«

There was a thread here a while back about Chrome, how it was light and
fast. I've been using Firefox for a few years now and love it. However,
several months ago I put the heavy iron aside and now am using a five year
old laptop, a ThinkPad R51, as my main machine.

I'm quite happy with the lappy but if I had to name the biggest annoyance
since I went to a machine with less than 20% of the horsepower of my desktop
I'd say it is the amount of time I have to wait for Firefox to start.
Perhaps 8 - 10 seconds of HDD activity from clicking the icon to the window
displayed. This with a frequently defragged and optimised HDD (PerfectDisk),
the fastest HDD I could buy for this platform (IDE) and the RAM maxed out at
2GB.

The biggest problem with load times seems to me to be related to the speed
of the system bus. This laptop has a 100MHz FSB (400 in Intel-speak), the
same as my old Deschutes Pentium II 350 had last century. My desktop has a
266MHz FSB (and a significantly faster SATA II HDD).

When I read the thread about 'Firefox bloat' and how fast Chrome loads I
decided to try it. The first problem I struck was when Chrome was importing
my 'search engines' from Firefox in first run. It locked up the machine at
100% CPU load until I ended it using task manager (XP-P). I tried using
Chrome for a while after that, without importing the last three of the
things it offers to import from Firefox and, without a doubt, it's snappy,
especially loading.

However, IMO (and IIRC also mentioned by someone else in that thread) Chrome
isn't anywhere near as functional as Firefox. I have lots of extensions an
add-ons loaded for Firefox that make browsing a breeze. AdBlockPlus being
just one that I missed when using Chrome. So much bandwidth wasted just to
load advertisments...

So I went back to using Firefox and those annoying 10 second waits for it to
start. I decided to do some reading and confirmed what I'd thought, that a
large part of the reason for the slow load times is my multitude of very
useful extensions. It was during this reading that I discovered Firefox
Preloader: http://firefox-preloader.en.softonic.com/

Now Firefox is up and running in about a second from clicking the icon. I
can eat my cake and have it too. The 'cost'? Well, I think that it varies
depending on just how 'loaded' your Firefox install is. In Task Manager I
see that Firefox Preloader is using 3,564K of RAM, as is mentioned when it's
discussed. However, Task Manager also shows that Firefox.exe is also using
174,328 K of RAM (even though it's not currently open).

When all's said and done I'm quite happy to have 170MB of RAM tied up if it
gives me these excellent start times. As mentioned, I have 2GB in this
machine, the pagefile switched off, and I've never seen free RAM drop below
800MB even with Firefox Preloader installed.

Sorry, long post. Short story: Firefox Preloader rocks! Long live Firefox! I
am now about to uninstall Chrome.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Build a man a fire, and he`ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and
he`ll be warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchett, Jingo.

Somewhere on teh intarwebs ~misfit~ wrote:
[snip]
> Sorry, long post. Short story: Firefox Preloader rocks! Long live
> Firefox! I am now about to uninstall Chrome.

LOL!

"Are you sure you want to uninstall Chrome? (Was it something we said?)"
--
Shaun.

"Build a man a fire, and he`ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and
he`ll be warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchett, Jingo.

~misfit~ wrote:
> There was a thread here a while back about Chrome, how it was light and
> fast. I've been using Firefox for a few years now and love it. However,
> several months ago I put the heavy iron aside and now am using a five year
> old laptop, a ThinkPad R51, as my main machine.
>
> I'm quite happy with the lappy but if I had to name the biggest annoyance
> since I went to a machine with less than 20% of the horsepower of my desktop
> I'd say it is the amount of time I have to wait for Firefox to start.
> Perhaps 8 - 10 seconds of HDD activity from clicking the icon to the window
> displayed. This with a frequently defragged and optimised HDD (PerfectDisk),
> the fastest HDD I could buy for this platform (IDE) and the RAM maxed out at
> 2GB.
>
> The biggest problem with load times seems to me to be related to the speed
> of the system bus. This laptop has a 100MHz FSB (400 in Intel-speak), the
> same as my old Deschutes Pentium II 350 had last century. My desktop has a
> 266MHz FSB (and a significantly faster SATA II HDD).
>
> When I read the thread about 'Firefox bloat' and how fast Chrome loads I
> decided to try it. The first problem I struck was when Chrome was importing
> my 'search engines' from Firefox in first run. It locked up the machine at
> 100% CPU load until I ended it using task manager (XP-P). I tried using
> Chrome for a while after that, without importing the last three of the
> things it offers to import from Firefox and, without a doubt, it's snappy,
> especially loading.
>
> However, IMO (and IIRC also mentioned by someone else in that thread) Chrome
> isn't anywhere near as functional as Firefox. I have lots of extensions an
> add-ons loaded for Firefox that make browsing a breeze. AdBlockPlus being
> just one that I missed when using Chrome. So much bandwidth wasted just to
> load advertisments...
>
> So I went back to using Firefox and those annoying 10 second waits for it to
> start. I decided to do some reading and confirmed what I'd thought, that a
> large part of the reason for the slow load times is my multitude of very
> useful extensions. It was during this reading that I discovered Firefox
> Preloader: http://firefox-preloader.en.softonic.com/
>
> Now Firefox is up and running in about a second from clicking the icon. I
> can eat my cake and have it too. The 'cost'? Well, I think that it varies
> depending on just how 'loaded' your Firefox install is. In Task Manager I
> see that Firefox Preloader is using 3,564K of RAM, as is mentioned when it's
> discussed. However, Task Manager also shows that Firefox.exe is also using
> 174,328 K of RAM (even though it's not currently open).
>
> When all's said and done I'm quite happy to have 170MB of RAM tied up if it
> gives me these excellent start times. As mentioned, I have 2GB in this
> machine, the pagefile switched off, and I've never seen free RAM drop below
> 800MB even with Firefox Preloader installed.
>
> Sorry, long post. Short story: Firefox Preloader rocks! Long live Firefox! I
> am now about to uninstall Chrome.

Chrome is crap - when I had my normal load of tabs open, it had a screen
full of tasks in task manager each sucking down a considerable amount of
ram - all up close to a half gig - total cpu use for all those tasks was
well over what firefox ever needed.

If your happy with 4-6 maybe 8 tabs open at once, then its fine, but get
to 35-40 and its crap, firefox anyday.

And whats the startup time for a browser really matter? Just hibernate
the machine rather then shutting it down and its all good to go when you
get back, form content included which it loses when exiting and
reopening it.

~misfit~ wrote:
> There was a thread here a while back about Chrome, how it was light
> and fast. I've been using Firefox for a few years now and love it.
> However, several months ago I put the heavy iron aside and now am
> using a five year old laptop, a ThinkPad R51, as my main machine.
>
> I'm quite happy with the lappy but if I had to name the biggest
> annoyance since I went to a machine with less than 20% of the
> horsepower of my desktop I'd say it is the amount of time I have to
> wait for Firefox to start. Perhaps 8 - 10 seconds of HDD activity
> from clicking the icon to the window displayed. This with a
> frequently defragged and optimised HDD (PerfectDisk), the fastest HDD
> I could buy for this platform (IDE) and the RAM maxed out at 2GB.
>
> The biggest problem with load times seems to me to be related to the
> speed of the system bus. This laptop has a 100MHz FSB (400 in
> Intel-speak), the same as my old Deschutes Pentium II 350 had last
> century. My desktop has a 266MHz FSB (and a significantly faster SATA
> II HDD).
>
> When I read the thread about 'Firefox bloat' and how fast Chrome
> loads I decided to try it. The first problem I struck was when Chrome
> was importing my 'search engines' from Firefox in first run. It
> locked up the machine at 100% CPU load until I ended it using task
> manager (XP-P). I tried using Chrome for a while after that, without
> importing the last three of the things it offers to import from
> Firefox and, without a doubt, it's snappy, especially loading.
>
> However, IMO (and IIRC also mentioned by someone else in that thread)
> Chrome isn't anywhere near as functional as Firefox. I have lots of
> extensions an add-ons loaded for Firefox that make browsing a breeze.
> AdBlockPlus being just one that I missed when using Chrome. So much
> bandwidth wasted just to load advertisments...
>
> So I went back to using Firefox and those annoying 10 second waits
> for it to start. I decided to do some reading and confirmed what I'd
> thought, that a large part of the reason for the slow load times is
> my multitude of very useful extensions. It was during this reading
> that I discovered Firefox Preloader:
> http://firefox-preloader.en.softonic.com/
>
> Now Firefox is up and running in about a second from clicking the
> icon. I can eat my cake and have it too. The 'cost'? Well, I think
> that it varies depending on just how 'loaded' your Firefox install
> is. In Task Manager I see that Firefox Preloader is using 3,564K of
> RAM, as is mentioned when it's discussed. However, Task Manager also
> shows that Firefox.exe is also using 174,328 K of RAM (even though
> it's not currently open).
>
> When all's said and done I'm quite happy to have 170MB of RAM tied up
> if it gives me these excellent start times. As mentioned, I have 2GB
> in this machine, the pagefile switched off, and I've never seen free
> RAM drop below 800MB even with Firefox Preloader installed.
>
> Sorry, long post. Short story: Firefox Preloader rocks! Long live
> Firefox! I am now about to uninstall Chrome.
>
Why not just load Firefox at boot time and forget about loading times.?
It's a technique that I use for Adobe Effing Acrobat Reader when I need
to use it... Load AEA Reader, switch to the page with the PDF and click
the PDF. By the time the PDF is downloaded AEA Reader is loaded. So
instead of having to wait half a minute for AEA Reader to start up after
the PDF loads, it is almost instant.

Cheers,

Cliff

--

The Internet is interesting in that although the nicknames may change,
the same old personalities show through.

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Enkidu wrote:
> ~misfit~ wrote:
>> There was a thread here a while back about Chrome, how it was light
>> and fast. I've been using Firefox for a few years now and love it.
>> However, several months ago I put the heavy iron aside and now am
>> using a five year old laptop, a ThinkPad R51, as my main machine.
>>
>> I'm quite happy with the lappy but if I had to name the biggest
>> annoyance since I went to a machine with less than 20% of the
>> horsepower of my desktop I'd say it is the amount of time I have to
>> wait for Firefox to start. Perhaps 8 - 10 seconds of HDD activity
>> from clicking the icon to the window displayed. This with a
>> frequently defragged and optimised HDD (PerfectDisk), the fastest HDD
>> I could buy for this platform (IDE) and the RAM maxed out at 2GB.
>>
>> The biggest problem with load times seems to me to be related to the
>> speed of the system bus. This laptop has a 100MHz FSB (400 in
>> Intel-speak), the same as my old Deschutes Pentium II 350 had last
>> century. My desktop has a 266MHz FSB (and a significantly faster SATA
>> II HDD).
>>
>> When I read the thread about 'Firefox bloat' and how fast Chrome
>> loads I decided to try it. The first problem I struck was when Chrome
>> was importing my 'search engines' from Firefox in first run. It
>> locked up the machine at 100% CPU load until I ended it using task
>> manager (XP-P). I tried using Chrome for a while after that, without
>> importing the last three of the things it offers to import from
>> Firefox and, without a doubt, it's snappy, especially loading.
>>
>> However, IMO (and IIRC also mentioned by someone else in that thread)
>> Chrome isn't anywhere near as functional as Firefox. I have lots of
>> extensions an add-ons loaded for Firefox that make browsing a breeze.
>> AdBlockPlus being just one that I missed when using Chrome. So much
>> bandwidth wasted just to load advertisments...
>>
>> So I went back to using Firefox and those annoying 10 second waits
>> for it to start. I decided to do some reading and confirmed what I'd
>> thought, that a large part of the reason for the slow load times is
>> my multitude of very useful extensions. It was during this reading
>> that I discovered Firefox Preloader:
>> http://firefox-preloader.en.softonic.com/
>>
>> Now Firefox is up and running in about a second from clicking the
>> icon. I can eat my cake and have it too. The 'cost'? Well, I think
>> that it varies depending on just how 'loaded' your Firefox install
>> is. In Task Manager I see that Firefox Preloader is using 3,564K of
>> RAM, as is mentioned when it's discussed. However, Task Manager also
>> shows that Firefox.exe is also using 174,328 K of RAM (even though
>> it's not currently open).
>>
>> When all's said and done I'm quite happy to have 170MB of RAM tied up
>> if it gives me these excellent start times. As mentioned, I have 2GB
>> in this machine, the pagefile switched off, and I've never seen free
>> RAM drop below 800MB even with Firefox Preloader installed.
>>
>> Sorry, long post. Short story: Firefox Preloader rocks! Long live
>> Firefox! I am now about to uninstall Chrome.
>>
> Why not just load Firefox at boot time and forget about loading
> times.? It's a technique that I use for Adobe Effing Acrobat Reader
> when I need to use it... Load AEA Reader, switch to the page with the
> PDF and click the PDF. By the time the PDF is downloaded AEA Reader
> is loaded. So instead of having to wait half a minute for AEA Reader
> to start up after the PDF loads, it is almost instant.

I do a bit of light gaming on this lappy and as the games are fairly
demanding on what the machine has to offer I shut everything down when I
play. Also I just don't like programmes open when I'm not using them, I'm
funny like that. So, I'll be reading usenet, see a link that I want to
explore, click it, then wait... I usually go back to the froup and by the
time I remember to check the link I could well be in another froup...

Essentailly Firefox Preloader does what you suggest only in a more elegant
way. It loads most of Firefox into RAM so that it's responsive when I want
to check out a link, but not obtrusive when I want things tidy.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Build a man a fire, and he`ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and
he`ll be warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchett, Jingo.

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Richard wrote:
> ~misfit~ wrote:
>> There was a thread here a while back about Chrome, how it was light
>> and fast. I've been using Firefox for a few years now and love it.
>> However, several months ago I put the heavy iron aside and now am
>> using a five year old laptop, a ThinkPad R51, as my main machine.
>>
>> I'm quite happy with the lappy but if I had to name the biggest
>> annoyance since I went to a machine with less than 20% of the
>> horsepower of my desktop I'd say it is the amount of time I have to
>> wait for Firefox to start. Perhaps 8 - 10 seconds of HDD activity
>> from clicking the icon to the window displayed. This with a
>> frequently defragged and optimised HDD (PerfectDisk), the fastest
>> HDD I could buy for this platform (IDE) and the RAM maxed out at 2GB.
>>
>> The biggest problem with load times seems to me to be related to the
>> speed of the system bus. This laptop has a 100MHz FSB (400 in
>> Intel-speak), the same as my old Deschutes Pentium II 350 had last
>> century. My desktop has a 266MHz FSB (and a significantly faster
>> SATA II HDD). When I read the thread about 'Firefox bloat' and how fast
>> Chrome
>> loads I decided to try it. The first problem I struck was when
>> Chrome was importing my 'search engines' from Firefox in first run.
>> It locked up the machine at 100% CPU load until I ended it using
>> task manager (XP-P). I tried using Chrome for a while after that,
>> without importing the last three of the things it offers to import
>> from Firefox and, without a doubt, it's snappy, especially loading.
>>
>> However, IMO (and IIRC also mentioned by someone else in that
>> thread) Chrome isn't anywhere near as functional as Firefox. I have
>> lots of extensions an add-ons loaded for Firefox that make browsing
>> a breeze. AdBlockPlus being just one that I missed when using
>> Chrome. So much bandwidth wasted just to load advertisments...
>>
>> So I went back to using Firefox and those annoying 10 second waits
>> for it to start. I decided to do some reading and confirmed what I'd
>> thought, that a large part of the reason for the slow load times is
>> my multitude of very useful extensions. It was during this reading
>> that I discovered Firefox Preloader:
>> http://firefox-preloader.en.softonic.com/ Now Firefox is up and running
>> in about a second from clicking the
>> icon. I can eat my cake and have it too. The 'cost'? Well, I think
>> that it varies depending on just how 'loaded' your Firefox install
>> is. In Task Manager I see that Firefox Preloader is using 3,564K of
>> RAM, as is mentioned when it's discussed. However, Task Manager also
>> shows that Firefox.exe is also using 174,328 K of RAM (even though
>> it's not currently open). When all's said and done I'm quite happy to
>> have 170MB of RAM tied
>> up if it gives me these excellent start times. As mentioned, I have
>> 2GB in this machine, the pagefile switched off, and I've never seen
>> free RAM drop below 800MB even with Firefox Preloader installed.
>>
>> Sorry, long post. Short story: Firefox Preloader rocks! Long live
>> Firefox! I am now about to uninstall Chrome.
>
> Chrome is crap - when I had my normal load of tabs open, it had a
> screen full of tasks in task manager each sucking down a considerable
> amount of ram - all up close to a half gig - total cpu use for all
> those tasks was well over what firefox ever needed.
>
> If your happy with 4-6 maybe 8 tabs open at once, then its fine, but
> get to 35-40 and its crap, firefox anyday.
>
> And whats the startup time for a browser really matter? Just hibernate
> the machine rather then shutting it down and its all good to go when
> you get back, form content included which it loses when exiting and
> reopening it.

Hi Richard. I just replied to Cliff, it covers my reasoning...

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Build a man a fire, and he`ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and
he`ll be warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchett, Jingo.

Somewhere on teh intarwebs whoisthis wrote:
> In article <gphat0$dq9$>,
> "~misfit~" <> wrote:
>
>> Sorry, long post. Short story: Firefox Preloader rocks! Long live
>> Firefox! I am now about to uninstall Chrome.
>>
>> Cheers,
>
> ROTFLMAO... 10 seconds...

If that makes you laugh your arse off then you have a loose arse. I suggest
you refrain from rolling on the floor with (or without) anyone until you get
it tightened.

> Lets see,
> 10 seconds to start, 1 hour of browsing = 3610 seconds
> 1 second to start, 1 hour of browsing = 3601 seconds
>
> this comes to 9 seconds difference or 0.25% difference

So that's how you use your browser. It doesn't mean that it has any bearing
on how I use mine. A lot of my browser use is clicking links in usenet posts
where people don't quote any of the page they're talking about. So... 10
seconds to open browser, 5 seconds to see WTF the fuss is all about = 15
seconds, or 66% wasted time.

> Screw start up times, load times, display times, and usability will
> make a **** load more difference in the end.

Screw what you like, just have the decency to keep it to yourself.

> Until you come up with a time/benchmark that has a set of random sites
> to visit, links to click on with a range of flash, javascript,
> animations, PDFs, form fills, etc then anything else is simply a
> wankfest.

... and I get the creepy feeling that you're using the term "wankfest" with
intimate knowledge ....

This wasn't about benchmarks, it was about personal use and sharing an app
that I find useful and thought others might also find useful. You know, a
friendly little post, sharing something I'm happy about.

Ahhh, I'm talking to "whoisthis", right, you wouldn't know about happy and
sharing.

> What is the point of having a 10 second faster start up time if you
> end up taking 10 minutes longer to achieve the work ?

What is the sound of one hand clapping? What's with the nonsensical
rhetorical questions?

SMD,
--
Shaun.

"Build a man a fire, and he`ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and
he`ll be warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchett, Jingo.

~misfit~ wrote:
>
> Also I just don't like programmes open when I'm not using them, I'm
> funny like that.
>
That might have been relevant when RAM was measured in kilobytes. These
days it doesn't make sense.

Cheers,

Cliff

--

The Internet is interesting in that although the nicknames may change,
the same old personalities show through.

Somewhere on teh intarwebs Enkidu wrote:
> ~misfit~ wrote:
>>
>> Also I just don't like programmes open when I'm not using them, I'm
>> funny like that.
>>
> That might have been relevant when RAM was measured in kilobytes.
> These days it doesn't make sense.

The reason that it *does* make sense in this instance, to me, is that often
I'm gaming, playing a ping-time-reliant game and said open programme,
particularly if it's a browser of other programme that connects to the net
could have a negative impact on my gaming experience.

As an aside, I changed form AVG to Avast recently and since then several
times I've died in-game, only to hear "Your antivirus database has been
updated" immediately afterwards. I didn't get that wit AVG.

Cheers,
--
Shaun.

"Build a man a fire, and he`ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and
he`ll be warm for the rest of his life." Terry Pratchett, Jingo.

On Sun, 15 Mar 2009 16:11:43 +1300, "~misfit~" <> wrote:

>Somewhere on teh intarwebs Enkidu wrote:
>> ~misfit~ wrote:
>>>
>>> Also I just don't like programmes open when I'm not using them, I'm
>>> funny like that.
>>>
>> That might have been relevant when RAM was measured in kilobytes.
>> These days it doesn't make sense.
>
>The reason that it *does* make sense in this instance, to me, is that often
>I'm gaming, playing a ping-time-reliant game and said open programme,
>particularly if it's a browser of other programme that connects to the net
>could have a negative impact on my gaming experience.
>
>As an aside, I changed form AVG to Avast recently and since then several
>times I've died in-game, only to hear "Your antivirus database has been
>updated" immediately afterwards. I didn't get that wit AVG.
>

I think you can turn that off in the options, switch to "silent mode" or
something. It can be a PITA!

http://forum.avast.com/index.php?topic=38128.0