Fire: Crashes and Burns
Like a majority of you I too rushed to download the new Firefox 3 browser. I really didn’t care for the whole world record thing Mozilla was trying to achieve, I just really like the Firefox browser and its customizing options.
Before the official release I had tried a few of their Beta platforms, I think Betas 2 and 3. I didn’t use them too often because many of my add-ons weren’t yet compatible with them so I just reverted back to the latest 2.0 build. After installing version 3.0 yesterday I noticed that it ported my entire tool bar set and plug-ins from the previous versions. I thought this was a nice touch being that I really didn’t want to go through and re-download all of them again from the Mozilla add-on site. Thankfully this time all the add-ons that I use were ready for build 3.0.
One problem of note was that one of my heavily frequented pages www.msn.com would crash the browser when I tried to view it. After trolling the discussion boards I got the impression that a certain
plug-in was the culprit but I wasn’t too sure exactly which one it was. After some trial and error of turning one off at a time a reloading I caught the little bugger red handed. Microsoft’s Silverlight plug-in apparently isn’t compatible yet with Firefox 3. I don’t think this is a really big deal as not too many websites are utilizing MS’s Silverlight tech, a competitor to Flash.
So, if you find that your new browsing sessions with Firefox 3 are abruptly ended with a crash and burn, check that maybe you have the Silverlight plug-in installed and disable it.
One Response to “Fire: Crashes and Burns”
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I downloaded Firefox for Mac 3.0 in a rush to see if they’ve solved the problem I usually face. Firefox freezes up and crashes whenever any of my plugins I have installed (which I use quite frequently) auto-downloads an update. I know this is what is crashing it, because right after I restart firefox, it always prompts me to “install updates?” and lists which ones. It doesn’t matter which 3rd party tool it is out of the 6 or 7 I have, or what combination of updates are being made, it always crashed.
I heard through the grapevine that these kind of problems were fixed.. but low and behold, at the end of the day yesterday, just as I was about to start fanning the praise of the new browser, I get the spinning wheel of death + firefox needs to be forced quit. What a letdown.
I will say, that so far, the way firefox is handling DOM scripts is far superior to the javascript challenged old version. And boy is the new version FAST because of this! But, I must note that the new design is a ridiculous ripoff of Safari for mac, a far superior browser. If only Safari would allow more 3rd party plugins, I would put away Firefox into the archives and only use it for checking web site programming for bugs (hello Opera….).
