FIREFOX is IT FASTER OR MY IMAGINATION?

[hershon]

Out of curiosity, I downloaded the Mozilla Firefox Browser and to my surprise web browsing seemed almost instantaneous and alot faster than internet explorer. Is this my imagination?

[toenail]

I did the same thing recently. At first it was faster than the IE6 I was previously using. Now I'm finding that it depends on the website I'm visiting. I keep both browsers open and switch from one to the other if things seem a little slow. Not sure what causes this, but there is usually an improvement when I switch.

FWIW I am not able to browse e-bay with IE6 or it will crash every time I try to return to main listing page. No problem with Firefox.

[hershon]

In regards to Ebay, when I had Windows 98 (I'm now on XP) I also had some bizarre problems with Ebay, specifically with selling & loading up photos and at times surfing the website. I haven't had any problems with Ebay on XP.

A few things I'd recommend, chances are you probably know them, I'd use up to 4 or 5 spyware/adware programs & get rid of all p to p music programs, as I'm convinced this is the crap that screws your internet speed up. Specifically, its been my experience that different spyware/adware programs sometimes detect things that the others do not and that its worth spending $30 or so on Ad-Aware SE Plus as it detects more things than the free version (in my opinion). Also I'd pay for Pest Patrol, and download the free versions of Spy Sweeper and SpyBot Search and Destroy . You may also want to spend $30 and $50 on both Speedtec (Use fast ethernet setting but put in 46700 under custom RWINN and ActiveSpeed (Use Optimize Option 2) both of which seem to compliment each other and increase your broadband internet speed & another $30 or so on Internet Cleanup, which cleans your catche, history, cookies & active X stufff up autpmatically and/or one touch manually.

Lastly, a good test of speed which is unlimited is testmy.net which will give you a good numeric read if everything has slowed down.

I did the same thing recently. At first it was faster than the IE6 I was previously using. Now I'm finding that it depends on the website I'm visiting. I keep both browsers open and switch from one to the other if things seem a little slow. Not sure what causes this, but there is usually an improvement when I switch.

FWIW I am not able to browse e-bay with IE6 or it will crash every time I try to return to main listing page. No problem with Firefox.

[kexodusc]

The only setbacks I've noticed with Firefox are all the darn plug-ins that are so tailored to IE...sometimes they just don't work as well.
Other than that, Firefox appears to be as good or better just about everywhere.

[Woochifer]

On my older Win98 machine, IE ties up so much of my system that I don't bother using it. Firefox is a great little browser for basic browsing. As someone else pointed out, the plug in integration is not perfect. But, for simple functions and with most websites I've tried, it's faster and less taxing on my system. More often than not, I use Netscape 7.2 because it integrates together my business and AOL e-mail, and AIM into a sidebar.

[sc03979]

I would suggest the mozilla browser. I love it because it has this thing called tab browsing so that instead of opeining a link in a new window or changing the current window it just makes a tab in the same window you were using in the first place.

[_jackal_]

Firefox is the browser component of the Mozilla application suite. It usually has newer features and whatnot that will be incorporated into the Mozilla browser itself. The Mozilla application suite has the Mozilla browser, irc chat client, mail client, etc., while Firefox is a stand alone browser.

Anyway, I'm done rambling Firefox truely is an awsome browser, and I wish more people would use it.

[sc03979]

Thats right, but you gotta try the tabbed browsing I LOVE IT. I found firefox to be better then IE but I really love how mozilla works.

[hershon]

I'm a bit confused here. Are Firefox and Mozilla 2 different browsers as they're from the same company. If they are different, which is faster and/or better?

Thats right, but you gotta try the tabbed browsing I LOVE IT. I found firefox to be better then IE but I really love how mozilla works.

[_jackal_]

It is a bit confusing:

1. Mozilla - When you download "Mozilla", you are downloading a suite of applications, including, but not limited to:

a. A browser - aka the "Mozilla browser"
b. An irc client - aka "Chatzilla"
c. An email client - aka "Thunderbird"
d. An html editor
e. A newsreader

So, after installing "Mozilla", you can click in the menubar at the top and launch any of the above applications.

Now, if you _just_ want to download the browser, it is then called Firefox. It is actually slightly different than the Mozilla browser, as it usually has a feature or two that will eventually be rolled back into the Mozilla browser in the Mozilla suite. You can also download Thunderbird, although its name stays the same when it is just the stand alone email client.

They had some naming issues when the project was just starting to gain momentum, and they are still poked fun of for that in some "geek" circles.

Anyway, I hope this clears it up a little.