For the past month or so I’ve been using Firefox 3 almost exclusively. I’m running version 3.0.4. And though it basically works fine, it does a few things that are flaky.
Example: In just the past day or two, the typeface for stories at NYTimes.com changed, and I was not pleased. I even considered writing a post about it. But when I looked at it in Safari, it hadn’t changed. And then, when I went back to Firefox, the change for the worse had magically disappeared.
Example: I happen to like those little icons that appear next to Web-site names in my bookmarks. But the one for the Boston Globe keeps changing. It’s currently a ladybug, of all things.
Firefox works fine; these are just minor aesthetic annoyances. But aesthetics matter. Safari keeps getting better and better, and I’d like to give it an extended workout — but I can’t transfer my Firefox bookmarks to it.
Has anyone else experienced what I’m talking about?
Discover more from Media Nation
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
Firefox has crashed on me a few times, once when I was near the end pf writing a longish blog comment. . . Something similar to what you are describing here happened just the other day (as did a crash) but I was not sure that Firefox was the culprit. To be fair, I should disclose that I am using an “obsolete” and “buggy” Pentium 600 that I bought for $50 for internet use.
I’ve seen some weird things, but for me it had to do with my Firefox add-ons. I’d recommend turning them off and then checking to see if the things that are bothering you still are.
Al: The only one I’m running is Foxmarks, which is too wonderful for words. But I suppose I could turn it off for a bit.
I use Firefox almost exclusively. I sometimes use Chrome, too.However, I have an older Toshiba laptop that uses Windows ME. If I go to “My Yahoo” and from there onto a news site the Firefox will do the same thing to the type, annoyingly so, and sometimes crash. So, on that computer I use Opera as the browser. No problems with Opera. But, when on newer computers I do prefer Firefox.
I’ve noticed the website mini-icon problem in Firefox on Windows XP. Mini-icons that used to appear for some bookmarks change occasionally. It must be a caching thing in Firefox – I haven’t looked at its code lately.Also on XP, I’ve noticed Firefox sometimes hangs – mostly on active pages when a script gets hung, and sometimes with Ajax pages.On my Mac, I’ve taken to using Safari almost exclusively. I haven’t found an instance where Firefox is better, which means that I haven’t had any recent problems in Safari. I don’t have Safari for XP – maybe I should use that instead.I found the following hint for importing Firefox bookmarks to Safari on a Mac, but I haven’t tried it:”Just go to Safari’s Import Bookmarks… menu and navigate to your Firefox bookmarks file (usually located at ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/xxxxxx.default/bookmarks.html).”
Steve: Thanks. Actually, I found instructions for doing it here. I’m going to play with Safari for a while.
I’ve had site icons change on me as well (for no obvious reason.) Actually, media nation has switched a few times. I find it particularly annoying when scrolling through my bookmarks, since I’m skimming through looking for the familiar icon and can’t find it. In fairness, I have done next to nothing to investigate why this happens – my guess is it’s something simple (and I still would rather have the icons than not.)Overall though, I still prefer it to Chrome right now, and certainly to IE.
Firefox 3.04 seems to work OK with Ubuntu 8.04 on two year old Dell laptop.Safari is a good web browser but it shares one characteristic with Microsoft Internet Explorer.The combination of a proprietary source code base and a closed development process means that security updates happen less often and are released when the corporate concern (Apple or Microsoft) decides to release them.
Steve: … develop a robust method of receiving bug reports, dedicate staff to sorting wheat from chaff, investigate, analyze, propose, solve, test, and then distribute. “decides to release” is probably the easiest part … =(
Newshound, Windows ME will go down in history as just about the worst operating system ever foisted on the public. I wouldn’t point any fingers at Firefox in your situation.