Sloppy Firefox 5 Usage

I decided to download Firefox 5 for my Ubuntu and test it's beta out after hearing the features despite it's horrendous history of crashing (especially with Flash plugin) and non-backwards compatibility of some plugins I wanted to preserve for use.

I extracted the downloaded "tar.gz" compressed file into a "firefox-5" folder and tried to run the "run-mozilla.sh" and "firefox" shellscript but both failed to load Firefox 5. I checked the README and thought I was missing something out and lo and behold .. the README was CRAP... below is the entire readme text:

For information about installing, running and configuring Firefox
including a list of known issues and troubleshooting information,
refer to: http://getfirefox.com/releases/

This is unbelievably sloppy of Mozilla team. I have long wanted to migrate away from Firefox to some open source browser like Google Chrome or maybe Chromium browser (hopefully without much of Google's reach inside it) and would be looking forward to moving away from Firefox for good.

Firefox have always left a bad after taste and I would say that my short experiences with IE 8 was surprisingly pleasant and far better than Firefox despite IE 8 is one of the most hated browsers out there. 

Firefox is slowly slipping to become the IE 6 and probably if IE continues to work well on open standards, adopt a robust WebGL, beef it's security, probably open source itself and release a Linux version, I would consider it for some test.

I wouldn't be interested in Firefox 5 any sooner after this horrendous experience. By the way, I went to the webpage as specified in the README and I simply got totally confused by the amount of data the webpage has. 

Another problem is Ubuntu doesn't push down a Firefox 4 upgrade and simply upgrades the Firefox 3.6 variant. If Ubuntu pushed a Firefox 4 upgrade (I am using Ubuntu 10.10 as I am skeptical of 11.04) and Firefox were to fix backward compatibility of plugins, I would seriously consider using Firefox.

Good bye, Firefox 4 and 5.

Edit: I realized the version of Firefox 5 I downloaded was the final version. It seems like Mozilla simply pushed out Firefox 5 after 4 just within 3 months. I wonder why they are in a rush to skip from version 4 to version 5 ?

Crashy Browser

My Ubuntu 10.04 (I just upgraded recently) has been suffering web browser crashes lately and it's during the usage of the latest 10.1 Adobe Flash plugin regardless of the browsers. Sigh... when would Flash be fixed and become really robust and less buggy ?


EDIT (20 SEP 2010): I was using a Opera browser containing a tab to a normal forum without any cool html 5 features or real time apps (except Google Ads), a tab opened to "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NmkH2bSOzek" and a Youtube video. The processor (An Intel Dual Core, Compaq Presario C700 on an Ubuntu 10.04) sees the processor shoot up to 94% for Opera (in total when considering the two processor usage). Wow... that's a lot of processing usage. I only use Opera because it has a very clean and nice interface, serves HTML 5 and the killer Mail application in-built into it so I can avoid signing into webmails as much as possible to save my time. Since Opera 10.60 is weighing me down so badly on performance (compared to Firefox 3.5 and Chrome 6), I may ditch Opera soon if it continues. For managing my webmails, I have my own ways.... else I just well... suck it up, right ?     :S


Opera 10.60 ratings for now: :( :(  - Don't force me to add another 'bad' smiley !!!

Choking up on Flash

Opera have made impressive efforts improving it's browser in 10.60 but sadly, it has not properly address fundamental issues of crashing and jamming like what Chrome did. I couldn't say Chrome is any better when it comes to being crashy (although it 'safely' handles crashes). Unlike Chrome, Opera just colour your desktop with the most beautiful jam your ever seen. Take a look at the two screen shots of a jammed Opera running on Ubuntu.

Do not that I have taken out some information to protect my own privacy.

As I am typing below these texts after uploading these pictures, Opera starts to kick up some fuss and hiccups abit. Bad Opera !!


Apparently, it's partly Google's fault for not making some of their applications friendly to Opera.


Why I have been using Opera lately is because it has a mail integration where I could simply check my mail without going to the webmail sites. Guess I am too lazy ain't I ? Lol.


Now back to topic. Flash 10.1(Adobe official version) is still kicking up lots of fuss, jamming my web browsers when I start to load 3 to 4 tabs worth of Youtube (each 10 minutes long) while paused each video. It happens to Firefox, Chrome and Opera... giving me such a nasty headache.


Opera gives the most headache and pain as you can see from the above screenshots. Not only does it hang, it literally 'colour your desktop' nicely. :D


Good job Opera. You made my day. I sent to the Opera team two issue tickets but I never got to hear anything from them forever. I know, they are busy with tons of other bugs which are more important then mine.


Well, this is a rant about bad web browsers and nasty official Adobe Flash 10.1 running on Linux. Adobe really haven't put enough efforts to make it's products competent on Linux as you can from the all so frequent crashes of Flash on Linux platform although Adobe market themselves as competent on Linux as well. it's time Adobe should get serious with making user experience really good and sleek on Linux or people would still be complaining about them.