6 ms·

Even better just disable session restore entirely - Browser.sessionstore.enabled - Since Firefox 3.5 this preference is superseded with setting browser.sessions

Even better just disable session restore entirely - Browser.sessionstore.enabled - Since Firefox 3.5 this preference is superseded with setting browser.sessionstore.max_tabs_undo and browser.sessionstore.max_windows_undo to 0. As I understand this feature is there so if the browser crashes it can restore your windows and tabs - I don't remember having a browser crash on me since the demise of Flash.

gcp 10y ago
It'll also cover OS crashes or power failures. Agreed that those aren't very common either.
LukeShu 10y ago
Other things than a browser crash can cause the browser to unexpectedly quit. For example, a battery dying, or the power going out.
- blinkingled 10y ago
  Right but that doesn't happen quite often either. Also if it does how important is restoring the tabs and windows? Probably not to a lot of people other than serious creators that use a web editor of some sort that'll lose work if the browser disappears. Even then it is flaky to rely on something like this. Much better to have periodic backups of whatever you're doing.
  - froydnj 10y ago
    You say "doesn't happen quite often", which I'm assuming means something like "doesn't happen quite often to me". But if you consider hundreds of millions of users using Firefox every day, then even a relatively rare event is happening to multiple users every single day. It is absolutely worth it to them that Firefox does its best to preserve their data.
    - Dylan16807 10y ago
      You have a point, but power outages are very correlated.
raverbashing 10y ago
Replace Browser Crash with: Accidentally pressing Ctrl-w And yes, there are browser crashes without Flash
- blinkingled 10y ago
  Hmm I really haven't had FF or Chrome crash on me since a long time - I do browse a lot. I can't be that lucky. I am not saying it doesn't happen - I am saying it's so infrequent that it's just better to deal with it when it happens instead of killing your SSD with constant writes of 15GB per day. Most people don't do anything that needs to be recovered by a crashed browser.
  - witty_username 10y ago
    I don't remember the last time Chrome crashed. Rarely one tab crashes (usually due to Adobe Flash).
- rayiner 10y ago
  Who really cares about restoring browser state? Maybe I lose part of an HN or Facebook post I'd been writing, but that's it. The feature should be opt-in, IMHO.
  - pjc50 10y ago
    I certainly care about it, although it's possible that my 50-odd browser tabs would be considered "clutter" by other people. I stopped using Edge because it only saves your tab session if you turn off the PC, not if you quit the browser. Mind you, for a while I ran Firefox using a RAMdisc for the profile simply because all that flushing makes a big negative impact on PC performance.
    - tofflos 10y ago
      You're in good shape. I'm at 337 tabs. ;-)
oridecon 10y ago
> I don't remember having a browser crash on me since the demise of Flash. Just try browsing reddit with the RES extension or streaming heavy data for a few seconds (like a server side PDF processor that takes more than 30 seconds to finish, it's the same old behavior of blocking JS dialogs from years ago, white screen of death). When I'm using a iGPU (512MB) and I open some heavy images in sequence the browser crashes after a certain amount of time but this time it freezes the entire computer for a few seconds, so I suspect it's OOM (iGPU). I never bothered looking for a solution, nowadays I don't even care when my browser ocasionally crashes. My overall desktop (software) experience gets worse every year so I have gone used to it. But Firefox still is my favorite browser and I wouldn't trade it for anything else!
- blinkingled 10y ago
  > RES extension or streaming heavy data Yeah that's the difference - I only use few well known extensions like uBlock Origin, Self Destructing Cookies, Lastpass and Decentraleyes. No trouble with any PDFs either. Anyway this is getting off track with the crashes or not - my point was even if it crashes it is no big deal if you can't restore - just reopen will work in most cases.
  - tyleraldrich 10y ago
    > I only use few well known extensions RES is more well known (in terms of number of downloads/users) than 50% of your listed extensions, for the record.
bjt2n3904 10y ago
Sad that the crash feature (which I don't particularly like or use) is directly tied to the undo close tab feature (which I do). I don't like the anxiety of opening Firefox in front of someone, and wondering if my previous tabs will pop up.
SilasX 10y ago
It happens relatively often for me, maybe 1-2 times a month. No crazy extensions.
sbierwagen 10y ago
I haven't had a browser crash for a while, but fairly routinely Windows will reboot itself to apply an update. (Once every other month, at least)
jacobsenscott 10y ago
I need to regularly kill firefox. I just did in fact. It didn't technically crash, but it becomes totally non-responsive for seconds at a time. Maybe it is a misbehaving plugin and not ff, but the effect is the same.
Pxtl 10y ago
I actually find that webGL-heavy sites like Google Maps are quite good at crashing FF.
- mrec 10y ago
  Yep, StreetView in particular. And don't get me started on Shadertoy, which seems to make "crashing FF" its mission statement.
krylon 10y ago
It happens rarely to me, but it sometimes does. Also, your machine can crash, someone can trip over a power line, ... At work, I routinely have something like 30-40 tabs open, if my browser can restore the session after a crash, that is very valuable to me.
petecox 10y ago
Thanks for the tip. I'll see if it has any affect on my laptop's battery life and fan usage.

gcp 10y ago

It'll also cover OS crashes or power failures. Agreed that those aren't very common either.

LukeShu 10y ago

Other things than a browser crash can cause the browser to unexpectedly quit. For example, a battery dying, or the power going out.

blinkingled 10y ago
Right but that doesn't happen quite often either. Also if it does how important is restoring the tabs and windows? Probably not to a lot of people other than serious creators that use a web editor of some sort that'll lose work if the browser disappears. Even then it is flaky to rely on something like this. Much better to have periodic backups of whatever you're doing.
- froydnj 10y ago
  You say "doesn't happen quite often", which I'm assuming means something like "doesn't happen quite often to me". But if you consider hundreds of millions of users using Firefox every day, then even a relatively rare event is happening to multiple users every single day. It is absolutely worth it to them that Firefox does its best to preserve their data.
  - Dylan16807 10y ago
    You have a point, but power outages are very correlated.

raverbashing 10y ago

Replace Browser Crash with: Accidentally pressing Ctrl-w And yes, there are browser crashes without Flash

blinkingled 10y ago
Hmm I really haven't had FF or Chrome crash on me since a long time - I do browse a lot. I can't be that lucky. I am not saying it doesn't happen - I am saying it's so infrequent that it's just better to deal with it when it happens instead of killing your SSD with constant writes of 15GB per day. Most people don't do anything that needs to be recovered by a crashed browser.
- witty_username 10y ago
  I don't remember the last time Chrome crashed. Rarely one tab crashes (usually due to Adobe Flash).
rayiner 10y ago
Who really cares about restoring browser state? Maybe I lose part of an HN or Facebook post I'd been writing, but that's it. The feature should be opt-in, IMHO.
- pjc50 10y ago
  I certainly care about it, although it's possible that my 50-odd browser tabs would be considered "clutter" by other people. I stopped using Edge because it only saves your tab session if you turn off the PC, not if you quit the browser. Mind you, for a while I ran Firefox using a RAMdisc for the profile simply because all that flushing makes a big negative impact on PC performance.
  - tofflos 10y ago
    You're in good shape. I'm at 337 tabs. ;-)

oridecon 10y ago

> I don't remember having a browser crash on me since the demise of Flash. Just try browsing reddit with the RES extension or streaming heavy data for a few seconds (like a server side PDF processor that takes more than 30 seconds to finish, it's the same old behavior of blocking JS dialogs from years ago, white screen of death). When I'm using a iGPU (512MB) and I open some heavy images in sequence the browser crashes after a certain amount of time but this time it freezes the entire computer for a few seconds, so I suspect it's OOM (iGPU). I never bothered looking for a solution, nowadays I don't even care when my browser ocasionally crashes. My overall desktop (software) experience gets worse every year so I have gone used to it. But Firefox still is my favorite browser and I wouldn't trade it for anything else!

blinkingled 10y ago
> RES extension or streaming heavy data Yeah that's the difference - I only use few well known extensions like uBlock Origin, Self Destructing Cookies, Lastpass and Decentraleyes. No trouble with any PDFs either. Anyway this is getting off track with the crashes or not - my point was even if it crashes it is no big deal if you can't restore - just reopen will work in most cases.
- tyleraldrich 10y ago
  > I only use few well known extensions RES is more well known (in terms of number of downloads/users) than 50% of your listed extensions, for the record.

bjt2n3904 10y ago

Sad that the crash feature (which I don't particularly like or use) is directly tied to the undo close tab feature (which I do). I don't like the anxiety of opening Firefox in front of someone, and wondering if my previous tabs will pop up.

SilasX 10y ago

It happens relatively often for me, maybe 1-2 times a month. No crazy extensions.

sbierwagen 10y ago

I haven't had a browser crash for a while, but fairly routinely Windows will reboot itself to apply an update. (Once every other month, at least)

jacobsenscott 10y ago

I need to regularly kill firefox. I just did in fact. It didn't technically crash, but it becomes totally non-responsive for seconds at a time. Maybe it is a misbehaving plugin and not ff, but the effect is the same.

Pxtl 10y ago

I actually find that webGL-heavy sites like Google Maps are quite good at crashing FF.

mrec 10y ago
Yep, StreetView in particular. And don't get me started on Shadertoy, which seems to make "crashing FF" its mission statement.

krylon 10y ago

It happens rarely to me, but it sometimes does. Also, your machine can crash, someone can trip over a power line, ... At work, I routinely have something like 30-40 tabs open, if my browser can restore the session after a crash, that is very valuable to me.

petecox 10y ago

Thanks for the tip. I'll see if it has any affect on my laptop's battery life and fan usage.