Where did the quality of Firefox go ?
I have been using firefox since it came out. Right after Netscape in fact. It had just about always been a light weight browser. Fast and it worked. Very few glitches. But over the past few versions, the quality has gone down hill. Why ? Whom ever is in charge of it, has lost focus. Please solve the glitches. There are graphical glitches as well as download glitches. Actually there are a lot of glitches that are even memory related. And I have read post after post, with not one of these problems getting fixed. I have even posted questions, and I get the same exact response every time "please reset in safe mode" ... "shut your anti-virus off" ... and one time I even got the response "get chrome, its better". Seriously ? has firefox gotten this bad that we all have to resort to chrome ? I can't stand chrome. But if one were to sit back and look at firefox, its JUST LIKE CHROME ! I don't not like the looks of or the direction of Firefox because its like the developers prefer chrome. ???? #$%#$%?#$?%#?$%
I know about forcing us firefox users to have to CHANGE our settings to go back to the old style, but with each new update, it resets and you just get tired of doing that. WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TOO ! I loved firefox the way it WAS. But now with all this bloated crap that is getting installed into Firefox lately, its no longer viable as a good choice between the major browsers. It's pathetic that i am being forced to have to go to chrome because it can handle more then 2 tabs open without falling apart. I'm very disappointed in Mozollia team. It's like they don't care anymore. The Quality is gone.
I know I am ranting here, but dang it, I have been waiting for even half these bugs to get fixed for the past 8 version updates. All I am seeing is more "features" and not enough fixes. The graphical tab glitches, the lock ups, all because of something gone wrong with these past updates. I have even seen people complain about it in the forums here. Like I said, even I posted a problem about the failed downloads. And people tried the usual responses. but apparently no one has a clue whats really going on with firefox because its become too bloated. I said it once and I'll repeat it.. The Quality in Firefox is gone.
If I get banned or this post gets censored, it just goes to show whats been happening to firefox lately.
All Replies (4)
This forum is like the emergency room, it isn't a great place for general discussion. If we can help with specific problems, I think that about the most you can expect from us...
JackDawson69 said
There are graphical glitches as well as download glitches.
What are the graphical glitches? The most common cause of pixels ending up having the wrong content is an incompatibility with your graphics card/chipset driver software. As newer versions of Firefox turn on new graphical features, these keep cropping up because the beta test program doesn't represent the full diversity of systems used by Firefox users. I don't see any solution to that, but we deal with this all the time, so let us know/see your symptoms and then we can make suggestions.
I see there already is a specific thread on the downloading problem, so I suggest we not duplicate that issue here: EXE files from some sites fail to download to desktop.
JackDawson69 said
Actually there are a lot of glitches that are even memory related.
Can you describe what you're running into more specifically?
JackDawson69 said
I know about forcing us firefox users to have to CHANGE our settings to go back to the old style, but with each new update, it resets and you just get tired of doing that. WE SHOULDN'T HAVE TOO !
Firefox should not reset its UI after updates. Only extensions incompatible with a new version should be disabled, and their configuration data should be preserved so that you can update the extension and be back where you were. If you are losing settings after an update, it's possible that the "Refresh" feature is running. Have you noticed a new or growing "Old Firefox Data" folder on your desktop?
jscher2000 said
What are the graphical glitches? The most common cause of pixels ending up having the wrong content is an incompatibility with your graphics card/chipset driver software. As newer versions of Firefox turn on new graphical features, these keep cropping up because the beta test program doesn't represent the full diversity of systems used by Firefox users. I don't see any solution to that, but we deal with this all the time, so let us know/see your symptoms and then we can make suggestions.
I am using latest Graphics drivers from NVidia. I have the GTX 680 with 2 Gigs ram. My friend has the AMD R9 ( I don't recall which one ) and he has the same problem. This problem has existed for the past several updates. Also, I am not using anything beta, I am using the releases that are from firefox only. If they send me an update I update because usually updates are about security. Which I am for that and its something I respect about firefox in general.
An example of the graphical glitch is when you open a tab, the graphics won't update to let you see the new tab. I have my settings set that if I open a new tab it will automatically switch to the other newly opened tab. I see the new tab open, and I can see that it is the newly current shown tab. But the "info" inside that tab does not update. Sometimes the tab itself messes up and it won't completely draw itself. This is the graphical glitches I see. This happens even if I have no plugins loaded. I have spent the last several versions trying to solve this. Updating drivers.. etc etc. It all boils down to firefox.
Can you describe what you're running into more specifically?
I have an desktop toolbar that tells me what memory usage is. Firefox has a tendency to raise the memory to the max 20 gigs I have on my computer. ( Yes I have 20 gigs System ram on this Quad Xeon computer system ) Keep in mind, it does this randomly, and at random websites. This is not a constant occurrence and difficult to reproduce. However, after a lot of observation, I am starting to believe it has to do with websites that have flash installed and I do not have flash installed. I do not like flash. I use HTML5 if the website offers it. Which most of the time it does. I watch a lot of youtube videos. Come to think of it, it is possible that videos are the issue here and the HTML5 side of it is the problem. I love HTML5, don't get me wrong, but in Firefox it may not be completely working yet.
This is my thinking at least, I could be completely off here on this.
Firefox should not reset its UI after updates. Only extensions incompatible with a new version should be disabled, and their configuration data should be preserved so that you can update the extension and be back where you were. If you are losing settings after an update, it's possible that the "Refresh" feature is running. Have you noticed a new or growing "Old Firefox Data" folder on your desktop?
Yea, for the past several updates, it keeps resetting everything when I run an update. So I am forced to "fix" it back and I had given up after this latest update. I am just using the default because I see no point anymore. Too old and tired to fight this. Whatever happened to simplicity like back in the 70s and 80s when stuff just ran and it worked. Netscape was my fave in the late 90s and then when firefox came out I fell in love again. Now.. I'm loosing my love... It's why I posted this message, I am frustrated and I am ranting in the hopes that someone gets the hint to please please please, don't loose the quality that firefox was known for.
JackDawson69 said
An example of the graphical glitch is when you open a tab, the graphics won't update to let you see the new tab. I have my settings set that if I open a new tab it will automatically switch to the other newly opened tab. I see the new tab open, and I can see that it is the newly current shown tab. But the "info" inside that tab does not update. Sometimes the tab itself messes up and it won't completely draw itself. This is the graphical glitches I see. This happens even if I have no plugins loaded. I have spent the last several versions trying to solve this. Updating drivers.. etc etc. It all boils down to firefox.
You might need to disable Firefox from using hardware acceleration if it is not compatible with the latest drivers for your system. Maybe you've already tried this, but just in case:
"3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options > Advanced
On the "General" mini-tab, uncheck the box for "Use hardware acceleration when available"
This takes effect the next time you exit Firefox and start it up again. Any difference?
JackDawson69 said
I have an desktop toolbar that tells me what memory usage is. Firefox has a tendency to raise the memory to the max 20 gigs I have on my computer. ( Yes I have 20 gigs System ram on this Quad Xeon computer system ) Keep in mind, it does this randomly, and at random websites. This is not a constant occurrence and difficult to reproduce.
As a 32-bit application, Firefox should not use a lot more than 3GB of memory, and in my experience it becomes sluggish well before that point. I'm puzzled that you see a lot more usage. ??
JackDawson69 said
Yea, for the past several updates, it keeps resetting everything when I run an update. So I am forced to "fix" it back and I had given up after this latest update. I am just using the default because I see no point anymore.
Some users have seen the "Firefox is slow and you can speed it up by restoring default settings" prompt after updates in the past several months. That button runs the Refresh feature, which will clear many settings and move your settings into an Old Firefox Data folder on your desktop. But otherwise, it's hard to say what could cause repeated settings loss.
First off, before I continue, I just wanted to say, thank you for trying to help. I am just glad people like yourself exist. Thank you.
jscher2000 said
You might need to disable Firefox from using hardware acceleration if it is not compatible with the latest drivers for your system. Maybe you've already tried this, but just in case: "3-bar" menu button (or Tools menu) > Options > Advanced On the "General" mini-tab, uncheck the box for "Use hardware acceleration when available" This takes effect the next time you exit Firefox and start it up again. Any difference?
I just now unchecked it. Thank you. I'll keep an eye on it over this next week and try to get back to you on the results.
As a 32-bit application, Firefox should not use a lot more than 3GB of memory, and in my experience it becomes sluggish well before that point. I'm puzzled that you see a lot more usage. ??
Yea I thought it was strange too. So have others, if you do a search you will see others have also posted about "memory" issues as well.
Some users have seen the "Firefox is slow and you can speed it up by restoring default settings" prompt after updates in the past several months. That button runs the Refresh feature, which will clear many settings and move your settings into an Old Firefox Data folder on your desktop. But otherwise, it's hard to say what could cause repeated settings loss.
Yea as I mentioned in this post and another post, I have tried the resetting options, ran FF in safe-mode.. etc etc. nothing changed. The problems still exist. The saving to my desktop has me stumped for sure. Why it works when I save it to another folder, like the Download folder for example, but to save it to desktop, EXE files would fail. I mean these kinds of glitches have been accumulating over the past few versions, and no amount of resetting have fixed the problems yet.