[Update: It looks like a lot of people are finding this page when searching for “firefox flash.” If you’re looking for instructions on how to get Flash working on Firefox, try downloading Flash player or just go to Mozilla Plugins for easy-to-install plugins. You might want to get Java while you’re at it.]
If you’re using Firefox on OS X, you’ve probably seen the Flash problem. Bug 106397 describes the problem pretty well, basically Flash is hella slow, can lock up or even crash Firefox and the only way to try to recover is to hold down the mouse button. It is by far my biggest complaint with Firefox, and Mozilla in general. My favorite part is that the bug was opened in late 2001 and still hasn’t been resolved, 2 1/2 years later.
Safari isn’t a much better alternative, due to the fact it sometimes gives me the spinning beach ball when I load Bloglines or when I click on a mildly complicated form. I wish Apple had put its energy into Gecko instead of KHTML, but I suspect Dave Hyatt got tired of being frustrated with Gecko on Camino and wanted a new type of frustration.
I’m probably going to have to start playing with adblock, which kind of sucks because I don’t want to deprive sites of their income. On the other hand, I rarely click ads anyway, so it won’t be a huge loss to anyone.
[Update: Steve pointed out FlashBlock in the comments, which may be exactly what I was looking for. Well, almost exactly what I’m looking for. Exactly what I’m looking for would be for Bug 106397 to be closed.]


3 responses to “Firefox, Flash and OS X”

  1. Steve says:

    Why not use Flash Click-to-View?

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