i'm currently using waterfox 18.0.1, but i would like to know what you guys use. and addons, there's loads of trash i know, but there must be some good right? which ones have you installed that you would recommend?

So you don't have any addons at all? Start with the basics:
NoScript
Adblock Plus
FEBE
OPIE

Also try:
FireGestures
Download Statusbar
Quick Search Bar
Add to Search Bar

Have fun!

If you're a newbie I definitely would not recommend NoScript. It defaults to blocking all javascript and I would dare anyone to show me a meaningful webpage today that serves just static content. It does have its uses, but not for newbies. For them it just breaks things.

AdBlock must be the leakiest POS. Does not matter if I use it on my Ubuntu install or my Windows install, it would cause Firefox to use huge chunks of memory (actually that is not the worst part) and become annoying because its garbage collector would freeze the browser UI for a few seconds or so. Required me to restart the browser more times than I would've liked to. It can also break some sites in very mysterious ways (had to find out this the hard way by starting the browser with no addons then enabling them one by one to see which was the culprit)

These days I just:

* turn off 3rd party cookies in the browser settings
* enable on-demand plugins - all those flash ads won't load (their place-holders will show though) by default. If you want to see a video, Click on it. You can also whitelist sites like youtube, etc...
* use lastpass for managing login creds on various sites
* keep my browser up to date

This keeps Firefox nimble and light on memory usage. About 500MB of RAM on Windows for the 32bit build, about 600MB of RAM for the 64bit build running on my Ubuntu install.

Ah I did not know about the on-demand plugin setting, but that might be because I don't use Firefox (currently).
I use Flashblock for Chrome to stop those annoying Flash ads and such from automatically starting.

Interesting, I just disabled Adblock and RAM usage greatly decreased! I had no idea it was so leaky! I think I might leave it off... I avoid this all together by not having flash installed. It's actually quite easy to get by without it :)

You must be a joy to play staring contests with... :)

"Microsoft spel checkar for sail! Worgs grate!" :D

I wasn't aware Adblock was a problem. Firefox consumes all my memory by loading more and more uncompressed images in RAM (according to about:memory) so it doesn't seem to get a chance.

I'll see if I get the same behaviour without Adblock (I install it on new profiles pretty reflexively at this point).

Instead of Waterfox you can use the nightly 64 bits build of firefox.
About plugins, I'm only use Speed Dial, to have a Speed Dial like the one of the classic Opera, I'm found the default of Firefox crapy.