Browser?

I've had Firefox since it started and each upgrade seems to be getting
slower. It is getting very annoying. Losing the addresses tied to its tabs
now, now New Tabs, though they're still there and only need to be clicked
on and reloaded. I've reset their settings in Options several times.
Bringing it up from the taskbar is very slow maybe 5 - 10 seconds. It used
to be a fast errorfree (mostly) browser.

Suggestions for another browser? XP Home with 512 MB RAM.

--
You know it's time to clean the refrigerator
when something closes the door from the inside.

KenK wrote:
I've had Firefox since it started and each upgrade seems to be getting
slower. It is getting very annoying. Losing the addresses tied to its tabs
now, now New Tabs, though they're still there and only need to be clicked
on and reloaded. I've reset their settings in Options several times.
Bringing it up from the taskbar is very slow maybe 5 - 10 seconds. It used
to be a fast errorfree (mostly) browser.

Suggestions for another browser? XP Home with 512 MB RAM.

My suggestion is to just stick with an older version of Firefox. I tried
the newer versions (version 29 and up), and couldn't stand it, so I'm
sticking with version 28, which really isn't that old. No problems so far.
(newer isn't always better).

"Bill in Co" ha scritto nel messaggio
...

I'm sticking with version 28

What about security against malware?
John T. Haller (PortableApps.com) says Firefox 28 is not safe:
http://portableapps.com/comment/215693#comment-215693

KenK wrote:

I've had Firefox since it started and each upgrade seems to be getting
slower. It is getting very annoying. Losing the addresses tied to its tabs
now, now New Tabs, though they're still there and only need to be clicked
on and reloaded. I've reset their settings in Options several times.
Bringing it up from the taskbar is very slow maybe 5 - 10 seconds. It used
to be a fast errorfree (mostly) browser.

Suggestions for another browser? XP Home with 512 MB RAM.

You sure it is the web browser and not something, like anti-virus, that
interrogates your web traffic that is getting slower? The last 2 major
updates to Avast each added more delay. By the time I got the last
major program update, I had enough with progressively slower web page
loads. Once I disable the web shield in Avast, zoom, the web pages load
super fast. I could continue using Avast but disable (or not install)
its Web Shield but I'm looking at alternatives.

Bitdefender looked good but I've already reported a bug with its GUI
that it crashes or creates a hidden window due to it popping up when I
exit a video game. When its GUI crashes 3 seconds after exiting the
game, its window pops up and then its process crashes. I managed to
eliminate the crashes but its GUI still pops open 3 seconds after
exiting the game with a hidden window that shows up in the Ctrl+Alt list
but is invisible on the screen. If it crashes, I reload it and the GUI
works correctly - until I play the game again. If it causes the hidden
window (which screws up using Ctrl+Alt to flip between the 2 most recent
app windows) then I have to exit it and reload it. So its GUI is flaky.
Its core service continues running so I'm still protected but not having
a usable GUI means I can't tell what it is doing, look at its logs, run
an on-demand scan, or anything with its GUI (until it gets reloaded
after a crash or creating the hidden window from its flashing a popup
after exiting a game). While Bitdefender gets high marks for reactive
and proactive pest coverage and includes a web traffic filter, I sure
wish their core service would protect its GUI process better.

Because I noticed the progressively slower web page load with Avast over
the last few major program updates, I'm researching alternatives rather
than having to disable or remove Avast's web shield. Avast was causing
ever worse slowdowns. Users of other AV programs have noted the same
added delay due to the interrogation of the web traffic. So disable
your unidentified AV program, reboot and make sure it is still disabled,
and retest web page load time.

While you have been getting later updates of the web browser, you may
also be getting updates for other processes running at the same time and
which may affect your web traffic.

KenK wrote:
I've had Firefox since it started and each upgrade seems to be getting
slower. It is getting very annoying. Losing the addresses tied to its tabs
now, now New Tabs, though they're still there and only need to be clicked
on and reloaded. I've reset their settings in Options several times.
Bringing it up from the taskbar is very slow maybe 5 - 10 seconds. It used
to be a fast errorfree (mostly) browser.

Suggestions for another browser? XP Home with 512 MB RAM.


Seamonkey:

I have 7 pages open, 466MB RAM used
(A recent Firefox beta managed 1GB for a single tab! CNN home page as test case.)

Currently running version 2.31 (Gecko based)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SeaMonkey

All this on WinXP x32 SP3 with gobs of RAM to burn.

I won't touch Chrome, not because it's bad, but because
every kiddie with an exploit to test, tests it on Chrome.

You might want to make sure DEP is enabled, as WinXP
has few defenses. Process Explorer from Sysinternals.com can
give you DEP details, when you do Properties on a running task.
The idea of DEP, is WinXP Sp3 uses PAE virtual to physical,
providing a bit that says code segments are "read-only".
If a browser exploit tries a technique that corrupts browser
executable code, you have a bit of protection. I don't
know when I did it, but both browsers right now seem to
have DEP enabled for them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Execution_Prevention

Currently my boot.ini has "/noexecute=optin" so somehow
I must have turned on DEP for the browsers. I don't
remember doing that.

Paul

KenK wrote:
I've had Firefox since it started and each upgrade seems to be getting
slower. It is getting very annoying. Losing the addresses tied to its tabs
now, now New Tabs, though they're still there and only need to be clicked
on and reloaded. I've reset their settings in Options several times.
Bringing it up from the taskbar is very slow maybe 5 - 10 seconds. It used
to be a fast errorfree (mostly) browser.

Suggestions for another browser? XP Home with 512 MB RAM.

Can you increase your ram to at least 2 gb?
Some laptop ram is quite expensive, I know, but worth it.

I have FF 24 and Pale Moon, which is a lighter
version of FF. I use PM most of the time. I'm
avoiding updates of FF. The Mozilla people have
gone off the deep end, leaving less and less
control of the browser. Even with FF 24 I need
4 or 5 exptensions to fix the things they've
broken.

What other options are the

Chrome: spyware
IE: NO!

K-Meleon had an update awhile back. That's a
simpler variant of the FF code. Unfortunately,
whoever is working on it just doesn't seem to keep
it up to date. It's always been zippy, but it's never
been entirely stable.

DK wrote:
In article , "Bill in Co"
lost_in_time@and_not_really_here wrote:
KenK wrote:
I've had Firefox since it started and each upgrade seems to be getting
slower. It is getting very annoying. Losing the addresses tied to its
tabs
now, now New Tabs, though they're still there and only need to be
clicked
on and reloaded. I've reset their settings in Options several times.
Bringing it up from the taskbar is very slow maybe 5 - 10 seconds. It
used
to be a fast errorfree (mostly) browser.

Suggestions for another browser? XP Home with 512 MB RAM.

Firefox 2.0 and early Opera are probably the last browsers that could run
comfortably with that amount of RAM. Both fail to render faithfully
many of today's "improved" pages.

My suggestion is to just stick with an older version of Firefox. I
tried
the newer versions (version 29 and up), and couldn't stand it, so I'm
sticking with version 28, which really isn't that old. No problems so
far.
(newer isn't always better).

I am using Firefox 11 and it works fine. About as fast as Firefox 4 was.
Can't stand the stupid new interface, so will not update.

Basically, these days all browsers suck. Google with its stupid Chrome
broke everything that could have been broken in terms of flexibility and
usability and everyone started to copy Google's crap soon after.

I've tested just about every modern browser that is out there and none
can be configured and customized as well as the old Firefox could be.

Malware is not a problem as long as you don't do stupid things online.
I am not running any real time antivirus and have never had a single
infection.

DK

I think that for the most part, your last statement is true, too.

But as for the Firefox interface, the big change was in version 29 and later
(with that newage Australis GUI). So I don't think there was that much
difference between versions 28 and below, at least as I recall.

DK wrote:

My suggestion is to just stick with an older version of Firefox. I tried
the newer versions (version 29 and up), and couldn't stand it, so I'm
sticking with version 28, which really isn't that old. No problems so far.
(newer isn't always better).

I am using Firefox 11 and it works fine. About as fast as Firefox 4 was.
Can't stand the stupid new interface, so will not update.

Basically, these days all browsers suck. Google with its stupid Chrome
broke everything that could have been broken in terms of flexibility and
usability and everyone started to copy Google's crap soon after.

I've tested just about every modern browser that is out there and none
can be configured and customized as well as the old Firefox could be.

Malware is not a problem as long as you don't do stupid things online.
I am not running any real time antivirus and have never had a single
infection.

DK

Same here. FF 27.0 and SM 2.26.1. No anti virus shields,
never had an infection. Not going to upgrade to newer versions.

In message , Paul in Houston TX
writes:
KenK wrote:
I've had Firefox since it started and each upgrade seems to be getting
slower. It is getting very annoying. Losing the addresses tied to its tabs
now, now New Tabs, though they're still there and only need to be clicked
on and reloaded. I've reset their settings in Options several times.
Bringing it up from the taskbar is very slow maybe 5 - 10 seconds. It used
to be a fast errorfree (mostly) browser.

Suggestions for another browser? XP Home with 512 MB RAM.

Can you increase your ram to at least 2 gb?
Some laptop ram is quite expensive, I know, but worth it.

Seconded; ½G isn't _quite_ enough for XP SP3 to be comfortable,
especially when running a browser. Even going to 1G will make a huge
difference, especially if you don't have many tabs open in Firefox, but
of course 2G would be better. (I've not knowingly actually got to 2G in
use, but though I stayed well below 1G for several years, I find I
exceed it now, mainly by having several webpages open.)

Check in Task Manager (right-click in empty part of taskbar, or
Ctrl-Alt-Del); in the Performance tab, is the PF Usage bar exceeding (or
even getting close to) the Physical Memory figure shown. (If it is, the
Processes tab, followed by clicking twice on the Mem Usage column
header, will show what's using it - almost certainly Firefox. I don't
_think_ another browser will make _much_ difference, compared to upping
the RAM.)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

when people say they're perfectly happy without children, we don't have to
presume they're lying! - Paul Dolan, RT 2015/1/3-9

On Friday, June 5, 2015 at 1:12:52 PM UTC-5, KenK wrote:
I've had Firefox since it started and each upgrade seems to be getting
slower. It is getting very annoying. Losing the addresses tied to its tabs
now, now New Tabs, though they're still there and only need to be clicked
on and reloaded. I've reset their settings in Options several times.
Bringing it up from the taskbar is very slow maybe 5 - 10 seconds. It used
to be a fast errorfree (mostly) browser.

Suggestions for another browser? XP Home with 512 MB RAM.

--
You know it's time to clean the refrigerator
when something closes the door from the inside.

I use Seamonkey.

It uses less memory than FF.

It also has newsgroup capability and html editing built in.

Andy

On Fri, 5 Jun 2015 21:54:22 +0200, "G.F." wrote:

"Bill in Co" ha scritto nel messaggio
...

I'm sticking with version 28

What about security against malware?
John T. Haller (PortableApps.com) says Firefox 28 is not safe:

Regrettably no browser is safe. They will always be playing catchup
on the latest exploits.

As pedro said, there are always unfixed bugs. Malware
is a business these days. It's become very sophisticated.
The link you posted mentions a bug but doesn't mention
what it is. Someone who doesn't bother to explain exactly
how serious it is sounds to me like someone who's posting
hearsay and doesn't really know what they're talking about.
A warning means nothing without facts. Example: Many
serious bugs in the past have been connected with DCOM,
which allows communication between computers. But if
you're no in a corporate intranet and have DCOM ports
blocked that's not an issue. Or a bug could be connected
with Flash. I've never had Flash installed, so that wouldn't
apply to me.

And, of course, there are usually serious bugs in one version
by the time the next one comes out. So 29 is not necessarily
better than 28. Meanwhile, many of the exploits are "0-day"
bugs that are not yet publicly known.

If you want browser security you need to avoid all
Adobe plugins/Silverlight/Java, and disable javascript as often
as you possibly can. Ideally, also disable frames. Iframes are
one of the most common attack venues. They're so bad
that they'd become almost completely unused until
javascript mania and so-called "HTML 5" became a fad,
turning webpages into software. These days many pages
use several iframes just to show ads, so that the advertiser
can set a 1st-party cookie without you visiting their site.

If you visit, say, NYT and they have an ad from Google/
Doubleclick in an iframe, all you see is an image, but
technically your browser has opened another window and
navigated to Doubleclick. The "webpage" there is the ad.
But having done that, Doubleclick can now set cookies
and run script as though you had visited their site --
because you did! It's the exploit known as cross-site
scripting: Lure people to a harmless site but then force
them to load a malefic site via iframes.

Iframes is just one of many technical issues worth
knowing about if you *really* want to be safe online.
Keeping your browser updated is only partial protection
and comes with disadvantages. In the case of Firefox
those disadvantages have become substantial. They're
completely ignoring what people want as they turn FF
into an obnline services portal viewer.

In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
Iframes is just one of many technical issues worth
knowing about if you *really* want to be safe online.
Keeping your browser updated is only partial protection
and comes with disadvantages. In the case of Firefox
those disadvantages have become substantial. They're
completely ignoring what people want as they turn FF
into an obnline services portal viewer.


Unfortunately, blocking Iframes breaks lots of things - such as, IIRR,
the captcha on ebay. Without giving any indication that that's the cause
of the problem, unfortunately.

(As for Firefox, I'm sticking at 26. I like your description of later
versions as an online services portal viewer!)
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

You can be tough without being rude - Nick Clegg, 2014 July

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:
In message , Mayayana
writes:
[]
Iframes is just one of many technical issues worth
knowing about if you *really* want to be safe online.
Keeping your browser updated is only partial protection
and comes with disadvantages. In the case of Firefox
those disadvantages have become substantial. They're
completely ignoring what people want as they turn FF
into an obnline services portal viewer.


Unfortunately, blocking Iframes breaks lots of things - such as, IIRR,
the captcha on ebay. Without giving any indication that that's the cause
of the problem, unfortunately.

(As for Firefox, I'm sticking at 26. I like your description of later
versions as an online services portal viewer!)

Is there much difference between ver 26 and 28? You could go up to ver 28,
and it might buy you some more time (meaning before its too dated to render
pages well (if at all) anymore, like what's happened to IE8).

(Ver 29 and later is when that Australis GUI came in)