Firefox of Ultimate Edition 2.8 64-bit extremely slow

[megaD]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to Ubuntu and also new to Ultimate Edition. Today I installed it and noticed the Firefox is slow.

First I thought it must be the OS itself (as in Windows 7 my internet speed is fine) but then I tried Chromium and there the speed is just fine. So it must be the Firefox install that comes with 2.8 64-bit.

Any ideas?

This is what I installed: http://sourceforge.net/projects/ultimat ... o/download

[billhedrick]

several things to look at. What version of FF are you using? What add-ons are you using?

[pclinuxguru]

I assure you, it is NOT the Firefox install that comes with the disk.

Something else is going on. 5 in house PC,s and 111 client PC,s and not one have shown a slow Firefox out of Ultimate Edition 2.7 or Ultimate Edition 2.8.

Every last one shows Firefox faster then latest build of chrome.

Would like more info about what has been installed on the system beyond what came with 2.8 install.

Also would like more info about what your doing in Firefox when it acts slow please.

1 way or other we can help you solve the problem.

[megaD]

I'm using the Firefox version that came with Ultimate Edition 2.8 (not sure if it updated itself when installing the OS). It has all the add-ons that have been pre-installed. I didn't do anything to it. If you want I can list the add-ons (and version#) in detail but you should know them if you have 2.8 Ultimate Edition...

What I'm doing? I went to yahoo.com. The site loaded for 60-90 seconds. In Chromium it took like 5-10 seconds. This is not the usual slowness or "speed advantage" of Chrome vs. Firefox (I know: it's not faster - I work at a large internet corp and we analyzed the roundtrip times of browsers - Chrome speed advantage is just a myth). It's most probably some bug. After typing the address and pressing enter nothing happened. It felt like the DNS server wouldn't respond. Then the site loaded but several elemets have been missing (like the avatar or the ad). They loaded in the end but it took very long. Again this felt like I would be using some proxy very far away. Very strange.

As mention before. I didn't do anything to Firefox. My Ultimate Edition 2.8 64-bit is a fresh install. Any help is much appreciated... I'm a Firefox user on all my other machines and operating systems so it would be great to use it in my Linux install as well.

Maybe some details about my HW/ISP setup:

My desktop PC is connected via a cable to my router. I'm using the on-board network adapter of my mainboard.

Router: http://www.alice-wiki.de/Alice_Modem_1121_WLAN
ISP: Alice DSL (HanseNet Germany) - http://www.speedtest.net/ result 7 Mbit
Mainboard: ASRock AOD790GX/128M - http://www.asrock.com/mb/overview.asp?M ... 790GX/128M

[pclinuxguru]

humm, let me test this again for kicks my self.

Firefox 3.6.14 todays build

vs

Google chrome 8.0.552.224

vs

Opera

Version
11.00

Build
1156

Platform
Linux

System
x86_64, 2.6.35-24-generic

will let ya know my findings today.

[pclinuxguru]

Each test is to full render and finish of loading of each page. Using ipod touch 4G app stop watch to measure the time in xx.xx.xx format.

Firefox google.com = 0.11 seconds

Firefox msn.com = 0.89 seconds

Firefox yahoo.com = 0.82 seconds

Firefox newegg.com = 0.49 seconds

on to Chrome google.com = 0.11 seconds

Chrome msn.com = 0.90 seconds

Chrome yahoo.com = 0.71 seconds - opera wins this one

Chrome newegg.com = 1.02 seconds

on to opera google.com 0.47 - WTF tried it 4 times even lol

opera msn.com = 1.38 seconds - starting to see a pattern here

opera yahoo.com = 1.59 seconds

opera newegg.com = 2.88 seconds

Findings are that firefox and chrome are tied for most part and opera lags behind a GREAT deal in terms of speed.

Ok now you try this same type of test and report your findings, be honest now.

[megaD]

Listen! I'm not talking about some loading time comparison. This is 100% a bug!

I won't run your stupid benchmark. Just tried Firefox and yahoo.com and it was 67 seconds! Chromium was 5 seconds. BTW: To run a test always clear your cache.

Happy new year!


Edit: Found the problem. It's the DNS of my router that is causing the slowness. Most probably Chromium is accessing some own speed-optimized DNS-cache or service and this is why it worked so well in comparison to Firefox. I installed now OpenDNS and Firefox speed is normal. Please note that the problem didn't occur in Windows XP or Windows 7 but I had trouble with it on my Mac PowerBook running OS X 10.4.

[pclinuxguru]

Cache was cleared each and every time. Not the first time I have done a browser test. In fact it has to be 1 of dozens.

Point here was that you kept saying it is firefox and linux to blame and it wasn't at all.

Never was.

It was your own hardware config.

Statement that windows didn't do it really amounts to next to nothing. I could name 1000 things that windows does so much worse then linux.

Facts are nothing works the same, when a problem shows up that only you have and no one else does, always look at your own setup and find what isn't setup right.

Glad it is fixed, take care.

[megaD]

I never blamed Linux. I just said Firefox is extremely slow for me and that I think something is wrong with it and Chromium fast and that it works on Windows. Nothing more nothing less.

A non-integrated OS needs to run on as many HW configurations as possible but I guess that always has been a problem with Linux (my first Suse Linux didn't even come with the most basic drivers). So if you want Chromium would be a better choice as the default pre-installed browser as it runs even on cheap crap DSL-modem-routers from China (my ISP is apparently very focused on cost saving - the manufacturer is called: Shanghai Technologies ... what a brand )

[pclinuxguru]

Well glad it works now.

Sorry if I upset ya. Take care.