Firefox Community Forum

I use a laptop that's estimated to be around 5 years old now, it still has good performance and rarely shuts down/crashes. The only performance issues it has are with Firefox, as it eats the most CPU and memory of anything else I use. Twice or so now, the following has happened within the past month: - Firefox notifies me that a new version is available and asks to update to it - I decline to do because I have tabs on there with unsaved/algorithmic work I'm in the middle of dealing with, and the browser update would mean losing all of it (or I just don't care) - At some point later, be it a few days or hours later, Firefox suddenly seizes up and forces me to close the application, after which it updates to the newest version.

While it's always frustrating to have this happen, it's generally pretty quick and I can get back to whatever I was doing (as my tabs reload). But today was different. Very different.

So, imagine. You're slacking off, watching some random videos online, and your screen (and eventually audio, too) freeze up. You get Windows to shut it down as it detects the application has gone cold, and it goes and tries to "report the issue", except that little loading screen doesn't seem to come to a stop. "Okay..." So, you click "X", and it goes away after a few tries, but the Firefox icon is still on your taskbar like it's still active. You click it, it doesn't do anything. You click on your other open applications, they also don't do anything. Suddenly, your entire desktop freaks out! You can't ALT+F4 (none of your keys work in fact), the screen is randomly turning black for fractions of a second. Only when you hold down the power button for what feels like a whole minute as a last ditch effort do you get your potato of a computer to go lights out. You press down on the power button again, it boots back up fine. Firefox reopens, and it gives you a little popup about pinning it to your taskbar.

Did Firefox literally crash my computer... to tell me I can use a free (and probably useless) VPN now?... IS THIS WHAT YOU WANTED, YOU LITTLE VULPINE BASTARD??!?!?!

I don't why it's acting like some immature incinerated furry spawn of internet Satan because I simply "decline" to update the browser, but it's really getting on my nerves. I have NEVER HAD an application, let alone a memory-munching browser like this, cause my entire PC to freeze to a severity I have not seen in a long time if ever in the history of using it. What is making it wreak havoc on my computer all for a stupid update that adds garbage I never use? How do I make it stop? Why has it been such an ass with me recently???

I can't let this keep happening, man. It's already caused me to lose some important stuff before, and now apparently it may be able to screw me over on other applications as well. Something could go seriously wrong on my end, and then boom, I move back to Chrome because despite everything, it treated me with more decency when it came to performance. Do better.

Starting the Windows 11 laptop again. Then Firefox. Result: No sites are starting. All history lost, many tabs: lost. Great work!!! Last update was already shit (many exception rules have to be set manual again. I love such updates! Useless). And now that. I think I will switch now to chrome. Sorry. Such experience is enough. It is my time - I need a reliable browser, not where I have to spend time to get the things like they have been before

On 2026-04-15 from about 10:00 CDT on, I have not been able to update Nightly nor Firefox Developer Edition (Aurora). Both of them notify me that there is an update available, and when I click on Help -> About Firefox I get the usual panel that gives me the update ID to click on. Clicking on it tells me it's Downloading Update -- 0 bytes, and it never flashes the expected size of the update, never shows progress, and never completes. It seems to be acting as if the update server is out of commission.

My browser updated to 149.0.2 on Windows 11 early April 2026. I first noticed the browser asking me to select a profile when trying to open hyperlinks from emails, but since I had not closed the browser since the update, I still had all of my information. When I went to restart, I was forced to make a new profile as no other ones were recognized. This also happened during an update at the end of 2025 and I was able to fix it with advise from support articles., Unfortunately, none of those fixes seem to be applicable anymore. Does anyone have a current fix? I have lost so much saved info!

Downloading a file closes the source website. Once clicking on the download icon, the subject file appears and the source website closes. The file can be downloaded, but cannot return to the source website unless logging into the website again. The back arrow in upper left corner is not highlighted and cannot click on it. This is relatively new because it did not occur previously. Use to click on the download icon, the file would appear, download the file, hit back arrow and return to the website. Please help. Very time consuming and frustrating to have to keep logging into a website to get all needed downloads.

How do we (users) modify Firefox functionality to "open image in new tab" using a keyboard shortcut? A configurable (about:) parameter would be very beneficial.

If this is already solved, please publish documentation on how to solve this without the use of questionable add-on's (which introduce security risks and privacy issues).

Thank you...

A windows update occurred this AM 04/15/26 and it has affected my browsing. Don't know if this update effected my G mail. My U tube profile changed form browsing to history. example: when I click on to my U tube profile it brings up the last view I was browsing. I cannot refresh Firefox like before from the help menu, of which would select the profile I desire.

Whenever i try to connect to any site, it fails to load and displays the following error message:

This web site requires a secure connection. - The page you are trying to view cannot be shown because this web site requires a secure connection. - The issue is most likely with the web site, and there is nothing you can do to resolve it. - You can notify the web site’s administrator about the problem.

When i press 'advanced' it says: [Site name] has a security policy called HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), which means that Firefox can only connect to it securely. You can’t add an exception to visit this site.

This happens on every site i try to visit. I am on a samsung phone running android version 15. Other browsers do not have this problem (i am sending this from opera), and firefox works fine on my other devices.

Firefox browser has stopped opening websites on my Dell laptop. Get "secure connection failed" error message. Other browsers work just fine. I have refreshed, uninstalled and reinstalled Firefox from both firefox website (using Brave browser) and from MSN store.

when putting in Yahoo.com in Firefox search window, it will open the link but then the page disappears after 2 seconds. I am on Dell Inspiron 15 laptop with Windows 11.

Recently my system updated Firefox to version 149.0.2. It works great! However, it will not display my homepage which is yahoo.com. I can go to any other website and everything is normal. But when I click on the little house for "Homepage" it briefly displays and then goes blank.

This does not happen when I use a different browser.

Please advise.

When trying to search in Yahoo, using Firefox, About:Blank comes up instead in a new tab. I have to hit the X to close the new tab, and then hit enter again and I will then get my search results. I have 2 PCs and a laptop and they ALL are having this problem since the last Firefox update. I have tried ALL of the recommended fixes, I have refreshed firefox, cleared cache and cookies, turned off firewall, antivirus, extensions, etc. I have even tried some of the config recommended changes and NOTHING works. It is definitely a Firefox problem and NOT a yahoo problem because all works fine in Chrome and Edge.