I need a new web browser

I stopped using IE years ago. Went with Firefox because it was recommended by the University as compatible with their online program. Then Opera was suggested so I thought I’d try it, and it was great. Smoking fast.
Mozilla Firefox 59.0.2 crashes every day. The only tab I have there now is Amazon for Prime, because it won’t stream on Opera. But I can’t do anything else with it. Even with just Amazon it still crashes.
Opera 51.0 is now absurdly slow, and also crashes often.

I still have Windows 8.1 because I didn’t care for the way they forced Windows 10. The laptop is about 4 years old, but I have no way to replace it right now. It recently went to the shop because it didn’t work at all. They said it was a hardware problem, and it now works, but I get “not responding” messages daily with every program.

I have Norton Security and Malware Bytes installed. I use Adblock plus, and I know it slows things down, but does it crash browsers?
Anyone have a better browser to try?

I don’t have much experience, but the obvious one to ask about is Chrome. Though I haven’t had any problems with Firefox crashing-- The worst I’ve had with it is, sometimes when I deliberately quit it, it tells me that it’s unexpectedly stopped running.

Ive found that Firefox upgrades tend to outrun my OS capabilities, and I have to stop accepting Firefox updates When it misbehaves, I re-install an earlier version and uncheck automatic updates. Im currently running Firefox 56.0.1 with Windows 10, and not having any problems except live streaming sports events, when sometimes I have to switch to Chrome…

Eventually there will be sites that require the latest browser, and then the gap begins to widen. No matter what browser you use, that will happen.

It’s been over a decade since I last dealt with a Norton security product, but it always seemed like their software made computers far more unresponsive than most viruses did. You may have better luck swapping anti-virus software than swapping browsers.

Before switching your anti-virus or web browser, however, you might try resetting Firefox to default settings. The steps are documented on Mozilla’s website: i want to reset my browser to default settings which should be like a new browser,how i have to do that | Firefox Support Forum | Mozilla Support

As for anti-virus, I used Microsoft Security Essentials on Windows 7, which is now Windows Defender Antivirus in Windows 8 and 10, if I recall correctly. It’s built into 8 and 10.

I think the following offer “good enough” security for most people:
#1. Internet common sense
#2. Logging in as a standard user instead of an administrative user
#3. A good ad blocker
#4. Windows Defender and Firewall turned on

With social engineering being one of the most common ways malware gets on people’s computers, I actually consider a good ad blocker to be far more important than an anti-virus these days.

What about a different 4-year-old laptop, one without the hardware problems? Continuing to use this one is not going to end well.

How highly committed to Windows are you? You might have better results on an older computer with Linux.

I started using chrome when there was a certain web site I just could not capture using firefox and asked my son for help and he was able to capture it using chrome. It is a bit clunkier than firefox, though, in other respects. I could not find how to bookmark for example, but it has a list of my old firefox bookmarks.

Two things:

Get rid of Norton.

Try the Waterfox browser – I’ve been using it for several years. It has many of the features that slow down Firefox disabled or removed. (Some of those features you may be able to turn off in Firefox if you look into it.)

Isn’t there a little star-shaped button you can click to get a bookmark? Or I think control-D should do it as well, if you prefer the keyboard.

You can always roll back to a previous version of Firefox.

Without more info, I’d say browser choice and h/w status shouldn’t be the problem here. Get rid of norton and use windows defender + some other (lighter) a/v. Norton gave me nothing but grief when I had it, dumped it decades ago.

I have Vivaldi, Chrome, and FF , Use them interchangeably, mostly. Chrome is the fastest. Some sites just work better in other browsers, who knows why?

I use Chrome and Opera on my Windows 10 laptop. Both seem to work fine. Firefox is too much of a memory hog and drags with more than a few tabs open.

I have heard that having two anti-virus programs running is no bueno. You might see an improvement if you disable one or the other.

I use Seamonkey, the precursor to Firefox.

https://www.seamonkey-project.org/

The only thing I run Firefox for is Amazon streaming. When I try it on Opera, it asks for an add-on that I don’t think actually exists.

The last time I tried Chrome on this device, it wouldn’t even open. Maybe they’ve improved it enough for me to overcome my loathing of Google.

I also use Seamonkey, on a Windows 7 PC.

This.^ Running two anti-virus programs at the same time is a bad idea. The engines don’t always play nicely together. I don’t know whether it will solve your Firefox problem, but you should disable either Norton or Malware Bytes.