Ever since the new Firefox 3.5 came out about a month ago, I’ve been using it as my main browser. Generally I am very happy with it. Pages load a lot faster than they did before, the plus-sign feature in tabs which launches a new one is a godsend, and I am very excited about the prospects for all of the open video technologies built into it. But there is one persistent bug that might push me to another browser: it keeps crashing on me.
This usually happens when I have too many tabs open (like 15 or 20, which is not unusual for me towards the end of the day). The whole thing will just freeze and I’ll have to force the browser to quit. When I relaunch I get a message like the one above, sheepishly saying, “Well, this is embarrassing.” Yes, it is embarrassing. A modern browser should be able to handle dozens of open tabs, and if there is a problem with one, it should be able to isolate it and allow you to carry with your business in the other tabs.
Without basic stability, none of the other great features or add-ons really matter much. Mozilla needs to fix this issue fast because Firefox 3.5 is already gaining a lot of traction. Net Applications has it at a 4.5 percent market share at the end of July, while StatCounter has it at 9.4 percent as of today. People are using this as their main browser, despite the beta label, and there are plenty of other powerful choices out there from Safari to Chrome to, yes, even IE8.
I realize that Firefox 3.5 is a just came out of beta, and to be fair, it has become slightly more stable over the past month (it was crashing every day in the beginning, now it is just every few days). I’ve been patiently waiting for the crashing to stop as Mozilla releases patches and updates. And I’m on a developer build, so maybe I’m just asking for crashes. But plenty of other people are complaining as well. Is Firefox 3.5 crashing for you?
Firefox was going one better and crashing my whole PC. My PC is hardly underpowered but FF found a way. I have moved to Chrome temporarily until FF is more stable.
So for now I just use FF for dev work. I must be honest, Chrome has impressed me to say the least but I’m still a Firefox user at heart.
in your gmail, select all -> select all 6000 messages -> mark as read.
if first search tweet is 1 day ago, and 2 tweets a day means it hardly crashes.
chrome like single tab crash would be better than full browser all tab crash?
Buddy,
you gotta look at teh ‘unsupported’ addons.. that’s what is crashing firefox.
Erick, please don’t blame firefox for crashing… check your addons.
Firefox never crashed on me, i use only limited but very useful addons. mostly abp, firebug and webdeveloper. i stoped using greasemonkey as that was the one which caused me a lot of trouble. it was not actually greasemonkey’s fault eighter, one of the developer of the script was the culprit, but i do not want to pinpoint who it is.
I REALLY suggest you guys take a look at this page:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Problematic_extensions
It’s a list of known problematic extensions, even the ones that aren’t in beta and have no warnings attached.
I play World of Warcraft, and the point that extensions (addons in WoW) are user made never hits home harder. You’re running code written by mostly novices. Of course there’s going to be problems!
Firefox has been stable with me so far. My extensions: http://pastebin.com/f1847f216
> I play World of Warcraft, and the point
> that extensions (addons in WoW) are
> user made never hits home harder. You’re
> running code written by mostly novices.
> Of course there’s going to be problems!
I have to take issue with this. My experience mirrors the author’s with the exceptions that 1) it’s a full crash and 2) I regularly run with 100-300 tabs over the course of several days and it appears that only specific sites will trigger a crash (race condition? it’s unpredictable). Firefox 3.0.x worked perfectly fine; as soon as I updated to 3.5, I’ve been experiencing random (infrequent) crashes. There have been no changes to my extensions with the exception of minor updates (mostly for compatibility). Worse, 3.5’s performance is AWFUL when > 100 tabs are loaded. It’s ironic that 3.0.x could handle 300+ tabs better than 3.5 can manage 50.
Your comment that extensions are mostly written by novices is insulting to the individuals who pour a great deal of time and effort into maintaining and developing them. Many of these individuals write their extensions as a hobby–and they are typically developers or consultants by day. Authoring extensions requires a certain level of expertise and not everyone who can write a “hello, world” application can author one!
Yes, extensions can cause problems. They often do, but to disparage the efforts of thousands of people by calling them novices is just disgusting. Take a look at the company backing NoScript and perhaps you’ll see what I mean.
Benjamin,
I have to agree with Michael here. When I first installed 3.5, I experienced a lot of problems. Super slow on some sites, crashes and browser hangs. I disabled most of my extensions and that fixed every single problem immediately. Even if you haven’t changed extensions recently, Firefox itself has changed.
A lot of extensions use bad practices that may only work for a specific version. Even “compatibility updates” may not fix the problems, because often times they are just changes to the install file, updating the version number, and don’t change code at all. With a major version release which changes a lot of core code, it may take months for extension developers to track down the problems and release updates.
As for extensions being written by “novices”, this is a poor choice of words on his part, but Michael does have a point. Even though many of them are professional developers, they do not write the extensions professionally. They are hobbyists. They have no budget for Q&A, they do work in their spare time and without the same attention to detail that paying work demands. It’s hardly a stretch to say that the quality of code is not up to commercial standards.
could you give a valid reason for having more than a hundred tabs open? The most I ever have open is about 15. 100 tabs or more sounds like procrastination to read the open tabs. I’ve never heard of someone having that many tabs open.
I think he means 100 tabs throughout the day without restarting the browser or computer.
The fact is that the latest build should’ve failed some regression tests. I was using the exact same extensions with 3.0.x before “upgrading” to 3.0.13 and my browser started crashing on me like crazy at random. I finally installed 3.5.2 which then disabled my most used plug-in. The faster loading pages is nice but the buggy code and lack of compatibility really sucks.
Firefox crashes on me almost every day, especially the Mac version. I find the Windows version unstable to and I don’t use plug-ins.
Well, 3.0.x was working perfectly. I upgraded, and what do you know? 20 crashes per day.
If I’m not going to use extensions, then I might as well use Chrome or Safari, both of which use far less memory.
I use Firefox because of its extensability. Zotero and AdBlock Plus are worth it. Those are the only ones I’m using, both are very stable, and I had no problems in 3.0.x So don’t insult me.
@David Perel
Don’t blame FF for crashing your PC, if that happens then you either have a driver or hardware problem.
I have done exactly the same. And if the developer extensions make their way into Chrome…. Watch out Mozilla.
It has always been a known but hidden fact that Firefox likes the taste of RAM. Please Mozilla, admit and fix this problem once and for all.
What is “Techcrunch Spy”?
Oh, you weren’t supposed to see that.
I think TC Spy sounds much more interesting and newsworthy than some random browser crashing
http://spy.techcrunch.com/signin.php
So how long until we have TechCrunchGate?
Arrington is going to rake you over the coals for letting Techcrunch Spy leak out
Quite peculiar…
Here’s a lead:
http://www.businessinsider.com/is-michael-arrington-building-a-digg-killer-2009-4
Hi,
What do you mean by “I realize that Firefox 3.5 is a beta”?
As I am using final version of it.
yeah, my bad. I was using the beta version before and then it became the general release. Fixed it in the post, thnx
Still seeing “beta” in the post — maybe it’s cached?
In my experience Firefox 3.5 doesn’t really crash on me unless I’m torturing it with web/browser development tasks. I have over 20 add-ons, and it’s not uncommon for me to have 20+ tabs open.
Isolate the real issue, don’t blame the browser. Most likely you’re using one or more unstable add-ons.
Ah, you corrected one line but missed “despite the beta label.”
Just realized u are using Mac OS.
why in this world you are using FIREFOX on a MAC!!…
Safari 6.1.001 (dev build) is BEST and FASTEST.
Firefox + Win 7 = Safari 6 + Mac 11
BUT
Firefox + Mac OSuks Safari 6 + Mac 11
Actually I don’t think 3.5 is a beta is it? I havent really had any big problems with it since installing (but maybe because it runs differently on a PC.
Hmmm, conspirarcy theory here. TC loves Google (whether this love is paid for or not can be speculated). So naturally TC loves Chrome. So naturally, TC bashes all other browsers consistantly.
So this post by Erick is entirely predictable.
crashes at least once per day, sometimes more…
I’ve abandonned Firefox to Opera, because it crashed several times per hour!!!
Opera is suprisingly a good browser – just missing the plug-ins
I’m long term Opera fanboy using it since version 3 and loving it. I also use Firefox for its Firebug and Developer Toolbar for web dev and to play Quake Live but that’s it, Opera, despite lack of extensions, is superior in my opinion.
The irony here is that Firefox is probably crashing on you because of some addon you have installed. Opera is more stable because there aren’t any addons to clog it up.
We are running 1000s of automated Firefox browsers via the iMacros addon every day. No crashes here. Works just fine.
I am sure it has something to do with the website(s) you visit…
Out of curiosity what do you do with 1000s of automated Firefox browsers?
Keeps clicking on his web-site URL through multiple proxies.
…and on his competitor’s AdWords ads too of course.
Thank you for someone pointing this out worried it was just my system
I have had all kinds of performance/crash problems with FF 3.5 (on Mac). I ended up downgrading back to 3.0, which isn’t so stellar itself. In general, Safari is a MUCH better browser these days.
Yeah, on my PC I’m not actually having many crashing issues with FF 3.5, but I have been noticing them on my Mac (usually does seem to happen when I’ve got multiple windows and too many tabs open).
I hate to admit it but you might be right – Safari 4 is the first version of Safari I’ve actually enjoyed using and really noticed the speed improvements. I’m still too stuck in my ways and will keep using Firefox for now, but Safari is becoming more tempting.
so Shitter results is now considered “research” eh?
lol. you’re never gonna give twitter a break are you?
Why should he ? He’s absolutely right.
Well the screenshot of Twitter search hardly is damning evidence is it? 6 Twitter comments over 2 days?!
nope, I’m commenting on the quality of research.
whole article needs a IMO in front of it.
uhhh, the 3.5 release last month as the final version. It’s been fine for me, firebug beta is a piece of crap though.
It may be because you’re using the beta version…? I’m using FF 3.5.2, which is not a beta, but the current release from Mozilla, and it hasn’t crashed once, unlike Chrome, which can’t seem to handle more than four tabs at a time.
In several weeks of using 3.5 (and 3.5.1 and 3.5.2) on both Vista (laptop) and XP (desktop PC), we haven’t seen a single crash. My wife and I regularly keep FF open for hours at a time, with 10 or more tabs running…
So it may be that you have add-ons which are crashing the browser (Mozilla says most memory leaks and crashes are due to poorly written add-ons), or possibly the websites you’re visiting.
I’m on the developer branch of Chrome, and occasionally use the nightly Chromium builds without the browser crashing on me once. I play around with power-hungry “Chrome Experiments” and O3D, and even with this, Chrome automatically shuts the plugin down before the browser crashes (unless you get impatient and click erratically I suppose). Oh, and I regularly have ~20 tabs open at once, including Gmail and Reader. So if that doesn’t crash it, I don’t know how you manage to do so. When was the last time you tried it? I tried FF 3.5.2 a few days ago, and it was nice, but I haven’t missed a single plugin since changing to Chrome the day it was released.
I’m using 3.5 (Mac) and haven’t had any problems, and I almost always have 15-20 tabs open. Could it be a plugin problem?
OMG – this is why I returned to IE8 – I too love Firefox but geeze – quit messing up!
Every website I try to visit – it says Firefox cannot find it – too much hassle.
Here is a site that will help with anything:
http://www.thessayist.com
Check it out!
try chrom
Firefox 3.5 has been out of beta for a while now. You must be talking about the beta version of some 3.5.x.
The problem is that nowadays, largely because of Google, people are regarding beta software as the latest perfectly usable release. IT IS NOT! The very fact that it has a “beta” attached to its name means that you are one of the select group of people using it only for the purpose of testing and nothing else. Not very long ago, it would be laughable that someone was complaining about beta software crashing on them.
If the beta version of Firefox has crashed, then, well, send a bug report to Mozilla. Hopefully they will fix it by the stable release. If not, THEN you have a right to complain. You should not be using a beta browser as your primary one in the first place. Use a stable alternative for important/work-related browsing (especially if it requires 20 tabs!)
On another note, Firefox 3.5 has never crashed on me. Maybe you haven’t upgraded to the latest stable version yet. I certainly feel that Firefox is the superior browser right now.
ditto on the never crashing. 3.5.0, 3.5.1, 3.5.2 have all been fine.
have you people considered that your extensions may be breaking your browser since the majority of us don’t have it crashing?
yes..it was crashing often times on my pc..then i came back to IE 8 and found working nicely..
a lot better than the previous versions of IE
You should try Chrome. Much, much better than ie8.
What do you mean FF3.5 is beta? It’s been released like a month ago, and it’s already 3.5.2.
I haven’t had a single crash so far, and I’ve been using 3.5 since it _was_ a beta. I’m still not overly happy with startup times for Firefox, but I’ve tried Chrome and while it’s certainly lightning fast, there are just too many extensions that I use and I’ve come to rely on them.
The killer feature in FF for me though, is the About:Tab extensions. It’s basically a different approach to the new tab page and I prefer it much more to chrome’s, opera’s, or any other approach so far. It’s fast, it’s slick and it’s very useful – all that, despite it’s alpha status and quite a few bugs.
Yes, I received the “Well, this is embarrassing.” message too.
Yes, yes, yes. One day I spent over an hour trying just to get it to stay open long enough for me to just decide which tabs to close.
I’ve seen some minor stability issues with Firefox 3.5, but nothing catastrophic. Usually seems to be with having the browser open to long, and the program consuming too much memory, and I usually attribute that to plugging & addons. With 20 tabs open I can only imagine the browsers memory footprint, and cringe.
I’m not sure why anyone would mention IE8 in comparison to FF3.5 in stability as I have crashed IE8 many times over Firefox.
63446 Unread emails?
Talk about busy…
and I only have 300MB left of storage on my Gmail, I’m getting the 95% full warning
You know, you can upgrade it. It’s only $20/year for 10GB (additional or total, I’m not sure). You might wait until Gdrive comes out though, because I suspect that will happen soon and reduce prices a bit ($500 for 400GB is kind of expensive for a netbook that costs less).
Sorry forgot to write the website. https://www.google.com/accounts/PurchaseStorage?hl=en
What kind of an insane inbox is that? Come on, get it down to zero unread. You’ve only got 63,446 emails to go before you can get on with your life.
Do you still have your super old powerpc mac? (You mentioned you use a power pc mac a while back). Maybe that has something to do with it. It is working fine for me on a intel based macbook pro.
No way, a 6 month old Macbook Pro. I finally upgraded.
I have been using FF 3.5 and no crashes. Have lots of “can’t find site” errors.
I wonder if it has happening more on Mac or Windows… Vista and Win7 RC have now major issues for me….
I routinely have to shut down FF several times a day because I’ve got, say, 3 tabs open, it’s using 250mb of RAM, and the laptop fan is going crazy.
Great browser, but the garbage collection doesn’t work.
Firefox has always crashed!
I do hope they focus on stability then features in future updates. It’s still my browser of choice, as the extensions keep it sticky over Chrome!
Hmmm…. I have 6-7 tabs open all the time. In fact, they all point to reference web sites, except for the one I use in association with my RSS reader.
I have to go in and kill the Firefox process once per day. Usually, it will balloon from 337MB used to 1500MB and then become unresponsive.
I had assumed it was an issue with the “Feed Sidebar” addon that I use.
I’ve switched to Chrome since 3.5. Not that it crashes that often, but it often locks up when using Gmail or Facebook
I’ll second the suggestion to make sure that you are still not using the beta, and to check your add-ins for updates as well. I run FF 3.5.2 on 7 machines (2 XP, 2 Vista, 2 ubuntu, and a WHS box)- none of them have stability problems, and all have the same add-ins loaded. I also load 10-15 tabs constantly.
10 – 20 tabs is not a lot of tabs. I regularly run FF with anywhere from 50 – 100 tabs open, and since moving to 3.5 have rarely seen any crashes. Maybe it’s a plugin issue?
50-100 tabs? How do you keep track of anything? I usually only have 10-20 tabs so I don’t have to scroll between tabs. Hell, ever since my vacation I’ve had to limit myself to 4 tabs at any given time.
Despite that, no 3.0+ Firefox browser has crashed on me yet. I notice Macs have more crashes than windows though.
The best solution for that many tabs is a custom setup. My suggestion.
Tab Kit ( This will give you a tab sidebar you can use )
Tab Preview ( Obvious though tweak it for no delays and smaller than default thumbnails )
You might want to get Ctrl-Tab if your more keyboard oriented in switching tabs.
After that customization of the UI is suggested. Personally all I have is the tab siderbar setup at about 120 pixels wide and one bar with the compact menu address bar back and forward reload with reload every search box new window button and download button on the bar.
The interface comes out very clean.
http://img22.imageshack.us/img22/2310/screenshotzwb.png
Then the tab bar is auto hid when theres only one tab.
Not crashing but freezing and “going gray” quite often. The freeze will last a minute or two and then it will be back. It’s getting annoying enough that I’m actually considering other browsers for the first time in five years.
Chrome! Try it and you’ll love it (unless you absolutely need certain extensions). Go with the dev branch if you want adsweep though.
What is this ? Firefox 3.5 (full release) was launched over a moth ago and it’s already at 3.5.2.
I come to techcrunch to read about what’s new in the industry and I expect the great editors here to know what they’re talking about. But you had no idea that the second most popular browser is is already at 3.5 – stable ?!
And to top it off you source your story with a couple of twitter comments so you don’t look completely clueless.
Now to the serious part – instead of whining – how about actually fixing the problem.
FF 3.5 is rock solid, obviously one of your addons is the problem – disable all of them and reenable one by one to find the culprit. Continue by reinstalling Flash, Java and other plugins you might have.
/But why should I expect someone who doesn’t even know if their browser is a frickin beta or not, to follow common sense computer advice…