What Causes Mozilla Firefox to Crash?
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Memory Leaks
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Memory leaks cause Firefox to crash by not releasing unused memory the browser has reserved for certain tasks and operations. Crashes due to memory leaks occur most often on computer systems that have 512MB of physical memory or less. Older versions of Firefox are especially venerable to memory leaks, but the most common memory leaks have been fixed in Firefox 3. Upgrading to the latest version of Firefox helps minimize crashes caused by memory leaks.
Extensions and Themes
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Themes are "skins" used to give Firefox a different look, like Camifox and Noia 2.0 for example. Extensions are add-ons that increase the functionality of Firefox, like Adblock, Google Web Accelerator and ForecastFox. Since most themes and extensions are developed by unverified third parties, newly installed or updated themes and extensions often cause Firefox to crash. Information about possible bugs and problems for specific themes and extensions can be found on the Mozilla Firefox Add-ons website (see Resources).
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Plugins
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Plug ins are extensions that allow certain file formats to open and play in Firefox. Adobe Reader, Shockwave/Flash Player and Sun Java are a few examples. Plug ins sometimes cause Firefox to reserve more memory when they are in use and then do not release the memory until Firefox is closed. Uninstalling unnecessary plug ins and making sure installed plug ins are always updated to the latest version helps minimize crashes caused by Firefox plug ins.
Download History
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Firefox can slow down and even crash if the download history is allowed to accumulate over time. Make sure the download history does not build up by clicking on "Tools," then "Options," then "Privacy," then "Download History," then "Remove Files from the Download Manager," and then select "Upon successful download." This sets the Download Manager to delete download history files every time Firefox is closed.
Viruses and Spyware
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Certain viruses and spyware can cause Firefox to not display pages properly, run very slowly, show unusual system messages and crash periodically. The best way to avoid crashes and errors caused by viruses is to make sure Firefox is always updated with Mozilla's periodic security fixes and is also upgraded to the latest available version. Also, keep your computer system's firewall, anti-virus and anti-spyware programs updated and running and avoid opening potentially dangerous links in emails that might be spam.
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Resources
- Photo Credit The Firefox Preferences window.
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Comments
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ever since I updated internet explorer to 9 (which I undid I had 7 but now can only go back to 8 and it hasn't fixed the problem), my firefox now crashes. it didn't crash before, but now after I watch about 15-20 flash video it crashes my whole computer. this is criminal. something in the update obviously is making firefox crash. I only updated ie because I know windows explorer relies upon ie code, so I figured updating it would improve my systems stability. wrong! F U MS! don't make the same mistake I did. nothing good can come of ie.
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can any one help me to fix.
