Although Firefox is the browser of choice for many tech-savvy consumers, other companies are finally turning up the heat. With the increased competition, here’s our top five issues with our favorite browser.
1. Increasing Memory Usage
Memory usage in Firefox is reaching epic proportions. The amount of memory used isn’t really the root problem—if the browser stayed speedy, it wouldn’t matter. But it doesn’t, and it’s not fair to make people learn a bunch of workarounds. True, Firefox often comes out ahead of other browsers in memory tests, but if users are frequently encountering sluggish operation, high scores are irrelevant.
2. Limited Sync Capabilities
Several programs, such as Xmarks and Mozilla Weave, are available to help sync bookmarks, passwords, history, and tabs—and this is a great start. But the syncs we’ve been praying for since Firefox debuted are extension and full preference syncing. When we switch computers or reinstall Firefox, we want every last word to look exactly the same.
3. Extensions Aren’t Backwards-Compatible
Every time Firefox updates, we have to disable compatibility checking to make old extensions work. Theoretically, it’s a good policy. But some extensions don’t need updated. So consumers are forced to either give up their program, or hope somebody eventually gives it the necessary tweaks. What if Microsoft did the same thing with Windows? People wouldn’t stand for it. We think Firefox users deserve the same consideration.
4. Limited Diagnostic Tools
Most Firefox users both love and hate extensions. Memory problems and slow speeds are frequently blamed on a bad extension—but which one? Rather than forcing us to disable/re-enable each extension, perhaps Firefox could borrow a page from IE 8’s book—the Manage Add-ons tool helps you see which add-ons are gobbling your start-up time. And throw in a column dedicated to add-ons’ memory usage, please.
5. One Bad Tab…
Admittedly, Mozilla has already recognized this issue, but Chr
ome blows Firefox (and other browsers) out of the water with its ability to isolate each tab as a separate process and display how much memory each tab consumes. That way, if one tab crashes it doesn’t bring down the whole house. Unfortunately, Firefox likely won’t introduce content processes for at least a year.
So there’s a brief rundown of our top five wishes for Mozilla developers. Firefox is a great program, but to keep its king-of-the-hill position, Mozilla needs to step up its game.
Sometimes my mozilla browser goes dead slow. When I check task manager it shows CPU usage to be around 40 to 50% and this goes on untill I end the process through task manager.