Hey!
I just have a quick question for anyone using Firefox. I want to download it to take a look at it, but I have concerns about it running in the background when not in actual use. One time I saw 50 processes running in the task manager, so I have a pet peeve about programs using resources when they’re not in actual use. Someone please get back to me, I won’t bother to download it if runs constantly. Thanks!
Firefox does not appear as a process unless in use, except in rare circumstances where the program has crashed, it which case it is perfectly safe to kill the process using Task Manager- indeed it is necessary to do so before starting Firefox again. This is a rare occurrence: the Firefox process normally terminates when the program is closed.
Thanks for your quick reponse, I’ll go ahead and download it. As always I can’t count on the Avast team when I have a question or concern. You guys are the absolute best!! ;D
One time when you saw this what version of firefox was it ?
The current one 1.5.0.3 is very stable and has been for some time, pre 1.5 versions may have had issues but I haven’t experienced what you mention. I have been using firefox since about version 0.7.
I start firefox at the start of the day and leave it running all day. The only issue is that memory usage builds up over the course of the day, not a problem for me but some experienced high memory usage. Closing firefox clears all that memory usage.
Firefox uses memory to cache pages in proportion to the amount of physical memory available, so ‘high memory usage’ is relative: a figure which looks high may only be a small proportion of memory available on , say, a 2Gig system. Memory usage is not a problem- why buy a system with a lot of memory and then not use it? Of course it would be a problem if you were trying to play a memory intensive application like a recent game at the same time, in which case, having multiple open tabs on Firefox would be a bad idea. What is a problem is if Firefox doesn’t return memory to the system when tabs are closed: this is what happens in a memory leak, a few of which have been fixed in the latest versions, and several of which seem to have been caused by Firefox extensions handling memory badly. Firefox is now teaching extension writers how to ‘garbage collect’ more effectively.
I know that one of the advantages Firefox has over Explorer is the tabs, but Explorer 7 will have that feature, is that the only significant thing besides the obvious one of security? I hoped that Microsoft puts their best effort in that this time, although I know that they will always be the number one target for hackers and virus authors.
It’s amazing that Microsoft waited so long for this upgrade to Explorer, and from the previews I’ve seen I think they should have done even more! Internet Explorer should be the pinnacle of browser innovation and technology. It took a David like Firefox to awaken the sleeping giant, thank God for good Ole American competition!!!
Firefox and Opera are much more standards complaint than IE. Web developers are often to be heard complaining about how hard it is to get a web page to work in IE. This is especially true for CSS, which Opera and Firefox do well, but IE doesn’t. Here is a recent example I came across:
http://www.csszengarden.com/?cssfile=http://www.css-praxis.de/cssocean/zenocean.css
My own web site required a hack to the code to make it work properly in IE, yet it works fine in Opera and Firefox.
The IE developers have committed themselves to improving standards compliance, yet even IE7 is still behind the competition.
http://img154.imageshack.us/img154/7135/ieproblem9ox.jpg
If IE has a problem with that page, I can’t see it… ??? ???
I’m still on IE6, Bob. 
I’m on IE6 as well, and I never ever had any problems with CSS Zen Garden… Screenshots attached:
Try the first one in Opera or Firefox to see what you’re missing!
Really can’t see any difference at all… Maybe because I didn’t post whole picture in my previous post… here it is again, shrinked, but I captured full size window:
Frank I just compared IE and Opera and the crabbs cral the same way in both virsions.
There isn’t any difference in how either of the 2 browsers displays this page or any of the links on the page.
Remember,
I use IE7 beta2 if you don’t have it, upgrade.
In IE6 there’s no diver, no crab, and the chest is open.
EDIT: This may explain it:
http://madamemmastent.smfforfree.com/index.php?topic=418.msg2767#msg2767
But I see scuba diver, crabs, bubbles and everything else… I even see scuba diver’s light changes its intensity when scrolling that page down. Maybe after uninstalling IE7 and going back to IE6, some good things left installed.
Bottom line… if I want to see those animations and effects on page, I would always use Flash, because Flash is cross-browser component, even cross-platform friendly. Any page I created in Flash, works on any brosers, any known OS same as it works in Windows/IE.