Hi All,
Just an headsup on the upcoming firefox 3 ( Granparadiso ). This version is very very snappy as against firefox 2.
Also a developer named Pavlov has implemented a "memory defrag" kind of plugin for firefox 3 that works real well, driving down the memory usage drastically. ( http://www.pavlov.net/blog/archives/2007/11/memory_fragment.html )
A point in case is the speed with which ff 3 can spawn new windows. This is specifically more important when the window in question is a small login popup or such.
Another example - As I type this, I am using a measly 512 mb, T42 centrino laptop with the following elements in memory 1. Lotus Notes - Hog hog hog 2. PDF viewer with a image heavy file open 3. 2 xls in openoffice. 4. Terminal 5. John the cracker cracking my passwd file in background. Lastly firefox 3 with no less than 18 tabs open consuming 94 mb of non-shared memory and 119 mb gross memory !
And with compiz and wobbly effects on. As of now no slowdown in any of my applications. W00t !
Plugin compatibility ==============
From my perspective I care only about adblock plus and no-script which
work with the current alpha available on ubuntu gutsy 7.10
Suggested you give firefox 3 a try. There are few things that are different from 2.0 and will require you to be generally competent with fixing problem with help via Google searches.
regards, C