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Ask Slashdot: Best Small-Footprint Modern Browser?
Annirak writes "I've recently started a paid internship at a company which is expanding faster than their IT department can supply new hardware. As a consequence, I've been issued a P4 2.4GHz with 512MB of RAM. Currently, I am using Firefox 4, but I find that it eats up far too much of my limited RAM. I'd rather not give up some of the more modern UI features that are offered by the current versions of Firefox and Chrome, but I need a smaller footprint. What other browsers are out there which could help me conserve resources?"
opera
It's not expensive and if you get worth out of the investment it's a good thing all the way around.
Spoken like someone who hasn't looked at DDR1 RAM prices lately.
K-meleon.
I use Opera 11 with Windows 2000 on my P3 with 256 MB of RAM and it works quite well.
is of course Lynx.
Aside from that Opera should require at lot less resources.
Try disabling flash, other plugins, and javascript. It makes 99% of sites faster, and only breaks about 30% of sites. Of the sites that aren't worthless, only about 5% are broken (mostly shopping sites).
If you install NoScript in Firefox, you can selectively enable/disable scripts and flash and other plugins for specific domains, only enabling what you want.
This also prevents most advertisements from loading.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
I saw the "expanding faster than their IT department can supply new hardware" note, but - come on. That hardware is close to a decade old! Is their IT department run by an 80-year-old man?
#DeleteChrome
Don't do this. As illogical as uppity Slashdot "power users" think it is, IT departments hate it when people upgrade their machines without consulting them. Full-time employees, they'd probably be willing to let it slide after a stern talk, but for interns? No guarantees.
As for keeping memory usage down, Opera 9 is a good bet (10 is a little heavier), but no matter what browser you use, you may have to change your browsing habits a little. Loads of tabs open is going to eat up memory no matter what browser you're on, and all of them have memory leaks to some extent (though none quite so bad as Firefox...), so you may want to set your browser to "reopen the tabs I had last" on startup, and just quit-restart every now and then.
Dislike the Electoral College? Lobby your state to join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.
If I had to work all day on this PC I would simply buy one for work. There is no way a P4 with 512mb is going to get the job done in 2011.
The RAM usage in FireFox isn't a bug, and there are things you can do to make it use less RAM:
'For we walk by faith, not by sight.' II Corinthians 5:7
Since you don't mention your OS, I'm forced to assume it's Windows of some kind. If so, check out some of the various remasterings of the XP install CD put out by various release groups. There is one in particular called TinyXP which is about 400MB installed and idles with around 24MB of RAM used. A very good friend of mine put it on his brother's old machine and it runs Chrome + youtube stuffs + games just fine.
Otherwise install linux and lynx :)
Bring back grail.. it was small, fast and mulitplatform out of the box, being based on Python.
( and one of the first broswers.. )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
"...expanding faster than their IT department can supply new hardware" is corporate terms for "..because we are almost broke"
My recommendation, just stay away.
don't cut it off www.mgmbill.org
Midori is really lightweight and fast. It tends to outperform Chrome on older computers in my experience. Plus it runs in XFCE, so you're set for a lightweight environment.
I think you haven't looked at DDR1 RAM prices. It's only relatively expensive: It costs 5 times as much as DDR3 RAM per GB, but DDR3 RAM is dirt cheap, so it still doesn't amount to much ($15 for another 512MB).
Run the browser on the Corei7 guy's computer, use his RAM, and see it on yours. ;-)
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
It's not expensive and if you get worth out of the investment it's a good thing all the way around.
Spoken like someone who hasn't looked at DDR1 RAM prices lately.
They might be expensive new, but you can pickup a pair of 512 or a single 1024 stick of DDR for $10-$20. Rambus is even more ridiculous new, but there are still a bunch of eBay buy-it-now auctions for 1-gig RDRAM for $18 with free shipping.
try xxxterm http://opensource.conformal.com/wiki/XXXTerm
If you're on Windows - Kmeleon http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/ Otherwise (all joking aside on this!) - (E)Links. I use it on both Linux and Windows regularly - with the right setup you can even get a graphical UI... http://elinks.or.cz/
I think therefore I am... a Linux geek.
I assume you have Windows XP or Linux.
Try to disable as many services or daemons as you can to free up RAM. In the Microsoft world, MSCONFIG is your friend. If you manage to keep your "working set" below your actual RAM you should be okay. About all you really need is the bare-bones OS, networking and security software, a web browser and whatever extensions you need, plus whatever you need for your business. Those "business" applications can eat you alive, especially if they have the word "Office" in them. Consider closing all heavy-RAM applications first then surfing, then closing your web browser and resuming your "Office" work.
Firefox 3.latest is not bad, but I haven't done a RAM-usage comparison w/ Firefox 4.
If RAM is the issue and it's not something exotic like RAMBUS, I'd upgrade with "just enough" to get you up to what you need. Half a gig of DDR PC2700 is under $30 from a major hundreds-of-stores retailer's web site, with free ship-to-store shipping.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
How about using Emacs as a web browser? Specifically, XEmacs and this one random one I've heard in passing called "w3m" or something should be able to do it pretty much out of the box.
Most distro's will run fine on 512MB of ram. Your OS is the problem not your browser.
However just go to the dump crack a couple of cases open and viola free ram. I do it all the time for older computer parts. Last time I found a broken (dead cmos battery) IBM Lenovo ThinkCentre 3.2 GHZ, 1 GB ram, 80 GB hdd. Upgraded the ram (4 GB) hdd (500GB) Hooked it up to my 37" LCD TV running openSuse with Gnome 3. I fix dozens of older computers for friends and family with dump parts. Simple things like power supplies can save a lot of money.
But even if you have the spare ram get the tech guy to install it even though you know how so you don't step on any toes.
To answer you q.. IE <cough>
Internet Explorer 9 requires 1 GB of RAM because it requires an operating system that won't run well with less. Or are you recommending using Internet Explorer 8?
Whatever. Given how busy it sounds the IT department is, they should have bigger things to worry about than whether an intern added more memory to a machine. That change isn't going to conflict with their prebuilt system images the way that changing a video card would, and this machine is most likely going to the dumpster as soon as his internship is over anyway.
Furthermore, any competent IT department will know that adding unsupported software is a bigger problem than adding unsupported hardware. If they don't care about him installing whatever browser he wants, why would they care about adding more memory.
You need Linux and luakit. They are awesome on old machines.
It is illogical. And before someone says "What if the user does something wrong and breaks the company machine?", I'm perfectly happy to see them disciplined for damaging company equipment if the upgrade does go wrong, and taking that risk is their choice, but there's no sense in punishing someone for doing something that could potentially have done damage but actually made an improvement (at least not when the chance of damage is much lower than that of improvement, and the cost of the potential damage is relatively low. If we were talking about million dollar equipment, and/or an upgrade process with a 50% failure rate, I'd obviously reconsider my point).
The rules are what they are, and I'm not suggesting that the guy goes out and tries to push the point, because I'm sure he would end up getting a lot of crap for doing so. I'm just saying that your characterisation of "uppity Slashdot 'power users'" is a little unfair when their point of view has decent logical reasoning behind it.
... what more do you need?
openbsd and links
I think you would want to give Opera a try. I compared some of the major browsers several months ago, and what I found was that Chrome was fast but uses RAM excessively, and Firefox was slow but used less RAM. Opera seemed to be strong in both speed and memory conservation, the main drawback being that it is not open source. Firefox is faster now that version 4 is out, putting it in competitive range of Opera, although I'd wager that Opera is still more efficient.
Now if you're able and willing to try non-mainstream browsers, there are a lot of fun things you can play with. Epiphany is a popular underdog choice, and other alternative browsers run a full gamut of niches. In the past I've tried Konqueror, Midori, Aurora, Dillo, and yes, even elinks (I've actually used it productively, so I'm not joking). There is even that funny K-Meleon browser for windows. I don't know how many of these are still in active development, but many alternative browsers do excel in being lightweight, so on systems with limited resources you will see noticeable speed gains. The downside is that you will get compatibility problems, and the Javascript engine may be slow.
If you really want to have fun try browsers designed for embedded/mobile systems, such as Android.
Yes, that stick of RAM can fuck up the computer that the IT department will then have to fix or replace. In car analogy terms: you wouldn't bolt on a turbo kit on a company car just because you thought it wasn't fast enough, would you?
Of course that's not as bad as running a rouge server like that guy in the hospital, but it's also not as bad as Hitler, so I'm not sure what's the point of making such comparisons.
Back during the Firefox 4 betas I sometimes used a 300Mhz P3 laptop (380ish megabytes of RAM). Firefox pegged the processor just by being open, but Chromium didn't.
I like my rouge server, but not as much as my teal one.
This happened to me (an apparently many other interns) at one of the National Laboratories. The lab wasn't strapped for cash nor going away anytime soon. The real problem was that the guy that hired me didn't plan ahead and order a computer (which can take weeks to get thanks to procurement overhead), so he panicked and snagged one on the way to reapplication. I scrounged up some more RAM from reapp, and it worked fine for the three months I was there.
Sure, but it should be the company paying for it. Talk to your boss or IT department, suggesting some practical solutions. Part of the reason is that you should see if it is acceptable. You don't want to get burnt for the wrong reasons.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Only whore servers wear so much rouge. Teach your server some proportion.
Don't know if this is still true, but as recently as v9 some websites would have problems with Opera's Javascript implementation.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Yes, it is. If you read what he said it was heavily implied the IT Department _don't_ think it's acceptable, but they are likely has hand-tied as he is. The IT Department is responsible for the machine and everything in and on it. Screwing with that without their permission is rude at best.
Now if the company in question has such a small budget for IT (or at least for interns) then their current growth may very well not last long somply given how much time people are waiting for their computers.
Personally, I'd go talk to them, see if they mind. If not let them know when it's actually done so they can update their records and call it good.
Normal people worry me!
Enjoy! :)
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
I'm sorry, adding some RAM is going ot tilt the IT Department?
Yes, opening the machine and messing with the internals will annoy IT.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
I used to use Konqueror 3.x on a 200 MHz Pentium with 96 MB RAM. It was the only graphical browser that both had good support for the Web at the time (HTML4, JavaScript (including AJAX), Flash and other plug-ins, tabbed browsing) and that would allow me to have multiple tabs open and still have the browser respond immediately to mouse clicks.
On top of that, those versions of Konqueror have some nice features that weren't common at the time, such as access keys (press control, then a letter to follow a link) and web shortcuts (type a short keyword and some search terms in your address bar, and you could search the web using your favorite search engine, Wikipedia, or whatever else you would add). Konqueror is a very nice browser even if your machine isn't resource-constrained.
I haven't used the post-3.x versions of Konqueror, but I've always enjoyed 3.x. About the only annoyance is that a number of "Web 2.0" sites don't work with Konqueror, or require tweaks. Support has improved with the increasing popularity of WebKit (which originated with Konqueror as KHTML, but is now used with Safari, Chromium, Chrome, and several other browsers), and most sites will actually work if you set the browser identification to some more popular browser (e.g. Opera, Safari, or Firefox).
If you are willing to use closed-source software, Opera is a very good browser. I don't know about the resource usage of their newer releases, but they are known for packing an amazingly good feature set in a small package. Same as with Konqueror, though, you may need to set the browser identification to some other browser to get certain websites to work with it. Opera makes this very easy to do.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Firefox 4, built in bartab. When you set browser.sessionstore.max_concurrent_tabs=0 , only tabs you click on get loaded.
If that's not good enough for you, get the same setup on lubuntu or similar lightweight Linux, or just go buy some more RAM and install it yourself. Should be $30-60 for 2 1-gig sticks depending on the type needed. If that's too much to expense or pay out of pocket, can't you help much.
Blessed are the pessimists, for they have made backups.
Perhaps rouge is the norm for servers in their GALEXY...
This isn't the sig you're looking for... Move along.
Even better idea. Install Ubuntu. As a back-up, I have old IBM T4 with only 512 RAM and Ubuntu versions installed past 5 years. Will work just great.
What I don't understand is how a company can be expanding "so fast" that they can afford at least £15,000 on an employee, but not £300 on a bargain basement machine, or hell... £1,000 on a machine they'll actually be productive on.
IT would never know anyway. Put in the RAM, if it works, great, remove it when you leave company. If upgrade breaks machine, take it out and put in ticket saying 'my pc stopped working". no problem.
Theres no reason any company needs to shove 10 year old hardware on an intern. You call up Dell or whoever, say you need a thousand PCs and they will bring it out.
Nor is there any reason why they need interns, just just need to post a help-wanted add and a thousand people will send their resume.
There's just the small matter of funding - when you get a real job in the real world, you'll find that unbudgeted capital expenditures and adding headcount take more than a phone call to a vendor to resolve.
pfft, way too much. by a used laptop (1G ram, 30+G hard drive) with 30 or 60 day warranty from highly rated mom&pop shop on eBay, less than $100.
To the OP:
It is not YOUR computer. YOU should not, under any circumstances, upgrade it. People managed to do "real" work just fine a couple years ago when that computer was mainstream.
It's not ONLY a stick of ram. It's an indicator to your employer that you don't understand boundaries, roles, and responsibilities.
There are only a few major browsers. IE (7 and 8), Firefox (3, since you've tried 4), Safari, Chrome, and Opera. Each have their pros and cons with regard to speed, features, etc. How these get weighted depend on what your preferences are and which sites you visit.
There are two browser hogs of resources: flash and javascript. If you can, get rid of flash altogether. If you can't, at least use a browser/plugin/etc that allows you to "click to play" flash. That'll do more than any browser switch.
Use each one for a day. See what kind of memory usage it has (512 MB is plenty for all of them, but if you use non-browser apps you may need to be pickier). The bottom line is that relatively few people will have tried each of the browsers and have similar taste to yours. The benchmarking sites may give you some speed tests, but not necessarily ones relevant for the sites you actually visit.
"The universe seems neither benign nor hostile, merely indifferent." --Carl Sagan
As we don't know what it is that he is doing we don't know that the machine he has is not adequate for it.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
Netfront. Its massively underrated.
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.slashdot.org Errors found while checking this document as HTML5!
Nah, if they gave him that comp, they don't have the money... so buy the RAM yourself, get them to install it.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Catch 22: If you can put in a ticket, your machine works. If your machine doesn't work, then how do you put in a ticket? (as an intern!)
... or install Windows 98 and use IE6 SP1
I'll see your Boundaries and raise you Initiative.
First of all this is a suspicious (not post, but circumstances why they handed him that comp, when a yard sale could come up with better) setup. So either they hired 20 new peoplein one shot, of course hardware will lag. So since they apparently can't afford more, buy it yourself and let them do the authorized install.
"Interns" are not "temps". Now there's 100 different corp cultures, but "only 100", not 20,000. If they get upset that he spent $100 of his own money on RAM, *that's* the sign they don't care about initative. That's a sign that the job is thin, and he has to decide what it does for him in raw personal cash paycheck flow.
If they say "sure, we were down to our last IT dollar, so since you bought it, sure, we'll do the install next week." That says it was a money problem, and that the job has promise.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Speaking as an IT guy, a non-full time intern gets whatever's left on the shelf, unless his department coughs up the money to buy him a real system. No? Then he gets whatever's left. He didn't specify OS, but XP Professional runs much, much better with 1 gig of memory instead of 1/2. I definitely wouldn't do it off my own bat though: the idea of users randomly cracking their cases and field-modifying equipment makes my hair stand on end. It's not the stick of RAM per se, it's the principle of the thing.
No statement is true, not even this one.
No, a stick of RAM will *NOT* fuck up their ANCIENT piece of shit GARAGE SALE pc.
And *if* on the OUT OF THIS GALAXY chance it did, they have much bigger issues.
If the machine is damaged somehow during installation, then yes, it will tick off IT.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
Don't do this. As illogical as uppity Slashdot "power users" think it is, IT departments hate it when people upgrade their machines without consulting them. Full-time employees, they'd probably be willing to let it slide after a stern talk, but for interns? No guarantees.
My IT department feels that way, but it does not stop with hardware upgrades. We are not to touch any of the software installed on the machine, period. We are warned that installing software or hooking up unauthorized equipment can subject us to disciplinary action.
Maybe the poster's IT department doesn't care if he installs stuff. If it does care, my advice is not to fiddle with the machine. My work computer has only IE 7. It's a piece of junk and makes it hard to do my job sometimes. That's not my problem. If my employer wants me to have a better browser, the IT people will install it. Otherwise, my productivity will suffer with IE 7. It's not my job to manage the computer, to install stuff on it, or to fix it when it breaks. Leave that to the computer people.
Penny - plain text accounting
Hey, random capitalization makes any incorrect statement more accurate, amirite?
Intern shows up one morning, with a couple sticks of memory in his hand, and addresses the IT chief. "Hey, boss - my machine really runs slow, and everyone knows that 512 meg of memory isn't enough to run any modern operating system. How about we add this gig of memory to the old machine, and see how it runs?"
I'll bet dollars to pennies that the IT guy says, "Can you do it yourself, boy? All my people are busy. Get it done, and get out of my hair."
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
I too am running Firefox 3.6 on Debian Squeeze, but with 3gigs of RAM. I have FlashBlock and BetterPrivacy installed, but not NoScript. With only 20 tabs open I have to restart firefox at least once a week or my computer will grind to a halt. It seems to work like this:
Firefox: Hmm, there's still memory available, I'll hold more pages in memory.
Linux: Crap memory is getting tight, I should move some of this to swap.
Firefox: Hey look there's more memory available now, I'll hold more sites in memory.
And so on, until everything but firefox is pushed out to swap.
Soooo... still angry about not getting any internship offers?
-K
Is your computer 10 years old because the CEO is a tightwad or is it because your company has to wait 6 years for FDA approval that your computer won't adversely affect food preparation? I can guarantee it doesn't take your IT dept 10 years to buy you a new computer.
Ooops. 500 Mhz.
What does the color of the server have to do with anything?!
Seriously. Chrome is too resource intensive for you? I'm not sure you're gonna find a better option. Maybe (*maybe*) Lynx will work for you.
Firefox just tends to be leaky; I've never heard of a Firefox build that didn't gradually consume all the memory if left running long enough.
Talk to your IT department, say "my computer runs slowly", and see what they say. I'm serious, keep it simple and to the point. Say what the problem is, not the solution.
They may well have more RAM around lying spare, 1GB is about the minimum for Windows XP SP3 for a comfortable experience without too many heavyweight apps running, 2GB for Vista. I haven't tried Windows 7 with less than 2GB, but it's touted as running faster than Vista in the interest of netbooks etc.
Use Window's performance mode instead of "let windows choose" (right click on my computer > properties > advanced settings). You may want to tick a few extra options if you notice fonts are too jagged or you want to view pictures as thumbnails in windows explorer, etc, etc. Use Smooth Screen Fonts and Turn On Drop Shadows are the only two I normally bother with
Setting your swap space to a constant size, about 1.5x your RAM, tends to make the system run slightly faster. ie. set the minimum the same number as the maximum instead of "let windows choose".
If your hard drive needs defragging, do it.
Without knowing what kind of company you're in, you may find your IT department don't support browsers other than their standard IE6 / IE7 / whatever. So the internal web applications and intranet might not behave quite as you expect.
(I've worked in various IT support roles for the last 5 years including a lot of desktop support)
Know how I know that you've never worked in a full time job before? Its not your computer, it belongs to the company. I ran XP for years with 512mb and rarely had issues with swapping too much. The biggest ram hog was ATI's Catalyst software.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
You can run it locally rather than on a stick. Go to configuration and kill anything unnecessary. I get better memory usage with FF3 over FF4 despite bugs. Also, kill all services/daemons/auto-run background programs (Quicktime comes to mind) nut being used to free up more RAM.
Sorry Frosty, but you just don't seem to get that the IT department NEEDS to know what is going on with the equipment, regardless of whether it is a brand new shiny system, or an ancient hunk of crap.
If the OP simply gets permission to add RAM, or is lucky enough to convince the IT department to buy and install it, then everyone wins. If he just buys it, and installs it, then everyone loses.
With permission, the OP gets what he needs to function (as long as it is actually necessary, and the function provided is more than to just be able to watch the latest youtube videos), and the IT department knows about the change, so that if something goes wrong with the PC, they can correct it more easily.
The additional benefit is that the IT department can track the expense of bringing the antiquated garbage to a usable condition, and can justify to the bean counters that they need to bring in more new PC's so that the workers (full time, part time, AND interns) can function properly.
If the OP just acquires an additional stick of RAM, then:
1. He's out the cash for the RAM.
2. If the OP doesn't get the exact correct stick of RAM, then odd issues may arise, generating unnecessary expensive trouble tickets. In addition, if the OP doesn't admit that he/she did this, then there are extra steps introduced because the system is no longer what it is documented as... (It just adds extra unnecessary confusion.)
3. The machine works better, but the cost is not accounted for, and it makes it more difficult to justify replacing it, as there is no cost that can be shown to accounting.
Frankly, it just screws up everything if it doesn't go through the IT department.
Once the precedent is set, then you have opened up a can of worms where every intern (and other person in the establishment) thinks it's okay to change out system parts to suit their fancy. Bob changes out his video card, Sue adds a blue-ray burner, and Elmo decides that he prefers to use Open Office and Firefox, because if they can change the hardware (and drivers), then why can't he change software?
You end up with a difficult to maintain mess, and the bean counters are wondering how come it is so expensive to run the computers...
(This doesn't even begin to touch on security issues)
It's not ONLY a stick of ram. It's an indicator to your employer that you don't understand boundaries, roles, and responsibilities.
Wow, I'm glad I don't work at your company. I've been blessed with a sane IT guy where I work. When I said I needed a Linux desktop, he got me a bare PC, handed it over to me and said, "Your on your own". We get along great.
P4 with 512 is fair good computer power,
any way if you can install another browser, why not install another OS with small footprint, thats well suited for you.
When you're finishing your internship, sell the RAM for the same price or a little more to one of the people staying behind.
If they get upset that he spent $100 of his own money on RAM, *that's* the sign they don't care about initative.
Or, it's a sign that they don't want some intern fucking around and modifying company property just because he wants to open ten browser tabs at once.
I am a managed IT provider for dozens of local companies.
Sometimes, all they'll pay for is used second PC's for some job functions and locations. If the job can be done using the hardware as provided, why should the company pay more?
If one of our clients interferes with a pc we provide, it is $250/hr charge, door to door, for us to look at it, PLUS penalties for equipment damage for parts.
If he damages the machine opening it, damages the ram, or simply messes up a setting in the machine playing with it, that's a charge his employer *will* get hit with.
In the last month alone i've responded to calls of someone who thought 3.5gb of ram wasnt enough, so he bestbuyed 8gb of ddr2 and shoved it in, breaking one ram slot holder; on an XP machine that cannot be upgraded to 7 yet for sfotware dependency issues; a guy who managed to break a dvi port trying to setup dual monitor with the old vga he had from home, and a woman who thought the filters on the machine were dirty, so she washed them with a hose. on the pc. while it was running ( dock yard inventory machine at a produce shipper)
Each of those calls were billed at $500+ in charges to the employer.
At least one person was fired and escorted out when i presented the bill.
Really?
Let's explore this complicated problem in depth. Question 1. Do you think the intern is the only person in the office with a computer capable of "putting in a ticket?"
How would you propose adding RAM to a maxed-out system?
The laptop I'm typing this from has 1GB of RAM. This is the maximum it supports; it cannot take more. Incidentally, the laptop is over 8 years old and runs fine, even the battery is still OK. It's a Celeron system currently running Lubuntu 10.04, since the LXDE desktop is leaner than Gnome or KDE (some unnecessary services are disabled also). I rely on Opera as the primary browser, and usually don't need a swap file even with a good number of tabs open in Opera, and some other applications running (right now: Inkscape, Gimp, Thunderbird, Pidgin, and a few lxterminal/bash/pcmanfm windows).
[warning: rant] This laptop has not been replaced partly because modern laptops with equivalent displays (1920x1200) are priced outrageously. I see no reason to downgrade to a 1920x1080 shortscreen, but object to the notion of paying double the money to keep the extra 120 rows of pixels. [apologies for rant]
Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
There are several free X servers that can run on WIndows - Xming, Cygwin, etc. Run one of them and log in to a nearby Linux server that has enough RAM to actually run Firefox on. Or boot Linux from a memory stick.
Or if you only have Windows servers, use Windows Remote Desktop to run the browser on one of them, though that's a bit more awkward.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
IT departments usually don't care about that as long as they don't have to know. I've done it before, and spending $20 to save an hour a day of watching my laptop's disk drive light spin while it was paging Firefox in and out was totally worth it.
It is possible to break a computer that way, even though there should be nothing that goes wrong in simply plugging in a memory card into a laptop, or at least nothing that shouldn't be fixable by removing the not-quite-compatible memory card. It's most likely to happen with older flakier computers, which (surprise!) are the ones you're more likely to be trying to upgrade. I have in fact done it once, and had to give the IT department a puzzled "Hi, IT department, I don't know what's wrong with the laptop, it's just stopped working", and entirely did not feel bad about that happening with an old piece of junk laptop that should have been replaced a year earlier anyway. So do a backup first.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
People managed to do "real" work just fine a couple years ago when that computer was mainstream.
People were running different software with different minimum requirements 10 years ago when this machine is new. I wish modern software weren't as bloated as it is, but it is what it is.
It's not ONLY a stick of ram. It's an indicator to your employer that you don't understand boundaries, roles, and responsibilities.
Bullshit. This isn't a case of corporate policy mandates I will have this computer, but I am going to thumb by nose at it because I know better. It is a case of they'd like to give me a better computer, but they're swamped and my internship will be over by the time they get around to it, so I'll find a way to solve my own problems.
I would much have someone who shows the initiative to get things done than a slacker who just points the finger and says "that's not my job".
If it's in violation of company rules, it will be cold comfort that the IT department's policy was logically inconsistent with their behavior when he's fired.
The submitter is an intern, which means he's trying to build experience. Getting fired because he thinks he knows enough to except himself to the rules is a shitty way to kick off a resume. You make a good point about unauthorized software v. unauthorized hardware, though - he should look at the policy on that and if a new browser is in violation, he should just suck it up.
The only surefire protection against Microsoft infections is abstinence. - The Onion
You can buy faster machine with more RAM than that for less than $300.
As the island of our knowledge grows, so does the shore of our ignorance.
Chrome is significantly faster on my Linux Mint/XP dual boot system with a P4 2.4 GHz (non hyperthreading) with 512MB RAM.
I don't know how Opera could be an improvement over Chrome. Chrome launches almost instantly, and browsing is extremely fast with FlashBlock and AdBlock.
In other words: Go through proper channels. Duh.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
512MB? What kind of a joke is that? My two older boxes (2-3.5 years old) both have 8GB, and this one has 12GB and is about to get upgraded to 24GB.
The last computer I had with 512MB was a p3-1ghz back in 2001. At the same time I built a dual p3-1ghz with 1GB ram, so 512MB was the lower end of what was acceptable even back then.
I have trouble believing a modern browser (chrome or FF) could even run on a system with 512MB ram. That system must swap a lot.
WTF?
I worked for a community college that didn't have shit for money. I brought in my own printer/scanner, asked IT to load drivers which they were happy to do, and emphasized I didn't need any support and would be delighted to be whatever their idea of a good customer was. (That's a drastic change from the snivelling and venting they usually dealt with.)
IT was happy, my boss was happy (he didn't have a scanner), and I could print without disturbing anyone else. The boss authorized buying ink cartridges since all printing was work-related.
You can get lots of things done by ASKING NICELY. Fucking customer skills aren't rocket science. Offering to give the job free stuff to improve PRODUCTIVITY works fine and shows initiative.
I did the same thing as an NCO in the Air Force. It got shit done, it was cheap (I get more gear than I need for free since I fix PCs on the side), and it lightens the workload for other people.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Aw come one, you can't tell stories like that and not tell us which one was fired!
c++;
"Perhaps you have never tried to develop software on a machine that can't run the IDE without swapping."
vi doesn't swap that much.
If you need some sort of fancy GUI program then nedit or gedit ought to do the trick too...
It is the RAM that's slowing you down. RAM is cheap. Do you think you could persuade IT to provide an upgrade? K-Melon is another obvious suggestion. --Sam
No doubt you would also be aghast if users start doing development on their *own* machines that they purchased with their own money as an alternative to using a crappy dev machine that makes their work painful.
Most companies would be aghast to see that happen. Companies and their IT departments have good reasons for not allowing non-company computers and accessories to be used for company business. They also legitimately dislike portable storage devices being connected to company.
Very often, this is can get in the way of productivity. On the other hand, my coworkers and I were able to get a new oscilloscope and a new logic analyzer by pointing out that a 'scope with an ether-net interface would allow us to send 'scope data to our PCs without needing to use memory cards. (Though we still use our old 'scopes and the memory cards they require.)
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
Once the precedent is set, then you have opened up a can of worms where every intern (and other person in the establishment) thinks it's okay to change out system parts to suit their fancy. Bob changes out his video card, Sue adds a blue-ray burner, and Elmo decides that he prefers to use Open Office and Firefox, because if they can change the hardware (and drivers), then why can't he change software?
Don't forget bringing in a copy of Creative Suite 5 that he got from his uncle that bought it in a market in China on vacation last year...
And if just slipping in a a stick is OK, can I borrow your wife? It's not like it will break her or anything...
Let me know when you get a job in the real world. I presented a request to upgrade PCs and was told, after the budget meeting. That was several months and a few budget meetings ago. We have already lost more productivity than the upgrade would have cost.
And I still have to fight to keep employees from bringing things in from home. Between broken hardware and virus infections, they have cost us more in time than new equipment...
People managed to do "real" work just fine a couple years ago when that computer was mainstream.
A P4 2.4gHz was mainstream a couple of years ago? What planet are you from?
I like my rouge server, but not as much as my teal one.
What? You have a different term for the hidden office porn collection?
You put rouge on your computer???
I love my computer, but it's beautiful without makeup.
RAM is relatively cheap. Spend the money and get more RAM if the company doesn't explicitly say you can't.
You're the intern, you get the leftovers. Show some initiative.
I do contract work. I'm expected to provide my own office and equipment. Some clients are nice enough to give me free stuff when I ask. I recently got a nice P4 2.0Ghz IBM ThinkPad with 2GB of RAM. Eventually I'll buy a new laptop to replace it with using my winnings.
When you're a real employee, then you can complain about what they give you. In the meantime, expect to spend your own money to make your job easier.
Work Safe Porn
Something tells me they don't give a shit about some old P4 they scrounged up to give to the intern.
It was a sad day when they gave up their goal of keeping the browser so small and tightly coded enough that it could fit on a single floppy disk.
Nevertheless, I suspect that it's your best bet for a resource unintensive browser.
But the real question is, if you're doing an internship, why are you web browsing instead of working?
....first note...... i forgot to login before posting ""parent"" i leave firefox open for a week(or so) at a time.... reload all tabs about once an hour(or so) and usually end up with 100+ tabs before i go through and clean them up(last time i did that had 120 tabs),, reason for cleaning is usually system slow-down..... my most common memory hog is plugin-container(watch 5 or 6 youtube videos between reload all tabs)..... but my point is..... Why does everyone say FF is leaky?..... the only winblows system in this house is a Win vista 2(aka win7...wtf?) and that one is always crashing and blaiming FF. The usual cause of the crash is actually the Windows Printer Substem crashing, but windows blaims FF cause FF called the WPS. So please stop blaiming FF just cause windows says it is FF. Also as an aside consider various Microsoft tools claim your system is secure but other installed tools say you got 20 different viruses, malwares, etc.
Nail on the head.
To the OP: If the hardware is *legitimately* too old to support your business needs (not your "slashdot reading" needs), then you should build a case for an upgrade or replacement. To do that, figure out how much they're paying you, and how long you'll be paid for as an intern.
Then calculate how much time you're wasting due to a slow computer. And don't just pull numbers out of your ass. Actually time stuff like bootup/login, load times, etc., and ask a co-worker with a modern system if you can do the same with theirs as a baseline, so you can calculate what portion of that time is actually wasted time due to slow/old/bad hardware.
Then, you make you pitch like so: "I'm spending X minutes per day twiddling my thumbs waiting for something to finish running. You're paying me X dollars an hour. A RAM upgrade would cost X dollars, and reduce my wasted daily time by X%." If the cost of the upgrade is more than the amount of time they're paying you for that's legitimately wasted then no, a RAM upgrade doesn't make sense. If the cost of the upgrade is significantly cheaper than the value of the time they're paying you for that's legitimately wasted, then yes, a RAM upgrade makes a lot of sense.
If you can't get management support, then spending your own money and time is foolish, and is just as likely to be unappreciated & met with hostility as it is to be met with cheers of "Way to take the initiative, old chap!"
George Bernard Shaw was self-employed.
This next song is very sad. Please clap along. -- Robin Zander
It's not my job to manage the computer, to install stuff on it, or to fix it when it breaks. Leave that to the computer people.
While simultaneously keeping detailed documentation as to why your productivity and quality of work are not what they should be. Forcing workers to deal with substandard tools in order to save a few bucks is shortsighted and costly.in the long run.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Mod parent up.
As someone who works in an office, where there is nothing but computers at every desk, I wouldn't DREAM of actually upgrading my system. Sure I could buy a nice 26" inch widescreen for my desk, but why? The real question becomes, who's responsible if something goes wrong? Every computer is a shared system, just because it was "assigned" to you, doesn't make it yours. If the computer breaks, you'll obviously expect an immediate replacement, and guess what? It'll be replaced by a refurbished system. Don't even get me started when people swap parts from one system with another - i've spent hours listening to IT bitch and complain about that as well.
Also IT has things like inventory and accountability, something that the GP clearly doesn't understand or wants to understand.
Pretty selfish thinking to be honest, i'm sure the GP doesn't work in any kind of corporate environment at all.
Since summer interns generally start at the same time, they probably did hire "20 new peoplein one shot." We are hiring about 100. I will let you guess if I have a budget for 100 new computers...
If you ask, I will do the same. If you just wipe out a system we are paying for, and do it on your own, I will be upset. It is not the action, but the procedure.
More people "showing initiative" have screwed up major projects than anything else I know... Mainly because they do not have the whole picture. Like the executive that says "You don't fix what ain't broke" so I need to document that things are broke before I get authorization for equipment purchases. Fixing the broken things without documentation hurts my case. "See? That PC was fine. My intern used it all summer!"
It's not ONLY a stick of ram. It's an indicator to your employer that you don't understand boundaries, roles, and responsibilities.
Here's my theory on processes in big corporations. If a process is just horrible to the point of being almost broken - not just lack of process but a strictly enforced insanity, that probably means there's a territorial control freak and sociopath running that process who has enough leverage to stop anyone trying to change it. Most likely he controls a business critical process that they can't afford a disruption in, so all his other shenanigans go unopposed. You assume that you're dealing with rational people, if so the process is usually rational too. This person is likely to go nuclear on you in a "either we have total control or we have NO control" kind of way. Most likely you will be sacrificed to please him, even if your boss didn't think you were that out of line. Fortunately as I've mostly been a consultant working time and material, I don't care. I've told the client what hardware and software will make me more efficient, if they don't supply it then well... my billing rate is constant so hours spent is money spent. I'd do calculations on an abacus if someone paid me for it, and that Windows NT machine I got put on around 2007 was pretty damn close.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Catch 22: If you can put in a ticket, your machine works. If your machine doesn't work, then how do you put in a ticket? (as an intern!)
I don't know, but I have gotten e-mails saying that the Internet is down. (On the hosted mail server)
Speaking as an IT guy, a non-full time intern gets whatever's left on the shelf,
If a system that ancient is still on the shelf, then the normal (non intern) users are going to be saddled with machines only a generation newer. Sepaking as a non IT guy, I'm glad I don't work there.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
They (e.g., Dell, HP) were selling P4s in 2006. Five years might seem like ten or even a hundred to some people, particularly those with fat wallets. However, there is not a big difference between a hyperthreading 2.4GHz P4 with 400MHz DDR memory and a new quad-core Core7 running 2.4GHz with 8GB of 1600 DDR3 if you are just running XP and a browser. Almost all the latency will be in the network. Adding a gigabyte of DRAM would solve the problem for $30 -- http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820178282. I know that cracking cases can be expensive, time wise, but so can tweaking software that doesn't quite fit.
So your PC doesn't log case open events in the BIOS? Whitebox?
The biggest things that cause Firefox to chew up memory are dynamic content. There are a lot of developers out there putting out dynamic web shiny gewgaws who are not thinking about memory management. Installing FlashBlock and NoScript, and only turning on dynamic content temporarily, when you need it, will keep the footprint down dramatically.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Most interns are trying to get that kind of experience. After all, that is what is in the corporate world...
As to your shaw quote; That is why much innovation happens at startups where the corporate culture has not stifled innovation.
Someone should be able to *give* you another stick of 512mb DDR or even a 1GB, you can drop it in and you have instant speed boost.
I have a box of these kind of parts that I almost have to pay people to take. Shouldn't be too hard to beg or borrow a stick of ram to bring that old P4 back to life.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
There are always options. One, scrounge available RAM from another unit. Two, spend the 20 or thirty dollars and add your own ram module. It's worth it in time, just make sure to have some sort of inventory control documentation. Three, take option two and turn in the reciept.
See for example: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/firefox-chrome-opera,2558-4.html, or http://digitizor.com/2010/12/18/opera-11-benchmarked/ Opera places last in the memory usage stakes in all the tests. It is also slower than Chrome in most benchmarks. Firefox is probably the best overall for memory use, but I think for performance/memory tradeoff you cannot beat Chrome.
To the OP:
It is not YOUR computer. YOU should not, under any circumstances, upgrade it.
Cogent and on point.
People managed to do "real" work just fine a couple years ago when that computer was mainstream.
Fail.
People managed to do "real" work just fine, a couple of years ago, before Microsoft released Windows XP Service Pack 3. THEN, a half-gig of RAM was enough to let you run Firefox (or any other reasonably-resource-intensive application) at reasonable speed. NOW, it's not, because SP3 increased Windows XP's minimum RAM requirement to the point that not only Firefox, but EVERY reasonably-resource-intensive application ends up RAM-starved, and, as a consequence, the system constantly has to swap to "virtual RAM". In fact, I'd be surprised if switching to Opera makes any noticeable difference in performance, because SP3 is such an enormous, snorking, resource hog.
The OP needs a RAM upgrade - or a new computer. If he can build a convincing business case for it, he should do so. If not, I'd recommend he "accidentally" spill a cup of coffee into his computer's power supply - or inadvertently drop it down a stairwell.
Check out my novel.
Pull up your pants, realize that you have a vested interest in the job, and buy more memory. Taking a couple of guesses as to the hardware, you'll probably spend something like $80 to get 2GB new, or $20-$30 used. Just be certain you spec out which memory your box takes and buy exactly the right one.
If you can get reimbursed for the memory purchase, great, otherwise deduct it on your taxes as an unreimbursed employee expense. If you buy used memory, that's about as much as beer on a cheap night out, so don't whine about the expense if it's going to make your job easier.
Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.
However, there is not a big difference between a hyperthreading 2.4GHz P4 with 400MHz DDR memory and a new quad-core Core7 running 2.4GHz with 8GB of 1600 DDR3 if you are just running XP and a browser.
Errm... to put this in perspective, I seem to recall that I looked it up and a 2.4GHz P4 actually benchmarks as significantly slower than the 1.6GHz Atom processor in the netbook I'm currently typing this on. Also, while you can get some speedup from using less bloated software, you'll still be browsing 2011-era websites with all their own nasty bloat...
Windows 2000 is fine if you are on an isolated network guaranteed to be malware-free but it's NO LONGER SUPPORTED by Microsoft which means it's toxic for general Internet surfing or being on a LAN that isn't guaranteed to be malware-free.
If you must use Microsoft Windows, use XP SP3 but strip it down as much as practical without compromising security.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Wow, you clearly haven't had a real job with a REAL IT department. IT should have EVERYTHING inventoried. We do. And we know when hardware changes are made to a system. We get alerted automatically (its designed to warn us of failures, but it alerts for all changes). Anything that is NOT listed in the official IT inventory is pulled and disposed of, usually to the IT lab as junk/test material, recycling, or free to who ever in IT wants it. And when you try to do the upgrade and brick the box and "put in ticket saying 'my pc stopped working", we will see the BIOS case alarm has been tripped and you'll catch hell for wrecking a PC.
"Write programs that do one thing and do it well. Write programs to work together. Write programs to handle text streams, because that is a universal interface."
http://www.uzbl.org/
Hey, its not IT's fault that they have a shitty manager who can't get his people what they need.
Why are you blaming IT when its your own department's fault for not budgeting for proper equipment?
Well, I am currently typing this in Firefox 3.6.3 in a WinXP laptop with 512 MB RAM and an AMD Athlon 3000+ that is however downclocked to 398 MHz (it overheats if I let it run faster. I had to tweak it after some years of abuse...). Then again, I am a really patient person.
Never had a bad stick of RAM? Ever? It can be a bitch to diagnose when you're getting a bluescreen every few days with an error message from a different driver.
You have 512Megs RAM? Phfft! I'm still running a laptop with 128Megs memory and with any modern browser it's hard to tell it's even working! It spends all its time updating the OS and Adobe reader and the virus scanner and Flash and... and... Wait, it just opened my mail. Got to run.
Sorry, but gray text on gray background is making my eyes bleed.
Don't do this. As illogical as uppity Slashdot "power users" think it is, IT departments hate it when people upgrade their machines without consulting them. Full-time employees, they'd probably be willing to let it slide after a stern talk, but for interns? No guarantees.
Ha ha. Talk about the tail wagging the dog. What kind of a dipshit IT department is issuing computers with 512 MB of RAM in 2011?
If the company can't afford decent hardware, they are probably expanding too fast. My advice would be to find a company that actually has the funding to support their employees salary and materials & supplies. Barring that, I would accidentally dump a cup of coffee onto the motherboard and then ask them for a new computer.
Taking advice from random people on /. (particularly if they're typing with Caps Lock on) about how to get along well with fellow (senior) employees is like asking your new hair stylist to help you decide between USB3 and Thunderbolt. It's not impossible that you'll get good advice that fits your situation... but I wouldn't count on it.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
That old computer should be just fine with Firefox 4. In fact I run FF4 on an older Dell Dimension 8200 - P4 @1.7Ghz, 512MB RAM. (Secondary comp). And I run FF 3.6 on another Dell Dimension 8200 - P4 @2.2Ghz, 512MB RAM. (Primary computer).
OK. Same idea. To each's own. After checking out the NN "Unity" however, I switched to "Classic" (= GNOME 3.23.1) by the second reboot.
If flash ads eat memory, you don't have the necessary plugins installed.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
Anecdotal evidence if that would have been the company I work for:
1) Some department gets interns, the IT department gets a call the day they arrive that they "need a PC now!!!".
2) No clear classification ever on what they need the PC for.
So of course, we have to pull some junker out from somewhere so that they can have one "now", because it is a very bad idea to have new PCs lying around and getting outdated before someone actually request to have one.
When it becomes evident (perhaps through an e-mail to the person responsible for the intern, CCed to us (IT)) that that person actually needs better hardware to do their job, then that person usually gets it, because having people waste time with not adequate hardware usually costs way more than an upgrade.
Oh come on, even if it's near-minimum wage, that's still enough to blow a few hours pay and go buy 2GB RAM. And when you leave, you can take it with you ;)
They (e.g., Dell, HP) were selling P4s in 2006. Five years might seem like ten or even a hundred to some people, ...
Pentium 4's started being shipped in fall 2000. Looks like they were discontinued in 2008.
I bought a cheap Dell desktop with a 2.4GHz P4 and 512MB RAM in 2002, which matches the specs of the Slashdot posting we're all talking about - so darn close to 10 years. It seems unlikely a computer with 512MB of RAM was sold in 2006 or later.
#DeleteChrome
These two plugins are must haves, IMO. Bar Tab needs a little massage to get to work in FF4 (there are details in the reviews) but that's detailed in the reviews on the plugin page (or use FF3). With them FF3 used under 300MB with tons of tabs, while Opera uses over 1GB for the same number of tabs. (I'm currently using Opera, switched because FF4 wasn't compatible with the plugins I wanted, but that's on a 8GB system. And I hate the memory footprint.)
If the machine is damaged somehow during installation, then yes, it will tick off IT.
Oh yes, plugging in a stick of RAM will "damage" the machine... Seriously, people LIKE YOU are why "users" hate IT.
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
but I worked for a company such as this, once. They were eager to have me as soon as possible, and when I got there, they had no computer for me. A few days later, they managed to dredge up a pitiful antique that didn't have a network card, so I had to beg other employees to copy the files I needed to floppies. No one blinked an eye. It turned out to be standard behavior for the company. That sort of grotesque mismanagement should send red flags shooting up in all directions. Polish your resume and prepare to abandon ship.
Actually solving the prob, I recommend Dillo. Does 99% of whatever I need when I'm in a pinch. Fits inside of something like 10 megs, and you can learn it instantly if you're used to FireFox.
C|N>K
Your hairstylist will pick Thunderbolt every time.
More likely he'll say "No", and if pressed will give a few of the corporate lickspittle excuses posted above, and then say "get out of my hair".
He may be maxed out, you'd be surprised how many of those old Dell and Compaq boxes couldn't hold squat with regards to RAM.
As for TFQ try Kmeleon CCF ME looks like chrome, Gecko engine but lower RAM since it uses Windows native APIs.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Hey that's a bit mean! I've got Sparcstation10's on the shelf!
Of course I also have much newer spare PCs and have two set up on spare desks to deal with last minute notification or simply somebody's PC stuffing up. The sparcs are spares for legacy software that hardly ever gets used and doesn't require a fast system.
I'm sorry to contradict you, because you seem very smart and you have a well-reasoned and thought out rationalle.
But at the end of the day, there are really two scenarios:
1. The rogue route where he sticks a $15 stick of RAM in an old POS machine that is worth only a bit more than that. Best case, he is more productive and saves the company hundreds or even thousands of dollars (depending on the productivity increase, natch). Worst case, he damages the old POS machine - which is of course fully depreciated by now. Maybe this costs the company a couple hundred bucks, even including IT time?
2. The route you propose. He spends a few hours at intern rate putting together a proposal. Management time is spent considering his proposal. Best case? He doesn't actually create a proposal but just tells his manager that the computer is too slow and gets a stick of RAM. Cost to the company is maybe $50-100 (RAM + PO handling + IT installation) and he saves the company hundreds or thousands of dollars. Worst case, he's spent a few hundred bucks of the company's money on his own time, the time of his manager, and the time of IT and still doesn't get his RAM, so he's still less productive to boot.
I'm sorry, but when I do the cost-benefit on that, I have to choose 1... if I'm willing to give the company $15.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Mod this up.
So many things in this world can be fixed by just being considerate and asking. I have no idea why people seem to miss that.
Chances are instead of a "control freak" there was instead some inexperienced person/idiot that tied things down too tightly when procedures were written for quality assurance or similar. Small items should be treated like stationary supplies but instead get lumped in with major assets and you get a stupid process nobody likes.
Bullshit. If you have billable hours of some kind and you do something to stuff up an important server the IT guy gets sacrificed for not keeping you out. If they are a source of cost and you are a source of profit that is how it goes unless you do something criminal.
Use Opera and set the memory cache to use 4 mb. It's about a million times faster than firefox.
The Official Site of 1337 Pwnage
If the machine is damaged somehow during installation, then yes, it will tick off IT.
Oh yes, plugging in a stick of RAM will "damage" the machine... Seriously, people LIKE YOU are why "users" hate IT.
Spoken like a true moron who doesn't actually work on computers, shit happens. If it breaks somehow, the intern is liable and people WILL be pissed. Stop being such a self-centered cunt.
Encouraging an intern to approach the corporate world by saying "Hey, since you won't give me the proper tools to do my job, is it okay if I spend my own money (which you're paying me) to purchase my own?" Is doing him no favors. If your company isn't concerned about wasting your time, then you shouldn't be either, and you certainly shouldn't be paying your own money to "help out" your company if they're to cheap to do it themselves.
If you offer it, they will ride you for all you're worth:
"Why don't we just page you using your personal cell phone?" "Great, you can reimburse me a portion of my monthly bill then?" "Oh we can't do that." "Then don't page me on my personal number."
"Why don't you just work from home in the evening?" "Great, will you provide me with the tools and reimburse me for part of my home internet fees?" "Oh we can't do that." "Then I can't work from home."
If you don't set limits on the freeloading your company is allowed to engage in, you're doing yourself a disservice.
Qtweb is a good lightweight choice for older computers.
http://www.qtweb.net/
See also other browser choices at:
http://alternativeto.net/software/qtweb/
There will still some low end machines being sold with 512 in 2008, mostly during the XP/Vista transition debacle. 256 was the standard for many machines in 2003.
This guy. Him and I are friends. We get along. The rest of you lots, well, I guess I'd probably let you buy me a beer, but I'm certainly not going to engage in any conversation. I will take my beer and move along.
Just a PBR is fine.
Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
Oh man, you have to be trolling, right? Right?
You've obviously never had to troubleshoot issues caused by a bad/mismatched stick of RAM. I feel real bad for the kid in IT who has to investigate why "all of a sudden" this computer is having occasional blue screens, application crashes, or some other symptom which could just as easily be attributed to a dozen different causes. Of course the person who installed the RAM won't own up to it at that point, as the "user" knows what they did is wrong but has probably convinced themselves that installing RAM couldn't possibly have been the cause ... after all the computer turns on, right?
I've seen all this happen just because a kingston dimm didn't want to play nice with a corsair dimm, or vice-versa. Sometimes things that, in theory, should never be an issue end up being the cause of my greatest headaches. Users playing DIY don't make things any easier.
In a good company, the extra that you're willing to do pays off very well in the long run. Working an extra 20 hours a week, unpaid for, unasked for, and filling up half a bookcase with texts I bought myself (no company payback) helped take me from about $45000 a year to $105000 a year in 8 years.
Doing the same in a poor company earned me praise and promises and little else. Know your company. Know yourself.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
500 Mbyte was mainstream 10 years ago, not 2. The possibility that work was being done on that machine 2 years ago does not mean that it was being done reasonably efficiently. I can do a lot of work with pencil and paper and a book of math tables, but that does not make it a good choice.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
Now the firewall won't let me out, and I can't get to corporate email, or work... what should I do now?
Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
Arora (QT) or Midori (GTk). Both are light weight, Webkit and open source (if those things matters to you), Linux and Windows (wasn't clear from your situation) and both have binaries ready to go and are actively developed. I am much happier about these than the 'big three' (or big two on Linux).
My preference is Arora but the binaries are a bit dated so I am compiling. That probably is not an option for you. Midori is updated more often.
Dillo is another option but that's pretty minimalist.
"I just can't sit while people are saying nonsense in a meeting without saying it's nonsense" J Watson, Sci Am 288:(4)51
I have a P3 1 GHz laptop with 700ish megs of RAM - I've got an optimized XP on it, and IE 7 runs fine. In fact IE7 runs much faster than Firefox. So I'd streamline the OS as much as you can, then run IE 7.
Furthermore, any competent IT department will know that adding unsupported software is a bigger problem than adding unsupported hardware. If they don't care about him installing whatever browser he wants, why would they care about adding more memory.
Because often in a large organization, those PCs are leased machines which includes full warranty. So if you go out to purchase unsupported RAM (not through the proper vendor channels such as HP or Dell), you may have voided support. But that's just a minor setback as you can always go back to the original sticks for troubleshooting. The biggest issue with using %random% DIMMS can lead to bit-flips and constant BSODs. This is really bad because now you're having to sink time into troubleshooting a machine without knowing additional RAM was installed. Worse yet, it's corrupting data on the file server forcing employees to fetch for working data from shadow copies off the server (assuming they're even setup). So that's a loss of productivity there eating time and money too.
Life is not for the lazy.
More people "showing initiative" have screwed up major projects than anything else I know...
Yeah, but people not showing initiative have messed up more minor projects than I can count. It's a matter of perspective, balance, and wisdom.
I won't join Slashcott. OTOH, If Beta goes live, I just won't be back until it's fixed. Sorry Dice.
Why should it take 512 megabytes of RAM to display a page of HTML? Really.
Why is this even in the news here... this just seems ridiculous. Does he drive a 1972 Nova too?
Errm... to put this in perspective, I seem to recall that I looked it up and a 2.4GHz P4 actually benchmarks as significantly slower than the 1.6GHz Atom processor in the netbook I'm currently typing this on. Also, while you can get some speedup from using less bloated software, you'll still be browsing 2011-era websites with all their own nasty bloat...
According to the processor comparison tool at hwbot.org, the 2.4GHz P4 seems to be twice as fast as an Atom N270. But I dunno...
I'm posting this using K-Meleon on an old notebook with minimal memory (256 MB...with a bunch of that allocated for the video). K-Meleon is built on the Mozilla Gecko engine.
It's fast, stable, and lightweight. You won't see a lot of CSS3 effects, but otherwise, it's a fine small footprint browser, even for a tab-heavy user like myself. You can use a number of older Firefox extensions with a little work, and it responds to the usual Firefox performance tweaks as well.
Whaa! I should be able to do whatever I want with the computer I don't own, because productivity business critical empower sysnergy!
If the machine is damaged somehow during installation, then yes, it will tick off IT.
If it doesn;t work, take out the RAM, wipe off your fingerprints, and reboot.
If it's still dead, you call IT and say the PC died. You get a new PC. Are they gong to look for DNA on the motherboard?
> Am I the only one that's starting to get creeped out by the persistent quote at the bottom of /.?
At least it's not a comment. Considering that the quote is (currently)
> Are Linux users lemmings collectively jumping off of the cliff of reliable, well-engineered commercial software? -- Matt Welsh
you know that if it was a post there'd be a slew of "I am" and "Me too" replies, all moderated to +5 Funny...
(ducks)
Hey there is NOTHING wrong with a machine that old as long as you don't starve it like in TFA. I keep a socket 478 2.8Ghz as a spare in case a customer needs a box while their PC is being worked on, but unlike TFA it has 1.5Gb of RAM, so it is actually a pleasant machine for web surfing and office work.
Hell I'm typing this on a circa 2005 Sempron 1.8Ghz that I use as a nettop and with Comodo Dragon for a browser and 1.5Gb of RAM it is a nice experience. Sure beats risking my quad when it is storming out.
So I'd say the problem is NOT the box, it is the fact they never bothered to throw a stick of RAM in the thing. I bet if he'd just politely ask IT they probably got a stick box just like me and they just haven't had the time to add some to the thing. I bet if he explained he knows how to install a RAM stick and simply asks for one (bonus points if he can name off the size and speed he needs) then he'll most likely get handed one. Most of the time if you don't be an ass to the IT guy he'll be straight with you. After all he is just trying to get through his day same as you.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Try midori, it's webkit based and aims to be small and compatible.
Can you slim down what your OS is running? I know with all the anti-virus and management software that IT forces on everyone it usually slows the system down quite a bit. If you can remove some of it that would help. I'd suggest installing Ubuntu on it. Any machine you need to manage you can RDP(Windows Remote Desktop) or SSH into.
you are on windows? why not just use IE ?
I remember back when I was a corporate drone, listening to the IT guys tell us what could and could not be done with our new PCS and the new networking software.
I had played with it the day before for a bit trying to find features I wanted. Simple UI features.
Others asked about some of these UI features and were told "no, you can't do that, it doesn't have that feature."
I waited until IT left the room and then showed the crowd in about 2 minutes how to use the features they had wanted and were told by IT didn't exist.
Another time an IT guy, degreed, went on vacation. I was "trained" to do his job while he was gone. After the first day on his job, I was completing his entire daily workload at about 9:30 am. Got bored, went and did MY job for the rest of the day. Kept that up for the 2 weeks.
The internal "customers" his job serviced were thrilled with my performance.
He was a professional IT guy with a degree. I was a high-school dropout who'd started as a temp.
When I left the job suddenly the Dept. Mgr. was in a panic, asking me to stay on as a consultant. This all in a fortune 500 corporation.
Next time I'll tell you about the defense contractor that I'd temped for that offered me whatever I wanted to lure me away from the 1st job.
Am I a tech wizard? Am I a computer geek? No.
I'm just not a fucking idiot. I'm not saying that IT people are idiots, just that an idiot can get a degree and a degree will get an idiot hired straight out of school into an IT dept., because managers have no idea how to competently screen applicants.
As a result, IT departments are typically full of deadwood.
This space available.
Another path to travel is the OS tweaking path. Assuming you have the admin rights needed... If not, hey, its may-day. tell the admin stuff that the proletarian movement demand more control over the means of production. Assuming its a Redmond spawned code were talking about, start by turning off some resource-hogging features like error reporting and fast user switching. Check out http://www.blackviper.com/category/guides/ for a list of services you can safely disable. Consider creating a trimmed hardware profile where some of the services and the drivers will be disabled. Last but not least, even though you seem fond of glitzy UI elements, try to disable some of the fade-in-while-i-yawn features. Most times you will not even see the difference, and the benefit in reduced mem. footprint is not trivial.
Another thing to consider is Flash. Minimize the number of flash\video\shockwave (etc.) instances to the required min. (i.e. - block ads and don't open more than 951 Youtube flicks @ once).
Using mem. management software may help or may even hinder. Its a trial-n-error process. No one solution (that I'm aware of) fits all configurations and usage patterns.
I've had some luck setting up some pretty neat 512MB and even 256MB systems. I even ran a proof-of-patience system for a while using XPsp2(or 3) Office 2003 and IE7(or 8 - I guess I suppressed these memories) with a mere 64MB of ram, I think Win2K would not even install under such conditions.
I repent!
Now... You can secretly bring along a Linux-on-a-stick and simply do most of your browsing from there. If you won't tell I won't.
Huh? Patched up here, the OS doesn't really need more than ~200 MiB for itself, and that (checking Process Explorer) includes occasions when it runs for a looong time (well, hibernations in-between), with quite a few heavy apps. And on a machine with 768 MiB, Opera still makes a huge difference.
The apps which care less about RAM themselves end up RAM-starved.
One that hath name thou can not otter
If "mainstream" suddenly means "what's available to buy", not what's fairly typical among the 1+ billion PCs in usage... people doing work on them very much reasonably efficiently (another thing is how many use computer, any computer, only for very basic stuff)
One that hath name thou can not otter
I better try Opera again, every modern browser I have is an absolute whore for memory.
The third one around the Sol, I imagine, with 1+ billion PCs among its population. Perhaps just not looking at it through quite local, quite atypical experience (that, and how high-tech stuff in particular becomes more expensive, also in absolute amounts, the less prosperous a given place is)
One that hath name thou can not otter
I wish modern software weren't as bloated as it is, but it is what it is.
Well, this whole topic is about asking which modern software is not so bloated. And getting some good suggestions.
One that hath name thou can not otter
Oh I see the miss understanding here, you are under the mistaken belief that the computer was working fine when new, when most of us get computers that are runing bare minimum specs for windows, let alone any program added on top of that.
You have 5 Moderator Points!
Which Helpless Linux zealot/MS basher do you want to mod down today?
If you don't set limits on the freeloading your company is allowed to engage in, you're doing yourself a disservice.
Interns are there to be exploited and abused. I was an intern, and they threw me into 72 hour weeks. I didn't mind, because it was good experience and they paid by the hour. In college this seemed like money from the sky, and as a side benefit I didn't have any personal time to spend it.
You are there for the resume building and recommendation letters, and possibly a permanent job offer - not so set the corporate world straight. That comes later.
I just read this, and it sounds harsh. If I come off as being harsh, consider that we regularly get interns back for 2 and 3 cycles. We also primarily hire from our former interns - so I'm not really that bad in meatspace.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
(Up to) 9.27, the last solid "classic release". 9.5 to early 10 were a bit of a disaster IMHO (probably because the sudden emergence of "js race" wrecked their internal plans & schedules). And there's 11 for quite some time already, again solid... and even treating the RAM nicer than the "disaster" ones, IMHO.
One that hath name thou can not otter
So, rather than actually do a half hour worth of calculation, you think it's more effective to just pull random numbers out of the air to justify doing whatever you want. Good advice.
Except for the "random numbers" part, yes - that is my advice. I'd love to see you do a detailed analysis without knowing even what his job is. If it makes him a little more productive, it's hundreds of dollars. If it makes him vastly more productive, it's thousands of dollars. He could be a freaking web designer or he could be surfing for game cheats. He could be scraping twitter using Firefox for emails to spam - I have absolutely no idea.
I don't know what the company does, but I strongly doubt that an incrementally faster web browser actually saves hundreds or thousands of dollars over a 3-month internship.
Our company has 6-month internships, and the interns do the bulk of the data analysis. Like you, I have no idea what his job entails - so it's probably in the hundreds. Or maybe he's full of it and just wants a faster computer, in which case he won't improve his efficiency at all. But I'm giving the guy some credit.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Well duh, everybody knows that hair stylists (and taxi drivers) are best versed and qualified in running governments, politics, etc.; not in technology (no wonder so many places are so frakked up, with the best potential leaders at such jobs...)
One that hath name thou can not otter
push the work upward, tell your manager "it's busted" and shrug
that level of monitoring of the lowest end machines given to grunts/interns is so very rare it's not worth considering by average grunt/intern, and one can always play dumb. In this case those with the potential for such fine grained monitoring have already failed, as they issued machine inadequate for the job. Someone should be monitoring *that*, that's called effective IT management, not going to elaborate lengths to make sure nothing ever changes on the inadequate tools.
I have a real job, therefore I know the truth that what I said stands in 99% of companies (regarding the lowest end obsolete workstations given to grunts). The BIOS alarm can be reset at those 99% of companies.
Whatever you do.. don't get fired or marked for installing something against company policies. Or doing something that might violate security policies. Things have vastly changed since I was a co-op at Xerox back in the 80's. Companies have been burned and fined by security violations and IT doesn't want to support N browsers. It's tough that they didn't give you a laptop that would allow you to fly free, I understand that, but ask around first..
Have you fscked your local propeller head today?
or risk failing the it partnership.
ask money for it, deduce in taxes - ANYTHING. if you're having trouble just running a web browser, what chance have you with modern ide's and other programs.
and of course lynx etc. but make sure everyone sees you using the lynx, so you guys get the computers you need to work.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
You'll only find Rambus in P4's up to 2.0Ghz, as that's the fastest Socket 423 P4 they made. A 2.4Ghz is likely DDR, or maybe PC133.
Then, they fire you. :D Hence, why I still have a job during the horrible economy.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
Do you call your USB memory drive a lipstick?
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5264/5676211571_b3660843f1_b.jpg K-meleon and Opera == 19 Mb FireFox 4 , PaleMoon, Chrome ,etc much bigger=
I was an intern too, and yeah, getting paid $15 or so an hour as a college student was pretty great. I worked long hours, and I got paid for them. I did NOT volunteer to write a check back to my company for the privilege of working long hours afterwards, however. You can work very hard, learn a ton, and get lots of great connections while not financing your company's IT operations out of your own pocket.
Let's assume that the laptop of his wastes an hour of his time a day (not outlandish - I've seen laptops at my company literally take 20-30 minutes to boot & login, and 10-15 minutes for Eclipse to reach a usable state on them). Let's also assume that he gets paid $15 an hour. You might as well pile that $75 up each week and put a match to it. Now, consider that hardware depreciates over 3 years, and a new laptop would absolutely be reissued to a new intern when the old internship ends (or if there's an offer, the intern would keep that laptop as their work machine when they convert to full-time). Over the course of 3 years, a laptop that wastes an hour of time a day has cost your company nearly $12,000 dollars in wasted payroll, versus ~2-3k of new hardware costs to give them a modern computer system. Now multiply that by 10, or 20, or 100 "shitty old computers," and tell me you're getting good value for your money by making the intern use old systems that aren't up to the task?
Oh, I agree. Further, as a one-time intern using a glorious 486SX, I would absolutely have stuck some RAM in the damn thing if it only cost $15. At the time, a sorely-needed 4MB module was beyond my budget :) I remember looking enviously at the engineers with their shiny new P5-90s and Windows 95. The cool ones would let me use those when they weren't on them.
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Nothing! It was a mistake, ok guys? That's just what happens when you let another post affect your spelling. I promise to pay more attention from now on.
At which point he's got permission, and shouldn't get in trouble.
I expect this case is one where permission > forgiveness.
Who would have thought people surfing the net with a computer twice as fast as a CRAY1 and with hundreds of millions of bytes of memory would be ridiculed for using a computer that was not up to the task.
The OP never said anything about upgrading his RAM, he's looking for a smaller footprint browser. Why has this topic been hijacked by hardware tinkerers? Would someone please address his question?
"Under these conditions, if *I* where the intern, I'd already be planning my exit, and exactly how I was going to BITCH OUT my college internship coordinator for hooking me up with these losers."
I'd be willing to bet that if you were the intern, the company would have already let you go, and had a few words of their own for your internship coordinator.
"It's only a stick of RAM..."
I deal with a group of software engineers that think this way. Oddly enough, a disproportionately high volume of helpdesk cases comes from this group too.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy