Three things I hate about Firefox 3
So the pomp and publicity is over. Firefox 3 was downloaded a gazillion times in 24 hours and was given a big gold medal by everyone (including Softonic). But just how good is Firefox 3.0? In my opinion, it deserves most of the praise it receives but it is still far from perfect. In fact, there are at least three things I really hate about Mozilla’s latest browser.
1 Firefox 3 crashes all the time
I haven’t used a program this prone to critical errors since Firefox 2.0 was released. In the last seven days, Firefox has crashed on me about 10 times. And like the very best program crashes, Fx 3’s problems seem impossible to predict. Sometimes, I’m editing a bookmark’s properties and Bang! Or maybe I used a search box on a frequently used and perfectly stable website and Boom! This happens on my Mac and my work PC but most specifically on the Mac, I also get frequent hangs due to other applications working. None of this happened during my extensive testing of the betas for Fx 3, so why now?
2 The memory hog that grew and grew
Everyone knows that the main problem people faced with Firefox 2 was that it was prone to gobbling up all your system resources like a fat, greedy, RAM-eating pig. We were given assurances by Mozilla and various reviewers that this problem had been fixed but… I still see Firefox using up a hell of a lot of memory for just two open tabs. Of course, extensions can be the root cause of this kind of problem but as far as I’m concerned, it’s mad to say “Well, as long as you don’t install any extensions, you should be fine”. If I can’t install extensions without Firefox turning into Mr. Creosote then I don’t want the option to install them.
3 Dropping sessions
Now this is a smaller problem and not exactly a critical flaw. But it’s annoying the hell out of me because there seems to be nothing I can do to fix it. If I’ve just started Firefox and I click my Gmail bookmark, I invariably have to log in. Every single time I start the browser. And it’s not just Google accounts that are plagued with this annoying problem. There are tons of sites where I now have to regularly log in when a week ago, I didn’t. And sometimes, when I enter my username and hit ‘Tab’ to get Firefox to autofill the password, nothing shows up. Even though the password’s stored in Firefox’s security interface (because that’s where I have to go to retrieve it).
These are just three of the issues that have been annoying me over during the early days of Firefox 3. It’s obviously nowhere near as bad as Internet Explorer yet but if Firefox 3.0.1 isn’t out soon, fixing all of these problems, I might have to go back to a release candidate or something.
Posted at 5:44 pm on Jun 27th
I, like you, have had problems with 3.0. What puzzles me is this; why did I not have all these problems when using a Beta? I have been a Firefox fan for a long time but it is a bit unnerving to me to have gone from such a stable environment to one that crashes so often.
Posted at 6:30 pm on Jun 27th
Well, I have to say that after having downloaded Firefox 3 on the day of it’s release, I have been using it extensively ever since. Firefox is generally running 24×7 and has not crashed once on my ageing Dual G5 PowerMac.
Extensions were an issue to start with but they all work now. I have installed: Adblock Plus, All-In-One Sidebar, British English Dictionary, Firefox Companion for eBay, Google Toolbar, Millibar Toolbar and No Squint.
General impression is that is much faster and far more stable.
Posted at 6:31 pm on Jun 27th
I find it surprising that you’re having all these problems! I have used FF3 on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X since it released and since Beta 1 but have never had it crash once! I use it all the time and so far it has crashed a LOT less than FF2. The session problem happened with me even in FF2 but I use the now less obtrusive ‘Remember Password’ feature and yes, of course, the memory hog problem still exists in that FF is the highest user of memory on my computer, even if I run something the likes of AutoCAD…
Otherwise, Firefox is a great browser. I have tried out AT&T Pogo and love it too but I still keep Firefox as my main browser and probably will for a long time yet…
Posted at 7:30 pm on Jun 27th
I have had big problems with Firefox 3. So bad that my whole system almost came to a shutdown. By removing Firefox and system restore, all was working properly again. I installed the Flock browser instead. Its a good one, and I have had no problems so far. To bad though, I have used Firefox for years now, with great pleasure, but this one I have my doubts about.
Posted at 8:34 pm on Jun 27th
I switched to FF3 on my mac and it’s been running quite nicely. I’ve been a staunch Safari user for quite a while, but I thought i’d give the newest iteration a shot. I reacquainted myself with some old plug-ins that were sorely missed (firebug, tabs mix plus), but many of the most important features have been standardized across all browsers.
In the end, memory is cheap, so it all comes down to standards compliance and how fast it can render it.
Posted at 12:59 am on Jun 28th
The RAM issue it with your system, or maybe certain add-on (if you have any). Been using FF3 since first beta, and have NEVER had suck problems. Might wanna see a dr. about this issue, or at least, someone that knows what the hell they’re doing.
Posted at 1:49 am on Jun 28th
Heh… thanks, Brian! A lot of people are reporting these problems and for me, they only started with Fx 3.0 (I.E. not in the alpha or beta versions which I tested thoroughly). I’ll still see a doctor if you insist, though.
Add-ons are probably part of the problem, as is the necessity to keep Fx running, with multiple tabs open, for many hours on end.
As to my system - if you’d read properly, you’d see that I’m referring to problems occurring on two completely different machines: one is an iMac and one is a Dell laptop running Windows. This isn’t a system-related issue.
Posted at 1:57 am on Jun 28th
im regret after im update my Firefox 2 to firefox 3, its really slow down my internet speed, problem when im open Gmail, playing flash site etc…
Posted at 9:24 am on Jun 28th
Tom, how do you account for the fact that some people are seeing these problems and others are not. On my power mac I currently have 5 windows open, 4 of which have one or two tabs and the other has 7 tabs open.
This situation has existed, more or less, for about 3 days and Firefox 3 is is only using 240MB real memory (about 1 gig virtual). I also have Opera (10 tabs) and Safari running. Of these three, Firefox 3 is using the most real storage (only just) but that is probably attributable to number of windows and tabs open and Firefox 3 is by far the most responsive.
Of course, this is running on a G5 PowerPC machine with 5GB ram. Do you think this might be a problem restricted to Firefox running on Intel based machines? I have not tested it on any PCs yet but will report back when I do.
Posted at 9:58 am on Jun 28th
James - that’s the problem: I’m finding it difficult to repeat these problems. I should probably clarify something: the program crashes have been more frequent with Windows, but temporary hangs (of around 7-10 seconds) have been quite regular on my Mac which is a Core 2 Duo with a paltry 2GB of RAM.
The hangs are generally triggered by another application (like Toast) working… but this didn’t happen in the Fx 3 betas or release candidates.
All this said - it really is a great browser, and better on the Mac than on Windows (at last!). I imagine there will be stability and security improvements fairly shortly.
Posted at 12:47 pm on Jun 29th
I’m sure it’s the extensions that create the problem.
We went through a similar phase shifting to fx2.
I guess you just need to be a bit patient till your fav extensions update and fix bugs.
so far no problems here, just that i miss a couple of extension that are not compatible with the new version.
Posted at 3:05 am on Jul 2nd
Hi, I’m a simple user & am having the same problems w FF3. Multiple crashes, & att yahoo is now requiring sign-in every time.
Posted at 6:24 pm on Jul 3rd
1) It’s not “Don’t install extensions”. It’s “If you really don’t need/use an extension, don’t install it. I’ve seen people with 50+ extensions installed. However, I still think some memory issues exist but I’ve been doing a little tweaking with about:config and there seems to be some improvement.
2) Make sure you save cookies between sessions for sites where you login often. It sounds like you need to adjust FF3’s cookie settings. All my sessions are usually still active even after I reboot my PC the following day.
3) I’ll do something occasionally that will crash FF3. And IE7. And Opera. The point is, everything crashes occasionally. I rarely get CTD’s and I’m on my browser up to 12 hours per day.
Bottom line is I’m extremely happy with FF3.
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Pentium 4
XP SP2
512MB Ram
Posted at 3:01 pm on Jul 7th
Hi Guys
I have been using Firefox for almost 2 years and I can’t live without it but i should say that i really got upset using the version 3 since it SUCKS! so i as soon as possible i removed it and reinstalled my sweet old Firefox.
Good luck and let’s keep the old Firefox (Version 2) alive.
Posted at 6:27 pm on Aug 10th
I switched to SeaMonkey and no problem. Memory used = 59 %. With FF2 or 3 it was 75% + all the crashes (system choking) and internet issues as mentioned here.
Posted at 6:28 pm on Aug 10th
Plus SeaMonkey is much faster. Sorry i forgot.
Posted at 6:37 pm on Aug 11th
I’ve also been experiencing dozens of Firefox 3 crashes per day. The beta was better than the full release. I’m using Windows XP and am a heavy Firefox user. I run online sessions as a part of my work and I’ve had to switch to IE for those as I can’t tolerate crashes in the middle of important meetings. Let’s hope that the problems are understood and fixed soon. As far as I’m concerned, FF3 was a major step backwards.
Posted at 4:38 am on Aug 15th
I agree with the issues. I am using FireFox from long time, and with version 2, I never had any issues. But since I installed FireFox 3, I face most of the problems listed by everyone above. From the 5-7 seconds hang, to crash.
Hope the figure out what the problem is, and release a patch soon.
Posted at 9:54 am on Aug 18th
I’ve had problems the last few days with firefox as well. Got to the point where I started using Safari (nice by the way), and re-installed Firefox. The reinstalled version was great, back to normal. Then I took the upgrade to 3.0.1 and all the problems came back of slow, freezing etc.
So have uninstalled everything, (include add on’s) and gone back to version 3.0.0. Its working again. It appears something is bad in 3.0.1.
Posted at 1:34 am on Sep 3rd
after downloading and installing firefox3 my display was too large for the screen.why?
Posted at 3:24 am on Oct 26th
I have experienced many hangs with FF3 do not like it as much and one of the real problems for me has been when I clear the cache, suddenly nothing on my computer works and have to reboot. This is not a better version at all. But I do have a tip for the memory hog and people who might want to try a program that frees up the memory issue it is called “Minimem” and it is free, just Google it and download it is easy to use and frees up memory on other applications as well. I am looking forward to IE8 and switching. Firefox is overhyped and slower than IE. Google Chrome is too simple and it hangs as well, but that is beta right now too. I have used Firefox now for nearly five years so I know what I am talking about and the advantages and disadvantages of browsers. Thanks
Posted at 6:30 am on Oct 26th
I’ve listed my Firefox 3 Annoyances too, check them out over at
http://www.bloglinux.org/2008/10/firefox-3-annoyances/
And tell me if you agree. I love firefox but it could be so much better.
Posted at 2:50 pm on Nov 14th
It is horendous, simple.