IE share drops in EU

[gore]

I think I found a way to describe my problem with Firefox:

Now, this just came to me, so I haven't hashed it out in my head yet, but, I'll try...


When I was looking at upgrading some software on my Laptop, which, I think this was around January this year, I was trying to think of what all to put on it. Basically I wanted to be able to Check Mail, and Surf, and have more than a few Email accounts accessible on my Laptop with Windows XP.

I already had Opera on there, and I had Seamonkey and the mail clients that are in both, but I was looking to try out something from the Firefox people because I kept hearing how Thunderbird was sooooooo neat.

The Laptop is a Pentium 4M @ 3.06 GHz, single core, regular, no special neat stuff, just a normal P4M, and it has 512 MBs of RAM.

I went to the site for Thunderbird, and I was looking at the software we call Thunderbird, and I wanted to make sure it would be OK, so, I checked the "System Resources". I couldn't find them anywhere at first, because they weren't listed next to the statement that "We built Thunderbird for the good of all people and used a cigarette lighter and circuit board to weld it together and we think it's the best thing ever and anyone not using it is insecure and probably dating their cousin"....

Finally I found the specs needed... I was SHOCKED that Thunderbird 3, REQUIRED A MINIMUM of 1 GB of RAM (More was recommended) and basically, somehow, an EMAIL CLIENT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Had BIGGER system resources.... BIGGER requirements, then DooM 3, which is a GAME....

I sat there wondering to myself basically "How does an EMAIL Client, need more RAM and CPU power, than DooM3, Quake 4, Linux, BSD, and Unix, and in some cases, combined?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!"....

Can someone explain to me, who thinks that is absurd, how an Email Client can require more System Resources than Windows XP, Windows 2000, basically any version of Linux, and All BSD OSs combined? You could run literally 4 different versions of BSD in LESS RAM than you'd need for Thunderbird.

I can use Slackware Linux as an FTP Server, and Email Server, a Web Server, and a Desktop, in LESS RAM than Thunderbird? HOW is that possible?

I can put Slackware on a 486 still.... I can put FreeBSD on a Cell Phone.... I can't get Thunderbird on something running an ENTIRE OS? and by run I don't mean Walk, I have Slackware running right now on a machine that can't even load an installer for Thunderbird.

I thought XP had some resource needs, but that's a WHOLE OS!

I think that was my issue.

I now have a machine with 4 GBs of RAM, and a Core 2 Duo Processor, and Thunderbird takes longer to load than both Seamonkey and Opera combined. Unreal Tournament doesn't take that long. And it's got WAY more.

Why does it need so much? It doesn't look nice, it doesn't have a game built in, it just checks email with TABS??@?@?@?@!!!!?

Opera has Tabbed Mail, and has since I can remember!

[nihil]

gore old chap, I think that you might be mistaken?

Thunderbird 3: System requirements
In regards of processor and RAM Thunderbird 3 is still not very hungry - according to the developers at Mozilla a Pentium with 233 MHz or better is specified as minimum requirements, but 500 MHz and above are recommended. With older Windows versions like Windows 2000 or XP, 256 MiByte RAM are required while 512 MiByte are said to noticeably speed the system up. For windows Vista and windows 7 on the other hand at least 768 MiByte RAM are required and 1 GiByte is recommended. On the hard drive Thunderbird 3 needs about 52 megabyte of space.

It is what the operating system takes that is giving these figures, not Thunderbird.

If you want to run Vista or 7 in any case I would recommend at least 1Gb of RAM.

[gore]

that's not what I read on their site. When I found the requirements, it said a gig of RAM no matter what OS.... I find that odd.

[HYBR|D]

Errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr: Me?

PI/133/ 192Mb
PII/266, 333, 450/ 128, 384, 384Mb
PIII/ 500, 533/ 512Mb

Quite a few people I know use old (usually ex-corporate) kit. That was always pretty minimal because the stuff you run in most businesses does not require much resource.

All they do is e-mail, correspondence and some basic surfing.

FireFox will run on the PII/266/128Mb . I had problems with the early versions of 3.5, but those seem to have been resolved.

Johnno

Yes in my part of the woods you get lot's of the ex corporate machines hitting the local swap meet computer markets they run on the weekends, but even still there usually p4 1.5ghz 512mb / 1gb ram with 20gb drives and dvd burners with all on-board accesories like graphics etc.

usually pick em up for 80$ aus throw in an extra 60$ and you get a nice 20" monitor.

on my msi u100 netbook the specs are pretty low endish, and the latest v of FF and thunderbird run decently on it. Very little to none bottlenecking and im even able to run the latest version of photoshop etc and do a bit of image editing while youtube open in ff with thunderbird running in the back ground.

[gore]

Johnno

Yes in my part of the woods you get lot's of the ex corporate machines hitting the local swap meet computer markets they run on the weekends, but even still there usually p4 1.5ghz 512mb / 1gb ram with 20gb drives and dvd burners with all on-board accesories like graphics etc.

usually pick em up for 80$ aus throw in an extra 60$ and you get a nice 20" monitor.

on my msi u100 netbook the specs are pretty low endish, and the latest v of FF and thunderbird run decently on it. Very little to none bottlenecking and im even able to run the latest version of photoshop etc and do a bit of image editing while youtube open in ff with thunderbird running in the back ground.

Is that Speed Dial (R) I see there?

[nihil]

that's not what I read on their site. When I found the requirements, it said a gig of RAM no matter what OS.... I find that odd.

Hey gore old chap, I agree entirely..............as you have already posted, it is pretty weird that a mail manager wants as much resource as an ENTIRE OS

Yes in my part of the woods you get lot's of the ex corporate machines hitting the local swap meet computer markets they run on the weekends, but even still there usually p4 1.5ghz 512mb / 1gb ram with 20gb drives and dvd burners with all on-board accessories like graphics etc.

Indeed, that is the case here now. My wife just got one from work..........2006 vintage, core duo 2.66, 1 Gb DDR I , 40 GB SATA HDD, 17" LCD screen.........keyboard & mouse. Legal Windows XP Professional.

The people I know, got their stuff a few years back when they retired, or their kids got jobs and left home .........sorry mate, I thought you knew I was in that age group

[HYBR|D]

sorry mate, I thought you knew I was in that age group

Didn't think that you were referring to years ago when you mentioned the specs on the machines.

You still got a lot of zing to keep up with us younger wipper snappers so i don't bring age bracket into it.