Firefox and Thunderbird

JonJ

JonJ

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Got a new HD for my laptop for Christmas from Barb! Yes, Len, finally! It's great to have the LT back.
Anyway, got it all up and running in a couple of hours with no burps. Can't say that for the old desk top that croaked earlier this week. 4 days to get an OS stable on that one.
I loaded Firefox and Thunderbird, I had used them before the laptop crashed. I saw some good add ons and installed a couple but I was wondering what anyone else is using for add ons that they really like. Any suggestions?
 
Jon,

First I'm going to move this to Off-Topic. Tech Support is for forum issues only. [lol]

Congrats on finally getting the HDD replaced. Enjoy!

When you say "add ons" are you referring to Firefox/T-bird add-ons or just general SW utilities?

I use Firefox a lot, don't use T-bird and have plenty of opinions on general SW utilities. [lol]
 
LenS said:
Jon,

First I'm going to move this to Off-Topic. Tech Support is for forum issues only. [lol]

Congrats on finally getting the HDD replaced. Enjoy!

When you say "add ons" are you referring to Firefox/T-bird add-ons or just general SW utilities?

I use Firefox a lot, don't use T-bird and have plenty of opinions on general SW utilities. [lol]
Click to expand...
OK Len, sorry bout that.
I was looking for ideas on add ons for Firefox and Thunderbird. Just wanted to know if anything was worth installing. I added a DL manager. It's pretty slick.
BTW: Barb gave me the rebate forms for the drive. Looks like when I get the cash, $50, I'll add that 91/30 I was wanting [wink]
 
Firefox/Tbird

I've added the WAP support module for Firefox since I will be developing a WAP enabled web site (so competitors at big USPSA matches can check their score without lugging a laptop around), and the HTML validator.

I tried Thunderbird for email, but it's weakness is that it does not use an index for email - it appears top recontruct one each time that Thunderbird starts up. Outlook Express easily handles a mailbox with 20K+ messages in the inbox and 50K+ in deleted/spam - Thunderbird takes a while to start up when it has to scan that many.
 
Jon,

The only extensions that I added are Talkback (I'm running the Beta version of FF) and NoScript. FF is very complete and you really don't need to add anything to it. NoScript adds a bit more security. Talkback is strictly for giving feedback to the developers on the Beta version I'm using.

Congrats on the rebate = 91/30
 
JonJ said:
Anyone have any new tips to speed up Firefox? It's much more slower than IE.
Click to expand...

Here ya go!

http://www.tweakfactor.com/articles/tweaks/firefoxtweak/1.html

Here is another way.
How To Speed Up Firefox. (Broadband Only)

Here's something for broadband people that will really speed Firefox up:

1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.

If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now.
 
Thanks, I had all those and they haven't worked. I never had a problem before a few upgrades ago and now it bites big time. I've even tried "FasterFox" and that didn't help either. I love FF but the difference is noticeable.
 
Jon,

In my experience, I've found Firefox to always be faster than IE. If it's not a configuration issue, I might suspect spyware or something similar. If you don't already have Spybot Search and Destroy and Ad Aware (both free) Google them, download and install, and run them. You'll be amazed at what you might find. Also, download Stinger.exe from McAfee (again you can Google it) and run it. If you are running a firewall, check the settings. If you aren't running a firewall, you need to have one. Get Zone Alarm (free version) and install it.

Gary
 
Nope to firewall, spyware all is good here with the system. It is firefox. FireFox is noticeably slower than IE and SeaMonkey (I just installed it) is faster than both.
I noticed the slowdown of FF back a few upgrades ago. The worst part of the problem is when I load a page with specific graphic files. I can't scroll or it momentarily hangs. It's like my CPU has hit rock bottom. I do know that FF has had problems sucking up memory and hogging CPU's but like I say, it was fine until an upgrade occurred.

As an example, this page hangs when trying to scroll when it reaches the top of a .jpg (it's the .jpg of the "Jparts 143 ad) on this page:
http://www.gunboards.com/sites/banzai/PartsExchange/Parts_exchange.htm

IE does not exhibit this problem but interestingly SeaMonkey does. It has to be something in the Mozilla builds of these programs but I have no idea of what it is. Maybe a cache problem?
 
That's odd, I just noticed it when I scrolled down through that page. I wonder if it has something to do with the HTML for the table.

I will say that it was noticable, but not bad. In fact if you handn't mentioned it, I never would have noticed it.

Gary
 
No problem, although I do have very strong scrolling muscles! <G> You might be right. A lot of sites are written around MS's bastardized version of HTML and don't always work or display right in Opera or FF. There are a few sites that I can't use FF on if I want to buy something or perform some functions.

gary
 
Yup, I think that's it. I wish I knew what upgrade caused this to happen so that I could narrow it down.
 
Jon, I just went to your links and they flew in.....real fast.

Are u using FF 1.5, the latest?

Try doing a search for Microsoft Antispyware and download it..it's free. It runs in the background, killing stuff as it comes in. I use it all the time and havce been adding to my 100 work machines. It's solved a lot of problem systems with speed issues.

I didn't go back and read what OS you're using. You'll need 2000 or XP for this program.
 
Pilgrim said:
Are u using FF 1.5, the latest?
Click to expand...

The latest FF is 1.0.7.

And when I clicked that link it flew in np. Might have something to do with the fact there is squat installed on my PC. I reformated the HD not too long ago and it was amazing how much it speeded up everything.

On another note I can't go the the Mass Wildlife site and renew my Licences and registrations there with FF. I NEED to use IE for that, wish I knew why. I have tried to figure it out but it wasn't worth it to me. I just got lazy and clicked the IE to do it with. I do however have a funny feeling it has to do with FF and its tabbed browsing.
 
edin508 said:
Pilgrim said:
Are u using FF 1.5, the latest?
Click to expand...

The latest FF is 1.0.7.

And when I clicked that link it flew in np. Might have something to do with the fact there is squat installed on my PC. I reformated the HD not too long ago and it was amazing how much it speeded up everything.

On another note I can't go the the Mass Wildlife site and renew my Licences and registrations there with FF. I NEED to use IE for that, wish I knew why. I have tried to figure it out but it wasn't worth it to me. I just got lazy and clicked the IE to do it with. I do however have a funny feeling it has to do with FF and its tabbed browsing.
Click to expand...

I'm using FF 1.5.

I think that it is the released version, but I do have a tendency to run Betas when they are available.
 
Both FF and SeaMonkey are the latest builds. The hard drive was pristine first of the year and an install ofWin 2K Pro. This particular problem cropped up when I had been running the old drive and from the moment I installed FF on the new drive it was present.

I'd like to find FF ver1 but so far no luck. Any packrats have it stored on your machine?
 
Jon,

There were some serious security holes in the earliest versions of FF.

You may not really want to go back there, especially with Win2K, as the OS doesn't have all the security that now exists with XP.

All that OS and browser security can be a PITA at times, but it does serve to protect us from some pretty nasty stuff out there.
 
The reason I want an older version of FF is to try and see what change was made that made this problem. I found 0.9, maybe I'll throw it in and see if that ver is far enough back.
 
Thanks Pilgrim. The problem doesn't exist in this version. I have to see if I can compare the configs to see what changed.
 

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