(SOLVED)Iceweasel often crashes, a question of security flaw

[Wheelerof4te]

EDIT: Problem with html sites is solved. Rest of the "problems" really don't exist. Thank you for your patience.

Dear Debian developers,

this has become a nightmare for me and I believe other Debian users. Crashes are near instant and almost guaranteed when it tries to load flash content (html) or heavy javascript. Worse yet, when I open the browser it crashes again since it loads the last page (usually the crashed html page). Will someone who has the knowledge try to fix this, or is fixing it as I type? Or will we have to wait for new ESR release of IW? Or it won't be fixed at all?

Sometimes I wonder if the crashes are related to the flawed security. Seeing as Debian is compromised since Jessie released with a mountain of RC bugs, I have to wonder if the current Debian Security team does it's job as it should. Maybe all the experts left after Jessie, I don't know.

But something else does not feel right, too. Linux kernel got tens of fixes by now, what for? Was it that bad when you released it? Or is it being tampered with?

Hope I'm wrong on all this. Have a nice day.

[mardybear]

Personally not keen on the latest Debian offerings either, another topic. Iceweasel in my Debian Wheezy installs is very stable, aside from getting more bloated with every release. [edit] It is doubtful Debian administration or any developers will read your post.

[dilberts_left_nut]

Hope I'm wrong on all this.

Congratulations, you are - on every single point.

FWIW my iceweasel is very reliable and crash-free.

[cra1g321]

Been stable as a rock just like Debian jessie for me.

Debian is compromised since Jessie released with a mountain of RC bugs, I have to wonder if the current Debian Security team does it's job as it should.

Care to elaborate on how exactly it is "compromised"

current Debian Security team does it's job as it should.

Well instead of complaining and talking about things you know nothing about, if you had of looked into anything about the Debian Security Team or even a few debian security related pages, you'd find that often many security fixes are resolved before any other distro.

Linux kernel got tens of fixes by now, what for? Was it that bad when you released it? Or is it being tampered with?

blah, just sounds like more troll stuff.

[cra1g321]

Congratulations, you are - on every single point.

Short and sweet, why didn't i reply with this

[spacex]

Hope I'm wrong on all this.

Congratulations, you are - on every single point.

FWIW my iceweasel is very reliable and crash-free.

But slow, so slow.... It's a browser that doesn't at all benefit from decent hardware. To me, Iceweasel runs just as well on my 15 year old Toshiba, as it does on my brand new laptop. Especially the first launch in a session. I can't understand how you guys manage to sit there for seconds and just wait with a blank page. While Chrome just pops up in an instant.

No attempt of trolling. If anyone has any magic secrets of how to get Iceweasel to become as fast as Chrome, then I sure would like to know about it. One thing is sure, it's slow by default, before you do anything with it, or install any plugins. So what do you do with it? Apart from using the downtime to get a cup of coffee while you are waiting for Iceweasel to load....

[Head_on_a_Stick]

my iceweasel is very reliable and crash-free.

+1

$BETTER_HALF uses it for *everything* *all the time* (sigh) and I would know if there were any problems.

We often reminisce about the bad old days when we had Windows and the laptop would crash *every session* (no exaggeration) and we would lose entire afternoons to a Windows update

Thank you Debian!

[thanatos_incarnate]

Dear Debian developers

Not sure this is the right channel to reach the developers. AFAIK, most of them hang out in the mailing lists.

this has become a nightmare for me and I believe other Debian users. Crashes are near instant and almost guaranteed when it tries to load flash content (html) or heavy javascript.

I can't recreate what you are describing. Mozilla and especially Debian can't do anything about bugs in Flash, especially considering how Flash is a dying technology anyway. Javascript loads fine on my Iceweasel, both ESR and the current version from backports. However, the web is evolving quickly, so it could be that sites you are visiting use new features that the ESR version doesn't run well.

Quick solution 1: Don't use the ESR version. Use the current one from the Mozilla Team Backports.

Quick solution 2: Don't browse Javascript heavy pages.

EDIT: Quick solution 3: Don't use the flashnonfree, use pepperflash.

Solution 4 (a bit more involving): Use NoScript and enable Javascript only when needed. A lot of the times, the scripts that squeeze your machine aren't actually the content, but rather the ads and other tracking tools (Facebook, Twitter) that are to blame. I've found out that when disabling those, web page loading just flies.

Solution 5: Don't count on Iceweasel becoming slimmer anytime soon. Change to Pale Moon.

Worse yet, when I open the browser it crashes again since it loads the last page (usually the crashed html page). Will someone who has the knowledge try to fix this, or is fixing it as I type? Or will we have to wait for new ESR release of IW? Or it won't be fixed at all?

Sometimes I wonder if the crashes are related to the flawed security. Seeing as Debian is compromised since Jessie released with a mountain of RC bugs

What RC bugs? There probably were some, but I don't feel any of them on several desktops (Xfce, Gnome, LXDE with lots of packages installed). Maybe some evidence would shed more light on it?

But something else does not feel right, too. Linux kernel got tens of fixes by now, what for? Was it that bad when you released it? Or is it being tampered with?

The kernel gets security fixes. It doesn't necessarily mean it's being "tampered with". You'd have to give us more evidence than just your fear of conspiracy.

[swirling_vortex]

Can you provide some links to websites that are not working for you? Can you post your hardware specs?

[Wheelerof4te]

^I have upgraded IW to version 44, curent stable release. It seems that esr didn't parse html sites and content correctly. Sites that use html such as youtube crashed regulary. Now it seems it's fixed, but it is still very slow. My hardware is low end:

512 MB RAM, Nvidia Mx 440, Intel Celeron single-core 3.3 Ghz.

Thanks to thanatos_incarnate for the solution. As for the rest of the acusations, those were written in blind rage. I apologize.

[thanatos_incarnate]

^I have upgraded IW to version 44, curent stable release. It seems that esr didn't parse html sites and content correctly. Sites that use html such as youtube crashed regulary. Now it seems it's fixed, but it is still very slow. My hardware is low end:

512 MB RAM, Nvidia Mx 440, Intel Celeron single-core 3.3 Ghz.

Thanks to thanatos_incarnate for the solution. As for the rest of the acusations, those were written in blind rage. I apologize.

No big deal.

With your hardware, I'd really use mpv to watch Youtube, but set it up so it uses only SD video. With youtube-dl, you can also download Youtube videos and also those from other sites (vimeo, various pornography sites,...).

[swirling_vortex]

Unfortunately that hardware is probably going to struggle on the web regardless of what OS/Browser you run. Firefox in particular eats a lot of RAM, so you might want to try upgrading to 2GB.