Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with firefox and computer

How do I override "Override All Compatibility" in Firefox?

for_serious — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 15:09:16 -0800

Installed Firefox 3.5 today and accidentally hit "Override all Compatibility". Now CPU is at 99%. Any way to UNDO this? So I have a LOT of extensions, and after installation, Firefox showed a long list of those not yet compatible with 3.5. I was OK with Firefox disabling those add-ons, but then I mistakenly hit "Override all Compatibility" (from Nightly Tester Tool) on my Extensions page. Now (duh) the extensions are not playing nicely. Major memory leaks.

I ran in safe mode, turned off all extensions, and added them back in groups of five, but couldn't pinpoint any problem. Then I came back to my computer and Firefox was running at 99% again. I disabled the last five add-ons; didn't do the trick.

I uninstalled NTT, reinstalled NTT, reset Firefox preferences, reinstalled Firefox... I can't get Firefox to pinpoint my incompatible extensions again. Runs fine with all extensions off, but what kind of life is that?

I don't even remember why I got Nightly Tester Tools in the first place, but I'm waaay out of my depth here. Any ideas?

Switch to Firefox 3 or stay with 2?

jujube — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 08:15:48 -0800

Advantages/disadvantages of Firefox 3? I'm currently using Firefox 2, and am completely happy with it. After the latest security update, I see a message saying that there will be no more security updates, and that I should switch to Firefox 3 instead.

Should I switch? If you're currently using Firefox 3, what is better about 3? If I stay with 2, am I leaving myself open to viruses, attacks, etc.?
Also, I have a couple of firefox extensions I've installed. Do they transfer over to 3, or do I have to re-install them? Looking for the least troublesome/time consuming option here. Thanks.

I'm really not looking at gay porno

My Bloody Pony — Sun, 11 May 2008 13:13:37 -0800

When checking out a gchat link from a friend to nbc.com, my firefox froze as "jew.wmv" tried to run (unsuccessfully) and a screaming chorus of "I'm looking at gay porno" came out of my computer. Does anybody know what the hell this is? Being at home, alone, secure in my sexuality and the fact that I wasn't looking at porn of any type, it wasn't embarrassing, but I'm also on a mac, and not used to getting viruses any more as a result. I can't imagine that nbc.com would have caused this, even on their SNL Politics page, and when I tried again, it happened again. Anybody run into this or know why it might have happened? (I'm running Firefox on Leopard.)

Only for Firefox, only on one computer: manual connection to high speed required. Why?

flibbertigibbet — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 08:05:26 -0800

After installing a new wireless router, what router/network setting would force only Firefox, and on only one computer in the network, connect to the internet and ethernet manually, while everything else connects automatically? Some background: all but one (1) of the computers mentioned run Windows XP.

A friend gave us a very broken laptop of hers a while back. We fixed it, got to keep it, and set up a wireless network to accommodate it.

In the network we have: DesktopA (Vista, new server), DesktopB (old server, connected to printers, the problem), DesktopC, DesktopD, and LaptopA.

We switched from a non-wireless Linksys router to a "Linksys Wireless-G 2.4Ghz (54Mbps) Broadband Router." There was a moment where the two routers were daisychained.

The only change to the network was the change in the router, and in individual security permissions on each computer to allow the computers to connect via the new router, and to see each other's shared files.

Only with Firefox, and only on DesktopB, are we forced to manually connect with the (broadband) internet. There is literally nothing I can think of that explains this, especially as it's not required to connect with Firefox on any of the other computers in the network. However, once I manually connect, it works like a dream.

The connection screen is seen here. Even weirder is the fact that the connection screen is well-known to us, following some internet problems resulting from uninstall BitTorrent, which damaged some files whose name escapes me, causing intermittent internet access. However, back then, the client has its own icon--as you can see here, the icon it takes is Firefox's.

We even removed the connection clients (installed during the BitTorrent problem) from DesktopB entirely, but this one still pops up every time I start Firefox after restarting the computer. Any help?

Where does autofill come from?

M Edward — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 23:38:34 -0800

Firefox Filter: Is there any way to view the autofill lists outside of Firefox? Where does Firefox store the autofill information? Like previous google searches? Is there a way to view them with a text editor?

I am looking for something I googled a long time ago but going through the entire history of my searches line-by-line with only 4 at a time showing is driving me batty.

Like a disaffected grad student, for some reason my firefox won't finish

rileyray3000 — Fri, 25 May 2007 09:12:38 -0800

I like to think I'm a reasonably smart guy. But after a dozen google searches and innumerable hours spent on tech boards I'm stumped. The last few images on every web page I go to will NOT load. What gives? Like I said, usually I'll follow whatever instruction I'm given online and it clears stuff up. But for this one, no one really seems to have a clear answer

-I have a 2 month old superfast inspiron e1405 with a 4mb cache and all the ram I could fit in it
-I have vista
-I have firefox
-I have mcCafee
-I've uninstalled every firefox add-on but tabmixplus, foxmarks, download statusbar, IEtab, foxytunes and talkback. It's still happening.
-The problem happens whether I'm on crappy coffee shop wireless or on my superfast LAN at work
-If I right click on any picture it appears instantly
-IN possibly related news, it takes up to 15 minutes for my google reader to finish loading.
-pages seem to load pretty quickly initially and then just stall out, sometimes indefinitely, in the latter portion of loading

So what gives? Any ideas people?

Firefox 2.0 Ready?

KRS — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 09:51:04 -0800

Is Firefox 2.0 Ready for Prime Time? I've held off installing Firefox 2.0, on the principle that there are always bugs in any .0 release, and you should always wait for at least .01. Sure enough, there were reports of vulnerabilities when 2.0 came out.

Have these been fixed? Is it time to go from 1.5 to 2.0?

Why is my computer suddenly grumpy, slow, and generally uncooperative?

chefscotticus — Wed, 06 Sep 2006 19:22:14 -0800

Why is my computer suddenly grumpy, slow, and generally uncooperative? In the past week or so, my 4 year old Dell Inspirion notebook has suddenly decided it doesn't much like me anymore and is doing it's best to get me to toss it in frustration.

It's been extremely well maintained (frequent spy/adware/virus scans, careful downloading, frequently cleaned out registry, etc), but the past few days have seen suddenly high loads on the processor, freezing, and a corrupted Firefox profile. The hard drive is just over a year old (though only has ~2GB free). Specifically, my Moz Firefox and Thunderbird have been especially sluggish, and both (with 5 loaded tabs doing nothing) are often using 100% of my 2GHz CPU (or combining with TB for 100%). Ad-Aware, Norton Anti-virus, CCleaner Registry Cleaner, and XP "scan disk" have all been run to no avail. Restarting helps, but only for a little while. Memory is 512MB, and has been enough -- system was working beatifully until recently.

Some ideas: Could CCleaner have deleted some needed Registry items by accident? I have been using uTorrent a little bit of late -- can viruses/spyware be embedded in .AVI files? Could the hard-drive be starting to fail, and are there any programs I can download that can tell me if this is inevitable? Could it be a FF/TB problem, or something with one of my many extensions?

> > > I guess what I am really asking for is suggestions for other tools to help diagnose the problem (or other suggestions). What programs out there might be able to help?

Thanks MeFi.

Need Help Fixing a Problem with Firefox 1.5.0.3 and Adobe Reader.. Please help!

seinfeld — Tue, 23 May 2006 08:31:40 -0800

Trouble with XP, Firefox 1.5.0.3, and Adobe Reader 7.0.7... I have reinstalled everything other than the OS. Firefox crashes every time it loads a PDF... How do I remedy this? My dad's computer is a Dell Inspiron with 1G of RAM. When it was new, and even just a few months ago, the machine screamed along. However, in the past few months, every time it opens a PDF in Firefox, the browser crashes. Sometimes, when switching between tabs, it 'sticks' for maybe 10-20 seconds before switching.

I have uninstalled Firefox and Adobe, and reinstalled, to no avail. There are no extensions loaded in Firefox. The mouse wheel does not work in Firefox, though it works in every other application. I have AVG Free as AV protection and used to use Norton. Adaware shows no spyware, and other than Firefox/Adobe, the computer is running well.

Any ideas how to fix this?

Thanks..

Firefox Homepage and Bookmarks Mysteriously Disappear, Complications Ensue.

wordswinker — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 13:27:41 -0800

Twice this week I've lost my bookmarks and homepage on Firefox. Please help me--I'm a babe in the woods and the big hungry Firefox is licking its chops. Both times this happend, I had rebooted my PC and tried to get online via Firefox. A hitherto unseen window came up asking me to create a profile. I couldn't get anywhere without creating a default profile.

Once online, my homepage was changed and all my bookmarks were gone.

I got them back by restoring my computer to an earlier time, but that's a hassle I'd rather not repeat.

Any ideas?

Odd Firefox behavior

stuart_s — Thu, 19 May 2005 14:28:06 -0800

I've been ignoring a number of minor Firefox bugs but I've finally had enough. Help! The Linky! extension doesn't work. The Conquery extension doesn't work. I select text but then I get an empty dialog prompting me for search text. The Del.icio.us extension doesn't work. I can "bookmark clicked link" but I can't "bookmark current page". Nothing happens. The Turbo feature of the DownThemAll extension doesn't work. It doesn't recognize that I've selected text.

These behaviors all appeared at the same time a few weeks ago and they feel like they might be related in a way that I don't understand.

Win2k. Firefox 1.03. Anything else?

Firefox extension to add repeated text?

feelinglistless — Sun, 23 Jan 2005 05:09:02 -0800

Is there a Firefox extension out there which allows you use the right-click menu to select and drop bits of text (for example html) you use repeatedly, into a document, for example a Blogger post?

How do we set up two distinct sets of preferences in Firefox?

John Smallberries — Wed, 22 Dec 2004 15:36:56 -0800

Firefox question - I have a situation where two people share this computer, and each of us want our browser set up OUR way - bookmarks, toolbars, look and style, etc. Is there a way to set this up in Firefox? Compromise is not likely, and I don't want to have to kill them to keep them from replacing my toolbar links. Nor do I want either of us to go back to IE and its gaping security holes again. Any ideas?

Firefox Features

Grod — Wed, 15 Sep 2004 19:11:07 -0800

I am an unapologetic Firefox fanboy. This is the only piece of software for which I have feelings bordering on love. Which is why it pains me to say that new pr 0.10 is annoying me. There are lots of sites that I have multiple logins for and I miss the ability to 1, be able to place the cursor in the login field, press the down arrow, and chose the login I want. And 2, be able to type the first few letters of the login and hit tab to auto complete the login and populate the password field. Anyone figure out how to get these features back?

Firefox font foo

Grod — Fri, 02 Jul 2004 14:09:19 -0800

I love Firefox. But I've had a problem since firebird and it's still present in .9.1. I like the free Bitstream Vera font family when I'm on the laptop because the fonts smooth nicely. However, at some point they become aliased. Screen shots inside. How do I prevent this from happening? Good:

Bad:

This effects all the context menus and the drop down menues as well. It's really annoying.

Thunder on the upgrade

Aaorn — Tue, 10 Feb 2004 06:55:09 -0800

Help with Mozilla Thunderbird: I, somewhat foolishly, decided to upgrade my copy of Thunderbird yesterday at the same time as I was getting the new Fire[fox|bird]. I went from 0.3 to 0.5 and now I can't send mail from any of my accounts. [MI] When I try to send a message from any of my four accounts (3 POP, one IMAP), I immediately get an "Unable to connect to outgoing mail server, it may be down or not accepting SMTP connections" message. (Exact error text here.) I've already tried deleting and re-adding all the SMTP servers under Account Settings. Incoming mail still works fine.

In a move of surprising unhelpfulness, there is no help documentation included with the program. Clicking on the Help menu sends me to the texturizer.net Thunderbird Help site, but that domain has been knocked offline in the flood since the Firefox release.

Anyone have any advice or personal experience to offer?