Firefox Lorentz beta doesn't crash entirely when plug-ins get fussy
By Ross Miller 
posted April 10th 2010 5:39AM
posted April 10th 2010 5:39AM
posted April 10th 2010 5:39AM
A look back on popular stories from today in a specific year.
Now that we've thrown 'em off the trail, use the form below to get in touch with the people at Engadget. Please fill in all of the required fields because they're required.
I think the principle of flash is sound but the implementation is terrible.
I believe Adobe have been sitting on their backsides with Flash and not giving it the development it sorely needs, and this has resulted in them being left behind. With HTML5 becoming the leader for video distribution (DRM flash from TV networks will be the last to shift, but ultimately will) and a few lonely sites being done in Flash, what is the future for Flash?
@liamrickerby Flash 10.1 has hardware acceleration (allowing new netbooks to handle HD flash), which is all it was really lacking (w/o it, its a CPU hog).
About 99.9% of the market already has Flash installed, HTML5 has zero backwards compatibility, incomplete browser support, theres no set codec, etc.. the pros of HTML5 are future pros, and who knows what development enhancements Flash will have seen from now until then.
Most of the Flash animosity today stems from Job's anti-Adobe war, and killing flash support in all their products accordingly.
@Ducman69 99.9% I think that is extremely optimistic, IE6 still has about 9% market share of browsers which I would hazard a guess don't have the latest Flash update or Flash at all.
It may not be a CPU hog with acceleration but it shouldn't hog any resources as much as it does. Perhaps Adobe should completely rewrite it from the ground up instead of bug fixing and tacking on extras to an aging plug in.
People who code in Flash for websites should be ashamed, (harsh perhaps) what about web standards and accessibility? Plus you don't need Flash to create a an interactive site.
@Ducman69
Hardware acceleration in Flash 10.1 is nice but does not address the power consumption issue in a mobile device. Handing off the processing to a gpu increases the draw from the gpu. There's only one battery. The bigger advantage is on desktops where you can have the cpu do more work (than simply processing Flash video). Of course, HTML5 still requires video codec execution so that's hardly a solution either. Energy consumption, though, is NOT the primary reason Apple has ignored Flash. It's all about code control and slowing migration of apps with other non-Apple devices. That is also what iAd is about (providing devs with another revenue stream).
Wait. There're Flash fanboys now?!?
Sure this article relates to *any* plugin, but if there were 6 plugins in a room, only Flash would be getting 'daggers'.
@BergerFan
I would decapitate Flash, Reader, and Java. Then I would post their heads on sticks and revel in the applause of the internets!
it's about time firefox came to a painful end
@eddib damb straight, I think we should all be installing IE6.
I wish IE8 did that in Windows 7. I really hate how often flash crashes IE8.
I can't believe we have flash fanboys now defending flash, utterly funny.
@Kwame Nkrumah *cough* newgrounds.com */cough*
The firefox beta crashes when I use flash even though the stable release doesn't
@markolic The beta works fine with me and no more crashes, check it at http://flashcrash.dempsky.org/
Define crash via fussy plug-ins -
It seems to be that Firefox (even naked and unadorned with Add-ons and Plug-ins) has become - and at the very least - as mentioned in the first line of this article "sluggish". Painfully slow load up and eating up vast amounts of resources all by itself certainly does nothing to encourage users or do anything to prevent crashes, regardless of additions.
A thorough re-write of Firefox (or a Lite version) is required. Tacking more code on top of something of a behemoth rather than rethinking the product causes problems - just ask Microsoft.
@MleB I'd like to see Firefox's obesity problem addressed as well. They're doing great things with features and stability, but it just starts up too slowly for my tastes.
I did discover that turning off the check for application, add-on and search-engine updates made Firefox start up considerably faster, but it does also mean that I have to check manually every now and then.
Surprisingly I haven't had Flash crash one me once in MONTHS. Ever since I started using Flash 10.1 it's actually been remarkably stable. Of course I never used the Beta 1, I started with Beta 2, moved to Beta 3, and am now using the Release Candidate but it's actually been more stable for me than their official 10.0 release they currently have on the site. The better performance with 10.1 is just an extra bonus.
So is this making it's way into the 3.7 nightly builds also?
@Drybonz It has been in 3.7 for a while now. They are just moving this into 3.6 now.
@TSSaloic Thanks for the info. I hadn't noticed... but now that I think about it I don't think I have had any crashes with FF 3.7... it has been running really well.
"Flash, Apple Quicktime or Microsoft Silverlight plugins."
"Admit it, your love for Firefox is tempered by sometimes sluggish performance and a penchant for perennial plugin crashes..."
Nope. Pretty sure I recognize that once you allow people besides yourself to stat writing code to add into your product, the trade-off for those sometimes nifty features is that not everything works together perfectly and not everyone is a top-notch coder.
Besides that, I don't recall experiencing a Firefox crash caused by browser plugins. Maybe a couple messed up flash ones. You just have to be selective in what you install.
I dont know but i love you fox. Honestly you make my day
Oh brother not another 'my browser beats your browser' thread.
Plugin isolation or just forking the tabs as separate child processes so you can contain a crash and keep running? I love firefox but its sad to see them as the last ones across the finish line with Electrolysis/e10s.
Humm - that is why I don't use FF anymore. Using Chrome instead, in-spite of problems. I rarely use FF too 'hoggy' . . . ..?