Is it just me, or does Firefox kinda suck anymore?

June 22, 2005 5:31 AM

In less than a month, I've had Firefox crash on one machine -- a new G4 Powerbook relatively free from stuff like GUI mods, extra software, a million extensions, etc. -- more than 15 times. Usually, it's while doing something innocuous, like trying to open a new tab. I have the same problem on my G5.

Previous versions almost never crashed, and being a Mac user, I'm relatively unaccustomed to constant program crashes (oh, there were the early days of OS X, but let's not talk about those...)

Is Firefox a victim of its own success? I can't keep enduring the crashes; it's driving me back to Safari, which I don't even particularly like. Anyone using Deer Park without a massive crashfest?

posted by mrkinla to Computers & Internet (21 answers total)

I was having constant trouble with FireFox for a few weeks, where it would crash frequently, until I decided to try uninstalling an extension that was running on it. That pretty much cleared things right up.
Maybe it's something like that?
(FireFox on WinXP, btw)
posted by frufry at 5:49 AM on June 22, 2005

Tried the new Safari? It's made a believer outta me. RSS, tabbed and secure browsing, etc. I'm gonna get killed for this, but . . . I think Firefox is overrated. Compared to Explorer it's a dream. But Safari is also a Mozilla browser and now has a comparable feature set and then some, and in my experience handles graphics better than Firefox. YMMV.
posted by realcountrymusic at 5:57 AM on June 22, 2005

Safari 2.0 runs so much better on Mac OS, IMO. Firefox always seemed bloated and slow compared to the PC version. Camino is a little better, but nothing renders pages faster than Safari as far as I can tell.
posted by trey at 6:03 AM on June 22, 2005

Safari isn't a Mozilla browser. It's based on the KHTML engine from the KDE project.
posted by PenDevil at 6:12 AM on June 22, 2005

Safari isn't a Mozilla browser, it's based off of KHTML (also open source). But who's keeping track.
posted by ALongDecember at 6:13 AM on June 22, 2005

Yeah, definitely go with Safari if you've upgraded to Tiger. I used Firefox in Panther, but now it's not even on my Dock anymore.

But Safari is also a Mozilla browser

Actually, Safari is based on KHTML, which was previously best-known as the codebase for Konqueror, the KDE browser. But, ya know, same diff ;)
posted by mkultra at 6:15 AM on June 22, 2005

I find Firefox completely unusable on OS X. I use it for one purpose every day (MSN web messenger) and it tends to crash every few hours. Safari forever!
posted by pookzilla at 6:16 AM on June 22, 2005

Have you tried loading Firefox in safe mode? If it works in safe mode, then you've buggered something in your profile or theme or something.

I personally have never had a problem with Firefox on my girlfriend's G4 Powerbook. I will be a believer until something like the Greasemonkey extension exists for Safari. Or extensions in general. I am cursed with the need to tinker.
posted by patgas at 6:20 AM on June 22, 2005

just a vague possibility - i'm having problems with adobe acrobar inside firefox. but that's on win2k with a beta firefox release.
posted by andrew cooke at 6:40 AM on June 22, 2005

Sorry, I stand corrected on the Safari/KHTML thingy. That must explain why Safari (even the earliest versions) renders pages faster and more elegantly on a Mac than Firefox/Camino/Netscape. Different engines.
posted by realcountrymusic at 6:55 AM on June 22, 2005

Response by poster: I'll agree Safari 2.0 is miles better than previous incarnations -- but I guess I'm having a bit of separation anxiety moving from Firefox back to Safari after loving the first year or so with Firefox. It's like leaving someone you dated for a long time (Safari) for someone sexy, intelligent, warm, and funny -- and then finding out a year later your new love is a completely unreliable wreck who can't keep a date. *sigh*

Hate to ask another question, but has anyone found a reliable way of importing your Firefox bookmarks into Safari? I can find plenty of articles about the reverse but none for Firefox-to-Safari 2.0
posted by mrkinla at 6:58 AM on June 22, 2005

I think Safari 2.0 natively allows you to import Firefox bookmarks. It was a common complaint about earlier versions.
posted by realcountrymusic at 7:10 AM on June 22, 2005

mrkina, I switched to Safari a few weeks back after asking a similar question. Find and buy the SAFT plugin. It rocks.

As for bookmarks, simply export them from firefox (to an html file or whatever the default is) and then import that file to safari. Worked perfectly for me.
posted by dobbs at 7:31 AM on June 22, 2005

Firefox on OS X sucks. Unfortunate, but true. It is as bad on OS X as it is awesome on Windows. I switched to Safari months ago, even though I missed all the great plugins and extensions. Browsing just isn't the same without greasemonkey :(
posted by vjz at 7:54 AM on June 22, 2005

Create a new firefox profile. Fixes many errors.
posted by webmeta at 8:15 AM on June 22, 2005

I've been having lots of crashes too, but I attribute it to the fact that I am running one of those nightly builds optimized for the G4 processor. Said nightly builds (aside from G4 optimization...you can get nightlies without them) are nice because they include tweaks that allow middle-clicking on links to work right. Which is a make-or-break deal for me.

And I too would be considering using Safari, but only if it had better ad blocking--the AdBlock Firefox extension is something I live by, and custom CSS stylesheets a la floppymoose.com just don't cut it by comparison. And when I'm developing websites, the Web Developer toolbar extension is also invaluable.

...anyway, to actually add to the discussion, I will echo everyone else that you should (backup and then) remove your profile, and/or try a few different builds before you assume that Firefox as a whole has stopped working for you.

And echoing dobbs, yea, Saft is useful, although I really only used it for single-window mode (e.g. ALL links that would open new windows open new tabs instead, no ifs ands or buts.).

vjz: see my earlier point about nightly builds fixing the middle click issue, and you can also tweak the mousewheel scrolling speed so it's not asstastic. Yes, the default config on the default download of OSX Firefox is god-awful, but a few quick changes can make a world of difference.
posted by cyrusdogstar at 9:10 AM on June 22, 2005

I have OS X/Firefox problems, including specific sites, e.g. MSNBC. I have Menumeters in the tool bar and the processor will just ramp up to 100% and stay there. FF also hates Flash as far as I can tell.
posted by carter at 9:17 AM on June 22, 2005

Does your last question mean you're using Deer Park? If so, stop, and revert to 1.04. Deer Park is in alpha and it isn't expected to be stable.

What extensions do you have loaded? Firefox alone is very stable in my (non-Mac) experience, but I can get it to crash when I load it down with my usual 30 or so extensions.

(Regarding adblocking, cyrusdogstar, if Safari supports proxies, get privoxy.)
posted by Zed_Lopez at 9:25 AM on June 22, 2005

Anyone using Deer Park without a massive crashfest?

Yup. I've been using the 20050601 build for linux since June 1st, no problems. I've also tried various others builds that did crash, but that's to be expected.

With the nightly builds (which afaik is all there is for Deer Park), either you use them just for testing, or you have to be patient enough to keep trying until you find one that's stable enough for daily use.
posted by sfenders at 9:36 AM on June 22, 2005

And I too would be considering using Safari, but only if it had better ad blocking--the AdBlock Firefox extension is something I live by, and custom CSS stylesheets a la floppymoose.com just don't cut it by comparison. And when I'm developing websites, the Web Developer toolbar extension is also invaluable.

PithHelmet does awesome ad blocking in Safari. Better, IMO, than AdBlock on Firefox.

WebDevAdditions captures most of the Web Developer extension functionality in Safari.
posted by mkultra at 10:15 AM on June 22, 2005

I find the use of the word "anymore" in the question's title very peculiar. I assume it is supposed to mean "nowadays" or "recently." Is this a regional thing?
posted by yesno at 10:56 AM on June 22, 2005