Firefox Is Weird
Firefox is one strange browser. You might have seen start up times degrade the longer you used Windows without a reinstall. On my PC, Firefox takes up to one full minute or more to start after the antivirus and the firewall starts loading. This, I think, is a problem with Windows.
Recently, the excellent Download Statusbar addon has been giving me problems. Beyond 99% the bar causes the whole browser to hang up for about twenty seconds before it moves to the download finished state. Very annoying. This cannot be a RAM problem since I have 1 GB of it.
And now, I have a stranger problem. Downloads are delayed for a long time and suddenly they appear as completed on the bar. This isn’t a problem but more of an annoyance. Especially when the average download speed is displayed as 1914 kBps. I wish.
Comments with the word ‘Mac’ in them will be ridiculed.
December 16th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
Will Linux comments be ridiculed?
Anyway, could be an issue with extensions. Create a profile with no extensions and see how fast FF is opened.
December 16th, 2007 at 2:00 pm
Mac
December 16th, 2007 at 3:08 pm
Binny, I’ll try that. I’m only running the extensions that I absolutely need.
Karthik, consider yourself ridiculed.
December 16th, 2007 at 4:08 pm
Marc, I had that problem with Download Statusbar too, except it wasn’t a 20 second halt. More like 3-4 seconds.
Also check what plugins are being loaded. Remove the java plugin, or replace it with the Sun version or something. Update flash player to the latest. Stuff like that.
I’ve seen your computer, it’s really slow for the specs it has. Why does it keep putting stuff in swap when there’s so much space in RAM for cache?
December 16th, 2007 at 9:48 pm
I thought only my browser wasn’t quick enough to load. Probably the newer versions are slow.
December 16th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
George, I’ve uninstalled the Download Statusbar addon. All others are up to date. The machine seems dead slow cause it’s Windows and Windows likes a reinstall every month.
Arun, go Opera if you don’t absolutely need all those addons.
December 16th, 2007 at 10:48 pm
You probably just need to clear your download history.
The fastest and easiest way to do that is close firefox -
delete “downloads.rdf” in your firefox profile folder
restart firefox
December 17th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Marc you should just let ragha reinstall windows every week. That would help xD
December 17th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
If by ‘help’ you mean ‘totally and permanently screw up the computer’ then you’re absolutely right.
December 17th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
kiroset, I have cleared the download entries by clicking the ‘Clean Up’ button from Tools > Downloads. If this helps in speeding up startup times I will make a new post about it. Thanks for your suggestions.