FlashPlayer 11.3 >:( issues seem to be of concern to some, so I have added some notes and links about that. (and RealPlayer)
My current conclusion is that the majority of you seem to be agreeing that Firefox should work ok with Avast, and that Avast will not cause Firefox to lag.
Hi,
I hope it is ok to post such a question, and thank in advance anyone wishing to help.
My initial presumption is that Firefox will work with Avast, but someone is saying otherwise, and obviously it is difficult to prove one way or the other without some sort of data.
If you do comment it would help if you could give a bit of additional information
Type of device (netbook, multicore desktop etc)
Type and version of Avast
Operating system and version
Firefox version (e.g fx13 or fx14 or ESR)
Cheers, John
Background information
I post on the official Firefox support forums where I am a moderator. Someone contends Avast is responsible for Firefox lagging and freezing. (1 & 2) I am hoping to show this is unlikely. I suspect that particular user has other unresolved issues. Alternatively if there are problems I will look for workarounds or solutions and if necessary bring this to the attention of developers.
I realise that in fact results on this forum could be heavily biased, if for instance this forum has mainly users looking for solutions, many of them may have problems with Firefox but all I really need is a few genuine examples of users confirming Firefox and Avast work together without problems.
Thatās all we need is a freaking poll. If Firefox wants to stay in the game they should concentrate more on putting out a better product. I have started using Chrome more than FF because Chrome is faster and more reliable when it comes to Flash Player usage. Instead of trying to keep up the rapid fire releases FF should put more effort into quality. Yes FF has add-ons but then again so does Chrome. Firefox is no longer king of the hill. So it seems they are wrongly bashing avast. The problem isnāt avastā¦itās Firefox itself. IMHO
I checked the box for āI think I have discovered a problemā the last box in poll.
I believe I was using Avast when I tried out Firefox. The program seemed to work but not well. It was impossible to use unless I allowed all 1st Party Cookies on my machine. That meant accumulating all sorts of unwanted session cookies, tracking cookies, adware cookies etc. if I wanted to use Firefox.
I posted this on Firefox forum and requested help for how to use Firefox without accepting every single cookie anybody wanted to drop on my machine. I got no replies or assistance or suggestions after a week of asking so I was forced to uninstall. Obviously I donāt want all those cookies for security reasons. This website weāre on here demands 1st Party Cookies be allowed in order to post, which forces a security compromise if I forget to disallow after posting here.
If Firefox worked without demanding 1st Party Cookies be allowed from all websites I would have used it because otherwise I use IE6, far less than good! Not sure how Avast effected it, never got much of a chance to find out if that was part of the problem.
I answered here because itās possible people on your forum arenāt aware that Firefox will glitch and stumble without 1st Party Cookies enabled and are blaming it on Avast.
The combination of Avast and Firefox is fast, safe, and highly configurable. I have no reason to consider another browse or antivirus. I do have Opera installed, but only open it rarely.
I was ānotā bashing Firefox. I was just stating my opinion. I have said this in the past and I will say it again, āI prefer Firefoxā. Itās that Firefox is trying too hard to keep a rapid fire update schedule that quality is not what it once was. In fact I am using FF right now. FF has more security features than Chrome and is more customizable than Chrome. FF should concentrate on quality and ānotā quantity.
@ DavidR In the OPās post he had a subsection concerning background information. All I was doing was trying to give some direction. Which after all is why they posted in the first place. The OP wants to improve FF. So do I. 8)
Thanks for the replies. So far initial posts and votes are suggesting Avast and Firefox should co-exist without causing lagging and freezing.
Something I did not ask initially: does Avast have any particular settings that do cause problems, maybe things such as background disk scanning, database downloads.
I am not a developer and can not promise to improve Firefox, but I will attempt where possible to answer some support questions, improve answers and KB documents, and file bugs if previously unreported regressions or problems come to my attention.
The rapid release policy is IMHO a good principle, but I agree it could have been implemented in a better manner. I think the teething troubles are subsiding now.
Firefox is not bashing Avast (well not on this occasion anyway ) It is a single user with a problem, but someone who claims others support the opinion. I hope to use the poll results to defend Avastās reputation
Was your question on the official Firefox support site ?
If so have you still got a link for the question, and can you post it ?
I believe Firefox is scheduled for an upgrade on the 17th of July so listing the version will be important.
As of right now the current version of avast is 7.0.1456 and the current version of Firefox is 13.0.1.
There were issues with Firefox, Adobe flash player 11.3 and Realplayer. Crashes while going full screen and
crashes while closing Firefox. Has this been ruled out?
I would also question which add-ons are installed in Firefox. Have all add-ons been disabled to see if it may be an add-on causing this?
Enable one at a time to see if the problem persists.
Conflicting security software?
Please ask this person if he updated over the top or if it was a clean install of avast. Most recent version of avast?
I donāt notice any problems with Firefox and Avast.
edit: I just read this personās post. It seems he has many more problems than just Firefox freezing. Also, he is using Firefox 11. I donāt think I would waste the energy trying to track this down if this person is going to use outdated software. How many other people have had this complaint with avast and Firefox lagging on the Mozilla forum? Advanced System Care should not be installed along with avast. Spybot with teatimer should not be used with avast. Overkill and too many conflicting security solutions. Keep avast free and malwarebytes pro and scrap the rest.
ive stopped using FF because of the constant freezing and annoying "not responding " messages.
It seems to be a problem with the flash player.
Im now using google chrome which does seem slightly faster.
They keep releasing updates far too quickly and the product is suffering because of this.
I hope they sort it out soon.
Regards. >:(
Firefox has never crashed for me. It also warns the user of an unresponsive script. A common crash ātrickā using while to repeatedly call the code inside is stopped by Firefox. IE crashes. See attachments.
Windows 7 Home Premium x64 SP1
avast! Free Antivirus 7.0.1426
Online Armor Free 5.5.0.1616
Mozilla Firefox 13.0.1
Shockwave Flash Plugin 11.3.300.265
Build .1451 was a complete disaster, both IE and Fx freezed, so I was glad that .1456 came out so soonā¦ but that turned out to be a disaster as well and avast! staff seems to choose to ignore this problem. When I first installed .1456 surfing appeared to be ok, but Fx freezed when trying to open websites with Flash content. I uninstalled avast! using aswclear.exe and reinstalled (about 20 times or so), but it didnāt work.
A poster suggested to me to uninstall and reinstall OA Free as well. Uninstalling avast! and OA and then reinstalling avast! (not OA) seemed to solve the problem. Fx functioned ok. But then problems started again when I installed OA (I set up exclusions rules in both avast! and OA to ignore each other).
Shutting down avast!'s Behavior Shield also solves the problem. Of course, uninstalling avast! completely solves the problem too.
Iāve been using avast! for many years, Iāve installed it elsewhere and advised users to install it. I never had any problems (except for that one time when there was a case of false positives). Iāve downgraded to .1426 which is working fine, but if this problem isnāt solved, then Iāll probably have to dump avast! and switch to Avira. And one other thing, users on this forum (and avast! staff as well) seem to ignore that people are having problems. I too have encountered systems that are working fine with the latest avast!, but itās also clear that several people are having problems.
I agree the poster with the problem has an odd setup that seems likely to be susceptible to all sorts of problems.
I am just trying to debunk the suggestion from that thread that the problem is due to use of Avast.
Flash 11.3 issues
The FlashPlayer 11.3 and any related RealPlayer problems are separate issues, although if a Firefox user is unwilling to troubleshoot it is in some circumstances almost impossible to say what the causes of problems are. In some instances we are currently recommending Flash 11.3 Firefox Windows users should downgrade to Flash 11.2 or 10.3
Note there was a new Flash release on about 11th July , although I am not yet sure what if anything that solves.
No problems here, with Firefox and avast (free) fully up to date.
Admittedly, if there seems to be a correlation between Flash-using sites and Fx crashes, that could explain my āluckā. I keep the Flash plug-in disabled except on the rare occasions when I need it to watch a video, or when updating Flash (update wonāt ātakeā if the plug-inās disabled).
Adobe Flash Protected Mode is not enabled when installed on WinXP, and that alone will prevent a lot of the Flash/Firefox issues. Iāve never had a crash when using Flash, and it is enabled all the time. However, I use NoScript in Firefox, so Flash wonāt be invoked unless the site is whitelisted in NoScript. I currently have Adobe Flash 11.3.300.265 installed, and have had no problems with it and Firefox.
My current conclusion is that the majority of you seem to be agreeing that Firefox should work ok with Avast, and that Avast will not cause Firefox to lag.