We got so fed up with Firefox getting slower and slower that we switched to Chrome, but Mozilla’s now gone on the offensive and pointing the blame at the developers of some plug ins.
Ten per cent slower per plug in
Although it’s fairly common knowledge that the more plug ins you install, the slower your browser loads, Mozilla has put a figure on it: on average, each add-on burdens Firefox’s startup time by an additional 10 per cent:
That could be a matter of mere milliseconds for some, but longer for others, depending on their hardware and software configurations, but one thing is for sure: some plug ins are worse than others.
Keen to help users getting frustrated with slow performance, Mozilla is now performing automated performance tests on the most popular 50 add-ons in their gallery, and displaying the results for users to view – and to shame the developers.
Moreover, Mozilla will soon be adding “slow performance” warnings to the worst offenders, so you won’t need to keep consulting this list.
Although the worst offender of the lot for us – Flash – is nowhere to be seen, there’s certainly one or two of our faves currently sitting in the top ten, like Xmarks Sync and Firebug.
It’s not all about spreading the hurt to developers, as Mozilla are offering resources to help them improve their plug-ins performance.
Check out Mozilla’s blog post here.
