As a web developer I can’t function without Firefox. This latest version is simply awful. I’ve posted my issues on their support forum, and have displayed them below.

Am I the only person having issues with FF3?

Edit: I initially misspelled unusable because Opera doesn’t have a spell checker. You see? I need Firefox!

Firefox version: 3.0 Creative ZENcast v2.00.07 Operating system: Windows Vista

Firefox 3 suffers from a few issues, none of which occurred with version 2.

(1) Firefox will randomly stop working, as reported by Vista. This could happen when I view a Flash video, or open a tab, or close a tab, or as I type in the address bar, or as the browser just sits idle. The event viewer reports the following:

“Faulting application firefox.exe, version 1.9.0.3071, time stamp 0×483ebafb, faulting module MOZCRT19.dll, version 8.0.0.0, time stamp 0×483ebb90, exception code 0xc0000005, fault offset 0×00006c6c, process id 0×1518, application start time 0×01c8e22f2aad8988.”

This type of crash does not trigger the Firefox’s crash report feature.

(2) Firefox 3 suffers from the random crashes that are not the same as the ones described in #1 above. What sets these crashes apart is that the crash report window opens. I have not found a common series of events that trigger these crashes.

(3) Attempting to log into GoDaddy’s site causes Firefox 3 to crash 100% of the time. It is a crash of the #1 variety, in that the crash report utility is never activated. However, the event viewer displays different information:

“Fault bucket 781728623, type 1
Event Name: APPCRASH
Response: None
Cab Id: 0

Problem signature:
P1: firefox.exe
P2: 1.9.0.3071
P3: 483ebafb
P4: js3250.dll
P5: 4.0.0.0
P6: 483ebb90
P7: c0000005
P8: 00046a1b
P9:
P10:”

(4) When Firefox detects an RSS feed, the orange icon appears in the address bar. In Firefox 2, clicking it brings up options that allow me to subscribe to it using Google Reader. In Firefox 3, clicking this icon does nothing 9 out of 10 times, forcing me to search the HTML source.

(5) Occasionally, Firefox will not respond to hitting Enter or clicking the arrow icon when I type an address or search term in the address bar. Opening new tabs or using existing ones do not fix this. Only restarting the browser fixes this.

Firefox 3 is almost totally unusable in that I can’t trust it to remain running. Please do something to solve these problems so that I can get back to using my favorite browser. In the mean time I’ve been slumming it with IE8 and Opera 9.51.

!! Extensions installed:

del.icio.us
Firebug and Web Developer Toolbar are both installed and disabled.

!! Plugins installed:

*-npdivxplayerplugin
*Default Plug-in
*DivX Web Player version 1.4.0.233
*JoostPlugin
*iTunes Detector Plug-in
*Adobe PDF Plug-In For Firefox and Netscape
*Office Plugin for Netscape Navigator
*Shockwave Flash 9.0 r124
*GameTap Browser Helper Tool
*Lively plugin for Mozilla
*1.0.30226.2
*Virtual Earth 3D 2.05080321002 plugin for Mozilla
*Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) plug-in for Mozilla browsers
*Google Updater pluginhttp://pack.google.com/
*RealJukebox Netscape Plugin
*RealPlayer(tm) LiveConnect-Enabled Plug-In
*6.0.12.1739
*Rhapsody Player Engine Plugin
*Google Update
*MetaStream 3 Plugin r4
*Java Plug-in 1.6.0_06 for Netscape Navigator (DLL Helper)