Firefox: The problems ahead

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Certainly the latter point is reflected in newsgroups and forums across the world, with increasing complaints of Firefox crashing when placed under pressure. Take one of the big features Firefox brought to the mass market: tabbed browsing. It's something many now find invaluable, but ironically Firefox 2 is less comfortable with it than previous iterations. Software freezes, long waits and general hanging are all on the list of troubles. The result is that a number of users are finding themselves using one of Firefox's newer additions more often than they'd like: the recovery tool.

Many too have, rightly, criticised the browser for its surprisingly heavy demands on system memory. The idle Firefox application that's sitting open on our test laptop for instance is gobbling up 47MB of system memory, compared to a more modest 13MB for Internet Explorer. It's just one instance, but it mirrors reports that are easily findable right across the web. Surely, going back to the roots of Firefox, it shouldn't be that way round?

Yet it is. The Firefox software has a well-reported habit of eating up vast amounts of system resource that shows little sign of abating, and this can be tracked back as a cause to some of the stability issues that were mentioned earlier.

It's worse for those who regularly take advantage of the add-ons available for Firefox too, as they seem to expose themselves to a greater risk of crashing and general instability. Many of the memory leaking complaints that have dogged recent iterations of the browser have been traced back to the huge catalogue of open source plug-ins. And while there's a certain amount of goodwill associated with trying these free add-ons, the inability of the browser to remain fully stable with everything on board is undoubtedly not helpful. It should be noted that much of this is, of course, out of Mozilla's hands, as it's not responsible for the coding and implementation of the large number of plug-ins available. It doesn't make it less of a problem for an end user, though.

Chorus

The more worrying chorus of dissent is coming from those who were quick to embrace Firefox back from the start, who were its advocates at a point when it needed as many friends as it could. They argue that far from being the slimline alternative it was seemingly intended to be (and very much was back in its early days), that it's gradually and more noticeably gotten bloated and laden down with features. In short, it's making similar mistakes to the product it's in the midst of usurping from the web-browsing crown.

Mozilla, though, is quick to refute the argument of increased bloat, although this too raises alarm bells for some who argue that if it won't even admit the problem, what hope is there of fixing it. Nonetheless, Mozilla stresses that it continually leaves features out of Firefox to keep it as smooth-running and streamlined as possible.

There's little doubt though that the smooth browser that many jumped towards three years ago is fatter than it once was. Its speed advantage over Internet Explorer in Windows has eroded of late (partly due to IE's native ties into the OS), and the advocates who worked hard to spread the Firefox word across the web may now choose instead to turn towards the growing number of open source alternatives that are existing in its slipstream. Bluntly, the thirst for a light browser that remains compliant with the vast bulk of web standards is still very much in place, yet whether Firefox fits those shoes comfortably enough is a debate that's getting ever-more vocal.

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