Much too often, firefox (2.0) just sits there after I click a link. If I whack it again (hit the right green arrow) often it will just go on. Sometimes it still stalls. Of course, it could be a network problem, but I recently switched to ATT and things were pretty much the same thing on Comcast. I recently set a number of pipelining and caching variables in firefox, and that helped a lot with page loads, but this stalling issue just won't go away. Any ideas, or is it just they way the net works these days.

Debian->Atheros wifi card->ATT router->wherever

Maybe doing a traceroute would help identify if it is a local problem or a problem with your ISP? Is upgrading not an option?

I can't figure out a way to figure out the problem. I just get lots of periodic hangs here. I can understand it in today's world with Akamai and clones. There's also the issue of filling pages from multiple sites, where some sites are slow or clogged. Or maybe there's just a clogged router in my neck of the woods and it doesn't matter what I'm trying to reach, it's just going to be a problem. I get that part. It just seems that too often if I whack it again, it will just work. I was hoping there was some "try harder" or "try more often" or "have less patience" variable in firefox that I could set.

As to upgrading to 3.0 - I've tried it, and I think they're going in the wrong direction. I don't like the changes to the buttons or to the URL box. There doesn't seem to be either a way to remove individual historical items from the URL box, or to just display the URLs and not give me a discription that I just really don't need. When I'm finally forced to leave 2.0, I don't know what I'm going to do.

Or maybe I'm just whining.

I've had much less of issues like those after switching to firefox3. I do think it is better than 2.
There is: Highlight the entry end press the delete key.

Oh, and shouldn't you be using iceweasel or something?

You could try using OpenDNS.org

Running an older browser version probably isn't a good idea, there aren't security updates.

Do you have ipv6 disabled? If not I would suggest disabling it. Add the following to your user.js or in about:config

/* Speed Tweak - Another Tweak */
user_pref("network.dns.disableIPv6", true);

YOu also tweak the heck out of the way firefox works:
/* Speed Tweak - Common to all Configurations */
user_pref("network.http.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.pipelining", true);
user_pref("network.http.pipelining.maxrequests", 8);
user_pref("content.notify.backoffcount", 5);
user_pref("plugin.expose_full_path", true);
user_pref("ui.submenuDelay", 0);
/* Speed Tweak - Fast Computer Fast Connection */
user_pref("content.interrupt.parsing", true);
user_pref("content.max.tokenizing.time", 2250000);
user_pref("content.notify.interval", 750000);
user_pref("content.notify.ontimer", true);
user_pref("content.switch.threshold", 750000);
user_pref("nglayout.initialpaint.delay", 0);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections", 48);
user_pref("network.http.max-connections-per-server", 16);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-proxy", 16);
user_pref("network.http.max-persistent-connections-per-server", 8);
user_pref("browser.cache.memory.capacity", 65536);

/* Speed Tweak - Another Tweak */
user_pref("network.dns.disableIPv6", true);

/* Tor */
user_pref("network.http.keep-alive.timeout",600);
user_pref("network.http.proxy.keep-alive",true);

YOu can make firefox look pretty much the way you want.

http://img371.imageshack.us/my.php?i...apshot2gt3.png