CSE HTML Validator

I held off installing FF6, I'd heard it had some issues.

Two days ago I decided they must be fixed by now so I installed.

It gave me problems. Specifically, on a newspaper site I found that something called Firefox Plugin Container was using a whole processor to itself. It was reproducible on that site. (Newspaper sites are a problem in my experience. They seem to fall for the sales pitch of ill designed software solutions. So they can be a tough test.)

Co-incidentally just after I found the above I read a blog article by a guy who really knows how to program. He's also had FF6 problems. In his case the install of FF6 had switched off three browser caching settings (go to about:config and look for items starting browser.caching). When he set these back on, his issues were solved.

I reverted to FF5 went to one of the same pages and found that that component was now only stealing from 10 to 30% of a CPU. Much better. I may skip FF6.

What have other people here experienced with FF6?

I have been using it and can't tell much of a difference from 5 except when starting up. It seems to start faster and re-loads a bunch of tabs faster.

I did have an issue on another computer, using multiple logins, where Firefox was consuming way too much memory (I had multiple tabs opened), but I've seen that behavior on previous versions of Firefox and always assumed it was either buggy or poorly designed web pages or issues with Firefox itself or plugins it was using... so I can't say for sure it is exclusive to version 6.

So, bottom line for me, is that is seems to be working at least as well as 5 did, as far as I can tell.

But one thing I don't like with newer versions of Firefox with accelerated graphics is that my computer eventually switches out of the Aero theme. I think it may be because I have too many tabs opened and too many monitors/too much resolution. I have not found a good solutions to this issue so it basically forces me to operate out of Aero mode. If I turn Aero back on, it's usually not long until it switches back off.

I searched for FF6 problems, in a site that developers use. Found several, but don't know how unusual that is.

The newer FF versions are killing add-ons which seem to have no intrinsic problems.

There is a way to dodge this bullet. There's an add-on called Add-On Compatibility Reporter. I've only tested it briefly! It brings back add-ons that were disabling. (You'll need to be more vigilant for broken add-ons if you use it.)

(My understanding is that the add-ons don't work because they don't list version 6 as compatible. If that's so this is another score against the new versioning system!)

If you're in trouble with FF add-ons no longer working for you, this might help. (No guarantees!)