Quote from the CP Lab About
Us page: "Our company is located in Kiev, Ukraine. CP Lab's employs
high-class experts,..."
It's difficult to imagine that it would be acceptable to use an
encryption product without having the source code. If you have problems, will
you go to Kiev and discuss them with the "high-class" experts? Do you speak
Russian?
Suppose a database becomes corrupted, and you need to recover your
passwords? Will you send the entire database to the Ukraine?
Suppose the company is now selling an entirely acceptable product.
However, suppose that later the company is sold to someone else, without
notifying the customers, as is usual with software companies. Possibly the new
owner will decide to build a back door into a "minor" a version upgrade.
The Ukraine? Isn't that one of the places that the U.S. government's
break-the-law department, the CIA, holds prisoners illegally? Is CP Labs owned
by the CIA, perhaps? Is CP Labs owned by the CIA, but most CP Labs employees
don't know that?
If you use an encryption product, it should be open source. That at
least provides some protection. One advantage of open source, free software is
that the users can hide the fact that they are using the product from the
developers. Paying creates a connection between your company and the
developers.
Possibly there is some way of using TrueCrypt and GnuPG that would work for you. Need passwords for
your department? Someone in your organization who acts as password manager
sends them to you encrypted with your public key. Only someone who has your
department's private key can decrypt them.
You made some good points, so here is an updated list.
Also, maybe there should be a list of excuses for the excuses.
And you reminded me of other excuses I had not yet documented.
The fact is, other browsers such as Opera are stable. No number of
excuses will make Firefox stable; the bugs must be fixed. The media (see the
link below) are starting to report Firefox instability; it makes sense to fix
the bugs before Firefox gets a bad reputation.
Interesting social science fact: Considering the responses, it is apparent that no one has read the bug reports
thoroughly in the 4 years that the bug has been reported. It's easy to know early that the CPU hogging bug
will be difficult to find, and apparently no one has read further.
Since no one commenting on this Slashdot story has read the bug reports, apparently, it is useful to repeat here that there is one fact
that is important. The CPU hogging bug occurs only when several Firefox windows, each with several tabs, have been open for hours or days.
Suspending or hibernating the computer (in Windows XP) make the problem happen sooner.
Interesting computer fact: The CPU hogging bug is communicable! Sometimes Firefox causes Thunderbird
to hog the CPU! My guess is that fact makes it considerably easier to find the bug, or at least eliminate almost all of the code.
Another fact: Many people have guessed, based on the behavior, that the CPU hogging bug is caused
by insufficient allocation of resources inside Firefox.
Mozilla Foundation Top 20 Excuses for Not Fixing Firefox Bugs
Here are the top 20 things Firefox and Mozilla developers say to those
who report difficult bugs, collected over the last 4 years. See also the
extensive information provided in this Slashdot comment, Firefox is
the most unstable program in common use, and the links in the comment.
Maybe this bug is fixed in the nightly build. [The same bug has been
reported many, many times over a period of four years.]
Yes, this bug exists, but other things are more important. [The bug
eventually takes 100% of CPU power, and makes Windows XP unusable, even after
Firefox is killed. The bug affects the heaviest users of Firefox.]
Yes, this bug exists, but it is not a common occurrence. [Numerous users
have reported the bug. See the links.]
Works for me. [The bug is complicated to reproduce, so the developers did
a simplified test, which didn't show the bug.]
No one has posted a TalkBack report. [If they had read the bug report,
they would know that there is never a TalkBack report, because the bug crashes
TalkBack, too, or a TalkBack report is not generated. TalkBack does not generate
a report if Firefox is hogging the CPU. TalkBack cannot generate
a report if the bug takes 100% of the CPU time.]
If you would just give us more information, we would fix this bug. [They
didn't bother to reproduce the bug using the detailed information
provided.]
This bug report is a composite of other bugs, so this bug report is
invalid. [The other bugs aren't specified.]
You are using Firefox in a way that would crash any software. [But the
same use does not crash any version of Opera.]
I don't like the way you worded your bug report. [So, he didn't read it or
think about it.]
You should run a debugger and find what causes this problem yourself.
[Then when you have done most of the work, tell us what causes the problem,
and we may fix it.]
Many bugs that are filed aren't important to 99.99% of the users.
If you are saying bad things about Mozilla and Firefox, you must be
trolling. [They say this even though Firefox and Mozilla instability is
beginning to be reported in media such as Information Week. See the links
to magazine articles in this Slashdot comment:
Fire
The Firefox CPU hogging bug is also a very interesting social problem.
You didn't read the bug report, and there is plenty of evidence that none of the developers did, either.
The Firefox CPU hogging bug occurs only when several windows and several tabs are open for a long time, days sometimes. If Thunderbird is running, the problem is worse. If the user hibernates or suspends the computer, the problem is much worse.
"... I do wonder if there's something unique about your machine."
Numerous people have reported the CPU hogging bug, including some in this thread. I''ve tried several computers myself.
Interesting fact: If both Firefox and Thunderbird are running, Firefox sometimes causes Thunderbird to have the CPU bug. That fact seems to make it easy to find the bug. However no developer has ever read the bug reports, apparently.
Firefox developers become "defensive" when so many users report problems? That's a new excuse for the collection:
Mozilla Foundation Top 15 Excuses for Not Fixing Bugs
Top 15 things Firefox and Mozilla developers say about those who
report difficult bugs, collected during the last 4 years:
Maybe this bug is fixed in the nightly build.
Yes, this bug exists, but other things are more important.
No one has posted a TalkBack report. [If they had read the bug report,
they would know that there is never a TalkBack report, because the bug crashes
TalkBack, too, or a TalkBack report is not generated.]
If you would just give us more information, we would fix this bug.
This bug report is a composite of other bugs, so this bug report is
invalid. [The other bugs aren't specified.]
You are using Firefox in a way that would crash any software. [But the
same use does not crash any version of Opera.]
I don't like the way you worded your bug report. [So, I didn't read it or
think about it.]
You should run a debugger and find what causes this problem yourself.
[Then when you have done most of the work, tell us what causes the problem,
and we may fix it.]
Many bugs that are filed aren't important to 99.99% of the users.
If you are saying bad things about Mozilla and Firefox, you must be
trolling. [They say this even though Firefox and Mozilla instability is
beginning to be reported in media such as Information Week. See the links
to magazine articles in this Slashdot comment:
Firefox
is the most unstable program in common use.]
Your problem is probably caused by using extensions. [These are extensions
advertised on the Firefox and Mozilla web site, and recommended.]
Your problem is probably caused by a corrupt profile.
If you are technically knowledgeable, you can spend several
hours trying to discover the problem:
Standard diagnostic -
Firefox. [Firefox has "Standard Diagnostics"! LOL.]
I won't actually read the (many) bug reports, but I will give you some complicated technical
speculation which pretends to be helpful but, on investigation, is shown to have nothing to do with the
bugs.
It's understandable that Firefox developers become defensive when users
report so many problems.
Firefox
is the most unstable program in common use. Some of the most
serious bugs, like the CPU hogging bug, are more than 4 years old. So it's
great that the Firefox team is getting some help. They need it.
(Note that the main bug report linked is always marked invalid. That's not because
anything has been done about the instability of Firefox; it's because people
on the Firefox team don't want to, or don't know how to, fix the very, very
serious bugs. Note also the links to magazine articles about Firefox instability, and
the many links to user reports of problems.)
I'm posting this comment from Firefox version 1.5.0.6. It is using
22 percent of the CPU, even though all pages have been loaded, and there
is no active content. That's 22% on the way to 70% or more, which will soon
make it necessary to close all windows and tabs of Firefox and reboot Windows
XP. (Firefox corrupts Windows XP SP2 with all patches applied, so that it is
necessary to restart the OS. In Linux, it is necessary only to kill Firefox to
get full control again.)
The CPU hogging bug in Firefox runs the fan in a laptop computer
continuously, meaning that expensive hardware maintenance will be required
more often for heavy Firefox users.
Firefox has extensions, but they often make Firefox unstable.
The Firefox team thinks that it is entirely acceptable to market Firefox
extensions, but when the extensions cause Firefox to be unstable, to excuse
the instability by saying that it is caused by an extension.
The 1.5.0.4 version of Firefox was quite stable, if the Flashblock
extension was installed. The 1.5.0.6 version is unstable again.
The problem appears to be that Firefox does not allocate enough
resources. If you open several Firefox windows and several tabs in each
window, and leave them open for several days, or suspend or hibernate your
computer a few times, you will find that Firefox has started to hog the CPU.
It is interesting to note that, when the latest version of Firefox is used with the latest
version of Thunderbird, they both have trouble with the CPU
hogging bug. The each corrupt the other. Weird, and seemingly a good clue
to the flaw that causes CPU hogging.
Apparently everyone on the Firefox team wants to add features or work
on easy bugs. Apparently also, browser programmers are not necessarily heavy
browser users. People who often do research on the internet, and open several
Firefox windows and many tabs, and leave them open for several days, are certain or
almost certain to cause Firefox to become unstable, however.
Mozilla Foundation Top 14 Excuses for Not Fixing Bugs
Top 14 things Firefox and Mozilla developers say about those who
report difficult bugs, collected during the last 4 years:
Maybe this bug is fixed in the nightly build.
Yes, this bug exists, but other things are more important.
No one has posted a TalkBack report. [If they had read the bug report,
they would know that there is never a TalkBack report, because the bug crashes
TalkBack, too, or a TalkBack report is not generated.]
If you would just give us more information, we would fix this bug.
This bug report is a composite of other bugs, so this bug report is
invalid. [The other bugs aren't specified.]
You are using Firefox in a way that would crash any software. [But the
same use does not crash any version of Opera.]
I don't like the way you worded your bug report. [So, I didn't read it or
think about it.]
You should run a debugger and find what causes this problem yourself.
[Then when you have done most of the work, tell us what causes the problem,
and we may fix it.]
Many bugs that are filed aren't important to 99.99% of the users.
If you are saying bad things about Mozilla and Firefox, you must be
trolling. [They say this even though Firefox and Mozilla instabili
Intel marketing is an example of Intel's unbelievably, extremely, amazingly
bad management. The major problem is not to get rid of the time wasters in
Intel marketing, the major problem is to get rid of the top management that
let Intel marketing become the joke that it is.
Intel's board is obviously incompetent, and obviously not paying
attention. The board let the stupidity happen.
Intel marketing is so disgusting that it is difficult to find words
that are negative enough. Here is an example that paraphrases an actual Intel
marketing email: "Jump through hoops and get an Intel BunnyPeople(TM)
doll." Yes, hmmm, hmmm, ahem, Intel did lots of high-level research and
analysis and determined that the people who make decisions about processors
and motherboards also collect dolls! So, giving away dolls is an effective
marketing tool! NOT!
Don't worry about the fact that the Intel web site is a mess, Intel
markets processors with deliberate product confusion (What's an Intel 531
processor?), and Intel marketing people are the most dedicated work avoiders
I've ever known.
Someone should step forward and say this about the Intel board of directors and
CEO, and it might as well be me: Craig R. Barrett, Paul S. Otellini,
Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, E. John P. Brown, D. James Guzy, Reed E.
Hundt, James D. Plummer, David S. Pottruck, Jane E. Shaw, John L. Thornton,
David B. Yoffie, you are incompetent! You let Intel marketing become the waste
of time and resources that it is!
Here a few of the qualifications of the board of directors, according
to the Intel web site:
CEO Paul S. Otellini: Has an MBA. Can someone with no technical
training run a high-technology company? No need to understand what you
"manage", right?
Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky: On the board of directors of Estee
Lauder, a company that manufactures makeup and therefore encourages women to
live in a fantasy world. Maybe she has influenced Intel marketing to live in
its fantasy world. "She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the
Council on Foreign Relations", it says, and we all know the quality of the
U.S. government's foreign relations.
Dr. Jane E. Shaw: Experienced in running pharmaceutical companies.
Would such a person notice if a high-tech company's marketing is a joke? No.
David B. Yoffie: Professor of business administration. Would such a
person notice if a high-tech company's marketing is a joke? Uhhh, what's a
processor?
E. John P. Browne: Helps run BP, formerly British Petroleum. The
company is apparently part of the reason for the Iraq war. The idea,
apparently, was to invade the country with the second-highest proven reserves
of oil in the world, and restrict the production so that the price of oil
would go up. This also benefited Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, whose friends
and family and business associates are heavily invested in oil and weapons.
See the free Google video, Robert
Newman's History of Oil. The U.S. taxpayer pays and pays and pays.
Reed E. Hundt: A lawyer.
David S. Pottruck: Knows the stock market. "In July of 2004, Mr.
Pottruck resigned after a 20-year career having served as President, Chief
Executive Officer and a member of the Board of the Charles Schwab
Corporation." Does that prepare him to understand the needs of a very,
very high-tech company?
Boards of directors usually do not have enough education, time, or
interest in the companies they "direct" to do a good job. The entire board of
director system is out of control. But Intel's board of directors is
especially inappropriate.
That Slashdot story linked to a Forbes story about Intel laying off 1000 managerial positions. That was an admission that Intel has been badly managed in the past. Otherwise, how could they have 1,000 managers they don't need?
They don't need to fire thousands. They need to fire Intel CEO Paul Otellini. He has made Intel more adversarial toward its employees, and therefore less efficient. Intel employees spend a good part of their time and energy defending themselves rather than working.
Intel CEO Paul Otellini is AMD's most productive single employee, by far.
Very true. We live in a marginally literate world. I read in a manual for technical writers that less than 2% of the population reads non-fiction books not relating to work.
A good example of being marginally literate is Slashdot editors. After years of being editors, they haven't even learned grammar or spelling.
You said, "I've had the whole browser lock up solid...".
I've had that happen, too. I've never seen it happen in Opera.
Why is it that the Opera people can make a completely stable browser, but the
Mozilla Foundation cannot?
Sometimes when the browser "locks up", it is due to the CPU hogging
bug.
It is not acceptable for Firefox developers to try to excuse Firefox
by saying that the problem is probably due to an extension, as you are
doing. They've been doing that for years, and it's lame.
You said, "My gut says..."
Maybe so. But would you fly on an airplane maintained by "gut says"
mechanics? "Gut says" is not debugging, it is just armchair philosophy.
Do you realize that, in at least 4 years, no one on the Mozilla
Foundation team has investigated the CPU hogging bug? No one. I posted
a bug report in which I had carefully tested and found the bug in both Windows
and Linux, on two different motherboards. But it is obvious that not one
developer has even bothered to read the bug reports thoroughly.
The problem is more severe if the computer is running Thunderbird
email software at the same time. (!!!! There's a clue!) The problem is more
severe if there is more than one instance or window of Firefox.
There would be a lot more bug reports about the CPU hogging bug. But
the Mozilla Foundation developers are openly hostile to bug reports and bug
reporters, so most people just use something else.
Poor quality of management is one of the things that is delaying the
acceptance of Firefox.
Firefox is the most unstable program in common use
on
Marketing Mozilla
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
From the parent comment: "(it's funny users will download spyware at the
drop of a hat but get nervous around legit software)"
That's because spyware is marketed in a more effective fashion. Yes,
the spyware marketing is a lie, and a destructive lie. However, spyware is
marketed as simple. If you investigate Firefox, you will find many, many
articles with the general subject: "How to spend a day doing highly technical
things that may or may not make Firefox work correctly". For example, Google
"Firefox
memory". Or, Google "Firefox unstable". Or,
"Firefox Crash".
Sure, Firefox has extensions, but they often make Firefox unstable.
The Firefox team thinks that it is entirely acceptable to market Firefox
extensions, but when the extensions cause Firefox to be unstable, to excuse
the instability by saying that it is caused by an extension.
From the Slashdot story: "With the approaching October release of
Firefox 2, the team is looking for ways to gain greater mainstream acceptance
- and adoption." This is nonsense, in my opinion. Firefox is, once again,
the
most unstable program in common use. If anyone on the Firefox team
actually cared about Firefox acceptance, they would fix the bugs, which
were first reported 3 years ago. Note that the main bug report linked
is always marked invalid. That's not because anything has been done
about the instability of Firefox; it's because people on the Firefox team
don't want to, or don't know how to, fix the very, very serious bugs.
The 1.5.0.4 version of Firefox was quite stable, if the Flashblock
extension was installed. The 1.5.0.6 version is unstable again. The
CPU-hogging bug is back!
This comment posted from a copy of Firefox that is constantly using
about 5% of the CPU, even when all pages have been loaded, and there is no
active content. That's 2.8% on the way to 70% or more, which will soon make it
necessary to close Firefox and reboot Windows XP.
The problem appears to be that Firefox does not allocate enough
resources. If you open several Firefox windows and several tabs in each
window, and leave them open for several days, or suspend or hibernate your
computer a few times, you will find that Firefox has started to hog the CPU.
Apparently everyone on the Firefox team wants to add features or work
on easy bugs. Apparently also, browser programmers are not necessarily heavy
browser users. People who often do research on the internet are likely to
cause Firefox to become unstable.
"It would have been nice if having a president who's a former alcoholic could have led to some honest dialog..."
George W. Bush is not a former alcoholic. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. His behavior is exactly what can be expected from an alcoholic: He is dishonest, violent (Iraq war), avoids being analytical, and is often disrespectful and anti-social (as in calling Russian President Vladimir Putin "Pooty-poot").
The VMware web site often gives the impression that the company employs a lot of people who have no understanding of computers. The announcement has no links to the winners! The web pages don't display well in Firefox. There are numerous other flaws.
If I didn't already know that VMware is a reputable company, I would never buy anything from a company with such a clueless web site. Obviously someone at VMware thinks that non-technical people have something valuable to contribute to a technical company, even though they cannot understand what they are doing.
Every time someone says something negative about Jews or Israel, he is attacked because he is anti-Jewish. Are you trying to say Jews are perfect?
I remember the Slashdot stories about Israeli companies because they were unique. They were actually "investment opportunities" that were, in my opinion, very unlikely to do anything but lose money. Read them and see what you think. Slashdot has run other pseudo-science articles, such as about a researcher at the University of Washington, but these articles seem to be the only ones that could easily cause people to lose their money.
This is a big issue, because it affects the health of the entire Slashdot business. If people lose trust in Slashdot, it will be very difficult to gain it back.
The entire policy concerning invasion of Iraq, which most people in the U.S. are against now, was authored by a Jew, Paul Wolfowitz. A lot of people think that was conflict of interest. Israel wants to draw the U.S. into conflict in the middle east because that lowers Israels costs for defending itself. Do you think it is a good idea to have the U.S. taxpayer pay for the political issues of another country?
I would like Slashdot editors to realize that articles with political content should be labeled as such.
You are not paying attention. You didn't read the links. The Slashvertisements for Israeli companies are the only ads Slashdot has ever run that are really ads for investments in seemingly fraudulent companies.
Mike Wallace was VERY disrespectful. Maybe it was not such a good idea to have a Jew interview the Iranian president. If I were Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, I would be thinking about firing Wallace for his lack of professionalism. However, Les Moonves is a Jew, also. They are both disposed by their culture to be sworn enemies of Iran. There should have been a statement on the show about the conflict of interest.
I am against violence of any kind. However, that said, I thought that the Iranian president was quite a reasonable man.
No, for several months there were more ads about Israeli companies than any other.
Much more importantly, in my opinion, the ads were for very undesirable "investment opportunities", that were unlikely to make money because they were not based on the laws of physics. To me, the ads looked like fraud, and I wasn't the only person to think that.
Slashdot Mirror
My understanding is that almost all educated Ukrainians speak Russian as a second language.
However, the point is valid, no matter what language they speak. It is difficult for a company in the U.S. to evaluate such a company.
Quote from the CP Lab About Us page: "Our company is located in Kiev, Ukraine. CP Lab's employs high-class experts, ..."
It's difficult to imagine that it would be acceptable to use an encryption product without having the source code. If you have problems, will you go to Kiev and discuss them with the "high-class" experts? Do you speak Russian?
Suppose a database becomes corrupted, and you need to recover your passwords? Will you send the entire database to the Ukraine?
Suppose the company is now selling an entirely acceptable product. However, suppose that later the company is sold to someone else, without notifying the customers, as is usual with software companies. Possibly the new owner will decide to build a back door into a "minor" a version upgrade.
The Ukraine? Isn't that one of the places that the U.S. government's break-the-law department, the CIA, holds prisoners illegally? Is CP Labs owned by the CIA, perhaps? Is CP Labs owned by the CIA, but most CP Labs employees don't know that?
If you use an encryption product, it should be open source. That at least provides some protection. One advantage of open source, free software is that the users can hide the fact that they are using the product from the developers. Paying creates a connection between your company and the developers.
Possibly there is some way of using TrueCrypt and GnuPG that would work for you. Need passwords for your department? Someone in your organization who acts as password manager sends them to you encrypted with your public key. Only someone who has your department's private key can decrypt them.
Quote from the article: "... Dunn will remain as a director after she relinquishes the chair on Jan. 18."
What's the message here? Do something unacceptable, and you can still be a director, you just can't be the Chairperson?
I can remember when HP was a good company. Now when I try to install HP products, it is common that I get error messages... during installation.
MOD PARENT UP!!
Two choices:
1) Buy expensive software.
2) Spend a week trying to get free software to work.
Also, maybe there should be a list of excuses for the excuses.
And you reminded me of other excuses I had not yet documented.
The fact is, other browsers such as Opera are stable. No number of excuses will make Firefox stable; the bugs must be fixed. The media (see the link below) are starting to report Firefox instability; it makes sense to fix the bugs before Firefox gets a bad reputation.
Interesting social science fact: Considering the responses, it is apparent that no one has read the bug reports thoroughly in the 4 years that the bug has been reported. It's easy to know early that the CPU hogging bug will be difficult to find, and apparently no one has read further.
Since no one commenting on this Slashdot story has read the bug reports, apparently, it is useful to repeat here that there is one fact that is important. The CPU hogging bug occurs only when several Firefox windows, each with several tabs, have been open for hours or days. Suspending or hibernating the computer (in Windows XP) make the problem happen sooner.
Interesting computer fact: The CPU hogging bug is communicable! Sometimes Firefox causes Thunderbird to hog the CPU! My guess is that fact makes it considerably easier to find the bug, or at least eliminate almost all of the code.
Another fact: Many people have guessed, based on the behavior, that the CPU hogging bug is caused by insufficient allocation of resources inside Firefox.
Mozilla Foundation Top 20 Excuses for Not Fixing Firefox Bugs
Here are the top 20 things Firefox and Mozilla developers say to those who report difficult bugs, collected over the last 4 years. See also the extensive information provided in this Slashdot comment, Firefox is the most unstable program in common use, and the links in the comment.
The Firefox CPU hogging bug is also a very interesting social problem.
You didn't read the bug report, and there is plenty of evidence that none of the developers did, either.
The Firefox CPU hogging bug occurs only when several windows and several tabs are open for a long time, days sometimes. If Thunderbird is running, the problem is worse. If the user hibernates or suspends the computer, the problem is much worse.
"... I do wonder if there's something unique about your machine."
Numerous people have reported the CPU hogging bug, including some in this thread. I''ve tried several computers myself.
Interesting fact: If both Firefox and Thunderbird are running, Firefox sometimes causes Thunderbird to have the CPU bug. That fact seems to make it easy to find the bug. However no developer has ever read the bug reports, apparently.
Mozilla Foundation Top 15 Excuses for Not Fixing Bugs
Top 15 things Firefox and Mozilla developers say about those who report difficult bugs, collected during the last 4 years:
"Well, there's certainly some developers who get pretty bitchy when you file bugs or point out errors they've made."
Not just bitchy; they make excuses. See Mozilla Foundation Top 14 Excuses for Not Fixing Bugs at the bottom of the linked page.
(Note that the main bug report linked is always marked invalid. That's not because anything has been done about the instability of Firefox; it's because people on the Firefox team don't want to, or don't know how to, fix the very, very serious bugs. Note also the links to magazine articles about Firefox instability, and the many links to user reports of problems.)
I'm posting this comment from Firefox version 1.5.0.6. It is using 22 percent of the CPU, even though all pages have been loaded, and there is no active content. That's 22% on the way to 70% or more, which will soon make it necessary to close all windows and tabs of Firefox and reboot Windows XP. (Firefox corrupts Windows XP SP2 with all patches applied, so that it is necessary to restart the OS. In Linux, it is necessary only to kill Firefox to get full control again.)
The CPU hogging bug in Firefox runs the fan in a laptop computer continuously, meaning that expensive hardware maintenance will be required more often for heavy Firefox users.
Firefox has extensions, but they often make Firefox unstable. The Firefox team thinks that it is entirely acceptable to market Firefox extensions, but when the extensions cause Firefox to be unstable, to excuse the instability by saying that it is caused by an extension.
The 1.5.0.4 version of Firefox was quite stable, if the Flashblock extension was installed. The 1.5.0.6 version is unstable again.
The problem appears to be that Firefox does not allocate enough resources. If you open several Firefox windows and several tabs in each window, and leave them open for several days, or suspend or hibernate your computer a few times, you will find that Firefox has started to hog the CPU.
It is interesting to note that, when the latest version of Firefox is used with the latest version of Thunderbird, they both have trouble with the CPU hogging bug. The each corrupt the other. Weird, and seemingly a good clue to the flaw that causes CPU hogging.
Apparently everyone on the Firefox team wants to add features or work on easy bugs. Apparently also, browser programmers are not necessarily heavy browser users. People who often do research on the internet, and open several Firefox windows and many tabs, and leave them open for several days, are certain or almost certain to cause Firefox to become unstable, however.
Mozilla Foundation Top 14 Excuses for Not Fixing Bugs
Top 14 things Firefox and Mozilla developers say about those who report difficult bugs, collected during the last 4 years:
Intel marketing is an example of Intel's unbelievably, extremely, amazingly bad management. The major problem is not to get rid of the time wasters in Intel marketing, the major problem is to get rid of the top management that let Intel marketing become the joke that it is.
Intel's board is obviously incompetent, and obviously not paying attention. The board let the stupidity happen.
Intel marketing is so disgusting that it is difficult to find words that are negative enough. Here is an example that paraphrases an actual Intel marketing email: "Jump through hoops and get an Intel BunnyPeople(TM) doll." Yes, hmmm, hmmm, ahem, Intel did lots of high-level research and analysis and determined that the people who make decisions about processors and motherboards also collect dolls! So, giving away dolls is an effective marketing tool! NOT!
Don't worry about the fact that the Intel web site is a mess, Intel markets processors with deliberate product confusion (What's an Intel 531 processor?), and Intel marketing people are the most dedicated work avoiders I've ever known.
Someone should step forward and say this about the Intel board of directors and CEO, and it might as well be me: Craig R. Barrett, Paul S. Otellini, Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, E. John P. Brown, D. James Guzy, Reed E. Hundt, James D. Plummer, David S. Pottruck, Jane E. Shaw, John L. Thornton, David B. Yoffie, you are incompetent! You let Intel marketing become the waste of time and resources that it is!
Here a few of the qualifications of the board of directors, according to the Intel web site:
CEO Paul S. Otellini: Has an MBA. Can someone with no technical training run a high-technology company? No need to understand what you "manage", right?
Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky: On the board of directors of Estee Lauder, a company that manufactures makeup and therefore encourages women to live in a fantasy world. Maybe she has influenced Intel marketing to live in its fantasy world. "She is also a member of the Board of Directors of the Council on Foreign Relations", it says, and we all know the quality of the U.S. government's foreign relations.
Dr. Jane E. Shaw: Experienced in running pharmaceutical companies. Would such a person notice if a high-tech company's marketing is a joke? No.
David B. Yoffie: Professor of business administration. Would such a person notice if a high-tech company's marketing is a joke? Uhhh, what's a processor?
E. John P. Browne: Helps run BP, formerly British Petroleum. The company is apparently part of the reason for the Iraq war. The idea, apparently, was to invade the country with the second-highest proven reserves of oil in the world, and restrict the production so that the price of oil would go up. This also benefited Dick Cheney and George W. Bush, whose friends and family and business associates are heavily invested in oil and weapons. See the free Google video, Robert Newman's History of Oil. The U.S. taxpayer pays and pays and pays.
Reed E. Hundt: A lawyer.
David S. Pottruck: Knows the stock market. "In July of 2004, Mr. Pottruck resigned after a 20-year career having served as President, Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Board of the Charles Schwab Corporation." Does that prepare him to understand the needs of a very, very high-tech company?
Boards of directors usually do not have enough education, time, or interest in the companies they "direct" to do a good job. The entire board of director system is out of control. But Intel's board of directors is especially inappropriate.
Link to your prediction, instead of just the story: Only the First Shoe to Drop.
That Slashdot story linked to a Forbes story about Intel laying off 1000 managerial positions. That was an admission that Intel has been badly managed in the past. Otherwise, how could they have 1,000 managers they don't need?
They don't need to fire thousands. They need to fire Intel CEO Paul Otellini. He has made Intel more adversarial toward its employees, and therefore less efficient. Intel employees spend a good part of their time and energy defending themselves rather than working.
Intel CEO Paul Otellini is AMD's most productive single employee, by far.
"Writers, by and large, are not good writers."
Very true. We live in a marginally literate world. I read in a manual for technical writers that less than 2% of the population reads non-fiction books not relating to work.
A good example of being marginally literate is Slashdot editors. After years of being editors, they haven't even learned grammar or spelling.
You said, "I've had the whole browser lock up solid...".
I've had that happen, too. I've never seen it happen in Opera. Why is it that the Opera people can make a completely stable browser, but the Mozilla Foundation cannot?
Sometimes when the browser "locks up", it is due to the CPU hogging bug.
It is not acceptable for Firefox developers to try to excuse Firefox by saying that the problem is probably due to an extension, as you are doing. They've been doing that for years, and it's lame.
You said, "My gut says..."
Maybe so. But would you fly on an airplane maintained by "gut says" mechanics? "Gut says" is not debugging, it is just armchair philosophy.
Do you realize that, in at least 4 years, no one on the Mozilla Foundation team has investigated the CPU hogging bug? No one. I posted a bug report in which I had carefully tested and found the bug in both Windows and Linux, on two different motherboards. But it is obvious that not one developer has even bothered to read the bug reports thoroughly.
The problem is more severe if the computer is running Thunderbird email software at the same time. (!!!! There's a clue!) The problem is more severe if there is more than one instance or window of Firefox.
There would be a lot more bug reports about the CPU hogging bug. But the Mozilla Foundation developers are openly hostile to bug reports and bug reporters, so most people just use something else.
Poor quality of management is one of the things that is delaying the acceptance of Firefox.
From the parent comment: "(it's funny users will download spyware at the drop of a hat but get nervous around legit software)"
That's because spyware is marketed in a more effective fashion. Yes, the spyware marketing is a lie, and a destructive lie. However, spyware is marketed as simple. If you investigate Firefox, you will find many, many articles with the general subject: "How to spend a day doing highly technical things that may or may not make Firefox work correctly". For example, Google "Firefox memory". Or, Google "Firefox unstable". Or, "Firefox Crash".
Sure, Firefox has extensions, but they often make Firefox unstable. The Firefox team thinks that it is entirely acceptable to market Firefox extensions, but when the extensions cause Firefox to be unstable, to excuse the instability by saying that it is caused by an extension.
From the Slashdot story: "With the approaching October release of Firefox 2, the team is looking for ways to gain greater mainstream acceptance - and adoption." This is nonsense, in my opinion. Firefox is, once again, the most unstable program in common use. If anyone on the Firefox team actually cared about Firefox acceptance, they would fix the bugs, which were first reported 3 years ago. Note that the main bug report linked is always marked invalid. That's not because anything has been done about the instability of Firefox; it's because people on the Firefox team don't want to, or don't know how to, fix the very, very serious bugs.
The 1.5.0.4 version of Firefox was quite stable, if the Flashblock extension was installed. The 1.5.0.6 version is unstable again. The CPU-hogging bug is back!
This comment posted from a copy of Firefox that is constantly using about 5% of the CPU, even when all pages have been loaded, and there is no active content. That's 2.8% on the way to 70% or more, which will soon make it necessary to close Firefox and reboot Windows XP.
The problem appears to be that Firefox does not allocate enough resources. If you open several Firefox windows and several tabs in each window, and leave them open for several days, or suspend or hibernate your computer a few times, you will find that Firefox has started to hog the CPU.
Apparently everyone on the Firefox team wants to add features or work on easy bugs. Apparently also, browser programmers are not necessarily heavy browser users. People who often do research on the internet are likely to cause Firefox to become unstable.
Which Linksys hardware do you use that supports OpenVPN?
Where did you get the firmware?
I agree with what you said.
However, this doesn't seem right to me:
"It would have been nice if having a president who's a former alcoholic could have led to some honest dialog..."
George W. Bush is not a former alcoholic. Once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic. His behavior is exactly what can be expected from an alcoholic: He is dishonest, violent (Iraq war), avoids being analytical, and is often disrespectful and anti-social (as in calling Russian President Vladimir Putin "Pooty-poot").
You don't seem to be familiar with the pseudo-science of the Israeli company. That appeared to me to be fraudulent.
You said: "Not saying that they are all fradulent, but at least a couple of them appear quite shady (especially that ridiculous network card company)"
I don't see any obvious fraud. Reducing latency with a special card would make online games more playable.
The VMware web site often gives the impression that the company employs a lot of people who have no understanding of computers. The announcement has no links to the winners! The web pages don't display well in Firefox. There are numerous other flaws.
If I didn't already know that VMware is a reputable company, I would never buy anything from a company with such a clueless web site. Obviously someone at VMware thinks that non-technical people have something valuable to contribute to a technical company, even though they cannot understand what they are doing.
Winner: HowNetWorks
Second Place: Trellis NAS Bridge Appliance.
Third Place: Sieve Firewall
...the president is a Born-Again-Christian fundamentalist. Doesn't that give him a "conflict of interest"...
Yes: Unprecedented Corruption: A guide to conflict of interest in the U.S. government.
Apparently you think you are being pro-Jewish. But you aren't, I think.
Every time someone says something negative about Jews or Israel, he is attacked because he is anti-Jewish. Are you trying to say Jews are perfect?
I remember the Slashdot stories about Israeli companies because they were unique. They were actually "investment opportunities" that were, in my opinion, very unlikely to do anything but lose money. Read them and see what you think. Slashdot has run other pseudo-science articles, such as about a researcher at the University of Washington, but these articles seem to be the only ones that could easily cause people to lose their money.
This is a big issue, because it affects the health of the entire Slashdot business. If people lose trust in Slashdot, it will be very difficult to gain it back.
The entire policy concerning invasion of Iraq, which most people in the U.S. are against now, was authored by a Jew, Paul Wolfowitz. A lot of people think that was conflict of interest. Israel wants to draw the U.S. into conflict in the middle east because that lowers Israels costs for defending itself. Do you think it is a good idea to have the U.S. taxpayer pay for the political issues of another country?
I would like Slashdot editors to realize that articles with political content should be labeled as such.
You are not paying attention. You didn't read the links. The Slashvertisements for Israeli companies are the only ads Slashdot has ever run that are really ads for investments in seemingly fraudulent companies.
Mike Wallace interview on 60 Minutes of Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: Iranian Leader Opens Up Ahmadinejad Speaks Candidly With Mike Wallace About Israel, Nukes, Bush.
Mike Wallace was VERY disrespectful. Maybe it was not such a good idea to have a Jew interview the Iranian president. If I were Les Moonves, CEO of CBS, I would be thinking about firing Wallace for his lack of professionalism. However, Les Moonves is a Jew, also. They are both disposed by their culture to be sworn enemies of Iran. There should have been a statement on the show about the conflict of interest.
I am against violence of any kind. However, that said, I thought that the Iranian president was quite a reasonable man.
No, for several months there were more ads about Israeli companies than any other.
Much more importantly, in my opinion, the ads were for very undesirable "investment opportunities", that were unlikely to make money because they were not based on the laws of physics. To me, the ads looked like fraud, and I wasn't the only person to think that.
I found another earlier story asking for investment in an Israeli company, and a comment complaining about it: Wanting investors. FRAUD???