Firefox 3 is Super Buggy
I, like most other people, upgraded to Firefox 3. It’s the first time that I’m unhappy with Firefox since I started using the browser a little over 4 years ago. This version crashes on me regularly on a Macbook, PowerBook and Windows XP. Spinning ball of death (for mac), kaboom-kaput do you want to report this? dialogue sessions which should be browsing sessions. Seems to go screwy on some css… notably it crashes most often doing searches on Google and YouTube.
I have patience for the browser which liberated me from IE (which I hate) but it’s wearing thin. Is Mozilla going the way of Apple and getting to big for its own good? I’ve had more crashes in the last two weeks than I have had in four years of using the software.
Okay, to be fair, I should probably do a clean install and reintroduce each add-on incrementally and see which one isn’t playing nice. But to be honest, that’s something that I expect Microsoft to expect me to do.
Knowing my luck, this will have crashed when I press publish.
Same prob with us… J’s one kept on beachballing…. SUCKS!
The Man Himself
Yes, it is supposed to be faster but seems on more like a holiday with the beach balling. On Microsoft, the insult is further added to injury with a hourglass timer that reminds you that time is ticking away and you ain’t doing anything.
I get quite a few more crashes on FF3 than FF2 but none of the other problems you mentioned. On OSX it’s actually more stable I feel although I’m in the OSX environment a lot less than the PC.
The comparison to Microsoft is correct, the myriad of plugins/software/hardware configs means it’s not possible to always ensure compatibility and therefore stability. I hear many FF users moved to Opera for a while till FF3 gets sorted. Or you can roll back to FF2.
The Man Himself
Hmmm, Opera may indeed be the way forward. I’m online with most of my materials anyway. Maybe it’s because yours is an intel-based mac. To be honest, haven’t used it too much on my MacBook.
And actually, it seems more stable on the PC environment than the Mac one for me!
Will play this weekend with a plain vanilla installation and see if that helps any. I imagine you have plenty more add-ons than me!
Or you can use Safari if you’re willing to live with zero features
Not as many extensions as you might think. I try to keep it to the minimum I really need to minimize crashes, memory signature and speed impact. I use these (many force-installed with the nightly tester tool).
Adblock Plus 0.7.5.5
AutoCopy 0.8
Better Gmail 2 0.5
Delicious Bookmarks 2.0.64
Download Statusbar 0.9.6.3
DownThemAll! 1.0.3
ErrorZilla Plus 0.3.1
Fetch Text URL 1.6.2
Greasemonkey 0.8.20080609.0
IE Tab 1.5.20080618
Mouse Gestures Redox 2.0.0
Nightly Tester Tools 2.0.2
No Squint 1.93.2.1
oldbar 1.2
SafeCache 0.9
SafeHistory 0.8
ScribeFire 2.2.7
Stock Charts 0.3
Stylish 0.5.7
Tab Mix Plus 0.3.6.1.080416
p.s. can you install a WP plugin that notifies on follow-up comments?
I use this one which I installed way back: http://txfx.net/code/wordpress/subscribe-to-comments/ there might be better / newer ones out there but this one works fine for me.
The Man Himself
Okay, it was getting to the point of sites not loading at all. Might have been a StarHub problem or a Firefox one, not entirely sure. But anyhows…
Using some of those add-ons myself!
I created a new profile using the hidden yet built-in Profile Manager and re-installed everything but the theme (as I actually like the new skin that ships with FF3). Installed my old extensions and some new ones (thanks to Eyal).
So far so good. Avoiding nightly builds though.
http://www.opera.com/
You know you want to…
The Man Himself
I’m reasonably sure I don’t want to. Actually, a fresh install of FF3 and it works nice and sweet.
I think third party apps. are to blame with most software. Apple has had problems with iPhone apps and it does not surprise me that Mozilla and its Firefox browser have seen the same thing. I just never understood all the hype about Firefox’s add on’s anyway. It would seem to be just asking for problems with the browser. If Mozilla really wants to have these add on’s they should invest in time to test them and certify them before they mess up their own product. But that of course can only go so far. Especially when so many different combination of add on’s exsist on computers.
I use Firefox on a iMac, Macbook Pro, and a Dell desktop. No addon’s and no problems since Firefox 3 RC1.
The Man Himself
Well, I couldn’t agree more. For other reasons I’ve had to install different profiles on three different machines (PowerBook, MacBook and a Dell laptop), the ones that crash less are the ones without all the extra’s thrown in.
I remember when Mac launched its dashboard and the flurry of widgets that came on the market that would be nice but I’m web-based now mostly, so Netvibes provided most of the functionality that the dashboard provided.
Of course some of the FF applications such as FireFTP and the web developer toolbar are time saving and practical. But you can survive without. And I suppose it’s not unreasonable to expect that Firefox will sacrifice its streamlined and fast functionality once you start asking it to do more.