Please note that Firefox is now up to v3.5.2, and the problems here and on other posts relating v3.x are now largely irrelevant except for those who have failed up upgrade.
Is anyone else having problems with FF3? Is it a case, once more, of Firefox 3 sucks? (Talking of which, there’s a fix for the Organise Bookmarks snafu in this post.)
Since the recent upgrade to v3.0.8, my installation has become rather fragile, crashing for no apparent reason every day or two. In addition, although it’s set to revert to where I left off the previous night at start-up, every morning since the update it’s presented me with a “Firefox closed unexpectedly – what do you want to do” message. Despite the fact that there was nothing unexpected in its closing at all. And it’s also become pretty slow too, at times, though I can’t figure out why. Everything is OK at my end, and my connections speed is fine, so I’m baffled.
OK, so far the problems are not too bad, though the crashes are immensely annoying, but they do suggest that there may well be something seriously out of whack with this version. For as long as I’ve used it – several years – FF has been a paragon of stability
So, are you having problems of this nature? If so, please post a comment as I’d like to get some idea of the extent (watch your language or it’ll be filtered). Obviously, not everyone will visit my blog to complain, but by extrapolating the number of complaints I get would give an indication of how widespread the problem is. If, indeed, it is widespread.
But let’s assume, for the moment, that the problem affects a lot of users – what are the odds of Mozilla fixing it any time soon? Well, considering they still haven’t come up with a fix for 100% dysfunctional Organise Bookmarks function, or the arrogance displayed regarding the shit Awesome Bar – unwanted by pretty much everyone not involved with Mozilla – if I were you, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
We may well be in for another outbreak of “Firefox 3 sucks”.
Note:- The crashing problem seems limited to a very small number of websites – possibly even just one – I’ll make notes rather than try to remember.
I have the same problem around a month ago, I don’t know why but is really really sucks.
Interesting – that was a previous version and, for me at least, that was faultless. Maybe there’s some other factor at work; mine’s been OK since I posted about it, whatever the reason.
I’ve figured out that the crash happens when opening websites from History, and then only when a lot of tags are open. It’s inconsistent, though, and not all sites will cause a crash (and when it’s restored, it’s stable again), though once a site has initiated a crash, accessing it from History will do it repeatedly.
I’m as sure as a can be that the problem IS with FF3, so don’t hold your breath waiting for a fix from Mozilla (I use the FF3 crash notification system, so they know about it).
I started having various piddly problems with Firefox a couple months ago and decided to try Google Chrome, so far so good and no problems.
A friend of mine was having problems seeing pictures attached to her Yahoo Email messages. Not knowing anything about Yahoo mail as I use Thunderbird, I decided to see what happened when she accessed her mail with Google Chrome. Guess what ?? No more problems.
I have been a big fan of Firefox since its introduction as I really dislike IE, but maybe they have tried to cram too much crap in it or something. Good to remember K.I.S.S.
Try Chrome, costs nothing.
Mike.
Actually, Mike, there nothing wrong with FF3 currently. The only real fubar was bookmarks handling, and I found a workaround for that (see later posts on the subject). Even the dreaded Awesome Bar is tolerable. Google Chrome, though, is way too basic and, judging by my blog stats, some variation of “Chrome sucks” – some very much less polite – is an immensely popular search item on Google, so clearly, all is not well with it.
As for crap in FF3 – where? I use the thing about 10 hours a day – I’m not seeing any crap, or having any problems. The current version, 3. 0.11 is even less memory-hungry than before.
Chrome costs nothing? What browser does cost anything?
I really liked Firefox but now the best I can say about it… it sucks…. Have to reload some websites three or four times before they will open… most times it will not load Yahoo mail so I have to use IE to view my email…. so I decided to try Chrome… and thus far no problems… Tried Flock too.. which I really liked but it has the same problems as Firefox. Opera is really good too, so it is going to be a toss up between it and Chrome as my new browser.
Actually, this is quite an old post, and Firefox 3 turned out fine. I never did find out why opening a website from History should cause it to crash, but I stopped using the website that caused the problem and it’s been fine. The problems you had I’ve never experienced or seen reported. The problem above with Yahoo mail was, I believe, due to a configuration problem. It didn’t appear in Chrome because Chrome loads images by default, as far as I know – FF doesn’t, but all it takes is a box tick.
I have a contact in the US, who is deeply into the techie side of stuff – she defines the term power user, – and routinely has hunreds of tabs open at the same time – while I’m more into the hands-on usability of the thing rather than the nuts and bolts. From different directions we’ve come to the same conclusion – there was nothing really wrong with Firefox 3.x.
Currently FF is at v3.5.1 and in that version they’ve fixed the Bookmarks fuck-up that was the only real, enduring, problem (though I did find a workaround for that), with v3.x. Of course, being Mozilla, they’ve introduced some new, annoying, fuckups with 3.5 (incompatibility with the Times.co.uk reader feedback forms, and with Google Gears so far, maybe more will show up), but mostly it works fine and is, as advertised, very fast. Lots of cool new features, too, like anonymised browsing which just needs a couple of mouse-clicks to turn on or off, for example. You could do a lot worse than try 3.5.1
http://ronsrants.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/firefox-3-5-1-first-impressions/
The consensus is that Chrome is inadequate for serious use and needs a hell of a lot more work (and Chrome, of course, contains huge chunks of the Firefox engine – it’s just cobbled together from parts of existing browsers, and not very well).
Opera is excellent, but it has serious limitations for anyone who has to fill in forms online (as when shopping), or log in to a lot of websites, as its memory for repetitive data like that is pathetic. If that’s not an issue for you, go with Opera. First, though, you need to find out what the problems was with FF, cos it’s not the browser. Did you try emptying your browser cache and deleting cookies, then restarting it? That solves most problems with sites failing to open or otherwise malfunctioning…
And Yahoo Mail has been very unstable recently, with part moved to a new system and parts still lingering in the old, and it’s been a total pain in the butt – maybe you fell foul of that?
I’ve been having this problem for about the last week. It’s crashed several times. At first I thought it was my computer because Vista has so many hiccups, but I’ve noticed that FF3 has been crashing when I’ve been looking at Google reader. I’ve really found Firefox to be reliable until recently. I just downloaded Google Chrome and am having no problems right now.
I’ve had problems getting labels to print from the US Postal Service website using Firefox 3.0.13. No problems with the older release, but now whenever I click pay and print a page comes up congratulating me on canceling my label.
I have no trouble printing the label in IE 8, but I would like to use Firefox as my default. I do my business shipping mostly through the Post Office online so it’s a bummer having this happen in Firefox.
Sorry I dont know if its something wrong with my computer but I’m having trouble with FF exceeding normal memory usage which now accumulates exceeding 1M bytes(according to Windows Task Manager-Processes tab)
Hi,
While not, of itself, a lot, that’s a lot for Firefox, but how many tabs have you got open? Or Firefox Windows? And are you running any toolbars in Firefox? If so turn them off and see what happens, especially if you’re running any sort of “browser helper”. And if you are, get rid of it immediately.
Clear out your browser cache, and delete all your cookies (essential ones will be reset when they’re needed). Then restart Firefox.
If you haven’t already done so, upgrade to the latest version (3.5.2).
Run a virus scan, too.
Ron.
Have problems w/opening FF after download of 3.0.12. Many .dll issues and no info on fixing has been found yet. Still plugging along trying to get it going again. Had no problems w/3.0.5.
You’re using an old version – upgrading to v3.5.2 may fix things.
Recently upgraded to 3.5.2 and have noticed a few things different. My spell check still tells me that things I’m typing are misspelled but doesn’t give me the right click option to change it. Most of my right click options, such as saving images or cutting /pasting, have also gone away and typing often is really slow. Thinking I might try Chrome…been hearing lots of good stuff about it.
Hmm – everything works fine for me. The only problem I’m seeing with 3.5.2 is that when listening to online radio the bugger crashes at about 16.00 every day. Since it restarts exactly where it left off it’s not a major problem – and it may be the radio website causing the problem, not FF. Since 3.5.x is way faster than 3.x I can’t understand why it should be slow. Then again, it depends where you’re typing. There are a few incompatibility problems with 3.5.x – maybe you’ve found another one.
As for Chrome, one of the most popular search threads in my blog stats is “Chrome is shit”. I can’t argue with that.
I was using FF 3.5.X. My problem was that connecting to other sites after the homepage was becoming increasingly difficult. When I could connect to “Craigslist” it wouldn’t show any pictures. It would show the image number of the pic but no pic. I deleted and reloaded and it would work a little better for a short period of time but then returned to not connecting to sites. Ended up going to Opera as I wanted something that worked. Were there some patches I didn’t know about ?? I never refused an upgrade/update from FF.
I had minor problems, like it identifying parts of an online store as adverts, but that’s it and the radio glitch, above – it’s been fine otherwise. It’s up to 3.5.3 now. btw. No pics sounds like a set-up problem rather than anything intrinsic – see the Content tab in Options.
For some reason I am unable to delete all my browser history and cookies. It removes some but not all. I thought maybe it was a virus. So I scanned my computer for any viruses. And it found a few cookie files in my Mozilla FireFox folder that it thought was harmful. After deleting these files everything went back to normal. A few days later it happens again. Same thing.
And for the last few months I’ve been unable to remove yahoo toolbar add-on. However, I never add this add-on feature to my browser. And it keep suggesting me to upgrade it. VERY VERY STRANGE!!!!!
Oops – dunno how this slipped through. Can you figure out where the suspect cookies are coming from, and avoid it?
Search Google for Remove Yahoo toolbar – that should throw up tips for getting rid of it. It probably came bundled with software – you need to look closely at what you install – there’s often crap you don’t want lurking there.
I’m at version 3.5.5 and I am getting major slow downs(despite my Mac being new and internet connection being very fast) and now my bookmarks are inaccessible. Certain pages will cause crashes for no reason that I can see, I am getting messages about reported attack sites on webpages that I know don’t phish or serve up malware and just a general bugginess.
I’m thinking of using Flock until FF fixes their problems.
Hmm… Odd – I’m running FF3.5.5, and it’s faultless for me.