Firefox 3.6.4 tally-ho

Memory hog?? Please tell me one browser which does not consume memory at all. Guess it is very easy to complain? All browsers consume a lot of memory. Period.

Chrome tries to make it look like lesser memory is consumed, but for each tab it runs as a separate process. Same with IE8.

I've been running Firefox for a very long time and I've had very,very few crashes (all of them flash related. Happens rarely, but it is there). Watch youtube videos or any flash related content in different tabs and you will see memory jump up.

Unfortunately, some people love to open more than twenty tabs:(I don't know how they can concentrate on so many things at the same time!)

A few others do not update plugins (flash, silverlight blah blah blah). @ Renato: What has your personal experience with Firefox been? Going by your logic, I could produce hundreds of links to prove whatever I want to!

@Hieronymus P. Organthruster: Of course Firefox has defects, else Mozilla couldn't fix them ;)

@Renato: Learn2Statistic. The data you're looking at is completely made up of beta-testers, since 3.6.4 final was only released on 22nd. Betas are there to find defects and beta-testers often try to reproduce them, hence causing more crashes than normal. So no, 3.6.4 is probably fine.

Firefox as is alot of other software FREE.
I have tried every other browser available and no one come close to Firefox in terms of ad-ons. I the browser seems slow it is usually because of the ads or poor design of the websites.
I really get tired of people complaining about FREE software instead of being thankful some great company's making it free. No one is forcing you to use anything on your own computer.
Instead of complaining all the time maybe we should thank people for making free great software that give you options.

http://crash-stats.mozilla.com/daily?form_selection=by_version&p=Firefox&v[]=3.6.4&throttle[]=100&v[]=3.6.3&throttle[]=100&v[]=&throttle[]=100&v[]=&throttle[]=100&hang_type=any&os[]=Windows&date_start=2010-06-08&date_end=2010-06-22&submit=Generate

Guys, check out this comparison of Firefox 3.6.3 versus 3.6.4, crashes/user/day. Seems like 3.6.4 is a version to skip...

Look, I'm not saying that all Firefox instability is the fault of Mozilla (though I could easily argue it is their *responsibility*, and the new 'crash protection' inside v.3.6.4 affirms this), I'm saying that anyone who considers an application they use every day - be it Firefox, or Windows, or any other title to which people blindly nail their undying allegiance - as being free of defects and any hangs the fault of shoddy plug-in code is clearly a bit strange and/or hasn't been using home computers much longer than a week.

Have you looked at the link you posted? At least 11 of 20 are related to plugins, which Mozilla is not responsible for.
Yes, Firefox has crashed on me before. Since I opted into the beta-branch and tested 3.6.4 betas, only Flash crashes, not Firefox. I laugh and reload page, very nice, Adobe. One more reason to hat you.

I thought this version would have Webm html5 video, however it appears it does not :[
I went to an youtube WebM video and got a message I have no support for the codecs.

The notion that Firefox doesn't crash and that every Windows BSOD is the fault of a third party rather than of Microsoft are two of the most boneheaded things I've read here in a long while, and in the same message no less.

What were the 11,000 bugs that Mozilla claimed to have fixed when they released version 3? Scotch mist? How many million lines of source code do you think Firefox has, and how many bugs are open right now? Automated reporting makes the evidence for Firefox instability not "stupid" but very clear indeed:

http://crash-stats.mozilla.com/products/Firefox/versions/3.6.4

Hint: the numbers presented on that page do not indicate the number of times Firefox users crash their toasters.

And Doug, come on. Safari is just a browser. It's not £2,999 e-peen extending laptop or a dweebish fashion accessory bolted to a 24 month mobile contract. I don't want to make a statement or tie myself to a brand, I just want a browser that is supported by the sites I visit. Given I want to ditch Firefox and can't use Chrome (for reasons I really can't be bothered to explain again), would you please explain an alternative besides Opera?

Okay then.

You were wearing your Apple Fantical Juvenile (AKA fanboi) Tudy Fruity T-shirt when you typed you comment right?

ok honestly, saying Firefox crashes is just stupid.

that's the same thing as blaming Microsft because you got a bluescreen due to incorrect drivers.

I've used firefox for years... probably since I think v1.5 and honestly I can say without a doubt Firefox has little to no issues in itself.

the problem lies with addons, when you start seeing your browser use a lot of memory, or crash at random, this is mostly due to something you've installed on it that is poorly coded.

that or your system is unstable in itself (bad ram, failing harddrive, or something of the sorts)

Does Firefox yet offer multiple threads for multiple pages or tabs that don't block on each other? Chrome/Chromium does, which is why it's supplanted Firefox/Camino on all my platforms.. It bothers me that one slow-rendering/downloading tab blocks others..

Honestly, I thought really poorly of your comment.

I explained why I can't use Chrome - at least, not presently. Given that I need an alternative which is at least on the radar of web site developers, and is ideally supported by them, Safari is next in line of popularity. It even has a port of AdBlock that works and the developer tools are first rate - consider that on Firefox you have to resort to third party tools (e.g. Firebug) to achieve the same effect.

I also explained in what I hoped was an unequivocal manner that Firefox suffers from crashes, a hunger for system resources and general sense of slowness - particularly when you use it alongside with other browsers as these then become more obvious. It should not be hard to reason why I might find the addition of useless decorations (e.g. Personas) somewhat irritating when there are so many more important and more productive things that Firefox developers could be doing with their time.

@Hieronymus P. Organthruster

The addition of "Personas" put you off using Firefox? Really? A feature that you never notice unless you actually dig around looking for it, which doesn't get in the way, and which is a significant improvement over the old themes system because it doesn't require you to restart Firefox?

As for Safari, the extension support for it is even more limited than on Chrome, and Chrome clearly has the best multithreaded architecture to boot. I can understand people starting to use Chrome (I use both Firefox and Chrome) but I honestly can't see why people would want to switch to Safari (at least on Windows).

Honestly, your comment seems really poorly thought out.

I can't be the only one who finds Firefox's instability, huge appetite for system resources and general lack of speed compared to rivals a real problem these days.

There was a time when it was head and shoulders above any other desktop tool, let alone any other browser; when its developers had at least two fresh ideas with each new release you downloaded. No longer.

For me it jumped the shark with that idiotic 'Personas' bollocks that arrived with version 3.6. That inclusion may have swayed a few dozen teenage girls, each of whom will have jumped with joy at the chance to swap the default skin for a Justin Timberlake or gymkhana themed one (or both, who knows), but you could almost hear everyone else sigh as they realised they might have to switch to Safari.

It's an Apple product, yes, but it's fast and importantly you don't have to pay ridiculous Apple prices. And I don't get on with Chrome, before anyone asks - not only does it randomly uninstall itself (no, seriously, go Google the problem if you don't believe me!), it also doesn't work with a number of WYSIWYG editors and with my bank.