Firefox and Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 - mostly security fixes

June 3rd, 2006 by Tiago in PC Gadgets, Software

Mozilla has recently upgraded the Firefox browser to version 1.5.0.4, this release is mostly related to security issues so it’s safe to say: a must download if you want to stay secured.

Thunderbird, the e-mail/RSS solution provided by Mozilla, also received an upgrade to fix crashing situations and security problems.

But, what about the memory leak fix that many Firefox users have been waiting for? Is it a myth? Should I call the Myth Busters? Can Firefox and memory leakage coexist?

From personal experience, the memory leak which makes the computers memory go up and the performance go down is a pain in the ass and not a myth. It can be caused by:

multiple tabs open - this happens to me a lot
extensions that don’t work properly - not really
simply using the browser for a couple of hours - happens sometimes

There is no info when this bug is going to be repaired, but lets hope its soon enough. Maybe in Firefox 1.3?

Anyway, at slashdot there are some comments that should be added on the “To Do List” of firefox, a list of problems that needs attention:

- And I *still* can’t find text within a textbox…
- It created it’s own user profile and is ignoring my old one. Now I have to re-enter all my passwords to sites, import my bookmarks and re-install all my extensions.
- When they fix the Windows Media Player plugin for the MacBook (Intel) then I’ll be impressed.
- Considering that privacy and security are big concerns for every large software project these days, I believe that Firefox’s default update setting should be changed. If you go to Tools –> Options –> Advanced –> Update, and you haven’t changed your default settings, you will find that it is set to “Automatically download and install the update”. Even Microsoft wouldn’t do this, so why is it acceptable in Firefox? It should default to “Ask me what I want to do.”, and during the first update, a checkbox should be provided asking the user if he wants automatic updates from then on.

Download Firefox 1.5.0.4
Download Thunderbird 1.5.0.4

Via Slashdot

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9 Comments on “Firefox and Thunderbird 1.5.0.4 - mostly security fixes”

Paz Says:

June 3rd, 2006 at 9:56 am

I installed the update this afternoon and it’s crashed once already.. haha
There’s a Firefox extension called Session Saver that restarts Firefox in the state in which it was just before it crashed. It works with multiple tabs, multiple windows; the lot!
The url is https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/436/

Paz.

Andrew Says:

June 3rd, 2006 at 10:20 am

The Myth Busters are here:

http://www.FirefoxMyths.com

The Memory Leak is a Myth!

Shwaza Says:

June 3rd, 2006 at 11:41 am

Ouch, “secutiry”? Might want to fix that

Al Says:

June 3rd, 2006 at 12:21 pm

Thanks Shwaza, fixed.

Tiago Says:

June 4th, 2006 at 12:24 am

Oooops, didn’t notice that :\

Alex M. Says:

June 4th, 2006 at 6:59 am

I actually read somewhere that sometimes Firefox extensions can cause that memory problem. I’ve also noticed that the memory bug is much more noticeable on older computers, with less RAM. The computer I’m using right now has 512MB of RAM, and I’m having no problems running Firefox.

Tiago Says:

June 5th, 2006 at 6:23 am

Andrew, in your site it says that the memory leak is a feature (and not a bug) because it “retains the rendered document for the last five session history entries for each tab”.

The more tabs you got open, the more memory it will consume which causes the memory leak in some cases. So the fault is on the user (because we open too many tabs open), instead of the software (that should control the memory usage of the tabs)?

Following that fact on your site, there is a note which describes Opera being able to do the same thing without consuming so much memory…