Different web browser speeds with ADSL

aligator_am

Hi,

I had something of a revelation recently, ive been using good old IE6 for the past while and it seemed to be working ok, then i updated my version of Netscape to 7 and it honestly loaded pages about 5 times quicker, but then i stuck Mozilla Firefox on my machine.... ahchie machie! has anyone else here used this? the speed of it was incredible. To be honest i'd never even heard of Firefox before about a week ago. Has anyone else here noticed this too?

Also, can anyone tell me if using a USB2.0 modem (ZyXel) with a USB1 connection affect the performance of the connection?

Thanks

Alan

Winters

I do find it faster and i'm 56k. It would be my browser of choice and is the best thing out there.

And would you believe you can make it even faster too? Take a look at the Mozilla Firefox Tips & Tricks page and it will give you details on how to speed it up even more and other useful tweaks.

machalla

Well when you think about it IE6 hasn't been upgraded in 2-3 years. Mozilla is in constant development. It renders pages much faster overall. Forget the speed differences though. Without tabbed browsing IE is just a dinosaur. Not to mention the security holes and so on.

The good thing is Mozilla is cross platform so you can use it on any of the major OS as well.

tuxy

ya its a great web browser and id highly recomend it to anyone still using ie

aligator_am

Machalla, is that a Narn heavy cruiser? the icon i mean.

OfflerCrocGod

Mozilla Firefox truly does rock the house but with AdBlock you can Rock even more . Any one who has Firefox should use adblock it can block *anything* and you can use RegExp to filter ads it's divine ww).

Ste-

Originally posted by OfflerCrocGod
Mozilla Firefox truly does rock the house but with AdBlock you can Rock even more . Any one who has Firefox should use adblock it can block *anything* and you can use RegExp to filter ads it's divine ww).

Couldn't agree more.
And as a result of blocking larger/annoying images pages load faster too.


Highly endorsed.

bk

Yes I've been using Mozilla Firefox for a while now on Windows, Linux and Sun Solaris and yes it rocks.

They are lots of great extensions for it that greatly enhance the browser, that are well worth checking out such as:

Adblock - Blocks ads
Flash Click To View - Blocks Flash movies, but you can click on them to paly them, if you want to see them.
Tabbroweser Extension - Adds extra functionality to the browesr.
and many more.

The more you use Firefox the more brilliant features you find.

Also if you are a webdeveloper there are many must have extensions for it.

BTW you should also check out Mozilla Thunderbird, it is the email client, based around the same code as Firefox.

Mozilla Thunderbird also has many great features such as the spam filtering that works brilliantly and most importantly it isn't that hole riddled, virus spreader, Outlook Express. By using Thunderbird you greatly reduce the possibility of getting effected by a virus.

BBTW the reason why you porbably haven't heard of Firefox, is because it's name was only last week changed to Firefox.
Before that it was called Mozilla Firebird and before that it was called Phoenix, and it is all based off of a cut down and cleaned up version of the Mozilla Suite code, so it actually has been around for a while.

aligator_am

For adBlocking im currently using Norton internet security (which EsatBt gave me with my connection) and it works perfectly, would there be any point in me activating the adBlock features on Firefox?

Also, it's good to know that i wasn't imagining it when i thought that firefox was going faster

logistic

Im on 56k waiting on bb but i use opera and mozila. You realy do notice the difference in speed compared to IE6.

WezzyB

I currently use MyIE2 for browsing its got tabbed browsing as well as Ad/Content filtering, Also I need to use IE to access certain work Intranet features so this helps too where a Mozilla browser wouldn't.

dubmick

Just downloaded this to give it a try and I have to say I'm amazed at how much quicker it is thatn IE. Thanks for the info !

machalla

aligator_am yep thats the one. Theres Centauri and Earth Force as well. Always up for the underdog me. Ah it brings back the days when the internet was all new to me and the sci-fi was good.

Ad-block is great I must say although it does get a bit overzealous at times. Still its not as if wither a pop-up or a banner ad has crossed my eyes in quite a while thanks to mozilla.

Thunderbird is a beauty too. I love being able to run under the same environment in either windows or Linux.

Cheers for tip Winters. Firefox is running even faster now. Joy!

daveyjoe

Big up to Opera aswell

OfflerCrocGod

Originally posted by WezzyB
I currently use MyIE2 for browsing its got tabbed browsing as well as Ad/Content filtering, Also I need to use IE to access certain work Intranet features so this helps too where a Mozilla browser wouldn't.

And we are all commiserating with you.

Originally posted by dubmick Just downloaded this to give it a try and I have to say I'm amazed at how much quicker it is thatn IE. Thanks for the info !

That's what boards is all about:D, have you found tabs yet? (middle click on links or Ctrl+t or hold on Ctrl and click on link), or the dictionary? (in address bar type dict word - word being the word you are looking for).

swoofer

I downloaded this firefox today and it has crashed my PC 5 times and this is the 1st time a browser has done this so religiously. I am using win98se and at the moment using OPERA although I have ie6, avanti and anything else that is going.

Left firefox for the time being. it even crashed when I went the FAQ so if anyone here knows what is causing it to crash my PC let me know becuse it did look fast for the few mins I had it working.

gb--

OfflerCrocGod

Have you ever used any of the Mozilla Gecko browsers before?, like Mozilla/Firebird/Phoneix if you have you would be better off deleting all old profiles. Has Mozilla itself ever given you these sort of problems?. Does wowexec.exe run in your processes list?. Grab one of the optimised builds from here make sure you get the one for you Arch!!.

bk

Also do remember that Firefox is in Beta (0.8), usually it is very stable, however you might just be unlucky.

Sarsfield

I must be the only person in the world who doesn't like tabbed browsers :rolleyes:

Having said that, I use Slimbrowser which does have tabs.

OfflerCrocGod

Originally posted by Sarsfield
I must be the only person in the world who doesn't like tabbed browsers :rolleyes:

Why?, tabs are execelent!! - along with virtual desktops(Linux - Windows doesn't come with any native support) they are a great way of increasing your productivity relative to the space used.

aidofitz

just glanced through the thread and didnt see an answer to the USB question, so heres my 2eurocents. To the best of my knowledge, the bandwidth on a USB1 connection is about 1 Mbps, so unless ur DSL is close to that, there shouldnt be any diff beteen USB1 and USB2 for the modem link - USB2 will just leave you with 450+ Mbps of wasted bandwidth

MarVeL

I've been using Opera for a while now and find the tabs to be fantastic. They really suit the way I like to work. The single coolest thing in Opera though has to be mouse gestures. Now all I need is to find some way to get them to work in everything else as well

daveirl

This post has been deleted.

bizmark

Machalla, is that a Narn heavy cruiser? the icon i mean

Yes it is ......

And lads ye really should be discuseing difference's about browers on net/comms

will i move or wont i......hmm

dubmick

What are mouse gestures?

daveyjoe

Originally posted by dubmick
What are mouse gestures?

Mouse Gestures in Opera

ando

I dont find any speed difference between firefox and IE. I notice that firefox loads pics and pages differently than IE so that may be giving an impression of faster speeds??
If IE had tabs I'd go back to using it but for now I'll probably stay with firefox

aligator_am

Actually i noticed a great feature in netscape 7.1, if you hold down ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel the text will get bigger/smaller its very handy if you're on a site that has tiny writing on it.

Does anyone know if this functionality is available in firefox? i had a quick gander but saw no mention of it.

MarVeL

Don't know about Firefox (though I should be able to check tonight) but it is in Opera (the mousewheel resize that is)

bk

Originally posted by aligator_am
Actually i noticed a great feature in netscape 7.1, if you hold down ctrl and scroll the mouse wheel the text will get bigger/smaller its very handy if you're on a site that has tiny writing on it.

Does anyone know if this functionality is available in firefox? i had a quick gander but saw no mention of it.

Well I don't know about the mouse wheel (don't have a mouse whell on my mouse here - don't ask), but you can do the same thing on Firefox by simply holding down the "Control" key and "+" key together to increase font size or "Control" and "-" to decrease font size.

BendiBus

mousewheel resize even works for IE.