Meryl's Notes Blog

Updated on 11/08/06: This is based on FireFox v1.x. Not sure of exact version because it’s been too long and the release notes don’t indicate the date released.

I have been using both programs for a while and this is what has happened.

I took an immediate liking to FireFox over Mozilla because it has features that go the extra mile. FireFox has better built-in search functionality. Enter a keyword or enter “goto keyword” and Google takes you to its “I feel lucky” result. Can’t do that in Mozilla. Little things like that.

Then I started having problems with FireFox freezing up. Just not working. I worked around it by creating a new profile per the feedback in the forums. That took care of it. The new account eventually froze, too. Luckily, I had an earlier save from using Mozilla Backup and restored it. After a few iterations of this, it stopped working altogether. The same problem happened on my laptop, which has few programs installed on it (in other words, it has not been corrupted with a lot of setting changes, installs, de-installs, etc.).

FireFox does have a tendency to hold on tight to bad or corrupted profiles. This is not a problem for everyone, however. Many people are using FireFox without the issues I’ve faced. Remember the browser has not reached v1.0 yet. Although I enjoy the challenge of detective work to unbugger the browser, it was time consuming.

Furthermore, as a paid user of RoboForm, it would not work each time I got FireFox cooperating. RoboForm worked twice and then never worked again. I haven’t had the problem in Mozilla. I’ve been using Mozilla v1.7 for a few weeks and have none of the problems I’ve seen in FireFox.

I still think FireFox is a great browser with much potential. Its extensions offer tools to make the browsing experience easier and more fun. Mozilla does have extensions, but not as extensive as FireFox. If you use FireFox, I recommend ChromEdit and Checky.

Rodent shares his experience. I haven’t had a problem with PDFs, in fact, they load faster in Mozilla and FireFox. Boy, I am jealous of his solution… buy a Mac. Gotta wait till we’re in a better situation before doing something like that.

P.S. I changed the name of the entry and stole the name from Rodent. It was too good not to!