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At least it crashes less on Vista than on Mac OS

you share my thoughts exactly. i would enjoy a "perfect score" in reliability monitor if it wasn't for firefox which manages to crash every other day, sometimes twice a day.

Might be your add-ons.

If you want a fair view of Ff3 stability run it without add-ons.

0 crashes since I run RC1 on XP with Adblock as my sole add-on. And I make heavy usage of it: at least 5 windows open all the time with a java app running all day long in a Ff window, that itself has 5 sub-windows nested.

Non complain so far !

Well, you're running add on’s designed for a previous version on beta software, so, umm, what did you expect? This is an interesting side bar, but I don't think it really "means" anything. After the final release comes out and you’re still seeing the same type of  bad behavior, then you'll have something to write about. Until then....meh.

Maybe it's just me...but (slap me around if I am way off base here) is anyone expecting a BETA product to be stable?

Silly, I know. But maybe I missed something?

Its a release candidate, therefore a version which is fit for release, so it should be more stable than a beta.

I've actually been having most of my crashes in IE.  And frankly I'd suspect Flash.  It hangs/crashes A LOT, is hard unless your running a no script plugin to block, and even though flash.exe is what is hanging, it gets assigned to IE.

To be honest, yes, FF3 is very buggy currently, but FF2 was just as buggy for me. I use IE probably 5 times as much as I use FF yet IE crashes probably once every other month or so... Firefox seems to crash every two or three times I use it.

My score, however, would probably be close to 10 (It's around 8.5 right now after a HORRIBLE day where somehow an IE crash counted as 6 crashes... ????) but ironically sometimes when I check the "reliability monitor" it crashes when I go to close it.... now that's just frustrating!!

When Vista first came out I used to watch this thing every once and a while.  I had the same problem with IE before many patches.  There were a handful of websites I would got to on a regular basis, even a MS one that would cause problems.  Some problems will crash or hang IE, others were small render issues, but this tool would count them as an error...just like see in your post.

All that said, like other posters have said, wait until FF3 is gold, and run only version 3 approved add on's and see what you get.  Oh and maybe run it on 32bit Vista, because I remember someone saying (you) that 64bit Vista was not prime time or not for general consumption.

"lsproc said:

Its a release candidate, therefore a version which is fit for release, so it should be more stable than a beta."

It is NOW, but it hasn't always been.

I'm guessing it's either your add-ons or your Firefox profile.  Like you, I run Firefox every day and have run version 3 Beta 4, 5 and RC1.  I had one Firefox crash on April 9 and absolutely none since.  I'm not sure if that crash was v2 or one of the v3 betas because Vista's Reliability Monitor says it was 1.9.0.3007.  I use Adblock Plus, Tab Mix Plus, Tab Preview and Tiny Menu.

Also, make sure you open PDFs in your PDF reader and not the browser.  Opening PDFs inside the browser is crashy.  

I guess it's all relative not only to what you use, but what you have installed.

I have Firefox 3 RC installed and have had very few crashes in Vista and I have about 10 add-ons.

On the other hand, my Reliability Monitor shows that my 2007 Outlook.exe has crashed at least 3x a day since March. If I had to draw a conclusion, it would be that Outlook is the worst program ever and Firefox 3 beta is one of the best, considering how much I use each.

Go figure.

"JuryDuty said:

On the other hand, my Reliability Monitor shows that my 2007 Outlook.exe has crashed at least 3x a day since March. If I had to draw a conclusion, it would be that Outlook is the worst program ever and Firefox 3 beta is one of the best, considering how much I use each."

It's worth noting that Outlook can become unstable due to poorly written addons.

I have personally had a horrible time with stability in FF2 and FF3. In fact, IE8 Beta 1 has been more stable than the FF3 release candidate for me.

"So. What am I to make of all this? Nothing? Or is Firefox 3 really buggy? "

Ans. Nothing. But it did give you a another reason to b!tch about FF.  

Btw if we're comparing systems and pretending thats actual "data" .....Explorer.exe is my worst crasher.

Surprise surprise! Microsoft's man downs Firefox 3 BETA version with add on's for reliability!  Get real!  Keep pluging those Microsoft catch up products Paul.  The rest of the world is moving on.  Get yourself an a decent operating system.

I just did a super-clean Vista installation, installing FF Beta 3 (which WAS very unstable, imo) then moving to RC1 pretty recently.

Over the past 24 days (since install), I have had exactly one app crash: Sid Meiers' Alpha Centuari (Which was a pain to get to work) and it crashed once.  Firefox, running Adblock+, CSLite, NoScript, Flashblock, DTA, and Download Helper has crashed...! Zero times.  And I am a heavy browser, usually ending up with a couple of separate windows with a bunch of tabs in each.

If you are having reliability issues (That can't be explained by Addons), try deep sixing your profile and making a new one from scratch (You can, of course, export/import your bookmarks) During Beta 2 I decided to do this with the profile that I've had for a few years now, and the difference can be night and day.

Lots of info here, thanks.

First of all, I don't run any add-ons that aren't FF3 compatible. Since posting this, however, I have removed all add-ons (well, all extensions, to be precise).

bkvalheim : Mozilla is positioning RC1 for average users, so yeah, I do expect it to be stable. I wouldn't have had these expectations back at Beta 2 or whatever.

howarddenton: Insults aside, I've been using FF since it was Phoenix and I'm a huge supporter. I'm in the FF 1.0 full-page add, for crying out loud. Any criticism I have of FF is because I actually use it and advocate its use, and yeah, I expect it to work. Sorry if that's offensive for some reason.

I may wipe everything out for the final release of FF 3.0. I don't "do" much with the profile (I don't use bookmarks at all, for example) but it's worth trying.

I'll see if the removal of add-ons fixes this. If so, great. I'm not trying to do a FF3 hatchet job, just figure out what's up.

I have found that Firefox has crashed on me a countless number of times on my mac. Not as much on my PC mind you i don't use it as my main browser. For me every time i close firefox it crashes on my mac and i have no idea why...  (i have no addon's)

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You know, I've had very few Vista crashes recently. Although I don't use Firefox 3 as my main browser, I haven't had any crashes caused it, for the record. My Vista install, which has been chugging along for exactly a year now is running around 9.55 in the Reliability Index.

Yeah firefox crashes here almost every day. :(

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