Posts: 26,417
Threads: 741
Joined: May 2025
Reputation:
1
I've been using Firefox 3.0 (with Tiger, Powerbook G4 1.25) for a while, but the spinning beachball is just driving me crazy. Activity monitor often shows 100% cpu usage, mostly attributed to Firefox, even when nothing is loading and all I'm doing is typing (or doing nothing). I've tried clearing the cache and I've tried using G4-optimized Firefox (Minefield). Nothing seems to work.
I'd rather stick with Firefox if I could due to the useful add-ons, but I've currently switched over to Safari, which is very fast and uses hardly any system resources. Does anybody know of a fix for the spinning beachball of death?
Posts: 13,726
Threads: 599
Joined: Nov 2024
Reputation:
0
Unfortunately, I think it's a lot of the add-ons that create memory leaks in FF.
The thing that makes it most useful is sometimes what also makes it unusable.
On my old PowerbookG4, I have been using Camino for sites I want to load fast, but don't have a need for extensions.
Posts: 10,610
Threads: 665
Joined: May 2025
Reputation:
0
Not sure why you are having the problem other than the possibility of a bad plug-in. I've been running 3.0.4 for a while and rarely get the beachball.
Posts: 6,277
Threads: 327
Joined: Aug 2015
Reputation:
0
If you're running Flashblock, ditch it. It made FF3 unusable for me on both Tiger and Leopard.
As a matter of course, you should disable all add ons and run the program for a while. If all is well, start adding them back on one by one to see if you can figure out which one(s) is/are to blame.
DM
Posts: 649
Threads: 108
Joined: Sep 2012
Reputation:
0
Not that this will help anything at your end but - Core Duo 1.66 mini at this end running 3.0.4 with zero problems. Been happy with overall performance.
Posts: 10,000
Threads: 626
Joined: Jul 2020
Reputation:
0
G4 Dual 1.6GHz, 1.5GB RAM, Leopard.
Lots of add-ons.
FF 3 flies.
Disable Java, disable your add-ons, clear your cache, quit and re-launch FF and see if it's faster.
Posts: 37,105
Threads: 2,599
Joined: May 2025
Reputation:
0
have enough ram in your machine?
people definitely find situations where "it dun work" but it shouldn't be that hard to make it work.
might try it logged in as another user.
Posts: 299
Threads: 24
Joined: Sep 2009
Reputation:
0
I ran into this problem too with FF 3 on an Intel MacBook running Leopard 10.5.5. Everything was working fine until the problem started. I've even trashed every FF related file and reinstalled the program with no add ons but the problem continues. I'm back to Safari, but I miss some of the FF add ons.
Posts: 17,885
Threads: 2,316
Joined: May 2025
Reputation:
0
FF3 works superbly on 2 MacPros and a MacBook.
btw, I have 2 plugins only. Video Download Helper (or something like that) and 1Password.
Posts: 1,677
Threads: 154
Joined: Apr 2013
FF 3.0.4 on PPC iBook/1.2/768/10.4.11.
No plug ins at all (slows things down, I've found) and everything quite snappy. No spinning BBs and no difficulties of any sort to report. Takes a moment to boot, but so did 2.X.
