linuxgeek: Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Re: Firefox problem

Thursday, October 22, 2009

Re: [LINUX_Newbies] Re: Firefox problem

On Thu, Oct 22, 2009 at 18:51, Gary <xheralt@yahoo.com> wrote:
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> I don't care how much y'all hate FF3.x, reverting to FF 2.x is a security breach waiting to happen, and the *worst* frakking advice > to give someone.

When's the last time you had a box rooted?

Thought so. FWIW, I've run FF 2.x for a very long time on multiple
machines, multiple Linux distros and with sometimes very heavy net
usage and have never, ever had even one attempted intrusion via a FF
exploit, such as there are. The advice is no better, nor worse right
now, really, than suggesting someone continue to run a poorly designed
browser that continuously suffers from memory leaks and random
bugginess. While the chance DOES exist of finding a site that
contains exploit code, finding one that targets a FF vulnerability AND
has code designed to target a Linux system (as opposed to a site
containing exploit code that affects BOTH FF and IE) is on the low end
of the risk scale. You're far more likely to find a site containing
code that hits an exploit that is generic and affects both FF and IE
which targets IE systems. Mostly for the same reason that while Mac
OSX exploits exist, you see and hear of very few real instances of
such things being used in the wild.

> As far as the memory leaks go, well, I've just learned to not leave my browser open overnight when I go to sleep, it's fine
> otherwise. I tend to run into more immediate troubles dealing with script-heavy sites (like yahoo.com)...

Ahhh... You are a former Windows user, yes? That's the problem that
arises from a software company with dominant market share that
produces substandard product. Everyone gets into a "Well I can work
around the continuous memory leaks and other problems, so it's OK".
No, it's not OK. Workarounds are not an acceptable alternative to
good design and decision making.

>
> Opera just doesn't do it for me, it doesn't have the extensions I need or the themes I want.
>

Extensions I can appreciate... but Themes? Granted, the FF3 install
on my netbook is using themes just because I thought the idea was
novel and cute, but is it really necessary to theme EVERYTHING on a
system? Just curious, because I never saw the use for themes outside
the desktop itself.

> I'm running PCLOS 2009.2 on a 1.8GHz Sempron-based laptop, and never had that autoscrolling problem.
>

THAT's important, because honestly, I'd never run into anything like
the OP was describing on any FF version ever, and I've run them since
FF was still Mozilla and Netscape on various linux distros and
kernels... Actually, I take that back, I DID kind of run into
something similar on one box, mostly because it had little RAM and
continuously swapped back and forth, causing actions to be buffered,
so my scrolling turned into an unstoppable autoscroll because so many
actions were backed up. More RAM fixed the issue though...

> Glenn, have you tried starting Firefox in safe mode [code]firefox --safe-mode[/code] and resetting everything? It might even be
> worth your while to remove/reinstall Firefox from within Synaptic, or even to do a total OS re-install (custom, preserving your
> /home partition) from a 2009.2 LiveCD, because sometimes glitches and other artifacts get carried forward when one upgrades,
> drek that gets eliminated by a clean install.

There was a time when I would advise against ANY updating, other than
in-version security updates. I would tell people to just do a fresh
install any time they wanted a new Major or Minor release (e.g. RH5.1
to RH5.2) because of the problems you describe. Now-a-days, the
updating is a lot more smooth and usable and does not often result in
artifacts and other problems, BUT you are right. Sometimes a fresh
install of a new version is the cure... I vote this for the OP ;-)

And could you please not top post in the future? :-)

Cheers
Jeff

--

Ted Turner - "Sports is like a war without the killing."