Firefox + old computer = BOOO!!! Help me, please!

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:38 pm

Okay, I love Firefox. Love it to death. I've been using it for years now. However... it's a bit of a resource hog. Even you hardcore fans have to admit that. It doesn't run very well on my PII 333MHz with 224MB of RAM.

No, I don't want to install Linux and no I don't want to install 98lite. Actually, I already installed 98lite on my second hard drive, and because software dual-booting ALWAYS ends up creating horrible problems for me (corrupted MBR was my latest), I hacked my IDE cable and installed a switch on my tower to switch between primary hard drives (So THAT'S what Cable Select means!). I plan to install Linux with 98lite on my second hard drive (with a software boot-loader, this time) sometime in the future, but for now, I just want to be able to run Firefox better on my current install of 98.

My question: Is there any kind of "stripped down" version of Firefox or SOME other way I can get it to not randomly freeze or take 30 seconds to start up? Thanks...

Post by **bicostp** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:46 pm

What version of Firefox are you trying to run? 2? You might want to run an older version, or even Mozilla 1.7. (It's still compatable with most important extensions.)

You can use a utility to make a menu appear. (MSCONFIG on 2000/XP, I forget what it is on 98) Alternately you can install Grub on the MBR.

I hacked my IDE cable and installed a switch on my tower to switch between primary hard drives

BAD!

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 4:49 pm

bicostp wrote:
I hacked my IDE cable and installed a switch on my tower to switch between primary hard drives
BAD!

Why? I just installed an SPDT slide switch on the CS line. It's not like I switch it when the computer's on or anything.

Post by **benheck** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 5:24 pm

You want a resource hog, install iTunes.

Sheesh!

-Ben

atari2600a · Post by **atari2600a** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:14 pm

FINALLY!!! Someone said it! (now I can sleep!

)

Try getting FireFox 1.5 on your machine. It's still supported by Mozilla I believe.

Also, the whole IDE switch thing isn't the healthiest thing for your BIOS. If your mobo's CMOS is flash-based (versus battery-powered RAM), it can wear out & die after so many changes. Install GRUB, it's a great bootloader.

sgtpepper · Post by **sgtpepper** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:45 pm

benheck wrote:You want a resource hog, install iTunes.

Sheesh!

-Ben

Only on Windows

It runs fine on a Mac

atari2600a · Post by **atari2600a** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 6:57 pm

It runs fine on Windows too, but it's still a resource hog.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 7:20 pm

You can get rid of the cache and remove all unneeded extensions. And after you use a plug-in such as flash, exit Firefox to remove the plug-in from the memory.

gamemasterAS · Post by **gamemasterAS** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 7:23 pm

benheck wrote:You want a resource hog, install iTunes.

Sheesh!

-Ben

Or how about AIM, Trillian FTW !!

You could try running the flash drive edition of Firefox, It runs ok on school pc's.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 8:52 pm

I think I'll try installing 1.5... I'm running 2.0 now, and I only have Colorful Tabs, deskCut and Fasterfox installed for extensions... I hope it's not my skin that's slowing me down... I'm using miniFox, and I love it... so...

Thanks for the tips, guys.

vskid · Post by **vskid** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 10:54 pm

Electric Rain wrote:I think I'll try installing 1.5... I'm running 2.0 now, and I only have Colorful Tabs, deskCut and Fasterfox installed for extensions... I hope it's not my skin that's slowing me down... I'm using miniFox, and I love it... so... Thanks for the tips, guys.

Fasterfox is like having a massive cache, so it'll likely lag a slower computer, its not really worth it if you have an average connection unless your computer can take it.

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Thu Mar 08, 2007 11:21 pm

*disables Fasterfox* Okay, thanks. We'll see how this works...

Post by **Sparkfist** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 8:46 am

benheck wrote:You want a resource hog, install iTunes.

Sheesh!

-Ben

No offense but look at Vista. I have a new laptop, and it mean the bare, minimum system requirements. An OS that on the lowest end requires 512MB RAM, 1GHz CPU, and 15GB hard disk space for system files.... truthfully is just insane!

As for running firefox on an old computer. Best thing to do would be if you want to boot into a (plain jane) x-server, and in the virual terminal call/start firefox. You'll have more resources for it, and well if you keep the cache to about 80MB, maybe a little lower, you'll be able to run it with few hick-ups. Though bear in mind that you are running a lowend system, don't expect too much out of it even with theses settings.

Post by **bicostp** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 9:31 am

If all you want out of the computer is a web terminal, or don't mind just having a web terminal for a while, I suggest you check out the distro here:

http://www.publicwebstations.com/

It's a minimal Damn Small Linux disc that boots straight into Firefox. For me the disc ISO boots in about 40 seconds under Virtual PC 2007. Unfortunately it doesn't include any extensions besudes Flash (and I think Java too), but you can probably figure out how to add them using a program that can open ISOs. (Such as WinImage.)

Here's the download page for the ISO I'm using:
http://www.publicwebstations.com/download.html

If that doesn't suit your needs, here's the Firefox 1.5 download page. (Apparently they're going to support it until April.)

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html

Electric Rain · Post by **Electric Rain** » Fri Mar 09, 2007 1:39 pm

Huh... all great sugestions... thanks guys!