I don't know if this is something to do with the PC, or Firefox and how it intereacts with the one I'm using in particualr, but I have an irritating problem that has started since since Firefox 3 was installed, and is running.
Every so often, and this can range from a few minutes up to many minutes, the hard disc starts chugging away and takes priority over anything else that might be happening - including me trying to type, so you can understand the intense irritation.
While working way guite happily, the hard disc will take off, grinding away for anythiing up to 30 seconds, during which time I'm locked out of doing anything, and any keystrokes made while this is happening might, or might not, be processed when it decides to stop and hand the PC back to me. This means I can find some really odd stuff being typed on the screen and needign correction - not a lot of fun.
I've tried monitoring for programs and processes running, but can't find anything odd, or what is being done while the drive is grinding away, but nothing odd is reported.
I've also tried to to find other reports of anything similar on the web, but unless I'm having no luck forming the search properly, there doesn't seen to be anyone else reporting the same, or complaining.
I had thought if it was a common problem, there would be a quick update, if Firefox 3 was doing something naughty with a disc cacche or similar, but nothing found in that direction either.
If I don't run Firefox, then things seem to be ok - so far - so it does seem to be down to the new version.
I'm using IE more at the moment, but it's torture, as Fx supresses all the advertisng rubbish - which is something I really really hate with a vengence - and means that IE wastes as much time loading that rubbish as Fx wastes grinding the hard drive, but the ads only load once with the page, so IE wins at the moment - unless the ads are animated, then it has to go.
I don't know if it related but I downloaded the latest version of Spybot a couple of weeks ago. It seems to work very well but it has a small screen which opens with a small popping noise every time it is doing or has done something. At startup it tells me which files it is scanning then once it has finished it tells me that new processes have been scanned. This message occurs at random once the computer is running but I have no idea what these processes are as it occurs if I am just reading a page or actually doing something.
That's the resident part of Spybot - Tea Timer - which scans processes as they occur and deals with anything found immediately. It runs all the time, right clicking on the icon in the tool tray (the bit with the clock in it) will give options, including stopping the balloon from appearing every time it does something. You can also disable it, or shut it down altogether. In the Spybot configuration, you can elect not to have it installed/running at all. Given it will hardly ever find anything (I assume it never or seldom does) it can be left out if you run Spybot regularly.
And no, it won't tell you what the processes are (unless there's a problem).
If you don't run Spybot in expert mode, then I recommend you do as it makes a lot more sense when you can see all the options and read about them.
I have since found web reports about the Firefox disk access phenomenon - a whole three of them! Although they were in tech-forums, and were followed by strings of folk with similar symptoms looking foe a cure. It seems to have been present in the pre-Fx3 test releases, and there were supposedly fixes and it was supposed to be fixed when the final Fx3 was released. Assuming these stories are correct, the problem arises from a large database of web site names used in the new anti-phishing options offered, as this grows the need to update and access leads to the chugging and grinding away of the hard drive when this process becomes inefficient and time-consuming.
I tried the fix - or rather didn't, as when I got into the guts of Fx3 I found that the changes it would have needed were already in place, so clearly that change wouldn't have helped in my case.
Instead, I went for "Option 2", which simply means going into the options and the security section, and disabling the two checkboxes that enable the "tell me if the site I'm visiting" is a suspected forgery or attack site. Loses the check of course, but it seems to have largely removed the problem.
It still does some odd hard disk grinding at random, but it always did, for no apparent reason, and as it only lasts for a few seconds it tolerable - unless you happen to be typing away at speed or not looking closely.
It will be interesting to see if there are any official references, since I at least see it's not just me.
I thought I'd spend an evening with IE7 to see if the disk chugging went away if I didn't use Fx3.
Boy, did that show me how far ahead of IE7 it was.
After less than an hour I was tearing my hair out as IE7 was so slow at displaying pages. I had never noticed the difference before, when running the two browsers together and just pulling up odd pages because I needed then to be in IE7, or wanted to run them completely separately. This can be useful if you expect a crash - running separate windows in the same browser isn't completely separate, so if one window crashes, all the other windows are lost too if a restart is needed. Running the two separate apps increases security if you run the risky stuff in one only, then your important stuff is still ok if a page kills the risky one.
Running IE7 without my usual habit of flicking back to Fx after requesting a page was purgatory, as it felt as if I entered the address and waited, and waited, and waited, with nothing happening.
Maybe it was a bad night for web access, but I eventually gave up on it and decided to go back to Fx3 - even with its occasional stutters, it's just so much quicker there's no real contest. Roll on IE8 if it picks up some speed.
Before anyone thinks "He never uses IE7" I should add that I use it every day, and for hours, as I use it for all my BBC radio and TV. If the programmes crash (which their new player hasn't done in the past month) then I don't lose what I'm working on in Fx, and if Fx crashes (or more usually a page mis-behaves) then I don't lose my BBC goodies.
The real reason I kicked IE7 into touch was because I was just finishing a long post, complete with quotes, when the PC went daft, meaning a shutdown with no option to close or save programs. With Fx, it automatically remembers its state and the content of any messages being typed, and will restart where it left off from when the PC was stopped. IE7 doesn't, so I lost the post I was typing, and all the links in it - and that's a nuisance if you're used to just firing up your browser and having it open up where you left it, down to whatever you might have been typing, but not had the opportunity to save manually.
So far, the original problem of disk churning seems to be all but gone, as I've done quite a bit of fiddling of my own, but if I want to pin it down (if it's not an Fx3 issue) there could be a lot more fiddling to do, and I don't really want to waste time in that direction, so the final answer may be some way away.
It must indeed have been a bad night on the web last night - although it would still have to be noted that Fx3 didn't suffer the same slowness that IE7 did - but I have to be fair and say that it is not anything like as bad as it was yesterday. I just had to try the wrong night to depend on it 100%, and got frustrated.
Still, it did let me see an unbiased comparison, and see that the Fx3 speed claim is justified - Microsoft engineers will be beavering away to make IE8 comparable, which can only be a good thing of course.
Now, if only they'd hurry up with the first update
Thought I should mention that this strange behaviour led to to make a reaquaintance with an old friend - the Opera browser.
It must be four years or more since I "went to the Opera" (sorry ) and while it was nice, Firefox knocked spots of it back then, so despite its advantages which also raised it well above even IE6 at the time, I left the Opera, and haven't been back since.
Opera 9.5 (current version) is now another gem. I only refrain from adding the word "absolute" to that statement because it doesn't appear to have an adblock option, and I'm still in shock from seeing web ads again. Both Fx and IE have adblock add-ons, and the assault of Orange adverts shows they're clearly making excess profits. Ah! Mobile phone operator - that explains it.
A quick tour through this new Opera shows it has all the features one would want from a browser (except those ads, and the need to install the independent spellchecker manually, a task that takes almost a whole minute's effort) and, in terms of page loading speed, seems to be the match of Fx and again makes IE7 look a bit sad.
It also RENDERS SeSco pages with their INTENDED APPEARANCE, not the IE travesty with things in the wrong place, the wrong size, and using the wrong fonts!
If you have something against Fx that keeps you stumbling along inside IE, then I recommend trying Opera...
I don't have anything against Fx - it is just that I mislaid the password and never got round to doing anything about it. The other thing being is that I still think that my using IE7 which most (probably) of our visitors will use is useful to the site in that I will possibly spot the odd error in it's presentation that you might miss on FX. I know it annoys you that IE7 does not reproduce the chosen font but I much prefer the IE7 version as it is much easier to read and to my eyes looks more professional. (sorry)
Don't worry, I'm not trying to convert you alone - the comments are just made as I go along, but I do know what you use, and why.
About a quarter-ish of SeSco visitors are Fx user, the rest IE of course, while the numbers of Opera and Safari (Apple people) are naturally much smaller.
Opera is, as Firefox - or rather Mozilla - was, known mainly to those who work or have an interest in things, rather than the general user, hence the occasional bit of flag-waving.
I have to sdmit that having used Opera for a few hours now, I'm impressed by the smoothness of its operation. Like Fx, it both presents and displays much better than IE, and faster. Perhaps a lesser requirement for general use, but if programming and editing, then the need to frequently review ones work means that saving of 10-20 seconds per review (repeated dozens of times) per publish-see-the-mistake-you-missed-and-relaunch-the-editor-again cycle, that's a lot of time during a day, especially if the browser or PC keels over during those times as well.
With regard to logging out, this computer is only on when I am using it and switched off at the wall overnight. The modem is usb powered so when I turn it off the internet connection is shut down as well. I assume that this is at least as effective as logging out?
No comparison, since you haven't actually done anything.
You've disappeared from the forum of course, since you've effectively pulled the connection out of the wall, but as you've seen, you're still in the system since you reappear in the forum without having to login.
Whether or not it matters is relative - since the forum doesn't presently logout inactive users, that's not an issue, so your connection persists. Notificatiion in the forum - massages and updates - all seem to have been debugged and trigger themselves as they happen, and not by login, which was a bit of bug in the past.
At your own end, there will be a cookie storing your forum login instance (coded, so there is nothing to identify you personally, just that the unique ligin exists from your PC), and so long as the cookie is not deleted at some point, then your login will stay alive. Delete your cookies, or have some security scan or program delete then for you, and the login will end, and you'll have to login again afterwards.
There may also be a time-bomb waiting, as cookies have a life. I don't know how long forum cookies live for, but when it dies, the login will of course die with it.
So, it's not as effective as logging out, since you're not logged out in any way, and in secuity terms means that anyone that turns on your computer can be you in the forum - say you sold it and didn't trash the disk. OK, not likely to happen, but that's the theory at least, and is important to at least keep at the back of one's mind in terms of anything important one does online where security is important.
I just have a habit of killing all trails, and terminate logins at every opportunity on the basis that it means I won't forget to do it where it matters one day. Software writers make mistakes, even the best, and it means that if the someone forgets to make an online account I have properly secure, then at least I haven't done the equivalent of leaving a door open somewhere. Granted unlikely, but the news tells us it does happen.
Just goes to show - I automatically ignore any kind offers like that, and even had to go and hunt down where that offer appears in here!
I should thank you for the reminder, as it occurs to me it possibly solves one of the many mysteries that the "oily bits" inside this forum have presented over time
It looks as if I may have stumbled across a case of "sour grapes" at Microsoft Towers.
While their hopes of having IE crush all other browsers off the web (and this is why it stagnated before IE7 was hurried out) are no more, and they have to share the honours, it seems that while they daren't do anything to upset the lead competitor of Firefox, which works with all MS application except those the Fx is designed not to work with (Activex), the same appears not to be true of the Opera browser, which MS appears to actively target to reduce its usefulness.
While playing away happily with my new toy (the Opera browser), I happened to try an pull up Microsoft's Live Search, in particular their mapping.
Guess what?
Microsoft detects the use of the Opera browser, and won't serve the mapping to to it
This is actually a bit silly, since anyone that uses SeSco should know by now that Multimap provides its UK mapping from Microsoft's mapping service, and Multimap - and its OS mapping - work just fine, so Opera can still deliver Microsofts's mapping sevice, albeit through another site that doesn't attempt to block its use.
An interesting follow-up observation to the Live Search blocking of Opera came to light tonight while I was trying to pin down the location of a Cold War building which had its grid reference quoted with an error somewhere in the digits.
Using Multimap to view the given spot using the Opera browser I was able to zoom into the given location to find that it was available in Bird's Eye view. While this was in the highest resolution and had good detail, it was still no possible to identify the building roof and doorway - I knew what these were made of - as the buildings were detailed, but even at maximum zoom of the Multiimap view were too small to resolve this level of detail.
Down at the bottom right of the Opera browser window is the browser's own zoom control, which I had not tried before. Browser zoom tends to work on text only, and the tiled images of Google and simialr aerial views can confuse even those that zoom images, and result in garbled rubbish.
No such problem with Opera, and it will zoom in to 1000% (or x10 in sensible language) and allow the full detail of a high resolution aerial image to be examined.
I've tried this on the other aerial view systems, and they all seem to work just fine - although most don't have imagery that makes going anywhere near x10 worthwhile.
Even if you don't want to browse with the Opera browser, having it available just to examine these images with a zoom 10 time greater than the provider offers makes it a useful tool worth installing.
Home
Calendar
Search
Register
Login
Firefox 3 - new problem
Print Thread
Report to Moderator
Logged
Private message
) and while it was nice, Firefox knocked spots of it back then, so despite its advantages which also raised it well above even IE6 at the time, I left the Opera, and haven't been back since.
Thread Tags
