Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows
Home > Type > News > Firefox 3 vs. Windows Vista, Part 2

Firefox 3 vs. Windows Vista, Part 2

May 30, 2008 Paul Thurrott | Paul Thurrott's Supersite for Windows

After submitting yesterday's Firefox 3 vs. Windows Vista post, I uninstalled all the extensions I had previously installed in Firefox 3 RC1 to see how it behaved. I must admit, I do miss the glass effects from Glasser and being able to hide the menu bar. But with the understanding that 24 hours does not a data set make, I can report that Firefox 3 is already dramatically more stable. I haven't had a crash yet since I removed the extensions.

I'll give it a few more days before I declare victory, but that's a good sign. Maybe I can get my Vista reliability index back up in the 9's while I'm at it. :)

Discuss this Article 14

howarddenton
on May 30, 2008
What a surprise. I think you owe an apology to me about your reply to my post of yesterday. Firefox is a success story and you and Microsoft need to get used to this. All Microsoft does with IE is play catch up and is fast losing its way.
ajgelado
on May 30, 2008
Howard, I'm a die hard user of Netscape/Mozilla products, and I firmly believe that Firefox is the best browser in the world. But I find your message of yesterday out of tone. You say "Get yourself an a decent operating system.". Many people say the same about Linux (because of its nightmare of usability) or Mac OS (because of its supposed lack of applications). And they are as wrong as you. No current OS is bad for its intended target market, and both Windows, Mac OS and Linux are more than good enough for their respective users. No need to flame here or anywhere else. Attitudes like yours is what take most people away from Linux. Paul: in the past, I have had some reliability problems with Firefox 2. After disabling and re-enabling several extensions one at a time, I found the guilty ones, and disabled them permanently. Now I run a quite loaded FF2 (with 15 extensions!) and it is rock solid: I only restart it every two days, when I need to reclaim the leaked memory :-) . I suggest you to do the same: start enabling your extensions, one each day, so when you start having problems again, you know the guilty is today's or yesterday's one.
jrhine
on May 30, 2008
ajgelado - Well stated. howarddenton - I'm sorry, but it is you, my friend, who owes the apology. Paul was simply stating what he experienced. He even mentioned the possibility of the add-ons causing the problem in his original post and said that he would further investigate. Keep in mind this is a blog, not a published review of a product.
Delmont
on May 30, 2008
Again people, we are talking SOFTWARE! Noone has slapped your little sister. My Vista score is 8.85.... Anyways, again...we are talking software people. Why get so upset? I find it very interesting that Apple lovers come to a Windows blog and spend so much time to bash Windows. Again, I do not hit Appleinsider.com or macrumors.com 10 hours per day bashing Apple. Get a life, move on. I like Apple. But the constant attiude of that you are better than me will drive me and my money away from Apple. Why would I want to be assocaited with some elitiest group like you people? MOVE ON! It is only software. Deveote yourself to improving our nation, your neighborhood!
howarddenton
on May 30, 2008
A question. Why would anyone do a reliability check of a BETA or an RC product against Vista? It is meaningless. Much better to do this test against XP if at all. The reliability test that counts, and the one that will be meaningful is against the released product. Few people think Vista a success and for business use unmitigated failure. Therefore the test that should be done is against XP, which is what the majority of people use and will continue to do so for some time to come. Microsoft has become the dominate player in the market due to clever marketing and a robust business model. It's product development has always played catch up. It is about time its monopoly was broken once and for all and commentator's like Paul should be a little more objective and cease to make instantaneous comments about products before their official release.
weedmonk
on May 30, 2008
@Howard....put the crack pipe down.
Cfischer83
on May 30, 2008
Howard, read this: http://www.crn.com/software/207601185?cid=CRNFeed does have some rhetoric, but the point is that people ARE moving to Vista and at a faster pace than they did to XP.
lsproc
on May 30, 2008
Paul, would you be able to further test and find the culprit extention?
Snakedoctor1
on May 31, 2008
@Sacredcow and cfischer I work for a large Microsoft Gold Certified partner that covers the midwest to East Coast. We have many small to large customers and I get to see a lot of them when I am on site doing Exchange/Sharepoint work. Vista adoption is pretty much NIL in my travels and I have asked. My company actively pushes it but hardly anyone wants to touch it. Big companies dont want to touch it because there are huge costs associated with training, deployment, hardware upgrades, and application certification. Small companies dont like change and dont have the time for change. They are usually so busy with just doing what they do and dont have the time or resources to deal with Vista or any type of problem with switching. If fact my company is making good many converting new computers bought by small companies from Vista to XP.
Snakedoctor1
on May 31, 2008
@Sacredcow and cfischer I work for a large Microsoft Gold Certified partner that covers the midwest to East Coast. We have many small to large customers and I get to see a lot of them when I am on site doing Exchange/Sharepoint work. Vista adoption is pretty much NIL in my travels and I have asked. My company actively pushes it but hardly anyone wants to touch it. Big companies dont want to touch it because there are huge costs associated with training, deployment, hardware upgrades, and application certification. Small companies dont like change and dont have the time for change. They are usually so busy with just doing what they do and dont have the time or resources to deal with Vista or any type of problem with switching. If fact my company is making good many converting new computers bought by small companies from Vista to XP.
Snakedoctor1
on May 31, 2008
@Sacredcow and cfischer I work for a large Microsoft Gold Certified partner that covers the midwest to East Coast. We have many small to large customers and I get to see a lot of them when I am on site doing Exchange/Sharepoint work. Vista adoption is pretty much NIL in my travels and I have asked. My company actively pushes it but hardly anyone wants to touch it. Big companies dont want to touch it because there are huge costs associated with training, deployment, hardware upgrades, and application certification. Small companies dont like change and dont have the time for change. They are usually so busy with just doing what they do and dont have the time or resources to deal with Vista or any type of problem with switching. If fact my company is making good many converting new computers bought by small companies from Vista to XP.
RudyRedSox
on May 31, 2008
I find it amusing that Mac fans like to say Vista is an "unmitigated failure". They should take a look at Apple's market share... For you users of Vista: run "Reliability and Performance Monitor", click on "Reliability Monitor", then click on "Select a Date". What happened to May 31st? I stopped using Firefox after IE7 came out, and don't miss anything. Adding "IE7 Pro" to IE7 makes a good browser even better.
lilserenity
on May 31, 2008
My biggest beef with Internet Explorer has never been the product's interface or usability itself but the abysmal (and somewhat better in IE7 granted) standards support. If MS does come through with IE8, I will be able to drop my complaints towards IE8 if it follows the W3C standards. I'm all for choice, what I am against is having to 'hack' my websites into behaving properly on IE. And Vista is not an unmitigated disaster though my recent OS stats for the largest website I run (thousands of page views a day) pegs XP at 69%, Vista at 13%, Mac at 9% (more than I expected), Windows 2000 at 3.5% and Linux at 1.5% (and the rest are ME, 98 and various breeds of UNIX) IE is fine from the user perspective, for a serious web developer coding web applications or cloud apps in today's parlance that look great and work great, IE is a thorn in the side though I have little to whinge about with IE7 which is pretty good whereas IE6 is a steaming pile of sh**e :)
Waethorn
on Jun 2, 2008
"I'm all for choice, what I am against is having to 'hack' my websites into behaving properly on IE." ya, you know, you have to "hack" a website for inline-block to work in IE. oh wait....it already does....i'm thinking of Firefox 2.

Please or Register to post comments.

Related Articles

IT/Dev Connections

Las Vegas
September 30th - October 4th

Paul ThurottYou'll have the opportunity to experience:
• 120 Technical
Sessions
• Networking with Peers
• Expert Speakers


Come See Paul Thurrott & Mary Jo Foley in Person!

Register Now

Office 365 InfoCenter

Get the latest insight and info from Paul

Read Now!

What I Use
Apr. 18, 2013
Article

What I Use: On the Road 21

Every so often, I publish an updated version of my “What I Use” document, which details the technology products and services I actually use day-to-day. Since I’m currently on my third business trip in five weeks, this is perhaps an ideal time to discuss the technology products I rely on when I travel and a few related points....More
Mar. 6, 2013
Article

What I Use: March 2013 35

Lots of changes since November, including a new PC-based home server running Windows 8, several new smart phones, new PCs and tablets, new cloud backup, Office 365 Home Premium and a nice doubling of my Internet speeds courtesy of Verizon FIOS....More
WinSuperSite.com
Related Penton Sites
Copyright © 2013 Penton Media, Inc