Love of Firefox vs. Safari

TuckerdogAVL

TuckerdogAVL

Registered
Someone please explain to me what I'm missing?

I've loaded FIREFOX because of the RAVE reviews. Great security. More stable. ETC. I have used SAFARI since it came out. I read all these forums about how wonnerful FIREFOX is vs. SAFARI....so, I give it a shot.

Firefox launches....spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, for about 30-45 seconds. I type in a simple website, like www.macosx.com. Spin, spin, spin, spin, spin...this time about 45 seconds. Can't find it. Would you like to try again? So I do....spin, spin another 30 seconds. I give up. Go to Safari. 2 seconds. I'm on the site.

I empty caches, I remove cookies, I clean out everything to do another test so both Safari and Firefox start fresh.

I launch Safari....take a little longer because there's nothing saved, but goes where I need it to go in about 15 seconds. www.google. com. www.yahoo.com. Nytimes.com. Simple stuff.

I launch Firefox....spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, 50 seconds - to a minute - later it's at the google.com site. I open a new tab. Type in yahoo.com to check some mail. Spin, spin, spin, spin. I read the mail. Click on Logout, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin, spin. Give up. Close it. Type in www. macosx.com. Spin, spin, spin, Site must be down, or doesn't exist or you're having an out of body experience. I close. Launch Safari. Type this message.

So, what am I missing here?
 
TuckerdogAVL said:
Someone please explain to me what I'm missing?

...
Click to expand...
You have it about right. There are some websites which are explicitly designed for Firefox and cause trouble in Safari. However, there is no browser which is more standards-compliant than Safari. Firefox is designed to solve two problems. The first is Internet Explorer on Windows. The second is the perceived bloat of Mozilla (now Seamonkey). Like Mozilla/Seamonkey, Firefox is not native code. It uses a small runtime interpreter to execute XUL. This is why it is slow on some machines. To a cutdown version of Mozilla was added an Extensions architecture to the existing Mozilla/Netscape plug-in architecture. Extensions allow Firefox to go beyond web browsing. Firefox fans swear by them. But if you use your web browser exclusively for browsing the web, then you cannot beat Safari.
 
I agree with what MisterMe said, except I don't think it explains the ridiculous delays you're getting. That's just not normal. Firefox's network code should be just as fast as any app's, and its rendering engine is also quite fast (I personally don't find it noticeably faster than Safari, but I wouldn't say it's slower, either). The interface is clunky and non-native, but that doesn't seem to be your problem.

Do you by any chance have a proxy set up in System Preferences? Most Mac apps, like Safari, will automatically use this proxy, but I think you need to specifically tell Firefox to use a proxy in its preferences (in the Advanced section, under Network).
 
What Mac do you have and how much RAM and remaining hard drive space does it have? If it's an older Mac, Firefox does tend to be very sluggish. However, on a machine like my iMac G5 with just 512 MB RAM it's pretty snappy.

Also, make sure that you've copied the Firefox application icon from the disk image to your Applications folder on your Macintosh's hard drive.
 
MisterMe said:
Like Mozilla/Seamonkey, Firefox is not native code.
Click to expand...

Just a small correction - both Firefox and Seamonkey are universal code, which means either will run natively on PPC or Intel Macs. And, I agree, the very slow loading on your install of Firefox is not normal at all.
 
DeltaMac said:
... both Firefox and Seamonkey are universal code, which means either will run natively on PPC or Intel Macs. ...
Click to expand...
What's Universal Binary is the runtime interpeter. The bulk of the actual browser code is XUL. If you want a Gecko-based browser on MacOS X which runs native code, then your only choice is Camino.
 
TuckerdogAVL said:
Someone please explain to me what I'm missing?

So, what am I missing here?
Click to expand...


I use moxilla for a specific site (where safari does not work properly yet). We have totally no problems with mozilla in that regards, so either the download was incorrect or something on you systems is causing the huge delays in repsonse time.

This could be the amount of available memory, proxy settings or whatever one could imagine for causes. Personally i will stick to safari, the safari incluede with the beta of 10.5 worked properly with the specific site, so the wait is for that.


Good luck, Kees
 
That is strange, there must be some problem with your setup. I use Firefox as my main browser and I never have that sort of problems. It tends to be a bit slow at launching (nothing like the 30-45 secs you mention tho), but after it does, everything from going to websites, scrolling, switching tabs, etc is very fast.

Are you running the latest version? Did you install any additional extensions?


sal
 
Repair your permissions. Empty out your hard drive. Those things might help your system in general.

I have heard that Firefox 2.0 (latest version) is a bit bloated; that's why I haven't upgraded from my 1.5 yet.

Firefox has some great extensions like Foxmarks (keeps your bookmarks on a remote server so you can load them to whichever computer you happen to be working on) and NoScript (lets you choose which sites run javascript on your machine). Great security features!
 
Of course, after I posted the note, Firefox started acting much, much faster. Guess it "heard" me. But, in regards to RAM and age, if I'm testing Safari vs. Firefox vs [insert here] and the machine is the constant, what difference does it (age and RAM) make? The logic then would be: "If Firefox needs a newer system and RAM to run as fast as Safari, and you are using the older machinge and Safari runs fast on it, then Safari is the best choice for that machine."

So that particular question is not relevant.

But, just the same, I'm seeing more speed the past few days. Maybe something "Set" something. One of the little worker bees that live inside the compooter.
 
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