In Reviews

Check Prices

You are here: CNET UK > Reviews > Nate Lanxon

Nate Lanxon

Nate Lanxon is CNET UK's Senior Editor of News and Features, and covers every aspect of technology for Crave. He also enjoys popular-science books, obscure Japanese animation and plays 'technical metal' on the drums, whatever that is.

RSS feed

Back to Nate Lanxon's Blog

Next: Should you really be an amateur podcaster?

Previous: How I read 20,000 tech articles a month

Friday 20 July 2007, 9:51am

Firefox Lite: Old PCs can crush IE

While most of today's PCs boast gigabytes of RAM, the lesser technologically able, older machines suffer in quiet dark corners, brutally slave-whipped by modern applications demanding memory units in the thousands. Firefox, while initially a fairly lightweight Web browser, is now in its 2.0.0.5 incarnation and with a few extensions and a few open tabs, sometimes consumes upwards of a quarter of a gigabyte of RAM.

There's no doubt Firefox is the best Web browser in the world. I advise everyone to use it. However, I think that the memory-hogging issue isn't really too serious for slightly-above-average PCs these days -- they can handle the memory for the most part. Those who can't suffer for it. Those beautifully useful extensions, the undeniably functional tabs, all too often beat the proverbial faeces out of lesser machines. The result? Users probably revert to Internet Explorer 6 (the likely default browser on such systems), which is less demanding on RAM.

I would suggest that the Mozilla community produce a stripped-down, bare-bones version of Firefox -- 'Firefox Lite', if we're going to follow beverage naming conventions. Okay, sure, there's a version for portable devices, and K-Meleon is a lightweight Mozilla-based Firefox alternative, but it's a bitch for novices to configure and sure as shuttlecock ain't no Firefox.

No, a truly great super-lightweight browser would have the security of Firefox, without the add-ons, without the tabs, yes, even without favourites, history lists and customisability. The Firefox name is synonymous with security and Web-browsing vigilance. Why not give this to the processing lightweights of the PC world? Let the 500MHz Celerons embrace their 128MB of RAM and run the world's best browser without feeling like they're being bent over a table and bitch-slapped by more capable machines.

I know the critics will jump on me with things like, "Dude, don't get them to split their time between two projects -- let them make the Firefox we love even better!" It's a great point and I for one want to see Firefox 3.0 destroy IE like I'd love to destroy an 11-year old's year by spoiling the end of Harry Potter for them. But giving the lightweights a browser they can use only further increases Firefox's market share. The by-product is that the Firefox name will be in more households, more novices' minds and will be their first choice of browser when they buy their new pre-built system sporting Internet Exploiter.

I want to see the Fox cripple IE's dominance and give every user, regardless of their machine, the security and Web experience they deserve. Give the Celerons and the K6s some of the power back and let light users rediscover what it's really like to rediscover the Web with Firefox.

48 Comments | Post a comment

Back to Nate Lanxon's Blog

Next: Should you really be an amateur podcaster?

Previous: How I read 20,000 tech articles a month

Comments on this post

I totally agree, but alternatively we just need a version of Konqueror that runs on Windows. Konqui is very lean and mean. Of course, there's always Opera...

Posted by Iain Cheyne on Fri 20 July, 2007 2:26 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

If you want the features, the speed, and the _security_, just run Opera. It comes bundled with features that take Firefox an awful lot of extensions to catch up with, and consumes very little resources. It may not be open-source, but it's free. For 99.99% of us, that's the whole point.

Posted by ltwally on Sat 21 July, 2007 4:03 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

I've been smitten with FF since late '04 and have never gone back, but they have a point, Opera rocks too.

Posted by BillyG on Sat 21 July, 2007 4:26 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Open source isnt just about free!! Its about knowing why your program works and that if theres a bug you can fix it without waiting for some huge corporation to decide to fix it.

Posted by James on Sat 21 July, 2007 4:30 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

I have an old Celeron 300A running Gentoo Linux with 192MB of RAM and the current Firefox build runs fine on it. I wouldn't recommend running Firefox with less than 128MB of RAM, although it can be done. I have a Compaq Armada laptop with a Pentium 2 300MHz and 64MB of RAM. Firefox runs on it, albeit a bit slowly.

Posted by Paul Hindt on Sat 21 July, 2007 4:44 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

"No, a truly great super-lightweight browser would have the security of Firefox, without the add-ons, without the tabs, yes, even without favourites, history lists and customisability." take away tabs and you have left absolutely no reason to use firefox...it is a memory hog on its best day and it relys on third party add ons to make it copy cat opera. save yourself the trouble and use opera or an alterantive such as k-meleon (which is super fast and extremely light weight and faster than firefox on any day.)

Posted by Anonymous on Sat 21 July, 2007 4:45 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

One's already been created. It's called K-Meleon. It uses the same Gecko engine, comes complete with tabs and a few handy extensions, a slew of great features, and is incredibly fast. The reason behind its speed is that it uses native window widgets rather than the Firefox XUL libraries. Check it out http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/

Posted by Chris on Sat 21 July, 2007 4:47 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Future versions of Firefox (3 and beyond) will not run on Windows 98 and most machines with XP have more than enough resources to run Firefox quite well.

Posted by Asa Dotzler on Sat 21 July, 2007 4:55 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

I think a light version is definitely warranted, but how the heck would firefox win over any converts from IE 6 "without favourites, history lists and customisability," not to mention tabs. Most people are just too lazy to care about the improved security angle.

Posted by R King on Sat 21 July, 2007 4:59 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

I think this is a case of too little too late. A few years back before the release of Vista this would have been a great blow to Microsoft. 5 or 6 years ago when everyone was upgrading their low-end PCs to XP, a light version of Firefox would have crushed IE undoubtedly, but by now its too late. There are too many alternatives at this point, and too little to accomplish with the small majority of low-end PCs still in our homes.

Posted by Anonymous on Sat 21 July, 2007 5:17 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

I have to agree with the Opera advocates above. I use Firefox for development work on newer PCs because of all the handy addons. But I also have a home network full of older PCs (some Windows, some Linux) and Opera runs very nicely on machines that are sluggish with Firefox (including a Pentium 2 with 256MB RAM and a Pentium 3 with 128MB). Opera gives you the same convenient tabs and a UI that is slicker and more responsive than Firefox. Opera starts more quickly, loads pages more quickly and uses less memory. If it weren't for the Firefox plugins and if I were just browsing and not developing, I'd always Opera.

Posted by RC on Sat 21 July, 2007 5:27 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

There's already 3 programs that you'd call 'Firefox Lite'. K-meleon for Windows, Camino for Mac, and Epiphany for Gnome. And they're so fast because they're NOT cross-platform, they're NATIVE. Native Win32, native Cocoa, native GTK+. If Firefox is too slow, use one of these.

Posted by Juliana on Sat 21 July, 2007 5:47 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

http://mobilefirefox.com/

Posted by Anonymous on Sat 21 July, 2007 6:27 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

No one with computers this slow probably care/know enough to install Firefox or Firefox Lite. I just can't see it gaining enough market share from this market for it to be worth investing time in a project like this. I think the developers should focus on making an already awesome browser better, make it fast, make it sleek. I can see tons of areas where firefox needs to be cleaned up. A lot of old outdated code remains from Mozilla browser and kinda bloats up Firefox. The Mac version of Firefox needs a major rewrite in many areas to compete with Safari.

Posted by TTravis on Sat 21 July, 2007 6:50 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

This is very silly. A Firefox-Lite isn't going to increase market share at all. The reason IE gained so much share was because MS bundled it with Windows. The reason FF is gaining share is because (A) it's better than IE and (B) Google has used their muscle to bundle it with...Windows (through OEMs). While a Lite version is a nice idea, I really can't see why Kmeleon isn't exactly what you want. There's no configuration to Kmeleon, and as for security, it can't be beat (it doesn't even support half the technologies that cause all the security issues). If you're trying to drum up support of a Lite version, why not just get a few friends involved and make your own fork? That's why Free Software rocks!

Posted by Scott on Sat 21 July, 2007 7:32 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Why not install Damn Small Linux? It's 50 MB (fits on a business card CD), and comes with Firefox plus a bunch of other open source tools, and can be loaded directly into RAM for ridiculously speed on anything with 128+ MB of memory. No new version of Firefox is required. If you want a lighter FF, disable fastback, cache, and remembering user data. Tweakfirefox.com tells you how to do all of that and more. If you want, roll your own build; there's no reason Mozilla needs to make it.

Posted by Nathan on Sat 21 July, 2007 8:08 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

I used Firefox on a 300 MHz Celeron wit h 192 MB of RAM. The UI is very slugish because it's built with JavaScript. IE was much more responsive.

Posted by Gigi on Sat 21 July, 2007 8:21 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Yeah, make it lite and make a BOOTABLE version (embedded Linux OS) of it - idiot-proof.

Posted by Anonymous on Sat 21 July, 2007 12:24 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

I second Nathan's comment. I run Damn Small Linux with Firefox on a 300mhz 64mb machine and there is little or no virtual memory usage, as incredible as that may sound. That's the way to go if you have an old machine and you want to use a modern browser.

Posted by Sam on Sat 21 July, 2007 1:37 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Firefox have also sometimes 100 % cpu problem. I am running Opera in a AmD 450 and it is really better.

Posted by ae on Sat 21 July, 2007 2:22 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

"without the add-ons, without the tabs, yes, even without favourites, history lists and customisability." Yeah, less features than ie6... that will get them on the band wagon. Honestly, 1.5 is a good bit lite-er than 2.0 and from my experience any old box with a decent working disk drive is more than capable of running mozilla.

Posted by Anonymous on Sat 21 July, 2007 3:42 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

>> For 99.99% of us, that's the whole point. I do not think that the number is quite that high. Maybe 95% but no way 99.99%. Also, what is the matter with the article writers hair!? Seriously, WTF?

Posted by Anonymous on Sat 21 July, 2007 4:22 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

I think it's a good idea. Linux already has this: http://getswiftfox.com/

Posted by gef on Sat 21 July, 2007 4:48 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

>>Firefox, while initially a fairly lightweight Web browser, is >>now in its 2.0.0.5 incarnation and with a few extensions and >>a few open tabs, sometimes consumes upwards of a quarter of >>a gigabyte of RAM. You could always just use the older versions of Firefox, which were quite lightweight. You can find them on the net if you have any desire to use them at all. >>No, a truly great super-lightweight browser would have the >>security of Firefox, without the add-ons, without the tabs, >>yes, even without favourites, history lists and >>customisability. Security doesn't sell a browser to the masses. It's usability and features. Kill all the features and you may still have a better browser, but it makes for poor marketing. Any version of Firefox will need tabs to be succesful. This isn't actually too hard to do without losing its lightweight status. OffByOne has tabs, and is the Windows king of lightweight. I've also seen a version of Dillo with tabs, very lightweight. Without favorites, history and customization is simply ridiculous, and shows you really don't know too much about browsers, well, at least it makes it seem like it. Lynx, the extremely lightweight text-based browser, has bookmarks (favorites) and can be heavily customized. It also has limited history. A lightweight Firefox isn't really a bad idea, but some of your suggestions really are. Personally, I think the easiest method would be to take Firefox 1.0 and update it for security issues. Maybe some other tweaks as well.

Posted by Anonymous on Sat 21 July, 2007 9:40 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Hey Nate, I totally agree with you that Firefox should make a stripped down browser. My brother has an old mac that's running the latest Firefox and it's a real pig! It constantly crashes on eBay and it lags so much, force quit becomes a necessity. =( If firefox made a stripped down, simpler version, that would be awesome.

Posted by Matthew Hartman on Sat 21 July, 2007 10:49 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

P133 / 64MB RAM, using Opera. Runs slow but no slower than the computer. Computer runs FreeBSD. just FYI.

Posted by Anonymous on Sun 22 July, 2007 1:36 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

+1 I've been shouting for a Firefox Lite version for at least a year. But there should'nt have 2 distinct products. The best in terms of usability would be for the users to be able to select the "Light" version or not during standard Firefox installation.

Posted by Fred C. on Sun 22 July, 2007 2:05 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Knock. Knock.. Hello? Firefox is the stripped down version of Mozilla Suite! You want to strip it down more?

Posted by Anonymous on Sun 22 July, 2007 2:34 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Another idiotic idea by an obvious MS basher. Get a life.

Posted by SoundMix on Sun 22 July, 2007 3:03 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

I'm using Opera on a P120 / 48Mb of RAM on a daily basis, using netvibes (yes, netvibes) as the start page, using all of opera's capabilities (favorites, tabs, mouse gestures, and so on). And you think that 500MHz Celerons with 128MB of RAM is a good goal, maybe for firefox is.

Posted by Guille on Sun 22 July, 2007 3:15 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

opera owns firefugs.

Posted by Anonymous on Sun 22 July, 2007 4:01 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

It should be noted that I am by no means a Microsoft hater. I have the utmost respect for the company (for the most part). I simply don't like IE's dominance, its place on every new machine and its kinship with novice PC buyers who just don't know there are alternatives.

Posted by Nate Lanxon, CNET.co.uk on Sun 22 July, 2007 4:54 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

The bias presented from you people is amazing. To start, IE7 is not that bad of a browser and has come a long way. Secondly, Firefox is not the best browser. Opera, hands down, blows it away on standards, security, and layout. Opera made it's browser lightweight to begin with, as well as mini-versions for your phone and a mobile PDA version. Opera did it right to behin with, while Firefox bloated itself with useless add-ons.

Posted by James [a_leon] on Sun 22 July, 2007 4:58 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

"The Firefox name is synonymous with security". Are you smoking crack? I open secunia.com and out of four current highlights (most important vulnerabilities) on the front page, the Firefox has the "priviledge" to own two! It is not too much worse that IE, which has its own problems, but calling it "synonymous with security" is the most autrageos thing I've ever heard.

Posted by Mike on Sun 22 July, 2007 5:32 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

1. Konqueror for Windows? It's coming (http://dot.kde.org). It will be out next October, with Amarok, with Krita, and with a bunch of great apps. 2. We need K-meleon to be as easy to use as Firefox. K-meleon is our Firefox Lite, but K-meleon suffers from a geeky interface. Fix that, guys! 3. Gecko 1.9 already eats LESS memory in the alphas. Firefox 3 will be LESS intensive in resource usage than Firefox 2.

Posted by Alejandro Nova on Sun 22 July, 2007 7:12 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Why is it that everybody forgets about Opera? It runs much better on older computers than Firefox does.

Posted by Dasuraga on Sun 22 July, 2007 11:30 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Opera also has the advantage of in an install smaller than firefox, which if you are using a legacy computer HDD space is also probably a concern, with functionality that you have to add to firefox to get. In Firefox's defence though, the extensions can be more fully featured because they are not constrained by the minimalist streamlining for speed and compactness like Firefox extentions. get over the name... Opera is better than its name implies.

Posted by WolvenSpectre on Mon 23 July, 2007 12:15 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

It has been done, the Gecko based K-Meleon. (say chameleon) http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/ I can run K-Meleon with 10 browser layers open on a decade old Win 98 PC with 48 megabytes and 120 Mhz... That's right, 48 megabytes and 120 Mhz... And it flys...

Posted by Jayson Baker on Mon 23 July, 2007 12:19 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

What an entertaining thread - so much outrage :-) Seriously though, thanks all because some comments were quite educational. Nate had an interesting angle and sparked a useful debate. Let's not forget also why M$ have earned such an "anti" following. There have been some big mistakes and alongside that some allegedly seriously abusive business practices at times. Open source on the other hand has become a serious force to be reckoned with producing some excellent software, even if there are imperfections and some user interface issues. My point? We have much more choice now and the choices are in many cases excellent alternatives. Keep them coming!

Posted by Richard on Mon 23 July, 2007 9:40 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

geez, its 2007, get some decent hardware people don't just waste the voltage!!

Posted by Georgios on Mon 23 July, 2007 4:33 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

the author doesn't know about open source?

Posted by megablue on Mon 23 July, 2007 7:19 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

I assure you entirely that the author is extremely familiar with open-source, yes.

Posted by Nate Lanxon, CNET.co.uk on Mon 23 July, 2007 9:52 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Yea ! Kill Internet Explorer ! I never use the Hog! I will never use it as long as Firefox is around. I am using an Athlon 800 machine with GeForce 4 graphics 128 ram and 398 sys ram. It performs fine with the Fox; but IE Kills it, Drags it through the mud and underbrush.

Posted by Wert on Tue 24 July, 2007 4:16 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

A lot of people said it before me, but I'm going to say it again, only to show how much users Opera really has. Opera has more functions, is faster, more secure, and uses less resources than either IE or Firefox and I would guess also than Safari nad Mozilla. Just try it out, the switch is really easy and once you've begun to explore all the new functions you never thought existed without the hassle of installing two dozen extensions you'll never use anything else, promised!

Posted by Opera User on Sun 29 July, 2007 12:02 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

for any users with less ram, check out the portable app version of firefox, in essence firefox lite

Posted by Matt Winter on Sun 29 July, 2007 3:44 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Until 'Best Buy' (NOT!!) quits screwing me on my new laptop I'm stuck using a 1999 Pentium II 233MHz. Firefox 2.0.0.12 and the few before it were really running slow & now crashing & stuff Firefox never did before. I went back & tried Early Firefoxes but moved forward & settled on the first 1.5 with only session saver extension. So far so good. It's the lite version I remembered it to be. It's only about two years old now in 2008. I'm reading about how to lighten up Firefox 2.whatever but can't go to 3.0 as I'm still on Windoze 98. : ) It's a good enough old operating system once you know how to handle it & update it. I've a few progs I'm not getting rid of that run on only a MSDOS based system.

Posted by Handy Man on Sun 27 January, 2008 4:36 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

Firefox lite already exists. Its called Mozilla SeaMonkey. In some ways, I prefer it over Firefox. Faster, less memory problems. Opera is fast, but incompatible with many web sites, and always crashes. Reminds me of Safari too much. Needs more work. I have been comparing web browsers for 15+ years. Good luck!

Posted by wewa on Wed 11 February, 2009 6:31 PM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment

I agree. We have a senior citizen friend with a very old IBM Aptiva. It runs WIN98 and maxes out at 256 mb of RAM, at over 85 years of age, she has absolutely no interest in learned a new PC all over again. She just wants her email and the ability to read a view news sites, wiki and youtube occasionally. Firefox was not an option at all, would not even install. We ended up using Opera. A Firefox Lite would have been a great alternative to her archaic IE6.

Posted by Cuthbertson on Tue 7 April, 2009 11:56 AM

Offensive? Inappropriate? Report this comment