# What's the deal with Firefox? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 5, 2005, 4:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145 "2005-01-05T04:05:05Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/21 "2005-01-05T06:12:28Z")
Well, for one thing, it means that the taskbar at the bottom of your screen does not get jammed with heaps and heaps of window buttons if you want to view multiple pages at the same time. This is especially useful if, like me, you often have other programs open as well. No more searching among a whole bunch of tiny, caption-less buttons in an attempt to maximise Word or Dreamweaver or Photoshop. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 6:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/22 "2005-01-05T06:13:34Z")
That answer was for **Declan** , by the way. ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 6:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/23 "2005-01-05T06:16:52Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > Tabs are much faster to load and easier to manage than new windows. You can open up the index of GQ, hold down Ctrl and click on a handful of threads, and they’ll load in their own background tabs while you’re still reading. And if you’re still using Win9x/ME, tabs use fewer resources than new windows, so you can use them without worrying about crashing your system. Tabbed windows are nice, but Firefox’s memory management sucks. Try this: open a bunch of windows in a single Firefox window. Open Task Manager and note that FF is using 125MB of RAM. Close all but one FF window (preferrably one that has pure, static HTML (i,e, no javascripts or Flash)). Open Task Maneger again. Note that FF is still using 125MB of RAM. Go get a cup of coffee and have a smoke. Come back and open Task Manager again. Note that FF is _still_ using 125MB of RAM. Close FF. Open same static HTML page again. Open Task Manager and note that FF is now using only 12MB of RAM. Bang head on table. This has been the number one bitch about FF at Ars for ages. ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/24 "2005-01-05T06:20:04Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Well, for one thing, it means that the taskbar at the bottom of your screen does not get jammed with heaps and heaps of window buttons if you want to view multiple pages at the same time. This is especially useful if, like me, you often have other programs open as well. No more searching among a whole bunch of tiny, caption-less buttons in an attempt to maximise Word or Dreamweaver or Photoshop. What OS are you using? 2000? Note that XP’s taskbar grouping kicks ass, ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 6:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/25 "2005-01-05T06:41:29Z")
> [@Rex Fenestrarum](#): > > Tabbed windows are nice, but Firefox’s memory management sucks. Try this: open a bunch of windows in a single Firefox window. Open Task Manager and note that FF is using 125MB of RAM. Close all but one FF window (preferrably one that has pure, static HTML (i,e, no javascripts or Flash)). Open Task Maneger again. Note that FF is still using 125MB of RAM. In the interest of science, I just opened a bunch of GQ threads in tabs. I now have 27 pages open in a single Firefox window, including this one, and Task Manager reports that FF is using 64,216K. (I’m on Windows 2000.) After closing all but two, the usage has dropped to 51,216K. And still dropping. A few minutes later, it’s down to 50,432K. Now, keep in mind that the memory usage figures in Task Manager are rough and don’t mean a whole lot. That 64 MB isn’t all in RAM at once; much of it is in the page file. A lot of it is unused memory that the program has freed, but the OS hasn’t reclaimed. ---
**Author:** ![kimera](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f0a364/32.png) [@kimera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kimera)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/26 "2005-01-05T06:46:13Z")
The only down side I’ve noticed is I can’t figure out how to open the page in a new browser. When I use IE and do “New Window” the new IE that pops up is on the page that I am looking at. When I do “New Window” on FF the new FF that pops up is my homepage. How do I get it to do what IE does? 😕 Oh, and went I used IE to make sure I was talking about the correct feature, I immediately got a popup - something I have yet to see in FF. ---
**Author:** ![Ms2001](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ms2001/32/18463_2.png) [@Ms2001](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ms2001)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 6:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/27 "2005-01-05T06:46:28Z")
Also, feel free to do the same experiment by opening 27 new windows in IE. I’ll be surprised if it uses less memory. My IE was using 36 MB after only 7 windows. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/28 "2005-01-05T06:50:36Z")
> [@Rex Fenestrarum](#): > > What OS are you using? 2000? Note that XP’s taskbar grouping kicks ass, No, i’m using XP. But the thing is, grouping is also a pain in the ass, because i often switch back and forth between Word documents, and between browswer windows, and i like to be able to do it in a single click. The grouping used by XP does make the desktop tidier, but it also means that if you want to switch back and forth, you have to click on the group button, and then find the window you want from the list. That’s why i prefer to work with tabbed browsing, because it usually means that i have few enough items in the taskbar that the grouping function doesn’t even need to kick in. ---
**Author:** ![John\_T.Conklin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_t.conklin/32/3307_2.png) [@John\_T.Conklin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_T.Conklin)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/29 "2005-01-05T06:55:36Z")
> [@kpinocchio](#): > > Some pages do not render correctly in Firefox. For an example open the following link in both IE and Firefox and compare the difference: > > [http://www.bestflights.com.au/cgi-bin/203/flights?maindetails=2017](http://www.bestflights.com.au/cgi-bin/203/flights?maindetails=2017) > > In Firefox the text runs off the right edge of the screen (for a long way) where as in IE it wraps as the web designer intended. I have come accross several pages like this. I ran that URL through the W3C’s HTML validator and it returned 130 problems. I know that browsers should be expected to somewhat generous with what input they accept, but at some point some assumptions have to be made that content providers are going to expend a minimal effort ensuring sure their site conforms to the HTML standard. ---
**Author:** ![mhendo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mhendo/32/3159_2.png) [@mhendo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mhendo)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/30 "2005-01-05T06:56:04Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > In the interest of science, I just opened a bunch of GQ threads in tabs. I now have 27 pages open in a single Firefox window, including this one, and Task Manager reports that FF is using 64,216K. (I’m on Windows 2000.). I got almost exactly the same results. I don’t think i’ve ever seen Firefox go over about 65Mb, and it’s usually around 30-40 which, on my 1Gig machine, is a pittance. ---
**Author:** ![Garfield226](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Garfield226](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Garfield226)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/31 "2005-01-05T06:58:03Z")
> [@ava](#): > > The only down side I’ve noticed is I can’t figure out how to open the page in a new browser. When I use IE and do “New Window” the new IE that pops up is on the page that I am looking at. When I do “New Window” on FF the new FF that pops up is my homepage. How do I get it to do what IE does? 😕 Try right-clicking and selecting “Open link in new window.” ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/32 "2005-01-05T07:00:29Z")
> [@Mr2001](#): > > Also, feel free to do the same experiment by opening 27 new windows in IE. I’ll be surprised if it uses less memory. My IE was using 36 MB after only 7 windows. I never said that IE would use _less memory_, but IE will at least give it back when it’s done. I now have 10 IE windows open and am using 78,412KB of RAM. I close 3 and am down to 63,256KB. I close 3 more and I’m down to 40,028KB. Down to 2 open windows and RAM usage drops to 36,344KB. 1 window open and I’m down to 30,908KB. At the same time, I have 2 tabs left in a single window after closing several Cafe Society threads - the main CS page forum page and this reply. TM shows FF as still using 146,365KB of RAM. Honestly though, this isn’t new news. Sure, you can add a tweak via browser.cache.memory.capacity but this is something that should be included in FF’s default configuration. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/33 "2005-01-05T07:03:22Z")
I’ll add the one downside I’ve noticed. With Firefox I can’t get Outlook to embed hypertext in e-mails. I used to be able to click over to IE, then back to Outlook when using the “insert hypertext” feature, but with Firefox it just hangs up. I understand that this problem is not an issue with Outlook Express. ---
**Author:** ![Declan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecae2f/32.png) [@Declan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Declan)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/34 "2005-01-05T07:06:53Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > That answer was for **Declan** , by the way. Thanks for the reply , I have been switching tween konq and FF in linux , so both browsers are supposed to have it , just did not see the point till now. Declan ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/35 "2005-01-05T07:33:04Z")
> [@ava](#): > > The only down side I’ve noticed is I can’t figure out how to open the page in a new browser. When I use IE and do “New Window” the new IE that pops up is on the page that I am looking at. When I do “New Window” on FF the new FF that pops up is my homepage. How do I get it to do what IE does? 😕 Install the [Clone Window](http://texturizer.net/firefox/extensions/#clonewindow) extension. ---
**Author:** ![Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rex_fenestrarum/32/7265_2.png) [@Rex\_Fenestrarum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rex_Fenestrarum)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/36 "2005-01-05T07:39:20Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > No, i’m using XP. > > But the thing is, grouping is also a pain in the ass, because i often switch back and forth between Word documents, and between browswer windows, and i like to be able to do it in a single click. The grouping used by XP does make the desktop tidier, but it also means that if you want to switch back and forth, you have to click on the group button, and then find the window you want from the list. That’s why i prefer to work with tabbed browsing, because it usually means that i have few enough items in the taskbar that the grouping function doesn’t even need to kick in. Oh, OK. I’m more of an ALT+TAB man for different windows myself. ---
**Author:** ![Savannah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b3f665/32.png) [@Savannah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Savannah)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/37 "2005-01-05T07:49:22Z")
> [@SHAKES](#): > > Also Firefox has been MUCH better at downloading porn… errr… uh… pics from the internet. When I did this with IE, half the time they woud come out looking like Mosaics. Just wait 'til you get the extension “Down Them All”. Just sayin’. ---
**Author:** ![gouda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c77e96/32.png) [@gouda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gouda)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 1:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/38 "2005-01-05T13:35:16Z")
So which is better? Opera or FF? ---
**Author:** ![Excalibre](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/898d66/32.png) [@Excalibre](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Excalibre)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 2:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/39 "2005-01-05T14:52:52Z")
> [@SHAKES](#): > > Also Firefox has been MUCH better at downloading porn… errr… uh… pics from the internet. When I did this with IE, half the time they woud come out looking like Mosaics. Note that there’s several extensions out there if you want to improve your experience and make it easier to examine “artwork” online. They’ll load each image-link in a separate tab, or help browse multiple galleries, and it can make the online art experience even better than it was before. > [@Declan](#): > > Whats the skinny on using Tabs anyways , I guess , as opposed to opening a new browser window. I keep hearing folks applaud the feature ,but don’t quite find why . > > Declan Particularly with IE, I’ve noticed, it’s quite slow to open a new window compared to a new tab in FF. And you can configure it to open things in tabs while remaining in the tab you’re on, which makes it simple to just click each link you’ll want to examine (say, here on the boards) while remaining in the main window. It makes looking at multiple threads on message boards (and just about everything else) easier. It’s a different style of use; new windows are fine, but tabs are just easier to manage and at least I found my web use much different when I could easily descend through webpage hierarchies rather than traveling a single path. > [@Rex Fenestrarum](#): > > Tabbed windows are nice, but Firefox’s memory management sucks. Try this: open a bunch of windows in a single Firefox window. Open Task Manager and note that FF is using 125MB of RAM. Close all but one FF window (preferrably one that has pure, static HTML (i,e, no javascripts or Flash)). Open Task Maneger again. Note that FF is still using 125MB of RAM. Go get a cup of coffee and have a smoke. Come back and open Task Manager again. Note that FF is _still_ using 125MB of RAM. Close FF. Open same static HTML page again. Open Task Manager and note that FF is now using only 12MB of RAM. Bang head on table. > > This has been the number one bitch about FF at Ars for ages. Yep, and I’ve noticed this too. In general, it allows one to open so many tabs (and I tend to) that system resources run out (still using Win98; perhaps upgrading would solve this?) and new windows can’t be drawn. I wish they could either manage resources better or prevent the user from opening more tabs than it permits. While we’re on the subject, I’ll probably ask at the mozilla forums later, but has anyone experienced this strange problem I’m suddenly having with FF? If I have many tabs open (and it only has to be ten or so), suddenly, every time a page is displayed, the whole browser hangs for several seconds while it’s somehow parsing the HTML or whatever. It’s a longer pause than it normally takes to display a page, and I’m used to using one tab in the foreground while others load in the background. Occasionally a message box will pop up claiming that a script on the page is running slowly and give me the option to terminate it. If I do so, the tab in question seems to continue to operate normally. Except it seems to happen in windows without scripts at all, or ones where the scripts have never caused me trouble before (like here at the SDMB.) ---
**Author:** ![EmeraldGrue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dc4da7/32.png) [@EmeraldGrue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmeraldGrue)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 2:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145/40 "2005-01-05T14:57:37Z")
> [@engineer\_comp\_geek](#): > > Can you import your bookmarks back to IE later? I don’t think so, but your old ones will still be there. Does it block pop-ups (even ones that get through IE with a pop-up blocker)? > [@Rex Fenestrarum](#): > > Sure you can. Go to Bookmarks \> Manage Bookmarks \> File \> Export and export the bookmarks to an HTM file. Then open IE and select File \> Import and Export and select “Import Favorites from a file”. There’s also an extension called Favorites Converter that does this in one click. Awfully handy. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whats-the-deal-with-firefox/283145.md?page=3)