Firefox Question

[lydy]

I recently converted from Opera to Firefox. It was a painful process and I'd rather not do it again, so switching to Safari is a last-ditch option. But I'm having this problem with Firefox 3.5.7 for the Mac. I'm running Mac OS 10.4.11. What I find is that if I leave Firefox up for any length of time (and I prefer to leave it up all the time, and just sleep my machine when I'm not using it) the scroll bar arrow reduces in function to the point where it'll get so slow it's unusable. I'm talking six or greater seconds to move down one line of text. While clicking in the scroll bar will drop it down by a page as it's supposed to, the arrow key becomes unusable until I restart Firefox. Any clue as to why this is, or what I can do about it, other than to migrate back to Opera (which was having trouble loading pages, especially Making Light), or moving on to Safari? Thanks.

Comments

[guppiecat]

Are you connecting to any specific sites during this time (like, say, Facebook)?

[buttonlass.livejournal.com]

Why? Does that do something especially bad?

My computer has been having a very similar problem with Firefox and freezing up to the point of being unusable. I thought it was some bad reaction of Firefox to Facebook. I have nothing to base that on though.

[guppiecat]

Yes, there has been a problem with Firefox and Facebook for about two years now. I really don't know why it's not fixed yet, as it's so bloody obvious, but it's not.

The problem does not impact http://lite.facebook.com , so I just use that and only flip to regular Facebook when I need more information than lite can provide.

[lydy.livejournal.com]

It's not Facebook. I never go on Facebook. I keep open something like 10 or 12 tabs at a time, mostly Making Light tabs. (I do this as a way of keeping track of where I am on a thread. I don't close the thread, I just go back and refresh it every time I want to read it.)

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

I use Firefox and Safari both, all the time. I'm running 10.5.8, and don't have any problems.

K.

[nancymcc.livejournal.com]

Firefox for Mac is a very greedy program, in terms of CPU and memory. I've had a lot of problems with it on my five-year-old laptop (10.4.11). It's fine on my newer desktop Mac with its Intel processor, greater memory amount, and OS 10.6.2.

Martin would tell you to run the application "Activity Monitor" which comes on every Mac. You can watch various usage graphs and charts (CPU, Memory, Network) while Firefox is "sitting".... It might help pinpoint a problem.

[guppiecat]

This is what I was about to say to your comment above, but since nancymcc said it, I don't have to.

I will add, however, that if you see the amount of memory used going up, there are some add ons that you can install into Firefox that may help reduce the problem somewhat.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

My experience is that Firefox sucks up swap space without limit. 3 isn't as bad as 2 was, but there appear to be reliable memory leaks. I h ave no idea why it hasn't been fixed.
If you're sitting with self-refreshing pages open, that might be a factor.