Firefox 3.5 strange behaviour fixed(?) in 3.5.1

Shamgar · Post by **Shamgar** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 7:35 am

Upgraded to Firefox 3.5 a few days ago. Mozilla claimed faster load up times and overall better performance and security than in the 3.0.x versions. After installing 3.5, I found it severely slow and generally quirky compared to 3.0.10. Bookmarks taking minutes to load up, tabs mysteriously turning into separate browsers, no way to close a single tab and several other stability issues. I have just downgraded to 3.0.10 which performs much better than 3.5 on my system and without its quirky behaviours.

If anyone else is experiencing strange behaviour with 3.5, I suggest either upgrading to the latest version 3.5.1 or downgrading to 3.0.11 or 3.0.10. Mozilla claims to have fixed several of these issues in 3.5.1.

victorhortalives · Post by **victorhortalives** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 8:57 am

More important is the problem with JavaScript in Firefox 3.5.
See : http://www.h-online.com/security/Mozill ... ews/113772

I haven't yet seen if v3.5.1 fixes this.

Sort of puts a big dent in the image of Firefox.

Shamgar · Post by **Shamgar** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:46 am

Thanks for posting that link. But I don't have a javascript.options.jit.content option in my about:config.
I'll install 3.5.1 later and see if things improve. Besides these latest problems, I still think Firefox is a better browser than it's competition, IMO.

Correction: javascript.options.jit.content is in the 3.5.x versions and I have disabled it. It was not an option in the previous versions I used.

Matija · Post by **Matija** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 9:46 am

Firefox has been plagued by serious security flaws since it was first released - you only have the impression that this is something new or that Firefox really is secure. In reality, it's worse than new versions of IE.

Shamgar · Post by **Shamgar** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 10:07 am

Of course no browser is completely secure, even the great Mozilla Firefox cannot boast that. I used MS's proprietary browser for 11 years before switching to FF. IMO, FF is a much better experience than IE: it doesn't get in my way, it has tons of useful addons, allows more user configurations, is community based, I could go on. IE has been playing catch up with FF and Opera for ages. I haven't tried the new versions of IE so I can't comment on its strengths and weaknesses. But as long as I don't have to deal with more MS on my computer, the better it is for me.

DanceMan · Post by **DanceMan** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 1:54 pm

victorhortalives wrote:More important is the problem with JavaScript in Firefox 3.5.
Sort of puts a big dent in the image of Firefox.

The flaw presents a browser crash rather than malware injection risk in all cases. Crashing is most easily achieved on IE, with all versions of Microsoft's browser affected. Versions of Ubuntu running Konquerer might be forced to reboot if exposed to attacks based on the bug because of a memory management failure issue.

By contrast Opera, Chrome and Firefox have all been patched to defend against the flaw - so only older versions of those browsers are affected.

I think you have your dent in the wrong place.

Matija · Post by **Matija** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 2:26 pm

Uhm... Where did you get that quote from? This critical flaw (which *has* been used for 0-day malware delivery) is only present in Fx 3.5 because of an issue in TraceMonkey.

DanceMan · Post by **DanceMan** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 2:35 pm

Matija wrote:Uhm... Where did you get that quote from? This critical flaw (which *has* been used for 0-day malware delivery) is only present in Fx 3.5 because of an issue in TraceMonkey.

Sorry, I should have linked it. It's from The Register, here:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/07/17 ... crash_bug/

And it's fixed in FF 3.5.1, which I'm already using.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 3:16 pm

Upgraded to 3.5 on day 1 and then the latest patch today. Haven't noticed any performance differences between 3 and 3.5.x

spookmineer · Post by **spookmineer** » Fri Jul 17, 2009 6:13 pm

I upgraded from 3.0.11 to 3.5.1 today (currently on a netbook) and I do notice an increase in speed. It feels like 15 to 50% faster, depending on what site I connect to.
I didn't have any problems like Shamgar noticed.

Shamgar · Post by **Shamgar** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 6:58 am

An update: installed 3.5.1 today and haven't noticed any significant performance improvements over 3.0.x. Still experiencing some quirky behaviours and slower than normal bookmarks loading. Might be a problem on my side, I don't know. 3.0.10 seems to work better for me. Maybe I should just keep at it for longer and see how things work over time. I'm currently on mobile broadband and I sometimes have to use dialup, so I'm used to slower speeds anyway. At least updating FF is less painful than updating or using IE.

blackworx · Post by **blackworx** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 9:03 am

With 3.5 I had major problems with slow loading (>2 mins) after a fresh boot. Followed these instructions and it's now much faster to load. It has however raised two questions: 1) I don't use IE (apart from where it has been embedded in some apps like Google Sketchup) so why was there enough information in the IE cache on my machine to make FF choke so badly on startup? 2) Why the sudden need to make such heavy use of the IE cache and Windows temp folders solely in the name of random number generation?

Other than initial hiccup I think 3.5 is great - it's much faster in general use.

Matija wrote:Firefox has been plagued by serious security flaws since it was first released... ...In reality, it's worse than new versions of IE.

I don't think it's as black and white as that. I work on the assumption that no browser is secure, period. FF has a pretty good track record considering how popular it has become. For the record, the only browser I have ever had cause me serious problems security-wise is Google Chrome, which picked up some drive-by download (which itself tried to install a keylogger) within minutes of me starting to use it. It was my own fault for forgetting I'd left my antivirus disabled, but the simple fact is: if I'd been using FF+NoScript, it wouldn't have happened and I'd have unwittingly saved myself half a day's work in removing the malware.

Shamgar · Post by **Shamgar** » Sat Jul 18, 2009 10:41 am

blackworx wrote:With 3.5 I had major problems with slow loading (>2 mins) after a fresh boot. Followed these instructions and it's now much faster to load. It has however raised two questions: 1) I don't use IE (apart from where it has been embedded in some apps like Google Sketchup) so why was there enough information in the IE cache on my machine to make FF choke so badly on startup? 2) Why the sudden need to make such heavy use of the IE cache and Windows temp folders solely in the name of random number generation?

Re: Mozilla's instructions in link: CCleaner is a neat little program you can use to erase browser cache and temp files in just a couple of clicks. It can clear out a lot of other useless stuff as well. I keep it on my quick launch bar.

I also ask why Firefox is needing to "make use of" Windows and IE's folders for security reasons? I don't use IE either, except for the occasion when I need to view an archived webpage saved in .mht.

victorhortalives · Post by **victorhortalives** » Sun Jul 19, 2009 2:44 am

Glad to hear that V3.5.1 fixes the problem and for the link to CCleaner. I'll upgrade back to V3.5.x again.