Can we get Firefox fix? I'm dying here!

OK, well I'm running the 17" Powerbook G4 from a couple of years ago, and for some time Firefox was the browser of choice.  Then came Firefox 2 and so did the sound of the internal fan, so I switched to Safari.  Firefox 2 seemed to need all my CPU and most of my RAM to open one or two tabs, let alone Windows.  On the whole, I have been happy with Safari and when 3.1 dropped, I thought that I had found a great, featured, quick and Mac friendly browser.  My only problem was that Ustream wouldn't work, I need my daily Jason Calacanis fix, and my banks didn't support Safari either.

Along came Firefox 3 Beta, codename: Minefield, and the world of the Internet came to the Mac.  When I first started to play with Minefield it was quick and cool looking, but lacked extensions and some of the cool things we all love about Firefox, but it's a Beta so it didn't bother me.  I set it to my default browser after I tested most of the sites I worked with, and found that it seemed to have the same Firefox compatibility without the bloat.  I was happy, very happy, and really happy, all at the same time.

Some of the cool things are Smart Bookmarks, and the "Most Visited" drop down menus, which are handy for a quick history, if you are like me and forget to bookmark.  There is a great rundown on these features at dria.org.  It is quick, much quicker than Firefox 2 and comparable to Safari 3.1.  This Beta is turning into a nice browser.

Then came the updates.  Now I know Minefield is the Beta and the nightly builds are a part of the process, but the performance has fallen apart over the last couple of updates.  Over the last couple of updates, the CPU usage has gone through the roof, and I have had to go back to Safari as my main browser.  I have been firing it up every now and again, but since they started to add extensions and plugin support, I haven't been able to use it.  I'm sure that this is not the end of the program and maybe they need to do some work on the PowerPC support, but such a change in performance is not painting a happy picture.

Maybe this is the writing on the wall for those of us that are still on the old hardware.  With optimisation to hardware being the new trend in the development space, maybe we are beginning to see the change our credit cards have been dreading.  The question has to be asked: Why can Safari do it? 

Anyway, at least I don't have to use IE.

Jason