Firefox problem

Same here, first time ever to use Firefox, only downloaded it about three weeks ago, was using Chrome for ages, just decided on a whim to try Firefox. I find on occasions it lasts more than a few seconds, I've no idea as to why it's happening and I'd consider myself computer savvy, obviously a bug within it.

I'm on firefox 23.0.1 and it's fine, not seeing that at all? A while back it started messing up drop down menus but I found a setting to fix that.

One thing it sometimes does that's midly annoying is flips from one open window to another for some reason, I think to do with scripting.

Maybe google it? There a million settings in about:config, if it was a known thing someone will have found a solution.

(I sometimes go back and try IE, it's just awful imho).

I use Firefox on both my laptops - an upstairs office one (big screen I use for work) and a downstairs one. I have similar problems on the upstairs one which is a lower spec - I minimise problems by closing Firefox down when I hibernate the machine (you can restore previous session when you re-open) and delete browsing history regularly. Works for mine. This its important to have any updates installed as well.

I find Firefox can be a bit glitchy but IE boils my pi*s

There are settings to do with how much memory firefox uses, if it's having to swap maybe have a fiddle with them.
I've noticed if you have your history window open in the background it slows pages changes down by a massive margin.

If you open task manager is memory low? Does CPU max out when it's changing pages?

Just to add an extra voice, I use Firefox all the time and have not had any problems for a long time now.

I had a "page hanging" problem a couple of years ago and tried all sorts of things to no avail until simply re-starting my router solved the problem!

You could always try completely un-installing FF then re-starting the PC and re-installing.

There was a group review of browsers a couple of months ago here:
.
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/features/383302/best-browser-for-2013

but the constant updates nowadays renders reviews out of date almost as they're written.

simply re-starting my router solved the problem!

I have no idea why but this does work for the slow page problem.

Well it might've been a few things, like your router had connected to your exchange at a crap speed or was going through a crap route to the internet via your ISP. Or it might be storing a DNS entry that's changed in the real world but your router isn't clever enough to see it so it's giving your computer bum info. Restarting a router can rejig the connection to BT back to a fast rate or it might use a different route through the ISP.

"Have you tried turning it off and on again" is always a good suggestion :)

def not poor speed as hi def streams were working ok (with the occasional stutter).  But every page was slow to load in chrome as well as FF.  Can only think that the router is trying to carry out some instructions of some kind that is slowing the new pages down - do they do that kind of thing?

Fancy Routers can the be set to throttle some types of data yes but you normally have to set that up? One thing to note is the difference between bandwidth/throughput once the data is moving (streaming) and latency - the turnaround time from you asking the remote computer for data and it coming back. which really shows up changing pages with all the little page requests. It's possible but seems strange to have a lot of bandwidth but crap latency unless your ISP was doing something daft? A good example of the above would be satellite internet - it might have decent bandwidth but awful latency.

type
ping some.website
at a command prompt and it'll tell you how long the request takes to a website, as long as ping isn't disabled for it.

Btinternet do some odd thing re speed and I use their router which is a very pernickity beast.  I used to have a long extension cable from the socket to the router and the router would lose connection at the slightest touch of the cable.

Keeps crashing a lot for me now too. Doing more on Chrome.

Also form numeric on horses do not work on firefox,i worked for hours with the betfair tech team trying to solve the issue but no success and
betfair after 7 years of trying still can not even fix the balance display box!!!

What goes wrong fatmax, my drop down list boxes used to corrupt and I fixed that by changing a setting .. might have been disabling "use hardware acceleration" on the advanced/general tab?