Gmail: Firebug Makes Me Slow
Gmail November 5th, 2007 - By Haochi
It appears that Gmail started warning Firebug users last month that “Firebug is known to make Gmail slow unless it is configured correctly.” Gmail offers a solution that you can improve the performance: disable Firebug*. Very clever, very clever. :)
I disable Firebug most of the time and only enable it when I am using it - because, well, it slows things down.
*There’s an alternate solution that works for Windows and Linux, but not Macs.
November 5th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
Interestingly, enabling Firebug doesn’t give me a warning message…
November 5th, 2007 at 9:06 pm
Warning message is so big and red… never seen this !
November 5th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
The only other time I’ve seen a big red error message is if the browser’s cache is full, and I never see that on my computer; only on server terminals at a local college.
November 5th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
@ Luka, I think Haochi Photoshop the image … I saw that error too but it wasn’t that huge …
I still don’t have the new version in my main account … sigh …
November 6th, 2007 at 8:53 am
Yeah, hmm, I was just trying to make that easier to read…
November 7th, 2007 at 9:01 pm
@my first comment: Just got the new version of Gmail, and now I get the warning. Guess it’s not implemented in the old version. Gmail’s load time is definitely slower with Firebug on — it even locked up the browser briefly.
November 8th, 2007 at 12:36 pm
yeah, i don’t like this upgrade… gmail become slower to access even whithout firebug…
November 8th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
@xattabych: Slower? I’ve seen loading time get cut down to less than half…
January 3rd, 2008 at 6:59 am
The more important question is: How the hell GMail knows I’m using Firebug? They shouldn’t be able to know that… it means that Firebug changes the browser behavior.
Anyway, I disabled Firebug for all the sites besides of the web-app I work on (by adding many domains to the “block” list). I suspect Firebug might slow other sites as well, so it’d be best to use it only where needed.
February 9th, 2008 at 3:28 am
Well, I have just installed firebug and as soon as gmail gave me the red alert message, I am no more capable of reading my mail??? If I disable firbug and restart firefox nothing happens…hmmm
April 22nd, 2008 at 6:19 pm
hey i just saw it and i’ve been using gmail for quite a while. strange how firebug shows its self to website’s.
June 18th, 2008 at 7:52 pm
How gmail knows that Firebug it’s enable on your browser?