I’ve been a devout Firefox user since Phoenix. That is until this past week. Tiring of its horrible CPU spikes and insatiable hunger for memory, I contemplated switching to Opera. The only thing that kept me from making the transition was Opera’s lack of an Xmarks plug-in. Not being able to use my favorite Bookmarks manager killed any hope of an alternate browser on my computers.

sudo rm -rf ~/lawn/kids*

99% CPU spikes and 350+ MB memory usage are unacceptable, but when using Firefox 3.0 they’re an every day experience. With all hope lost, I installed the latest Firefox beta. Since then, Firefox has yet to exceed 75% CPU utilization or consume more than 225 MB of memory. All this, even while watching the latest high-def SWTOR cinematic trailer (which is awesome btw). JavaScript heavy websites still consume resources, but with much less cost.

Years ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about installing a beta, but time has eroded my brazen disregard for a stable computer. Firefox Beta 4 may not restore your youth, but it will reallocate your memory. Thank you, Mozilla!

A time-lapse visual representing the patching of a DNS vulnerability discovered by Dan Kaminksy. The animation was made using the Clarified Analyzer from https://www.clarifiednetworks.com.