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Is Firefox 1.0 Less Stable than Firefox PR1.0?
An anonymous reader wonders: "I had Firefox 1.0PR running smoothly on three different machines and it hardly ever crashed. After upgrading to 1.0, I seem to have at least one annoying crash a day. On one of the machines, using the 'self update' feature caused Firefox to crash in middle of the upgrade and left it in a completely unusable state. Eventually, I had to uninstall it and resort to using IE to download the full installer, again. Is it just me, or are other heavy Firefox users noticing this sort of behavior?"
Why don't you try posting on the Mozilla.org forums?
I don't know about anyone else, but I haven't had ANY issues with 1.0, perhaps the author of the article is using unsupported plugins / extensions that haven't been upgraded yet?
No bugs found here. But I was sad to see the 'Cookies are delicious delicacies' line disappear from Prefs.
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Welcome to Slashdot, now being used as an alternative for official software support sites and usenet newsgroups.
AT&ROFLMAO
Make sure you uninstall any old versions before installing the new version. Its in the faq.. well hidden, but i've had no problems when uninstalling then re-installing. Make sure to back up, but your savings should be saved as they are not held in the same area as the executeables and whatnot. I have had problems just upgrading, but i've been problemless since i've done the above.
"We are eternal.. all this pain is an illusion." -Maynard James Kenan
Mine seemed to be working but now it's showing an article about a single anonymous user's broswer problems on the front page of Slashdot. That can't be right. Hopefully Mozilla will have a patch available soon.
I much prefer to hold down CTRL and then scroll the mouse wheel up, then down. Does the exact same thing, just easier than taking my hand off the mouse ;)
Considering the size of the Slashdot audience and the fact that Slashdot is a "news" site (in theory) and not a "tech support" site... a larger question might be, Is it irresponsible for Slashdot to post a bug report of a single user as a story for a million people to see? How many people will just read the headline and not read the comments, and automatically think that Firefox is having widespread problems?
Are there really a bunch of people who have problems with Firefox? Without even looking at Mozilla's tech support forums, I can tell you, unequivocally, YES. When you distribute a program to millions of users, some people are going to run into problems, that's a given. But how do we know that this fella's problem is really with Firefox, and not with, say, a memory chip he installed last week? Or maybe he has some spyware installed that is screwing it up?
The REAL question that Slashdot ought to be concerned with is, Does the number of people having problems with Firefox 1.0 appear to be statistically significant? If it's not, then this whole story grossly exaggerates the problems and gives Firefox a lot of unnecessarily bad PR.
Me, I just recently reformatted my hard drive, installed Win XP and Firefox 1.0, and have not had any problems with it.
Linux 2.6, GNOME, 32-bit ppc, libswf installed,
I have an idea on why your browser is crashing.
You're trying to open flashMX movies in a flash3 library that was abandoned over 5 years ago.
Try removing libswf and I bet CNN won't crash at all.
1.0PR had a javascript pop-up crash bug that drove me crazy. 1.0 fixed that.
Some things to consider:
1. How did you install 1.0? Did you do an overwrite? If so, do a clean install.
2. What extensions are you using? Have you disabled the extension version check?
>On one of the machines, using the 'self update' feature caused Firefox to crash in middle of the upgrade
When was this? Do you have DNS/network/firewall issues which could be causing this?
Lastly, to get some real answers from the experts people should asking here.
1) Why is your faith in open source so great that you are unwilling to humor the idea that there is a bug in the application? I am a professional software developer, and most of us LAUGH at the idea of "bug free" applications. It is considered, in some circles, so laughable, that one is considered a bit of a neonate to tout that their software is bug-free [that, or not connected to reality (at least, with respect to the technology)]. The first time I ran Linux (late 90's) I had plenty of core dumps.
/. not Coast to Coast AM.
2) Are you proposing that Microsoft has a "black ops" department, whose sole purpose is to cause Windows to behave incorrectly when 3rd party software is run? Additionally, this department is exceptionally good at keeping a secret. So good, in fact, that the only way to detect their work is by running open source (patently bug-free) software on their OS, to uncover these flaws? Given that open source software is bug-free, wouldn't such a department fear discovery when performing such an act?
I'm not saying that there aren't reasons to dislike Microsoft, but goodness, this is
I'll tell you the single source of all of your Microsoft woes... the market. If the market will pump billions of dollars into a company, they have little right to complain about that company's software. There is competition. There was a lot more of it before all of you gave them all of your money. If you dislike Microsoft's product line, then download a Linux or BSD ISO, and install it. If you vote with your pocketbook, the company will listen. Hit companies that break the law with the law, and if you dislike the lack of competition, then purchase a competing product, or compete with them.
I've been experiencing the exact same phenomenon. So have a few of my friends. I'm sure it's not happening to everybody, but yeah, for me, the PR seemed more stable. On my system the official release goes to 99% CPU utilization and has to be shut down a few times a day, typically.
It doesn't throw errors to report. I'm not savvy enough to know how to get debugging information out of it, and I don't have the time to spend on mozilla forums trying to get someone's attention and then working it out.
So I won't put in the time. I don't expect the firefox people to fix it for me, given that, of course. They've already given me plenty, and it's still a great browser.
But I have been having this problem, and if other people have, too, then I'm glad to see it being discussed. Beyond hoping the problem becomes well-characterized, I think it's worth having a discussion about this because it could have implications for how OSS is perceived by the mass culture. The Firefox campaign is the biggest, most successful open source push in recent memory. Let's not act like it's heresy to talk about it here instead of in a newsgroup somewhere.
Try uninstalling Firefox 1.0PR, don't worry the profile will be left intact, then install Firefox 1.0, this works just fine, and Firefox 1.0 is completely stable.