Firefox 3
I have been using Firefox off and on for awhile now and updated to version 3 when it was released. The installation went off without a hitch, although a few of my addons were not compatible with the new revision and thus were disabled. None of them were deal breakers so I did not worry too much about that. That said, a few annoyances have popped up since I’ve been trying the new version. First it changed my default browser without asking even though I used the custom install. Secondly, Firefox 2 would normally start right up and show my home page (the default Mozilla Google homepage), but with Firefox 3, it sits and thinks about it for a while. Meanwhile, it is stuck until it finally decides to load the page, the software is locked up until then. If you try to say click on the bookmarks before it is “ready”, you get a not-responded message from XP.
Then every so often, when it is trying to load a new page or tab, it will start eating up CPU or just plain locking up the computer until it is ready to go again. I have plenty of RAM (although I could always use more) nor am I trying to open up bunch of windows or have a ton of programs open at the same time as Firefox. It is by far the heaviest usage of memory alot of the time with over 100 megs used with just two tabs open. I have disabled all my addons except for one (DownloadHelper) because I remember Mozilla blaming addons for performance issues in the past. Overall, the lockups just plain get irritating after awhile in any event.
I’ll have to keep messing with it and see if I can do something to improve the performance a bit.