Why is Firefox crawling on some sites?

O

Omega

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I really want to use FF, not IE. However, on some sites only (e.g. Askaboutmoney, Google) it is horrendously slow. It takes 2-3 minuties to load the Google home page and subsequent searches take the same time. Most sites are fine. What's going on?
 
It's certainly not a general problem with FireFox as it (v 1.5.0.2) works fine for me on several PCs/laptops and internet connections. It's more likely to be a local configuration issue with the PC, browser, internet connection etc. Maybe try a remove and reinstall with or without removing any extensions that you had installed and maybe even your profile.
 
While it does sound like a local connection issue, try clearing settings as the cache, it'd want to be huge to really affect it but its worth a try.

Tools > options > privacy

And go through the selections, clearing as much as you want/can.

Also try this commonly posted method of improving speed with FF

1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:
network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests
Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.
2. Alter the entries as follows:
Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"
Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.
3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it recieves.
 
Have tried all the suggestions above but to no avail. I even got the IT guru to have a look but he found nothing.
I did notice these mesages in the JavaScript Console after the Google page (finally) loaded..... Does it mean anything? I did a fresh download of Java as part of the Firefox load procedure. Thanks.

Error: Selector expected. Ruleset ignored due to bad selector
Source File: [broken link removed]: 5
Error: Unexpected end of file while searching for closing } of invalid rule set
Source File: [broken link removed]: 6
 
In spite of the name JavaScript has nothing to do with Java other than a superficially similar syntax so reinstalling your Java VM/runtime will have no effect on these errors. It's not unusual for some sites to generate JavaScript errors/warnings and it's not necessarily the indicative of anything untoward (other than bad coding of the website).

Do all sites work OK in IE? Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling FireFox as I suggested? With or without removing all extensions and your profile? Do you have any extensions installed?
 
Thanks, Clubman.
Yes, I un-installed and re-installed; I didn't consciously do anything with extentions or profiles. All sites work fine on IE.
 
Strange... any other sites in addition to AAM and Google that cause problems? Do these consistently or only intermittently cause problems? When you uninstalled did you make sure to manually delete or backup any files that remained in, for example, Program Files\Mozilla Firefox and/or Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox? Are you running the latest version (1.5.0.2)? For what it's worth I get the same JavaScript errors as you (above) when loading Google so that's not a problem in itself. Are you connecting directly to the internet or through a cachinc proxy belonging to your organisation or ISP? Maybe try loading the User Agent Switcher extension and setting the browser to masquerade as IE and see if that makes any difference.
 
any other sites in addition to AAM and Google that cause problems?
No, they're the only ones on which I seem to have the problem, though BBC page is a bit slow as well. Google is by far the worst, still taking 2 minutes to load.

Do these consistently or only intermittently cause problems?
Consistently.

When you uninstalled did you make sure to manually delete or backup any files that remained in, for example, Program Files\Mozilla Firefox and/or Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox?
I hadn't done this the previous time and some folders did remain on the c: drive, so I deleted them before the re-install - made no difference.

Are you running the latest version (1.5.0.2)?
Yes.

Are you connecting directly to the internet or through a cachinc proxy belonging to your organisation or ISP?
Via the organization's proxy server.

Maybe try loading the User Agent Switcher extension and setting the browser to masquerade as IE and see if that makes any difference.
Found the extension, installed it and tried it out - made no difference!

PS - I have a second pc on which the same thing is happening.....
 
Very odd. It is definitely not a FireFox problem per se since it works fine for me on various versions, PCs, internet connections etc. Google taking a long time to load is particularly odd since it is such a simple web page. Have you tried it one a different internet connection/ISP? Perhaps it's something at your organisation's proxy that's causing the problem. Can you bypass the proxy temporarily?
 
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