[dylug] Merry Christmas - (Firefox/linux really worth the switch ?)

Hi Everyone
 
A very warm Christmas to everybody on dylug. Hope you are enjoying Christmas and having a ball of a time.
 
This might be my very first post here and I hope it does not offend anyone, since you guys might not like what am going to say... (Specially Debu and vivek)
 
Firefox Sucks !!!
 
It all started when i decided to use firefox while surfing websites to send out ecards. First i discovered that flash had to be installed which did not take very long. After flash was installed i started opening a couple of websites and then a couple of ecards. I had 4 ecards open in one window(4tabs) and 1 in another.
 
My nightmare began !!! Firefox started using up 94-100% processing... All the firefox windows stop responding... firefox was stuck ... Ultimately i had to end task leaving only the last firefox window with 1 tab ... which seemed to work fine after its parent was closed.
 
Thinking my internet speed might be slow i decided to open 1 ecard at a time. The first ecard loaded fine but when i played it the video jerked and got stuck in the middle freezing my system for 8secs... 
 
At the end very frustrated i switched to internet explorer and started surfing only to find sites opening faster !!! and i could open as many ecards as i wanted and all played smoothly without overloading my system.
 
Having 1.7Ghz with 2MB cache and 512MB Ram.. i want to know what really is required to make firefox work smoothly. !!!
 
I carried on with a small test ... I open http://gmail.google.com/gmail on firefox and internet explorer at the same time. My inbox opened faster in internet explorer.
 
I tried another test whose results were weird ... Opening gmail and yahoomail together using Firefox ... yahoomail opened faster. While opening the two together in internet explorer, Both open approx together.
 
I know most of you must be thinking what dumb thing is this guy up to but what i am pointing at is that Sites which have heavier java codes / flash animation / mobile codes open faster in internet explorer.
 
Now i have a 56kbps connection so may be i am facing to many problems which might not be with a 128/256kbps connection in our offices...
 
But the Question i want to ask after all the bullshit is ... Is freeware software really better than the ones microsoft is producing after billion $s of research ??? Or is it just in our mind ... Just because using freeware is cool and the "in-thing" and all the money saving mumbo jumbo.
 
I know i should not be putting this in here since this is a linux lovers group and i might get a threat call tomorrow... but is linux really better than windows ... i understand government and even individuals turning to linux cause its free ... but is it really safer and more stable than windows ??? Does it really load faster than XP and crashes less ... or is it just what we think cause its been fed in ours brains ???
 
Linux having soo many application being developed for it and being so user friendly ... i still find it faster to login to my yahoo messenger using windows.
... Anyone can develop application for windows at will to ... have we really forgotten VC/VB ..etc.. and their simplicity ??? And as far as recompiling the kernel ... how many of us have really done it successfully and are really interested in it ???
 
I remember when i tried installing Mandrake 10 on 500Mhz with 64 MB ram ... It use to take ages for it to work ... i have still never been able to use linux on that machine ... nothing worked after installing mandrake...not even a simple folder opened. But windows xp though it crawled yet i was at least able to check mails or use my messenger !!!
 
I installed firefox on the same machine on top of windows 98 it use to take 6-8mins for just the window to open after clicking the icon. My mom still complains and she hates using firefox just because internet explorer 6.0 window opens all most immediately...
 
At the end i just want to say think with an open mind if microsoft is really spending billions of dollars on research and charging so much for it then it might be really worth something !!!
 
Cheers
Varun...
 
PS : I am enrolling in a re-location program so don't try hunting me down


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