I have been experimenting with Firefox because of its superior ability to block annoying advertisements, something I was advised to do by a host of readers last month… but ever since upgrading to Firefox 2.0, I have been very grateful for its ability to ‘restore browsing sessions’ after a crash because I get five or six crashes per day, something I certainly did not get with Firefox 1.5 (or the Devil’s Browser IE 6, for that matter). Are many folks out there experiencing anything similar?
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33 comments to Firefox 2.0 crashfest |
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I upgraded to Firefox 2.0 last Wednesday on my home & work PC’s and haven’t had any crashing problems at all. However there have been a few reports of an old bug that was fixed in 1.5 returning.
Yup. I tried it on my other computer and it’s a disaster.
Now I’m installing Ubuntu, a Linux prog.
I’ve been using it since it launched early and I’ve yet to see a crash, but you’re not definitely not alone, Perry. Out of curiosity, what extensions are you using, if any?
I downloaded,and installed FF2.0 on the official release day and have been running it with no problems so far.
I am using Win2000 on a paleolithic era (circa 1999) pc .
obviously this is of no help whatsoever to you but it’s working fine for me on xp
I recently acquired Firefox on a friend’s advice (I’d been having trouble with IE) and it hasn’t crashed or done anything of the sort yet.
Running XP Pro, using Adblock 0.5.3.043, British English Dictionary 1.19, Google Toolbar for Firefox 2.1.20060807w, Talkback 2.0 and that’s all
The only thing that crashed Firefox 2.0 was the Channel 4 site. I think that says more about the rubbish site than the program.
If you’re dead set on keeping Firefox 2.0 I’d recommend ditching the Google browser bar for now until they update it. Or, you could go back to 1.5 since it’s still a very good browser.
I think that says more about the rubbish site than the program.
A solid program wouldn’t crash however rubbish the site. My problem with firefox 1.5.0.7 on linux is that it slowly eats up the memory and then crashes. I don’t know if it is a memory leak, Gecko caching stuff in X, or one of the plugins or extensions. I also don’t like the way the page caching works because it doesn’t do a good job of detecting updated pages. It is all rather annoying and it would be nice if the bugs got ironed out some day. It’s giving me thoughts of Kongueror or Opera.
Will do Hank… and as FF2.0 has Google built in anyway and checks spelling as you type integrally, Google toolbar is probably superfluous in any case.
I had it crash 2 or 3 times since upgrading. I’m running windows XP on a brand-new laptop.
Ubuntu is not a programme, its an operating system, Firefox comes as a component of it. Make sure you get Evolution with it though – best email app ever made.
Andrew, Firefox and Safari will crash if the Flash Player installed is 9,0,19,0 or less. The x386 chip-based system needs FlashPlayer 9,0,20,0 or greater – certainly C4 site crashed on that for me until I removed the FlashPlayer and downloaded the latest version from Adobe.
If like me you don’t like Flash make sure you get the Flashblock add-on which is brilliant. Also Adblock is good for locking out annoyingly slow ad servers.
I’m the same as Bill — original PC (upgraded hard drive & memory) manufactured in 1998, running Windows 2000 Professional SP3. Downloaded FF2.0 a few hours before the official release (four minutes after the blog post saying that it was actually ready) and haven’t had it crash once. I was running 1.0.7 and had it crash maybe four times a week. I don’t run any of the same extensions you have, except for Adblock — but I’ve been warned about twelve times to under no circumstances download the Google toolbar, because it’s crashing everyone else’s FF2.0 installation. I’d say you have a winner.
(anyone else think it’s funny that the inline spellchecker thinks both “toolbar” and “Adblock” are wrong?)
1327, yes Adblock is terrific and more or less single-handedly won me over to using FF.
BTW… since I axed the Google Toolbar I have had no more crashes [crosses fingers].
For all you AdBlockers… Make sure to also download the FilterSetG extension for AdBlock. Since we’re in a never-ending arms race with the advertisers/spyware peddlers it’s nice to have an application that updates the definitions of what to block every day.
Entertain them seriously. I’m a Linux user too, and Firefox gave me no end of trouble with random crashes – just as you describe. I switched to Opera about a month and a half ago and it’s been great.
I like Opera quite a bit (Konqueror not so much), but by being closed source (and I’m by no means an open source zealot, I despise Linux) it doesn’t allow for the extensions that make Firefox so worthwhile. But yeah, otherwise Opera is better, faster, and less resource hungry.
1.5 crashes on me all the time, especially on anything with media. It even crashes on exiting out of it, leaving it as a rogue process.
Just started using 2.0 so far no problems.
Opera is the better one no doubt. A lot of the FF extentions and new features are built-in in Opera and the user/author mode as well as the no-Images option for faster browsing are simply unmatched by any other browser.
Another advantage of not having plugins is that when the browser upgrades, you don’t have to worry about old plugins being incompatible with the new browser, or worse, crashing it.
And Opera has had the restore feature for quite some time, at least since O9 came out months ago. It might even have been in O8, but I can’t remember.
How on earth is not having plugins and “advantage”? That’s like saying, “Well, it’s good that I can only buy a Model-T in black, because it saves me all that confusing and messy choice”.
If upgrades to the browser possibly (and I emphasize possibly, I didn’t even have to upgrade my extensions, they crossed over to 2.0 automatically) cause problems with your install simply don’t use them. I’d rather have the choice to expand what my browser is capable of than be roped off from making any changes and then try to spin it as a “perk”.
Julian, know Ubuntu is an O/S. A mate who uses it has no trouble at all with Firefox and that’s why I’m switching.
The only worry I have is whether this ADSL router will be recognised by it.
May I suggest Flock (www.flock,.com)?
It’s based on the Mozilla code, has had all of the ‘new’ Firefox features for at least 6 months, doesn’t crash and adds some neat social bookmarking features (flickr, del.icio.us, blogging integration etc.)
I’ve been using FF2.0 without trouble, too. I found the extension ClipMarks to be very useful: you can draw boxes around parts of web pages you like and save them. Very useful for recording all the best bits of blogs for future reference.
I am using Firefox 1.5. When I select ‘Check for updates’ in the ‘help’ column of the drag down menu, it claims there are no updates. Spose I have to go to the Mozilla site and download it manually. Oh, the effort!
Of course there is another well-known web browser that you could all use. It’s a Mozilla one, has its equal share of nagware demands for updates and restarts and, like most Mozilla browsers, has been over-prettified and over-extensioned up the wazoo. It is, of course, the all new Internet Exploder 7.0.
The British English dictionary? Did you pay the tax on it? (ducking).
/couldn’t resist
In truth is should be called the ‘English’ Dictionary as there is no such thing as ‘British’ English (spend 5 minutes in Scotland or Wales to see the truth of that). The US one should be ‘American English’ and the one for England (as opposed to Britain) should just be… English.
AdBlock seems to be crashing with Firefox 2.0 (FF 2.0).
I disabled all extensions one by one and finally no more problems with Adblock disabled. Guess gonna have to wait till they upgrade it.
Took me a couple hundred crashes before decided to disable one by one my 30 extensions to figure it out lol.
That’s odd Arian… since I uninstalled the superfluous Google toolbar, my problems went away and I run FF 2.0 with adblock and it never crashes at all now.