Firefox 3 Lament

I have oft been a promoter of Firefox, the free web browser by Mozilla. Firefox (FF for short) has long incorporated such convenient features as tabbed browsing, fast loading times and of course the ability to add third-party plugins that greatly improve the usefulness of the browser. I have installed FF 1.x-2.x on the browsers of family and friends, encouraging them to use FF for convenience and better security.

Then came Firefox 3. I was a beta tester but got frustrated enough with the beta that I uninstalled it and went back to the official 2.[something] version. Even after FF3 came out I avoided it. The only thing wrong with FF2 was a memory leak that would tie up more and more RAM if you left it open long enough. I was aware of this but it never really caused me problems. Then I got a new/fast/cool/strong work computer and was too lazy to try to find FF 2.x, since 3 had been released, and just installed FF3.

Now, if I make it through a day with fewer than 5 crashes I count myself lucky indeed. Firefox 3 is slow. Sites sometimes pause while scrolling and the whole browser locks up for 10-30 seconds. When I launch it nothing happens for half a minute before the window finally decides to show itself on my desktop. Same with opening a new tab...long delays. Any site that features lots of javascript calls such as gmail, facebook, google maps or other feature-rich pages is virtually guaranteed to crash.

Most crashes are recoverable, I can force-quit Firefox 3 and relaunch it. However, occasionally it crashes so bad that it actually kills my whole computer. Earlier today I was trying to log into a webex meeting (a software that allows you to share desktops for virtual product demonstrations). Firefox actually blacked the screen out with a bunch of verticle white bars. It required a hard-restart which is darn inconvenient when you have 10 people waiting on you in an online meeting.

Because I love Firefox, I installed v3 on my home machine to make sure it wasn't just my work laptop. My home laptop has had Firefox 2.x running on it fine for a long time. Same problems plague it with FF3.

So, betrayed, bitter, disappointed, I have to warn our readers...for the sake of your sanity, do NOT upgrade to Firefox 3. If something changes I will post about it but for now I simply can't recommend it for any environment. Find Firefox 2.x or use Opera (I still don't recommend any IE product).