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Stable software

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:11 am
by matthijs
So I was wondering, what systems and software do you use? Number one frustration for me is software crashing, freezing and acting strange. Can be infuriating!

Just now my browser (Moz 1.7.2) crashed (freezed up), so I had to restart it and find all the tabs I had open. Windows explorer is the worst, often acts very stange: the treemenu on the left side stops functioning and messes up. I can still access all folders and files, but I cannot open and close the tree folders anymore. XP itself is fairly stable, although the windows on the bottom pannel get messed up sometimes. Because I'm used to a regular order in which the programs are opened, that can be a pa* in the **.

I also use FF but both FF and Moz can freeze up on some sites (especially the sites of big, well known companies like the Postal service, banks, etc who are still optimised for NN4).

It's just so irritating. It's like when you're working nicely and suddenly someone comes from behind and totally sweeps your desk clean, throwing everything in one big pile on the ground. Haha, funny :x

My pc is quite new (ok somewhat old with 1 yr) and I make sure to keep the amount of installed programs to an absolute minimum (the fact I have to do that is quite ridiculous), do regular cleanups etc.

So how are your experiences? Are people using macs for this reason? Are there alternatives to windows explorer?

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:19 am
by feyd
The only times I have problems with explorer is when I use IE too much and it goes a bit crazy with various bits. Other than that, my machine is pretty much always stable.. Now, my wireless network connection is another story altogether.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 2:40 am
by matthijs
"using IE too much" isn't that a pleonasm? :)

But if I understand you correct, the use of your internet explorer influences your windows explorer?

wireless network connections can indeed be buggy. I always keep a 60ft cable in hand reach...

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 3:24 am
by matthijs
[rant goes on]
aaaargh, again, total crash of mozilla! This time I was quick enough to find out what is was: some advertisements on the onlamp.com site. Don't know what happens, but the page keeps (trying to) connecting to some adds which pushes the CPU near 100%. I remember having had that problem before with the onlamp site. why don't they just give me a nice gif as an add instead of some 89 Mb of javascript-flash loaden movie?

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 3:58 am
by patrikG
make sure you have Java disabled in your preferences.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:12 am
by matthijs
PatrikG, I understand you mean Java, not javascript? (just to make sure I don't misunderstand)

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:30 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
I use Firefox 1.5+ on Linux. And there is an extension called "Session Saver" which will automatically restore your tabs to their state prior to any crash...;) Very useful. Otherwise its quite stable - in my experience Firefox will crash consistently on a small selection of sites which have a lot of javascript in use. Typically the Javascript is not tested on Firefox (just IE) so its not something I blame Mozilla for. Java I never have enabled unless required.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:54 am
by matthijs
Thanks, I'll take a look at that extension. Sometimes I have like 8 windows opened, each with several tabs opened, so you can imagine how frustrating it is to loose all that.

And I'll disable Java then. Didn't even know it was enabled or even what it is used for.

Javascript crashing FF or Moz is indeed something what happens consistently on some sites. I had that problem with the dutch Yellow Pages website. Can you imagine that? A website with probably 10000's of visitors each day, with probably a team of 40 people working full-time on it, and nobody gets the idea to check the site in anything other then IE....

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 5:07 am
by jmut
matthijs wrote:.... Can you imagine that? A website with probably 10000's of visitors each day, with probably a team of 40 people working full-time on it, and nobody gets the idea to check the site in anything other then IE....
Quite common unfortunately.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 5:10 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
For me its Yahoo! News - crashes maybe once a day, sometimes twice if using it a lot.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 6:26 am
by Grim...
Maug - ever considered switching to (say) BBC news?

http://news.bbc.co.uk , like there's anybody that doesn't know...

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 8:44 am
by Maugrim_The_Reaper
I use both ;). Yahoo is generally better at covering US domestic news though.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 1:23 pm
by alvinphp
I think the problem is your computer as my computer is very stable and neither IE or FF ever crashes. And I have a lot of applications running at the same time. You might have a memory problem, either bad or not enough of it.

Posted: Tue Apr 04, 2006 4:09 pm
by matthijs
That could be. I only have 512Mb, so that's not too much. It's probably some combination of factors. Sometimes too little memory, other times some stupid *&%$ website or ad (disabled java now). Windows has never been stable for me, with every pc i've had.