Firefox 3.6 Beta 5

Mozilla web site ^

[don-o]

I was almost ready to chuck FF and go back to IE because the 3.5 version was killing me - slow loads, freezes and crashes was SOP.

I have just now installed the 3.6 Beta 5. This is the first time I have ever installed a beta release. Is there any downside that I need to be aware of?

The 3.6 is much, much faster so far.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Now that I have three tabs open, it’s hovering at just over 96MB and slowly climbing.

[BigSkyFreeper]

Buffering every 3 seconds?

[usconservative]

My Firefox 3.5.4 frequently consumes 160,000K and up

How many extensions and plugins are you running? Mine loads up @ 38mb, here's what I load up with Firefox:

Extensions
AdBlock Plus 1.1.2
Adobe Download Manager
Download Helper 4.6.5
Ebay Sidebar for Firefox 2.0.3
UnPlug for YouTube 2.024

Plugins
Adobe Acrobat 9.1.0.163
GetPlusPlus for Adobe 1.6.2.49
iTunes Application Detector 1.0.1.1
Java Deployment Toolkit 6.0.170.4
Java Platform SE6
Mozilla Default Plugin 1.0.0.15
QuickTime Plugin 7.6.5
Shockwave Flash 10.0.32.18
Silverlight Plugin 3.0.4
Windows Live Photo Gallery 14.0.8081

[usconservative]

Yes it’s a very good P2P VOIP/Video Conferencing app, I use it quite a bit with family in other states. It’s become quite popular in the ham radio community too, often times I’m in a skype chat room while on the air as we coordinate contacts or just send video...

[Psycho_Bunny]

XP Pro SP3 is still a good os. It runs acceptably in a business domain on half a gig but the second you put a .Net app or a heavy program on there, you need a gig.

2 Gigs works really well. Up to 4 gigs, XP is always going to reserve about a third of the ram for hardware, so you won’t see it all.

[P8riot]

Once in a while I couldn't get any response from my mouse clicks. Either on links, tabs, or the three buttons at the top right. I had to minimize or close using the task bar button, then when I restored the window everything would work for a couple clicks and then I had to start all over again.

I sent a note to the Mozilla folks, but never heard anything back.

[TomGuy]

Extensions

BetterPrivacy (super cookie safeguard)
BugMeNot
CustomizeGoogle
FEBE (extensions backup)
Fetch Text URL
FireShot (screencap program)
Forecastfox
IE Tab
Interclue (shows links in pop-up window)
Keyscrambler
MapThis
MediaPlayerConnectivity
NoSquint
Reminderfox
Screengrab
TabMixPlus
Zoom toolbar

Plugins

DivX Web Player
Java Platform
DRM
QuickTime
RealPlayer
Flash
Silverlight

==

I usually run video links in a separate browser. I like QTWeb Browser for that. I open it each time I need to view video.

==

Firefox has consumed another 5,000K in the last 10 minutes, and I have only one tab open.

Even if I close all tabs, the memory usage does not shrink. That is Firefox’s problem — it won’t release memory when web pages are closed.

[SumProVita]

I have better privacy, but in the last few weeks. I have these pop ups that are like a new page opening that want you take surveys, give audio announcements....I hate it and don’t know how to get rid of this.

[csvset]

Go with NoScript.

NoScript

[papasmurf]

I’m using 3.5.6 on Win 7 pro. Haven’t had so much as a hiccup.

BTW, ALL Modern browsers are memory hogs, Firefox, albeit arguably, is the least offender. In addition, just because you uninstalled the extensions, doesn’t mean they can’t still be affecting your system. Some install themselves to the registry, some have co-mingled with other applications etc. I would revert to a known good(excellent) backup or use restore to go back to your system settings when all was well.

I do know from testing, some extensions cause major issues with Firefox, some, like the Image Shack add on, only slow it down.

Have you had a look at your error console? You need to do that as soon as you can after having a problem.

[SumProVita]

This is the alert I got after downloading it:

Firefox could not install this item because of a failure in Chrome Registration. Please contact the author about this problem.

[max americana]

Use Skype with IE and works great. We use Skype at the office and thru trial and error, we all found out that FF was the culprit.

[papasmurf]

The rule of thumb, no matter how much memory you have in your system is that Windows is gonna want as much as it can possibly use. It doesn’t matter if you have 1 gig or 8 gig, Windows itself will try and keep as much memory for itself as it can. Robbing memory hogging applications of total available memory.

Bingo! We have a winner!

A Simple way to prove that, is by removing your Ram, one at a time-then watch your Task Manager, or whatever you use to monitor your usage with. The amount, in percentage, that Windows uses will go down and, conversely, as you reinstall Ram, it will go up. (that's one of those "ancient Chinese secrets-LOL)

So, how to avoid this? Well, you can't really. But, you can mitigate it to a point. Here's how...
Go to Priority Watch , and download their neat little utility called Prio. Prio allows you to set the priority of each service running, and you can save that configuration so it loads each time you boot.

For instance, I don't need my printer ink monitor to have the same level of priority as I do say, FireFox, so I reduced it to Low, and saved it that way. In addition, it has a few other nifty tricks up it's sleeves (assuming it has two arms-haha), such as when you highlight a running service, like svchost, it will give up a balloon that tells you just what svchost is supporting at the moment. There are many other uses, as well, go there and read up on it, download it, use it, it's well worth the price of FREE!

Let's not forget, the really great SysInternals Process Explorer , which is now owned by MS. For "seeing" what's running under the hood and how much of your resources it's using and what it's interacting with, it's a fantastic utility.

[papasmurf]

“Miroslav Philharmonik”

Do you compose with this app? I’ve been asked about it.

[Sporaticus]

Yes Firefox 3.5.x is a hog, especially with all the addons I have. But what I frequently will do is use either SeaMonkey( a mozilla browser, basically a stripped down Firefox...very fast,low memory) or Chrome to do either video/music or my staid, trusted website surfing. Having a secondary browser or two relieves the stress of the Firefox hog. I like each one of them.

[Psycho_Bunny]

I picked it up earlier this month and just finished a piece with it -except for the drums and piano, everything in this is Miroslav.

Susan's Spring

I don't have the balance right yet.....it's pretty complicated to use correctly.

[NoLibZone]

“I’ve had problems with one plugin (Skype) which once removed everything was fine.”

Ditto

Skype addon kills my FF as well.

Skype and FF works just fine without the Addon in FireFox.

[papasmurf]

That’s nice, I’m listening to it right now. What are you going to use it for?

Do you like Latin?

[21stCenturion]

...

[Psycho_Bunny]

It's just a hobby. I don't do anything with it.

As a matter of fact, for about 12 years I'd write things and throw them away...up until a friend threatened to kick my ass over it.

I actually took Latin but can't remember any of it.