Mozilla Firefox

I'm probably the only one left who hasn't switched to Firefox. I have been a die-hard internet explorer user since the beginning. Well a couple weeks ago I made the switch. It has taken awhile to get used to things and Firefox does have some features I like. The problem is it'll shut down and I get an error window asking if I want to send it to Firefox. It'll do it several times a day. At this point I'm not seeing any love for this browser.

Every browser has its issues. I always have three at the ready, but Firefox has gotten the most use over the last few years.

i've used Firefox for quite some time now (>1yr easily). i've never seen this issue running on Windows 2K Pro, Windows XP Pro, and Windows XP Home. You might try to completely uninstall Firefox and reinstall it in the (keep the fingers crossed) naive hope that it was just an install "hiccup" that has resulted in this problem. barring anything understandable in the semi-cryptic error messages which i might be able to address and possibly correct, this would be my first corrective action.

Im a mozilla fan....whenever it DOES crash, it saves your work..soo, im okay with that...

plus its wicked fast compared to IE...

Crenshaw

Crenshaw said:

Im a mozilla fan....whenever it DOES crash, it saves your work..soo, im okay with that...

plus its wicked fast compared to IE...

Crenshaw

Click to expand...

+1 :thumbsup:

I've run firefox on Windows 95-Windows 7 betas and all the versions in between. I also run it on most of my Linux and BSD systems. I've never had a problem like what you're describing.

sbebenelli said:

I'm probably the only one left who hasn't switched to Firefox. I have been a die-hard internet explorer user since the beginning. Well a couple weeks ago I made the switch. It has taken awhile to get used to things and Firefox does have some features I like. The problem is it'll shut down and I get an error window asking if I want to send it to Firefox. It'll do it several times a day. At this point I'm not seeing any love for this browser.

Click to expand...

If you haven't done this already, update all the extensions, such as Adobe Reader, Adobe Flash Player, QuickTime Player, RealPlayer, Sun Java, etc. Whether you have crashes or not, and regardless of which browser you're using, that's a good practice to keep that stuff up-to-date. The bad guys attack via those weaknesses all the time.

I also recommend using the Secunia update checkup utility, which among other things will look at common extensions you might have installed, and help you find the updated versions if you need them.

I infrequently have had it crash. I can trace it back to some weird site, program/s running on the system that has gone south and or consumed a lot of system resources. Beyond those, Firefox is stable and consistent. That also goes with having the current updates applied for Flash, Java....

I've used FF several weeks now. IE7 crashes often when I scroll:shrug:
FF has been more stable, but it will crash once or twice a week. I like the feature that opens it back where you were before the crash.

Next I plan to try Thunderbird for email. Anyone else like it?
Can I port my OE mail cache to it?

I use Thunderbird for all my email. I like it a quite a bit, especially due to the availability of plenty of plug-ins.

I believe that in the newest version you can import your Outlook Express cache.

Crenshaw said:

Im a mozilla fan....whenever it DOES crash, it saves your work..soo, im okay with that...

plus its wicked fast compared to IE...

Crenshaw

Click to expand...

x2...

Security threats alone are reason enough not to use IE. The only www site I surf using IE is mozilla, and the only file I dare download is the firefox installer.

Although... lately within the past ~40 hours I have experienced 4-5 firefox lockups. Not sure exactly whats going on, but its more crashes than I have seen in a year using this great browser. I am not sure whats going on, but I think you should give it some time and see how it goes. I know I certainly am not going back to IE.

Uhh, i fell like i am geting ganged up on. i myself like firefox, but do not perfer it. for me i like to use opera. it has so many uses. i will use firefox from time to time for certian applications.

Things that I have seen that can cause FireFox to cough...

1. The Configuration File--if you have not done much yet (lots of bookmarks, plug-ins, etc.), uninstall FF and wipe out the directories. You can save/move the bookmark file and put it back in the new install.

2. I have found that the NoScript plug-in can cause hangs/crashes on some sites -- especially those with embedded video and lots of scripts (that I have not white-listed). Mostly, just a couple of sites where I see crashes (and not often overall).

3. Check your URL History--Somewhere, my history got set to a very large number (months/forever?)... If I deleted a URL history link--it would sometimes hang then crash.

4. I have found one add-on (extension) that makes my FireFox very buggy. "Cookie Safe v3.x.x"... Don't know why, but my computer (windows XP) really slowed down (and locked up machine sometimes--as I recall) when that little add-on was enabled--perhaps, one of your's is causing grief (disable 1/2 -- run, then re-enable and disable the other 1/2, test run again).

-Bill

I just use a browser that crashes more gracefully... mmm, Chrome. Firefox was nice. But now it's slow and bloated. Chrome is really where it's at for me.

I really like Chrome. I have a few work sites that are IE specific but for most stuff it's Chrome. Firefox lost me with the memory leaks in the 2.x version. I have 3.x loaded but only to view my web pages for compatibility. It rarely crashes. I can't remember crashing being a problem. IE 8 is pretty good. I didn't like previous versions of it so much given its vulnerabilities and laggard performance. At least some of the speed issues have been mitigated in the latest version. Obviously security is still a major beef with it.

I love all the possibilities with Firefox, thanks to all the add-ons (make sure you've got Adblock Plus, this blocks nearly all advertising images and banners from even loading.)

Here's a screencap of my maximized Firefox window, note how much viewing area/"real estate" there is, and how much info is packed into the necessary margins, don't try this with IE:

StarHalo said:

I love all the possibilities with Firefox, thanks to all the add-ons (make sure you've got Adblock Plus, this blocks nearly all advertising images and banners from even loading.)

Here's a screencap of my maximized Firefox window, note how much viewing area/"real estate" there is, and how much info is packed into the necessary margins, don't try this with IE:

Click to expand...

You want room?

da.gee said:

IE 8 is pretty good. I didn't like previous versions of it so much given its vulnerabilities and laggard performance. At least some of the speed issues have been mitigated in the latest version. Obviously security is still a major beef with it.

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Actually, security of IE7 isn't bad, and IE8 is proving even better so far. Besides adding prevention capabilities for cross-site scripting attacks, it also has relatively good filtering for malicious sites and downloads. And on Vista or Win7, IE7 and IE8 operate in Protected Mode and at the Low integrity level, which no other browser is currently doing. IE8 also has its own Data Execution Prevention switched on. They've come a long way from IE5

If you want to boost security, with any browser on any OS, check all your browser add-ons/extensions for out-of-date vulnerable versions, and run the browser from a low-rights account, those are the biggies. If you're on Windows and want over-the-top defenses, see if you can add a Software Restriction Policy, which arbitrarily mitigates a massive swath of attack vectors, patched or not.

So anyway, sbebenelli, is your problem resolved, or is it still crashing? Is there any specific error message that might yield clues? Or can you look in the Event Viewer to see if there are related events in the logs (right-click My Computer > Manage > Event Viewer > Windows Logs > Application)?

LuxLuthor said:

You want room?

Click to expand...

I used a full-screen screencap, the image I posted is what I see covering the entire monitor - there's no Windows titlebar or frame thanks to another plugin.

sbebenelli said:

I'm probably the only one left who hasn't switched to Firefox. I have been a die-hard internet explorer user since the beginning. Well a couple weeks ago I made the switch. It has taken awhile to get used to things and Firefox does have some features I like. The problem is it'll shut down and I get an error window asking if I want to send it to Firefox. It'll do it several times a day. At this point I'm not seeing any love for this browser.

Click to expand...

No, you're not the only one. I tried to switch but the fonts on most sites looked funky and I couldn't fix it (made it worse when I tried). I also had compatibility issues with some sites and crashes like the ones mentioned above.

I kept it and I use it for surfing the "shady" sites, but that's about it.

Fastest browser I've ever used is K-Meleon. It's not perfect, but man, this thing *flies*. Zero bloat and works great 90% of the time.