

Examples:
------------

Currently:

ATOT | No window open
Press ctrl + n or ctrl + t
ATOT | blank window

What I want:
ATOT | No window open
Press ctrl + n or ctrl + t
ATOT | ATOT

This is one the features of IE that I love and WILL NOT be without.

Get the Duplicate tab extension. Somebody mentioned it above somewhere and It does exactly that. It also pulls over the history of the original tab so you can go back in the new tab, etc. It ends up being shift + ctrl + t

 

[imported_LoKe]

Originally posted by: LoKe

Originally posted by: Busie23
How do you open a new tab with whatever is on the current tab, like in IE when you do a new window?

Like, a duplicate tab? Text

 

[CtK]

I just open Firefox 1.5.0.1 and all my bookmarks are gone!!
plus the quick search on the top right corner is missing all my search engines and i cant add any back!!

please help!!

 

[ShadowBlade]

Originally posted by: kamper
Why doesn't ctrl-tab work for cycling between tabs as of 1.5 on os x? How else do I cycle through without the mouse?

works for me

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: CtK
I just open Firefox 1.5.0.1 and all my bookmarks are gone!!
plus the quick search on the top right corner is missing all my search engines and i cant add any back!!

please help!!

It might have started a new profile - check in Documents and Settings\YourUsername\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox\Profiles and see if there's more than one folder in there. Hopefully your old bookmarks.html will be there.

Then check out Bookmark Backup until the Firefox folk get the remaining Profile/bookmark bugs figured out.

 

[caitlion]

ive recently been experiencing connection issues, only with firefox. i can use internet explorer just fine... but i dont want to, thats why i got firefox. sometimes it just randomly says that there is a connection error and cant find any sites i try. or, sometimes it will say it cant find my homepage (google) but when i type in a different site it goes to that.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Originally posted by: SleepWalkerX
How come firefox seems much slower in Suse than Windows? I'm running Suse 10.0. In windows it was much more responsive and I could cycle through tabs in an instant. In Suse, cyling tabs seems more sluggish as well as surfing. I'm thinking it might have to do with my hard drive, but DMA is enabled.

Not sure what it was still, but using the precompiled firefox from mozilla solved my problem. Now its much more responsive.

 

[The Sly Syl]

If i'm right clicking something for download, there is a "Send Link" option.

I accidently hit this all the time on my way to "add to download queue".

Any way i can delete it completely?