Hasta La Gadget!

This article was written on September 05, 2007 by CyberNet.

Web Browser Wednesday

One of the major reasons Firefox is approaching 400 million downloads is because of how customizable the browser is thanks to extensions. In a way Firefox extensions are bittersweet, because they can provide some unique and useful features, but at the same time they can cause some unwanted problems.

It’s been well over a year since I last took a look at the issues some popular Firefox extensions caused. Most of the extensions listed there caused crashes, memory leaks, and excessive CPU usage. Since then, a Leak Monitor extension has been created to notify users when a certain type of memory leak occurs. This has successfully helped dozens of developers eliminate memory leaks in their extensions.

Unfortunately not all of the problems have not been solved when it comes to the extensions. Some can still cause Firefox to crash, leak memory, or make your CPU usage skyrocket. Today I thought that I would revisit the current status of extensions to see which ones are still causing the problems.

To find the extensions that have problems, I turned to the Mozilla Knowledgebase as well as their bug tracker. I was able to uncover more than a dozen extensions that have performance related issues, and I’m assuming you’re using the most recent versions of the extensions as well as the latest version of Firefox. You’re sure to have even more problems if you’re using older versions of Firefox or extensions that are outdated.

Below is the list that I came up with, and along with each extension I mention the issue along with any known fixes.

Note: You may or may not experience the problems mentioned. If you haven’t had a problem with an extension there is no sense in removing it.

• Adblock
  Issue: Has been known to crash Firefox when trying to use Gmail Chat.
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed if you use Gmail Chat.
• All-in-One Gestures
  Issue: Can cause Firefox to crash, and conflicts with the inline spellchecker on Linux and OS X.
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed if you’re using Linux or OS X.
• Fasterfox
  Issue: Can interfere with website access, and problems may continue even if Fasterfox is removed.
  Fix: Reset the defaults or start with a new profile in Firefox. Also make sure that you have prefetching disabled in the extension.
• Firebug
  Issue: Causes excessive CPU usage
  Fix: Disable Firebug when it’s not being used, or create a separate profile to use it in.
• ForecastFox
  Issue: Memory leaks due to satellite imagery.
  Fix: It’s recommended that the extension be removed, or you can install an older version without the satellite imagery.
• Google Browser Sync
  Issue: Causes excessive CPU usage with GIF animations.
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed.
• Google Web Accelerator
  Issue: Crashes Firefox when closing the browser.
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed.
• IE Tab
  Issue: Memory leaks
  Fix: It’s recommended that the extension be removed, or you can install IE View Lite as an alternative.
• Loki
  Issue: Memory leaks
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed.
• Media Player Connectivity
  Issue: Causes Unresponsive Script Warnings
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed.
• Mouseless Browsing
  Issue: Causes excessive CPU usage
  Fix: None available right now. It’s recommended that the extension be removed.
• SessionSaver
  Issue: Memory leaks
  Fix: Use Session Manager instead.
• Tabbrowser Extensions (TBE)
  Issue: Slows down Firefox, conflicts with other extensions, and can stop Firefox from working.
  Fix: It’s recommended that the extension be removed, or you can install Tab Mix Plus instead.

People running Firefox 3 right now should be careful if using the ForecastFox or FoxClocks extensions. Both of those are known to have memory leaks (ForecastFox report here and FoxClocks report here).

The extensions that I’ve listed above are all currently known to have some sort of problem. The bad news is that not all of the extensions have been as thoroughly tested as the ones mentioned here, and that’s because Mozilla relies on people like you to submit bug reports when you encounter an issue. If you frequently notice memory leaks, try a fresh Firefox profile, and then install the extensions one by one until you find the culprit. The odds are pretty good that the leak will be the result of one of your “more complex” extensions, and so you may want to start with those.

Additional resources from Mozilla include the Reducing Firefox Memory Usage page and the long list of Problematic Extensions.

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

Firefox 3 Memory Leaks Status UpdateYour Week in Review with Sunday’s SummaryKeeping Track Of Firefox Extensions That Leak MemoryCyberNotes: Firefox 2.0 Memory LeaksCyberNotes: Minimizing Firefox Memory Leaks

This article was written on December 19, 2006 by CyberNet.

Today is a very big day for Mozilla! We have Firefox 1.5.0.9 and 2.0.0.1 available for download as well as Thunderbird 1.5.0.9. As I mentioned yesterday there are 183 bugs fixed in Firefox 2.0.0.1: 42 are crashers, 3 are memory leaks, 41 are regressions and 4 are privacy-related bugs. In the comments yesterday Tom asked if this was a lot of bug fixes or if it was typical for a minor update. Since it is the first release after a major update I was expecting there to be a lot of bug fixes so this isn’t surprising to me, but 1.5.0.8 only had 9 bug fixes from the previous 1.5.0.7 so this update for 2.0.0.1 has quite a few changes. Since there are so many changes don’t be surprised if some of your extensions have problems.

James pointed out in the comments this morning that Mozilla plans to make the changes live on the website at 10AM and the built-in updates will be activated around 5PM (both times are Pacific Time). Below you will find the downloads for each of the applications and they use a load balancing URL to access their FTP. Most sites that are already linking to the builds use an address that looks something like “ftp.mozilla.com…” but this one is “releases.mozilla.com…”  which is supposed to spread the load out across the mirrors (or so I’ve been told).

Alright, here are the download links and if you have any problems with extensions please let us know so that others can be a little more cautious while installing the new releases:

–Firefox 1.5.0.9 Download–

–Firefox 2.0.0.1 Download–

–Thunderbird 1.5.0.9 Download–

With all of that being said, work on Firefox 1.5.0.10 and 2.0.0.2 has already begun and they are looking for an end of January or early February release. Congratulations to the whole Mozilla team for another set of fine releases and keep up the good work!

Copyright © 2011 CyberNetNews.com

Related Posts:

A Look Back at Firefox in 2006Prepare For Firefox 1.5.0.9 And 2.0.0.1 TomorrowFirefox 2.0.0.1 RC1 And Thunderbird 2.0 Beta RC1 AvailableMozilla Thunderbird 1.5.0.2 Officially Released For DownloadMozilla Thunderbird & Firefox 1.5.0.4 Released Today

We noted Firefox 3’s spectacular eight million downloads in a day when discussing the recent launch of IE9, and that mark shall live on as a record for another day. Firefox 4 looks to have a had a thoroughly successful debut, going past the five million milestone within the first 24 hours of its release, but it hasn’t quite been able to overshadow its predecessor. And before you go comparing its numbers to the latest Internet Explorer, do be cognizant that FF4 released on a wider set of platforms, rendering direct stat comparisons a little dicey. That’s not stopping StatCounter, however, who notes that the latest Firefox already has a 1.95 percent share of the browser market, almost exactly double what IE9 can claim so far. Better get working on that XP compatibility, eh Microsoft?

Continue reading Firefox 4 clocks up 5 million downloads within first 24 hours, fails to beat Firefox 3 download record

Firefox 4 clocks up 5 million downloads within first 24 hours, fails to beat Firefox 3 download record originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 23 Mar 2011 08:57:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Enterprising readers have probably been rocking the four-point-oh release of Firefox since it slipped out a little early last night, but now you can get yourself that same, fully-legit version from a new, fully-legit address. The browser’s live and, as you can see from the rolling download counter Mozilla has set up, a couple-hundred-thousand of you have already got it going on. So, what are your thoughts? Let your voice be heard in the poll and comments below.

View Poll

Firefox 4 is officially released, how are you liking it? originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 22 Mar 2011 10:35:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Having kicked out a release candidate on March 9th, Mozilla now feels confident enough in version 4 of its well loved Firefox browser and has set a date for its final release: March 22nd. That’s next Tuesday, if you’re calendar-shy, and a download is penciled in for availability at around 7AM Pacific Time. Mind you, Mozilla believes its RC1 build, already available on Windows, Mac and Linux, will likely be the final version put up in a few days’ time — the team is just monitoring the code and performing last-minute checks to ensure there are no massive, world-ending bugs that haven’t been spotted yet. So that basically means you can risk it now and get your GPU-accelerated web future started early, or you can wait until it’s official on Tuesday and be part of Mozilla’s next attempt at breaking the downloads record.

[Thanks, Ro]

Firefox 4 to be released on March 22nd, download statisticians ready their calculators originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 17 Mar 2011 08:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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