Godzilla Firefox: So Fix the Damned Thing
As a long suffering Internet Explorer user, I rejoiced at the introduction of Mozilla’s Firefox web browser in 2004 and it felt awfully good to give Microsoft the raspberry. Firefox has grown steadily in popularity and is now the browser of choice for nearly one in five web surfers.
But familiarity can breed contempt, and while open-sourced Firefox was initially a delight to use compared to IE, it has developed an annoying habit of locking up when multiple windows are open. That habit has now become beyond aggravating and Mozilla’s unwillingness or inability to deal with it may yet drive me away.
This is not a personal thing. The lock-ups occur on both of the laptops I use and on the powerful computers at my university job. Uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox doesn’t help, while Mozilla seems to acknowledge the problem in a backhanded way by including a feature on a newer version that allows the user to restore previous open tabs after a lock-up and crash. Meanwhile, just the other day a bigtime blogger appealed to his readers for help in dealing with the problem, which also is making him bonkers.
A two-fold plea: Does anyone know how to deal with this? And better still, does anyone know somebody associated with Godzilla . . . er, Mozilla whose cage they can rattle on behalf of myself and fellow sufferers?
Thank you in advance.
13 Responses to “Godzilla Firefox: So Fix the Damned Thing”
Use tabs – not windows.
Firefox 3 is supposed to deal with the memory leak problem which plagues Firefox 2. I don't know if that is causing your lockups or not, but it could be. Also, some versions of the Adobe Flash Player can cause frequent lockups, so check and make sure you have the latest version.
Additionally, you could also try using Opera. I switch between using Opera and Firefox, but for the most part I prefer Opera's speed and default feature set. Firefox requires a lot of plug-ins to get to match Opera.
chriswww:
Thank you for the advice. I await version 3, which is going to be available shortly. I hear you about Adobe Flasher player and use it judiciously, which is to say when I don't have a lot else going on.
I also will get around to trying Opera, although I've been saying that for next to forever.
Webservers and Firefox just don't like the PC platform. Both are really Unix programs (poorly) transfered to the PC platform.
I agree (it had to happen sometime
) with Holly, use tabs. Not only don't they freeze up (I've had 20 tabs open with no problem) but the only occupy one window space in the lower bar, preventing the annoying grouping that makes them impossible to navigate. Occasionally I'll combine the two, having two windows open, one with work-related tabs and another with news-related tabs, for instance.
I am using Firefox 3 Beta 5 and that problem seems to be fixed. I am on the computer all day and have only had 1 freeze in the 3+ weeks I have been using this version. I agree with the comments about using tabs.
[...] Luzius wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptAs a long suffering Internet Explorer user, I rejoiced at the introduction of Mozilla’s Firefox web browser in 2004 and it felt awfully good to give Microsoft the raspberry. Firefox has grown steadily in popularity and is now the … [...]
Tabs forever! I can't use older versions of IE that are tabless at all.
I know some people in Mozilla, being admin of Firefox-oriented blog, so, If you wish, i can pass your message there.
What comes to memory leaks (which is why many open FF windows are trouble), there's good article:
How to reduce the memory usage on Firefox?
And the most simple way is to minimize the browser if it eats up memory, (after you followed th hints in the article), then open it back – this reduces memory usage fast and effective.
Upcoming Firefox 3 shows less memory leaks in beta versions already, and Mozilla promises to fix the damned thing by FF 3 final (this summer)
I know some people in Mozilla, being admin of Firefox-oriented blog, so, If you wish, i can pass your message there.
What comes to memory leaks (which is why many open FF windows are trouble), there's good article:
How to reduce the memory usage on Firefox?
And the most simple way is to minimize the browser if it eats up memory, (after you followed th hints in the article), then open it back – this reduces memory usage fast and effective.
Upcoming Firefox 3 shows less memory leaks in beta versions already, and Mozilla promises to fix the damned thing by FF 3 final (this summer)
Thank you all for the advice!
Thank you all for the advice!
Thank you all for the advice!