Complete wipe of FF on OS X -- but keep bookmarks?
May 28, 2005 8:59 PM   Subscribe

So Firefox is painfully slow and always has been (OS X). Lotta freezes/crashes. So much so that I can't believe anyone likes the browser. So, I figure there's something wrong with my install. I've reinstalled three times... same thing. How do I do a complete erase of FF but still keep my bookmarks so that I can try it once more before eliminating it permanently?
posted by dobbs to Computers & Internet (24 answers total)
 
you can export the bookmarks file. go to bookmarks, then manage....select all, and then export.

do you have any extensions installed? i've had it slow down and crash because of extensions, so now i don't use any.
posted by amberglow at 9:08 PM on May 28, 2005


Works OK for me on OS X 10.2.x / 10.4.1, 800MHz eMac. I have had extensions, particularly tab & cookie related ones (e.g. Tabbrowser, FLST, Permit Cookies), cause a momentary slowdown - but nothing painful.

Easy way to wipe it entirely: Export your bookmarks. Drag the app bundle to the trash bin. Open the Finder, search for "Mozilla", & delete all directories & plist files. Repeat for "Firefox".

Doing a "Repair Permissions" before and after you install wouldn't hurt either.
posted by Pinback at 9:28 PM on May 28, 2005


(Sorry, to be absolutely clear, when I say "delete all directories & plist files", I don't mean all of them - just the Mozilla & Firefox related ones...)
posted by Pinback at 9:31 PM on May 28, 2005


Response by poster: Okay, thanks. It's done. I'll see how it goes over the next few days. Often, it's Metafilter.com that's slow as hell for me but generally any site with any Flash on it whatsoever is a nightmare. I tried the Flashblock plugin but that didn't much help.
posted by dobbs at 10:11 PM on May 28, 2005


Have you tried the OS X optimized versions? They are available for both G4 and G5 processors.
posted by ajr at 10:14 PM on May 28, 2005


Don't forget to try the unofficial G4-optimized or G5-optimized builds (where appropriate).

on preview: curse you ajr!
posted by basicchannel at 10:17 PM on May 28, 2005


As a backup save your bookmarks here, from where you can transfer them back to Firefox.
posted by essexjan at 11:03 PM on May 28, 2005


for future reference: your profile is stored in home/library/application support/firefox so if you replace firefox.app it doesn't overwrite your stuff :)
posted by 31d1 at 11:06 PM on May 28, 2005


Same problem here, but I'm using Windows XP, 700 mhz, 256 mb ram. Works fine at work on a faster PC. But at home, every site freezes until everything is rendered on screen, and doesn't respond, even focuses the screen on another program in between page loads. Very annoying. Using IE currently because of this.
posted by Blue Buddha at 11:13 PM on May 28, 2005


If it's still running slow...create a new user, login under that user and see if its slow there.
posted by filmgeek at 12:27 AM on May 29, 2005


I second amberglow's suggestion. Once I removed both extensions I added prior to upgrading to Tiger, my copy of Firefox 1.0.2 has run smoothly.
posted by AlexReynolds at 12:33 AM on May 29, 2005


I don't know how anyone uses Safari on OS X after using Firefox. Safari is so damned slow, Firefox so quick.
posted by xmutex at 12:49 AM on May 29, 2005


Xmutex, Safari 2.0 on Tiger (and 1.3 on Panther) is the fastest browser I've ever used, bar none. In the last month, I haven't had to open Firefox once. In fact, recent browser tests have the latest Safari rendering sites significantly faster than Firefox.

I like Firefox quite a bit. I've been using it on PCs since it was Phoenix, back somewhere in the late 0.2 builds, and had the OS X builds as well since they first started coming out. But the newest Safari is just the best performing browser ever. Add to that the Pithhelmet plugin to handle ads and flash, Saft to allow saved tab-sets and tab reordering, and acidsearch to completely customize toolbar searches, and I'm in browsing heaven.

Dobbs, if Flash is giving you problems, try the plug-in Flashblocker which you can get at the Firefox plugin website. I use that and Adblock without every having any performance issues.
posted by the_savage_mind at 2:34 AM on May 29, 2005


savage --

I use both safari and firefox on a g4 and g5 regularly and whiile I *prefer* safari I have to disagree with you re: speed. Firefox (no themes no extensions) renders either about the same or much faster. Safari chokes hard rendering pages of greater than a certain size.

As for Firefox, greasemonkey and the del.icio.us extensions have borked the HELL out of my installations. I now avoid all extensions, which is a bit of a shame.
posted by n9 at 3:30 AM on May 29, 2005


n9, scroll down to the Mac section of this site. I've seen other tests that say the same thing. Safari RSS beats the hell out of straight Firefox across the board. It also jibes with my perceptual experience.

Granted, Opera comes out 'winning' in a number of sections, but I've never been able to gel to that browser, despite downloading each new version.
posted by the_savage_mind at 4:52 AM on May 29, 2005


If you're more attached to the rendering engine than to Firefox's extensions or themes, I'd suggest taking a peek at Camino. It uses the same rendering engine as Firefox, but is completely mac-native. As such, it supports services and should run a bit smoother than Firefox.
posted by SemiSophos at 7:13 AM on May 29, 2005


Response by poster: So I installed the G5 optimized version and, indeed, it's fast. Now faster than Safari and indeed Safari on Tiger is pretty damn fast.

Overall, I prefer Safari for one reason: I can highlight things on sites and using a menu option send them to DevonThink.

the_savage_mind, thanks for the list of those plugin things. I've never heard of anything and will now try and hunt them down.

SemiSophos, I tried Camino before and found it rather slow but I wasn't aware I could use Services with it (which I need for DevonThink). I'll check it again, thanks.
posted by dobbs at 7:55 AM on May 29, 2005


Firefox won't let me press the up and down keys in form fields to jump to the beginning or end of a line. How anyone puts up with this is beyond me.
posted by cillit bang at 8:03 AM on May 29, 2005


Response by poster: So I found this page of Safari plugins and I must say that Saft thing is amazing. Thanks the_savage_mind.
posted by dobbs at 8:51 AM on May 29, 2005


dobbs: Are you using MetaFilthy? I'm on a PC, but I found I had to delete it (after checking my other extensions) and my Firefox crashes ceased.
posted by deborah at 9:11 AM on May 29, 2005


Response by poster: deborah, I had it but found it didn't do what it was supposed to do so I deleted it. I didn't find it made the thing crash more or less.
posted by dobbs at 9:36 AM on May 29, 2005


my pleasure, dobbs. Make sure to check out Pithhelmet. It's a combo of Adblock and Greasemonkey, only it doesn't slow things down (at least it doesn't as long as you only use the ad/flash-blocking feature... I don't bother with the part that forcibly styles pages).

And Acidsearch will let you put custom searches for any website with a search feature (e.g., IMDB, TVtome, Wikipedia,) into your toolbar search field. That's pretty much all I've used it for so far, though you can customize search syntax even more to do all kinds of wiz things.

Those two are free... Saft costs, but is so worth it. Also, there is a free Saft Lite, but I don't remember what functionality it has. But without a doubt install Pithhelmet, then in the prefs, crank the ad-blocking up one level to have almost totally ad-free surfing.
posted by the_savage_mind at 9:41 AM on May 29, 2005


deborah writes "dobbs: Are you using MetaFilthy? I'm on a PC, but I found I had to delete it (after checking my other extensions) and my Firefox crashes ceased."


I had the same problem with MetaFilthy, and emailed the author. According to him, the crashes were because of a bug in Firefox involving really long "strings".

He told me to update to MetaFilthy 2.2.4, which includes a work-around for the problem. Since I've upgraded, I've had no crashes.
posted by orthogonality at 11:50 AM on May 29, 2005


Thanks, ortho!

Wait a sec. Wasn't that guy in Beetlejuice?
posted by deborah at 1:29 PM on May 29, 2005


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