Firefox running (Slow) on Linux
Despite what I might say about the new Firefox patch I’m totally in love with the Firefox browser from Mozilla.
Topping the list of it’s features are tabbed browsing, robust coding (it won’t crash when given malformed html like IE does) fantastic bookmark support (that’s ‘favorites’ to IE users) and most of all the ability to have add-ons called ‘extensions’ installed into it.
There are a few extensions that I don’t run Firefox without.
Web Developer allows me to analyze and test web pages like I’ve never been able to before. It lets me see the size, classnames, and ‘topography’ of a page with one click, it also lets me clear my login and password for any website I’m at. Perhaps the coolest thing it does is let me edit the CSS file in a pane next to the page as it automatically applies the changes that I make.
TabBrowser Preferences is a little bulky, but I need it to be able to move tabs around and reopen tabs that I accidentally closed.
AllInOne Gestures let’s me use mouse gestures. If you’re unfamiliar with gestures I recommend you try them immediately. It’s basically a way for you to hold down the right mouse button and move your mouse in a pattern - and have that pattern turn into a command. It makes for very fast and precise control over your computer like you’ve never had.
Bookmark Synchronizer is probably essential for anyone who runs linux because most of us have another computer we use somewhere too. This lets you ftp your bookmarks to a server somewhere and upload/download as you make changes and move computers. If one computer breaks and has to be reformatted you lose nothing. This is idea for anyone like me who often screws up the installation of their operating system.
One last note and a fulfillment of the title of this article:
Firefox runs very well on my work computer but for some reason has been rather slow on my Linux machine. I don’t know what would make Firefox slow on Linux, but it’s almost to the point where I feel like upgrading my (already pretty decent) hardware. Also, Firefox is known to require far more CPU per flash file than IE. I don’t know why that is, but with the strict coding guidelines by which the browser was written I imagine it could be easy to fix.
Even with the downsides right now, I highly recomment you get a better browser than Internet Explorer and try out Firefox.
