Firefox 84.0.1 update fixes crashes and other issues
Mozilla plans to release a minor update for the organization's Firefox web browser later today. Firefox 84.0.1 is a bug fix release that addresses crashes, performance and loading issues.
The new version of Firefox is pushed via the browser's automatic updating system to all devices that have it enabled. Users may check the installed version in the browser by selecting Menu > Help > About Firefox. Doing so will run a check for updates to download available ones to the local system.
Firefox 84.0 Stable was released on December 15, 2020 by Mozilla. The browser update introduced new functionality such as the ability to manage optional extension permissions on about:addons and native Apple silicon support.
Firefox 84.0.1
Firefox 84.0.1's release date is December 22, 2020. The update addresses four issues in previous versions of the browser.
It fixes crashes of the browser that are caused by certain third-party antivirus applications according to Mozilla. Users who have noticed Firefox crashing may install the update to resolve these issues. Third-party antivirus solutions cause issues in web browsers regularly, mostly because of their Internet protection modules.
Firefox users who use certain third-party PKCS11 modules and smartcards may have experienced loading issues and even crashes. A bug report on Mozilla's bug tracking website Bugzilla suggests that websites that use HTTPS could fail to load entirely. The issue was reported six days ago and has now been fixed in Firefox 84.0.1.
Firefox 84.0.1 addresses another performance and display related issue for Windows users. The bug report mentions flickers and artifacts on sites using Canvas elements, and performance impacts on these sites.
The fourth and final bug that is addressed in Firefox 84.0.1 fixes Unity JavaScript games on devices with Apple Silicon. These games would not load at all due to "improper detection" of the operating system version according to Mozilla.
Firefox 84.0.1 will be out later today. The next major stable release of Firefox, Firefox 85, is scheduled for a January 26, 2021 release.
Now You: have you been affected by any of the described issues?
Keeps crashing all the time.
I wish I hadn’t updated to 84.0.1!!! It’s been a nightmare. Can I go back to 79 or 81 or whatever I had before? How can I tell?
Using an equally craptastic OS— Mojave the worst ever
I wasn’t having any problems until this update 84.0.1
Having constant problems with video in facebook (white page) and youtube (won’t play).
Very frustrating.
Goygle is slowing killing this mozilla crap.
I started getting frequent and random crashes within the same hour of getting this update when none had been there before. There are no patterns; a tab will freeze and take the whole program down with it, with no crash reporter coming up.
Firefox and it’s related projects (such as Pale Moon) continue to be the only fully customizable browsers available.
Work great for me.
@Erik
Vivaldi???
Sorry to report that my 84.0.1 still crashes just as before, about once or twice a day, usually when I am watching a video on YouTube. Does anybody know of a reasonable alternative browser?
@Chuck
Depends on what you want….
You don’t want to be spied on by the browser vendor, in no particular order:
– Vivaldi
– Ungoogled Chromium
– Brave
– Bromite (Android)
– Kiwi (Android)
If you don’t care that you are being spied on:
– Chrome
– Edge
– Opera
– Safari (macOS / iOS)
That’s my own setup, for what it’s worth:
https://www.ghacks.net/2020/11/17/brave-browser-gets-cname-based-adblocking-support/#comment-4480402
Have you guys heard of any solutions to missing sidebar on Youtube yet?!
https://www.reddit.com/r/youtube/comments/kc9w0r/youtube_sidebar_completely_blank_on_firefox/
I get this behavior even on clean Edge!
It is not fixed at all !!
There still are these crashes !!
What about guys like me….when it comes to computer language…..i don’t know squat.
I use Firefox, don’t ask me why….or maybe because it works, and never crashes.
Any advise?
@Andy
The gist of it all is that Firefox is good for a certain type of user:
– User who cares about his privacy and has too much time on his hands.
Firefox is not very private by default (it is worse than Ungoogled Chromium, Vivaldi, Brave, Bromite…), but about:config grants it more flexibility, so it is upon you to change that. If you know how to handle about:conig and are not time-constrained, one might use it.
Don’t use it if you expect it to be the best in the following areas:
– speed / performance
– web compatibility
– security
– stability
– number of extensions
Because Chromium (and any browser based on it) stomps it in those areas.
@IH
I have been a FF user for many years, I came to like it in the past for the user-friendliness customizing it, but since perhaps around after FF 35 or so it started to go downhill by bloating and increasing it’s attack vector surface (as most browsers actually) etc so I quite recently tried what is supposed to be perhaps some of the “best” versions of Chromium based browsers, namely Brave, but it has been a buggy path, too many extensions have issues, and when using the Tor mode it disables all extensions of which some are really crucial in keeping the browser safe and somewhat private, I don’t know what is better but Brave is so far not the answer either.
Anyhow, I updated only very recently after having used a couple of years old FF version to 83 and now just updated to 84, and I must say latest FF feels quite nimble and solid, and certainly doesn’t pale in comparison to Brave in any way although it requires lots if tweaks, but none of these “modern” browsers are as quick as the very old FF versions such as 17 ESR, 24 ESR, they were and still are speed-monster in comparison, I just some times wish someone could take the code from 17 ESR and add latest cryptology to TLS 1.3 and update other things like JS engine etc.
And then we have Palemoon, probably the most sane choice although even I barely use it but perhaps should, it simply works and is fast enough, but I guess IH hates PM simply because of personal issues with the PM team? :)
@Resworb
I was actually a Firefox user until 2017 (before their migration to WebExtensions), because powerful extensions like Tab Mix Plus which really made my life easier made me stay with it. Mozilla killed off those extensions, and I stopped using Firefox as my primary browser. Some other incidents like Cliqz experiment, Mr Robot extension, ever new invasive telemetry and other FF experiments, lousy privacy defaults seldom improving, and other aspects didn’t help, either. After jumping ship from Firefox, I first went with Ungoogled Chromium and later with Brave.
I think none of the older Firefox versions would still be quick today if they were confronted with today’s JavaScript-heavy bloated websites. The website the browser has to load has a larger impact on the perceived performance than anything the browser itself does. Even Pale Moon, being a much newer form of “classic” Firefox than the ones you cited, chokes when you load long Reddit threads with it (although to be fair, the type of hardware you run it on also plays a vital role here). Modern Reddit is one such bloated mess that I was talking about.
I actually keep Pale Moon around for some casual browsing because believe it or not, I am also a bit nostalgic at times. I have nothing against the software itself, however the way the Pale Moon devs conduct things in the forums… If you think the occasional back and forth bickering on gHacks is bad, you haven’t seen anything yet. I dare you to go there and ask a question that has been asked before, or a question that the Pale Moon devs consider beneath them, and you will see what I mean. Others here would call me spiteful for saying things like that, so now I just point them to the forums to experience it themselves…
That being said, I am capable of differentiating between the art and the artist, so to speak, so the way they conduct things on their forums does not taint my judgment of Pale Moon as a software product. I think overall, despite their outward behavior, the developers are well-intentioned and I can’t imagine them going behind their users’ backs, e.g. by spying on them. I have much more confidence in them than in current day Mozilla, mind you.
As for Brave, since you mentioned it: It’s not for everyone, all I am saying here is that it currently fits the bill for me. It’s basically Chromium minus Google + an adblocker and some privacy-enhancing changes. If you are into customization, e.g. Vivaldi would clearly be a better choice. If you think Chrome is a good browser but don’t agree with Google spying on you, Brave serves as a drop-in replacement. Regarding the other points you’ve raised:
– I don’t know why you had extension issues, as far as I know the Brave team does not modify Chromium’s extension APIs in any way. Have you verified that it was not a bug of the extension itself? Also take note of the fact that Brave for Android doesn’t currently support extensions. In its early phase as a product, Brave used to be based on Muon, but they have given up on that, and are now based on Chromium. If you used Brave in 2016 / 2017 and found it bad, this might have changed for the better now.
– Brave disabling extensions in its Tor mode is intentional. They try to stay close to the common fingerprint of the Tor Browser Bundle, however, Brave’s Tor mode DOES NOT produce the same fingerprint as the Tor Browser Bundle. So it’s more or less only good for hiding your IP address, it’s not a real Tor replacement. Mind you that it also doesn’t have to be, because Brave is clearly not a special purpose browser. For any Tor-related tasks, I do recommend the actual Tor Browser Bundle. However, even if you were using the actual Tor Browser Bundle, people would tell you not to install extensions yourself (even though it’s technically possible, it’s not recommended), because by adding extensions yourself you’d be adding fingerprinting surface, something you presumably want to avoid by using Tor (an anonymity tool).
then after you left firefox, you got so much free time in your hand to comment 24/7
@someone
Are you done with the bickering now?
@Iron Heart: you didn’t answer his question.
He’s right: you seem to have insane obsession with trying to say Firefox is shit on this site again and again. Long-winded post in so many threads.
You have a crazy obsessionl.
@Unknown person
Telling my personal tech journey is a “crazy obsession”? Anyway, it’s a matter of trust and not a mater of liking or disliking a browser. I distrust Firefox, and I discuss it as openly as the Firefox fans and fanboys here do it the other way around.
And as the old saying goes: Don’t like it, don’t read it.
@Iron Heart: oh, and it’s obsession because you’ve been doing this for YEARS! Also Yuliya. It’s so boring and annoying to see actual comment about the article being taken over by obsessives like you. Just sayin’, you no-life.
@Iron Heart: Sure, and we don’t care. But if you want to post it to the public, you’re gonna get criticism, whether you like it or not. Feel insulted? Then don’t post.
Also, the fact that you still read multi-days old own comment for replies just show your obsession.
firefox is good and all unless you have free time like some people to comment again and again whenever firefox is mentioned.
@someone
Don’t you like it when someone truthfully describes the use case for Firefox? After Mozilla destroyed almost everything else that made Firefox unique in the past, this is literally what is left. Unless you are a Pocket subscriber, I guess. Enjoy.
Mozila firefox is working well.I like this app so much.
Thank You
No problems with ESR (v 78.6.0)
This sort of thing going on for almost a year a few years ago is why I went to ESR, which has been very stable. Back then the Release version (or whatever it’s called) was regularly hobbled by feature creep.
For whatever it’s worth, looking at just the number of about:config settings, ESR has considerably fewer than Release but many more than FF Tor.
The bookmarks restore function is still running very much slower than it had. What used to take about 30 seconds not takes 3 or more minutes.This latest update didn’t fix it. Maybe the next full release in January will?
Firefox 84 is not as good than Firefox 85beta imho, and I don’t understand why beta versions are often better (considering the word “better” just to run with less crashes at least for me). :[
“It fixes crashes of the browser that are caused by certain third-party antivirus applications according to Mozilla”
Thanks for the article
Absolutely and I have been experimenting it for… 2 or 3 years and I accused my old computer (10 years)
I have been using Chrome instead for some months for this reason.
I hope this intermediary version will resolve it.
By the way Martin I love your advertisement fix windows errors hahaha! What a joke windows is.
It’s not bad if you can disassemble it and surround it with programs to keep it from doing what MS wants it to do…
Yeah, it’s a joke.
Love it or leave it for gQQgle. hahahahah!
@MartinFan
Mozilla is a Google side venture from a financial point of view, so the jump is not as big as it may seem.
But in general, there are also other Chromium-based browsers aside from Chrome, so…
Also, as always, no love for Safari. :(
Doesn’t matter what software as long as you like it. :)
Well, this might explain why we got artifact issues on YouTube on one of our computers. It didn’t happen on my system since I didn’t update to the latest version.
“It fixes crashes of the browser that are caused by certain third-party antivirus applications according to Mozilla.”
Well there’s a surprise …..said no one ever.
Every FF user = ‘beta’ tester.
@Anonymous,
“It fixes crashes of the browser that are caused by certain third-party antivirus applications according to Mozilla.â€
Well there’s a surprise …..said no one ever.
Every FF user = ‘beta’ tester.
It is a case that occurs in a “specific” environment.
Such cases are nothing special for Firefox users.
For anti-Firefox, though may be an exciting topic.
Well, as @Iron Heart commented, if want “stability” without chasing new features, can choose “ESR” to be a bystander (of course, my favorite is “ESR”).
In the case of Mozilla, unlike Microsoft and Vivaldi, a fixed version of the bug that was found was released in just 6 days. In addition, in the past, Mozilla has fixed many of its critical incidents within 24 hours.
What about Microsoft?
Vivaldi remains unresolved forever and smokes on the topic of adding other new features.
@owl
I think the way Mozilla manages releases is indeed indicative of my “their stable is actually their beta” theory. Why? Because you can expect an emergency fix within days after each major release… Emergency fixes are only rolled out when a problem is both obvious and fairly widespread, and such problems are usually caught in the beta phase. It can still happen occasionally, but with Mozilla, it happens all the time.
Compare this to how Chromium is being released: Major release, later 1 – 2 security updates for that major release, then next major release. There is hardly ever an emergency fix.
Vivaldi’s UI is a special layer on top of Chromium which seems to break with every single new major release of Chromium, and they have to fix the breakage causes in time as to not fall behind. Because Vivaldi adds rather major modifications to Chromium compared to Chrome, Edge, Brave etc., it is more prone to breakage, as a result of them having to use Google’s code while also wanting to maintain their ambitious UI effort.
Mozilla is fully in control of the development effort including engine development, they have no excuses. We could theorize on why their releases tend to have beta quality these days, some causes could be:
– Inadequate quality assurance, relying too heavily on machine testing.
– Relying too heavily on telemetry – telemetry sometimes doesn’t cover the wider scope of why e.g. a crash occurs.
– Them trying to cram too many features into new milestones.
– The hard deadlines on a 4 weeks release schedule(!) being too inflexible.
– Not getting as much outside contributions compared as e.g. Chromium.
No idea what the issues are, but any of the above (or a combination of them) could realistically be it.
“…..but any of the above (or a combination of them) could realistically be it.”
I’m inclined to think it is combination of all of the above, which of course are all Mozilla ‘controllables’.
However, for me, the most baffling is;
“The hard deadlines on a 4 weeks release schedule(!) …”
Why does this release schedule exist?
It is both arbitrary and unnecessary.
It does not make FF a better product, which surely should be the most basic aim of Mozilla.
@Iron Heart:
Also: Less staff to work on the browser’s core functionality and stability. More staff to work on non-browser-related crusades.
Speaking of beta quality, the desktop FF is nothing compared to FF Daylight on Android; an endless stream of 1-star reviews, horrendous bugs which should have been fixed at the Alpha stage, and an incredibly inefficient mobile UI.
“In the case of Mozilla, unlike Microsoft and Vivaldi, a fixed version of the bug that was found was released in just 6 days. In addition, in the past, Mozilla has fixed many of its critical incidents within 24 hours.
What about Microsoft?
Vivaldi remains unresolved forever and smokes on the topic of adding other new features.”
What a remarkable marketing slogan;
‘We’re not quite as shitty as some others.’
@Anonymous
‘We’re not quite as shitty as some others.’
or
If software works, it needs more features.
Sad industry letting customers do QA. MS even institutionalized it, “If it sucks, they’ll tell us so why test ourselves?”
Yeah if i learned anything from Dedoimedo security is a bunch of fear mongering, and why do users have to agree to crappily made software ha!
@Anonymous
I am inclined to think that “Firefox ESR” is more or less the stable build, while…
…stable = beta.
…beta = alpha.
…alpha / Nightly = pre-production experimental.
Luckily it’s not my primary browser.