flame

[penguin@peoplepc.com]

On Fri, 21 Jun 2002 20:48:21 +0100 (BST)
Vivek <vivek@etla.org> wrote:

> On Fri, 21 Jun 2002, penguin@peoplepc.com wrote:
> 
> > I warn anyone who values system stability to think hard about using
> > Mozilla. It's painfully slow, a screen hog, and also has memory
> > leaks; and that's when it's it's working _right_.
> 
> So far you seem to be describing the way netscape 4 behaves, not
> mozilla. Your experience may of course be different.
> 

I've also had these problems with netscape.  I still see mozilla as slow
and instable, and while not downright ugly, certainly a screen hog.

> > When it's not working right it can not only crash itself, but
> > can/will crash the X session, put the processor into a loop, start
> > processes that refuse to be "killed," and crash the system, forcing
> > unhealthy reboots.
> 
> So far, so netscape: I can't say mozilla has done this to me for a few
> months.

It's been months since I've had it installed, so mayhaps it's been
fixed, although there were enough (what I call) design flaws to disuade
me from reinstalling it now at version 1.0.  
For example?  Well, the biggest thing that irked me was that a page
would have to _completely_ download before being viewed, and if I
would hit escape before the page was completely loaded Mozilla would
assume that I didn't want to look at that page and therefore not show
the parts of the page that had already been got.  This too, is Netscape
behavior that has been carried over.  

> 
> > Anyone using a machine slower than, say 600mHz with plenty of RAM,
> > could forget about it anyway, it's just too Bloated and Slow, even
> > if coupled with a very lightweight wm.  Not to mention the effect
> > that it has on a laptop running off battery: could easily cut the
> > battery time in half or less versus using Links (I know it's an
> > unfair comparison, I use it to express my point about battery usage)
> > due to all the disk
> > writing/swappping that invariably occurs.  Just loading the program
> > took me about 20 seconds of hard-core disk usage when I had it
> > installed, and i have a very up-to-date machine, and built the thing
> > from source so it was optimized.
>
> Not only an unfair comparison, but a pointless one. Any graphics heavy
> app will cut battery life, as will anything that has to do a lot of
> processing.
>

I knew I would take a hit for that one, and I guess I deserve it. 
Perhaps I should have compared Mozilla to Opera (versions 5 or 6; I
realize it's not open-sourced but this is an imperfect world), or even
Konqueror in this regard.  Konqueror would would have made a good
comparison in many ways: license, stability, bloat, features, speed,
bloat, configurability, maturity level, bloat, etc.  Unfortunately, I
will install neither to do the test, and believe Konq would win in every
category anyway.

The operative word in "graphics heavy" is heavy.  The quote "...as will
anything that does alot of processing," could in this case also read
"...unnecessary processing."

> 
> 8 seconds on a machine that's ~5 years old, stock unoptimised binary.
> It's a 300Mhz PII box.
> 

Maybe my memory is a bit exagerated, if you say eight seconds to load
Mozilla, I have to believe you; it sure seemed like 20.  It was
too long, I know that, quite like Netscape.  

> > In my opinion, one pays too much in terms of performance, time, and
> > stability for what Mozilla offers in features.
> 
> I think there's a problem with your set up somewhere. YMMV.
> 

Ever since I uninstalled every bit and byte of it I've had no troubles
with it all.  That seems to have cured the *problem in my setup*.


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