The tipping point for Firefox and Ubuntu is finally here.
HISTORY
I have been an evangelist for Firefox and Ubuntu for quite a few years now. The obsession with Firefox started quite a long time ago, when I was in college. Linux too hit the right notes then, but Ubuntu itself came in later, specifically when I started Vercingetorix Technologies. The biggest reason was that when you work on the LAMP stack, you need everybody on the team to be comfortable with the operating system. And Ubuntu was just perfect.
TIPPING POINT
There is always a time for each product when people decide that they need to stop using it. It is the tipping point, when markets start shifting to a new product and the market for the old one disappears.
After having successfully used them for years, this tipping point for Firefox and Ubuntu is finally here for us.
The reasons are many, though the biggest is that they didn’t evolve with time, or atleast as much as they should have.
WHY I QUIT FIREFOX
Firefox can’t stop hogging memory, and at times takes up over 700MB of RAM. It has been completely ousted by Google Chrome, which has two things which Firefox could never do, and which now, I can’t live without
1. Each tab is a different process. So when it crashes, only one tab crashes. The rest of the pages are still up and running.
2. The memory consumption is negligible. The sum of the memory consumed by all tabs increases and decreases based on the number of tabs which are open.
There are other reasons, like the area being bigger and the inability to add plugins (which really make Firefox drag).
As a side effect, I have also stopped using Delicious. Firefox had an awesome plugin, which made it way too simple to add anything to Delicious. Chrome doesn’t give me that feature, but now I’m content with saving bookmarks right there on Chrome.
WHY I QUIT UBUNTU
The reasons for getting over Ubuntu were slightly different.
The single biggest issue was that there is no good enough browser available for Linux. Firefox was the best browser available, but Firefox on Ubuntu is even worse that Firefox on Windows.
Also, the last version of Ubuntu that I liked was 7.10. They have had three different versions after that, but I just don’t see what value they have added, except a slightly better looking UI. (Though the UI still sucks compared to a Mac or Windows).
We have finally replaced all machines from Ubuntu to Windows 7. Microsoft gave the final blow to Ubuntu by starting the BizSpark program, which gives free access to all Microsoft programs. Google did their bit by making sure that Chrome doesn’t work well on Ubuntu.
Finally, the UI is beautiful. Maybe not as awesome as the Mac, but it’s definitely a huge improvement.
And in case you haven’t heard it yet, Windows 7 take up less memory on it’s own that Firefox with 10 tabs!!
I agree that Ubuntu has gone downhill since v 7.1.
However, there’s no way I’d switch to Windows from here – perhaps another Linux distribution? There are a ton to choose from. Straight Debian (on which Ubuntu is based) is a great choice. WIndows just isn’t an alternative for me – it’s lacking so many programs I need for my workflow, just basic tools and such.
I love Chrome, but I stopped using it when out of nowhere, a program automatically downloaded a trojaned PDF. ??? It seems Chrome allows downloads without user approval. Of course, this wasn’t a problem, since I was using Linux – but I still can’t tell what site the file came from. It just appeared out of nowhere – all of sudden the big blue arrow indicating a file download. The only sites I was at in Chrome were jquery, php.net and Etsy.com… I don’t think they have been hacked. SO, I’m scared of Chrome now.
That’s really strange. I never knew Chrome could do that. Will definitely try to check up on it!
About moving to windows, you can always run Ubuntu inside a VirtualBox. We’ve not had any problems using it, at least not yet.
And I doubt there are any Linux platforms which are as easy to work with as Ubuntu. The original Debian is definitely good, but I haven’t tried it out in quite some time. Do let me know if you find something interesting there. I’m really missing the terminal
Bizspark allows access to Windows 7? Wasn’t listed last I checked – has something changed?
Sure does Allwin! I guess it’s been quite some time since you checked
Damn, time to fix that
– thanks!
Stumbled into your blog post and I find it quite interesting. Now I have a comment or two; sorry to hear that your Firefox and Ubuntu experience didn’t go well.
Currently I am using Firefox 3.0.15 on Jaunty and don’t see the memory issue. I have 20 tabs open and from top command I can see that I am using 120 of RES memory and for swap I see 254. Same thing can be viewed under Windows from the task manager and adding columns.
Realistically a statement like:
“And in case you haven’t heard it yet, Windows 7 take up less memory on it’s own that Firefox with 10 tabs!!”
is untrue. Windows 7 from MS requires:
1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)
http://windows.microsoft.com/systemrequirements
That’s for the system to boot up. On a couple other notes; in Firefox you can change how Firefox stores data and have it purge or not cache data; also disabling prefetching. Another aspect to take into account Ubuntu uses a kernel knob/tunable called swappiness which keep applications in memory for better response time rather than pushing it out into the hard drive.
PS: I haven’t made any changes to the way my system works for those numbers. It’s a stock install with minor network configurations to speed up page load and render time. O’yeah; I disable prefetch.
I enjoy the blog, keep up the good work.
Best regards,
Nix